New Blog - "I Was Wrong - on Something Important"

 it is at:

https://iwaswrongonsomethingimportant.blogspot.com/

below is a sample

I Thought the Sun and Moon were the Same Thing

January 16, 2023

 

This borders on the not-believable.  Comedienne, and celebrity political influencer,  Chelsea Handler says that until she was 40 (as of this post she is 47) she thought the sun and moon were the same thing. She thought the sun becomes the moon at night. When she was on a safari in Africa her sister pointed out that both the sun and moon were visible. That was, per testimony, her epiphany.  She stated this on late night TV on Jan 13, 2023.

End of the Blog Unless something really interesting happens

 

I've been at this a while and the examples of hypocrisy are getting pretty repetitive

Irwin sent me the example of Senator Cruz criticizing President Biden for vacationing during a weather crisis when Senator Cruz did much the same in 2021 during the great Texas Freeze.

Also I noticed that President Biden has recently promulgated rules prohibiting most Chinese travel to the USA. Biden criticized President Trump for doing a similar thing in 2020.

In both cases there are nuances that make the cases dissimilar, e.g., Cruz as a Senator had no control over Texas State emergency response while Biden does have executive power to make disaster declarations, allocate National Guard resources, etc. In the Chinese travel case, we know a great deal more about the virus in 2023 than we did in 2020. 

But, in any event, these 'you did what you accuse others of ' cases are very common and unless they really involve serious consequences, they are also somewhat boring.  So I will be starting a new blog on another topic soon and will only add to this blog unless something really interesting happens. 

Taylor Lorenz - immuno compromised - sometimes

 

On October 3, Lorenz, a technology columnist with the Washington Post, criticized a tweet by a physician who had a picture of him and another person neither of whom was masked. Her comment in the tweet was,

As someone who’s severely immunocompromised this is absolutely horrifying and disappointing to see. Stark reminder of all the medical professionals who don’t care at all about keeping vulnerable patients safe from a raging deadly and disabling pandemic

 

On October 5, Lorenz tweeted the image on the left. It shows her without a mask within a short distance from another celebrity and the lower class security guy wearing a mask.

This is about as straight forward a case of hypocrisy as I can remember.  The only defense for Lorenz I can think of is that in the Oct 3 case, the person criticized is just a bit closer to another not masked person than Lorenz is in the Oct 5 case.

Oct 3 Tweet by Lorenz

https://twitter.com/taylorlorenz/status/1577129342915575812

Oct 5 Tweet by Lorenz

 https://twitter.com/imaginary_echo/status/1577651965886185472

Oct 1 Tweet criticized by Lorenz

 https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FDGlaucomflecken%2Fstatus%2F1576303600283750402&widget=Tweet

Democrat Groups Spend $ Millions to Support MAGA Republicans; Biden Denounces MAGA Republicans

 

The first image shows a political event supporting Darren Bailey. He won the Republican nomination to run for Governor of Illinois this year. He is by all accounts the most MAGA Republican who was running for the nomination.

Two Democratic Groups spent over $30 million supporting Bailey during the campaign for the Republican nomination.

 

Elsewhere in the US, many more millions of dollars have been spent by Democratic groups to support the most MAGA Republicans running for various nominations.

 

Back a few weeks ago, President Joe Biden said,

 "... the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic..."

`The second image is a still from that event.

This may sound like hypocrisy and many Democrats aren't very happy at the spending on MAGA candidates.  However, since Biden does not control the Democrats who are spending the money (and in fact he may not even be aware of this spending), it doesn't count as hypocrisy.

The Washington Post's arithmetic on campaign financing of this kind is

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/

 

The quote by Biden on MAGA Republicans is from a Rolling Stone article:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/joe-biden-speech-maga-republicans-donald-trump-philadelphia-1234585311/

Chicago Welcomes Illegals Then Sends them to the Suburbs

 

In early 2021, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago signed an updated ordinance welcoming illegal immigrants.

In Sept 2022, when a busload of illegal immigrants was sent to Chicago, the Mayor sent them to a suburb without letting the suburb know about it.

