The late, great, Jerry Vale..
(Also known as “the mob’s favorite tenor”…)
1. And speaking of Martin Scorcese movies, since Jerry Vale is alluded to in several of them…”The Irishman” has been viewed on Netflix by many of my showbiz friends, and most, while complaining about the film’s length, have declared the performances “brilliant.” This reaction, is, I think, bias at work, the so-called “halo effect.” It’s the same phenomenon I witnessed in the D.C. theater community, where certain actors, directors and big theater companies were routinely called “brilliant” in their efforts, when in truth, the exact same product presented by artists with lesser reputations would be shrugged off or ignored.
The three veteran stars of “The Irishman” are being praised by critics across the board, but in truth, with the exception of Al Pacino, they seem weary and channeling earlier, better performances. This is especially true of Joe Pesci, who shows none of the energy we associate with his best performances, and the script requires him to run the gamut of emotions, as the old joke goes, from A to C. He’s as old as Joe Biden, and looks and acts every inch of it, though his character is supposed to be younger. Scorcese has used tech wizardry to give De Niro a younger face when necessary, but it still sits on top of his 80-year-old body. and there is nothing in De Niro’s act that we haven’t seen over and over again (though not so much lately, as Bob has been collecting checks for bad movies in which he appeared to be “phoning it in”).
Pacino, as Jimmy Hoffa, is lots of fun as usual, but he doesn’t appear to be trying to be convincing as the mysteriously disappeared labor boss, who was 62 with he vanished. Pacino is 79. How could anyone call Pacino “brilliant” as Hoffa? Jack Nicholson was far more convincing in the film “Hoffa,” and Pacino isn’t significantly different than he was playing a Hollywood agent in “Once Upon A Time In America.”
It must be nice to reach that stage as an actor when you get paid big checks just to show up, like Marlon Brando in “Superman.” Especially if everyone is going to say you were brilliant.
2. And now for something completely stupid. This is remarkable in the dual category of incompetence in one’s chosen pursuit (theft) and unforgivable ignorance regarding social media. Arlando Henderson, 29, who worked for a bank in Charlotte, North Carolina, stole money from his employer’s vault at least 18 times, for a grand total of $88,000. He was apprehended and arrested after posting about his robbery hobby on Facebook, including posts showing his new Mercedes-Benz, and this one…
You know, if someone is this stupid, ethics alarms hardly matter…
3. Surely we are missing some crucial information here...The New York Giants, in the midst of a horrible season, fired veteran cornerback Janoris Jenkins last week. Why? He was engaged in an argument with a fan on social media who objected to Jenkins posting his personal stats after a game that his team lost, and wrote,
“I only can do my job.. retard.
Jenkins apologized in a second tweet, saying, “My apology for the word I used earlier…really didn’t mean no ‘HARM.'” No good: he was still released. The Giants coach confirmed that the player’s use of the “R-word” was the reason for his dismissal. “Obviously, what happened this week, and the refusal to acknowledge the inappropriate and offensive language, was the determining factor,” head coach Pat Shurmur said.
Obviously?
Do the Giants, which is a majority black team like most NFL teams, not allow hip-hop and rap music in the clubhouse. along with its routine ugly language? When did Cotton Mather get responsibility for creating the list of word taboos for NFL teams? Retard? This non-obscene, non-sexual, non-profane word is considered so vile that a pro football player using it once on social media is deemed to have committed a firing offense? In the context the word was used, “retard” meant no more than “idiot,” “imbecile, ” “moron” or “cretin.” Would those words also have been considered too strong for use by someone who is paid to give human beings CTE? By all means, let’s have a list of insults that are too mean to use in an argument for an employee in this most genteel of occupations. How about pinhead, spastic, dipstick, wanker, dick-head, fuck-face, jerk-wad, or village idiot? All firing offenses?
I don’t believe it. I think the Giants were virtue signaling while making up a reason for firing a player they wanted to release anyway. If so, the team’s rottenness extends beyond the football field.
Retards.
4. Putting it all in proper ethics perspective… CBS covered only 33.4% of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz on his report on the Russia probe, but covered 100% of the non-substantive Trump smearing exercise that was the the House impeachment hearings. I suppose the Big Eye could argue that the Senate hearing was just about a scandal while the House coup effort is a scandal—I’d agree with that—but we know that wasn’t its motivation. Count on ethical and objective investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald to cut through the media’s spin (and the “resistance’s” ‘How DARE the President impugn our noble intelligence agencies!‘) and put Horowitz’s report in proper perspective.
