“Do they teach beauty queens how to apologize? Because you suck at it!”
—Ed Masry (Albert Finney) chiding Erin Brockavich ( Julia Roberts) in the final scene of the film.
Now substitute “smug, arrogant, incorrigibly biased, anti-Trump MSNBC anchor” for “beauty queens,” and the line is a perfect response to the awaited “correction and apology” from Rachel Maddow for getting the story of the mistranscribed White House transcript of the Helsinki press conference.
I explained the mistake here,and made it myself here, yesterday morning. The White House did not, as Maddow and others reported, intentionally misrepresent the exchange. The Washington Post clarified what happened. Nonetheless, Maddow and MSNBC dragged their feet in correcting the story, not doing so until 2:45 PM (I updated Ethics Alarms at about 1 pm, the second I read the Post story, and I’m not a full-time news network) and afterwards, here is Maddow’s pathetic attempt to keep spinning…
“This is one possible explanation for why the White House transcript & video from Helsinki doesn’t include Putin saying he wanted Trump to win. But Putin really did say that in Helsinki…..and the White House transcript & video still does leave it out. WaPo now says it has updated its own transcript. Will the White House? After more than a week of reporting on the bad transcript (see link below)…
(1): White House has let it stand uncorrected, and
(2): POTUS now asserts that Putin wants *Dems* to win, not him.
I love WaPo with the heat of 1000 suns, but nothing here from WaPo disproves our report.”
No, it is the explanation, and the Washington Post reporter, Philip Bump, quickly pointed out Maddow’s dishonesty, writing, Continue reading →
Today President Trump said he had “realized that there is a need for some clarification” regarding his remarks yesterday.
“In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t” The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double negative.”
Contradicting what most critics took to be his message yesterday, the President proclaimed his “full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies,” adding,
“I have felt very strongly that while Russia’s actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place.”
Knowing what we know about Donald Trump—I’m not speaking here to the anti-Trump unhinged, who “know” that he is a fascist, colluding, cheating autocratic moron menace who stole the election and who is only President to con the nation and raid its coffers—what does all that mean? What does it mean when someone who thinks and speaks—and acts— like Trump does says, ‘I didn’t mean what I said’?
Not only don’t I have any idea, I don’t think it is possible to know. I see the following possibilities: Continue reading →
(WordPress isn’t working properly this morning. Perfect…)
1. Not being biased helps you be non-stupid…Yesterday, chatting with lawyer attendees at my ethics seminar, a former government attorney told me that he had several ex-FBI colleagues who were horrified at many aspects of the Peter Strzok hearings, as was he. Among their concerns:
The news media was failing its duty to explain to the public the duties of professionals, and why Strzok’s conduct was unacceptable, unethical, and undermined the credibility of the investigations he was involved in.
Democrats were defending the indefensible, and also breaching their duty to the public. They ought to be exactly as outraged as Republicans at a figure as demonstrably biased as Strzok polluting important law enforcement inquiries, and also should have rebuked him for his defiant attitude.
The Strzok scandal was immensely damaging to the public image of the FBI, and should be. It demonstrates an agency that has been seriously mismanages, and that has a damaged culture.
The simple fact that Strzok would use FBI equipment to send his texts demonstrated outrageous incompetence and lack of judgement. Even setting aside the bias issue, for a key figure in an investigation to behave so recklessly proves that the current FBI is untrustworthy.
Naturally this is gratifying, since the positions are all consistent with those I have expressed here, and also because they are correct.
2. When miscreants emulate “Animal House” and Democrats applaud...We also discussed Strzok’s ridiculous “Otter defense”in the hearing, as he emulated the cynical (but in that case, funny) argument offered by the “Animal House” character played by Tim Mathieson (“Take it easy! I’m pre-law!” “I thought you were pre-med!” “What’s the difference?”) in a student council hearing over his fraternity members’ outrageous conduct, especially his own:
” Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests – we did. But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!”
This, of course, is exactly the disingenuous tactic employed by Strzok when he pronounced himself grievously offended that his accusers would dare to impugn the integrity of the FBI, knowing well that the harm done to his agency was entirely due to his own actions. Continue reading →
This embarrassing cretinism is why Americans have no respect for politicians, and it is the kind of utter nonsense that explains how a non-politician was able to win the Presidency. It also makes me giggle, I must confess, in light of the serious statement of late by a generally perceptive commenter here that “only one party plays by the rules,” meaning Democrats.
