Can You Trust A 2026 Democrat? [Link Fixed!]

The Democrats are certainly tempting Republicans to repurpose that 1960 JFK campaign poster to impugn the wisdom of trusting any Democrats “as far as you could throw them,” in one of my father’s favorite phrases.

Item: Eileen Wang, the former mayor of Arcadia, a city within LA County, resigned after admitting to acting as an illegal foreign agent for China. Her federal plea deal was unsealed today. She worked with the People’s Republic of China to distribute propaganda with a fake news website between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022, then moved up to mayor. She faced a maximum of 10 years in prison, but the deal got her much less. I don’t know why she shouldn’t be shot. She’s a traitor.

She’s also a Democrat. Her fellow California Democrat, Eric Swalwell, had a sexual affair with a Chinese spy. Speaking of JFK, he also had an affair with a comely spy, in his case from Israel.

For some reason, I had a difficult time confirming Wang’s party. She’s a Democrat, of course, but most news reports omitted that fact. Were they covering up for their favorite party, or did they just assume any one paying attention could guess which party is more likely to sell out to China?

According to court documents, Wang worked with her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, on a web site called “U.S. News Center,” supposedly a news source for Chinese Americans. The loving couple, however, were really taking marching orders from Beijing. They “executed directives” from the Chinese government to post pro-Chinese propaganda and reported back with data on how many views each story received, according to the plea agreement.

In one case, Wang was ordered to post a PRC-dictated essay denying the existence of genocide and forced labor in the Xinjiang region. “There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability,” the mayor was told. Wang complied by publishing the required lies, and her handler wrote back, “So fast, thank you everyone.” Receiving praise for her work, Wang wrote back to her handler, “Thank you leader.”

The Wang story comes out just after Rep. Jayapal announced that she has been working with Cuba to undermine U.S. policy. The whole Democratic Party, meanwhile, is openly parroting Iranian propaganda and vocally hoping that the U.S. loses that war. All this, and the cheating and lying about redistricting too.

Would you buy a used car from this party?

Why???

Yes, Ted Turner Is An Ethics Hero For This…

Verdict: True.

Turner’s contribution to cultural literacy and cross-generational communication as a result cannot be denied or understated. Ted Turner used his power and wealth to create what might never have existed without him.

He lived a worthwhile life indeed.

Ethics Test For Progressive Americans, PART II: The New York Times Has Already Flunked

The Times has so many dishonest, biased, partisan and unethical columnists that, as I have written too many times, identifying the worst of the worst is well nigh impossible. With the execrable Charles M. Blow mercifully retired as the Times house anti-white racist, it is at least easy to single out the most unethical black pundit currently disgracing the paper. That would be Jamelle Bouie. He has one of the worst EA dossiers of any Times pundit (though not as bad as Blow’s) going back to when he was a writer for Slate. However, as indefensible it was for the Times to hire Bouie, it is even worse that no editor, publisher or staff petition stopped his latest screed from being published under the Times masthead.

Here is your second gift link to a Times product of the day, though this “gift” is more akin to a flaming bag of dog poo left on your front door. Among its features…

Ethics Test For Progressive Americans, PART I: The Democrats Plot a Coup

For some time now, the biggest ethics issue facing the nation, and wow, there are a lot of them, has been the increasingly flagrant contempt for democracy and basic principles of ethics being exhibited by a single political party—guess which—in its drive to gain sufficient power to make over the government, principles, ideology, society and culture of the United States of America. The clues that party and its allies in the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“the resistance, Democrats and the nearly completely corrupt mainstream media) have been revealing have been increasingly obvious, most flagrant among them being projection—-accusing Republicans and President Trump of engaging in what his Machiavellian opponents are actually doing.

A private discussion this weekend including Democratic House members from Virginia and Congressional Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York was leaked to the New York Times by several participants. According to the Times, the participants expressed their fury at the Virginia Supreme Court, as if it was the bi-partisan majority of judges who were at fault for the election-rigging scheme the party had tried to inflict on Virginians. Part of the discussion centered on what the Times called “a bank-shot proposal to redraw the congressional lines anyway.”

“Mad Men” Ethics: The Motive vs. Conduct Conundrum

I’m finally watching the acclaimed AMC series “Mad Men.” I’m impressed: the character development is deft and complex, the evocation of the Fifties and early Sixties is fairer and more accurate than it usually is, and the ethical issues explored are many and complex.

At the end of season five the series presented as good an example as you will find of how motives behind conduct usually don’t change the analysis of whether the conduct was ethical or not. Series anti-hero Don Draper, a talented advertising innovator, finds the Madison Avenue firm where he’s a partner facing ruin because its biggest client, Lucky Strike cigarettes, has defected to a bigger agency. Now all of his agency’s clients are spooked, and potential clients are waiting to see if it survives.

