Axis of Unethical Conduct

The 2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck Births the “Puerto Rico Is An Island of Garbage” Caboose

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

So it’s come to this.

The 2024 election is its own, massive ethics train wreck, as the tag will show you. It officially began with Democrats (and the news media, but I repeat myself) spending too long lying to the public about Joe Biden’s deteriorating mental state and deciding to select a Presidential nominee Soviet-style bypassing all democratic norms and processes. The party broke all previous campaign records for hypocrisy by taking this course while already making the dangerous claim that Republicans are the threats to democracy, and that Donald Trump as President would never allow another free election again. Amazingly, the campaign has gone downhill ethically since that point.

Just as tornadoes sometimes spin off little baby cyclones that still are deadly enough to kill people, the big Ethics Train Wrecks (or ETWs) as designated by Ethics Alarms, like the 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck, the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck and the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck (which spawned the Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck), often generate related ethics train wrecks that cause a lot of their own damage.

But I did not foresee that a Don Rickles-style “roast comic’s” jab at an ongoing news story would or could, even in the Age of the Great Stupid, turn into a controversy dominating headlines when the election is so near and serious matters should be the public’s focus.

I’ll summarize the events as efficiently as possible to get to the main point:

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“Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Here’s What the New York Times Has For Readers This Morning [Updated]:

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Main article: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism. The inflammatory rally was a capstone for an increasingly aggrieved campaign for Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has grown darker and more menacing.“

#2: “Inside the Movement Behind Trump’s Election Lies”

#3: “Far-Right Figures Escalate Talk of Retribution and Election Subversion“

A ways down the page we see, “A Trump Rally Speaker Trashed Puerto Ricans. Harris Reached Out to Them.” Added: I didn’t read the piece, but the headline was misleading and deliberately so. The “speaker” was a comedian, and he was doing a routines. Ah. So the idea is that his jokes were meant seriously, and because it was a Trump rally, Trump endorsing the jokes as if they were serious positions.

Now for the columns:

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“Perfect!” Axis Election Desperation and “Win By Any Means Necessary” Update

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I doubt that Ethics Alarms will be able to keep up with the predicted (and coming to pass) pre-election hysteria and ends justify the means overload that the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“the resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media) are inflicting on the nation as they fear their fake DEI candidate for President will lose, as she so richly deserves to. It is almost entire fueled by Big Lies, fake news, ad hominem attacks, and anything that might distract from Harris’s increasingly obvious incompetence and dishonesty.

I am serious when I say that I only drop by Fox News, CNN and MSNBC for about five minutes each day, and it’s a amazing the garbage I see anyway. I just heard Kamala Harris tell Anderson Cooper, in last night’s CNN “town hall” (Who believes Harris didn’t have the questions in advance?) that she believes that the border must be secure and that there should be “serious consequences” for illegal immigration…this in the same campaign where she has said that she supports amnesty for illegals as well as citizenship! See, if the “consequences” of illegal immigration are exactly what illegals want, that’s called an “incentive.” Naturally, Cooper didn’t call Harris on this self-evident—stupid, really— contradiction.

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“A Nation of Assholes” Update: “I Fart In Your General Direction” Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Back in 2015 when I wrote that having a vulgarian like Donald Trump serve as our national role model (for that is one of the crucial jobs of American Presidents) would spawn “a nation of assholes,” I was tragically correct (“I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everybody says, I’m smart, and I want respect!”). However, I did not foresee how aggressively others in high profile positions—Robert De Niro, Nancy Pelosi, The Squad, Madison Avenue, athletes, Hollywood, journalists, singers and so many more—would rush to assist Trump in soiling our national civility, manners and discourse.

The latest new low—I did not see us reaching this subterranean level —comes from former NFL linebacker and current podcaster Will Compton. He and fellow ex-NFL player Taylor Lewan recently interviewed to Donald Trump on their podcast, “Bussin’ with the Boys.” They asked the once and future President about his sporting participation, and Trump revealed that he had played a little football in his youth.

“I played football, too. I didn’t particularly like it. I played tight end,” Trump said. “I could catch the ball good, but I didn’t particularly like having some guy that was lifting weights all day long and came from a bad neighborhood … and he sees me.”

The two ex-jocks laughed at Trump’s characterization, which of course meant they are racists, since obviously the reference to “bad neighborhoods” was a coded anti-black message. At least this was the narrative the Axis media was certain to adopt, and sure enough, a Washington Post reporter inquired of the pair, “What is amusing about Trump’s remark?” because it had received “a lot of attention online.”

