Why Does Katie Zacharia Still Have Her Job? [Update: She Doesn’t!]

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

UPDATE: Literally minutes after I posted this, I saw reports that she is “transitioning” out of the White House Press Secretary role. Good.]

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There’s no excuse for this.

The new details on the latest White House paid liar’s misrepresentation of herself as a “lawyer” or “attorney” make her (and the decision to appoint her) appear worse and worse; she’s either a fraud or an idiot. In either case, she has lost all credibility. A paid liar must have credibility, as strange as that sounds.

Katie Zacharia confirmed yesterday that she had never passed a bar exam or and has never been an “attorney.”Then she claimed that she had not misrepresented her legal career by saying she “is” a lawyer. As I have explained already, she’s not. If many members of the public—you know, morons—think that a JD or LLB degree means one is a lawyer, that doesn’t excuse the holder of a law degree thinking or saying that. “Lawyer” means one can act as a lawyer—Duh!—and a mere law school graduate cannot. It is against the law for such a person to practice law, which is what lawyers do—again duh.

In interviews with The New York Times and Real America’s Voice, Zacharia said she had consulted Pepperdine’s president and “others” about how to describe her qualifications before appearing on television, and was told she could use the term “lawyer,” but not “attorney” or “esquire.” Zacharia hasn’t said which “president of Pepperdine” advised her. She graduated from law school there in 2011. Andrew K. Benton was the university’s president at that time. In 2019, Jim Gash became the president told the Times that he was not the one who advised her, though he did call her “a young woman of high integrity.” You know, a a young woman of high integrity who represented herself a lawyer without having a law license. Gash’s representative said “he does not comment on private conversations,” but a statement from Gash said: “Pepperdine is proud to count Katie among our alumni, former colleagues and friends. As she takes on this significant responsibility, we pray that God will grant her wisdom and courage. We look forward to seeing her use her incredible gifts and extensive experience in service to our nation.”

Got it. A non-responsive answer. A law degree from Pepperdine isn’t worth the paper it is printed on, and the school’s presidents are cowards and suck-ups.

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Unethical Quote of the Week: James Talarico

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“The Bible is silent on the issue of abortion.”

Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas James Talarico, in response to a questioner (a Catholic theology professor) during CNN’s “town hall” featuring the Texas House member and divinity school student (he has yet to graduate despite starting at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2018.

The answer was appropriately contradicted by the questioner, Jody Hunt, who shot back, “I just want to add that the Bible is not silent on abortion. There is the 10 Commandments: ‘Thou shall not kill.” She added, “And as Catholics, we take great insult, I guess sometimes, when [the Bible is] described that way.”

It didn’t take a theology professor to come up with that response: a relatively astute 12-year-old who has seen “The Ten Commandments” should be able to do it. Talarico’s answer is not only a lie, it’s offensive. This is the “invisible baby” dodge again. No one, nothing, is being killed! Abortion just involves the woman. It’s a choice, not a killing!

Talarico lied and flip-flopped throughout the session, with no push-back from the moderators. (“This is CNN!”) He denied saying that he wanted to abolish ICE, but Talarico is on video saying “It is time to tear down this secret police force.” Asked about the SAVE America Act, he said that he didn’t know enough about the bill to have a firm opinion about it. In August, he said, again on video, “With the SAVE Act, they are trying to rob our neighbors, strictly our black neighbors, of those God given rights.”

That’s a lie too. Just as Bernie Sanders assured radical progressives that Kamala Harris was just pretending to be moderate to get elected and then would show her true colors (you know, like “moderate” Abigail Spanberger in Virginia), Talarico’s woke pastor has said of her devout flock-member, “I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was.” Have I mentioned that Democrats cheat?

Talarico isn’t even good at lying. I bet Bill Clinton is embarrassed for him.

Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

A few notes:

I was moved to visit a site purporting to feature a recent “major study” showing that Americans were getting dumber. As I started to read the report, I noticed that this piece was also on the home page: “Luck Is Everywhere For 3 Zodiac Signs All Week, From Now Until October 25.”

