Incompetent Elected Officials

So NOW the Climate Change-Hyping “Experts” Admit That Their Fear-Mongering Models Were Garbage!

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment
GUEST POST BY RYAN HARKINS

[From your host: I know the headline and graphic is my style and not Ryan’s. The valuable commentary below came out of a thread on the last Open Forum. I decided that it was worthy of a stand-alone guest post, especially since I should have written pretty much the same post when this news was first reported. Also, with this post I am officially Christening “The Climate Change Hysteria Ethics Train Wreck.” I should have done it years ago. JM]

I’m seeing some news that the IPCC (the International Panel on Climate Change) has rejected the RCP8.5 model as pretty much an impossible scenario. What is significant about this is how much research and how many policies were based on this scenario. With the IPCC actually stating that RCP8.5 is simply not plausible, the foundation for so much of the climate change hysteria has been ripped away.

To provide a little more detail, RCP8.5 is one of thousands of different models (computer simulations) trying to predict the impact of human activity on climate change up to the year 2100. These models try to take into account factors like human population growth, adoption or rolling back of climate policies, differing degrees of climate forcing due to carbon dioxide (because the science is definitely NOT settled on how much forcing CO2 actually contributes), and a host of other factors. RCP8.5 has always been one of the most extreme models, predicting an increase of 8.5 W/m^2 by 2100. There are scores of other models that are far more modest in their projections, and certainly observed data has favored models that project something closer to 3.4 W/m^2, though even those are diverging from observed data as time goes on.

The upshot, though, is the sheer scope of how much of the world’s climate policies are based on RCP8.5. From this article, we have

“Why this matters: these scenarios live in policy. The now-implausible upper-end scenarios — RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5, and SSP3-7.0 — are not just academic constructs used in esoteric research. They are embedded in the policies and regulations of most of the world’s largest economies, found across the world’s most important multilateral institutions, and used in the climate stress tests that govern hundreds of billions of dollars in bank capital. National climate impact assessments in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands all use RCP8.5 or SSP5-8.5 as a reference scenario. The Network for Greening the Financial System framework, used by more than 140 central banks, has utilized a “Hot House World” scenario calibrated to RCP8.5 physical risk into the bank stress tests run by the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Banque de France, and the US Federal Reserve. The World Bank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal, which provides the climate diagnostics that feed into the Country Climate and Development Reports for more than 100 client countries, defaults to SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0.”

We have trillions of dollars worldwide tied into climate policies. Europe is practically destroying itself trying to achieve Net Zero targets. Industries are dying, people are facing energy insecurity, prices are skyrocketing, and the entire continent is growing in unrest over the devastation to livelihoods. All this comes from countries making policies based on a model that people have warned for years is unrealistic. But the good news is at least with the IPCC ruling the scenario implausible, there is no defense for anyone to keep using those high-end scenarios to craft policy.

Sadly, I’ll bet few policies are actually updated to reflect this ruling.

Ethics Dunce and Incompetent Elected Official: Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) missed the last 43 House votes and hadn’t been seen for a month, several news reports noted yesterday. Moreover, her office had been mum on the matter. The eight-term incumbent is 83 years old, and her last recorded House vote was on April 17. House reporter Jaime Dupree noted on BlueSky Wednesday that she “missed all 10 votes on Wednesday in the House,” leading to the questions being raised yesterday. “80% of life is just showing up,” Woody Allen supposedly said. That’s a low bar, and Wilson still hasn’t cleared it.

Last night, Wilson surfaced at last and explained that she is recovering from eye surgery. “Following left eye surgery, my priority has been ensuring a full and responsible recovery,” Wilson said. “Although I am currently unable to fly under my doctors’ orders, my work has not stopped for a single day. While recovering in the district, I have continued carrying out my official duties, meeting with leaders, local organizations, city and county officials, and constituents.”

Nope, not good enough, not hardly. Normal people can’t just disappear from work for a month without adverse consequences, and elected officials have a duty to their constituents to be on the job or to inform the public and the news media why they aren’t. Wilson’s X timeline showed no change since she disappeared four weeks ago, and her staff was apparently under instructions to keep everyone in the dark about her whereabouts, in one case posting a photo of her represented as recent that was really a year old. That’s unacceptable.

Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense went AWOL too, though only for ten days, in 2024. He should have been fired, but Joe didn’t fire anybody, no matter how useless, incompetent or unqualified he or she might be. Wilson should be fired by her district’s voters in November, but of course she won’t be.

