Tag Archives: ethics

Domestic Support for Terrorists is Getting out of Hand

Posted on by
Reply

The UAW’s new membership, the California university system’s 48,000 teaching assistants and “academic proletariat,” is striking in open support of anti-Israel protestors (read: pro-Palestinian and Hamas “protestors”).

Never mind that the strike violates the UAW’s no-strike contract with the system—why should a solemn, written commitment be allowed to stand in the way of supporting terrorists? UCLA English grad pupil and UAW local union president Rafael Jaime:

…the union goal is to “maximize chaos and confusion for the employer.”

Nothing to do with arguing for better working conditions, everything to do with supporting those terrorist supporters.

To compound the California system’s problems,

UC faculty have refused to perform the work of their striking assistants….

The WSJ editors speculated that the reason for this is that the faculty support the strike in favor of the terrorist supporters (my characterization of the WSJ‘s “anti-Israel” term), and that’s a plausible speculation. I have another speculation, one that is in addition to rather than in opposition: these professors have gotten too soft and spoiled in their air conditioned offices and requirement to teach only one or two course per semester (or year!), and don’t want to have actually teach to earn their high six-figure and low seven-figure salaries.

At any rate, it seems to my reprobate self, that 48,000 TAs, et al., and those faculty members refusing to step into the TA-missing classrooms and teach have self-identified as no longer wishing to work for the university system.

California’s university system managers should honor their wish and terminate them promptly and with prejudice.

Update: As of this morning (10 Jun 24), a California judge has ordered this strike stopped.

Insincerity

Posted on by
Reply

Former House Judiciary Chief Counsel Julian Epstein laments the alleged hijacking of the Progressive-Democratic Party (my label, not Epstein’s) by the far Left, and the supposed lack of courage of Progressive-Democratic President Joe Biden and his staff to say “No” to that supposed far Left.

I speak to Democrats about this all the time. They lament the fact that the intersectional left, the far-left, has overtaken the party. They’ve hijacked the party. …the far-left has commandeered policy-making under the Biden administration, and they haven’t had the guts to say no to them and to say, we’re going to tack towards the political center where majority of the voters are going to go to voters. ….

I disagree with each of the claims. “Hijacking” and “commandeering” each says that it was a takeover and the takeover was done against the will of Party. No, Party is a construct only and has no will to go with or against. Party is populated, though, with grown, adult human beings who do have will to go with or against. The far-Left didn’t takeover Party in any way, shape, or form. Party managers and members openly, whole heartedly, and of their own volition embrace the ideology and have gone toward the Left deliberately and consciously. The far-Left has been absorbed by Party and Party’s core is far-Left.

Then there’s Epstein’s lament that the Biden administration politicians won’t say that they’re going to tack towards [sic] the political center. The problem here is Epstein’s motive for why Party should so tack: that’s where the voters are, and (sotto voce) that’s the path to election wins and continued political power. Party should tack toward the middle because Party’s managers and members think that would be the right thing to do for the good of our nation. Tack this way or that for the political power of the moment. That’s the nature of sincerity in the minds of Progressive-Democrats.

Open Border Made Official

Posted on by
Reply

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has issued an Executive Order that would allow—apparently not require—him to close our southern border when the number of illegal aliens crossing our border exceeds 2,500 per day, averaged over a week’s time. The closure, if it’s done at all, would end when the number of illegals crossing drops below 1,500 per day, averaged over a week’s time. Biden doesn’t seem to have offered any serious means of enforcing those limits, however, including any mechanism for removing the “excess” illegal aliens from our nation.

It’s important to note, too, that those numbers seem not to include gotaways or those not encountered at all but known only by the traces they leave in the crossing.

With this EO, Biden is attempting to codify the entry into our nation of 500,000+ illegal aliens to just under a million illegal aliens per year.

This is Biden’s active erasure of our southern border, and it wholly ignores our even more porous, and increasingly used by illegal aliens, northern border.

It’s also a demonstration of the lie that is Biden’s claim that no one is above the law. Clearly, Biden considers those 500,000 to a million illegal aliens to be above the law.

We average Americans need to keep this in mind in November.

There’s a Hint There

Posted on by
Reply

The farm bill just passed out of the House Agriculture Committee contains a provision barring the Secretary of Agriculture from increasing, on his own alleged authority, SNAP spending above the amounts provided for in the legislation:

[c]orrects egregious Executive branch overreach and disallows future unelected bureaucrats from arbitrarily increasing or decimating SNAP benefits.

Austin Scott (R, GA):

The Farm Bill includes protective language that prevents extreme changes to SNAP benefits without Congressional input and continues the cost-neutral status that the TFP [Thrifty Food Plan] has maintained for over 40 years.

The Progressive-Democrat Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack claimed, though, that

the proposal would amount to a roughly $27 billion cut to SNAP[.]

This is the AgSec’s confession that he fully intended to spend—on his own and without any Congressional spending authority to do so—at least those $27 billion above his authorized level. He’s not alone in this. Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo (D, CO):

…it is necessary that we go back to the negotiating table and remove this provision[.]

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D, MI):

It…does not have the votes to pass on the House floor. And certainly not in the Senate[.]

This is the budgeting and spending paradigm of the Progressive-Democratic Party: Congressional appropriations and allocations are mere suggestions, and they are to be disregarded whenever inconvenient to Party. After all, it’s only your and my money they’re spending.

There’s an election coming up. Maybe us average Americans should vote our tax dollars.

More Party Gaslighting

Posted on by
Reply

This time, it’s Progressive-Democratic Party politicians doing the gaslighting.

Progressive-Democrat Congressman Dean Phillips (MN) wants New York’s Progressive-Democrat Governor, Kathy Hochul, to pardon former President Donald Trump (R) “for the good of the country.”

But is this a Ford pardons Nixon for the good of the country pardon request? Ford pardoned Nixon to reduce (it wound up damping down almost completely) the political divisions growing out of Nixon’s misbehaviors.

No, that’s not the sort of pardon request that Phillips is after. Here’s Phillips in his own words:

You think pardoning is stupid?
Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different.)
It’s energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost.

Phillips isn’t interested in tamping down our nation’s current divisions. He’s interested only in nakedly favoring his Progressive-Democratic Party, and he has no concerns at all for partisan division mitigation. His “for the good of the country” is just so much gaslighting.