Tag Archives: ethics

Scaremongering and Hypocrisy

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President-On-The-Way-Out Barack Obama (D) was at it again in his presser earlier in the week.  This time he was scaremongering about Israel and where the US embassy should not be located.  Obama insisted that locating our embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, as President-Elect Donald Trump wants to do, could be “explosive.”

When sudden unilateral moves are made that speak to some of the core issues and sensitivities of either side, that can be explosive[.]

Except, as Obama knows, the move would not at all be sudden—it’s been talked about for several administrations.

Beyond that, Obama has already spoken to one of the core issues and sensitivities of either side with his own refusal to relocate our embassy to Israel.  But Israel’s core issues and sensitivities have never mattered to him.

66 Porch Dogs

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66* Democrats (and counting?) have chosen to boycott the inauguration of our next President.  Here’s a partial list.  So much for unity on the one day where the country comes together to celebrate a rarity in the world and the world’s history, the peaceful and routine transfer of power.

Arizona (2)
Rep. Ruben Gallego (AZ)
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ)

California (15)
Rep. Karen Bass (CA)
Rep. Tony Cardenas (CA)
Rep. Judy Chu (CA)
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA)
Rep. Jared Huffman (CA)
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA)
Rep. Ted Lieu (CA)
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA)
Rep. Jerry McNerney (CA)
Rep. Grace Napolitano (CA)
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA)
Rep. Raul Ruiz (CA)
Rep. Mark Takano (CA)
Rep. Juan Vargas (CA)
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA)

Florida (3)
Rep. Darren Soto
Rep. Frederica S. Wilson
Rep. Alcee Hastings

Georgia (1)
Rep. John Lewis (GA)

Illinois (5)
Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (IL)
Rep. Dan Lipinski (IL)
Rep. Mike Quigley (IL)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL)
**Rep. Bobby Rush (IL) – said he is not attending the inauguration due to his wife’s hospitalization

Kentucky (1)
Rep. John Yarmuth (KY)

Maine (1)
Rep. Chellie Pingree

Maryland (2)
Rep. Anthony Brown
Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD)

Massachusetts (1)
Rep. Katherine Clark

Michigan (1)
Rep. John Conyers

Minnesota (1)
Rep. Keith Ellison

Mississippi (1)
Rep. Bennie Thompson

Missouri (1)
Rep. William Lacy Clay

New Hampshire (1)
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (NH)

New Jersey (2)
Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (NJ)
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ)

New York (6)
Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY)
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (NY)
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY)
Rep. José E. Serrano (NY)
Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY)
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (NY)

North Carolina (2)
Rep. Alma Adams (NC)
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (NC)

Ohio (1)
Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (OH)

Oregon (3)
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR)
**Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (OR) – he usually skips the “pomp and circumstance events in Washington”
Rep. Kurt Schrader (OR)

Pennsylvania (4)
Rep. Brendan Boyle (PA)
Rep. Robert Brady (PA)
Rep. Mike Doyle (PA)
Rep. Dwight Evans (PA)

Tennessee (1)
Rep. Steve Cohen (TN)

Texas (3)
Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (TX)
Rep. Al Green (TX)

Virginia (1)
Rep. Don Beyer (VA)

Washington (2)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA)
Rep. Adam Smith (WA)

Wisconsin (1)
Rep. Mark Pocan (WI

Porch dogs yapping instead of working to end their years of divisive identity politics while deriding those who disagree with them.

*There are 62 Democrats in the partial list provided; two get a pass for the reasons stated.  However, one of them appears to put more emphasis on the “pomp and circumstance” while misunderstanding what this particular ceremony represents: the office and the uniqueness in the world of peaceful and routine transfer of power.  (For the record, I also disdain pomp done for its own sake.  The Inauguration ceremonies, though, are not that.)

Defending the Syria Red Line

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President-On-The-Way-Out Barack Obama (D) has now decided to defend his red line and take overt action in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his citizens.

The Obama administration sanctioned 18 senior Syrian officials Thursday in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians.

And

the Obama administration sanctioned a Syrian technology company it says has supported the country’s ballistic-missile program.

Ooh.  That’s got to sting.  Excitingly firm action.  Be still, my heart.

Gatekeeper

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Howard Kurtz decried the loss by the press of its gatekeeper status, exemplified by the response to CNN‘s recent smear by innuendo piece against President-Elect Donald Trump and Buzzfeed‘s immediately following overt smear piece that enumerated the carefully unsubstantiated salacious rumors about Trump which CNN had preciously withheld in its innuendo.

And with that dismay, Kurtz displayed for all to see the self-important arrogance of the press.

But with distrust of the media at record highs, the game is increasingly being played without an umpire to call balls and strikes.

Who is the press—even an honest press, did we have one—to presume to decide what is a ball and what is a strike, what is fit to print, what is suitable for the tender eyes and ears of American citizens to see or to hear?

Gatekeeper.  Gatekeeper!?  NLMSM arrogance is surpassed only by its self-evident dishonesty and bias.

Fiat Chrysler, the EPA, and Diesel Engines

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The EPA has decided to accuse Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV of using software to cheat on diesel emission limits during tests, sort of reminiscent of Volkswagen’s peccadillo.

The problem for the EPA, though, is that

the EPA is not yet accusing Fiat Chrysler of installing illegal software patches on its diesel engines, but of failing to disclose potentially legal ones.

Never mind that if the software is legal, there’s nothing to disclose.  Not to fear, though, the problem with Fiat Chrysler is that

[i]t’s the company’s finances that make it vulnerable.

The company in the hole with a debt pile of some €6.5 billion ($6.9 billion) as of last September.  And the EPA knows that.

With any other agency, this might be a legitimate beef.  With this EPA, though, it smacks of legal blackmail.  “Nice business you got there; be too bad if something were to happen to it.  I know you’re short of cash; maybe there’s something we can do for each other to help you out.”