Tag Archives: values and integrity

Grumpy Speaks The Truth …

Posted on by under education, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Our friend Jerry over at Grumpy’s Grumblings has a new post that is spot on regarding the state of truth in our nation today.  It is well worth the few minutes it will take you to read and ponder it, for one must ask the question:  Is this the new ‘normal’ or can we fix this?  Thank you, Jerry, for your thoughtful words!

When Tropes Trump Truth

I have a journalism degree and I worked within the newspaper industry for nearly two decades. While I never worked as a “hard-news” reporter, I did spend a year as a copy editor and also wrote feature stories for the business pages of several newspapers. So, I think I have a better-than-average understanding of how a newsroom is meant to operate.

But with or without a journalism degree, I think most folks know—or, more precisely, knew—what the primary purpose of any news organization should be: to factually inform its readers or viewers about events and phenomena that have occurred or are occurring within their communities—and beyond.

Forgivable Errors Versus Intentional Misreporting

News reporters are fallible humans who occasionally make mistakes in their reporting. Most of us are willing to forgive those relatively rare reporting inaccuracies. Occasional unintentional mistakes are forgivable. Intentional misreporting is—or should be— intolerable.

Read the rest of Jerry’s post here …

Score Another One For Depravity In The White House

Posted on by under Political commentary, Social commentary, Trump's Staff Picks

Morals:  a person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.

Values:  a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.

Integrity:  the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

Remember back in 2001, just a few months after his inauguration, when George W. and Laura Bush’s twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, were busted for trying to buy beer using a fake I.D.?  Just the month before, Jenna was arrested at 1:00 a.m. in a nightclub in Austin, Texas, because she was holding a bottle of beer. She turned up in court in a low-cut black shirt, pink Capri trousers and a toe ring. She was fined $51.25 and sentenced to eight hours of community service and six hours of alcohol awareness classes. The charge read: “Glass of beer – drank from it.”  OH, the SCANDAL!!!  If you remember, the media had a field day with it!

Remember August of 2014 when President Obama had the unmitigated gall, the audacity, to actually wear a tan suit???  GASP!!!  Representative Peter King righteously went on an extended rant:

“There’s no way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. When you have the world watching … a week, two weeks of anticipation of what the United States is gonna do. For him to walk out —I’m not trying to be trivial here— in a light suit, light tan suit, saying that first he wants to talk about what most Americans care about the revision of second quarter numbers on the economy. This is a week after Jim Foley was beheaded and he’s trying to act like real Americans care about the economy, not about ISIS and not about terrorism. And then he goes on to say he has no strategy.”Why, it was the scandal of the year!

And do you remember when in early 2009, Michelle Obama … wait for it … wore a sleeveless dress!!!  The horror of it all!!!  The republicans went nuts, and then later she was slammed for wearing, of all things, shorts while on vacation!!!  No matter what Ms. Obama did, she could not get it right, and she introduced one scandal after another!  She was criticized for having a bit of fun by challenging Ellen Degeneres to a push-up competition.  She was slammed for trying to make school lunches healthy.  Oh … would you like to compare Michelle Obama to Melania Trump?I could take you back throughout the history of this nation and find at least a few scandals in every single administration, but that is not my purpose tonight.  I will not even dwell on the incidents and events in the current administration that should well be considered scandals, but barely earn a roll of the eyes.  Suffice it to say that with all of Donald Trump’s affairs and the credible accusations of sexual misconduct against him, his administration has single-handedly re-defined morals, values and integrity.  And now this …

Trump Talks of Bringing Back Rob Porter, Aide Accused of Spousal Abuse

I first saw it in a tweet by Matt Dowd, and I thought, “Nah … never happen.”  But, I have always respected Dowd and never known him to be sensationalist, so … sigh … I went in search of, and sure enough, Donald Trump wants Porter to return to the fold.

The story in the New York Times gives the impression that Trump is feeling lonely, with so many of his close friends leaving his employ, and he longs for the ‘good old days’ when his buddy Rob Porter brought ‘structure’ {cough, choke, gasp} to the White House.  It is said that Trump used to spend two hours a day with him.  Well of course he did … they have much in common, such as complete disrespect for women!  I can just imagine some of the conversations they must have had!  And it is also said that since Porter’s departure, Trump has frequently called him and even discussed policy regarding tariffs with him.

Take a look at the people the “leader” of this nation supports and admires. First it was pedophile Roy Moore.  Then racist Joe Arpaio.  Then the KKK and neo-Nazis.  And now a wife-beater.

At what point do our elected representatives in Congress, democrat and republican, find their morals, their values, their integrity, and say “This is enough!!!”?  At what point do the Trump supporters, who are largely evangelical ‘Christians’, remember that they are supposed to believe sexual abuse, spousal abuse are wrong???

Compared to the lack of decency as defined any way you want to define it, John F. Kennedy’s frequent extra-marital affairs were child’s play.  The Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski scandal was naught, yet he was impeached.  Think about that one.  I am not defending Bill Clinton, mind you, but he had consensual sex with an adult aide, and since he lied about it, he was impeached.  He didn’t go on national television and brag about how he could and did abuse women.  He did not have 16 women accusing him of sexual abuse.  He did not lie, cheat and steal while in the White House.  But yet, to this day, people on the right are more outraged by Bill Clinton than they are by the morally bankrupt clown sitting in the Oval Office.

It makes me wonder if those who support Donald Trump maybe, just maybe, deserve what they are getting.  Perhaps their morals, values and integrity have sunk as low as his.  Only problem is, the rest of us don’t deserve it.