Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck

Popcorn-Popping Friday Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The theme today is going to be the fun of watching Democrats, the news media, and your Trump-Deranged friends (and mine) freak out, spin themselves dizzy, and go whataboutism bat-crazy after yesterday’s one-two punch combination to Joe Biden’s hopes of staying in the White House. Almost lost in the stunning indictment of Biden’s mental state and the prospect of a genuine and justified invocation of the 25th Amendment’s disability clause was the fact that the report probably doomed the prosecution of Trump for mishandling classified documents.

I almost dedicated this installment of the Friday Open Forum to “The Simpsons'” Nelson Muntz (“Ha ha!”) I have no sympathy for Biden’s enablers, allies, paid liars, puppeteers, party or family. None. Zilch. They deserve to be mocked mercilessly, as does everyone who voted for a President who was so obviously in the twilight of senility at least as far back as 2019.

The assessment of Biden’s DOJ’s special counsel and Biden’s disastrous public address trying to debunk it arrived late enough yesterday that reeling pundits had an excuse not to write about their humiliation immediately, but Paul Krugman, the NYT’s shamelessly biased Nobel Prize-winning hack, dived right in:

“When the news broke about the special counsel’s hit job — his snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden’s memory — I found myself thinking about my mother. What year did she die? It turned out that I didn’t know offhand; I knew that it was after I moved from Princeton to CUNY, because I was regularly commuting out to New Jersey to see her, but before the pandemic. I actually had to look into my records to confirm that she died in 2017.

I’ll bet that many readers are similarly vague about the dates of major life events. You remember the circumstances, but not necessarily the precise year. And whatever you think of me, I’m pretty sure I don’t write or sound like an old man. The idea that Biden’s difficulty in pinning down the year of his son’s death shows his incapacity — in the middle of the Gaza crisis! — is disgusting.

As it happens, I had an hour-long off-the-record meeting with Biden in August. I can’t talk about the content, but I can assure you that he’s perfectly lucid, with a good grasp of events. And outside that personal experience, on several occasions when I thought he was making a serious misjudgment — like his handling of the debt ceiling crisis — he was right and I was wrong.

And my God, consider his opponent….

Glorious.

You can write about any ethics issue you want, as always. But pop that popcorn….

The Deceitful January Jobs Report

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

It seems increasingly apparent that the Democrats and Joe Biden’s election strategy, besides trying to convince the public that Donald Trump is the spawn of Hitler and Satan, is to lie, deceive and gaslight voters into believing that down is up, bad is good, and that Biden has done a wonderful job even though by all visible markers his administration has been a disastrous failure.

In the latest example, the January jobs report was hailed by Joe and his minions as more proof that the economy was not just good, but spectacular. Naturally, the news media carried the message. “January Jobs Report Was a Blowout. Disregard the Seasonal Noise” proclaimed Barrons. NPR, our Democratic Party mouthpiece, crowed, “The U.S. created an extraordinary number of jobs in January. Here’s a deeper look.” “U.S. employment soars by 353,000, stunning Wall Street,” said an obviously stunned MarketWatch. “Another shockingly good jobs report shows America’s economy is booming” said CNN. The New York Times joined the parade, as expected: “Blockbuster Jobs Report Backs Up Fed’s Patience as It Waits to Cut Rates.” NBC News was positively giddy: “The great American jobs machine keeps revving in an election year.”

My son, an auto mechanic who is, as far as I can tell, completely apolitical, had just recently conveyed a completely different picture. He says that everyone he knows is struggling financially, and that he personally had a disastrous month because he is largely paid by the hour. Few Northern Virginians were bringing their cars in to be serviced. “Nobody has any money,” he told me. He worked the fewest hours last month than any time since the pandemic lockdown. Apparently he wasn’t the only one.

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The President’s Deceitful Executive Order

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

If I were maintaining a “lie database” on Joe Biden (like the Washington Post does, among others, on Donald Trump) this would go right on it. And yes, I have not read a single analysis on any source that explains the deceitful quality of the President’s latest executive order. Unlike several of the others, this one is constitutional. It is just completely misleading, and deliberately so.

Yesterday, Biden ordered financial and travel sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. That explanation at the top of the New York Times story cleared up initial confusion on my part. “Biden issues executive order targeting Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians” was the headline at Axios, and similar headlines abound. Huh? Does Biden think that he, like Leonardo DiCaprio, is King of the World? What power does the President of the United States have over citizens of foreign nations who aren’t in the United States? The answer, for those of you praying that J Biden and the Democrats can save democracy from the previous President who abuses presidential power, is none. None. The executive order is grandstanding of the most cynical sort. Biden literally could issue similar fanciful orders “sanctioning” Parisians who annoy visiting Americans by being rude to them with as much effect.

