Category Archives: ethics

Distractions

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Mark Warner (D, VA), Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has objected to President Donald Trump’s revoking ex-CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance.

This might be a convenient way to distract attention, say from a damaging news story or two. But politicizing the way we guard our nation’s secrets just to punish the President’s critics is a dangerous precedent.

This is neither politicization nor punishment, but a safeguard of our nation’s secrets.  No one, regardless of rank, once they leave government service should have a security clearance.  They neither have a need to know nor a need for access, the two Critical Items—both of which must be present, not just one of them—for granting clearances.  Trump’s only error here is in not ordering the revocation for all persons who have left government service.

No, what’s happening is that Progressive-Democrats like Warner are using this manufactured kerfuffle over Brennan’s security clearance revocation to distract from the fact that their Party has no message whatsoever other than that America is not, and never has, been great and never will be until there’s free stuff for everyone, paid for by taxing the rich, taxing the energy engine of our economy, cutting back our ability to defend ourselves, and on and on.

“We’ve Never Been Great”

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The soul of the Progressive-Democratic Party is Bernie Sanders’ and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ blatant, enthusiastic socialism.  Now the Party’s heart is revealed, as well.  Here’s New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) at a bill-signing event for, ironically enough, an anti-human trafficking measure:

We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great[.]

Of course, Cuomo has denied what he meant, but keep in mind: he’s a talented, smooth politician for whom words are stock in trade.  He knew what he was saying.

The fact is that the first time he spoke, he spoke from his heart.  He’s just speaking politically with his corrections.

Notice another aspect of his claim: Cuomo plainly does not feel like he’s a part of our great nation.  “It was never that great,” not “We were never that great.”

Remember what Progressive-Democrats believe about, and want to do to, our great nation this fall.

The Will of the People

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The West Virginia House of Delegates has returned articles of impeachment against every one of the sitting Justices of the State’s Supreme Court.  One Justice, Robin Davis, has resigned her post, doing so before any of the impeachment cases proceed to the West Virginia Senate for trial.  In her resignation press conference, Davis complained

The majority members have ignored the will of the people who elected the justices of this court.  They have erased the lines of separation between the branches of government.

The will of the people in electing Supreme Court Justices is overruled, is it?  Certainly it has been—by the will of the people as expressed in their election of the Representatives who voted for (and against) the impeachment. Those elected Representatives will be subject to the will of the people again, and much sooner than the Justices would be—the one stands for election every two (Senators, who will conduct the trial, every four years); the other only every dozen years.

Beyond that, it’s a critical function of the Legislature to remove misbehaving people from government, including those of the other branches of government.  This is what impeachment and trial proceedings are for.

The will of the people is being well served.

Courage of One’s Convictions

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Ben Shapiro offered to donate ten stacks to Progressive-Democratic Party candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign for a House seat from a New York district if she would debate him on “all the topics under the sun.”  Shapiro also offered to debate her for charity.

Ocasio-Cortez’s response was to call Shapiro a cat-calling man with bad intentions and to refuse to debate him.

It seems the face of the Progressive-Democratic Party hasn’t the courage of the Party’s convictions.

Integrity Redux

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I wrote about the level of integrity in the Manafort trial a bit ago as it concerned an accountant who sold her testimony to Mueller’s prosecutors for immunity from her confessed crimes (or who was browbeaten into it with the potential charges as cudgel).  Here’s another example of the level of integrity in Mueller’s case against Manafort, this time involving Mueller’s prosecutors’ star witness, Rick Gates.

Gates, long prior to the start of the Manafort trial, pled guilty to a count of conspiracy against the United States and a count of lying to the FBI.  As part of the plea, Mueller dropped 22 other charges against Gates.  Also on the table are the sanctions ensuing from the deal: a reduction of his likely jail sentence from 100 years (!) to 5-6 years—and potentially to just probation—and a reduction of his fine from $500,000 to as little as $2,000.

Another part of the plea deal is the kicker: to get those reductions, he must cooperate with Mueller’s prosecutors in their investigation and trial of Manafort.  That cooperation, with the Manafort trial underway, clearly centers on how well he testifies to the prosecutors’ satisfaction.

Since so much of Mueller’s case against Manafort depends on witnesses who’ve sold their testimony so blatantly, or who were browbeaten into giving the testimony those prosecutors demanded, how can this case have any credibility at all?