Tag: integrity

Cheating on Campus Is Worse Than Ever

 

Fifty years ago, I was sitting in a high school classroom taking an exam. The sun was shining through the windows behind me, and I wasn’t particularly anxious about this test. I looked up from my test paper and something caught my eye, off to my left and slightly behind me. Two of my friends, two lovely teenage girls who always received excellent grades, were consulting each other.

They were cheating on the test. And I was dismayed.

I quickly turned my head back to my test paper and tried to unsee what I had seen.

Ballot Harvesting Still Alive and Well

 

Did you know that only one state, Alabama, has acted to prevent ballot harvesting in this country? After all the controversy about fraud in our last national election, you might think that enacting a law against ballot harvesting that would help to ensure a valid election, free of blatant fraud, might be one reasonable step to take. Think again.

If you are unfamiliar with the strategy of ballot harvesting, here’s one explanation:

In the State of Alabama, they have figured out how to keep your vote from being stolen when a ‘ballot bandit’ knocks on your door. Ballot harvesting has been defined as ‘the practice in which political operatives collect absentee ballots from voters’ homes and drop them off at a polling place or election office.’ It might sound harmless, even ‘helpful,’ but unfortunately it has been subject to vast abuse.

New Florida Surgeon General – Black, Opinionated, and Republican

 

New Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, is taking a beating from the media as well as the Democrats because of his opinion on COVID-19 and challenging the irrational messaging in the state. There’s no doubt in my mind about the reasons Gov. Ron DeSantis selected him, given the attacks he has personally had to sustain in Florida and nationally. And to date, SG Ladapo has shown himself to be up to the job.

Early controversy erupted when Dr. Ladapo explained his reasons for not wearing a mask when he was invited to visit with FL Senator Tina Polsky, who insisted he wear a mask when visiting her in her office. SG Ladapo pushed back against wearing a mask, since he believed that the mask, which would cover half his face, would interfere with effective communication; he offered, instead, to meet her elsewhere, including more spacious locations or outdoors, to accommodate her. (Senator Polsky recently was diagnosed with cancer, but had not told Ladapo.) She refused to compromise, and SG Ladapo was attacked for his decision. One criticism came from a black Republican minister, Dr. R.B. Holmes, Jr., who is a leading civil rights leader, denouncing Ladapo, DeSantis, and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran. Holmes said:

We are extremely alarmed and saddened that the surgeon general would not meet with the elected state senator from Broward County when she asked respectfully, ‘Will you please, sir, wear a mask,’ the Rev. Dr. R.B. Holmes Jr. told a group of reporters at Tallahassee’s Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, where he is pastor. ‘For that top doctor to not wear a mask is disrespectful and dishonorable.’

Joe Lied, People Died

 

You know this guy—the fellow who seems to be embedded in your life because he’s connected to your group of friends. Or he’s the member of your family that everyone tolerates because no one knows how to keep him away from family events. He can be very funny and charming at times and get along with people, but there’s one thing that people cannot stand about him: he’s a liar. We all know someone just like that.

Some of us think he’s been lying since he spoke his first words. Early on, the lies were probably innocent enough: embellishing a story, making it funnier, more dangerous, more intriguing. When he got “oohs” and “aahs” for those stories, he decided that he could get more attention by dressing up his stories even more: he’d make up stories whole-cloth. Or he’d lie to avoid looking bad or getting into trouble. By the time he reached his teen-age years, lying became natural for him. People rarely questioned his stories, either because they had no idea how easily he lied, or they were reluctant to challenge him, or they simply had given up on learning the truth. So they just went along. When people commiserated about his chronic lying, someone inevitably would say, “That’s just Joe.”

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome two more states making progress on election integrity. They also cringe at the April jobs report coming in way below expectations. And they react to Democrats and activists using the absurd, supposedly inclusive term of “birthing people” instead of mothers.

Join Jim and Greg as they celebrate Republicans doing much better than expected at the state legislative level just in time for redistricting. They also discuss the ongoing controversies in multiple swing states and how the vote counting is creating a lot of mistrust in the integrity of the vote. And they look at the updated Georgia numbers, which suggest two U.S. Senate races are headed to runoffs and the results could well determine the majority.

