Tag Archives: ethics

No Connection

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There were no ties between Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her State Department on the one hand and the Clinton Foundation run by ex-President Bill Clinton, daughter, and…his wife Hillary.  That’s the claim by no lesser lights than Bill and Hillary.

Thus, neither

In an exchange from April 2009, a longtime aide to Mr Clinton told three of Mrs Clinton’s top advisers that it was “important to take care of” a particular person, whose name has been redacted from the document. That person had written the aide, Doug Band, under the subject line “A favor…” to thank him for the “opportunity to go on the Haiti trip,” which the person called “eye-opening.” Mr Band was a chief adviser in helping Mr Clinton launch the Clinton Foundation after leaving the White House.

nor

Huma Abedin, a longtime confidante of Mrs Clinton who is now working for her campaign, replied to Mr Band: “We have all had him on our radar. Personnel has been sending him options.” Mr Band responded: “Great.” Mr Band was an important figure in helping Mr Clinton set up his post-presidential career and has since co-founded a New York company called Teneo Holdings.

While at the State Department, Ms Abedin received a special designation that allowed her to work at the agency while also doing outside work. During that period, she held two other positions, at the Clinton Foundation and at Teneo.

nor

In a separate exchange, Mr Band asked Ms Abedin and Cheryl Mills, another top aide to Mrs Clinton, to set up a meeting between a State Department official and a top donor to the Clinton Foundation.

“We need Gilbert Chagoury to speak to the substance person re Lebanon,” Mr Band wrote in April 2009. “As you know, he’s key guy there and to us and is loved in Lebanon. Very imp.”

Mr Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire, has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation, according to its disclosures.

mean anything at all.

There’s no connection.  Mm, mm.  From that, of course we don’t need to wonder about the content of those meetings, or trips, or favors, nor should we worry about what Federal goodies were given to folks like these.

Nah.  Not at all.

Press Hypocrisy

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I wrote a short time ago about the press’ dishonesty.  Here’s an example of its hypocrisy, in the form of a Boston Globe op-ed.

Throughout the piece, the paper decried personal attacks against the Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Supporters of Donald Trump, recently joined by elements of Bernie Sanders’ supporters in Philadelphia, insisted that Clinton be “locked up[,]”

they wrote.

The paper also made its obligatory attack on Israeli politics by decrying personal attacks on Yitzhak Rabin…20 years ago.

[Protestors] called Rabin a murderer and depicted him in a Nazi uniform.

Then back on our Presidential campaign, came the BG‘s bleat,

As the final 100 days tick away, it’s important to appreciate the possible consequences of this type of toxic discourse.

That was their tie-in of those personal attacks on Rabin those 20 years ago—so they could insinuate (without the moral or intellectual courage to say so outright) that the assassination of Rabin was the result of those personal political attacks and to imply a similar threat against our current candidates.

The BG, though, carefully ignored the character assassinations the Left was inflicting on Republican Party Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, followed by the assassination attempt on him—also in an incident wholly unrelated to campaign character assassinations.

The BG piece, in its high dudgeon and regardless of any supposed actual assassination attempt today, also carefully ignored the steady drumbeat of character assassinations the Democrats have carried out against Republicans—and more generally, other groups of Americans of whom Democrats disapprove—over the last eight years.  For instance,

  • Democrats’ repeated accusations of Republican Congressmen as being unpatriotic
  • Democrats’ decrying police as acting stupidly
  • Democrats’ accusations of Republicans as terrorists
  • Democrats’ accusations of Republicans as hostage-takers
  • Democrats’ slur of conservative Americans as nothing more than bitter, gun-toting, Bible-clingers in flyover country
  • Democrats’ IRS attacks against conservative non-profit organizations

And, with a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, the BG piece closed with this:

[W]e may need to ask again and again, “Have you no sense of decency?” And then, insist on it.

Not caring a whit that the question was asked by Tennessee then-Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul in response to a slur by his Democratic Party opponent Jack Conway.

The Boston Globe‘s example, sadly, is all too typical of the modern hypocritical American…press.

Cynical

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The DC Circuit, in a mixed ruling, has said the trial court judge had erred in dismissing a collection of Tea Party suits he said had become “moot” because the IRS had apologized for its misbehavior and had said it had stopped such practices.

Of course, the IRS had said it had stopped—sort of—only conditionally.  DC Circuit Judge David Sentelle, writing for the majority (the ruling can be seen here), noted that the IRS only had suspended the screening “until further notice.”

A violation of right that is “suspended until further notice” has not become the subject of voluntary cessation, with no reasonable expectation of resumption, so as to moot litigation against the violation of rights. Rather, it has at most advised the victim of the violation—”you’re alright for now, but there may be another shoe falling.”

Sentelle took issue with “suspended,” understanding that suspension is not cessation.  He took separate issue with that “until further notice” bit, as noted above.

In fact, too, the IRS had not stopped at all.  As Sentelle noted,

…it is absurd to suggest that the effect of the IRS’s unlawful conduct, which delayed the processing of appellant-plaintiffs’ applications, has been eradicated when two of the appellant-plaintiffs’ applications remain pending.

After how many years are these applications still pending? It’s been two years since the trial court made its erroneous dismissal.

Of course, the trial judge knew these things. Based on his logic, too (even if he had been as ignorant as he seemed to be claiming he was), it would seem he would have dismissed charges against Willie Sutton had that worthy only apologized and averred he’s stopped. No consequence should ensue, this judge would seem to insist, for the banks Sutton had already robbed.

How cynical is that?

These are the trial courts and the IRS that will be heavily impacted by the Presidential elections.

The Democrats’ Confession

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John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, told reporters this week that the way to win is to demonstrate Mr Trump is “unfit, that he’s unprepared and that we can’t put him in the Oval Office.” He added: “That’s the core of our strategy.”

President Barack Obama (D) says the Republicans aren’t “conservative” anymore (his definition of conservative, of course).

Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says Trump has taken the Republican Party a long way from Reagan (her definition of Reaganism, naturally).

Yep.  The Democrats know that all they have is a continuation of the character assassination they’ve inflicted for all of these last 7+ years.  Podesta, with these remarks, is admitting that the Democrats can’t run on this administration’s record of foreign and domestic failure or on Hillary Clinton’s record in that administration’s sustained failure or her integrity.

It doesn’t get any clearer than this.

Another Out of Control Agency

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…that’s overcome with its own self-importance.  I’ve written before about how the Securities and Exchange System abuses its own system of in-house judges for SEC purposes rather than for the public’s interest.

The Federal Trade Commission is another such agency that’s showing it’s outlived its usefulness and for the same reason.  In 2008, LabMD was “found” to have inadvertently exposed a file containing personally identifiable patient information.  I write “found” because the company that “found” the exposure then tried to use their discovery to peddle its data security services to LabMD.  The FTC brought a case against LabMD over the exposure, but last year an FTC in-house judge ruled against the FTC and tossed the case.

That judge, D Michael Chapell, tossed the FTC’s case last year because the commission could not identify any consumers who’d been harmed by LabMD’s allegedly weak security practices. Because no one had been harmed in the seven years since the patient file was exposed, it was unlikely that anyone would be harmed in the future, Judge Chappell concluded.

Wrong answer, Judge.

The FTC, which has the authority to review the rulings issued by its administrative court, said Friday the judge used an incorrect legal standard that was too stringent.

The ruling, being inconvenient to the FTC’s narrative, was rejected out of hand.

Here is the usefulness of an in-house system of judges.