This one is cross-filed with the Ethics Alarms “Fake News” stories, in the “Future News” sub-file. I would say it’s disgusting, but the mainstream media’s standards have become so disgusting that I don’t know what qualifies as disgusting any more. It’s like complaining, “This is a disgusting maggot-infested road-kill sandwich!!! I should be able to get a better maggot-infested road-kill sandwich than this!”
CNN dredged up Alyssa Farah, who previously served as White House communications director under President Donald Trump for a few months in 2020. She was a guest because apparently CNN was tipped off that she could be counted on to denigrate her former boss. We will be seeing more of this, as the mainstream news media embarks on its mission of trying to torpedo Trump’s 2021 Presidential prospects, since it is increasingly clear that a relatively bright GOP sea anemone will be able to defeat Joe Biden. Factual problems with Trump are obviously deemed inadequate, so now the media is stooping to getting predictions of dire actions from people with no more expertise or credibility than Alyssa Milano.
“You think that he will try to impose some form of autocracy?” Jake Tapper asked this nonentity. Nice set-up there, Jake, you hack. How about, “Do you think he’s a vampire?” or “Do you think he’ll try to get Putin to secretly steal the election?” Farah dutifully answered in the affirmative. “I think that he absolutely would. There were things he, he wanted to do when he was in power the first time that were well-beyond the scope of what the U.S. president should be able to do.” Farah then asserted that “oftentimes” Trump’s desire to secure reelection “kept him from doing things.”
“It’s very different in a second term. And I think that’s what, that’s what scares me the most,” she said. “You know, whether it’s weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents, whether it’s … going after the free press.”
Her moronic comments immediately reminded me of what wretched staffing and support this President, who promised to have “the best people” in his administration, ended up depending upon. True, the “resistance,” NeverTrumpers and assaults by the media unethically made it nearly impossible to really get the best people to work in Trump’s administration, but the man who used Michael Cohen as his trusted fixer also proved that he wouldn’t know a qualified and trustworthy public servant if one was sitting on his head. Elaine Chao? Steve Bannon? Jeff Sessions? Ben Carson? Scott Pruitt? Tom Price? Brenda Fitzgerald? Wilbur Ross? Rudy? Omarosa? If ever there was a President who desperately needed advice and assistance from the best and the brightest, it was this one. He never came close to finding enough of them.
But he ended up with a mass of Alyssa Farahs, devoid of loyalty, light of talent, and seeking an opportunity to cash in.
Of course, if Jake Tapper had any integrity–he used to— he would have responded to Farah’s answer, with, perhaps, “Wait, autocratic decisions like mask and vaccine mandates? Pulling out of Afghanistan without alerting Congress? Ordering businesses to defy a court stay? You mean like those kinds of things? And weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents…you mean like having the Attorney General threaten parents who dare to oppose progressive indoctrination in the public schools? Or having the FBI raid private offices and residence because Biden’s daughter’s diary was leaked? Or jailing and prosecuting January 6 rioters while George Floyd rioters were left alone? That kind of weaponizing?”
Jake might also have pointed out that Farah’s comprehension of American history and politics is disgracefully weak. You bet it’s “very different” in the second term: Presidents have less power than in their first terms, not more. As lame ducks, they can’t pressure their own party members to do what they want, much less the opposing party. That’s why the second elected terms of every President who started one since Eisenhower has been in the range of disappointment to disaster: Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and four of those five were elected decisively enough to claim a “mandate.”
Tapper’s guest literally didn’t know what she was talking about, but she was able to mouth scary nonsense about Donald Trump, and that was enough for CNN.
Ethics Alarms 
If it were possible, what do you say to a 6-year non-re-electable term?
No
What woud you say to 5 year Presidential terms and no more than two terms.
P.S. I don’t think there is any stomach for amending the Constitution for something like this.
There isn’t. I don’t think the Constitution gets amended again, unless it’s something very technical and relatively minor.
It would make Presidents too weak. I’d go for something funky, like 4 years, two terms, and the option of a third and final term if a POTUS gets re-elected by for term 2 by 10% or more.
I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion George Washington re-incarnate couldn’t assemble a qualified or ethical staff. The swamp really is wide and deep. There are only slimy hangers on in D.C. All of them, left and right, even the allegedly credentialed and experienced ones. See, eg, Fiona Hill. There are too many slots in an administration to fill with decent outsiders committed to changing things in the highest levels of the federal government.
This chick is a woman, not hard on the eyes, has a Middle Eastern sounding name, is a purported Republican and is willing to sell out Trump. She’s perfect. She IS one of the best people, certainly as far as the swamp and the media and the left (and much of the purported right) are concerned.