WSJ Pushes Back Against its Own Staff

 

For the past year, we have reluctantly continued to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, even as we’ve watched its news section become increasingly progressive in its views. But we’ve always liked the Opinion page and appreciate the excellent journalism of Bill McGurn, Holman Jenkins, Dan Henninger, and especially Kimberley Strassel. I just learned, however, that 280 of the WSJ news staffers criticized the Opinion editors for not reflecting a “woke” mentality, and their letter was also “leaked.” The leaked letter is in the form of a tweet in this article, and difficult to read in this form, but you are welcome to try. Here is part of the editors’ response:

It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution. But we are not the New York Times. Most Journal reporters attempt to cover the news fairly and down the middle, and our opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media. [italics mine]

I haven’t actually analyzed the news sections of the WSJ to determine if most of their journalists try to cover the news fairly, because the exceptions are so glaring. But I was especially impressed with other things the Opinion editors said:

Quote of the Day: Men of Integrity

 

“Being a man of integrity simply means your intentions, as well as your actions, are pure and righteous in all aspects of your life, both in public and in private. With each decision we make, we either merit more of God’s trust or diminish His trust. This principle is perhaps most clearly manifest in our divinely appointed responsibilities as husbands and fathers.” — Richard J. Maynes

Jeff is my older brother. When he was a young man, he read about Job in the Bible. He was impressed with Job’s integrity and decided from that time on that he would be a “man of integrity.” He also had good examples with Dad, Grandpa Mitchell, and our uncles. (Grandpa Mitchell died on Father’s Day in 1994.) Jeff has always been a good example to me. He’s always been a man of his word. I also married a man of integrity!

Doodads and Army Duds [Updated with a fun puzzle!]

 

I had long thought the doodads festooning veteran organizational caps to be a bit silly and something of the past. This Veterans Day, I took another look and came to a different conclusion. Looking at veterans’ uniforms in a parade and watching the pudgy weasel almost popping out of his blue Army Service Uniform in Congress, I discovered two things.

The first realization was of a linkage between military and veteran customs. Look at any military member’s uniform and you will see a shorthand career biography. If you take the time to look up the various ribbons, badges, insignia, patches, crests and whatnot, you get a glimpse into where they served and some tokens of what they did.*

It should be no surprise that veterans would carry over the military habit of visible tokens on their uniform. On closer examination, those “funny” caps have been serving the same function as a uniform jacket. Since the cap is the whole of a veterans organization uniform, that is where various tokens of a veteran’s service are displayed. 

Are You a Political Warrior?

 

When I first came to Ricochet, I was baffled at how people engaged so seriously in political discussion. I mean, it’s just politics—right?

As discussions got especially rabid and polarized over the entry of Donald Trump, I found myself feeling compelled to take sides. At the same time, I was trying to keep up with the destructive efforts of the Left and the media. What in the world was going on?

Member Post

 

This question is prompted by the recent Wall Street Journal report that the brother of Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend sold the racy photos of Mr. Bezos for $200,000. But I have thought of this question on occasion ever since the early 1990’s when a man working for a US government agency was arrested for spying for […]

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Why Should Independents and Trump Democrats Trust Martha McSally?

 

There are significant reasons for the razor-thin race in Arizona between two Congresswomen. Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema are focused on getting the votes of the 3 to 6 percent still undecided. Martha McSally’s basic problem is overcoming the dead weight of the past two Republican Senators, who damaged the party brand for that critical subset of voters. I have urged Martha McSally to clearly declare herself on the side of the MAGA agenda, including the 2020 election, as Ambassador Nikki Haley did. Unfortunately, Congresswoman McSally has not. So what are these voters to do?

Arizona, as with many other states, has moved heavily towards mail-in ballots, and early voting at physical polling places. The fight, now, may be over only about 20 percent of votes in the election, if an estimated 80% cast early ballots. The currently counted early ballot statistics, by party registration, look similar to past years, so gives no strong support to any candidate approaching the winner’s circle. Since undecided voters have held off, there is a real fight to gain the election-winning votes.

Provided that there is near certainty of holding and growing the Republican majority in the Senate. There are reasonable grounds to reject Martha McSally, as the Arizona GOP favorite, punishing them for a primary and general campaign that suggests more of the same betrayal on core promises. There is a case to be made for a Senate election strategy of “elimination as addition,” that produces a more coherent majority, more faithful to the core promises made for the past 10 to 40 years.

Member Post

 

We can be lulled or driven to distraction with the polling political fantasy league. The converse problem is confirmation bias. We see what we want. The Senate seems to still be trending the Republicans’ way, as long projected. The House is trending towards a toss-up. Everyone has their favorite reader of palms, caster of bones, […]

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Another Letter to Congresswoman Martha McSally

 

https://media.breitbart.com/media/2018/10/Trump-McSally-rally-Arizona-getty-640x480.jpgDear Congresswoman McSally,

I deeply admired your true courage and integrity in your long fight to force the Department of Defense to live up to the Constitution, not subjecting military women to the outrageous demand they conform to a 7th Century dress code in a country we were keeping free from Iraq and Iran. I was pleased to cross your path in the Davis-Monthan photo facility, as I was taking another Army board photo, and you were getting a command photo. The Air Force did the right thing, eventually, despite your righteous, eventually public, fight against bad policy.

