It is astounding what obvious garbage one can hear and read officials, journalists, pundits, activists and academics state in public for popular consumption these days…
1. In an interview shortly after her Secret Service failed its mission and disgraced itself, Kimberly Cheatle actually said that one of her top priorities was to attract more diverse applicants to the agency.
Ethics Note: The interviewer, a standard issue hack, naturally didn’t ask the obvious follow-up question: “Why is diversity a priority at all in an agency with the assignment of the Secret Service? Who cares what gender, ethnicity or color the agent is who saves the life of a President? Why does it matter? If every agent was a 6’4″ black man who can run a 4 minute mile, dead-lift 400 pounds, score 160 on an IQ test and shoot a wing off a fruit fly at 300 yards, why would the director feel that isn’t an ideal force for the job her agency is committed to do?”
Her only priority should be ensuring that the Secret Service has competent and well-trained agents, and she’s failed at that.
2. Kamala Harris said that J.D. Vance was picked to be a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s “extreme agenda” and that “he will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country. If elected, he will help implement the extreme Project 2025 plan for a second Trump term.”
Ethics Note: One would think that Harris, having been Vice-President, might be aware that the VP has no power to “rubber stamp” or even help implement anything. Every Vice-President is completely loyal to the man who chose them as #2: I can find no example in history of a Vice-President not working, for whatever good it does, to accomplish the President’s polices. (I don’t count Pence refusing to try to stall the 2020 election certification, which was the equivalent of Trump asking him to fly to Jupiter by flapping his arms.) Meanwhile, Harris, as a VP who actively deceived the public—you know, our country?— regarding Biden’s fitness to serve is ethically estopped from complaining that anyone else might put loyalty to the President over duty to country, especially a Marine like Vance.
“Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong,” Harris told CNN’s Anderson Cooper after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, a Jumbo for the ages.
3. In related news, during a recent call with Democratic House lawmakers questioning the wisdom of Biden remaining the nominee, an aide gave the President a note, the New York Times reported. He dutifully read it on the call. “Stay positive, you are sounding defensive,” Biden said.
“Extraordinarily strong.”
Ethics Note: Res ipsa loquitur.
4. Watching MSNBC is genuinely funny lately. José Díaz-Balart, one of the propaganda network’s gaslighting hosts, was the first of several I heard today, as they have been doing routinely since the debate, arguing that because Biden got “millions of votes” in the primaries, it was outrageous for anyone to suggest he didn’t have strong public support despite Biden’s making Gabby Johnson sound like Cato the Elder by comparison.
Ethics Note: Biden had no genuine opposition in those primaries! The party didn’t allow debates, and made it clear that running against Biden would have adverse consequences. No one of substance was on the ballot except Biden! Those votes literally were as meaningless as the those in the rigged elections held in dictatorships. Don’t MSNBC viewers object to being treated like idiots?
5. Over at CNN, I caught a black female commentator whom I was not familiar with loudly declaring that the Democrats had to win because the public wants our institutions to be diverse (Correction: the public wants our institutions to be trustworthy and to work), and they know that if “the other party” wins, 2024 will be our “last election.”
Ethics Note: A smart, mostly non-partisan lawyer asked me yesterday, “Why do they keep saying that? How do they think that could happen? It couldn’t happen, and it’s ridiculous and insulting for Democrats to keep saying it will happen.” My answer: It’s a textbook Big Lie, and the Democrats have lots of them. They think if they keep repeating it, enough people will believe it might be true.
6. In The Atlantic, once a respected magazine that Trump Derangement has rendered risible, one-time conservative David Frum authored this…
It screams “I have lost my mind!,” yet the magazine published it. Sample head-exploders from Frum’s virtual pen:
“Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well.”
“Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. The Mussolini movement in Italy built imposing monuments to its fallen comrades. The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.”
“The despicable shooting at Trump, which also caused death and injury to others, now secures his undeserved position as a partner in the protective rituals of the democracy he despises.”
“We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.”
“All of these urgent and necessary truths must now be subdued to the ritual invocation of ‘thoughts and prayers’ for someone who never gave a thought or uttered a prayer for any of the victims of his own many incitements to bloodshed.”
“He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones.”
“The American economy is booming, providing spectacular and widely shared prosperity. A brief spasm of mild post-pandemic inflation has been overcome. Indicators of social health have abruptly turned positive since Trump left office after years of deterioration during his term. … Even the country’s problems indirectly confirm the country’s success: Migrants are crossing the border in the hundreds of thousands, because they know, even if Americans don’t, that the U.S. job market is among the hottest on Earth.”
Ethics Note: Where to begin? Maybe at the end: that last one is so completely unmoored from reality that it impeaches everything else. Don’t you just love citing the disastrous results of Biden’s open borders policy as evidence of how great a President he has been?
