In Madison, Anti-Cop Woke Virtue-Signaling Beats “The Show Must Go On”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The values and priorities of the people responsible for this display of warped ethics are so alien to me that they might as well come from a different dimension.

It all begins with the fatal shooting of Corey Ruiz this week in Madison, Wisconsin. At this point, it’s difficult to get the facts of the shooting without it being framed by anti-law enforcement and pro-perp narrative. As far as I can determine, Ruiz was another habitual thief, thug and scofflaw: Wisconsin public records show that Ruiz had 40 misdemeanor and felony convictions from 2009 to 2025, including robbery by force, strangulation, drug possession, vehicle theft and battery of a public safety worker, according to the records. He was most recently convicted of resisting law enforcement and drug paraphernalia possession.

[The source I was able to get that information from adds, “Jazzman Brown, a community organizer in Madison, said Ruiz was a father who was experiencing homelessness and mental health struggles.” Oh! Well, that means he can rob and beat up people then. Never mind. Seriously: I don’t care how much of a troubled life the deceased may or may not have had.]

Police officers were dispatched to Madison’s Marquette neighborhood in response to reports of someone stealing bicycles and checking vehicle doors. It was Ruiz. When officers attempted to approach him, he fled on a bicycle, riding through backyards to escape, Ruiz either fell or was pulled off the bicycle, then fought with officers to resist arrest. During the struggle, Ruiz pulled out a substantial fixed-blade knife and injured one of the officers. Ruiz was tazed, but it appeared to have no effect. Then an officer fired three shots into the man, killing him.

I have no sympathy for the deceased at all. Anyone who believes his death justifies a protest (or worse, a law suit, or worse still, the prosecution of a police officer) is crippled by poor logic, bias, and absurd anti-law enforcement attitudes.

Nonetheless, AtwoodFest, an annual music and crafts festival with free admission featuring 3 stages, and 30 bands with food and craft vendors, was cancelled by organizers with this nauseating announcement:

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“Ideological Capture”: How Academia Suppresses Conservative Thought

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The decision in Louisiana v. Callais represented a straight, non-liberal activist reading of the Constitution, which prohibits racial discrimination for any purpose. Naturally, brain-washed progressives pronounced the SCOTUS ruling this year an abomination, a claim based in bias and ignorance as I explained here.

Never mind: the news media and legal websites have overwhelmingly attacked the decision, as has the legal academia sector. The latter is especially ominous. The SCOTUS ruling was the right one, I believe, but certainly one that can support serious, good faith debate. On the scholarly side, however, the analysis of the issues only go one way. Is that the kind of expert “consensus” the climate change hysterics maintain exists on that topic? How could that be?

In his essay “The case for Callais” on SCOTUSblog [“This publication has been inundated with essays by academics critical of Louisiana v. Callais, but has not published a single one in defense of it. So I decided to take it on in my column”] Brian Fitzpatrick explains how. He writes at the start,

“When I was thinking about becoming a law professor – I am sorry to say this was something like a quarter century ago now – I went to go see one of my favorite former law professors, Elena Kagan, for advice. She was then the dean at Harvard Law School, but I had known her merely as my Administrative Law professor. She asked me what field I wanted to pursue and I told her race discrimination law. It was the reason I went to law school to begin with. It was what I had written my law school thesis on.

“Her response: don’t do it. She explained that, in order to get a job as a race discrimination scholar at any school, I would have to win over the other scholars at that school who worked in that area. Kagan said that at every school the scholars who worked in that area all supported racial preferences. The problem was that I was against racial preferences. She said for that reason alone no one in the field would support hiring me. She told me to choose something else.

“So I did. I decided to pursue class action litigation instead. It’s been a perfectly pleasant career. But it also explains why the academy is monolithic – and, frankly, untrustworthy – on race issues: you aren’t allowed to specialize in these issues unless you toe the party line. Today, we call this “ideological capture” of the academy. I think it’s a pretty sad state of affairs and I am not the only one.”

