Yes, she’s the 23-year-old daughter of Minnesota’s lawless, incompetent, anti-First Amendment governor, whom the Democratic Party tried to inflict on the nation as a Vice-President.
“Gun control doesn’t just save Democrats’ lives, it also saves Republican lives. You’d think we’d be at a point now where we could call for some common-sense legislation, but, I don’t know. I don’t know.
“Also here to say that political violence is never okay. Duh. That’s the difference between us and them. It’s never okay. But there’s something we can do about it…common-sense gun legislation. … We should do something about that for everybody’s sake. For everybody’s sake. Yeah, happy Tuesday. Feeling a little anxious today, but we’re gonna get through it.”
“Common sense gun control” is, as EA has noted many times, a stand-in for “Do something!” as well as “I got nuthin.” It is amazing that anyone who resorts to such non-substantive cant is ever taken seriously. Idiots like Hope can’t articulate any measures short of banning all guns and confiscating them from lawful purchasers that would stop nuts like the guy who tried to shoot up the White House Correspondents Dinner…and even that wouldn’t stop law breakers—you know, criminals— from breaking the law to get guns.
Yet how many friends and associates do we all have who might read Hope’s nonsense and mutter, “How true, how true…”?
Judge Zia Faruqui, a D.C. magistrate, apologized to White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter Cole Tomas Allen. Allen is the “alleged” would-be assassin of President Trump and other officials. This is one of the more ridiculous use of “alleged”: technically appropriate because he is “presumed innocent,” ridiculous because he was caught on camera, apprehended at the scene, and wrote a message describing what he intended to do and why.
Judge Faruqui apologized for what he called the “legally deficient” treatment Allen received in jail, where the shooter was placed on suicide watch, separated from other inmates, and denied access to a Bible.
“Whatever you’ve been through, I apologize,” the judge said, adding, “Right now, it’s not working. It’s insufficient. I think it’s legally deficient.”
Jeanine Pirro, United States attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote on X, “Welcome to Washington, DC, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Faruqui believes a defendant armed to the teeth and attempting to assassinate the President is entitled to preferential treatment in his confinement compared to every other defendant.” Faruqui compared Allen’s treatment with that of the January 6, 2021 rioters at the US Capitol, as he claimed they were treated more fairly despite displaying what the judge called comparable conduct. “I’m fascinated and disturbed,” he said.
So am I. That anyone could compare a failed Presidential assassin to those drunken fools who stormed the Capitol is indeed disturbing. The suggestion reeks of the false Axis “insurrection” narrative. There is no valid comparison to be made. As many have pointed out, Allen’s pre-attack message made it clear that he was expecting to die in his planned assault. Suicide watch was an obvious precaution, and so was keeping him isolated. Actual and would-be Presidential assassins who died before trial have caused confusion, conspiracy theories and chaos.
Suggesting an equivalency between angry MAGA boobs who thought they were trying to stop a corrupted election result and someone out to murder the President is smoking gun evidence of wild partisan bias. “You right-wingers trespassed and fought with the police, and we Trump Deranged tried to murder the President and his Cabinet. What’s the difference?” Ask Abe Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and Jack Kennedy, jerk.
We have a frightening level of incompetent, biased, unethical judges in the U.S. Surveys show that public trust in the judiciary is cratering. That’s a dangerous trend, but based on how judges have been behaving lately, it is a justified one.
I watched “The Caine Mutiny” last night with a friend who had never seen it. I realized that I had written during Donald Trump’s first term about how the rebuke Navy lawyer Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer) delivers to the acquitted mutineers fit 2019’s “resistance” like the proverbial glove. It fits today’s Axis of Unethical Conduct even better. I’ll have some brief comments after the post.
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Turner Movie Classics ran “The Caine Mutiny” again last night. It reminded me of what I wrote two years ago, when I really didn’t think that the “resistance” and the Democrats would continue on the destructive path they have for this long. I even wrote, foolishly, “This is the last time I’m going to try to explain why the fair, patriotic, ethical and rational approach to the impending Presidency of Donald Trump is to be supportive of the office and the individual until his actual performance in the job earns just criticism. Attempting to undermine a Presidency at its outset is a self-destructive act, for nobody benefits if a Presidency fails.” Of course, it was far from the last time I returned to the topic. In my defense, how could I know, at a point where the term “the resistance” hadn’t even surfaced yet, that the unparalleled assault on a President would not only continue, but escalate to the point where a newly minted Congresswoman would announce to a cheering mob, “We’re going to impeach the motherfucker!”?
