Government & Politics

Pundit Malpractice, Part I: David Brooks, Making The Public More Ignorant About History Than They Already Are

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What excuse does David Brooks have for publishing manifestly false Presidential history as part of the usual New York Times anti-Trump propaganda? None that I can see. He styles himself as a thoughtful public intellectual. He majored in history at Columbia. Okay, he is Canadian but he lives here and is presented by the New York Times as an authority.

I have to presume that if he writes a column with flat-out false information about U.S. political history, he is misleading the public intentionally or, just as unethically, he didn’t check his facts. Of course the New York Times editors don’t hold him to being factual, responsible or ethical. They let Charles M. Blow, Michelle Goldberg and their other biased hacks get away with worse most days. But I expect them to lie. I expect Brooks to be wrong, but at least to get his facts right.

Nope.

In the obnoxiously headlined “How Trump Will Fail,” Brooks tells us that “Trump has gone all 19th century on us. He seems to find in this period everything he likes: tariffs, Manifest Destiny, seizing land from weaker nations, mercantilism, railroads, manufacturing and populism.” At least he hasn’t embraced the version of America pushed by the Biden Administration: open borders, government censorship, racial discrimination, political prosecutions, puppet Presidencies and government cover-up journalism. The main thrust of Brooks’ analysis is that “populism” doesn’t work and has never worked in the U.S.. Brooks’ sneer at the American values of individualism, personal responsibility, exploration, confidence, exceptionalism and capitalism is palpable.

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Fake Ethics Hero: Pamela Hemphill, A.K.A. “MAGA Granny”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Does anyone say “Color me X” any more? Oh hell, I don’t care: Color me unimpressed with “MAGA Granny” rejecting her pardon from President Trump for her role in the January 6 Capitol riot that was the worst thing to happen to the United States since 9-11. Or Pearl Harbor. Or the Civil War.

She’s the retired 72-year-old drug and alcohol counselor from Boise, Idaho who pleaded guilty in January 2022 to a misdemeanor for entering the Capitol during the riot and was sentenced to 60 days in prison and three years of probation. She was one of those “rioters” who was basically walking around. The Axis media is singing her praises because she announced that she says won’t accept the pardon.

Hemphill said in an interview this week that she was turning President Trump’s gift down. “It’s an insult to the Capitol Police, to the rule of law and to the nation,” she said. “If I accept a pardon, I’m continuing their propaganda, their gaslighting and all their falsehoods they’re putting out there about Jan. 6.” She now says she doesn’t support Trump or (in the words of the New York Times) “believes his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.” (For the thousandth time, that is not a lie but an opinion that cannot be proven or disproven). A therapist had helped her change her view of the episode, you see. Now she realizes, she says, that the “Stop the Steal” movement. “was a cult, and I was in a cult.”

Winston Smith knows just how she feels.

I wonder if that therapist put a cage of hungry rats on her face to prompt Pam’s epiphany?

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Leadership vs. Bureaucracy

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Here is an example of what is being discussed, from January 15:

A poll that I saw this morning (and that had mysteriously vanished when I looked for it just now) found that 43% of Los Angeles citizens would consider looking to the Republican Party for future leadership. That was considered significant in a city with only 18% of its residents identifying themselves as Republicans. I thought the amazing finding in the poll was that 48% still say they would only vote for more Democrats.

The Hegseth Confirmation, and Great Moments in Ethics Estoppel: The Concern That New DOD Sec. Hegseth Won’t Be Ready “24-7”

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I probably wouldn’t have voted for Pete Hegseth to be Trump’s DOD Secretary; certainly not until he answered a lot of crucial questions he never was asked. He should have been grilled about the extent of his management, oversight and negotiation experience, but the Democrats, because they have no principles, decided to use the Kavanaugh strategy to slime him (because that worked so well the first time).

Hegseth is easily the worst of Trump’s major appointments, and the fact that he was confirmed last night (by the narrowest margin possible) demonstrates that the terror expressed by the Trump Deranged that unlike last time around, the Republicans in Congress are inclined to help their party’s President achieve his goals rather than obstruct them is justified. (To that, my reaction is “Tough. You have nobody but your own party to blame, along with people like you who enabled and supported an arrogant, incompetent, corrupt, untrustworthy, and increasingly totalitarianism-embracing government.”)