“Sad” doesn’t begin to describe what is wrong with this phenomenon, but it does explain the process whereby colleges and universities slowly but relentlessly eliminated objectivity and balance in entire fields—education, of course, but also history, journalism, political science, law, and, based on what I have experienced this year, ethics. The consequences of that strategy are readily apparent, but how to undo the process and return to independent and ideologically diverse thought essential to a democracy is not so clear.

Today’s Trump Derangement Report: The Pinky-Peewee Affair

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

This is depressing.

A really, really smart friend whom I respect a great deal just posted on Facebook that the President, on one of his sophomoric name-calling jags, had mocked Sen. Ossoff (whom I just posted about today, coincidentally) as “Pinky Herman.” My friend wrote that Trump was obviously mixing up Peewee Herman with Pinky Lee, a vaudeville kids TV star in the Fifties. “More proof of dementia,” my friend wrote.

I never thought of it before, but it seems to me that Pinky Lee might well have inspired Paul Rubens’ decades later kids’ show character. Pinky and Peewee are pretty similar names. Confusing the two is hardly evidence of dementia, unless the one making the mistake is Donald Trump.

But as usual, everyone on Facebook laughs, likes, and acts as if this stupid smear is a profound diagnosis. Fifteen years ago, I confused Aaron Burr and Raymond Burr while teaching a seminar and didn’t even realize it. Another time I said “Helen Keller” when I meant to say “Anne Frank.” I have mixed up my Jacksons on occasion: Jesse, Reggie, Andy, Michael and Stonewall. I assuredly do not have dementia. I think claiming that Trump does based on mixing up two fey comic kids show stars with similar names is more evidence of mental decline than anything either Trump or I have done.

I really detest this stuff. It is so petty, disrespectful, ungenerous and obnoxious. And, you know, Trump might have deliberately merged Pinky and Pee-wee, which would have been clever. Nah, it couldn’t have been that…

I remember Pinky well. I even remember the words to his song:

Yoo hoo, it’s me!
My name is Pinky Lee.
I skip and run bring lots of fun
To every he and she!
It’s plain to see
That you can tell it’s me!
With my checkered hat
And my checkered coat,
The funny giggle in my throat
And my silly dance
Like a billy goat!

Ick, Ethics, or “Who Cares?”: Sen. Ossoff’s Make-up

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Apparently Sen. Jon Ossoff (D.-Ga.) spends a lot of time and money on a make-up artist.

The Washington Free Beacon, which mixes really dumb features, like “Exclusive Sports Analysis: Kate Upton Is the GOAT of WAGs (and Always Will Be)“, with some good investigative research from time to time, just revealed Ossoff’s make-up bill as if they had discovered that he secretly had a long-term romantic relationship with an elk. Behold:

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.) has spent thousands of dollars in campaign funds on “makeup services” in 2026, and his artist of choice has a long list of Hollywood credits… Ossoff has paid makeup artist Stephanie Ponder $2,887 for “makeup services” since February, federal campaign finance disclosures show. The most recent payment of $900 came on June 10. ..Ossoff’s four-figure makeup expenditures stand out among federal candidates. The Georgia senator who is running for reelection against Republican Rep. Mike Collins (Ga.), has reported spending more on makeup than any other candidate this year, beating out the likes of far-left Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). Ocasio-Cortez has spent $1,837.93 on “campaign event hair & makeup services” in 2026, while Tlaib has spent $320 on “hair and makeup services.”

What is that? Is it news? Does it make a difference to anyone except by pinging their biases? Politicians and elected officials are in the public eye and perception matters; nobody should be shocked or disturbed to learn that a Senator pays for make-up services. Is the idea that it’s somehow scandalous that a man uses make-up? Why is that different from Joe Biden’s hair plugs, which everyone forgot about, or Richard Nixon using base to tone down his infamous five-o’clock shadow?

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Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC)

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Clyburn is already presumptively a blight on the body politick since he is widely regarded as responsible for “saving” Joe Biden’s candidacy in 2020. And didn’t that work out well!

