The Ripley

A “Ripley” For MSNBC: It Actually Practiced Journalism!

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Wow. Will wonders never cease…

Yesterday, the continually ridiculous John Kerry must have thought he was in safe territory when he appeared with MSNBC’s Chris Jansing at the Vatican before Pope Francis’s funeral. But Jansing stunned the fake Irishman, pathetic Democratic Presidential nominee and inept Secretary of State under Obama by asking, “You were Secretary of State when Russia annexed Crimea, and I want to ask you…”

“But when they stated they were…” Kerry interrupted.

Oh, right. The Obama position was that Russia really didn’t take over Crimea, it just said it did, because doing so violated “international law,” so occupying the region and refusing to leave doesn’t count. By that logic, Hitler never invaded France.

“When they, when they stated, yeah,” Jansing said, then Kerry insisted, lying as he so frequently does, badly: “We did not allow them to annex it.”

Suuure, John. You hold on to that fantasy. President Obama was asleep at the metaphorical switch, Russia took the region, and Barack’s response consisted of a few weak sanctions. Jansing, endorsed Kerry’s “it isn’t what it is” spin—this is MSNBC, after all—but still pressed Kerry, saying, “Right. But they said that it was theirs.” And Kerry ludicrously replied, “And we stood up against it and called it against international law. Yeah, they said it, but that doesn’t…Under international law, that does not make it theirs.”

See, because Kerry’s State Department and Obama refused to “recognize” Russia’s annexation of Crimea, it wasn’t annexed. Standing up to Russia in Obama-Kerry Land is: Russia: “We’ve got Crimea!” The U.S.: No you don’t!” Russia: “Yes, we really do.” The U.S.: “Uh-uh, not until we say so!” Russia: “How the hell did we lose the Cold War to these bozos?”

The current Ukraine-Russia war is a direct consequence of the weakness projected by Presidents Obama and Biden, and it has cost our treasury billions while destabilizing the region. Kerry, winner of an Ethics Alarms Lifetime Weasel Award, has been an expert at ducking accountability (“I was against the war before I was for it!”) just like the inept (but historic!) President who appointed him Secretary of State despite a lifetime of failure.

MSNBC, amazingly, reminded us. Bravo.

A “Ripley” For These Morons, A Life Competence Fail Defying Belief…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

23-year-old Ashton Jonathan Mann was arrested on one count of second-degree felony manslaughter and one third-degree felony charge related to firearms for for shooting his friend dead n the early hours of February 2nd. You see, Mann’s friend had boasted that he could dodge bullets. So Mann got a a gun, and with his friend’s assent, decided to test his claim. They thought they had unloaded it—see, the idea was that the guy who could dodge bullets would move before the trigger was pulled. But they missed one bullet that was still in the chamber.

It turned out that he couldn’t dodge a bullet after all. Told ya!

First responders were called to a home in Kearns, Utah to find a young man with a gunshot wound to the chest lying on the floor. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. The shooter waived his Miranda rights and told police that they decided to embark on this experiments after smoking pot for about eight hours. Marijuana is, of course, completely harmless and a benign recreational drug. For example, it facilitates the recreational activity, “Dodge that Bullet!”

As you know, everything remind me of something, and this story reminded me of the strange death of novelist William Burroughs’ wife.

Believe It Or Not! The Best “Naked Teacher Principle” Variation Yet: The Porn Actor University Chancellor!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I was tipped off to this story, which I hereby designate a Ripley, yesterday, and regret not getting it up before the rest of the news media and blogosphere caught up.

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously this week to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. UW System President Jay Rothman said the university leadership had discovered “specific conduct”that caused harm to the university’s reputation. 

The “specific conduct” was appearing in online porn videos with his wife.

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An Ethics Alarms “Ripley” For WaPo: It Engaged In Objective Journalism (Sort Of)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

[“The Ripley” officially entered the Ethics Alarms lexicon in August of 2021, signifying an ethics story that so outrageous it defies belief. Admittedly, events like incorrigible left-biased mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post undermining their own agenda by publishing information that makes Democrats look bad were not the intended topics for the new category, but when I have, in the past, awarded “Ethics Hero” awards to unethical news sources that unexpectedly told the truth, readers here have objected on the grounds that doing your job ethically and professionally should not be considered heroic. I have to agree, and so episodes like this one will now be eligible for a “Ripley.”]

Conservative news aggregator Citizens Free Press headlined its link to this story, “How did this get past Wash Post censors?” It’s a fair question. The Post’s feature is “Why are red states hiring so much faster than blue states?,” and it begins by pointing out what Al Gore might call and inconvenient truth, except that his inconvenient truth was mostly hooey:

We ranked the 50 states by their hiring rates and were swiftly struck by a trend so clear that — if it holds up — should be front-page news: Republican-leaning states are hiring faster than blue states.
 
Of the 17 fastest-hiring states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14 voted for Trump in 2020. The top two Biden-voting states, Georgia and Nevada, are probably best classified as purple (Biden-blue Delaware is the other). The 10 slowest-hiring states all went for Biden.

The story is accompanied by this chart:

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