By the time you comment here (on what ever ethics matters move you), James Woods is like to have been nominated as Secretary of Transportation, and Hulk Hogan as Secretary of Commerce. Interesting times….
Jerry Lee Lewis was amazing, wasn’t he?
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Ethics Alarms 
So, good news! It appears that Ranked Choice Voting went (narrowly) down to defeat in every state where it was on the ballot, including a repeal in Alaska. It’s still in effect for the Alaska House race, so I’m holding my breath there.
And I’ve been keeping an eye on the popular vote on foxnews.com — Trump is up over 76 million, his personal high, and still leads Harris by almost 3 million with California mostly counted. Don’t know if he will get an absolute majority, but he will definitely have the plurality.
I am still waiting to see what the popular vote totals were for House races. Republicans won that by 2-3 million in 2022, even though there majority was very narrow. They look on track to have about the same majority this time.
Did anyone else see the news that the FBI raided the head of Polymarket and say to themselves — gee, that looks like payback for letting someone bet big on Trump this election. Reportedly the guy who did so won $83 million or so. Good for him!
Do we need to exhume Elliot Ness to clean up the Bureau?
EC will not be pleased.
It looks like Alaska should go to Trump (Begich), even if they have to start the stupid ranked-choice procedure. I can’t see many (any?) of the Alaskan Independence Party voters making a dem their second choice. A second (or third, etc.) choice is not required, which could be a problem if many are “my way or nothing” types.
You’ll recall that there was speculation here that Hurricane Helene might depress turnout in western North Carolina and help Harris win the state.
Well, RCP reports that the actual turnout for those counties was at record levels, and it was 2% higher than the statewide average.
I don’t think it mattered that much in the presidential race — Trump won by 185k. However, in the state Supreme Court, the Republican only won by about 3500 votes, so western NC may have been instrumental in flipping that seat.
My suspicion is that, after feeling abandoned by FEMA, some of the folks out there may have decided that they were going to cast their vote, no matter what.
How do you think they feel now that they can be pretty sure that they were intentionally abandoned by FEMA?
I know how I would feel. There’s a lot of anger out and about, and I’m personally angry on their behalf, but I’m more independent than a lot of people. If they rely on the government perhaps they’re scared, disappointed, or surprised or in denial. Perhaps the other side feels like it serves them right. They are, after all, increasingly being hinted at as monsters. Only a monster would vote to “kill wives and daughters who have miscarriages”. From the history I read, Hitler did much the same at the beginning. Calling the Jews “vermin” and such. I’m sure the same purpose is served by using the terms “garbage” or “deplorable”. After all, you don’t need to be nice to garbage you can walk right by the peasants that need help. They are not worth saving.
Who voted to kill wives or daughters who have miscarriages?
Yeah, I was wondering about. I didn’t see it on the Texas ballot. Perhaps it was in the fine print.
jvb
I’ve seen it on social media more than once. No one voted for this but they BELIEVE the Trump supporters voted for this.
It goes back to giving abortion laws to the states. It’s ridiculous to be sure, but that’s what they BELIVE. They think this.
”seniors voted to gut social security, men voted for their wives and daughters to die from miscarriages, immigrants voted for deportation raids, poor people voted for tax cuts to billionaires, women voted to have fewer rights than men, police voted for a convicted felon”
I think the idea there is that supposedly doctors would be afraid to do the necessary procedures to avoid sepsis, etc., after a miscarriage for fear of violating a state’s abortion term-limits law. Seems like it’s mostly more fear-mongering. If any doctor is unfamiliar with vital points of the law, or afraid to save a life because of a particular regulation, they shouldn’t be practicing.
That is absolutely what some people believe — I had an argument with my sister on that very point.
I believe that — if, as, and when they really are doctors who have no clue what the law is — their hospital needs to ensure its staff know what is legal and what is not.
I really cannot credit that there are laws forbidding doctors from performing procedures when the life of the mother is in jeopardy.
If there are — first off, is that constitutional? I’m not a lawyer, but does our constitution really allow a legislature to forbid lifesaving medical procedures?
If there are laws, they need to be changed and / or challenged as soon as possible. Don’t just use them to fear monger. Recall the legislators, primary them, vote them out of office.
