Democrats

What A Surprise: The Inspector General Reports That What We Knew Clinton had Done With Her E-Mails A Year Ago In Fact Was What She Had Done, That She Has Been Lying And Spinning Ever Since, And That Her Supporters Have Either Been Dupes Or Accomplices! OK, I Guess That’s Not Much Of A Surprise…

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

Yawning2I’m not sure what to write about this, except that it has to be reported because the Clinton e-mail scandal has been so extensively discussed here since early in 2015. If it’s surprising to anyone, I pity them. If they try to keep denying it, I have contempt for them. If they don’t understand why this issue matters (Bernie…!), I pity them and have contempt for them.

Today the State Department’s inspector general’s report on the Clinton’s e-mail practices was released to the media.  The report makes it clear that Clinton intentionally set up the private server to avoid scrutiny of her personal e-mails, and the various Stygian activities revealed there. In order to do that, she willfully and knowingly violated State Department policies, and placed national security at potential risk.

The report concluded that Clinton failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have allowed it had she requested approval, because of the “security risks in doing so.”  Clinton’s use of private email for public business was “not an appropriate method” of preserving documents, the inspector general concluded, and her practices failed to comply with department policies meant to ensure that federal record laws are followed. Clinton should have printed and saved her emails during her four years in office or surrendered her work-related correspondence immediately upon stepping down in February 2013. She did not, choosing instead to provide those records in December 2014, nearly two years after leaving office.

So she was not following policy. What she did was not approved.  She did knowingly take risks with sensitive national security information. It wasn’t because she didn’t make “the best choice” that all of this occurred. Clinton was making the best choice for her…her career, her ambitions, her schemes.  The nation’s interests were secondary. If that. Continue reading →

Do We Really Want To Live In A Society Where Tow-Truck Drivers Refuse To Tow The Cars Of Bernie Sanders Supporters?

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Bernie Sticker

In Ashville, North Carolina,  tow truck driver Ken Shupe arrived on the scene to find motorist Cassy McWade standing by her accident-disabled vehicle  on Interstate 26. “He goes around back and comes back and says ‘I can’t tow you,” Wade told a reporter. “My first instinct was there must be something wrong with the car. And he says, ‘No, you’re a Bernie supporter.’ And I was like wait, really? And he says, ‘Yes ma’am,’ and just walks away.”

Here’s Shupe’s version:

“Something came over me, I think the Lord came to me, and he just said get in the truck and leave. And when I got in my truck, you know, I was so proud, because I felt like I finally drew a line in the sand and stood up for what I believed.”

A few quick points and then I’ll get to the real issue:

1. Shupe is an utter, virulent, IQ-deficient jerk whose conduct and attitude makes a mockery of whatever faith it is cursed to have him belonging to it, and constitute a blight on the society, community,culture and nation so unfortunate as to be stuck with him.

2. News reports make a big deal out of the fact that McWade is confined to a wheelchair. Ah: the theory is that we are only obligated to help our handicapped neighbors in need, is it? It shouldn’t matter if she was an Olympic medalist in the 50 yard dash. You don’t treat other human beings like that in any society that values human rights and common decency.

3. Shupe’s company is Shupee Max Towing in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. Nobody in their right mind should patronize this unAmerican creep, including his own family. This was anti-social,  cruel and objectively horrible behavior toward someone in need, and Shupe needs to be shunned, hard. If he can’t co-exist with others any better than this, he needs to live in a cave somewhere, because he’s not fit for human association.

4. To anticipate an objection: you may ask how it is that I can argue that friendship should outweigh political differences and advocacy of unethical conduct, and yet designate Ken for ignominy and rejection. If Ken were a friend of mine, I can see myself standing by him even after this miserable behavior. But, as Samuel L. Jackson tells John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction,” “We’d have to be talkin’ about one charming motherfucking pig.”

In a way, however, we should be grateful to Ken Shupe, who has provided in short order and timely fashion a near perfect example of the society-wrecking virus being actively spread by irresponsible zealots on both ends of the political spectrum who are determined to divide the nation and the culture as never before. Yes, never before. During the American Civil War, generals on opposite sides of some of the most bloody battles ever fought arranged to meet and exchange pleasantries, because they had been, and remained, friends. They understood what the self-righteous tow-truck operator, and, increasingly, our entire society, doesn’t. Continue reading →

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Authentic Frontier Gibberish In Defense Of Hillary

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Gabby Johnson for head of the DNC!

Gabby Johnson for head of the DNC!