Kayleigh McEnany will be old ehough in April of 2024 to be elected President of the United States, she’s very intelligent and very quick, she’s a Republican, she knows what happens in the White House and politics, she’s already a confirmed liar so she doesn’t have to learn anythign in that department and her face is very well known.
There, that should stir the pot. 😉
Dang typos!
The Democrats can’t allow the public to see perceive Republicans as have any momentum heading into the 2022 elections. I think the Democrats will double down on all the things that have helped push their totalitarian ideological agent forward. I expect to see lots of gaslighting from the left in general and a rhetorical call to arms from progressives trying to fire up their army of social justice warrior activists to take to the streets and neighborhoods across the USA and not allow any Republican any peace. Attack, attack, attack until there is complete submission to their ideology and then figuratively kick the opposition while they’re down so they can’t get back up.
As for Donald Trumo and the 2024 election;
1. If the GOP allows the terribly unpresidential Donald Trump to be the nominee for the 2024 Presidential election then they deserve to be resoundly rejected at the ballot box, the United States doesn’t need Donald Trump back in the White House even if the Republicans have control of the House and Senate.
2. If Donald Trump happens to be elected again in 2024 who in their right mind would actually want to become part of his administration, everyone associated with Trump (and likely their families) will be attacked from stem to stern.
3. Since Donald Trump did such a good job (NOT) of getting the best people (NOT) in his first term as President and no one in their right mind would want to put themselves or their families through being part of his administration the second time around, who’s going to be left over to choose from? Maybe Trump can get a nice line up of never Trumpers and Democratic Party “deep state” operatives to fill up his administration so they can be on the front-lines looking out for something to leak to the media so they can smear him ad nauseum and use it to impeach him. What would you bet that a Democrtic Party controlled House of Represenatives could top themselves and impeach President Trump three or four times in his next term.
I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!
I say we’ve had enough political and social chaos and I don’t want Donald Trump as President ever again.
What I’d really like to see is Donald Trump swallow his narcissistic prode and do something that he’s likely not capable of doing and that’s to join forces with George Bush and publicly endorse a very intelligent, highly qualified, critically thinking, carasmatic, patrotic, reasonably humble and down to earth, well spoken, common sense candidate that has the moral fortitude to be a really solid ethical leader. They need to drive home that this candidate is what the USA needs to hold the Union together right now and take us into the future NOT the intentional division and chaos that’s offered to us by the Democratic Party and their social justice warrior progressives/regressives. (Mike Pence is not it, his carasma is that of a slug and he’s about as pompous as a person can be.) The GOP needs to be the intellectual antithesis of the irrational progressive totalitarian cult, fire up the conservative base and drive that point home in every district across the USA. The GOP needs a candidate that will effectively face down the political left irrational horde on an intellectual level not climb in the gutter for a sophomoric slug fest. Yes we will fight back but we will do it the right way. We need strong conservative ethical leaders to inspire a nationwide grass roots movement to support the constitution and the founding principles that made America great and openly and forcfully confront the rising totalitarianism and shut it down.
I think this is right, Steve, and it’s a big problem. As I wrote often in the last several years, it is a sadistic trick of fate that the single figure standing between the US and a leftist soft dictatorship is such a repellent character. It will be disastrous if the Democrats hold serve, and disastrous if Trump is the GOP candidate, win or lose. But I cannot imagine him being a statesman or a patriot and accepting defeat if he doesn’t get the nomination. He’ll do a Bull Moose and split the vote. You know he will.
The nation has to depend on…you know…something happening that prevents this scenario. Something.
Assassination? You said once that you would have been okay with that one kook who tried to grab a cop’s gun and assassinate Trump succeeding.
When did I say THAT? If I did, I was tripping, or something. I’ll retract it, if you can find it.
But having Trump vanish from the scene would be an unalloyed boon for the nation, that’s for certain.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/06/22/ten-observations-on-the-trump-assassination-attempt/
I’m going to amend here, and say you didn’t say you’d be “okay” with it. You said you wouldn’t have been sorry if the attempt had succeeded, which is a small but important difference. You also made a comparison with the assassination of Huey Long by Carl Weiss. In retrospect, that assassination may have been a net positive, since Long was a demagogue and budding tyrant. That didn’t stop me from almost jumping out of my shoes when I read that post, and admonishing you for making it. You did later say you’d be sorry about the manner, but not the result. I still think that post was a little close to the line, but I already said that.