Impulsively and without consulting his other partners, Draper buys a full page ad in the New York Times, announcing that he, and therefore his firm, is giving up tobacco and cigarettes because they kill people, and marketing such a deadly product is wrong.

Draper doesn’t do this as a matter of conscience. He does it to take control of his firm’s fate, to make it seem like the loss of a large cigarette client was in fact a proactive decision made in the public interest, and by virtue-signaling and grandstanding, to attract new clients impressed by courage and integrity. The ad is, in short, self-serving, desperate, and cynical: ethics have nothing to do with it. Appearing ethical is the point.

Yet that does not change the fact that the public condemnation of smoking was the right thing to do regardless of his motives. The results of the declaration will be the same, whether the reasons behind it were pure or not. Thoughts are not ethical or unethical. Conduct is ethical or unethical.

The complicating factor in the “Mad Men” scenario is that advertising is a Bizarro World culture, like war and politics. It is inherently unethical, so applying traditional standards of right and wrong often don’t make sense, nor are ethical and unethical actions dependably likely to have the same effects they might have in other contexts. Conduct that may have salutary consequences outside of Madison Avenue may be disastrous in the weird world of advertising. Don Draper only cares about whether his shocking public attack on tobacco saves his firm, not how many lives it saves, if any.

Ironically, however, it may do both.

But even if it accomplishes neither, it is still an ethical act.

Addendum To “Ethics Update On the Axis Freakout Over Virginia and Tennessee’s Redistricting Results”

I realized that I hadn’t included any of the crazed (and hypocritical) freakouts over Tennessee eliminating the Memphis district that had voted in one of the worst (white) Democratic members of Congress for years, Steve Cohen.

Here’s one especially silly example: Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D) demanded that Tennessee allow Memphis to “secede” because of the redistricting.“Let Memphis secede from the state of Tennessee!” he said.“Let my people go. I’m dead serious. If you’re constantly beating on us, let us out.”

Parkinson represents part of Shelby County, which includes Memphis.“This is about whether Memphis, a majority-Black economic engine for this state, is expected to continue contributing billions in tax revenue, culture, labor and commerce while being systematically stripped of political power.” Which it is presumed to exercise only by voting for black candidates? Are the Republicans in such areas being stripped of their political power? Should they have to give up their state citizenship because Democrats are throwing a tantrum?

Parkinson said that if the state’s elected officials no longer believe “the people of Memphis deserve the ability to choose a representative who reflects their community, then at least have the courage to say it plainly. Do not hide behind maps and procedure.” What does “reflect the community” mean?

Parkinson has called for the city to secede before. Are we going back to city states now?

What an idiot.

Ethics Update On the Axis Freakout Over Virginia and Tennessee’s Redistricting Results

[Note: I apologize for the funky formatting here, but it’s not my fault: WordPress again messed with its (terrible) “block system” with no warning and I’m trying to figure it out.]

I’m posting the graphic above again because it is res ipsa loquitur, rebutting on its face what so many of the hysterical Democrats, elected officials, pundits and partisan reporters are screaming as they survey the results of their own corruption and hypocrisy.

As Ethics Alarms has been asserting (and proving) for a decade now, the Left cheats. Its “they go low, we go high” mantra has always been cynical gaslighting, but the somnolent Right allowed them to escape accountability (and their just desserts) far too long. Donald Trump, whatever his ethical flaws may be, has always understood the concept of fighting back. This time it really paid off, and all Americans should be grateful. Yes: we should fervently seek fair districting in every state. Maybe the current chaos will eventually lead to that. However, letting one party rig the system unanswered while the other party just sits and shrugs is worse than the chaos.

Scott Greenfield, defense lawyer, blogger, Jack-hater and progressive legal pundit, deserves praise for a nearly completely ethical and unbiased analysis of the Virginia Supreme Court decision striking down the dastardly gerrymandering trick Virginia’s “moderate” governor and its corrupt Democrats tried to inflict on half the state’s voters. He writes in part,

“The confluence of a few unfortunate circumstances resulted in the Virginia Supreme Court holding that the state constitutional amendment to allow the redistricting plan as a counterbalance to other states’ legislative redistricting plans to eliminate congressional districts deemed “safely” Democratic was unconstitutional. Wags and cynics will imagine this ruling to be the product of radical rightist activists. It was not…Neither the majority nor dissent took unprincipled positions, both having some merit to their position, but the point of a ruling is to reach a determination. The Virginia Supreme Court did so, in a principled fashion, and it ruled the redistricting amendment unconstitutional under the state Constitution. It was a crushing defeat for Democrats, but that doesn’t make it partisan or radical. Sometimes, you lose. While the combination of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision and this Virginia ruling has set in motion a partisan war that serves to make congressional elections a by-product of widespread cynical gerrymandering rather than a reflection of the will of the voters, perhaps one of the most noxiously anti-democratic efforts to rig an election possible, don’t blame the Virginia Supreme Court for “losing” safe districts for Democrats. The court did its job and its ruling, no matter what outcome you would have preferred, was grounded in a principled reading of the state Constitution.”