7. Uju Anya, an associate professor of “race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in new language learning through the experiences of African Americans” at Carnegie Mellon University claimed that Trump’s near-death experience was a hoax. “People dying doesn’t make the attack any less staged. Someone who thought the attack was real could’ve killed others trying to prevent harm. Also, someone could’ve shot the shooter to hide the plot,”she tweeted.
“It was staged. Like a stupid Tubi movie set in the Bronx with palm trees in the background,” she added.
Ethics Note: An “It isn’t what it is” award-winner! Wow, that hoax had state of the art special effects! At some point, and this is clearly it, when professors prove themselves too stupid, biased or dishonest to be trusted with the impressionable minds of students, universities should be able to fire them.
But…but.. she helps make the faculty diverse!
8. She’s not the only one to make this bonkers claim. University of California San Diego’s chapter for Students for Justice in Palestine said on Instagram, “[T]here was a horrific massacre of close to 100 Palestinians in Khan Younis today and people won’t be talking about it at all because we just have to accept that apparently people care more about Trump’s staged assassination attempt!!!!!! WAKE UPPPP!” The group has 17,000 followers.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ll see you and raise you a Joy Reid: ‘We still don’t know for sure whether Donald Trump was hit by a bullet,’ she began. ‘We know almost nothing.’
MSNBC star Joy Reid pumps more conspiracy theories about Trump assassination attempt: ‘That seems really unusual… it’s weird’ | Daily Mail Online
Well, she was truthful with her last sentence.
In an unintended sense, yes, using the royal “we.”
I will never contradict her when she says she knows almost nothing. That’s probably one of the truest things she’s ever said.
“I can find no example in history of a Vice-President not working, for whatever good it does, to accomplish the President’s polices.”
Maybe Thomas Jefferson under John Adams?
“Don’t MSNBC viewers object to being treated like idiots?”
How can they if they don’t realize they are the idiots?
“”Migrants are crossing the border in the hundreds of thousands, because they know, even if Americans don’t, that the U.S. job market is among the hottest on Earth.”“
Classic, “It isn’t what it is”. It’s basically saying, “Border problem? There’s no border problem!” (because they don’t consider it a problem).
““It was staged. Like a stupid Tubi movie set in the Bronx with palm trees in the background,” she added.” et al
And the Secret Service, the news media (grudgingly) and the President of the United States (what’s left of him) are all going along with this?
Remember that episode of “Cheers” when Kirstie Alley’s character is trying to rationalize how her rich boyfriend couldn’t possibly be a crook who’s using her to grab hold of the company for which she works because that would mean, weeping, “I am too stupid to live.”
Is it mean of me to suggest that Anya has reached that point?
Yeah, Jefferson did undermine Adams. But Adams didn’t choose Jefferson, who was from the rival party, so it’s technically a different situation. Still, I stand corrected.
Your counterpoint is still valid. I didn’t think about the early VPs being the runners-up. I shudder to imagine what it would be like if that were still the practice today.
The Founders were, naively and weirdly, anti-political party, and somehow thought their disapproval would stop the obvious schisms among them from taking the obvious and unavoidable course. They really didn’t thick the VP thingy through, which is why John Tyler had to step ina and say, “No, I’m not an acting President: when the POTUS dies, the VP takes over for the rest of the term.” And Congress shrugged and said, “OK! Sounds good!”
It was certainly the most significant thing he did in office, refusing even to accept mail addressed to him as the Vice-President or Acting President.
Significant and crucial. The nation owes him big-time.
Can you imagine Trump having a Vice President Clinton? Or Biden with Vice President Trump?
Just when you think politics cannot possibly get any more bizzarro world…..
I remember when I was first studying the Presidents in the 4th grade on my own and discussing it with my dad, that system made no sense to me, even then. My father, who hated Adlai Stevenson, said “imagine, we’d have Stevenson as Ike’s VP now…not that Nixon is any prize.”
3. The President is dangerously close to becoming the junior-high kid unwittingly walking down the hall with a “kick me” sign taped to his back. His dwindling mental acuity will tempt some hacker somewhere to upload the lyrics of “Baby Got Back” into the text he’s reading off the teleprompter.
6)Good grief! A brief spasm of mild post pandemic inflation has been overcome.
Wait, what? That is at least a hat trick — three lies in one short sentence. Kudos to the author — it takes some skill to cram that much untruthfulness in only ten words.
Does inflation need to be over a decade or two not to be brief?
Mild? Mild? MILD? I guess Weimar Germany had some moderate inflation by those standards.
Overcome, eh? Then why is gas more than 50% higher, why is butter well over 50% higher. Soft drink prices are probably at least double — when stores sell them at half price, I still flinch to pay that price. Housing prices? Restaurant prices? Fast food prices?
Are we defining ‘overcoming’ inflation as getting into hyperinflation?
Prices haven’t come down. Why the hell does he think Americans are sour on the economy? Unemployment is down because people have more part time jobs and a lot of people dropped out of the work force.
