I could write full posts about many of these, and if I had time, I would. The networks and the Axis want to ignore it and are trying to bury it in negatives, but the event is obviously news, and attention should be paid….
Observations:
1. Competence! If this was the President’s idea, it was a great one. The GOP has to get voters to the polls (or to mailboxes, if he can’t stem mail-in balloting). If the event picks up just one or two percentage points in Republican voter participation, it will have been a success. If Republicans hold Congress, I guarantee both parties will make this tactic a tradition.
Incidentally, adding a mid-term convention is another so-called “democratic norm” that Trump is violating. The Horror.
2. Fetterman! One of the two biggest stories to come out of last night’s opening of the convention was Senator John Fetterman’s surprise video appearance, shot in front of a steel mill. Fetterman praised and endorsed his fellow Pennsylvania Senator David McCormick, a Republican, and said that they would work together “and work with President Trump and defend the steel way of life.” This makes Fetterman the Ethics Hero of the convention thus far. It also tells Democrats that if they are going to try convict Trump after a House impeachment and try to pack the Supreme Court, they will need to flip an extra Senate seat to their side.
WSYX is the Columbus, Ohio ABC affiliate, and the reaction to that head-exploding tweet was so negative that the station took down the tweet as well as the article it was linked to. That doesn’t change the fact that to even suggest that U.S.schools shouldn’t teach the single most important event in the 21st Century and one of the most transformative events not only in U.S. history but modern world history is signature significance. To even ask the question demonstrates fealty to propaganda over truth, and a conviction that generations must be taught by withholding any information that might provoke non-conforming thoughts and belief.
The U.S. has a major broadcasting network—several, if we’re being honest— that employs people who want to manipulate the public, lying about the past through omission. Every now and then the aspiring totalitarians of the Left slip up and tell us who they really are. This is one of those times.
Yes, the 9-11 attacks should be taught in schools so Americans learn that Islam is not “a religion of peace,” and that unrestricted, unvetted immigration from Muslim nations poses an existential threat to our values, culture and democracy. It also should be taught in the schools because it is history, and those who want to obscure history never have good intentions.
[As an aside, my harsh response may have run off commenter kawaii65c843be72after he compared the Left’s tearing down statues of Confederate generals with the fact that there are no statues of Hitler’s henchmen in Germany. I certainly hope so.]
I like Ryan Reynolds. Terrible Green Lantern, lousy in the remake of “The Amityville Horror,” but he radiates likability and good humor, and that’s a gift. I especially liked his performance in “Woman in Gold.” But Ryan, who has a new movie out, is being roasted on conservative media and by social media Maga-ites, because of his recent statement about the 1980s.
“Mayday” is Reynolds’ first major movie since “Deadpool & Wolverine” (a disappointment, from my perspective) over two years ago. It’s set as the Cold War was ending thanks to Ronald Reagan, and Reynolds stars as a U.S. Navy pilot who, trapped behind enemy lines, forms a friendship with an eccentric ex-KGB agent (Kenneth Branagh) who loves ’80s American culture. Reynolds told an interviewer that the warm nostalgia surrounding the decade, embodied in shows like “Stranger Things,” misrepresents the turbulent nature of the era:
“When you get far enough away from a time period that’s quite distinct, there’s always a lovely feeling associated with it, almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream. The 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people. It was a fucking mess and people forget that…It was a tremendous strife. Socio political tensions everywhere. We were still pretty fresh off a Cuban missile crisis, which was only 15-20 years before. It’s a tumultuous period, but you look back at it now and you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. ‘Top Gun.’ Cocaine!’ Like, ‘No!’ It was really scary.”
The mockery has been flying thick and fast. Much of it is unfair and deliberately misrepresents what Reynolds said. Here’s “Not the Bee”:
Well, I’ll say this for my Trump Deranged Facebook Friends: they are useful for keeping up on that group’s rapidly progressing mental illness, which exhibits symptoms manifesting constant fury over trivia, obsessive behavior, presumptions of certitude, and loss of all perspective. Oh, and hypocrisy! Mustn’t forget hypocrisy.
