1. CNN seems determined to charge into oblivion. Yesterday, I had a CNN website anti-Trump news piece ready to fisk, then was so happy to find some non-political topics to write about that I didn’t, and now its outdated. Never mind, though! There are more “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” pieces up today. Look: here’s “news analysis”: In a flurry of activity happening almost too swiftly to follow, Trump is giving critics every reason to think their worst fears will be realized. Click on that, and you get “Trump is imposing MAGA rule on the government hour-by-hour.” The whole website is littered with apocalyptic headlines, as if every President doesn’t arrive prepared to make sure the government carries out his policies and beliefs. The language CNN (and others) are using is calculated to create fear and dread, following up on the “Trump is Hitler” smear, which worked so well.
2. Then, of course, CNN is trying to clobber Trump with “factchecks.” It’s the usual fare: Trump saying something was “the biggest,” “the greatest” or the “worst,” inflating numbers, stating his speculations as fact, the usual. Yeah, he does this. Normal people are used to it by now. For example, CNN points out that Trump over-states (probably) how many illegal immigrants the Biden administration let in over the border. Here’s the only important fact: it was too damn many, and that’s what the President was emphasizing, correctly, as well as what sane citizens care about. CNN should also factcheck itself for the use of the deliberately vague and unspecific word “migrants” in order to focus on immigration rather than the crucial sub-category, illegal immigration. The use of “migrants” this way is a flashing neon sign stating: “We support open borders and want to paint Trump as a bigot!” We also get this tired refrain after Trump described ( in a Fox interview) the January 6 riot as a “protest.” There is no question that it was a protest, and one that got out of control. Yesterday, CNN described the riot as an “insurrection,” which it unequivocally was not, legally or factually. Trump also said, “They knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.” CNN: “Leaving aside Trump’s description of the violent riot as a mere protest, his description of the election is false – his usual long-debunked lie; Trump’s loss to Joe Biden was entirely legitimate.” Elsewhere in the same factcheck CNN says regarding 2020, “the votes were counted and reported accurately, and Trump’s vote total – about 74.2 million – is his actual total.”
That is just as much speculation as Trump’s claim that the vote count was manipulated, and as Ethics Alarms periodically explained here for four years, Trump’s loss was only “entirely legitimate” if one ignores the concerted effort by the news media, including CNN, to warp the news reporting to Trump’s detriment, the Democrats’ benefit, and to the detriment of the public and democracy. (Trump didn’t say the riot was a “mere” protest. Where’s the factcheck?)
CNN also “factchecked” Trump’s inaugural address. I have never seen that done before.
3. More CNN: it was revealed yesterday that the CNN CEO ordered Jake Tapper and the other CNN propagandists not to slime Trump during the Inauguration coverage by disparaging the new President as, for example, a “convicted felon.” “Give him a chance,” they were reportedly told. Gee, what a concept! Before 2016, criticizing a new President during his inauguration was literally taboo on all the networks, but, after all, Trump doesn’t deserve the same respect and deference as every other President of the United States. That remains the position of most of the news media.
4. Meanwhile, over at NBC, a hit piece accusing Hegseth of abusing his second wife was issued two days ago, based on an affidavit submitted by his former sister-in-law. The New York Times and other Axis dependables headlined the story. Then Hegseth’s second wife, the one he supposedly abused, stated that she unequivocally denies her sister’s claims:
How does a news organization justify publishing the account of a third party about events that she did not witness, when both of the individuals involved in the alleged event deny it occurred? What happened to all that stuff in “All the President’s Men” about Woodward and Bernstein not being able to have an allegation published without independent confirmation? (You know how and what.)
5. Chuck Schumer turns into Mark McGwire! During baseball’s steroid scandal, former A’s and Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire was called before a House committee to give his opinions on the matter. McGwire, who was accused of using steroids when he hit 62 home runs for St. Louis, breaking Roger Maris’s all-time record, was asked point blank whether he had cheated. He repeatedly answered that he didn’t want to talk about the past, that what was important was what to do about the problem going forward. That evasive answer has basically kept him out of baseball’s Hall of Fame. New York Senator and Democratic Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer apparently didn’t learn the lesson: after he said yesterday, “There’s no other way to describe President Trump’s pardon of January 6th defenders than un-American, ” a reporter asked Schumer about his views on President Biden’s pardons for his entire family. Schumer did a McGwire, saying, “We’re looking at the future.”
