Democrats

The Absurd Media, Feminist And Progressive Hypocrisy Regarding Joe Biden’s Sexual Misconduct, PART II: “The View” Weighs In

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

(Part I is here.)

Some additional observations:

  • Jazz Shaw and other conservative pundits are writing that Joe’s handsy act “isn’t sexual harassment.” Wrong. If it was unwelcome, it was sexual harassment, and even if it wasn’t and made others in Joe’s workplace proximity uncomfortable, that was “third party” sexual harassment. To his credit, CNN’s Jake Tapper reached down deep and accessed his recently slumbering common sense and integrity to correctly point out that  other men who behave in the same way would get “reprimanded” or “potentially even fired” from their jobs.
  • Shaw and others are also harping on the timing of the harassment allegations. Are they politically motivated? Sure they are, just as Anita Hill’s sudden realization that she had been harassed after more than a decade was politically motivated; just as the sudden appearance of women claiming Donald Trump harassed them coincidentally occurred while he was running for President. In a word—well, two—so what? Biden belongs to a party that has taken a strict liability, no-tolerance, “believe all women” stance following the #Me Too eruption. He knew it, and progressives with eyes knew that Biden was a serial toucher/hugger/groper/nuzzler/sniffer/fondler. Given their professed position, it was hypocritical that Joe got away with his Dirty Uncle bit for so long, and arrogant (or stupid—it’s Biden, remember) that he thought he could get away with it forever.
  • My head had a  serious aftershock when the enabler and apologists for Joe settled on the “that’s just the way he is”; “he doesn’t mean anything by it”, and “he’s a decent man” talking points.

KABOOM!

See, there’s another one; even writing about this is dangerous.

If “that’s just the way he is,” then what he is is a serial sexual harasser. “He didn’t mean anything by it” has been a lamer than  lame rationalization for misconduct and criminal activity since the Madison administration, usually to excuse the mentally challenged. Finally, if he keeps fondling/touching/sniffing/nuzzling/ and kissing when all of his political kith are shouting to the skies about men being sexual predators, he’s not decent. Like the late George H.W. Bush, who told young women with his grasp that his favorite magician was “David Cop-a-Feel,” he’s willing to use his position and status to abuse women. Continue reading →

The Absurd Media, Feminist And Progressive Hypocrisy Regarding Joe Biden’s Sexual Misconduct, PART I: Why My Head Exploded

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

 

 

 

And by the way, KABOOM! This made my head explode.

Fans and supporters of Joe Biden were shocked–SHOCKED!–that anyone would accuse nice old Joe of non-consensual sexual touching and sexual harassment. Conservatives aren’t any better: so eager are they to discredit the whole concept of “believe all women” and sexual harassment  —ah, for those good old days when bosses could chase their comely secretaries around the desk, secure in the knowledge that Miss Buxley would regard it as good clean fun and part of her job!—that they are making idiotic comparisons between the unethical Democratic smearing of Brett Kavanaugh and what has befallen Biden. There is no comparison. The accusations against Kavanaugh was based on uncorroborated, decades old alleged conduct while he was a high school student; the two accusations (so far) against Biden are workplace-related, took place not only when he was an adult but when he was Vice-President.

How can anyone be shocked, or even surprised, much less indignant? Biden has been engaging in unconsented to touching, kissing, and groping of women repeatedly, for decades, in front of cameras. Who knows what Biden has done when no photographers were around? He has corroborated the accusations against him all by himself.

There is no excuse for this. Biden isn’t deaf, dumb and blind; he knows about sexual harassment, and how it works. He’s been given a pass by his party, its supposedly victim-sensitive supporters, and the news media, just like Bill Clinton was for so long, but that doesn’t mean he can’t read. Nor is there any excuse for the Democrats and progressives who are lining up to defend Biden for what is, at this point, indefensible.

The utter idiocy of the Left exclaiming “Sexual harassment? What sexual harassment?” after Weinstein, Lauer, Keiller, Lasseter, Kozinski, Levine, O’Reilly, Ailes, Franken, Singer, Moonves, Farenthold, Conyers, Rose, and so, so many others is hard to overstate. Some of these individuals engaged in far worse conduct than Biden, but some engaged in very similar conduct. We have been talking about #MeToo for more than a year; sexual harassment law has been out there for decades, and what Biden did, and does, was a textbook no-no then. Continue reading →

Aaaand THEY’RE OFF! The Week’s Ethics Race Begins, 4/1/2019: No, Ethics Is Nothing To Fool About…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Good morning!

