“I mispoke and I regret it,” was the serial head-exploding Democratic governor of New York’s attempt at backtracking after she claimed, during a speech at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, “Right now we have, you know, young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word “computer” is. They don’t know. They don’t know these things.”
“Of course black children in the Bronx know what computers are — the problem is that they too often lack access to the technology needed to get on track to high-paying jobs in emerging industries like AI,” Hochul said in her desperate mea culpa. “That’s why I’ve been focused on increasing economic opportunity since Day One of my Administration.”
If it’s really “Of course,” Governor, then why did you say what you said? And emphasize it three times?
Hochul’s scripted smear of the black children in her state triggered instant, if in some cases restrained, condemnation from her own party. “I’m deeply troubled by the recent statements made by Governor Kathy Hochul,” wrote New York State Assembly Member John Zaccaro Jr. in a statement. “The underlying perception conveyed about Black and brown children from the Bronx is not only disheartening but also deeply concerning.” Assembly Member Karines Reyes tweeted that she was “deeply disturbed” by Hochul’s remarks and “the underlying perception that she has of Black & brown children from the BX” because “Our children are bright, brilliant, extremely capable, and more than deserving of any opportunities that are extended to other kids,” Reyes wrote. “Do better.” Assembly Member Amanda Septimo called Hochul’s comments “harmful, deeply misinformed, and genuinely appalling,” adding that the Governor was “repeating harmful stereotypes.” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie described Hochul’s remarks as “inartful and hurtful.”
Observations:
1. If a Republican had made similar statements, the uproar would have been deafening. If Donald Trump had said it, the words would have been cited as more proof that he’s a racist. Since Hochul is a Democrat and knee-jerk progressive, her accidental self-reveal as a typically arrogant white politician who looks at black kids as socially and intellectually retarded “white man’s burdens” and political props can be forgiven, erased with a simple, “Oops! I didn’t mean what I said!”
2. If Joe Biden said that, it would just be ignored by 90% of the news media.
3. The key word in #1 is “props.” To cynical, manipulative, DEI-floggers like Hochul, the operative myth is that blacks are still living in metaphorical Catfish Rows across the nation, barely able to read and write, isolated from popular culture and the civilized world, all because of America’s crushing racism that has not abated one whit since Emmett Till was lynched. The Great White Saviors must reach down and rescue them from this Cro Magnon existence!
4. Back to Trump and Biden: even Trump wouldn’t exaggerate to that extreme, but this is exactly the kind of statement that, if made by him, would be logged as a “lie” by the Washington Post and the trump Deranged. I had a conversation with my sister last night in which I finally told her that she and any other future Biden voters were estopped, in my view, from complaining about Trump’s addiction to making statements that are careless, inaccurate, exaggerated, mistaken, wrong, or just flat out false. “Biden makes false statements literally every day, usually more than one,” I said. “You can’t use Trump’s adversary relationship with reality as a reason to prefer the President over him.”
So she challenged me to point out Biden’s “lie of the day” yesterday.
It took me all of five minutes. Talking about “Dreamers,” the illegal immigrants who were brought here as children but have never bothered to comply with U.S. immigration laws as adults, Biden said, “These have been model citizens.”
The stats from 4 years ago already showed that 3,300 Dreamers had been charged with assault, more than 300 had been charged with rape and fifteen DACA Dreamers had committed murder. Back in 2019, CBS reported that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stats revealed that “just under 80,000 of the country’s DACA recipients were approved despite having at least one arrest prior to applying for the program. Of those arrests, thousands were for violent crimes including murder, assault, and various sex crimes.”
Of course Biden didn’t know those stats, just as he didn’t know the “Dreamers” were model citizens. He just said it because it sounded good to him at the time, like so much of his nonsense.
I have committed to finding Biden’s “lie of the day” for a while, to prove my point. Tips will be appreciated.
5. BOY, Hochul is awful.
Ethics Alarms 
“If Joe Biden said that, it would just be ignored by 90% of the news media.”