If you cant trust your Congresswoman to show up to vote or let you know why she isn’t, then you can’t trust your Congresswoman, period. Wilson’s party is claiming that Jim Crow is back and blacks are being “disenfranchised” because the Supreme Court won’t allow “good discrimination” to guarantee majority black districts. Wilson represents one of those districts, and not showing up in Congress to vote really does “disenfranchise ” her constituents.

Of course, Wilson now assures us that she was “carrying out [her] official duties,” except for the only one that is absolutely required. Why would anyone believe her?

Ethics Update On the Axis Freakout Over Virginia and Tennessee’s Redistricting Results

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

[Note: I apologize for the funky formatting here, but it’s not my fault: WordPress again messed with its (terrible) “block system” with no warning and I’m trying to figure it out.]

I’m posting the graphic above again because it is res ipsa loquitur, rebutting on its face what so many of the hysterical Democrats, elected officials, pundits and partisan reporters are screaming as they survey the results of their own corruption and hypocrisy.

As Ethics Alarms has been asserting (and proving) for a decade now, the Left cheats. Its “they go low, we go high” mantra has always been cynical gaslighting, but the somnolent Right allowed them to escape accountability (and their just desserts) far too long. Donald Trump, whatever his ethical flaws may be, has always understood the concept of fighting back. This time it really paid off, and all Americans should be grateful. Yes: we should fervently seek fair districting in every state. Maybe the current chaos will eventually lead to that. However, letting one party rig the system unanswered while the other party just sits and shrugs is worse than the chaos.

Scott Greenfield, defense lawyer, blogger, Jack-hater and progressive legal pundit, deserves praise for a nearly completely ethical and unbiased analysis of the Virginia Supreme Court decision striking down the dastardly gerrymandering trick Virginia’s “moderate” governor and its corrupt Democrats tried to inflict on half the state’s voters. He writes in part,

“The confluence of a few unfortunate circumstances resulted in the Virginia Supreme Court holding that the state constitutional amendment to allow the redistricting plan as a counterbalance to other states’ legislative redistricting plans to eliminate congressional districts deemed “safely” Democratic was unconstitutional. Wags and cynics will imagine this ruling to be the product of radical rightist activists. It was not…Neither the majority nor dissent took unprincipled positions, both having some merit to their position, but the point of a ruling is to reach a determination. The Virginia Supreme Court did so, in a principled fashion, and it ruled the redistricting amendment unconstitutional under the state Constitution. It was a crushing defeat for Democrats, but that doesn’t make it partisan or radical. Sometimes, you lose. While the combination of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision and this Virginia ruling has set in motion a partisan war that serves to make congressional elections a by-product of widespread cynical gerrymandering rather than a reflection of the will of the voters, perhaps one of the most noxiously anti-democratic efforts to rig an election possible, don’t blame the Virginia Supreme Court for “losing” safe districts for Democrats. The court did its job and its ruling, no matter what outcome you would have preferred, was grounded in a principled reading of the state Constitution.”

Good for Scott. He is still, however, a Trump Deranged, biased progressive (like most trial lawyers), so he also wrote…

“If you want to find blame, it’s in the legislatures that decided to sell out their citizens, their voters, at the open and notorious behest of Trump. For all his baseless bluster about rigged elections, we’re finally going to have one and Trump demanded the rigging.”

Bad Scott. Bad. Look at the damn chart above. Democrats had already rigged Congressional elections. Did you wonder why the predicted “red wave” in 2022 never materialized? Wonder no more. Nine Democrat-dominated state legislatures made it virtually impossible for Republicans to get elected. President Trump, that kingly fascist, had the sense and combative instincts to get his party to try to even the odds. The “red” states that did that through redistricting (gerrymandering) followed their constitutions. Virginia did not. Naturally, the losers blame Trump.

Former DNC chairwoman and current ABC contributor Donna Brazile naturally took the same dishonest path. Remember, Brazile was the Democrat who first tipped me off to her party’s cheating ways: as a paid CNN “contributor” in 2016, she used her insider status to tip-off Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton regarding the questions she would be asked at a CNN “town meeting.” This was so unethical even CNN couldn’t tolerate it, and she was fired. Yesterday Brazile joined GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw and HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher to give a masterclass on double standards and leftist gaslighting. Republican redistricting efforts are, she said, “immoral,” while Democratic efforts are what “voters decided.”

