Senator Kyrsten Sinema

Yikes! I Better Finish “Will The Audacious ‘It Isn’t What it is’ Propaganda Assault By The American Left Succeed?” Quick Before The Answer Is Too Obvious To Bother With: The Democrats’ Amazing Filibuster Hypocrisy

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Wowie Zowie, Democratic “It isn’t what it is” grandstanding is reaching record heights faster than I can comment on them!

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), cementing her Ethics Hero credentials that (I admit) I doubted would stand up in June) delivered a speech yesterday in which she reiterated her  support for the filibuster, pretty much killing Democrat Party efforts to unilaterally change the rules to enable the party to ram through legislation that would federalize elections and permanently weaken their integrity. The filibuster is a long-standing procedural device that requires three-fifths of Senators to agree in order to advance toward a vote. It is very much a pro-democracy measure, instituted to prevent a bare Senate majority from passing important and controversial legislation without bi-partisan support. You can’t have a smaller Senate majority than Democrats do now, with a 50-50 split only enhanced by the Vice-President’s tie-breaking vote.

Sinema said that she personally supports both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, but does not believe it is wise to kill the filibuster. “And while I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,” Sinema said. “There’s no need for me to restate my longstanding support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation.” 

She did this despite President Biden’s disgraceful speech this week claiming that anyone who continues to support a filibuster to stop his party’s voting rights legislation is choosing to “stand on the side of George Wallace over Dr. King, Bull Connor over John Lewis, and Jefferson Davis over Abraham Lincoln.” It had to be one of the worst examples of race-baiting as an illicit political tool of recent memory, particularly since the claims that the legislation has any connection to race is fictional. It is not discriminatory to require voters to prove who they are at the polls. It is not “racist” to limit early voting. I would eliminate it entirely: the procedure encourages blind, knee-jerk, fact-free partisan voting over voter consideration of all relevant information during the campaign. It supports incompetent democracy. It is not racist to place limits on mail-in voting, vote-harvesting, or drop-boxes. It is responsible. Moreover, allowing such easily manipulated weaknesses in election controls encourages distrust in the final results.

It is profoundly disturbing that all but two Democratic Senators have the courage and respect for democracy to oppose the filibuster rule change, and apparently none will stand up for the integrity of elections. Meanwhile, Sinema is being called a racist and a foe of democracy for doing the right thing. Continue reading →

Ethics Wreckage, 11/1/2021: Moral Stains, And More

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Wreck2

1. Stop making me defend President Biden! President Joe Biden apparently fell asleep during today’s opening sessions at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Naturally, the conservative media and bloggers are having a ball mocking “Sleepy Joe.” It’s unfair. I wonder how many of the critics have had anything close to the killing schedule Presidents have, with constant travel and stress, time zone changes and everything else they have to deal with. Much younger Presidents than Biden have nodded off during meetings. I dozed off myself briefly at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce briefing, and I was 29 at the time.

2. Bingo, Ann Althouse! Ann reviews a stream of consciousness blatherfest by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that read,

“So again, the transformative agenda, the president was knowledgeable. I mean, he knows chapter [inaudible 00:04:20] because he wrote this, he campaigned on this. He spoke to this in his state of the union address. I told him last night, on phone last night, but today in front of our colleagues, that when he gave that state of the union address, we were sitting behind him, the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, and the speaker of the House, me. And people said, “How did it feel? How did it feel? The two women.” I said, “Well, that was exciting and historic.” What was really exciting is the speech the president made about women, not about two women, but America’s women, and what would happen with this progressive agenda that he was putting forth. At the same time, we’re moving forward with BIF, a once in a century chance to rebuild the infrastructure that past the Senate a while back. The BIF has good things and it has missing things. And of course, the fact that we have the reconciliation… Let me not call it that anymore, let’s call it the Build Back Better legislation is essential because that’s where we have the major investment in climate. Although there is some in the BIF. Roads, bridges, water systems, crumbling. Some water systems are over 100 years made of, and our colleagues talked about their own experiences in their own communities, some made of bricks and wood. That’s a nice water system, right?”

Quoth Ann: “If Trump spoke with that level of coherence, he would have been derided as a blithering idiot.”

Continue reading →

Someone Explain To Arizona Democrats How Ethical, Democratically-Elected Representatives Are Supposed To Act, Please? [CORRECTED]

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

While I was running around my hotel room yesterday trying to through everything into my travel bag and check out, I faintly thought I heard that the Arizona Democratic Party would be holding a vote this week to determine whether Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) should be censured. As I was dashing down the hall to the elevator, I mused on what Sinema possibly could have done to warrant such a sanction. A blatant conflict of interest, perhaps? Maybe the spoken work, a politically incorrect noun that the Party of Censorship ( as well as Censureship) found intolerable? The discovery that she had made a joke about trans people on her private social media account?

Digression: On the Comedy Central Roast of actor/comedian/mega-jerk Alec Baldwin, which I didn’t watch once I realized to my great disappointment that he would not be on an actual spit and rotating over real flames, that noted female comic Caitlyn Jenner, said, in her new higher-pitched by not quite female voice, that if Baldwin didn’t like her barbs, he could “suck my dick.” (CORRECTION NOTICE:  I missed the news that Caitlyn’s vestigial man-thing  was removed in 2017, and suggested otherwise before being corrected by commenter Rich in Ct, who keeps track of such matters.)  If any one else made that —ick—joke, they would be run out of town as un-woke wetches.] Continue reading →

Saturday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 1/5/19: Bait And Switch, Inconvenient Honesty, Fake News

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Oh, good morning, I guess…

1. Once again: this should be illegal, because it is unconscionable. Recently re-elected Rep. Don Marean, a multiple term Maine state legislator from York County, announced that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an Independent.  In a Friday text message last week, he said that “out of respect” for House Republicans  he would not  comment on the resaon for his decision and would let it “speak for itself.”

It does speak for itself; it tells us that Marean is an unscrupulous, liar who gained election to office fraudulently. Elected officials who betray voters this way have an ethical obligation to resign from office and run again under the party affiliation they will stick to.

2. Keep it up! Please! The freshman Democratic House members, in a single day, managed to strip away the mask of the Democratic Party and expose more of the ugliness beneath than the party veterans deemed wise. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) refused to be sworn in with her hand on the traditional Bible,  and insisted that a law book be used for the purpose instead. She is a member of the party that has been questioning whether Catholics are fit to be federal judges, and the message that one party is openly hostile to religion is becoming clearer and clearer. The Bible is a moral/ethical document, and accepting it for the purpose of a binding oath should not be a problem for anyone unless they are trying to make a point. Using a law book is no more appropriate or meaningful than using a Harry Potter novel: oaths are declarations of duty, honesty and integrity, not law. Continue reading →