Before turning the stage over to all of you (on Fridays “all” is hyperbole), I have to let you gawk at this, smoking gun evidence 1) of why I stopped getting the Post delivered to my front lawn; 2) that bias makes you stupid, and by “you” I mean especially Trump-Deranged Washington Post pundits; and 3) that the mainstream media thinks Americans are morons. Note the giggly, lowest common denominator tone of this piece of junk.
This is a gift article from me, meaning you don’t have to pay for it like I do. Its title is “How in the world is Trump’s trial not hurting him?” How in the world can even Washington Post Trump-hating columnists ask such a stupid question?
Well, you can muse on that mystery if you choose. I have a Serbian/Canadian podcast on conflicts of interest to do, and no, I’m not joking.
Ethics Alarms 
I thought this headline from today’s WSJ (!?) was “interesting”, as well:
Trump Allies Draw Up Plans for Unprecedented Immigration Crackdown
“…Those involved are discussing issues including ways to expedite migrants’ asylum hearings to make them more quickly eligible for deportation; rescind deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants created by the Biden administration; and force countries across the globe to accept back more of their deported citizens…”
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-immigration-plans-deportation-e91b1bc4?st=tbrkurczlqdkiuk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Here’s a more accurate headline: After nearly four years of lax enforcement by the Biden administration, Trump vows to return to enforcing US immigration law
Note the wording — Trump allies and outside groups. The Trump campaign had a word about these groups:
So take all that with a grain of salt. I happen to believe that it would be extraordinarily difficult to deport millions of people, many of whom, as the article also notes are not legally deportable, something Biden’s administration has been pushing as hard as possible.
I also believe that Trump missed his best chance a couple months ago when he scuttled the Senate border deal. There is little chance that a Trump administration could get anything close to that through Congress next year.
Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with that and other votes, there is an element in the Republican party that simply won’t accept anything less than total victory — despite barely holding a third of the levers of power in the government. Then they gripe about nothing happening — when it’s mostly their fault that we don’t accept what gains might actually be within our grasp.
Some of the Republican governors have pushed to primary some of the more obstreperous state legislators to further school choice. I really think we should be doing that to folks like Gaetz, Green, Boebert, and the like. Or get a big enough majority that they are irrelevant. Or both.
Honestly it is a virtue that the GOP is not quite the lockstep organization that the Democrats have. But some of the people are just saboteurs and nihilists.
Here is a link to the Nazi nithings’ Wall of Shame!
https://uk.legal.narkive.com/TJ9LQgw8/nazi-nithings-wall-of-shame
A follow up to Curmie’s “Odyssey” reference a week or so ago and the subsequent discussion of spelling in Homer that erupted among the commentariat. A Long Island raised college friend/retired speech writer and I were discussing via email the various courses we two English majors did not take in college and perhaps should have when he recounted the following:
“Did I tell you the Stuart Braun story? It’s about The Odyssey, which we read parts of in 8th grade. Stuart sat right behind me in class. We all took turns reading sections of the book aloud. Stuart got the Polyphemus episode, in which Odysseus was hiding from the one-eyed giant. The big guy was not the brightest bulb in the starry firmament, and neither was Stuart. Polyphemus hears a noise and raps on the door to the hiding place, and says, “Who’s in there?” And, in the book at least, Odysseus cleverly answers, “It is I…no man.” No man? This fools the giant, he moves on, and Odysseus escapes. But when Stuart read the passage aloud, he presented it to the class thusly:
“Who’s in there?”
“It is I…Norman.”
I never took physics either, but technically speaking, I think I was the first person in the class to hear what Stuart said. And I’m afraid I burst out laughing, followed swiftly by class wide acclamation.
I told [the English Department’s Joycean] that story during our senior year, when we were reading “Ulysses,” and I think he told it to all his classes after that.”
My favorite memory of something similar… I was directing a production of Gypsy. At the first read-through, we got to the point where Louise–not yet Gypsy–reluctantly performs at a burlesque house for the first time. She pretty much freezes onstage. The manager of the place yells at her to “Do something! Dip!” Except that the actor didn’t get the punctuation right; he shouted “Do, something, dip!”
Hah!
Here is something worth writing about.
https://x.com/Heminator/status/1791457223094235409
I would expect a wrongful death lawsuit from the estate of Garrett Foster.
Also, he was Sergeant Daniel Perry of the United States Army, which means he was subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice at the time of the alleged crime.
Re: the WaPo blather that makes discussion on “The View” look trenchant. These are the smart people who think Hunter Biden is an altar boy and the Trump dossier was real, and Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. How can they look down upon anyone?
I was stunned at how juvenile that “discussion” was. Why wouldn’t the Post be ashamed to publish it?
