This morning, I was simultaneously listening in on CNN (hyping Harris absurdly), MSNBC (well, you know) and Fox News, where the morning trio of hyper-partisan clowns were hosting Trump in a 30 minute phone monologue. First, I got a laugh when a CNN reporter commented on Harris having to navigate the complexities of Israel’s war with Gaza (Hamas). He actually said, first, “This is a major issue for Harris” and five seconds later that “Republicans are trying to make an issue out of this.” Yes, Harris was one of the first Democrats to call for a cease fire in Gaza, essentially making sure Hamas’s adverse consequences for slaughtering and raping Israel civilians on October 7 were minimal, but because she was only a VP at the time, and, after all, Kamala Harris, Idiot, nobody paid much attention to how irresponsible that position was. It is an issue, of course, but CNN will try “Republicans pounce!” even when everyone should pounce.
Government & Politics
Harris Is a D.E.I. Vice-President, and Ethics Alarms Hereby Pledges To Reiterate That Fact Every Time Some Liar, Hack or Gaslighter Says Otherwise…[Link Corrected]
I’m drawing a line in the sand on this one. I am sick of the flagrant attempts by shameless partisans, Axis of Unethical Conduct liars and desperate Trump-Deranged propagandists to deny the past and the present, their own misdeeds, and their cascading humiliating botches. I am also disgusted with the ongoing efforts of these same aspiring dictators to win arguments and election by strangling the language and issuing rhetorical taboos so it becomes difficult to reveal what they have done, or allows the public to be confused and misled permanently.
Readers here are aware of some of my unyielding pledges. I have vowed to blow a blast on a metaphorical Sousaphone every time someone quotes the phony “76 cents on the dollar” statistic “proving” that the workplace discriminates against women. (The last time I scored a politician for doing that? It was Kamala Harris. Of course it was.) I have sworn to embarrass any movie, TV program or ad that shows someone playing chess with the board set up incorrectly. I am determined never to let an ethics dunce argue that cheater Barry Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame because “other players did it” or because “he was good enough that he would have had a HOF career if he hadn’t cheated.” (That one makes me furious just writing it.)
I am never going to countenance anyone calling the stupid January 6 riot an “insurrection,” saying that Trump’s allegations that the 2020 election was “rigged” is “baseless,” or who repeats any of the multiplying Big Lies about what Trump has said in the past, the most recent example being flagged in a post today. I will not let any demagogue get away with saying that baker Jack Phillips discriminated against gay people when he said he would not be compelled to express approval of a gay wedding on one of his cakes because he believed this infringed his First Amendment rights.
It Looks Like I’m Going To Have To Add Another Democratic Big Lie To The List…
I had to run up to the office to get this down before other outrages intervened. (The list I’m alluding to is here.)
To start off the hearing today continuing the House inquiry into the Trump shooting, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), began with a rant against “political violence” that he quickly turned into a partisan attack on Republicans. Among his statements was that Donald Trump had said that “there would be a bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected in 2024.
That’s a lie. It has been conclusively shown to be a lie. I wrote about the widespread misrepresentation of Trump’s comment at the time. Trump was using ‘bloodbath” in the economic sense, which is included in many dictionary definitions (“a period of disastrous loss or reversal“), referring to the auto industry. Quoting him out of that specific context, and placing the quote in the false context of “political violence” is intentional deceit, and deceit is lying.
The Democrats, including Nadler, know what Trump said and meant, but they keep using this false characterization anyway. Biden alluded to it repeatedly. Kamala Harris will be sure to do the same: let me know if I miss it when she does.
There are so many awful members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that I often forget about Nadler, one of the worst. He revealed himself to be a hyper-partisan hack during the Clinton House impeachment hearings, when he and the equally horrible Maxine Waters battled to a tie in the Democrats’ “it isn’t what it is” competition. He hasn’t improved since.
Democrats, all of them, are ethically estopped from repeating the mantra that Trump lies all the time as long as their party is addicted to Big Lies, which it is. Similarly, the newsmedia is hypocritical if it “factchecks” Trump without also pointing out deliberate dishonest smears like the one Nadler just vomited up.
Oh! I see that John Hammond has raised his hand! Yes, John?
I don’t blame you a bit.
So Kamala Harris is “Exciting” Now? Fascinating.
