Bryon Noem, the husband of recently fired DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, was revealed to be fond of dressing up in women’s clothing, often with massive fake breasts, while paying to interact with others portraying “bimbos,” the Daily Mail reported in a “scoop” that appears to be well-sourced.
His wife issued a statement to the New York Post saying she was “devastated” and her family was “blindsided.” President Trump only commented that he felt badly for the family and that his former DHS head’s husband’s odd hobby was “news to him.”
Predictably, the revelation, which 56-year-old Byron Noem has not denied, thrilled progressives, who pointed to his wife’s alleged hypocrisy in opposing LGBTQ rights, and horrified conservatives, who are as kinky as anyone else but don’t like admitting it.
The Great Stupid’s warped values have made the term “divisive” particularly problematical regarding societal ethics. If, for example, a sign condemning sex with children is deemed to be divisive to some sick SOBs, my reaction is, “Good. Live with it. You’re wrong and normal people are right. We don’t care if you feel denigrated. You should be denigrated. And shunned.”
Then we have the divisive appeal for funds I highlighted earlier today. I firmly believe that an appeal for charitable assistance for one “tribe” or group to the exclusion of others who have exactly the same claim to charity, empathy, humanitarian aid and generosity is divisive, destructive, and wrong.
Two examples of controversies involving art and messaging also came across my ethics metaphorical radar screen today….
I. The mural honoring murdered refugee Iryna Zarutska in Providence, Rhode Island. The last moments of the innocent young woman slaughtered for no reason in particular by a deranged criminal repeatedly released to prey on an unsuspecting public is on the left, the now condemned mural in her honor is on the right. Mayor Brett Smiley (D, of course) ordered the unfinished mural, largely funded by Elon Musk, taken down. “The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like this across the country is divisive and does not represent Providence,” he said in a statement. “I continue to encourage our community to support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than further divides us.” Smiley’s Democrat primary challenger, Rhode Island state Rep. David Morales, said, “We’re seeing a right-wing movement that is exploiting the death of the refugee for the purposes of trying to spread division. Ultimately, we want to make sure that every community member that calls Providence home feels safe … and we can both agree that this mural behind us does not reflect Providence’s values.”
That’s interesting. What values do the honoring of a young woman who died because of elected officials, judges and law enforcement officials determination not to punish criminals and wrong doers “not reflect”? The fact that Iryna Zarutska was a Ukranian refugee is irrelevant, isn’t it? A young woman named Ann Jones, or a young man named Bill Shaw, or an old fart named, oh, say, Jack Marshall, being murdered while using public transportation would be equally worthy of public anger, wouldn’t it? Is dividing people who care about law abiding citizens being murdered because of irresponsible policies from those who shrug such horrors off as “collateral damage” a bad thing? What kind of people is Mayor Smiley and David Morales standing up for? Killers? Maniacs? Is the mural divisive because this particular maniac was black and his victim was white? I think the message of the mural is “Shame on you!” to all of the progressives, “restorative justice,” “defund the police” activists whose hands are stained with the blood of victims like Iryna Zarutska. Why should that message be suppressed or discouraged?
In its groveling statement sucking up to the woke and offended by justice, the owners of the building where the mural appeared mewled “We heard you [Providence]. We are deeply and sincerely sorry for everything that has taken place over the past week. After reflecting and learning, we have made the decision to discontinue this project and will move forward with removal as soon as possible. We remain committed to fostering unity, safety, and care for all members of our community, and we will continue to listen, learn, and act with those values at the forefront.”
Sure, you foster safety by supporting the removal of a strong statement against pandering to criminals. Got it. You’re disgusting.
As I write this, the Supreme Court is hearing a case challenging the tradition that nearly all children born in the United States, whoever their parents may be and how they came to be here, are automatically citizens.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order stating that babies born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants and temporary foreign visitors were ineligible for birthright citizenship. That was an obvious shot across the bow of the U.S. Supreme Court as it challenged an interpretation of the 14th Amendment that has stood for over a century. The President knew his EO would be also challenged, and would eventually end up on the Supreme Court docket.
