This is great huminahumina even for the President’s paid liar. Asked directly about growing evidence that President Biden and his family benefited financially from black sheep son Hunter’s influence peddling, Jean-Pierre blathered,

“So, look, uh, you know, um, there’s — there’s some — a little bit of, uh, interesting, uh, you know, kind of, on-brand, uh, thinking here, because, um, you know, congressional Republicans, uh, ran, uh, saying that they were going to fight inflation. Uh, they said they were gonna make that a priority. They were very clear about that these past, uh, several months, and instead, what they’re doing is they’re focusing, uh — you know, they’re focusing — they’re making their top, top priority — they get the majority, and their top priority is actually not focusing on the American families but focusing on the President’s family.”

Wow. It was such an obvious deflection that she might as well have begun by saying, “I’m now going to avoid this issue completely because I don’t have a good response for it.” It’s also an ineffective deflection. This is condign justice, and self-inflicted by Biden: the U.S. President who most desperately needed a competent, articulate, quick-thinking press secretary is burdened by the most inarticulate, dull-witted individual in the position ever. She was hired because she would be “historic”—first black, foreign-born lesbian, or something—but those features are completely irrelevant to the job. “Most flagrantly incompetent White House mouthpiece” is a genuine historic accomplishment, especially when one considers some of Karine’s predecessors like Sean Spicer and Joe Lockhart. I have a fertile imagination, but I cant conceive of how any press secretary could be worse than Karine. There are more articulate and persuasive mimes.

It’s wonderful, don’t you think, that the President can’t possibly fire her? Continue reading →

On this date in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the most famous speech in U.S. history, authored by him, in a remarkable burst of historical and ethical clarity. Dedicating the military cemetery on the battlefield with rotting bodies still covering the ground after what we now know was the turning point in the Civil War, Lincoln captured the mission of this nation as it was while redefining it going forward:

 Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

How he missed the fact that the United States was really founded to protect slavery and was dedicated to being a scourge of human rights, we’ll never know.

I wonder how many of the “experts” who now train our children to be good citizens include the Gettysburg Address in their curriculum. To be fair, there may not be time, given the importance of imparting critical race theory and joys of transgenderism.

It is also worth noting that Abraham Lincoln developed the critical thinking and rhetorical skills that produced his masterpiece without any formal education. He just read many of those books by the same dead white men who are now considered the heralds of white supremacy.

I suppose three arch statements in a row are excessive on an ethics blog….

1. Another confirmation bias classic: A typical New York Times reader writes, “Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to step down from her leadership position was timely and astute. A good leader knows when it is time to go. Moreover, her speech was extraordinary in spirit, wisdom, humility, grace and gratitude….”

Nobody should care what Pelosi said, or says. She already showed us her spirit, wisdom, humility and grace many times, over many years. She was a consistently toxic and divisive feature of American politics, and her party and her nation are much diminished because of her.

Continue reading →