From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: “Nah, There’s No Big Tech Bias!”

Talk about smoking guns…

Big Tech is all in with the rest of the Axis (“the resistance,” Democrats and mainstream media) to rescue President Biden from his own blunders and ineptitude by bringing Donald Trump down by any means necessary. This is no conspiracy theory: they may not “steal” the election, but we can already see that they are doing anything they can think of to rig it. Here’s an example so flagrant that it is almost funny, or would be if it wasn’t emanating from the same people who claim to be “saving democracy.”

On March 16, Trump made his “bloodbath” comment, discussed on Ethics Alarms here and here. Even though his metaphor was unambiguous in its context (the economic plight facing American auto manufacturers if Biden remained President) a memo went out to the Left’s cabal dictating that the comments should be reported as a threat by Trump to encourage violence should Trump not prevail in November. On March 18, FactCheck.org, still biased leftward but perhaps the closest we have to an objective fact-checking service, pointed out that among “bloodbath’s” definitions was “a major economic disaster.” At that time the Google online definition of the word included “a period of disastrous loss or reversal,” and the sentence used to illustrate it was, “A few mutual funds performed well in the general bloodbath of the stock market.”

But that definition exonerated Donald Trump. Thus Google, being good patriots and all, changed the definition! See..

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A Popeye: Sorry, I Can’t Let Trump’s Presidential History Nonsense Go Unflagged…

The latest kerfuffle spawned by Donald Trump’s loose lips ensnared Keith Olbermann. In an interview with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly last week, Trump blathered about persecuted Presidents, “I was always told that Andrew Jackson was treated the absolute worst. I heard Abraham Lincoln was second. I don’t care,” Trump said. “Andrew Jackson or anybody else. Nobody, when you think of the fake things, nobody’s been treated like Trump in terms of badly.”

Olbermann, being the jerk that he is, re-tweeted the Biden Campaign’s “Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated,” with the comment, “There’s always the hope.” This isn’t the point of this post, but 1) Trump was referring to Lincoln’s vilification in both the South and much of the North when he spoke of bad treatment, and 2) Olbermann’s snark was inevitable, in character, and obviously not a “true threat.”

But then people, including some Fox talking heads, started calling for him to be kicked off Twitter/”X,” and Keith pulled his tweet. Then he lied about what he meant, tweeting, “I know nobody with an IQ greater than a halibut’s has believed @FoxNews since 1996 but even from their whores this is idiotic The RT clearly shows I’m hoping Trump’s right, that he IS treated worse than Lincoln. As I’ve said for 9 years: THAT HE’S CONVICTED, THEN DIES IN PRISON ”

Sure Keith. Do you really believe anyone but a few halibut, Fox News, and the nearly million idiots who follow you on Twitter give a fig what you tweet, ever?

But I digress. What I want to point out is that neither Lincoln nor Andrew Jackson top the list of mistreated Presidents. It’s an especially dumb thing to say about Jackson. Jackson was the most popular President since George Washington, cruised to re-election, and left office an icon. I assume what Trump is alluding to is the scandal over Jackson’s wife Rachel, because of her inadvertent bigamy when she eloped with Andy. Jackson didn’t take any criticism well, but he was still mostly worshiped as President, though roundly hated by his political foes for consistently besting them.

Trump has a slightly stronger case with Lincoln, but Abe still was re-elected, and almost immediately deified after he was killed. The following Presidents were treated much worse than Jackson; whether they were treated worse than Lincoln is a matter of perspective: John Adams, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. I could even make an argument for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Trump has a strong case that he was the most unfairly and viciously treated of all, but the two Johnsons, Hoover and Nixon have strong cases as well. I do give Trump the award for knowing less about American Presidential history than any other POTUS.

That’s something.

