Cori Bush

Unethical Quote Of The Week: “Squad” Member Cori Bush (D-Mo.)

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

“I am grieving for every Palestinian, Israeli, and American life lost to this violence, and my heart breaks for all those who will be forever traumatized because of it. War and retaliatory violence doesn’t achieve accountability or justice; it only leads to more death and human suffering.Today I am introducing the Ceasefire Now Resolution, vital legislation that calls for de-escalation and an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Occupied Palestine, and for humanitarian assistance to urgently be delivered to the 2.2 million people under siege and trapped in Gaza. The United States bears a unique responsibility to exhaust every diplomatic tool at our disposal to prevent mass atrocities and save lives. We can’t bomb our way to peace, equality, and freedom. With thousands of lives lost and millions more at stake, we need a ceasefire now.”

—Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), idiot.

To be fair, I could have found equally fatuous and ethically inert quotes from any of the anti-Semitic, intellectually vapid and ethically-challenged “Squad” members, but all indications have been that Bush is the most afflicted by the Dunning-Krueger Effect of them all, even more than Rep. Bowman of “I thought that pulling a fire alarm would open the door. Who wouldn’t? What’s the big deal?” fame, and the ridiculous AOC. Moreover, the offensive, dishonest and irresponsible statement by Bush came as she introduced an offensive, dishonest and irresponsible resolution urging the Biden Administration to push for a “ceasefire” because the October 7 Hamas sneak attack on Israel civilians was just “armed violence” (not terrorism), ‘American hostages? What American hostages?’, and “the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law.”

Of course, Israel is not targeting civilians; Hamas, like the evil terrorist organization it is, is using civilians as human shields and hoping for mass civilian casualties to wield as a propaganda tool against Israel. Like so, so many on the Left for too many decades to tote up, Bush, “The Squad” and their ilk don’t get that “war” thingy.

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The Mike Brown Lie, Back By Popular Demand

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Yesterday, August 9, was the nine year anniversary of one of the many distorted, exploited and incompetently reported race-related incidents that have hurled the United States decades backwards in race relations. It was on August 9, 2014 that hulking thug Michael Brown was shot and killed by policeman Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in self-defense after Brown escaped custody, tried to take Wilson’s gun, and charged him with all of his 300 pound bulk. But because the 18-year-old’s pal and partner in crime told the credulous media that Brown had put his hands up and cried “Hands up don’t shoot!” before the fatal shot, Brown’s death was reported as an execution by a racist cop. This, in turn, resulted in horrific riots in Ferguson, full-scale social justice virtue-signalling by the mainstream media (like the 2014 display by CNN’s hacks above, referencing both the Brown shooting narrative and the death of Eric Garner), and a boost to the fortunes of the racist Blacl Lives Matter movement, which had been launched by another falsely reported tragedy, the death of Trayvon Martin.

Even though Barack Obama’s untra-partisan and race-obsessed Attorney General, Eric Holder, would have loved to show that Darren Wilson had murdered Brown, it was once again demonstrated that, as John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” His  DOJ found that there was no credible evidence to back up the “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative. To the contrary, forensic and eye-witness evidence made it clear that Brown, who had just committed a petty theft and intimidated a shop-owner, punched Wilson after the officer arrested him, tried to grab pistol in the patrol car, and after he had bolted from the vehicle charged at Wilson, precipitating the fatal shooting. A grand jury exonerated Wilson, whose career was destroyed and life was ruined, but he was just a white cop, so c’est la vie! Continue reading →

At Last! A Persuasive Explanation For The Tyre Nichols Police Attack That Doesn’t Involve “White Supremacy”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Radley Balko, the former “Reason” investigative reporter who, as long as he isn’t discussing Donald Trump-related issues, is still a reliable, perceptive and ethical analyst, has a guest essay in the New York Times convincingly arguing that the tragedy was a predicable result of the ““elite” police team fad around the country. “Elite police teams” are, he explains, assembled for the broad purpose of fighting crime waves, and they intentionally operate with far more freedom and less oversight than police officers normally do.

The five officers who terrorized and eventually killed young Tyre Nichols were members of the 10-officer Memphis version of this phenomenon, and were collectively called “Scorpion.” Balko points out that the name is a tell: though the Memphis police force website emphasizes the importance of winning the community’s trust, the theory behind elite police teams is that they should inspire fear.

When I first learned that the Memphis police had shut down Scorpion in response to the Nichols tragedy, my initial reaction was that this was the Barn Door Fallacy, a rush to eliminate what was being blamed for a disastrous event without any evidence that doing so will have a beneficial effect, in order to be perceived as doing something. Balko makes a strong argument that these teams are ticking bombs:

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The Curse Of The Great Stupid: This Woman Was A Journalist At The New York Times, Received A Pulitzer Prize For Fake History, And Now Indoctrinates Students As A Howard U. Professor

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

If what’s ethically objectionable about Howard Journalism professor Nikole Hannah-Jones isn’t immediately obvious, you’re probably already beyond hope.

Hannah-Jones was furious at MSNBC covering an example of serial shoplifting because it undercuts the argument for reduced policing and law enforcement . “This drumbeat for continued mass incarceration is really horrific to watch,” said the major force behind the racist propaganda screed “The 1619 Project.”  “A person stealing steak is not national news, and there have always been thefts from stores. This is how you legitimize the carceral state,” she tweeted indignantly.

This woman pretended to be a journalist. She is now a tenured journalism professor. That is the level of her quality of thought and reasoning. She is advocating keeping facts and destructive national trends from the public because they disprove a far-left narrative that is contrary to history, facts and common sense. As always with Hannah-Jones, she leads with dishonesty: MSNBC did not show the video of a brazen shoplifting incident in the middle of an epidemic of such crimes because of the item stolen. Then she resorts to the hoariest of rationalizations—‘This isn’t new’ (“Everybody does it!”), plus another lie: everybody hadn’t shoplifted as frequently and destructively before cities like San Francisco decided not to enforce the laws against it. In fact, the kind of shoplifting, including “smash and grab” mobs, we saw in 2021 were unprecedented.