Sure.
Over the Fourth of July, Democrats indulged their more deranged radical base by encouraging calls to “abolish ICE.” The motto is a direct challenge to common sense, national security, national integrity, sovereignty, oh, lots and lots of things, but you know: “think of the children,” the President is a Nazi, all of that. Hey, politics is only about figuring out how to govern effectively and responsibly, so why not encourage policy insanity, if it lets “the resistance” blow off steam between episodes of harassing Republicans in grocery stores and restaurants?
Former Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attacked the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as being a part of a “cruel, dysfunctional immigration system.” Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. said that ICE “has become a deportation force” which should be abolished. She was joined by New York City’s socialist mayor Bill de Blasio, who called the agency “broken” and “divisive,” and tweeted that it should be abolished. Then the grandstanding Democrats really got carried away in their dishonest political science fiction theater: some of them actually submitted a bill to abolish ICE. The Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act was introduced this week by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), and was instantly supported by major Democratic Party leaders like Sanders, Gillibrand, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, as well as the party’s’ new rock star, House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
And what did those mean old Nazi Republicans do to squash the illegal immigration lovers’ efforts? They announced that they will let the insane bill go to the floor for a vote, thus forcing Democrats to go on record as opposing the enforcement of immigration laws, which the overwhelming majority of American citizens (aka “voters”) support.
The shocked response of the Democrats, having set a trap and fallen into it was priceless. They did a swell imitation of Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden, when he was caught in one of his foolish schemes…
On the day after the GOP agreed to put ICE’s existence to a vote, the always risible Ted Lieu (D-Cal) insisted that “Abolish ICE!’ was never meant to be a cry to abolish ICE. “Democrats who have said this are not saying abolish ICE and do nothing,” he humina-ed. “They’re saying we should have a new agency that has principles and values more consistent with what the American people believe.” Ah. So Democrats saying that they wanted to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement really want Immigration and Customs laws enforced! Thanks for clarifying that, Ted, you pathetic weasel.
But Lieu was instantly outdone by the double-talking sponsors of the bill. Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York—the Three Open Borderskateers who launched the faux bill, told The Hill,
“We know Speaker [Paul] Ryan is not serious about passing our ‘Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act,’ so members of Congress, advocacy groups, and impacted communities will not engage in this political stun.If Speaker Ryan puts our bill on the floor, we plan to vote no and will instead use the opportunity to force an urgently needed and long-overdue conversation on the House floor.”
Interesting theory. If the Speaker “isn’t serious” about passing a Democratic bill up for a vote, then it’s not a real bill? Not a good bill? Not a statement of Democratic policy? Said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), admirably suppressing a grin, “I think everyone ought to be on record about where they stand on that issue.”
You see, and I know you can see, the Democrats who were calling for the abolishment of ICE were posturing, faking, lying. They were faking their indignation, and pandering in the certainty that they would never have to back up their words with actions.
Snarks Ann Althouse: “This story is the perfect illustration of the phrase ‘It’s all politics.'”
The test is simple: how unethical are Democrats willing to be, and how flagrantly, as they desperately try to derail President Trump’s nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, when the right to fill such a vacancy is one of the President’s unquestioned powers, as long as his choice meets basic minimum qualification standards?
Based on the recent tweets from superannuated California Senator Feinstein, fighting for her professional life and apparently pandering to the extreme Left as a result, the answer is “Very unethical, unfortunately.” The Senator tweeted,
“Two-thirds of Americans don’t want women’s access to reproductive health care restricted. President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee could do just that by overturning Roe v. Wade and setting off at least 20 states’ “trigger laws” restricting abortions. #SaveSCOTUS#WhatsAtStake”
and…
“Overturning Roe v. Wade would take us back to the days of women being severely injured and dying because they can’t get basic medical care. We’ve come too far to go back to those days. #SaveSCOTUS”
These are both ugly hybrids designed with malign intent, kind of like the Indoraptor in “Jurassic Park II,” except the components of the vile mutation in this instance aren’t a T-Rex and a Velociraptor, but misrepresentation and fear-mongering.
