Ken White, once a brilliant, analytical libertarian blogger and an Ethics Alarms Blogger of the Year, has been so corroded by Trump Derangement that he managed to get himself banned from Bluesky for the unhinged post above.
The fact that Ken would stoop to being on Bluesky at all, since it is the most censorious of social media platforms, was already shocking, but that junk above is worthy of people like Bette Midler and Sunny Hostin, whose combined IQs wouldn’t equal what Ken White’s used to be.
How could this happen? I am put in mind of the Eugene Ionesco play “Rhinoceros,” in which people in a small French town start inexplicably turning into the dumb, snorting, horned beasts. It happened to Ken and Curmie…who’s next?
Taylor Swift’s extravagant-to-the-point-of madness wedding to Travis Kelce on July 3 was estimated to cost somewhere between $30 and $40 million dollars. The grotesque orgy of self-promotion and conspicuous consumption was a days-long celebration at Madison Square Garden with over 1,000 guests (the couple’s closest friends, of course), most of them also millionaires, and featured performances by the kinds of top musicians who refused to celebrate our 250th Anniversary because Trump Bad. The thing required $160,000 just for New York City street closures, permits and police.
Renting Madison Square Garden and transforming the arena for the ceremony and reception cost an estimated $5 million to $10 million. Another $5 million went to flowers and decorations. Catering was about $3 million.
Oh, and we must not forget about the lottery! The wedding featured an hour-long luxury raffle with prizes including Chanel handbags, Cartier watches and a vintage 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. The mostly celebrity guests earned raffle tickets by playing skee-ball, mini golf, and football-themed carnival games.
I’m not making this up. I wish I were.
Now, me, I couldn’t care less how rich people choose to throw away their money. An exercise in “See, everybody, we’re RICH!RICH I SAY!“
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
…is repulsive and doesn’t reflect well on the perps, but as an exercise in egotism, narcissism and waste, it’s relatively harmless.
What does bother me is that the same people who will crowd into Taylor Swift concerts and buy her records will then frequent No Kings rallies when no one has emulated the excesses of 18th Century royalty like Swift and her NFL star hubby, then cheer on Bernie and his fellow travelers as they attack Elon Musk, who never in his life as a billionaire or trillionaire or whatever he is has ever spent his money as stupidly and selfishly as the Swifts. Musk actually builds, invests, and creates jobs with his money.
Hypocrisy doesn’t begin to describe how perverse this double standard is.
Once again, the U.S. has inexcusably trivialized its government by suddenly reverting to the principles of a hereditary monarchy. This tendency is deeply embedded apparently, and the Adams, Harrison, Bush and, of course Kennedy families have taken full, indeed excessive, advantage of it. Why do we let them? Because, unfortunately, the American public is largely too lazy, reflexive and dumb to operate a republic competently, as we are reminded every day.
Rushing to let a female relative replace a dead member of Congress or a governor, as so many have in our history, is particularly foolish. Historians and others have tried to mitigate the stupidity by emphasizing that this was one of the most effective ways for women to get political power in the U.S. when they were largely unrepresented. That is like saying women becoming Senators, House member and state governors through cooking competitions makes cooking competitions a good way to select leaders. Diane Kincaid, a political scientist who studied the topic in the 1970s, wrote, “statistically, at least, for women aspiring to serve in Congress, the best husband has been a dead husband.” Twenty-five years later, scholarsLisa Solowiej and Thomas L. Brunell concurred that it “is arguably the single most important historical method for women to enter Congress.”
Forty women became members of the House of Representatives as successors to their dead husbands, with only one doing it by election with her husband still alive, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI). Widows were appointed to succeed their dead U.S. Senator husbands in 1931, 1936, 1948, twice in 1978, 1992, and 2001. Neither party is the greater offender: both have done it too many times, and once was too many. It doesn’t make the tradition more tolerable or ethical that now and then the female family member turned out to be reasonably competent: that’s moral luck. A U.S. Senator chosen by throwing an egg into a crowd might also turn out to be good one. It doesn’t make throwing eggs a responsible way to pick members of Congress.
