“You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”
—President Trump, after expressing frustration and contempt with the questions of “Meet the Press” hostess Kristen Welker and ending the interview.
Bingo. The President is exactly right, and the nation’s Founders would have agreed with him. The United States does have a dishonest press, untrustworthy, biased, partisan and irresponsible. As the Scott Pelley debacle this week proved vividly, most of Welker’s colleagues don’t even know how biased they are. The news media has become, as another Trump quote stated, “the enemy of the people.” Its corruption is undermining democracy, and making responsible citizenship difficult if not impossible.
This is a perfect coda to the previous post. The President showed Welker no respect because she deserves no respect, and neither do her counterparts on other TV news and commentary programs. Her facial expressions were hostile. Her body language was as well. Welker’s protests that she had gone to great lengths to meet the President for the interview should not have deterred the President from leaving, and didn’t. Bravo.
My tip for Kristin: if you want a full Presidential interview, be professional and don’t set out to deliver partisan talking points.
1. In a clip from a post-firing interview, the unbearable Scott Pelley actually says that nobody on the “60 Minutes” staff, including Pelley, thought that the long-time left-leaning Sunday magazine show was biased. Pelley himself is living proof that the show was biased. Here’s a brief montage of Pelley being what he thought was objective and fair over the years,
2. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton pleaded guilty of deliberately mishandling classified documents, a deal that requires him to pay a $2.5 million fine. He pleaded guilty because he was guilty. ABC and NBC, however, framed the news as President Trump getting “revenge” on a critic.
“He was a prime target of President Trump’s retribution campaign, said ABC’s justice correspondent. “And tonight, sources tell ABC News Trump’s former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, is planning to plead guilty to mishandling classified information.”
That’s classic deceit and false framing for partisan purposes, but also typical of how the Axis networks cover news regarding the Trump Administration. On NBC, the same game plan was in view. “Bolton was national security adviser during Trump’s first term,” the nightly broadcast began. “Then became a fierce opponent of the President. Now, sources tell NBC News he plans to plead guilty to one count of retaining national security information. For a year and a half now, the Justice Department has been pursuing cases against the people you see here, those the President believes have wronged him…”
The investigation of Bolton’s crime began under the Biden Administration’s Justice Department. Both ABC and NBC got that in at the very end of their reports, which is deliberately reversing the priority of the facts. This was by definition not a “retribution prosecution” by Trump because it began under Biden. That information belonged at the start. The fact that Bolton was a Trump critic is of interest but not central to the story. Placed up front, however, it “poisons the well.”
I had another long debate with a Trump Derangement victim whom I know well, love and respect. This individual is a lawyer, mostly informed, but, like an amazing number of Americans who should know better, gets most of her news and commentary from MSNow. I have explained that this is bats, is making her biased and therefore stupid, and that her favorite platform has no interest in conveying objective, fair news and cannot, must not, be trusted. I have pointed this out before, though she has a good retort: MSNow reports news that reflects badly on President Trump before almost all other outlets, and way ahead of Fox News. She was the one who pointed me to the unconscionable self-dealing IRS law suit settlement that I first wrote about here. Of course the partisan hacks at MSNow were on that in an instant: if all you care about is potential sticks to bash the President with, you are likely to find them first.
Other revelations from the conversation (yes, I believe my debate partner is typical of the Trump Deranged, except that she is more reasonable and analytical than most of them) :
1. The Trump Deranged are incapable of talking about the Administration without getting furious and shouting. Incapable! My friend almost never shouts, but the yelling commences immediately when the topic gets near the White House. It’s a Pavlovian response.
2. The discussion always ends up on non-substantive outrages. The Kennedy Center. The Ballroom. The reflecting pool. The proposed arch. None of these will be significant in the historical assessment of this Presidency. The Trump Deranged default to these because the smart ones know they are just wrong on the important policy issues, or no longer have metaphorical legs to stand on. They can’t defend illegal immigrants. They no longer have climate change hysteria and fake “science” to fall back on. They know DEI is illegal. They don’t buy the “men with naughty bits who call themselves women should be able to throttle biological women in sports” lie. They can’t defend the Biden dementia cover-up, and they know Kamala Harris was, in James Carville’s immortal words, “like a seventh-string quarterback starting in the Super Bowl.”
