Incompetent Elected Officials

Ethics Dunces: 18 Democratic Senators (and Bernie Sanders)

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

For the record, the 18 are U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety, and U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

They all signed a letter urging the Biden Administration “to take all available actions to streamline pathways to lawful status for undocumented immigrants.” “Undocumented immigrants” are illegal immigrants, and that is all you need to know to assess the unethical and irresponsible nature of the letter, as well as all the signatories to it, which is pretty much a Rogues Gallery of the most radical and destructive Senators in the upper House, with a few surprising exceptions.

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Unethical Quote of the Week (and a KABOOM!): President Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I gave the President a Julie Principle pass last week by not highlighting his hilarious open mic comment calling for Israel to have a “come to Jesus moment,” but I can’t let this one pass:

“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s undocumented. When I spoke about the difference between Trump and me, one of the things I talked about in the border was his, the way he talks about vermin, the way he talks about these people polluting the blood. I’m not going to treat any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country. The reason our economy’s growing.”

The statement is by turns incompetent, irresponsible, and dishonest; in non ethical terms, cowardly, offensive and idiotic.

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Regarding Sen. Britt’s Incompetent SOTU “Response”

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

Ugh. Distinguished EA commenter valkygrrl gets the pointer and my gratitude for this one: she flagged Senator Britt’s performance in an email late last night, and I might never have seen it otherwise. Here, if you were fortunate enough not to see this thing without a trigger warning, it is…

I already said “Ugh,” now I’ll say, “Yecchh!”

To begin with, the whole concept of the opposition “response” is built on a lie. Although the speech is always presented as a reaction to what America just heard and saw, it is always (has there been an exception?) a pre-written and prepared speech often based on the transcript of the President’s speech released before he delivers it, but sometimes just based on what the opposing party assumes the President will say. So it is always fake: the speaker refers to the speech, but the speaker seldom (ever?) has the wit to go off script and comment on what just happened.

Britt definitely didn’t, and, presumably, couldn’t. Biden was shouting and acting like he was on speed. The State of the Union is supposed to be a Presidential address on the state of the nation itself, not a campaign speech. Biden made numerous false statements. He called illegal immigrants “illegals”—which they are—instead of the benign “migrants” the Axis uses to blur the issue. He mangled rape and murder victim Laken Riley’s name on the same day his party overwhelmingly voted against a House bill that established the outrageous requirement—in the democratic Party’s view— that illegal immigrants arrested for crimes should be detained by ICE. Surely the GOP must have some prominent party member quick and articulate enough to give a genuine response to a State of the Union based on what the speech performance really was. Ted Cruz could do it. Rand Paul. Heck, get a right wing radio talk-show host for the job.

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Ethics Tip (To the Biden Administration): You Can’t Resolve an Ethical Conflict By Taking Contradictory Actions Simultaneously

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I would think that would be obvious to mature, competent, experienced and responsible policy-makers. But perhaps that’s not relevant here…

I awoke today to the news that the United States has air-dropped “humanitarian aid” into Gaza. Three US C-130s dropped 66 palettes of food, 22 from each aircraft. Biden complained last week about the slow pace of assistance flowing into Gaza, the Israeli campaign against which the United States is supporting with its funds. Wars against enemies are designed to make the populace under attack less well-off, eventually to the point where their government says “Enough!” and surrenders. Aid to a population under attack is intended to make the population under attack better off. Simultaneously funding an attack on a region and sending aid to that region isn’t ethical. It is offensively cynical, not merely refusing to make a decision, but making contradictory decisions to appeal to groups with diametrically opposing interests. Sending aid of any kind to the enemy of the nation we are supporting in a war can accomplish little more than extending that war. The most ethical way to engage in the unethical practice of warfare is to end it as quickly as possible.

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Biden-Supporters Are Officially Ethically Estopped From Complaining That Trump Lies

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

President Biden went on Seth Myers’s late night show this week to bask in a fawning interview by a partisan supporter who wouldn’t ask him any questions harder than “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?,” and still managed to screw up.

After the show’s taping, Biden was confronted by reporters while licking an ice-cream cone and asked when a Gaza ceasefire might occur. “I hope by… the end of the weekend,” Biden answered. “My national security advisor tells me we’re close. We’re close. It’s not done yet. My hope is by next Monday, we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden said. That was great news for anti-Israel progressives, and right before the Michigan primary, where Biden was likely to face Arab protest votes against his re-nomination.

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Regarding THIS…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Apparently, as I have noted before, the Biden Administration doesn’t believe in firing anyone—well, anyone who doesn’t behave like this clown—which is itself a form of incompetence and avoidance of responsibility. A competent President who wasn’t more concerned with avoiding conflicts with the loosely-allied progressive tribes in his party than with upholding standards of conduct, ethics, and performance under his authority would fire everyone behind that screed above.

All right, he would do it immediately after giving Merrick Garland, Pete Buttigieg, Anthony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Dr. Miguel Cardona, Alejandro Mayorkas, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and Karine Jean-Pierre their well-earned pink slips.