Many of them would ignore it, but most would acknowledge it with the “Good Ole Joe” nudge and wink. The standards are different with President Biden and his Democratic supporters. Remember the narrative is “when they do it, it’s because they’re racists; when we do it, it’s because we misspoke.”
And, Joe has a stutter, and his first wife was killed in a car accident, and one son was killed in Iraq, or somewhere, and his other son is a heartbreaking drug addict.
…and didn’t the President have an ancestor from way back that was eaten by Hannibal?
Well, she is the head of the party in charge of education in her state. Her party has been in charge of all the education in the Bronx for decades. She is also the head of the party that has been fighting charter schools that have been shown to give much better educational outcomes for students. If she is right, and black students in the Bronx don’t know what a computer is, her party is responsible for that.
“Assembly Member Karines Reyes tweeted that she was ‘“’deeply disturbed’”’ by Hochul’s remarks and ‘“’the underlying perception that she has of Black & brown children from the BX’”’ because ‘“’Our children are bright, brilliant, extremely capable, and more than deserving of any opportunities that are extended to other kids[.]’” (emphasis mine).
Biden has said the stupid things about minorities. He said poor kids are just as smart and able as white kids, or something similar. Wait. Let me find the quote. . . . Oh, here it is from an NBC article: Former Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd in Iowa on Thursday that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” an awkward gaffe that came during a conversation about discrimination faced by low-income students.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-says-poor-kids-are-just-bright-just-talented-white-n1040686
Why is Biden’s comment considered a gaffe but the good Assemblymember Reyes is hailed as a defender of poor brown and black kids from the Bronx? Either the statement is stupid and offensive or it is not.
jvb
#4. Are Trump supporters similarly estopped from using Biden’s departures from veracity as a reason to prefer the former POTUS over the current one, or is this a one-way street?
Curmie, you miss the point. No one on the left ever calls out Biden’s lies and anything people not on the left say is irrelevant.
I guess that makes me, like Odysseus, Nobody.
And upon hearing you say that, your fellow travellers on the left would say, “That’s right. Now shut up.”
Was it “Nobody” or “NoOne”? That Cyclops was not the brightest bulb on the tree in any version.
I’ve read “NoMan” in some texts. I liked “Nahbdy”, which was the translation we had in our 9th grade unit on the Odyssey.
Depends on the translation. Homer’s English was terrible.
Using “Nobody” always flips my fevered brain to the Burt Williams song also favored by Carol Burnett and Moms Mabley. The idea of the Cyclops singing is too much for me…
Most people on the right are well aware of Trump’s penchant for blatant exaggeration (and worse). When Trump talks, you have to translate:
“World class”= really good
“Great” = good
“Good” = fair to middling
‘As good as could be expected’ = terrible
It really is the ‘New Yorker to English’ translation.
I don’t know any Trump supporter who denies that Trump exaggerates and gets his facts wrong. I know very few who think he doesn’t lie.
The difference is the Biden supporters do NOT admit that Biden lies and tells ridiculous stories all the time.
Corn Pop
That time he spent time in jail with Nelson Mandela
His son dying of cancer, then in Iraq, then in Afghanistan
Finishing first in his class at law school
Getting a scholarship to law school
That he went to a historically black university
That he worked as a truck driver
Visiting the Tree of Lie Synagogue and talking with them
The time his house burned down with his wife in it
About discussions with Merkel, Mitterand, after their deaths
About his discussion with Amtrak conductor Angelo Negri on his way home to visit his sick mother (but Negri had been dead for a year and his mother for 5 years when he said it took place).
That his grandfather died six days before Biden was born and in the same hospital. In fact, that grandfather died in a different hospital a year earlier, the other grandfather died in the same hospital, but when he was 14.
He said he saw the Pittsburgh bridge collapse.
He said his uncle was eaten by cannibals. I had to read the story because the headline read “Biden Claims His Uncle Was Eaten By Cannibals Twice” and I had to see if he said it twice or claimed his uncle was eaten twice.
He spoke with the inventor of insulin.
He was raised in a Puerto Rican community.
