Incompetent Elected Official of the Month, Ethics Villain Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Gaza)

We will know that the nation is recuperating from The Great Stupid when voters no longer elect anti-American members of Congress like Tlaib and her fellow infiltrator, Rep. Omar. This week Omar and similarly corrupt Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal chaired a so-called hearing, completely partisan and without balance or dissent, regarding lawful activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minnesota and the death of activist Renee Good when she interfered with their efforts, almost running over an agent with her car. Tlaib decided it would be an ideal time to pitch a hissy fit over the image above, Department of Homeland Security recruitment post.

We will have our home again!” the Congresswoman said as she displayed the photo. “What does that evoke in you when you see this? It literally, when I see it, as a Muslima, as a Palestinian, as a child of immigrants, I see that this is something that is evoking like I’m not welcome here.”

Well….

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What’s the Ethical Way To Deal With Minnesota?

Perhaps the best rejoinder to anyone who wants to condemn an acquaintance for voting for Evil Donald Trump is to gently (or not so gently) remind said fool that the alternative was to put Minnesota Tim “Knucklehead” Walz a heartbeat from the White House. Showing the impeccable judgment he displayed on the campaign trail, this incompetent allowed massive fraud to take needed funds from law-abiding Minnesotans, admitted that he did nothing about it because he didn’t want to upset the Somali voting block most responsible for it, decided to end his quest for re-election because he knows he’s going to eventually have to face the metaphorical music, and now is trying to go out with a bang by inciting deranged Minnesotans to fight Federal officers in defense of illegal immigrant criminals, among others.

Good plan!

Yesterday, some commentators observed, Walz may have “crossed the line.” Gee, ya think?

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Ethics Observations On the President’s Latest Unpresidential Conduct

President Donald Trump was caught on camera “flipping the bird” and shouting “Fuck you!” to a heckler who called him a “pedophile protector,” presumably referring to the contrived Epstein files obsession being used in desperation by Democrats. Of course the White House flacks are defending this latest indefensible outburst by the Vulgarian in Chief, but there is no defense. (The stated defense is just Rationalization #2A, Sicilian Ethics, or “He had it coming!”)

Further observations:

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Signature Significance For Mayor Mamdami

Let us pause for the nonce from observing the seditious and dangerous conduct by Minnesota radicals, including its governor and mayor of its largest city, to ponder the completely predictable conduct by another sanctuary city’s mayor, in this case, New York City’s. I’m speaking, of course, of Zohran Mamdani, the Communist tyro who convinced New York vast mass of clueless voters to give communist a chance, as John Lennon would be singing now. I knew my once wise retired lawyer Facebook friend’s brain had done a Fonzi and jumped the metaphorical shark when he wrote that the completely inexperienced and naive anti-American huckster’s inauguration speech extolling “the warmth of collectivism” was a “breath of fresh air.” It was as much of a breath of fresh air as if he had proclaimed, like Dorothy Parker, “I an Marie of Romania!”

What Zohran did this week, however, was even nuttier than that. He appointed the ridiculous Cea Weaver to run the Mayor’s “Office to Protect Tenants.” Now charged with overseeing housing policy in the city with the most rental units in the U.S. is a Far Left racist, sexist lunatic who…

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Further Ethics Observations On the I.C.E. Shooting In Minneapolis…#1: The Right and Wrong Isn’t In Question [Updated and Corrected]

The Trump Administration, I.C.E., and those standing for the enforcement of the law are in the right, with the ethics of this incident and its context entirely on their side. The pro-open borders Left, including the “resistance,” radical progressives (but I repeat myself…) and the Democrats as well as the leadership of sanctuary states and cities, are entirely wrong in theory, practice and conduct. The group in the wrong, which includes much of the news media, is primarily responsible for the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good. However, she was part of that group herself, and bears some of the responsibility for her own death.

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Unethical Quote of the Year (2026): New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani [Updated]

“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

—New New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in his speech yesterday to too many ignorant voters who have no idea what he’s talking about and what they are in for.

Choosing that “Bananas” clip from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood clip archive was too easy; not only is it one of my favorites, but other pundits and social media wags has already made the connection to Woody’s Allen’s fictional South American country of San Marcos. And Mamdani’s open embrace of communism in that sentence was, indeed, bananas. I am sorely tempted to just leave the post at that: it’s res ipsa loguitur. It speaks for itself.

Yet it doesn’t speak for itself: that’s the scary part. That is what our education system’s collapse into incompetence and indoctrination has brought us. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote George Santayana in his 1905 book, “The Life of Reason.” The average American not nearing retirement age is likely to say, upon hearing Mamdani’s seductive threat, “Collectivism! Sounds good to me!” as well as “Who’s Santayana?”

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Thoughts About The Axis News Media Burying The Minnesota Fraud Scandals…

This is the season of holiday wishes, reflections and aspirations. Do you know what my Ethics Alarms wish is? I wish that at least one reader, ideally one of our five commenters, would finally write in saying something like,

“I have to confess, I’ve been denying your regular, almost annoyingly repetitious assertions that the mainstream media is biased, that it is a member of what you call the Axis of Unethical Conduct, that the major legacy media sources now practice progressive, Democratic Party propaganda to the exclusion of balanced and fair (that is, ethical) journalism, that this results in a profound warping of the Democratic process, that the news media is in fact dedicated to promoting the power of the Democratic Party and its anti-American policy agenda, and that Donald Trump was correct when he pronounced the news media the ‘enemy of the people.’ But I can’t in good conscience deny this any more. You are right, and have been right all along.”

