Category Archives: ethics

Not So Much

Posted on by
Reply

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice has instructed the Manhattan District prosecutors to drop their case against New York City’s Progressive-Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. Whether that instruction is good or bad is for another discussion. The decision to do so itself, though, has sent seismic waves—The Wall Street Journal‘s term—through that Manhattan district.

That approach [the dismissal of the Adams case], former officials say, is a seismic departure from the way the Justice Department traditionally handles cases, and it risks turning the institution that typically celebrates its independence from political influence into an operation where law enforcement is open to negotiation.

And

The US attorney’s office in Manhattan hasn’t publicly responded to a Justice Department memo ordering the dismissal, which sent shock waves through an institution dubbed by many as the “Sovereign District” for its independence from the Justice Department in Washington. Danielle Sassoon…whom Trump elevated to be the Manhattan US attorney, is left with few options: … To obey the order would be an unprecedented blow to the Manhattan office’s prized independence from Washington.

That’s one spin.

Another interpretation, the legitimate one IMNSHO, is that the Attorney General, newly installed Pam Bondi, is reigning in a Federal prosecutorial district and bringing it back under control the DoJ, where it belongs, along with all the other prosecutorial districts. There is no reason, and there never has been reason, to leave Manhattan as an independent operation. It’s an arm of the DoJ and nothing else.

Carpetbagger

Posted on by
Reply

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D)—and former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, which is of singular importance here—wants to run for Senator in…Michigan. He’s leading all the other current Progressive-Democrat contenders according to some polling data.

The Progressive-Democrats in the State don’t seem to care about Buttigieg’s carpetbagger status.

Progressive-Democrats do care about other carpetbaggers, though:

• Pennsylvania Senatorial candidate Republican Mehmet Oz (R) was accused by Progressive-Democrats and their supporters of carpetbagging because he had a house in New Jersey
• Michigan Senatorial candidate Mike Rogers was accused by Progressive-Democrats and their supporters of carpetbagging because he also has a house in Florida
• Wisconsin Senatorial candidate Eric Hovde (R) was accused by Progressive-Democrats and their supporters of carpetbagging because has a house, also, in California, and a business in Utah
• Montana Senator Tim Sheehy (R) was accused of carpetbagging against the State’s incumbent Progressive-Democrat Jon Tester for the sin of having grown up in Minnesota, never minding that Sheehy had been a Montana citizen for the 10 years before his campaign and election
• Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno (R) was accused by Progressive-Democrats and their supporters of carpetbagging because he had stakes in multiple properties from Costa Rica to New York City to the Florida Keys.

Progressive-Democratic Party politicians’ hypocrisy is embedded in nearly everything they say and do.

NGOs and Funding

Posted on by
Reply

Non-government organizations—are they non-governmental, or are they not?

President Donald Trump (R) has ordered all Executive Branch Departments and agencies to review their funding of non-government organizations (NGOs). His order has this:

The United States Government has provided significant taxpayer dollars to Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), many of which are engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people.

It’s time to stop Federal transfers of taxpayer monies to NGOs. Emphasize—enforce—that “non-” part. Being affiliated with government—even if only through government financing of part of their operation—denies the “non-” part of their designation.

If us average Americans think an NGO’s activities are appropriate, we’ll support it voluntarily with our own, direct, donations. If we do not, we should not be dragooned into supporting it anyway by having our tax dollars shunted off to it.

Whose Misunderstanding?

Posted on by
Reply

A letter writer in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal Letters section wondered whether DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard understand[s] the difference between domestic investigative warrants and surveillance warrants abroad. He went on to opine [emphasis added]

For US citizens within the country, warrants support ongoing investigations, whereas warrants abroad monitor for possible terrorist activity and are justifiable on less than probable cause. Domestically, the goal is to prosecute criminals after they have committed crimes. Abroad, the goal is to stop terrorists before they can act. That is reason enough to permit warrants for American citizens abroad.

It is not Gabbard who misunderstands, it is this letter writer.

Americans do not give up our American rights and protections against American government transgressions just because we are overseas. Americans do not give up those rights and protections under any circumstances.

Blame Ducking

Posted on by
Reply

It’s not blame shifting or blame casting, even though it might seem so. Those are just tools, though, employed in the cause of ducking blame. Pennsylvania’s Progressive-Democrat governor, Josh Shapiro, has provided the latest version.

Electricity rates are spiking in the State over which he rules. PJM Interconnection, the State’s largest power provider, has approved 38 GW of new generation, but the generators are not being built: high interest rates and inflation, not Shapiro’s fault but demonstratively that of his party’s actions at the Federal level, have made the building too costly, even with the plethora of green subsidies.

Shapiro has, though,

pitched an energy plan to fast-track the construction of renewables and a cap-and-trade program that would effectively subsidize them by punishing fossil fuels. Such policies would likely lead to the retirement of more base-load fossil fuel generators….

And that restriction on energy supply can only further drive up energy prices for Pennsylvanians. This sort of thing already has done so, in fact, hence the present spike for the State’s citizens.

Now Shapiro is blaming PJM for those rising prices while ducking away from his own green policies, and his party’s national-level policies, that are the actual cause of the straits in which Pennsylvania’s citizens find themselves.

This is the Progressive-Democrat mantra: it’s not their fault; it’s never their policies. It’s always and everywhere someone else’s fault.