Another week, another wave of hypocritical, “Yikes, Trump is President!” freakouts. In addition to the weekend’s “No Kings” children’s theater, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley (Guess which party!) grabbed the Senate floor on Tuesday to “ring the alarm” on President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country.” Then he blabbed on for 23 hours, the second-longest speech in Senate history, and said absolutely nothing new, original, that didn’t ape old, old Axis talking points, or the wasn’t pure projection.
Let’s see: Merkley accused the Trump administration of undermining checks and balances, attacking free speech (funny, coming from a Democrat), attacking the press (they aren’t attacked enough), “politicizing the Justice Department,” (VERY funny coming from a Democrat) and using the military to suppress dissent, which only makes sense if you define defying federal law and attacking law enforcement officers as “dissent.” He made the familiar, apparently opinion research-tested claim that this President isn’t “normal” (having studied all of these guys rather extensively, I have no idea what a normal President is or would be. Every one is absolutely unique.)
Merkley concluded the next evening: “The President believes he is the king of this country and he can control everything, regardless of what the law says.” Balderdash. The President knows he is the elected leader of a country with a Constitution that bestows remarkably open-ended power on his role in the government, with a lot of that power still residing in gray areas until the courts rule after a President has tested its boundaries. Almost every POTUS tests those boundaries (except for slugs like Bush I), and the best Presidents test them the most of all. Donald Trump was elected to clean up a dizzying number of messes—threats to democracy, in fact, some accumulated over decades—-and he has little time to do it.
Surely some wag can come up with an appropriate counter-demonstration theme to rankle these losers? “No Merkley”? “No Whining”? “No Hippocrites”? “No Morons”?
Now you take the wheel. “No Mediocre Commentary”!
Ethics Alarms 
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/why-americas-crisis-is-predictable-george-friedman-on-us-cycles-trumps-role-podcast/
Y’all should give this conversation a listen.
Some funny context on Merkley (from ABC!):
Like Booker, Merkley’s speech was not a filibuster, which is meant to halt or delay the advance of a specific piece of legislation.
By holding the floor open all night, Merkley forced Senate floor staff, security and other support workers who are currently unpaid to work overtime hours. The government has been shut down since Oct. 1.
“The Democrats are going to make Capitol Police and Capitol support staff – who they refuse to pay – work all night so they can give speeches patting themselves on the back for shutting down the government and hurting the American people,” Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican, posted on X Tuesday night. “How ridiculous is that?”
At around 2:45 a.m., Merkley paused to untie his shoelace. He said standing in one place had “made my shoes a little tight.”
“I don’t recommend standing through the night and talking,” said Merkley, who turns 69 on Friday. “Not a healthy pursuit. But I am standing here to ring the alarm bells.”
Democratic Sen. Merkley of Oregon stages marathon speech to protest Trump amid shutdown – ABC News
Is Merkley a Delta?
Jack wrote:
Merkley concluded the next evening: “The President believes he is the king of this country and he can control everything, regardless of what the law says.” Balderdash.
Only partly sarcastically, I wish it were true just to tweak the ludicrously long noses of the Democratic extremists. One would think this would be beneath a Senator but then, Merkley is a fancy title filled by narcissistic, addlepated meat-suit.
Bill and Hillary’s hellspawn has an op-ed in USA today. Here is her hilarious point:
Still, with less than a year until we celebrate our country’s 250th anniversary, it is unsettling that such substantial alterations to the 225-year-old People’s House are being undertaken without a historic-preservation review and seemingly without the involvement of any historians, and I would love to be proven wrong here.
The reason the Left is calling for this sort of review is that it typically takes many years to accomplish, apropos to virtually any government or quasi-government organization. If Trump did what she suggests, the renovation would never happen, as these “preservation societies” tend to be dominated by leftists, especially in DC and the surrounds. So the odds that Trump would see his vision happen are zero, and Chelsea Clinton knows this all too well.
So before she bemoans this, she would be better served calling for a stop to the absurd “oppose everything Trump does no matter how good or useful” mentality from the left. I deem that it will never happen, even after Trump is decades dead and buried. Also, I judge the first Leftist to occupy the Presidency after Trump will demolish his work in an act of retribution.
