My poor, MSNBC-addled sister, who is thoroughly Trump-Deranged (and I resent the mainstream media for doing this to her), keeps saying that though it isn’t ideal, of course, having a puppet President managed by competent professionals and handlers who are the ones really running the country is still preferable to having an evil President like You Know Who.
I have pointed out that this seems like an odd stance from a supporter of the party that purports to be defending democracy, since figurehead leaders are a traditional feature of non-democratic governments (much as, you know, trying to throw the political opposition in prison is). Aren’t The People supposed to know who is running their nation and aren’t they supposed to be the onesThe People voted for on the ballot?
“Humminahumina,” she replies. Besides, all those shadow managers and handlers know what they are doing, unlike the Evil Orange Man.
Bandy Lee wasn’t the only alleged medical expert to pronounce then-President Donald Trump mentally disabled (so that one of the Axis plots to remove him from office without having to go through that annoying democratic election thingy could be activated) without actually examining him, but she was the one who exploited her unethical conduct the most effectively to get repeated gigs on MSNBC.
Finally Yale fired her, as she was habitually and noisily breaching basic professional ethics including the so-called “Goldwater Rule,” installed by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 to prohibit members from offering psychological opinions about individuals they had not personally examined.
Please note that the rule didn’t make what Lee and others did unethical: it was unethical with or without the rule. It is unfair, presumptuous and an abuse of position and authority to diagnose non-patients from afar, particularly in a political context where such fake medical verdicts can be used as partisan weapons.
Yet there was cardiologist Dr. Peter McCollough yesterday, giving an interview on the web’s “Breanna Morello Show” and diagnosing Joe Biden with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s while opining that both may be the result of a bad reaction to the Covid vaccines. Before diagnosing the President, he explained that he wouldn’t give a diagnosis because doing so would be unethical, and then immediately diagnosed him.
Apparently touching, holding and cuddling sloths has become a thing, along with, of course, posing with them for selfies, the refuge of the incurably narcissistic. The New York Times has a long, exhaustive feature on the problem, which is a problem because such close contact with the cute beasts is not healthy for the sloths and occasionally dangerous for the sloth-cuddler. From the article:
But lately sloths have been proliferating….far outside their arboreal habitats. They can be fed, cuddled and photographed at animal parks and pet shops, often despite unclear provenance and lax adherence to safety and health rules….star attractions in the growing range of venues where interactions with animals — the more exotic and up-close the better — underpin the business model. The number of those U.S.D.A.-licensed exhibitors almost doubled from 2019 to 2021, with over 1,000 sloths inspected annually in the last two years. According to federal data, the risk of animal deaths and disease outbreaks has increased. So have human injuries — and the concerns of experts and state agencies…
One company that has attracted outsize attention from regulators and animal advocates is SeaQuest, a national chain of interactive aquariums. It has seven locations, from Folsom, Calif., to Woodbridge, N.J., most of which exhibit sloths. And for an extra fee, visitors can handle flying squirrels, snorkel with stingrays or cavort with otters and wallabies. Whether the animals want that kind of communion is another question….Last year, the U.S.D.A. sought to strengthen regulations around the display and care of wild animals, and the Humane Society of the United States has advocated that encounters be curtailed altogether because they “subject wild animals to a lifetime of trauma, fear and chronic stress,” said Laura Hagen, its director of captive wildlife.
Wow, is this stupid. Yet I have started seeing it all over social media, and it’s being posted by previously intelligent friends, Democrats all.
Never mind the fact that most of those on the list are not working (some have very publicly retired) unless you call sitting down for an interview every year or so or “appearing” on a podcast “working.” The main reasons this argument is idiotic are that:
1. The fact that someone else is Joe Biden age and is not senile proves nothing about Joe Biden.
2. These are all entertainers and artists. What is expected and required of entertainers and artists is completely different from what is expected and required of world leaders. There is literally no valid analogy there. None.
3. If Paul McCartney blanks while singing “Yesterday” in a concert, he stops, starts the song again, and there is no harm done. A President whose attention and alertness is absent during a crisis can make an error with terrible consequences for the whole nation, and there is no do-over.
4. The list is cherry-picked. Notable for his absence, among others: Bruce Willis, whose family stopped him from performing because of progressive dementia. Willis is 69.
The Democrats, now in “Try anything! Say anything!” panic mode even beyond what I expected before Biden’s debate collapse, are literally tossing out every deflection and rationalization they can think of, hoping to salvage the votes of as many gullible half-wits as possible. If there is any justice, this dishonest tactic (and the increasingly desperate ones to come) will lose them at least as many votes as it preserves, because they are proving how untrustworthy and Machiavellian they are.
You don’t expect me to pass up a chance to chide the New York Yankees, do you? Especially when they really deserve it…and this episode has larger significance, I think, although I always think baseball has larger significance.
When I saw the video of the play above, I didn’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a major league player loaf like that on a play. The culprit was Yankee center fielder Trent Grisham, who is no callow rookie; in fact, he has won a couple Gold Gloves for his fielding. It occurred during the ninth inning of Friday’s eventual 8-4 Yankee loss to Cincinnati; the Pinstripes have been losing a lot lately, indeed they appear to be in free-fall after a spectacular start. (Good.)
