It Is Clearly Time To Declare Polls and Pollsters Useless, Corrupted, Tools of Partisan Warfare, and Move On

Incredibly and against all odds, the polling community has shown itself to be even more untrustworthy than journalism and political punditry. The pollsters are dishonest, their methodology stinks, and everyone who cites them as authority engages in deceptive cherry-picking.

To Hell with them all.

When I check in on MSNBC, which isn’t embarrassed about being virtually all-Epstein all-the-time for weeks now, they are flashing poll numbers showing that President Trump is wildly unpopular regarding, oh, everything. Of course, I can easily find the opposite analysis in the conservative media, and President Trump will, as is his wont, cite exaggerated or completely made up poll numbers whenever it suits his mood.

Two recent examples of this nonsense come to mind. Extreme left-biased, Trump Deranged sports pundit Jamele Hill blathered on CNN regarding the Epstein “client list” distraction, “What’s always interesting to me is, like, what it takes people to get off the Trump train. It’s not the xenophobia, it’s not the racism, it’s not the bigotry. It is this.” “This” meant that polls showed diminishing support for the President because of contrived hysteria over his association with Epstein that has been well-known for decades.

What always is interesting to me is, like, why is such a persistently wrong, dishonest, race-obsessed hack given a platform for her hate and stupidity at all? At least DEI provides an explanation, but if it isn’t that, then it’s a mystery on the level of the Mary Celeste.

So CNN’s Harry Enten, whose weird niche is using untrustworthy polls to debunk Axis narratives using different untrustworthy polls, “factchecked” Hill.

“When it comes to his approval rating with Republicans, it’s basically as solid as it ever was,” the biggest dork on broadcast news declared. “If you look at the average of polls, his approval rating with Republicans [is] still at about 90%.”

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Today’s “The Unabomber Was Right” Note…

I don’t find any of these funny.

I ended up in the emergency room of my local hospital thanks to a massive leg hematoma that has produced the most disgusting symptom you could imaging in your worst nightmares. (Think the first feature of Tarantino’s “Grindhouse,” “Planet Terror.”). I was quickly checked out and sent home (diagnosis: painful, ugly, incredibly swollen, blistered and bruised, but healing slowly but surely), but checking out was like a nit from an old Woody Allen movie—you know, back when he was funny.

I had to get a text, then click on the link, then jump through a half-dozen other hoops, read serial messages sent to me, sign three documents with m with my finger, all also I could be pestered by more texts, a survey, another disclaimer and more when I got home. I also witnessed two elderly patients (I’m afraid they were both younger than me) get upset and profess complete helplessness regarding the process because they didn’t know how to use their smart phones.

This is not “progress.” It is not caring service. It is neither reasonable nor necessary.

Post Script: I have no idea how much I will get posted today. I have a Zoom legal ethics seminar to teach, I had almost no sleep last night because my leg was hurting so much, and sitting at my desk isn’t a good idea (but still necessary) because I’m supposed to keep this misshapen red, yellow and purple-mottled thing elevated. I’m sorry: there is a lot I need and want to write about. We will see how it goes.

Friday Open Forum!

Just one question before I surrender the con to you…

Can anyone think of a more ridiculous, desperate, annoying Axis “Get Trump!” engine than the current obsession with the “lists/files/whatever” of dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein? Because I can’t. The “Breaking!” headlines are like smoking gun evidence that the nation’s median IQ has dropped into double figures….low double figures. Trump wrote a naughty birthday card to Epstein! That does it: I am no longer responding to email requests for birthday messages and videos from relatives of distant friends and acquaintances until I have done a background check on what they have been up to lately. Trump went to Epstein’s wedding!

As I stated before (when I thought this nonsense would at worst be a week-long distraction), there is some condign justice in Trump being bedeviled by this since he allowed his campaign to crow about Epstein conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, any non-Trump Deranged citizen who expends any energy getting upset about this guilt-by-association assault needs a priority inventory.

Morons.

