Category Archives: ethics

What He Said

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Alphabet’s Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, testified before the House Judiciary Committee last Tuesday, and he declined to justify his company’s decision to use the Southern Poverty Law Center as what the company calls a “trusted flagger,” a facility whereby these Trusted Ones can identify speech of which they personally disapprove as hate speech and thereby have it censored from Google’s products.  Pichai also was unable to explain why Google predominantly censored Conservative speech.  This prompted Congressman Louie Gohmert (R, TX) to take official notice of Pichai’s own bias.

You’re so surrounded by liberality that hates conservatism, hates people that really love our Constitution and the freedom it’s afforded people like you, that you don’t even recognize it.  It’s like a blind man not even knowing what light looks like, because you’re surrounded by darkness.

Sadly, the same can be said of Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey and his management team and of Facebook’s Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Director, Ads, Business Integrity Rob Leathern; and the rest of Zuckerberg’s management team, as well.

Not Throwing a Party is Exclusionary

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According to Howard Kurtz, self-styled news media “critic,” not having a party for members of the NLMSM is exclusionary.  President Donald Trump has decided not to throw a White House holiday party for the media this year.

the president’s decision to exclude the media establishment, at least for this year.

There it is, right from the jump.  Not having a big, expensive party is exclusionary.  Right up there with the actual bigotry of excluding blacks, or women, or… from access to a government facility or public business.

It gets really petty, too: not having this party is particularly terrible, Kurtz says.

The annual Christmas-season gathering was a significant perk for those covering the White House….

But it’s terrible that this perk won’t happen this year.

Journalists who attended the events, which featured a catered buffet of lamb chops, crab claws and elaborate desserts, got to roam the decorated mansion with a spouse or other family member, a friend or a colleague, adding to the invitation’s allure.

But it’s terrible that this right perk won’t be granted this year.

But the biggest fringe-benefit was the picture-taking sessions, in which the president and first lady would patiently pose with guests…copies of which were invariably sent home to mom.

Now Mom is being left out.  Heinous.

Aside from Kurtz’ whining over not getting his shiny, glittering toy this year, he gave his game away with his spin on his claimed motive for Trump’s decision.

President Trump has canceled the White House holiday party…a victim of his increasingly contentious relationship with major news organizations.

Here’s Kurtz insisting that it couldn’t possibly be because of the press’ increasingly contentious relationship with the President and First Lady—a hostility that the NLMSM has evinced in full throat from the very beginning of the Republican primaries.

How precious, how childish, can the NLMSM get?

Not Enough Paperwork

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It seems the San Francisco police don’t have enough paperwork to do, and they don’t coddle suspects enough.  And their police chief, William Scott, has too much time on his hands.

Police officers in San Francisco may no longer demand that suspects—whether handcuffed or not—sit on the ground or sidewalk at a crime scene, the city’s police chief writes in a department memo.
The practice is viewed as “demeaning” to suspects, city police Chief William Scott has determined, according to the Bay Area’s FOX 2.

In very exigent circumstances, suspects can be sat down.

Here’s the cherry on top:

Whenever that happens…the chief wants to know about it.
“Officer shall document, in an incident report, anytime it is necessary to seat an individual on the ground,” the chief writes.

Hmm….

Pre-Determined Outcome

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New York’s Attorney-Elect Letitia James says she’s made her decision about the guilt of a man, a family, and a business, and now he’s going to collect the information needed to support her decision.

We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well.
We want to investigate anyone in his orbit who has, in fact, violated the law[.]

She’s already determined, prior to any investigation whatsoever, that they’re guilty of having violated one or more [unnamed] laws.

An honest investigator, on suspicion of an illegal activity—not on suspicion of a person—would seek out all information surrounding the activity, both exculpatory and damaging, and then decide whether an illegal activity had occurred.  If an illegality had been done, then an honest investigator would seek out all information regarding who might have done the deed (and, yes, there would be considerable overlap with that prior phase), both exonerating and guilt-implying, and then decide whether to prosecute, or not.

But, hey—this is the age of We Can’t Handle the Truth of an Election.

Another Outcome of Supreme Court’s Abuse of the Takings Clause

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Recall the Takings Clause of our 5th Amendment:

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Now recall three critical Takings cases decided by the Supreme Court.  Berman v Parker was a 1954 case in which the Supremes explicitly rewrote that clause to say for public purpose, not use.  Hawaii Housing Authority v Midkiff was a 1984 case in which the Supremes ruled that it was perfectly fine for a State government to take private property away from a private enterprise and give it to private citizens who leased the property from the business.  Kelo v City of New London was a 2005 case in which the Supremes said it was jake for a State government to seize a private citizen’s property and give it to a private business for that business’ purposes.

That last shameful ruling led to a large number of States passing their own laws or State Constitutional amendments severely restricting the conditions under which eminent domain can be used.  The Federal government’s power as distorted by the Supremes in that trio of cases, however, remains the law.

This brings me to New York and New York City and amazon.com’s HQ2 move into the city.

In their bid for Amazon.com Inc’s second headquarters, New York City and state officials dangled prime real estate at the tech giant and offered to use eminent domain to scoop up any necessary properties for a campus, newly disclosed documents revealed Monday night.

These worthies planned the theft confiscation eminent domain seizures in four areas: Midtown West, lower Manhattan, along the Brooklyn waterfront, and Long Island City.

Such an offer wouldn’t have been possible except in the aftermath of Berman, Midkiff, and Kelo.  This is the extent of the destruction of private property the Supremes have wrought.