Actually there is one kamikaze commenter who should write this but who is banned and I still won’t let his comment stay up even if he does. With that single obnoxious exception, however, yes, that admission would make my year…not that the conclusion shouldn’t have been screamingly obvious to everyone for years.

I was thinking about this as I observed the current unethical news media self-indicting efforts to pretend that the unfolding Minnesota fraud scandal in the Somali community and elsewhere is a footnote to the “real” news. The Times did a relatively thorough report a full month ago; it has been fairly silent since, however, as the full expanse of the fraud scandal has unfolded. Network news has largely ignored the story too. Incredibly, the Minnesota Star-Tribune did not include the scandal in its 2025 list of top news stories. Today in CNN’s list of “Five things” readers should know about, developments in the Minnesota story is nowhere to be seen.

According to Axios, the Somali 9 billion dollar scamming wasn’t one of the top search topics, unlike Bad Bunny and Stephen Colbert (See, you have to know about a topic in order to search for it…well played, “journalists”!) The Hill gives us another classic example today of the oft-mentioned phenomenon that when Democrats have been caught in scandals or misconduct, it is the Republican/MAGA reaction that is the news: “MAGA World zeroes in on Minnesota over fraud scandal.” Other examples this month: The Guardian: “The right wing has seized on fraud cases in the state” and ABC News: “Trump has seized on the ballooning controversy in recent days …”

Other diversionary framing include the panic in the Somali community as ICE cracks down on Minnesota’s large unassimilated community consisting of people whose native culture regards cheating the government as a good thing. “ICE pounces!” is that theme. This is CNN: Anxiety grips Minneapolis’s Somali community as immigration agents zero in on the Twin Cities.

It isn’t only the Somalis: Minnesota, under the watchful eye of knuckleheaded Governor Tim Walz, has a fraud problem throughout its social welfare system. Why is an amateur Youtuber, Nick Shirley, making headlines with his Boy Scout merit badge-level investigative reporting? Where are the pros? Why wasn’t “60 Minutes” on this story like bees on a honeypot? CBS news reported the Somali scandal on December 11, but it’s been crickets since. But Shirley uncovered another Minnesota fraud, a hilarious one, last week: a Somali-owned daycare center with no children and a sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The Quality Learing Center received $4,000,000 from Minnesota taxpayers.

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Unethical Quote of the Day: LA Mayor Karen Bass

“Well, in a way, I think it’s sad….”

—-Astoundingly incompetent LA Mayor Karen Bass, on CNN’s  “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer

She was responding to a CNN report about Hispanic-Americans joining I.C.E. in record numbers. Knowing Bass (see this infuriating idiot’s EA dossier here) and the pro-illegal immigration party she belongs to, can you guess why LA’s woke Mayor thinks the development is “sad”?

Why, they’re betraying their own kind, you see! You know, like when inner city blacks tell police about murderers, muggers and rapists in their neighborhood who are the same color they are. Imagine doing that to your “own kind”!

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A Dead Canary in Our Political Mine: The U.S. Mayor Who Can’t Understand English

I must confess, if you had told me even ten years ago that this was possible in the U.S., I would have laughed heartily. I certainly underestimated the damage to American culture about to be wreaked by the Democratic Party’s open borders lunacy.

The mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Brian DePena requested the assistance of a translator during a court appearance last week.

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BREAKING! I Was Hoaxed Again! “Behold Portland’s Holiday Thing! (How Progressives Get This Way and Can They Be Cured?)” Is Officially Retracted

UPDATE!

Well this is all I needed on a busy day that just included me re-injuring my leg after being pulled off my feet by Spuds. The post below is based on a hoax, and damn the hoaxers to hell. Spreading false stories on the web is unethical, and satire sites are obligated to signal when a post is intended as parody. A few notes:

1. Thanks to the crack EA commentariate for flagging this.

2. The fake story is still up on the usually reliable conservative commentary site Victory Girls, which linked to the fake story I used.

3. I was fooled because first, none of the quotes sounded unlikely given what we have heard and witnessed in Portland in the recent past, and

4. I had never seen a “butt plug” before.I apologize to Ethics Alarms readers and the City of Portland. I try to be careful, but this time I was fooled.

5. Apparently the hoax was inspired by Portland’s city officials this year referring to their annual tree lighting event as just “the tree” or “winter tree,” deliberately omitting the word “Christmas.” Typical dumb Portland wokeness at work: if the hoaxers had only made it clear what they were spoofing, I’d call it a successful and well-deserved satire.

6. I apologize to all, including the City of Portland, for my error.

***

I missed this, which happened about a week ago, in part because I view Portland as a lost cause. You know those zombie apocalypse movies where the survivors will say, sadly, “Boston’s gone, San Diego’s gone”? Portland’s gone, and has been for a long time. I would say it’s Patient Zero for Trump Derangement, woke insanity, anti-Americanism and The Great Stupid, except there are so many other candidates: New York City, California, Minnesota. None of them, however, have descended so far into incompetent cultural madness as Portland, as exemplified by the Christmas, sorry, Holiday Thing the city unveiled this month.

Portland officially replaced its traditional Christmas tree—to be fair, it’s so hard to find evergreen trees in Oregon these days—with that whatever it is above. Officials described the holiday display as “bold,” “inclusive,” and “a meaningful departure from tree-based expectations.”

How far gone do you have to be to utter the words “tree-based expectations” without feeling ridiculous?

City leaders, presumably the same ones who let Black Lives Matter take over parts of the city five year sago, explained the traditional Christmas tree ultimately failed to reflect Portland’s “evolving” relationship with holidays. Thus the “inclusive” replacement, officials said, is intentionally ambiguous, streamlined, and designed to invite interpretation.

I, for example, interpret it as “meaningless, joyless crap.”

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