And shameless, too! That statement this morning in a post election autopsywith morning host John Berman (a partisan ally) and Scott Jennings, CNN’s token conservative made my head explode, as you can see above.
The topic was Harris’s assurances to Trump that there would be an orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and that Democrats would accept the will of the voters. Van (and Berman) were pointing out the contrast with Trump’s reaction after the 2020 election.
The gall of these people continues to break previous records. Democrats were fully amped up to challenge the election results if Trump won. Jamie Raskin made it clear that plans were in place to “fight” if the election results showed Trump squeaking out a win. Democrats never accepted Trump’s 2016 election as legitimate. Their supporters rioted on Inauguration Day. They investigated him, impeached him twice, didn’t extend to him even the basic traditional deference and respect every previous elected President since Lincoln had received.
Oh, I know there are some just as bad; indeed, the pro-abortion ads being run in Maryland against Republican Larry Hogan in the U.S. Senate race are at this despicable level. The Kaine spot, however, reminds me of Mary McCarthy epic take-down playwright Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”
Let’s see…
The Supreme Court didn’t “rob” any women of anything. It sent the issue of abortion regulation to the states, where it always belonged.
The issue isn’t a “right to choose.” The issue is how far anyone’s right to kill another human being can or should be acknowledged. There is no right to “choose” to kill those who inconvenience us. Using deceptive phrases that deliberately disguise the rights, parties and stakeholders in a political dispute is deceit, a lie.
Abortion is legal in every Southern state. That it is not is an outright, indefensible lie.
More deceit: “If Republicans take control in Washington and pass a national abortion ban” is like saying, “If Republicans take control in Washington and legalize slavery.” A national abortion ban is not going to happen, can’t happen, and would almost certainly be ruled unconstitutional if by some miracle it did. Legal scholar and ethicist William Hodes made that case powerfully in his article published on the Federalist Society website, pointing out that any such federal legislation would be unconstitutional, as it would exceed the scope of congressional power.
Of course women would have “options.” Finding solutions to the result of their own actions, or the actions of others, that doesn’t involve killing nascent lives is an excellent, ethical option.
“The Republicans won’t stop there” because they’re evil!EVIL!This is shameless demonizing and fear-mongering. They’ll legalize cannibalism! They’ll make everyone wear their underwear on the outside! How can the women in that video look at themselves in the mirror?
Contraception is protected under the Constitution. IVF involves complex biological and ethical issues, but there is no indication that there would be sufficient support in the Republican Party to ban the procedure. Yet this ad states as fact that the GOP would do it.
That’s pretty impressive hysteria and dishonesty for a 30 second ad. And this was the guy Hillary Clinton picked to be her Vice-President.
I don’t see how anyone who has any standards for honesty in our elected officials can vote for some who puts out deliberate falsehood like these and “approves” them. I know, I know, it’s “the ends justifies the means,” the unethical fallacy that has swallowed the whole Democratic Party.
Anything to be able to kill unborn human beings at will.
Bill Gates two weeks ago, John Kerry last week, and Hillary Clinton today — all demanding government censorship of X. Hard to see this as a coincidence. They appear to be laying the groundwork for totalitarianism. Our democratic republic is in danger.pic.twitter.com/nafR7oJFs8https://t.co/zO9fgKYRrL
[I]f the platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control. And it’s not just the social and psychological affects, it’s real life.”
—Hillary Clinton, joining the chorus of Democrats, progressives and national ticket nominees past and present advocating restricting free speech for the greater good.
Here is what a Pollyanna sap I am: I read the “we lose total control” section in several right-wing media posts, and assumed Hillary was unfairly taken out of context. After all, she’s not, or didn’t used to be, stupid. She ruthless and bitter and the U.S. ducked a metaphorical bullet by not electing her President, but surely, surely, Clinton wouldn’t be so careless and foolish as to say that out loud; surely she was a victim of selective editing. Then I checked the clip and the transcript. Nope, Clinton really said it and meant it. Ooh, Gina wants a word!
Thank-you, Gina!
Back to Hillary on CNN: Michael Smerconish, who is often cited as the most objective CNN host, didn’t faint and fall over on his face, then pop up to say, “What? What the hell is the matter with you?” It’s been the matter with Clinton for a while: Last month, Clinton suggested during an appearance on MSNBC (of course) that Americans accused of interfering in U.S. elections by spreading “propaganda” promoting former President Trump should be civilly or criminally charged. Democrats’ definition of propaganda in recent years often includes “the truth.”
Who would have expected the AI metaphorical tidal wave to have an influence on the Presidential election? Memes are a breeze to make using artificial intelligence, and while I got heartily sick of my Facebook friends bombarding me with political ones, I have to admit that the technology has the silver lining of taking blunt and biased punditry out of the political cartoonist monopoly and letting some very witty people make satirical political statements.
