Tag Archives: responsibilities

Not Entirely Sufficient

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Harvard University and the Federal government apparently are nearing a deal that would pressure Harvard to abide by federal regulations around merit-based hiring and admissions as well as protecting students’ civil rights in return for a $500 million payment to “workforce and vocational programs.”

Pressure only, though, no overt, absolute requirement.

The administration wouldn’t appoint a monitor to oversee Harvard’s compliance with the deal. The university would pledge to continue to abide….

That’s a serious weakness in the supposed deal. Harvard’s management team already isn’t abiding by those regulations, and it already isn’t protecting its students’ civil rights—much less better reducing the school’s antisemitic bigotry and its pro-terrorist stance. Since it’s not doing, it can’t be continuing.

An addition to this deal is needed: Harvard should be required to put up a cash bond, say $500 million, for 10 years against its performance of its pledge. At the end of those 10 years, should the university actually have abided, the principal would be returned, and the accrued earnings on the principal paid to those workforce and vocational programs.

Abandonment of Duty, Attempt at Tyranny

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) has asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove State Congressman Gene Wu from office and declare his seat vacant. Wu is the Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair and one of 57 Progressive-Democrats who ran out of Texas for the explicit purpose of denying the Texas legislature a quorum and thereby prevent it from operating at all.

Abbott’s argument centers on this [citations omitted]:

Every elected officer of this State, including Wu, swears an oath to “faithfully execute the duties of the office” to which they are elected. The principal duty of a legislator is to attend and participate in legislative sessions as required by Article III, Section 5 of the Texas Constitution. The quorum provisions further underscore that attendance is not optional; it is an affirmative constitutional obligation. The Texas Constitution authorizes the House to “compel attendance of absent members.” That power would be meaningless if members could freely make themselves absent for political advantage without consequence. Such actions also render meaningless the Governor’s authority to call a Special Session, for which the Legislature “shall meet.”
Representative Wu has openly renounced these constitutional mandates by fleeing the State of Texas to break quorum, obstruct legislative proceedings, and paralyze the Texas House of Representatives.

Wu answered via television interview (he doesn’t have to respond to the filing until late this afternoon).

Let me be unequivocal about my actions and my duty. When a governor conspires with a disgraced president to ram through a racist gerrymandered map, my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant.
Denying the governor a quorum was not an abandonment of my office; it was a fulfillment of my oath. Unable to defend his corrupt agenda on its merits, Greg Abbott now desperately seeks to silence my dissent by removing a duly-elected official from office.

Aside from the fact that Wu’s irrelevant ad hominem inclusion illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy of his position, his oath of office requires him to obey his constitutional duty to appear in the State Congress when it is in session. There is no leeway for absenting himself solely because he disagrees with the outcome of a policy debate and ensuing vote—most especially is there no leeway for absenting himself as part of an effort to prevent that vote from occurring.

That he’s part of Party’s movement to block a single piece of legislation, a redistricting bill, from being acted on is merely the narrow, proximate implication of his action.

The question here, though, is much larger than a single disputed piece of legislation; it embraces the nature and basis of democratic governments. In a democracy, especially in a republican and representative democracy such as ours, there are those who win in a policy contest and those who lose. The foundation of (representative, republican, even popular democracy) requires that the defeat be accepted by those in the minority and that those who lost are free to try again in a succeeding, even later renewed, policy debate but are not free to shut off all legislative capacity unless and until they, this minority, get their losing position fully accepted.

Texas’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians who are deliberately shutting down the Texas government, denying it its ability—its obligation—to legislate, are not filibustering a single piece of legislation in an effort to block its passage. Their behavior is categorically different from that. These persons are not just violating their oaths of office. They are attempting to impose, from their minority position, their demands on an entire government at the cost of no functioning government absent the majority acquiescing to them. This is the stuff of tyranny, and thus their preventing a quorum is antithetical to democratic principles. All of them should be removed from office.

Abbott’s filing can be read here.

I Have another Question

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FBI Director Kash Patel has uncovered burn bags/room filled with hidden Russia Gate files, including the Durham annex.

Regardless of the current disposition of those bags’ contents (Patel is declassifying them and intends to release them), my question is this: what level of negligence has it been that those burn bags have not been burned and still exist after all these years?

While it’s presently convenient that those burn bags remain unburned so their contents can be released after suitable (limited) redacting, the negligence is a threat to our nation’s security. The individuals responsible for that security negligence need to be identified and fired for cause.

I Have a Question

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In partial response to President Donald Trump’s (R) refusal to pay Progressive-Democrats $1 billion in released foreign aid and NIH funding—variously a bribe or an extortion payment, depending on who’s talking—in order to get Party Senators to agree to speed up the nomination confirmation process that Party has been busily stonewalling, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) had this:

Sooner or later, Donald Trump—Mr “Art of the Deal,” or so he claims—is going to have to learn that he has to work with Democrats if he wants to get deals, good deals, that help the American people[.]

My question, and the answer illustrates the intrinsically partisan and obstructionist nature of Party, is this: when will “Democrats” work with Trump? When will “Democrats” work with Republicans generally? Party’s determined refusal to do so is harming us American people about whom Schumer and his Party so piously pretend to care.

Fault and Blame

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This example is all too typical. An elderly couple was scammed out of their life savings–$5 million—by a “pig butcherer” who conned the husband into wiring the couple’s savings, in a number of tranches, to the scammer under the guise, among others, of investing the money in a sure-fire investment.

What happened:

A year or so earlier, Craig had responded to an online ad about investments and later received a text message from someone calling themself Tiffany, according to his hazy account. The person struck up a flirtatious exchange and was soon telling him about a lucrative opportunity. All he needed to do was wire money from his bank account.

And

The adviser [at an earlier bank where the husband had begun his “investing” with Tiffany] had repeatedly tried to convince Craig that “Tiffany” was scamming him, to no avail.

The husband after that had pulled his—their—money from that bank and placed it with another bank, from which the husband continued “investing” with Tiffany.

And

Shortly after discovering the scam, Anamarie learned something else about Craig that helped explain what had happened. His doctor told her that Craig had vascular dementia, likely due to a brain injury from a fall he took in 2015 while walking his brother-in-law’s dog.

The first the wife knew anything was amiss was when her credit cards were declined at a Walmart.

In the end, the couple is blaming bank for their having been scammed, claiming that the bank hadn’t acted nanny-ish enough [my term] to protect the couple from themselves.

I have questions, and I’m not entirely sympathetic with the couple or with their blame-shifting.

Why didn’t the wife know more about the couple’s financial situation? True enough, they’re of an age where money matters usually was the husband’s job, but that doesn’t excuse her ignorance; it only illustrates how widespread such ignorance is.

What was the husband doing getting flirty with an online person about whom he knew nothing about, including whether the person even was female? See below for this before readers get up in morality arms.

Why didn’t the wife know anything about her husband’s medical condition? Certainly, this is related to a couple’s internal dynamics, but there’s little reason for one member of the couple to be so ignorant of the other member’s medical state. This is another aspect of couples of an age, but again, this doesn’t excuse the ignorance; it only illustrates the widespread nature of it.