Now there’s a well-reasoned, articulate, rational, persuasive argument! My rule of thumb is that when advocates have to descend into chanting, shouting and sloganeering, they have no legitimacy, and neither do their positions. (If a position’s advocates can’t do better than that, their position is a fantasy.) They have also forfeited respect and the right to be taken seriously.
Government & Politics
Another “Great Stupid” Milestone: Mayor Adams’ Plan To Stop Shoplifting
If you are not fully informed in Ethics Alarms lore, the term “The Great Stupid” for the ridiculous period Western Civilization is trying to survive came from a lucky conversation your host had many decades ago with futurist Herman Kahn, then generally regarded as the smartest man alive. One of the topics we discussed was the Sixties, and Herman observed that throughout history there have been periods where whole cultures suddenly forgot the lessons of the past. This resulted in what in retrospect looked like extended periods of stupidity, with people and governments engaging in destructive conduct and embracing wildly foolish policies until they re-learned what they had forgotten, usually after catastrophic results. I am quite confident that Mr Kahn would agree that this is just such a period.
New York City mayors have been major players in the most recent descent of stupidity across the land, and while Mayor Eric Adams couldn’t be a worse mayor than his predecessor if he just lay on his office rug twitching, he certainly tries. Recently, as his city (like so many Democrat-run metropolises) grapples with an exploding crime rate, Adams announced the following plan to deal with rampant shoplifting:
Ethics Quote Of The Week: Jonathan Turley
“As [the WaPo’s Philip] Bump wrote when he was falsely accusing Barr, “it is the job of the media to tell the truth.” This would be a good time to start.”
—-Prof. Jonathan Turley in an epic defenestration of Washington Post Democratic Party propagandist Philip Bump
The Washington Post continuing to publish columnist Philip Bump’s “advocacy journalism (aka. lies) tells us as much about that once respectable paper as MSNBC continuing to provide a platform for Al Sharpton (and Joy Reid, and Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O’Donnell, and Joe Scarborough…). Bump distorts facts and sets out to disorient Post readers, which is, I was taught in journalism class, the opposite of what newspapers are supposed to do. “But he’s a pundit, not a reporter!” you protest? Fine: as the saying goes, he is entitled to his opinion, but not to his own facts.
“Gee, What A Surprise: Pot Isn’t Good For Teenagers”…The Sequel
In the same vein as the rueful post from two days ago, Ethics Alarms offers this excerpt from today’s Sunday Times without further comment, because none should be necessary…
More On Disgraced Ex-U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins: “The Dark Underbelly Of The Intersection Of Politics And Media”
Fortunately, Boston still has surviving conservative competitor of the dominant Boston Globe—you know, that heroic newspaper portrayed in “Spotlight.” If it didn’t, it’s quite likely no news media sources would publicize the disturbing unholy alliance between the corrupt U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins, a brazenly unethical prosecutor pushed into power by the Democratic Party, and Massachusetts’ most influential news source.
The Boston Herald may be struggling, but it performed a public service by revealing the Globe’s alliance with Rollins, whose fall Ethics Alarms discussed here. The conservative paper cursed to try to survive in a one party city and state reports today,
“No mercy. Finish him,” Rollins demanded to Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo in one of their text exchanges about Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden, whose campaign they were trying to torpedo….The two conspired – with the Boston Globe as willing accomplice – to tilt the Democratic D.A. primary in Arroyo’s favor by trying to smear Hayden to show he was somehow under federal investigation, texts and emails show….The Globe actually ran three stories about Hayden using Rollins as an anonymous source.
...That’s why it’s so important for reporters to know the personal agendas of anonymous stories and to check out everything they tell you. Journalists like to think of themselves as using lofty ethical standards but when it comes to political or investigative journalism the sausage-making can be unseemly. The Rollins probe has slimed an untrustworthy press and feeds into why an already cynical public hates and doesn’t trust the media.
The twin investigative reports about Rollins also showed how dangerous it is for the public and media to glorify and lionize public officials. When Rollins threw herself an elaborate swearing-in ceremony over a year ago at the federal courthouse in Boston, both Democrats and Republicans rushed to praise her as a “trailblazer” – as the Boston Globe called her – and predicted greatness for her.
Amusingly, one of those who was effusive in her praise for Rollins was Massachusetts’ spectacularly unethical Democratic Senator, Elizabeth Warren, aka “Fauxahautus,” who raved, “She has the values, the vision, and the courage to be an outstanding US attorney!” Among Rollins’ values was blatant politicizing of the law for Democratic gain as well as her own.The Herald notes that Rollins would have probably gotten away with her unethical election tampering and remain a U.S. Attorney today if she hadn’t attended a Democratic Party fundraiser where a Boston Herald reporter saw her and reported her presence.That flagrant ethical breach, for which Rollins falsely claimed claimed she had prior approval, triggered the ethics investigations by the Inspector General and Office of Special Counsel that ended her tenure.
Now that she has resigned in disgrace, the Globe is back to playing objective journalism again, issuing stories and columns condemning Rollins. It has not, of course, condemned its own complicity in her machinations.
The lesson of this relatively under-reported scandal is that while the Russian Collusion hoax, as revealed by the Durham Reports, was a national collaborative effort by Democrats, corrupt government officials and the biased news media to tamper with democracy, the same rotten alliance is hard at work undermining democracy at the state and local levels as well. What is desperately needed is a non-partisan watch-dog organization that fingers and exposes news media corruption, awarding the opposite of the Pulitzers (which, being politically biased themselves, has not retracted its awards to the Washington Post ad New York Times for their false and partisan coverage of “Russiagate.”) Such negative awards would have to be monthly rather than yearly, so frequently do journalists today engage in propaganda and disinformation.