So far, at least, it appears that conservatives have mastered meming before the Left has, and in this race for President, that is having impact, though how much and how significant is impossible to tell. However, it is clear that the Kamala-Harris-as-a-Communist memes are getting under the skin of some Democrats—one of my Trump-Deranged relatives was complaining about those just yesterday—and so now there are calls for “something to be done” about anti-Harris memes. On MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” NPR’s Maria Hinojosa was very upset about AI images of Harris presented in Maoist uniforms:
Were it not for the apparently huge number of women willing to make a radical incompetent, Kamala Harris, the leader of the nation because she favors allowing mothers to kill their unborn children at will, the Democrats would be facing the prospect of a landslide loss come November. Almost every other major demographic group has moved toward Trump and for a very obvious reason: the Biden Presidency has been a disaster, and the Democratic Party has abandoned any fealty to American values, principles and democracy in pursuit of unbridled power. Yet a growing number of voters now say abortion is their top issue in 2024. Amazing. Amazing and indefensible morally and ethically.
Think about that. Abortion—killing unborn human beings—is the most important issue for millions of voters. This isn’t a virtue or a process embraced by admirable cultures: the Soviet Union used abortion as a primary form of birth control, and so has China. These are nations that do not value human life as our founding documents declare that our unique society does. Abortion doesn’t make America stronger economically, or keep the world safe from ruthless foreign regimes, or help small businesses thrive, or make the nation energy independent; it doesn’t make our public education any better, reduce crime, drug addiction and disease. In the vast majority of cases, abortion accomplishes two objectives: it allows women an extra level of protection if their sexual activity results in an inconvenient pregnancy, and it lets mothers employ medical professionals to kill their unwanted children before the law protects those innocent lives.
Having gagged on the last Ethics Quiz completely, I have to clear my palate with a second try.
Those canny Democrats tried to trick young voters into watching Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech last night by feeding their propaganda agents (that is, the U.S. news media) a fake rumor that pop super-star Beyoncé was going to show up in Chicago, perform at the convention’s finale, and thus endorse KAmala Harris.
“Beyoncé to perform at Democratic convention: Sources,” stated the headline at The Hill. “Did White House political director just drop major hint about Beyoncé DNC appearance?” coyly insinuated NBC Chicago. “BEYONCÉ PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” claimed TMZ. “🚨🚨SHE’S THERE!!!!!!”announced the Twitter/X account @beyoncepress at 7:16 p.m. Central time, alongside a video of a black SUV driving through Chicago’s River North neighborhood escorted by a motorcade.
All false. Harris finished her speech, balloons came down from the ceiling, and no Beyoncé. Figures aren’t in, but I assume that the planted rumor “worked,” making it “good” as the late Harry Reid will confirm if you track him down in the Lake of Fire.
“It’s a bad move to trick people into staying tuned and then denying them what they thought they’d get,” opines Ann Althouse today as she disagrees with Harry, though I don’t know what she means exactly by “bad.” Unethical? Unfair? Likely to backfire (meaning it didn’t “work”)? Columnist Laura Bassett tweeted that “teasing a huge surprise guest and leaking that it’s both Beyonce and Taylor swift just to get people to tune in is actually kind of funny.” Not unethical. Funny. Bassett is a former HuffPo pundit who now hangs out at MSNBC and CNN, so you can guess what her ethics alarms are like.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this…
Is using a false rumor as a device to create interest in an event like the Democratic National Convention unethical, or is it sufficiently standard publicity and marketing practice now to give it an ethics pass?
Michigan might have the most sinister and anti-American Democratic Party of all. It’s certainly a tough competition, with New York, Minnesota, Washington, California, D.C. and a few others in the race, but Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is special (she was a particularly heinous enemy of civil rights during the pandemic) and any party that would allow someone like anti-Semitic Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib to run under its banner has decency and integrity issues.
The state just threw independent presidential candidate Cornel West off its ballot, and many conservatives and Republicans see evidence of a conspiracy to rig the election for KAmala Harris. “Call me paranoid if you wish, but it’s almost as if the Democrats don’t want voters to show up at the polls on November 5 and see the name of anyone from any party or no party at all on their ballots except for Kamala Harris,” writes P.J. Media pundit Jazz Shaw.
Michigan elections director Mark Brewer sent a letter to West’s campaign saying that his affidavit of identity submitted with his ballot application was “not properly notarized.” The affidavit was notarized in Colorado and had to be valid in that state to be valid in Michigan as well. “There were apparently a couple of boxes left blank and the notary public stamp for the affidavit was attached on a separate piece of paper rather than on the document itself,” Shaw reveals. More from Jazz, who concludes in part:
Yes, that was it. That was the entirety of the complaint. In fairness to the Michigan elections director, they did send West’s campaign a letter in late July giving him a couple of weeks to respond and West never responded. This should have all been able to be cleaned upeasily, but it wasn’t so the Democrats pounced. The original complaint was filed by former Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer in case you’re wondering why I’m generically blaming “the Democrats” here.
