[Note:I apologize for the funky formatting here, but it’s not my fault: WordPress again messed with its (terrible) “block system” with no warning and I’m trying to figure it out.]
I’m posting the graphic above again because it is res ipsa loquitur, rebutting on its face what so many of the hysterical Democrats, elected officials, pundits and partisan reporters are screaming as they survey the results of their own corruption and hypocrisy.
As Ethics Alarms has been asserting (and proving) for a decade now, the Left cheats. Its “they go low, we go high” mantra has always been cynical gaslighting, but the somnolent Right allowed them to escape accountability (and their just desserts) far too long. Donald Trump, whatever his ethical flaws may be, has always understood the concept of fighting back. This time it really paid off, and all Americans should be grateful. Yes: we should fervently seek fair districting in every state. Maybe the current chaos will eventually lead to that. However, letting one party rig the system unanswered while the other party just sits and shrugs is worse than the chaos.
Scott Greenfield, defense lawyer, blogger, Jack-hater and progressive legal pundit, deserves praise for a nearly completely ethical and unbiased analysis of the Virginia Supreme Court decision striking down the dastardly gerrymandering trick Virginia’s “moderate” governor and its corrupt Democrats tried to inflict on half the state’s voters. He writes in part,
“The confluence of a few unfortunate circumstances resulted in the Virginia Supreme Court holding that the state constitutional amendment to allow the redistricting plan as a counterbalance to other states’ legislative redistricting plans to eliminate congressional districts deemed “safely” Democratic was unconstitutional. Wags and cynics will imagine this ruling to be the product of radical rightist activists. It was not…Neither the majority nor dissent took unprincipled positions, both having some merit to their position, but the point of a ruling is to reach a determination. The Virginia Supreme Court did so, in a principled fashion, and it ruled the redistricting amendment unconstitutional under the state Constitution. It was a crushing defeat for Democrats, but that doesn’t make it partisan or radical. Sometimes, you lose. While the combination of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision and this Virginia ruling has set in motion a partisan war that serves to make congressional elections a by-product of widespread cynical gerrymandering rather than a reflection of the will of the voters, perhaps one of the most noxiously anti-democratic efforts to rig an election possible, don’t blame the Virginia Supreme Court for “losing” safe districts for Democrats. The court did its job and its ruling, no matter what outcome you would have preferred, was grounded in a principled reading of the state Constitution.”
Good for Scott. He is still, however, a Trump Deranged, biased progressive (like most trial lawyers), so he also wrote…
“If you want to find blame, it’s in the legislatures that decided to sell out their citizens, their voters, at the open and notorious behest of Trump. For all his baseless bluster about rigged elections, we’re finally going to have one and Trump demanded the rigging.”
Bad Scott. Bad. Look at the damn chart above. Democrats had already rigged Congressional elections. Did you wonder why the predicted “red wave” in 2022 never materialized? Wonder no more. Nine Democrat-dominated state legislatures made it virtually impossible for Republicans to get elected. President Trump, that kingly fascist, had the sense and combative instincts to get his party to try to even the odds. The “red” states that did that through redistricting (gerrymandering) followed their constitutions. Virginia did not. Naturally, the losers blame Trump.
Former DNC chairwoman and current ABC contributor Donna Brazile naturally took the same dishonest path. Remember, Brazile was the Democrat who first tipped me off to her party’s cheating ways: as a paid CNN “contributor” in 2016, she used her insider status to tip-off Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton regarding the questions she would be asked at a CNN “town meeting.” This was so unethical even CNN couldn’t tolerate it, and she was fired. Yesterday Brazile joined GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw and HBO’s “Real Time”host Bill Maher to give a masterclass on double standards and leftist gaslighting. Republican redistricting efforts are, she said, “immoral,” while Democratic efforts are what “voters decided.”
Voters in Virginia “decided” on the gerrymandered map based on the referendum’s false statement, indeed exactly the opposite of reality, that the new map would “restore fairness.” Remember?
