Here I was, up early to finally cover Rep. Massey’s unethical slap at President Trump using Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as his voodoo doll, and what do I see but these headlines on Google News:
“What an idiot!” I think. Hegseth (I am not a fan) is going to be under fire for as long as he is running the department by the Democrat majority in Congress and their ‘flying monkeys” in the news media (that’s PJ Media’s Stephen Kruiser’s name for what EA calls the Axis media, and I find it amusing and fair), and he’s so insensitive and politically dim that he would alienate veterans by being disrespectful at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?
But he wasn’t. Not a single story suggested that Hegseth misbehaved at the Tomb. One of the women accompanying him, either his wife, Jennifer Hegseth, or advisor Tami Radabaugh (or both) were heard “audibly laughing” as the daily ceremony at the Tomb at Arlington National Cemetery was about to get underway. As a result (I’ve seen this occur when I have been observing the ritual), “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times,” the sentinel shouted at the group. The rules for all ceremonies at the cemetery prohibit visitors from yelling or making any other “boisterous” or “unreasonably loud” noise.
Was Hegseth disrespectful at the Tomb? No. Can he control the inappropriate outbursts of adults accompanying him, who should be presumed to know how to behave at this sacred site? No. Would the sentinel reminding a visitor of the proper decorum at the Tomb be newsworthy if it weren’t an opportunity to impugn and denigrate a Trump Administration figure targeted by progressives, Democrats and the news media? Definitely not. (cont.)
This is the weirdest Veterans Day since the Vietnam era, and maybe ever. A major political party has just taken over Congress while decrying the use of military personnel for security and the national interest. Indeed, strong constituencies on both sides of the political divide are embracing the well-disproved notion that wars must never be fought at all.
A similar mindset immeasurably aided the rise of Hitler after the horrors of The Great War. It led the U.S. into abandoning South Vietnam before the mission was accomplished, and failing to complete the objectives in both Iraq wars and Afghanistan. That irrational and ahistorical position threatens to let Iran continue as the regional terrorism machine it has been for decades and the existential threat it aspires to be against Israel and the United States. It is why the nation foolishly no longer requires a period of military service for its citizens, and why recruitment has become increasingly difficult for our Armed Serviced.
The day before this Veterans Day, a lame duck Republican Congressman who has opposed the elected President of the United States from the beginning filed a contrived impeachment resolution against the Secretary of War for following the chain of command and doing his job. (More on this unethical debacle later today, I hope.) It appears that Democrats, progressives and the Trump Deranged will greet veterans today with, “Thank you for your service, you foolish tools of war criminals!”
Nice. I know I’m being repetitious, but these are the people most voters endorsed last week because hamburger is too expensive. (cont.)
One of the many puzzling aspects of the upcoming mid-terms is that any voter of either the Jewish faith or who is of Jewish heritage is considering voting for a party that has flipped to open and almost full anti-Semitism. I don’t get it. I would ask some of my long-time Jewish friends about it if so many of them weren’t so Trump Deranged that they can barely utter any sounds other than a Frankenstinian, “Arrgagrhah!”
I just saw this on “X” (I guess its time for me to drop the “Twitter”):
…I know, polls. Still, based on my own group of friends, 30% seems too small. What (the hell) is the matter with these people? I know that many German Jews voted for Hitler too, but you know, live and learn (or die and learn). This is an ethnic group renowned for their wisdom and resilience; in other words, Jews are supposed to be smarter than this. What’s going on here?
Here’s the ad that just dropped in the Michigan Senate race for the Democratic candidate, Muslim Brotherhood supporter Abdul El-Sayed:
…Yes, those damn Jews are causing inflation! Funny, I though President Biden said that Republicans were the Nazis.
This seems like a propitious time to look in on a lamented ex-Ethics Alarms commenter, “Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat” and cripplingly woke political cartoonist “Ampersand,” who was long one of the most articulate and engaging progressive commenters here until bias made him stupid, sadly the fate of most EA readers from his side of the ideological divide. That’s his latest creation above, and here is the main section of Amp’s explanation of it:
Since Oct 7 2023, every human on the planet has had a choice. To stand with Israel, the Jewish people, and Western Civilization, or with Hamas, Terrorism, and the evil actors who would tear it down. That Time for Choosing is ever-present. Who do you choose? #WeAreNotOkpic.twitter.com/FIW8ChBx2T
“This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss.