Even aside from his role in the Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck, Rep. Clyburn has one of the worst Ethics Alarms dossiers of any politician. Most recently, EA noted that Cliburn told the dim-bulb ladies “The View” that Republicans were trying to restore slavery, and that isn’t even necessarily the dumbest thing he has said in public over the years. Cliburn is neither honest, ethical, fair or bright, but he did walk shoulder-to-shoulder with the sainted Martin Luther King in civil rights protests, and that is sufficient justification, according the the Left’s addled value system and his South Carolina district, to guarantee the man a lifetime sinecure in Congress.

Every now and then Clyburn says something so outrageous that it even has to make progressives and Democrats doubt the wisdom of letting the 86 year-old hang around to make Congress dumber. This week, he was asked by a Vox reporter about artificial intelligence and its tremendous influence on the workplace, education, and the economy. Not only did Clyburn answer that he’s never used AI, he admitted that he hadn’t heard of ChatGPT before this month. The exchange in part:

Reporter: “No ChatGPT, no Claude for you?”

Clyburn: “Believe it or not, I didn’t know what that was until about a week ago. ChatGPT, or whatever it is.”

Reporter: “You didn’t know ’til a week ago? Wow. I mean, I’m jealous. You’ve kept yourself in a bubble.”

Clyburn: “That may sound strange to you. I didn’t know what that was.”

…

Reporter: “How do you effectively legislate as a member who is distant from some of those technological shifts that are affecting folks’ lives right now?”

Clyburn: “I have a great staff. I wish I could know everything. I don’t know everything, and I don’t spend my time trying to learn everything. What I spend my time doing is trying to surround myself with people who do know stuff. I know how to legislate. I know how to build relationships, and I hire people to bring knowledge into the game that I can put to practice.”

Give him credit for one thing: Clyburn is at least transparent about how clueless and incompetent he is. He wishes he knew everything? How about knowing that massive technological changes are occurring right now and that the AI revolution erupted in 2024? Clyburn really said that he knows how to legislate while admitting that he doesn’t keep informed of what he needs to legislate about.

Nobody who pays any attention to the news, the culture, social media, the law, education, the economy…anything current, really, could have missed “ChatGPT, or whatever it is.” Ah, but Rep. Clyburn still marched with MLK Jr., and that’s what really counts in 2026.

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 7/25/26: End of a Terrible Week Ethics Notes

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

There are almost always good reasons to find any week terrible for ethics reasons, and this week is no exception. I, however, am talking about a terrible week from a personal perspective. For example, my “improved” DirecTV service broke down completely, and it took the company an unprecedented four days to get a technician here. Desperate to save the expense, a representative called me—after I had spent over an hour two days before trying every “troubleshooting measure,” given a rep a live video of my TV, and endured the usual aggravation of DirecTV’s horrible website, customer service line, its vocal fry-infected AI, multiple “one-time codes,” barely understandable script reading live agents from Sri Lanka or Tierra del Fuego, and the worst on-hold music in the history of the universe. The woman who called blessedly had an accent that was usually decipherable, but what she made me do to try to fix the problem the service had already concluded was unfixable reminded me of this bit from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (it starts at the 2:35 mark.)

Another low-point: a close friend on whom I was depending on helping me with several tasks that she had offered and committed to assisting with suddenly stopped answering phone calls, texts and emails, finally sending me terse message that she “didn’t have space for me” in her life right now and not to contact her. No explanation, no discernible reason. I did have a warning of sorts, as she had been gratuitously remote, hostile and cruel for about three weeks.

I have never treated anyone like that in my life, and can’t imagine a circumstance where I would regard it as appropriate conduct. Who does that?

But enough of me. In other ethics developments…

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Ethics Quiz: The Professional Bimbo’s Late Hit

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Courtney Stodden, a reality show star for about 15 years and with her career sagging, decided this week to accuse “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander of abusive and exploitive behavior towards a “child” based on a sketch they performed together in 2012. The two were in a Funny or Die sketch where Alexander played a self-help guru and relationship coach. Stodden wore an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny small-as-it-could-be bikini as Alexander cracked jokes about her feminine assets.