Watching the movie, however, was striking. I know it well; I can recite many of the lines from memory. Yet the parallel with the Trump Presidency struck me smore powerfully than ever before, and sent me back to that previous post, in which I wrote,
“In The Caine Mutiny, a film version of the stage drama and novel “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,” Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart), a man whose war-shattered nerves and self-esteem problems have rendered him an erratic and an unpopular officer, falters in his command during a storm. His officers, frightened and already convinced that their captain is unfit for command, mutiny. At their military trial, their defense attorney causes Queeg to have a breakdown on the witness stand, winning the case for the accused mutineers. Later, however, at the post trial victory party, the lawyer, Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer), shames his clients. He represented them zealously, but he tells them that they were, in fact, at fault for what occurred on the Caine:
Ensign Keith: Queeg endangered the lives of the men.
Greenwald: He didn’t endanger any lives.You did. A fine bunch of officers.
Lt. Paynter: You said yourself he cracked.
Greenwald: I’m glad you brought that up, Mr. Paynter, because that’s a very pretty point. I left out one detail in court. It wouldn’t have helped our case. Tell me, Steve, after the yellow-stain business, Queeg came to you for help, and you turned him down, didn’t you.
Lt. Maryk: Yes, we did.
Greenwald: You didn’t approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn’t worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You ragged on him, you made up songs about him. If you’d given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you think all this would have come up in the typhoon? You’re an honest man, Steve, I’m asking you. You think it would have been necessary to take over?
Maryk: It probably wouldn’t have been necessary.
Keith: If that’s true, we were guilty.
Greenwald: Ahhh, You’re learning, Willie! You don’t work with the captain because of how he parts his hair…you work with him because he’s got the job, or you’re no good.
Exactly.
Or you’re no good.
Donald Trump is in over his head. He knows it, I think. Maybe, just maybe, with a lot of help, a lot of support and more than a lot of luck, he might be able to do a decent job for his country and the public. It’s a long-shot, but what’s the alternative? Making sure that he fails? Making him feel paranoid, and angry, and feeding his worst inclinations so he’s guaranteed to behave irrationally and irresponsibly? How is that in anyone’s best interest? That’s not how to get someone through a challenge, especially someone who you have to depend on.
In the weekend’s interview on The Steven Speirer Show, I explained the distinction between morality and ethics in part by noting that ethics, unlike morality, is constantly evolving over time, and thus requires constant reflection and reassessment. This was the theory behind my now defunct professional theater company in Northern Virginia, The American Century Theater, which revived older American plays and musicals now considered “dated” by the theater community. Old art is never dated, because we have to know where we have been in order to understand how we got where we are and where we are going.
A fascinating time capsule in this vein is “Bye Bye Birdie,” the 1963 film of the hit 1961 Broadway musical. That show, the “Grease” of its generation, was a current events satire of the rock idol phenomenon, inspired by the cultural uproar when Elvis Presley, at the peak of his first wave popularity, was drafted. The Broadway show launched the careers of Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde, and included several hits songs (“Put on a Happy Face,” “I’ve Got a Lot of Living To Do,” and others by Adams and Strouse, who later wrote “Applause” and “Annie”) as well as one of the most famous opening numbers in musical theater history, “The Telephone Hour.”
For a number of reasons, I was moved to watch the movie again for the first time since I saw it in a movie theater. Naturally, when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I’ve got some other tools to evaluate performance art, but the ethical issues raised by the film are many.
Most notably, the casting of Janet Leigh in the role of Rosie DeLeon, struggling songwriter Dick Van Dyke’s long-suffering girlfriend, would be castigated today. The role on Broadway was played by Chita Rivera, and this was considered a break-through: no Latina had ever played the romantic lead in a musical before. Rivera was already a major stage star and was nominated for a Tony for her performance as Rosie, but while Dick Van Dyke and Lynde from the original cast were carried over to the film version, Rivera was replaced by Janet Leigh of “Psycho” fame, in an unbecoming black wig.
Leigh was a movie star and considered good for the box office, and Rivera was not movie close-up beautiful by Hollywood standards. Nevertheless, this would be called “whitewashing” today. Rivera was crushed by the decision, but such injustices in the translation of shows from stage to screen were and still are standard practice, one of the most famous being Audrey Hepburn taking Julie Andrews’ place as Eliza in the movie version of “My Fair Lady.”
Naturally the New York Times did its best to make the case that the 6-3 majority decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which I wrote about last week here, was an example of the political Right denying the reality that the United States remains a racist society requiring special protection (and privileges) for African American citizens. Its “best” was pathetic; indeed I’m amazed an editor didn’t 86 the piece because it was so self-refuting.
