“I feel very strongly that he is Mussolini, Putin, is Hitler.”
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C., slander President Trump and broadcasting Big Lie #2 on CNN yesterday.
Unethical Quote #2, same interview.
“I believe very strongly that this guy never had any idea about being — want to peacefully transfer power. I don’t think he plans to leave the White House. He doesn’t plan to have fair and unfettered elections.I believe that he plans to install himself in some kind of emergency way to continue hold onto office.”
And I believe the two statements, lacking any justification, factual basis, or reasoning whatsoever, are signature significance for an official and a party that has lost all claim to civility, fairness, trustworthiness or respect. Continue reading →
“The Obama administration and the FBI knew that it was they who were meddling in a presidential campaign — using executive intelligence powers to monitor the president’s political opposition. This, they also knew, would rightly be regarded as a scandalous abuse of power if it ever became public. There was no rational or good-faith evidentiary basis to believe that Trump was in a criminal conspiracy with the Kremlin or that he’d had any role in Russian intelligence’s suspected hacking of Democratic Party email accounts…To believe Trump was unfit for the presidency on temperamental or policy grounds was a perfectly reasonable position for Obama officials to take — though an irrelevant one, since it’s up to the voters to decide who is suitable. But to claim to suspect that Trump was in a cyberespionage conspiracy with the Kremlin was inane . . . except as a subterfuge to conduct political spying, which Obama officials well knew was an abuse of power. So they concealed it.”
Former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy in the National Review
McCarthy isn’t just giving an opinion here; he’s analyzing evidence as the skilled prosecutor he is. As McCarthy explains, he’s basing his conclusion on recently unclassified documents, and they are incriminating.
McCarthy concludes, after excellent background,
But this much we know: In the stretch run of the 2016 campaign, President Obama authorized his administration’s investigative agencies to monitor his party’s opponent in the presidential election, on the pretext that Donald Trump was a clandestine agent of Russia. Realizing this was a gravely serious allegation for which there was laughably insufficient predication, administration officials kept Trump’s name off the investigative files. That way, they could deny that they were doing what they did. Then they did it . . . and denied it.
The information McCarthy relies upon and its clear implications create integrity tests, or will very soon, for many individuals and institutions. Continue reading →
“I would hate to give birth to someone that looks like me, and then, knowing that they’re gonna be hunted or killed.”
—-Black comic and actress Tiffany Haddish, explaining why she hasn’t had children.
Haddish made this astounding statement in an interview with Carmelo Anthony on his YouTube show, “What’s In Your Glass?”, as she explained why she joined a Black Lives Matter protest.
“I’m a little older now and people are always like, “You gonna have some babies? When are you gonna have some babies? You gonna drop some babies?'” she babbled. “There’s a part of me that would like to do that, and I always make up these excuses like, ‘Oh, I need a million dollars in the bank before I do that, I need this, I need that.”
Then after an explanation that indicates that Haddish thinks she is living in the days of the Underground Railroad and her children would be pursued through the swamps by bloodhounds, like Eliza in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” she asked, “Like, why would I put someone through that?”
“And white people don’t have to think about that. It’s time to talk about that, and how we have to come together as a community and work as a unit. Maybe we don’t all agree on the same things, but we need to just find some common ground and move forward as human beings not as like, you know,” she concluded, making no sense whatsoever. Continue reading →
“As defined by bestselling author Ibram X Kendi, anti-racism involves supporting policies and ideas that level racial disparities of outcome, while racism refers to any explanation of disparity that points toward black responsibility rather than white racism. This redefinition of racism from identifiable prejudice to disparity of outcomes represents the expansion of a propriety into what Antonio Gramsci calls a cultural hegemony: a power construct that cuts reality down to size and squashes any voice that questions its moral authority. While suggesting that black Americans bear some responsibility for their own outcomes was once considered merely in poor taste, it is now considered racist and therefore utterly beyond the pale in progressive circles.…If we are truly concerned with remedying the tragedy of racism and taking steps toward a society that views our racial identities as insignificant, we need to let the past be past. We can accept the reality of historical racism without creating an identity out of it that keeps us eternally suspicious of each other. We cannot change our past, but we can change how we make sense of it as we move towards an increasingly multi-ethnic future.”