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Speaking of “Is We Getting Dummer?,” AOC recently vomited out this: “Public colleges should be tuition free! They are attacking women’s ability to get an education! They don’t want women to go to college!” “They” are Republicans. Women outnumber men in colleges and law schools by a significant number, and men are being targeted for even existing in colleges. And this idiot is considered a power in the Democratic Party…

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And speaking of those colleges, The Washington Examiner points out that by banning alll frat parties and events for the rest of the year, “Cornell is punishing all the other fraternities and students for the actions of a fraternity that does not exist and hasn’t existed for the entire time Cornell’s freshman and sophomore classes have been at the university”…”based on no evidence that a rape ever occurred, other than the female student’s claim, weeks after the encounter” [and] “is imposing collective punishment on its student population that does nothing to punish the alleged offenders, based on an alleged crime that still doesn’t appear to be a crime at all.” The Examiner adds, “Cornell is making reactive decisions based on social media posts and liberal media pressure, with no interest in any sort of institutional integrity.”

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Well, I am officially nauseous.

Now you take over…

Comment of the Day: “Stop Making Me Defend Shawn Gillis!”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Beginning with a quote from the post, Cees Van Barnevelt delves deeper into the issue. Her comment also reminded me of the Debrahlee Lorenzana affair, which I wrote about way back in 2010. [That’s Debrahlee above.] She was a Citibank employee fired because she was deemed to be dressing too “provocatively.” She sued and lost. The post discusses some ethics issues germane to Cees’ Comment of the Day on the post, “Stop Making Me Defend Shawn Gillis!”

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No, Gillis’s point, and he is accurate, is that many women at co-ed gyms dress to attract the male gaze while the official narrative is that they are just “expressing themselves.” “Observational humor” is supposed to reveal taboo truths.

Women at the gym may dress to attract the male gaze but not from every male. If the wrong man (unattractive to her) looks at her one second too long it may cause problems for him (complaints to gym management, public shaming).

Gym influencer Joey Swoll has many TikTok videos shaming women in tight clothes filming themselves, publishing the video at TikTok while shaming the men who walked into that video looking one second too long; these men might have looked wondering why somebody was filming at the gym!

At work you have a similar dynamic. Recently there was a TikTok generated trend of dressing up as an “Office Siren”, with women wearing clothes more suitable for a night club. This trend is getting people fired (e.g. dress code violations, risks for sexual harassment claims).

Shaming men for the “male gaze” and excusing women who dress inappropriately has undesirable social effects. Males are getting overly cautious around women, to protect themselves from creep shaming and claims of sexual harassment. At work this may mean that women have trouble receiving one-to-one mentoring from male colleagues who do not want to be alone with a women in one room. At the gym men do not volunteer to help a women who is stuck under gym equipment. A women gets a heart attack, and a man thinks twice about doing CPR or using an AED considering the potential for accusations. Men are getting afraid to ask a lady out in person, do to the potential for creep shaming and #MeToo accusations. You can lament about the dating crisis and the loneliness epidemic; shaming men for being and acting like males is one of the main causes.

Once Again Your Host Wrestled His Fingers To The Floor…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Another cherished Facebook friend wrote a few days ago that it was the anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death (October 6) in Laramie, Wyoming. He was the young gay man who was beaten, tortured, and left to die tied to a split rail fence in 1998. Because gay activism was on the rise, a martyr was useful and the murder was lurid enough to attract eyeballs (“If it bleeds, it leads”), Shepard’s murder immediately was styled as a hate crime. After all, he was gay.

My friend wrote, in part, “We pray for the repose of his soul along with the souls of all those taken from us in prejudice.” But there is no evidence that Shepard’s murder was motivated by his homosexuality, other the fact that he was gay. As with the George Floyd debacle, the event was a gleaming example of presumed prejudice, fed by a powerful minority group that was pushing the “hate crime” concept hard. Eventually Barack Obama signed a federal hate crime law bearing Shepard’s name—of course he did, because that’s our O. But there is more evidence that Shepard’s death was the result of a drug deal gone wrong rather than anti-gay hate. Nevertheless, the story is still framed as a hate crime. Here’s NBC (gee, what a great news department!) stating as fact that Shepard’s death was motivated by homophobia.

My friend is gay, usually rational and always astute. It bothers me to see him spreading urban legends and bad history. But his heartfelt post got all sorts of “care” and “love” imogis, and I didn’t have the heart to spoil a public pandering.