No executive in any organization has to tolerate public dissent like this regarding his or her leadership. For a President, such open defiance is divisive, confusing to the public, disloyal and disrespectful. It also erodes trust. The proper way for any staff member in any pursuit at any level to express his or her disagreement with the organization’s policies and actions is to do so privately, through proper channels, or publicly after resigning. Those are the only ethical options, and the latter course has severe ethical limitations based on confidentiality and mutual trust.

Having a staff express disagreement with a President and his administration as the letter jaw-dropping above does is unprecedented, and it had better not become institutionalized, because no government—indeed, no organization—can function effectively and with the full confidence of its constituency and stake-holders that permits such rebellions.

Moreover, even if such grandstanding could be justified—there must be an exception out there somewhere—this surely wouldn’t be an acceptable precedent. The letter above absurdly supports an act of self-terrorism by a mentally-disturbed fool, thus aligning themselves with the radical agent of chaos who issued this tweet…

Brilliant. This New York-based writer and apologist for terrorism lumps protesting peacefully, dissent, marching and heckling politicians in the same category as suicide, rioting and law-breaking. Yet even he has a better grasp on reality than “the Staffers for Ceasefire.” In a related tweet, he suggests to these fools, “The best eulogy you can offer Bushnell is resigning en masse.”

Exactly. By all means, honor that pathetic would-be martyr.

Theirs isn’t even smart dissent, persuasive dissent, or patriotic dissent. The letter represents a group of people who are making policy recommendations above their pay-grade, literally, and displaying their biases and ignorance while doing so.

Biden should fire each and every one of them. That he doesn’t and won’t would be proof of his unfitness to lead and incompetence as a Chief Executive even if he could sing ” I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General General” backwards in 12 languages, including Urdu.

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Eastpointe, Michigan Mayor Monique Owens

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The whole story is here, courtesy of FIRE:

As I have to admit too often, I missed this debacle. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression got a court order against this ridiculous mayor (Guess what party!) in 2022 to force her not to interfere with her city’s citizens’ right to give their statements in a public forum. FIRE is now justly using the episode to raise funds for its excellent work, taking over for the ACLU, which has decided that it would rather be a tool of abusive government power (as long as their favorite party is in charge) than opposing it.

You’ll be pleased to learn that the mayor is no longer in office. The rest of the story: Owens, who had barely been elected mayor with just 32.5% of the vote in a five-way contest, was a human train wreck, with the lawsuit resulting from this meeting, a criminal conviction for making false statements on a grant application for her business, irregularities in her financial disclosure submissions, and other controversies.

My question above is a trick (sorry): Owens has claimed to be both a Democrat and a Republican depending on the situation and her mood: she’s a bi-partisan jerk. As with most of the horrifying individuals who end up in this Ethics Alarms category, the issue highlighted is irresponsible voters.

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Why do communities keep electing officials who are ignorant of the law, history, and the U.S. Constitution?

Three days ago, North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown, (Guess which party!) announced on social media that her city would host a Black-owned business fair this coming weekend at the conclusion of Black History Month. The fest would feature local black vendors, community resources, an art corner and an area for children. Food trucks and live entertainment would enliven the proceedings. It would be a fun day of promotion for all participating—black-owned only!—businesses.

Who could have a problem with that?

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FIRE’s Annual Censorship Awards

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

FIRE released its annual “Top Ten Worst Censors” list. They are…

As you see by the EA links, I batted just .500 in covering this topic, and some of the incidents described in FIRE’s report are clearly major ethics breaches that should have been discussed here. Personally, I blame Donald Trump for being a catalyst for so much unethical conduct by the Axis of Unethical Conduct (AUC)—the “resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media—as well as his own usual forays into the Ethics Twilight Zone that I missed other important matters. Or, as Joni Mitchell might have croaked, “So many things I might have done, but Trump got in my way….”

OK, I’m kidding. Sort of.

The most horrible story that I missed is a tie between the Mayo Clinic outrage and the Marion County Police Dept.’s gestapo act. In that one, FIRE explains,

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Second Most Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Cal)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I was all set to designate Rep. Lee as the Incompetent Elected Official of the Month when I realized that this month, even more than most, President Biden had that honor locked up. So Rep. Lee only gets second place. The long-time California progressive has a substantial dossier at Ethics Alarms, much of it for her habitual race-baiting, but I hadn’t written about her much lately because of the Julie Principle: she’s an idiot, even most Democrats can see she’s an idiot, and thus there is not much to be gained by repeatedly pointing out that she’s an idiot. However, Rep. Lee is running for the Senate to replace the recently departed and slightly less-recently dementia-afflicted California Senator Diane Feinstein, who even at her most reduced mental state was a more trustworthy and responsible public figure than Lee on the best day of her life. Someone like Barbara Lee should be kept out of the Senate with razor wire, but this is California, so you never know.

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