Just three women have taken over the state house from their husbands. I guess people take the post of governor a bit more seriously.
Until today, however, just being the sister or brother of a dead member of Congress has never been a ticket to the halls of power. All of this is preface to stating here that the appointment of the late Senator Lindsey Davis’s sister Darline to replace him is indefensibly lazy, foolish, irresponsible and unethical. Here is how our ethics-savvy President broached the topic on Truth Social:
Several friends accuse me of going down rabbit holes too often, hence my scattered, random, unfocused life.
One of the films I was considering for the post “Twenty-Five Indispensable Movies For Understanding American Culture” is “Bad Day at Black Rock,” a strange, almost surreal 1955 drama directed by John Sturgis, who loved ensemble casts (“The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape” were two of his best.) I had watched the film a few times, first as a teenager, and found it vaguely disturbing each time. When the movie didn’t make the cut, I decided to watch it again. It still is disturbing.
The movie is often called a “neo-Western.” I never thought of it as a Western (and you know me and Westerns) but finally I see the point. It takes place in the West, the town looks like one of the ramshackle collections of run-down buildings I associate with Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, and the plot could have easily been transferred to the 1880s with Randolph Scott as the protagonist. A stranger comes to a California desert town on a train that almost never stops there, and everyone starts acting paranoid. Obviously the residents have a dark secret. What is it?
Instead of Randolph Scott we have Spencer Tracy playing the stranger, a World War II veteran with a disabled arm. It’s late 1945, and he has come on a mission of kindness and respect: the father of a young soldier who saved his life and died in the process lives nearby (or at least that’s what he thought) and the stranger, named John Macreedy, wants to give the father the soldier’s medal of valor in person. Tracy never was in a Western, but he was used to playing idealists with a mission of principle. “Bad Day at Black Rock” pits him against an all-star team of sinister villains (Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine) and conflicted “I don’t want to get involved” weenies with guilty consciences (Walter Brennan, the town doctor, and Dean Jagger, the weak and alcoholic sheriff). The movie gives off a weird, unrealistic vibe similar to “High Noon,” though in this movie the good guy comes to town on the train, he is outnumbered by the villains, and is a bit more successful, in the end, in convincing some residents with consciences to help him.
I don’t want to give you more plot details; one of the reasons the film works is that the audience is so slowly let in on the conspiracy afoot. There are these ethics and cultural lessons on display, however:
1. “Bad Day” was the first film to confront the issue of the American mistreatment of Japanese Americans in response to Pearl Harbor, though it is done in a deliberately indirect way.
2. A harsh lesson of the film is that hate, frustration and patriotism can turn good people into monsters.
3. The ravages of conscience are prominently on display. This is how secrets get exposed and conspiracies fall apart.
4. It’s a lesson taught in so many movies but still an important one: a single bold soul willing to do the right thing at personal risk can change anything, because he or she can stiffen the resolve of the less intrepid who witness the act. Or, in the alternative, the bold one gets crushed.
5. Alcohol has fueled so many tragedies and tales of destruction in America, it is amazing to me that anyone paying attention calls Prohibition anything but a noble effort to fix a problem gone horribly wrong.
6. American anger and resentment against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, and the excesses it spawned, should be taught in schools, and if that is too much to ask (you know, like teaching students to read), then at least show them “Bad Day at Black Rock.”
That withdrawal statement is the water mark of a babbling moron. A vote for this guy was a vote for dignity? When has Platner ever demonstrated a shred of dignity, including in this withdrawal letter? He’s also borderline illiterate: “Jobs they can raise families on“? “This broken system to be righted“? “This American experiment to be furthered“? Well, at least we know Platner writes his own stuff.