“Restore fairness” by making sure that a 50-50 party split would be represented by a 10-1 Democrat district map. Sure.
Then Brazile played the race card, as Democrats inevitably do when the facts aren’t in their favor. “I come from one of those states that all of a sudden, the Supreme Court said, ‘Well, we don’t like partisan gerrymandering. No, we don’t like racial gerrymandering.’ So, one out of three voters in Louisiana is a black voter. One out of three. And they are now thinking of eradicating. So, that says people from some parts of Louisiana can represent New Orleans better than the folks who are representing—or Baton Rouge. It is wrong, it is immoral, and it is unjustified.”
Well-said, mush-mouth. “They” are thinking of “eradicating” black voters? I think Donna was trying to say that the Jim Crow laws that were still in effect de facto if not de jure in Southern states in the early Sixties justifies “good racial discrimination” in 2026, 60 years later. You can read her logic- and law-free rant here.This is, however, apparently the fake narrative the Axis has decided to run with, proving with its attempted cover-up just how desperate and unprincipled it is.
On yesterday’s MSNOW propaganda-fest “The Weekend,” Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) compared the 1857 Dred Scott ruling to the SCOTUS decision that the 1965 Voting Rights Act could no longer justify anti-white discrimination in the Southern states, and declared the Roberts Court “one of the most racist courts in American history.”Got it. If the Court doesn’t allow the Democrats to rig its Congressional maps to pack the House with as many blacks as possible, it’s racist. Morelle also parroted the “will of the voters” lie in attacking the Virginia Supreme Court’s rejection of redistricting referendum. Did the MSNOW host point out for its viewers that Morelle was misrepresenting both decisions? Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods?
This how House minority leader Hakeem Jeffreys reacted to his party being foiled in its unconstitutional, dishonest power-grab in Virginia:
“The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time.”
—-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, talking nonsense, as usual
I don’t care too much if the Congresswoman is historically ignorant. I do mind that she keeps spouting false-history in public, because most of the American public is also historically ignorant, and they might assume that because she is an elected official of some status, she must know more than they do. She doesn’t. AOC epitomizes the Dunning-Kruger Effect, where stupid people don’t realize that they are dolts.
It also is infuriating that the Congresswoman made this statement on a stage at the Institute of Politics, and no one corrected her. I view that as the equivalent of ratifying fake history. Donors take notice!
Her latest garbage is particularly egregious. The American Revolution was fought against a monarchy, a nation and its Parliament, not “billionaires.” To characterize the Revolution as a revolt of peasants against the rich is typical Communist propaganda. John Hancock, one of the instigators of the rebellion, was considered the richest man in New England, a multi-millionaire in today’s dollars. Robert Morris, probably the richest man in the colonies, and worth nearly a billion dollars in today’s currency, contributed millions to fund the war. Another one of the richest Americans, probably in the $500-$600 range (again in today’s dollars) was the “Indispensable Man” who led the colonial forces on the battlefield, George Washington.
A cardinal sin to Ethics Alarms is making Americans dumber, and the sin is central to AOC’s political existence. I highlighted some earlier a-historical blather in this post, but a narrative distorting the nature of the American Revolution is particularly unforgivable.
“It’s the job of the California governor to protect every single Californian,” Porter said. “The sanctuary state policy is designed to make sure that our state resources, the taxpayer dollars, the public servants that we have, are focusing on doing their jobs, which is not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities. These are Californians. They contribute to our economy, they pay taxes, and they’re one of the only ways our state has been growing in recent years.”
—Former California Congresswoman Katie Porter in this week’s gubernatorial debate explaining why “sanctuary” states are crucial to Democrats.
