Incompetent Elected Officials

On His Way Out, Rep. Santos Kindly Demonstrates Why

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The House just voted 311 to 114 (with two cowardly members voting “present”) to make New York Congressman George Santos only the sixth in history to be deemed unworthy of an elected seat. The GOP members mostly supported the draconian punishment despite facing a tough race in the special election Santos’s disgrace now triggers. If I were a voter in that Long Island and Queens district, I’d be tempted to vote for the Democrat just to make the Republican Party pay for allowing a fraud and a crook like Santos to be its nominee. Of course, the Democrats and the local news media also share some blame for not doing due diligence to uncover important facts about a wildly unqualified candidate, but the GOP has to be first in line to be held accountable after Santos himself.

Yesterday, facing his likely humiliation, the biggest phony ever elected to Congress put his essential sliminess on full display, vowing revenge on his party and, like so many villains in movies about conspiracies and corruption, swearing that ‘if I go down, I’ll take all of you down with me!’

“I will do the same thing that members did to me and go to the Office of Congressional Ethics, all throughout today and tomorrow and report, everything that I think is relevant to the committee for them to look into,” said Santos. He’s already promised to file a complaint about the ridiculous Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the Mad Fire Alarmist. Yes, Bowman should be sanctioned, but compared to Santos he’s John Quincy Adams.

Santos’s reaction to being expelled is a stinking pile of rationalizations, as discussed here. His pledge to get revenge is another bit of signature significance. If Santos had any ethical instincts at all, any concept of why he was being kicked out of Congress, any flicker of conscience, dignity, responsibility or decency, he would have exited with a statement expressing his regret for his past actions, apologizing for soiling (well, further soiling) the reputation of the body he was elected to serve in, and promising to devote his future activities to honorable public service, while acknowledging that there is, at this time, no reason to believe him. Then it might have been said of his leaving Congress, in the manner of Malcolm’s description of MacBeth at his execution,

Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.

But George Santos doesn’t possess those character traits: he’s a throbbing sociopath, and unlike more successful sociopaths in our government, he’s not smart or wily enough to hide it.

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Week: Rep. Roger Williams (R-Tx.)

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

George Santos, the lying, fraudulent, criminal Congressman from New York who was elected to Congress by almost completely fabricating his résumé, is likely to be expelled from the House at the end of this week in a bi-partisan two-thirds vote. Good.

Santos will be the first House member to be jettisoned without having first been convicted of a crime or being a supporter of the Confederacy. The bi-partisan effort is even more remarkable because House Republicans have so small a majority including Santos. But George is special. He is an embarrassment to the party, his district, New York, the House, the nation and his species.

Some Republicans, however, don’t comprehend that “integrity of the institution” stuff. Meet Roger Williams of Texas, who explains why he is not inclined to vote against Santos. noting that he has serious reservations about voting to remove a fellow member and saying, “I think we set a really not a good example if we can just pick and choose who comes and who stays. I don’t agree with what he’s been accused of, but at the same time it’s not our job here in Congress to decide who the congressman in some state or some district is. I just don’t like the idea of that.”

This is the quality of analysis offered by an elected official who helps make our laws. Ugh. Let’s see…

1. Congress isn’t picking and choosing “who comes and who stays.” Congress, like all institutions with any integrity and respectability, is enforcing minimum standards for its members. If it won’t do that—and it usually doesn’t—it forfeits the trust of the public.

2. Not only will Congress be setting a good example by ridding itself of an unqualified, dishonest phony who was elected under false pretenses, it is an essential example that should be repeated more frequently. All Americans, the unfortunate districts that elect unqualified representatives, and Congress itself are harmed when sociopaths like Santos are elected. Citizens should be on alert that if they vote irresponsibly and end up with a toxic representative, he or she might end up being rejected. I can think of at least 10 other members of the House—none quite as bad as Santos, of course—who would benefit Congress by their absence. It’s ridiculous that so few Representatives have been expelled in three centuries.

3. “I don’t agree with what he’s been accused of…” Can you be any more equivocal, Congressman? Santos’s lies about his background are a matter of record. The scathing report from the House Ethics Committee earlier this month concluded after a thorough investigation that he “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.” The fact that Santos also has more than 20 criminal charges pending against him doesn’t even need to come into consideration.

4. Congress isn’t deciding “who the congressman in some state or some district is.” Santos’s New York district will do that in a special election after Santos is metaphorically kicked out the door and down the Capitol steps.

Williams’ rapier-like analysis reveals him as a dim, dim bulb, but at least he might be honest…unlike Rep. Santos.

Irony: The Washington Post Telling CVS How To Handle Rampant Shoplifting

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

…when it is the extreme anti-police, anti-law enforcement ideologues the Washington Post supports and slants the news to assist that are the reason shoplifting is out of control in D.C. and other cities.

