Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck

Is The Worst President the One Who Was Never President at All, and Other Thoughts on Recent Biden White House Revelations

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

It’s no excuse and only moral luck, but I am now glad that I have waited so long to conclude the Ethics Alarms inquiry into who was the worst American President. (That final post on the topic is coming this weekend, I promise.)

For important new data is coming in: The Wall Street Journal issued a report based on extensive interviews with White House insiders and Biden aides that indicates there was a years-long cover-up of the degree of cognitive decline Biden had experienced since he was Vice-President. Both the Journal’s reporting and recent New York Times articles indicate what should be treated as a national scandal but probably won’t be.

His party knew that Biden was infirm mentally and physically before he was nominated to run against then-President Trump in 2020. Once he was nominated, Joe’ true condition was hidden from the inattentive public. I knew that Biden was sinking into dementia as early as 2019; it wasn’t hard to see, and I told many friends and associates that. The ones who hated Donald Trump didn’t car. Biden’s successful 2020 campaign was constrained by the (stupid) Wuhan virus lockdown and a complicit news media oddly incurious about a Constitutional crisis materializing right before their eyes.

Once Biden was elected, the cover-up continued. Top cabinet members were unable to meet with him or even speak with him. Biden held only nine Cabinet meetings in four years! Staff regularly stood in for him at official events. Other staff were assigned to keep him from wandering off. Biden couldn’t hold morning meetings because he was “not at his best” early in the day, and he seldom was up to working past 4pm unless he had spent the day gathering his strength and what was left of his wits. Biden cancelled important national security meetings, with his aides explaining to attendees that the President had “bad days and good days.”

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Another Ethics Issue Highlighted By Biden’s Hunter Pardon [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

President Biden’s controversial and extreme pardon of his black sheep son did more than call into (further) question his honesty, integrity and trustworthiness. It also highlighted another ugly facet of his failed Presidency.

The power to grant clemency is enshrined in the Constitution is an important failsafe device against legal injustice.  When judges or juries convict an innocent person or impose an unjust sentence, often after unethical prosecutorial conduct, Presidents and governors, in the case of state crimes, possess the  irreversible power to either commute a sentence to issue a pardon, which wipes the slate clean and removes the conviction altogether. Sure the power, like all powers, can be abused, has been abused and will be abused, but it is still necessary. However, President Biden has used that power appropriately less frequently than any modern President, though our criminal laws have multiplied.

“Mr. Biden has granted 25 pardons and commuted the sentences of 131 other people, according to the most recent Justice Department data,” wrote law professors Rachel E. Barkow and Mark Osler in a September 2024 editorial in The New York Times. “That is a mere 1.4 percent of the petitions he has received, based on our analysis…Mr. Biden has issued fewer clemency grants so far than the 238—144 pardons and 94 commutations—issued by Mr. Trump during his first administration,” the Times’ Kenneth Vogel noted this week.

True, there is still time for Biden to do some good with his pardon and clemency powers, but he should have been using them all along. Biden is extending a pattern in which Presidents increasingly eschew the pardon power. “Between 1932 and 1988 the percentage of total cases acted on by the president that had been sent to him with the Justice Department’s blessing averaged around 30%,”  a 2015 piece by the Collateral Consequences Resource Center revealed. “The percentage of cases sent forward with a favorable recommendation dropped to single digits beginning with the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and it has dropped even lower in the past 15 years…The absolute numbers also tell a tale: President [Barack] Obama…granted more sentence commutations than any president since Richard Nixon, but fewer full pardons than any president since John Adams.”

Ah yes, Obama. He was a notable hypocrite on the matter of pardons. Continue reading →

NO, Frank Bruni, Joe Biden Is NOT a “Good Man” and the Fact That You Would Say That Makes Me Wonder If You Know What Good Is

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“…And that’s the millionth reason I’m fervently hoping and desperately praying that Harris prevails. I believe Biden to be a good man who has done much good for us…”

—Long-time progressive NYT pundit Frank Bruni in one of the “Harris must win, Trump is terrible” stories and columns in the Times today.

I counted 11 of the latter. Twelve. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Whatever would make you think that?

Bruni has been a member of the Times staff and editorial board for 25 years. Res ipsa loquitur. The Times has at least one (they have, in truth, many) columnist who had a regular platform to spread his biases and misconceptions, and he thinks (or says he thinks) Joe Biden is a good man. Right. There are few politicians of such longevity who have ever left such an unambiguous record of not being a good man, woman, or public servant. Since I’m not writing a book, I’ll just list the bits of Joe’s biography that stick out for me at the moment:

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The Karine Jean-Pierre Principle: Incompetent and Unprofessional (But Historic!) Hires Will Perform Incompetently and Unprofessionally

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

One would think this is obvious, but since the most unprofessional and incompetent White House spokesperson of all time—yes, even worse than Sean Spicer!—still has her job despite the stunt she pulled yesterday, it clearly isn’t obvious enough.

