The accusations from the Axis media that Fox News deliberately avoided informing its audience about President Trump’s bitter and triumphant Truth Social post, “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” are not quite accurate, but close enough for what passes as journalism on those platforms now.
The Fox News website and that of local affiliates published articles that explicitly included President Trump’s widely criticized outburst that was generally considered in the “too soon!” category, but the initial reports on the air ignored it. Fox News mentioned the death of the leader of the contrived “Russiagate” scandal at least six times on TV without ever quoting Trump’s remarks and the resulting backlash. The televised segments on Fox & Friends and elsewhere featured more traditional post-mortem tributes from figures like former President George W. Bush. I happened to see periodic commentator Brit Hume criticize Trump’s whack at Mueller as pointless ugliness that “doesn’t help,” but that was more than a day after the episode occurred.
The above ahistorical, moronic and infuriating cartoon was posted by a long-time friend and—believe it or not!—a tenured history professor at Georgetown. I am reaching the end of my patience with once smart people deliberately making less-educated people stupid, and for the second time this week (the first was prompted by this Facebook meme) I couldn’t wrestle my fingers to the floor fast enough and responded to my Trump Deranged freind, “Now, you KNOW this is untrue. I know it’s untrue, and I know you know it’s untrue.”
And this is Trump Derangement! People who actually have the education, wit and critical thinking skills to reject false framing and imaginary facts, yet who nonetheless betray their own principles and integrity in order to attack the President. I’m hoping Steve-O-in NJ will gift us with one of his excellent historical retrospectives about how the United States was, at great risk to FDR, aiding Europe in fighting the Germans well before Pearl Harbor, and what the U.S. sacrificed in lives and treasure to indeed rescue Europe as well as that civilization thingy. We also rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan and have been bolstering European military defenses ever since.
It’s bad enough for a UK cartoonist to issue that crap, but for a U.S. historian to endorse it? Truly despicable. OK, for me, long friendship plus Trump Derangement and aging brain cells equals forgiveness.
Barely.
UPDATE:There is hope! My old friend the professor reacted to my mild rebuke with a “thumbs up.”
During the #MeToo phase of “The Great Stupid” and even before, the Woke and Wonderful were lecturing men that to take any pro-active romantic action that involved touching required express consent, otherwise a mere impulsive kiss would constitute sexual assault. So now Clark Gable, Richard Gere, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and the rest are sexual predators because they didn’t say “please.”
I am watching the (excellent) series “The Madison,” and, as I had noticed in another Taylor Sheridan vehicle “Landman,” in an awkward moment of sexual tension between a man and a woman who were virtual strangers, it was the woman who instigated the surprise, passionate kiss.
That’s all right, see. If a man kisses the woman, it’s assault and battery, but the other way around it’s exciting, romantic and natural.
It should be clear by now that MSNOW, previously MSNBC, exists only to misinform the public and make Americans more ignorant and divided than they already are. When I learn that a friend gets his or her news from this entirely propaganda-obsessed network, I conclude, reluctantly that this friend is now an idiot, and I will have to confine our conversations to, oh, movie trivia or something.
As I peruse three news cable channels during the day, hoping to learn something either about the world or the ongoing deterioration of U.S. journalism ethics, there are certain faces that repel me like opposite pole of a magnet. Brian Stelter on CNN. Hannity on Fox News. Literally everyone on MSNOW, of course, but Jonathan Capehart is particularly prone to saying really stupid things as if they were worth listening to.
On “The Weekend” this week, Capehart set a new low even for him. He was so horrified by the President making the quip about surprise and Pearl Harbor in front of the Japanese Prime Minister—standard fare for Trump, who enjoys doing and saying quiet parts out loud and doesn’t care who is offended—that he railed,
“I sometimes wonder, why are we not having a 25th Amendment conversation about this president?Because a comment like that, if it had come out of the mouth of President Biden, we would have been in rolling coverage about how Republicans on the Hill think that he should be removed from office for talking to an ally like that, and making that comment in response to a question from a Japanese journalist.”