My friend the Trump Deranged professor posted this today with favor:
“Today, a permanent artistic gift—Joel Shapiro’s “Blue”—was taken from the nation because Donald Trump didn’t like it.
“September 18, join Hands Off the Arts to raise your voice and make sure Trump pays the political price for his vandalism of John F. Kennedy’s memorial and our nation’s cultural center.”
I’m marking my calendar right now!
The alleged vandalism was Trump’s ordered removal of the ugly thing above, which, since I started personally boycotting the monument to one of our most unethical Presidents and his corrupt family dynasty that included a U.S. Senator who left a young woman to die in a submerged car, I had never seen before. Huh. Is the outrage over Trump getting rid of that piece of blue crap more contrived than the fury over the 250th Commemorative coin, or less?
In a risible report, the New York Times informs us that “Blue” is a “towering artwork.” And it fit so well with the neo-Classical style of the Edward Durrell Stone white marble box-shaped Center, too!
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts removed a major outdoor sculpture from the center’s grounds on Wednesday. The work, installed in 2019, was targeted for elimination after President Trump’s takeover of the center, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.
The Kennedy Center made no advance announcement of its plans to remove the towering, vivid blue metal sculpture of a stick-like human figure, called “Blue.”
On Wednesday morning, the limbs and torso of the figure were wrapped in protective material; an arm was the first to be removed.
The Kennedy Center confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that the sculpture was being deinstalled and that a foundation dedicated to the artist would determine its next location. It did not say the reason for the removal but noted that the deinstallation of artworks that had been donated or lent was common practice for conservation or preservation purposes.
A news release from around the debut of “Blue” describes it as a permanent sculpture for the grounds.
“We are deeply grateful to Joel Shapiro for the years ‘Blue’ has spent animating our campus and connecting visitors to his vision,” the statement said. “We are honored to have been stewards of his vibrant work and a part of his enduring legacy.”
Mr. Shapiro died in 2025. His daughter, Ivy Shapiro, who is president of his foundation, said in an interview that she thought her father would have been “alarmed” that the sculpture was being taken down from its intended location.
“In Joel’s mind, it was one of his greatest site-specific commissions, which celebrated joy, freedom and creativity,” she said.
Hear! Hear! I know I’ve always seen giant metal stick figures as celebrations of joy, freedom and creativity. Not as much as those inflated wiggly-men, of course, but still.
If there is one thing I do not care to hear knee-jerk progressives bleat about in their ravings, it is President Trump removing a single ugly artwork from the grounds of a public building because “he didn’t like it.” In this case the President showed exquisite taste (for a change) but even if the thing weren’t a big blue metal stick figure, the reason “It stinks!” is still a brilliantly-reasoned critique compared to the Axis and Friends removing over 160 statues from public grounds …
…because a black lifetime petty thug died after an accidental use of excessive force by a Minnesota police officer while he was resisting arrest and over-dosing on drugs.
The hypocrisy—and willful blindness to it—exhibited in this latest episode of “Everything Trump Does Is Terrible And Justifies Impeachment If Not Death!” is…I need a new adjective for “beyond belief.” Let’s see…it looks like I use all of them, and the Thesaurus list doesn’t even include “gobsmacking,” “head-exploding” or the phase that keeps jumping into my mind right now, “so fucking stupid it makes my pancreas whimper.” I guess I’ll go with the Cambridge Dictionary’s more dignified and restrained “impossible to comprehend.”
I was going to use Marlon’s “The Horror!” clip, but he’s been over-exposed here lately. I decided to use a shot of the 1926 Sesquicentennial of American Independence half-dollar, which carried the face of that infamous autocrat and self-promoting narcissist, President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge. That coin caused no controversy at all; in fact, I’ve read three Coolidge biographies and not one of them thought it was worth mentioning…because it isn’t. But a commemorative coin bearing the current President’s face (you know, to provide historical context?), now THAT is scandalous. For the U.S. 250th Commemorative coin was released yesterday, and the Axis of Unethical Conduct is furious.
Michael J. Gerhardt, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, says that the coin “violates both federal law and historical practice.”
I smell the Axis “norms” canard again!
“The Department of Treasury is bound to follow federal law. Its efforts to maneuver around federal law are illegal,” Gerhardt tells said. “The fact that the coin is commemorative does not immunize it from being covered by relevant federal law.”