Yesterday? Oh, that. Yesterday President Biden’s DEI paid liar couldn’t deal with Peter Doocy’s questions about FEMA gaslighting regarding its strange shortage of funds to handle hurricane relief while the Biden-Harris administration was sending nearly $157 million to assist displaced people and refugees in Lebanon. Jean-Pierre—who can be seen on “X” and elsewhere denying to reporters that FEMA spends money relocating illegal immigrants and in earlier video clips saying that it does—called Doocy’s daring to question the administration’s excuses “misinformation.”

In case this fact has eluded you somehow, Democrats now use “misinformation” to mean “facts, interpretations and opinions that interfere with a narrative that advances our interests.” When Doocy refused to accept Jean-Pierre’s evasive and contradictory answers, such as stating that FEMA had plenty of fund for hurricane relief despite both President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas stating otherwise, Historic Paid Liar resorted to “slamming her notebook shut and storming out of the briefing room.”

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Ethics Verdict: This Is Unforgivable, and Accountability Is Mandatory

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“Holy Crap!” indeed.

I have to come to the harsh but unavoidable ethics verdict that anyone who votes for the same political party responsible for us having a President in this condition is stupid, irreversibly ignorant, completely uninformed, or a mindless partisan robot eager to love Big Brother.

As I recently reminded readers by quoting from this post in early 2020, the fact that Joe Biden was losing his already tenuous grip on competence was evident before the Democrats nominated him. I wasn’t unusually perceptive; the Democratic Party’s Dark Leaders had to know that the assorted demagogues, anti-US socialists and empty suits competing with him for the Presidential nomination that year had little chance of defeating the Evil Donald Trump, and also that Biden was literally unfit to hold office. Then the pandemic struck, and the party, which aspires to be called The Party henceforth, realized that they could hide Joe in the basement, pretend he wasn’t losing marbles daily, and use pandemic terror spread by its media allies to justify useful changes in election security. Voilà! Victory “by any means necessary.” [Harry Reid chimes in from the Lake of Fire where he now resides, “Romney lost, didn’t he?”]

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Unethical Quote of the Week: President Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“Some things are more important than staying in power.”

—-President Biden at the U.N., stumbling through his speech on world affairs even with the assistance of his teleprompter.

Even though our President is demented, deluded, habitually dishonest and without shame, I am still astounded that he would have the gall to say that at the United Nations. I guess he thinks the delegates are as stupid and gullible as his party evidently thinks the U.S. public is.

No, the context of that head-exploding statement doesn’t make it less nauseating:

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‘You Are Entering The Edith Wilson Zone…’

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I can almost hear Rod’s voice: “You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of cover-ups and lies, but of fake Presidencies. A journey into a wondrous land of manipulation and abuse of power. Next stop, the Edith Wilson Zone!“

Let’s begin with this: Did you know that President <cough> Biden hasn’t had a Cabinet meeting in almost a year? I didn’t. Isn’t this newsworthy? Nothing has happened in the last 11 months that warranted the President gathering his top deputies? Seriously? When was the last time an administration went this long without a Cabinet meeting? (I can find no record of that, but a competent journalism establishment would have told us.) We have a fake Presidency being covered up, still, by the party running the Executive Branch and its corrupt, complicit allies in the news media, while its conspirators claim to be saving democracy. The highest ranking officer responsible for the cover-up is running for President, and her role in this defiance of basic constitutional norms and the public trust has barely been mentioned.

Good question, Dana. Glad you’re engaged enough to ask: most Americans apparently don’t know and don’t care.

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Middlesex County in Mass., Which Includes My Home Town, Is the Target of a “Travel Warning” Issued By Three Jewish Groups

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Yes, it’s come to this.

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As a proud Arlingtonian, born and bred in (still) the largest town in America, the home of “Uncle Sam,” and mentioned (as Menotomy, its former name) in “Paul Revere’s Ride,” I am obligated to report this story.

You can’t get more gentrified, liberal, suburban Boston than Middlesex County, which includes such famous locales as Cambridge, Lexington and Concord. But Betar USA, Magen Herut Canada, and Shields of David all say that until all charges are dropped against Scott Hayes, Americans, and especially American Jews and supporters of Israel, should stay away themselves and take their business elsewhere. This is because Hayes, who is not Jewish but who has attended pro-Isreal rallies, was charged with shooting a pro-Hamas activist who charged across the street and attacked Hayes during a pro-Israel demonstration in Newton. (Ah, Newton! My chess club played matches against both Newton high schools, regarded as among the best schools in the county…) A GoFundMe set up to support Hayes has raised nearly $250,000 with more than 3,500 people donating. 

