The Axis of Unethical Conduct, the Trump Deranged, and the Galactically Stupid either don’t know this or don’t want anyone else to know it. That is unpatriotic and unethical. But first, a song! The singing comes at the end, words by, of course, John Phillip Sousa…
Now on to the inventory. I will try to post more up-beat stories tomorrow…
1. This, of course, is autocracy: The Environmental Protection Agency today placed 144 employees who signed a letter accusing the Trump administration of politicizing the agency on administrative leave and opened an investigation into their their conduct. Good. There is no workplace where an employee publicly criticizing and attacking his or her employer isn’t likely to be fired and shouldn’t be fired. “Current and former E.P.A. employees, lawyers and advocates expressed alarm at the development, saying the agency appeared to be ignoring the employees’ First Amendment rights.” Of course they do, because undermining their own Executive Branch is their objective, and they think they should be allowed to do it. “The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” the E.P.A. press secretary, Brigit Hirsch wrote in an email. OK, that’s unnecessarily bombastic, but basically correct. The suspended employees signed the letter using their official titles. They don’t have a metaphorical ethics or legal leg to stand on.
2. A Trump-Derangement update from my Facebook friends. One of the nicest people I know posted this Twitter thread on his Facebook page. I whited out his picture and name ( I have quoted this actor’s hysterical posts before):
Right. Trump is bankrupting the nation, and the guy you’re attacking was savaged for trying to reduce waste in the budget. Elon Musk, for all his quirks and faults, is the most valuable innovator the U.S has had in decades, and his decision to purchase Twitter prevented the Democrats from wrecking our democracy further, after more than four years of employing flagrant totalitarian tactics and devices. If Musk was responsible for saving the nation from a Kamala Harris Presidency, and he might have been, everyone should fall on their knees and kiss his feet.
The same friend posted this approvingly:
Wow. 1930s Germany! Yeah, this is exactly like 1930s Germany…The amazing thing is that people post such idiocy and don’t realize how ignorant it makes them look. Bias makes you stupid, but clearly Trump Derangement makes you unbelievably stupid.
3. This is an accomplishment, you know: Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress just passed the first U.S. budget on time since 1977. You would think the news media could give some kudos for that. Nah, what am I talking about?
4. Ohgeewhatasurpise…The “Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] on Russian Election Interference,” conducted by career professionals at the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis, has produced a report on the Obama administration’s spy agencies’ conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump. It finds that assessment was deliberately corrupted by then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who were “excessively involved” in its drafting, and rushed its completion in a “chaotic,” “atypical” and “markedly unconventional” process that raised questions of a “potential political motive.”
Didn’t everybody already know this?
5. “Nobody is above the law,” even celebrity Mexican boxers. Famed Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. has been arrested by ICE for overstaying his visa and lying on a green card application, and will be deported to Mexico where he faces organized crime charges, U.S. federal officials said Thursday. The boxer’s lawyer told the press that the charges were false and outrageous, and added that he and his client were due in court next week in connection with prior gun possession charges. Oh yeah, this guy sound like another martyr for sure…
6. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias”…or, “Why is John Dickerson still permitted to be a news anchor?” or, “FIRE has to be smarter than this.” John Dickerson, who may have been the most obviously biased Presidential debate moderator in history, ended his CBS news broadcast this week by saying Paramount’s forfeiting $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the “60 Minutes’ deceptive Harris could not be justified by “law and fact, and claimed the settlement “poses a new obstacle” for the network’s journalists. I guess that’s true: they’ll have to be less obvious when they try to rig elections in the future.
“Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?” Dickerson asked. The better question is how any objective viewer can trust a network’s newws division that tries to hide the fact that a candidate for President can’t answer a simple question without descending into gibberish.
I guess the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has to pretend that this isn’t what it is lest they be accused of being in Trump’s pocket. I’m trying to be nice here. “Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated,” FIRE stated in regarding to the settlement. “This settlement will only embolden the president to continue his flurry of baseless lawsuits against the press — and against the American people’s ability to hear the news free from government intrusion.”
Oh, shut up. If CBS’s deceptive editing had been successful in electing Kackling Kamala and the Knucklehead without appropriate consequences, news media cheating for a party seeking perpetual power would have been repeated, and more outrageous the next time.
Ethics Alarms 
The lawsuit was baseless, because it alleged violating laws against consumer fraud.
Lying for political gain has never been interpreted as consumer fraud.
Love the song — but I thought that rendition of it dragged a bit. Here is another version that I found that was fun to watch:
Like me, you are used to Arthur Fiedler’s peppier tempo, which I prefer as well.
Re:
#2, my daughter, whom I love endlessly, buys into the “the US is just like Nazi Germany.” Using Google, the premier prevarication aggregator, I compiled a listing of the brutal acts of the Third Reich, including Night Of The Long Knives, Kristallnacht, the Reichstag fire, and things before, after, and in between, and asked her where they’ve happened in the US.
Crickets. An ounce of intellectual honesty would work wonders in this country, but, alas, the Academic Industrial Complex, as my son, whom I love endlessly, puts it, is devastatingly pervasive and effective. A recent meme had the statement, “In 100 years we’ve gone from teaching Greek and Latin in high school to teaching remedial English in college.” As the kids say, “facts”.
#5, JCC senior was a great fighter, and very loved and respected. JCC Jr. is emblematic of Dirty Harry’s admonition “A man’s got to know his limitations.” My dad was in charge of 40,000 engineers at a major defense company, had several patents at the company, and designed or was in charge of several of the most iconic weapon systems in the US arsenal. During the time I worked at said company, my primary goal was not to tarnish his reputation. JCC Jr. was never going to be his dad, and that’s ok. But he has made an absolute mockery of a great name. Sad.
When individuals or groups are enshrouded in a cloud of denial, there is but one way to lead them out of the mist. Hot them with the truth, over and over, as Bad Bob did.
Good job, BoB. I await the afteraction report!
Regarding the passage of the first budget sincce 1977. I scrolled thought it last night. After three hours of scrolling i had gotten almost 1/3 of the the way through. Not reaiidn in depth miind you but looking at highlights.
So it got me thinking, how many who object to the bill so vociferously have actually read it. All I’ve heard are predictions of doom and destruction. Even my Bishops at the USCCB have denounced support of the bill as a path to perdition. No accolades for its defunding of the Planned Parenthood death mills. No applause for its attempt to take to task the fraudsters tha abuse varios entitlement proram. No mention of the right of nations to be sovereign in their immigration policies, a smnetioned in our Catechism, so that scofflaws can be returned to their home land.
Dolan, Tobin and the rest have yet to open the doors of their sancturies so that the homeless sleeping on thier door steps can have respite from tier sufferings.
““Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated”
Indeed. Which is why the EPA employees should be fired and JCC, Jr should be deported.