I know I could spend all my time on Ethics Alarms pointing out the astoundingly flagrant bias and Trump Derangement displayed by members of the Axis media, but Capehart’s idiocy in this instance is epic. Let’s see…
Let me moderate that: the above comparison of Variety headlines about deceased artists (over two articles by the same writer) “speaks for itself” in that it vividly demonstrates the familiar biases and double standards warping values and analysis in the news media, progressive bubbles, and the realm of entertainment especially.
But allow me to add a few observations:
1. No artist’s political participation or views should “overshadow” his or her legacy, reputation or success in a creative field. I know I have written about this often, perhaps too often, but it seems to be a concept most people have a hard time accepting. I hold that the same principle applies just as strongly to an artist’s personal life and character. Our most brilliant comedians and comic actors, for example, with a few exceptions, were terrible human beings when they were not performing.
2. Chuck Norris was nowhere near as outspoken as Reiner regarding politics; he also was a lesser star in Hollywood’s firmament. His was a narrow genre, and one mostly favored by conservatives. Like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, his public stance on many issues was consistent with what one would expect from one of his characters. I have found that in such cases, the public opinions are frequently part of the artist’s calculated myth-making.
3. As I have noted before, I love many of Reiner’s films and regard him as, if anything, an under-rated director. He also made some of the most idiotic statements about political matters that I have ever heard or read, including from brain-damaged social media users. (Riener’s Ethics Alarms dossier is embarrassing. EA has never mentioned Norris except with this post.) That doesn’t change my assessment of his achievements as an artist any more than the certifiably demented pronouncements and rants by Robert DiNiro, Bette Midler, and Morgan Freeman (among many others) cause me to enjoy their talents less.
4. The fact that so many progressives seem unable to function this way is, in a word, sad. It also is strong evidence that the left side of the ideological divide is emotionally ill.
Yesterday, in near shock that a good and once wise friend posted on Facebook the head-exploding meme by a simple-minded activist named Jenny Carter, above, I challenged Ethics Alarms readers to perform the thorough defenestration of that smug brain-garbage it deserves. I had neither the time nor energy. Responding to my metaphorical Bat Signal, erudite veteran commenter Ryan Harkins came through like a champ, authoring the masterpiece below, a Comment of the Day if there ever was one. Here is his rebuttal, really a guest post in length and quality, in response to the post, “Ethics Jump Ball”:
Dear Jenny,
You can make strawmen of our principles all you want, and argue all day against them, but all that will gain you is a smug feeling and “likes” from your friends, and make absolutely no inroads with the MAGA crowd whatsoever. But I know that your entire intent is to make me waste my time answering you. So, perhaps foolishly, I will oblige.
To begin, a little groundwork. A dilemma is only a dilemma if you really only have the two options. If there is any other alternative, such argumentation falls apart. Second, if you are going to address our principles, maybe you should determine what those principles actually are. For example, being pro-Second Amendment is not about shooting people. It is about the right to bear arms against, especially, an overbearing, tyrannical government. Being pro-life does not mean that you believe that no one should die, ever. Third, in any given situation, there may be more than one principle in play, and to ignore that to score rhetorical points is arguing in bad faith.
I have a very good friend, an actor, a lawyer, a Jew and a “useful idiot” for progressives, who recently wrote a passionate and articulate Facebook post about however one felt about Israel, there was no excuse, justification or salvation for people who hated Jews. And I recalled that he had been among my misguided and ethically-crippled Facebook friends who actually celebrated the election of Communist Zohran Mamdani, as had others of my friends as well as Democratic Party Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and this august crew (from Mamdani’s website):
But it’s even worse. With the exception of the disgraced ex-Governor of New York who was running against Mamdani, not a single national Democratic leader would say publicly, “What???? Are you all out of your minds? This guy hates Jews! What has our party become?”
Better yet, shake the Free Beacon story in front of their smug, stupid faces like a Jack Russell Terrier shakes a rat—you know I love that image—or even better YET, do this..
