Tag Archives: responsibilities

Unifying

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Ex-Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says current Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) isn’t a unifier for the Progressive-Democratic Party. Clinton complained to Emily Tisch Sussman that

Unfortunately his campaign and his principal supporters were just very difficult and—really, constantly—not just attacking me but my supporters[.]

However.

Did Clinton unify the Progressive-Democratic Party? No, not with the shenanigans she and Party elite (possibly separately from her) pulled to block Sanders’ ascent in the 2015-2016 campaign season and the shenanigans being pulled now to block Sanders’ evident success—not least of which is the DNC changing the debate rules right before the next debate to enable an Evil 1%-er to buy his way onto the debate stage after he’s made a point, ever since he entered the race, of telling voters in early primary States that they’re just too trivial to matter.

Nor did Clinton unify the nation after she’d seized Party’s nomination in 2016—she moved actively to divide it.

Clinton is in no position to talk.

Of course Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D, MI) doesn’t help Sanders’ case with her booing of Clinton (her weak walk-back notwithstanding).

A Cost of Impeachment

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It seems the Progressive-Democrats’ attempt to impeach President Donald Trump was not all that fiscally expensive as such things go.

According to an estimate from the Heritage Foundation in December, the [Progressive-]Democrat-led House of Representatives inquiry, and eventual impeachment of Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on December 18, cost taxpayers an estimated $3.06 million.

That compares with the effort against ex-President Bill Clinton (D):

According to CNN, the independent probe into Clinton cost taxpayers $80 million in 1994.

That bill includes the Senate trial, while the Heritage Foundation estimate doesn’t include the Senate’s in-progress impeachment trial, but it’s unlikely that the Senate trial will cost $77 million.

It should be no surprise, though, that the House’s seemingly slapdash effort was done on the cheap. The present effort has never been about actual impeachment and removal; it has been solely an effort to conduct a prolonged smear campaign and with that to prejudice the 2020 election.

Poking My Nose

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…into an arena where my experience is limited and dated. But I’m gonna do it, anyway. My experience is this: I hold a private pilot license; although I haven’t had the opportunity to fly for some years: I’m non-current.  However, I do have several hundred hours in fighter aircraft simulators, accumulated when I worked as Test Director for the world class manufacturer of military aircraft simulators—which hours include extensive time flying in instrument conditions, albeit without the buffeting of real-world winds and wind gusts.

The helicopter that crashed in California killing all nine of its occupants, including the pilot, Kobe Bryant and his daughter, his daughter’s basketball coach, and those five additional unfortunates, didn’t have a warning system in its instrument suite that might have helped the pilot recognize his physical situation.  That system is a Terrain Awareness And Warning System, which could have greatly raised the pilot’s understanding of his location relative to the terrain, not just below him, but around him, as well.

It’s no big deal that the pilot didn’t have TAWS on his helicopter.  However, I would have expected that an experienced pilot would have known better than to fly in that terrain/weather without it.

Fiscal Management

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In Tuesday’s Progressive-Democratic Party primary debate, Joe Biden made the claim that he couldn’t afford child care in 1972 on his then-income of $42,000/year.

Jan Brewer, ex-governor of Arizona, had a thought on that via Twitter:

“Jan Brewer @GovBrewer · 12h
“Biden just said he couldn’t afford child care in 1972 when he was making $42,000/yr. Today, that’d be $256,000/yr.  Really Joe?  If you can’t run your own household efficiently, I don’t think you can run our country!

“Vote @realDonaldTrump!”

She used an inflation rate of a bit over 3.5% to get there. I used an inflation rate of 3% to get a bit under $174,000. Over that long time frame, inflation rates bounce around; our two estimates, though, effectively bracket the situation.

Brewer’s point is eminently valid. If Biden can’t hack his own household budget, how can he be expected run our nation’s budget?

Oh, wait—the Progressive-Democrat thinks that, as President, he’ll be able to give himself a raise at convenience through tax increases and to borrow at will because…government.

Empty Rhetoric

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More of it, this time from European signatories of the failed-at-birth Iran nuclear weapons deal. Iran has announced that it’s going to disregard entirely the deal’s limits on Iran’s production of weapons grade uranium, and in response, Britain, France, and Germany have said they’re going to trigger the dispute resolution mechanism that’s written into the deal.  That mechanism, on a finding of serious violation, involves getting the UN Security Council to reimpose UN-originated sanctions on Iran.

Of course, Britain, France, and Germany know full well that two other members of the Security Council, Russia and the People’s Republic of China, will veto any meaningful resolution, making the three’s decision meaningless chit-chat, intended for nothing more than dishonest virtue signaling (excuse the redundancy). The three also said, in the same statement, that

they weren’t joining Washington’s “campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran.”

And so the three continue to duck away from meaningful action against a nation that attacks its own people, funds and instigates terrorism around the Middle East and Europe, and is bent on getting a nuclear weapon with which to “wipe Israel from the map.”

Hmm….