Voters in Virginia “decided” on the gerrymandered map based on the referendum’s false statement, indeed exactly the opposite of reality, that the new map would “restore fairness.” Remember?

“Restore fairness” by making sure that a 50-50 party split would be represented by a 10-1 Democrat district map. Sure.

Then Brazile played the race card, as Democrats inevitably do when the facts aren’t in their favor. “I come from one of those states that all of a sudden, the Supreme Court said, ‘Well, we don’t like partisan gerrymandering. No, we don’t like racial gerrymandering.’ So, one out of three voters in Louisiana is a black voter. One out of three. And they are now thinking of eradicating. So, that says people from some parts of Louisiana can represent New Orleans better than the folks who are representing—or Baton Rouge. It is wrong, it is immoral, and it is unjustified.”

Well-said, mush-mouth. “They” are thinking of “eradicating” black voters? I think Donna was trying to say that the Jim Crow laws that were still in effect de facto if not de jure in Southern states in the early Sixties justifies “good racial discrimination” in 2026, 60 years later. You can read her logic- and law-free rant here.This is, however, apparently the fake narrative the Axis has decided to run with, proving with its attempted cover-up just how desperate and unprincipled it is.

On yesterday’s MSNOW propaganda-fest “The Weekend,” Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) compared the 1857 Dred Scott ruling to the SCOTUS decision that the 1965 Voting Rights Act could no longer justify anti-white discrimination in the Southern states, and declared the Roberts Court “one of the most racist courts in American history.”Got it. If the Court doesn’t allow the Democrats to rig its Congressional maps to pack the House with as many blacks as possible, it’s racist. Morelle also parroted the “will of the voters” lie in attacking the Virginia Supreme Court’s rejection of redistricting referendum. Did the MSNOW host point out for its viewers that Morelle was misrepresenting both decisions? Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

This how House minority leader Hakeem Jeffreys reacted to his party being foiled in its unconstitutional, dishonest power-grab in Virginia:

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As Predicted, Virginia Democrats’ Dishonest and Unfair Gerrymandering Referendum Was Just Struck Down As Unconstitutional

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Good.

It was a disgraceful power-grab, made worse by deceitful wording that called “fair” a device that was intentionally unfair. I declared the referendum illegal on the basis of its deceptive wording, but that turned out to be a moot point, since the process by which the monstrosity made it to a special election was tainted as well.

The Virginia Supreme Court’s majority opinion is almost contemptuous of what Democrats tried here, and contempt is justified. Fake moderate Democratic Governor Spanberger decided to support an effort to make a 50-50 Democrat-Republican state all Democrat in Congress, and had the gall to allow a referendum on the redistricting call that “restoring fairness.” I’d like that referendum language to be used by Republican as exemplifying this sick party’s anti-democratic delusion: anything that doesn’t advance Leftist agenda items is by definition “unfair”—as well as racist, sexist, cruel and fascist, depending on the issue.

I am also wrestling my typing finger to the floor to avoid posting on Facebook,

“I would expect my various lawyer friends who supported this indefensible measure despite its obvious legal and ethical flaws to admit their betrayal of fellow Virginia citizens, including their friends like me, and apologize or at least wear paper bags over their heads in shame. But I know they won’t, because they made it quite clear that they felt distorting Virginia’s election results and disenfranchising Republicans and conservatives is justified because they hate the elected President of the United States. That attitude was and is disgusting, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.What happened to you?”

Fairness Test: “What’s Going On Here?”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The short video clip above shows Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar referring to World War II as “World War Eleven.” The clip has been reposted by numerous social media accounts and has collectively drawn millions of views. Some versions leave out the Congresswoman quickly correcting herself and smiling at her own gaffe.

Omar’s “speako” has also spawned many memes, like…

All in good fun…except that if Donald Trump made a gaffe like that my Trump Deranged Facebook friends would be screaming that it was time to invoke the 25th Amendment. I am willing to accept the protests of Democrats that Omar’s incident was a forgivable momentary botch with no greater significance and not proof that she misunderstands Roman numerals or lacks a basic knowledge of history…if they stop using Trump’s occassional verbal stumbles as evidence that he is demented.

And you know they won’t.