I have chosen to write as little as possible about California Governor candidate Katie Porter, I think because her very existence embarrasses me and the fact that such an awful human being could be elected to Congress by California voters shows just how beyond redemption that rotting state is. Here was my only entry regarding Porter, from last October:
“In California, the leading candidate to replace Gavin Newsom as governor, Rep. Katie Porter, has been bedeviled by emerging videos of her abusing staffers, refusing to tolerate probing questions from interviewers, and generally acting like a witch on wheels (It’s Halloween!) Porter and her political allies insist that these clips don’t show “the real Katie,’ which is comforting, since that demon impersonating Porter just stops short of spewing green vomit.”
The good news is that Porter isn’t leading in the polls any more, and in fact has the same chances of being governor of the tarnished Golden State as Frosty the Snowman has of being elected Mayor of Hell. The other good news is that her statement above was a public admission of why Democrats are so keen on open borders. It’s not quite a confirmation of “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, but it is close enough for horseshoes.
Axis-dwellers are so engulfed by their bubble that they can’t imagine anyone being bothered by a statement like that in their own party. This means, as night follows day, that they can’t imagine any progressives or Democrats possessing an understanding of law, national security, fairness, honesty…oh, lots of things.
Her state has welcomed illegal aliens in the hundreds of thousands while an estimated 10 million California residents have fled the state in the last decade. Illegal immigrants are not Californians by definition. They cannot be, because they aren’t citizens, and California cannot make them so. California’s elected officials, she admits, are not cooperating with federal law enforcement to allow millions of law-breakers to continue breaking the law, in order to provide illicit political support to Democrats, and to artificially inflate census numbers so Democrats can cement their power in Congress.
Nice.
To her credit, Porter’s explanation was frank, honest and except for her misunderstanding of that citizenship thingy, ethical. It reminds me of bank robber Willie Sutton’s legendary response when he was asked why he kept bobbing banks.
In fact, it’s brilliant, well-deserved, and spot-on. The purpose of trolling Trump-style is to make your opponents, detractors and adversaries start screaming and kicking things. Normally I would say that 1) causing people pain, psychic or otherwise, for no other reason than to do it, is unethical and that 2) for a President of the United States to engage in such conduct is petty, an abuse of position and and beneath him. But the fools, knaves, assholes and clods that make up the Trump Deranged just nearly got the President killed again. This particular trolling post, mocking the “No Kings” idiocy that has polluted the very concept of public demonstrations and protest as free speech, is a wonderful way to respond to those responsible.
To wit..
1 The President comparing himself to the UK’s King Charles brightly illustrates how silly the protest was to begin with. None of the kings extant in the world today, with Charles being the most prominent example, have any real power except for prestige and cultural respect.
2. If Americans and the mews media allowed Trump the formal respect and deference that the English royals receive, our politics, culture and society would be far healthier.
3. The Founders’ concept of our Executive was, in fact, that he have the status of a king but with his powers limited and controlled by two equally powerful government institutions. This is why both John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were shocked when our first President eschewed any of the trappings of royalty.
4. The difference between the conduct of the UK’s King and our President, especially this one, is striking. King Charles, like his mother, rarely allows reporters to shout questions at him, or addresses hostile audiences like Trump was about to do before the shooting started, or will take part in a contentious interview with a journalist as Trump has done many times, most recently with Norah O’Donnell. Framing them both as “kings” neatly points out the distinction. Our king is more accessible, a commoner (one might wish a bit less common) and self-effacing.
5. Real kings, and many of Charles’ predecessors, would execute or imprison critics, especially those as hateful and vicious as those who have taken part in the “No Kings” rallies. President Trump just teases them. That’s the epitome of a beneficent monarch.
6. Ann Althouse this morning chides the White House for, she says, sacrificing integrity (“consistency”) for trolling. Baloney. Trump trolling his undemocratic foes, who do not believe in allowing an elected President to govern, is one constant in his two terms. The post says, in effect, “Nyah, Nyah, Nyah. Nyah! I’m POTUS and you’re not. Bite me!”