The headline is “Behind Voting Rights Case, a Clash Over the Reality of Racism” (Gift link!) The subhead reads, “The Supreme Court ruling said there must be proof that a racial group was “intentionally” disadvantaged. The dissent called it ‘well-nigh impossible.’” How anyone could objectively think the wan, confirmation bias argument Times reporter Richard Fausset puts forth could be persuasive to a reader who hadn’t already made up his or her mind that the decision was, as one of my Trump Deranged Facebook friends wrote, a disastrous blow to “legal provisions that for 60 years have helped ensure that you could not be denied political representation because of your race” is beyond me.
The mordantly amusing question Fausset poses to frame his analysis is “Has anti-Black racism eased, or has discrimination against African Americans simply become more subtle, disguised as a web of rules embedded in regular partisan politics?” It’s risible because he correctly describes the Southern racism that the 1965 Voting Rights laws thusly: “Senator James Eastland, a Democrat from Mississippi who wanted to kill the landmark legislation, once openly stated that Black people were an “an inferior race.” During his 1963 inauguration speech, Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama, a Democrat, infamously declared, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In the early Sixties, black churches were burned and the KKK was still active in parts of the South. Three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi in 1964.
A very good friend whom I respect tremendously (but who lives in a bubble: he is a theater artist) just posted on Facebook:
“I’m heartsick that the Supreme Court–in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines–has now thoroughly gutted the Voting Rights Act. The right-wing majority has just upended legal provisions that for 60 years have helped ensure that you could not be denied political representation because of your race. Republicans will now be free to gerrymander districts with the intent of minimizing Black representation. It’s a disgraceful decision, undoing one of the major accomplishments of the Civil Rights Era.”
Naturally this standard issue progressive lament received immediate hosannas and replies about evil Republicans and racist SCOTUS Justices. Neither my friend, who is not a lawyer, nor any of the angry commenters had read the opinions in the decisions, and it was obvious from their content. I have read the decision and the opinions in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down a clearly racially motivated Louisiana gerrymander. I also discern that only the dissenters, the Wise Latina, the DEI black female, and the smart lesbian who apparently feels obligated to back her progressive sisters even when they are dead wrong, decided on their position based on ideology and partisan loyalty. The six Justices in the majority decided the case based on the law and reality.
The ignorance and bias of the non-lawyers attacking the decision is depressing. Yes, the Voting Rights Act was one of the major accomplishments of the Civil Rights Era, based on the conditions that prevailed during that era. 1965 was 62 years ago. The civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi ( the core of the film “Mississippi Burning”) died in 1964, the year before. To understate the case, Southern states are different now, but Democrats have been using the outdated formulas prescribed in a 1965 law to justify anti-white racial discrimination to this day.
In the majority opinion, Justice Alito correctly wrote,
“The question before us now is whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short list of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimination. To answer that question, we must understand exactly what §2 of the Voting Rights Act demands with respect to the drawing of legislative districts…. §2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race…. In [Rucho], we held that claims of partisan gerrymandering are not justiciable in federal court. The upshot of Rucho was that, as far as federal law is concerned, a state legislature may use partisan advantage as a factor in redistricting. And litigants cannot circumvent that rule by dressing their political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb…. [T]he Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, [so] no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8….”
The whole opinion is worth reading. If one is going to opine publicly about how terrible the decision is, it has to be read: one is ethically obligated to know what the decision was and what the law is supporting it before offering criticism. None of those fuming over the case had read the decision, and neither had my friend. They just listened to MSNOW and read indignant protests by race-hustlers like Barack Obama. They are exactly like George Costanza in a memorable “Seinfeld” episode where he is too lazy to read “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” for his book club so he watches the movie instead. That George! What a lazy idiot. How could he think the movie would be an accurate version of the book?
I asked everyone on the thread whether they had bothered to read what they were condemning and being “heartsick” about. Crickets.
I was hoping that Ethics Alarms history buff and house deep-diver would weigh in on the latest Presidential assassination attempt, and he didn’t disappoint.
What makes me wonder is that the Secret Service didn’t appear to have run everyone staying in the hotel at the time of the event through whatever databases they had. The would-be assassin didn’t have a criminal record, but recent firearms purchases might have popped, which might have made them look again, see that he hadn’t gone through airport-level security, and made them at least check him out. Be that as it may, there is pretty clear evidence of intent here, between the manifesto, the carefully managed trip, and the hotel stay.