At one point in the web video episode, Alexander rubbed an iPhone over her chest. “I was 17 years old in this photo,” Stodden wrote on Instagram. “The older I get, the more impossible this is to understand. During this comedy sketch, Jason Alexander repeatedly rubbed his phone across my breasts while saying there was ‘no signal’ in my head but ‘plenty of signal’ in my chest.” Jason was 53 at the time and co- writer of the sketch.

“Later in the sketch,” Stodden continued, “he joked that when I turned 18 he’d like to take me behind the couch and ‘have his way’ with me. IMDb credits him as one of the writers of the episode. As an adult, that fact has become harder—not easier—for me to understand. I was a minor. I didn’t have the legal power to decide whether I wanted to participate. The contracts were signed by adults. The paycheck went to Doug [her husband]. The production moved forward. I was the only child in the room. I felt so alone. Looking back now, I don’t see comedy. I see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke. People still say, ‘You chose to be there.’ Legally, I couldn’t make those decisions for myself. That’s the point. I can’t change what happened to me but I can ask myself: How did so many adults look at a minor and decide this was acceptable? That’s exactly why I speak out today. Children deserve laws that protect them. They shouldn’t have to become adults before realizing the law should have protected them all along.”

Alexander, not wishing to be cancelled over an offense from 14-year-old skit that nobody remembers, groveled an apology. “Looking back at the comedy sketch in which Ms. Stodden and I participated in 2012, I completely agree that it was inappropriate and I truly regret it,” he said. “But more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden. I offer her my sincerest apologies.”

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, “The rest of the story!”

As an introduction, here is Courtney at what I guess she would call “her peak”:

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The American Bar Association’s Unethical and Partisan Formal Ethics Opinion 524

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The ABA is certainly having a revelatory month. We just witnessed this, and also in July the ABA demonstrated that it is part of the Axis of Unethical Conduct, legal division, by releasing as an alleged “Formal Ethics Opinion” what is nothing of the kind. Formal Ethics Opinion 524 is, in reality, the ABA’s version of the too-clever-by-half video issued by six Democrats calling for troops to defy “illegal orders.” Members of the military know that they have an officially sanctioned obligation to refuse to carry out illegal orders; the video posted last November by Sen. Mark Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan was a transparent effort to announce to the American public that the President was likely to issue such orders. There had been no impetus for the video, just the usual anti-Trump slander and libel that he was secretly plotting a military imposition of martial law or some other “authoritarian” maneuver.

To its permanent shame (if I have anything to do with it), the American Bar Association just did the same thing. It is a purely partisan, anti-Trump Administration act, one that exposes the ABA for the untrustworthy, power and influence-abusing organization it has become.

ABA Model Rule 1.13, which every state has adopted more or less as written, explains that lawyers representing organizations, including the government, have an ethical obligation “to report an officer, employee or other person associated with the organization is engaged in action,intends to act, or refuses to act in a matter related to the representation that is a violation of a legal obligation to the organization or a violation of law that reasonably might be imputed to the organization, and that is likely to result in substantial injury to the organization.” If substantial injury is likely to result, in the judgment of the lawyer, Rule 1.13 requires the lawyer initially to “refer the matter to higher authority in the organization,” and, if warranted, to the “highest authority that can act on behalf of the organization as determined by applicable law.” If the highest authority “insists upon or fails to address in a timely and appropriate manner an action or refusal to act that is clearly a violation of law,” and the organization’s lawyer “reasonably believes that the violation is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the organization,” the lawyer “may then reveal information relating to the representation whether or not Rule 1.6 [the confidentiality rule] permits such disclosure” to an authority outside the organizational client. That information may be revealed, however, only “to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary to prevent substantial injury to the organization.”

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Friday Open Forum: The Great Stupid Meets Trump Derangement Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

There is so much crazy and stupid ethics stuff out there I just woke up from a crummy night’s sleep and am exhausted already.