That he served as liason to Golda Meir during the Six-Day War. (Levi Eshkol was prime minister and Biden was in law school).
He said his first job offer was from Boise Cascade.
He was arrested at a civil rights march.
He was appointed to the Naval Academy in 1965 (the year he graduated from the U. of Delaware, a historically black university).
Oil refinery pollution gave him cancer.
He was a full professor at the U. of Penn.
His great grandfather was a coal miner (he wasn’t).
He awarded his Uncle Frank a Purple Heart as VP (Frank died in 1999 and never received a Purple Heart).
He hit a ball 368 feet in his first Congressional baseball game (he was 0-2).
His grandfather was an ‘All-American Football Player’ at Santa Clara University.
He almost was an NFL walk-on and he could have made it in the pros.
He was shot at overseas.
When a woman asked him to remove a dead dog from the street, he claimed to have left it on her front doorstep.
He was a coal miner from a coal mining family.
You can keep going on and on.
This is just a list of his ‘personal aggrandizement’ lies. I haven’t touched on lies about his policies and the state of the country. We would have to harvest 10% of the electrons on earth to publish that (OK, that was a Trumpworthy exaggeration).
Trump’s almost always exaggerates when discussing his accomplishments or the potential of his proposals, that is probably 75% of his ‘lies’. He also often doesn’t do his research and spouts what he probably thinks is true. Then there are the outright lies. Think about the border wall. When Trump said that Mexico would pay for it, it was a lie. But did Trump think he could actually get Mexico to pay for it? I wouldn’t rule that out. That is very different from Biden’s list above. Those are outright fabrications or mental delusions. The fact that they are nonstop should be a problem. Can you believe anything this guy says? You could believe most of what Trump said if you multiplied it by 0.4.
Nice overview. The policy-related lies and fabrications are an even longer list. Then there’s the “I never talked to Hunter about his business dealings” outright lie.
I heard one commentator specify that Trump is a serial exaggerator. Everything is magnified, the greatest, the worst. He inflates reality to absurd dimensions. He’s PT Barnum – he’ll charge you a buck to see the mermaid, and you can get upset that he’s got a monkey sewn to a tuna if you want, but what else did you expect from Barnum? In the mean time, he DID actually take the time to sew a monkey to a tuna. What he doesn’t do is take the dollar and then shove you out the door, showing you nothing.
Biden was a Liar. Even back when he had all his mental faculties, he had only a nodding relationship with the truth. Now, he is still a liar, but also demented, with only a passing relationship with reality. When he’s lucid, he’s probably still lying, but those moments are fewer and farther between these days. Biden either genuinely believes that he’s got a mermaid, which is frightening and depressing, or else he’ll tell you you’ve already seen it, and it’s your fault if you can’t remember it. And then challenge you to a push-up contest for daring to suggest that he’s anything but 100% truthful.
Neither one is honest. But I know I’m more comfortable with flimflammery and hyperbole than I am gaslighting or dementia.
No, I’d say the search for a credible leader is off the table for the foreseeable future.
Curmie,
What is your outlook on how many liberals are saying Biden is more honest than Trump, and how many conservatives are saying Trump is more honest than Biden?
From my perspective, the point of Trump has always been a foil to the establishment and to progressives. Speaking only for myself, I have never trusted Trump to open his mouth and just say something straightforward, without embellishment, without ellipses, without topic changes, or asides. He’s a real estate mogul. That’s like a rich used-car salesman. You expect a certain amount of deceit from someone like that.
Again, from my perspective, it seems that the Left touted Biden as someone who would restore normalcy to the presidency, and that normalcy included adherence to the truth. So either the Left was mistaken on that account, or they knew Biden was just as much a liar as Trump. That means either the Left was duped, and has no claim to character evaluation, or the Left sought to dupe the rest of us, at which point making any complaint about Trump’s lies exceedingly hypocritical.
So, no, I would not say that conservatives are estopped from complaining about Biden’s lies. Those complaints are against the Left’s narratives that Biden would be more truthful, not in support of Trump being more honest than Biden.