The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them – all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes.Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.
To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.”
New York’s anti-Semitic, Islamist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in his official statement on the anniversary of the unprovoked and ambush Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel that included the murder of unarmed civilians, rapes, infanticide, and the taking of over 200 hostages, mist of whom died.
I could have had a much longer headline, and had to restrain myself to avoid posting one. Anyone who agrees with this vile man is an Ethics Dunce, as is anyone who voted for him or would argue that such votes can be justified. Mandani qualifies for an EA “Incompetent Elected Official” designation, because condemning the victims of terrorism while supposedly memorializing those victims is incompetent and irresponsible, unless one is an Ethics Villain, which Mayor Mamdani certainly is.
…because it is petty and disgusting….and unethical, of course.
President Trump Truth Socialed this out at the end of last week:
BREAKING NEWS: I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns.
There will be NO COST to the United States! At my direction, we worked with representatives of Denmark and Greenland to guarantee that the United States will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America.
Additionally, from now on, no U.S. adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval.
For over 100 years, Presidents have known the strategic importance of Greenland, but NONE of them were able to do anything about it. I am proud to be the President that permanently and conclusively addressed this very important situation. This is an “Infinite Life” Agreement, there is no end! We are very honored and proud of what has just taken place, and everything agreed to today will be cherished by the American People.
We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many. We will work with the people of Greenland in its development and construction. This solution is a great one for the United States of America, Denmark, Greenland, and all of our Allies. We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land. We will be very protective of it!
This is a dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
President DONALD J. TRUMP
Also last week, ancient crooner and current Fifties station disc jockey for Sirius-XM Pat Boone respectfully suggested, as a passionate Trump supporter, that President Trump should shut up more often. Of course that’s good advice, and also futility exemplified. In the President’s defense, however, he feels that he has to salute himself because the Axis news media won’t report honestly on his successes, which have been considerable. Getting what Trump wanted out Greenland proved that his meat-axe negotiating style worked to the U.S.’s advantage after all the mockery and nastiness from the Democrats and the Trump Deranged. Here’s how the news media covered it:
The New York Times said, “U.S. Has Reached Security Deal on Greenland, Trump Says — The full contours of the deal were unclear, but Denmark and Greenland both indicated they expected an agreement to be signed soon.” trump made the “contours” pretty clear, I thought: It costs us nothing, it is permanent, the U.S. can build military bases, and to all intends and purposes, the U.S. has control of that big chunk of ice.
The Washington Post reported, “Trump hails Greenland security deal that falls short of takeover.” The U.S. doesn’t want or need ownership, but the Post has to frame Trump’s success as a failure. Nice.
The Economist sniffed: “Donald Trump drops demands to own Greenland, but the harm has been done.”
Bloomberg reported, “U.S. Strikes Greenland Deal to End Row That Threatened NATO.” That’s certainly misleading framing. Here’s The Atlantic: “The Greenland Fiasco Stumbles to an End.” How exactly is it a fiasco if the U.S. gets what it wanted? “President Trump announced an agreement that appeared to satisfy all parties but came at a great cost,” the magazine continued. Not monetary cost: what is the rag talking about? Oh: the episode got Denmark annoyed at us? The Horror.
The President may have scored a victory with major implications for U.S. security, but we shouldn’t be distracted from the more serious problem: the Kennedy Center is closing down for repairs.
The Impeachment Clause in the U.S. Constitution was written by the Founders to create an emergency “Get Rid of a Rogue President (or other high Federal official) Free Card,” to be used in a bid-partisan process featuring due process, hearings and a trial. The Democrats cynically used the process as part of their undemocratic and ruinous campaign to make it impossible for the elected President to govern, because he had committed the unforgivable sin of blocking Hillary Clinton’s rose-strewn path to the White House. Like the fake, Hillary and Obama engineered Russian collusion hoax (and in Trump’s second term, the J-6 kangaroo hearings in the House, both of Trump’s impeachments were contrived, politically motivated, and Constitutionally indefensible. The damage was done, the precedent set. Impeachment is now toothless; the Founders’ metaphorical safety valve is done. What once was framed as cooperative, bi-partisan inquiry to be triggered by genuine abuses of power is now just another toothless and corrupt tool of political warfare. Good job, everybody!
Rep. Thomas Massie(R-KY), on the way out after losing the primary for his seat earlier this year, filed eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this week.
