And That’s Not All

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) objected to Senator Ted Cruz‘ (R, TX) characterization of her party.

Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that [Republicans voting for the 1964 CRA in greater percentages than Democrats], Ted.

Cruz answered.

Sure. —First, the Dem party founded the KKK. —Then the Dem party wrote Jim Crow laws. —Then the Dem party filibustered the Civil Rights Act.
Today, the Dem party filibusters school choice—trapping millions of Black kids in failing schools. —Today, the Dem party pushes abolishing the police, which results in many more Black lives murdered. —Today, every Dem senator voted against my bill to stop DC from throwing 40% of Black kids out of schools bc of vax mandate….
—And today, the sitting Dem President—Joe Biden—gave in 2011 a flowery eulogy for an “Exalted Cyclops” of the KKK[.]
And to add to all that, the Dem party aggressively supports open borders—which has led to the deaths and brutal assaults of thousands of Hispanics….

Cruz, however, left out some things the Progressive-Democratic Party did and is still doing, things that dangerously magnify the foregoing.

  • They long ago began pushing for gun control laws explicitly to keep blacks and white supporters unarmed and helpless against the atrocities inflicted by their KKK, and they’re still pushing for gun control laws that would effectively disarm blacks, even as they rail against a Supreme Court that upholds the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution.
  • They nationalized minimum wage laws explicitly to keep black Americans from migrating north to compete for jobs with white union workers on the basis of being willing to work for lower wages, and now they’re pushing to raise that minimum wage even higher.
  • They’ve revived and updated for the 21st century their 1950s racist segregation efforts to include sexist bigotry, now calling it identity politics, a broad bigotry that has become a core plank in Party’s platform.

Reparations and Bargaining

California’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom convened a “Let’s Give Reparation Payments to the Government-Favored” task force. Kenneth Blackwell exposed part of the purpose in his recent Fox News op-ed.

The idea was simple: the task force would deliberate, generating regular headlines, and then eventually propose something. Either the proposal would be feasible, in which case Black Californians would get some nominal amount of money and Newsom could claim a “win,” or it would be outlandish, in which case legislators would balk and Newsom would claim that he had done everything in his power to correct historic injustices.

The intent is in that “either” part: the proposal would be feasible, in which case Black Californians would get some nominal amount of money. In the so-far realization, California citizens identifying as black and having lived in the State for a nominal period would get hundreds of thousands to perhaps millions of taxpayer—fellow citizens’—dollars, ostensibly because of the sins of a century-and-a-half ago and the claimed continued failures ever since.

That’s the strategy, and it’s a standard bargaining technique. Open with a high bid, let yourself get talked down to a lower amount—this charade is far from played out—and walk away with something that you didn’t have any of at the start. And in the present case, still don’t deserve.

The current phase is epitomized by one California citizen’s mantra: Our vote is for sale. No reparations, no vote. Selling their civic duty to the highest bidder.

Each is an example of the cynicism of the Left and its Party.

A Thought on Trust

Fay Vincent, erstwhile Major League Baseball Commissioner, had an op-ed in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal centered on the moral and legal aspects of why we swear to be truthful on those occasions when we are called on explicitly to tell the truth.

The oath warns that the testimony is a serious matter and that failing to be truthful has consequences.
The invocation of God reflects the traditional view that lying has consequences beyond legal bounds. The old-fashioned belief is that lying is wrong morally.

So far, so good. He added,

My generation believed and accepted a person’s word was a bond.

Indeed. And it still should be; although far too often today it is not.

Then he told this story:

I once accepted an oral offer to buy my Connecticut home and minutes later received a higher bid. I turned down the higher offer, though I was legally free to accept it since nothing had been agreed to in writing. Years later my buyer told someone we both knew he was surprised I hadn’t taken the higher bid. But I never considered walking away from the deal.

Vincent is more generous than me, apparently. I would have been insulted by the surprise. Why would the buyer have expected something different from me?

My word is, indeed, my bond. Expressing surprise at having done a right thing only provides a pathway for continuing to be surprised by leaving doing a right thing not the normal state, leaving being trustworthy not the normal state.

Stepping Up

Great Britain is sending Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has said that the missiles are now going into or are in the country itself, although it’s unclear how many are being sent or whether there are more in the pipeline.

The export version of the cruise missile (which I ass-u-me is the version being sent) has a range of 155 miles, cruises at 100 feet above ground, and carries a 1,000lb warhead.

Wallace also said that We simply will not stand back while Russia kills civilians. The missiles will allow Russian launch sites to come under attack, and they will facilitate deeper interdiction of the barbarian’s supply lines, fuel and ammunition depots, and troop staging areas.

Now the question remains, especially in light of Wallace’s overt refusal to simply abide while the barbarian commits his atrocities: Where in the world is Joe Biden?

Cowardice

And yet another reason to not buy any Anheuser-Busch beer.

Anheuser-Busch…sent a letter to jittery distributors telling them it had cut ties with the firm responsible for the concept that has led to Bud Light sales cratering since Mulvaney last month posted a video on TikTok touting the best-selling beer in the country, multiple sources said.
The Belgian-based conglomerate said the beer can at the center of the firestorm, which features Mulvaney’s face, was not produced by Anheuser-Busch or in any of its facilities, several distributors told The [New York] Post.

To an extent, the Bud Light producer’s managers are right. John Skeffington, family-owned Skeff Distributing CEO:

The single can was produced by a third-party ad agency, not Anheuser-Busch.

However. Anheuser-Busch’s managers have final approval of its ad agencies’ advertisement campaigns, whether or not the campaigns then are produced in house or by third-parties. A-B’s managers already have placed “on leave” Bud Light’s Marketing VP, Alissa Heinerscheid, and A-B’s Group Vice President for Marketing, Daniel Blake, over their failure to exercise their control over advertising done in Bud Light’s name.

Even if the unidentified-by-A-B “third-party ad agency” had produced and released the advertising move without that prior approval, A-B’s managers had after the fact approval/disapproval, and those worthies chose not to speak up at all. If they actually disapproved of the ad, they would have blocked it in the first place, or immediately after the fact spoken against it.

Only in the aftermath of the hooraw that’s threatening company sales, are those managers, from A-B CEO Michel Doukeris on down, speaking at all, and they’re still refusing to acknowledge straightforwardly their mistake, and they’re still refusing to say what they’re going to do to not repeat their mistake in future. They’ve only issued weasel-worded remarks that don’t even pretend to address the matter in any serious way.

Their latest move, now, is to insist “twarn’t us” and blame an anonymous “third-party” agency and throw it under the bus.

They still won’t accept their own responsibility for the fiasco.

Their company’s products still are not worth our purchase money.