What? Democrats manipulate health protocols for political advantage and expediency? Another conspiracy theory, conservatives? “Not hardly,” as Big Jake would say. Democrats are flagrantly disregarding their sacred Wuhan virus safety protocols because they can’t afford and positive testing or quarantines when the upcoming vote on the latest spending and tax bill (the hilariously oxymoronic titled Inflation Reduction Act) is expected to be razor thin. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said there is no “plan B” when it comes to passing the controversial spending package, because Democrats are “going to stay healthy.” Reportedly Democratic Senators could “bring [their] ventilator and still vote.” The Hill nickname for this hypocritical exercise, far from the first involving progressives and the pandemic, is “Don’t test, don’t tell.”
And yet people doubt the sincerity of the Left’s pandemic scaremongering….
1. And while we’re on the topic of trustworthy science, a French physicist posted this photo, writing (in French, of course), “Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us. She was taken by the [James Webb Space Telescope]. This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day”:
It was really a slice of chorizo sausage. Trust the science! (Just not the scientists…)
2. At what point will the vast majority of the public just point and laugh at people who react like this? U.S. and British TV personality Gordon Ramsey, a chef, food critic and restaurateur, was shown in a video surveying a flock of lambs for future consumption while saying, “Yummy yum yum yum yum yum. I’m going to eat you. Which one’s going in the oven first?” Then he picked one.
Social media critics were horrified. Morons.
3. And speaking of morons: Alex Jones. A jury found the “Infowars” conspiracy theory hack guilty of defamation for falsely claiming—ridiculously claiming— that the 2021 attack on the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school that took the lives of 20 children was a hoax. He was ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages, then another $45.2 million in punitive damages…and this was just for two of the families. Expect the damages to be significantly reduced, but it appears to be a good verdict. Lying is protected under the First Amendment, but Jones’ lies in this case implicated the parents of murdered children in a plot with no evidence whatsoever, though Jones implied that there was. That’s defamation. (I know, because that’s not what I did when an Ethics Alarms reader claimed that I defamed him.)
4. I won’t say Georgia candidate for Governor, Stacey Abrams, is a moron, but her “explanation” of how she squares her faith with her support for abortion is, shall we say, interesting:
It is a medical decision. And while your faith tradition may tell you that you personally do not want to make that choice, it is not my right as a Christian to impose that value system on someone else because the value that should overhang everything is the right to make our own decisions, the free will that the God I believe in gave us. And my responsiblity as a legislator is to make certain that we allow doctors and nurses and medical professionals to make medical decisions and that politicians stay out of it.
Incoherent and insulting. The decision of a healthy woman to terminate a healthy fetus is not a “medical decision.” Moreover, if an individual believes that killing a fetus is ending the life of a human being, it matters not how an individual reached that conclusion, be it the Bible, biochemistry or experience: that individual has an obligation to act on that belief. Abrams is endorsing subjective ethical standards even when they involve homicide, an inexcusable position for a lawmaker. All laws involve elected officials deciding on what societal values and standards must be, and imposing them.
5. Bottom ethics item of the day: Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s state budget included a pardon signed by Massachusetts’ Governor Charlie Baker, thus exonerating Elizabeth Johnson from her 1692 conviction for practicing witchcraft in Salem.
This was the culmination of a three-year effort by civics teacher Carrie LaPierre and students at North Andover middle school, who relentlessly campaigned to exonerate Johnson with an assist by a state senator who apparently doesn’t have enough to do.
My verdict: stupid grandstanding and virtue-signaling. None of those found guilty of witchcraft require exoneration, because everyone knows there were no witches. The linked article describe’s Johnson’s name as”seemingly-forever smeared by the witchcraft conviction.” To whom? Who knows her name at all today? This isn’t like Bill Clinton finally pardoning the captain of the “Indianapolis,” who was unjustly court-martialed for an infamous naval disaster he could not have prevented. [Pointer: JutGory]
This Comment of the Day by Tom P (who has been on a roll of late) is one of those “in case you missed it…” COTDs. Here he is on the ever-green topic of attacks on past conduct of others by those residing in the present, as raised in by the post, “More On Nichelle Nichols: Regarding Althouse’s Misguided Snark”…in case you missed it:
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The thing about the past is that it is past. The past serves only two purposes. One role is to bring pleasure in the present as you remember past enjoyable episodes of your life. The second is as a guide toward future action. No matter how hard you try, the past cannot be changed or undone. Althouse’s protestations serve no purpose. Slavery has been abolished for a few years now and all slaves and slaveholders are dead. The original producers of Star Trek are dead or no longer in business. There are no living aggrieved parties nor remedies available to them if they were alive.
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