On Trump’s Second Term Portrait

I heard some talking-heads blather about the release of incoming President Donald Trump’s new official portrait on Fox, CNN and MSNBC, and quickly decided it was not worth my time. Then I looked at the thing and decided it was worth a little bit of my time after all.

It is a remarkable choice by Trump, since he obviously approved it, something we cannot say with certainly about the current President’s portrait, or anything he did or said, amazingly. On the Trump-Hating news outlets, they have been saying that it bears an uncanny resemblance to his immortal mug shot…

…which is only true in the sense that he isn’t smiling in either of them and both are images of Donald Trump.

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How Unprofessional and Incompetent Is Karine Jean-Pierre? THIS Unprofessional and Incompetent…

I was going to shut down EA for the day since the previous post was both depressing and exhausting, then I stumbled across this to which, as Mrs. Loman says at the end of “Death of a Salesman,” “Attention should be paid.”

A national security expert was prepared to brief reporters on the breaking news of a tentative Israel-Hamas cease-fire yesterday, but Biden Paid Liar Karine Jean-Pierre refused to allow him to take the mic, forcing reporters and the nation to wait an extra hour before hearing the details of the American hostages being released, including their names. National security adviser Jake Sullivan personally asked Jean-Pierre to permit his top spokesman, John Kirby, address reporters moments after Biden announced the deal. She refused because, insiders say, it was her final White House briefing and she regarded it as her “farewell party.”

A source in the White House told the New York Post, “She kinda marketed it as a celebration of her and her tenure and unfortunately that took precedence over huge breaking news — and we haven’t had this kind of news in this administration for a long time.”

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The Country’s In the Very Best of Hands! Reps. Mace and Crockett Disgrace Themselves, Congress, and Nation

During the debate over the House bill to stop males “transitioning” to glorious womanhood from injuring female athletes while cheating their way to taking their scholarships, records, championships and safety, two of the worst female members of Congress—and that’s quite an achievement, given the competition— showed (again) why the public no longer trusts its republic. The two women showed themselves to be ethics dunces, incompetent elected officials, disastrous role models and, to get technical about it, assholes.

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Ethics Quiz: The Hegseth Hearing, Part I

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Was Sen. Tim Kaine’s questioning of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense, competent, fair, respectful and professional?

“Lying, Losing and Cheating Is No Way To Go Through Democracy, Democrats!”

Do Democrats really cheat more often than Republicans? It sure seems like it over the last year at least, when the party faked out the nation as long as possible pretending that Joe Biden was really President, then made Kamala Harris their substitute nominee without her winning a single primary vote. In addition, its plan for winning the Presidential election was t put Donald Trump in jail, or at least set him up to be labeled a “convicted felon.”

From Minnesota comes a particularly ugly example of ethics rot on the struggling left. There are 134 Minnesota House districts. When the votes were counted after the last election, Republicans had gained enough seats to deadlock the state’s House, 67-67. Ah, but one of the Democrats’ candidates had cheated! In House District 40B, Democrat Curtis Johnson falsely claimed to reside in the district and he didn’t, making him ineligible to run or serve under the Minnesota Constitution. The GOP filed an election challenge and it was successful, so a district court issued an injunction barring Johnson from taking that seat. A special election will be held to fill the seat at some time in the future—don’t ask me why Johnson’s cheated opponent didn’t automatically get declared the winner: I don’t understand Minnesota (Al Franken, Jesse Ventura, Tim Walz…) at all, and less with each passing year.

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Unethical Quote of the Month: CNN’s Brian Stelter

Here is Brian Stelter, making a fool of himself, and CNN, and the Axis of Unethical Conduct, again:

This is the depth to which this cosmic hack will stoop to bolster his propaganda-spewing pals in the Axis. Censoring free speech is the equivalent of putting out deadly fires! Brilliant, but telling. This is CNN!

And this is CNN: CNN “factchecker” Daniel Dale rushed to try to defend the incompetence of L.A. and California Democrats, saying “There is no shortage of water in the LA area,” and babbling that reports of fire hydrants being dry were due to “technical logistical infrastructure,” whatever that means. You can’t check facts before the facts are known: a major investigation will be required to determine exactly what went wrong, what public officials were at fault, and what factors were in play regarding the devastating Palisades fires. Never mind, though: to those brave factcheckers, a lack of facts won’t dissuade them from rushing into debates and drowning opinions that might singe the Woke and Wonderful.

Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said that the fire response put immense strain on the water system. That would seem to suggest a shortage of water, no? Or the fact that many fire hydrants were dry, according to the firefighters who tried to use them. The Santa Ynez Reservoir the Pacific Palisadeshas been out of commission since February 2024, meaning 117 million gallons of water was missing, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, desperately saying anything he could come up with to preserve his presumed status as the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s 2028 Presidential nomination, told NBC News that the state’s reservoirs are full. He also said, more accurately, there will be an independent investigation of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

It should come as no surprise that these essential public servants, the Axis factcheckers, didn’t choose to factcheck shameless Biden paid liar Jan Psaki, now a paid liar on MSNBC, who told viewers. completely without facts, that the California fires weren’t the fault of anyone in California at all, but Donald Trump for not doing enough to combat climate change. The Axis of Unethical Conduct (that’s the “resistance,” Democrats, and the left-biased mainstream media for those unfamiliar with the Ethics Alarms term) sense that accumulated incompetence and bad progressive policies on display as homes burn might be a tipping point for ridiculously woke California, causing millions of voters to suddenly slap their foreheads and exclaim, “Why have we been voting for these liars and idiots?” I have my doubts that anything short of mass deprogramming can achieve that result, but still what we are getting from Stelter, Psaki and others reeks of panic and desperation.

Comment of the Day: “The Worst President Ever? Part 6: The Final Field”

Steve-O-in NJ contributed a well-reasoned and researched resolution of the Ethics Alarms series “The Worst President Ever?” after the penultimate installment, which I posted last month. At the time, I still wasn’t certain how the Wilson-Biden contest would come out, and since (spoiler!) his analysis came down to the same final two, I resolved to hold this obvious Comment of the Day until I had finished my final installment, which went up (finally!) last night. Steve’ alternate analysis is excellent, as all of Steve-O’s historical epics are.

Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on “The Worst President Ever? Part 6: The Final Field.”

An interesting list, certainly. I believe that if you asked 100 people who the worst presidents were and why, you’d probably get 100 answers that would all differ at least slightly, although some common threads would run through them, and you’d get one group from conservative folks and another from liberal folks. I’m not sure I 100% agree with this list, but it’s the list you’ve given us to work with, so here are my thoughts:

Franklin Pierce – Had a life-long problem with alcohol, to the point where other military officers (yes, believe it or not he is one of the ten presidents who was a general) called him the “hero of many a well-fought bottle.” Tragic family history, and let grief and drink paralyze his single term in office.

James Buchanan – Took almost no steps to stop the Civil War from happening. Started to dislike the office to the point where he told Lincoln that if Lincoln was as happy upon assuming the presidency as he was upon leaving it, he was a happy man indeed.

Andrew Johnson – Never meant to be president, put on the ticket because he was a Democrat and a southerner. Couldn’t control the radical Republicans. Was impeached (probably unfairly) and came the closest any president ever came to removal from office. Also had the hardest act of all to follow.

Woodrow Wilson – Biggest racist ever to sit in the White House. Also probably one of the 3 or 4 most arrogant presidents. Led us into WW1 when we might not have needed to go, then alienated the world with his attempt to impose his own morality. Also alienated most of his political allies back home and was a willing participant in hiding that he had had a debilitating stroke from the country.

Richard Nixon – Popular president who didn’t trust his own popularity to take him past the finish line and overreached, then tried to cover it up.

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Unethical Quote of the Month: President Joe Biden

“It’s just completely contrary to everything America is about. We want to tell the truth. We haven’t always done it as a nation. We want to tell the truth.The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say, ‘By the way, we’re not gonna fact check anything,’ and you know, you have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff. Anyway, I think it’s really shameful.”

—-President Joe Biden, attacking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg decision’s to end its biased, censorious fact-checking system that relied on partisan propaganda operations like PolitiFact and Snopes.

What’s shameful is a President of the United States advocating speech censorship. Like many of Biden’s brain-addled outbursts lately, however, he has committed the cardinal political sin of saying what he and his puppeteers really believe out loud. So now we know, at least those of us who weren’t paying attention before and couldn’t read the metaphorical neon signs flashing before our eyes, Joe Biden and his entire party advocates the censorship of free speech on social media, including opinion, adverse positions and anything that might expose its rotting proto-totalitarian party for the threat to democracy it has become. Thanks, Joe! But it was pretty obvious already.

