Ethics Alarms Points Out How Terrible RFK Jr.’s VP “Short List” is; Kamala Harris says “Hold My Beer!”

What a shameless demagogue.

I am immediately torn, because every Kamala Harris head-exploding utterance raises a Julie Principle issue: OK, an elected official who has conclusively proven herself to be dumb, irresponsible and ethically inert says something that is dumb, irresponsible and ethically alert. Why is that worth complaining about or criticizing? Nevertheless, some of Harris’s outbursts are just too despicable to be ignored. Like this one, today, as she visited abortion providers and staff members at a clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota to cheer on women putting the unborn to death for the crime of complicating their mothers’ lives:

“These attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral,” she thundered. “How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest. We have to be a nation that trusts women.”

Nice. Kamala had previously used the “How dare they!” stunt to condemn the U.S. Supreme Court for daring to do their jobs, which includes striking down bad decisions that made up constitutional rights that didn’t exist. The abortion-fanatic’s dishonest defense has always relied on pretending that only one life is involved in an abortion, though the state has a valid interest in protecting all lives, including unborn humans who their mothers want to kill. When does an abortion in Harris’s world suddenly involve more than just the woman’s body? Six weeks? 15 weeks? 9 months? Never, if her words mean what they appear to mean. “Plain old immoral” has always included “Thou shalt not kill”: what weird definition of “immoral” is Harris alluding to? It must be really old; Sumarian, maybe? Ancient Aztec?

Continue reading →

Ah! I See That RFK Jr. Is Going After the Idiot Vote…

In case anyone serious had concluded that senile Joe Biden and untrustworthy Donald Trump were so bad that it justifies considering the Presidential option of Robert Kennedy Jr, the latter’s “short list” of running mates he claims he’s considering ought to end that alternative forever.

Kennedy told CNN this week that he had “made up his mind” on his VP, who would come from this motley crew: NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Republican Senator Rand Paul, former television host Mike Rowe, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, civil rights attorney Tricia Lindsay, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

“We wanted somebody who was aligned with my values, optimistic about our country and its potential and able to run the country at a moment’s notice,” Kennedy explained.

Oh. That list is not nearly short enough. Any group in which Jesse Ventura is arguably the most qualified to be President by definition is ridiculous. Any list of potential VPs that includes Aaron Rodgers and Tony Robbins can only be taken seriously in the sense that its creator has outed himself as a dangerous wacko, though everyone should have known that about Kennedy already. Mike Rowe is “able to run the country at a moment’s notice”? Jesse, who is 71 and has been dabbling in nonsense since his quixotic run as governor of Minnesota ended, is the only one on that list who has any government executive experience. Kennedy outed himself as irresponsible and incompetent by mentioning such a list.

Oh-Oh. Another Ethically Obtuse Question for “The Ethicist”

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it sure seems to me that the questions being asked of the New York Times “The Ethicist” column (or the ones he’s choosing to answer) are increasingly obtuse. This suggests a dangerous trend. Are most Americans really that ethically incompetent? Or are the increasingly frequent (it seems to me) instances of blatantly unethical conduct modeled by our elected leaders and shrugged off by our news media causing galloping ethics rot?

The latest query for “The Ethicist” was, in my estimation, steeped in grade school-level ethics ignorance. A female designer who used to work for a sexually harassing boss when she was just getting started eventually told the bastard off and was fired in retaliation. Now she asks,

Continue reading →

The Democrats’ Orgy of Bad Ethics in the Hur Hearing

One of the late Justice Scalia’s favorite derogatory shots was to write that the author of a particularly weak legal argument (in his assessment) should hide his head under a bag. I would hope that any Democrat watching the astounding displays of “whataboutism,” “It isn’t what it is,” “gotchas” and ad hominem attacks by their party’s House members would have bags on their heads this morning. How ugly. How dispiriting. How stupid and desperate! How can they continue to support these people?

Prof. Turley, who has emerged in recent years as one of the very few fair, objective and non-partisan political analysts in academia and the legal profession, correctly but too-kindly described the Democrat attacks on the Special Counsel Robert Hur during the congressional hearing on his report on President Biden as “delusional.” The conduct of the worst of the Democrats was much worse than that.

Rep. Gerald Nadler, for example, thought that Donald Trump’s assorted verbal gaffes were relevant to Hur’s report, so he showed a super-cut of them as a preemptive strike, or something. Hur’s report and investigation didn’t involve Trump (I would have ruled Nadler’s cherry-picked video out of order if I had the gavel), and even if it did, Nadler’s intended message was gaslighting: Biden’s mental decline is literally on display every day, every time he speaks or moves. Democrats like Nadler are committed to denying the obvious and trying to shift attention to Trump, who, unlike Biden, has a typical percentage of verbal missteps for any public speaker who emotes spontaneously or frequently. (A Nadler-style compilation could be made of Barack Obama’s gaffes. Or mine.) Nadler and his minions even stooped to including a clip in which Trump said he did not remember saying he had a great memory. Back in 2015, Ethics Alarms discussed several episodes in which Trump either contradicted what he had said earlier or denied that he said it. Nobody who babbles unfiltered like Donald Trump could possibly remember everything he has said. This “gotcha!,” like the rest of the video, was meaningless.

Continue reading →

Sen. Britt’s Atrocious SOTU “Response” Was Even Worse (and More Unethical) Than I Thought…

That’s not Sen. Britt in her immediately reviled “response” to President Biden’s faux State of the Union address. That’s Scarlett Johanssen as Britt in a subsequent Saturday Night Live “cold open” that practically wrote itself and was as richly deserved as any target of satire the 50 year-old show has ever taken on.