———
Yes, the economy, objectively, is not that bad. But compared to what it was 5 years ago, it isn’t that good either. And some of the things Biden’s administration has done, Trump is likely just not going to be able to reverse. However…….but……if he gives us the chance, as he did in his first term, we as Americans will create a new and better economy. I do believe that.
——
As far as Mr. Frum is concerned, I am not much into profanity. But if I were, I would unleash some choice epithets. If I might coin a phrase — “Bite me!”
Again. What kind of power does Trump’s existence have on so many people that it turns people’s brains to mush?
He must be an existential threat to these people’s being able to make a living.
Bingo. The biggest supporters of Democrat candidates are those whose income is predicated on expanding government. Even some private sector business owners and employees favor big government because government serves as a market for their goods, or creates barriers to entry through regulation.
Politicians, media people, pundits, campaign advisors, campaign workers, government workers, union teachers, etc. Chris.
“The biggest supporters of Democrat candidates are those whose income is predicated on expanding government.”
ENRON comes to mind….
PWS
While I’ve many times caveated how loathsome Donald Trump is prior to me indicating that he’s still receiving my vote.
I remember in 2016 I did not vote for him.
In 2020 I voted for him and felt dirty doing it, but knew it was our civic duty given the horrible trajectory of the Democrat Party.
This year, I think I can actually vote for him and actually be content I’ve done so.
One of these days I need to write a piece called
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trump
Though I’m not there yet because Love is a strong word. But I’m almost there because frankly if you can look past the boorishness and his moral failings – he’s honestly about as caricaturistically American as he could possibly be. And presidents before they are anything else have to be caricaturistically American.
Exactly where I have been and am presently.
Didn’t vote for him in 2016 but was shocked by the reaction to his election, beginning the morning after. Voted for him in 2020 with glee. Was, and continue to be, outraged he didn’t win. I hope the Dems are defeated and blown up by their petard/EID, but I’m not optimistic.
And as I’ve said all along, in the U.S. it’s Column A or Column B. No substitutes.
The stupid has burned my eyebrows off.
I just heard Kamala Harris at some event talking about how “President Biden and I” created hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, while Trump had lost so many “on his watch.”
Harris created nothing. And the current deceit that ignores the reasons for both the job losses and the illusion of “new “jobs—the lockdown that Democrats and their bureaucrats insisted upon—is cynical and disgustingly dishonest.
They are truly without shame.
Sounds like Biden’s time is running. I wonder if he steps down this weekend, paving the way far Pres. Harris.
jvb
Drop out of the race or resign the office. Interesting if it’s the latter. So annoying the way all the big shot Dems are reputedly telling him he has to get out, not because he’s incapable of performing the duties of the office, never mind putting a sentence together. They’re telling him he has to quit because he’ll lose. Assholes.
agreed. If he resigns, what happens to his delegates? Ate they free to vote for some one other than Harris?
jvb
Absolutely.
My remaining hair just burst into flames.
Public Service Announcement:
If anyone knows someone who knows a delegate for the Democratic National Convention, please let them know that if they want to avoid having their vote automatically assigned to Biden during a “virtual role-call” before the convention even starts, they’ll apparently need to opt-out in (notarized) writing.
Please demand that the Democratic convention be opened up so that people have the option to see other candidates and decide for themselves.
Another Democratic candidate explains the steps for opting out of automatic voting on her main page: https://marianne2024.com/
(The role-call was originally scheduled for tomorrow. I’m getting mixed messages as to whether it has been rescheduled.)
Additionally, please contact your Democratic congressional representatives and senators to tell them not to have a virtual role-call to bypass the process of voting on the Democratic nominee for president. Please tell them to open up the Democratic convention so that people have the option to see other candidates and decide for themselves.
Additional points of contact:
E-mail:
Partyaffairs at dnc.org
Call:
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE (202) 863-8000
Webpages allowing comment submission:
https://democrats.org/contact-us/
https://democrats.org/jaime-harrison/
Correction: “roll call”. I could have sworn I saw someone spell it the other way, and the event overlaps with both words enough (people serving in the roles of delegates) that my brain didn’t register the difference.
EC, other than paid shit-stirrers, what are the odds of a Democratic convention delegate reading EA?
Hello, Jack. This is just a test of WordPress comment ability. I have been unable to type using my old, favorite browser, Google Chrome. I am using Opera and this is the first time I’ve been offered the ability to type a comment in several weeks.
The other test is to see if this comment will post.
Happy Thursday.
Success!
Incidentally, WordPress suddenly made it harder for me to start new posts! Every day, a new surprise!
I only use Google Chrome as my browser if I can help it. Have not had any problems posting.
Go figure.
On the other hand, I did finally figure out why YouTube has been complaining about my having an ad blocker. Apparently what Malwarebytes does is in that category.
I read the above comment, and tried changing browsers. Success? Am I here?
You are!
Great! Problem solved!