I am going to add “authentic frontier gibberish” (or AFG ) to the Ethics Alarms glossary of special terms. It comes, of course, from a memorable moment in “Blazing Saddles,” but on Ethics Alarms it is usually used to describe either intentional or incompetent blather from politicians or others attempting to confuse the public, duck a question, or mislead everyone. It is deliberate communication malpractice, with the motive of not communicating but pretending to.

Seldom will you encounter a more ringing example of AFG than the foregoing. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a master at AFG,  was asked by Fox News’ Chris Wallace why she called the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s possible national security violations in her handling of official e-mails “ludicrous.”

Here was her response… Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: NY1 Host Errol Louis

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“Let me suggest, because some of her strategists have said this kind of quietly, it’s not really a big thing on this campaign trail: a lot of this is sexism. It’s buried so deep that people just say, ‘I don’t trust her, she doesn’t keep her word.’ And then you turn it around and say, ‘What politician does?’”

—-CNN political commentator and NY1 host Errol Louis in response to CNN’s Chris Cuomo’s question regarding Hillary Clinton’s a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that indicated that Clinton had a 56% unfavorable rating even among Democrats.

The T-Rex in "Jurassic Park" was also a female, and I'm sure sexism had a lot to do with everyone not liking her, either...

The T-Rex in “Jurassic Park” was also a female, and I’m sure sexism had a lot to do with everyone not liking her, either…

It must be wonderful for a politician to have an automatic, guilt-inducing, candor-suppressing excuse for every botch, failure, example of misconduct and instance of terrible judgment. You have to pity Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Dole, George W. Bush, John Kerry, and so many others–when people said they distrusted or disliked them, they had to accept responsibility for it, and conclude that they must be doing something wrong. After all, nobody is prejudiced against white males: when people think they screw up, it’s because they really are incompetent or corrupt. They have to be accountable. How brilliant of the Democrats to hit on this fool-proof—literally—formula: just find black or female standard bearers and all criticism can, and for a lot of journalists will, be attributed to prejudice and bigotry. One has to wonder if Democrats will ever dare to run a Presidential candidate again who doesn’t have this built-in armor.

Without this versatile reality-warping and truth-defying device, I am certain that right and left, including African Americans, would have been howling for Barack Obama’s head long ago, with the news media handing out the torches and pitch forks. The engine for this double-standard is presumed bigotry, unfair but apparently impossible to rebut. Continue reading →

A Brief But Pointed Comment On Last Night’s Democratic Presidential Candidate’s Debate

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Gee, am I imagining things, or didn’t Bernie and Hillary repeatedly mock their Republican counterparts for being uncivil, mean and unruly in their debates, while superciliously noting how the Good Candidates—you know: them—were always respectful, measured in tone, polite and professional? I’m certain I heard that, more than once.

I definitely heard Democrats and progressives in the pundit class, which is to say, 95% of the mainstream media, say that, because I wrote this more than a month ago:

1. The smug comments from Democratic pundits and operatives about how “substantive” the Democratic debates have been and how “ugly” and “childish” the GOP debates have been is really nauseating, and the news media should flag it as such. When one candidate is ugly and childish, as well as shameless about being so, the other candidates have little choice but to get down in the mud. That’s the situation in the Republican debates, and that is entirely due to Donald Trump. When, meanwhile, one candidate is notable for lack of trustworthiness and dishonesty, and her only opposition refuses to reference the major reason the public (accurately) believes her to be so,  the resulting debate will be muted. Sanders, in short, isn’t doing his job. That’s nothing for Democrats to be smug about.

Continue reading →

Observations On The Hillary/de Blasio “CPT” Skit Uproar

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

beaver-crushed-by-his-own-treeOut of trivial occurrences  enlightenment may flow.

In a skit last weekend in the Inner Circle show, annual charity event put on by the New York press corps to roast the Mayor, Hillary Clinton joined de Blasio as a surprise guest and chided him for delaying his endorsement of her presidential campaign.

“Thanks for the endorsement. Took you long enough,” Clinton said

“Sorry, Hillary. I was running on C.P. Time,” de Blasio replied. Little gasps were heard in the audience, for C.P. Time, more correctly “CPT”—you know, like EST?—means “Colored People Time,” referring to the alleged proclivity of African American and Hispanics to have a casual regard for punctuality.

Black “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Aaron Burr in the hit musical, was on stage as part of the skit, and admonished the  mayor, saying, “I don’t like jokes like that, Bill.”

Hillary then intervened and said, “Cautious Politician Time. I’ve been there.”

I’ll let you compose yourself after the that hilarious joke before continuing.

OK, now? Good. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month—But Awfully Revelatory, If You Have The Integrity To Accept What It Means—California Gov. Jerry Brown

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

0404_NWS_LDN-L-BROWN-DC

“Economically, minimum wages may not make sense. But morally, socially, and politically they make every sense because it binds the community together to make sure parents can take care of their kids.”

