Good Morning!
1 Red Sox colors. I sometimes feel guilty about the fact that since I was 12, the fate of the Boston baseball team has been able to elevate or undermine my view of the day, existence and the cosmos regardless of what other far more objectively important and significant events have occurred within my family, in my life, or to nation or the world. It is because I care, as writer Roger Angell once wrote in his New Yorker essay “Agincourt and After” (I know I have quoted it before), and caring itself has importance, whatever the object of it…
“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete — the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball — seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”
2. This video is almost res ipsa loquitur for its ethical content:
Almost.
There you have it: proof positive of the slippery slope the sloppily sentimental, irresponsible support for “Dreamers” polishes to a fine sheen. The illegal immigration, open borders and anti-U.S. sovereignty activists won’t be satisfied, because they really think they have a right to just take U.S. citizenship irrespective of our laws. They will also call anyone who opposes that assertion “racist.” They are so deluded, moreover, that they don’t realize how much a display like the one above damages their unethical cause. I heard some commentators say the episode made them feel sorry for Pelosi. Sorry for her? Her demagoguery and her party’s dishonesty and cynicism on this issue is what created that mob.
This was what George Will calls “condign justice.”
3. Once I would have made Hillary’s NPR interview a freestanding post, but I want her to fade way into the obscurity that she so richly deserves, and I don’t want to keep picking on her, even though she appears to be determined to keep saying head-exploding, self-indicting things until the DNC has her kidnapped and spirited away to Sri Lanka.
Democrat Hillary Clinton refused to rule out challenging the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election in an interview released Monday afternoon, though she said such a move would be unprecedented and legally questionable.
“I don’t know if there’s any legal constitutional way to do that. I think you can raise questions,” Clinton told NPR’s Terry Gross during an extended interview on “Fresh Air,” before pivoting to criticism of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 race.
Gross quickly returned to her initial question, asking if Clinton would “completely rule out questioning the legitimacy of this election if we learn that the Russian interference in the election is even deeper than we know now?”
“No. I would not,” Clinton said.
Thus did Hillary Clinton give aid, authority and false moral cover to the undemocratic efforts of “the resistance” to undermine the President and pursue non-electoral means of removing him from office. Ten full months after November 8, 2016, the woman who lectured Donald Trump about how it was disgusting and dangerous for him to even hint that he might not accept the results of the election (after all, Hillary was certain that she would win) is saying that she has still not irrevocably accepted the results, and might yet join another effort–after encouraging an unjustified recount and encouraging an electoral college revolt—to throw the U.S. into a Constitutional crisis and domestic turmoil so she can get her grubby hands on the power she craves.
Her justification? Russian static and disinformation aimed to stain our democracy, and leaks of factual information showing the depth of her corruption and that of her party. Yet none of this rose to the level of manipulation Clinton’s own party used to win the 2012 Presidential race. Barack Obama hid his lie about the Affordable Care Act until he was safely elected. His IRS crippled conservative groups that wanted to bolster the effort to defeat him. He employed Susan Rice, the news media and Hillary herself to perpetuate the false narrative that the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate was not an Al Qaeda operation, since he was campaigning on the lie that he had “decimated” the terrorist group. In addition, his party’s Senate leader issued an intentional and scurrilous lie, slurring his Mitt Romney by suggesting that he had inside knowledge that the candidate hadn’t paid any taxes. Despite this, no Republican ever suggested the election wasn’t legitimate, or that it could be overturned.
Clinton is beneath contempt, and at this point so is anyone who supports her, enables her, or makes excuses for her.
4. Finally on YouTube (I’ve been wanting to post on it for months):
This Allstate commercial, which has been running a long tome now, shouldn’t be funny. It’s tragic. The conduct of the driver’s family is rude, and the parents permitting the conduct are incompetent. This realistic scene is a troubling microcosm of how the culture is becoming fractured, anti-social, rude and callous. It demonstrates why fewer and fewer Americans know how to have conversations, and why they think cyber-contact is genuine contact.
The father should stop the car, and tell every member of the family to put aside their devices and talk to each other, or to get out and walk.
The Unabomber was right.
Ethics Alarms 
#2 I laughed aloud when I saw Pelosi getting shouted down by the same nonsense that she herself has helped to create and promote. I can’t wait to hear how she spins this one.
I couldn’t help but notice the faces of the people standing behind Pelosi, they didn’t appear to be very happy about the “protesters”.
#3 Since the Clinton’s always have some kind of political endgame in mind no matter what they do; what is the end game of Hillary’s book?
”what is the end game of Hillary’s book?”
