Tag Archives: political parties

Unfair Elections

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At least they’re unfair if a Progressive-Democrat doesn’t win, if a Republican wins instead.

Progressive-Democratic Party ex-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton:

If she [Georgia Progressive-Democrat candidate for Governor Stacy Abrams] had a fair election, she already would have won[.]

Never mind that, according to Abrams and her team, all the votes haven’t been counted.  Just declare the Progressive-Democrat the winner and skip all the time wasted on petty counting of votes.

Progressive-Democratic Senator from Ohio Sherrod Brown:

If Stacey Abrams doesn’t win in Georgia, they stole it.  It’s clear, I say that publicly.

Because the only way a Progressive-Democrat could lose is by the other side stealing.  Why, no one should even bother running against Progressive-Democrats.  It’s all theirs, by right of…they say so.

New Jersey’s Progressive-Democratic Senator Cory Booker:

I think that Stacey Abrams’s election is being stolen from her, using what I think are insidious measures to disenfranchise certain groups of people[.]

There it is, again.  The Progressive-Democrat should be declared the winner because she exists.  If too few people voted for her, it can’t be because too few people wanted her; it can only because too many people weren’t allowed to vote.  People who weren’t residents, who weren’t citizens, who couldn’t identify themselves….

In Florida, Broward County, after completing a State law required machine recount of the Senate race votes cast, withheld reporting the results of its recount until after the reporting deadline.  That means that the county’s count as of the prior Saturday will be the official count, an outcome that strongly favors the Progressive-Democratic Party candidate Bill Nelson.  That recount, the one Broward chose not to report on time, added nearly 800 votes to the Republican Rick Scott’s total.  But Nelson is the proper winner; he’s the Progressive-Democrat.

That, from the Party that pretends to decry voter disenfranchisement while disenfranchising nearly 800 voters.

Keep this in mind in 2020.  They’ll be at it again, in spades.

May’s Brexit Surrender

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The terms include these, via Deutsche Welle:

  • The rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU will be protected
  • EU citizens living in the UK can be joined by close family members…who live in a different country at any point in the future.
  • Workers and self-employed people will be broadly guaranteed the same rights they currently enjoy

All of which negate one of the motives for leaving the European Union. EU citizens resident in the UK will be magnets for drawing in others for the UK’s generous welfare system—and EU citizens still will be able to seek work in the UK preferentially, availing themselves both of the UK’s higher wage rates and that welfare system.

  • There will be a 21-month transition period ending December 31, 2020
  • EU rules would continue to apply in the UK subject to the terms set out in the Brexit agreement
  • After the transition period, a joint committee co-chaired by the EU and the UK would police the final withdrawal agreement, taking decisions by mutual consent and whose verdicts would be binding

Meaning that the UK would remain unable to enter into separate, independent trade agreements during this “transition” period EU laws would remain in effect inside allegedly sovereign Great Britain, and the EU will retain veto power, via that mutual consent requirement, on post-transition moves—including those independent trade agreements and moves to supplant EU laws with domestic, UK, laws.

  • If appropriate customs arrangements are not agreed to, a backstop arrangement would kick in. A joint “single customs territory” between the EU and UK would apply from the end of the transition period…
  • Under the backstop arrangement, the UK must observe “level playing field” commitments on competition, state aid, taxes and employment and environment standards

Are not agreed to means the agreement will be in accordance with EU diktat or there will be the backstop arrangement. This is what the EU wants, so there will be no agreed customs arrangement.  The EU wants the backstop because those terms require the UK to keep its Northern Ireland inside the EU’s competition, state aid, taxes and employment, and environment laws in perpetuity. This is the beginning of prising Northern Ireland out of the UK—the beginning of dismantling the UK.  This is part of the EU’s demonstration to restive members of the EU and a warning of their fate if they become impertinent, too.

The bottom line for the UK here is that, under this “agreement,” these terms of surrender, the nation will become a speechless, toothless satrap of the EU, and its dismantling will be begun.

May, with her abject surrender to Brussels, has betrayed her nation’s referendum.  And she has betrayed other members of the EU similarly dismayed with Brussels’ interference in their domestic affairs.

It’s no wonder that members of her Cabinet are resigning in droves, her coalition government is falling apart, and her own party is in (sub rosa, for now) revolt.

A Bogus Beef

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Recall CNN‘s Jim Acosta striking a White House intern (albeit lightly) and actively preventing her from doing her job.  In consequence of that, the White House suspended Acosta’s accesses to the White House.

Now CNN is suing the White House to get Acosta’s credentials back.  They’re doing it, too, on the risible grounds that the suspension violates Acosta’s 1st and 5th Amendment rights of free speech and due process.

Sure.

Acosta is in no way restricted from speaking his piece or from asking questions, either personally or in his capacity as a member of the press, although for the time being, he can’t ask his questions at White House pressers.  With regard to that last, the freedom of…the press, here personified by CNN, is in no way restricted since the suspension applies to Acosta personally: CNN is free to appoint another of its employees to attend such gatherings and ask such questions as CNN might consider useful.

Furthermore, getting credentials for access to the White House is a privilege, not a right; due process plainly does not apply.  On the other hand, striking White House personnel—or anyone else—however firmly or lightly is neither a right nor a privilege for anyone, much less for members of the press.

In my view, Acosta should not have his suspension lifted until his boss publicly apologizes for Acosta’s misbehavior.

Yapping

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It’s what porch dogs do.  The current noise-making is from Progressive-Democrats objecting to Matthew Whitaker having been appointed Acting Attorney General after Jeff Sessions’ resignation at the request of President Donald Trump.

A number of lawmakers called upon Whitaker to recuse from the Russia probe, citing his criticism of the investigation.

Some years ago, Whitaker expressed some opinions about the investigation of which these Progressive-Democrats disapprove, and so they want him to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation.  Because anyone who, at any time, has said anything of which those folks disapprove is automatically disqualified for any government job.

The yapping has reached the point where the State of Maryland has asked a Federal judge to keep Whitaker from acting in his role on the grounds that he wasn’t legitimately appointed.  Never mind that the

Vacancies Act [formally, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act] allows the president to temporarily fill a position that requires Senate confirmation with any official who’s been in the department for over 90 days.

Specifically, the relevant part of the Act says

The President can select a senior “officer or employee” of the same executive agency who is equivalent to a GS-15 or above on the federal pay scale, if that employee served in that agency for at least 90 days during the year preceding the vacancy.

Whitaker was AG Sessions’ Chief of Staff from October 2017—something more than 90 days.

Whitaker’s assignment is entirely legitimate. As for recusing, those calls, aside from the noise for noise’s sake aspect, is insulting to Whitaker’s integrity, insisting as they do that he’s not capable of exercising his responsibilities, including vis-à-vis the Mueller investigation in an objective, balanced manner.

Whitaker—and Trump—should ignore the yapping and simply proceed as though the street were merely filled with the noise of children playing.  (Not that I would ever mix metaphors.)

Quick Thought on Tax Reform

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The Progressive-Democrats won a majority in the House, and the Republicans look like they’re going to expand their majority in the Senate.  That looks like legislative paralysis in the next Congress.

However.

The next Congress won’t be sworn in until 3 January 2019.  That gives two months for the present Congress, with Republican majorities in both houses, to get some remaining stuff done.

Top on that list in my august view is tax reform.  This Congress needs to move to make permanent the individual income tax cuts that otherwise will expire in 2025.  Get it done now, before the Progressive-Democrats, with their gridlock, take sufficient office to block the reform.