So I welcome the changes. I think they are of dual use — enraging the Left further, inspiring them to reveal even greater depths of moral and ethical degradation, and actually making the East wing useful in a way that probably should’ve been done long ago.
What has Chelsea ever done on her own to justify getting an op-ed published? Literally who cares what she thinks? What transparent desperation by the publication.
But, but, but, she’s a Stanford grad! And she descends from Yale law school grads!
She’s American royalty. “No Kings!”
She oversaw the removal of furniture from the White House that belonged to the “people” by her mother. Maybe that is what gives her standing to offer an op ed
Remember the cartoon of HRC smuggling a piano past the gate guard under her skirt? Such a great cartoon for someone with piano legs.
“What has Chelsea ever done on her own to justify getting an op-ed published?”
< Zero; she has none of her father’s few good qualities and all of her mother’s myriad bad ones.
PWS
That surprises me. I thought conservatives would be the ones most interested in the preservation of historical structures. Do the Democrats not consider the White House to represent a history of slavery? Even the name is racist!
We could replace it with the House of Many Colors. Wait, no, Saruman already tried something like that.
Does this rise to the level of termination for a university employee?
The professor is now suing the University of Mississippi over being terminated for that post.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/university-of-mississippi-employee-who-lost-her-job-for-criticizing-charlie-kirk-sues-chancellor/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjCuuJwLMLrCtAMwovHKBA&utm_content=rundown
Boy, that was an idiotic firing. And my God, that woman looks idiotic. But earnest and suffering a terminal case of white guilt. There are millions like her.
Idiotic as in “firing an idiot”? I don’t think idiots should be teachers at any level.
It’s fairly anodyne lefty stuff. And she republished someone else’s post. Doubtless in line with the vast majority of American faculty.
A very helpful explication of the “Shutdown:”
The shutdown: How did we get here? – Roll Call
Thune introduced a bill in the Senate to pay those still working during the shutdown but was voted down by the Democrats.
Van Hollen put forth a bill to pay all workers working or furloughed during the shut down. This was voted down by Republicans because if you are paying someone they should be at work
If you can introduce a bill to pay people to work or to stay home what is the logic that you cannot pay people during a shutdown? The Constitution states the government will pay all debts and our currency are debt instruments and not backed by anything other than the value of what people can trade dollars for. Therefore, issuing dollars for work performed is just creating a debt so locking employees out even if you pay them to stay home illustrates the political nature of the shutdown tactic.
Is it ethical for a United Stated Congressman to present this kind of pure partisan propaganda?
It really took some balls to publicly ask that kind of pure propaganda question. Congressman Pocan must think people are complete imbeciles.
Well withing the established range of Congressional partisan bullshit.
Copying my response to this Open Forum, and expanding:
Key questions for Pocan: Is Trump using his own money to finance the construction? Is Trump getting paid his presidential salary while the government is shut down?
Key answer for Pocan: Well, it is paying construction workers, so they’ll be able to afford groceries.
“Congressman Pocan must think people are complete imbeciles.”
They must be. How else would you explain that Pocam and many of his colleagues got elected?
Here is a conversation I had on Threads. I will post the entiure thing so far.
https://www.threads.com/@mejercit/post/DQMlmH4idNS
sara.naves_noshery
Me
sara.naves_noshery
Me
sara.naves_noshery
Me
How much cognitive dissonance must exist in the heads of a democratic party member to believe public assination of conservatives is warranted for suggesting the Civil Rights Act might have some negative effects, but tatooing the Nazi Death’s Head simbol on a Party candidate’s chest does not indicate racial animosity?
I have a question, or an ethics quiz: should Curtis Sliwa (R) drop out of the race for NYC major, and endorse Andrew Cuomo (D) to prevent Zohran Mamdani from winning?
https://nypost.com/2025/10/21/opinion/curtis-sliwa-has-a-point-voters-want-conviction-and-its-shaping-every-race-across-the-country/
Unethical for a Republican candidate to drop out to help elect an essentially Democrat candidate. Sliwa’s right to press on.