That didn’t even make as much sense as a dodge as what McGwire said! Biden’s pardons were about the future, protecting his family from future criminal charges. Schumer also said, “It just is so cruel to the Sicknick family, who lost a police officer.” As has been shown again and again, Officer Sicknick’s death was not related to the Capitol riot, yet the Axis, which includes Biden and Schumer, keeps repeating the lie that it was.
Oddly, CNN didn’t factcheck Schumer.
5. In Milwaukee, WDJT-TV fired meteorologist Sam Kuffel after she posted multiple Instagram posts calling Elon Musk a Nazi because of his hand gestures during an inauguration party appearance. “Meteorologist Sam Kuffel is no longer employed at CBS58,” said the staff memo from news director. “A search for a replacement is underway.” Good. If an on-air local news report staffer reveals herself to be a gullible, biased, Trump-Deranged idiot she cannot be trusted, and neither can a TV station that employs her.
6. One more example of media manipulation, a funny one caught by Ann Althouse: In“Who Is JD Vance’s Wife? Second Lady Usha Vance, Former Democrat, Steals the Inauguration Spotlight/Just after his swearing-in, Donald Trump joked that he ‘would have chosen’ Usha as VP—’the only one smarter than’ JD Vance,” Vanity Fair found great significance in the fact that Usha ” was spotted carrying books including The Iliad, a classic saga of male rage and refusal to accept defeat, on the campaign trail.” I love “The Illiad,” and have read several versions of it. I never thought of it as a “saga of male rage” and “refusal to accept defeat,” and I very much doubt that Homer regarded it as that either. But most people have not read “The Illiad,” so when Vanity Fair represents it that way to paint Vance’s wife as a Trump acolyte, they will believe that spin.
CNN didn’t factcheck Vanity Fair, either
7. Ethics verdict : abuse of position, influence and power. During a prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke directly to President Trump, seated in the front row alongside Vice President Vance, urging “compassion” for illegal immigrants and transsexuals. Naturally the anti-Trump mob on social media (including my Facebook friends) thought this was just wonderful. It was unethical: no single attendee at any church service should be singled out, and a service isn’t a political speech, or shouldn’t be. Budde was grandstanding and virtue-signalling to the Left. “I decided to ask him as gently as I could to have mercy,” the Episcopal bishop of Washington told NPR’s fawning “All Things Considered,” “how dangerous it is to speak of people in these broad categories, and particularly immigrants, as all being criminals or transgender children somehow being dangerous. To be united as a country with so many riches of diversity, we need mercy. We need compassion. We need empathy. And rather than list that as a broad category, as you heard me say, I decided to make an appeal to the president.”
Swell. And he should decide to cut the National Cathedral out of all future Presidential activities.
Ethics Alarms 
It’s the only thing they know how to do.
Well, CNN in particular better learn some new tricks. The Cartoon Network is out-rating it, and deservedly so.
Jim Acosta got taken to the proverbial cleaners yesterday by Tim Burchett (R-TN). It was not pretty.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/this-is-not-fox-cnn-anchor-slams-rival-network-in-fracas-with-trump-defender-who-hits-back/
Yikes.
jvb
That’s too good.
“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea…”
Indeed. It was rather bloody.
jvb
I would like to ask Jack about whether the Julia principles are, and what the ethical implications are of the Julia principle.
My impression is that podcasts like Joe Rogan, Charlamagne the God, Triggernometry, Megyn Kelly did more to move the election than the mainstream media. In other words, the elections demonstrated that the mainstream media. are becoming less and less relevant in forming public opinion. One reason for this is that people are cutting cable as it has become way too expensive related to the value being offered. Same is true for newspapers. Most younger people are getting most of their information online. There are questions about whether MSNBC and CNN still have a lot of years left, due to the loss of viewers; Fox may have more viewers than all the leftwing media combined.
I do not have cable, and although I am able to watch mainstream media clips on YouTube I prefer not to watch CNN and MSNBC because the content (e.g. the View) is so utterly ridiculous, having a similar effect on the brain as pornography.
So if the Julia principle applies to an entity or person, does that imply, that we can safely shrug our shoulders, and further ignore that entity due to lack of relevance and importance?
