Tag Archives: ethics

Bipartisanship the Biden Way

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Then-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigned on—bragged about—his ability to work with Republicans, to get bipartisan deals done, because he claimed, bipartisanship was best for the nation.

Here’s an example of that bipartisanship in the true Biden way, centered on the nearly $2 trillion Wuhan Virus “relief” bill the Progressive-Democrats are pushing in Congress. It comes on the heels of Biden’s Monday meeting with 10 Republicans regarding their far cheaper relief proposal, a meeting in which Biden paid lip service to hearing what Republican had to say and to offer. Speaking through his White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, Biden said,

he will not slow down work on this urgent crisis response….

He will not wait on Republicans to get on board with Party requirements. His Unity Platform partner, Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) also has made clear that Party must proceed without Republican input if that slows down the Party virus legislation. Sanders was characteristically blunt:

Well, I don’t know what the word compromise means[.]

Biden, through his equally characteristic silence, shows that he fully agrees with his partner.

On top of that, neither Biden, nor any of his advisors, nor any Progressive-Democrat Congressional powers are willing to explain the urgency behind their $2 trillion virus spending plan, given that the vast bulk of the already passed $900 billion virus spending plan remain unspent, even in some cases unallocated.

A Trump Legal Legacy

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Brent Kendall had a piece in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, Trump Appointees Poised to Influence Legal Outcomes for Decades to Come, that explored this item. It’s well worth the read.

One statement in particular caught my eye, though.

Republican and Democratic [judicial] appointees often embrace differing legal philosophies that lead to divergent results.

This is at the core of the problem. As our Constitution’s Article I, Section 1 makes clear, there is only one legitimate legal philosophy for judges and Justices. They’re sworn to uphold the Constitution, not some mythical document that better comports with what they want to uphold.

Thus, they must apply the Constitution and the statute(s) before them as they’re written, not as they wish they were written; not as “adjusted” to fit a judge’s personal view of what society needs, as articulated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and acted out by Chief Justice John Roberts; not Thurgood Marshall’s you do what you think is right and let the law catch up.

All of those…philosophies…are political decisions well outside the ken of the judiciary and solely within the scope of the political branches of government and of We the People, who hire and fire those political personages.

Not a Mixed Message

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Amazon insists it’s only censoring violent speech, and claimed that when it tossed Parler off its AWS cloud hosting facility, thereby denying (as Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s MFWIC, knew full well at the time) Parler and all of its primarily conservative participants any voice on the Internet.

Just the News says that with the tossing of sites like Parler while hosting other sites like Twitter, Amazon is sending “mixed signals.”

Here are some tweets that still are up on Jack Dorsey’s Twitter, that’s now on Amazon’s AWS cloud hosting facility:

Actor and liberal activist George Takei on Sunday referred favorably to Paul’s assault in a tweet in which he wrote: “Admit it. These days we all sort of wish we had been Rand Paul’s neighbor.”
Podcaster Amy Westervelt, meanwhile, wrote: “Where is Rand Paul’s neighbor when you need him.”
Author Brandon Snider tweeted in favor of a “GoFundMe for Rand Paul’s neighbor to finish the job.”
Author Mark Sarvas wrote that Paul’s neighbor should “kick his racist ass again.”

JtN is misapprehending the situation. Amazon is not sending any mixed signals at all; Bezos’ message is quite clear: Conservatives have nothing to say and no voice to say it as far as he’s concerned. He freely allows violent messages on his facility—so long as they’re spoken by the “right” persons.

Taxing and Spending

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Progressive-Democrats are shocked—shocked—that folks want to hang onto their money rather than send in to Government. Thus, when State profligate spending and confiscatory tax rates were exposed by the Federal income tax reform that capped SALT deductions at $10,000, and folks on whom the cap had material effect decided to relocate their incomes, their money, and their lives to other States, Progressive-Democrats squalled most loudly.

The lawmakers say the cap, created in the 2017 tax law, punishes their constituents unfairly and pushes residents to move to low-tax states such as Florida. They are pitching the break as crucial to their states’ economic recovery.

Here’s New Jersey State Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D), for instance:

Folks have been moving away in droves since our state and local tax deduction was gutted. This is key to the health of our economy, key to keeping our state strong.

Never mind that those State governments could readjust their spending and taxing priorities.

No, it’s how dare those Government subjects leave and go where they can better hang onto the money that’s rightfully theirs. It’s that money doesn’t belong to the folks who earned it; that money belongs to those States, and the Progressive-Democrats of those State governments have only to carve out a pittance and toss it back to their subjects.

The arrogance of Progressive-Democrats and their contempt for us ordinary Americans knows no bounds.

Alphabet Strikes Again

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Alphabet, through its wholly-owned Google’s wholly-owned YouTube, has censored The Epoch Times, barring the news outlet from its YouTube channel and expelling it from YouTube’s Partner Program, through which The Epoch Times monetized much of its output.

Alphabet claims the news outlet violated its subsidiary’s subsidiary’s “Community Guidelines.” Its YouTube spokesman said,

All channels on YouTube need to comply with our Community Guidelines, and in order to monetize, channels must comply with the YouTube Partner Program policies, which include our Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines. Channels that repeatedly violate these policies are suspended from our partner program.

The spokesman declined to say how the guidelines had been violated, or what output from The Epoch Times had been deemed wanting.

Of course, if Alphabet got specific, it would have to explain its censorship.