Incompetent Elected Officials

Signature Significance: Bernie Sanders’ Ignorant Tweet

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Bernie tweet

Yesterday, the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, a long-time member of the United States Senate, tweeted this message to his “followers,” and also, given the nature of Twitter, the nation:

“You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?”

Now, if you don’t instantly recognize why this is an astoundingly ignorant statement, especially for a Presidential candidate running on a platform of economic restructuring, that’s okay. Don’t feel badly. It’s a weekend, you’re probably groggy from all the holiday cheer, and most important of all, you aren’t presuming to hold yourself out as qualified to be President, or constantly lecturing about the evils of capitalism. Sanders is, however, and this cretinous statement is signature significance. Nobody who understands loans, interest, collateral, banking, or economics would say, write or publish such a fatuous statement, even once. This is signature significance: an informed, logical, attentive, competent individual will not make such a bone-headed mistake…never. Sanders, however, has said this at least twice; in October, he tweeted a variation on the same economically ignorant theme:

“It makes no sense that students and their parents pay higher interest rates for college than they pay for car loans or housing mortgages.”

Actually, it does, Senator; it makes perfect sense, unless you are twelve. The concept is called “collateral.” That is something of value that  a lender can take if a borrower defaults on the loan. The deal is interest, plus security, the collateral. A house or a car are tangible collateral, so the interest rate can be lower. When the loan is for college tuition, however, there is no collateral. If the borrower defaults on the loan, the bank can’t take the student’s diploma, or education, or download all of the alleged knowledge the loan paid for from brain to laptop. Of course the interest rate is higher. That is, “of course” if you know anything at all about finance.

The unavoidable and shocking conclusion: Sanders is holding himself out as the leader to revolutionize how the U.S. economy works, stimulate growth and jobs, and show the way to a fairer and more just financial system, yet he is stunningly uninformed about the basics of finance, hasn’t learned a thing in all his years in the Senate, and worse, lacks the diligence to learn what he has an obligation to understand in order to justify having a vote on economic matters in the U.S. Senate, never mind setting policy as President.

This is bad.

Is there any excuse or defense for that tweet? No. Should anyone trust an elected official this ignorant and so lazy and arrogant that he makes no effort to disabuse himself of financial illiteracy? No. Does such a bone-brained misunderstanding mean that no intelligent person should listen to or take seriously any of his pronouncements about the economy? Yes.

To be fair to the Senator, let’s try to find some explanation for this that doesn’t prove that he couldn’t pass Economics 101 at a community college: Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Week (And Worst Christmas Card Of 2015): South Carolina Rep. Christopher Corley

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

xmas card

South Carolina lawmaker Rep. Christopher Corley (R- Aiken) decided to take on the daunting challenge of topping Las Vegas Assemblywoman Michele Fiore’s entry in the “Most Tasteless Christmas Card That Proves Its Republican Politician Author Is An Idiot” competition. You saw that one, right? It  features Fiore, her husband, her adult daughters, their husbands and one of her grandchildren…

michele-fiore-christmas-cards-guns

…holding guns, with a useful note in the corner denoting which models the are each planning on using to bag a reindeer and Santa too, I suppose, since there are ten Fiores.

There is a lot wrong with the card, beginning with the fact that, as the Bible says, there is a time for every season, and regardless of one’s faith or lack of it, this season is and has always been about peace and love, not shooting things. Fiore uses children as props for political grandstanding, which is ugly and an abuse of power.

The card also says “I am an idiot,” but that arguably is a good thing, since as many people should know as possible. (Either her constituents are idiots, or they like them for some reason.) Still, the silly card is relatively harmless, except that Fiore embarrasses her party and gives anti-gun hysterics another excuse to portray all those who resist the obvious progressive goal of banning guns entirely as lunatics.

Corley’s card, however, is much, much worse. Continue reading →

President Obama’s Paris Lie And The Tommyboy Effect

/ Jack Marshall / 81 Comments
No, not THAT Tommyboy, though the photo might not be far off...

No, not THAT Tommyboy, though the photo might not be far off…

In Paris yesterday, President Obama said at a news conference, “I mean, I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings; this just doesn’t happen in other countries.” It’s a jaw-droppingly false and irresponsible statement, especially since where he made it was just devastated by multiple mass shootings, with ISIS-affiliated terrorists killing random victims in public places with automatic rifles. Just one mass shooting at the Bataclan theater took almost a hundred lives.