I’m glad that I have waited to post the resolution of the “Worst President Ever” inquiry until tomorrow, because so much applicable information has been flowing regarding just how awful Joe Biden has been. I think all who have read the series carefully have figured out that the finals are going to come down to Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Woodrow Wilson and Biden, and it doesn’t take a PhD to guess who the last two competitors will be either. Once I thought the ultimate “winner” was clear-cut, but Joe is fighting for the title to the bitter end.

He and his fellow censors circulated lie after lie before and during the Presidential campaign (among them that only Donald Trump lies) yet Biden has the astounding brass to talk about wanting to tell the truth. You know, truth like Biden being sharp as a tack. “Truth” like the border being secure.

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“And Now, The Rest of the Story!” MLB Bans Those Two Assholes For Life…

Hey, maybe Major League Baseball reads Ethics Alarms!

In this post in October, EA reported that in the bottom of the first inning in Game 4 of the World Series with the Yankees losing 2-0, NY lead-off hitter Gleyber Torres “hit a high pop-up into right field foul territory. Dodgers right fielder Betts caught the ball with his glove, but” Asshole #1 grabbed Betts’ glove with both hands, opened it, reached inside with his right hand and knocked the ball back onto the field, as Asshole #2 assisted him. It was on national television for all to see, so the umpires, thank goodness, got the call right and ruled fan interference. Torres was called out. I ruled it the most egregious example ever of fans deliberately trying to interfere with a player’s efforts during a baseball game, and called for Austin Capobianco (Asshole #1) and John P. Hansen (Asshole #2) to be banned from attending baseball games for life.

It took three months for some absurd reason, but Major League Baseball finally has banned them from attending games at big league ballparks, probably forever. Good.

The league sent a letter to A1 and A2 this week informing them of the decision.

“On Oct. 29, 2024, during Game 4 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, you interfered with play by intentionally and forcefully grabbing a player. Your conduct posed a serious risk to the health and safety of the player and went far over the line of acceptable fan behavior,” said the letter, released today. “Based on your conduct, Major League Baseball is banning you indefinitely from all MLB stadiums, offices, and other facilities,” the letter continues. “You are also hereby banned indefinitely from attending any events sponsored by or associated with MLB. Please be advised that if you are discovered at any MLB property or event, you will be removed from the premises and subject to arrest for trespass.”

There is justice in the universe. I would have preferred to see the letter end with a promise that if either miscreant is discovered at any MLB property or event or even so much as wearing baseball cap, he will be summarily wrapped in unwashed jock straps and have his eyelids stapled open while he is forced to watch the execrable film, “The Babe Ruth Story” starring William Bendix (which Ted Williams called “the worst movie I ever saw,” though he never saw “The Exorcist II”) on an endless loop until he can’t stop screaming and begs to have his eyes gouged out. But that’s just me.

I can live with this resolution.


Snow Day Ethics Warm-Up, 1/11/25

It’s another snow day in Northern Virginia, but that isn’t stopping climate change hysterics and progressive public policy incompetence apologists from blaming California’s latest wildfire catastrophe on global warming—not L.A.’s incompetent mayor, not the inadequate fire department budget, not the arsonists who may have started the fires, and not LA’s DEI water head, who left a crucial reservoir disconnected, resulting in fire hydrants not functioning.

Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones was hired at a $750,000 salary in May, double that of her predecessor. To be fair, she had a background in California fires: she was previously a top executive at electricity company PG&E, a senior vice president at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from 2021 to 2023. That’s the company with the power lines that sparked responsible for the second-largest wildfire in California history, Dixie, in 2021. Before that, the company’s involvement in the 2018 Camp Fire resulted in PG&E paying a $13.5 billion legal settlement, although its liability for causing fires was estimated at $30 billion when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2018. It exited bankruptcy in 2020, just in time to hire Quiñones. Hey, but it’s all climate change!….Meanwhile, the discussion over at the Friday Forum (again, sorry for posting it late) about pet peeves and my late wife’s particular objection to using “that” when “who” is correct reminded me of a brilliant limerick that I had almost forgotten.

My strange friends back in Arlington, Mass. used to play a limerick game in which one of us would come up with a first line, the next would add the second line, the third would complete the third and fourth lines that have to rhyme, and my dear, brilliant, witty friend Jay Sylva would always come up with the final line, because he was so good at it. I specialized in first lines, and this time offered, “The man who had eaten my face…” (it wouldn’t have scanned with “that’). The subsequent additions left us with…

The man who had eaten my face…”
Had the nerve to come back to my place.
I said, “Stay a while!
If you’ll cough up my smile

To which Jay immediately added, to applause and his eternal glory,

I’ll forgive you for not saying grace!”

On to today’s early list…

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