idiots

Spectacularly Incompetent Candidate Of The Month: Paul Ryan Challenger Paul Nehlen

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
"This is Paul. Won't you help him? Paul, like millions of other victims across the land, suffers from Constitution Ignorance Syndrome. This dread malady causes its victims to advocate fascist policies and to sound like idiots in their public statements. But there is hope for Paul, and those like him. Please give, and give generously, To "Educate Paul." a non-profit charity. Your gift is tax-deductible, and you will have made the United States a little less stupid with every penny you contribute to this vital cause."

“This is Paul. Won’t you help him? Paul, like millions of other victims across the land, suffers from Constitution Ignorance Syndrome. This dread malady causes its victims to advocate fascist policies and to sound like idiots in their public statements. But there is hope for Paul, and those like him. Please give, and give generously, To Educate Paul a non-profit charity. Your gift is tax-deductible, and you will have made the United States a little less stupid with every penny you contribute to this vital cause.”

This was the guy that Donald Trump was supposedly going to endorse as retribution for Speaker Ryan’s negative comments? It’s comforting, isn’t it, that Trump isn’t that irrational? Ann Coulter is, but Trump isn’t. (At least in this case.)

Paul Nehlen is the arch conservative and certifiable ignoramus who is challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District’s Republican primary. Interviewed last week on “Chicago’s Morning Answer,” Nehlen said that he wonders why we have any Muslims in the country, and suggested that there should be a public debate about tossing Muslims out of the U.S.

Here’s a partial transcript of the relevant comments Nehlen made to hosts Amy Jacobson and Dan Croft: Continue reading →

Ethics Dilemma: What Do You Do With Steve King?

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Steve King

Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) is an infamous loose cannon, as well as being Cro-Magnon in his politics. He is prone to misstatements, colorful hyperbole and utter nonsense. There are head-scratching lists all over the web of his “greatest hits.”  Once, for example, he suggested that “For every time we give amnesty to an illegal immigrant, we would just deport a liberal.” OK, that was tongue in cheek (I hope), if hardly helpful to the cause of mutual respect and comity, but this probably wasn’t:

“If there is a sexual predator out there who has impregnated a young girl. Say a thirteen year old girl; and it happens in America more times than you and I would like to think. That sexual predator could pick that girl up off the playground at the middle school and haul her across the state line and force her to get an abortion to irradiate the evidence of his crime and bring her back and drop her off at the swing set and that’s not against the law in the United States of America.”

Actually, that would violate a number of laws, but never mind: Rep. King is an ultra-conservative idiot, and “the Julie Principle” applies: fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly.” If the good people of Iowa want someone like this to be one of their voices in the House, so be it, but don’t expect me to eat as much corn as I might otherwise.  Unfortunately, though, elected officials whose minds and tongues are not well connected to each other and who lack ethics alarms as well eventually get themselves into real trouble, unless they are nominated as the Republican candidate for President, like Steve King’s favorite orange tycoon.

The cock finally crowed for Steve King this week when, appearing on MSNBC  (which loves to book really stupid Republicans and conservatives because it makes all Republicans and conservatives look as stupid as MSNBC’s audience thinks they are) leftist pundit Charles Pierce engaged in typical ageist, racist-baiting that good progressives think is perfectly fine. He sneered about “old white people” controlling the  GOP and said that Republican convention was filled with “loud, unhappy, dissatisfied white people.”

Naturally, Steve King saw this as his signal to embrace white supremacy, saying..

“This whole ‘white people’ business, though, does get a little tired, Charlie. I mean, I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about? Where did any other sub-group of people contribute to civilization?”

Excellent timing, Congressman! Here is the nation on the verge of racial conflict, with police being targeting for death and afraid to police, while the black community is being convinced that a white justice system is biased against them, and you start talking like a Grand Dragon on national TV. Continue reading →

KABOOM! An Unethical Quote Of The Week So Outrageous That It Made My Head Explode…By Ben Carson

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

headexplode

“If Melania’s speech is similar to Michelle Obama’s speech, that should make us all very happy because we should be saying, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we share the same values. If we happen to share values, we should celebrate that, not try to make it into a controversy.”

—Dr. Ben Carson, making an absurd but original argument to justify Melania Trump’s plagiarism.

What?

WHAT???

Observations while I clean up bits of my skull and brain and get the superglue: Continue reading →

To Be Fair To Incompetent Elected Official Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), His Nemesis, Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla) Is Incompetent Too.

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Incompetence and idiocy in Congress is a bi-partisan ethics problem.

Rep. Louie Gohmert and Rep. Corrine Brown reportedly almost came to blows during last month’s cynical Democratic “sit-in” demanding that Sen. Susan Collins’ anti-Due Process, anti-Fifth Amendment, pre-crime “We have to DO something!” gun bill get a vote in the House despite being, you know, unconstitutional and totalitarian. Gohmert and Brown were screaming at each other and had to be separated.

Gohmert has proven himself to be an idiot, and idiots do not make competent members of Congress. To be fair, however, Brown is as least as big an idiot, and may be a crook as well.

