Addendum: In Addition To Being An “Incompetent Elected Official,” Rep. Boebert Is Also a Fick

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“Fick” is the Ethics Alarms term for a particularly repugnant variety of Ethics Villain, the kind that is not only unethical but who openly admits it and is proud of it as well.

Two days ago, I wrote about Boebert’s stunning violation of House rules by taking a snapshot during Hillary Clinton’s closed door testimony and sending it to a slimy social media “influencer” in “Incompetent, Unethical Elected Official of the Month Who Wasn’t Behaving Like An Ass At The SOTU: Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Co)” As of now, the post hasn’t topped 50 views, which may be an Ethics Alarms record for disinterest. I don’t get it. Maybe this is an “echo chamber.”

On an ethics blog, the fact that any House member, regardless of party affiliation, is so unethical and unprofessional should not only incur interest but horror. An esteemed commenter explained on that post’s thread that the lack of interest was because stating that Boebert is disgrace is a “water is wet” analysis, in other words, a Julie Principle situation. Then why so much interest in members of the “Squad” acting like assholes during Trump’s SOTU address? Both displays were official misconduct that did harm to our institutions and the public trust. I’ll submit to the Julie Principle when, for example, Kamala Harris sounds like she’s speaking Erdu, because “fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly” and Kamala is an idiot. But Boebert drags all of us down with her antics. Attention should be paid. Americans should register their objections.

Well, let’s see if anyone cares about Boebert’s fick-y response to the criticism of her photo stunt. When asked by reporters as she left Hillary’s deposition in Chappaqua, New York about her leaking the photo, Boebert responded, “Why not?”

Oh, only because it’s against House rules, you scum.

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Why Would Anyone, Ever Believe Bill Clinton When He Says Something Like…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

…”But even with 20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause.”

He said that in his opening statement to the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee before being grilled about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.

Hilarious!

Deceit is Bill Clinton’s native tongue, and he is fluent and skilled at it. This is a man who defended himself against allegation regarding Monica Lewinski saying he was never “alone” with the comely intern on the grounds that no one is alone when he is with someone. Bill declared that he never had “sex with that woman” because he held that getting blow-jobs wasn’t sex. He defended his deliberate misstatements to a grand jury by saying that he never lied, that he just wasn’t “helpful.” (It’s “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” and as a lawyer, he knows damn well that not being helpful means withholding the “whole truth.”) He lied under oath, as President, during the Paula Jones hearing, and had to give up his law license as a result.

That statement is so obviously meaningless coming from Clinton that it’s beneath his usual level of mendacity. ‘It didn’t ever give me pause’ ‘even now” spoken by a cold-eyed sociopath only means: “That stuff? That’s never given me pause. I just don’t care. Didn’t then, don’t now.” You can fill in the crude next line yourself. Bill Clinton has been a sexual predator his whole life, and has always escaped accountability. Why would Epstein surrounding Clinton with attractive, submissive, teenage girls give him pause?

If the House Republicans were going to shatter the “norm” of not calling former Presidents to testify, they at least could have justified it by calling one who could relay useful information in response to their questioning. Bill Clinton is smarter than any of them, and a masterful liar. His testimony was useless, except to prove that he’s still “got it.”

A Contrarian Ethics Take On “Body-Shaming” Performers

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I guess I’ve read too many articles like “Country Star Issues Blunt Response After Being Criticized for Her Appearance: ‘I’m Seething’” Not that I’ve read a lot of articles about country singer Lauren Alaina, yet another star in that genre introduced to the world by “American Idol”: I’ve never heard her, or of her. But I have been reading and hearing performers, particularly women, going into high dudgeon about fans, movie-goers, concert ticket-buyers and others who criticize them regarding their physical appearance, particularly their weight. Apparently Lauren’s furious because a lot of people criticized her weight based on a recent video of her performing. The singer wrote on Instagram in part,

“I’m literally so mad right now. I’m seething…We’ve got to change the way we’re talking about women on social media. We need to retire the obsession with women’s bodies. If you care about the music…talk about the music. If you don’t…. well, that’s fine too.
But this culture of speculating about women’s bodies?
It’s tired. Do better.”

Alana went on to emote about the phenomenon later. “A few weeks ago, I saw a TikTok of me up on stage singing, and all of the comments were about my weight,” she sobbed. “People were saying that my tour needed to be sponsored by Ozempic and just horrible things. It really affected me,” she said. “I am in recovery from an eating disorder that I’ve battled for a very long time. This just really upset me…I have an 8-month-old daughter, and we can’t talk about women this way. This is bull crap. If you’re a woman out there and people are commenting on your body, and saying this, myself included, we’ve gotta ignore that, and we all need to be better. This is crazy.”

“Well allow me to retort!” I say, in my best Samuel L. Jackson impression. (No, I’m not going to shoot her.)

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Open Forum Friday!

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

What amazing ethics stories will you uncover today?

