Tag Archives: culture

Arrogance and Hypocrisy

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been writing about the mendacious press recently.  Here’s an example of its self-important arrogance via Howard Kurtz of Fox News, and it’s at least as destructive of our nation as is its dishonesty and hypocrisy.

Liberal investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald recently told Slate that “the US media is essentially 100% united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president”….

And Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times:

If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.

Yet

balance has been on vacation since Mr Trump stepped onto his golden Trump Tower escalator last year to announce his candidacy.

But, as Kurtz pointed out, if that’s the opinion, then by all means write it.  But write as opinion, don’t masquerade it as fact.  The latter is not just intellectually dishonest, it’s purely dishonest, and it stems from the unqualified self-importance, and unearned importance, of these pseudo-journalists.

Full stop.

Press Hypocrisy

Posted on by
1

I wrote a short time ago about the press’ dishonesty.  Here’s an example of its hypocrisy, in the form of a Boston Globe op-ed.

Throughout the piece, the paper decried personal attacks against the Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Supporters of Donald Trump, recently joined by elements of Bernie Sanders’ supporters in Philadelphia, insisted that Clinton be “locked up[,]”

they wrote.

The paper also made its obligatory attack on Israeli politics by decrying personal attacks on Yitzhak Rabin…20 years ago.

[Protestors] called Rabin a murderer and depicted him in a Nazi uniform.

Then back on our Presidential campaign, came the BG‘s bleat,

As the final 100 days tick away, it’s important to appreciate the possible consequences of this type of toxic discourse.

That was their tie-in of those personal attacks on Rabin those 20 years ago—so they could insinuate (without the moral or intellectual courage to say so outright) that the assassination of Rabin was the result of those personal political attacks and to imply a similar threat against our current candidates.

The BG, though, carefully ignored the character assassinations the Left was inflicting on Republican Party Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, followed by the assassination attempt on him—also in an incident wholly unrelated to campaign character assassinations.

The BG piece, in its high dudgeon and regardless of any supposed actual assassination attempt today, also carefully ignored the steady drumbeat of character assassinations the Democrats have carried out against Republicans—and more generally, other groups of Americans of whom Democrats disapprove—over the last eight years.  For instance,

  • Democrats’ repeated accusations of Republican Congressmen as being unpatriotic
  • Democrats’ decrying police as acting stupidly
  • Democrats’ accusations of Republicans as terrorists
  • Democrats’ accusations of Republicans as hostage-takers
  • Democrats’ slur of conservative Americans as nothing more than bitter, gun-toting, Bible-clingers in flyover country
  • Democrats’ IRS attacks against conservative non-profit organizations

And, with a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, the BG piece closed with this:

[W]e may need to ask again and again, “Have you no sense of decency?” And then, insist on it.

Not caring a whit that the question was asked by Tennessee then-Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul in response to a slur by his Democratic Party opponent Jack Conway.

The Boston Globe‘s example, sadly, is all too typical of the modern hypocritical American…press.

Cynical

Posted on by
Reply

The DC Circuit, in a mixed ruling, has said the trial court judge had erred in dismissing a collection of Tea Party suits he said had become “moot” because the IRS had apologized for its misbehavior and had said it had stopped such practices.

Of course, the IRS had said it had stopped—sort of—only conditionally.  DC Circuit Judge David Sentelle, writing for the majority (the ruling can be seen here), noted that the IRS only had suspended the screening “until further notice.”

A violation of right that is “suspended until further notice” has not become the subject of voluntary cessation, with no reasonable expectation of resumption, so as to moot litigation against the violation of rights. Rather, it has at most advised the victim of the violation—”you’re alright for now, but there may be another shoe falling.”

Sentelle took issue with “suspended,” understanding that suspension is not cessation.  He took separate issue with that “until further notice” bit, as noted above.

In fact, too, the IRS had not stopped at all.  As Sentelle noted,

…it is absurd to suggest that the effect of the IRS’s unlawful conduct, which delayed the processing of appellant-plaintiffs’ applications, has been eradicated when two of the appellant-plaintiffs’ applications remain pending.

After how many years are these applications still pending? It’s been two years since the trial court made its erroneous dismissal.

Of course, the trial judge knew these things. Based on his logic, too (even if he had been as ignorant as he seemed to be claiming he was), it would seem he would have dismissed charges against Willie Sutton had that worthy only apologized and averred he’s stopped. No consequence should ensue, this judge would seem to insist, for the banks Sutton had already robbed.

How cynical is that?

These are the trial courts and the IRS that will be heavily impacted by the Presidential elections.

Out of Control

Posted on by
Reply

The Obama administration’s EEOC has loosed its reins.

Wearing a cap to work that has a “Don’t Tread On Me” slogan on it is a racist and EEOC-actionable thing to do.

Because Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech means whatever this Democratic administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says it means.

The Hillary Clinton Supreme Court

Posted on by
1

I’ll leave aside specifics of Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s goals in appointing Supreme Court Justices.  The overriding goal of Clinton is to appoint Justices who meet a series of litmus tests, none having to do with the Justice candidate’s view of the Constitution.  A potential appointee must explicitly agree that Citizens United must be reversed.  A potential appointee must explicitly agree that limits to individual Americans’ right to keep and bear Arms must be subject to further government restrictions—including Government determining what weapons are fit for Americans to have (no “assault” weapons—defined by her Government—for instance).  A potential appointee must explicitly agree that voter ID laws, which protect the sanctity of an American’s vote, are anathema.  A potential appointee must explicitly agree that religious freedom is a matter of government determination with nothing to do with individual conscience.

Clinton’s goal, then, is to turn the Supreme Court away from an impartial judicial institution into one that is explicitly political, and one that will serve Progressive goals.  Regardless of what the Constitution actually says.

It won’t take many Clinton appointments, either, to turn the Court into her completely political institution.  Four of the existing Justices already are political judges rather than judges who uphold the Constitution.  Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have said they consider the Constitution to be a living document that lives through “updating” reinterpretations to fit their views of the times—Article V and We the People be damned.  Ginsburg has gone even farther, deliberately entering the political fray and publicly stating her views of the unfitness of one of the current Presidential candidates, thereby prejudicing in advance her decisions on any case in which that President’s administration might become involved.  Justice Sonya Sotomayor has said the Court benefits from her “wise Latina” and empathetic talents—again, a political position and not a legal one.  Justice Elena Kagan has said that a judge’s personal values must guide the judge’s development of her opinion, not solely what the Constitution says—still another political, rather than legal, position.

Elections have consequences, and this one’s will last far longer than just the term of one administration.