This morning I decided to surf between MSNBC and CNN to hear the screams of the Axis propagandists who hang out there [Oh NOOO! ICE is really arresting illegals! Oh NOOO! Trump is making villains like Anthony Fauci pay for their own security details! Oh NOOO! Trump is killing DEI!] When they weren’t screaming about all of that, they were indignant that someone was now leading the Pentagon who could not be trusted to be ready for a crisis phone call every hour of the day, 365 days a year. These assorted partisan hacks and the Democratic party “contributors” who joined in their self-righteous lament are ethically estopped from making that complaint about Hegseth.

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Awww, Some Law School Seniors Just Had Their Job Offers Revoked By That Mean President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The New York Times and other sources are weeping with the dozens of recent law school graduates whose job offers were rescinded by the Justice Department after the students thought they were about to begin entry-level positions in its antitrust, criminal, civil rights, immigration and national security divisions, and at the F.B.I. This is another good example of how the Times cannot help itself from spinning and editorializing in a partisan manner even the most straightforward story. “The offers were made through the Attorney General’s Honors Program,” sayeth the Times, “which has functioned without controversy,” for decades, it says. See? This is so unfair! Except the fact that something has avoided controversy doesn’t mean it should be free from change, reform, or even elimination. “The program appears to be the latest target of Trump political appointees intent on reversing even the most workaday decisions made by their predecessors,” sniffs the paper. Oooh, these were political appointees who obviously don’t understand a good program when they see one. And those MAGA Nazis want to mess with harmless, innocent, inconsequential “workaday” decisions! (Pssst! Hiring lawyers is never a “workaday” decision, or shouldn’t be, even in the Justice Department.)

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Two Incompetent Elected Officials of the Month: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) and Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles (R)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I may start pairing this category from now on. These two recent examples of elected officials who would be working at Pizza Hut if they were subject to the Ethics Alarms “Stupidity Rule” are, sadly, not as unusual as they should be.

The mention of the Stupidity Rule reminds me: over on my Trump Deranged Facebook feed, an otherwise sharp and perceptive FBF posted a scathing reaction to the Trump administration’s announcement directing that government employees who witness efforts by their supervisors or other staff to defy executive orders must report the violations. This proves Trump is a Nazi, you know. I had to wrestle my fingers to the floor to resist posting that all the new administration is doing is reiterating a law of long-standing: government employees must report illegal conduct, and Executive Orders have the force of law. Ignorance makes it so much easier to be Trump Deranged…

But I digress. Let’s look now at the incompetent elected Republican, a dolt in the House I was happily unaware of until now. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, making a strong bid to land on the Ethics Alarms list of the worst members of Congress before the 2026 elections, introduced a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution, repealing the 22nd Amendment, to allow President Donald Trump and other future Presidents to serve a third term. Trump, of course, is the reason for this irresponsible and DOA proposal.

Trump “has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal,” said Ogles. “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration. He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”

Well, I’ve never said that there weren’t members of Congress who would support a dictatorship.

Trump is 78: getting him through the next four years without seeing him keel over or start speaking in tongues like our previous President is going to take some luck as it is. Ogles wants a two-term President who will be 86 by the end of his tenure. President George Washington was brilliantly prescient to set the precedent (aka “democratic norm”)by serving only two terms, while Franklin Roosevelt, who decided that the war gave him leave to keep getting elected President even though he was failing intellectually and physically, was dangerously wrong. The U.S. learned that lesson, and Ogles wants to unlearn it.

I have a better idea: let’s limit Ogles to two terms (he’s in his second).

Moron.

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And This Is Why DEI Must DIE…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Three impressive, qualified, white male law professors applied to join the faculty of Northwestern School of Law. They were First Amendment expert (and Ethics Alarms favorite) Eugene Volokh, Ernest A. Young of Duke University’s Law School, and Ilan Wurman, a distinguished professor at The University of Minnesota Law School. All were rejected in favor of DEI hires, despite being objectively better qualified than the successful candidates. Now “Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences” (FASORP), a collective of professors and lawyers who seek to expose and stop racial and gender preferences in higher education, is suing on the professors’ behalf.

“As a result of the [DEI] mandate, Northwestern University School of Law refuses to even consider hiring white male faculty candidates with stellar credentials, while it eagerly hires candidates with mediocre and undistinguished records who check the proper diversity boxes,” the complaint alleges. Northwestern violates the law by “hiring women and racial minorities with mediocre and undistinguished records over white men who have better credentials, better scholarship, and better teaching ability,” the suit says.
“But this is prohibited by federal law, which bans universities that accept federal funds from discriminating on account of race or sex. University faculty and administrators think they can flout these anti-discrimination statutes with impunity because they are rarely sued….But now the jig is up.”