(and I’m not fooling…)

1. Why is this result considered good news? McLaughlin & Associates, a research firm, conducted a poll online March 18-25 asking the question, “Would you favor or oppose an executive order ensuring that free speech would be protected on all college campuses?” With 1,000 likely 2020 voters thus polled, the results showed 73% in favor of protecting free speech on campus, 18 % opposing, and the typical 9% of slugs who said they were “unsure.” McLaughlin and Associates found “no statistically significant difference by education level, with college graduates favoring the executive order 72 percent to 21 percent and non-college graduates favoring 74 percent to 16 percent.” Similarly, men and women both favored  the executive order at a rate of 73%, and there was no significant difference by party affiliation either.

The fact that less than 75% of American citizens whole-heartedly support freedom of speech in higher education is no less than horrifying, and shows how badly the ahte speech and thought-control termites have gotten into our foundation.

2. Speaking of those inherently untrustworthy polls… a Washington Post-Schar School poll found that nearly two-thirds of registered Democrats reject special counsel Robert Mueller’s finding of no collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. It’s a “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind’s made up!” classic, and also demonstrates how believing the mainstream news media agitprop because their biases fit neatly with yours—except you’re not paid to be objective and indep…oh, never mind. Why do I bother?—eats your brain. What in the world to these alleged (poll assertions are always alleged at best) skeptics base their beliefs on, other than the fact that, like Rachel Maddow, they so,so,so want our President to be an impeachable traitor? Mueller spent three years shaking down people and crushing them with his  prosecutorial boot to get evidence of Trump collusion that would stand up in court, and failed. And those Democrats know better? Continue reading →

Tell Me The Truth, I Can Handle It: Am I Getting Paranoid?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

I’m sitting here, watching the Red Sox-Seattle game and trying to put all stressful matters out of sight and mind (not that Boston is making that easy, since my team has begun the season erratically, to be kind), and I read about how a the account for “Unplanned,” a new pro-life movie, was taken down by Twitter without explanation or notice on the every day it was beginning its first weekend. There was an outcry from conservative commentators, of course ( Dana Loesch: “If Twitter doesn’t discriminate against ideology, as they attested to during their hearing, then why seemingly do only conservative accounts continue to be suspended for no TOS violations? What did @UnplannedMovie do to warrant such an action? Where is the consistency? I say this because I have seen so many other accounts of different ideological persuasion that DO violate TOS (sending death threats, doxxing, etc) that are allowed to remain up and active even after reporting….”) and Twitter restored the account, citing a “mistake.”

This comes on a day where I am noting how the  mainstream media is refusing to acknowledge how blatantly  it has hyped, and cheered, and promoted half-baked theories, rumors and misrepresentations to beat into the viewing public’s mind that their President stole his office and is a traitor, a concept that never made any sense no matter how little one thinks of Trump (and I speak from personal experience) and that depends on near hypnotic suggestion-level repetition to be believed, and is in full-Jumbo mode (“Impeachment-hyping? What impeachment-hyping?”). I’ve defended Jake Tapper and have defended Jake Tapper, but no more: he is officially a typical, untrustworthy CNN hack.

“I’m not sure what you’re saying the media got wrong. The media reported the investigation was going on,” Tapper said while interviewing acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney today. “Other than the people in the media on the left, not on this network, I don’t know anybody that got anything wrong. We didn’t say there was a conspiracy. We said Mueller was investigating a conspiracy.” Continue reading →

“Russiagate” Collapse Ethics: Don’t Trust These People Again…Ever.

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Debra Heine has compiled a useful list of the worst liars, hate-mongers, ethics corruptors,  and civic disrupters in he past three years of framing the President of the United States as a traitorous usurper who conspired with Russia to steal his high office. I was happy to find that I already distrusted all of those on the list that I had heard of, for this was hardly their only example of unethical instincts and corrupt behavior. Heine, a conservative blogger and pundit, used a rather high standard to make her list; I would have added several more. For example, ex- MSNBC star Keith Olberman, now again doing sports punditry on ESPN, has repeatedly tweeted such messages to the President as “Resign, you traitorous fuck!” and “Read up on the ADX Florence Supermax prison in Colorado. You’ll be celebrating your next birthday there. Enjoy!” But maybe nobody pays any attention to Keith any more—I hope not—so Debra was wise leaving him off. I definitely miss seeing Richard Painter on the list. He was President Bush’s ethics counsel, and has abused that credential (unethically exploiting credentials to deceive is a theme) to make one  specious impeachment argument after another, from “emoluments” to obstruction of justice to collusion.