As far as I can see, it does follow Federal law. The Trump Deranged keep pointing to the federal law that states: “Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities.” Commemorative coins are not currency, however, but collectables. If you spend one of the 250th coins on—what costs only a dollar now?—you’d be an idiot, because they cost more than twice that, and presumably will gain in value over time.
Peyton Tolle is a Boston Red Sox rookie and already a team mate and fan favorite for his big extrovert personality that matches his huge frame (6’6,” about 260 pounds), highlighted by Tolle’s obvious joy at playing a kid’s game for a living.
In yesterday’s Red Sox 9-8 extra-innings win over the Seattle Mariners (The Red Sox are having one of their most entertaining seasons ever), Tolle, was Boston’s starting pitcher, did something that nobody could recall any previous major league baseball player doing. As you can see above, when the hulking Tolle went to tag out Mariners player Dominic Canzone on the first base line after fielding a bouncer back to him on the mound, he preceded his tag with a smile and a hug.
Some old timers gag when they see opposing team players even chatting cordially at first base. The unwritten rule of baseball was that on the field the other team was literally a mortal foe, and its players were to be treated as such. In the 1960s a player who did what Tolle did would be excoriated, fined, exiled to the manager’s “dog house” and probably demoted to the minors.
Last night the Red Sox players seemed to get a kick out of their exuberant rookie’s latest surprise—he also likes playing tricks on team mates—saying, “That’s Tolle!” as the agreed-upon answer when questioned by reporters after the game. The sports media was all positive, with ESPN calling The Hug “The most wholesome play of the season.”
The second I saw Teddy in the “Near Great” category and White House Ethics Villain Woodrow Wilson in the “Great” category (along with Andy), I immediately knew the source. It was a late 1940s assessment by Democratic hack historian (and Kennedy shill) Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. It even used the same pictures. Oh, someone cut and pasted Clinton’s face in there, but no Truman? No JFK? No Ike? No Reagan? No Obama? Literally no historian today dares to rank Wilson, an open, virulent racist, as “great,” but that was typical through the 1960s. Similarly, Jackson, though a Democrat and presumed great in the overwhelmingly left-leaning history departments has been cancelled since they started focusing on Old Hickory’s treatment of Native Americans. (Jackson was still a great President.) I know the point was the joke of putting Trump on top, but this was lazy and irresponsible execution by whatever staffer prepared it.
The one thing that puzzles me is how John Adams ended up in the “Near Great” tier. Even back when people took Schlesinger seriously, nobody, literally nobody, claimed Adams’s single term was anything but a disaster.
As for the silly thing in general, I know Trump does this stuff to annoy the people who hate him, but acting like a 12-year-old really does nobody any good, not Trump, not his party, not the country. In addition to making the Trump Deranged more crazy than they already are, such stunts make rational people question his judgment, not to mention his prudence and political skills.
But enough of that.
Let’s have a lively open forum this week. Last week’s was a dud.
Is it stupid woke Halloween controversy season already? Sadly, it is.
Target removed a Halloween clown costume from its website and presumably its stores after social media mobs claimed that it was racist, evoking blackface and minstrel shows. As we know, companies are infamous weenies any time the race card is played against them, and virtually always grovel an apology. Thus Target sobbed on social media this week,
“An apology from us: We removed an offensive Halloween costume that should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer for sale. As a company, we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step, and we are looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”
I am strongly inclined to view this as another “Gotcha!” exercise from the race-obsessed. Talk about a case of “If you hear the dog whistle, you’re the dog” ! Let’s see: what aspect of the costume evokes blackface or minstrelsy? Did blackface performer swear orange costumes like that? Noooo. Did they wear black gloves on their hands? No! Did they wear little clown hats? Ruffles around their necks like Bozo? Also no. So what exactly creates the “minstrel show” vibe?It’s the fact that Target hired a black kid to model the costume! Put a white child in that thing and it looks like what it is: a clown costume.
Let me get this straight: Admirably, Target doesn’t see racist images at every turn, and hired a black model, when it should have hired a white model because the black kid made race-obsessed victim-mongers think of blackface. That wasn’t blackface, that was a child’s black face!
