Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck

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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Today’s “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Updates: The Lewiston Shooting And “Arghh! Biden Has A Primary Challenger!”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

bias

The fact that so many loyal Democrats and smug progressives will still look you in the eye and say that mainstream media bias is a right-wing conspiracy theory speaks eloquently of the corruption of American politics, individual integrity and democracy. Two depressing examples:

1. The missing mass shootings.

Kevin Downey reviews the large number of mass shootings since the Lewiston massacre, and points out that even though one would assume that a) they are all newsworthy and b) that the anti-gun journalism establishment would want such tragedies to be known, only the Maine shooting ticked off the right boxes to advance the agreed-upon MSM narrative without undermining some part of it. In addition to the high body count, the Lewiston massacre featured a white male shooter using a semi-automatic weapon (that they could call “an assault weapon”). And he apparently liked some conservative social media posts, meaning that the shooting was really Donald Trump’s fault.

Maine authorities were also warned about Robert R. Card II in plenty of time to stop him if they had followed established policies but didn’t. Oh, never mind: as with the Uvalde shooting and others, it’s the guns, the victims and the shooter that matter, not the fact that existing laws and competent law enforcement should have been sufficient to prevent the disaster.

Since the Lewiston shooting (October 25) there were ten more mass shootings, leaving 14 dead and 65 wounded. Two took place in Chicago (of course) and left 19 people shot.In one shooting involving a handgun, 15 victims were hit by gunfire. That there weren’t more deaths is moral luck. The mostly ignored shootings involved shooters “of color,” drug gatherings, parties substantially attended by non-whites, and weapons that couldn’t plausibly be called “weapons of war.”

Downey also cited the amusing idiocy of, again, Joy Behar on “The View,” produced by ABC News, showing abject gun ignorance ( I missed it–sock drawer…). She said (and no one on the set had the wit, integrity or knowledge to contradict her),”If you shoot with an AR-15, let’s say you shoot a deer, you can’t eat it because you basically demolish the animal.” She “doesn’t know the difference between an AR-15 and a bazooka,” writes Downey. That’s fair.

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The President Going To Israel Isn’t A “Remarkable Gamble”—It’s Stupid, Desperate, Irresponsible And Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

According to the front page of the New York Times, President Biden is taking the trip this week “to show unwavering support for Israel — after what officials say was the deadliest day in its history — and to speak with the country’s leaders about several urgent issues, including hostages held by Hamas and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.” The Times calls it “a remarkable gamble,” but one should gamble, if at all, only when the potential reward is somewhere close to the anticipated risks, and sufficiently beneficial. There is no rational calculation that makes this absurdly risky journey a justifiable gamble by that definition. The President of the United States is risking the stability and welfare of the nation he was elected to lead to “show support”? Joe Biden can show sufficient support for Israel from the safety of a padded room at the White House.

The trip can only be explained as a Barn Door Fallacy operation, like the reported temporary retraction of the unfrozen Iranian funds that may well have given Iran the encouragement it needed to back the deadly Hamas attack. The President is grandstanding to avoid Democratic Party accountability after that botch before the attack, and for the disgusting, “let’s look at the context,” pro-terrorism and anti-Semitic response of so many Democratic supporters after it, notably on college campuses. It is a purely political move, and not even a smart one even from that cynical perspective.

Making the visit as futile as it is reckless is the undeniable fact that the Israeli government is not going to back away from its pledge to crush Hamas, with all the carnage in Gaza that objective implies. So Joe is putting himself in harm’s way, risking the horror of a Kamala Harris Presidency, to be able to tell Donald Trump that “at least he tried” in the debates? Oh, good plan.

Moron.

President Bush’s surprise 2003 Thanksgiving appearance in Iraq was also irresponsible grandstanding, but at least he was showing symbolic support for the U.S. troops he sent into harm’s way. Biden has no such justification for taking this risk. All I can conclude is that the internal polling at the White House regarding Joe’s popularity is so bad that Biden aides decided to appeal to his macho fantasies and convince our addled POTUS that the trip makes sense. And at least Bush didn’t announce the trip in advance, as Biden has. Brilliant.

The Israeli visit shows warped values, priorities and logic at the very top of our government. I would say that at least it’s useful information, but we already knew that about Joe and his party.

