From the Ethics Alarms glossary: “Signature Significance: The concept is the creation of baseball statistics genius Bill James, who applied it to baseball performance. Signature significance posits that a single act can be so remarkable that it has predictive and analytical value, and should not be dismissed as statistically insignificant. Thus, in James’ example, certain outstanding pitching performances can prove that the pitcher involved is an outstanding one, because average pitchers literally never reach such levels of excellence, even as a one-time fluke.” 

As regular readers here know, Ethics Alarms often employs the term to describe an extreme ethical or unethical act that similarly reveals the true character of the individual responsible for the conduct, and that can be reliably and fairly used to predict future conduct and trustworthiness. To cite a recent example, SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor’s hysterical dissent in Trump v. US is, all by itself, proof that she’s not qualified to be on the Court and a poor jurist. A competent judge wouldn’t write such an opinion, not even one of them. “Well, it’s just one bad dissent” doesn’t let her off the hook. The dissent is so terrible, emotion-wrought, wrong on the law and logically flawed that i a competent Justice couldn’t possibly put her name on such offal, even on the most deranged day of her life. It’s signature significance.

But as baseball giveth, baseball taketh away. Yesterday, the game presented a vivid example of how what seems like signature significance sometimes isn’t.

Jose Miranda of the Minnesota Twins, a 25-year old infielder, tied the MLB record for most consecutive hits. He got his 12th hit in a row, raising his batting average to a near league-lading .331. Amazing. No player had done that in 70 years.

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We should perhaps begin with the fascinating question of why Donna Brazile is still paid by anyone to be an an on-air political commentator and alleged “expert.” She was fired by CNN for leaking debate questions in advance to Hillary Clinton in 2016, but now that I think about it: cheating to beat Donald Trump, or Republican candidates generally, is considered a sign of character by the news networks—Donna was just a bit over-enthusiastic that time, and besides, she got caught.

Donna bounced back, of course: now she’s a regular on ABC’s Sunday Morning “Powerhouse Roundtable.” What credentials Donna has! She’s managed or been a major player in the Presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and Dick Gephard, losers all. But the fact that she unerringly picks candidates who shouldn’t be President hasn’t marred her reputation as an “expert”; it rests on the same foundation as Karine Jean-Pierre’s reputation as a great White House Press Secretary despite being, you know, completely incompetent. Donna’s historic. Brazile was the first African American woman to direct a major presidential campaign when she helped Al Gore lose in 2000.

And she was in top form yesterday. Asked by George Stephanopolis if Historic VP Kamala Harris would automatically be the Democrats’ nominee if the party decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to try to elect a demented President, Brazile enlightened everyone thusly,

“It would be very difficult to replace somebody who’s been vetted, who knows the job and has done a tremendous — I think she’s done a tremendous job and to ask the delegates elected to the convention, who are Biden-Harris supporters, to bypass Kamala Harris because some Republicans and a few others may not like her, it would be political malpractice. As I tell everyone, Kamala Harris has earned the right to be considered if — I mean, we got a lot of “what if” scenarios. But- she’s strong.  She’s down in Louisiana… she had a rally last night with 60,000 people.  I’ve heard from so many folks including my family- they say she’s fired up and ready to go. And they’re not going to replace her.”

Wow! Harris had a rally that 60,000 people attended! Heck, even Biden and Trump can’t attract that many supporters. And all those polls say she’s not popular: clearly, Biden was spot-on that the polls being completely wrong about everything unless they show support for Democratic policies and politicians.

Good ol’ Donna. There was no Kamala Harris “rally” in Louisiana. The 30th Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans held a concert in the Caesar’s Superdome, and Harris appeared briefly on stage. Calling this a Harris rally is spectacular misrepresentation. I once was a speaker at an Amway meeting at the Atlanta Omni, with 10,000 greedy wackos in the audience. I guess I should put on my CV that 10,000 people came to hear Jack Marshall speak. (And they liked me! They really liked me!)

Naturally, neither George nor any other “powerhouse” at the table pointed out for their audience’s benefit that Donna had just spewed pure hooey into the air, not even counting her ridiculous assessment that Harris has been a “tremendous” Veep.

It would be nice if someone had this whopper ready to mention the next time Brazile says that Donald Trump lies all the time, but you know that won’t happen.