The case of Volokh would seem to be particularly difficult to refute. The suit asserts that Volokh’s accomplishments exceed those of nearly every professor currently on the Northwestern Law School faculty, but because he is a white man and “neither homosexual nor transgender,” he was judged unacceptable.

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Two Executive Orders, One Extra-Constitutional, the Other Unconstitutional (and Unethical Too)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Let’s talk about the “un”-EO first. Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order to end automatic citizenship for babies born on American soil, the so called “anchor baby” phenomenon. Three days after Trump issued his executive order, the judge sided with the first four states that sued, saying, “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.” 22 states, along with activist groups and expectant mothers, have now filed lawsuits to halt order on the grounds that it violates the 14th Amendment. Courts have always interpreted the amendment’s section stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” as applying to (almost) every baby born in the United States.

“Frankly,” Judge Coughenour added, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” Well, lawyers don’t usually state propositions, even Hail Mary theories like this one equivocally. I think Trump’s lawyers told him that the order would almost certainly be found unconstitutional, and maybe they told him that it is unconstitutional. I am pretty certain it is, and that nothing short of a Constitutional amendment can change the law.

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“Superman II” Plot: After Trump-Deranged Sen. Murphy Makes An Ass of Himself, Vogue Says “Hold My Beer”…

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

The previous post discussed the level of hysteria now being attained by the Trump Deranged, with a U.S. Senator yesterday joining in the bonkers conspiracy theory that the Trump administration is a cabal of actual Nazis . Chris Murphy’s echoing the ridiculous Big Lie that Elon Musk gave a deliberate Nazi salute—you know, like Superman when he’s flying—

….managed to surpass even the late campaign claims by the dumbest sub-species among the Axis of Unethical Conduct that Trump was emulating the American Nazi Party when he held a campaign rally in Madison Square Garden. Yes, the Nazi salute smear on Musk is even worse than that, though redolent of the “OK” secret white supremacy hand signal insanity that the Mad Left used to slime everyone from lawyers to baseball fans during Trump’s first term.

Here is Vogue, writing about the cool necklace Ketanji Brown Jackson (above) wore to the inauguration:

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Unethical Quote of the Month (and Ethics Villain): Sen. Chris Murphy (D.-Conn)

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

“What do you think about Trump’s most visible advisor, Elon Musk, performing a Nazi salute?”

—-Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut and based on this question, a completely unscrupulous one, questioning Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik in her confirmation hearing to be confirmed as U.N. ambassador

Yecchh, ick, ptui, gag, retch! I’m sure it’s theoretically possible to stoop lower than Murphy, but I don’t want to think about what that would be. Urinating on the nominee perhaps?

This is pure Trump hate translated into slander. Musk, while gesticulating yesterday, ended up with one arm outstretched briefly with the palm down, and the still frantically desperate Axis, including PBS, began circulating the absurd Big Lie that Musk gave a Nazi salute for some reason. Oh! I get it! It’s because Trump is a Nazi!

I still can’t get my head around the reality that a U.S. Senator would try to join in on this gang smearing of Musk. CNN’s Scott Jennings X’d, “The only good thing about the Elon salute stupidity is that it adds to the list of people in public life who should never, ever, ever be taken seriously ever again by anyone ever.” Good point, and well said. Now, I’m ahead of Jennings, because I never took Murphy seriously anyway, except that he’s a serious jerk. Murphy is one of the worst of the worst in Congress, and missed my pre-election blacklist only because he wasn’t running. Yet even I, who regard him as an ongoing embarrassment to the Senate and the nation, didn’t see him resorting to this.

The question wasn’t even relevant to Stefanik, though she answered it with appropriate contempt, saying, “That is simply not the case. To say so – the American people see through it. They support Elon Musk.” I wish she had added, “And they are not the morons you seem to think they are. They know he didn’t give any Nazi salute.”

I find it hard to believe that the Democrats and the Trump-hating news media are really going to escalate their craziness as they try to destroy Trump for another term. Is it possible? Do they have a death wish? Are they that deluded? Is their learning curve not just flat, but upside-down? Jennings is not exaggerating. Bias makes you stupid, and hysterical bias makes you ridiculous.

(That’s Superman giving his “Nazi salute” above, courtesy of the Babylon Bee.)