If the Democrats had a respectable alternative to the Commie, then this would be a good question. They don’t Cuomo is a sexual harasser and mismanaged the pandemic. In the long run, it might be good for the nation and NY to learn what real socialist and communist policies do to society. Tough for New York, but then nobody is forcing them to vote for this slick demagogue.
I second that emotion.
“If the Democrats had a respectable alternative to the Commie, then this would be a good question.”
I had to ask the question as many conservative commenters such as Megan Kelly, the New York Post, and now even Donald Trump have weighed in on the issue, and they are all nudging Sliwa to drop out as they consider Cuomo the lesser of two evils.
https://nypost.com/2025/10/22/us-news/trump-diagnoses-curtis-sliwas-chances-of-becoming-nyc-mayor-while-nudging-him-to-drop-out/
Now I think the “lesser of two evils” argument is ethically interesting. This argument was also used in the 1991 gubernatorial election of Louisiana, where Edwin Edwards (D) was running against David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Former Governor Edwin Edwards was not known for his stellar ethics, but he was endorsed by nearly the entire Republican establishment including sitting Governor Roemer and President GWH Bush, as David Duke was condemned as being unfit for office. Popular bumper stickers were “Vote for the crook: it is important”, and “Vote for the lizard, not the wizard”.
But there is also an other argument to be made, more strategical than ethical. A win for Zamdani in November will force the Democrat Party further left, and this may help the Republicans with the mid term elections in 2026, and the Presidential elections in 2028.
I am confident that a Mamdani win will not allow Socialism to take hold nationally. His policies can be expected to create greater problems for NewYorkers who lack resources to leave and those with resources who choose to stay behind will soon tire of the escalating costs they will have to bear. Sometimes people need to see the theoretical in actual practice.
Conversely, if he is successful then perhaps we can rethink our positions but his policies cannot be subsidized by the Federal government at any more than they would have under a more free market solution.
States are supposed to be the laboratories for policies. Successful policies can be copied while failures teach others what not to try
Damn, my comment went somewhere – said it couldn’t be posted. Once in a blue moon I make a long comment and it goes into the bit bucket. I’m not typing it all over again; maybe you can find it?
I looked: not in SPAM, not in moderation. I’m sorry.
I retyped it but of course it isn’t exactly the same.
Thank-you.
This is 3 days late but it’s an open forum type topic. Today is Monday.
A few months ago I ordered two $50 Olive Garden gift cards on Amazon. Before giving them to the recipients (luckily), I checked them online and they both came back “invalid card”. So, I also went to the local Olive Garden and had them check the cards for me and they got the same result. I decided just to buy two $50 dollar gift cards directly from the local Olive Garden since I was already there. (I only bought them from Amazon in the first place because I made other purchases). I gave the two gift cards to the recipients that I bought directly from the local Olive Garden as they came with a verification receipt.
Amazon’s policy is they do not accept returns or refunds for Olive Garden gift cards, as they are a non-returnable item. There is an exception but customer service wasn’t very accommodating. Exception: “If the physical or digital gift card arrives in a damaged or defective state, you can initiate a return request for a refund or replacement.”
The online method didn’t work and kept telling me the no refund policy; so, I called customer service (for which a phone number was very difficult to find) and they kept telling me the cards were activated before shipping. It was my contention they were not and I told them the local Olive Garden also said they were invalid. The shipping took 3 or 4 days and when I received them they were invalid. I spent at least 4 to 6 hours on the phone over a two days and finally after several elevations and persistence they finally agreed to send replacements. That was fine as we eat at Olive Garden occasionally and my wife and I could just use the replacements.
When I received the replacement cards, I checked them online and they came back as $50 each as expected. However, I decided to check the original cards one more time before disposing of them. Guess what, now they were showing $50; so, I guess they activated them sometime during all my time on the customer service line when checking them. But they surely didn’t activate them initially because they were still invalid even after I initially spoke to customer service (they asked me to check again).
Anyway, I ended up with 4 cards worth $50 and have used the two $50 replacement cards. I feel the ethical decision is to destroy the original cards as I did receive the replacement and they worked. My wife thinks otherwise; she feels that the time I spent getting the replacements was worth at least $100 of my time and frustration.
Personally, I don’t care. I’ve decided to destroy the original cards. As I said, my wife disagrees.
What would you do?