The principle is pretty basic: if the opposing party’s “response” to a SOTU is so bad that it distracts potential critics of the President’s speech, it’s a disaster. But Britt’s flame-out wasn’t just her speech’s “give Democrats a stick to beat Republicans with” kitchen setting, Britt’s creepy forced smile, and her community theater theatrics that marked her performance as a an embarrassment to the GOP and a gift to Democrats. It turns out that Britt was also lying her head off….and not even well.

Bill Clinton could make a fortune giving lessons.

Continue reading →

For the EA “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Files: Iowa Lawyer David L. Leitner

My chosen profession of legal ethics has not been covering itself with glory lately.

The Iowa Supreme Court suspended 68-year-old lawyer David L. Leitner as explained in a discouraging story in the Iowa Capital Dispatch. He’s out of the practice of law for two years: I would have disbarred him. First, Leitner represented an Iowa seed dealer who was convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 2007 after the lawyer helped him hide assets. Leitner created a company for the seed dealer with himself the company’s manager , allowing the seed dealer to send part of his income to the company while hiding it from the government, which the dealer owed about $71,000. (Can’t help clients try to defraud the government. Can’t go into fake businesses with clients designed to cheat on taxes. Pretty basic legal ethics.)

Continue reading →

Regarding Sen. Britt’s Incompetent SOTU “Response”

Ugh. Distinguished EA commenter valkygrrl gets the pointer and my gratitude for this one: she flagged Senator Britt’s performance in an email late last night, and I might never have seen it otherwise. Here, if you were fortunate enough not to see this thing without a trigger warning, it is…

I already said “Ugh,” now I’ll say, “Yecchh!”

To begin with, the whole concept of the opposition “response” is built on a lie. Although the speech is always presented as a reaction to what America just heard and saw, it is always (has there been an exception?) a pre-written and prepared speech often based on the transcript of the President’s speech released before he delivers it, but sometimes just based on what the opposing party assumes the President will say. So it is always fake: the speaker refers to the speech, but the speaker seldom (ever?) has the wit to go off script and comment on what just happened.

Britt definitely didn’t, and, presumably, couldn’t. Biden was shouting and acting like he was on speed. The State of the Union is supposed to be a Presidential address on the state of the nation itself, not a campaign speech. Biden made numerous false statements. He called illegal immigrants “illegals”—which they are—instead of the benign “migrants” the Axis uses to blur the issue. He mangled rape and murder victim Laken Riley’s name on the same day his party overwhelmingly voted against a House bill that established the outrageous requirement—in the democratic Party’s view— that illegal immigrants arrested for crimes should be detained by ICE. Surely the GOP must have some prominent party member quick and articulate enough to give a genuine response to a State of the Union based on what the speech performance really was. Ted Cruz could do it. Rand Paul. Heck, get a right wing radio talk-show host for the job.

Continue reading →

Searching For the Most Apt Analogy for George Santos Turning Up at the SOTU…

Is it Scarlet O’Hara, forced by Rhett Butler to play the seductive Woman in Red at Melanie Wilkes’ birthday party, after he discovers her flirtations with Melanie’s husband? Is it the proverbial skunk at the picnic? Or was the expelled GOP Rep. emulating Davey Crockett in the most recent film account of the Alamo (which, I note with shame, I barely acknowledged this year since my week was occupied with another more personal tragedy), defiantly staring down his foes after the battle was lost?

Or do you have a better analogy? Whatever George Santos was doing by showing up last night, it took gall, which we know the serial liar, fraudster and poseur has in abundance.

Continue reading →

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring AND When Bias Makes You Stupid AND When You’re Not Too Bright to Begin With AND You Don’t Know Much About History AND You’re A DEI Hire Who’s Unqualified For Your Position…

This…

…triggers you to issue this:

One word: Unbelievable.

My beloved Grace was a World War II history fanatic. She died on the day this spectacularly offensive memo was released. If she had been in perfect health and read the swill above, it very well might have killed her.

Continue reading →

SCOTUS’s 9-0 Smackdown of Democratic State Lawfare to Stop Trump Exposes the Unethical Left for All to See

All to see, that is, except those whose eyes have been so jaundiced by hate, indoctrination and lies that they are blind.

A 9-0 decision by an ideologically fractured U.S. Supreme Court, rejecting a cherished partisan fantasy devised to hold on to power that one party has empathically shown that it is unfit to possess, should logically result in frank admissions of error, bias, foolishness and confusion by those who insisted that the tactic thus condemned was correct, legal and wise. But today’s progressives are not logical, nor are they self-aware or particularly smart. The reactions from pundits, left-warped lawyers and others (what are the creatures on “The View”?) really should be viewed as a gift. They are telling us what they are, admitting what they are. It’s ironic: the first post of the day was titled, “Will the Disastrous Results of The Great Stupid Result in Learning, So Behavior Changes, or Will the Fools Responsible Keep Trying To Govern On Dreams Rather Than Reality?,” but it wasn’t about the Trump-Deranged learning from their absurd and intellectually indefensible embrace of the 14 Amendment Trump disqualification plot. The SCOTUS decision hadn’t come down yet. Nevertheless, the headline is apt in the aftermath of the decision and the Axis’s embarrassing tantrums. They won’t learn because they can’t learn, even though refusing to admit their mistakes makes them ridiculous, untrustworthy and unpersuasive.

Here are the kinds of people who have been running our government, journalism, entertainment, law schools and universities:

Continue reading →