An Ethics Alarms 2-Post Mash-Up! “Stop Making Me Defend Donald Trump Especially When He Just Barely Deserves To Be Defended!” Meets “Ethics Quiz: The RBG Awards”

A dissent from a well-respected contributor here spawned this post. The mainstream media is still pushing the Big Lie (discussed in this post)that Donald Trump promised to unleash a “bloodbath” if he lost the upcoming election (MSNBC mentioned it several times this morning). As I was pondering the argument (prompted by this post) that Elon Musk does not deserve the RBG Leadership Award for rescuing Twitter, now “X” from the Left-wing biased and censorious cabal that had captured it, I encountered the sequence below on the platform. Musk’s version of Twitter does not ban the progressives from spreading their “misinformation,” and he allows the crucial opportunity for countering the news media that is on display. This is undeniably a good thing. And I believe the the Notorious R.B.G. would agree.

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Stop Making Me Defend Donald Trump Especially When He Just Barely Deserves To Be Defended!

Ugh. How many times will we have to go through this farce? Trump says something off the cuff using gratuitously inflammatory language, Democrats and the Trump Deranged pretend he meant the words in the worst way imaginable, and the biased and dishonest mainstream media tries to bombard the public with the latest “Trump is dangerous and a threat to democracy!” narrative. Will it happen ten more times? Fifty? A hundred?

The current Axis fake-freakout is typical of the script. Trump was riffing yesterday about how countries like Mexico and China are making money from President Biden’s electric vehicle obsession. “Mexico has taken, over a period of thirty years, 34% of the automobile manufacturing business in our country. Think of it, it went to Mexico,” Trump told the crowd. “China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re gonna build the cars in Mexico and think, they think that they’re gonna sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.”

“Let me tell you something. To China, if you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal,” he continued. “Those big, monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re gonna get that, you’re gonna not hire Americans; and you’re gonna sell the cars to us — no. We’re gonna put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you’re not gonna be able to sell those cars. If I get elected — now if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. Its gonna be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it. But they’re not gonna sell those cars, they’re building massive factories,” Trump said.

So “bloodbath” clearly meant a financial and commercial bloodbath, using the term metaphorically, like the news media does all the time. They even used it last week: Multiple outlets described the change in leadership and subsequent layoffs at the Republican National Committee (RNC) as a “bloodbath.” What? You mean they were actually claiming that the GOP was slaughtering people? Of course not, but never mind: the Democratic Party-bolstering news media has no shame, so they immediately pretended—and wrote—that Trump had threatened a literal blood bath if he lost the election again.

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Trump’s NATO Comments and the Contrived “Axis” Freakout

The Axis of Unethical Conduct, or AUC, the collective leftist and antiTrump allies consisting of “the resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media, certainly had themselves a pounce orgy when Trump said over the weekend that he wouldn’t allow the U.S. to protect a NATO nation that didn’t contribute its fair share of defense funds to the alliance.

“You don’t pay your bills, you get no protection. It’s very simple,” Trump said at a South Carolina campaign event. “Hundreds of billions of dollars came into NATO, and that’s why they have money.” He also claimed that he told NATO members this when he was in office. This was the part that really caused Trump’s foes (and some of his supporters) apoplexy:

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ I said, “You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent?” He said, “Yes, let’s say that happened.” “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”

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Ethics Quote of the Month: D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals

“It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity…We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, rejecting former President Donald Trump’s bonkers claim that Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office.

The ruling is here.

Seldom has any court appeal in a high profile case had a more obvious and virtually assured resolution. The ethics alarms analysis of this issue was discussed in “Ethics Zugzwang In Trump’s Immunity Appeal,” and in this subsequent post. I hope it’s unnecessary to say that I agree with the D.C. Circuit’s ruling.

I wonder if Trump considered that if he won the appeal, President Biden could order that he and his MAGA supporters could be summarily shot as “clear and present dangers to democracy.” He could order the execution of the Republican contingent in the House, too, to forestall an impeachment.

What a great theory.

It was unethical for Trump and his lawyers to make the argument. If I had been his attorney—and before all the dust settles, Trump might eventually have to retain lawyers as inexperienced in litigation I am, and maybe even me—I would have withdrawn before I’d file such an irresponsible appeal.