My read, and I grant that it’s not entirely objective, is that Trump lies more often than Biden does. That doesn’t mean he tells untruths more often. Rather, he’s aware that what he’s saying isn’t true to a greater extent than Biden is. Both are geriatric men who weren’t all that bright two decades ago when their faculties began a rather noticeable decline. Neither is a truth-teller. Both spew incomprehensible word salads whenever they go off script.
In this construction, both are vacuous, Biden slightly more so. Both are mendacious, Trump slightly more so. Voting for either is deeply problematic; it’s a question of determining which one is worse and therefore holding one’s nose and supporting the other guy.
There’s that “two beers and a puppy” trope that’s made the rounds. If you’d enjoy having two beers with someone, they’re likeable; if you’d trust them to take care of your puppy while you’re out of town, they’re reliable. There probably aren’t too many people in anyone’s life who meet both criteria. The two POTUS contenders meet neither.
Pat Buchanan, whom I met and had a nice chat with long ago, was famously popular in D.C. despite his dark side (anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic) because everyone agreed he was a great guy to have a beer with. Being likable went a long way for Pat.
That’s a tough call. How do we classify the demonstrated fantasies and falsehoods that Joe just won’t let go of and has repeated despite repeated debunking? It was illegal to own a cannon. Trump called white supremacists fine people. He promised a “blood bath” if he loses the election. Biden got the Wuhan vaccine made and distributed.
My read, and I grant that it’s not entirely objective, is that Trump lies more often than Biden does. That doesn’t mean he tells untruths more often. Rather, he’s aware that what he’s saying isn’t true to a greater extent than Biden is.
I think I agree with this analysis. However I’m not sure if I agree with your follow-up that Trump is in a noticeable decline. Part of that stems from my own ignorance — I paid Donald Trump very little attention until he was the GOP nominee for president, so I have very little history with which to compare present-day Trump. I do notice the decline in Biden since his days as VP. When Biden talks, he looks to me like a man searching through a mental fog for what he needs spit out. When Trump talks, though, he seems like a man whose thoughts are coming so quickly he can’t spit them out in entirety before another thought takes over. I’m not saying that I think he’s intelligent, just that he has wild monkey brain that has a hard time settling down on one thought. I’m open to hearing a different interpretation, though. As I said, I haven’t witness as much Trump history as others have.
Voting for either is deeply problematic; it’s a question of determining which one is worse and therefore holding one’s nose and supporting the other guy.
My take on this has generally been to ask which platform the candidates represent is better than the other. I disagree with the Republican platform far less than I disagree with the Democratic platform. The biggest argument, for me, to oppose Biden is that he represents, and has largely tried to implement, the Democratic agenda. The biggest argument to vote for Trump is that he represents, and has more than previous Republican presidents, has tried to implement the Republican agenda.
I wonder. This may need to be saved for a Friday Open Forum, but it would be interesting if we all compared notes on what we find objectionable and what we find commendable in either party’s platforms.
Stereotypes are a societal feature only because they arise out of their respective demographic. To wish stereotypes didn’t exist or to ban them is dumb. We need to be careful not to presuppose individuals are stereotypical. But when people act like a stereotype, we’re not at fault for noticing. And saying all black and brown kids in the Bronx are ten years and a scholarship to an Ivy League school away from winning a Nobel Prize is just ridiculous. It’s the typical progressive tactic: make any group that’s discriminated against not just on par with the rest of the populus, make them superior!
I would say that when Trump speaks the wind always blows in the same direction. When Biden speaks the direction of the wind depends on the most favorable political direction.
I just watched Biden give a Holocaust remembrance speech to a Jewish audience. He claims to be the biggest supporter of the Jewish people yet he is holding up the Congressionally approved and funded arms to Israel and he conveniently forgot about that come to Jesus moment he would have with Bibi.
People should also be aware that Biden championed the exclusion from Pell eligibility incarcerated students in Clinton’s crime bill. I guess he ain’t black. He claimed it was unfair for an incarcerated student get an education when working class people were ineligible. Eligibility is a function of income and those requirements have never changed. That is when I knew he was a liar
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