“We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has.”
—-Joe Biden at a virtual town meeting yesterday, giving a novel version of American history.
Where to begin? I suppose it’s obligatory to point out, again, that the now routine assertion that President Trump is a racist is based on distortions, innuendo and outright lies. The Democratic Party/”resistance”/mainstream media axis doesn’t even bother to try to support the claim any more, because, I explained here, this is a a Big Lie strategy, pure Hitler/Goebbels, from the same source, ironically, of the Big Lie (it’s #3 on the list) that the President is like Hitler. Joe’s Big Lie yesterday is #4. It probably should be #1, since it was formulated from the moment Trump, in announcing his candidacy, said, very clearly, that a lot of illegal immigrants from Mexico were dangerous criminals. That is undeniably true, but it was reported, and has come to be believed, that he said all Mexicans were dangerous criminals.
I’m not going to rehash why Big Lie #4 is a lie; in you haven’t figured it out, please go to the link. However, it is amazing what happens when you ask anyone, even the most articulate and intelligent Trump basher, how they conclude Trump is a racist. They just can’t do it without resorting to misrepresentations and distortions, then bubble over with rage when you point them out.
Joe Biden, as we all know, isn’t articulate or intelligent, and never has been. Now, sadly, he is existing in the twilight world of some kind of mental deterioration. As an aside, I wonder how the news media and those who would vote against President Trump if whoever was running against him “shot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue” are going to rationalize Joe’s increasingly garbled pronouncements. “Be fair. That’s just Joe being Joe. You know, he’s senile!”? “OK, he’s lost it, but at least he’s not a racist”? Incidentally, Joe’s statement describing Barack Obama as “clean” back when Biden had all of his marbles, which were never abundant to begin with, was a more reliable marker of racism than anything Donald Trump has said in public in his long career. Continue reading →
“Everything that is happening between now and November 3 is about November 3. But the fundamental choice is not really Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It is civilization and America on one side, anarchy and woke tyranny on the other.”
Critic and New Criterion publisher Roger Kimball
I detest the habit of so many of my Facebook friends, posting daily the published opinions of pundits–Paul Krugman, Eugene Robinson, George Conway, et al.—in an unending appeal to authority. Usually they have barely thought about the topic at hand at all (often, neither have the authors of the pieces they are circulating); literally, the process saves them the trouble of thinking at all. When I challenge these opinions by proxy, what comes back more often than not is an attack on an imaginary authority that I must be channeling rather than the substance of my argument. They do this because they can only relay the opinions of others which can be used as passports to a position of favor on their bubble-dwelling “team.” That’s not what I do.
Occasionally, however, an analyst independently comes so close to cloning my conclusions on a topic and does such a superb job expressing them that I cannot do better than pointing readers his way.
—-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi yesterday, following being asked at a press conference about her reaction to the statue of Christopher Columbus being torn down and dumped in the Bay by the usual gang of vandals and anarchists who are symbolically tearing down the United States and Western civilization, as well as its values.
I am serious about this being the Unethical Quote of the Year. I can’t imagine a worse one, once Pelosi’s status as the third ranking official in the United States Government and the leader of the Democratic Party is taken into consideration. This would be a morally, legally and ethically bankrupt statement if it came from a sociopathic teenager. Coming from a leader who people follow and trust, it is infinitely worse. Such an attitude strikes at the soul of civilized society. “They just do what they do” is a line from “Jurassic Park,” as the paleontologist, Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) explains to the children that dinosaurs aren’t good or bad, they are just animals that “do what they do.”
“It is time for our politicians to summon the bravery and determination of our American ancestors. It is time. It is time to plant our flag and to protect the greatest of this nation for citizens of every race in every city in every part of this glorious land. For the sake of our honor, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our union, we must protect and preserve our history, our heritage, and our great heroes. Here tonight before the eyes of our forefathers, Americans declare again, as we did 244 years ago, that we will not be tyrannized, we will not be demeaned, and we will not be intimidated by bad, evil people. It will not happen.”
President Donald J Trump,speaking at Mt. Rushmore last night, and aggressively defending the United States of America, its Founders, its history and culture.