Ethics Alarms first mentioned the Karmelo Anthony case a year ago in the context of how completely screwed up woke Minnesota has become. Anthony, a teen who allegedly stabbed an unarmed white student to death at a school track meet, is the beneficiary of a GoFundMe effort that raised a large sum of money. Many conservative pundits wrote that this was a black backlash against a racist white woman who had attracted large donations to support her when a black man posted a video on social media that caught her in the act of calling him a “nigger.” I wrote in part,
“Anthony, who is black, is accused of stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, who was white, to death during a rain delay at their high school track meet. Anthony has not faced trial yet and claims that he in innocent by reason of self-defense. The online fundraising campaign on his behalf has raised over a half-million dollars. The clear difference between that and [the racist white woman’s] ill-gotten booty: Anthony hasn’t been found guilty of anything yet, and raising money for his defense is not, as some are claiming, the same as rewarding him for murdering a white kid. The accused teen’s family is the object of this fundraising campaign, and it is not inherently endorsing a black kid murdering a white kid to show sympathy for his family with a contribution.”
This ethics train wreck is still running. Anthony’s trial is finally getting started, and, naturally, the usual race-hustlers and victim-mongers are already claiming that the young man is another victim of racism by evil whites. Protesters were out in front of the courthouse chanting “Self-defense is not a crime!” They have no idea whether Karmelo has a legitimate self-defense case, but he’s black, so that’s all they need to know that he’s being framed by the racist justice system.
Ick, yuck, pooey! In the EA “Stop making me defend…” series, there has never been a subject more revolting than Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). She’s noted in past posts for her unethical quotes, her multiple scandals (here, too), her ignorant speech patterns (also here) and her lies. She was the main miscreant in Hillary Clinton’s rigged Presidential nomination in 2016. The only reason I haven’t focused on this awful, unethical woman lately is that the Democrats have so many younger recruits who are as bad as she is or worse.
However, the one thing I will never criticize DWS for is her color.
After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation last month creating a new congressional map in Florida, Rep. Wasserman Schultz decided not to run for re-election in her altered 22nd Congressional District, where she lives and where the voters are apparently morons since they have voted for this ethics-free creep for 11terms. Instead, Wasserman Schultz opted to run in the now more Democratic-leaning 20th District. Ah, but that district has long elected black members of Congress. So, true to their party’s baked-in racism, black leaders and candidates in the 20th are furious that a white bitch is daring to encroach on their domain.
“I would not have expected the call would come from inside the house,” said Elijah Manley, a teacher and activist who was the first candidate to enter the primary race for the district’s seat. “I didn’t think a white Democrat would be the one to take away a black seat.” Rapper Luther “Luke” Campbell, also running for the seat, said, “If her strategy is to come in because there are multiple Black candidates and hope we ‘split the vote’ … that’s the same old playbook — divide and conquer.” “At a time when aggressive redistricting has already weakened minority voting strength across Florida, the preservation of Black political representation is not optional,” the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida said in a statement. “It is essential.”
I keep trying to imagine a political party throwing a fit on the grounds that a black candidate is daring to run for a “white” seat. That would be seen, correctly, as racism straight up. But Democrats have programmed their black supporters to embrace “good racism” while maintaining that all blacks are cookie-cutter clones who will think and behave as their color demands, rather than as objective and patriotic Americans seeking what is the right course for all.
I would vote for a block of cheese over Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but black Democrats opposing her based on her race shows how warped, corrupted and bigoted their party has become.
A straight “Unethical Quote of the Week” or “Incompetent Elected Official” EA honor still doesn’t do Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) justice. She is special. Well, I hope she is.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was crossing rhetorical sword points with Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) during the House hearing over U.S. military action in Iran. When Rep. Chu accused the administration of not caring about Americans’ financial struggles—which is, after all, completely irrelevant to the decision to defang a hostile nation seeking nuclear weapons that has been at war with the U.S. since 1979— Bessent asked her who was President of the U.S. during World War I. After a pause, apparently to check all the blank files in her memory banks, Chu answered “I don’t know.”
