“My values have not changed.”

—-Kamala Harris last night, repeating an obviously memorized response to anticipated questions by CNN’s Dana Bash about the many policy flip-flops she has executed since becoming the Democratic Party nominee.

This mantra was repeated three times in various forms, once prefaced by “let’s be clear.” To me the statement makes it clear that Harris’s “values” don’t include integrity or honesty. (I know: we already knew that.) Like her spectacular pretzelism of simultaneously running on “change” while maintaining that the Biden Administration she is part of has been all aces, this weasel-phrase is another transparently devious device to have it both ways.

Read her exchange with Bash about her sudden embrace of fracking. It makes no sense, especially in light of her later response that “her values have not changed” regarding the environment and that she still supports the Green New Deal, which mandates banning fracking.

A public official with consistent, sincerely held values does not and can not reverse herself on major issues unless significant new information and evidence has changed the problem. The significant new information that has caused Harris to flip-flop like the Flying Wallendas is polling that tell her that her previous positions on those issues will cost her votes. The values that have not changed are Harris’s ambition and her willingness to say and do anything to be elected. Those are not ethical values.

[I want to mention here that I took a break to have a cup of coffee and heard on the DirecTV NewsMix Channel that Trump and Vance are “pouncing” on Harris’s values line. This is why people accuse me of following Fox News talking points. Hey, if others come to the same conclusion I do, that just speaks well for them; it doesn’t mean I needed their help to figure it out.]

More on the interview:

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In New York City, close to one million bus riders, about one out of every two passengers, board buses without paying. The loss of revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has reached a critical stage, and yet the city has yet to do anything about it, because it doesn’t know what to do. It may be too late.

New York’s fare evasion problem is by far the worst in the U.S. and among the worst of any major city in the world. The Wuhan virus freakout, as it did to so many other aspects of our economy, culture and society, made the situation worse, in part because the city had the brilliant idea that it would help get through the lockdown to make bus rides free. People don’t easily go back to paying for what they have been told they can have for nothing.

This, ladies and germs, is cultural rot and ethics collapse. In 2022, the transit authority lost $315 million because of bus fare evasion and $285 million as a result of subway turnstile jumpers, according to a 2023 report commissioned by the M.T.A. Taxpayers foot the bill for the freeloaders, naturally.

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From the London Times (Pointer: Ann Althouse):

“Carlsbad, a surfing hot spot near San Diego, has decided to prohibit people from lighting up inside apartments, condos and other shared buildings where multiple families live. From January residents will not be able to smoke or vape cannabis and nicotine products indoors or on balconies, porches and decks. The law does not apply to single-family homes or hotels and motels…At least 84 of California’s 483 municipalities — including Beverly Hills, Cupertino and Pasadena — have enacted similar bans in multi-family private residences, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation…Many residents in Carlsbad said the smoking ban would improve public health while making housing more pleasant despite concerns over how it will be enforced. Due to limited resources police will not enforce the law, but landlords and other tenants will be able to take legal action against anyone smoking indoors.”

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Meta Platforms CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told Congress this week that the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured” his company in 2021 to censor content related to the Wuhan virus, including posts by mere mortal Americans.

In response to questions from the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg confirmed that the Biden administration tried to censor his social media company and therefore probably the others as well.

“There’s a lot of talk right now, about how the U.S. government interacts with companies like Meta, and I want to be clear about our position,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to the committee. “Our platforms are for everyone — we’re about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way.” 

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Oh yeah, she’s secretly brilliant…

And the morons applaud.

Looking for that wood-chipper….

Philip Bump, arguably the worst of the Washington Post’s unethical reporters (but it’s a large and closely bunched field), went into full-Trump hate mode when the ex-President said, during the Democratic National Convention, “Why would somebody who’s Jewish be voting for these people? If Jewish people vote for her [Harris] and I use this expression, they ought to go out, because Kamala is a person that is very anti-Israel, and very anti-Jewish. But she solves that problem by saying her husband’s Jewish, okay? But that doesn’t…her actions are the worst that we’ve ever had.” In April, Trump made a similar statement about Jews voting for Joe Biden. “Any Jewish person that votes for Biden does not love Israel and frankly, should be spoken to,” Trump said. Ethics Alarms covered that “horrible” statement here. The ethics Alarms verdict: rhetorically sloppy and undiplomatic (as usual), but essentially correct.

So was the most recent statement. That this is true was nicely illustrated by none other than Professor Turley, who noted, as the Washington Post and most of the mainstream media did not, that while pro-Palestinian/Hamas/terrorism protesters were given a permit to demonstrate outside the convention hall, pro-Israel, anti-Hamas groups were not. The Democratic Party’s fingerprints are all over this: Chicago’s mayor is a Democrat just like it was in 1968, when Democratic Boss Mayor Daley denied anti-war demonstrators permits, and they protested anyway.

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