[O]ver the last three years, the strategy of Democrats and liberals – particularly their cable outlets and news sites – has been to venerate and elevate security state agents as the noble truth-tellers of U.S. democracy. Once-reviled-by-liberal sites such as Lawfare – composed of little more than pro-NSA and pro-FBI apparatchiks – gained mainstream visibility for the first time on the strength of a whole new group of liberals who decided that the salvation of U.S. democracy lies not with the political process but with the dark arts of the NSA, the FBI and the CIA.
Sites like Lawfare – led by Comey-friend Benjamin Wittes and ex-NSA lawyer Susan Hennessey – became Twitter and cable news stars and used their platform to resuscitate what had been a long-discredited lie: namely, that the FISA process is highly rigorous and that the potential for abuse is very low. Liberals, eager to believe that the security state agencies opposed to Trump should be trusted despite their decades of violent lawlessness and systemic lying, came to believe in the sanctity of the NSA and the FISA process.
The IG Report obliterates that carefully cultivated delusion. It lays bare what a sham the whole FISA process is, how easy it is for the NSA and the FBI to obtain from the FISA court whatever authorization it wants to spy on any Americans they want regardless of how flimsy is the justification. The ACLU and other civil libertarians had spent years finally getting people to realize this truth, but it was wiped out by the Trump-era veneration of these security state agencies.
In an excellent article on the fallout from the IG Report, the New York Times’ Charlie Savage, long one of the leading journalistic experts on these debates, makes clear how devastating these revelations are to this concocted narrative designed to lead Americans to trust the FBI and NSA’s eavesdropping authorities…
Personal note to Charles Green, my friend and the liberal commenter here who stomped out of the blog accusing me of “drinking the Kool Aid” on this exact issue: You owe me an apology, Charlie.
5. Let’s hope this makes Barack Obama really embarrassed about his Nobel Peace Prize. Ok, it’s schadenfreude, I admit it. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, appeared last week before the International Court of Justice and denied accusations that her government had committed genocide against the Rohingy, a minority population in the country. Also last week, the 2019 winner, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, faced accusations of a brutal crackdown on political protests, that caused him to skip a news conference after his Peace Prize acceptance speech.
The Nobel Peace Prize had made some spectacular mistakes in the past–Henry Kissenger? Yassir Arafat?–as well as some blatantly silly and political ones, like Al Gore and Obama, but its recent track record has finally rendered the over-hyped honor as a joke. No integrity, incompetent, irresponsible. The next recipient, if deserving, should throw it back.
Ethics Alarms 
A little background on Fat Albert’s Nobel Prize; Gore accepted it along with the UNIPCC, represented by (now former) IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachuari, a RR Engineer who writes porn novels in his spare time.
Quite a body of work, that Pachuari; leaving a real scary prediction of the Himalayan Glaciers disappearing by 2035 in the Assessment Report (AR) 4.
That the REAL year was 2350 and the UNIPCC had to embarrassingly withdraw their erroneous claim and apologize is inconsequential.
It accomplished what it was intended to accomplish; securing additional funding in the amount of $500 large for, amongst others, TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute).
TERI Director General? Rajendra Pachuari himself.
What are the odds?
Anywho, Pachuari replaced the widely respected Bob Watson ~2000 at the behest of a memo from EXXON-MOBIL.
Why? It was determined that Pachuari would be ‘friendlier” to business.
The type of “business” to whom he’d be friendlier is NOT a subject Global Warming Inc prefers to address.
A Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to none other than (and this is where it gets good!) Rajendra K. Pachauri, the TATA Group, shuttered British Steelmaking concern Corus Redcar, throwing 1700 people out of work.
Why? to cash in on windfall profits of ~$2 billion by selling its carbon credits.
Well, Corus Redcar was an evil polluter and those furloughed workers deserved their fate, am I right?
So, Pachuari really cut down on global pollution so the real GREEN ($) is due recompense for his selfless efforts.
Gore also edged out Irena Sendler, a TRUE hero if there ever was one!
Brilliant comment.
jvb
You’re too kind, jvb; thanks!
There should be, at the very least, a Smithsonian Special, telling the incredibly inspirational story of Irena Sendler.