On the other hand…what the hell? How can someone who has read anything about World War II and seen the numbering as often as educated Americans do—what, hundreds of times? Thousands?—make that mistake? Several years ago, a local news hostess was fired after making the same error; the assumption was that she must be an idiot. Maybe because my sister and I were immersed in World War II history, lore and memorabilia from the time we could speak, this particular gaffe seems particularly weird to me. If Omar pronounced “USA” as “ussa,” would it be reasonable for us to shrug it off as a mistake any member of Congress could make? This is an elected official, after all, whose American bona fides are tad shaky.

Now, now, Jack. You have exonerated Obama for saying there were more than 50 states, and yourself for mixing up this guy…

….with this guy…

so let’s not jump to conclusions about Rep. Omar just because she has said her first duty is to Somalians.

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month and Stupidest Quote of the Year (So Far): Virginia State Senator Lamont Bagby (D)

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Wow. What an idiot.

Democratic Virginia state Sen. Lamont Bagby, during a floor debate on the Democratic Party’s dishonest gerrymandering scheme, was trying to refute Republicans who argued that Democrats don’t understand the needs of that rural Virginians they are trying to disenfranchise.

So he said this. He really did. No, I wouldn’t make this up, I’m an ethicist!

“I grew up watching ‘The Waltons.’ I grew up with Opie. I even watched ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’ I think I know a little bit about rural America “I’m not just here for Theo. I’m not just here for Arnold or Willis. I’m here for Opie, John Boy. Blossom, Topanga.”

Bagby was saying that he understands 21st Century rural communities in Virginia because he watched a TV show about a Virginia mountain family during the Depression, an idealized Sixties sitcom about a small town sheriff in North Carolina, and a notorious good ol’ boy TV farce about bootleggers in Georgia that lowered one’s IQ by several points every time one watched it. This is on the same plane as arguing that you are qualified to work for NASA because you were a fan of William Shatner’s “Star Trek.”

As for his other TV references, they make even less sense. “Blossom” lived in Los Angeles. “Boy Meets World,” which is his “Topanga” reference, was set in the Philadelphia suburbs. “Different Strokes” (Arnold and Willis) was set in penthouse at 900 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City.

This moron couldn’t even get his own ridiculous argument straight. I’ll tolerate political cretinism, but when these fools start misrepresenting old TV show, I really get angry.

Be proud, Virginia Democrats. This is the quality of the people you chose to govern your state.

Ethics Villain: Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There is no honest way to spin this, but Murphy, truly one of the most despicable members of the Senate, tried anyway.

Democrats, like Murphy and the ethics-blind citizens who elected him (and many equally terrible people), really and truly hate the President of the United States so much that they are actively rooting for Iran to prevail in the current conflict. This is a half-century-long enemy of the United States that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans as well as terror attacks all over the Middle East, and that has made “Death to America” and the end of the state of Israel its openly stated mission, and that recently massacred tens of thousands of its own people because they demonstrated against Iran’s dictatorial theocracy.

Has any member of Congress publicly cheered the enemy during a U.S. war? Is that not, as Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution defines treason, “adhering” to enemies of the U.S. and, “giving them aid and comfort”?

Then, after the response to Murphy’s stunning declaration of pleasure in a setback for the U.S. and the success of an enemy’s efforts to defeat his own nation, Murphy managed to further prove his warped character by lying, and obviously so:

He really expects anyone to believes he was being “sarcastic,” and is trying to blame the public for not understanding his subtle wit. He’s an asshole, but that label is too good for him.

Murphy should be prosecuted, and if not, then rebuked by his own party.

He won’t be of course. He’s invoking Rationalization 55. The Joke Excuse, or “I was only kidding!”…

“This is a common backtracking strategy when someone has been caught making a hurtful, unfair, false or otherwise unethical statement… defenders of comedian Wanda Sykes apply[ed] the joke excuse to her purely mean-spirited comment about Rush Limbaugh at a White House Correspondents Dinner, when she said “I hope his kidneys fail.” What a knee-slapper! As a general rule, “I hope you die” is not a joke, no matter who says it. Even when it is a joke, the jokester is still accountable for how people react to it. When a Washington D.C.’s shock-jock  made the second of two racially-charged quips…he lost his job and his career, because his employers didn’t want somebody on their payroll who made those kinds of “jokes.” …Nobody should accept the defense that “it was a joke” if it wasn’t a good enough joke to compensate for the damage it did, the people it hurt, or the trouble it will cause. …[P]eople and organizations …make jokes in public at their peril. Professionals. Elected officials. Scholars. People who expect to be taken seriously and trusted.”

