Pandering

Welcome back to the Scuttlebutt.

 

Pour a drink and let’s chat.  Before we get into the weekly blog discussions, I have a crass commercial announcement. (Hey, it helps pay the bills!)

My latest novel is Finally in print!  It can be found here. Currently only in paperback, the Ebook version should be out SOON (waiting on the fine people at Amazon to push whatever button it takes)  And please remember, if you like it, REVIEWS are the lifeblood of writing sales.

Now, on to your previously scheduled rant.

The online Dictionary.com defines Pandering as follows:

Noun:

The act of catering to or profiting from the weaknesses, vices, or unreasonable desires of others:

Example: Pandering and fear-mongering are the main ingredients of his appeal to anxious voters.

The act or practice of furnishing clients for a prostitute or supplying persons for illicit sex acts:

Example: Human trafficking violates many other laws as well, including those against kidnapping, slavery, false imprisonment, and pandering.

Adjective:

Catering to or profiting from the weaknesses, vices, or unreasonable desires of others:

Example: He’s the epitome of the pandering politician, ready to say yes to everyone.

Biden’s party is in trouble.  Everyone knows it, the man’s unpopularity is at record levels.  He is in fact, one of the five worst polling presidents in history, and right now, the only people who are polling lower than he is is his VP and the Democrats in Congress.

 

Well with an election coming up, what’s an unpopular politician to do?  Bread and circuses friend, bread and circuses! He’s going to try and buy your vote.

 

This morning (Wednesday) he announced that he’s going to forgive $10,000 in student debt for anyone that makes less than $125,000 a year (or families that make <$250,000) and will cancel up to an additional $10,000 in debt for those that have Pell Grants.  He’s also extending the pause on federal student loan payments AGAIN. All of this is announced here. What confuses me the most is what possible perturbation of the federal laws leads Biden and the Justice Department to believe that the office of the President includes the power to do this.

DOJ claims that the “Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act” gives the Education secretary the “authority to reduce or eliminate the obligation to repay the principal balance of federal student loan debt.”  Needless to say, there are some lawyers and judges that just don’t see it that way.

So, how much are we talking about here?  According to Representative Jayapal “This will bring real relief to 43 million people and is a MASSIVE step in the right direction.”  Well if her number of people is right (and it probably isn’t, considering who is doing the talking) and we consider JUST the initial $10,000, pretending that none of these folks have Pell Grants (primarily because I have no idea how many Pell Grants are still outstanding) we come up with $430 BILLION dollars, that the government (that means YOU sucker if you pay taxes) will have to pay. Remember that “Inflation Reduction Act”? Well, there’s more than enough to shoot ANY potential savings from that ever, right in the ass.

But see, Harvard did a poll that showed 59% of the 18–29-year-olds favored some sort of debt cancellation. (that’s probably about the same percentage that has some sort of debt.) So Joe obviously figures that he can buy that voter block, using your money.

  

The thing here is that while the poll showed these kids favored the debt cancellation, it didn’t poll as high in concern as other things, so I don’t think this is going to buy nearly as many votes as Joe thinks it will, and the votes that it DOES buy, he already had.

  

What you need to do my friend, is make sure that everyone you talk to understands the cost of this crap, and reflect on the fact that College graduates on average make from $5,000 (for some college, no degree) to $50,000 (Ph.D.) more per year, than someone with just an HS diploma, yet they are getting free repayment of the loans they took out to make that extra money.  Remember, remember this shit come November.

In another piece of Pandering, using a different definition, “Experts want to Rename Monkeypox” claims the New York Slimes here. (link gets you around the paywall)

 

In this case, the pandering is: “public health experts have been urging the World Health Organization to come up with new nomenclature that might help to clear up any confusion and reduce the shame and stigmatization associated with a disease that has been spreading largely among men who have sex with men.”

  

Well, OK, I have a couple of suggestions, how about we call it “Gaypox?”  No, don’t like that either? Well then, I suspect you’re really going to hate “Stop-Having-Unprotected-Butt-Sex-Pox, or SHUBSP for short.” or, we could go with “AIDS II because you didn’t listen the FIRST time.” The rest of my suggestions are even worse, just so you know.

NYT also had a feature by my favorite fool, Leonhardt on the fact that there’s been a surge in motor vehicle accidents nationally over the last couple of years.  Well, that’s bad enough, but it seems that the mortality rate is significantly higher among Blacks and Latinos than among Whites on a per capita basis, and higher among the poor than the well-off.  No one is sure why, and the guesses, in general, haven’t proven out. (One guess was emptier roads caused speeding.  That got shot in the ass, when the road usage came back to normal last year, but the crash rate didn’t change.)