So what’s the real reason behind all of this and why would the Democrats care about Cornel West? He wasn’t going to carry any states or win the White House. …But that doesn’t mean that Cornel West’s presence or absence might not have a significant impact on the final results. This would be particularly true in Michigan where the presidential race is tighter than razor wire…That’s the reality ofwhat is going on behind the scenes….West was identified as a potential threat to Biden and now to Harris. So he had to go. They scraped up Mark Brewer to have someone pore over West’s ballot application documents with a magnifying glass and find some sort of flaw to use as a basis for their complaint….They found acompliant judge to go along with a trivial complaint over what amounted to a technicality and West was unceremoniously kicked to the curb. Welcome to the rough and tumble world of modern Democratic politics as they desperately scramble to maintain their hold on power at any cost.
The Democrats cheat, as we have seen repeatedly this year and before. That party, as it has mutated in the 21st century, indeed will do anything and take actions that once were regarded as unthinkable in the American political culture to continue its slow eradication of Constitutional government. This episode, however, is not an example of that.
I had already decided to open this Saturday’s Ethics Games with a post on this topic when I read this section in NYT left-wing columnist Nate Cohn’s (gleeful?) column this morning about a Times-Sienna poll that has Kamala Harris suddenly topping Trump in several “battleground states” where he has been leading Biden. Cohn wrote,
…One way to think about her position is that she has become something like a “generic” Democrat. This might sound like an insult, but it’s really not. In fact, nothing is more coveted. An unnamed generic candidate — whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican — almost always fares better in the polls than named candidates, who are inevitably burdened by all the imperfections voters learn about in the process of a campaign.
Isn’t that wonderful? Cohn clearly thinks so. He also explains that in earlier polls an “anyone but Trump” hypothetical generic candidate beat the former President by 10 points in these same states. Harris now leads Trump by five, meaning only half of the “anyone but Trump” voters have no clue who Kamala Harris is….but hey, that might just be enough! So the Democratic Party, in its fervor to save democracy, are going to try to keep it that way.
Can you guess why Abe is at the top of this post? I bet you can!
I resolved to discuss this early yesterday, when the same Kamala surrogate—I had never seen him before, but he was a youngish black man and appropriately glib—was making the rounds of the news networks (even Fox News) arguing that Harris never has to agree to be interviewed and answer questions without a script or a teleprompter, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. After all, he argued while several talking heads expressed exasperation (notably Harris Faulkner on Fox and S.E. Cupp on CNN), the public doesn’t need spontaneous answers to learn what they need to know. Kamala Harris doesn’t do as well off script (Ya think?), so why should she agree to present herself in less than the best light?
A Morning Consult poll released this week reports that 34 % of Democratic voters found it either definitely or probably credible that Trump staged Saturday’s shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, and less than half, 45 %, agreed that the conspiracy theory is not credible at all.
Be proud, Democrats!
You can read here about various theories, reasons and comparisons regarding this idiocy: I really don’t care. I know idiots when I see them. This tells us that less than half of all registered Democrats have the critical thinking skills of the average meat loaf.
Well, if nothing else, Stephen Colbert knows when to jump ship.
Last night, after 8 years of being almost entirely a Trump-bashing, pro-Democrat, pro-progressive, pro-Biden mouthpiece, late night comic Stephen Colbert (who also hosted a Biden fundraiser) decided to pick the low-hanging fruit and start ridiculing Joe Biden. Trump is used to this treatment, Biden is not. “They laughed at me, Mother,” the Willaim Jenning Bryan-based character Mattew Harrison Brady laments at the end of “Inherit the Wind” speaking of his previously loyal supporters right before Brady’s fatal stroke. The comics and Saturday Night Live had been one of Biden’s (and Obama’s, and even Hillary’s) most reliable lines of biased defense. If that crumbles—and it should—the President and his party’s fortunes will become even more dire.
Good.
2. Biden’s physician was obviously asked to release a letter insisting that Biden is in tip-top shape, based entirely on last February’s annual physical. Here it is. It raises more questions than it answers, primarily, “If this is true, then why won’t Biden take a cognitive function test now?” We know the answer to that; it’s obvious. Then the question is, “Are doctors ethically required to tell the truth in public statements?” Lawyers are. The answer us no. Doctors can lie if they believe doing so is in the best interests of their patients—like, say, helping them stay in their jobs. The final questions is, “What isn’t he telling us?”
3. Remember now, Biden tells the truth, and Trump lies all the time. Biden said on MSNBC yesterday, “All the data shows that the average Democrat out there who voted…for me still want me to be the nominee.” That’s completely false. A post-debate CBS/YouGov poll found that 72 % of registered voters believe that Biden has insufficient mental and cognitive health to serve as president. A New York Times/Siena poll found that 74 % of voters think Biden as too old to be President.
ADDED: Commenter Sarah correctly points out that this poll doesn’t prove Biden’s statement was “completely false” because it only references registered voters, not whatever Joe meant by the “average Democrat who voted” for him. Here’s a better poll from March that found that 61% of 2020 Biden voters now think he’s too old, and that was before his debate crash. Of course, who knows how “average” they are….
Ethics Alarms 