1. President Trump’s (at this point) un-named nominee can’t “overturn” anything; only the full court can do that. He or see could ride in the Kentucky Derby, I suppose. Any of Obama’s appointees “could” also “overturn” Roe, if enough Justices went along with them. In a case presenting that possibility. Of which there are none currently before the Court. And which may not get before the Court.
Ethics offense:Deliberately making the public more ignorant. And fear-mongering.
2. Feinstein is falsely using “reproductive health care” as a substitute for “abortion.” They are not the same thing. I don’t know what polling results the Senator is referring to, but if it involved “reproductive health care,” it wasn’t about abortion specifically. Pew, which is the closest thing we have to a fair and non-partisan survey organization, found only 25% of the public wants abortion to be legal in all cases, which is what no restrictions on access to abortion means, assuming Feinstein’s ” “reproductive health care” is the deceptive code it appears to be. (If she really means “reproductive health care,” she’s nuts. Who has ever stated an opposition to “women’s access to reproductive health care”?)
Ethics offense:Dishonesty. Deceit. Obfuscation. Misuse of statistics to confuse rather than clarify.
And fear-mongering.
3. The second tweet is irresponsible and flat-out false. Overturning Roe-–in that yet to be identified future case that has gone through the lower courts and poses the issue in a way that a majority of the Court deems appropriate for review, with the result accomplished by the presumed vote of the unidentified Justice who, like the rest of the yet to be assembled Court majority, will determine the case without regard for the facts or established law, stare decisus or the outcome of oral arguments—would not do anything but return the determinations of policies regarding what restrictions, if any, will be placed on abortion to the states, and to the voters in those states, with the results very much in doubt.
Ethics offense:Deliberately making the public more ignorant. Dishonesty. Deceit. Obfuscation.
And fear-mongering.
No elected official who deliberately engages in dishonest tactics like this can or should be trusted by the public with power or influence. We should all keep close watch on how much lower abortion advocates are willing to go. For the ends do not justify the means, and politicians, parties, and party leaders who signal otherwise are a menace to democracy, no matter what the issue may be.
Res Ipsa Loquitur: The American Bar Association Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice will bestow the prestigious Thurgood Marshall Award on former Obama U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago on August 4. It has been obvious for a long time, but if anyone needed any further evidence that the ABA is now a full-fledged partisan left-wing organization masquerading as an objective professional association, this is it. Holder wasn’t just a bad AG, he was a political one in what is supposed to be a non-political office. He was also racialist, and obviously so, regularly coordinating with Al Sharpton and his followers, and constructing a Civil Rights division that adopted the position that only whites could engage in civil rights violations.
Holder should have disqualified himself from any professional awards, not to mention his high office in the Obama Administration, when he gave the green light to President Clinton’s infamous pardon of Democratic donor Marc Rich (aka. Clinton’s quid pro quo for his ex-wife’s fat donation to his Presidential library). In fact, it was a defining moment, and having defined himself as a partisan lackey, Holder was exactly what President Obama wanted at Justice. Holder intervened in the Trayvon Martin case to signal it as a race-related crime in the absence of any evidence, and did likewise in the Michael Brown shooting, lighting the fuse of racial distrust and community anger at police. Then he called the United States a “nation of cowards” regarding race relations. The real coward was Holder, who used his race—he was the first black Attorney General—to shield himself from the accountability and criticism his mishandling of his office deserved.
Holder was held in contempt of Congress—and allowed the captive news media to call the action “racist”—after he withheld documents and key witnesses from oversight committees looking at several scandals in which his Justice Department was complicit. Notable among them was the “Fast and Furious” fiasco in which the government allowed Mexican drug gangs to get high-powered weapons, one of which ended up killing an American. Holder actively misled Congress in testimony under oath.ore than once. He sought significant reductions in privacy and due process protections for citizens—civil rights? Hello, ABA?— and personally announced and supported Obama’s “kill list” policy, in which the President asserted the right to kill any U.S. citizen on his sole authority without a charge or due process. Holder let his department apply the controversial Espionage Act of 1917 to bring twice the number of such prosecutions under the Act that had occurred under all previous Attorneys General. He led the Obama Administration in a campaign against government whistle-blowers. Holder championed warrantless surveillance (Civil rights? Hello?). Most damning of all given the title of his upcoming award, Holder was personally involved in targeting journalists for surveillance and was the leader of an Obama administration attack on the news media that was condemned by many public interest and media groups. Holder’s Justice Department seized phone records for reporters and editors at three Associated Press offices as well as its office in the House of Representatives. Under oath, Holder later claimed to know nothing about any of it.