Two “the rest of the story” items to kick things off:
As we all hoped would be the case, MLB reprimanded umpire Doug Eddings for telling rookie St. Louis Cardinals rookie reliever Hancel Rincon to straighten his cap and to “Grow the hell up!” Eddings issued an apology. EA covered the episode here. But last night, as many suggested, many Cardinals wore their caps askew as a visual rebuke to Eddings, who was the umpire at third base. Interestingly, some of the Colorado Rockies had their caps tilted as well. Eddings claimed that he admonished Rincon because a Rockies batter, Hunter Goodman, flagged the rakish angle of the young pitcher’s headgear. Goodman, however denies that he said anything.
See? I said this was an ethics train wreck!
In this post, EA discussed the absurd controversy involving “Stars and Stripes” staff maintaining that they were “independent” of the Pentagon. In a 24-page ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden turned down the entreaty by the newspaper’s publisher, editor-in-chief and Middle East reporter to stay their firings while a lawsuit challenging the terminations as First Amendment violations works its way through the court system. McFadden found the government probably did not violate their First Amendment rights by firing them. I think their claim came perilously close to being a frivolous suit. If it were to prevail, no reporter or journalist could be fired by a government publication for an inflammatory or anti-American output because it could be framed as “censorship.” Editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte told CBS in an interview that they “worked for Stars and Stripes, “not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker.” They were asserting total independence and autonomy, despite being a Pentagon publication and funded by tax-payers.
Meanwhile…
1. The NFL is increasingly ridiculous, and I continue to wonder when it’s core audience will just say, “Enough already! Bye!” The league’s woke virtue signaling and DEI embrace is obnoxious, but its recent decision that football needs screamingly fey male cheerleaders boggles the mind. Look at this guy:
What the hell? I find female NFL cheerleaders an embarrassment, but this…any idea what the NFL is going for here or why? Tim O’Brien writes in part,
“I mean, who in the world asked for this? What market research told the NFL that what it really needed to do was complement all that toxic masculinity during the game with this? Seriously, are gay men a viable market for the NFL? How big is that market? Perhaps even more pointedly, as a percentage, how many not just gay men, but flaming gay men, watch the NFL on Sundays? Are we missing something? …[T]he NFL continues to find ways to alienate me and the millions of others who tune in because all we want to do is watch good football, see a little patriotism, and get a dose of a high-energy, traditional game-day atmosphere, nothing more….All of it is telling me the NFL no longer wants or needs people like me as fans. I’m cool with that, but if I have one message for the league, it’s this: “Be careful what you wish for.”
The NFL is already the most unethical sports league in existence (after the WNBA, of course). More on that tomorrow.
2. Speaking of the WNBA, ESPN’s headline was “Cathy Engelbert, who oversaw WNBA boom, to retire as commissioner.” It could well have read, “Cathy Engelbert, who proved completely incapable of leading the WNBA as it found itself immersed in racial and gender controversies, is running away. Good.” “Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women’s sports,” Engelbert said in a statement. “I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined. I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA team owners and staff, players, investors, fans and the powerhouse league office staff, who believed in what this league could become. I retire with immense gratitude and tremendous optimism for the future of the WNBA, with the best yet to come.”
Englebert is an accountant, and served as the CEO of Deloitte. She was brought in to develop the WNBA as a business, but had no skills or orientation that qualified her to deal with the league’s image and public relations problems. It took some gall for her to talk about the surge in “women’s sports” as so many of her league’s coaches speak as if they don’t know what a woman is.
Players and coaches have described her as “negligent.” One player said that the WNBA had the “worst leadership in the world.” From my observations, this was a severely limited leader who saw her job in the narrowest possible terms. She was hired to cut business deals and make money for the owners. She was good at that. Meanwhile, under her stewardship the WNBA has acquired the reputation of being dominated by lesbian thugs who resent the few white heterosexuals in their midst.
Maybe the WNBA should acquire the NFL’s gay cheerleaders…
I will grant this to some of my more Trump Deranged friends: they do give me some excellent ethics blog fodder.
One of them erupted in typical Trump deranged outrage because, as explained in this WaPo story, the Pentagon fired the publisher and the editor-in-chief of “Stars and Stripes,” the military news publication funded by the Department of Defense. This was, you see, another example of Trump “censorship.” In interviews with CBS, the fired editor insisted, “I am working for Stars and Stripes. Not for the Pentagon. Not for any administration. Not for any policymaker. I am here to cover the military community.” Another argued, “These firings are a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press.”