Last night, trying to have an intelligent discussion with a lawyer friend who used to be intelligent, I raised the incident I wrote about yesterday and which I continue to think is an unusually important one for the legal profession today: the ABA’s president refusing to be honest-–in front of cameras and under oath—when asked in a Congressional hearing about its extreme woke positions. My friend started screaming at me, literally screaming, with a “whataboutism” attack: what about Trump, what about Todd Blanche, what about the Supreme Court, what about the ballroom, what about the Kennedy Center. It was scary. I was tempted to have her sedated.

Weird things keep appearing on my screen too. Lindsey Graham’s sister, who has no qualifications whatsoever to be a U.S. Senator (and maiden names don’t count) announced that getting appointed to a position she has no business being in isn’t enough, she now is going to run for a full term. A female sportswriter suggested that WNBA star Caitin Clarke complaining about being mugged on the basketball court by the black lesbians who have virtually put a hit out on her has put them at risk of ending up like Emmit Till. Megan Rapinoe, the over-the-hill women’s soccer star who thinks she has something to contribute to society besides hitting a soccer ball with her head, actually said that President Trump was responsible for the U.S. losing in the World Cup and that opposition to biological men playing women’s sports is “an attack on women in society.”Prof. Turley has a post up about how Democrats are now referring to belief in the Constitution as “nostalgia.” The Secret Service has opened more than 10,000 threat investigations this year, which is 40% increase from the same period last year. Yesterday Whoopie Goldberg, on ABC’s “news ” show “The View,” ended the program by ranting, “We need to get out and make changes, because we need to block [Trump’s Presidency] every way we can! That’s all. Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote.Don’t wait until November. Start looking now.” That is a pure violation of FCC rules, and if the FCC dared to act on it, we would be hearing about Trump trying to censor the press.

But by all means, write about what you want to.

This cheered me up yesterday for about 30 seconds…

Unethical Tweet of the Month: This Is Why You Can’t Have An Intelligent Discussion With These People…[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

You have to truly be a blind ideologue to proudly post something this blazingly stupid on social media.

Let’s begin with the pairing of a trans pride flag with the Palestinian flag…the poster is irony-challenged. Jade then pronounces conservatives incurious, a contention that she doesn’t bother to support. I, for one, am curious how dedicated progressives continue to maintain scientific, legal and economic nonsense despite year after year of being embarrassed by their policies.

Then the tweet really gets rolling. Thoughtful people and ethicists believe abortion is “bad” because it involves ending a human life for the convenience of another human who is more powerful. The act would still be the same—homicide—if the Bible had no perspective on the matter at all. Similarly, we don’t believe theft is wrong because the Ten Commandments say so, but because civilization couldn’t exist if it weren’t prohibited.

It is something of an accomplishment that each of the three declarations is more moronic than the one before. “Immigrants are bad because Fox News said so” is a masterpiece of dishonesty and confusion. First of all, no one among conservatives says “immigration is bad.” Presumably Jade means illegal immigrants, but is so addled by the deceitful rhetoric of the Axis of Unethical Conduct that she doesn’t know the difference. I’m surprised she isn’t curious about that.

No, illegal immigrants are bad because they are breaking the law, and breaking the law is almost always bad by definition. Fox News doesn’t need to say so: statutes say so, court opinions say so, experience and common sense says so, Kant says so, Dostoevsky says so, and Hammurabi says so.

And yet the last line still wins the Ignoramus Blue Ribbon. Capitalism is good, not because Ronald Reagan said so, but because capitalism has, over the last 250 years, made the United States of America the richest, most productive, most influential and most creative nation on Earth, with the highest standard of living, the most innovation and the greatest number of contributions to civilization over that period.

You can’t argue with someone who posts nonsense like this. Well, you can, but I won’t. Jade complains about conservatives being incurious, but is so doctrinaire that she doesn’t have enough curiosity herself to check facts and history to find out if she knows what the hell she is talking about.

And she doesn’t.