Writes Prof. Jonathan Turley, who has written many searing articles documenting Holder’s disgraceful tenure at Justice,
“Holder’s “contributions” cost civil liberties dearly in this country. If the ABA is to give him this award, it could at least spare civil libertarians and journalists the reference to civil liberties.”
_______________
Note: You can read the various Ethics Alarms documentation of Holder unethical words and conduct here.
The Hill tells me that Democratic pollster Mark Penn claims that a vast majority of Americans don’t really support sanctuary cities. The one-time chief strategist for Hillary Clinton‘s 2008 presidential campaign says that a poll he took revealed that 84 percent of Americans favor turning undocumented immigrants over to federal agents.
“I asked them, ‘Do you think notifying ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] would in fact increase crime because it would inhibit people from reporting crimes or does it decrease crimes because it takes criminals off the street,’ and they overwhelming said ‘decrease,’ ” Penn told Hill.TV’s “Rising.” “When someone’s arrested, they expect someone will notify federal immigration authorities just as they would expect someone who violates state tax law will find out that they notified the IRS,” the pollster said. This is supposedly summed up by The Hill’s headline, “Ex-Clinton aide: 84 percent of Americans support turning undocumented immigrants over to authorities.” Continue reading →
In a confidential memo obtained by former board member Wendy Kaminer, the American Civil Liberties Union has defined a policy that retreats from and undermines—perhaps the best word is betrays— its traditional mission of protecting the Bill of Rights, and especially the First Amendment rights of all Americans. The memo says in part,
Work to protect speech rights may raise tensions with racial justice, reproductive freedom, or a myriad of other rights, where the content of the speech we seek to protect conflicts with our policies on those matters, and/or otherwise is directed at menacing vulnerable groups or individuals….We are also firmly committed to fighting bigotry and oppression against other marginalized groups, including women, immigrants, religious groups, LGBT individuals, Native Americans, and people with disabilities. Accordingly, we work to extend the protections embodied in the Bill of Rights to people who have traditionally been denied those rights. And the ACLU understands that speech that denigrates such groups can inflict serious harms and is intended to and often will impede progress toward equality.
…There is no presumption that the First Amendment trumps all other amendments, or vice versa. We recognize that taking a position on one issue can affect our advocacy in other areas and create particular challenges for staff members engaged in that advocacy. For example, a decision by the ACLU to represent a white supremacist group may well undermine relationships with allies or coalition partners, create distrust with particular communities, necessitate the expenditure of resources to mitigate the impact of those harms, make it more difficult to recruit and retain a diverse staff and board across multiple dimensions, and in some circumstances, directly further an agenda that is antithetical to our mission and values and that may inflict harm on listeners…Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed, depending on factors such as the (present and historical) context of the proposed speech; the potential effect on marginalized communities; the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values; and the structural and power inequalities in the community in which the speech will occur….
Where the ACLU defends the right to speak of those with whom it disagrees, it should generally engage in counter-measures both to reinforce the values the speaker attacks and to make clear that we do not endorse the substance of the views. Some options might include:
1. Denouncing the views in press statements, op-eds, social media, and other available fora.
2. Participating in counter-protests. When we assist people in securing the right to march or demonstrate for views we condemn, we can and generally should support and participate in counter-protests, with consideration given to participation by senior staff or board members to highlight the ACLU’s commitment and ensure that such participation does not disproportionately burden other staff.
3. Supporting other counter-speech by supporting, organizing or helping to organize events, facilitating access to media, or taking other actions that will amplify and strengthen the voices of those espousing our values.
4. Expanding our work on behalf of the values the speaker attacks.
5. Earmarking any fees recovered from the case to projects within the ACLU that further the values that we support and the speaker attacked, or donating them to another organization that works to advance those values, preferably in the geographical area where the speech occurred….
