Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck

Wait, WHAT? The White House Is Caught Rigging Biden’s Press Conference To Make Him Appear More Competent Than He Is, And The Washington Post’s Analysis is “Everybody Does It” And “Republicans Pounce”?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

How do these people look at themselves in the mirror without retching?

Paul Farhi was the veteran Democratic operative (aka a MSM reporter) the Post assigned to spin this scandal. “President Biden was photographed holding a notecard Wednesday, revealing the stage managing behind many political media events,” he began. Oh, the euphemism is “stagemanaging,” is it? What the “notecard” was is called a cheat sheet, and what it signifies is cheating, and lying to the public.

The card in Biden’s hand—he’s so diminished mentally that he can’t even cheat competently–read “Question # 1,” and directed the President to call on Los Angeles Times reporter, Courtney Subramanian. The card included Subramanian’s name, a pronunciation guide, her affiliation and a headshot. The card also included Subramanian’s question: under the heading “Foreign Policy/Semiconductor Manufacturing,” the card read, “How are YOU squaring YOUR domestic priorities — like reshoring semiconductors manufacturing — with alliance-based foreign policy?”

Biden called on her for the first question, she asked what she was supposed to, and Biden offered an uncharacteristically detailed and coherent response. Farhi’s spin: “White House press office employees have routinely polled reporters about their priorities and interests in advance of news meetings to anticipate what their boss might be asked while on the podium. The practice is also common in news conferences with Cabinet secretaries, such as the secretary of defense and secretary of state.” Fine, that’s their job. And it is an ethical reporter’s job to say, “Sorry, you’re just going to have to find out when I’m called on.” Sure Presidential aides want to brief POTUS on what the likely topics are. Rigging the questions in advance, however, is something completely different. It’s called cheating. This is particularly true in this case, when much of the pubic is concerned about the President’s cognitive abilities. Presenting him as able to whip off a detailed answer to a reporter’s question when in fact he was tipped off and the reporter was in cahoots with the White House is pure deception.

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“Republicans Pounced” So Hard That Biden’s FAA Chief Nominee Who Was Completely Unqualified Had To Withdraw [Link Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

That’s the embarrassingly unfit Biden nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration above during his confirmation hearing, in the process of saying, “Huh?” or “Whaa?” which characterized his response to material questions from Senators regarding the job he irresponsibly agreed to take. Ethics Alarms wrote about the awful performance of Phil Washington here, concluding in part,

What is ominous about Washington’s hearing responses is that he apparently didn’t feel it necessary to educate himself regarding the subject matter of his appointment at all.

This is a pattern with Biden’s “diversity” appointments, as illustrated just last week by the hearing responses of a nominee for a district court judgeship. Apparently, however, the mainstream news media considers Republicans mean and probably racist to ask questions designed to find out if the designated head of the FAA knows enough to keep planes from falling out of the sky. Here’s Reuters:

Exclusive: Biden nominee to head FAA withdraws after Republican criticism:

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is withdrawing his nomination after Republican criticism that he was not qualified to serve WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is withdrawing his nomination after Republican criticism that he was not qualified to serve as the top aviation regulator.

False. Washington withdrew his nomination because his pathetic responses to legitimate questions raised serious doubts that he was qualified to serve as the top aviation regulator. Naturally, the media wants to blame Republicans, because that’s how journalists see their job now. Only two people are at fault for Washington’s fall: Washington, for accepting a nomination for a position he seemingly lacked qualifications for and not having the diligence or integrity to prepare for questioning, and the President, who again seemed to elevate skin-tone over experience and qualifications for an important position. Reuters dutifully related the White House spin: “an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks on Mr Washington’s service and experience irresponsibly delayed this process, threatened unnecessary procedural hurdles on the Senate floor, and ultimately have led him to withdraw his nomination today.”