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Boeing, the 737 Max, and the FAA: What a Team!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

One benefit the Department of Transportation has going for it is that with all the incompetence being displayed at the Defense Department, the Education Department, and Homeland Security, the fact that the Transportation Department’s DEI Secretary Buttigieg is habitually asleep at the switch doesn’t get as much attention as it might otherwise.

One would think that if there was any plane on earth that passengers should feel absolutely safe flying on, it would be Boeing’s 737 Max. Both the company and the FAA were found negligent, liable and villainous following investigations of a pair of fatal crashes of the aircraft shortly after the model’s introduction. A Lion Air MAX plane crashed in Indonesia in October 2018, killing all 189 people aboard, followed by the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines MAX killing all 157 people on that flight. Once the fleets of the Max were permitted to fly again, it was natural to assume that these planes would be scrutinized, double-checked, checked again and then checked again, because another incident would cause Boeing to lose investors’ trust and the FAA to look like irredeemable fools.

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Incompetent? Irresponsible? Dishonest? Whatever This Was, It’s Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Look! Another example of IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”)!

From the New York Times:

It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday.

The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon.

Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House.

The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said.

Meanwhile, conservatives “pounced”: “What possible motive could there be for doing this? Who knows? It didn’t make a lot of sense, but the Biden administration has an extensive record of covering up scandals, so it wasn’t exactly out of character for the Biden administration to cover something up,” wrote PJ media’s Matt Margolis. Other wags noted that hiding such health-related information about important government officials is the kind of thing China does.

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It’s Time To Play That Exciting New Game Show, “Who’s The Dictator?” !!!!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hello everybody! Welcome to “Whose the Dictator?” the popular ethics game show!  Welcome panel! And here’s today’s challenge…

You see before you two Presidents: one, Joe Biden, a Democrat and current residence of the White House. Next to him is Donald Trump, previously President, and currently seeking to be the candidate of the Republican Party for his old job in 2024. Currently, the mainstream media is calling Mt. Trump an aspiring dictator, based on banter with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall. Here’s CBS’s report…as you know, CBS is the most trusted name in news, being the network that gave us Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Dan…never mind, let’s stop at Walter:

Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday in Fox News Town Hall that he would not be a dictator “except for Day One” if he is elected to the presidency next year.

In a taped town hall with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity in Iowa, the former president was asked whether he would use the presidency to “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people” several times.

“You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.

“Except for Day One,” Trump said.

When asked to clarify, Trump said he would use the presidency to close the border and increase oil drilling in the U.S.

“That is not retribution,” Hannity said.

“I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. Other than Day One.’ We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator,” Trump said.

The Biden campaign immediately pounced on the comments in a campaign email and posted a clip of the exchange to X.

“Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.

The report didn’t bore anyone by discussing why “drilling, drilling, drilling” suggests dictatorial conduct or aspirations, or what the statutory authority is for the President closing the border legally and constitutionally, but, as you know, panel, the American voter is already fully cognizant of and sophisticated in its knowledge of these things, thoroughly educated on the President’s role in constitutional government and the limits of Presidential power thanks to the excellent training in civics that our public school system provides. Besides, everyone knows what Trump is like and what his real motives are, right?

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The Apparent Strategies To Overcome Democrat Responsibility For Inflation: Gaslighting And Insulting Voters’ Intelligence

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I saw “Biden’s” idiotic tweet about corporations and inflation last week and I decided it was so obviously dishonest that it wasn’t worth writing about. (That, and the fact that anyone who thinks the President actually tweets anything himself would buy the Brooklyn Bridge twice.) Then the Atlantic said, “Hold my beer…”

From the article, which is behind a paywall and I would have paid NOT to see what is available for free:

You would think, with prices as high as they are, that Americans would have tempered their enthusiasm for shopping of late; that they would have pulled back spending on luxury items; that they would have sought out budget and basic options, bought smaller packages, fewer things.

This is not what has happened. Consumer spending rose 0.2 percent, after accounting for higher prices, in October, the most recent month for which the government has data. Online shopping jumped 7.8 percent over the Thanksgiving long weekend, more than analysts had anticipated. The sales of new cars, dishwashers, cruise vacations, jewelry — all things people tend to give up when they are watching their budget — remain strong. Consultants keep anticipating a recession precipitated by the “death of the consumer.” Thus far, the consumer is staying alive.

