“This criminal crusade against political adversaries is completely unprecedented in all of American history.”
–—CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin (and why is he still allowed on the air by an allegedly respectable news network?) regarding the so-called Trump revenge plot against Democrats.
It is amazing that any journalist, pundit, progressive or Democrat would have the gall to say that. It is true that weaponizing the justice system to attack, hobble, and eliminate political foes is a totalitarian tactic that the United States had been wise to avoid, but if there was ever a valuable “democratic norm” the Left must take full responsibility for shattering, it is this one. “Unprecedented!” Incredible.
I would say “You’ve gotta hand it to Toobin,” but that would lead me into a joke that I would hate myself for making…
Verdict: President Trump abused his position, power and influence by weighing in on a private company’s choice of logo and continuing to make declarations about it as if it is any of his business or a proper matter of concern for the President of the United States.
Maybe President Trump has read more history than his detractors give him credit for. Trump 2.0 has appeared to take a lot of inspiration from the transformational “If I have the power, why not use it?” Presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, and in his attempt to wrest control over the economy from the Fed (created by The Second Worst President Ever before Biden wandered into the White House, Woodrow Wilson), Trump seems to be emulating another effective and transformational President whom he has previously praised, “King Andy Jackson.”
Jackson famously killed the predecessor to the Federal Reserve, the Second Bank of the United States. The Second Bank of the United States had been chartered for twenty years before Old Hickory took aim at it. It was a hybrid creation, a private institution with exclusive authority to manage the nation’s economy, particularly through the management of currency, without Presidential or Congressional interference. on a national scale. Jackson believed that the decisions of Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Bank, was biased, in league with Republicans, and not worthy of the trust the bank’s dubious authority required. Sound familiar? He also believed that the Bank of the United States was unconstitutional.
In early 1832, Biddle, in open alliance with the Jeffersonian Democratic- Republican Party’s leaders Senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster submitted an application for a renewal of the Bank’s twenty-year charter four years before the charter was set to expire. This was a partisan political move to force Jackson, leading a new breakaway populist offshoot party into making a contentious decision prior to the 1832 presidential election in which Jackson’s Democrats were likely to have to defeat Clay. Jackson was not the man to back away from a fight. (Sound familiar?) When Congress voted to reauthorize the Bank, President Jackson vetoed the bill with a veto message accusing the Bank of the United States of pitting “the planters, the farmers, the mechanic and the laborer” against the “monied interest” that represented the elite and powerful against the interests of the American public. Guess who had the public behind him, and who won what was called “The Bank War,” the popularly elected President of the United States?
Now we have the War against Lisa Cook. President Trump said on Monday that he was taking the extraordinary step of removing Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 2022, in what the always objective New York Times calls “a legally dubious maneuver that could undermine the independence of the nation’s central bank.” Or did they write that in 1832?
The quote, attributed to Oscar Wilde, “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell [in Dickens’ “The Old Curiosity Shop”] without laughing” comes to mind, or George Will’s favorite term, “condign justice,” referring to punishment for misconduct that is especially fitting and appreciated by observers. At Ethics Alarm, I signify such delicious and amusing examples of metaphorical boomerangs circling back and breaking the thrower’s face with the mocking laughter of the “The Simpsons'” Nelson Muntz.
Axios reports that the self-inflicted one-two punch of Joe Biden’s epically awful Presidency and his DEI VP, Kamala Harris’s spectacularly incompetent 2024 campaign is still keeping the Democratic Party deep in a hole. Gee, what a surprise: you intentionally place the fate of your party in the hands of an aging and demented political hack who was never that bright to begin with and an inarticulate empty power suit whose sole qualification for high office has been her gender and skin-shade, and for some mysterious reason you end up in political Hell. Who could have seen that coming?
I have AOL as my email provider. It was not by choice: Verizon handled my email (I get about 300 non-spam emails a day) but sold their business to AOL, which is why I have a jamproethics@verizon.net address. AOL is clunky, but I depend on email, and having to change over my address promises to be a disaster, losing me clients who are increasingly precious commodities. When Grace died, several clients who were supposed to always copy me in on messages to her didn’t, and moved on to other (and lesser) ethics trainers. So I have, though sheer inertia, kept my AOL account while paying the reasonable yearly fee.
But this month, the provider decided to force me and other users into paying them more. A third of my email home page is now taken up with obtrusive, often animated ads. If I click on an “expand” button to restore the page to the readable status it once was automatically, I get a message inviting me to pay for “ad free” email. Then the screen goes back to its ad-cluttered format. I can only “expand” three (or four: I haven’t counted) times before AOL informs me that I have exhausted my daily quota (of returning to the screen format I had been paying for), and that my only option is to pay extra to end the annoying interference.
Along with a somewhat more arguable EO regarding cashless bail, President Trump just signed an executive order purporting to make “desecration” of the flag a crime and to detain and remove non-citizens who engage in it.
Ugh.
The Supreme Court in 1989 issued a 5-4 ruling that found burning the U.S. flag is protected by the First Amendment. Bush I made a big deal over this as a campaign issue; it was foolish and trivial then, and now that there is SCOTUS precedent declaring the gesture protected speech, that should be the end of the matter. Trump blathered on about flag-burning last year: I was hoping we had heard the end of it. Guess not.