Reuters didn’t think the serious allegations that Washington was corrupt were worthy of mentioning. Senator Ted Cruz provided details on a criminal investigation involving Washington:

“Unfortunately, the problems with Mr. Washington’s nomination don’t end with his lack of aviation experience. There are also serious concerns regarding outstanding allegations that Mr. Washington engaged in misconduct during his time as the head of the Los Angeles Metro. He has been named in multiple search warrants in an ongoing criminal public corruption investigation, and he’s been the subject of multiple whistleblower complaints.

“One search warrant was executed just last September, not very long ago. It contained allegations that Mr. Washington pushed forward lucrative no-bid contracts to a politically-connected nonprofit to run a sexual harassment hotline that was hardly ever used, and that he did so in order to stay in the good graces of a powerful politician on LA Metro’s board. The allegations are the kind of local corruption sadly we see far too often across this country, in both parties.

“But a whistleblower who exposed the details of this alleged pay-to-play contracting scheme claims to have been retaliated against by Mr. Washington. After Mr. Washington left the LA Metro the agency settled these claims with the whistleblower for $625,000. I practiced law for a long time. you did as well. A $625,000 check is not a nuisance check. It’s not a “go away” check. It’s indicative that there’s a real there, there. Whistleblowers don’t get settlements for more than a half a million dollars if their claim is baseless.”

To Washington’s credit, if he had any choice in the matter, at least he had the sense to pull his name.

Biden Lies, The Conservative Media Says Twitter Flagged It, And I Can’t Find Any Evidence That It Did

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

l don’t know who to believe, who to trust, or what the hell is going on. And unlike most Americans, I try hard to find out.

Joe Biden—you know, that President who was going to restore trust in the Presidency, not lie all the time and unite the country?—allowed this to be issued under his name by some anonymous intern (which itself is a lie):

Of course this is nonsense, though standard progressive cant. I know it’s a lie without further study because, you know, I read stuff.

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Official Progressive Deceit: The Equality/Equity Scam

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

In describing to lawyers what deceit is in my ethics seminars (it is amazing how many layers don’t know what deceit is, though it is forbidden in the ethics rules), I often say that deceit is the official language of Washington, D.C. It’s a reliable laugh line, but it’s not funny. Using linguistic tricks to deceive and mislead the public is a tool of dangerous and untrustworthy governments, movements, leaders and politicians. I don’t know if this age old practice has become worse in recent years; to me it seems that way, but it could be an illusion. In the Sixties, leftists like Abbie Hoffman liked to use “liberate” as a synonym for “steal.”

The success of “Black Lives Matter” relied on a linguistic disorientation, like the old gag about a lawyer asking a witness, “When did you stop beating your wife?” What has been dismaying is how few people have the wit and courage to call out the trick and refuse to back down. The use of “immigrants,” “migrants,” “undocumented workers” and other deliberately misleading terms to hide the reality that the subject is law-breaking aliens has also been largely successful in bamboozling the public. “Affirmative action,” a nice and deceptive way to say “racial quotas,” is finally going down, but it kept the Constitution at bay for half a century. The all-time most sinister linguistic cheat, perhaps, is the use of the benign word “choice” to describe the right to kill unborn children.

Lately, the most prominent verbal deceit is embodied in the “Diversity-Equity-Inclusion” mantra, with “equity” serving as the cornerstone of the cheat. Most Americans—hey, thanks, public education system!—think that equity is just another word for equality. Now that Democrats and progressives are fully committed to socialism (while denying it—that’s not deceit, it’s just lying) they have been bombarding the public with the word without clarifying its implications. Equality means equality under the law; it means that every citizen has the same opportunity to accomplish what his or her talents, effort, ingenuity, determination, laws and the vagueries of fate and fortune allow without obstruction by the government. Equity means that every citizen should be guaranteed the same success to the extent government power can make such “equity” possible. It is based on the socialist/communist ideal that it is unfair that life provides unequal benefits , ability and advantages, so central power must ensure fairness by artificially eliminating as many disparities in these benefits , ability and advantages as possible.