The NY Times Promotes Big Lie #4 (“Trump Is A Racist/White Supremacist”) Again

“Nah, there/s no mainstream media bias!’

Despicable.

“Mocking Haley, Trump Adds to His Long History of Racist Attacks—The former president is again focusing on race and background as he campaigns against Nikki Haley in New Hampshire.” crowed the New York Times in what was allegedly a news report. The story is another installment of Big Lie #4 on The Big Lies Of The “Resistance” Directory, “Trump Is A Racist/White Supremacist.”

The fact that the Times is still doing this—that lie is one of the hoariest and most persistent in the whole ugly batch—means, quite simply, that the paper can’t be trusted. Simple as that. Its editorial policy is to lie about Donald Trump, and other things, of course, but if a news organization will lie about anything to forward an agenda, then it should never be trusted.

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Has-Been Director Panders to the Trump-Deranged, Trump Responds Like The Silly Jerk He Is, and the Media Pretends This Is Newsworthy: Make It Stop!

I shouldn’t even be writing about this completely silly and worthless story. It exemplifies, however, the cesspool that we are going to be dunked in for all of the next year. Here’s how it goes:

ACT I

The mainstream news media decided to exploit the Christmas season as an opportunity to take a cheap shot at Donald Trump, since that is considered the patriotic duty of anyone who has ever had contact with him, and because he is a threat to democracy. So, as Columbus’s twin “Home Alone” movies were au courrant once again, Rolling Stone and some other enterprising Trump-bashers dredged up a three-year old Business Insider interview in which has-been movie director Chris Columbus, apparently looking to curry favor with the monolithic woke Hollywood community, revealed that Trump had “bullied” his way into the cameo he performed during “Home Alone 2.”

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Everybody SING! “Trump’s Deranged for Christmas…You Can Count on He…”

...Trump might blow the race to Joe
By acting crazily.
Christmas Eve found Donald
Roasting no chestnut
Trump’s deranged for Christmas
He’s in a nasty rut
!

Here is what the man who wants to be trusted to hold the most powerful job on earth sends out to the public…

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Stupid Unethical Quote Of The Month: Donald Trump

“Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. He’s a threat. And you know—We’ll bring in adversaries and I’ll bring it in right now—Even Vladimir Putin—Has anyone ever heard if Vladimir Putin?—of Russia says that Biden’s — and this is a quote – ‘politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.’”

—–Donald Trump, in the same stream of consciousness rant that produced his previous Unethical Quote of the Month in New Hampshire (the clip is here)

I don’t have to explain what’s wrong with this, right? I don’t have to explain it because if you read Ethics Alarms, you must have at least a sufficient number of functioning brain cells to know why this is a stunningly idiotic thing for Trump to say. Now, I might decide that it is interesting that Russia’s Machiavellian dictator is using the various prosecutions of Trump by Democratic officials and Biden’s Justice Department to point out the hypocrisy in U.S. democracy under Biden, and refer to that Putin quote (if it really is a quote) for that purpose. However, I would never use a Putin in an appeal to authority, which is what Trump did in New Hampshire.

You don’t believe me that Biden is a threat to Democracy? Well, even such a distinguished expert as the Russian dictator agrees with me, so there!’ is what Trump said, in essence. Putin cannot be used as an authority because Putin is a proven liar, and is especially useless for that purpose regarding the United States, which is, after all, supporting a nation Russia is currently fighting. What Trump said is literally as absurd as it would have been for Richard Nixon, running for President against Hubert Humphrey in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam war, to quote Ho Chi Minh or Chairman Mao saying that the Johnson administration was filled with warmongers and fools. Nixon didn’t do that, of course, because whatever else he was, Richard Nixon was a good lawyer, and knew that if you use an unreliable and discredited authority in a brief or oral argument, the court is going to think, “Wow, this guy is desperate. And an idiot…”

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