Yankee fans noticed, and booed Grisham lustily. Yankee social media commenters, already upset because of the team’s recent losing ways, piled on after the game. Best-selling author and podcaster Eric Sherman probably summed it up best, tweeting, “What in the world was [Manager] Aaron Boone waiting for there in the dugout? Trent Grisham should have been yanked from the game immediately. A missed opportunity for Boone to set an example for a team that has underachieved the last month. Wow.”
Well, if nothing else, Stephen Colbert knows when to jump ship.
Last night, after 8 years of being almost entirely a Trump-bashing, pro-Democrat, pro-progressive, pro-Biden mouthpiece, late night comic Stephen Colbert (who also hosted a Biden fundraiser) decided to pick the low-hanging fruit and start ridiculing Joe Biden. Trump is used to this treatment, Biden is not. “They laughed at me, Mother,” the Willaim Jenning Bryan-based character Mattew Harrison Brady laments at the end of “Inherit the Wind” speaking of his previously loyal supporters right before Brady’s fatal stroke. The comics and Saturday Night Live had been one of Biden’s (and Obama’s, and even Hillary’s) most reliable lines of biased defense. If that crumbles—and it should—the President and his party’s fortunes will become even more dire.
Good.
2. Biden’s physician was obviously asked to release a letter insisting that Biden is in tip-top shape, based entirely on last February’s annual physical. Here it is. It raises more questions than it answers, primarily, “If this is true, then why won’t Biden take a cognitive function test now?” We know the answer to that; it’s obvious. Then the question is, “Are doctors ethically required to tell the truth in public statements?” Lawyers are. The answer us no. Doctors can lie if they believe doing so is in the best interests of their patients—like, say, helping them stay in their jobs. The final questions is, “What isn’t he telling us?”
3. Remember now, Biden tells the truth, and Trump lies all the time. Biden said on MSNBC yesterday, “All the data shows that the average Democrat out there who voted…for me still want me to be the nominee.” That’s completely false. A post-debate CBS/YouGov poll found that 72 % of registered voters believe that Biden has insufficient mental and cognitive health to serve as president. A New York Times/Siena poll found that 74 % of voters think Biden as too old to be President.
ADDED: Commenter Sarah correctly points out that this poll doesn’t prove Biden’s statement was “completely false” because it only references registered voters, not whatever Joe meant by the “average Democrat who voted” for him. Here’s a better poll from March that found that 61% of 2020 Biden voters now think he’s too old, and that was before his debate crash. Of course, who knows how “average” they are….
Don’t ask me: I’m having enough trouble with my posts…
Today I’ve received messages on site and off from frustrated commenters. This isn’t new: periodically WordPress has decided it wants to make an example of a particular commenter, or something, who knows? Poor mermaidmary had every comment “eaten,” as she put it, for months; now she’s AWOL and I’m worried that she’s been eaten.
The software keeps changing. Once, I would have to clean out literally dozens or even hundreds of pieces of spam every day. Now spam rarely shows up at all—it’s culled before it even gets to my spam file. “Pending” is what is supposed to contain comments from aspiring new commenters who have not gone through moderation, but occasionally veteran participants have their comments end up there for no discernible reason. If I am away from the blog—and believe it or not, I have other obligations now and then—the unlucky writer won’t see his or her comment show up for hours.
It is clearly time for a discussion about what is going wrong, who is suffering from it, and who has figured out what solves the problems. If you can’t get your contribution posted, send it to my email.
A petard is an archaic word for a bomb, before bombs were as big and destructive as they are today. The term “hoist by his own petard” means literally that some idiot blew himself up, kind of like this guy, except that in the classic example the bomb-wielder intends to damage something or someone else. The phrase is used to describe George Will’s condign justice,” meaning that a miscreant has reaped what he has sowed, received his just deserts, and “got what was coming to him,her, or it.”
In the future, when a nubbin asks, “Daddy, what does it mean to be ‘hoist by one’s own petard’?” the most vivid possible answer might be what is happening right now to the corrupt and Machiavellian Democratic Party and its corrupted allies. Exploding or soon to explode petards are everywhere.
I don’t understand the latest chapter in Columbia’s anti-Semitism scandal at all. I don’t understand how anyone connected to the university can look at themselves in the mirror after this. I don’t understand how alumni and donors can tolerate it. Most astounding of all, in its shameless embrace of The King’s Pass, Columbia University has managed to make Harvard look like an ethics exemplar by comparison.
I can’t stand it. I really can’t. Just when we are able to get rid of one of the certifiable morons in Congress (Jamaal Bowman), others reminds us just how incompetent they are, and in doing so, just how unfit to vote so many of our fellow citizens are as well.
Rep. Greene really and truly sent out that tweet on the Fourth of July. She is a classic Dunning-Kruger case. She thinks she’s smart: I would bet on Fredo beating her in a game of Scrabble, and that’s even after he was shot in the head. She sent this out into cyber-space, and didn’t even have the sense to check her “facts.” How stupid is that?
Ethics Alarms 