This date in 1905 marks one of the most felicitous and essential marriages in U.S. Presidential history, as future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt wed his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt, in New York, thus unifying the two branches of the elite Roosevelt family. Eleanor, herself an impressive intellect and activist, became her husband’s legs, rock and essential wing-woman as well as his moral compass (to the extent possible, at least). FDR was a pragmatist with natural leadership skills and gifts that exceeded those of all but a few of his predecessors, but he was far from an idealist, as he revealed here and there, often with troubling consequences. What other Presidents would not have reached the White House without a felicitous choice of life-partner? John Adams, certainly; in all likelihood, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as well. Maybe Obama, but with Adams and Franklin, there is no doubt.

1. You have to admit, it has been an impressive scam, if a destructive one. The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank and research center, has put together a database tracking corporate America’s capitulation to what the institute calls “possibly the most lucrative shakedown of corporate America in its history.” Spokepersons for the institute reveal in Newsweek that while “most Americans have happily moved on from the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM)-driven ransacking of some 200 American cities, which resulted in as much as $2 billion in property damage and at least 25 deaths,” the bounty from the group’s white-guilt and fear-driven squeeze on corporate America has been wildly under-publicized. Claremont Institute’s database indicated that BLM was pledged “an astonishing $82.9 billion to the BLM movement and related causes. This includes more than $123 million to the BLM parent organizations directly.” Claremont writes that the figures, “while shocking, likely underrepresent the true magnitude of the shakedown as some companies failed to make known their contributions, and many BLM organizations remain unknown.”

The figures are even more infuriating than that suit of armor with the huge “Black Lives Matter” sign that I have to walk by with Spuds every day. Among the biggest funders of BLM according to Claremont has been JPMorgan Chase, with a $30 billion ‘Racial Equity Commitment to “close the racial wealth gap.” Abbott Labs has pledged $25 million; Adidas $120 million. Amazon gave BLM and its subsidiaries $169,550,000….all of this to promote racial division, Marxist politics and anti-white racism, without even minimal assurances of legitimate financial stewardship controls.

2. If someone wants to submit a fisking of this ugly and unethical essay, I’ll publish it. I just don’t have the energy, and my stomach has been squirrel lately. “The Hartman Report” claims to have thousands of paid subscribers, which I guess isn’t quit on the same level of wastefulness as #1 above, but it’s still discouraging. Here’s a screed called “Now that Hate has Become the GOP’s Main Political Weapon, What Can Americans Do?”: read it and weep. This is the wing of the Democratic Party that based four years of undermining the Trump Presidency on pure, unfiltered hatred of Trump, his party and its supporters, culminating in President Biden’s imitation of you-know-who while ironically accusing Republicans of being fascists. Yet this guy has the chutzpa to write, “It’s a deadly game they’re playing, and they know it. The last time a “major world power” western nation’s largest conservative political party embraced hate as a political strategy was 1933 in Germany, as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright warned us in her prescient book Fascism: A Warning.”

Clever! The key word to the deceit is “conservative.” Hate was the sole Democratic strategy in the election of 2020 and before, when members of that party urged citizens to confront and harass key GOP figures when the appeared in public, and citizens wearing MAGA hats were being assaulted on the street and in restaurants. Hartman writes,

“Hate has become the rotted core of the GOP. Hate of queer people; hate of college professors; hate of Black people; hate of immigrants; hate of public school teachers and books; hate of Hispanics; hate on “uppity” women; hate of drag queens; hate of liberals; hate of American history; hate of Asians; hate of “woke” and other terms to describe tolerance and compassion.”

This is a spectacular example of Rationalization #49, Ethics Jiu Jitsu, or “Haters Gonna Hate!”so perfect that I’m going to post the description from the list:

This vintage of obnoxious rationalization is recently pressed. Its objective is to turn the tables on legitimate critics of unethical conduct by asserting that it is the act of criticism itself that is wrong, thus allowing the object of the criticism to not only escape unscathed, but to claim victim status.

Ethics Jiu Jitsu is similar to the #6, the Biblical rationalizations “Judge not, lest ye not be judged,” and “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,”  except that those are used (incorrectly) to suggest that nobody is good enough to criticize the conduct of others, not that the act of criticism is inherently hateful. The insidious trick that #49 embodies thrives on the modern criminalization of hate in the culture. Hate is just very intense dislike, and as a feeling, it is well within the realm of personal rights.  Hate crime is a variety of thought-crime. The politically-motivated legal monstrosities known as “hate crimes”  have inspired this rationalization  by making it plausible to argue that disagreement itself is wrong, even when what is being disliked, criticized or hated is objectively wrongful conduct. All “haters” are lumped together, whether the object of hate is Lance Armstrong’s cheating, the NFL’s conspiracy to hide the effects of concussions, or Barack Obama’s ineptitude, in a linguistic trick that suggests that sincere critics are no different from people who hate the United States, minorities, decency, true love and puppies. They are all haters, hate is bad, and it’s the haters who are the problem, not the corruption, dishonesty, and betrayals they criticize. In truth, those who don’t have the ethical bearings, the courage or the civic responsibility to criticize unethical conduct are the real problem as we strive for an ethical culture.

If conservatives, Republicans and people with their ethics alarms working don’t think non-citizens should be able to break our immigration laws, that means they hate the conduct, not “immigrants” and “Hispanics.” Wanting to eliminate the unconstitutional process of “affirmative action” doesn’t signal hatred of blacks. Hartman’s definition of hate literally is  “If you don’t agree with what I do or policies that benefit me, then you’re hateful.”

“Thousands of subscribers.”

I hate myself.

3. Is resistance futile against the trans athletes Borg? Last month, Ethics Alarms saluted the girls’ varsity basketball team at Mid Vermont Christian School after it forfeited a playoff game against a team that had a “transitioning” male player as one of the girls, though he-on-the-way-to-she towered over the players who hadn’t had the advantage of going through puberty as males. Now, the Vermont Principals’ Association  has released an edict banning MVCS from all “VPA sanctioned activities and tournaments going forward.” The vote from VPA’s executive board, comprising 15 members, was unanimous.

The school has to stand fast on its principles, and other schools, or if not them, their players, need to grow a pair (okay, bad choice of metaphors) and boycott the cheating team as well.

In related news, the Brookline High girls’ indoor track and field team just won the Massachusetts High School State Finals in great part due to “transitioning” male Chloe Barnes. A video of the relay race shows Barnes easily running ahead of the biological females he is competing against, winning the event for the Brookline team. Chloe has not apparently transitioned out of being an asshole: at two points in the meet slowed down and looked back at the girls trying to catch him, mocking their futility. A year ago, Chloe’s move from the male team to the female team was in progress, and explained in bewildering terms by the local media.

Incidentally, please tell Thom Hartman that I don’t hate Choe or any transsexual individuals. I do hate the lockstep woke insanity that is perpetrating obvious unfairness on female athletes, and the cowardice of officials who are allowing it to continue.