I’m going to let Prof. Turley handle the follow-up to this post, which he did yesterday quite nicely. In “You’re Not Alone”: Reporters Comfort Those Triggered and Traumatized by Scenes of Patriotism” the red-pilled George Washington University Law School professor expressed his dismay and disgust at “how some in the media found the entire demonstration of patriotism to be intolerable and triggering.” He was speaking of the Axis media’s Trump Derangement that the Mad Left transferred to the U.S. hockey team. Turley wrote in part,

“The HuffPost even published an article with therapeutic advice for liberals triggered by seeing so many American flags. The liberal publication ran an article titled “There’s a Name for the Discomfort You’re Feeling Watching the Olympics Right Now.” It then published it a second time before the gold-medal hockey game with Canada — presumably to prepare its readers for the nightmare of the United States actually winning. The subheading read, “If waving the American flag or chanting ‘USA!’ turns you off right now, you’re not alone.”

“Senior writer Monica Torres began the article with this line: “While President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda separates families, and federal agents detain 5-year-olds and kill unarmed civilians, American athletes are winning medals on behalf of the nation at the Olympics right now.”

“Torres goes on to interview three therapists for this “story” about how the celebration of the United States team has forced many liberals into therapy over their trauma and “the cognitive dissonance of rooting for U.S. sports.”

“Los Angeles-based licensed clinical social worker Aimee Monterrosa explained that the “atrocities” of the United States can trigger feelings of guilt, despair, shame, anger” in seeing the country celebrate these sports victories.

“Expert Lauren Appio echoed how “waving the American flag or chanting, ‘USA!’ [can make] us feel grossed out or ashamed.”

I was going to write a follow-up to this post centering on the amazing comments by The Athletic, the New York Times owned sports website, which criticized the U.S. hockey team for taking a congratulatory call from their President and coming to the SOTU address. “This isn’t a neutral climate,” he wrote. “This isn’t a neutral president. And in a nation this polarized, the proximity carries weight whether the players are being intentional or merely naive.” Both The Athletic and Vox claimed the star of the Olympics was…wait for it…Elaine Gu, the American who accepted millions to skate for China, an international criminal and enemy of the U.S.

Trump is, of course, being criticized for saying in Tuesday’s performance, “These people are crazy.” I believe that statement was one of his best, and should have the same delayed effect as Ronald Reagan’s pronouncement that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire.”

Because, you know, they really are crazy.

Over to you, Clarence…

Incompetent Elected Official of the Week (If you don’t count all the others): Drunk Washington State Legislator Joe Fitzgibbon

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

This video brings back some bad memories as I head to the second anniversary of my wife’s sudden death. Grace battled alcoholism our whole marriage, and the careful, plodding, slightly slurred speech pattern you hear above from Rep. Fitzgibbon is exactly how she would speak when she was smashed and trying to hide it. Sober, she was quick-tongued and sparklingly articulate.

I feel sympathy for Fitzgibbon, but he has to resign, and so far doesn’t have the integrity to do it. Fortunately for him, he belongs to a side of the ideological spectrum that doesn’t believe in responsibility or accountability among their other ethical quirks.

Fitzgibbon, to his credit, at least issued an ethical apology for his disgraceful conduct, except for one teeny-tiny omission: there was no “therefore, today I tender my resignation as representative of the 34th District”:

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Unethical Image Of The Year

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

And signature significance.

Was the image manipulated? Of course: I don’t really care. The image perfectly illustrates the ugliness and un-American essence of Trump Derangement. These two representatives of foreign values and foreign entitlement embody the sickness that our inattention to maintaining core prioritizes in our domestic policies and democratic institutions has wrought.

Incompetent, Unethical Elected Official of the Month Who Wasn’t Behaving Like An Ass At The SOTU: Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Co)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

What an unprofessional, lowlife disgrace Bobert (above, being classy) is. She should be censored and kicked off of every committee, and with luck she’ll quit in a huff to team up with only slightly less objectionable ex-colleague Marjorie Taylor Green to participate in tag-team mud-wrestling competitions.

Hillary Clinton’s Jeffrey Epstein deposition was suspended after Rep. Boebert surreptitiously snapped a picture of Clinton and her attorneys as she addressed lawmakers about her relationship with Epstein. Boebert then leaked the photo to slimeball MAGA influencer Benny Johnson, who posted it on social media.

Hillary’s lawyers demanded that the proceedings be halted after the photograph began circulating on social media. It is strictly prohibited for legislators or witnesses to take pictures inside a closed-door congressional testimony. But Boebert, who has the maturity of a 14-year-old, the judgment of a brain-damaged puppy, and the professionalism of carnival geek did it anyway.

Be proud, Republicans.