Yes, childish, but Trump’s targets are children—worse, really, because children have an excuse for acting immaturely and adults do not. In the context of what he has put up with, it is a restrained, clever, and well-deserved rebuke.
Fact:The Axis of Unethical Conduct is 100% responsible for the third serious attempt on President Trump’s life in less than two years. 100%. Denying this is spin.
I’m not tolerating it or allowing the Mad Left to duck responsibility. It has been pushing hate for years, mostly focusing on Trump but also on Republicans, conservatives, the United States of America, capitalism and our founding values. Many on the Left (including Senator Elizabeth Warren) cheered on or rationalized the murderous act of the man who murdered a health care insurance executive by shooting him in the back—you know, evil corporations, evil capitalism. Many on the Left cheered the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The “resistance,” Democrats and their propaganda engines, aka. “the news media,” have been calling Trump a dictator, a fascist, Hitler, a sexual predator, a convicted felon, a racist, a monster, an existential threat to democracy, a practitioner of genocide, constantly and repeatedly. A lot of people really believe these labels are justified; a lot more people are cynically and irresponsibly spreading those accusation because they will help the Democrats achieve their ultimate goal of single party rule.
I believe that a very large percentage of American progressives want Trump dead, one way or another. A Rutgers study, you may recall, found more than half of the progressive respondents to a survey said it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Donald Trump. I believe that this conclusion is inescapable.
It’s too bad for these corrupt and despicable Americans that Trump is really good at reacting to assassination attempt. Then again, he’s had more practice than anybody in U.S. history. In his comments to the media last night, the President said in part,
“This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press. And in a certain way it did…I saw a room that was totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful — a very beautiful thing to see…In light of this evening’s events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts to resolving our differences peacefully. We have to resolve our differences. You had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, and progressives in that room — a big crowd, record-setting crowd. There was a tremendous amount of love and coming together.
“We looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight. It’s not a particularly secure building. I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House. It’s actually a larger room and it’s much more secure. It’s got drone-proof and bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom.
“This is not the first time in the past couple of years that our republic has been attacked by a would-be assassin. In Butler, Pennsylvania, less than two years ago — you all know that story. And in Palm Beach, Florida, a few months after that, we came close again. We had some great work done by law enforcement.
…I’ve studied assassinations. The most impactful people, the people that do the most, are the ones they go after. Abraham Lincoln, the big names. I hate to say I’m honored by that, but we’ve done a lot. We’ve changed this country. There are a lot of people that are not happy about that.”
Trump’s assassination history is flawed, but in his case, it has some legitimacy. Abe Lincoln, of course, fits his narrative, but the other assassinated Presidents do not: McKinley, Garfield, and Kennedy. The President Trump just surpassed to become the failed assassination record-holder with three is Gerald Ford, not exactly one of the “big names.” Nevertheless, the resistance, Democrats and the Axis media have been vilifying this President because he has “done a lot.” and has foiled them again and again. Yes, Trump’s trolling, gloating, deliberately inflammatory rhetoric and defiant style make the target they have placed on his back a bit more vivid, but make no mistake: the Trump Deranged and the totalitarian-tilting Left put it there.
“The SPLC orchestrating the Charlottesville event and then pivoting to “endorse” the narrative that Trump coddles white supremacists is the definition of a classic Democrat false-flag operation. They manufacture the crisis, weaponize the media to lie about the “fine people” quote, and use it as a political cudgel to demonize heritage Americans. It’s not just hypocrisy; it’s the standard operating procedure for the Democrat junta regime that relies on fabricated morality and lies to maintain power.“
Honestly, I don’t see how any fair, honest, informed American can disagree with that statement. I’ll even employ the “No True Scotsman” approach: any American who does disagree with that statement is, by definition, not fair, honest, or informed, and perhaps all three.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which we now know helped plan, organize, and pay for the Charlottesville demonstration, endorsed Kamala Harris, who a month later accused Donald Trump of enabling white supremacists during their debate.