Maybe Elon Musk, if he has any money to spare after his sputtering efforts to restore free speech to Twitter, can install such a system. Exposure and shame seem to be the only weapons we have against “the enemies of the people.”
Ethics Quote Of The Week: Prof. Glenn Reynolds
“If you need counseling over being “misgendered,” you’re too mentally fragile to handle the diplomatic interests of the United States. Get another job.”
—-Conservative law professor, pundit and blogger Glenn Reynolds, making the required observation on this ridiculous story:
Because the State Department has nothing more important to spend its money on, it is “testing a new feature that will provide users with the option to include their preferred pronouns in their Global Address List profile.” Unfortunately, do to human error, the feature went live, and many State Department employees had randomly assigned pronouns added to their profiles. Men were given female pronouns and vice versa, due to what was termed a “pronoun glitch.” Emails from colleagues suddenly included random pronouns, like, “She/her/hers” and “He/Him/His” in the “from” line. As Colonel Kurtz would say…
The State Department apologized profusely to those who were “triggered, and—I’m not kidding, now—is offering free therapy to “any employee who feels hurt or upset as a result of this unfortunate mistake,” according to an internal email that went out to employees on yesterday.
From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…
Bad manners. Miserable etiquette. Disrespect.
It was not enough that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman continued to stand for election despite obvious and possibly irreparable cognitive impairment. Once in the Senate, Fetterman cannot muster sufficient respect for the institution, his colleagues, his state and his country to dress appropriately for official appearances.
He is, to be blunt, a slob.
There is no excuse for such conduct. Yes, I have some compassion for Fetterman, who is something of a mutant; fitting a suit to his Frankensteinian frame can’t be easy. I’m sure business dress is uncomfortable for him, but he is literally a representative of the United States government. Expecting a U.S. Senator to display sufficient dignity in the role he sought and accepted is not unreasonable.
So far, the only members of Congress to criticize Fetterman have been Republicans, which I take to be solid evidence that the GOP is the only party that believes minimal adherence to standards of decorum are important factors in engendering public trust. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should tell Fetterman to dress appropriately or stay home.
(Why should I even have to write this?)
CNN’s Internal War Over The Trump Townhall Shows How Corrupt And Dangerous U.S. Journalism Has Become
Of all the offensive, obnoxious and outrageous things Donald Trump has said or tweeted, none infuriated progressives more than his calling the news media the “enemies of the people.” This is ironic, because nothing he’s ever said was more true or important to express.
Ace of Spades, the conservative blogging provocateur who is often as incisive as he is inflammatory, issued an impressive examination of what is transpiring at CNN in the wake of last week’s Trump “townhall.” He predicts, as others are predicting, that CNN chief Chris Licht’s days are numbered because the programming went against the pure, near-MSNBC level of full-throated Democratic propaganda CNN has been selling as “news” for more than a decade. It seems clear—and it really shouldn’t be surprising—that the audience CNN has nurtured by slanting its reporting isn’t interested in opposing views, perspective or objective analysis. Thus there has been a sudden drop in CNN ratings following the Trump event similar to the exodus from Fox News following the removal of its demagogue-in-chief, Tucker Carlson. Both migrations are evidence of ethics corruption, but of the two, punishing CNN for what once would have been considered responsible and necessary journalism is the more ominous.
Ace’s various references reveal, among other things…
Unexpectedly, The Biden Administration Policy Of Using Diversity/Equity/Inclusion And Hyper-Partisanship As Criteria For Law Enforcement Appointments Results In An Unethical US Attorney
Who couldn’t see this coming? The bipartisan effort to politicize the justice system, recently brought into focus by Durham Report, resulted in a spectacularly unethical and corrupt U.S. Attorney, Rachael S. Rollins, the Biden selection for the job in Massachusetts. A 161-page report issued by Justice’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, found that Rollins has been a whirlwind of unethical conduct, misusing her office to help a political ally, defying ethics rules to get free tickets to Boston Celtics games, her acceptance of flights and a resort stay paid for by a sports and entertainment company, and lying under oath to investigators, among other misdeed. The New York Times calls the IG’s work “one of the most extraordinary public denunciations of a sitting federal prosecutor in recent memory.” The U.S. Office of Special Counsel released its own findings on Rollins’ sleaziness, concluding that she had violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by federal officials.
Assorted Ethics Observations On The Durham Report, Part I: The News Media
John Durham, the special counsel charged with investigating the Trump campaign-Russian collusion “witch hunt” (as Donald Trump calls it, with more accuracy than usual) finally released his 306 page report late yesterday. I’m still slogging through it, but I’ve read a lot of excerpts and snippets, and it’s not too early to make some judgments.
I don’t need to read the whole thing, for example, to cite the news media’s coverage of Durham’s work as a fairly revolting example of a “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” spin job. Attention should be paid, because various outlets are essentially plastering signs on their metaphorical foreheads reading, “We’re biased, pro-Democrat, anti-Trump hacks!”
At Memeorandum, for example, the useful headline aggregator much praised by Ann Althouse, the Durham report’s release isn’t even the lead story. That would be the “graphic” law suit a former assistant has filed against Rudy Giuliani alleging that he coerced her into sex, among other sensational claims. One headline above the Durham report coverage is “Rudy Giuliani made antisemitic remarks about Jews’ genitalia, mocked ‘freaking Passover’ observance, new lawsuit claims.” I think I can state with reasonable certainty that when the history of this awful period is written, the successful efforts by Democrats, the news media and the “deep state” to cripple and de-legitimize the efforts of a duly-elected U.S. President to do the job he was elected to do will be a continuing source of analysis and debate, and the accusations made in his dotage against Giuliani will be a footnote at best, even if they turn out to be true.
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