Brown was charged with 24 counts of fraud late last week based on an investigation that found her and her Congressional staff using a college scholarship fund as “a personal slush fund.”  Federal prosecutors allege that the Congresswomen and her chief of staff, Elias “Ronnie” Simmons, used her position and office to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the fake charity.

Brown’s jaw-dropping response? This:

“These are the same agents that was not able to do a thorough investigation of [shooter Omar Mateen], and we ended up with 50 people dead,” Brown said. Having made that ridiculous rationalization-soaked diversion official (they aren’t the same agents, by the way), she moved on to playing the race card, the default defense of all unethical African-American officials.

But first I should mention that the rationalizations behind Brown’s diversionary  non-explanation are…

22. The Comparative Virtue Excuse or “There are worse things.”

26. “The Favorite Child” Excuse (“Why are you punishing her when there are people more deserving of punishment?“)

54. The Scooby Doo Deflection, or “I should have gotten away with it!”

On her blog, Brown attributed the indictment to racism and had the gall to compare her fate to those of the two men recently killed in police shootings as well as the assassinated Dallas police officers, writing in her blog,

“Two black men were needlessly gunned down by police; five Dallas police officers were slain by a demented man, and on Friday I had to appear in federal court. I’m not the first black elected official to be persecuted and, sad to say, I won’t be the last.” 

OK, I’m ready to call it! She’s even worse the Louie. Nevertheless, a battle between the two would have been the Godzilla vs. Mothra of incompetent elected officials. Two bad they didn’t just let these twin embarrassments to the Congress go at it.

 

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

I know this is like shooting fish in a barrel—dead fish, in fact— but I need some levity about now. Of course it’s no joke, and indeed tragic, that a certifiable fanatic like Gohmert can reach a position of influence in our government, and a greater tragedy that there are so many equally unfit officials, from both parties. Few, however, are willing or able to expose their cognitive deficiencies as deftly as Congressman Gohmert.

When a gay, progressive friend posted the story about this, I assumed that he had been caught (again) in a web hoax. Surely Gohmert isn’t THAT stupid. Nobody is that stupid in Congress, surely. Yet he is, and the story was correct and true.

This happened a while back, during the “general speeches” portion of House proceedings on May 26, 2016. It was little noted, because if it had been, I would hope that GOP leaders would have placed him in a padded room and denied him the opportunity to ever speak for the party again.

Here, in part, was Gohmert’s anti-gay, science fiction rant (the video of his whole speech is above): Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical Candidate…And An Incompetent Liar!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Diploma scam

I love this story, and salute Tim Levier for bringing it to my attention. As Tim suggested, it’s got everything. Dishonesty, incompetence, a window on the utter ineptitude of our educational system, the arrogance of unqualified officials believing that they can lie their way to power while having complete contempt for the public…and more, including a journalist actually doing his job and vetting the legitimacy of a Democrat!  A black Democrat, even!

Behold and prepare to be amazed…

Aurora School Board member and Democrat Eric Nelson is running for State Representative in Aurora’s District 42. Unfortunately for him,  a Denver7 reporter decided to check on his claimed credentials, and the hilarious result has his embarrassed party calling on Nelson to stop running for office,  and urging voter to support his opponent.

Nelson’s campaign website and his Aurora School Board biography states that he earned “a Master of Social Work from Northwest Nazarene University.” So Denver7 contacted the school, which said it had no record of Nelson attending. Nelson responded by sending what he said was a copy of his diploma via text message to two local newspapers, The Aurora Sentinel and The Colorado Statesman.

Denver7 Reporter Marshall Zelinger decided to examine the document (above) , and found several, er, problems: Continue reading →

Dear CNN: Why Did You Try To Explode My Head This Morning?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

kaboom

At the climax of a debate regarding the merits or lack of same of Trump University, CNN “legal expert” Paul Callan said this—about three seconds after I sat down to watch, in my pajamas, before a single sip of coffee:

“I find myself thinking about Thomas Jefferson, author of the Constitution…

Did the legal expert correct himself the second he heard this infamous factoid of the uneducated escape his mouth? No.

What about Chris Cuomo, the cocky CNN moderator of this “debate”? Did he correct Callan? Did he even realize what he said was a historical howler? You couldn’t prove it by his next statement to the Trump spokesperson via video feed: “Well, Callan has pulled out Thomas Jefferson on you for his grand finale! What’s your response?”

His response should have been,

“Yes, Chris, Callan just “pulled out” some fictional figure named Jefferson who wrote the Constitution in Paul’s false-fact-crowded brain. Now if he had attended Trump University, he would know that Thomas Jefferson wasn’t even a participant in the Constitutional Convention. He was in Paris at the time. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Callan. A real “legal expert” would know that, and so would a competent journalist, Chris. And you guys call Donald Trump ill-informed!”

It wasn’t his response, though. Of the three, being a Trump mouthpiece, he is the one least likely to know what Jefferson did or didn’t do. His actual response was: “When Callan pulls out the Constitutional Convention, I know he’s really in trouble.”

You know, that  famous convention they had in Boston in 1860, where Thomas Jefferson’s Constitution was signed by John Hancock, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. That one.