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Ethics Dunce: President Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

I suppose the theory is that if you can’t do anything else right, grandstand. From a political perspective, that’s not a stupid theory for a US President (which is why you don’t see Sidney Wang from the Ethics Alarms clip archive), but it is a desperate one, and it only is responsible leadership if there is no substantive risk of something really bad happening to the country you are leading as a result. Biden’s been grandstanding a great deal of late, such as shooting down harmless balloons like crazy to make up for the fact that he let the Chinese spy balloon travel across the U.S.  For perspective, reasonable estimate is that it cost about $2 million to shoot down the Lake Huron balloon that may have cost as little as $12, but to be fair, the Biden Administration is operating under the assumption that money doesn’t matter, so this doesn’t qualify as “harm” in their eyes.

The much ballyhooed “surprise” trip to Ukraine for photo ops, however, had an undeniable potential downside: the President could have been killed. As he “stepped out into the streets of Kyiv”  the New York Times reported, “an air-raid siren sounded, a dramatic moment that underscored the investment the United States has made in Ukraine’s independence.” Thanks, Times flaks, good pro-Biden spin and propaganda there! You’re doing your job, or at least what fake journalists today consider their job. Nevertheless, let me return to reality:  the “dramatic moment” underscored how stupid and reckless Biden’s visit was. Continue reading →

I Excuse Rob Reiner For Saying Something This Stupid Because He’s An Actor. For A Pundit Inflicted On The Public By The New York Times To Say It Is Journalistic Malpractice

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Once again, Michelle Goldberg pulls into the lead for “Worst and Most Biased New York Times Columnist.” This is impressive, because so many Times columnists are unethical blights on national soul. Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, Charles M. Blow, Maureen Dowd, Jamelle Bouie…it’s an awful group; I could teach a “Bias Makes You Stupid” ethics course using only their columns as materials. I doubt that even these pundits would be foolish enough to claim Biden is a “great President.” Here I am, still comparing records to determine if he’ll be regarded as the worst President ever, and she claims that.

I try to rate Presidents by their own standards, and by his own stated standards, Biden has been a failure. He said he needed to bring a divided country together, and by fully placing himself in thrall to the most radical segments of the Left, he has made the partisan and ideological divide worse, and dangerously so. Like Obama, his policies and rhetoric have exacerbated racial tensions. Long a supporter of the military, he has overseen a brutal weakening of the Armed Forces, by making woke indoctrination a priority over national defense. A supposed women’s rights advocate, Biden has allowed trans-mania to undermine women’s sports. While giving lip service to Constitutional Rights, his administration has used its power and influence to illegally urge private entities to censor speech. He has allowed the National Debt to explode; he has presided over such extreme inflation that wage increases cannot keep up. The horde of illegal immigrants pouring over the border has never been more overwhelming, yet he allows his Vice President and Cabinet members to claim that “the border is secure.” He has openly endorsed racial discrimination in his appointments. After joining in the Democratic chorus that Trump “undermined democratic institutions,” Biden has used the “bully pulpit” institution to focus hate on political opponents. His Justice Department allowed illegal harassment of Supreme Court members. The FBI has been revealed as partisan and corrupt. Under his Transportation Secretary there have been more crises in the system than at any time since 9/11. His fecklessness in international relations allowed Putin to feel secure in invading Ukraine. Biden has harmed the nation with purely symbolic and otherwise useless climate change measures, like cancelling the XL Pipeline. Crime rates are soaring; and worst of all, he has indulged his party’s increasing thirst for constraining personal liberties, free expression and dissent.

I could go on, but it is exhausting and depressing.

And Michelle Goldberg says Biden is a great President, because… Continue reading →

Rueful Ethics Observations On The 2023 State Of The Union Address

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The text of the speech as released is here; it does not, of course, contain the usual Biden word-slurring, stumbles and botches.

In case you want to save time, I’ll give you a short summary: last night’s State of the Union Speech was as unethical and despicable as any I can recall. I would have to go back and review some others, notably some of Bill Clinton’s to be certain, and you know, sock drawer. It doesn’t really matter whether it was “the most” unethical; it was unethical enough to be disgraceful, and to leave the nation no better, and quite possibly worse, than before President Biden delivered it.

