“What do you think would have happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don’t think he’d be talking about pardons.”

—President Biden, race-baiting for all he’s worth, at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.

Desperate. Panicked. Beneath contempt. Assholery exemplified.

The claim that Donald Trump is a racist is one of the most popular of the Big Lies used against him for decades, while the overwhelming evidence is that he treats people of all races equally badly. The “he’s going to do X” is one of my most detested methods of attacking anyone, and it’s a favorite of Biden’s (Mitt Romney was going to put blacks “back in chains,” according to Joe, if you recall). The “Trump’s going to say X” trope is even more revolting, but does anyone seriously doubt that Trump wouldn’t be as supportive of black pro-Trump rioting morons as he would white ones? You never know what Trump will do or say, but I’ll confidently wager that he would be making even a bigger deal over his support for the rioters if they were black. Of course he’d be talking about pardons. If you’re going to engage in gratuitous race-baiting, you can at least make sense.

That statement by Biden opens the door to literally any campaign cheap shots and low blows now. Biden supporters are ethically estopped from complaining if Trump, to offer a hypothetical, suggests that Biden is secretly lusting after his daughter based on her diary entries. Biden has given the green light to any slander, any libel, any lie and any kind of character assassination no matter how unfair or vile.

To say he’s in a glass house is a severe understatement.

…and pretty much exactly as I would have, touching all the bases Ethics Alarms did in its posts on this epically stupid—but useful!—controversy.

It is stupid for all the reasons Justice Alito (and I mentioned, in the first 5 posts here). Here is the letter.The fact that he even felt he had to rebut two shameless U.S. Senators who went on the record with a “This SCOTUS Justice must recuse because his wife displayed two flags that some people may think show support for the idiots who stormed the U.S. Capitol four years ago because some of them carried similar flags” argument so obviously contrived that it makes my teeth hurt is embarrassing, or should be, to Democrats. Unfortunately, at least in the matter of Trump-Derangement, they are immune for such feelings. Anything goes, but wow, was this “anything” ridiculous.

Let’s see, Alito felt he had to point out…

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Prof. Mayer has responded to my critique of his USA Today Editorial. I was hardly restrained or respectful, but his rebuttal is measured, spirited, and appreciated. How I wish more objects of criticism here would join in the discussion.

This was diabolical of the professor, because now I can’t help liking him.

He concludes by saying “Let the roasting begin!” Don’t let him down, now.

And remember, the topic is ethics.

I was watching an old “48 Hours” episode last night about Todd Kohlhepp, a serial killer convicted of murdering seven people in South Carolina between 2003 and 2016. He also kidnapped and raped at least two women and claims to have killed many more. The interesting part of the show was the interview with his 70-year-old mother.

Even though she had been told about her son confessing to committing seven murders, including a mass shooting in a bicycle shop where he wiped out the entire staff, she insisted that her son was misunderstood. “He’s not a monster,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “He’s a good person.”

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Oooh, I’ll be using this one in a legal ethics seminar for sure.

A sicko American Airlines flight attendant (Estes Carter Thompson III, above) allegedly hid a camera under the First Class toilet seat and filmed the nether regions of several little girls between the ages of 7 and 14 during a seven-month span last year. One of the victims, aged 14, spotted a phone’s camera flash underneath the toilet seat, which was covered by tape. She took a cell phone photo of it and showed it to her mother. As you might expect, the girls’ parents were perplexed.

A lawsuit ensued by the parents of another victim, age 9. The American Airlines lawyers came up with a true “Hail Mary” defense theory, stating in court filings, “Any injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by plaintiff’s own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiff’s use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”

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Kerry Kennedy, one of RFK’s gazillion offspring, is proving that not only does bias make you stupid, bias plus Trump Derangement makes you a lousy sister.

She has allowed herself to be co-opted by the Biden campaign to undermine her own brother’s maverick Presidential run. It is planning on using Kerry Kennedy and other family members to condemn RFK Jr. in swing states if he makes it onto their ballots (despite the DNC’s conscerted efforts to block him. You know: democracy!) “I’ve told the Biden campaign that I’ll campaign wherever they want me to go,” she told the New York Times. For its part, the campaign says, “We’re honored to have the Kennedys’ support, and we look forward to working with them to spread the message on the campaign trail about how the president is carrying on the Kennedy legacy,” in the words of Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokeswoman.

How exactly would Joe Biden carry on “the Kennedy legacy”? Youth and vigah? Dazzling exchanges with reporters? Throbbing charisma? Bedding young women instead of just sniffing them? Exciting oratory? Solidarity with campus protests? Maybe Hitt means the legacy of Joe Kennedy Sr. when he was a doddering fixer for his scandal-addicted sons.

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