Interesting.

However, the 2021 action by Chicago did not actually promise to keep illegals, it only restricted Chicago law enforcement from coordinating their information with the Federal Government border related agencies.  The two actions (barring local coordination) and sending illegal immigrants to another jurisdiction are different enough that I can't call this hypocrisy.

The 2021 ordinance may however have been illegal but that is not a hypocrisy issue.

2021 Article on the Welcoming is 

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/mayor-lori-lightfoot-welcoming-city-ordinance-chicago-police-cpd-ice-immigration-customs-enforcement/

2022 Article on Chicago Sending New Immigrants to suburb (Burr Ridge) without discussing it with the suburb is

 https://news.yahoo.com/chicago-welcomes-texas-migrants-then-195800361.html

Biden on Trump Voters

 

On Sept 1, President Joe Biden gave a speech in which he said, 

"...the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.”

 Much of the rest of the speech was in a similar vein. It used somewhat demonic imagery too but imagery doesn't count in hypocrisy.

On Sept 2, in answer to a question from a reporter, Biden said,

“.... I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country,”

Is this hypocrisy?

In a normal person, this kind of 180 degree change would be strange. However, Biden who like some other politicians (Trump for example) lives in a fantasy bubble where words don't really matter, somehow there is enough difference between these two quotes so it is not really 180 degrees of change but a nuance of sorts.

This is similar to Biden's 'Putin must not remain in power", which Biden's spokesman walked back saying that Biden was not calling for regime change and a few days later Biden then said, 'I meant it." 

 

 

 

From article in NY Post:

https://nypost.com/2022/09/02/biden-walks-back-attacks-on-trump-voters-in-anti-maga-speech/

Trump and the Drug Dealers

 Back in July, former President Donald Trump proposed a 'quick death penalty' for drug dealers.  When he was President, Trump used his Presidential power to commute sentences for drug dealers.

Going into the weeds, it seems  that Trump has been provided with new information, for example, the estimate that each drug dealer is responsible for 500 deaths.  I doubt that any serious estimate of this kind can be realistically done but it seems to have impressed Trump.  Trump has changed his mind on innumerable issues over the years, e.g., he donated to Hillary's campaign and the Clinton Foundation.

So it seems to me this is not hypocrisy but just changing his mind.

Yahoo article on this is here.

Image is from that article.

Trump donating to Hillary and DNC is here 

Trump donating to Clinton Foundation is

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/28/david-plouffe/yes-donald-trump-donated-100000-clinton-foundation/

The Hypocrisy of $$$$$$

 J.B. Pritzker is the incumbent Governor of Illinois.  He is the heir to a hotel and real estate fortune. His sister Penny was the Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration.

Several people were running in the Republican Primary for

Governor.  J.B. spent $24 Million, mostly his own money but some campaign contributions from others, to support one of the Republicans. This was Darren Bailey who was supported by, among others, Donald Trump.  Pritzker presumably did this thinking Bailey would be the easiest to defeat in the general election.

Now Pritzker has started to pay for ads attacking Bailey.

Is this hypocrisy?

Looking at this historically, it is far from the first time a person running for office sought to help what he thought would be a weak candidate. However, the money involved this time is egregious. 

An argument could be made that the $24 million was saying "vote for Bailey in the Republican primary" or alternatively "don't vote for Sullivan, Irvin. Rabine or Schimpf (the other candidates). Another argument could be that Pritzker never said, "Bailey will be a great governor, better than the incumbent". I would have to look at all the ads to be able to evaluate this and I doubt I'll be able to find them all.

So I am going to have to let this be a 'no conclusion'. Still the amount of dollars involved is stunning.

 The first image is from Pritzker's wikipedia page. The second is from a web site claiming that Pritzker weighs 187 pounds.

That site is:

https://mddailyrecord.com/jb-pritzker-net-worth-girlfriend-wife-kids-height-weight-age-gay-bio-2021-2022-2023

 

 Other information for this is from the site below.