I must confess, I have reached the point where the talking point memos going out to the Axis, its allies and useful idiots from the Democratic National Committee are so obvious that they are insulting. We have already been bombarded with the edicts from earlier memos: Trump is a “convicted felon” and a “threat to democracy.” If he’s elected, it will be our “last election” and “the end of American as we know it.” These memos are getting a bit frayed around the edges; the “threat to democracy” line is especially risible coming from a party that just chose a candidate for POTUS using no democratic tools whatsoever—no debates, no primaries, just a pre-rigged convention. This is the most Machiavellian choice of a Presidential candidate since a “smoke-filled room” produced a GOP Presidential candidate named Warren G. Harding—and didn’t that work out well! (To be fair to poor Warren, he was famously likable, which Harris is definitely not. Her staff had a 92% turnover in just three years; she is apparently roundly detested as a boss, almost as much as Donald Trump is.) These people really think Americans are idiots, and, sadly, they may be right. Since Joe Biden was kicked to the curb, I have heard double figures of delegates, Democratic officials and pundit describe the forced anointment of Kamala Harris as the party’s standard bearer in November described as either “exciting” or exhilarating.” This is only slightly more dishonest than the same people—and Harris—describing Joe Biden solving Rubik’s Cube blindfolded until they were shocked—shocked!—to discover that he was unable to maneuver through the complexities of Tic-Tac-Toe. For almost four years, the adjective to be most appropriately applied to Harris has been “embarrassing.”
Here at Ethics Alarms, I gave her a Julie Principle pass for the most part, meaning that I let dozens of absurd and dishonest, not to mention incomprehensible, statements by Harris go by without comment because it was obvious that—well, he’s how I put it before she was even sworn in, when she stole a Martin Luther King anecdote and claimed it was about her:
If, as many seem to assume, Harris is making stuff up to pander to the crowd, why fixate on this episode? We all know, or should, that the woman is shallow, has no core, and that saying whatever she thinks will endear herself to the most people at the moment is her defining characteristic. As Julie sang, “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly”: Kamala’s gotta make stuff up to pretend she’s something she’s not for the gullible, the naive, the hopeful and the blind. This latest example doesn’t tell us anything we already don’t know.
Even with that call to be merciful, Harris ended up with a hilariously long (and terrifying) EA dossier , especially for a Vice-President. I had a post in March of 2022 musing about whether she was the dumbest Vice-President ever, which Newt Gingrich had claimed. Kamala made my head explode a couple of months later when she said at some public appearance, “We will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues, to tackle these challenges, and to work together as we continue to work operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together…We will work together.” That time I summed up Harris this way:
Her existence as the #2 elected official in the United States is a profound embarrassment to the nation, the public and the democratic system. That such a clueless dolt was chosen purely because of her gender and race insults that gender and those ethnic communities unintentionally complicit in her creation.
That the news media refused to enlighten the public about just how incompetent she is proves its uselessness.
That Harris and her supporters have the astounding cheek to cry “racism” if criticism is aimed her way, when she routinely insults the public by presuming that first-grade level verbal pablum is good enough to feed them because she doesn’t have the capacity to offer anything better, impugns everyone responsible for her presence in place of someone minimally responsible and trustworthy.
Wait, when did she become “exciting” and “exhilarating”? How did I miss that? It must have been like “Charlie,” the now forgotten movie that earned Cliff Robertson an Oscar for playing a—oh, what’s the acceptable term now? To hell with it: in the movie he was referred to as “retarded”—man who suddenly became a genius after taking an experimental drug. Then his IQ starts slipping away—like Biden’s—and by the end of the movie he has the mind of a four-year-old and is playing on a swing.
Non-political junkies hadn’t paid any attention to Harris, who also looked “exciting” and “exhilarating” when the Axis media designated her its favorite to be the Democratic nominee at the head of the 2020 ticket in 2019. Then she started debating, and talking, and showing her smug and obnoxious personality. Her unimpressive background started coming out too, how she rose to prominence in California by being California political boss Willie Brown’s mistress, how she was a law-and-order, anti-woke prosecutor until she ran for Senator, and suddenly morphed into a radical progressive to get elected.