The Volokh Conspiracy (now under the auspices of The Washington Post),  as other fact-checking columns have done previously with similar assertions of this sort as Obama has demagogued the gun control issue, definitively rated the statement false:

Is the president’s statement about “other countries” accurate? No. For example, on Nov. 20, 2015, mass shooters attacked a hotel in Mali, murdering at least 19 people.

Although President Obama has relatives in Kenya, his statement suggests a lack of awareness of events there. On April 2, 2015, criminals murdered 142 students at the University College Campus of Garissa, in northeastern Kenya. Among the other mass shootings in Kenya in recent years are those as Lamu (29 murdered, July 5-6, 2014), Mpeketoni (53 murdered, June 15-17, 2014),  Majembeni and Poromoko (15 murdered, two days after Mpekoni) and the Westgate Mall in Nairobi (67 murdered, Sept. 21, 2013)…On Saturday, Boko Haram attackers murdered four people in Nigeria, and four more in Niger. Last weekend, four Egyptian policemen were murdered in a drive-by shooting. As reported by CBS News the day before Thanksgiving, “Two massacres that killed 15 people in less than 12 hours rocked Honduras and left the country’s top cop in tears on Wednesday”…Suppose we accept the president’s implicit premise that “other countries” includes only the most-developed countries of the West. With this limitation, what is the accuracy of his statement that “these mass shootings; this just doesn’t happen in other countries”? Plainly false, especially considering that the president was speaking in Paris, the site of multiple mass shootings on Nov. 13 and of the Charlie Hebdo mass shootings in January.

Of course it’s false. It is also, to be blunt, stupid, given the locale, and also unpresidential for a leader to be criticizing one’s own nation overseas (but we are used to that from Obama.)

More interesting to me was the phenomenon I observed over at Mediaite, where the comments almost invariably disintegrate into simple-minded-talking points, rationalizations and name-calling. A significant group of commenters, led by a snide, arrogant Obama defender calling himself “Tommyboy,” argued that only hateful, biased, “Repugs” could find fault with Obama’s statement. He didn’t literally mean that “this” doesn’t happen in other countries. Only fools could argue that he meant that, because it would be nonsense, especially given the locale. He’s a smart guy, so he would never say something stupid.

Later, Tommyboy’s proof was that Obama always uses this hyperbole, and thus it is an act of hate and bias to take the words to mean what the words do. Interesting theory: as long as a politician always uses the same misleading words, we should assume that he’s not trying to mislead. Continue reading →

An Ethics Mystery: Why Can’t Democrats Be Honest Or Responsible Regarding The Syrian Refugees??

/ Jack Marshall / 82 Comments
"Repeat after me: WE CAN SCREEN THE SYRIAN REFUGEES! THERE IS NO DANGER! NO DANGER"

“Repeat after me: WE CAN SCREEN THE SYRIAN REFUGEES! THERE IS NO DANGER! NO DANGER”

The question of whether to accept Syrian refugees is not, or should not be, a partisan one. It’s simple logic, duty and priorities, as I wrote here. A needy group has an unknown component of deadly members capable of killing Americans. Until or unless those members can be identified and separated from that group, it would be irresponsible to admit them into the country. The Paris bombing vividly illustrated the risk of ignoring these facts. So why are Democrats and their pundit allies making statements attacking those who acknowledge them? You know, just because they are conservatives and Republicans who tend to think that all of President Obama’s policies are misguided doesn’t mean they can’t be right occasionally.

I have been searching for a single persuasive, fact-based argument that justifies the risk of accepting thousands of Syrians. In fact, I have been searching for one that wasn’t dishonest, an appeal to emotion over reality, or a cheap excuse to engage in race-baiting, now the Democratic Party’s favorite pastime.

I’d love to hear one. I’d love to be convinced. If the nation can take in the suffering refugees without vastly increasing the chance of a bomb going off in the a restaurant I’m eating with my family, hurray!

Such arguments just aren’t there, however. Instead we are hearing: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: President George H.W. Bush

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Bush watchThe big news on the Bush-bashing front is that Papa Bush, #41, has a biography coming out next week, and section released by the publisher shows that he didn’t care much for his son’s (#43) staff, as well as containing other critiques.

To begin with, Bush I is a selfish jerk for allowing his biography to be released during the 2016 campaign, when it can only be used as a weapon against his sons and his party. His publishers want that, of course, because it means sales, and other than the campaign controversy angle I cannot imagine a one-term President whose biography anyone but family members would be less interested in reading. Benjamin Harrison, maybe. (But I’ve actually read not one biography of Ben, but three: Harry J. Sievers’s three-volume biography of Harrison, published between 1952 and 1968. It wasn’t my idea.) Bush, however, doesn’t need the money. His ego has obviously swallowed his common sense and loyalty, or he is being manipulated in his dotage.