This story is too awful to contemplate. If you have a soul, maybe you don’t want to read it.
Former President Joe Biden was planted in the audience this week at a New York City stop on his wife’s tour promoting “Dr.” Jill’s memoir, “View from the East Wing.” Whoopi Goldberg was moderating the Q and A segment (How’s that career going, Whoop?) when President Biden wandered up to the edge of the stage and said “I have a question.”
“Joe has a question? Like you couldn’t ask it later?” the distinguished author said. Oh, nice! If you didn’t want Joe to embarrass you or himself, why did you place a mentally declining old man in a position where he might do so? Or was he having another “stroke”?
Joe, as he has been for years now, was oblivious. “Who do you love most in the whole world?” what is left of Joe Biden asked. “I love you most, Joe. Was that it? Was that the answer he wanted?,” Jill said to the group, talking about him in the third person as if he were a toddler. The 46th President of the United States stood and blankly faced his wife.
The shell of Joe Biden then said, “It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?,” whatever that means. At least he didn’t say “We beat Medicare.”
In 2001 ABC’s Connie Chung interviewed Congressman Gary Condit about his relationship with Chandra Levy, his then missing intern with whom Condit was romantically linked. Condit was the prime suspect in her disappearance and murder, so he agreed to a TV interview to “clear the record.” To say he did not accomplish that objective is an understement. Every time Connie Chung asked him directly about their relationship, Condit repeated the mantra, “I’ve been married 34 years. I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life. But out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the relationship.” This made him seem slimy, evasive, and guilty. It turned out that Levy had been murdered by a stranger, but Condit’s career was as dead as she was thanks to the image he conveyed in that interview.
Evading a question by repeating the same answer word for word every time it is asked is an unethical practice, and a damning one. It might as well be accompanied by two boldly lettered signs one reading, “I’m afraid to answer these questions, but I think if I keep evading them the public is too stupid to figure that out” and the other reading, “This statement is brought to you by my lawyer.” Yet Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the putative leader of the Democratic Party did a Gary Condit impression when he was asked four times about the apparent implosion of the Graham Platner campaign to be the Democratic nominee to unseat RINO Maine Senator Susan Collins.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, announced today that the Justice Department was withdrawing the $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming to be victims of unfair prosecution, supposedly the result of the settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit against his own Treasury Department. “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, told lawmakers during a congressional hearing.
First of all, GOOD!, but second and most importantly, how in the wide, wide, world of sports did anyone think this offensive, conflicted, half-baked, stupid idea would be anything but condemned, attacked, ridiculed, mocked and ultimately blocked in the first place?
Any idiot could have figured out how unethical this thing was, so it should have been laughed out of the room the second it was suggested. I’m certainly any idiot, and I wrote three posts pointing out what shouldn’t have had to be pointed out at all. Here, I wrote in part:
“[T]his deal stinks, and should be challenged ethically if not legally. The whole Justice Department and the Treasury Department too had irresolvable conflicts, and should not have been allowed to make a settlement with their own boss.”
“If you can process this whole astounding ethics debacle and come out anything but but disgusted and disillusioned, you apparently are capable of rationalizing anything…How can anyone defend any of this?…It needs to be widely condemned and stopped.”
“I continue to think, or at least hope, that this abomination will be stopped. As I already wrote when asked in a comment, this, unlike the artificial offenses behind the two purely partisan impeachments in Trump’s first term, is a genuine impeachable offense.”
This conclusion didn’t require an ethicist, or any special expertise, or an IQ above 100. So how did this outrageous thing get to the public announcement stage? The fact that it did should shake public confidence in the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, the IRS, President Trump, Vice-President Vance and the entire White House staff. Did no one have the sense God gave a mushroom to tell everyone involved in this fiasco, “That’s ridiculous! It will make this administration look foolish, untrustworthy, corrupt and incompetent! It will undermine the President’s authority and the public trust! It will endanger the GOP majority in Congress and be a self-inflicted wound with no counterbalancing benefits! You can’t be this stupid! Come on! Think, dammit!” ???
