Category Archives: ethics

An Inquisition

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The “hearing” by the House Judiciary Committee of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday was just that.

It was more than that, too.  The number of times the Committee’s Progressive-Democrats talked over and interrupted Whitaker’s answers, even dictating what his answers must be (“Answer yes or no”), before he could complete them was breathtaking.  Not a single Progressive-Democrat let him complete his answers to each of their questions; most of them wouldn’t let him complete any of them.  Here’s the 6-hour C-SPAN video of the hearing; see for yourself.

When Whitaker protested his being blocked from answering, Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler (D, NY) insisted that the time allotted to each member is that member’s to do with as he sees fit: “The gentleman [the committee member] controls the time.”  That’s true, as far as it goes.

However.

Whitaker, as are all witnesses testifying before any House committee (or Senate committee, come to that), was sworn to tell the truth.

Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you’re about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief, so help you God?

It’s impossible to tell the truth, to be correct, without complete answers containing all the truth, all the facts, as understood by the witness.  The Progressive-Democrats’ repeated prevention of Whitaker from telling all of the truth, stating all the facts, in answer to the question put before him comes perilously close to suborning perjury, if not outright do so.

Flexible Genders and (Modern) Feminism

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A generally satirical piece by Bill Walsh on The Daily Wire concluded with this straight-up bit of logic:

This [the concept of “identifying as…”] is their own logic. I’m just accepting it. For the sake of argument, anyway. Liberals still have not faced the fact that their progressive gender theory completely undermines, negates, and rules out, all of the feminist “girl power” stuff. They want to have their gender cake and eat it, too. One minute they want us to believe that gender is fluid and a person’s body parts have nothing at all to do with the matter, the next minute they want us to jump for joy because a bunch of people with vaginas were elected to Congress. The two ideas stand in obvious conflict. They must choose. Or else they will have to face the fact that every time they go off on a feminist tangent, they are, according their own ideology, guilty of transphobic bigotry.

What Walsh said.

Projection

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Here’s CNN commentator Van Jones on President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday:

My first take: “A psychotically incoherent speech mixing cookies with dog poop.” #SOTU #peoplesSOTU #cookiesanddogpoop pic.twitter.com/phYf4PFb0E
— Van Jones (@VanJones68) February 6, 2019

It’s a minute-20 excerpt from Anderson Cooper’s show at the link in the tweet, and Jones went on throughout his tirade in that vein.

That’s all consistent, though, with Jones’ wholly balanced position while he was in the Obama administration that Republicans are “assholes” because they didn’t agree with Obama’s policies and policy proposals.

His projection, it’s clear to see, has gotten even more irrational.

Foreign Meddling

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More European nations have recognized the Guaidó government as the legitimate government of Venezuela following the passing of those nations’ Sunday deadline for Maduro to schedule free elections with no action by Maduro (though left unaddressed is the conundrum of how Maduro could schedule anything if he’s not the legitimate head of government).

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin demurs.

…domestic issues should be solved by Venezuela and its people. “Attempts to legitimize usurped power” constitute[] “interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs….”

Two things make Putin’s position risibly hypocritical.  One is the idea that calling the Guaidó administration a usurped power is itself a blatant interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.  The Venezuelan legislature—the legitimately elected one, not Maduro’s puppet show—constitutionally asserted its authority and with that authority swore in Juan Guaidó as interim President, pending free elections of a new President and legislature.

Take careful note of that: the legislature swore in a temporary President, not a President-for-life as Maduro’s henchmen have done.

The other thing is the right and duty of a people—acknowledged in so many words in our Declaration of Independence, but entirely applicable to all peoples—when faced with a Government embarked on a long train of abuses and usurpation [that] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Again, contra Putin, the Venezuelan people are exercising their right and duty to solve Venezuela’s problem.

It is the right and duty of all other free nations to support the Venezuelan people’s effort.  It is the right and duty of all other free nations to block despotic nations from interfering with these people’s quest for freedom.

Full stop.

Now He Has To Run

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Howard Schultz, who has been thinking of running for President as an Independent, is rethinking that.

The billionaire and former Starbucks CEO has told advisors that he was shocked by the stridency of the attacks made by Democrats following the announcement he was seriously considering running for president as an independent in the 2020 election, and is now said to be looking more closely at whether he wants to go through with the effort[.]

And

The intense nature of the criticism stunned Schultz, people close to him tell FOX Business. While he expected some carping, he did not foresee the ferocity of some of the vitriol, particularly from the party’s top officials and operatives. In addition to the barrage of criticism from leading Democrats, Schultz was also blindsided by the grass roots blowback….

The desperation of the Progressive-Democrats’ vitriol demonstrates the need for a Left-leaning Independent to run, if only to temper the Party’s excesses.  The bullying itself demands he run, lest he validate bullying as a political tactic.

If Schultz backs out now, he’ll show himself for a coward, and more dangerously for the nation, he’ll vindicate the Progressive-Democrats’ tactics of smear and personal ruin.