 

But he wasn’t making a joke or being sarcastic. You know, I know, and he knows he was pandering to the anti-Americans and Trump Deranged in his increasingly perverted party.

The Democrats have given Republicans and the voting public so much evidence of their party’s ethics rot that the campaign ads write themselves. If the GOP cannot convince its supporters and a wave of progressives with a conscience to reject what the Democratic Party has become, it won’t be able to blame gerrymandering in Virginia or anything other than its own incompetence and the self-destructive ignorance of the American people.

Hey, Maybe My Suggestion To Have Parties Trade Out Their Worst and Dumbest Can Work After All!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yesterday, both slimeball Democrat Eric Swalwell and scumbucket GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned from Congress as they were about to be investigated for serious sexual misconduct. This was a net win for both parties, Congress, democracy, the public trust and the United States of America.

A few times in the past I have expressed longing for an arrangement that allowed Democrats and Republicans to purge their parties of the worst of the worst by engineering similar trades: “We’ll join you in voting to expel this incompetent asshole if you’ll join us in voting to expel one of yours whom you know is just as bad!”

Matched pairs..

  • Rep. Lauren Bobert and Rep. Ted Lieu
  • Rep. Nancy Mace and Rep. Jamie Raskin
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Dick Durbin
  • Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Adam Schiff
  • Sen. Tommy Tuberville and, of course, Sen. Mazie Hirono

You get the idea. The problem is that such a system would take a Constitutional amendment, and that’s not happening, each party would try to get rid of its moderates (Democrats would love to trade away Sen. Fetterman), and, as I see it, horrible Democrats outnumber horrible Republicans right now by about 4-1. Yes, and it’s a slippery slope that both parties would try to manipulate for their own narrow advantage.

It’s not happening. But I can dream, can’t I? Meanwhile, getting rid of both Gonzalez and Swalwell is good for everyone, and we should just enjoy our good fortune.

PS. An AI bias note: I asked Google to identify the dumbest and worst GOP members of Congress, and a list popped right up from Google’s bot. When I asked the exact same question but replaced GOP with Democratic Party, the reply began, “Determining the “dumbest” members of Congress is subjective, as such labels are often based on political opinions, gaffes, or partisan criticism rather than objective measures of intelligence.”

Ugh…So The President Attacks The Pope! The Two Diagrams Trump Doesn’t Understand…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This is ridiculous.

The President took to social media again yesterday to announce that he doesn’t like the Pope:

What an irredeemably stupid thing to do.

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Ethics Trivia, Horror Stories, and More…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Rest of the Story: After picking up frozen entrees at Trader Joe’s yesterday, this afternoon I went to Harris Teeter’s for staples, like coffee and soft drinks. And guess what! The same woman who hit me up yesterday flashed her “I am poor with children and they are hungry…” card at me again, and a second woman, using what looked like the a copy of the same card, stopped me a bit later! I reported both of them and got them kicked out of the store. I should have told them, “The ice section is right over there…”

Also:

1. Memories! Last night I re-watched “Swing Time,” my favorite of the Fred & Ginger movie musicals (directed by George Stevens before filming the death camps in Europe during World War II convinced him that he didn’t want to make comedies any more) and was jarred into a reminiscence when Fred started doing his homage to Bill “Bojangles’ Robinson, one of his tap-dancing mentors. I remembered how in 2018 I wrote a serious ethics post about how Astaire’s blackface number “Bojangles of Broadway” was an example of using black make-up as simply make-up, and not as a racial slur. When I poste it on my Facebook page, Facebook banned Ethics Alarms, with any link to it causing a post to be taken down, for over two years. At the time, a lot of my views were coming from Facebook, and the censorship was harmful. So no, I don’t forget, and won’t forgive, Woke World for its suppression of speech, opinions and ideas as practiced by Big Tech and the social media giants through to the end of the Biden administration, and yes, that experience taught me that the “liberal” side of the ideological spectrum wasn’t liberal at all. Here’s that post.

Now watch me get banned again…

2. Some Democrats are really talking about impeaching President Trump because he said that he would wipe out Iran’s civilization. Why would anyone take this party seriously? I’ve been trying to think of what Trump’s variation on Teddy Roosevelt’s most famous quote, “Speak softly but carry a big stick” would be, not that TR always spoke softly by any means. “Speak like a madman and keep them guessing?”

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