Because this is an important question that would, if SCOTUS agreed with the President’s interpretation of the Constitutional intent (there were no such things as “illegal immigrants” when the Constitution was written) have massive consequences in many areas, the oral argument is attracting blow-by-blow analysis. That is not my purpose here.
The issue for Ethics Alarms is President Trump’s decision to attend the oral argument. No previous President has done this, although nothing prevents the President from attending. Trump’s predecessors all avoided the option, though there have been many, many cases over the years that the President knew would have a major effect on his policies as well and the matters he had to deal with. President Pierce did not attend the Dred Scott oral arguments. To be fair, he was barely engaged at any time in his miserable four years in the White House. But FDR didn’t sit in while the Court was determining the fates of his many New Deal programs. Nixon didn’t listen to the Pentagon Papers arguments.
Oh great: “war crimes” again. I’m afraid to check Facebook because I am sure that about 20 of my Trump Deranged show biz friends will be ranting about this.
Yesterday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that a number of Iranian targets would be obliterated if Iran does not allow the Hormuz Strait to be opened immediately. NBC White House correspondent Garrett Haake channeled his inner John Lennon and mewled to White House Paid Liar Karoline Leavitt,
“The president posted this morning about his threat that on leaving Iran he said, ‘Blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, hard island, and possibly all desalination plants,’ Under international law, striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited. Why is the President threatening what would amount to potentially a war crime with the US military? And how do you square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the US does not target civilians?”
My metaphorical hat is off to Leavitt, who was appropriately diplomatic and did not smite this Axis idiot with the rhetorical barrage that I would have.
“Look,” she said. “The President has made it quite clear to the Iranian regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the statement that you just read, that their best move is to make a deal, or else the United States Armed Forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination and the President is not afraid to use them.” Shethen denied that that Trump was contemplating “war crimes.”
I would have said, “Garrett, the United States is in a war, and the Geneva convention, which is an imaginary set of pacifist edicts that the United States does not feel bound by when the interests of the nation, Americans and civilization itself are at risk, will not restrain the United States in its efforts to conclude this conflict or any conflict as quickly as possible. Moreover nothing in the President’s message suggested that he was “targeting civilians.” But if civilians are at risk because it is necessary to remove facilities and resources that Iran needs to continue fighting, and if the real threat of losing these prompts Iran to surrender or make a good faith effort to negotiate a peace settlement, that is regrettable but unavoidable. This is a war. The United States will not limit its options to prevail.”
I might have been able to avoid concluding with, “you idiot.”
Several commentators have noted that the Axis media and the anti-American Left are using the same playbook and propaganda to support Iran against their own country that they embraced to support Gaza (Hamas, terrorists…) against Israel. I still await the tipping point when the public turns decisively and permanently against these people.
I found the responses of the two grinning protesters empty and fatuous, but not incoherent. They are protesting to protest, because it’s “democratic.” It’s fun being in all that energy and shared emotion. I marveled at this back in college; I’d venture that most protesters at these large rallies can’t articulate what it is they are so upset about.
I also think the mother might have brought her daughter to the “No Kings” rally as to experience democracy in action, and because they probably live in a community where the schools and institutions and communities are knee-jerk Left, and the mother can boast of her commitment and virtue. It’s sort of nice in a way.
In New York, there were Palestinian flags, plus signs and chants calling for defunding the police. Communist groups were part of most of the demonstrations. Of course, pro-open borders, anti-ICE signs were in abundance too. Question: how do mostly moderate, educated, otherwise rational Americans appear to be allied with such groups—pro-terrorist, anti-law enforcement, anti-American—and not wonder, “Wait, why am I associating with these people?”
There were riots in the demonstrations in Portland and L.A. “Peaceful protesters” threw bricks at police officers in L.A. Nice. How many of those people know that the “right to protest,” aka free speech, does not include throwing things?
Doug Emhoff, Kamala’s Beta Male hubby, posed for pictures in Malibu with Trump Deranged D-list celebrities like Kathy Griffin. How low can you go?
