The basic story is here. Christopher Rufo, the same conservative writer and gadfly who exposed ex-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s serial plagiarism leading to her resignation, determined that “several passages” in Vice President Kamala Harris’ first book (2009’s “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer” with co-author Joan O’C Hamilton) were taken from Wikipedia and other sources without proper attribution.
Ethics Observations:
—Kamala Harris in 2021, pandering to the “America is a blight on the Earth and the world would have been better without it” bloc in the Democratic Party in a Columbus Day address.
Boy, what an idiot.
But to be fair to Kamala, I’m sure she would now say that she loves Columbus, and grew up in a middle class neighborhood.
What the European explorers ushered in was discovery, freedom from religious oppression, innovation, progress, and let’s just to cut to the chase, civilization. Had there been no United States, Harris and her relatives would probably be grease spots or serving as Nazi slaves today. But never mind, why should a basic comprehension of history, science and anthropology get it the way of a candidate for President of the United States vilifying the nation she aspires to lead? When does her campaign start handing out the “Make America Primitive Again” caps?
Glenn Reynolds wrote today in part,
“I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:
“At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.
“Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.”
Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today…”
Kamala Harris is an embarrassment.
…though we know the answer: Trump isn’t 50 points ahead in the Presidential race, and possibly not ahead at all, because…
I guess I understand how this could happen, but I don’t want to.
Student cheerleaders at Evans Middle School in Lubbock, Texas displeased their cheerleading coach by doing the “wrong cheer,” whatever than means, and she disciplined them by ordering the girls to do “bear crawls” and “crab walks” for miles on an outdoor track when in was nearly 100 degrees in Lubbock and the temperature on the track was well over a hundred. Some of the girls became sick under the sun, all of the cheerleaders ended up with first and second degree burns on their hands and knees, and at least one had to go to a burn center.
When they complained that the track was painful, the coach reportedly said that she didn’t care, and to keep crawling. Parents are furious, naturally, and the evil teacher has been placed on leave (she should be prosecuted—Special query for Humble Talent: Would it be unethical for me to add, “and should be shot”?), but what bothers me is that none of the girls had the sense, character and courage to refuse to accept the cruel punishment, and when the coach said that those who didn’t “crab walk” on the hot track would jeopardize their “cheer careers” (Remember, this is Texas, aka. Bizarro World), at least one girl—we would call her a “leader”—didn’t say, “Well take this cheer and shove it, I’m out of here!,” stop crawling, and walk away on her feet. Movie fans of the original “Carrie” will recall that the protagonist’s chief foe refused to do push-ups as her gym teacher’s punishment for mocking her vulnerable classmate in the shower. That character is a jerk, but she is a gutsy jerk.
I was going to mention the attempt by the Axis media to cover for CBS in the epic betrayal of the American public and its journalistic duties it engineered in the Harris “60 Minutes” interview. Now I’m glad I waited. The entire Axis is trying to spin this into what it is not, and what it is is a flaming example of how hard the news media is working to foil democracy and bring down Donald Trump, as it has been since the 2016 election.
First, there were initially headlines describing “accusations” of unethical editing of Harris’s interview, or “Trump complaints about “alleged” editing. Those were lies, of course: this was res ipsa loquitur all the way: “60 Minutes” aired one version of Harris answering a question that showed her in typical incoherent Gabby Johnson mode (“Rarit!”), and another version with the identical video of the question and a completely different response, that is, a relatively coherent one by Harris.” “60 minutes” did this. There’s no “alleged” about it.
Then the news media shifted into a different strategy, because, to be blunt, the American news media is scum.
Part of the strategy is to ignore the story and hope it goes away. The New York Times hasn’t written about the “60 minutes” in-kind contribution to the Harris campaign at all yet, and the story has been out there for four days. At all!
You know what? I’ve had it. Anyone who tries to argue here that the Times isn’t a dangerous, sinister propaganda mouthpiece for Democrats is also scum, and I’m taking the gloves off. A smug asshole who was banned here long ago keeps sending in asinine illicit posts defending the Times and accusing me of bias for pointing out reality. Screw him, and anyone tempted to take a similar road on my ethics site. The New York Times sits on a story that reveals that an iconic name in American news is now little more than a cheap Democratic propaganda agent, and this isn’t news that’s fit to print?
For the Times to bury CBS’s cheat is almost as unethical as the cheat itself.
The Washington Post is taking the other approach. The Post wants to make the story about Donald Trump, who was the victim of the “60 Minutes” Harris trick. We see this deflection device all the time, it’s the “Republicans pounce” cheat. Jim Treacher neatly described it four years ago, and Instapundit has encored hit regularly since:
Low-life Rolling Stone headlined the issue this way: “A Pouty Trump Cancels ’60 Minutes’ Interview, Calls for CBS to Lose Broadcast License.” After what CBS did to bolster Harris, Trump would have been certifiably mad to agree to let “60 Minutes” manipulate his interview. A Presidential candidate is “pouting” when he objects to a major news show deliberately altering an interview video to help his opponent? See above. Scum.
The Post headline is “Trump calls for CBS to lose broadcasting rights over Harris interview.” Donald Trump wasn’t involved in the “60 Minutes” false editing incident in any way: it was all CBS and the Harris campaign.
Aside: The Harris campaign is denying that it was involved in the cheat. “We do not control CBS’s production decisions and refer questions to CBS,” a Harris campaign aide told multiple outlets including Fox News and Variety. Hilariously, any response by the Harris campaign in such matters resembles the old puzzle about the two tribes on an island where one tribe always lies and the other always tells the truth. 2024 Democrats, and the Harris campaign particularly, lie constantly. It’s answer regarding whether it was complicit in the “60 Minutes” scam would be identical whether it was or was not conspiring with CBS. You can guess what I think, presumably. Continue reading
Please watch all of that report, and then look at this, which I can’t embed, from Fox News. The Joe Concha segment also notes the bizarre recent episode of Tony Dokoupil of CBS being reprimanded for asking tough questions of anti-white racism huckster Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Then there is this: the uncovering of a CBS memo sent to its staff the day after the October 7 terrorist attack on Israeli civilians. The memo was headed, “Standards guidance: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”…
Yikes.