There’s no one left there much over thirty-five or so. Newspapers have fired all their employees and hired pups they can afford to pay beginning salaries. These are the people running the place for Jeff Bezos.
And they can’t fire Robinson, he’s black. Even though I’m sure the pups there consider him to be an Uncle Tom.
Well, this is a telling afterword type discussion to the column:
Actually their real fear is (or should be) that voters, once they’ve heard the relevant facts, will behave rationally. Hence the concerted effort to ensure that voters do not have access to the relevant facts.
Sounds like some discussion going on in the Kremlin. “Comradski, we cannot have voters voting! Everyone to get from street.”
By “behaving irrationally” they mean doing things like thinking Biden has been a disaster for the country and the world in every possible way?
Yep, apparently so.
Guess I’ll revel in my irrationality this year.
My brother died suddenly a few weeks ago and my sisters and I flew out to Nebraska for the funeral. This was the first time I’d flown since 9/11, and so my first experience with TSA. I was not terribly impressed.
One of my sisters cannot walk and uses an electric mobility scooter to get around. We rented an electric wheelchair for the trip, since those are much easier to transport.
I have to say that in our local airport, it was as though the TSA people had never seen an electric wheelchair before in their lives. It looked like they were randomly poking and prodding and feeling up the wheelchair in an effort to see if it contained explosives or something. I think they were upset with my sister for not being able to stand, so they poked and prodded her as well.
Honestly, TSA has been doing this sort of thing for over 20 years. They must deal with situations like this many times every single day.
I am pretty sure that I’ve heard of machines that can sniff out explosives. Why do they not have something like that in use for wheelchairs? If we have such excellent security for our airlines, where the heck was it? How can they possibly think that patting down a wheelchair could accomplish anything?
So yes, our tax dollars at work. I am somehow not reassured.
Not that I’m inclined to praise what I’ve mostly seen of TSA work, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone try to bring their OWN wheelchair onto a flight. Generally, those and the stewards to push them are provided at the airport, on both ends of the flight. Lithium batteries (and possibly large other types) could also be an issue, if that pertains.
Yes airports do have their own fleet of wheelchairs and people to push them. This is a different accommodation and airplanes have special compartments to store electric wheelchairs in flight, and no they don’t have lithium batteries. The airline we used also had accommodation for the Hoyer lift we brought with us.
The wheelchairs you’re referring to are not for people who are totally unable to stand or walk and cannot get out of a wheelchair.
My sister is unfortunately obese, and it took 3-4 husky guys to pick her up from the wheelchair and put her into the airplane seat.
Delta Airlines, at least, sees enough of this sort of thing to have standard procedures for people using electric wheelchairs — I am still surprised that TSA does not appear to have them as well.
Ah, OK, that makes sense…and just one example of TSA incompetence I haven’t encountered before, I guess. I’ve had a few odd ones myself.
Also don’t know if they have any portable sniffing devices (except for dogs, and those not at all locations), just swabs and a small machine to test them. Maybe they have other equipment in cargo areas.
I don’t know if this is directly ethics-related, but wouldn’t mind anyone’s take on this bill going through Congress, sponsored in part by Rep. Max Miller (who has made Ethics Dunce at least once), our local Congress critter here in Ohio, and Sen JD Vance. Here’s a link:
https://maxmiller.house.gov/posts/u-s-congressman-max-miller-introduces-legislation-to-overhaul-workforce-education
U.S. Congressman Max Miller Introduces Legislation to Overhaul Workforce Education – Max Miller
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Congressman Max Miller (OH-07) introduced the American Workforce Act, a bill to overhaul workforce education. The legislation provides high school graduates with a $9,000 workforce training voucher to participate in education programs designed by employers and taught by validated trade associations, community colleges, high-schools, non-profits, or labor unions. The vouchers will be […]
maxmiller.house.gov
The bill is to create federal incentives for Americans without college education, but with a high school diploma or GED, to get a $9000 voucher to help with trade trainer. It incentivizes employers by providing them with $1000 per employee they hire to offset on-the-job training (excluding any DEI training). It creates a position in the Department of Commerce to oversee the program, and it purports to pay for all of this by adding a 1% tax on college endowments of at least $2 billion in size and averaging $500,000 or more per student enrolled. This excludes colleges with a religious mandate.
While I approve of wanting to incentivize trade crafts, I don’t like adding yet more federal bureaucracy, nor do I like paying for this with increased taxes anywhere. I think incentivizing workers to receive training in trade crafts should be handled at the state level, or if it must be federally mandated, funded through cuts to existing federal programs. However, I understand that in the interest of passing the bill, it might not political to, say, cut some of the funding to Department of Education to pay for this.