Tag Archives: ethics

Nice Company You Got There

Posted on by
1

Shawn Fain, UAW union boss, is extending his threat to Ford, GM, and Stellantis, the three major American car companies against which he’s taken selective strike action, a selectivity he’s said he’s using to maximize current damage to the companies.

…what the union calls a “stand up strike,” in which specific locals are asked to go on strike at their facilities. The union has said that strategy will give it flexibility in escalating the strike incrementally up to a potential nationwide strike if negotiations do not deliver sufficient progress in its view, and will make it harder for the auto companies to predict its next move.

Give us what we want, or else:

further strikes will be announced if negotiations do not yield sufficient progress by Friday.

And so they did. The union struck additional plants at GM and Stellantis. Not Ford, though–Fain is claiming that Ford was “serious about reaching a deal,” and so he didn’t order a strike expansion there. Sure. More likely, this is just an attempt to sow dissension among the automakers and thereby add to pressure to surrender.

Be too bad if something was to happen to your company(s).

A Couple of Thoughts re Yakima

Posted on by
Reply

Yakima is a city in central Washington, and its Progressive-Democratic Party mayor, Janice Deccio, claims she’s being harassed since the release of her 911 call regarding some petition signature gatherers who were gathering at a Walmart. Yes, the mayor made an emergency call over petitioners gathering signatures and exercising their 1st Amendment right to petition government.

Her call:

There’s some far right-wing petitioners at Walmart, and they don’t—they’re not leaving. Walmart has asked them repeatedly to do so, and the police have not taken them off the premises.

Never mind that the police—and they told her so during her 911 call—absent a court order that Walmart had not bothered to seek, had no authority to remove the signature gatherers, not when the activity is occurring on public property or on private property that’s intended for public use, like shopping malls and store fronts.

Later, Deccio claimed she was unaware of all the nuances of the law at that time, though, and, in hindsight, I could have waited to hear from the chief. That’s risible. She’s the mayor, of course she knows the laws applicable to her role. Or she’s ignorant, having skipped or slept through, which is the same thing, her junior high Civics class, to the point of unfitness for office.

Her decision not to wait on actual answers is all too typical of the arrogance of Party politicians: obey me, subjects, and quit arguing.

That’s one (where have I heard that before?).

The group that was gathering petition signatures is Let’s Go Washington, and these are the sort of initiative for which they’re working (it’s unclear for what initiative they were gathering signatures at the Walmart):

  • I-2113, which would roll back some restrictions on when police officers can engage in vehicular pursuits
  • I-2117, to prohibit state agencies from imposing any type of carbon tax-credit trading
  • I-2124, which would allow employees to opt out of the state’s long-term care insurance program
  • I-2109, to repeal the state’s capital gains tax
  • I-2111, which would prohibit state and local jurisdictions from imposing income taxes
  • I-2081, which would allow parents of public school students to review instructional materials and student records upon request

That a Progressive-Democratic Party politician thinks such center-right positions are far right-wing clearly demonstrates how Left-extremist Party has gone.

That’s two.

Not at all Baffling

Posted on by
Reply

Last weekend, the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams played an NFL football game. With four seconds to go in the game, and the Rams in possession and down by ten, they went for—and made—a field goal. No time left, and the Rams lose by seven. Had they gone for a touchdown (not a pipe dream, the line of scrimmage was the 49ers’ 20 yard line) and made that, they would have lost by three (or two had they then chosen a two-point conversion). Fail on the touchdown try, and they’d have lost by those ten. Some folks thought the Rams’ decision was “baffling.”

But maybe losing by seven points was all they needed.

By game start, the betting spread on the game had settled at the 49ers winning by 7 points or 7.5 points, depending on the betting parlor. (Lots of parlors don’t like gambling ties, and that half-point in the spread eliminates those.) By losing by 7 instead of by 10, they beat the spread, and the field goal was a surer thing than going for the touchdown. The parlors paid holders of the correct side of the 7.5 point spread, and they refunded all bets on the 7 point spread (one reason parlors don’t like ties).