Seriously, what’s the endgame of her seemingly endless whiny “it’s everyone’s fault but mine” spittle-flecked slobberfest?
How does any fact-based Universe dwelling, rational thinking person see it?
On thing’s for sure: it’s a veritable “falling backwards into money” treasure trove for HRC and Lefty democrat Party detractors.
What I don’t get is how do people that have her ear not feel compelled to communicate this?
So the political endgame is to raise money for the Democrats?
I’m not the one to come to for astute political analysis.
Two of my more…um…telling predictions?
1- Ronald Reagan won’t even be nominated, much less elected.
2- The only way The Donald will see the inside of the Oval Office will be on a WH tour.
Nah…political endgame is legacy. Legacy is future. I guarantee that Chelsea Clinton will run for president, whether it’s in 7 years or 31 years. When she does, legacy will matter. Financial security and a head start now helps with all of that.
Nah. Chelsea is like Caroline Kennedy….bland and colorless. No chance. John John, though he was a pretty boy dummy, might have had a chance, had the Lethal Kennedy Recklessness Gene not gotten him first.
So true, what you say about John-John.
(as I hear the Cntons exhaling yooge sighs of relief)
Hmmm…. plane crashes are a common thread in the Clinton circles… I count 5 suspicious ones that were very convenient for the Clintons.
Maybe this was a 6th? 🙂
Well, we can look at precedent… in a past another Democrat leader who lost big as the head of a group that no longer felt it was part of the American Republic. Jefferson Davis spent a month after Lee surrendered refusing to admit defeat and pondered establishing a government in exile.
I wouldn’t doubt there’s legions of Hillary acolytes who would be willing to pretend the farce that she’s the ‘legitimate’ president of the United States, and even some fully embedded in the bureaucracy whose hearts are in the same place.
At some point, ethically, it would have to be recognized that this whole Lost Cause view of the Hillary candidacy is, at least in spirit, an insurgency against the Constitutional rule of our nation.
Hillary could show us to be the statesman she wanted us to believe she was by scrambling together the shambles of her dignity and making a statement that owns her 95% share of her loss and then quit discussing anything related to the election and get on with her business of being a politician in the current environment OR better, retire.
Just saw this and I had to share…
Jack,
Wrong date on the post title.
Fixed it. I’ve done this about four times already. Three awful days in a row, and waking up at six to take the dog to the vet, then discovering that he limped yesterday as a joke, or something. %%$#@$% Jack Russells…
“…take the dog to the vet, then discovering that he limped yesterday as a joke, or something. %%$#@$% Jack Russells…”
I laughed out loud… my Rat Terrier/Chihuahua mix coughs and chokes when she wants attention. How do I know she is faking? A stern word from the Alpha (me) stops her. If she really was choking she could not stop, but she does, every time. And looks guilty, but any dog will act guilty at a stern word. (They have guilt complexes, I think, or have really done things they know better than and think you caught them)
#4 “This realistic scene is a troubling microcosm of how the culture is becoming fractured, anti-social, rude and callous. It demonstrates why fewer and fewer Americans know how to have conversations, and why they think cyber-contact is genuine contact.”
That is spot on!
I find this GEICO commercial much worse than the Allstate one:
I wouldn’t argue with you. Nice values and priorities they are teaching there.
Just more of the relentless attack on fatherhood that’s been going on since the ‘sixties with Norman Lear, and then Matt Groening and everyone in between, including Rosanne.
Ooops. My mistake. That’s an AFLAC ad, not GEICO. My apologies to GEICO. Here are two of their good ones:
The guy playing Marco Polo does a great job. The llama is a nice touch as well.
Wait: I almost wrote about that. The llama is a South American, New World beast! What in the world does Marco Polo have to do with Llamas? He couldn’t possibly have seen one, could he? This always bothered me about that ad.
The point of Geico ads is the non sequitur… I think the llama is just a llama here.
Was it Groucho who said, “Sometimes a Llama is just a Llama”?
So you’re saying it might just as well have been a kangaroo or an octopus?
Yup. My interpretation, and worth every penny you paid for it.
Nope. It might as well just have been a gecko.
We love the Marco Polo ad in our house. Even the 5-year-old. Since I loathe most Geico ads, that’s really high praise.
The ad that bothers me isn’t about insurance. It’s about underarm deodorant, and the freedom of a user of such to test its effectiveness. (I searched, but could not find the ad in the first few pages of YouTubes.)
Anyway, some female voice off-screen scolds some young guy who has just applied the deodorant and touched the spot on himself where he applied it: “Don’t. That’s weird.” My reaction: No, it isn’t weird. It’s kinda natural – like the hairs in the guy’s armpits. Bugger off, control freak!