Integrity Check For The News Media And The Trump-Deranged: Trump Was Right About The Consequences Of Releasing Billions To Iran. Biden Was Wrong. Who Will Admit It?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I’m betting just about no one. You?

This social media snark is going viral now, and it should, though what Trump predicted should have been assumed by the administration, and apparently was. Of course, Trump’s post is marred by his typical bluster and name-calling, but that shouldn’t outweigh the fact that he was right. As one analyst this morning admitted, without Iran’s support, Hamas wouldn’t exist. Biden’s defenders are arguing that, well, the US didn’t really give all that money to Iran, because it was Iran’s money to begin with. Weak. Iran was given access to funds they didn’t not have access to, in exchange for hostages, and Iran seeds terrorist groups. Hamas launched a deadly sneak attack on Israel, guaranteeing war, and almost certainly would not have done so were it not assured of receiving financial support from Iran.

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“Now THIS Is Gaslighting…Or Outright Lying…Or Senility…” Follow-Up: Biden Was So Dishonest, CNN Felt Compelled To Practice Real Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

In yesterday’s post titled “Now THIS Is Gaslighting…Or Outright Lying…Or Senility…,” Ethics Alarms discussed the now common phenomenon of Democrats, especially Joe Biden, dealing with the unpleasant reality of what their incompetence and corruption has wrought by simply asserting that the opposite of that reality is true. That post was focused only on Biden’s outrageous claims that Americans were better off financially after nearly three years of “Bidenomics,” and, even more absurdly, that the “knew it.”

But I did not read the whole speech. With few exceptions, like this one…

…I don’t waste time listening or reading what President Biden says unless another source points me to a particular selection: after all, I have a sock drawer to maintain. Moreover, I have known for decades that Biden lies, plagiarizes, says whatever his pea-brain thinks is useful at the time, and since he started leaking brain cells and IQ points, I also know at any moment he is liable to announce that he is Marie of Rumania. As it turns out, Biden’s claims about the financial fortunes of Americans was just the tip of a rather large metaphorical ice berg, and CNN, now trying to regain its squandered credibility and reputation after dumping the worst of its biased hacks (Brian Stelter, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon), though far from all of them, could not resist a genuine “factcheck.”

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Biden said, “I was able to cut the federal debt by $1.7 trillion over the first two years.” That’s pure fiction. CNN pointed out, correctly, that the national debt has increased by more than $5.7 trillion during Biden’s presidency so far. Now, it is theoretically possible that this addled fool doesn’t know the difference between the deficit and the debt, but that’s material misrepresentation, because reducing the debt means that the U.S. actually owes less money, while reducing the deficit only means that the debt has increased less than it has recently because the government is spending more than it is taking in. CNN wasn’t through debunking this piece of fiction:

It’s worth noting, as we have before, that Biden’s Friday comments would be missing key context even if he had not inaccurately replaced the word “deficit” with “debt.” It’s highly questionable how much credit Biden himself deserves for the decline in the deficit in 2021 and 2022. Independent analysts say it occurred largely because emergency Covid-19 relief spending from fiscal 2020 expired as scheduled – and that Biden’s own new laws and executive actions have significantly added to current and projected future deficits. In addition, the 2023 deficit is widely expected to be higher than the 2022 deficit.

And CNN wasn’t done.

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Now THIS Is Gaslighting…Or Outright Lying…Or Senility…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

President Biden said yesterday, as he boasted about a misleading jobs report, “The American people are smart as hell and know what their interests are. I think they know they’re better off financially than they were before. It’s a fact.”

It’s not a fact. There were a number of counter factual assertions there. First, the American people are NOT “smart as hell” or they would not have elected a dementia victim who was never too sharp to begin with as President of the United States, Second, Biden and his party routinely act as if the public does not know “what their interests are,” presuming that Big Brother knows best. Moreover, even the substantially dim-witted members of the pubic are smart enough to know they are not “better off financially than they were before,” before meaning, as it should, before the pandemic and the progressive-led lockdown created an artificial crater which any administration would be able to crawl out of and show a relative improvement. The only question is whether Joe Biden believes that “Bidenomics” is working.

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