Here is her list, which I will periodically comment on, though she has added extesnive documentation on each. It  is important that there be consequences for what all of these public figures, journalists, politicians and others have done to the nation, its institutions and our culture by pushing the Big Lie that the President made a deal with Russia absent any evidence at all. As I see it now, most of these individuals are refusing to acknowledge what they did or make any effort to undo the damage they have done to all of us. Suggestions that they served Putin’s interests by promoting discord and distrust of our institutions more than anything the President has done are quite correct.

A related list, focused only on the news media’s “fake news” regarding the Russia investigation and other efforts to impugn the President, was released yesterday by rebel reporter Sheryl Attkisson. She also ended up with an incomplete list, but a full list of the news media’s deceptions, incompetent errors, false predictions and wildly biased analysis would require days to scroll through. You can read it here.

Now Heine’s list… Continue reading →

Afternoon Ethics Warm-Up, 3/26/19: The “What’s Going On Here?” Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Hello, Spring!

1. On the down side, “The Smollett Report” Explain this one: Attorneys for “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett announced today that all charges against him have been dropped.Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts related to making a false report that he was attacked by two men. The two men were found and implicated Smollett, and the evidence that it was hoax appeared overwhelming.  A minimum condition of dropping cases requires some acceptance of responsibility, but the actor still professes that he’s innocent. “I’ve been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one,” he said.

What’s going on here? I have no idea, but the word “Chicago” keeps popping up in my head.”

2. Talk about a parallel universe! I had never seen this [Pointer: Althouse]: President Obama’s statement after the 2016 election:

“You take the baton, you run your best race, and hopefully, by the time you hand it off, you’re a little further ahead. You made a little progress. I want to make sure that hand-off is well executed because, ultimately, we’re all on the same team….

Everybody is sad when their side loses an election, but the day after, we have to remember that we’re actually all on one team. This is an intramural scrimmage. We’re not Democrats first. We’re not Republicans first. We are Americans first.

This was a long and hard-fought campaign. A lot of our fellow Americans are exultant today. A lot of Americans are less so, but that’s the nature of campaigns. That’s the nature of democracy. It is hard and sometimes contentious and noisy. It’s not always inspiring.”

“Sometimes you lose an argument. Sometimes you lose an election. We try really hard to persuade people that we’re right, and then people vote, and then we lose. We learn from our mistakes. We do some reflection. We lick our wounds. We brush ourselves off. We get back in the arena. We go at it. We try even harder the next time.”

Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month (And Signature Significance): CNN Contributor Van Jones [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

“There’s an honest level of sadness and disappointment and disorientation among progressives and Democrats and I think it goes deeper than just what’s in the report.”

—CNN contributor and former Obama aide Van Jones, explaining how Democrats needed “a chance to be sad”  and to “grieve” about the Mueller investigation’s findings.

And there it is. Progressives and Democrats are inconsolable that the 2106 election was clean, that an American President didn’t betray his country by conspiring with a hostile power to steal his office, and that our elected leader, and that we do not have a looming constitutional crisis.

I hope readers will excuse my posting a perhaps disproportionate amount on the post-Mueller Report reactions, but understand: early in 2017 I marked the Democratic/progressive effort to undermine this President, his ability to govern, and the legitimacy of his election at a terrible cost to the nation as perhaps the most serious national ethics breach in recent history, certainly since I have been writing Ethics Alarms. It cannot be over-emphasized how crucial it is that as much of the public as possible that is still capable of rational thought understands what was attempted here, and indeed to some extent achieved, to the nation’s—one hopes not permanent–detriment. We need to be grateful for corrupted and ethics alarms-lacking progressive messengers like Jones, who don’t understand how repulsive this confession sounds to normal people. They are showing us the truth. Continue reading →

More Ethics Observations On The Post-Mueller Report Response

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

1.The video montage above is the “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias” smoking gun for all time.

2. If the Democratic Party had competent and ethical leadership, this is what those leaders would do right now. They would thank Robert Mueller for doing a thorough, professional and objective  job under difficult circumstances. They would say that that American needed to be assured that there were no illegal and wrongful efforts by the President, his campaign and his party to conspire with a foreign power to undermine a fair election. They would say that they look forward, now that the cloud hanging over the White House has been removed, and President Trump’s assertion that there was no wrongdoing has been confirmed, to working with President Trump in the spirit of cooperation and mutual concern for the national interests, without rancor or recriminations, and hope that he will do the same.