The “some” who believe that a sneak attack on civilians that includes rape and taking hostages as well murder is “justified retaliation” are called “terrorism apologists,” “history ignoramuses” or perhaps just “Democrats.”
Observations on all of this…
Yet another Comment of the Day on the recent post about elite colleges discriminating against white students for the offense of being white. The first is here.
I love when a commenters who hasn’t appeared here for a long time re-enters the fray with brio. Finaldi last commented almost exactly three years ago. Here is Finaldi’s Comment of the Day on ‘Good Discrimination’ At Northeastern, Boston College and the University of Chicago:
***
In our public elementary schools, there there has been a long history of district-level programs that funneled money, staffing and resources toward discriminatory programs, including funding positions for mentors, teachers and administrators explicitly reserved for, say black men to be paid to mentor black boys. Program might entail much fist-bumping and a trip to a ball game, plus bonus admonitions to be this way or that, or not to be this way or that, and some branded sports swag.
The stated goals of such programs are to raise performance, correct discriminatory practices or bring opportunity where none existed. In reality, they are siphons and typically of poor quality, or poorly run. And I have lost count of how many times I’ve been tapped to help “brainstorm some ideas” for content, or help design, recruit, or support in some other (unpaid and unrecognized) way.
I at least expected my thoroughly disgrace alma mater to always maintain some vestige of intelligence, as misapplied as it frequently has been lately.
Guess not.
Before student group-sponsored speakers at the college are allowed to begin, the following official statement from the administration must now be read to the audience:
“A quick note before we begin—Harvard University is committed to maintaining a climate in which reason and speech provide the correct response to a disagreeable idea. Speech is privileged in the University community. There are obligations of civility and respect for others that underlie rational discourse. If any disruption occurs that prohibits speech the disrupters will be allowed for up to 10 minutes. A warning will be issued to all disturbers at the 5-minute mark explaining that the protesters are disrupting the event and ask them to stop. Any further disruption that prevents the audience from adequately hearing or seeing the speakers will lead to the removal of the disrupters from the venue.”
Brilliant.
How smart do you have to be to figure out what’s wrong with this? Let’s see:
Now THIS is end-stage Trump Derangement.
I told you so, not that anyone paying attention couldn’t. Ethics Alarms noted long ago that this would be the most hysterical election season ever from Democrats, and that as the election grew nearer, their desperation and absence of any ethical compass would have them crossing lines of civility, fairness, and decency no previous version of their party had ever crossed. The LBJ’s infamous nuclear war countdown TV ad sliming Barry Goldwater? The 2024 Axis says “Hold my beer!”
The signs are everywhere. Late, late last night, I happened upon CNN, as one of their wild-eyed hosts conducted an alleged news interview as if it was a Kamala Harris rally, going off on her own rant about “Trump’s lies.” The news media isn’t even pretending to be practicing journalism rather than partisan advocacy; “the stakes are too high,” you see.
The stakes are their pals, allies and co-conspirators losing power. Can’t have that.
—-Data scientist Dr Thomas Miller of Northwestern University on his website called The Virtual Tout that posts daily electoral vote forecasts mapped on a timeline of major events that could sway voters
Huh! What a mystery! Why would anyone decide that voting for Kamala Harris is irresponsible and bonkers now? After all, she…she…
There isn’t a single event that would cause support for Harris to drop, there are dozens of them, and the effect is cumulative. Someone needs to introduce the learned professor to the words and wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, and a timeline of the events that got us to this point.
The news media has done its best to keep throwing dust in the public’s metaphorical eyes so that they can’t see what Harris obviously is—that would be a phony, hollow, incompetent radical leftist determined to gain power by any means necessary—but she’s given them nothing to work with and too much to try to cover up.
She’s been undermined by a thousand cuts of her own making, like her declaration to the fawning panel on The View that she wouldn’t change anything the Biden-Harris administration has done. Like her increasingly evident choice of an extreme Left dolt as Vice-President: funny how people lose trust in an understudy POTUS who tells the world that he’s a knucklehead, as well as in the judgment of the aspiring President who selected him.
The entire Harris campaign strategy has been predicated on the assumption that the American public is naive, apathetic, willing to believe anything, and swallows the Big Lie that a man who served as President for four years and was more respectful of the Constitution and personal liberties by far than Harris’s party in the following four years will suddenly turn into Nero in his second term. But they can see Harris faking being Presidential as she flies over the storm devastation; they can hear the feckless FEMA huminahumina-ing over its misused funds; it can see and hear Harris whirl like a DEI dervish around guns, fracking, immigration, Israel and more.
Here is the “single event” that explains Trump’s surge: the Democrats nominated an incompetent, charisma-challenged, dishonest, none-too-bright replacement for Joe Biden without due process, democratic vetting or any accomplishments on her part to justify her heading the ticket. They counted on the corrupt news media to cover for her copious and obvious flaws, but as the song goes, “the age of miracles is past.” The public, which understandably would like a rational alternative to Donald Trump, has been “wishin’ and hopin” for months that Harris is such an alternative (I’m thinking in song lyrics today for some reason) but she isn’t. I think it was the Walz meltdown that was the catalyst, but it could have been any of a dozen moments, or all of them together.
One more comment: Good.
Ethics Alarms 