Remember, it’s the Julie Principle, named after the character in “Showboat” who sings “Can’t help lovin’ that man of mine” with the iconic line, “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.” And it only applies to individuals, because organizations, unlike most human beings, can change their core traits, beliefs, habits and principles, and frequently do. There are ways to prompt such changes, encourage them, and nourish them, which is why we can’t let organizations off the hook by shrugging and saying, “Well what do you expect?” I expect ethical conduct and integrity from professions and entities, and if they stubbornly resist that, then they need to be exposed, attacked, and denigrated until they either reform or are marginalized.
Is there any tipping point where engagement with an unethical organization becomes futile, or harmful to ourselves? As a private person I refuse to let CNN and MSNBC live rent free in my head, as it would make me feel depressed, and I would rather engage with people (including blogs and podcasts) that have something meaningful to say, and help me grow as a person. There is both an ethical and tactical side to this. From a tactical point there may be a point where continuous rebuttal of stale viewpoints passes the point of diminishing returns, and where satire or just ignoring it are better options; this will also allow us to move to other issues that need attention. From an ethical point of view I notice that entrenched radical views have poisoned personal relations, church relations, and other. My attitude is to try keep politics out of discussions with friends and family, try to keep politics out of my church, and avoid people or churches that have become toxic. So where do we get to a point where we can navigate all this negative stuff without always getting the same feeling as in the Godfather Part 3 “Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!”.
Re: #1
Jack: “For example, CNN points out that Trump over-states (probably) how many illegal immigrants the Biden administration let in over the border. Here’s the only important fact: it was too damn many, and that’s what the President was emphasizing, correctly, as well as what sane citizens care about.”
No, here is another important fact: nobody knows what the number is. You can complain that Trump overstated it, but it is true incompetence not to have a number. yes, you can complain that Biden let people in and sent them to places throughout the Union. But, they don’t even know what they did, where they are, who they are, and how many of them there were.
Turning a blind eye to such incompetence infuriates me.
-Jut
Re: #6
Jack: I love “The Illiad,” and have read several versions of it. I never thought of it as a “saga of male rage” and “refusal to accept defeat,” and I very much doubt that Homer regarded it as that either.
It’s right there in the opening line:
“Manin aeide thea Peliadeus, Achilleus”
“Sing Goddess of the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus” [that sent thousands of Greeks to their death (or something like that)]
Wrath (“Mania”) is the very first word.
Funny story: when I first read it, another student (who was not reading it) asked me what the theme of the story was. I responded that I did not know, as I was only on the fifth book, or something.
Nope. It is right there.
I would agree though: refusal to accept defeat is not the theme of the Illiad per se (though the inability to win the war was pretty much a characteristic of the Trojan War in general.
-Jut
I’d say that’s a bit like saying that the first line in Moby-Dick proves the book is about Ishmael. I took “The Illiad” to be about ego, pettiness, vengeance, honor, shifting loyalties, tantrums, and a rollicking good war story. To summarize it as being about “male rage” is cherry-picking with an agenda. I also don’t think “rage” is a fair synonym for “wrath” in this context. “Rage” to me implies excessive anger, irrational anger.
Jack: ““Rage” to me implies excessive anger, irrational anger.”
Not to get into a digression about the Iliad, but Achilles did drag Hector’s dead body behind his chariot as he circled Troy several times. Seems a bit excessive to me.
And, the story ends after Achilles relents and allows Priam to bury Hector.
Of course, going through it the first time, I thought, “wait, what about the war?” But, the war was not the point.
-Jut
Achilles was an asshole, a prima donna, a bully and a jerk. Hateful too. I didn’t think that he needed rage to defile Hector that way. That was just a heel being a heel…It also could be justified as terrorism and an effort to demoralize Troy.
Jack: “Achilles was an asshole, a prima donna, a bully and a jerk. ”
I think the word you are searching for is “hubris.” There is that beautiful scene where Priam contemplates that the father of Achilles will soon mourn him the way he mourns Hector.
anyway, even if we disagree about the theme of the Iliad, to characterize it as a tale of “male” rage cuts too close to “toxic masculinity.” Achilles was tragic, not toxic.
-Jut
And we know that “toxic masculinity” was the Vanity Fair’s author’s spin.
Okay, now, about Moby Dick….
(Probably also about Toxic Masculinity)
-Jut
I can go on about THAT story forever. I directed a revival of Orson Welles’ experimental stage failure “Moby-Dick Rehearsed” and made it a big D.C. hit three times. And it was my dad’s favorite novel.