I realized that Blanch’s statement was a perfect embodiment of Gilda Radner’s iconic catch phrase as addled “Weekend Update” commentator Emily Litella, which somehow had not been listed already in the Ethics Alarms Hollywood clip archive. But do you know what? Most of the 46 clips listed are appropriate to describe some aspect of this aborted, disgusting, self-indicting betrayal of trust. For example, here’s #18:
And #20…
And of course #15…
…as well as…
Let’s tote up all the clips that are directly applicable in one respect or another. We have twenty-seven, more than half: 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38,39, 43, 44, 45, and, of course, 46. This episode was that bad, that unethical, that indefensible, and Ethics Alarms called it immediately, or as Fredo said in #16,
When Trump and Company do things this reckless and unethical, it humiliates everyone who try to oppose the Trump Deranged.
I haven’t written much about the Graham Platner debacle in Maine. I will have to now, because he is a walking, talking, lying human ethics train wreck, and strong evidence of the contempt our political parties have for both the Republic and its voters. Democrats think they have a real shot at defeating long-time “centrist” Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is pretty much a NeverTrumper. The fact that Platner is running unopposed in the Democratic primary to be the party’s choice to oppose her has been looking for some time as if the Mad Left is whistling past the graveyard, and incidentally, desperate, deluded and nuts. I summarized Platner’s virtues exactly a month ago here, writing in part,
“He has said women who are raped are at fault. He said that blacks don’t tip. He has called called white, rural Maine dwellers stupid. He uses “fag” to describe gays. Platner praised Hamas, rationalized urinating on corpses, and has denigrated police officers. He once referred to Jesus as a “zombie” and the Virgin Mary as a “skank.” He also had a Nazi tattoo on his chest and defended it for years. On the plus side, Platner approves of political violence, so at least in that sense he’s a mainstream 2026 Democrat.”
And the hits just keep on coming for Platner. Today we learned that his supposed occupation as a small town Maine harbormaster—-See? He’s a real Maine-y blue collar guy!—is a rather wan resume item. The Washington Free Beacon reports,
“Platner’s town of Sullivan got by without a harbormaster from February 2022, when Platner’s predecessor resigned, until September 2023, when town officials tapped Platner to serve as “an interim Harbor Master until one could be hired,” records show. Platner had volunteered for the role in case Maine law required Sullivan to have one, though the town’s Harbor Committee noted at the time that it was “not clear” he was needed because “operations in the Harbors are handled by those who use the Harbors without dispute” and because the role’s “largest challenges are clerical” and “can be handled by the Harbor Committee.”Platner dropped the “interim” title in March 2024, when he completed the basic training required to be considered a “qualified Harbor Master.” He served in the role until the summer of 2025, when he launched his candidacy, according to Sullivan town manager Ray Weintraub, who told the Free Beacon that being town harbormaster generally consisted of collecting rent fees for Sullivan’s fewer than two dozen permitted moorings, where boats can anchor offshore. “We don’t really have any working waterfront, so to speak, other than a couple of boat launches,” Weintraub explained.”
Wow, this guy is really qualified to be a U.S. Senator! You wonder why “the country’s in the very best of hands” and ends up with idiots, crooks, fakes, poseurs and dolts in Congress? You know, like Republicans George Santos, Lauren Boebert, Margery Taylor Greene, and (oh, let’s pick a Democrat out of the hat) Ex-Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, who resigned from Congress moments before the House Ethics Committee was going to sanction her, among other offenses, stealing nearly $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for her campaign? It’s because parties keep nominating ridiculous, untrustworthy, unqualified people. Platner, however, is special.
He’s also been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders and AOC, another unqualified, incompetent boob.
The juiciest revelations about Platner came from his wife, who, the New York Times revealed, warned his campaign that her lovey-bug has a habit of sexting other women during their marriage. Classy! An Anthony Weiner wannabe! But that’s not all! Here is the transcript of the cringe-worthy video the Platner campaign persuaded his wife to post (hold onto your head!):
Ethics Alarms 