People hate inflation, just not enough to spend less: This is one of the central tensions of today’s economy, in which things are going great yet everyone is miserable. And in some ways, Americans have nobody to blame but themselves.

That garbage elevates “blame the victim” to a fine art. It is insulting to be expected to be persuaded by such an argument, but apparently the Left’s propagandists are desperate, they really think Americans are idiots, or both.

The Worst President Ever? Part 4.

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Surprise! You thought I had forgotten, didn’t you? It has been a long time, almost a year, since the last installment of this series, inspired by President Joe Biden’s spectacularly awful, divisive, incompetent and destructive first two years. Now it’s approaching three, and Biden looks worse than ever. I admit to being paralyzed after considering Woodrow Wilson in Part 3. It is hard to imagine a President being much worse than Wilson, which is remarkable, considering how long Democratic historians maintained the myth that he was one of our greatest chief executives. This fills me with hope that eventually history’s verdict on Barack Obama will align itself with objective reality, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Since May on 2022, when I began this inquiry, the performance of President Biden has only worsened. Nonetheless, he still has more than a year to go, and that’s assuming that he does not get re-elected to a second term. To be fair, I should have divided this competition into two divisions, one for single term Presidents (or less), and the other for those who served more than one term. After all, Woodrow Wilson, the current head of the leaderboard, couldn’t possibly have done as much damage if he hadn’t been re-elected in 1916 with the now mordantly ironic slogan, “He Kept Us Out of the War.” I must admit, however, Biden has done a spectacular amount of harm in less than three years. It’s impressive.

Following Wilson came a President now routinely ranked as one of the worst, Warren G. Harding, #29 (1921-1923), and he didn’t make it through even three years, dying suddenly of cardiac arrest at the youthful age (by today’s Presidential standards) of 57. I began my lifetime fascination with the Presidency reading that Harding was tied with Buchanan and Johnson for the bottom of the barrel. The record just doesn’t support that assessment. While Harding was alive, he enjoyed more popularity than all but a few Presidents while in the White House. His low ranking is attributable to first, the eruption of several scandals, notably the Teapot Dome scandal, in his cabinet after his death, and second, the sordid accounts for Harding’s remarkable sexual profligacy and adultery. While no historian has asserted convincingly that Harding was himself corrupt or complicit in the scandals, he did appoint the crooks, and was accountable. Like Donald Trump, he appointed many cronies and allies who lacked the character and qualifications for public service. There was plenty of smoke that a more attentive POTUS would have sniffed out. As for the sexual misconduct, presumably post-Harding revelations about Bill Clinton and Jack Kennedy should place this in proper perspective. As several commentators have noted in recent decades of Harding historical rehabilitation, many of his accomplishments are impressive.

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How Can Any Democrat, Never Mind Anyone Else, Trust House Minority Whip James Cliburn (D-S.C.) After This Op Ed?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Heck, how can anyone trust a political party that would install such a calculated liar (or, in the other Hanlon’s Razor alternative, an utter moron) who would issue such cynical, obvious, “it isn’t what it is” piece of unconscionable gaslighting?

Clyburn has one of the most damning Ethics Alarms dossiers of any member of Congress, which is impressive, considering what an awful collection of corrupt and destructive incompetents “low-information voters” have elected to govern us. He, or more likely a soulless aide—the best defense Clyburn could offer for this thing is that he allowed his name to be attached to it without reading what it said—gave the ludicrous primal scream against democracy to CNN, which dutifully published it instead of handing it back laughing and saying, “Good one. Now where’s the real op-ed?”

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Now THIS Is An Irresponsible Biden Judicial Nominee…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The exchange above revealed much about the caliber of judicial nominees President Biden is presenting to the lock-step Democratic Senate majority.

The bio of this one, Quinnipiac University law professor Sarah French Russell, states that she “focuses her research and teaching on sentencing policy”–sentencing policy!!—“juvenile justice, prison conditions, reentry issues, ethics, and the problems of access to justice.” Ethics—when her response to being confronted outright with a letter she signed, advocating outrageous and radical measures, was to tell the assembled Senators that he had no memory of signing it and to deny that the letter said what it said…”Russell was previously Director of the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School and taught in Yale’s Criminal Defense, Prison Legal Services, and Supreme Court clinics. Good old dependable Yale Law School!

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