Transgender high school sophomores Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood came in first and second place respectively in the 100-meter race at Connecticutt’s State Open Finals this month. Miller also won the top prize for the 200-meter race. She and Yearwood were born male, but they now identify as females, whatever that means.
Wow, what a coincidence! The only transgender females running, and they finished first and second! What are the odds of that?
“Some parents within Connecticut’s high school track and field circle expressed outrage,” ABC News notes. Some?
It is astounding to me that any parents or runners—though the students are subject to daily PC brainwashing, so I’m sure that’s a factor—put up with the ridiculous and anti-competitive Connecticut Athletic Conference rules. They generously allow high school athletes to compete based on the gender with which they identify. Says ABC in another masterpiece of equivocation, “Critics say the rules give male-to-female transgender people a competitive edge over cisgender women — whose biological sex matches their gender identity — because some have higher testosterone levels than non-trans females.”
Oh, critics say that, do they? How about a slight edit: “Male-to-female transgender people have competitive edge over cisgender women whose biological sex matches their gender identity because some have higher testosterone levels than non-trans females.”
“I think it’s unfair to the girls who work really hard to do well and qualify for Opens and New Englands [competitions],” sophomore sprinter Selina Soule, who finished sixth in the 100-meter State Open Finals, told the Hartford Courant. “These girls, they’re just coming in and beating everyone. I have no problem with them wanting to be a girl.”
That is, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Continue reading →
1 The Inspector General’s Report and Tales of Moral Luck: Stop me if you’ve heard this one: FBI staffer Peter Strzok, working on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russian collusion investigation, received a text from Lisa Page, Strzok’s co-worker and adulterous lover, that read, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok replied, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
September of 2016, the FBI discovered that Clinton’s illicit emails had somehow ended up on the laptop of disgraced former Congressman. Anthony Weiner, who is married to Hillary’s top aide and confidante, Huma Abedin. Strzok, we learn in Michael Horowitz’s report, was instrumental in the decision not to pursue the lead, arguing that the Russia investigation was a “higher priority” at the time.”We found this explanation unpersuasive and concerning,” the report concluded. The laptop was available from September 29 until October 27, when “people outside the FBI” finally forced the FBI to act on the evidence. “The FBI had all the information it needed on September 29 to obtain the search warrant that it did not seek until more than a month later,” the IG report stated. “The FBI’s neglect had potentially far-reaching consequences.”
“Comey told the OIG that, had he known about the laptop in the beginning of October and thought the email review could have been completed before the election, it may have affected his decision to notify Congress,” the IG report says, and also states,
“Under these circumstances, we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over follow up on the [Clinton] investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop was free from bias.”
Got that? The IG believes that anti-Trump, pro-Hillary bias led Strzok to delay the Weiner laptop investigation, and it may have backfired, helping Trump and hurting Clinton rather than the reverse. But the fact that moral luck took a hand and foiled his intent doesn’t change the fact that this is strong evidence that partisan bias DID infect the Clinton investigation, and probably the Russian inquiry as well. This makes the media’s spin that the IG report dispels accusations of bias even more unconscionable.
That Strzok’s biased and unethical tactics to help Hillary intimately failed spectacularly doesn’t change or mitigate the fact that a prime FBI staff member was intentionally trying yo manipulate the investigation for partisan reasons.
2. The Web thinks you’re an awful person. A tease from a “sponsored site” in the margins of my NBC Sports baseball feed says, “Jan Smithers starred in hit sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Try not to smile when you see what she looks like now!” Wait…what’s that’s supposed to mean? Is she a circus clown? No, these and similar come-ons apparently assume that normal people love mocking formerly beautiful young stars when they no longer look young. “Heh, heh..well, Jan Smithers, I guess you’re not so hot now, are you? What kind of person takes pleasure in the physical decay of others just because they were once gorgeous?
Actually, the photo of Jan Smithers did make me smile, because unlike, say, Jane Fonda,
…who at 80 has allowed plastic surgeons to make her look like one of the fragile immortal female ghouls who shatter into pieces at the end of “Death Becomes Her,” Smithers (who is younger than me and a decade and a half younger than Hanoi Jane) has allowed herself to age naturally, and by my admittedly biased lights, is lovely still: Continue reading →
“Do they teach beauty queens how to apologize? Because you suck at it!” 
Ethics Alarms 