I warn you, however: it you try and are serious, I’ll may ban you for being dishonest, or too stupid to participate in an ethics colloquy.
Aaron Blake, a senior political reporter for Washington Post who hails from Minnesota (oh-oh!) authored this steaming pile of bias for, no surprise, CNN. The title: “Why Trump accepting Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize is no laughing matter.” Somehow, this Trump Deranged mega-hack argues that there is something sinister about the President of the United States accepting a sincere gift from a foreign visitor. The essay itself is the essence of Trump Derangement. It defines the warped thought processes whereby anything this President does is by definition wrong because he did it.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has explained, several times, why she handed over her Nobel Peace Prize to the President, saying, graciously, “He deserves it.” A very strong argument can be made that she’s right on the facts, but never mind: Blake jumps immediately to the worst imaginable appeal to authority: he notes in his second paragraph that Jimmy Kimmel, easily the most repellent personality on network television today, made fun of the award. The column, incredibly, manages to go down hill from there…
President Donald Trump was caught on camera “flipping the bird” and shouting “Fuck you!” to a heckler who called him a “pedophile protector,” presumably referring to the contrived Epstein files obsession being used in desperation by Democrats. Of course the White House flacks are defending this latest indefensible outburst by the Vulgarian in Chief, but there is no defense. (The stated defense is just Rationalization #2A, Sicilian Ethics, or “He had it coming!”)
These people are the most trivial, juvenile, time-wasting people in the long, stupid history of celebrities. Brits everywhere should hide their heads under paper bags for allowing them to encroach on our consciousness when there are sock draws desperately needing order and curling championships to watch.
Today we are told the shocking “news” that Kate Middleton celebrated her birthday a few days ago on January 9 and apparently Prince Harry and Meghan Markle didn’t wish her a happy birthday! One source “somewhat dramatically tells Rob Shuter’s ShuterScoop, ‘Not a peep. It’s deliberate. They’re making it clear they’re done. It’s a line in the sand.'”
[Just thought I would re-post a past example of the “logic” and level of analogies being embraced by I.C.E. protesters…]
Quote #1:
“Why did you have real bullets?!”
—Becca Good, the wife of dead activist Renee Nicole Good, after witnessing her wife’s shooting death by an I.C.E. officer.
This has to be one of the stupidest quotes Ethics Alarms has ever covered. It demonstrates how estranged from reality so many of the anti-I.C.E. and Trump Deranged protesters, demonstrators and activists are. On MS-Now, the pro-multiple sclerosis news channel, a bizarre anti-gun nut deemed worthy of a position on a televised panel discussion said this…
Seen on MSNBC: “Why does an ICE agent have a gun?!”
Yes, why do law enforcement officers carry guns (with real bullets!)?
The real questions should be…
1) “Why do crazed progressives think that it is reasonable, justifiable, ethical or safe to interfere with lawful law enforcement activity?”
2) “How did American citizens, some of them of above average intelligence, get the bonkers idea that interfering with I.C.E. operations wasn’t a crime?“
3) “When will CNN, MSNBC and other news outlets stop giving a platform to “experts” and elected officials who tell their audiences that Rachel Good was “murdered”?” That position is completely contrary to known facts, as well as court decisions. This morning I heard some asshole saying that on CNN with no contradiction or push-back from the host whatsoever. The host even said “Thank-you.” Thank-you for misleading our dim-witted audience members and helping to put both Federal officers and stupid protesters (who might not expect them to use real bullets) in jeopardy!
Quote #2: (the letters in parentheses are mine, to be referenced in my commentary)…
A Facebook Communist friend posted that, and I know he believes it. What kind of indoctrination, propaganda, and unethical social bubble makes an intelligent man think that bigoted analysis is true, fair, reasonable or responsible?
And I guarantee that no one will criticize or argue with that asinine post.
I would really love to hear one of the woke DEI hypocrites in my life try to defend that flyer, promoting a program in Eugene, Oregon, another state, like Minnesota, where rampant bias has lowered the average IQ by double figures. It reads, “We invite BIPOC youth to join us where they are at being comfortable in the water. Whether working on increasing water safety skills or pursuing lifeguard certification, this cohort is here to support your goals. Funded by the community safety payroll tax in partnership with the Youth Empowerment Program.”
“To join us where they are at being comfortable ” sounds like Ebonics, or perhaps English as written by the Somalis who run the “Learing Center” in Minnesota.
Or does it suggest that “BIPOC” youths are more comfortable in the water when they don’t have to be around those icky whites?
Today I woke up to a new year and made the mistake of allowing my screen to land on Fox News. The gang was seriously interviewing an astrologer. On a news show. She was enthusing about what a wonderful month January is, because the moon is in all kinds of “houses,” or something.