Also: What “movement“? The “new politics” the Mainers voted for when they voted for Platner is old politics: fantasy wishes promised by demagogues. There is no “Palestine” to free. Europe is learning the hard way what open borders means (which is the civil translation of “Fuck ICE.”)
I am being told that “Up the Heart” is the rallying cry for the Portland Hearts of Pine, Maine’s first professional soccer club. Oh. That sure makes a lot of sense…it’s as if LBJ’s announcement that he would not run for re-election in 1968 ended,
“With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office–the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President. Tippecanoe and Tyler too!“
…and the league is letting them get away with it, while the Axis sports media pretends not to notice.
Three years into her pro career, Caitlin Clark is a recognized superstar and a driver of WNBA attendance, merchandising and popularity. She is, however, a white heterosexual in a league dominated by black lesbians, so she has been targeted, attacked, bullied and injured out of, as Outkick recently put it, “a loathsome combination of race idolatry, jealousy, and territorialism.”
“As Clark’s popularity grew during her rookie season, critics increasingly attributed it to “whiteness” rather than talent, charisma, or style of play. Commentators such as Jemele Hill argued that Clark’s appeal was inseparable from her being a straight White woman in a league made up primarily of Black and lesbian players. “We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity,” Hill told the Los Angeles Times in 2024.”
Hill is an anti-white racist and routinely enables others in her quest as regular Ethics Alarms readers know. For example, she claimed that Harvard’ incompetent, plagiarizing DEI president Claudine Gay was forced to resign because she was black, not because she embarrassed the university. [Incidentally, I am constantly confused because Jemele Hill is a black anti-white racist female sports commentator and Jamelle Bouie is a black anti-white racist male New York Times columnist. I know they are different people, but neither should be taken seriously. I apologize in advance if I mix them up, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.]
Clark was viewed as an outsider and an interloper on black, gay territory, so she was targeted from the beginning. Chennedy Carter hit her with a blindside hip and then entered a social media post encouraging other players to “hurt” her next time. (Baseball would suspend a player who did that.) DiJonai Carrington poked Clark in the eye during a playoff game later posted online accusing Clark of “white privilege.” Angel Reese committed several hard fouls against Clark and posted TikTok video mocking her as a “white girl afraid to catch the fade.” Nice. Baseball would suspend a player who did that, too.
Answer: It happens when that mayor is 1) a Muslim, 2) hostile to other ethnic, cultural and religious cultures, 3) raised by parents who themselves were estranged from American culture, and 4) has no management or governing experience, and 5) has assembled a staff whose radical ideological orientations are compatible with his but who mirror his deficits in orientation, experience and and training.
The result was the “New York City Immigrant Enclaves” map above, released and now going “viral” on social media after someone actually looked at it and noticed that the map omits “Little Italy” as well as Jewish and Irish neighborhoods while highlighting 30 other immigrant communities across the five boroughs. The careless map is part of the city’s Neighborhood Passport campaign tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
That’s kind of embarrassing, don’t you think? Here’s another question for fully acculturated Americans: What is the first “ethnic enclave” in New York City that comes to mind after Harlem? Surely the answer is “Little Italy,” which features so prominently in the iconic film “The Godfather, Part 2.” Not only is the famous and unanimously praised movie embedded in pop culture history and still routinely shown on cable’s various movie channels, it is near “Casablanca” as having one of the most quoted screenplays of all: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” “This is the like we have chosen,” “I just want to wet my beak,”and others.
Astute criminal defense lawyer/blogger Scott Greenfield has an amusing “open letter” from guest contributor Chris Seaton to Maine Democrats posted today. Here’s how it winds up…
“…Now I know you guys want someone to say all the right things, so here goes: Black lives matter, trans rights are human rights, free Palestine, and Donald Trump sucks donkey dicks for Putin. There. That covered everything, right? If not send me ten thousand bucks in an envelope and include what position I’m supposed to hold today. You’ll find out I learn fast! Yes, it might sting that I’m a Tennessee boy who really doesn’t give a shit about Maine’s politics. And I think Susan Collins is pretty milquetoast as far as Republicans go—she votes with Democrats a hell of a lot more than most folks think she should. But let’s be realistic: Beggars can’t be choosers, and right now beating Susan Collins is more important than finding someone who ticks all the right ideological boxes.
“And I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, I don’t have a Kick account, and I’ve never entertained the thought of getting a Nazi tattoo. So here’s my proposal: You guys give me ten million bucks and all the lobster rolls I can eat. I will do the absolute bare minimum and repeat all the talking points you guys give me. I’ll vote how you want and I’ll even tell Donald Trump and Susan Collins to go fuck themselves on command. I know that’s not what you really want, but at least I’m not Mr. Nazi McRapeypants, you know?
“Think it over.”
Utterly deserved. And Scott’s blog is pretty consistently left-leaning. Well-played, sir.
But back to the issue at hand: please write about new, persisting and interesting ethics issues. The podium is yours…
“Oh bloody hell,” as self-exiled EA columnist Curmie would say. The New York Times actually published this round-table circle-jerk by three of its writers on the opinion page: “‘There’s No Graham Platner Without Donald Trump’: 3 Writers on the Fiasco in Maine.” [Gift Link, with a head explosion risk warning] Sorry for the vulgarity, but seriously folks, how long can the New York Times go on like this? Yesterday the highest-ranking news editor at the King of the Axis Media, executive editor Joe Kahn, finally admitted that the outrageous May 11 opinion column by Nicholas Kristof accusing Israel of training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners didn’t meet Times news standards. Got that? So Times columnists can publicize fake news and unverified positions, and the paper lets them get away with that.
Now we have this garbage, with three progressives blaming the Platner debacle…on Donald Trump!
“In retrospect, it seems clear that Platner had something of Trump’s shamelessness. I saw him when the first scandals had just broken, and wondered both how many people would be in the crowd and how he’d explain himself. (No one knew at the time that much worse was to come, though of course some people suspected it.) He was unbowed in a way that read as strength…There’s no Graham Platner without Donald Trump. Trump’s ability to keep winning and hold G.O.P. support made Democrats feel like they had permission to accept Platner’s faults for as long as they did,,,”
What a crock. Platner is nothing like Trump, who was a CEO of a large and successful development company, had extensive business, negotiation and management experience, had authored books on management and was a national figure before he got into politics. Hhe doesn’t drink and has never used drugs. He also was and is about as far away from being a communist as it is possible to be. Platner was a substance-abusing part-time oyster fisherman who has accomplished exactly nothing: his “faults” are all there is.
“Why does Trump keep talking about ‘communism’?” CNN asks in a funny headline that answers its own question. Because, you hacks, today’s Democratic Party is crawling with communists.
“Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty,” Trump said during his July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore. “It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.” At a Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall, the President pledged that “America will never be a communist country.” CNN is perplexed! What is this mysterious “communism” of which the President speaks?
Gee, what could it be? Graham Platner said he was a communist, and was endorsed by Bernie Sanders (who went to Stalin’s Soviet Union on his honeymoon), Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Ed Markey, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rep. Ro Khanna, and Sen Ruben Gallego. Is the argument that Platner’s Nazi tattoo appealed to them? His non-existent leadership experience? Was it his record of domestic abuse?
The Mayor of New York both spouts Marxist slogans routinely and is being hailed as a Democratic Party “rising star.” Hilariously, both Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York and Melat Kiros in Denver, who won primaries over establishment Democrats, are defended against allegations that they are communists because “they identify as democratic socialists.”
Riiiight. And Lia Thomas identifies as a female. “You solve homelessness by giving people housing, you solve hunger by giving people food,” Kiros has said. You know. “To each according to his needs.” Chevalier, in addition to wanting to abolish police, prisons and borders, has said that she wants to “seize the means of production.”