Hey, the president of Mayanmar promised that if any isolated war crimes were committed against the Rohinga, they would be investigated and tried by the Mayanmar Military Justice System. Color me confident that Justice will Prevail!
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Any Who reference makes happy.
jvb
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
“Meet the new boss. Same as the old B.O.S.S.**
**Big Oversized Sub Sandwich, available at your favorite Madison area Pick-n-Save!
Re: #3;
Jack: “Surely we are missing some crucial information here…The New York Giants, in the midst of a horrible season, fired veteran cornerback Janoris Jenkins last week. Why?”
The missing information is that “retard” is on the up and coming list of words forbidden by progressives, as it was once used to demean certain people. The Giants are just trying to get ahead of the curve.
Jack: ” In the context the word was used, “retard” meant no more than “idiot,” “imbecile, ” “moron” or “cretin.” Would those words also have been considered too strong for use by someone who is paid to give human beings CTE?”
Idiot, moron, and imbecile are all on the list, as well, as they have been official terms to demean people, as well. I think you are safe with cretin.
Also on the list: lame (derogatory to the differently abled) and dumb (derogatory to deaf-mutes).
This is the ongoing march of the perpetually offended. If they are victorious in ANYTHING, they have to find another target for their outrage. That is why black and Negro have become offensive terms. When your mind-set is that the world is never perfect and must always be improved, you have to keep finding problems to solve.
“Retard”, though perfectly fine as a verb, is forbidden as a noun.
But, not to worry, the verb will come next, as the progressives are not niggardly in their opprobrium.
-Jut
I’ve been stared at when I have shouted “ritard, ritard” at my accompanist before (my accompanist understood, of course). Not only is the verb retard soon to be on the way out, but the shortcut to music’s ritardando is not looking good.
It’s a looming Niggardly Principle problem…
I think the up and coming replacement for ritardando is “simma donn.”
-Jut
Re: No. 4; The Left Loves Agents of the State. Who knew?
I graduated with a PoliSci degree from Kent State University in 1985. Liberalism and a budding leftism reigned supreme on campus. Lots of protests, lots of commemorating May 4th, and progressive student groups were very active protesting South Africa, US Latin American policy, . . .
The prevailing winds questioned the law enforcement, the IRS, State Department, FBI, CIA, and DOJ. They were referred to as agents if an oppressive, racist, evil state. Republicans and conservative groups had the exact opposite beliefs.
When did that change? Why didn’t anyone tell me? When did NPR, Pacifica, and Democracy Now become champions of law enforcement? Amy Goodman celebrates Comey? Republicans now don’t trust any law enforcement agencies. I can’t wrap my feeble brain around this. Help!
jvb
The truth came out about the misconduct of many law enforcement agencies, enabled by the lack of a culture of accountability.
“When did that change? Why didn’t anyone tell me? When did NPR, Pacifica, and Democracy Now become champions of law enforcement? Amy Goodman celebrates Comey?”
When glorifying them became necessary in order to bring down Donald Trump.
I have known for more than twenty years that the Dem leadership has no principles, only principals.
Just look at their support for gun control.
May Fourth? (You meant I think Cinco de Mayo).
JVB writes:
It seems to be a good question and one that if investigated could be fruitful. I have a small anecdote, an event that always caused me thought: once in Panama City in about 2013 (in Panama the country) I was chatting with an elderly taxi driver about the student protests that resulted, eventually, in the ‘sovereignty movement’ leading to the transfer of the Panama Canal and the entire Canal Zone to Panama. (You have to understand that the Panama region was originally a district of Colombia and the US engineered its secession from Colombia when it determined it would build the canal, and thus Panama as a country came into being. And you have to understand that there was hardly a ‘Panamanian identity’ because its identity was that the country was essentially created by the US presence.)
I expected him to support the student movement. But he said something interesting: that behind the protesting university kids who entered the Canal Zone and occupied buildings, hung flags, etc. were ‘rich men’ who directed their efforts or in other ways gave them support to affect political outcomes. When the transfer-deal was signed and the agreement worked out, it was then that a Panamanian identity was created. And it was not until after the transfer of the canal in 2000 that the Panamanian identity was ‘consolidated’ as it were. But that identity was still fragile or perhaps *incomplete* is the world. It had to be bolstered by government efforts, but PR campaigns, by establishing and strengthening patriotic festivals with State pomp.