But here’s the rub. Given their proven history of lying to us — if a political party says, without evidence, that there is such a law, why should we believe them?
The habit of lying to the public will come back to bite you in unexpected ways.
The pesky facts don’t matter though. It is all about perception. Some believe people who voted “for” Trump are monsters.
IF there’s a miscarriage, it doesn’t matter because the baby is already dead. It’s simply not the same. The only question they need to answer is if they tried to save the baby. You have to save the mother. If she dies, the baby dies. If it was old enough to live on its own, they would’ve done a c-section and put it in NICU. The doctor just needs to say “I did my best to save the baby.”
I won’t pretend to be following the particulars of every anti-abortion law, but I don’t believe doctors even need to do that much.
Disclaimer: I am describing Catholic medical ethics, but am making a presumption that Pro-Life lobbiests would emulate such regulations.
If a woman has a life threatening condition, she may pursue treatment of proportionate to that condition. If for instance she had cancer, she could licitly receive chemotherapy even if it put her unborn at risk. Receiving chemo treatment is moral. The death of her child, though foreseeable, is tragic but not sinful (and presumably not illegal in a properly crafted law).
The women is also free to heroically forgo treatment until the child is safely delivered increased risk to herself, but again is not morally obligated to do so.
What the woman or her doctors are not free to do is preemptively kill the child to make her treatment easier. Medicine or proceedures to kill the baby are gravely immoral. (Inducing live delivery or C-section don’t count here) But causing the death of a child as a side effect of treating aggressively treating a life threatening disease is materially different morally and presumably legally.
“Oh Baby, that’s what I LIKE!”
Famous interview with Jerry Lee Lewis where he was asked if he resented the success the relatively late to the show Elvis Presley had. Lewis simply replied, “Elvis has somethin’ I don’t have.” As I recall, he remained married to his child bride his entire life and was a very religious person. A gentleman.
As I recall, he remained married to his child bride his entire life
Not quite! From Wikipedia...
Lewis was married seven times, including bigamous marriages and a marriage with his underage cousin.[72] He had six children during his marriages.
When Jerry Lee Lewis was 16, he married Dorothy Barton, the daughter of a preacher. The union lasted from February 1952 to October 1953.[
Lewis’s second marriage to Sally Jane Mitcham in September 1953, was of dubious validity because it occurred 23 days before his divorce from Barton was final. They had two children: Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. (1954–1973) and Ronnie Guy Lewis (b. 1956). After four years, he filed for divorce in October 1957. Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. died in 1973, at the age of 19, when the Jeep he was driving overturned.[74][75]
His third marriage was to 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown, his first cousin once removed, on December 12, 1957.[76] His divorce from Jane Mitcham was not finalized before the ceremony took place, so he remarried Brown on June 4, 1958.[77] They had two children: Steve Allen Lewis (1959–1962) and Phoebe Allen Lewis (b. 1963). Brown was only 14 years old when their son was born.[78] In 1962, Steve Allen Lewis drowned in a swimming pool accident at the age of 3.[74] In 1970, Brown filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and abuse,[77] stating that she had been “subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable.”[79]
His fourth marriage was to Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, from October 1971 to June 8, 1982. Pate drowned in a swimming pool at the home of a friend with whom she was staying, several weeks before divorce proceedings could be finalized.[80] They had one daughter, Lori Lee Lewis (b. 1972).
