I know we’re getting perilously close to Julie Principle territory here. The Congresswoman says and tweets so many ignorant, logically flawed, impulsive and silly things so often that it seem ungallant to keep swatting at them.
On the other hand, elected officials, especially members of Congress, have an ethical duty not to make their supporters, followers and the public in general dumber and more ignorant than they already are. The tweet above does that: it misrepresents laws, law enforcement, the nature of abortion, reality, justice, too much to process, really.
It also shows seriously damaged critical thinking skills and an abysmal grasp of analogies. “Right?” No, NOT right, you fool. Abortion bans target the intentional taking of what these laws deem human life. Got that? Intentional. No ICE agents set out to cause the deaths of premature babies that were, in fact, placed in peril by their mothers who endangered them by bringing them along as they attempted to break U.S. laws. There is no valid comparison here. None. Continue reading →
On Saturday’s PoliticsNation , MSNBC host Al Sharpton led a panel discussion regarding the crisis of the Trump administration delaying the release of the new $20 bill with Harriet Tubman’s image replacing that of President Andrew Jackson. Sophia Nelson, Dean Obeidallah, and Michael Hardy were Sharpton’s guests.
At one point in the discussion, Sharpton said,
“The blatant thing here is you’re talking about a black woman abolitionist that is going to replace a slave owner who was one that fought against many of the things that his immediate predecessor, Abe Lincoln, stood for. “
Later he said, just in case you might think this was a slip of the tongue,
“They used to call it the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, both of whom were opposed to what Jackson ended up doing after Lincoln’s assassination, and both of whom were allied and stood with Harriet Tubman.”
Yes, it’s true. Al Sharpton, whom MSNBC allows to host a national public affairs show based on his supposed authority and acumen, thinks that Andrew Jackson, 1767-1845, hero of the Battle of New Orleans, creator of the modern Democratic Party, vanquisher of the Bank of the United States and foe of states’ rights, who served two transformative terms and was one of our most important Presidents, is Andrew Johnson, 1808-1875, Lincoln’s second term Vice-President, who was impeached by the House for opposing Republican Reconstruction plans.
It’s going to be a Sousa weekend here. The piece above is one I bet you haven’t heard before. President Chester A. Arthur ordered Sousa to compose a replacement for 1812’s “Hail to the Chief,” which had announced Presidents since John Quincy Adams, although it went in and out of fashion. (President Polk, it is said, always had “Hail to the Chief” played because he was so physically unimpressive that nobody noticed when he entered a room without the fanfare!) After Arthur left office, Presidents returned to to”Hail to Chief,” and Eisenhower made it the official tune of the office in 1954.
1. A First Amendment stretch. Julian Assange has been indicted. Good. He conspired with a weak-minded and troubled soldier to prompt him, now her, to steal U.S. secrets so he could publish them and promote his anarchist website, Wikileaks. The act almost certainly got U.S. agents killed and did other irreparable harm. Assange isn’t a journalist, and publishing stolen classified information isn’t journalism. Naturally journalists are lining up to defend Assange, especially the New York Times, which was the beneficiary of the Pentagon Papers ruling. They see a conviction of Assange the way abortion zealots see bans on late-term abortions: a camel’s nose in the tent, the slippery slope.
The use of journalistic publications as illegal document laundering devices has always been the least compelling aspect of First Amendment protection of freedom of the Press. I have never believed that it was a wise and fair protection, and if Assange’s just desserts weaken the right of newspapers to publish troop movements, private citizens’ tax returns, and grand jury proceedings, good.
2. Did Conan O’Brien steal a writer’s jokes? You decide! Here is a joke Robert Kaseberg wrote on Twitter on June 9, 2015: Continue reading →
[Unrelated to the Stupid theme, but of interest: my mostly Democratic audience for today’s sexual harassment training had no sympathy whatsoever with Joe Biden’s shameless groping, nor with his party’s hypocrisy in supporting him (so far.) Another interesting exchange—I was ready for the question—was when an attendee asked about “the current occupant in the White House” and his sexual harassing ways. “Has he harassed anyone while President?” I asked. She said, “Not that we know of.” Then I put up one of Uncle Joe’s groping photos. “How can a party that nominated someone who openly harasses women on camera challenge same but speculative conduct by the President?” I asked.
It’s also interesting that the un-American and unfair concept of presumed misconduct has so infected progressive thought where Donald Trump is involved. This was the answer I got repeatedly from one of our Self-Exiled Warriors of the Left before his exit: he knew that the President had colluded with the Russians and stolen the election because that’s just the kind of person he is.
What kind of governments oppress, accuse and punish people based on the kind of person they are?]
Stupid #1. In my back yard of Richmond, Virginia, a woman left instructions in her will that Emma, a healthy Shih Tzu mix, be put down. The Chesterfield County Animal Services , where Emma was residing, appealed to the executor of the dead woman’s estate. “We did suggest they could sign the dog over on numerous occasions — because it’s a dog we could easily find a home for and re-home,” said Carrie Jones, manager of Chesterfield County Animal Services. Nope. Representatives took Emma in custody to be euthanized. The dog’s remains were cremated, and her ashes were placed in an urn to be returned to the “authorized representative of the estate.