We’re all in trouble.

These are the people Americans will depend upon to “explain” the issues and candidates this election cycle.

KABOOM!

More on this topic later, after I find the super glue and that missing piece of my skull….

While We’re Firing Biased And Incompetent Journalists, Let’s Sack Gayle King

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
What DOES Oprah see in this woman...

What DOES Oprah see in this woman…

CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King demonstrated on Thursday an unacceptable mindset for a broadcast journalist as we get deeper into the 2016 Presidential campaign, which is to say bias, ignorance, and a complete lack of awareness that biased and ignorant isn’t a wonderful way to go through life.

While discussing the State Department’s Inspector General’s report that exposed the full extent of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, King blithely said, to Face the Nation’s John Dickerson:

“So John, put it in perspective. How big a deal is this really? I was at an event last night, and both Democrats and Republicans were quoting Bernie Sanders saying, ‘I’m sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails’…so how big a deal is it?”

The disgrace is that any alleged journalist could say something this stupid and damning on  live TV without a bag over her head. A fair  translation of the statement is “I am ignorant of technology, the duties of executive leadership and ethics: I see nothing disqualifying about lying, or a Secretary of State intentionally placing the nation’s security at risk for her own personal benefit. I am a Democrat and I only hang around with people who think like me.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day (And Response): “MORE Gender Issues Confusion Monday, PART 3:The New York Times’ Hit Piece On Donald Trump And Women”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I am late posting this provocative and wide-ranging comment from repeat-Comment of the Day author Chris Marschner. Chris attempts to explain, and even defend, the unwillingness of  Donald Trump supporters to find literally any misconduct or verbal outrage sufficient reason to reject him. On the way, he touches on affirmative action, SNAP, voter ID laws, the transgender bathroom controversy, and more.

I’ll have some substantial comments at the end. for for now, here is Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day on the post, MORE Gender Issues Confusion Monday, PART 3:The New York Times’ Hit Piece On Donald Trump And Women:

[Commenter Humble Talent] stated, “Pundits don’t understand why saying dumb things about women or minorities doesn’t skewer him. I do: His voters don’t care. His voters don’t care where people pee, they don’t care how many abortions the lady down the street gets, they don’t care about racism, sexism or whatever-phobias. They care about taking care of their families. They care about jobs. This is the demographic Bernie and Trump tapped into. People not like us. Uneducated people. People living day to day. Bills to pay and mouths to feed, when nothing in the world is free.”

First let me say that I find Trump’s rhetoric distasteful and I did not vote for him in the Maryland primary.

Labeling all Trump supporters as “uneducated and unlike us” may be too simplistic. Actually many do care where people pee or how many abortions take place. You might want to consider that it is just a matter of priorities when faced with the possibility that a progressive candidate like Hillary Clinton might get elected leading to further stagnation of their upward mobility while forcing them to succumb to even more government intrusion into their lives.

Perhaps there is also a group of educated voting taxpayers who are tired of being labeled as social misanthropes when engaging in reasonable debate over a variety of issues. Many well educated people who earn more than the median income but less than that which is necessary to be absolutely financially independent understand the economic repercussions of challenging some progressive ideas that are at odds with their own reasoned thinking. How exactly does a conservative faculty member debate a topic when he/she runs the risk of being labeled a racist, Uncle Tom, misogynist or other type of person in what could be called the “Hater” segment of society for not towing the employer’s or the group’s normative thinking. How many business owners publically regurgitate the progressive ideology or opt for a low profile to avoid the onslaught of protesters that can threaten that which they may have spent a lifetime working long hours to build

I could also argue that many private corporate cultures are an outgrowth of weighing the economic pros and cons of taking an ideological stand and often opt for the culture that prevents further costly governmental intrusion into their operating policies. Only a few have challenged the government’s desire to dictate corporate culture and policy.

Continue reading →

Why Are So Many National Parks Visitors Vandalizing Nature?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

bison calf

My initial impression was that this trend is another canary dying in the mine (yes, I know THAT isn’t a canary!), as being and acting stupid and unethical becomes increasingly culturally acceptable. My theory holds that the public sees so many rich, powerful, successful public figures exhibiting these traits, and yearns to adopt their habits and values

The most recent example is the episode represented by the photo above. Well-meaning but ignorant tourists in Yellowstone National Park, where no human is supposed to get within 25 yards of the wildlife, decided to “rescue” a bison calf they found away from its herd, so they stuffed the animal into their car. They drove it to a ranger station, where they were cited for violation of park rules.

In effect, they had killed the calf. When the young bison was returned to the herd, the mother rejected it, and the beast began approaching humans, seeking food and company.

The park had to euthanize it.

Said the park officials in a statement,

“In recent weeks, visitors in the park have been engaging in inappropriate, dangerous and illegal behavior with wildlife. These actions endanger people and have now resulted in the death of a newborn bison calf.”

Morons. The Park Service should release their names, or give some Yellowstone wolves their scent. This is not a new taboo; there is no excuse for any visitor to a National Park to think this is responsible conduct.

Not fatal but equally infuriating is the tale behind this photo: Continue reading →