This actually makes four tries for Trump, if you count the one before he was elected the first time where the guy tried to grab a security guard’s gun but got grabbed before he could do much. We still know probably the least about Crooks, the guy who came the closest in Butler, PA, because he was shot and killed at the scene and he didn’t leave a clear paper trail.
I’m aware that few of the presidents were universally popular, and that a lot were divisive and had strong opposition. Andrew Jackson was disliked enough (especially in the Carolinas) that three people tried to kill him, although only one while he was president. Lincoln of course was killed by a Confederate bitter-ender (there were supposedly four other attempts to kill him, including one to kill him as he took the train to his inauguration). Garfield was killed by someone clearly crackers. McKinley was shot dead by an anarchist. Taft, Hoover, FDR, and Truman were all targeted for one reason or another. The two PR independence activists who tried for Truman killed a White House policeman. The anarchist who tried for FDR failed but did get the mayor of Chicago. Then of course there is the murder of JFK, the shooting of Reagan, and failed attempts on the next four presidents. As far as I know, Biden was never targeted.
Most of the presidential assassins and would-be assassins were either insane (Guiteau, Hinckley) or extremists of a lost cause or a cause that never was (Booth, Czolgocz, others). There’s nothing insane about this guy. Either that or most of the Democratic Party has gone over the edge. I don’t think that’s the case, though. A lot of it is just cold hate and arrogance. It’s easy to hate someone in the heat of anger. If you still hate someone when the heat of anger has cooled down, or if you were never all that angry when you decided to hate that person, that’s really a problem.
It’s completely normal to dislike Trump. It’s completely normal to believe that his policies are the wrong ones. It’s completely normal to think he is leading the country in the wrong direction. All of that is at least reasonably debatable and there is room for disagreement. It’s not normal to believe Trump is a pedophile, there is no evidence of that, and in fact there’s more evidence that Biden is (getting too close to young girls, showering with his daughter). It’s not normal to believe Trump is a rapist, there are no findings of any court convicting him of that. It’s not normal to believe Trump is a traitor, because if he could have been charged with treason they had four years to do it in.
That’s a gift link to this head-exploding piece: “‘The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?’ ” That states pretty clearly an example of Rationalizations #1, #2, and #2a on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List: 1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it,” 2Whataboutism, or “They’re Just as Bad“and 2 A. Sicilian Ethics, or “They had it coming.” These rationalizations aren’t so high on the list by random chance. They are near the top because they are ancient, popular, invalid and obvious rationalizations that have been rotting society for thousands of years. Yet the New York Times thinks its worth pondering whether such anti-ethical reasoning is justified.
I hate to repeat myself, but this exemplifies how today’s Left thinks.
Left-wing “influencer” Hasan Piker and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino did a video interview with culture editor Nadja Spiegelman on “the ethics of theft.”
[Pssst! There is no “ethics of theft.” Theft is both unethical and immoral, as well as illegal (you know, that Ten Commandments thingy).] This is a podcast that should have lasted,oh, ten seconds or less. Nadja begins with this fatuous intro: “I’m proposing a new term: Microlooting. People are taking small things from big corporations and they’re feeling justified. But is it a slippery slope? What’s going on with our moral code?”
Of course it’s a slippery slope, and if you even have to ask that question, you’re too clueless to moderate the topic!
Ah, new and different ways to cheat! Is this a great country, or what?
Kalshi is an online prediction gambling operation where users can bet on everything from how long the government shutdown will last to Oscar winners to what show will top Netflix’s streaming numbers in a given week. Naturally political bets are particularly popular.
And, also naturally, some users will try to cheat by betting on matters they have some control over or insider information about. Last week Kalshi slapped down and fined three political candidates who tried to bet on their own races: Mark Moran, an independent running for U.S. Senate in Virginia, Ezekiel Enriquez, a former Republican congressional candidate in Texas, and Matt Klein, a Democratic Minnesota state senator who is running for Congress.
Kalshi’s head of enforcement and legal counsel said that the sanctions are part of Kalshi’s “proactive engineering solutions” to “identify illicit trading activity.” Kalshi’s rules were recently updated to ban politicians from betting on their own candidacies. I see no difference between a candidate doing this and a baseball player (like the late Pete Rose) betting for or against his own teams. The New York Times fatuously writes, “It’s unclear if they were trading in a manner that was relying on inside information.” What? By definition the bets were based on inside information: every candidate is an insider regarding his or her own race! What if the candidate knows a personal scandal is ready to break? What if he or she knows money is running out, or the campaign’s polls look dire?
Ethics Alarms 