Hayes was released on bail after his arraignment on Friday.

Michael Sinensky, Executive Director of Betar USA said, “These are dangerous times in America for those who stand with Israel. When a decorated Iraq War veteran and American citizen is prosecuted for defending himself against an individual who attacked him and openly supports a terrorist organization, it sends a chilling message: Middlesex County is not a safe place for anyone who values liberty, justice, and security.

He continued, “District Attorney Marian Ryan must know and understand this case is much larger than Scott Hayes. This case sends a chilling message to all Americans they cannot protect themselves in Massachusetts if attacked. We urge all Americans to stand with us, refuse to visit, and withhold their spending in all towns in Middlesex county, including Newton, Massachusetts, until this gross miscarriage of justice is corrected….We expect other organizations to join our call to action and will commence an advertising and marketing campaign calling on Americans to avoid visiting until charges against Hayes are dropped.”

Yes, it’s come to this.

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Accountability, Please. If or When Trump Loses the 2024 Election And Says It Was Rigged, Ethics Villain ABC Will Join In The Chorus That His Claim Is “Baseless” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

During the (one hopes) final 2024 Presidential Debate, GOP nominee Donald Trump stated that “Crime here is up and through the roof, despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof.” Since Democratic appointee Kamala Harris was indicating disagreement, ABC moderator David Muir rushed to her aid, saying, “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.”

As you know, Muir believed his role in the debate was to”factcheck” Trump while letting Harris declare outright falsehood if she chose to. This time, Trump tried to rebut Muir, saying “…the FBI — they were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”

Well, as usual Trump misused the word “fraud,”the FBI didn’t issue the jobs report, and if you think he is Satan, or Hitler, or Godzilla, you are not inclined to believe anything he says, but Trump was right and Muir was wrong in addition to being a biased and unethical debate moderator. Newly released data from the Dept. of Justice this week backed Trump. Okay, the crime didn’t literally break through any roofs, so I’m sure that characterization by Trump goes into the Washington Post’s Trump lies database, but still… This was DOJ’s survey from Bureau of Justice statistics  that includes crimes that may not have been reported to police. The annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) showed total instances of reported violent crime — including rape, robbery and aggravated assault — is up from 5.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 8.7 per 1,000 in 2023.

The highest recent rate of violent crime during the Biden years was in 2022, when the survey counted 9.8 instances per 1,000 people over the age of 12 being victims, Rape increased from 1.2 incidents per 1,000 in 2020 to 1.7 in 2023. Robbery rose from 1.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 2.6 per 1,000 in 2023. Aggravated assault rose from 2.9 per 1,000 in 2020 to 4.5 per 1,000 in 2023. As Crime Prevention Research Center president John Lott tried to explain in a piece published after Muir’s deliberately misleading “factcheck,”

Here’s the full report, and like so many statistics, one can spin and arrange the numbers to make various points, some contradictory. What you can’t do with them, at least ethically, if you are an alleged journalist is interrupt a Presidential debate to make one candidate look dishonest in front of a national audience because you and your employers want his opponent to win the election.

Muir and ABC should suffer serious consequences for their conduct, but they won’t. At very least, both should correct the false impression left by Muir and apologize to the public, and not just in a quiet tweet. That won’t happen either.

ABC is biased, corrupt and untrustworthy.

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Source: Legal Insurrection

Once Again, Ethics Alarms Must Ask, “How Many Insults To Their Intelligence From Biden and Harris Will Voters Tolerate?”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It was the fatuous and insulting “Biden” message above about the American hostage found murdered in Gaza that mandated this post, but I was already thinking about the ongoing insults after seeing a Harris TV ad last night that made my head explode.

I couldn’t find it on YouTube this morning, but Kamala was smirking as she again wafted vague about the “opportunity economy” while giving the political equivalent of singing “Imagine.” She said that “everyone should be able to get a car loan.” How would that work, exactly? It was Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank’s delusion that everyone should be able to get a home mortgage that set up the 2008 economic collapse. She says that she will lower prices and lower taxes, yet Harris cast the deciding vote on trillion-dollar government pork buffets that exploded inflation and made more taxes crucial if the U.S. is going to avoid a National Debt Armageddon. She says she refuses to return to the “politics of the past,” whatever that means—when governments didn’t try to lock up their political opponents, maybe?

There is literally not a single substantive policy statement in the whole ad, not one. Isn’t everyone insulted by ads like that? What kind of dolt would see and hear such deliberately non-substantive boilerplate recycled from “Hope and Change” and say, “Wow! I’m going to vote for her!” Why would anyone vote for a candidate who is so obviously using platitudes to avoid letting them know what she is really planning to do?

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