U.S. Society

Comment of the Day: “It’s Come to This: a Majority of House Democrats Chose To Avoid Angering Their Radical Trump-Deranged Base Over Appealing To Sane Americans”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Certain long-form comments on Ethics Alarms (most blogs don’t get them or don’t allow them: I love ’em) just scream “Comment of the Day.” This one, by emerging Ethics Alarms commentariate star CEES VAN BARNEVELDT, was one of those. It concerns the decision by about half the Democrats in Congress to eschew a symbolic vote condemning political violence because apparently they couldn’t bear endorsing any sentiment complimentary to Charlie Kirk, whom their radical base considers a an evil fascist (mostly because Democrats said he was.) Here is that Comment of the Day, on the post, “It’s Come to This: a Majority of House Democrats Chose To Avoid Angering Their Radical Trump-Deranged Base Over Appealing To Sane Americans”:

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The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a moment of absolute moral clarity. And almost all moments of absolute moral clarity have a villain. I became aware of the Charlie Kirk assassination via Ethics Alarms. When I switched on the television the news was that Charlie Kirk had died. Soon thereafter the news changed to “Republicans pounce after the death of Charlie Kirk,”following the main stream media.

But as everybody with two eyes and a couple of braincells can see, the real news since that day has been “The left goes mental after Charlie Kirk’s assassination”.

American history had more moments of absolute moral clarity. The most recent one with similar significance is the attack on the World Trade Center at 9/11/2001. Another one is the lynching of Emmett Till, among many more that are related to Jim Crow and the struggle for civil rights.

The one moment that strikes me as most comparable is another famous example of political violence. In May, 1856 Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to denounce the use of force and fraud to plant slavery in the territory of Kansas. This speech is known as the “Crime Against Kansas” speech. A couple of days later, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, with two other Southern Representatives, entered the Senate Chamber and gave Sumner such a beating with a cane that he nearly died. The other Southern Representatives made sure that the Senator could not get any help. The Southern newspapers praised the attack, and blamed Sumner for bringing his fate on himself. The cane had broken in two, and Southern supporters made sure that Preston Brooks got a new cane. An attempt to oust Brooks from the House of Representatives failed.

In 1856 the country was deeply polarized about the issue of slavery, even more polarized than today. Sumner used words and debate to persuade; however Brooks, with full support, used force and violence in order to extend their power and way of life, which included an oligarchy supported by slavery.

The caning shocked the conscience of the United States of America. The Southern Democrats had let their mask slip; they stood exposed for the entire nation as a party that disdained free speech and republican norms, and instead chose force and violence to get their vision realized.

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Why Fake Ron Howard Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About, Part 3

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Four EA commenters took up my challenge to fisk the possibly AI bot written screed explaining why liberals/progressives are the salt of the earth and are completely reasonable as well as thoughtful and compassionate. “Ron Howard’s” name was attached to the thing though it is well-established that he didn’t write it. As promised, I am posting all four, each of which is persuasive and effective in its own way.

I was hoping that at least one of the lurking progressives out there, maybe even AWOL Curmie, would enter the fray to try to rebut one or more of them, but so far, no takers.

If you missed it, Fake Ron’s manifesto is here. Fisking #1 is here, and #2 is here. Below is #3, an epic take-down of the”renewable energy” obsession so dear to the Left. The fisker is Sarah B, and she leaves fake Ron, the fiskee, in shreds as you will shortly see…

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To no one’s surprise, I’m sure, I’m going to pick apart #15.  If I find extra time in my schedule, I’ll work on some others, but 15 is in my area of expertise and my favorite soapbox. 

I will also note that the reason people throw out lists like this is to make attacking the ideas difficult as it takes a lot of time and effort to debunk even one point, and 16 points is a lot to get to.  I believe the term for a verbal list like this is a Gish Gallop, but I could be wrong.  However, I have to spend as much time and paper, or more on one item than they did on all 16.  Sorry, it’s long, but you asked us to fisk this.

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so that they can change jobs.  There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil.  Sorry billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

“Ron,” you say that you want to fund sustainable energy.  Now, part of the definition of sustainable is that it can sustain itself.  Dumping a few billion or trillion dollars into something is great, but only if it starts paying for (sustaining) itself.  We will discuss that in more detail below.

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Unethical Quote, Ethics Dunce, Incompetent Elected Official…the Usual EA Designations Are Inadequate For Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s Latest “It Isn’t What It Is” Idiocy

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Rep. Crockett—-remember, she’s considered a “rising star” in the reeling Democratic Party—actually said this:

“And so I do want people to know that just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn’t make them a criminal.”

Interesting. The definition of “criminal” is literally “a person who has committed a crime” or the equivalent in every dictionary in existence, but never mind: this is the totalitarian Left of 2025, for which Big Brotherish denial of reality—you know, like “War is Peace” “or “Biden is as sharp as a tack” or “Harris ran a flawless campaign” is foundational.

Lest you think I have pulled Crockett’s latest nonsense out of a context where it is defensible (I can’t imagine what that would be, though), here is her whole rant, from an appearance on the podcast “Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness.” Incidentally, you know everything you need to know about Van Ness to avoid him and his podcast like the plague by the fact that her statement didn’t prompt him to say, “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

Here’s Crockett’s whole statement:

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Show This To Your Friends (and Chuck Schumer) Fuming Over The Suspension of Jimmy Kimmel….

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Do remind them that Democrats forced Al Franken to leave the Senate over a far less disgusting stunt he engaged in while Franken was still a (sort of) comedian. That Jimmy Kimmel displayed above is exactly who the creep really is and has always been. That ABC thought he was worthy of a nightly show tells you all you need to know about ABC.

Again: What a ridiculous metaphorical hill for progressives and Democrats to take a supposedly principled stand on! But a revealing one…

Amazing Stories of the Trump Deranged: The Protest

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

A nice, generally reasonable, D.C. actor and Facebook friend posted this today in response to the Jimmy Kimmel uproar, followed by the usual likes, loves and “care” emojis:

Brilliant.

Let’s see: he’s cancelling the streaming service Hulu, owned by Disney, to protest another entity owned by Disney suspending an epic asshole from a money-losing TV show because the actor thinks bashing Donald Trump and Republicans night after night should insulate a marginal talent from the consequences of his words and actions.

Or my friend thinks Disney/ABC is violating the First Amendment because the under-welcome educated bubble he exists in gets all its news from MSNBC and social media. Or he thinks this is some kind of virtue-signalling to his friends who think Donald Trump is a Nazi.

No, the least you could do, my friend, is to do nothing at all, and it would be just as effective as cancelling Hulu and boasting about it on Facebook, with the added benefit that you would not look ridiculous. I say this recognizing that the side of the ideological divide you hang out with fervently believes that “Do something!” is a rational response to all perceived problems.

Have we ever seen a period in American history where so many people were eager to put out public statements that could be fairly translated as “I have become a moron”?

Friday Open Forum, Recovering Edition [Extended]

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

My major theatrical project, in the works for three years, the revue honoring the 50th anniversary of the musical theater organization I inadvertently founded at Georgetown University Law Center, was completed last weekend and judged a success. It is the only student operated theatrical organization at an American graduate school, and alums of the school and the group traveled to D.C. from all over the country to be part of the celebration. If they wanted to be in the show itself, I promised that I would find a way to let them do it, meaning that the production never had a single rehearsal with the entire cast available, a handicap that extended to the individual numbers, some of them quite challenging. Naturally I’m still exhausted, desperately trying to catch up, and now I’m sick. (But the infected leg is much better, thanks.)

At the end of the gala after the final performance, an alumnus of the group who was in several numbers, a lawyer in his 30s whom I had not met before the show, pulled me aside. He pointed out two two young children playing outside in an enclosed area outside the party space, and said, “Those are my kids. My wife and I met during one of the shows here, and it changed every aspect of my life. If you hadn’t started this wonderful organization that kept me sane during law school, my children wouldn’t exist, and I just wanted to say thank you.” Then he shook my hand, gave me a hug, and walked away.

Meanwhile, in the “I’m smart!” Fredo category, I was amused to see that Pajamas Media columnist Stephen Kruiser this morning virtually duplicated my post from last night about Kamala’s book excerpt, not that my analysis took much thought since its conclusions should be obvious. But I was reminded once again about how often the rebuttals from the Trump Deranged when I’m debating with them consist of saying “Oh, you’re just reciting [Fox News/ some other conservative news or opinion source/Trump’s] talking points” when as far as I know they are just echoing my analysis. Kruiser’s Morning Briefing column is often an amusing read, and his link farm is, if single-minded, informative. Here’s a head-exploding story I might have missed: Hizzoner: ‘Law Enforcement Is a Sickness’ In Chicago I Will ‘Eradicate’

ADDED: On the other hand, Ann Althouse beat me to the punch regarding Harris’s fatuous musings on the VP choice that never was, and was spot on.

Enough from me: I have to take some DayQuill and go back to bed….It’s all up to you what this space is covers now, as long as the topic is ethics.

Once Again, Harris Reminds Us of How Narrowly the US Avoided Disaster in 2024

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

The disaster we narrowly avoided was having such an incompetent elected President of the United States. The Atlantic posted a new excerpt from former Vice President Kamala Harris’s book, “107 Days,” and like so many other emissions from what Kamala calls “her mind,” the selection prompts the thought, “Wow, what an idiot!”

Kamala Harris writes that her “first choice” to be her running mate was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be “too big of a risk” for a black woman to run with a gay man. Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man,” Harris writes. “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, “Screw it, let’s just do it.”But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” She adds that Buttigieg originally topped her list because “he is a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them…I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.”

Well.

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Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Update…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

The newly Christened “Charie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck” is barrelling along at breakneck pace. I need this post just to catch up:

  • Attorney General Pam Bondi idiotically stated that “hate speech” was not protected by the First Amendment. Ethics Alarms negligently didn’t flag this immediately as Ethics Duncery, and I am abashed. I just am not surprised when Bondi shows us what she is: a legal hack, an unqualified and incompetent AG, and in the running for the worst Trump Cabinet appointment. Should she be fired for directly undermining the Trump/MAGA/conservative position on freedom of speech? Of course; she should never have been appointed in the first place. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the U.S. Attorney General understand the Bill of Rights and all the SCOTUS cases establishing that “hate speech” is just speech, and completely covered by the First Amendment. What a disgrace Bondi is. Ugh.
  • Then there is Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democratic Party leader in the Senate, lawyer (once upon a time) and utter hypocrite. Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is unfair and cowardly, but there is nothing preventing an employer from firing or suspending an employee who makes a statement in public that the organization decides is detrimental to business, But Schumer wrote on “X”:

“America is meant to be a bastion of free speech. Everybody across the political spectrum should be speaking out to stop what’s happening to Jimmy Kimmel. This is about protecting democracy. This must go to court.”

Roseanne Barr tweeted back derisive laughter, as well she might. She was fired from her hit sitcom for an offensive, arguably racist tweet, though what she said was, again, protected speech. I don’t care enough about Schumer to check and see if he expressed outrage at Roseanne’s tweet, but he certainly didn’t say that she had a case in court, which she definitely did not, just like Kimmel. Continue reading →

Now THIS Lying MSNBC “Journalist” Really Needs To Be Fired…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Wikipedia tells us that Brandy Zadrozny “is an American investigative journalist and reporter with NBC News and MSNBC who specializes in radicalization, extremism and disinformation on the Internet.” Interesting! But apparently since she works for “MS,” she uses that supposed expertise to lie directly to the public in order to advance the Axis media’s propaganda. Zadrozny also, as evidenced by that head-exploding clip above, feels free to abuse her credentials and authority to literally deny reality that she, her fellow travelers, her employers and her whole profession find inconvenient.

Western Lensman (whoever he, she or it is) could not be more accurate, however. The lying by the Left, here and generally, knows no bounds. President Biden was sharp as a tack! If MSNBC doesn’t fire and permanently blackball this lying hack from ever practicing “journalism” again—and you know it won’t—we have a tacit admission regarding what their real purpose is: deception, confusion and distortion of reality for political gain. And it isn’t only MSNBC.

Heavens to Betsy: this woman’s specialty is the internet, and she doesn’t know about Bluesky, the Twitter/X alternative where cowardly progressives go to revel in their fantasies? Wait—she has an account on it: https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/brandyzadrozny.bsky.social! And still Brandy hasn’t noticed everyone around her cheering for Kirk’s death?

This is worse than mere lying. This is gaslighting, abuse of credentials (Brandy is a Pratt Institute grad), abuse of trust, abuse of journalism ethics, ack! ack! araghhyhayyrewqaunngemg!!!!!

(I just hurled myself to the floor like John Belushi used to do on Saturday Night Live.)

And poor Jimmy Kimmel sits at home, wondering what he said that was so bad….

My Facebook Feed Is Like A Petri Dish For Leftist Charlie Kirk Deflection Desperation…

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Yes, they are spinning this hard…

I was going to try to start off with another topic but ran across the above at 5 am this morning. My friend and Facebook friend who posted it (and who received nothing but “likes” and supporting comments) is as nice and amiable man as you could ever know. I spent some delightful time with him over the weekend. But he is a lawyer-actor, living in two knee-jerk progressive bubbles, so he is turning off all his analytical abilities to try to focus attention on the Evil Right and somehow stop his “side” from being exposed by the Kirk assassination and its horrifying response to his death.

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