That’s one obnoxious feature of the book. The worst, however, is this passage from the Times story describing a section in which Bush confesses that nearly didn’t run for re-election: Continue reading →

Debate Questions No Democrat Will Ever Be Asked (1): “You and President Obama Claim That Climate Change Is Settled Science To The Extent That The United States Should Burden Industry With Expensive And Job Threatening Mandates To Curb It. Explain Your Certitude On This Despite NASA’s Discovery That Antarctica Is Actually Gaining Ice?”

/ Jack Marshall / 69 Comments

antarctica

The recent report from NASA regarding increasing levels of ice in Antarctica shows beyond any reasonable doubt that climate science is not “settled.” Any scientist who says so is playing politics,  lying, or both; any politician who says so is not very bright or lying. If the science were settled, NASA, whose leadership has crossed many lines of honesty and objectivity by over-hyping climate change research, would not publish studies whose authors have explain them by saying  things like this, from Jay Zwally, NASA glaciologist and lead author of the study:

…”The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”

…In noting that it could take only a few decades for the ice melt in Antarctica to outweigh the ice gains: “I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”

…“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge. Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica; there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”

Does that sound “settled” to you? Continue reading →

Marco Rubio Better Have An Explanation For This Unethical Statement Other Than The Obvious Ones

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
Seen on Sen. Rubio's Senate office door...

Seen on Sen. Rubio’s Senate office door…

The obvious ones would be:

  • Because I can.
  • Because I lack integrity.
  • Because I’m as immature as I look.

I can’t make the Rubio quote making the rounds this morning an Ethics Alarms “Unethical Quote of the Month,” because it occurred, we are told by the Washington Post, on the evening of September 18 during the last Republican candidates’ debate. Why didn’t I pick up on Rubio’s statement then? I don’t know: no one else did either, based on a Google search.  I guess when there are 11 GOP candidates embarrassing themselves and their party seriatim (By the way, did you know that the WordPress spellcheck program says that the word I wanted to type there is “Maserati’?), it’s easy to miss a few outrageous statements.

Anyway,here is what Sen. Rubio said, however, after being chided by Donald Trump for missing so many Senate votes:

“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection.”

The front page Washington Post story says that Rubio is frustrated with the unresponsiveness of the U.S. Senate to his attempted leadership:

Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator. And he just can’t stand it anymore.

“I don’t know that ‘hate’ is the right word,” Rubio said in an interview. “I’m frustrated.”

This year, as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate — the very place that cemented him as a national politician — as a place he’s given up on, after less than one term. It’s too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It’s the White House or bust…Rubio had arrived at one of the least ambitious moments in Senate history and saw many of his ideas fizzle. Democrats killed his debt-cutting plans. Republicans killed his immigration reform. The two parties actually came together to kill his AGREE Act, a small-bore, hands-across-the-aisle bill that Rubio had designed just to get a win on something.

Now, he’s done. “He hates it,” a longtime friend from Florida said, speaking anonymously to say what Rubio would not.

So Rubio is missing votes in the Senate because he hates his job?

That’s not exactly indicative of trustworthy character, not just for national leadership but for any position, including busboy. He ran for the job, got it, is being paid for it, and if it isn’t as much fun or as rewarding as he thought it would be, tough. Rubio still has an obligation to fulfill his duties as best he can. Who gets to goof off at work because he or she doesn’t like a job or is “frustrated”? Just Marco Rubio, it seems. Leaders have to be role-models and ethical exemplars. Rubio is modelling the “stop doing the job if you’re not good at it but still collect your paycheck” approach to the workplace. Who does he think he is?

Barack Obama? Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Joe Biden, The Republicans, And The Lawn Chair Test”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
"Cheer up!" said the voice. "Things could be worse!" So I cheered up, and, sure enough, things got worse!

“Cheer up!” said the Voice. “Things could be worse!” So I cheered up, and, sure enough, things got worse…

This will be the second Presidential election for Ethics Alarms. As I learned in the first one (2012), keeping politics out of the posts and discussion are futile. Nonetheless, I will work to stay away from policy debates unless there is clear ethical content,  as  with illegal immigration, abortion, income distribution or gun control. Leadership is the second topic that Ethics Alarms encompasses, in part because character and the ethical handling of power are so important to ethical leadership. Competence is also an important component. An indirect message of the recent post about Joe Biden was that the United States, though it always needs competent leadership in the White House, needs it even more than usual, and potential candidates for the job do not appear to have it.

