Tag Archives: ethics

Mueller’s Grand Jury

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Judge Andrew Napolitano thinks the reason Special Counsel Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury as part of his “investigation” into alleged Russia collusion by members of President Donald Trump’s campaign staff is so Mueller can use the jury’s subpoena power to compel testimony and the delivery of documents.  Napolitano also said, in FoxNews insider‘s paraphrase, that the jury’s convening is

a sign that Mueller has found something from some source….

As an aside, I put investigation in quotes because it’s difficult to believe Mueller is conducting a legitimate investigation: he has too many leaks coming out of that thing, including the leak of the fact of this grand jury’s existence.  Grand juries are secret operations, among other reasons, so as to not tip off the target of the fact of the investigation or of its progress.  This leak is an enormous one, but it’s only one of the myriad that Mueller has allowed to occur and which stream Mueller has chosen not to stop.

Back to the topic.  Sure, the existence of the grand jury means Mueller “found something.”  It might be serious, or it might be the ham sandwich that any prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict.

Given the leaking coming from Mueller’s “investigation”—my spaghetti colander leaks less, albeit with the same deliberateness—it may well be that he has, indeed, assembled his ham sandwich.

Human Gene-Splicing

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Some scientists have successfully spliced some genes into a human embryo to correct a mutation that causes heart disease, proving the possibilities open to us and our health (and potentially eliminating health coverage provision as a Progressive-Democrat tool of welfare entrapment [/snark]).

Experts noted that the newly successful process could cure more than 10,000 genetic diseases, including some types of cancer and early-onset Alzheimer’s, sickle cell anemia, and cystic fibrosis.

“We have to be very delicate with how we use this because it’s very, very powerful,” Alice Benjamin, a clinical nurse specialist said on Fox & Friends.

There is a legitimately strong concern with the ethics of this, concerning both the matter of messing with human genetics and upsetting the “natural order to things.”  Benjamin went on to express the latter concern, but as a matter of caution not of objection.

It’s certainly true that caution is needed and a clearly laid out set of guidelines for getting down into human genetics to correct this or that item needs to be developed, along with a clearly laid out set of sanctions for violating those guidelines.

However, we’ve been messing with nature and upsetting the natural order of things ever since we went pastoral and agrarian and started selectively breeding our food animals and plants, deliberating selecting animal offspring and plant seeds for the favorable characteristics of their parents in order to enhance those characteristics in succeeding generations.

In addition to that caution regarding manipulating human genes, though, we also need to consider the ethics of withholding the ability to correct serious genetic defects and meekly allowing the baby to grow, sort of, with a serious disease, or like Charlie Gard, simply leaving the baby to die.

Genetic manipulation moves much more rapidly than selective breeding, and that’s the basis for caution.  Genetic manipulation as messing with nature or upsetting the natural order is what we’ve been doing for the last 8,000-10,000 years, though.

Republicans and Obamacare

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In a Wall Street Journal editorial about Republican Senators’ timorous attitude toward actual repeal and replace of Obamacare now that what they do matters, the editors had this remark toward the end of their piece:

One vote to watch would repeal ObamaCare with a two-year window to replace it, which is similar to a bill that 51 Senate Republicans voted for in 2015. We’ll see how many have changed their minds.

We’ll see how many have changed their minds.  The rest of that sentence is this: …now that their vote has actual consequences, and they can’t hide behind their virtue signaling.

Investigation or Witch Hunt?

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Bloomberg reported yesterday that the Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating President Donald Trump’s business dealings in the course of his investigation into Russian involvement with our election and the Trump campaign.

The US special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.

FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial SoHo development in New York with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008, the person said.

Notice that.  Bloomberg based its piece entirely on a leak from Mueller’s investigation.  I asked earlier whether Mueller actually was running an honest investigation, and if so, why was he allowing these leaks.

The answer is becoming crystalline.

The Fruits of Timidity

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Rebel forces in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday announced that they plan to hold a referendum calling for the creation of a new state known as Malorossiya, which translates as “Little Russia.”

In a statement published on the rebel-aligned Donetsk News Agency, rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said that the new state would aspire to include not only the areas under insurgent control, but also the rest of Ukraine.

This wouldn’t be occurring now, had our government and those of Europe hadn’t been so meek in the face of Russian aggression in the two eastern oblasts and then without a whimper accepting Russian partition of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea.

Maybe now, the lot of us will stop bleating about the Minsk accord and remind Russia of its obligations under the Budapest Memorandum.  Maybe now the lot of us will start selling/leasing/granting Ukraine the weapons and supplies it needs to defend itself and to take back from Russia the three oblasts.