….or, to be more precise, whoever the Maoist idiot was who approved the above flag.
A group of veterans confronted Democratic personnel and demanded that the Obama flag, which was flying under the U.S. flag at Democratic party headquarters in Lake County, Florida, be taken down. It was finally removed. Continue reading
Greta was the tipping point.
The Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke Ethics Train Wreck is over at last, but unlike with many such debacles, something positive occurred. I believe that an emphatic cultural standard was established that calling a woman—any woman, famous or not, liberal or conservative—a derogatory term designed purely to denigrate her by denigrating her gender will not be considered acceptable in political, quasi-political or arguably-political commentary henceforward. If such rhetoric occurs in a comic or entertainment context, no politician or elected official can appear to endorse the individual who utters the offensive words.
I’m not arguing right now whether this is a good or a bad development, but merely that it happened, and that it is a real change. For this to happen, a conservative radio talk show host had to use the terms “slut’ and “prostitute” to make the botched satirical point that a feminist law student activist who argued that free contraceptives were a woman’s right was the equivalent of women who wanted to be “paid for sex.” If pundits and bloggers had merely declared this statement uncivil and cruel, nothing more would have happened, and the incident would have been quickly forgotten. But sensing political points to be scored in an election year, and with the added incentive of being handed what was seen as powerful ammunition to attempt a frontal attack against a detested partisan critic, Democrats, progressives, feminists, activists, Obama strategists and left-biased journalists decided to cast the Limbaugh’s poor judgment in extreme terms. Continue reading
Irony! Stupidity! Symmetry! Elegance! Chutzpah! Redundancy!
Ahhhhh! Breathtaking!
Yes, this amazing lie, by the California State University System, has it all. This is the Sistine Chapel of lies, the Mona Lisa of mendacity, a true masterpiece of the liar’s art.
Consider…this is “Sunshine Week,” the annual campaign to raise awareness about the essential nature of open, honest and transparent government. So to celebrate, CSU’s public affairs office falsely announced on Monday that it had won the 2012 Sunshine Award for most transparent government website in the nation. It had not. It isn’t even eligible to win such an award.
Sunshine Review, the national nonprofit organization that sponsors the annual awards, has confirmed that this would be impossible, since they “do not grade state universities or colleges at this time, so it would be impossible for Cal State to have won an award.” Sure enough, the system is not included on the list of winners available online.
Why would the university system of the Sunshine State lie about receiving the Sunshine Award from the Sunshine Review, and do it on Sunshine Week, no less? Clearly, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to good to pass up. It may be unethical, but in the annals of lying, it’s beautiful!
[Thanks to James Taranto for the tip.]
Better late than never.
I previously wrote about the dilemma of whether to impose on celebrities who you encounter as they engage in the necessities of life (though I did not mention the time I was using a Kennedy Center urinal next to Colonel Sanders). I generally have ambivalence about the situation, but when I saw former Senator Alan Simpson standing at my gate as I disembarked at La Guardia, there was no question in my mind. I crossed over to him immediately, shook his hand, and said thank you.
I owe him, you see. Continue reading
First, this musical introduction, courtesy of the brilliant and tragic Frankie Lymon:
Ironically, over the weekend I wrote, in a reply to a comment, about how badly I felt when I finally met Arlen Specter and he was very complimentary to me, after I had described his 2009 defection from the Republican Party in very uncomplimentary terms. Now comes the news that the former Pennsylvania Senator’s new book includes a lament that neither President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid nor other key Democrats delivered on the promises that caused him to betray his party and those who had voted for him.
Arlen, Arlen, Arlen. Continue reading
Supreme Court protests: pointless when anyone else organizes them, unethical when the White House organizes them.
I was stunned by the news reports of the White House organizing pro-Obamacare demonstrations outside the Supreme Court, and then found myself stunned that I was stunned.
It should have been obvious to all, which includes me, that President Obama and Democratic supporters of Obamacare were so determined to pass this mess that it stopped mattering to them long ago what democratic and constitutional principles were nicked, warped, distorted and violated in the process. This should be obvious regardless of whether one likes the final product (as if anyone knows what that really is, even today—principle nicked: transparent government).