There’s no excuse for this screaming example of human arrogance, narcissism, cruelty and idiocy. As a matter of public policy, testamentary wishes involving the killing of anything should be declared unenforceable by law.
Trust the humans, Emma: they have decided that you’ll be happier dead.
Stupid #2: Boy, I don’t know if Kamala Harris is beatable in the Ethics Alarms contest to be the worst candidate for the Democratic nomination.
To begin the week,, Harris announced her plan to close “the gender wage gap in the United States,” which is largely a fake talking point the Democrats have been flogging for decades. Her proposal would require that businesses submit their payroll to the federal government, and if employees in the same position are not paid the same (absent legitimate reasons like seniority or merit, the company would face fines, including a fine of 1% of the company’s profits for every 1% of a “wage gap” that exists.—after expensive appeals, of course. Good plan!!!
But I digress. After Harris’s announcement,the Washington Free Beacon investigated her own staff’s salaries and found the the median male salary disbursement was $34,999 and the median female salary was $32,999, a 6% gap.
How smart, responsible and competent would a candidate have to be to make certain that her own staff salaries showed nothing that could even be claimed to be a “gender gap”by grandstanding a proposal like hers?
Not very, but apparently Harris can’t even clear that low bar. Continue reading →
Richard Strauss, a now-deceased doctor who worked at Ohio State University, sexually abused at least 177 male student athletes and probably more during his two decades at the institution. Yet the worst consequences he suffered was a short suspension. When he retired, Ohio State gave him an honorary title.
Many, many administrators, coaches and students knew about the ongoing abuse, which included fondling athletes’ genitals, performing sex acts on them and making lewd comments during exams. According to an investigative report released last week, none of them took decisive action. Of the 177 victims, 153 were student athletes or students affiliated with athletic programs at Ohio State, including 48 members of the wrestling program, 16 from gymnastics, 15 from swimming and diving, 13 from soccer, 10 from lacrosse and seven each from hockey, track and field and baseball.
Some students told officials about Strauss, who killed himself in 2005 (GOOD), but the complaints were ignored. The report on the investigation,conducted by the Perkins Coie law firm concludes that Strauss’s abuse was an “open secret” on campus and athletes came to accept it as a form of “hazing.”
Yesterday, long, LONG time commenter Tim Levier alerted me to a local political foofaraw in Denver with significant ethical implications. I would have never heard about the story otherwise, and I am very grateful for this: please, everyone, try to make such tips a habit.
Incumbent mayor Michael Hancock and the challenger, Jamie Giellis, both Democrats, are headed to a run-off in a little under three weeks. Three days ago, Giellis found herself unable to say what the letters NAACP stood for during a radio interview (“This was falsely reported in some media sources as “she didn’t know what the NAACP was”). A few hours later, Giellis’ campaign advertised a “tacos and lowriders” fundraiser at a Mexican restaurant. Smelling blood, the Hader Gotcha practitioners did a deep dive and found that ten years ago, Giellis asked in a tweet why so many cities “feel it necessary to have Chinatowns.”
This was referred to by local wags as winning the the “Triple Crown” of race-related gaffes. Her reaction was to close public access to all of her social media accounts and to refuse to answer media questions. Finally an intrepid reporter cornered her (AT the “tacos and lowriders” event), resulting in this cringe-producing interview:
1. Here, as if objective observers needed any more, is the definitive proof of what a dishonest, untrustworthy, biased partisan hack New York Times columnist Paul krugman is. Do present this to any of your Krugman-worshiping Facebook friends. I’m dying to hear their best spin attempts. It should be hilarious.
Yesterday, Krugman tweeted a photo of the President awarding Tiger Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom , and wrote,
I’m old enough to remember when Presidential Medals of Freedom were given for showing courage and making sacrifices on behalf of the nation and the world. Tiger Woods … hits golf balls for money.
Washington Free Beacon editor Andrew Stiles quickly compiled this partial list of recipients of the honor during Obama’s Presidency:
Michael Jordan
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Meryl Streep
Steven Spielberg
Robert Redford
Robert De Niro
Tom Hanks
Yo-Yo Ma
Bob Dylan
Stevie Wonder
Gloria Estefan
Barbara Streisand
James Taylor
Diana Ross
Bruce Springsteen
Warren Buffett
Tom Brokaw
Lorne Michaels
What does this teach us about Krugman? Well, let’s see…
—He doesn’t check his facts before shooting off his metaphorical yap.
—He is so biased against the President that his judgment is untrustworthy and useless except to anti-Trump fanatics.
—He flagrantly endorses double standards, condemning one President he hates for the exact conduct that he found unobjectionable from a President he supported.
—He’s an idiot. Any pundit with multiple brain cells firing would hesitate to set himself up for ridicule like this, and would automatically make sure his complaint was supported by reality.
—This is the quality of columnists the New York Times employs. Continue reading →