—–Governor Jerry Brown on April 4, as he signed into law a phased state-wide increase in the minimum wage to $15 dollars an hour.

As Commentary wrote in reaction to this jaw-dropping admission following an irresponsible act, “Good intentions have always inoculated the left against criticisms of the consequences of their policy preferences.” This has become a culture-wide, self-destructive malady during the Obama administration, led by the President. Lately, Obama has become increasingly open about it, as when the President killed the Keystone pipeline citing climate change concerns while admitting that doing so would have no likely effect on climate change, but most of his “signature policies” are similar. The Iran deal bids fair to leave Israel as a smoldering wasteland, and the Iranian government has gone out of its way to demonstrate that it cannot be trusted while already violating, as even Obama admits, the “spirit” of the deal, but God Bless Obama for trying to restrain its nuclear ambitions.

The Affordable Care Act is failing in virtually every respect, fulfilling most of the dire predictions of its opponents, but this is still an “achievement” because, and it’s true, more Americans are insured than before. Obama’s Education Department’s sincere—I’ve no doubt about it—effort to make women feel supported and safe on college campuses seeded extensive due process abuse and discrimination against male students, and the most-gender divided campus community since the Seventies. His civil rights policies and rhetoric have created the worst racial divide since the early 1960’s. The intentions in all of these cases were, at least arguably, impeccable and admirable, and apparently for committed progressives, it is that, and not that the policies in pursuit of Panglossian goals have been societally disastrous, that matters.

The mass insanity of raising the minimum wage is the apotheosis of this mania. Note that I am trying to attribute the best possible motives with this: I have read many conservative writers who believe that the left knows the policy will be catastrophic economically, but because it will be politically useful in the short-term, they don’t care about the long-range consequences. Admittedly, statements like Brown’s makes this difficult for me not to agree with them, except that it is usually considered stupid to tell voters that what you are doing makes no sense.

To state what should be obvious, if  large minimum wage increases don’t make sense economically, that means they are bad policy, incompetent, and thus unethical. And we know–know—that they do not make sense economically.

Here’s economist Robert Samuelson: Continue reading →

A Donald Trump KABOOM! How Can A Creep Like This Be Running For President?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

calvin_headexplode

A recently uncovered clip from a 1994 episode of “Lifestyle of The Rich And Famous” was shown on Comedy Central and left host Trevor Noah with a bad case of the oogies…as it will you.

I hope.

“Donald, what does Tiffany have of yours and what does she have of Marla’s?” the show’s host, Robin Leach, asked, referring to Trump’s then one-year-old daughter and her mother and Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples.

“I think she’s got a lot of Marla, she’s a beautiful baby. She’s got beautiful legs. We don’t know if she’s got this part yet,” Trump said, as he cupped his hands under his chest to signify breasts, “But time will tell.”

Kaboom. Continue reading →

How Cognitive Dissonance Works: A Case Study

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Cognitive DissonanceJust last fall, the percentage of Americans identifying as Republicans and Democrats was essentially the same. Now, after months of the party being represented in the media by ugly, boorish, violent, dumb, name-calling Donald Trump, and the necessarily messy GOP debates that were the direct result of a major participant whose modus operandi consisted of mockery, lies and ad hominem attacks, this is the current split:

Party affiliation

Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Neil DeGrasse Tyson

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments
Oh, shut up.

Oh, shut up.

Wrote acclaimed pop astrophysicist Tyson in a tweet:

“People who are anti-Trump are actually anti-Trump supporters — they oppose free citizens voting for the @realDonaldTrump.”

Hmmmm.

1. Tyson cannot help himself: he frequently mixes political bias into his supposedly “just facts and science!”lectures, and in cases like this, lets the cat out of the bag: he’s a partisan hack. The news media and allies of Hillary Clinton are doing their best to help Donald Trump get nominated, because they see him as one of the very few candidates that the awful Hillary Clinton could beat in a general election. Tyson reveals himself as one of them with his tweet. This was the same kind of calculation the Republican Party made when it allowed Trump, a Democrat, to run in the Republican primaries, and didn’t that work out well?

2. Tyson isn’t exactly a member of the news media, but he’s a media personality who carries some weight, as his opinions on things he really knows little about are given undue credibility because, you know, he’s smart. Well,  Tyson’s dangerous game is dumb, and he’s also abusing his authority by playing it. It puts the U.S. at risk of a President Trump….and for what, to achieve the Nirvana of a President Clinton?  He and others trying these tactics need to remember that any candidate who is nominated has a chance of being elected, especially running against a corrupt and bumbling liar like Hillary Clinton. Continue reading →