I can’t say that Moby Dick is my favorite novel, but it is in the set composed of my favorite novels.
its powerful ending, with all of the manifest symbolism, really sums up what came before.
it may not be my favorite novel, but, for American novels, it has few competitors.
-Jut
The sister-in-law in question is actually the ex-wife of Pete Hegseth’s brother, not Samantha Hegseth’s sister. If it were Samantha’s sister it could be assumed that they shared secrets between themselves. However, as merely a member of the Hegseth’s extended family I think that some further relationship would have to be established to give her statements credence.
Thanks for this. But no matter who she was, it’s hearsay. You can’t base a news story on pure hearsay without more.
2. “CNN also “factchecked” Trump’s inaugural address. I have never seen that done before.”
Democratic norms, huh?
4. There’s something off about the statement, “I do not believe your information to be accurate…” It’s either accurate or it isn’t. Whether she believes it to be accurate or not is beside the point. I’m not saying she’s lying, but why not just state, “Your information is not accurate”. The way it’s worded leaves in my mind a question as to what exactly happened and whether the allegations are more of a mischaracterization of an event rather than out and out fabrications.
7. See, this kind of thing sticks in my craw. What would happen if someone had lectured Barack Obama or Joe Biden from the pulpit about abortion? Not only would that clergyman have been called out by everyone on the left, but also there would calls to remove the church’s tax exempt status for delving into “politics”.
If I recall correctly, when the National Cathedral was being built, they were looking around for people to agree to be buried there and a President would be a major boon. Former President Taft made his heirs promise that his bones would not end up there.
And Woodrow Wilson’s bones did. Res Ipsa Loquitur.
-I agree that the ex-wife’s statement was strange. Sounds like a lawyer drafted it.
-Yes, the incident at the cathedral reminded me of the cast of “Hamilton” lecturing Mike Pence after a performance, which I cited here as unethical and wrong.
-Taft ended up in Arlington, one of the very few Presidents who si there.
ETHICS REVOKED: ETHICS of Executive Branch Appointees itself has been REVOKED at the Executive Branch Level. See Revocation on January 20, 2021 of PRIOR Ethics Executive Order 13770 of January 28, 2017, “Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees,” is hereby revoked – https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-revocation-executive-order-13770/
As had Bill Clinton at the end of his term, Trump revoked EO 13770 at the end of his first term. (Evidently all the Trump administration veterans were being black balled from any jobs in D.C.) I’m not sure why EO 13770 was revoked again. Belt and suspenders?
One of my ongoing roles even in so-called retirement is training pastors and other ministry workers. One of my lectures is entitled Sins in the Pulpit and one of those is targeting individuals in the congregation. It is simply wrong as they have no recourse to respond in the context of being preached at.
Agreed. It was an abuse of her position. How would Trump have looked if he and has family got up and left the service. What a jerk the Bishop is.
jvb
Aren’t churches subject to losing their non-profit tax status if they politic from the pulpit? Shouldn’t the Episcopal Church have its 501(c)(3) status yanked?
This is from the IRS web site:
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.
On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.
So my conclusion is that churches will not lose tax exempt status due to the content of their sermons.
What are the odds that the good Bishop is utilizing church resources to provide sanctuary to illegals…maybe even some of the criminal elements? After all, Jesus was a refugee, or a migrant, or…something.
Just spit-balling…
5. WDJT-TV? Is that call sign a joke?
Hah! Great catch! I looked right past that. I was too busy laughing at the fact that it was the weatherman – who has incorrect weather assessments about 65% of the time – that got canned for an incorrect assessment of Musk.
It figures.
The mindset of Bishop Budde and other ministers is why I left the Episcopal Church. Lead me to Jesus, don’t try to turn me into a raving left-wing ideologue.
Yea, verily! Remember when churches were engaged in saving souls and leading them into salvation and eternal life? Render unto God and unto Caesar, etc? Religions have become the government, or the government is one and the same as these religios social justice warriors. With taxing authority and police power. Everything’s all screwed up.
NEIL VAN BARNEVELDT:
I guess it’s the word ‘Candidate’ that will save them.
A question: Why the hell was the ‘Prayer’ service held in that Church; is there a law, or is it a precedent that SHOULD have been broken?