Tag Archives: ethics

A Hack

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The Russians are alleged to be behind the hacks into the Democrats’ IT systems, and they’re alleged to have so engaged in order to sow distrust in our election system and procedures and especially to influence our just concluded election in favor of the ultimate winner, President-Elect Donald Trump.  Indeed, the CIA and other of our intelligence agencies have said that the hacks have all the earmarks of Russian hackers.

A couple things about that.  The NLMSM’s bold, declarative statements based on those intelligence agency statements that the Russians did it notwithstanding, “have all the earmarks” does not mean the Russians did it, only that it looks like they did it.  Of course getting actual proof in the intelligence or the hacking world is more difficult even than getting “proof”—sufficient reduction of reasonable doubt—in a criminal trial.  Nor does that difficulty, or the limitation of a statement of “all the earmarks,” mean the Russians didn’t do it, especially in the face of their history.

The other thing centers on the assumption that the Russians really did do the hacks and for the reasons named.  Now the NLMSM, whose favored Democrats were losers in the last election at all levels from the Presidential level on down, is pushing at the top of its collective lungs the idea that the Russians did it, and to favor Trump, as though these were facts.

So: assume the Russians really did do the hacks for the reasons named.  The NLMSM, in its temper tantrums over their loss and their having been ignored by American voters, is playing along with that Russian goal and with that serving, wittingly or not, to discredit Trump and the elections, and to sow doubt about the legitimacy of both.

Congress is pressing for bipartisan investigations into the matter, and it’s pushing for President Barack Obama to release all of the report that will result from the investigation he’s ordered into the matter.  He should, and so should President Trump if the Obama investigation isn’t complete before Trump takes office.

The question is valid, and it should be investigated and answered, but press hysteria contributes nothing to an objective resolution while sowing the doubts the press alleges the Russians want sown.

Foolishness

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Or sore, childish losers.  Or outright dishonesty.  That’s the behavior of a couple of Colorado Presidential Electors who are members, also, of the Democratic Party.  These two have filed a federal suit challenging the constitutionality of the State’s law that requires them to vote for the State’s choice in the just concluded Presidential election.  The State’s law is a winner-take-all requirement: Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won Colorado, they’re required to cast their Electoral votes for Clinton—but they’re so desperate to block President-Elect Donald Trump, they don’t want to; they want to vote for a third party candidate if they can get enough other Electoral College voters to similarly turn their coats and vote for a common third party candidate to deny Trump 270 Electoral College votes.  (Never mind that that would just move the election to the Republican House of Representatives.  Logic has never been much of a player for the Left.)

These two persons are basing their suit’s claim on Article II and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

Though Hillary Clinton and Timothy Kaine won the majority vote in Colorado and are qualified for office, plaintiffs cannot be constitutionally compelled to vote for them.  Plaintiffs are entitled to exercise their judgment and free will to vote for whomever they believe to be the most qualified and fit for the offices of president and vice president, whether those candidates are Democrats, Republicans or from a third-party.

And from the complaint itself:

Many states, including Colorado, require their Presidential Electors to vote consistent with the popular vote in the state. Thus, despite the plain language of Article II of the US Constitution, as amended by the Twelfth Amendment, and the Founders’ intent that the Presidential Electors be a deliberative and independent body free to cast votes for whomever they deem to be the most fit and qualified candidates, Messrs Trump and Pence—if the state statutes are enforced—may “win” the election while also losing, by historical margins, the nationwide popular vote.

Since these persons mention the plain language of Article II and the 12th, they—and their lawyers—might want actually to review that plain language.  Here’s the relevant part of Article II:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….

All the 12th Amendment does is fix the mechanics of voting and the number of still-eligible candidates if the contest must go to the Federal House and Senate.

[I]n such Manner as the Legislature…may direct: which plainly includes for whom and under what State-wide vote outcome as a State might choose to direct.  The Electors are representatives of the State, not of themselves.  No, they are not entitled (such a popular term for the denizens of the Left [/snark]) to exercise their judgment and free will.  They are required to reflect the collective will of their State.

The suit should be tossed, and the lawyers complicit in bringing it should be sanctioned by the Federal court whose time they wasted with this cynical frivolity.

Sexism in a Court

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The singer Kesha, in a Manhattan court, is suing Sony and ex-producer “Dr Luke” over allegations of having been drugged and raped.  There are (unsubstantiated) reports that the presiding judge, Shirley Kornreich, should be removed from the case because she’s married to Proskauer Rose law firm partner Edward Kornreich, and Proskauer Rose represents Sony.

Kornreich says the move is sexist.

If it’s an issue at all, it’s an issue because women are now part of the professional work force[.]

Kornreich reveals her own sexism with that claim.  The move, if it existed beyond press reports (Kesha’s lawyers say they weren’t going to file any recusal motion), was about conflicts of interest from family ties connecting a judge to one of the litigants; it had nothing to do with the genders of the individuals who are—or might be—tied.

Obstruction and Understanding

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We’ve seen an example of how the Democrats of the Senate intend to obstruct everything Republican.

Now we get the Democrats’ intension to be knee jerk obstructive in the House.  The New York Times had a piece over the weekend concerning Congressman Keith Ellison’s (D, MN) desire to be both a Congressman and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.  In making his argument that he could do both together, Ellison said this about the nature of being in the minority party in Congress:

All there is to do is to vote “no.”

There they are, two things in a single nutshell (yes, pun intended).  The Democratic Party has no intension of participating in Congressional deliberations.  All they’re going to do—no Democrat has objected to Ellison’s attitude—is just knee jerk obstruct.

The other thing? The Democratic Party now views representing their constituents as strictly a part time job, unworthy of their full focus.  It seems to me that the minority party would want to work harder, not less, so they could…stop being the minority party.

The men and women of the Democratic Party, with their decision to “misunderstand” their roles and duties in Congress, do their constituents and our nation a grave disservice.  The Democratic Party is unworthy of America.

Does Trump Want a War with the Press?

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That’s the thrust of a Howard Kurtz piece on FoxNews Monday morning.  Then he asked

[D]oes Trump want both sides on a permanently hostile footing?

Kurtz needs to come out of his press bubble and poke around in the world some.  The press has been hostile to anything non-Left for years.  The press has been openly hostile and deliberately biased against President-Elect Donald Trump ever since Trump announced his candidacy.

Kurtz has even acknowledged the press’ war against Trump—and this is post-election.

Donald Trump, they say, should not be normalized.

There is, also, this bit of Kurtz’ own disingenuousity:

Trump has shown he has numerous ways to circumvent the media. He hasn’t held a news conference since July (after all those months of castigating Hillary Clinton for avoiding such encounters).

What’s the purpose of a news conference, though?  During all that time since July, Hillary Clinton not only wasn’t talking to the press, she wasn’t talking to the American people, either, except through a very occasional rally or the debates.  Trump, while not talking to the press, held innumerable rallies—with people numbering in the thousands attending—and was very active on social media.  In all of this, Trump was talking directly to the citizens of the United States.  Even in the frequent interviews he had with individual…journalists…he wasn’t so much talking to the interviewer as he was talking to the viewers of and listeners to the interviews; he was talking to us Americans.

Us voters have said in so many ballots that we no longer want, no longer need, no longer are interested in the press filtering (or censoring) our communications with those we’re considering representing us in government, and Trump has demonstrated that he doesn’t need the press to hold up his end of those communications.  Of course Kurtz knows all of this.

Plainly, it’s not that Trump wants a war with the press.  It’s that the press demands war with Trump.