Dilemma: the warm-ups and their equivalents take more time to prepare and post than regular, single topic posts, and usually generate less traffic. Yet without them, EA would fall hopelessly short of covering as many interesting and relevant ethics topics as they arise. The suggestions from readers (that’s jamproethics@verizon.net, folks!) help a lot. Dribs and drabs to get ME warmed up…

• Once again, a kamakazi jogger charged silently out of the darkness right at Spuds and me, requiring me to yank my dog back with all my weight to protect the fool from a lunge by a 70-pound pit bull mix. I initially said, “Sorry, didn’t see you,” thought better of it, and called after him, “LIGHTS, asshole!” It’s amazing how frank one can be with a large dog at the ready…
• Speaking of pit bulls, Sadie Davila, 7, died after she was attacked by a neighbor’s pit bull in Baton Rouge last week. The articles have been, as usual, filled with the false stats about the “breed” (actually at least four distinct breeds) spread by the despicable and destructive Dogsbite.com. This time, at least, the dog really was an American Pit Bull Terrier based on the photo: I check these things, and often the alleged “pit bull” is something else, accounting for the inflated statistics. The owner is under arrest, because he let the dog roam free. I’m just guessing what kind of treatment, care and training this dog got from an owner that irresponsible: this is another factor in the large number of pit bull attacks. It’s the dog of choice for irresponsible people who should never be trusted with a Yorkie, never mind a larger breed,
• Neil Dorr was kind enough to pass along this funny piece in the Hill. Now Biden and Co. are swearing that nobody ever, ever considered banning gas stoves. This is because to outpouring of anger from more than one side of the political spectrum was so vociferous after CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.  said that a forthcoming information request from the committee might be “the first step in what could be a long journey toward regulating gas stoves,” as The Hill reported at the time and that said that an outright ban was “a real possibility.” An honest, trustworthy government would just say after the public reaction to this (lead) trial balloon, “Well, the public has spoken, so we will cease any efforts to limit the use of gas ovens.” But no. Instead, this administration acts as if the news media made the whole thing up.

1. See the Washington Post spin. Spin spin, Post! Ace of Spades has a rueful and deft take-down of the Washington Post’s Dervish-like coverage of a new study that concludes that  “Russian influence operations on Twitter in the 2016 presidential election reached relatively few users, most of whom were highly partisan Republicans, and the Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior.”  “But the study doesn’t go so far as to say that Russia had no influence on people who voted for President Donald Trump” writes the Post. Ace: “Oh, it doesn’t say there was zero influence, so let’s assume we’re still Basically Right.” The Post, as we all know, was one of the leaders of the “Trump had Russia steal the election from Hillary” narrative. The Post: “It doesn’t examine other social media, like the much-larger Facebook….” Ace: “Where Russian-affiliated companies spent a staggering One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars on ads.” The Post: “Nor does it address Russian hack-and-leak operations….” Ace: “Like the Hunter Biden laptop…The article keeps bringing up “hack-and-leak operations.” Let’s be clear about what happened there: Hillary Clinton and the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders, and leakers exposed this fact. That wasn’t a lie. That wasn’t “Russian Disinformation.” That really happened. The leakers just revealed the truth which Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her Media Mafia wished to conceal.” Continue reading →

(Let’s see if I can get WordPress to behave this time, unlike in the previous post...)

Double Standards Alert! Classified documents were found in a locked closet in an office used by Joe Biden at the Penn Biden Think Tank, formally known as Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.

The fact that there is something akin to a “think tank” named after Joe Biden is itself hilarious, as it would be hard to imagine a public figure in US history whose intellectual abilities have been so frequently exposed as lacking over such a long career, even before he began slipping into dementia. This is like having an Orson Welles Fitness Institute. Baseball fans would find the Mario Mendoza Center for Batting Science similarly risible. The George Santos Integrity Academy. It’s another parlor game! I’d include Hillary Clinton endorsing #MeToo, but that’s real.

But let’s move on to the classified documents themselves. You know this is going to be reported as a “Republicans pounce!” story, but they should pounce. President Biden was recently asked on “Sixty Minutes” about the classified documents the FBI found in former President Trump’s home and he said he thought to himself, “How anyone could be that irresponsible?” In truth, a President has a much better defense to having classified documents in his possession after he leaves office than a Vice-President, because a President can declassify them. Here was a good pounce:

The stench of double standards pervades the entire Biden Presidency and the media’s coverage of it.  Meanwhile, it is fun to watch the mainstream media hustle to minimize the damage. In this case, it perfectly explicates the rueful Ethics Alarms category,  IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”)

Over at “Victory Girls,” Toni Williams was in rare form. She reacted to this report by NBC News…

…by writing,

“This was only a small number and we need to prop up Joe Biden and rules don’t apply to Democrats, they’re on our side. And the fact that we hid it until after the mid-terms means nothing, you smelly Walmart shopper.” That’s their story and they are sticking to it…You know what will happen, my fellow Deplorables. Abso-freaking-lutely nothing. Biden cooperated. It was a small number. It’s old news. Move on.

And you know she’s right.