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/illinois-governor-jb-pritzker-runs-ad-attacking-gop-opponent-asking-who-e2-80-99s-funding-his-campaign-e2-80-93-after-giving-him-2424-million-in-primary/ar-AA10eG9V

Gavin Newsom - Traveling to Montana Hypocrisy

Governor Gavin Newsom of California and his wife and children traveled to Montana over the 4th of July.  Newsom's wife is from Montana and her parents live there.

California has a law, dating from before Newsom was Governor, that prohibits State funds from being used to travel to certain States that have laws limiting LGBT rights (for example limiting female athletic competition to biological females).  The Governor's office in coordination with the State Attorney General's office decide which States these are.  Montana was on that list as of June 2021. There are 19 other States on the list as of this post, with two more States expected to join that list in the next month or so.

Newsom says that the law does not interfere with private travel, only State funded travel. Assuming that Newsom paid for his own and his family's travel that would not be out of compliance with the law.  However, Newsom's security detail accompanied the family to Montana and their travel cost is funded by the State. 

Newsom has apparently, never said, "No Californian should travel to Montana" or any similar statement so despite some people calling him a hypocrite, I don't think this makes him one.  He may however, have broken California law depending on how a court would look at it and he may have to reimburse California for the expense of the security detail. 

An article on this situation is here.

Attorney General's statement in 2021 on this is here.

One interesting thought is that since UCLA and USC are both joining the big ten (which currently has 16 teams), there will be (because Iowa is on the list) more State funded travel to States on the 'banned' list. 

 
 

One Hour Between Words and Deed Hypocrisy

 

Karen Williams is the mayor of Redland City, on the southeast coast of Queensland, Australia.

On June 23, 2022 she held a video meeting calling for harsher penalties for drunk driving. The meeting included families of victims of drunk driving accidents.

About a hour later, she crashed her car and the police investigating the accident determined that she was intoxicated. Williams admitted to drinking several glasses of wine before driving.

Actually, this isn't pure hypocrisy because she didn't say, "don't drink and drive" but merely said that the country suffers from it. Still the time between the words and the deed is so close that it makes a spectacular example.

Image and story here.

Another story on this is here.

Patti LuPone - Hypocrisy with profanity

 Patti LuPone is an actress with a distinguished career. he

 

Her career spans over 50 years.

She has won multiple awards including Tonys, Olivers and Grammys.

The first image is from an article noted below. The second is from 2014 and on her wikipedia page.

She recently was appearing with other members of a cast in front of the audience for a post performance Q&A.  LuPone noticed an audience member whose face mask was not on properly. LuPone criticized this person using profanity.

Here is the hypocrisy. LuPone wasn't wearing a mask. Neither were any of the cast and they were not social distanced, although probably further apart than people in the middle of the audience. 

 

Apparently, there was a sign somewhere saying the audience was to be masked.  I'm pretty sure there was no sign saying the cast would also be masked.  So LuPone was, if I am correct, not breaking any rule. 

Still just because you are not breaking a rule doesn't give you the right to rant about people who are almost in mask compliance when you are not at all in compliance.

I call that hypocrisy. I wished the audience member who was being criticized would have said something about that at the time.

Article from Notthebee is here. Also image from this source.

The article has enbedded a tweet showing LuPone's rant. 

Mediate article on the event is here. 

Foxnews article is here

Does Incoherence Prevent Hypocrisy

 

In 2020, the Hunter Biden Laptop story was printed in the NYPost,  A number of people stated their opinion that the laptop was not Biden's. This included the NYTimes, Washington Post and others. Facebook and Twitter then removed the NYPost's twitter and Facebook accounts.

Anne Applebaum (first image), Pulitzer prize winner, did an opinion piece in the Atlantic. She writes frequently for the Atlantic.

Applebaum's 2020 opinion piece didn't agree or disagree with the 'not Biden's laptop' theory, Instead, it attacked the reporters associated with the NYPost piece (a journalistic ad hominen argument) and also stated that the NYPost report didn't make sense. It was a pretty long piece.