Good for Scott. He is still, however, a Trump Deranged, biased progressive (like most trial lawyers), so he also wrote…

“If you want to find blame, it’s in the legislatures that decided to sell out their citizens, their voters, at the open and notorious behest of Trump. For all his baseless bluster about rigged elections, we’re finally going to have one and Trump demanded the rigging.”

Bad Scott. Bad. Look at the damn chart above. Democrats had already rigged Congressional elections. Did you wonder why the predicted “red wave” in 2022 never materialized? Wonder no more. Nine Democrat-dominated state legislatures made it virtually impossible for Republicans to get elected. President Trump, that kingly fascist, had the sense and combative instincts to get his party to try to even the odds. The “red” states that did that through redistricting (gerrymandering) followed their constitutions. Virginia did not. Naturally, the losers blame Trump.

Former DNC chairwoman and current ABC contributor Donna Brazile naturally took the same dishonest path. Remember, Brazile was the Democrat who first tipped me off to her party’s cheating ways: as a paid CNN “contributor” in 2016, she used her insider status to tip-off Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton regarding the questions she would be asked at a CNN “town meeting.” This was so unethical even CNN couldn’t tolerate it, and she was fired. Yesterday Brazile joined GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw and HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher to give a masterclass on double standards and leftist gaslighting. Republican redistricting efforts are, she said, “immoral,” while Democratic efforts are what “voters decided.”

Voters in Virginia “decided” on the gerrymandered map based on the referendum’s false statement, indeed exactly the opposite of reality, that the new map would “restore fairness.” Remember?

“Restore fairness” by making sure that a 50-50 party split would be represented by a 10-1 Democrat district map. Sure.

Then Brazile played the race card, as Democrats inevitably do when the facts aren’t in their favor. “I come from one of those states that all of a sudden, the Supreme Court said, ‘Well, we don’t like partisan gerrymandering. No, we don’t like racial gerrymandering.’ So, one out of three voters in Louisiana is a black voter. One out of three. And they are now thinking of eradicating. So, that says people from some parts of Louisiana can represent New Orleans better than the folks who are representing—or Baton Rouge. It is wrong, it is immoral, and it is unjustified.”

Well-said, mush-mouth. “They” are thinking of “eradicating” black voters? I think Donna was trying to say that the Jim Crow laws that were still in effect de facto if not de jure in Southern states in the early Sixties justifies “good racial discrimination” in 2026, 60 years later. You can read her logic- and law-free rant here.This is, however, apparently the fake narrative the Axis has decided to run with, proving with its attempted cover-up just how desperate and unprincipled it is.

On yesterday’s MSNOW propaganda-fest “The Weekend,” Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) compared the 1857 Dred Scott ruling to the SCOTUS decision that the 1965 Voting Rights Act could no longer justify anti-white discrimination in the Southern states, and declared the Roberts Court “one of the most racist courts in American history.”Got it. If the Court doesn’t allow the Democrats to rig its Congressional maps to pack the House with as many blacks as possible, it’s racist. Morelle also parroted the “will of the voters” lie in attacking the Virginia Supreme Court’s rejection of redistricting referendum. Did the MSNOW host point out for its viewers that Morelle was misrepresenting both decisions? Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

This how House minority leader Hakeem Jeffreys reacted to his party being foiled in its unconstitutional, dishonest power-grab in Virginia:

Unethical Quote of the Month: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time.”

—-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, talking nonsense, as usual

I don’t care too much if the Congresswoman is historically ignorant. I do mind that she keeps spouting false-history in public, because most of the American public is also historically ignorant, and they might assume that because she is an elected official of some status, she must know more than they do. She doesn’t. AOC epitomizes the Dunning-Kruger Effect, where stupid people don’t realize that they are dolts.

It also is infuriating that the Congresswoman made this statement on a stage at the Institute of Politics, and no one corrected her. I view that as the equivalent of ratifying fake history. Donors take notice!

Her latest garbage is particularly egregious. The American Revolution was fought against a monarchy, a nation and its Parliament, not “billionaires.” To characterize the Revolution as a revolt of peasants against the rich is typical Communist propaganda. John Hancock, one of the instigators of the rebellion, was considered the richest man in New England, a multi-millionaire in today’s dollars. Robert Morris, probably the richest man in the colonies, and worth nearly a billion dollars in today’s currency, contributed millions to fund the war. Another one of the richest Americans, probably in the $500-$600 range (again in today’s dollars) was the “Indispensable Man” who led the colonial forces on the battlefield, George Washington.