The photo above, which I have posted at least three times before and intend to keep posting until Biden is out of office or drooling in a home somewhere, is not from last night’s speech, but from his democratic norm-shattering “Soul of the Nation” speech, or as I call it, his ‘anyone who opposes me and my party is an evil  fascist and an enemy of the state’ speech. It is relevant because no President who makes a speech like that can credibly or ethically come back less than five months later and say, as he did last night, Continue reading →

How Jolly! The White House Has Figured Out That Virtue-Signaling Policies With No Tangible Benefits But Substantial Negative Consequences Are Not In The Nation’s Best Interests…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

What an infuriating news item!

RealClear Energy informs us…

…the Department of Energy quietly released a report highlighting the positive economic benefits of developing the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, an energy project canceled by President Biden in the hours following his inauguration….Released without a formal announcement, the DOE’s report points out that the pipeline would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had an economic benefit of between $3.4 and 9.6 billion….Yet with one stroke of his pen, Biden slashed the project and instead focused his efforts on costly “green energy” goals. As a result of his executive action, 11,000 pipeline workers were promptly laid off…

Now, everyone except hard-core climate change fanatics—and maybe poor Joe— knew that closing down the pipeline would have no salutary effects on global warming or conservation. The Obama administration had essentially admitted that shutting it down would be largely symbolic but otherwise pointless (like all climate change grandstanding). Never mind: the pipeline was killed anyway just as Biden had promised to do on “Day One” during the 2020 campaign.  If they could have voted, the 16-year-olds would have gone for Biden. Continue reading →

On The Biden Administration’s Proposed Gas Stove Ban

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

If this doesn’t make a lot of Americans understand the conservative agenda items seeking smaller government, less powerful government agencies and reduced federal regulation, nothing will.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is opening a period of public comments on the “dangers of gas stoves.” An estimated 40% of the public uses gas stoves. Most restaurants use gas stoves; some foreign cuisines, like Chinese varieties, depend on them. Nobody has complained noticeably about gas stoves being deadly in the 200 years they have been in use. Never mind: CPCP commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg News, “This is a hidden hazard. Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

How are gas stoves “unsafe”? The EPA and WHO say they “emit pollutants including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter” above levels deemed acceptable. The sudden rush to ban the stoves appears to have been triggered by (or was waiting around hoping to find such a claim as) a single study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Of course, the Climate Nazis have been agitating about gas stoves on the sidelines for decades, which, they say, “jump-starts childhood asthma, increases the risk of respiratory problems, and emits planet-warming gasses.” Naturally, then, the mainstream media can be expected to cheer-lead the latest government effort to use the environment as an excuse to control American lives and choices just a bit more, because they know best. The Washington Post’s climate change propagandist gave her seal of approval yesterday.

Don’t worry about the extra costs of getting those electric ovens, she assures us. After all,

…the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate bill passed last year, includes cash to help low- and moderate-income households move away from their gas stoves. Starting later this year, millions of Americans could get up to $840 off the cost of an electric or induction stove.

Inflation reduction! Landmark! Hand-outs for low- and moderate-income households, as long as they spend the money on what they’re told to! National debt? What’s that? Nah, the mainstream media isn’t pimping for the Democrats! Why would anyone think that?

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Incompetent Headline Of The Week: “Report: Joe Biden Realized His Mistake With Kamala Harris Very Early On” (Red State)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’m sorry, but I can’t resist.

What’s “early” is a case like this? Anyone who watched and listened to and watched Harris during the Democratic Presidential debates could tell in an instant that she was a dolt, and obviously unqualified to run for President or be one, which means she has no business running for or being Vice-President either. The headline is the equivalent of “Early on as he attempted to shave using his power mower, he realized his mistake.”

What are we supposed to conclude from that statement? Admiration for Joe that he was so quick to pick up on what was wrong with his entirely race and gender-based pick for a running mate? That’s not quick. Someone who is competent, has good judgment and knows which end of the trumpet to blow on doesn’t make an epic mistake like picking Harris to be a heartbeat from the Oval Office.

I saw this story and couldn’t restrain myself.

Carry on…