Ethics Heroes: Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), Rep.Jahana Hays (D-Conn) and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash)

The three Democratic members of the House of Representatives, Pappas, Hays and Gluesenkamp Perez, had the courage and integrity to join Republicans in a successful effort to censure “Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., for pulling the Cannon House Office Building’s fire alarm in September and, by extension, lying about it outrageously. Earning half-Ethics Hero status were Democratic Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Glenn Ivey of Maryland, and Deborah Ross of North Carolina, who all voted “present,” helping the Republican motion for censure to succeed. Although he should have been forced to resign, at least this was a public rebuke of Bowman making him the only the 27th lawmaker to be censured by the House out of thousands in four centuries.

That more Democrats couldn’t put aside party loyalty and their blind enabling of inexcusable conduct that violated both the law and House ethics rules is one more black mark on the party’s recent ethics record. Typically and nauseatingly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. described Michigan GOP Rep. Lisa McClain’s censure motion this way: “We’re all on the House floor wasting time talking about fire alarms. Not the economy, not inflation, not affordable housing, not lowering costs, not the gun violence epidemic that continues to claim the lives of our young people all across America.” What a jerk.

The issue was not “fire alarms” but the ethical duties of members as high elected officials, representatives of their districts, lawmakers and exemplars of law-abiding conduct. Jeffries should have been leading the effort to rebuke Bowman. Leaders like him are why Bowman felt secure in behaving as he did.

Ethics Hero: Senator Chuck Schumer

Schumer, as the nation’s highest ranking elected official of Jewish heritage, is the ideal official to call out the Left’s rampant anti-Semitism that has been exposed since the October 6 Hamas attack on Israel. Doing so involved considerable political risks, and frankly, I didn’t think he had the guts to do it. Yesterday, however, Schumer delivered an impassioned speech in the Senate condemning members of his own party and ideological persuasion for “unknowingly aiding and abetting” anti-Semitism in the name of social justice, and thus fueling bigotry against Jews as Israel battles for its survival against Hamas.

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Ethics Hero: Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová

The United Nations General Assembly voted on a non-binding resolution calling for an immediate “humanitarian truce” in Gaza. 120 countries voted for the measure, with 45 abstaining. Only14 nations voted against it: Israel, the US, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Fiji, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Tonga. Eight EU members supported the cease-fire, including Belgium, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain.

The vote was not surprising, but disgraceful nonetheless. One might think that Belgium, France, Luxembourg, which suffered so at the hands of the Nazis, might have a greater appreciation for the need to take a strong stand against evil-doers, but no. The UK, disgustingly, abstained, but anti-Semitism is popular there.

Of course, a cease fire or truce simply means that Hamas and Iran advance the ball a little further up the field, with a touchdown meaning the eradication of Israel. Those 120 countries know it, too, or should, especially since the resolution didn’t even bother to condemn the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, or to call for the release of the 230 hostages the Hamas took captive on that day.

“One must not stand silent in the face of a second Holocaust,” the Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová said, calling on her country to withdraw from the United Nations in protest. “The Holocaust is back, and we must not be silent again.”

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David Mamet On The Self-Destructive Opposition To Israel By American Jews

I have concluded that there are three categories of Americans calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and blabbering on about a “peaceful and humane” resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. First, there are the anti-Semites, who willfully pretend that the plight of Palestinians isn’t tied to the group’s stated determination to wipe Israel from the map. Then there are the Lennonites, whose brains have been turned to mush by the fantasies of John’s “Imagine.” They want to eliminate war, and stubbornly think that is possible when terrorists and evil-doers like Hamas have forced a reckoning from the beginning of nations. Finally, there are the idiots, ignorant of history, distracted only by loyalties, biases, mob passions and emotion.

It is fascinating to speculate which of these three categories explain Jewish American peace activists like the thousands who marched on Capitol Hill, where they carried Palestinian flags and called for support of “Palestinian rights.” In a related display, hundreds of activists held a sit-in inside one of the Capitol buildings, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, who claim to want a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Playwright, screenwriter and author David Mamet has written a deft analysis of the phenomenon called “How the Democrats betrayed the Jews: The sick thrill of antisemitism has a price.”

Mamet is thoughtful commentator whose mind is usually occupied with ethics problems (almost all of his plays and movies have ethics at their core), and who is currently unpopular with the artistic left ever since he proclaimed that nobody but him had any business deciding what was a good enough reason to buy a gun. Do read the whole piece, but here are some jewels…

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Ethics Hero: ADL CEO Jonathan Goldblatt

I have some reservations about designating anyone an ethics hero when they declare that they “love” MSNBC. Loving MSNBC is a mark of partisan bias and corruption, as well as making someone who regularly appears on the network’s propaganda-spewing shows complicit in the damage being done to civic discourse and democracy by this truly unethical, racist, divisive and destructive network.

But…

After MSNBC’s hosts and guests had been, predictably, mouthing the Palestinian, Democratic Socialist (including “The Squad”) cant about how the massive terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas was somehow justified, and periodically calling for “context,” which is like the Left’s “root causes” narrative after the attacks of 9/11, reliable knee-jerk progressive (he was one of Obama’s aides) and ADL head Goldblatt directly and unequivocally condemned the MSNBC coverage, looking straight into the camera to do it.

MSNBC deserves some praise too: it allowed Goldblatt to finish his long and very articulate spontaneous speech without any attempt to interrupt or cut away. Such instances where the news media is confronted honestly about its disgusting conduct are too rare, and we should pat our respects when they do occur.