You seem stuck a week out, still unable to persuade about three to six percent of Arizona voters to commit, but you can overcome this reticence, if you show your military career courage and integrity. The weight holding you down is the recent history of the past two Republican Senators. You must show, not say, that you will not stray from your campaign promises.

Character Assassination

 

It’s ugly. No one will deny the intensity and revolting events that have taken place since the election of Donald Trump. In one sense, destroying another’s reputation is not new; but the collaboration in order to take down the President and his administration is a process I’ve not seen in my lifetime. It’s character assassination. I’d like to define that term, provide a few examples of the ways it’s been practiced historically, and how is different in these times.

Character assassination is slandering a person with the intention of destroying public confidence in that person. Further, I believe it is an evil act. Dennis Prager explains that these actions actually violate the Ten Commandments, specifically the Eighth Commandment, “Do not steal.” After explaining how stealing a person (enslaving) is prohibited, as is taking away a person’s property, he talks about the most egregious type of stealing:

Stealing a person’s good name—whether through libel or slander or gossip—is a particularly destructive form of theft. Because unlike money or property, once a person’s good name has been stolen, it can almost never be fully restored.

Member Post

 

(NOTE: The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, New Hampshire’s original free-market think tank, publishes a weekly email newsletter.  This week’s newsletter is a little rumination on partisanship. It’s posted below, in full, for your consideration.  If you enjoyed this essay, you can sign up for the free Friday newsletter here.)   Preview Open

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What Trump and I Have in Common

 

In reflecting on the past year, I’ve been trying to figure out the reasons for my lessening frustration and growing appreciation—that may be too strong a word—for Trump. I’m a person who doesn’t like to make excuses, who prefers to be responsible and accountable for my decisions, and I’ve struggled with how to frame my support of Trump. I finally realized that my real struggle was less about Trump and more about what I thought was a conflict of values. Surprisingly (for me) the values clarity I reached was reassuring in explaining my present attitude about Trump and his first year in office.

The clarity has come from a careful examination of my personal values. My top three values are integrity, honesty, and persistence. To expand on those, integrity is simply doing what I say I will do; honesty is telling the truth; and persistence is striving to do my best even when the journey is difficult. I also prefer to be with people who feel the same way, because these values are important to me and when others feel the same way, we build strong and loving relationships.

So for the moment, let’s put values aside, and talk about the kinds of people I like. I like people who not only share those same values but are thoughtful, sincere, friendly, helpful—yep, just like boy scouts and girl scouts. The close friends in my life share these attributes, but I do have other friends and acquaintances with whom I am less close and who are less likely to meet my hopes and expectations for friendship. But I enjoy being with them in smaller doses.

Member Post

 

I didn’t sleep well last night. We watched a movie called The Promise. It was advertised as a romance , but it was actually about the Armenian genocide carried out by Turkey, a country that has never admitted this horrific time in history. Then my mind drifted to the story, The Rape of Nanking, where […]

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Will She Be Indicted?

 

hillary_orange1There are several known facts about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s abuse of national security via her private, unsecured email server. At least two emails had TS/TK information in them, more emails had SAP information in them, another had HCS-O information in it (the exposure of which puts a human source at risk of his life), roughly 1,300 emails had information of varying levels of secrecy in them, and at least one email instructed a subordinate to bypass handling rules by stripping off the markings of a paper and sending a document though non-secure means.

Some very worthy gentlemen suggest that Clinton will be indicted, since regardless of intent, the mere mishandling of classified data is a felony, and data are classified or not based on the information involved, not on markings on the paper carrying the information. Ex-Attorney General for the United States Michael Mukasey is one. Power Line cited Andy McCarthy, of the National Review and the National Review Institute, and Bill Otis, an erstwhile federal prosecutor, are two others. However, these folks are basing their confidence in large part on their supposed knowledge of FBI Director James Comey’s character and on the pressure his recommendation to current Obama AG Loretta Lynch to follow through and indict would present.

I think those folks are … optimistic. Keep in mind, for one thing, that Comey is the same FBI Director who is assaulting Americans’ free speech rights through his demand that government be able, on its own recognizance, to decode our encrypted correspondence and for no better reason than that inquiring Government minds want to know. Keep in mind, further, that Lynch is Obama’s pick, and she’s already shown her bent with her push to reverse voter ID laws and thereby to impair, if not destroy, legitimate voters’ votes by making it as hard as possible to sort out those ineligible and prevent them from voting. Keep in mind, finally, that Clinton is a Democrat. Fellow Democrat President Barack Obama will not allow an indictment to go forward, especially since this particular Democrat is campaigning on the basis of Four More Years of Obama.

Member Post

 

Alexander Nazaryan, a staff writer at Newsweek, posted this tweet Wednesday: He’s since taken it down and apologized to Cruz’ supporters. But he’s refused to apologize to Republican Party Presidential candidate and Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX), having already “identified” him: Preview Open

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