Boiled down to its essence, my statement meant that the ends didn’t justify the means, but I approved f the ends. Is it ever ethical to say, “I’m glad he/she is dead, because society is safer and better off as a result?” Of to feel that, without saying it?
That’s a tough question to answer, at least from where I stand, Jack. Is it ever ok to believe society is safer/better off/generally a better place because someone is no longer a part of it? Yes, because it may be objectively true or it may be a sincerely held belief, hopefully based on evidence. However, it’s generally not considered ok to cheer or express joy at the death of another person.
It’s one thing if it’s someone like bin Laden, who almost everyone hated. who was objectively a villain, and had few friends, admirers, or family (his own family had disowned him and his homeland had divested him of his citizenship) except for villains like him. Most other people, I’d say you might believe it, but, assuming your brain is fully engaged and not fogged up, it’s a classless, tactless, rude, often vulgar, and frankly pointless act to do it. I’d leave cheering the death of others up to people like the idiots who thought somehow they made this world a better place by saying how glad they were that Rush Limbaugh was dead and he should rest in piss. You don’t, I think, want to be in that company.
I wanted to post “ding dong the witch is dead,” after Ginsburg died, but I didn’t, because I know she has a lot of admirers among my colleagues, and taking a shot at her wasn’t going to make her any deader. Did I say what I thought the policy consequences would be on SCOTUS? Yes. Did I remark on the fact I thought she had made a mistake by not retiring in 2013 and then trying to outlast Trump? Yes. Even that was, by some, considered a bridge too far, because they thought I was grinning inwardly as I wrote it.
Thinking that it’s better that someone is dead is one thing. Even saying it while talking off the record is one thing. But writing down that someone’s death is a benefit, no matter how you dress it up, is just too close to rejoicing at or mocking someone else’s misfortune. That’s something 14yos whose ethics alarms aren’t fully functional do – laugh at someone who trips and falls, snicker when someone accidentally spills something all over some new article of clothing, grind someone’s face in a mistake he already knows he made.
That really is an unexamined remark. Not only does it beg the question of whether America was great (as opposed to, say, measuring greatness tautologously as being defined by those principles), but also it begs the question of whether its founding principles did that (as opposed to, say, getting that from natural advantages and cultural inheritance).
I wrote, “… the founding principles that made America great …”
P.M.Lawrence replied, “That really is an unexamined remark.”
With all due respect, that’s utter hogwash!
P.M.Lawrence also replied, “Not only does it beg the question of whether America was great (as opposed to, say, measuring greatness tautologously as being defined by those principles), but also it begs the question of whether its founding principles did that (as opposed to, say, getting that from natural advantages and cultural inheritance).”
Without the founding principles of Liberty, the Constitution and Bill of Rights to support that Liberty the United States of America would not have become the great world power and pinnacle of freedom that it became, period. If the founding principles, which are the solid core foundation of the nation, are removed the whole thing will crumble. Undermining our core foundation is exactly what the 21st century progressives and their social justice warrior foot soldiers are actively doing.
I will address this properly when it is not so late at night here. For now, note that argument by assertion is almost precisely not examining something. You did not, for instance, even consider the alternatives I offered, let alone the possibility that there could have been greatness achieved otherwise. Remember, I was raising questions, not contradicting; if your thesis can be supported, that support can only strengthen it.
P.S., Winston Churchill once said in Parliament, “the Right Honourable Gentleman ought not to generate more indignation than he can comfortably contain”. Perhaps delaying my fuller elucidation will assist you in this.
I’m sorry, PM: this comment was put in moderation by WP, and I have no idea why. An anti-Winston bias, perhaps (I love that quote)? In the category of “It’s not the worst thing.” at least you’re not getting spammed for no reason, like poor mermaidmary…
P.M.Lawrence wrote, “I will address this properly when it is not so late at night here. For now, note that argument by assertion is almost precisely not examining something. You did not, for instance, even consider the alternatives I offered, let alone the possibility that there could have been greatness achieved otherwise. Remember, I was raising questions, not contradicting; if your thesis can be supported, that support can only strengthen it.”
Now my perceptioin could be wrong but it appears to me that you’ve been trying to sneek under the radar and undermine core foundational beliefs in the founding principles of the USA with gaslighting much like what 21st century progressives, aka regressives, and their social justice warrior foot soldiers have been doing. I can hardly wait for your forthcoming elucidation to either support my perception or prove me wrong; I’d honestly much rather my perception be wrong.
I’ll wait until you support your arguments and assertions before I spend any more time with this sub thread.