Harris’s candidacy didn’t even make it to 2020 because her polling sank to Titanic levels the more the public listened to her. The Democratic field was hardly a stellar batch (which is how Joe Biden ended up as the nominee), but Harris impressed less than such stars as Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar. Tulsi Gabbard mopped the metaphorical floor with Kamala in the pre-New Hampshire primary debate.
Incompetent Elected Official of the…Let’s See Now…HOUR?: Taunton (Mass.) Mayor Shaunna O’Connell
She’s a Republican, incidentally. Ah, Taunton. Population: About 60,000. I remember it well from my Boston days. The city is famous for its dog-racing track. My Uncle Charlie, my mom’s youngest brother, a nice guy who blew his money on the greyhounds, went there often. And lost.
But I digress. Taunton Mayor Shaunna O’Connell was arrested and appeared in court to be arraigned on charges of charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and domestic assault and battery. Police arrested her after when her husband called police during a fight.
She hit him with a crowbar. Allegedly.
Sorry Joe: You Knew She Was a Scorpion All Along
Here I am still fighting off multiple crises personal, professional and financial arising from my wife’s sudden death, and trying to actually earn money, no easy task in the field of ethics unless one is unethical, which so many of my more successful colleagues are. Unfortunately, I have no discipline. I am behind on several deadlines that will keep me working into the wee hours this weekend, and yet emanations from the twin ethics train wrecks that are Biden’s debate melt-down and Trump’s near-miss assassination attempt keep dragging me back to Ethics Alarms.
Like this one: sources are reporting that the President is “seething” at Nancy Pelosi, who is widely believed to be behind the wave of House Democrats calling for Biden to step down as the presumptive nominee. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a close ally of Pelosi—figures—released a letter calling for Biden to step aside. House Democrats close to Pelosi, attributed today’s new defections, especially Lofgren’s letter to Biden,to the former speaker. Biden regarded Pelosi as an ally. He trusted her.
AOC Is Here To Tell Us That…
Well, something. Yes, hold on to your butts: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is imparting what she regards as wisdom. I was going to make this an Unethical Quote of the Week, then I decided that I didn’t know what it was, except disturbing. Here is what she ranted last night in a live stream; I’ll have some rueful comments at the end…
A Required Presidential Historical Note…
After Donald Trump’s long, schizophrenic, rambling acceptance speech, one of the Fox News hosts on the convention floor, it doesn’t matter which one, said that earlier in the year Trump had asked him if his coming back to win the 2024 election would be the greatest political story in U.S. history. “Maybe in the top five or top three,” the Fox News talking head opined.
Nonsense. It wouldn’t make the top 10. In fact, it wouldn’t even be the top Trump-related political story: his upset win over Hillary Clinton completely upended both parties and all of American politics. A win next November would be an impressive comeback from the ruins of January 6, 2021 but still nowhere near as stunning as that first victory.
For the record, here are the top 17 in chronological order:
Well, I Think This Definitively Answers Any Lingering Questions About the Competence and Critical Thinking Skills of the Nation’s Progressives…
A Morning Consult poll released this week reports that 34 % of Democratic voters found it either definitely or probably credible that Trump staged Saturday’s shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, and less than half, 45 %, agreed that the conspiracy theory is not credible at all.
Be proud, Democrats!
You can read here about various theories, reasons and comparisons regarding this idiocy: I really don’t care. I know idiots when I see them. This tells us that less than half of all registered Democrats have the critical thinking skills of the average meat loaf.
Ethics Hero: Jack Black
I took a while to research this story before awarding Black, an actor/comic/ musician with a reputation for being a genuinely good guy, an EA Ethics Hero designation. After checking various sources, I am now persuaded that he deserves it.
Black has apparently made enough money as a movie actor that, like Kevin Bacon, Gwyneth Paltrow and a few others, he can indulge his musical inclinations and modest talents and get people to pay to see him performing with a band. That would be Tenacious D, a comedy-rock duo Jack Black shares with Kyle Gass. Tenacious D was in Sydney as part of a tour, and Black brought out a cake at the ICC Sydney Theater on Sunday to celebrate Gass’s 64th birthday. He asked Gass to “make a wish,” and Gass said, “Don’t miss Trump next time!”
The video of the crack went viral. Black, who appeared to laugh at the line (he’s been featured at Biden fundraisers), had a statement posted on social media two days later saying he “was blindsided by what was said at the show,” and that he “would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.”