I demand equality! I demand a sequel commercial, with the same guy, same deodorant, same set-up, and same scold-y lady-voice. When she asks what he’s doing (after he has touched himself, just like he did in the first commercial), instead of explaining what he’s doing, the guy must say: “What’s it to you? Don’t ask! That’s weird!” And end the ad right there.
# 3 “I want her to fade way into the obscurity that she so richly deserves”
She just won’t go gently into that good night; too much chardonnay or not enough?
You’d think she’d actually want to do some grandparenting and yoga rather than prostituting those lofty pursuits as smokescreens.
Reminds me of what Major G.F. Devin (Peter Jason) said to Clint Eastwood’s Gunny Highway in the (IMHO) eminently quotable “Heartbreak Ridge.”
“You know, some men in your position might look forward to retirement. Maybe think about taking the wife on an around the world cruise. But that’s not your way, is it?”
Her way? She might take a more proactive approach to her new PAC “Onward Together,” but according to what I’ve read it hasn’t done too much other than collect donations.
I doubt HRC is going away. I bet she can still raise money and I suspect the DNC is still a subsidiary of Clinton Inc. I think she fully intends to run in 2020. Frankly, I’m surprised she hasn’t already announced her candidacy (and another upcoming book). The next election is only about three years away.
Yep. We are merely seeing the first stages of Hlary’s rehab.
If Trump isn’t too old to run again, she certainly won’t be, either.
#2 Shouting down speakers and violent protests/riots appears to becoming the new norm for promoting your social and political agendas; I wonder what’s going to happen when radical Islamist’s trying to shove Sharia Law down our throats start using these tactics? I can hear it now; shouting down members of Congress, the House, Governors, Mayors, school boards, the President all being yelled at to abolish the Constitution and destroy all USA history because it’s against Sharia Law. Is it inevitable?
What? You think I’m nuts! You don’t think that would ever happen in the United States?
The simple fact is that a new precedence is being pushed to the forefront of political power and acceptable societal behavior when promoting your social and political agendas in the United States; you just keep on thinking whatever it is you need to help you sleep at night.
If you’re able to open your mind, this should ring some bells…
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller
We should all read Sinclair Lewis’ book “It Can’t Happen Here.”
“All of us or none of us!” Well, when you put it like that…
Well, the Demos cynicism and Obama created this monster. Gratitude for obtaining skills and education they wouldn’t have got in Mexico and Central America? Forget it!!
He employed Susan Rice, the news media and Hillary herself to perpetuate the false narrative that the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate was not an Al Qaeda operation,
It has never been officially confirmed that the attack on Benghazi was an Al Qaeda operation.
He employed Susan Rice, the news media and Hillary herself to lie about what happened knowing well enough that a protest wasn’t the origin of the attack. *IF the term “Al Qaeda” is your hang up, so you can focus on the meat of the assertion that you’ve avoided: the false narratives employed close to the election to take heat off Obama’s reelection effort.
*it’s pretty conclusive that Al Qaeda was involved or at least a well organized terror organization.
We’ve been over the amount of information the administration had at the time, the differing reports, and so on. We disagree, and in this case, I’m comfortable in knowing that there is merit to both our positions on this issue.
Chris wrote, “We’ve been over the amount of information the administration had at the time, the differing reports”
Can you provide links to the information “at the time” that said the attacks were about the video?
I have before, and I’m satisfied with the evidence I presented in those discussions even though I never did reach an agreement with the skeptics. I’m not interested in a repeat performance.
Please provide a link to the conversation.
Once again, I’m going to respectfully decline your request on the grounds that I have no wish to rehash an old argument. (I was recently given some good advice by another poster here about knowing when to give up the need to have the last word.) I hope you will respect my decision; if not, you are free to search the blog for the previous conversations. But I won’t be replying further on this topic. Have a nice day.
You moved the goalposts again (see below) and made a new claim above; you have been given the opportunity to support your argument; please do so.
Chris wrote, “I’m going to respectfully decline your request on the grounds that I have no wish to rehash an old argument.”
To my knowledge you haven’t presented a shred of evidence to support this new claim so therefore you wouldn’t be rehashing an old argument. Your justification for not replying to the request is bogus.
I’ll give you a little help with this one Chris. There were no reports provided to the United States government at the time that they made the protest/video claims that showed that the Benghazi attack was derived from protests outside the gate or was a result of the video. They presented what they assumed was true and got caught in a totally fabricated lie. Your claim is false.
Have a nice day.