The photo above that accompanies the laughable Post editorial shows the infamous CVS Pharmacy at 14th and Irving streets NW. There, in recent months, roving mobs of thieves have staged “smash and grab” mass raids resulting in the store having empty shelves and the local neighborhood having little access to needed supplies. “Shoplifters ransacked this CVS over two days early last month, and it hasn’t been restocked since,” the concerned editorial board wrote. “Weeks later, there’s still hardly anything to buy — or steal. The CVS at 14th and Irving symbolizes extreme retail theft and the harms it can engender. Distressing and inconvenient to ordinary people, threatening to businesses and livelihoods, and repellent to tourists, unchecked shoplifting can corrode a community’s spirit.”

The Post, which has never uttered a metaphorical “boo” regarding its woke, black Democratic mayor directing a huge, block letter “Black Lives Matter” message to be painted on a downtown street two years ago, is engaging in outrageous hypocrisy. “Black Lives Matter,” of course, means “Police Beware” and “Enforce the Law At Your Own Risk.” In related news, the Supreme Court today turned down Derek Chauvin’s last ditch appeal to get his unfair trial declared what it was; I’m assuming they don’t need the grief. They have to work in D.C. after all.

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Ethics Quiz: This…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This resurfaced video of the Senate Majority Leader gleefully tripping the light fantastic with the New York Democratic Attorney General, one of the party’s several prosecutors engaged in an effort to use the criminal justice system to hamstring Donald Trump before the 2024 election, raises several ethics questions, but I’ll focus on just one.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is participating in this public spectacle ethical conduct for a prosecutor?

Before I comment, let me just say…Ick.

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The Great Stupid, Halloween Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Trick-or-treaters over 14 in Chesapeake, Virginia can be charged with a misdemeanor. Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach nearby bar kids over 12 from trick-or-treating. Rayne, Louisiana, and Jacksonville, Illinois, also ban teenage trick-or-treaters. An ordinance in Belleville, Illinois, slaps insufficiently immature door bell-ringers with a $1,000 fine.

Morons. The same communities don’t punish juvenile adults who have spoiled the kids holiday by expropriating it. The theory these silly places have adopted is, we are told, that they are trying to reduce teenage crime. I believe there are already laws against teenage crime. Most of the same elected officials who are pushing these laws also wanted to force teens to wear masks not too long ago.

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Today’s “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Updates: The Lewiston Shooting And “Arghh! Biden Has A Primary Challenger!”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

bias

The fact that so many loyal Democrats and smug progressives will still look you in the eye and say that mainstream media bias is a right-wing conspiracy theory speaks eloquently of the corruption of American politics, individual integrity and democracy. Two depressing examples:

1. The missing mass shootings.

Kevin Downey reviews the large number of mass shootings since the Lewiston massacre, and points out that even though one would assume that a) they are all newsworthy and b) that the anti-gun journalism establishment would want such tragedies to be known, only the Maine shooting ticked off the right boxes to advance the agreed-upon MSM narrative without undermining some part of it. In addition to the high body count, the Lewiston massacre featured a white male shooter using a semi-automatic weapon (that they could call “an assault weapon”). And he apparently liked some conservative social media posts, meaning that the shooting was really Donald Trump’s fault.

Maine authorities were also warned about Robert R. Card II in plenty of time to stop him if they had followed established policies but didn’t. Oh, never mind: as with the Uvalde shooting and others, it’s the guns, the victims and the shooter that matter, not the fact that existing laws and competent law enforcement should have been sufficient to prevent the disaster.

Since the Lewiston shooting (October 25) there were ten more mass shootings, leaving 14 dead and 65 wounded. Two took place in Chicago (of course) and left 19 people shot.In one shooting involving a handgun, 15 victims were hit by gunfire. That there weren’t more deaths is moral luck. The mostly ignored shootings involved shooters “of color,” drug gatherings, parties substantially attended by non-whites, and weapons that couldn’t plausibly be called “weapons of war.”

Downey also cited the amusing idiocy of, again, Joy Behar on “The View,” produced by ABC News, showing abject gun ignorance ( I missed it–sock drawer…). She said (and no one on the set had the wit, integrity or knowledge to contradict her),”If you shoot with an AR-15, let’s say you shoot a deer, you can’t eat it because you basically demolish the animal.” She “doesn’t know the difference between an AR-15 and a bazooka,” writes Downey. That’s fair.

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Serious Question: Has Vice-President Harris Not Read The Bill of Rights, Or Does She Just Want The Government To Ignore It?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This would be an “Incompetent Elected Official” post, except a) we already know Kamala Harris is incompetent, and b) her penchant for talking nonsense, gibberish or idiocy long ago reached Julie Principle proportions. But other Democrats, notably Hillary Clinton, have appealed to ignorance, emotion and hysteria by doing what Harris did yesterday as part of the wholly predictable Democratic Party/progressive/mainstream media attack on gun rights after a mass shooting tragedy. This one, as you probably know already, was in Maine, and unusually deadly, so the gun-grabbing fanatics and the “Do something!” crazies were really licking their chops.