In respect to Latin America you would have to understand the nationalistic movements that began, organically (and I would argue necessarily) in Latin America in the Postwar era. And you would have to understand the ‘democratic’ (a word you Yankees loooovvvveeeeeee) reasons why these movements came into existence and why there was a movement against the existing structuralism in all Latin American state structures. You would have to understand that there really were, and there really are, such a thing as ‘oppressive systems’ and these were established in Latin America by the Spanish: hierarchical systems designed to canalize and control the native, conquered, populations.
The way I describe it reminds one of Marxist analysis, and to a degree in fact it is, but these ‘systems of oppression’ were and are unique to Latin America whereas North America took another course: it simply annihilated the Natives and wanted nothing to do with them. It pushed them out of the picture and onto ‘reservations’. The US Systems — the governing structures — were founded on radically different terms. So, in N America, the foundations were laid for the type of civilization that developed in the North. This never happened in the South. And the South has been in a perpetual state of revolution or reform ever since the various nations worked out independence from Spain.
What must be understood — it is simply true and undeniable — that the efficient and ambitious Northerner (Yankee) took advantage of those ‘oppressive structures’ in order to establish the businesses that were first established in the Banana Republics. They simply fit themselves in the the established (and *oppressive*) hierarchies that existed in those countries, having been established by the Spanish.
If you understand the the business class of America is not a ‘liberation class’ and does not engage in social projects or ‘projects of democracy’, you can then understand better why this business class, and thus ‘Yankee Imperialism’, was identified not as a friend of democratic movements (movements oriented toward nationalization and reform of old, oppressive structures).
And if you understand these very basic elements — none of this is hard, and none of it is outrageous, and all of it is simply common sense) you can then understand why idealistic youths of your own country, attempting to renovate the foundations of American democracy in concept, allied themselves 1) with the Latin American liberation movements, and 2) took a position against the business and governmental systems which allied themselves with established hierarchies within Latin American cultures. (And here you must understand the function of police forces and military forces within those countries and the training and cooperation received from the US in order to create ‘conditions safe for American business’).
None of this is hard, and all of it is easy. These demonstrate the ‘dynamics of power’ and show ‘how power functions’. It is business nature and it is also human nature.
You wish to understand how it came about that certain institutions (I refer to them as ‘mechanisms’ and for good reasons) came to be seen as ‘evil’ or oppressive. Well, the answer to this is so very easy. Literally a child could grasp it. It has to do with the way that ‘mechanisms’ function. A mechanism is not an *ideology*. It is not ‘social anthropology’. You cannot demand of a mere mechanism that it work against its own interest! A mechanism (in the sense that I am using this term, and I use it fairly) has only one purpose: to earn money. It cannot turn against its own internal machination to become an ‘enterprise of liberation’ or of ‘uplift’.
You must too understand the role of PR here. Public Relations is another sort of mechanism thats purpose is to modify and channel ‘how things are seen’. It is a perception-molding enterprise. It could help people — since its objective audience is literally the masses — to see correctly and clearly, but it could also be used for precisely the opposite: to confuse how things are seen: to obscure. To make ‘true perception’ or accurate perception difficult or even impossible.
Now, we can return to your *plaintive cry*. And I am here to help, brother! Take my outstretched hand and I will lead you out of Plato’s Cave where obscuring shadows flicker on the dreary walls and thus in the inner recesses of your ‘occupied mind’! Let’s journey up & out and into the bright light of day!
Just hold in your mind as you tremble there in confusion & psychic pain that we live within a system whose design is to obscure & confuse. I know, I know, this is a tough one, but allow the Red Pill to penetrate further into your mental fibers! This is spiritual medicine I administer! I am merely telling you a truth, and it is a truth that has to do with *the way power functions* and the way that perception is molded by powerful interests.
I recognize that Pacifica, NPR and Democracy Now! have a revolutionary message, and I recognize that their message has penetrated through the academy and down into the Halls of Power, but I must return to my simplistic anecdote from when I was a girl in Panama City: we have to understand the ‘machinations of power’ and *how power functions*.
If it ever did happen that socialistic power gained control through democratic processes in America, they would, quite naturally and quite obviously, have to be subsumed into existing structures and to be subsumed by those structures: government and corporate structures of course. And behind ‘the student activist’ — if my taxi-informant is correct — is the powerful wealth man, directing affairs, or in any case directing the flow of the cascading wave.
