Sen. Chuch Schumer

Ethics Alarms Just Figured Out That The January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot Aftermath Is A Still Rolling Ethics Train Wreck…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

You don’t need to hit this analyst over the head with a 2×4, no sirree! I’m on these things like a shot. It only took me two-plus years, a fake House investigation, Tucker Carlson and rote news media lies to put it all together.

Bruce is talking to me in that classic above from the Ethics Alarms clip library.

Yes, the disgusting aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol is now one of those national ethics fiascos in which everyone who touches it (or boards the train) breaches ethical standards one way or another. The riot has been unethically distorted by Democrats for political gain, weaponized and spun by the Trump Deranged like Liz Cheney, used to justify a blatant violation of House tradition and bipartisanship by Nancy Pelosi, nauseatingly misrepresented and mis-characterized by most of the news media, frighteningly used to justify political show-trials by the Justice Department, exploited to execute an unconstitutional impeachment (probably rendering the process useless going forward), epitomized double standards in the treatment of the riot narrative and the rioters compared with the far more destructive George Floyd riots, and launched more demagoguery and anti-historical nonsense than any event in memory.

And what a passenger list! Donald Trump, Cassidy Chivers, Nikki Haley, Mitch McConnell, Tom Manger, Chief of the Capitol Police, Kevin McCarthy,prosecutors and defense attorneys, Pelosi, baskets of Senators and House members, enough talking heads and pundits to re-enact the Battle of Gettysburg, which, you know, was but dust in the wind compared to the cataclysmic rumble that had no substantive effect on anything except in the imaginations of Machiavellian partisans.

Yet it took smug, cynical, ethics-disabled Fox News fomenter Tucker Carlson to penetrate my thick skull and make me realize that this isn’t just an extension of the endless, disastrous, 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck but its own, ugly thing.

Last night Carlson decided to go “Nyah, nyah, nyah!” at the mainstream media hacks who treated his selective use of the security footage to bust at least part of some false narratives as if he had released another pandemic virus:

How absurd of them; how puerile of Tucker. But the most spectacular First Class train wreck boarder was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Read his entire rant from yesterday here; meanwhile, regarding some highlights:

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Obamacare’s Epitaph: “Live By The Rationalization, Die By The Rationalization”

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

obamacare-gravestoneRemember in 2010, when the Democrats ensured that the Affordable Care Act would clear its final hurdle to passage this way?

Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make final changes to its healthcare bill with only a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster.The move would allow Democrats to essentially go it alone on health reform, especially after losing their fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate after Sen. Scott Brown’s (R) special election victory in Massachusetts.

Republicans have protested the maneuver as a hyperpartisan tactic to ram through a health bill, and have said that plans to use the reconciliation process make moot a bipartisan summit at the White House this week, where both GOP and Democratic leaders are supposed to present their ideas on healthcare.

At the time, Republicans, as is their wont, over-stated their objections to the maneuver, calling it unconstitutional and a breach of rules. No, it wasn’t quite that, nor was it as unusual as the GOP claimed. It was within Senate rules, but still the first time it was ever used to amend a bill that had already passed the Senate via cloture, and under such contentious circumstances.  Reconciliation was legal, all right, but since the Affordable Care Act was so revolutionary and controversial, its passage needed to be seen as democratic, and it wasn’t. Democrats ignored the Golden Rule, and extended the acceptable use of reconciliation by using a number of rationalizations, as well as “the ends justify the means.”

Let’s see: “Everybody Does It” wouldn’t work, because the problem with using reconciliation was that everybody didn’t do it, at least not very often.  So Democrats opted for 13. The Saint’s Excuse: “It’s for a good cause”…23. Woody’s Excuse: “The heart wants what the heart wants”…#24. Juror 3’s Stand (“It’s My Right!”)…25. The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!”…28. The Revolutionary’s Excuse: “These are not ordinary times.”…31. The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now” …40. The Desperation Dodge or “I’ll do anything!”…59. The Ironic Rationalization, or “It’s The Right Thing To Do”…and perhaps a few other rationalizations on the list. Continue reading →