Well! Jen Psaki has been hot as a firecracker lately! Before we get into details, however, let’s add a verse to that immortal Gilbert and Sullivan song above, shall we?

When Joe Biden utters something idiotic (Idiotic!)
Or he babbles what his puppeteers forbid (They forbid)
Jen Psaki must deny he even thought it (That he thought it)
And insist he never did what he just did. (What he did!)
Though her figurative pants may be on fire (Pants on fire!)
Do admire her for the tales she’s boldly spun. (That she’s spun)
It’s a chore to be Joe’s designated liar (She’s his liar!)
Jen Psaki’s job is not an easy one.

OHHH!

Since deceptive propaganda must be done, must be done.
Jen Psaki’s job is not an easy one…Easy one!

There, now that I’ve got that out of my system, Jen’s latest hits!

First, the “Putin Price Hike” lie…

This goes beyond mere lying, which is what Psaki does every day. The claim that gas prices and the skyrocketing inflation are the fault of the Russian Ukraine invasion is gaslighting. Funny, I seem to recall both gas and other prices heading up at today’s trajectory long before Vlad decided to become a war criminal. Must be my imagination…

How stupid does the Biden administration think American are? Very stupid, apparently. Psaki has been repeating “Putin Price Hike” for quite a while now: obviously it was decided upon by some focus group exercise as the Democrats’ best chance to hypnotize Americans into believing that spending trillions the nation doesn’t have and blocking energy production to make Greta Thunberg happy haven’t caused the price hikes in everything, because it’s all Putin’s fault (and greedy American corporations). Of course, polls showing about 40% of the public still thinking Joe is doing a bang-up job does encourage the “these people will believe anything!” conclusion. Continue reading →

Last week was a very lively one on Ethics Alarms; you’d hardly know it was an “echo chamber.” The uptick in quality may or may not have been the result of not having to argue with a now self-exiled commenter who kept complaining about the process here (and explaining why the New York Times wasn’t really biased because not all of its articles were biased), and having to correct a now banned knee-jerk progressive who believes every bit of spin and fake news that warms the hearts of progressives.

Here are five highlights that you might want to check out if you missed them, but you could just read all the April 7 posts…

• Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: Terms Of Affection And The Second Wife”

From 4/4: A COTD instant classic.

• Morning Ethics Ketchup, 4/5/2022: Ten Ethics Tales, And More Are Still On The Shelf!

From 4/5: More bang for your metaphorical buck: 10 ethics stories instead of just 5. (Special attention should be paid to #5,#9, and #10)

• Wait…WHICH Side Of The Ideological Divide Is A Threat To Democratic Institutions Again?

From 4/7: In which some Democrats and journalists advocate defying the Supreme Court in the interests of democracy. I’m not kidding!

• Let’s Play The Game Everyone Is Talking About: “Idiot Or Con Artist!” Today’s Contestant: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

From 4/9: No, AOC, you idiot, nobody believes corporations are people….

• The University Of Chicago’s Oxymoronic “Disinformation And The Erosion Of Democracy” Conference

From 4/10: Student questions expose the embarrassing hypocrisy of a “disinformation” conference.

April 11 has a relevant leadership and ethics history lesson for today’s times, and it is also  a nice segue from the previous post involving a mega-jerk. For this, in 1951, is the date where President Harry Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur from command of the U.S. forces in Korea.

After MacArthur had assured the President that pushing into North Korea would not bring Red China into the Korean conflict, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops rushed into the North and battled American troops, driving them back into South Korea. MacArthur reacted by demandingpermission to bomb Communist China and use Nationalist Chinese forces from Taiwan against the it. President Truman, finding himself unimpressed with MacArthur’s wisdom and not wanting to expand the so-called “police action” further, flatly refused. MacArthur then engaged in a public lobbying campaign, openly challenging Truman’s decision as well as the traditional civilian command of the U.S. military. Finally, in one of the many gutsy (if not necessarily correct) decisions that marked his tenure in the White House, President Truman fired the popular MacArthur and replaced him with Gen. Matthew Ridgway.  Harry told the nation in a televised address, “I believe that we must try to limit the war to Korea for these vital reasons: To make sure that the precious lives of our fighting men are not wasted; to see that the security of our country and the free world is not needlessly jeopardized; and to prevent a third world war.” General MacArthur was fired, he added, “so that there would be no doubt or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy.”

Truman stuck to his metaphorical guns, even as MacArthur returned to the United States to a hero’s welcome, parades, and declarations from politicians and others designed to undermine Truman’s authority and popularity, which was already on life support. MacArthur was invited to speak before Congress, and gave his maudlin “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away” speech. (You could trigger my old soldier father into a rant by just mentioning MacArthur.) Surprising many, MacArthur did “fade away.”

Good.

1. In ethics zugzwang, Texas blinks. One of the central ethics conflicts in the abortion problem is that a life is a life, and if it is unethically, morally and illegally ending a life to abort an unborn child, it is difficult to justify treating the mother differently from a doctor or anyone else. Gocha Allen Ramirez, a district attorney in Texas, exploded heads all over the state and nation by filing murder charges against Lizelle Herrera, who allegedly committed a “self-induced abortion.” Yesterday he backed down, dropping them. “In reviewing applicable Texas law, it is clear that Ms. Herrera cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her,” Ramirez, the DA for Starr, Jim Hogg, and Duval counties, said in a press release. Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms already featured two telling episodes from the just completed “Disinformation And The Erosion Of Democracy” at the University of Chicago. The first [Item 3, here], widely reported by conservative mews media and ignored by the mainstream media, was the head-blowing answer by Ann Applebaum, leftist historian and pundit for the predictable publications,when asked about  (Speaking of disinformation!) the mainstream media’s deliberate burying and falsely discrediting of the Hunter Biden laptop revelation in the final weeks of the 2020 Presidential campaign. When a student asked a panel about that rather timely topic (since the New York Times and Washington Post both suddenly decided to admit the laptop was genuine), Applebaum said,

My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is I think it’s totally irrelevant. I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation… I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be President of the United States.

The fact that the emails on the laptop seemed to suggest that Joe Biden’s coke-head, ne’re-do-well son, in the course of his influence peddling, offered direct assistance from his father and even implied that Joe profited from his under-the-table deals was irrelevant to the election and not newsworthy? Fascinating! That should have opened up a great discussion, but panel moderator David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s advisor and campaign manager, cut the topic off the second “United States” had left Applebaum’s lips.

Writing on his blog, Prof. Jonathan Turley was aghast (I also should have devoted a whole post to this): Continue reading →