Tag Archives: responsibilities

Preparedness

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That seems a commodity in short supply these days. Its lack is especially expensive for student loan borrowers in today’s economic climate. The lede pretty much says it all.

Tens of millions of federal student-loan borrowers will soon owe monthly payments for the first time in more than three years. Some of them aren’t ready for it.
The payment and interest pause put extra cash into people’s pockets, but they tended to spend it rather than save it, according to recent research. Some borrowers are now concerned about being able to cover their student-loan bills this fall.

Not being required to make the payments is not the same as being barred from making the payments. Neither is it a block on putting those HIAed loan payments aside against a return to having to repay or to pay down other debts.

Some borrowers took the payment pause as an opportunity to save the extra money or use it to pay down other debts. But the more common response was to spend it….

But we’re supposed to be sympathetic to these spenders, even to spend our money, through our tax remittances, helping them cover the outcomes of their shortsightedness and irresponsibility.

Blinders

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FBI Director Christopher Wray was wearing them, when he wasn’t overtly insulting the intelligence of committee members, when he testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday. Committee members asked Wray a number of questions that he refused to answer, even as he couched his refusal in a number of rationalizations.

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R, OH) asked whether the FBI had asked financial institutions for customer transaction records in the DC area for the period surrounding the 6 Jan riots. Wray: I don’t know the answer.

Darrell Issa (R, CA) asked Wray whether FBI agents infiltrated those riots. Wray refused to answer altogether, referring Issa to “existing court filings.”

Matt Gaetz (R, FL) asked Wray how many times the FBI misused FISA authorities to spy on American citizens. Wray refused to say, or even to explain why the illegal searches happened.

Pramila Jayapal (D, WA) asked Wray whether the FBI was purchasing Americans’ personal data from the Internet or social media collectors. Wray refused to “confirm or deny.” When she asked how the FBI used such data, Wray said,

Respectfully, this is a topic that gets very involved to explain, so what I would prefer to do is have our subject matters come back up and brief you[.]

He thereby confirmed that his FBI does obtain such information, whether through buying it, or through other means. And his answer was insulting to the committee members, particularly to Jayapal, implying that the Congressmen were too grindingly stupid to understand the matter or by insulting their intelligence with his claim that he doesn’t understand the matter himself.

And so on through hours of testimonial evasion, pretended ignorance, and insults.

This FBI has long since outlived its usefulness, and it needs to be disbanded.

Reparations—Punishing the Children and their Mothers

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The California Reparations Task Force has hit a new low with its reparations…foolishness.

The California Reparations Task Force is asking the Democrat-controlled state legislature to eliminate interest on past-due child support, as well as any back child support debt for Black residents of the state.

And this:

[T]he group claimed “discriminatory” laws “have torn African American families apart,” and that one effect of that is the “harms” caused by “the disproportionate amount of African Americans who are burdened with child support debt.”

This is just wholly irrational. Discriminatory laws have not torn any families apart, African American or otherwise. Divorce tore the families apart—whether because of misbehaving husbands or wives or simply because of their incompatibility. Aside from that, when the mother gets custody, child support gets paid by the husband because the husband is—was—most often the major or sole source of the family’s income.

In addition to that, the burden from child support debt is due to that debt, and the burden of its not being paid is borne by the child(ren) and the single mother.

And this bit of foolishness so blatant that it has to be dishonesty:

[T]he 10% interest the state charges on back child support “hinders” their ability to finance further education, attend job training, find employment, and maintain housing because of the legal consequences of not paying such debt.

This gives no consideration whatsoever—deliberately so, apparently—to the barriers (not mere hindrance) not paying such debt inflicts on the child(ren)’s and single parent’s ability to finance any education, attend any job training or internship or apprenticeship, find any employment—summer or part-time for the child(ren) who’s old enough, or any level of employment including full-time for the single parent—or maintain, or even get, housing.

And this:

[T]hose who owed child support had lower incomes than “the typical California worker” and that such interest required a larger portion of their income to actually pay the debt.

What a tear-jerker. Never mind that the single mother who’s owed the child support has even lower income than the deadbeat dad who owes it.

This nonsense hurts black children and their single mothers far more than it helps black deadbeat dads. Never mind asking why the CRTF wants to help deadbeat dads in the first place. The CRTF doesn’t care: it’s all about reparations for the sake of reparations. And the money.

This is one way to monetize the bigotry.

Biden’s Pick to Run the CDC

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With the current CDC honcho leaving the position at the end of the week, President Joe Biden (D) has picked Mandy Cohen, ex-North Carolina Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, to run the agency. This is the woman who, while in the NC government,

  • acceded to Anthony Fauci’s words and directions unquestioningly throughout the Wuhan Virus Situation
  • idolized Fauci with a mask featuring his image
  • imposed harsh restrictions that disrupted everyday life with no medical—or any other—benefit
  • bragged about enforcing mass shutdowns

Nominees to the CDC Directorship aren’t subject to Senate Advice and Consent, so Biden can just appoint her.

However.

The Congress can have an impact on her appointment: the House can decline, through the appropriate appropriations bill, to fund the position of CDC Director and the Immediate Office of the Director, with the latter’s 10 Offices and Chief of Staff, until a suitable Director is appointed. The House can decline to fund the CDC as a whole. The Senate can pass the House’s bill and send the relevant appropriations bill to the President.

All that would take is the political will of the Republican majority in the House along with unified Senate Republicans in conjunction with the House declining to pass any sort of budget item via reconciliation.

What are Biden and Austin Up To?

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US military retirees living in Turkey are about to lose access to the US base at Incirlik and to all other American bases in the country. The loss will take effect 1 October of this year. Among other things, this will mean our veterans will lose access to

  • base commissaries, which sell American groceries
  • Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores—Base Exchanges—which3 sell American goods
  • US post office services, including PO Boxes through which our veterans
    • receive and send back their absentee ballots for American elections
    • receive American medicines

The commander of the US presence on Incirlik, USAF Colonel Calvin Powell, has said the ban is related to a changing Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Turkey, but this is hard to credit. Similar bans are being contemplated at US presences around the world: Aviano Air Base in Italy and the US presences in the Philippines, for instance.

Hence my question: what are SecDef Lloyd Austin and President Joe Biden (D) up to now?