You’re too slow. The link is at the bottom of this reply to the thread where you made claims that “several of the attackers said… at the time of the attack… that the anti-Islam video was a motivating factor”. Do you comprehend that the claim I just quoted and your claim above are two entirely different claims.
Let’s get something really clear Chris; your claim in the other thread was derived from interviews taken well after the attack was over and well after the administration made the claims about the video; this “new” claim from you is saying that the administration had information “at the time” showing that the attack was due to the video. You moved the goalposts again.
Let me ask again; provide a link to the information that the administration had “at the time” that they made the claims that the attack was about the video. I’m giving you a fair shake, now take advantage of it and prove your claim.
Here’s a link to the thread.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/09/03/presenting-three-new-rationalizations-narcissist-ethics-the-dead-horse-beaters-dodge-and-the-doomsday-license/
“The father should stop the car, and tell every member of the family to put aside their devices and talk to each other, or to get out and walk.”
Awfully chauvinist of you to presume the father is some sort of leader of the household that he can tell his wife to put up her phone.
Right. He’s half of a parenting unit, and the wife is being a bad role model and parent. It would be the duty of either to do this.
I’ll admit to enjoying our own adult convo in the car sometimes on family trips when both girls have their headphones on in the backseat. We adults can have the conversation we forget to at other times. But it’s only on long trips on the boring parts, because I’m an ogre parent. I think they should actually SEE some of the landmarks, etc. Especially on short drives, like every day.
“Democrat Hillary Clinton refused to rule out challenging the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election in an interview released Monday afternoon, though she said such a move would be unprecedented and legally questionable.”
Until it can be shown that actual votes were illegally modified or illegally cast in quantities necessary to change electoral outcomes of individual states, then there is NO question about the legitimacy of the election.
Couldn’t that have been Hillary’s interpretation of the question? She was asked if she would “completely rule out questioning the legitimacy of this election if we learn that the Russian interference in the election is even deeper than we know now?” I took that to mean vote-tampering, in which case I’d agree with you that that would be the only case in which questioning the legitimacy of the election would be valid. But it was a pretty unclear question, and Clinton had a duty to explain her answer more clearly than she did.
Chris wrote, “I took that to mean vote-tampering”
Why, why, why do you constantly try reading things between the lines that are simply not there; this is a bad habit of yours, it’s clouding your views, it’s a misrepresentation of what is written, it really is a comprehension problem and it routinely gets you into hot water.
Please start reading things for what they are not what you want them to be.
Be fair.
The crap that is a politically worded question is that it is vague enough that there are a wide spectrum of ‘valid’ interpretations of the meanings of any particular vaguely worded statement/question.
At one end of the spectrum is how Chris interprets the question and answer. At the opposite end is what hyperactive sycophants would hear as a dog whistle of “any level of disagreeable involvement through any means counts as delegitimizing the election”.
It always allows politicians to get across the meaning to their sycophants with the plausible deniability of “no, no, be sensible, I really meant this other interpretation”
To clarify, honest politicians, when given an easy question like that designed to allow such a disingenuous connotatively diverse answer, have a duty to be as clear as possible in their answer to limit the wide spcectrum of interpretations to something clear and debatable.
Which Hillary did not do, as the Clintons are masters of the vague deniable dog whistling answers.
You or someone else here described that approach as “giving them the answer to the question you wanted them to ask.”
I can’t disagree with anything you’ve written here Tex. Both the questioner and Clinton failed at their duties here.
I guess I think the whole election needs review only IF there is actual evidence of something like vote tampering. But then I feel like all of us should want that, THEN. And no, there’s not yet a Constitutional blueprint for it, but hey, I say that living document can change, man. I’m not exactly happy with the winner, but alas, he was the winner of the election. But only if we learn of anything besides the stuff we’ve heard so far, which just involved changing peoples’ minds. People believed idiotic stuff that was created to change their minds. Sadly, that’s the way advertising works.
Hi Beth!
I did not need fake news to change my mind: what Hillary said was quite enough for this deplorable.
Just sayin’
texagg04 wrote, “Be fair.”
I was being fair; actually very fair and very civil.
The correct way to interpret the question is it was broad, to broad to be answered without making assumptions so the response should have been “it depends on the kind of deeper interference that is uncovered” instead of jumping to conclusions that are not actually part of the question.
Reading between the lines is making assumptions and leads to poor comprehension of the statement/question and causes problems. If the statement/question is too vague, then someone should ask what they mean instead of making assumptions.
I agree, Zoltar. Though I interpreted the question a certain way, it was too broad to be clear, and Clinton should have asked for clarification.