By 2022, the NYTimes, the Washington Post and others had come to the conclusion that the Biden laptop was real and, in fact, the NYPost story was essentially true.

In a conference recently, the subject of which was journalistic misinformation, Applebaum was asked whether the actions of the NYTimes, etc. constituted misinformation. Her response was essentially that she didn't find the laptop story interesting or relevant to anything.

I find this to be an incoherent comment as it doesn't answer the question and is inconsistent with Applebaum's 2020 piece which presupposes the laptop story to be interesting and relevant (the second image shows Hunter and Joe Biden meeting with officials of Kazakhstan).

My theory is that Applebaum knows that she was wrong in 2020 but doesn't want to admit it and rather than pretending that she still believes what she did in 2020 is trying to find a novel way to avoid the obvious.  Not exactly hypocrisy but still dishonest and unprofessional.

Applebaum's 2020 opinion piece is here.

Article by the person who asked Applebaum the question in 2022 is here.

A NYPost article from 2020 on the subject is here.

Gun Control Activist Attempts to Assassinate Candidate Using a Gun

Quintez Brown (image), a resident of Louisville, KY and candidate for a city office attempted to assassinate a man, Craig Greenberg, who was running to become mayor of Louisville. 

The assassination attempt was made with a handgun.

Quintez has previously advocated various gun control measures. He also is a BLM devotee and is against incarceration.

Quintez has not previously been charged with anything more than traffic violations and is currently a student at the University of Louisville.  

His attorney says that Quintez suffered a mental breakdown. His family says that in 2021 he went missing for two weeks in an apparent mental breakdown but is not in treatment.

Bail has been posted (2nd image is his bail photo) and he is out of jail and in home detention.

I'm presuming mental illness, so no hypocrisy.

 

This article (below) from the USA Today has links to many aspects of this story

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/02/15/quintez-brown-pleads-not-guilty-craig-greenberg-shooting-live-updatess/6795237001/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

 

The Jewish Journal adds more details to this story:

 https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/345175/ky-blm-chapter-and-bail-fund-post-bond-for-suspect-who-allegedly-shot-at-jewish-mayoral-candidate/

Recent revolutionary 'love letter' by Quintez is here. 

More on Quintez and his connections to various anti Semitic groups is here.

Maskless Hypocrisy and/or Chutzpah

 

 Stacey Abrams, who ran for Governor of Georgia in 2018 and expects to do so again in 2022, attended a school event 4 February.  She agreed to appear if all the kids were masked but she herself was unmasked when speaking at the event per a staffer's statement to media.

The school policy is 'everybody masked' except when eating. I'm not sure if there are any other exceptions.

The interesting thing here is that a school official posted several images with Stacy on twitter and Stacy (or her staff) subsequently re-tweeted the images. Then, after criticism, Stacy deleted the images as did the school official (the school official, who is in the 2nd image, took down her entire account).

Responding to criticism, Abrams said, in effect, that nobody has standing to criticize her (although deleting the images).  What she didn't do is: apologize, claim she didn't breath while mask less, or say it was only for a few minutes. Although not necessarily connected, Abrams is looking for a new social media staff expert as of 6 February.

Some time ago Stacy criticized the Governor of Georgia for opposing mask mandates.

 cnn article on this event is

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/06/politics/stacey-abrams-school-photos/index.html

image from

https://technomoz.com/stacey-abrams-deletes-tweet-showing-her-unmasked-at-school-event/

Abrams criticism of Governor re mask mandates is

 https://www.ajc.com/news/stacey-abrams-demeans-kemps-mask-mandate-as-showing-incompetency-and-the-immorality/OI36PL37KBFZFCUFK2NZWC5CGI/

Abrams story with lots of pictures and the ad for new social media expert is

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10485777/Mask-fascist-Stacey-Abrams-plays-race-card-Georgia-politician-complains-critics-hypocritical-maskless-photo-school-kids-using-Black-History-Month-event-launch-false-political-attack.html

more Abrams with out mask pictures

https://www.outkick.com/more-maskless-stacey-abrams-school-photos/

Abrams accepted responsibility and admitted error on 8 Feb

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stacey-abrams-apologizes-maskless-photo_n_62034f8be4b0f923ded743cd

Mask Hypocrisy at SoFi Stadium (LA, California)

 

The NFL championship game was played in LA last weekend.  The stadium has a rule requiring masks at all times except when actively eating and drinking.