Mary Kathy “K.K.” Jones of San Antonio, Texas, testified in court during Lewis’s income tax evasion trial in 1984 that she lived with him from 1980 to 1983.[81]
Lewis’s fifth marriage, to Shawn Stephens, lasted 77 days, from June to August 1983, ending with her death[82] from an overdose of methadone.[83] Journalist Richard Ben Cramer alleged that Lewis abused and may have killed her, neither of which was proven.[73]
His sixth marriage, to Kerrie McCarver, lasted 21 years, from April 1984 to June 2005. They had one child: Jerry Lee Lewis III (b. 1987).[84]
In 1993, Lewis moved to Ireland with his family in what was suggested (but denied) to be a move to avoid issues with the Internal Revenue Service.[85] He lived in a rented house on Westminster Road in Foxrock, Dublin, and during his time there was sued by the German company Neue Constantin Film Production GmbH for failure to appear at a concert in Munich in 1993.[86] Lewis returned to the U.S. in 1997 after his tax issues had been resolved by Irish promoter Kieran Cavanagh.[87]
Lewis married his seventh wife, Judith Lewis (née Brown, Myra Gale Brown’s brother’s former wife), on March 9, 2012.[72] The next day, Lewis severed business ties with his daughter, Phoebe Lewis-Loftin, who was his manager, and revoked her power of attorney.[91] In 2017, Lewis sued his daughter and her husband Zeke Loftin, claiming that she owed him “substantial sums of money”.[92] In the lawsuit, Lewis, his wife Judith Lewis, and his son Jerry Lee Lewis III also claimed Loftin defamed them on Facebook. Lewis-Loftin and her husband counter-sued, claiming Judith Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis III interfered in the business relationship. In April 2019, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers ruled that most of the claims were barred by a three-year statute of limitations except the defamation claims.
Oops. Well, I guess he’s firmly in the Rhymin Simon category. When asked about his numerous marriages, Simon responded, “I’m a professional musician, not a marriage counselor.”
Aside from the 13 yr old thing (which is a fairly big thing), a first cousin once removed relationship is only illegal in six states. All things considered (especially historically), it’s not terribly close. One set of JLL’s grandparents would have been her great-grandparents.
The Pennsylvania Senate race is getting dirty. So much for ‘no evidence of election fraud’. The Buck’s County Board of Commissioners just added the votes from misdated (how?) and undated mail. On the record, they stated that they knew it was illegal to do so, but so what? This is the same county that closed the polls illegally and intimidated voters into leaving the line without voting.
Senator Casey is petitioning to have ballots cast by unregistered voters to be counted also. These aren’t provisional ballots that have been deemed legitimate. These are provisional ballots cast where it has been determined that no such voter is registered.
Of course, this all happened because the Democrats kept finding new ballots to count so they could demand a recount because they only needed to find 23,000 more votes. Weren’t they saying that this counts as a crime punishable by jail time just a few months ago? If Democrats didn’t have double standards, they would have no standards at all.
The NY Post is on this and even Professor Turley has taken note:
Marc Elias and the Demise of the Faux “Save Democracy” Movement – JONATHAN TURLEY
I find Elias particularly galling because he graduated from my college before going to Duke Law School. And worse, my college hailed him as a conquering hero after he managed the entire Russia dirty trick on Hillary Clinton’s behalf. He’s despicable.
You know how Key and Peele had the Obama Interpreter skit? I want the same skit with Trump and Terry Crews as President Camacho. (If you know, you know.)
Maybe Crews should be entered into the short list for White House Press Secretary along with Rosanne Barr and Alex Jones.
RFK was named as a star by the media when he was considered for Obama’s EPA head in 2011. Now he is the antichrist who will “decimate community health centers” (AOC) and Tulsi Gabbard will please Putin who she will give our nation’s secrets.
As usual the circular firing squad is forming because some of the nominees are deemed unqualified. OK to feel that way but why give ammunition to the opposition. Just vote them down in a public way so the electorate knows who did what. As a voter, if I don’t like the way a Senator voted on issues important to me I don’t support them. If the people believe that Hegseth, Gabbard, Burgum, Gaetz or any other candidate for the cabinet is unqualified and the Senators vote to confirm along party lines then they can suffer the consequences. Conversely, if the Senators decline to confirm then that too should be known. We may just agree with them if they vote not to confirm. I just don’t want them to hide their vote.
I am under no illusions that the Republican senators or Republican house members will be in lock step behind the President. I don’t think they should in all cases. However, I detest disingenuous people who claim to be supportive but then find ways to publicly undercut you. Vote no if you have to but don’t spend time courting MSNBC to explain how awful a choice may be. The jury is out for me on John Thune the new Senate majority leader.
If House Republicans and their Senate Counterparts are serious about immigration then they will resurrect HR2 from 2023 and send it to the Senate. That takes the “broken immigration system” canard off the table.