Bravo.
Last night’s speech, a ringing assertion of American greatness and a defiant condemnation of those who would topple it, despite the inevitable Trump flourishes of exaggeration, hyperbole, and deliberate provocation, was exactly what was needed, called for, and had to be said. It was inspiring, or should have been: I wonder about anyone who could read the transcript and not be stirred. I would ask, “What happened to you?” We also now know why it was appropriate to give that speech by Mt. Rushmore. The President extolled and defended our heroes, and devoted a section of the speech to each of the Presidents on the mountain, including, as CNN said last night to its damnation, “two slaveholders.”
There are about ten passages in the speech that I could have highlighted. I picked that one because it reminded me of this speech by a fictional President in a movie I detest, “Independence Day.” I would not be surprised to learn the speechwriter had that model in mind:
“President Whitmore” is talking about space aliens trying to destroys us. The mobs of America-haters who are attacking our core values and culture remind me of the aliens in “Invasion of the Body-Snatchers,” taking over the minds and bodies of one rational citizens, and terrorizing those who won’t submit to their “conversion.”Continue reading →
1. I’m current reflecting on a personal and professional ethics conflict. A colleague and long-time professional competitor—I would never call him a friend—has been ousted from his leadership position in the very successful organization he founded as a result of unproven allegations of sexual harassment and assault. It was a “believe all victims” situation, as well as what feels like a successful coordinated effort to “get” someone who had accumulated a lot of enemies, resentment and envy in a notoriously nasty industry once his power was waning.
On one hand, I feel like I should reach out to him and offer my guidance and support (as an ethicist and sexual harassment trainer, not a lawyer, and gratis, of course). On the other, I am pretty certain that he is guilty of at least some of what has been alleged, based on confidential accounts I have recently heard from reliable sources. Ethically, however, his ousting (it appears that he was given the option of “retiring”) lacked due process and fairness, and the organization was guided by public relations motives rather than legal or ethical ones.
Whose side should I be on?
2. Stop making me defend Facebook! As if there wasn’t enough to worry about, the aggressive pandering mode of corporations right now is being exploited by would-be censors of political speech. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced updated election policies and stricter “hate speech” rules in response to employee protests and pressure from activists, whose transparent objective is to silence or constrict any political views antithetical progressive positions and goals. In a message last week, Zuckerberg outlined plans to police disinformation relating to voting and elections, to flag certain content that risked triggering violence (I wonder what that standard is like today?) and concluded,
These words are on the outside wall of the Museum of Natural History near the Teddy Roosevelt statue that will be coming down, according to the museum.
The quote is a far better memorial to Roosevelt and his character than the statue.
The fair quote:
The question is how soon this will dawn on the groveling, and how soon the intimidated will have the courage to speak the truth.
The unethical quote:
The Washington Post issued a justification for its widely (and correctly) criticized 3000 word story about a politically incorrect costume that a woman wore at the Halloween party of Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles two years ago. Because two vicious social justice Furies who were guests at the party decided that the current George Floyd Freakout presented an opportunity to humiliate the woman and contacted the paper, it published 3000 words about an old, private incident, resulting in the woman losing her job, and Toles, who had refused to identify her when one of the vengeful and self-righteous women called him to re-open the episode, was embarrassed by his own employer.
The Post’s own readership found the paper’s news journalism ethics atrocious (as do I), prompting this response from a spokesperson to Fox News:
“Employees of The Washington Post, including a prominent host, were involved in this incident, which impelled us to tell the story ourselves thoroughly and accurately while allowing all involved to have their say. The piece conveys with nuance and sensitivity the complex, emotionally fraught circumstances that unfolded at the party attended by media figures only two years ago where an individual in blackface was not told promptly to leave. America’s grappling with racism has entered a phase in which people who once felt they should keep quiet are now raising their voices in public. The story is a microcosm of what the country is going through right now,”
A simple “We’re sorry, we screwed up, the story never should have been written and we don’t know what came over us and we pledge to be more responsible and to exercise better judgment in the future” might have salvaged a smidgen of the paper’s rotting reputation. Instead we have more evidence of just how unethical and untrustworthy this rag is: Continue reading →
Ethics Alarms 