I refuse to watch the movie “Network” again because I know it would send me to the bridge. So many of the seemingly absurd programs screenwriter Paddy Cheyefsky concocted for his dark 1976 satire about a fictional TV network that abandons all integrity and only aims to entertain and inflame the public have come to pass—reality shows, sick competitions, ranting pundits and worse—that the famous film can no longer be amusing. It’s horrifying that the decline of the medium and its journalism particularly has come to pass when this seemed so impossible 50 years ago.
One of the shows on “Network” featured a mystic who predicted the news. Of course Fox News would go down that metaphorical sewer. A real psychic would have seen it coming…
—-Astoundingly incompetent LA Mayor Karen Bass, on CNN’s “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer
She was responding to a CNN report about Hispanic-Americans joining I.C.E. in record numbers. Knowing Bass (see this infuriating idiot’s EA dossier here) and the pro-illegal immigration party she belongs to, can you guess why LA’s woke Mayor thinks the development is “sad”?
Why, they’re betraying their own kind, you see! You know, like when inner city blacks tell police about murderers, muggers and rapists in their neighborhood who are the same color they are. Imagine doing that to your “own kind”!
Well this is all I needed on a busy day that just included me re-injuring my leg after being pulled off my feet by Spuds. The post below is based on a hoax, and damn the hoaxers to hell. Spreading false stories on the web is unethical, and satire sites are obligated to signal when a post is intended as parody. A few notes:
1. Thanks to the crack EA commentariate for flagging this.
2. The fake story is still up on the usually reliable conservative commentary site Victory Girls, which linked to the fake story I used.
3. I was fooled because first, none of the quotes sounded unlikely given what we have heard and witnessed in Portland in the recent past, and
4. I had never seen a “butt plug” before.I apologize to Ethics Alarms readers and the City of Portland. I try to be careful, but this time I was fooled.
5. Apparently the hoax was inspired by Portland’s city officials this year referring to their annual tree lighting event as just “the tree” or “winter tree,” deliberately omitting the word “Christmas.” Typical dumb Portland wokeness at work: if the hoaxers had only made it clear what they were spoofing, I’d call it a successful and well-deserved satire.
6. I apologize to all, including the City of Portland, for my error.
***
I missed this, which happened about a week ago, in part because I view Portland as a lost cause. You know those zombie apocalypse movies where the survivors will say, sadly, “Boston’s gone, San Diego’s gone”? Portland’s gone, and has been for a long time. I would say it’s Patient Zero for Trump Derangement, woke insanity, anti-Americanism and The Great Stupid, except there are so many other candidates: New York City, California, Minnesota. None of them, however, have descended so far into incompetent cultural madness as Portland, as exemplified by the Christmas, sorry, Holiday Thing the city unveiled this month.
Portland officially replaced its traditional Christmas tree—to be fair, it’s so hard to find evergreen trees in Oregon these days—with that whatever it is above. Officials described the holiday display as “bold,” “inclusive,” and “a meaningful departure from tree-based expectations.”
How far gone do you have to be to utter the words “tree-based expectations” without feeling ridiculous?
City leaders, presumably the same ones who let Black Lives Matter take over parts of the city five year sago, explained the traditional Christmas tree ultimately failed to reflect Portland’s “evolving” relationship with holidays. Thus the “inclusive” replacement, officials said, is intentionally ambiguous, streamlined, and designed to invite interpretation.
I, for example, interpret it as “meaningless, joyless crap.”
I began by titling this depressing post “Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: President Trump,” but that seemed inadequate somehow. Maybe there’s no heading that could adequately express what an awful week the President had, how it was entirely unnecessary, how all of his deep political wounds were self-inflicted (okay, his clueless Chief of Staff helped), how much harm it did to his administration, influence and prospects of success, and how much he helped the Axis of Unethical Conduct when without his assistance the serious news would have had it staggering. <Breathe, Jack, breathe!>
EA covered three of the epic fiascos, but now I have to cover the fourth. The others were, in chronological order,
1. Trump’s petty, cruel, stupid attack on beloved director Rob Reiner immediately after he and his wives were stabbed to death by their son. I believe that his infamous Truth Social post may prove to be the tipping point in his administration. Recall that the Bush II Presidency was sent into a death spiral even before the 2008 economic crash because he was vacation when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and flew over the devastation. Then the inept Democratic mayor of the city, with help from Kanye West, successfully created the narrative that Bush shrugged off the disaster because he “didn’t care about black people.”
3. Trump allows his hand-picked Kennedy Center board to add the President’s name to the landmark, launched as a memorial to President Kennedy in the wake of his nation-shattering assassination, and to quickly plaster it on the front of the building. This was so stupid and gratuitous that I don’t want to think about it, but it sure gave my Trump Deranged theater friends on Facebook ammunition.
Ethics Alarms 