 

Irwin sent me the link for this and it contains both image 1 with Magic Johnson and California Governor Newsom and image 2 with Magic Johnson and Mayor of LA, Garcetti (on Magic's left) and Mayor of SF, Breed. 

 

They appear to be in the Stadium's luxury sky box area.

There are numerous other pictures of people not masked at this event.

What I didn't see in the article was mention of the fact that Magic Johnson is, I'm pretty sure, immune compromised as he had HIV 20 years ago.  I hope nothing happens to him but Magic should be more careful than most people (it was Magic who posted both pictures on twitter) and his friends should be more careful around Magic.

Newsom gave a press opportunity where he said he only took off the mask briefly for the photo; however video of the event (which is embedded in the article) shows this is false. 

Garcetti claims he held his breath during the photos. 

UPDATE:

At Superbowl, a cut of celebrities not wearing masks.

.

Doomsday for Democracy vs 'the Senate must evolve'

Senator Charles Schumer has been in the Congress a long time. He became a US Representative in 1981 and a US Senator in 1991.

 

Back in 2005, Schumer  gave a rousing speech against changing the filibuster rule.  He referred to removing the filibuster making the US a banana republic and called such an action 'a doomsday for democracy'. 

In a 3 January 2022 letter, Schumer says,

We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before. The Senate was designed to evolve and has evolved many times in our history. As former Senator Robert Byrd famously said, Senate Rules “must be changed to reflect changed circumstances.” Put more plainly by Senator Byrd, “Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.”

 Whether this is hypocrisy or not depends on whether Schumer believes what he says in 2022.  I don't think he does and, in fact, if the Republicans have a Senate majority and a President in 2025, I'm sure Schumer would change his tune again. This is supported by various comments by incumbent Senators who feel the election rules need to be changed for them to be re-elected.

Therefore I consider this hypocrisy.

-- 

A few days after the above post, US Representative Jeffries gave a speech saying that we needed the Democrat introduced voting rights legislation as it was inspired by Hugo Chavez (with a pretend correction to Caeser Chavez who had nothing to do with elections).

---------

The video of Biden and Schumer's 2005 speechs defending filibuster:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schumer-filibuster-support-2005

Comments of various Senators on why they will be boxed out without changes in election law:

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/589302-dems-worry-theyll-be-boxed-out-without-changee.

Schumer's letter to collegues is here. 

Then Senator Biden defending the filibuster also in 2005 is here. 

Representative Jeffries speech with portion noted is here.

Can Hypocrisy Be Undone

 

In late January 2020, then President Trump established a travel ban from China to stop the spread of the Covid virus to the USA.  On Feb 1, 2020, then candidate Joe Biden tweeted, 

"We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency."

Notwithstanding this later statement, the China related travel ban lasted until early November 2021 when it was ended by then President Biden.  Then following information from South Africa on a new Covid variant, a new covid related travel ban was established in late November 2021 by Biden. This new travel ban is set to expire on December 31 also on the order of Biden.

This issues relating to the travel bans are quite complicated and the evolution of knowledge of the virus is also complicated and I'm not going to assign hypocrisy to Biden on this, although, for example, Juan Williams, the 'leftist' counter puncher on Fox, comes close to doing this.  

What I want to do is think about whether hypocrisy can be 'undone'. That is, if we assign Biden hypocrisy for saying 'travel ban bad' in Feb 2020 and then issuing a similar ban in Nov 2021, could this hypocrisy be undone if the November 2021 ban was itself undone on December 31 2021.  It seems to me that, no it would not be undone but it would be, in effect either 'made a smaller hypocrisy' or it would be evidence that the Biden motive of the ban in November 2021 was qualitatively different than the Trump motive in January 2020.