On stage with Australia’s Prime Minister at an event yesterday, Harris blathered, “Gun violence has terrorized and traumatized so many of our communities in this country. And let us be clear, it does not have to be this way, as our friends in Australia have demonstrated.”

As usual, Harris required a translator. It doesn’t have to be “this way” in Australia? Have our communities been terrified there? How has Australia demonstrated what is possible or desirable in the United States? It hasn’t, of course: it hasn’t even demonstrated that it is possible to eliminate mass shootings in Australia, where the National Firearms Agreement of 1996 made semiautomatic weapons and shotguns illegal and mandated the confiscation of close to 650,000 firearms.  The NFA requires Australians to wait 28 days before they purchase a gun to allow extensive background checks. Applicants must obtain a license and a permit, be over 18 years old, provide documentation that the weapon will be stored securely and complete firearms safety training. They must also provide a “justifiable reason” for owning the gun, and self-defense doesn’t qualify. A requirement less stringent than this was just struck down as unconstitutional in New York.

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Unethical Quote Of The Month & Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Many of these lawmakers on the other side of the aisle who had their hair on fire about what appears to have been an inadvertent action taken by Congressman Bowman, to which he is now being held accountable for, within the criminal justice system, regularly defend violent individuals who overran the Capitol on Jan. 6, as part of an effort to halt a peaceful transfer of power. And these violent individuals brutally beat and seriously injured 140 police officers, on the day of the insurrection. And many of them, who are having a panic attack, publicly, about Jamaal Bowman have actually defended or refused to comment on the violent mob on January 6.”

—House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the man every Democrat in the House voted for to be Speaker, “explaining” why Rep. Bowman shouldn’t be censured by the House for breaking the law, indeed two laws, as well as violating the House ethics code. 

To be blunt, this statement by Jeffries exhibits the approximate ethical comprehension of a Cocker Spaniel. It reveals him to be a shameless liar and an ethics corrupter:

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Minneapolis’s Woke And Deluded DA Foiled By An Ethical Judge

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Good.

In 2019, 39-year-old Steve Markey, sitting in his car in Minneapolis, was murdered during an unsuccessful carjacking attempt. The two teenage suspects both fired shots at Markey. They were arrested the next day after a string of other violent crimes. Both confessed to the murder.

Minneapolis’s DA before the current woke District Attorney Mary Moriarty said he would try the defendants as adults. One of the defendants, Husayn Braveheart (above), now 20 years old, fought to have his case remain in juvenile court where the punishment would be more moderate than in adult court: his co-defendant received a 22-year sentence when tried as an adult. In November 2022, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Braveheart should be certified for trial as an adult after determining the State had met the burden of proof on a series of public safety factors including Braveheart’s culpability and his history of failing to participate in diversion programs and other therapy.

But at a pretrial hearing in August, Moriarty announced that she had entered into a plea agreement in which Braveheart would serve just 1 year in a workhouse and 5 years of probation.  Under the deal, the 20-year-old would serve no prison time for murder.

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Unethical Quote Of The Week: “Squad” Member Cori Bush (D-Mo.)

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

“I am grieving for every Palestinian, Israeli, and American life lost to this violence, and my heart breaks for all those who will be forever traumatized because of it. War and retaliatory violence doesn’t achieve accountability or justice; it only leads to more death and human suffering.Today I am introducing the Ceasefire Now Resolution, vital legislation that calls for de-escalation and an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Occupied Palestine, and for humanitarian assistance to urgently be delivered to the 2.2 million people under siege and trapped in Gaza. The United States bears a unique responsibility to exhaust every diplomatic tool at our disposal to prevent mass atrocities and save lives. We can’t bomb our way to peace, equality, and freedom. With thousands of lives lost and millions more at stake, we need a ceasefire now.”

—Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), idiot.

To be fair, I could have found equally fatuous and ethically inert quotes from any of the anti-Semitic, intellectually vapid and ethically-challenged “Squad” members, but all indications have been that Bush is the most afflicted by the Dunning-Krueger Effect of them all, even more than Rep. Bowman of “I thought that pulling a fire alarm would open the door. Who wouldn’t? What’s the big deal?” fame, and the ridiculous AOC. Moreover, the offensive, dishonest and irresponsible statement by Bush came as she introduced an offensive, dishonest and irresponsible resolution urging the Biden Administration to push for a “ceasefire” because the October 7 Hamas sneak attack on Israel civilians was just “armed violence” (not terrorism), ‘American hostages? What American hostages?’, and “the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law.”

Of course, Israel is not targeting civilians; Hamas, like the evil terrorist organization it is, is using civilians as human shields and hoping for mass civilian casualties to wield as a propaganda tool against Israel. Like so, so many on the Left for too many decades to tote up, Bush, “The Squad” and their ilk don’t get that “war” thingy.

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