Of course, your interpretation is excessively generous given the entire attitude displayed by Clinton and the Left regarding finding every way to undo the election thus far.
Chris, she assumed that the question was broad, and answered it broadly, because she meant it broadly. During the campaign, she was constantly claiming that she spoke in “shorthand” when she got in trouble. She’s a lawyer. She knows words have meaning (unlike, say, Trump.)
Second.
There is no evidence of vote tampering, nor any legitimate or credible allegations of vote tampering. Even the suggestions of vague Russian “interference” have never suggested vote tampering.
Chis might as well write, “I took that to mean that Trump is secretly a lizard-man from the planet Zontar”
Jesus.
It’s almost as though Hillary thinks we didn’t need hear her demand Trump accept the outcome of the election.
needI get autocorrect changing words whole cloth on me. I don’t get autocorrect arbitrarily adding words ex nihilo into my sentences.
It’s almost as if no Democrats remember either.
texagg04 wrote, “It’s almost as though Hillary thinks we didn’t hear her demand Trump accept the outcome of the election.”
If she doesn’t acknowledge it and they successfully scrub history in the manner of their choosing, then she didn’t say it and the left leaning press will purge it from the memories of the population.
There is no evidence of vote tampering, nor any legitimate or credible allegations of vote tampering. Even the suggestions of vague Russian “interference” have never suggested vote tampering.
You are correct. That means that even if the interviewer had clarified the question to my liking, it still would have been an irresponsible, baseless and unethical question.
If it turns out Trump did conspire with Russia in their attempts to influence the election through hacking and fake news, or promised them anything in return, that would still not invalidate the election; the correct course of action would be impeachment.
Bingo.
I read this interview with Clinton yesterday. Aside from the hypocrisy of not necessarily accepting the election results when the Democrats had excoriated Trump before the election for implying the same, one other observation occurred to me.
Clinton is failing to surpass the bar set by Richard Nixon in 1960 when he decided to accept the results of that election, overruling many of his advisers and supporters.
I took at look at the 1960 results — there were 9 (or 10 depending on how you count them) states that were decided by a margin of less than 10,000 votes, including a 115 vote margin for Kennedy in Hawaii. There was almost certainly voter fraud in several states, most notoriously Illinois and Texas (several counties in Texas reported more votes cast than registered voters).
Nixon likely could have thrown the country into chaos had he vigorously challenged the election — but he did not. In my opinion, one of his better decisions.
Tricky Dick’s finest moment.
“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives.
Not caring doesn’t necessarily follow.
Often the people who percieve sports fandom to be childish are military personnel who work under harsh conditions in our nation’s defense, or people engaged in charitable works.
They grew up and they care about adult persuits.
As I have discussed at any times, the argument that sports, or caring about sports, is childish is naive and ignorant, based on a lack of understanding and experience. It is a bit like regarding games generally as trivial, or movies, theater or literature. Red Smith said baseball is dull to dull minds; my version would be “baseball(or sports) is trivial to shallow people.”
“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” C.S. Lewis
If it’s childish, then let it be so.
Terrific quote. I would have liked C.S.
“Red Smith said baseball is dull to dull minds; my version would be “baseball(or sports) is trivial to shallow people.””
Thanks, Jack. I love that! It will forever mystify me why so many sideline sages see only empty triviality in the sports team-follower’s interests. I have found that I can shut up a few of them – if they are truly as savvy as they think they are (or would like for me to think they are). When I sense the put-down coming on, I just say (something like), “Well, they’re professionals. They’re in a business. If they do well, their business prospers. If they don’t do well, then they fail along with their business – but not just their business. Think of all the food service and hospitality workers who prosper if a team prospers. Good teams bring money to town; they’re job-creators, enrichers-of-others – including governments who love the tax revenues. So, why, now, is it senseless of me to want my hometown team to do well?”
We sports fans are consumers AND investors.
Re: the Allstate commercial. Mixed feelings about this issue. Although I can see why dad is annoyed and perhaps the kids and probably mom are being rude, he could always turn on his satellite radio and continue watching the traffic. If they’re on a long drive the kids will probably be getting bored with dad’s choice of music or news. The old days of singing family songs on a road trip are long gone.
I have found that sans devices, you can engage if you already know your kids. Teens do not want to participate (in whatever the topic is, doesn’t matter) but you can usually get them to join in with a little persuasion… failing that, coercion works for me as well. 🙂
“Whose permission did you need for that choir trip? Oh year, me! Dontcha think a little effort on your part is worth my good will?”
This tactic usually gets a small smile, and breaks the ice when a bad mood is in the way.