There is — of course! — a great deal more to be said in explaining *how our present functions*.
I assert one thing because I think it is true: if it were possible to define *people’s interests*, if we could sit down and create lists of what in fact is in a given people’s interest, the list we would come up with would be (here is my suggestion) quite different and substantially different from the *bill of goods* that is offered to us by powerful and private interests, by power-systems, and by their collusion with government power. It does not matter where you turn, these are universal truths.
The Donald Trump Movement, according to Steve Bannon & Others, is one that is motivated by and directed by ‘the people’: those forgotten people of America’s inner core. That is how the story goes and how the *narrative* is presented. I assert that this not only is likely to be a farce but that it simply has to be one. For the very simple reason that I have spelled out: power will insert itself at every important juncture and will control a ‘cascading wave’ and direct it to its purposes. There is far too much at stake right now, and far too much wealth & value to be left in the hands of fickle ‘people’.
A Spectacle is being performed in front of us. And the individual has to find and locate him and herself within a ‘perceiving structure’ that can resist obfuscation. This is as I say philosophical, intellectual, historical and also spiritual work.
El peje guerrero va pasando
Recorriendo el reino que domina
I prefer Juan Luis Guerra y 440:
La Cosquillita.
El Costo de la Vida:
jvb
“Frío Frío”
Tu amor despierta y lava su carita
de rosas me salpica
y sin saber es una vía láctea
que gira y me da vida
Tu amor lo guardo dentro de mis ojos
como una lagrimita
y no los lloro para que no salgan
tus besos de mi vista
jvb
Ugh. To quote Polonius: “He is far gone, far gone.” 🙂
I fell away when he went all born-again Christian and stated he would devote his future shows and recordings to the Lord.
jvb
Alizia,
May 4th is correct. In May 1970, there was huge student unrest across the country, protesting escalations in Vietnam, and a host of other problems. By late April, protests bubbled into violent confrontations between students and police. Kent State University was no exception. It had a very active chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society. SDS led protests, shutting down campus buildings, taking over the administration offices, rioting in the town center. As violence increased, the mayor of Kent, Ohio, called on the Ohio Governor for assistance. The Ohio Governor ordered the Ohio National Guard to the campus to restore order. As luck would have it, the same unit of the National Guard that had been dealing with a vicious, violent labor strike in Akron (not 20 miles away) with the Teamsters, was sent to the campus. They were unprepared, stressed, frustrated, and generally poorly trained to deal campus unrest.
The National Guard entered campus late in the afternoon to jeers and taunts. The next morning, National Guardsmen were heckled, rocks were thrown, and in the confusion/melee, orders were given to fire on the protesters. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded, some critically with permanent injuries. Kent State had the effect of stifling/shutting down further campus unrest: “Well, jeez, if we throw rocks at armed soldiers, bad things are probably gonna happen!” That is what I meant by May 4th, not Cinco de Mayo or May Force.
As for the rest of your post, well done. Though, you may have missed the tongue-in-cheek nature of my plea for help. You are spot on with your analysis of the mechanics/mechanisms of power.
jvb
Thank you. I am glad that you understand what I try to say. It is my *core problem* and I do not know how to solve it.
If I turn to Nietzsche I might resolve it with a conscious decision to embrace the use of power with no apologies. That would mean dropping the pretense of saying that what we do is something different than what it is.
If you have any ideas let me know. I am actually saying ‘help!’ but without irony.
Here is a topic worth blogging about.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/12/15/army-navy-officials-investigate-possible-white-power-gestures-by-students/
I noticed very many Woketarian comments posted in the article.
2. As an avid watcher of “Live PD”, I am reminded of what co-host (and police officer) Sean Larkin has said on numerous occasions:
“We don’t catch the smart ones…”
I really hate how the commentators on that show gleefully cover for blatant civil rights violations occurring live in all of our living-rooms.
On Saturday they were trying to push that the 4th amendment does not apply if you are in a hotel room. It just infuriates me.
3. This is part and parcel of the war on language that has become the vogue on the Left in America today (of which the “woke” NFL is definitely a member). I remember a time when it was Christian conservatives were the ones who, with some justification, were accused of burning books and trying to place certain language off limits.
