Special kudos are due to Canada’s Dalhousie University Medical School. It has gone beyond the at least marginally defensible statue-toppling fad on the U.S. Left that stripped much of the country of past art erected to honor Confederate war heroes and 18th-19th political figures who supported slavery. As a result, Dalhousie has managed to make the American case of The Great Stupid look relatively mild in comparison to our northern neighbors. I’m feeling better already!
The Dalhousie Dean of Medicine David Anderson—I will soon be removing my middle name from my official documents so it doesn’t remind me of this idiot— ordered the removal of the portraits of former deans because they were, not Confederates, not slave-holders, not racists, but old white men. Can’t have that! Ick.
I’m going to post the entirety of his mind-blowing message from last month in all its woke awfulness, because attention should be paid. Here you go, and hold on to your head…
The background: There has been violent rioting in Great Britain’s Rotherham, Middlesbrough, Bristol, Bolton and other parts of the country following a stabbing attack in which three children attending a dance class were killed. Rioters have trashed and looted shops, set fire to vehicles and attacked police officers.
ITV, the alternative to the venerable BBC that dominates British television, had an interview with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper about the deepening domestic crisis on its popular morning show, a “Today Show” rip-off, “Good Morning Britain.” And who was the hard-hitting, independent, unbiased journalist given the assignment of handling the interview yesterday?
“George, now that you’re done yelling at me, let me answer” – @ByronDonalds to ABC’s @GStephanopoulos in contentious “interview” in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly accused Donalds of repeating a “slur” Stephanopoulos kept bring up. #ThisWeekpic.twitter.com/TocOy8thMW
As everyone knows by now, Donald Trump, appearing at the Black Journalists Association conference, responded to a question about whether he regards Harris as a D.E.I candidate by going in another direction, one that raised the issue of Harris’s integrity and ever-changing positions.
“Well, I can say, no, I think it’s maybe a little bit different,” Trump began. “So, I’ve known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage. And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black? But you know what, I respect either one.”
Trump was trolling, as usual, and spitting into the metaphorical wind, also as usual, so the reaction was entirely predictable, as EA already discussed here. It’s a week later, and the Axis is still trying to make a Trump ad lib the focus of its campaign “coverage.”
On ABC today, George Stephanopoulos couldn’t restrain his inner Democrat hack and flipped out because Trump surrogate Rep. Byron Donalds refused to concede that Harris’s manipulation of her various ethnic identity cards wasn’t a legitimate point for Trump to make. Here’s the full exchange:
“Democratic Party elites and billionaire donors are attempting to manipulate Black voters by anointing Kamala Harris…and an unknown vice president as the new Democratic ticket without a primary vote by the public…. While the potential outcome of a Harris presidency may be historic, the process to achieve it must align with true democratic values. We have no idea where Kamala Harris stands on the issues.”
—–Black Lives Matter in a statement released last week.
I did not see that coming. What a wonderful example of how one must always try to judge the message rather than the messenger. The BLM position is true beyond dispute, and in some respects BLM is the ideal messenger to deliver it, were it not for the little matter of the organization being corrupt, racist, dishonest and untrustworthy. Let’s check: does the BLM website still say that Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown were murdered because of their race? Why yes, it does!
In January, the mayor filed a lawsuit against 17 charter bus companies that had transported asylum seekers to New York City from Texas and Florida.. The lawsuit alleged that the bus companies violated New York’s Social Services Law by dropping off the illegals without providing a means of support, and sought over $700 million to compensate the city for the cost of shelter, food and health care. The suit was breathtaking in its hypocrisy—sanctuary? Hello?—as well as about as close to frivolous as a law suit can be without making me file an ethics complaint against the lawyers. The New York Civil Liberties Union said that the Mayor’s actions were unconstitutional. The court agreed.
I’m sure glad I ignore the Olympics as the corrupt, greed-infested fiasco it had been for decades, because if I gave a rip, the Paris Olympics would have my head exploding more frequently than Old Faithful blows. The whole enterprise appears to be run by silly, incompetent, unethical bureaucrats and con artists.
Here’s a particularly nauseating example: the CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) Yiannis Exarchos decided to burnish his woke creds by telling reporters in Paris that his organization updated its guidelines for camera operators, most of whom are men, to inveigh against “sexist” portrayals of female athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics. “Unfortunately, in some events they are still being filmed in a way that you can identify that stereotypes and sexism remains, even from the way in which some camera operators are framing differently men and women athletes,” Exarchos said, making no sense at all. “Women athletes are not there because they are more attractive or sexy or whatever. They are there because they are elite athletes.” Exarchos said that the problem primarily stems from “unconscious bias,” which leads to camera operators and TV editors favoring more close-up shots of women than of men.