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A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Meets “Nah, The Mainstream Media Isn’t Trying To Rig The Election!” Horror Spectacular, Part I

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

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…

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Panic, Hysteria and Fearmongering From The Left As the Proverbial Writing On The Wall Finally Is Legible and the Metaphorical Chickens Have Come Home to Roost

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

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.

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Harris Is Losing the Meme Wars, So Naturally Democrats Want To Censor Memes

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Who would have expected the AI metaphorical tidal wave to have an influence on the Presidential election? Memes are a breeze to make using artificial intelligence, and while I got heartily sick of my Facebook friends bombarding me with political ones, I have to admit that the technology has the silver lining of taking blunt and biased punditry out of the political cartoonist monopoly and letting some very witty people make satirical political statements.

So far, at least, it appears that conservatives have mastered meming before the Left has, and in this race for President, that is having impact, though how much and how significant is impossible to tell. However, it is clear that the Kamala-Harris-as-a-Communist memes are getting under the skin of some Democrats—one of my Trump-Deranged relatives was complaining about those just yesterday—and so now there are calls for “something to be done” about anti-Harris memes. On MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” NPR’s Maria Hinojosa was very upset about AI images of Harris presented in Maoist uniforms:

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On Trump’s Rejection Of Another Debate…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

It is amusing, in a mordant way, to hear Kamala Harris tell her rallies that Donald Trump has an obligation to voters and democracy to agree to a second debate with her. She might as well be wearing a giant blinking “I am a shameless hypocrite!” neon sign on her head, as would be her party, if it had a literal head.

Democrats in general are ethically estopped from making this complaint. President Biden and his party rejected debates before the Democratic primaries. Harris was awarded her DEI Presidential nomination without having to test herself against any other potential nominees, in a debate or on a ballot. Trump, meanwhile participated in a training-wheels debate against whom he was assured would be his opposition in November, and when that presumed nominee metaphorically burst into flames, the Democrats demanded and got a Mulligan.

If I were Trump, I wouldn’t have agreed to the last debate.

The way ABC rigged the debate to boost Harris’s chances made Trump’s decision to eschew future public muggings by the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“the resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media) obvious and unassailable. The moderators “factchecked” Trump five times and Harris not at all: now there’s neutrality for you. (Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!) It’s not as if Harris didn’t repeatedly misrepresent facts and repeat familiar Democrat Big Lies, because she did. The decision had apparently been made by ABC brass to “Get Trump!”

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Ethics Quote of the Week: PJ Media Pundit Stephen Green [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

“The Dems got what they wanted tonight. The Progressive Axis — Harris and her ABC News foils — got under Trump’s skin and stayed there…”

Stephen Green, aka Vodkapundit, on last night’s debate.

Finally. This is the first time I’ve seen anyone adopt the Ethics Alarms description of the anti-democratic cabal as “the Axis.” I did a search just now: I may have missed one somewhere, but Green’s is the first I can find. Good. Ethics Alarms has been using the term “Axis of Unethical Conduct” for years. It is fair, descriptive, and appropriate.

The coordination last night between Harris and the unabashedly biased ABC moderators during the debate was one of the more obvious examples of the Axis at work.

Added: I bailed out when the ABC hacks let Harris’s Big Lie about Trump calling white supremacists “fine people” go with being “factchecked” after the Axis pair had repeatedly challenged Trump. Presumably I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Aw, Isn’t That Cute…The Axis Media Is Pretending To Be Shocked—Shocked!— About Lies That Support Harris’s Candidacy, Even Their Own!

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

1. Item: PBS. During a Monday night segment of her PBS News program, long time progressive hack Judy Woodruff said, “The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the Prime Minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign.” It was a total fabrication. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office immediately denounced Woodruff’s reporting, and Netanyahu’s office released a statement denying an Axios’ report about a phone call between the prime minister and Trump about the Gaza hostage and cease-fire deal that the outlet claimed happened on August 14. Trump also denied both reports.

Woodruff subsequently issued an apology and retraction on Twitter/X, explaining that her false statement was “was not based on” her “original reporting,” and that she was only “referring to reports” she had read in Axios and Reuters. She was apparently lying about that, too. Nobody can locate any items either in Axios or by Reuters that Trump urged Netanyahu not to “cut a deal.” And, as several have pointed out, the Woodruff retraction was on Twitter to the fools who follow Woodruff, a far smaller group than the millions who inexplicably watch PBS news.

Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” are “baseless, you know. The people who are trying to rig this one say so.

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