 

Article on US lifting travel ban is here

Article on US imposition of travel ban here 

Article on the expiration of the Nov 2021 travel ban is here. 

Juan Williams comment on hypocrisy is here.

first image is people lining up for covid tests from SF Chronicle.

second image is from the third article

Tornado Relief Hypocrisy

 

Irwin sent me a CNN article essentially accusing Senator Paul of hypocrisy for opposing emergency relief for some but requesting emergency relief for Kentucky. This was subsequent to a devastating tornado outbreak (path of outbreak in first image, damage in Mayfield, KY in second image).

Many other news outlets had the same accusation.

Paul noted the charge of criticism and said that he opposed other requests because they exceeded the budget.  Paul complains that none of the criticism articles had this information. 

I recall from my days in the Federal Government that the federal budget always had an authorization for emergency relief (part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, budget) but that this authorization was frequently increased by large disasters (third image gives some cost data).  I don't know what the situation is this year and I doubt that I could figure it out. Thus I'm not going to declare it hypocrisy. 

Although it doesn't impact the hypocrisy, I will note that Paul is donating funds from his reelection campaign to disaster relief (I'm not sure if this is legal but I'm presuming it is).

Senator Paul letter to President Biden is here.

CNN accusation of hypocrisy is here.

Senator Paul donates $100k from reelection campaign for tornado relief here

 

Paul's defense against hypocrisy is here.

 

Criticism of Paul's defense against hypocrisy is here. 

The Oily Robert Reich

 

I like this one because the text and image is on the same tweet.

Robert Reich was a policy advisor and Secretary of the Department of Labor in the first term of the Clinton Administration.

After he left, he wrote a book "Locked in the Cabinet".  I read excerpts of this book (second image) and, from what I read the whole book was "Things would have been great if everybody had listed to me".

Since he left government he has had a number of professorships, been a commentator on TV, chair of various non governmental organizations, won all kinds of awards. Notwithstanding that, I've never heard any thing from him that wasn't just a more lugubrious version of a piece of conventional wisdom or a hack political response to something. 

In the twinned tweets, one could call it hypocrisy. However, what keeps me from this is that Reich probably doesn't even believe what he is saying in the second tweet.  Oil companies do not have US based 'excess capacity' that is turned down or up *the Saudi do have this). Wells are drilled and produce as much as the owners can get out of them for as long as they can (this is because of the high capital investment which needs to be recovered). At the margin, a well may produce for a few weeks more less depending on the price that day.  Also wells are taken off line because of hurricanes sometimes (e.g. Hurricane Ida in late August and September 2021 took a lot of capacity out for several weeks).

Of course it is possible that Reich is ignorant enough to believe this.  Back in 2017 he wrote for Newsweek hypothesizing that Antifa protests were organized by Trump or Breitbart.

Congressman touts benefit of law he voted against

 

U.S. Representative Gary Palmer (first image), who represents Northern Alabama, took credit for an  $350M highway earmark in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, a.k.a., BIF).

He voted against the bill.

This may be obnoxious but not hypocritical.

The BIF is one of those aggregate bills with thousands of earmarks (the bill language contains over 1400 earmarks in 1700 pages) and covering many different types of infrastructure including highways, transit, ports, broadband, electrical transmission and more.

Unfortunately, I have personal experience with administering portions of previous aggregate bills, which if they cover most of the government are called Omnibus Bills or if they only cover a portion, miniBus Bills. These typically have worthwhile projects and wasteful projects and sometime the project is so poorly defined it takes considerable time to figure out what it was supposed to be.  

 

My own Representative has lauded several earmarks he got into the bill for replacing diesel buses with electric buses on the premise that this will relieve traffic congestion. Although obviously a false claim (it might even make traffic congestion worse as the current generation of electric buses brake down more often than the current generation of diesel buses but it might save money if the information in the chart is correct, it is from a 2016 study by a graduate student) that is not hypocritical either.

An article on a fire involving an electric bus is here

Yahoo article with image is here

 Earmark summary is here.