Veteran Ethics Alarms commenter Michael R has delivered a useful and troubling addendum to what I wrote. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post Joe Biden, The Republicans, And The Lawn Chair Test: Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: President Romney

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

President-Mitt-Romney-mock-up

As Ethics Quizzes go, this one is a little different.

Conservative political writer Matthew DesOrmeaux has written essay titled “Here’s What Would Be Happening if President Romney Had Bombed a Hospital in Afghanistan…”.  Here is the key section:

If Romney had been elected in 2012 and in the year before his reelection campaign had bombed a hospital, decided to keep troops in Afghanistan, and had details of his robot assassin program leaked, things would probably look a little different today.

If Romney were president right now, the White House would be surrounded by protesters and candlelight peace vigils night and day. Some would wave American flags, some would wave signs calling for impeachment, some would have pictures caricaturing the president as Hitler or an animal. They would chant “Not in our name!”, or “Bring them home!”, or “Hey ho, hey ho, Romney has got to go!”

If Romney were president, nightly news reports on CBS, NBC, and ABC would have regular features on war crimes, quagmires, and collateral damage. CNN would be wall-to-wall with team coverage of protests, interviews of bombing witnesses, and Anderson Cooper walking through rubble in full body armor.

If Romney were president, every political analyst left of Judge Napolitano would be fretting over the war-weary public turning the upcoming election into a referendum against the president and his party. Vox and FiveThirtyEight would have maps showing how many Senate seats Republicans would lose because of the president’s sure-to-plummet approval rating. And then there’s MSNBC.

If Romney were president, MSNBC would be holding mock war crimes tribunals on Chris Hayes, explaining the ins and outs of the process with expert guests. Lena Dunham would be on Maddow every night aghast (but still giggling!) at this warmonger-in-chief. Chris Matthews would be yelling at Michael Moore, trying to find out when charges would be filed at the Hague.

If Romney were president, Democrats in Congress would be calling for hearings and investigations for each transgression: the bombing, troop levels, and drone policy. Chuck Schumer would hold daily press briefings scolding the reckless president from behind the glasses perched precariously down his nose. Someone would accurately quote Sheila Jackson-Lee condemning the terrible bombing of the “orphanage in Pakistan”.

But Mitt Romney isn’t president, Barack Obama is, so no one cares.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is….

Are these fair assumptions?

Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Week: Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

bob_brady_pope

From the Washington Times:

“As Congress members rushed to touch Pope Francis after Thursday’s historic address on the House floor, Rep. Bob Brady reportedly made a beeline for the podium to swipe the Holy Father’s discarded water glass.

The Pennsylvania congressman immediately took a sip out of the glass and brought it back to his office, ABC News reported…

“The congressman is a Catholic and has immense respect for the Holy Father,” Rep. Brady’s Chief of Staff Stan White told ABC.

His office confirmed that Mr. Brady drank from the water and shared it with members of his staff and his wife, Debra Brady…The congressman kept the remainder of the water and plans to sprinkle it on his grandchildren, Mr. White said.”

Actually, I don’t know what to call this conduct.  Creepy? Superstitious? Embarrassing? Unsanitary? Silly? Bizarre? Funny? Deranged?

Incompetent will just have to suffice.

Does every glass the Pope drinks from become like the Holy Grail? I’d be careful, if I were were the Congressman…

Brady’s antics make the entire government look foolish. There’s religious belief, and there is irrational conduct. One doesn’t have to lead to the other, but such a display should cause serious voters to pause and wonder whether a man who acts like this belongs in a high office, or even a not so high office.

What an idiot.

UPDATE: After I posted this about an hour ago and had to run an errand, I began wondering whether Brady’s reverence for the Pope, which seems to extend to a belief that his lips are magic, also extends to accepting Catholic doctrine and what the Pope advocates, at least when these don’t conform to the Democratic Party’s platform. Here are Brady’s votes on abortion. A summary: Brady has voted for the most extreme pro-abortion positions. Reconcile that, if you will, with his water glass stunt.

I cannot comprehend Catholics who embrace this kind of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance, nor can I respect any voter who would observe Brady and say, “Now there’s a man of integrity, wisdom and judgment!”