Oh, shut the HELL up! TV editors favor more close-up shots of women than men because women are more attractive than men, the demographics of Olympic viewing for many events slants male, and there is nothing offensive or disrespectful about showing Olympic athletes like this German sprinter,
I’m truly sick of this stuff. What we have here isn’t even a close call. Michael Wiseman, 68, from Jupiter, Florida, was arrested by local police officers on July 19 because he posted ugly comments on social media expressing disappointment that former President Trump wasn’t assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania. “The shooter missed,” he wrote on X. “He can’t be the only patriot. Cocksucker, mother and daughter fucker Trump.” And, “Why is Trump allowed to be alive? We need to train patriots. Thomas Matthew Crooks deserves a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor, a stamp, and a national holiday.”
And, “Some people need to be better shots if they know they are going to kill a monster.” Shortly before his arrest, Wiseman wrote, “I am advocating Trump and Vance’s daughters get raped and THEN tell me they won’t fly their kids out of the USA for an abortion.”
“Villain” is the best I can muster right now. I really can’t find the right word for someone who would do what Sofia Nelson did, or who would be able to look at themselves in the mirror after she did it.
Nelson, a close friend of J.D. Vance’s in law school and for many years thereafter, sent about 90 of the emails and text messages they exchanged from 2014 through 2017 to The New York Times. Nelson is gay or a trans-male or a trans-female, or something, I couldn’t possibly care less. Nor will I read the Times’ article about what its partisan “Slime Trump and Vance!” posse found in the emails thus far. All that matters from an ethics perspective is the throbbing betrayal of trust represented by anyone the sharing past private communications with a media outlet without obtaining consent and permission from the other party to the exchanges. It’s revolting that the Times would accept such stuff: this is a National Enquirer level story. Trump’s running mate once wrote “Love you” to a guy who is now a chick! Ew! Does that mean Vance is gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that?
I haven’t had many of these, as you might imagine. In fact, I’m not even sure that this is one.
British Olympic dressage medalist Charlotte Dujardin holds six Olympic medals, three of them gold, in equestrian events. She just dropped out of the Paris Olympics, however, after a video was uncovered that reportedly shows her repeatedly whipping a horse on its legs.
“A video has emerged from four years ago which shows me making an error of judgement during a coaching session,” she said in her statement withdrawing from the Games. “Understandably, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) is investigating, and I have made the decision to withdraw from all competition — including the Paris Olympics — while this process takes place,” she said. The statement continues, “I am sincerely sorry for my actions and devastated that I have let everyone down, including Team GB, fans and sponsors.”
Some have described this as Ethics Hero-level contrition. She did wrong, she has admitted it without qualifications, and has administered her own sanctions. OK, I’m buying that, sort of. Maybe. With major misgivings.
I had to run up to the office to get this down before other outrages intervened. (The list I’m alluding to is here.)
To start off the hearing today continuing the House inquiry into the Trump shooting, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), began with a rant against “political violence” that he quickly turned into a partisan attack on Republicans. Among his statements was that Donald Trump had said that “there would be a bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected in 2024.
That’s a lie. It has been conclusively shown to be a lie. I wrote about the widespread misrepresentation of Trump’s comment at the time. Trump was using ‘bloodbath” in the economic sense, which is included in many dictionary definitions (“a period of disastrous loss or reversal“), referring to the auto industry. Quoting him out of that specific context, and placing the quote in the false context of “political violence” is intentional deceit, and deceit is lying.
The Democrats, including Nadler, know what Trump said and meant, but they keep using this false characterization anyway. Biden alluded to it repeatedly. Kamala Harris will be sure to do the same: let me know if I miss it when she does.
There are so many awful members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that I often forget about Nadler, one of the worst. He revealed himself to be a hyper-partisan hack during the Clinton House impeachment hearings, when he and the equally horrible Maxine Waters battled to a tie in the Democrats’ “it isn’t what it is” competition. He hasn’t improved since.
Democrats, all of them, are ethically estopped from repeating the mantra that Trump lies all the time as long as their party is addicted to Big Lies, which it is. Similarly, the newsmedia is hypocritical if it “factchecks” Trump without also pointing out deliberate dishonest smears like the one Nadler just vomited up.
Oh! I see that John Hammond has raised his hand! Yes, John?