Geewhatasurprise: Hospitals Harvest Organs From Living Patients

Waaay back in 1978, the film version of physician/novelist Robin Cook’s science fiction novel “Coma” (above) gave audiences the heebie-jeebies about being operated on. An “ends-justifies the means” chief of surgery had devised a diabolical way to have fresh organs ready to become life-saving transplants: one specially rigged operating room turned healthy-ish patients into brain dead victims (A young Tom Selleck was one of them!), and they ended up in a storage facility where their bodies were kept fresh and breathing until hearts, lings, livers or kidneys were needed.

Haven’t you always assumed that hospitals sometimes took essential organs from organ donors who were still alive, if barely? I have friends who aren’t organ donors specifically for that reason, and, yes, most of them remember “Coma.”

From an HHS press release this week:

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On Stephen Colbert and His Fans

You see, there could certainly be a valid commercial argument for a major news network to try a regular entertainment show that was dedicated to attacking and undermining the President of the United States five nights a week, every week. If enough people watched it, and the show was popular, it would have a Machiavellian defense for its existence. Now I, as an ethicist, am confident that my position is superior, which is that corporations should not actively try to cause division, distrust and hate in their own country, which are all destructive to democracy and a civil, functioning society.

I particularly object to entertainment shows that are not merely political and partisan propaganda, but that overwhelmingly express only one point of view to the extreme extent that Americans holding the adverse points of view are treated as “the Other.” Beginning in 2016, TV’s late night and public issues comedy shows became all hate for the American President, all the time. Hate is not too strong a word. Hate is also not particularly funny.

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Comment of the Day: “Unethical Protest of the Week…”

This excellent comment on “Unethical Protest of the Week…,” about the British choruster on stage a professional opera production who decided it was a good place to cheer on terrorist, need no introduction from me. Here is John Paul with one of his best Comment of the Day

***

The tweet (above) reminds me of an incident in college. I attended a Christian University. Every day we had to attend chapel that featured a variety of speakers. One day, we had a speaker who was grand standing. It wasn’t uncommon, but I remember him being particularly annoying. He was making some point about what we treat as important and swore in the middle of chapel. Unexpectedly, the crowd gasped. Then he went on to say, you care more about the fact I swore than starving children in Africa.

He wasn’t even talking about starving children in Africa. Apparently, the man didn’t know what a non-sequitur was.

I should have walked out right then. At the very least, I let the dean know.

It shouldn’t be hard to see what was wrong with the man’s argument, but I’ll dissect it anyway. First, one has nothing to do with the other. This is not some kind of mic-drop moral checkmate. We’re capable of caring about more than one thing at a time. And frankly, chapel wasn’t the place for shock tactics disguised as wisdom.

Second, he wasn’t challenging hypocrisy; he was grandstanding his own. If his point was that we should care more about justice, then model that. Don’t hijack a moment of worship (or opera performance) to make people feel small for reacting to your antics. That’s not conviction. That’s manipulation.

Finally, he used a false dilemma to excuse his own bad behavior. As if noticing his arrogance somehow meant we were blind to global suffering. It’s a cheap move, but it works sometimes because people don’t want to look self-righteous.

The Opera House should be appalled. Their first responsibility is to the integrity of their craft. They can’t afford to have rogue actors breaking script and derailing performances. That kind of stunt undermines the entire production and risks alienating their audience. Frankly, I don’t know what that actor was thinking. There are hundreds of other performers waiting in the wings, all capable and willing to respect the work. If the Opera House doesn’t act, they’re sending a message that the show and the audience don’t really matter.

Just for fun, I’m curious to see how many unethical rationalizations might fit Haswani’s tweet.

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Unethical Protest of the Week…

….along with an ethically inert “X” approval of it.

But then, assholes tend to admire assholes. Theater types are such weenies. That jerk who decided to betray his duty to the performance, the work of art, the paying audience and the other performers who cared about doing their jobs should have been tackled and dragged off stage, either by back stage staff or the actor next to him. This clip caused flashbacks to the unconscionable stunt by the “Hamilton” cast in 2017, using the stage to corner Mike Pence and lecture him on some woke agenda item or another; I neither recall nor care which. (Pence, of course, himself being a weenie, didn’t have the guts to tell the performers “Bite me!” and walk out.)