According to a copy of the permit for the “flagship” “No Kings” march in St. Paul, Minnesota, Indivisible, a national Democratic political advocacy organization funded by radical Left billionaire George Soros is the lead coordinator for the protest. Fox News reported that Neville Roy Singham, an American tech tycoon and self-proclaimed communist living in China also finances many of the activist groups that fueled the “No Kings” tantrums, including the People’s Forum in New York, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Coalition and CodePink, whose co-founder Jodie Evans is married to Singham.
My father used to tell a joke about a man who kept snapping his fingers compulsively. His wife sent him to a psychiatrist, who asked him, “What’s with the finger-snapping?” “It keeps the elephants away,” the man said.
“What?” said the shrink. “There are no elephants for hundreds of miles from here!” “See?” the man said. “It works!”
[I submit that question above as a less vulgar substitute for “Does a bear shit in the woods?”]
Just sat down a while ago to wake up to what we laughingly call “the news” while cuddling my dog and drinking some Italian Roast to get my brain functioning, sort of. As usual I wandered aimlessly among CNN, Fox News and MSNOW to gauge the difference in emphasis and tone, while jumping back periodically to check with the MLB channel’s morning round-up of yesterday’s baseball games.
The second I landed on CNN, I was told that a new HUD policy put forth by…THE EVIL TRUMP ADMINISTRATION!!!!…could put thousands of homeless people “including many veterans” back on the street. HUD wants to transfer billions in funding from permanent housing to temporary housing, which means, CNN kind of explained, two-year residency. BUT, the grim-faced reporter said, many homeless would probably leave sooner than that. A judge has halted the policy’s implementation after a law suit—of course—but the report simply regurgitated what the complaint from homeless activist organizations alleged.
What they alleged, CNN appeared to believe, is the only way to see this situation. All CNN did was quote the plaintiffs’ filings. Why does HUD want to change the policy? We got no information about that at all. I have other questions: what are the benefits of “permanent housing” as opposed to “temporary housing”? What is “permanent housing” anyway? If someone is in “permanent housing,” why are they still called homeless? If they leave temporray housing before their time is up, why wouldn’t they leave permanent housing? Will spending money on temporary housing rather than permanent housing serve the homeless population better? Will it serve taxpayers better?
As a lawyer who has scrupulously avoided joining the American Bar Association (except when a discounted membership allowed me to feel more comfortable when the ABA invited me to speak about ethics at a convention), I found the recent resolution calling for the repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, (“PLCAA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 7901–7903, consistent with what I now expect of the nation’s largest legal trade association. Over the last several decades years, the ABA has moved steadily leftward on the ideological spectrum, and signs that bias had made it stupid began turning up as early as 1987, when four members of the association’s special committee evaluating Supreme Court nominees found the extremely well-qualified Robert Bork, nominated by President Ronald Reagan, unqualified purely because of his conservative judicial philosophy. This gave Senate Democrats the ammunition they need to reject Bork, thus beginning the destruction of a crucial “democratic norm” that Presidents should be able to choose SCOTUS justices as long as they were sufficiently qualified and experienced.
You can read Resolution 604 here. Ten states (New York, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington…do you see a pattern?) have enacted “Firearm Industry Responsibility Acts,” and the ABA, being properly woke, is calling for a national version. The resolution purports to be concerned about a “small percentage” of “irresponsible” gun manufacturers who violate consumer protection or engage in deceptive trade practices, and wants the gun industry’s unique immunity from product liability lawsuits to be narrowed and reformed.
Because the latest resolution begins its arguments with the usual scaremongering statistics compiled by anti-Second Amendment activists—“Approximately 46,000 Americans are killed by a gun every year—approximately 125 people every day,” I find the resolution to be disingenuous, a “camel’s nose in the tent” tactic to make gun manufacturers so vulnerable to lawsuits that the business becomes untenable, and guns become so expensive that the right to bear arms is illusory.
I have made it clear with several posts, including this one, in June, and this one, in October, that I yield to no one in my contempt for the “screaming at the sky” “No Kings” demonstrations. From the June post:
We don’t have a king, and Donald Trump doesn’t act like one. If he did (or could), all the obstructionist, partisan judges we have seen over-reaching to block his legitimate policies would be in prison, without heads, or on the lam. The anti-democratic citizens (and illegals) demonstrating yesterday are not the supporters of our elected President and our system that elected him, but those who still refuse to accept that election (or his first one, for that matter).