Finally, she declares that showing the truth will undermine the movement to stop “over-incarceration,” which means that it is unjust to have disproportionate numbers of imprisoned members of a group just because members of the group  commit a disproportionate amount of crimes. This is the “disparate impact” theory at its least defensible.

The professor has a right to flog whatever idiotic leftist talking points she chooses, but people of good faith have a similar right to point, laugh, and demand that institutions we entrust with informing and educating the public do not celebrate, empower or enable an advocate of deceiving the public to achieve her radical ideological ends.

In related news, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Crazytown) whose mind is made up regarding the wisdom of defunding the police and reality will not dissuade her, tweeted

With a mandate to end police brutality, why oppose redirecting money from racist policing into social programs proven to save Black lives? Our movement for racial justice helped deliver the White House & Congress. We won’t stop until we get justice.

As with Hannah-Jones, this is dishonesty squared with a deceitful cherry on top. There has always been a mandate “to end police brutality,” but what the wild-eyed activists like Bush and Hannah-Jones call “brutality” is often the act of law enforcement itself. (Sixties radicals were taught to scream “Police brutality!” when they were physically dragged from property where they were trespassing.) Bush, like Hannah-Jones, regards enforcing the law when black criminals are involved as “racist.” The assault on policing is costing lives, not saving them, with blacks being disproportionately the victims.

Finally, claiming that the BLM rioting in the summer of 2020 and demands to defund the police “helped deliver the White House & Congress” is pure fantasy.  Both were among the reasons President Trump outperformed the polls predicting a Democratic landslide, as well as why Republicans narrowed the Democratic majority in the House.

Facts literally don’t matter to ethics corrupters like Hannah-Jones and Bush. Those who support, employ or vote for such individuals are complicit in the damage they inflict on society.

 

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month, Year, Decade, Century, And Eon: Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.)

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I know, I know, this is res ipsa loquitur. Anyone with a functioning brain, unlike Rep. Bush, will immediately see the hilarious flaw in her “reasoning,” if one can call it that. There may be high-functioning mollusks that could see it. But I’ve had a crummy day, and deserve some fun.

Yes, this isn’t a parody or a deep fake. (House Whip James Clyburn might think it is, since he swears no Democrat has ever advocated defundung the police. Well, him, but no others…) We really have someone in Congress who passionately, angrily insists that taxpayers should pay for her private security force so she can make sure the U.S. Congress defunds the police. There isn’t enough space in this post to explain how many alarms one had to lack in order to be recoded saying something like this. Not just ethics alarms, but hyp[ocrisy alarms, common sense alarms, alarms, “Wow, I’m embarrarsing party, my district, my family, my friends, and all of my teachers!” alarms, and of course the crucial “Gee, I’m sounding like an idiot!” She is the best illustration of the Dunning-Kruger Effect I have ever seen.

We knew, if we knew anything about Bush at all, that she was an idiot. After all, she ran as a Black Lives Matter candidate and still believes that Mike Brown was shot while holding up his arms and saying “Hands Up! Don’t shoot!” She’s obviously unqualified to be a lawmaker, but the video shows she’s also too lacking in basic cognitive function to be 7-11 clerk, a crossing guard, an au pere, a gardener, a house-painter, a dog-walker. or a lemonade stand proprietor. She mistakes passion and certitude for wisdom. She also is likely to mistake an anteater for a spoon.

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Saturday Ethics Depression, 8/8/2020: Irresponsible Parents, Irresponsible Voters, Irresponsible Troll-Makers

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This is my state of mind today.

I began today driving for two hours to find a meeting for which I had been given the wrong address, and, like the fool that I have always been, didn’t bring along the phone number of anyone who could help me. It is during ordeals like this that I begin to reflect on what a failure and underachiever I am, and how I really don’t have enough time left for turnaround. All that privilege,  and good fortune, wasted. And I have no one to blame but myself.

Then I had to write about the stuff you’ll find below, and I got really depressed.

1. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias, and why aren’t you agreeing with what I say?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got angry when PBS NewsHour” anchor Judy Woodruff dared to ask a question that cahllenged the Democratic Party position in dispute with Republicans on over the content of a “Phase 4” Wuhan Virus aid bill.

When Woodruff asked Pelosi about the “flexibility” GOP lawmakers are showing in terms of allocating more money for state and local governments, as well as Republican arguments that “much of the money” allocated in the CARES Act “has not even been spent yet,” Pelosi snapped,  “Well, if you want to be an advocate for them, Judy, if you want to be an advocate for them, listen to what the facts are.”

In other word, “Hey! You’re supposed to be on our side!”

Actually, ethical journalists are not supposed to be on anyone’s side, but that quaint ethics  concept has been abandoned by virtually all journalists, including  Woodruff.

“I’m playing devil’s advocate here,!” Woodruff protested. You know, the devil, Republicans—same thing!

2. Better yet, don’t ride the subway! Here is a Wuhan virus safety sign from the New York City subways.

In addition to telling people they should wear masks, it goes to the next level and wants people to avoid interacting at all. This is incompetent messaging and  shows a basic misunderstanding of humans in general and American in particular. It also makes me suspicious: Big Brother is still working to make as all compliant automaton. If we can’t talk, we can’t resist.

It reminds me of the early “don’t touch you face!” warnings. People touch their face thousands of times a day. That message made me skeptical of all the advice from “experts” and governments, and indeed, you hardly hear it any more.

Social interaction is essential to life. Continue reading →