Maybe 14 is giving her too much credit. She is a real, live, honest-to-goodness bimbo Congresswoman, and her presence in the Capitol is an insult to the nation, the public, and the Constitution. Also her sex, her species, family, order, phylum, and the galaxy. Her district’s voters should have their citizenship suspended and their district made an official territory of Haiti. They and lazy, ignorant Americans like them in both parties are the reason our political process is looking more an more like an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show.” A bad episode.

If public approval of Congress is anything but zero after this week, it will be more proof that Ben Franklin’s challenge to us to see if we could keep our republic is proving too difficult, not because of adversaries abroad, but because of cranial vacuums within.

I Can’t Let This Pass…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

As long as ABC News persists in making Americans dumber by presenting the biased, silly, incompetent panel of women on “The View” as a news program, that network has to rank third from the bottom of the journalism barrel, slightly above MSNOW and CNN. Its commentary on the SOTU speech, however deserves some kind of prize for being the most ludicrous of all. If you’ve been paying attention, that’s quite an achievement.

Co-host Amanda Carpenter got the gold by complaining that Trump had an “unfair dynamic” while delivering the speech:

CARPENTER: He got that split screen. And when he was talking about Minnesota and saying we’re not going to go easy on them. Who thinks he’s been easy on them? And so, she was shouting back, ‘you’ve killed Americans’ but you couldn’t see what she said!

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: No.

CARPENTER: And so, it’s such an unfair dynamic that I just – We got to find ways not to participate in that and give him that kind of advantage. I just can’t believe we haven’t learned this lesson after ten-plus years.

Uh, see, it’s the President’s speech, see, and the members of Congress are there to sit, listen, show respect for the Presidency, and maybe applaud. This is like saying that an actor playing “Hamlet” has an “unfair dynamic” if members of the audience aren’t welcome to run up on stage and dance.

The Trump Deranged think the fact that Trump exists and is the President is an “unfair dynamic.”

These people are crazy.

Ethics Observations On That “Proud To Be An American” Chart

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

Yes, as with all polls and surveys, one should be wary of this one; still, Gallup is as close to non-partisan as one can get in 2026, and the results seem consistent with what we have been observing for a long time.

And true, confirmation bias comes into play. However, what we saw with the Democrats in Congress refusing to enthusiastically applaud the U.S. Olympic champion hockey team certainly seemed significant, especially since one assumed that if nothing else, the party knows its base. The core Democratic base looks, sounds, and behaves as if it is hostile to American values, traditions and history. With such quacking and waddling going on, it would take an ingenious argument to maintain that this isn’t a metaphorical duck.

I was drawn to the chart, which has been around for several months, because an “X” pundit wrote, “What’s going on here?,” the threshold question for all ethics inquiries. So what is going on here?

This:

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Ethics Quiz: Ethics Zugzwang From “The Ethicist”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

This time, not only does “The Ethicist,” aka. Kwame Anthony Appiah, give a bad answer to a reader’s ethics advice request, but I agree with it. [Gift link here.]

That’s because I don’t have a better answer, and that’s because there is no good answer. They are all bad; terrible in fact. The reader is in ethics zugzwang, from the term common in chess commentary, a situation where a player has no good moves available, only disastrous ones.

But I’m making this an ethics quiz on the chance that one of you out there in Ethics Land may have better answer than either of us.

As usual, it’s the pesky “Name Withheld” writing (What messes that poor boob gets into, with new ones every week!),

“My wife and I recently became the legal guardians of a teenager, and we are struggling with how to ethically navigate the emotional complexities of this arrangement.

“We met this person through our children’s athletic community. They come from an extremely difficult situation involving neglect and emotional abuse. A year ago, we offered them our home temporarily. As we learned more about their circumstances, we decided to pursue legal guardianship until they turn 18. We have no familial ties — we simply wanted to offer stability, safety and a chance at a better future.

“From the beginning, we agreed with our ward that we would treat them as we treat our own children — same expectations, same privileges and full support. For a few months, this arrangement seemed to be working: Our ward’s grades improved, they joined family activities and outings and appeared to settle into the rhythm of our family life. Then, little by little, they withdrew from us, no longer spending time with the family, and started getting worse grades again.

“Our ward has indicated that we intervene too much in their life and has complained to others that we’re “suffocating.” We’ve made adjustments — offering alternative meal arrangements, allowing them to stay with trusted friends on occasion and making space for their independence. Still, the distance has widened.

“My wife and I are about to engage in therapy with our ward. I am not looking forward to it; I worry that even in that safe space, I will not take well the possible complaints and criticisms we may hear from them.

“What obligations do we have — beyond the legal ones that we’ll meet — to our ward, and to ourselves, as we navigate a painful emotional landscape? And what moral, economic and emotional obligations should we anticipate when they turn 18 and become independent with no real support network?”

Yikes.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

What is the most ethical course for the couple to take now?

All I can offer, at least this early in the morning before a shot of coffee into my jugular, is “No good deed goes unpunished!” Somehow I don’t think this desperate couple will appreciate Oscar’s wit in their current dilemma.