Nevertheless, a lot of my good friends, formerly thoughtful, rational people, are either participating in the latest iteration of this…well, let me hand over the floor to Otter for a moment…
A futile and stupid gesture! But three of them (or is it four)? I have measured these protests against the Ethics Alarms Protest Ethics Checklist and found the “No Kings” tantrums to be 0 for 12:
1. Is this protest just and necessary?
2.Is the primary motive for the protest unclear, personal, selfish, too broad, or narrow?
3. Is the means of protest appropriate to the objective?
4. Is there a significant chance that it will achieve an ethical objective or contribute to doing so?
5. What will this protest cost, and who will have to pay the bill?
6. Will the individuals or organizations that are the targets of the protest also be the ones who will most powerfully feel its effects?
7. Will innocent people be adversely affected by this action? (If so, how many?)
8. Is there a significant possibility that anyone will be hurt or harmed? (if so, how seriously? How many people?)
9. Are the protesters prepared to take full responsibility for the consequences of the protest?
10. Would an objective person feel that the protest is fair, reasonable, and proportional to its goal?
11. What is the likelihood that the protest will be remembered as important, coherent, useful, effective and influential?
12. Could the same resources, energy and time be more productively used toward achieving the same goals, or better ones?
However, I am considering whether the checklist is missing a possible redeeming feature of not only these protests but other protests as well. There is the possible #13:
I put this story in the category of “signature significance.”
Jessica Foster joined Instagram in late December of last year and in just a few month she has managed to become a conservative ‘influencer,” with a following on the social network surpassing 1 million. She is blonde, beautiful, serves in the US Army, and is a Donald Trump supporter who doesn’t go overboard in her posts. Here is Jessica in a stroll with President Trump…
What a pity she doesn’t exist. Jessica is an AI-created fake model designed to lure horny young men with IQs below freezing to Only Fans, the pay-for-porn website. “Public servant by day, troublemaker by night 🤍 i’m new to this, don’t be rude please 😭👉🏼👈🏼 btw i respond to every message, but be patient since I’m not a robot haha,” Jessica’s Only Fans bio reads, lying through her imaginary teeth.
Maybe she was designed to prove just how dumb a certain demographic of Trump supporters are. If that was the mission, I’m sold. Anyone who pays attention to any “influencers,” even real ones, needs to get a brain transplant, but following a bot-influencer because she has a pretty fake face and a nicely engineered rack takes a special kind of idiocy.
Well, that democracy thingy was a nice idea while it lasted.
The ethics of such creatures is so basic I’m embarrassed typing it. Putting a fake human being on the web without revealing that it (okay, “she”) is fake is more unethical than circulating web hoaxes, and almost as unethical as presenting a shambling, senile old man to the public as a functioning President who is “sharp as a tack.”
This scam is particularly diabolical because the Right can’t counter with an AI model of its own to attract gullible progressives. What would that avatar look like? Don’t get my over-active imagination started or I will have nightmares for a week.
1. The Great Stupid won’t go down with out a fight! Especially in California. The University of Southern California canceled a debate among candidates for governor less than 24 hours before it was supposed to take place this week. The reason was that there weren’t any non-white candidates. I kept seeing that in headlines and couldn’t believe it. I just assumed it was right-wing spin, and really dumb spin at that.
Nope. Eight Democrats and two Republicans are currently leading a typically huge field running in the Golden State June 2 primary. The debate was scheduled to include the six candidates who were leading in the polls, plus an extra Democrat, the Mayor of San Jose, who has been raising a lot of money for his campaign lately. If he had been black or Latino, that may have saved the debate, but he’s just another white guy. Students objected, and the school, being run by cowards and woke weenies like most universities today, chickened out.
The controversies over who got a place on the stage “have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters,” the university said. And so rather than hold a debate that would help voters distinguish between the candidates who currently have a chance to win and maybe teach students something, the fact that none of the candidates are “of color” means that there won’t be a debate at all.
Ethics Alarms 