The public now has sufficient information, even with the desperate attempts by the news media to submerge it all, to understand what a dangerous, Machiavellian, deliberately divisive and unscrupulous party the Democrats have allowed their organization to become. Regardless of one’s ideological preferences, it is unethical not to emphatically reject them.
A particularly clueless inquirer of the Times Magazine advice columnist “The Ethicist” asks…
“I volunteer for a small nonprofit organization picking up free food from pantries and delivering it to an impoverished local community. Recently I learned that one of the directors of the organization lied to food pantry personnel to obtain more food for our clients. The pantry normally allocates one bag of food per week for each family. Our director said we were delivering to twice as many families, so each family actually received two bags a week. When asked to provide the names of the clients we were delivering to, our director gave fake names.
“I’m uncomfortable with lying to sister organizations so we can procure more food than our families would receive under the established rules. And I worry that the extra bags for our families mean that other needy clients don’t get what they need.
“When I discussed this with another volunteer, they reminded me that one bag of food could never feed our large client families and that the director’s intentions were good. Please help me sort this out.”
Both the fact that anyone would ask such a question and that a philosophy professor thinks enough readers wouldn’t know the answer makes me again wonder if I’m wasting my life trying to advance the cause of ethical decision-making.
“For Fox executives only, take Jessica Tarlov off the air. She is, from her voice, to her lies, and everything else about her, one of the worst ‘personalities’ on television, a real loser! People cannot stand watching her.”
….quoth the President in a Truth Social post two days ago. Tarlov is one of the rotating progressive Democrat co-hosts on Fox News’ talk show “The Five” and routinely does what she was hired to do, which is to be the house contrarian on a biased news channel, like Scott Jennings on CNN.
It’s a lonely and crummy job, but somebody’s got to do it. Jennings does it much better, but 1) he’s smart, articulate, and usually has the right side to defend, 2) the wokies and Axis agents on the panels with him are hardly the best and the brightest, and 3) Tarlov isn’t the worst of Fox’s hired Lefties, and I’d rank her as better than Juan Williams, the thankfully departed long-time holder of that role on Fox. Faint praise, I know.
But Ethics Alarms correctly slammed the Biden White House when it dishonestly attacked Greg Gutfield of “The Five” in 2023, so I shouldn’t use The Julie Principle to give President Trump a pass now. Presidents should only carefully criticize journalists and pundits by name if at all, and Trump doesn’t do anything carefully. It is punching down by definition; it looks petty, it makes him look thin-skinned and weak, and worst of all, it hands his principle-free and shameless critics an opportunity to say he’s pro-censorship.
This has been true for years, and yet Trump has a flat learning curve. It’s like a man who keeps smashing his head against a wall without figuring out that it’s not a good idea.
The Tarlov nonsense is even worse that that, in fact. After Trump has “demanded” (he can’t demand, because its none of his business) that Fox fire someone like Tarlov, he’s given that individual immunity from getting dismissed no matter what she does. Fox News has to keep Tarlov or look like Trump is running the network. Fox News is too much of a Trump and MAGA lackey already.
Steve’s comment begins with “This is an embarrassment”—it is—and ends with a declaration for the ages:
“…[T]he leader of the world’s largest Christian sect needs to do better than be absurd.”
Exactly. Pope Leo is in a particularly important role not to misuse by shooting off his mouth irresponsibly, because millions of people around the world assume that he has moral authority, more wisdom than they, inherent virtues, and a pipeline to God. When I hear someone say something that stupid, I assume that they are stupid, or posturing, which is a type of lying. That is not a good look on the Pope.
Steve’s bon mot also follows neatly on what I wrote in the post, which was, “The more revered and powerful the advocate for virtue-signaling nonsense, the more unethical such demagoguery is.” There is far too much of this flagrant abuse of position and authority going around.
Ethics Alarms 