Now, they will huminahumina that just because someone marries the love of his life who happens to want Jews wiped from the face of the earth doesn’t mean Mayor Mamdani feels the same way. Right. Heck, we don’t know that Eva Braun was bad, do we? Riiiight. Mayor Mamdani just used St. Paddy’s Day to compare the Irish Republican Army to Palestinians, who want Jews wiped from the face of the earth. This isn’t hard.
As for the Mamdani-chering Jews, like my friend, a smart and compassionate man, who celebrated Mamdani because he opposes Donald Trump, there are no excuses. They should be ashamed of themselves. He should be ashamed of himself. I am ashamed of him. People should turn their backs on these ethically corrupted fools like the jurors in “Twelve Angry Men” turn their backs on Juror 10 (Ed Begley) when he erupts into his final bigoted rant..
The irony? I cast that pro-Mamdani actor-friend in one of my productions of “Twelve Angry Men.”
“A representative for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment,” notes the Free Beacon. Of course not. What would he say?
I feel kind of bad for using Nelson on this story, but my self-restraint failed me, the sooner everyone recognizes Gavin Newsom as the creep he is, the better off everyone will be.
A lot of good people are hurt, disillusioned and confused by the revelations, published by Axis stalwart the New York Times, that United Farm Workers and Mexican-American icon Cesar Chavez raped women and girls. All of the headlines will say “allegedly,” but the evidence is very strong, and you know the Times, which happily covered up not-quite so convincing evidence that Joe Biden sexually assaulted a staffer when he was in the Senate and never fully investigated the darkest accusations against Bill Clinton, would have done the same with the Chavez revelations if they could find the slightest justification. Read the Times story here, on my gift link. I won’t waste time repeating it, as this post will be long enough.
Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has authored a new book on a hot topic, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI. Breitbart is one the Ethics Alarms blacklist, thanks to multiple misleading and biased articles, a few of which led me into wrongly sourced posts. However, on the principle that the messenger should not automatically cause one to disregard the message, I was intrigued by the book’s claim that AI programs alleging that they are politically neutral are actually biased heavily against conservatives.
From a confirmation bias perspective, I would be shocked—not “shocked—shocked!” but genuinely shocked— if that were not the case, since AIs are informed by mass media and the output of other heavily biased institutions, including Big Tech members of the Axis of Unethical Conduct like Google and Meta. “Code Red” states that Hall, using Google Gemini Pro’s “deep research” setting, asked, “Based on your hate speech policies, assess the statements of the current 100 U.S. Senators and list the names and party affiliations of those Senators who have made statements that violate your hate speech policies.”
“District courts cannot stand athwart, yelling ‘stop’ just because they genuinely believe they are the last refuge against policies that they deem to be deeply unwise.”
—Judge Kenneth K. Lee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, writing separately as a panel overruled a district court and held that the President had the power to suspend the Refugee Admissions Program.
Of course he did. The law and Constitution is clear on that point, but a woke District Court halted the President’s decision anyway. This was unethical as well as illegal, but, as Prof. Josh Blackman writes,
“President Trump is back in office, progressives still challenge virtually every action he takes, and judges in blue states continue to grant relief. No surprise there. But there is a new dynamic. Now, not only are lower court judges resisting the President, but they are also resisting the Supreme Court. In August, Justice Neil Gorsuch rebuked an attempted . Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts managed to get reversed twice by the Supreme Court in the same case. “When this Court issues a decision,” Gorsuch wrote, “it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.” Gorsuch added that “[t]his Court’s precedents, however, cannot be so easily circumvented.”
Remember, it is Trump’s opponents who keep accusing him of breaching “democratic norms,” yet the Axis of Unethical Conduct ( the “resistance,” Democrats and the media that carries on their propaganda) is literally defying the greatest democratic norm of all, the Constitution. Blackman calls this attempted usurpation of power by activist, partisan judges “judicial resistance,” in other words, an abuse of judicial power for partisan objectives. It is—this is me and not the professor saying this—grounds for impeachment. President Trump is not exceeding his Presidential authority as the Trump Deranged scream, but rather the judges and courts that are interfering in the Constitutional hierarchy. Unethical, you think? Damn right.
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