Ethics Hero: Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovsky

I barely have to comment on this one. Incredibly, the British House of Commons sent the letter above to Chris Pavlovsky, asking Rumble’s CEO to censor actor/comic Russell Brand as YouTube has (discussed in this post from yesterday.)

Pavlovsky’s response:

The Brits really never have gotten our Constitution, have they? Unfortunately, an increasing number of Americans, including those who run news, social media and Big Tech platforms don’t get it either.

Ethics Hero: Blogger Ann Althouse, Anti-Trump Derangement And Media Bias Warrior

I doubt that Ann Althouse would ever vote for Donald Trump; I’m pretty sure she hasn’t yet. But the longtime liberal law prof-blogger from Madison has distinguished herself and enhanced her respect in my eyes by consistently debunking anti-Trump bias from the news media while pronouncing her disgust with its hypocrisy and unfairness. Her reward has been to end up with a commentariat that is much more conservative than she is, but Althouse continues to be a Trump Truthteller (try to say that three times fast). She had a particularly impressive day yesterday.

First, Ann threw a flag on Washington Post pundit Aaron Rupar’s “How not to interview Trump/Kristen Welker’s tenure as ‘Meet the Press’ moderator got off to an inauspicious start. I only maintain a Post subscription to read articles others send me too: essentially I’ve boycotted the rag as too biased and obviously partisan to trust. His thesis is emboied in the excerpt Ann selected:

“The first thing to understand about Trump is that he’s not a normal politician. He doesn’t give a rip about policy. What he cares about is saying and doing whatever it takes to fulfill his desires and thirst for power, including destroying democracy if necessary. Treating him as anything other than a depraved authoritarian is not only wrongheaded, but helps his cause by legitimizing him as a reasonable choice for voters. And that’s exactly what Welker did.”

Boy, do I hate that attitude toward anyone. I’ve detested it regarding Trump since he was elected, and I resented other people treated that same way my entire life. It is bigotry and bias plain and unvarnished: someone chooses to decide, without genuine evidence, that an individual is just bad to the bone, with evil motives, and anything he or she does is thereafter interpreted in that context. This is how Trump was judged guilty until proven innocent in the Russian collusion hoax. It is the exact mindset that led people to back his first impeachment for doing exactly what many Presidents had doubtlessly done before him; it was the reasoning behind the second impeachment as well: Yeah, nothing he said indicating he was telling his wacko followers to state a violent “insurrection,” but you know that’s what he wanted them to do, because that’s the kind of person he is.

Althouse strikes back,

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A Climate Scientist Explains How Science, Academia And The Media Collude To Mislead The Public

The “climate scientist” in question is really a climate scientist: his name is Patrick T. Brown, and he is the co-director of Climate and Energy at The Breakthrough Institute. His article in the Free Press yesterday is essentially whistle-blowing on his own colleagues, and not only earns him an Ethics Hero designation, but also contains the Ethics Quote of the Month, which is both ethical in that he has the integrity and courage to make it, and a vivid description of unethical conduct that affects us all.

Here’s that quote:

“The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.

“This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.

“To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.”

This is hardly shocking news, but it is shocking to have one of the scientists—Trust the science! Science is Real!-–who participates in fearmongering climate change propaganda as a means of controlling public policy stating outright what any objective and analytical observer should be able to figure out. Such objective and analytical observers are condemned and mocked routinely as “climate change deniers” and “conspiracy theorists.” His article shows that another description is warranted: right.

Read it all, even though it is likely to make you angry, and to want to shake the piece in the faces of your smug and ignorant climate change fanatic friends and relatives who keep citing “scientific consensus” as justification for expensive and futile efforts to avoid “Climate Armageddon.”

Other infuriating points:

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More Weird Tales Of “The Great Stupid”: Martha Stewart Abuses An Iceberg

Mock away. The climate change fanatics are truly bananas.

Lifestyle media icon Martha Stewart was vacationing on a cruise around Greenland and posted a photograph of a cocktail chilled by ice she said had been chipped off an iceberg. “End of the first zodiac cruise from @swanhelleniccruises into a very beautiful fjord on the east coast of Greenland,” she wrote in the post. “We actually captured a small iceberg for our cocktails tonight.” Wait a sec—Marlon would like a word…

Stewart was immediately scorched on social media because using ice from an iceberg is promoting global warming, or cruelty to icebergs, or anti-Semitic (“Iceberg, Goldberg, what’s the difference?”) or something. “Wealthy white people drinking their iceberg cocktails while the planet is in flames is a bit tone deaf,” wrote a typical hysteric. “Please don’t use an endangered whale or seal to make any elitist meals like you did with the disappearing iceberg,” wrote another. You know: morons.

Martha is no weenie: She followed up by posting a photograph of an iceberg and wrote, “Pleated iceberg. Perfect for cocktails!”

Perfect response, too.

I would have been tempted to post a photo of me eating a polar bear steak.

Ethics Hero (And Most Ethical Use Of “Asshole” of 2023): Gold Star Father Mark Schmitz

Mark Schmitz, a Gold Star father, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday regarding the deadly suicide bombing in August 2021 that left 13 U.S. servicemembers dead, including Mr. Schmitz’s son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz. The cruel, irresponsible and incompetent American withdrawal from Afghanistan and its aftermath ordered by President Biden has been largely forgotten by most American voters, since they have the attention span of ADD kittens. Perhaps Schmitz’s no-hold-barred attack on Biden’s conduct in this episode will remind them.

What am I talking about? The mainstream news media will make sure as few of the kittens see his testimony as possible, and there’s still more than a year for them to forget again.

His full statement:

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