The final bill was passed with a series of legislative maneuvers that had never been mustered all in the support of one controversial bill (principle warped: process and representative democracy); it was built on an expansion of Congressional power the is either unconstitutional or a frightening slippery slope (principle distorted: individual freedom); the individual mandate was (and is) simultaneously sold to the public as not being a tax while argued to the courts as one (principle violated: honesty and integrity), the Congressional Budget Office’s verdict was obtained using accounting tricks and deceitful projections (principle nicked: fairness); and misrepresentation was the norm on both sides of the debate (principles violated: respect for the public; candor, transparency and honesty). Now that the President is already campaigning for re-election and the health care law remains his signature accomplishment—if you consider it that and not a fiasco—the White House has made it clear that, while it may not be fair to say it will stop at nothing to save it, what it won’t stop at to protect the measure is a damning indictment of its integrity.
From the New York Times, one of the few non-conservative media sources to cover the story: Continue reading
A despicable former Secret Service agent named Dan Emmett has self-published “Within Arm’s Length,” a tell-all book about his work protecting the Clintons. I’m not going to repeat any of his stories, and nobody should read his book either. This kind of thing is another fever on the way to the complete death of trust and professionalism.
Emmett’s job was to guard the First Family, and as part of his job he saw them all in private and unguarded moments. The Clintons had to trust that his sole objective was to ensure their safety, not to gather juicy material for a book, and they should not have had to worry about whether every stray remark or imagined slight would later find its way to the internet. “Within Arm’s Length” is nothing less than betrayal, and in my view, it falls just short of treason, and perhaps not short at all. Undermining the relationship between the Secret Service and the President of the United States, which this book does, threatens the safety of future Presidents. For agents to do their jobs, they must be trusted to the extent that nothing is withheld from them out of fear that they will disclose it. Emmett proves that such unquestionable trust is unwarranted, and in this sad era where betrayal is rewarded or shrugged off as predictable, probably impossible. Continue reading
Huh. You know, I just didn't think it would come from the schools! Well, live and learn...
Ethics Alarms has been steadfast in its position from the very first reports of schools presuming to punish students for what they post online, in their own time, in their own homes. That position is, and will forever be, that this is a gross abuse of power that must not be tolerated, much less encouraged. Every time I have written about this, there have been defenders of the practice. This story, from Minnesota, should convince them of how wrong they are. Continue reading
Let's give a warm, Ethics Alarms welcome to attorney MAX KENNERLY!
Max Kennerly, the attorney who has argued that Sandra Fluke could legitimately sue talk show host Rush Limbaugh for his on-air insults, rebuts the Ethics Alarms post finding his argument disturbing. I’ll have a response at the end. Here is his Comment of the Day on “Ethics Train Wreck Extra: the Lawyer, the Advisor, and the Kennedy”:
“Who said anything about “silencing?” Defamation is a civil claim that, when proven, results in a monetary judgment, nothing more. Limbaugh’s still free to say what he wants.
“I assume your response to the “it’s not silencing” argument is something like, “he’s not technically silenced, but his speech is chilled.” To that, I ask which scenario is more chilling: Continue reading
No, not for that!
For this:
Odd...one would think that a bed company would be familiar with this expression. Well, NOW it is!
After Rush Limbaugh’s personal attack on Sandra Fluke for her testimony before some House Democrats generated furious backlash and activist threats of boycotts of his sponsors, Sleep Train, which calls itself “the No. 1 Bedding Specialist on the West Coast, and most recognized mattress retailer in the region,” announced that it was ceasing its advertising on Limbaugh’s daily radio show. It had been a national sponsor for 25 years. “As a diverse company, Sleep Train does not condone such negative comments directed toward any person,” the company said in a statement. “We have currently pulled our ads with Rush Limbaugh.”
Sleep Train is, to use the vernacular, a corporate worm. It began advertising with Limbaugh when it was a small company, and he has treated it well. At a moment when the talk show host was under attack by political opponents who want to get him off the air and be free of influential political commentary that often spears their cherished objectives, the company not only abandoned Limbaugh but kicked him when he was down. It was also deceitful about it: while it’s announcement sounded unequivocal, in fact it had only suspended its ads rather than withdrawn as a sponsor. Continue reading