A cardinal sin to Ethics Alarms is making Americans dumber, and the sin is central to AOC’s political existence. I highlighted some earlier a-historical blather in this post, but a narrative distorting the nature of the American Revolution is particularly unforgivable.

Memorial Event Ethics

I just returned from the memorial event for a long-time friend and colleague who died, suddenly, two months ago. We were not very close, and I had not seen or spoken to him in in over a decade, but we had done a lot of projects together (he was a pianist), and as Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t go to your friends’ funerals, they won’t come to yours.” The deceased was a really lovely human being, unusually so, and I felt privileged to have known him. So I went.

As I expected, I knew almost no one there, just a couple of theater community members and another musician who had played with my friend in a production I directed. Do provide name tags for such events. If you don’t they begin with a lot of wandering around and anxiety.

Another missing element today: there was no pre-announced end time. There was a program, but without any set times and vague entries like “Remembrances and stories” an attendee faces the theoretical possibility that the event will go on forever. And indeed, as the afternoon dragged on, I found myself wondering, “Am I going to die here?”

Because there were many musicians among the celebrants, we were treated to five musical selections by 1) a professional baritone singing “The Impossible Dream,”2) a passable tenor singing a song from an unproduced musical written by the deceased’s common law ex-wife (and making it clear why the musical remains unproduced), 3) another song, this one a duet, from that same source, 4) a very long Polish Christmas carol sung by a very old soprano and accompanied by a violin played by an even older violinist, then 5) the very old soprano sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “Carousel.”

The quality of the performances went down-hill from “The Impossible Dream,” but the main problem was that five unconnected musical performances is a revue, not a memorial service. This was the beginning of my fear that I was in an endless time loop. But there was more! A screen was pulled down and we were treated to an amateur video of my dead friend sight-reading an interminable medley of songs on the piano. This feature all by itself took more than a half an hour. Videos in such situations are like your grandfather showing home movies to dinner guests. If you have to include them at all, make them short and to the point. But no, after my friend’s shaky piano performance, complete with crude special effects like animated hearts leaping off the keys, the video shifted to an empty church with my friend accompanying a large baritone as he sang a fatuous musical prayer that may have been composed by Barney. (“I bless you, you bless me…”) The guy could sing, I’ll grant that, and he was at the memorial, so he could have sung live. I guess the idea was that the video had the loved one playing, but the video was also echo-y, in drab surroundings, of a drab song.

Addendum to the Axis Meltdown Over Virginia and Tennessee Redistricting Blows

In items #1 and #3 of the previous post, EA notes the freakout of Democrats over their own failed gerrymandering in Virginia and Tennessee’s elimination of its “black district.” On CNN, a Democrat acted as if the recent spate of gerrymandering was brand new to 2026, somehow managing not to mention the long-gerrymandered states above. Listen to this head-exploding discussion yesterday, below. It is pointed out that this “racist” redistricting of Memphis will likely remove a long time white Rep. Steve Cohen and that his likely successor will be a black Republican woman. At around the 6:20 mark, there is a cut in the video. What is left out is when one member of the panel asks, “Is allowing a black woman to take the seat of a white man racist?” and a Democrat answers, “Actually yes!” (Why was that telling exchange excised?)

Earlier, a progressive hack on the panel explains that including blacks in majority white districts means that they will no longer “have a choice.” They will have the same choice every citizen has in elections, unless the presumption is that all blacks will only choose to vote for black candidates, meaning that blacks will naturally discriminate against whites. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) is a spectacular hypocrite, saying that all members of both parties should be outraged now, while his party has benefited from the gerrymandering in the blue states above. Gerrymandering is terrible for Democracy, he says, but apparently that only concerns Suozzi when Democrats aren’t the only party doing it.

Yes, it is tit-for-tat, except that the Republicans finally woke up, first in Texas, and decided that the party was foolish to play a rigged game: nine blue states could legally gerrymander Republicans out of the House, but red states couldn’t respond in kind? Tit-for-tat is unethical, except when a short-term response in kind to unethical conduct can force a truce where the conduct is voluntarily eschewed by both sides. This is what the Republicans are doing now, and it is proof of that party’s irresponsible torpor that it didn’t do it years ago.

The problem is that I do not see what will bring this cycle to an end. The blonde hack on the panel demanding a constitutional amendment is grandstanding. That’s not going to happen.

The disinformation (or ignorance) the Democrats are flooding social media and the news with now is flagrant. Here’s Gavin Newsom: