Well, I started it in the morning…

1. Do you sense a theme here? Voters in San Francisco last week dumped three members of the city school board who led the way to prioritize taking the names of American Presidents off of schools over getting children into them. One of the properly exiled was board President Gabriela López, who opened her Democratic Emergency Excuse Kit For Any Crisis and found, of course, the Race Card. López blamed the recall results on “white supremacy.” López tweeted,

“So if you fight for racial justice, this is the consequence. Don’t be mistaken, white supremacists are enjoying this. And the support of the recall is aligned with this.”

López also retweeted a post alleging the recall “was funded by republican billionaires, led by […] “reopen the schools” moms that used id politics and anti-blackness to turn out votes within the conservative asian immigrant community.”

If people like Lopez aren’t rebuked and shunned hard, American minorities risk growing to adulthood incapable of accepting personal responsibility for anything they do, and spending life as perpetual victims in their own minds.

2. Everyone is circulating this, but it deserves to be circulated. One more reason to sat off Twitter, especially if you’re not too bright:

3. Boy, they’re strict! The Florida Supreme Court imposed a public reprimand of an attorney after it found that she  made “unprofessional” and “sarcastic” remarks in multiple matters. For example he sent emails to multiple different people involved in  litigation in which she referred to opposing counsel as “out of control,” and “overly hostile.”  In other  emails with opposing counsel, she stated that the depositions of two of the witnesses in the case were “going to be epic” and great “entertainment.” What do you think, Marlon?

Nobody can recall any other lawyer being disciplined for such mild rhetoric. If we had a functioning ACLU, which we do not, it would be a good free speech case. Continue reading →

I don’t understand this at all. Lately, I’ve been wondering if Biden is deliberately trying to lose any lingering, mouth-breathing, drooling supporters he might have who aren’t total ideologues impervious to reason, like…well, Minyon Moore.

Three weeks ago, CNN reported that Biden had selected “three key outside advisers” to guide his still unnamed nominee—though we do know what color and gender she is— through the nomination process. “Minyon Moore, a veteran Democratic strategist and political director for former President Bill Clinton, will lead the efforts to activate outside advocacy groups in support of the nominee,” we were told. We were not told, however, that Moore was sitting on the board of directors of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation when she was appointed, and was so sitting as recently as four days ago.

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Today is our first President’s real birthday, and if anyone deserves two celebrations, it’s George Washington. One way to celebrate this unique and essential man is by refreshing oneself on the principles that guided his moral and ethical development from childhood to adulthood, George Washington’s 110 Rules, one of many ethics resources in the right hand column that nobody reads. The best is #110: “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.“

Unfortunately I did not see this fatuous and obnoxious article on Politico before I had posted regarding President’s Day. Writes John Harris, a veteran political journalist who simply does not know what he is talking about:

A democracy really shouldn’t be mythologizing presidents at all. From the left it seems obvious that we don’t need a holiday honoring 46 presidents, all of them men. From the right it seems obvious that we don’t need to be honoring the aggrandizement of Washington-based politicians.

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In case I haven’t been sufficiently clear, the same ethical principle that I spent four years insisting on during Donald Trump’s administration is equally important during the Biden Administration. Every President, and hence the Office itself, deserves and needs a modicum of respect and deference, or our system doesn’t function. In turn, every President has a duty to work to keep the office respectable by his demeanor, words, appearance and conduct.

Virulent partisanship makes the first requirement unattainable in sufficient degree, and the unavoidable pay-back that any Democratic successor would receive from those who—legitimately—resented the absolute refusal of the “resistance,” Democrats and the media to give Trump the shred of a chance before burying him in ridicule and hate has pushed abuse of the office below levels from which it is unlikely to be able to recover.

I thought the American Presidency was on life support after the destructive parade of LBJ and the hate directed at him over Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, Ford, whom pop culture treated as an unprecedented boob, and Jimmy Carter, whose disastrous idea of the Presidency was to pretend not to be a leader. Then, as has so often been the case, the exact right type of President for what ailed the nation and the position showed up. Ronald Reagan played POTUS beautifully, and restored the office, substantially though not completely, to its previous iconic status. I’ll never forget that hard-line Democrat and the chief lobbyist for the American Trial Lawyers Association while I was there, who hated Reagan’s policies, telling me, “If his policies weren’t bad enough, he also knows exactly how to be an American leader, damn him.”

Ronald Reagan left the Presidency in far better shape than he found it.

1. Pop Ethics Quiz: Is this an appropriate activity by the American Bar Association? The “Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge ” has been curated by the ABA Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council. The ABA’s introduction to its syllabus states:

“The Challenge invites participants to complete a syllabus of 21 short assignments (typically taking 15-30 minutes), over 21 consecutive days, that include readings, videos or podcasts. It has been intentionally crafted to focus on the Black American experience. The assignments seek to expose participants to perspectives on elements of Black history, identity and culture, and to the Black community’s experience of racism in America. Even this focus on Black Americans cannot possibly highlight all of the diversity of experiences and opinions within the Black community itself, much less substitute for learnings about any other community of color. This syllabus is but an introduction to what we hope will be a rewarding journey that extends far beyond the limits of this project.”

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