They would also, not publicly, instruct elected officials from their party to accept the conclusions of the report, to be gracious rather than bitter, to end what will now appear to be vindictive investigations, and to get on with the job of governing.  This is a grand opportunity for them to regain the respect of the non-hate polluted public, and to behave like adults, patriots and statesmen for the first time since November, 2016.

If they don’t do this, and it is already obvious that they won’t, it will demonstrate that the party is cowering in fear of its most radical and irrational base, that it is following rather than leading, that it has neither integrity, honesty, decency, or the sense God gave a marmoset. Continue reading →

Is It Unfair To Say That The Democrats Favor “Open Borders”? Ten Reasons Why It Is Not.

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

My sister, a smart if feisty woman who I plead guilty to using on Ethics Alarms like as William Saroyan used his bartender,  was annoyed at my statement in a recent post that the Democratic Party, or which she is a member, though perhaps not quite as proud a member as she once was,  had become the party of open borders. She’s a lawyer, and combining that with the increasing tendency on the left to deny the elephants behind them (“Elephant? What elephant?”) whenever the metaphorical beast starts to stink and squash things, she’s pretty good at blurring such issues. On this one she says, “Obviously the Democrats don’t support open borders. Nobody has ever proposed open borders. We will never have open borders. Obama deported a lot of illegal immigrants.”

All true, and all deceitful. The policy advocated by Democrats and the rhetoric they use in the process creates a modified open borders policy, if an astoundingly stupid one. An open borders policy of any kind for a nation like the United States is suicidal in the long term, destructive in the short term. Progressives and Democrats resort to hilariously consistent talking points when confronted on their hypocrisy and dishonesty: “The system is broken, and we need comprehensive immigration reform.” Quiz them on what that pat phrase means, however, and you get humming. Yes, the system is broken. Democrats, for one illicit reason, and business interests, aka Republicans, for another, broke it long ago, and both have intentionally tap-danced, lied, and intentionally muddied the issue to keep it broken. Now, if my sister objected to my labeling of the Democratic Party as the party of open borders by a arguing that it is unfair to  leave the GOP out of that box, okay, I’ll concede the validity of that in part. The problem is that the Republicans have a President in office who is unequivocally opposed to open borders, to say the least, and who is trying to end the nonsense. Democrats, not Republicans, are blocking him.

The totality of Democratic party and progressive conduct and rhetoric equals a desire to keep out southern borders porous, which means “open” in reality, if not political double talk. Among them, in no particular order since I am rushed and want to get a pots up before I have to do a 7:30 am tech check here in San Diego: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/14/2019: Talking The Walk, Or Not

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Good Morning!

1. Fight racial hate with cognitive dissonance. It is apparent that the Left’s battle plan depends on making sure that minorities hate and fear white people, and it’s up to whites and all the shades lumped in with them—I’m kind of olive colored, or as an old girl friend used to say, “green”—to foil it. It’s simple cognitive dissonance: the more positive experiences minorities have with whites, the more the cognitive dissonance scale works in favor of racial respect and comity.

Yesterday, in a rush, I arrived in the line to pick up my drug refills simultaneously with an African-American man who was probably about my age, and looked pretty grim. I asked him if he wanted to play paper-stone-scissors to see who got to go first. He appeared genuinely startled that I spoke to him, then smiled and told me to go ahead. “You sure? ” I asked. “I really like playing  paper-stone-scissors !” He waved me ahead of him, and I noted that I was rushing to pick up a carry-out order from my favorite Chinese restaurant.

“That’s a good reason to be in a hurry,” he said. I asked him if he liked Chinese food, and he nodded, so I asked if he had eaten at The Peking Gourmet Inn nearby. (It really is the best Chinese eatery in the D.C. area, and except for a little hole in the wall we stumbled into in London, the best I’ve ever encountered.) He hadn’t, so we got in a long conversation about the menu, how to get there, why he really owed it to himself and his family to check it out. I also learned that he and I both favored the same local Thai restaurant. Great guy.

After I got my pills and started to leave, he crossed over to me with his hand outstretched. “Thanks for the tip,” he said, with a big smile. “It was nice talking with you.” “Same here.” I said, as we shook hands.

One down, about a hundred million to go. Of course, if he had been much younger, I never would have been able to talk to him because his eyes would have been glued to smartphone screen…. Continue reading →