Is it the smile that’s the problem? You know, evoking this…
…? Again, it’s the actual black face wearing that smile that triggered the easily race-triggered. As for the smile , which the race-hustler think deliberately evokes “Mr. Bones” above, it is a creepy, killer clown smile, as worn by the murderous clown in Season 4 of “American Horror Story”…
Does that character evoke blackface and minstrel shows?
We are never going to get out from under the iron boot of race hustlers until companies and celebrities stop capitulating to race-baiting like this. On the other side of this ugly coin, what realistic, sound business options did Target have? Well, it could have asked whether its critics want the company to discriminate against black models. It could have educated the public and its customers about what is and isn’t blackface and minstrel imagery. It could have put a warning in the constume’s package, “Do not buy if your kid is black. The Woke and wonderful will think he’s in blackface.”
Or is this another example of the ditty, “He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he’s just as dead as if he were wrong”? If standing on principle loses a company sales and public support, is it ethical?
Your Ethics Alarms Early Halloween Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Was Target right to apologize and pull the offending costume?
The following is a Facebook post from a wonderful man, smart, ethical, analytical and compassionate. I’ve known him for over 40 years and respect him deeply. Yet he posted,
“Folks, remember nothing about the actions of this administration and its minions is normal What is going on in our country is not normal.
A President who insists on making himself the news and communicates in absolutely BIZARRE ways, the multiple DC building projects, dispatching the military to American citites, the ignoring of norms, Congress being AWOL, a $40 Trillion deficit, high gas prices, high food prices, and no explanation or plan to get out of this war. Most importantly, the flouting of Court orders and the endless work arounds to get what this administration wants is Not Normal.
I wonder what part of the Court order stating that only Congress could rename the Kennedy Center they didn’t understand?
“. . . Members voted to close the center for two years for a $285 million renovation, after being handed what lawyers challenging the board described as a “vague, two-page PowerPoint” two days before the meeting. Only three members voted no, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Rick Larsen. The board also voted to inscribe “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” below Kennedy’s name, rename the grounds “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” and add a third line about a Trump-named endowment if it hits $100 million . . .”
I had to wrestle my fingers to the floor to stop myself from responding. But I did. I’m still sorely tempted, however, to point that what is so obnoxious about this post is the writer’s assumption that his assessment is undeniably fair and valid. He’s assuming that everyone on his feed is just as Trump Deranged as he is. These people make declarations; they aren’t interested in a discussion, and anyone who dares to say, “Now wait a minute…” will be unfriended, tarred as MAGA and a Fox News ventriloquist dummy while being rebranded as evil.
But talk about moldy Axis talking points! That “normal” salvo: what a cheap shot, and one the no one who wasn’t screaming for Joe Biden to be put in a home is ethically estopped from making! Strong leaders and effective Presidents are never “normal.” To me, that complaint is signature significance for someone who is ignorant regarding the Presidency and leadership.
Several of my Trump Deranged, “Knee-Jerk-Democrats-To-The-Death-Even-If-Their-Party- Started-Sending-Dissenters-To-Gulags” friends tell me that they are all exited about flavor-of-the-week Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga) ending up as the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee in 2028. Morons. Desperate morons. In addition to the fact that Democrats have painted themselves into a “must-have-a-DEI-President-or-bust” corner (I’m going to see how many of these I can have in a single post: that’s three), Ossoff has already proven that he is an irredeemable asshole. The latest smoking gun evidence was his snide innuendo that President Trump’s ever-present aide, Natalie Harp, is some kind of POTUS comfort woman.
Sen. Ossoff slimed the President this week by saying, “He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” The Axis loved it because its members are contemptible and have no ethical values left; Joseph Welch’s kill shot to Senator Joe McCarthy would be appropriate here if directed at “the resistance,” Democrats, progressives and the news media: “Have you no sense of decency?” No, in fact they don’t. The Axis cheers because Ossoff proved he could “troll” Trump. What he really proved is that he’s such an asshole that he would cast aspersions on a hard-working, patriotic young woman’s morals and rectitude, which in former, more ethical times would guarantee a law suit and maybe a duel.