  

The reason this makes my comment sheet is the recommended solution is… wait for it… More law enforcement, more enforcement of the laws on speeding, reckless driving, distracted driving, and seatbelt use.  Are you getting this? The same guys that were screaming “defund the police” and ACAB (stands for “all cops are bastards”) are now demanding more cops on the road, and more traffic stops!  Based on the theory that the rates are higher among Blacks and Latinos, that means: More cop enforcement of Black and Latino law-breaking.  This takes us back to “the pigs are discriminating against my black and brown brothers” and the cycle starts AGAIN.

The problem with this, Leonhardt, is that a bunch of my brother officers have gotten wise to this shit.  Cities and Counties, State offices, and Federal are all seeing waves of retirements and resignations, and an absolute dearth of suckers applicants for the replacement positions.  In short, people are done being the whipping boy for government policies.

  

See this has been the modus operandi for the left for a century. “There needs to be enforcement of the law, for the people’s safety!” followed by “Those PIGS are keeping you down, you should revolt!”  As long as they can keep getting fools to wear “Please shoot me” suits, and as long as they can get other fools to believe it’s the idiots in blue, and not their political bosses that are the problem, they keep up the hate and scare that keeps getting them elected.

Now in a perfect world, the “other fools” would realize they’re getting played and quit voting for the player, but having the cops pull a “who is John Gault?” will be just as effective, though it leaves a lot more chaos in its wake.

Also coming out of the NYT is an OpEd stating that “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed.”  Now, if that’s not enough to spin you up, allow me to present to you the authors of this shit-show: law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale!  Just for giggles I went and looked up these two Ivy League law professors.

 

Doerfler has a double Ph.D. from Harvard, in philosophy and his JD (the law degree that makes you a lawyer) a quick scan of his writings indicates this young punk has been railing against the very existence of the SCOTUS since he got out of high school. He “spends a lot of time thinking about the nature of indeterminacy and constraints on the possibility of disagreement (again, especially within the evaluative domain).”

Samuel Moyn is actually a chaired professor, the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. (means he is the senior and untouchable prof) The titles he has written seem to indicate that he has a huge hard-on against the US, Christianity, and for European Communism, and Judaism (Ironic, since those two philosophies, have been on opposite ends of a gun for most of the last century.)  This guy is old enough to know better, even though based on his writings, he doesn’t.

So, on to the article they have penned.  The basic thesis is that: “The real need is not to reclaim the Constitution, as many would have it, but instead to reclaim America from constitutionalism,” it seems they think the constitution, a “centuries-old document” is keeping us from being a free democracy. And suggest that we can’t be free and democratic until we create enough states for the left to own congress, and declare the constitution null and void.

  

Their big thing seems to be that this horrible stupid old document claims to be the highest and virtually untouchable law of the land, and keeps us from doing what we want, by demanding that political minorities have protection!  They also recommend that congress “openly defy” the constitution to “get a more democratic order.”

Now, I’m not a double Ph.D. from an Ivy league, (and it seems, anymore, like that is to the good.  These guys really don’t seem to understand the basics of our nation.)  What I am is a student of history, who has read most of the writings of the founding fathers at one point or another.  It seems to me that the good professors went wrong very early.  Their mistake seems to be primal, in that they believe we are a democracy, not a republic.  Further, they demand that we throw away the trappings of a republic and go to as pure of a democracy as possible.

History has shown that to be a gigantic mistake.  That is mob rule pure and simple.  That gives you things like “the committee for public safety.”

Let me be perfectly clear, we are a constitutional republic. Our government was designed, SPECIFICALLY, to limit the powers of government and to limit the powers of the majority to trample over the rights of the minority.  What they seem to want is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner.

What they also don’t understand is that 1) we’re back to Lehman’s laws again, you may THINK you have a majority, but if it turns out that you don’t, that tool you just created will be used to bash your head in, and 2) That constitution that you find so obstructive, and so uncooperative just may be the only reason you are still on the right side of the grass.

We are a nation of LAW, not of the opinion of half the country plus one. The law is designed to be hard to change, to keep us from swinging around like a compass needle in a thunderstorm.  The whims of the moment destroy stability and destroy the rights of the minority of the moment, and I would think that someone who seems to specialize in Jewish history would be more concerned about that, having seen how often the Jewish race has been the victim of just such a thing.

Honestly, if I had any doubt about the worth of education from the Ivy Leagues, this cleared it up for me.  When seated professors of law are advocating for the destruction of the highest law of the land, it’s time for tar and feathers, and riding out of town on a rail.

There’s more I could write on, but this has gone on long enough.  Keep your powder dry and your mind clear.

Take care, watch your six, 

Until next time I remain,

Yours in service.

William Lehman.