Other possible titles for this entry include “Now THIS Is Confirmation Bias!” and “How Ideological Passion Can Make You an Idiot.”
Here is a screen shot of a Herman Cain PAC website that surfaced this week:
Did you think it was real? Do you think it was intended to fool anyone above the age of 12? Did you not see the horse gag coming a mile away? I guess the real question is, did it take you three seconds, or only one to figure out that it was a gag? Continue reading
Come back, Ross! We need your charts!
The third Comment of the Day on this “Comment of the Day Friday” is an epic from Michael, expanding on the theme of my original post.
“I hate the fact that no one is talking facts, only ideology. In such an atmosphere, these selections make sense. The S&P statement said our downgrade was because we failed to tacked long-term indebtedness especially the main drivers of long-term debt: Medicare and SS, but no one really wants to deal with that. To talk facts, you really need some tables, figures, and analysis. I’m not just talking about politicians, here. Isn’t this the reason we tolerate the media? Aren’t they supposed to keep us informed of about things like this so we can then get outraged by such a stupid selection of people to ‘fix’ our problem.
“Why can’t we find a news outlet that will break things down like this?” Continue reading
John Quincy Adams, Sixth President, slavery foe, and time-traveling Founding Father
I will strive a bit longer to avoid concluding that Michele Bachmann is as irresponsible, dishonest and dangerous as I strongly suspect that she is, though my determination may not last the time it takes to write this post. I won’t wait any longer to conclude that she is a fool.
In one short week since the controversy erupted over Fox News anchor Chris Wallace daring to ask her on the air, “Are you a flake?” and her subsequent botching of both her answer and the question’s fevered aftermath, she has stumbled into two flaky episodes. One—her mixing up Western movie star icon John Wayne with serial child killer John Wayne Gacy—was at least funny. The other, far less forgivable—her claim that the Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States”—has signature significance. Continue reading
Michael, who also just made a “Comment of the Day”-worthy point regarding the recent post about schools banning homemade lunches for students (you can read it here), makes an important point about reports that dismiss allegations of government misconduct as “unsupported.” There is an obvious parallel with the public’s misinterpretation of verdicts finding the likes of O.J. Simpson (who did kill his wife and Ron Goldman) and Barry Bonds (who did lie to a Federal Grand Jury) “innocent” because the government prosecutors did not meet their burden of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Here is Michael’s Comment of the Day on the post, Finis: The New Black Panthers Voter Intimidation Affair: Continue reading
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, a careful, professional, non-partisan group charged with reviewing allegations of U.S. Government attorney misconduct, released the report on its investigation of the contentious Civil Rights Division handling of the case of two paramilitary-clad members of the New Black Panthers, one carrying a club, who appeared to be at a Philadelphia polling place in November 2008 for the purpose of intimidating voters. The men were videotaped, and the YouTube video of them standing at the polling place was provocative, to say the least.
To briefly recap: Voting Rights Act prosecution was initiated by the Bush Justice Department, and subsequently scaled down by the Obama Justice Department. Two career Civil Rights Division attorneys resigned over the handling of the incident, alleging that political appointees within the Obama Administration had pushed a policy of not prosecuting African-Americans under the Act—in other words, race-based enforcement. Continue reading
Ethics train wreck scholars take note: when an organization’s image and existence is based on multiple lies, an ETW is inevitable.
Oh NO! It's another Ethics Train Wreck!
National Public Radio is now in the middle of a massive, six-months long ethics train wreck that began with the hypocritical firing of Juan Williams on a trumped-up ethics violation. The disaster exposes the culture of dishonesty and entitlement at the heart of NPR, and by extension, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. To the extent that their supporters blame anyone else, it is evidence of denial. This is a train wreck, however, and the ethics violators drawn into the wreckage are many: Continue reading
Trick Question: Who are the U.S. Attorney General's people?
“When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African-Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia–which was inappropriate, certainly that—to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.”
—-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, testifying in a Congressional hearing regarding allegations of race-based enforcement in the Justice Department, and taking issue with Rep. John Culberson, who was questioning Holder about the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case. Culberson quoted a Democratic activist who called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career, prompting Holder’s statement.
I am willing to give the Attorney General the benefit of the doubt and regard this is a slip of the tongue. It would be unfair to conclude, based on this statement, that Holder is biased. But his use of the term “my people” certainly raises the question of bias. As the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder is obligated to regard all American citizens as “his people.” Suggesting otherwise undermines his credibility and the people’s trust, and is at best careless, and at worst suspicious.
[Thanks to WSJ blogger James Taranto for flagging the quote.]
The Washington Post, to its everlasting credit, has published a thorough and excellent piece of investigative journalism examining the continuing controversy over the Obama Justice Department’s reluctance to follow through on the prosecution of two paramilitary clad Black Panthers, one brandishing a club, who menaced voters at a Philadelphia polling place. You can, and should, read the whole piece here…especially if you were one of the throng claiming that the story was a trumped-up “conservative media” fabrication. It is true that the conservative media kept the story alive, but that is because the mainstream media inexcusably ignored or buried it, for due to a blatant bias in favor of shielding the Obama Administration from embarrassment, no matter how ell deserved.
It remains a mystery to me how opposing polling place intimidation of any kind, by any group, in favor of any candidate, and insisting that the enforcement of the laws against such conduct be administered without respect to race or politics, could possibly be attacked as a “conservative” position. Or, for that matter, how excusing race-based enforcement could be described as a “liberal” position, or a responsible, fair or ethical one. But they have been, repeatedly, which is why the report by the Washington Post, as one of the media groups that initially ignored the story (and was criticized by it independent ethics watchdog for doing so) is so useful and important. Continue reading
The bizarre conduct of the Obama-Holder Department of Justice in refusing to to fully prosecute a 2008 instance of blatant voter intimidation at the polls by members of the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia has been denied by D.O.J. (despite a video that proves the Voting Rights Act violation ), ignored or buried by most major news sources (despite Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander chiding his own paper for failing the public with inadequate coverage of the story) and attacked as manufactured by Republicans by partisan Obama defenders (despite the fact that, well, it just isn’t.) It is both disturbing and depressing that this conduct persists, long after the event itself, months after one Justice Department Civil Rights attorney quit to expose the episode publicly, and while the non-partisan U.S. Commission Civil Rights holds hearings on the case.
At issue is racial bias in Attorney General Erik Holder’s Civil Rights Division, which the Obama Administration must not permit, tolerate or excuse, but appears to be anyway. Continue reading
John Hawkins of Right Wing News persuaded 43 conservative bloggers to send him their list of the twenty worst Americans in history. He then compiled a list of “The 25 Worst Americans” using their responses, with the rankings based on the number of blogger who listed an individual.
The list is disturbing, but not for the reasons you think. What does it say about the priorities and values of conservative bloggers that the “worst American” among all the criminals, serial killers, scoundrels and sociopaths America has produced is, by this method of measurement...wait for it…
...Jimmy Carter? Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 