Yeah, I woke up cranky this morning. Sorry. I just need a cup of coffee…

The New York Magazine, hardly a bastion of conservative or Republican punditry, has broken Axis ranks with a story headlined “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden.” Longtime Biden family friends and associates admitted to the magazine that Biden’s deterioration has been known for a very long time, and that “they did not want to blow a whistle. They wished that they could whistle past what they knew and emerge in November victorious and relieved, having helped avoid another four years of Trump.”

“When they discussed what they knew, what they had seen, what they had heard, they literally whispered,” the magazine reports. “They were scared and horrified. But they were also burdened. They needed to talk about it (though not on the record). They needed to know that they were not alone and not crazy. Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine. The president was fine. The election would be fine. They would be fine. To admit otherwise would mean jeopardizing the future of the country and, well, nobody wanted to be responsible personally or socially for that.”

Unethical, indefensible conspiracies often have well-meaning rationalizations behind them. (The horrible imprisoning of law-abiding Japanese-American citizens during WWII is one example.)This is how the Democratic Party has let itself slip into quasi-totalitarianism. It was inevitable that someone in the captive media would reveal this disgusting cover-up. Now it’s out. The absurd enablers, liars and spinners have no traction now. Every one of them should be—must be— mocked, exposed, and permanently relegated to Distrust Purgatory—including the President himself.

“He needs to get more sleep.” Really? That’s the best he can do?

For the record, I wrote and said that Biden was slipping into senility before he was nominated in 2020. It didn’t take any special perception on my part, just eyes and ears, and a belief that the public in a democracy should know who and what they are voting for. The Democrats owe the public a massive, groveling, unequivocal apology. Of course, they won’t give one, because the whole party has allowed itself to rot to its core. maybe beyond repair.

There have to be consequences for such an unprecedented betrayal of trust.

This story would be funny if it wasn’t so damning of organized religion generally.

The Meeting House is a Canadian megachurch, of the largest and most influential churches in Ontario. It promoted itself as “a church for people who aren’t into church” (Good motto! Like “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!”), and the campaign worked. The church grew, as they used to say, “like Topsy.” Pastor Bruxy Cavey, who took over the leadership of The Meeting House in 1997, became Ontario’s “most influential pastor.” But in 2021, as described in detail here, Cavey resigned after being accused of sexual assault in his holy activities. He was then charged, with law enforcement adding that there were probably more than one victim.

The church announced in 2022 that “two more claims of sexual abuse and another case of sexual misconduct” against Cavey at been substantiated, with one of the alleged victims being a juvenile.

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A brilliant friend from college just posted on Facebook, “Mitch McConnell froze twice and nobody suggested that he should step down.” And got dozens of “likes” and “loves.” It’s a moronic, silly argument. He’s far too smart to think it’s valid, unless bias has literally made him stupid. Or he’s deliberately trying yo confuse people dumber than he is, which is despicable. I just commented, “(Come on.)”

To state the obvious:

• Many did suggest that McConnell step down.
• Mitch is too old too, and should have retired years ago. The fact that Mitch, a jerk, has hung around way past his pull date is not an argument for why other elected officials should do the same.
• Being a Senator, however, isn’t like being President. At all.
• How does the Senate leader displaying an alarming cognitive episode have anything to do with the copious evidence of Biden’s progressive dementia? The McConnell episode doesn’t make Biden’s performance less serious, and the response to it, adequate or not, doesn’t  justify pretending Joe’s meltdown was just a “bad night.”
• There is literally no critical thinking path or logical process that makes my friend’s  infantile “whataboutism” response defensible or persuasive, except to fools clutching at straws.

It’s very depressing.

Again, not unexpected, just wildly depressing.

I really don’t have time this morning to do the analysis of yesterday’s latest SCOTUS decision that it deserves, or even to complete the deserved excoriation of the liars, hysterics and morons have made utter asses of themselves while making ignorant and gullible members of the public more ignorant still. I was grateful to see Prof. Turley’s essay this morning, which is exactly what I expected it to be.

But all anyone had to do was to read the damn opinion, which you can and should do here. It is a moderate opinion. It is a careful opinion, and it was an unavoidable one. It is also an opinion that would never have been necessary if the totalitarian Democrats hadn’t decided to weaponize the criminal justice system in a last ditch effort to stop Donald Trump from defeating their demented, puppet President.

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