The Rams coach, Sean McVay, has a different take on his decision. Before the field goal’s prior play, he intended that prior play simply to get them into field goal range, and with time on the clock, hit the field goal, recover an ensuing onside kick, and go for the tie or win. In the realization, though, the down and in (in-cut) ran longer on the field and on the clock than expected so there wasn’t time left–those four seconds–to hit the field goal, get the onside kick, and…. At that point, he simply decided to stick with the field goal. He says he was unaware of the betting line [bowlegs in the original]:

Apparently, (Rams V.P. of communications) Artis (Twyman) told me there’s a lot of people in Vegas pissed off about that decision. I clearly was not aware of that stuff[.]

The first-linked article went on at some length about the spread and the field goal, but it missed the larger point: this is the impact of allowing gambling on professional sports, even if McVay, on the sidelines, wasn’t aware of the betting line. The mere discussion of the betting implications demonstrates the vulnerability.

More Witness Intimidation?

Posted on by
Reply

Now Hunter Biden is suing the IRS and referencing one of its whistleblowers ostensibly for illegally disclosing private tax matters to the public. Never mind that what was revealed was matters relating the DoJ’s naked interference into investigations of Offspring Biden’s tax peccadillos.

But wait.

Biden’s lawyers suit documents appear[] to misquote IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, and those lawyers alter[ed] the facts regarding testimony from an FBI official about the Hunter Biden investigation [brackets in the original].

During an interview that aired Aug. 1, 2023, on Fox News, “Mr Shapley alleged that FBI General Counsel, Jason Jones ‘was given a letter the Sunday before [his July 17 deposition before the House Oversight Committee] from DOJ basically telling him not to talk,'” the lawsuit states.
The entire quote from Shapley on Fox News‘ America’s Newsroom is: “For example, the FBI SSA that testified for the House Ways and Means Committee, he was given a letter the Sunday before from DOJ basically telling him not to talk. And I know that he could have confirmed additional material facts on this investigation.”

And his lawyers are lying about the facts of the case. Lying, not making mistaken claims: these are highly talented and heavily trained lawyers and words are their stock in trade. They knew what they wrote in their complaint, they knew what they were going to write when they formed the thoughts, and they know what they’ve written after the fact.

The former agent [whom The New York Post identified as Joe Gordon] testified to the Oversight Committee on July 17 that the FBI “asked us to, quote, decline to respond to questions seeking nonpublic information likely covered by one or more components of executive privilege or other significantly—or other significant confidentiality interests…we intend to abide by and follow the Department’s guidance and expectations.”

This just seems like another method for intimidating the witnesses involved in the Joe Biden & Son potential criminal activities.

Ransom

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what President Joe Biden (D) paid for five Americans kidnapped by Iran—$6 billion worth of ransom. Here’s Biden’s disingenuous (at best) claim:

Today [18 Sep 2023], five innocent Americans who were imprisoned in Iran are finally coming home…after enduring years of agony, uncertainty, and suffering[.]

Translation: Today, the United States government aided and abetted a criminal entity in the pursuance of its crimes by rewarding Iran for its crime of kidnapping.

Paying this ransom has just put a price tag on all Americans traveling overseas, and especially in the Middle East. Worse, that price has gone sky high: Biden has set the reserve price at $1.2 billion per American.

Biden’s dishonest rationalization, through a carefully anonymous senior administration official, for paying the Iranian ransom:

The alternative is these Americans never come home.

Never mind that lots of prior administrations—not just the immediately prior Trump administration—had brought kidnapped Americans home from a variety of criminal enterprises, not only Iran, without paying any ransom.

That’s not all. In addition to upping the incentive for kidnapping and raising the ransom requirement, Biden has personally funded further Iranian terrorist and terrorist-supporting activities for Iran, to the tune of $6 billion that Iran didn’t have last Sunday.