I’m also so old I remember the Viet Nam war, and the civil war fought by the liberals at the time (who couldn’t get elected dog catcher in a Leftist jurisdiction these days) fought tooth and nail for free speech, and ushered in numerous Supreme Court decisions protecting it.
An old yoga maxim says that we all eventually become what we hate. I never expected that to become a truism.
And yes, this was corporate virtue signalling as well. It’s just a parade of horribles, if you think about it.
4. IG report
Yep. And a big, heaping helping of Crow fricassee.
In Charles’ defense, he heard nothing from his bubble except support for his position. More proof, if any is actually needed, that bias makes us do and say stupid things.
5. Maybe the Nobel committee should rethink their definition of what “peace” means. It’s pretty clear Inigo Montoya’s admonition to Vizzini in The Princess Bride has stood the test of time well, and should be repeated to the Nobel committee.
I’m very disappointed in Charles, not because he was wrong (or because he was obviously wrong at the time) but because he hasn’t had the guts to come crawling back.
Charles may have the issue of still being right despite the facts (a common progressive malady) which prevent his return.
He as a fun guy to talk to: usually we could agree to disagree.
I had lunch with him..he’s a GREAT guy. That’s why this is alarming and depressing. It’s not just the jerks and idiots who have had their heads turned inside out.
Of all the people I think about when I type the disclaimer Lefties (most, not *ALL*) the talented Mr. Green is at the top of the list.
You out there, Charles…..?
Was the lunch pre or post Trump?
I too remmeber that.
The difference is that academics and intelligentsia and broadcast network pundits did not back up Christian conservative attempts to censor people.
Today, the current campaign of censorship is supported by many academic, political, and media leaders and spokesholes.
3) Would you fire an employee if they called a client a retard, if a client was concerned they weren’t doing their job as well as they could?
Same question without the caveat which is unnecessary:
Would you fire an employee if they called a client a retard?
I would fire an employee for insulting any client, but not because he used “retard” to do it. I would also have a policy forbidding employees from having social media interaction with clients.
Since teams encourage players to have a social media presence, I think NFL players are in a special category. Ethics Incompleteness Principle.
Permitting social media presence doesn’t automatically surrender the expectation of maintaining professionalism as representatives of the organization.
It would seem they were ethically in the clear firing him, regardless of whether or not they were looking for a reason to do so.
Not if they wouldn’t fire one of their popular and bona fide stars for the same offense, and you and I both know they would not. If Eli Manning wrote that single tweet, he would be allowed to apologize, and that would be it. Thus it isn’t a real standard.
And here’s where I struggle with the standard. Do we have comparable instances of stars insulting individuals and getting a pass consistently enough to say there is no true standard, because I hate “you and I both know…” arguments.
We have plenty of examples of stars doing worse than using the word “retard” and getting away with it. I’d like to see icon QB Manning say, “You know what? It was retarded to fire my team mate for that” and see what happens.
1. Marlon Brando’s performance in Superman inspired a review that I’ve always remembered, “How is it that this silly man, who makes an ass of himself every time that he opens his mouth offstage, is able to imbue even this preposterous role with seriousness and dignity? As President Carter says, there are many things in life that are not fair.”
3. I think the information that we are missing is that (a) Jenkins was always only an average player, (b) he is now over the hill and (c) if the Giants get away with firing him on the morals clause instead of letting him finish the last two games in the season, they will save a lot of money (I think I read $11.4 million) that they would otherwise have to pay him under his current contract.
3) That would be troubling in the ethics calculus.
But it’s kind of like the whole “Is Trump investigating Biden because Biden is corrupt as sin or is Trump investigating Biden because it personally benefits his reelection efforts”…
Trump is not accused of investigating Biden. Instead, he is accused of asking someone else to investigate Biden.
Now here is a thought experiment.
If a district attorney running for re-election comes across evidence of criminal activity by an opposing candidate, is it proper to ask someone else to investigate?
Why or why not?
It was short hand.
I think it is a mighty stretch to call a possible NFL fan a client (we don’t even know that this rando twitter user was a fan, although I must assume they were if they were following an NFL player).
I think a more realistic comparison would be to ask if you would fire someone who used the word “retard” in a pejorative sense (since that word does have non-pejorative meanings still) on social media.
Context would show the employee of the organization used it in a pejorative sense while representing the employer.