I was stunned that the decision that flag-burning was protected speech was as close as it was. It has been the Left promoting the punishing of political speech (like prosecuting drivers who scuff up “Pride” symbols painted on city streets): shouldn’t conservatives see the slippery slope looming with the criminalization of flag burning?
Trump’s executive order is flagrant pandering. The Axis has been so reliable in opposing more rational measures that now he’s over-reaching. People who burn flags are telling us what they are. It’s useful information.
…which means they are misleading, manipulative, and useless, except to be misleading and manipulative.
I just saw a Rasmussen Poll that measured Trump’s approval split at 49%-49%. Which side of that split would I belong on? I’m not sure I know. Hmmmmmm….
Do I approve of Trump’s character? Do I like the fact that someone like him is the symbol of the United States to the world? Do I think his conduct as President is likely to have a positive effect on the United States society and culture over the long term? Do I think his conduct as President is likely to have a positive effect on the office of the Presidency over the long term? Do I approve of his social media postings and his unrestrained outbursts on whatever topic engages him at a particular moment? Do I approve of his extreme narcissism, his cruelty, his misogyny, his exaggerations, his constant resort to ad hominem attacks?
Nonononononononononono! I do not approve. Not only that, but I don’t approve of anyone who does approve these aspects of Donald Trump.
A young woman and Chicago resident named Jill Ciminillo has become the target of coast-to-coast mockery and ridicule after she reacted to President Trump’s stated intention of making Chicago next on his list of urban hellscapes to make safe with federal intervention.
The conservative media (including Fox News) and blogosphere gleefully pounced, digging up her old social media posts…
and pronouncing Jill the poster girl for irrational Trump Derangement. “Dear leader trying to protect me,” one social media wag wrote in a tart “translation,” “I admit there is a serious problem here with crime and violence, but because of my hatred of you, we would rather suffer in our own self inflicted suffering. Signed – A Liberal white woman.” Ciminillo quickly deleted all of her social media accounts, surely hoping against hope that her 15 minutes of infamy won’t last any longer than that.
I feel sorry for Jill, and while it is appropriate for the absurdity of her post to be discussed and debunked, she is a victim, not a villain. She is infected with the Trump Derangement Virus because she has been the target of relentless, irresponsible, dishonest fear-mongering by the Axis of Unethical Conduct, including some once-admirable Americans who have allowed themselves to be pulled into the conspiracy.
Here, for example, was Ralph Nader, in many ways an American hero (who, like so many narrow-focus activists, got way out in front of his metaphorical skis), in March of this year. This is long, but it is the kind of unhinged hysteria from a once respectable liberal voice that convinces people like Jill (and my once astute Facebook Friend who just posted it) that “resistance” is the only moral, ethical and patriotic course. Here’s Ralph… Continue reading →
The topic, fortunately, is baseball, not the economy, foreign policy, or making America great again. Still, it is not a good sign when the leader of the free world spouts off like an ignorant fool professing absolute certainty without any genuine expertise whatsoever. If he does this about baseball…well, you can complete that sentence.
President Trump now demands that Roger Clemens be admitted to the Baseball Hall of Fame despite enough evidence that he used banned steroids late in his career to put him in the Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Sammy Sosa et al. Rogues Gallery of cheaters with great stats who fail the Hall’s character requirements. In a post on Truth Social today, Trump said that he had just played golf with the 11-time All-Star pitcher, and apparently this makes him an authority on The Rocket’s dubious past.
The now viral video above pretty much says it all, but the episode warrants special notice.
Special Assistant Attorney General Devon Flanagan, was arrested for trespassing on August 14, and in her many recorded protests, including a variation on the infamous “Do you know who I am?” lament, earned not only social media immortality but probably a lifetime of ridicule. She was arrested for trespassing outside the Clarke Cooke House restaurant in Newport, ludicrously calling out “I’m an AG! I’m an AG!” as well as “You’re going to regret this! You’re going to regret it!” as she put in the back of a police car.
It is believed that alcohol was involved. She also told the officers that they were obligated to turn of their bodycams if a citizen demanded it, which was, as one of the officers sagely observed, “bullshit.” Flanagan has been suspended in the wake of the incident. Presumably she will be fired.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha called her conduct “inexcusable.” Ya think?
“I’ve got 110 lawyers. She embarrassed all of them,” Neronah said. “It’s just really hard to find and keep capable lawyers, and so I just have to think really carefully about this one. But no question there will be a strong, strong sanction here.”
It’s really hard to find qualified prosecutors who don’t get drunk and make fools of themselves in public? Interesting.
“I’m not sure what she was thinking. Clearly, she was not thinking straight,” Neronha said. “She’s humiliated herself. Regardless of what happens vis-a-vis her employment with us, she’s going to have a long time coming back from this,” he added. “It’s just really unfortunate.”
Mark this down as just one more chunk taken out of the public’s trust in our justice system. On the bright side, “I’m an AG!” may have some staying power. much like “Let’s go Brandon!” For example…
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