I confess: that disgraceful incident is why I haven’t seen “Hamilton” yet as my own little protest against ignorant actors pretending that what they think about pubic policy is any more intrinsically valuable than the opinions of the average drunk in a bar.

The flag display flunks the tests in the Ethics Alarms 12 Step Protest Ethics Checklist. See…

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The President Sure Makes It Difficult To Defend Him Against Contrived “Scandals” When He Keeps Doing Unethical Things Like This….

Is the most recent idiotic, over-his-skis, abuse of power and position outburst by President Trump a genuine big deal? No, it isn’t. But his gratuitous attempt to re-open the old political correctness victories resulting in the forced name changes of two sports teams, the Cleveland Indians (boringly recast as “the Guardians”) and the Washington Redskins (even more boringly renamed “The Commanders”) is exactly what Trump does not need right now. What he needs is to project some stability even as the disgusting Axis keeps trying “Hail Mary” fake controversies like the Epstein “client list” and the supposed Trump plot to get rid of Stephen Colbert.

It is not the President’s business to stick his metaphorical nose into the naming of sports franchises; they aren’t the Gulf of Mexico. Presuming that it is his business plays right into the “king” narrative, and for Trump to do that is just plain incompetent. The effort has no upside and lots of potential political problems, as illustrated by the second Truth Social post in the series.

A President can’t use government pressure to make a private organization change its name: that is a First Amendment violation and a pretty obvious one. Trump’s obsession with “I might…” trolling isn’t funny, and, again, gives his opponents and the Trump Deranged more ammunition for their unhinged hate and hysteria. He “might” revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship. Riiiight. This kind of thing just makes the President of the United States look petty and weak. I don’t understand why Trump can’t see that.

I hated the decision to change the Redskins to the Commanders (heaven knows I wrote about it enough) , and hated the decision to change the Indians to the Guardians even more. But both the American League’s Cleveland ball club and Washington’s NFL franchise should send President a Trump a loud, clear “Bite me.”

Ethics Quote of the Week: The New York Times

I actually like this quote a great deal, and think the Times, for once, is spot on…

“Party officials described the draft document as focusing on the 2024 election as a whole, but not on the presidential campaign — which is something like eating at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad.”

—-The New York Times in a piece called “Democrats’ 2024 Autopsy Is Described as Avoiding the Likeliest Cause of Death.”

The Democratic Party, in addition to being exposed as a the real foe of democracy domestically, advocates for open borders, puppet Presidencies, using the justice system as a political weapon, cheating in women’s sports, racial discrimination in hiring and, lately, communism, also has revealed itself as a party of abject cowards. Its latest favorite tactic is walking out of Congress when they don’t like what the majority is likely to do, but what the Times describes is astoundingly craven. The party’s analysis of why it lost the White House in 2024 is going to avoid what everyone knows are the reasons it lost

That, my friend, is a cover-up, but it is even worse than that. It is signature significance for an organizational culture that is so infected with “It isn’t what it is” reactions to unpleasant reality that it is even incapable of honestly addressing its own problems. How can anyone trust a party so self-hobbled to manage anything, lead anywhere, accomplish any goal or mission? Why would anyone trust such a party? How can you justify belonging to a party—believing in a party—that even lies to itself?

From the article:

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Epstein Ethics Train Wreck Update: Dershowitz Blows Up the Narrative, Ethically and Unethically

A threshold question: Harvard law professor emeritus and former Jeffrey Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz issued the definitive debunking of the stupid Jeffrey Epstein “client list” myth that the Axis of Unethical Conduct has been clinging to lately four days ago. Why wasn’t this major news, especially since the same paper it was published in, the Wall Street Journal, was getting Axis-wide babble over their far less substantive story about how Donald Trump penned a risque birthday card long ago in a galaxy far away?

Well, we know why, don’t we? The Dershowitz column undermines the “Get Trump!” effort, so it isn’t news that’s fit to print. Despicable.

In “The Inside Scoop on Jeffrey Epstein: I was his lawyer. I know things that court orders won’t allow me to disclose,” the Dersch reveals…

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