As for Gaetz’s nomination, I have to believe there is something else behind it. Maybe, Gaetz wanted a face saving way to exit and Trump gave it to him, or maybe Trump wanted him out and believed or knew he could not be confirmed. Maybe, Trump knew that nominating Gaetz would draw all the fire off of his other nominees. He did learn from the Flynn nomination that with just one nominee named the media and the establishment could isolate Flynn easily for destruction. The only target at hand then was Flynn and they went after him. Pure Alinsky tactic.
Whether the allegations against Gaetz are true or false Gaetz has not be proven to have committed any wrongdoing other than being a flaming pain in the ass to some of his opponents and perhaps other things from a social perspective. Unproven allegations alone should not be a bar to confirmation. Despite the fact that these are only allegations and everyone is believed innocent until proven guilty, reality would dictate that whoever is selected to manage the DOJ that person cannot be perceived as having a ax to grind against anyone. His or her record must be unblemished if we are to undue the damage to the DOJ’s image over the last 20 years. From a management perspective, I do not see the requisite skills to manage multiple groups. But again, I do not know Trump’s thinking behind the nomination. For all I know he is using Gaetz as a Jack the Hacksaw Welch in the DOJ.
Can anyone tell me what is up with these Democratic politicians with military experience? I mean, Tim Walz was supposed to be one of the highest ranking NCO’s in the National Guard and he can’t seem to operate a shotgun even when he knows that he will be filmed doing it (a shotgun he claims to have owned for years and used a lot). Then, Missouri US Senate Candidate Lucas Kunce demonstrated beyond a doubt that he is so bad at firearms handling that he is a danger to himself and others. Now, when the retired Air Force Lieutenant General Mark Hertling demonstrated on national TV that he didn’t know how to use a rifle and didn’t even know how it worked, that was one thing. He was a general, and in the Air Force. He was probably and office jockey his entire life. But Walz and Kunce are different. Kunce said he was in the Marine Corps for 13 years. I thought all Marines were supposed to be riflemen.
So what is going on?
Are all Democratic politicians completely incompetent with firearms that they are very likely to harm innocent bystanders if they handle a weapon? Is this why they want to ban guns? I don’t think so. Tulsi Gabbard wasn’t in a combat position, but she seems to know her way around a firearm. I doubt she suddenly became competent because she left the Democratic Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sJENbJ0OTw
It is possible to reach high NCO ranks or serve 13 years in the Marine Corps without learning basic firearms handling and safety? Does this indicate serious deficiencies in our military?
Are the incompetent veterans especially attracted to the Democratic Party? If so, why do they keep trying to show how ‘manly’ and ‘military’ they are by demonstrating their inability to handle firearms? Why don’t they get some training first?
The worst-case scenario is that large numbers of people in the military are this incompetent with weapons. I understand that there are a lot of roles in the military and that a lot of people aren’t front line combat personnel. However, if you are going to be in the military (as opposed to a civilian worker), shouldn’t you be expected to have a working knowledge of common US military small arms and be expected to use them regularly? Shouldn’t you at the very least not be a danger to yourself and others at the range? Have we spent so much time on drag shows and SHARP training that we don’t teach them how to shoot anymore?
Damn, Tulsi is a real warrior
I heard that part of the Trump-Biden meeting the other day included a suggestion from Trump that Joe turn over his ill-trained dogs to the care of Kristi Noem.
A couple of things I wanted to share today:
First, Matt Yglesias is urging the Democrats to get back to common sense. I saw a version of this manifesto in rainbow sign form, but couldn’t find it again. I’m hoping somebody makes the sign for real.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/a-common-sense-democrat-manifesto?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
Next, the fired FEMA supervisor has spoken out, saying she was passing along orders from the top, and those orders were supposedly motivated by threats from Trump supporters on FEMA workers.
That’s not exactly what she says, although she’s not especially clear. She says that FEMA workers are supposed to avoid hostile environments, and her example is an aggressive dog. I take her point to be that a Trump sign is justification to “run away” according to policy. I doubt that very much. I think that she is probably an idiot.
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not! 😭
Scary, isn’t it?
But Trump just appointed his press secretary, and she will be one of the best ever.