My Trump Deranged friend seems to believe that the Pentagon is obligated to employ “advocacy journalists” who are free to undermine the military command, including the Commander in Chief. If the Pentagon can fire editors of “Stars and Stripes,” and it can, then the publication can’t call itself independent. The military has no reason to tolerate or fund a publication that is critical of military command or the Commander in Chief, undermining military morale and general order.
In past eras, Stars and Stripes has always had an pro- military bias; of course it has. But now we have veterans in uniform disrupting Congressional hearings, and there is a war on. If “Stars and Stripes “wants the option of criticizing military command rather than reporting military news and promoting the Armed Services, great: let it find a funding source other than the Pentagon. Otherwise, it is beholden to the best interests of the military as the military command defines them.
The military is not a democracy. The Pentagon didn’t permit a “free and independent press” during World War II. It is disingenuous for a “Stars and Stripes” editor or reporter to say on CBS that she doesn’t work for the Pentagon when the Pentagon’s funds pay her salary.
The ethics in the now viral incident at the start of a Chicago Cubs baseball game are clear as a mountain stream. A Gen Z slug was ignoring the National Anthem, a Vietnam vet sitting behind him took offense and demanded that he stand, and when the kid resisted, gave him a sharp slap “upside the head.” Then the young fan finally stood up.
The online debate is contrived. Of course…
…the young fan was being disrespectful and deserved the rebuke
…he was also being ignorant, forgetting that there are a lot of veterans who take loyalty and reverence to the nation they served very seriously; my father would have said something to him
…he still had a right to sit if he chose to, though doing so was unethical,
…hitting the kid was indefensible, even if the contact was light and more symbolic than serious, and
…the young fan showed good judgment by capitulating and not allowing the conflict to escalate.
Further observations…
1. To his credit, the slapper says that he regrets the slap.
2. He also says he and the kid shared a beer at the game. That speaks well of the young man. It is also very typical of the kind of human comradery I have witnessed at baseball games many times over the years. Everyone there has a bond with everyone else—they are baseball fans and usually fans of the same team.
3. Lots of the critics of the veteran remind us that the slap was battery. No, it wasn’t assault: assault is when the victim is placed in fearful anticipation of unwelcome contact; battery is the contact itself. Since the slappee was hit from behind and didn’t see it coming, there was no assault, just battery.
4. Though technically a tort and a crime, the chances of either getting substantive legal redress is about zero. De minimis non curat lex.
5. If the slapper was the kid’s father, mother, or sibling, we never would have heard about the episode
5. Questions: would the veteran have handled the situation the same way if the kid had been black? Female? A Muslim? My guess: no, no, and no.
6. If the kid was with a group of peers, would he have stood? Would the vet have confronted him if he were with friends?
7. Would a black fan have behaved the same as the white kid? Maybe. If not, however, the incident would be characterized as a racial clash by the media.
Today, July 3, in 1863 was the date of Pickett’s Charge, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered a desperate Napoleonic advance against the Union line at Gettysburg in what has come to be a cautionary tale in human bravery and military hubris. The same day marked the zenith of the career of George Armstrong Custer, the head-strong, dashing cavalry officer who would later achieve both martyrdom and infamy as the unwitting architect of the massacre known as Custer’s Last Stand.
I have vowed to do all I can, which admittedly isn’t much, to get the story of what I like to call Custer’s First Stand into our nation’s cultural memory. I wrote much of what you are reading now way back in 2011, and have not adequately fulfilled my pledge since, although I have mentioned “Yellow Hair” (as his Native American conquerors called him) periodically over the years. Many historians have opined that Custer may have saved the Union army from defeat at Gettysburg with his bold actions this day, and therefore may have saved the Union itself. That accomplishment is far more important than the blunder at Little Big Horn that defines Custer’s image and reputation.
Custer’s heroics on the decisive final day of the Battle of Gettysburg teach their own lessons, historical and ethical. Since the East Calvary Field battle has been thoroughly overshadowed by the tragedy of Pickett’s Charge, it is little known and seldom mentioned. That is wrong.
Tell your friends and families the story, which has never been portrayed on screen. It is a really good story.