Shepard died horribly, but so do lots of people, and that he’s remembered today because he happened to be a gay crime victim when so many genuine heroes are forgotten bugs me: you know how I am. There is not only a duty to remember but a duty to remember accurately, as well as a duty not to make people more ignorant than they already are.

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Citizens Have To Be Kept Informed Regarding the Age and Health of Elected Officials and Candidates For Office

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Why is there any controversy over this, especially in the wake Democrats’ years-long cover-up of Biden’s galloping dementia and Mitch McConnell’s mysteriously long recovery from “a fall”?

Talk about “protesting too much”…the North State Journal (NSJ) asked former Gov. Roy Cooper’s Senate campaign if he was committed to fulfilling his six-year term if elected in November and if there were any health problems that might impede him. Cooper is 69 years old, so a six year term would take him to 75. NSJ had previously emailed those questions to Cooper’s campaign eight times without answers, and after the ninth time, it received a cease-and-desist letter threatening legal action.

The Elias Law Group sent the letter. The firm is run by Marc Elias, the former campaign lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential run and a frequent target of Prof. Turley. The inquiring letter stated, “Governor Cooper intends to complete his entire term, and any suggestion that he is ‘experiencing a neurological issue,’ or that any health condition would prevent him from completing his term, is categorically false and defamatory.”

The NSJ asked Cooper’s Republican opponent Michael Whatley who is more than a decade younger than Cooper the same questions and the Whatley campaign said he would complete his term and that he didn’t have any health issues. Why is that so hard? Meanwhile, since when is a reporter or news organization asking a question “defamatory”? Insinuation in the form of a question isn’t usually held to be defamatory, especially from the news media, which is supposed to make people think and has broad protections under the First Amendment. I view this legal intimidation tactic as unethical—Don’t sue me, Marc, it’s just an opinion!—and Cooper siccing lawyers—you know, professionals who have graduated from law school AND who are members in good standing of a state bar after passing the bar exam?—-on an outlet for asking a question he apparently doesn’t want to answer to be signature significance: no trustworthy candidate would do that, ever, even once.

In related and gobsmacking news, Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said yesterday that he has not decided whether he will seek reelection in 2028. He is 93 years old. It is only moral luck that he has stayed healthy and able to serve in his current term, which was irresponsible for him to seek in 2022 when he was 89, and indefensible for voters to allow. In fact, I believe running for national office after 75 is unethical for our laws to allow. At least Grassley will answer questions about his age and health without trying to censor news reporting.

Stop Making Me Defend Shawn Gillis!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The wild—and increasingly weaponized—hypocrisy among alleged feminists is not to be borne, and I’m happy to flag it as the unethical—but woke!—cultural poison that it is.

Perpetually unfunny comic Shane Gillis was back for the third (or is it fourth?) time as a host of the now totally ideologically-captured Saturday Night Live last week. During his rambling monologue to begin the show, Gillis said, “I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like whores now? Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe it.” Gillis then went on to describe the ubiquitous tight short-shorts that dominate young women’s attire at the gym as featuring “wrinkles [that] go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole,” adding, “You’re not allowed to look… because they are filming. I’m in the background of about 10 TikToks right now.”

The Hollywood Left’s explosion of fury, which sure sounds like mandatory feminist outrage from beta males to me, focuses on Gillis’s use of the word “whores”—I even saw it censored on Axis news sources as “wh*res.” Not to go back into the misty past, but as I will always remind readers here, Bill Maher called conservative women like Sarah Palin and others “cunts” and “twats” on his HBO show with nary a peep from feminists. Today, over a decade later, the same people who laughed at Bill’s hilarious misogyny want to cancel Gillis. Here’s Forbes virtue-signaling to the mob:

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Let’s Cut Through The Media Feeding Frenzy: No, Katie Zacharia Is Not A Lawyer. Yes, That Means She Has To Go.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

You can read all about the investigations and arguments over terminology many places. The Washington Post’s is a good as any, but its headline is crap. “Katie Zacharia calls herself a lawyer. Legal experts aren’t sure.”

Really? Ethics experts are. She’s a JD, meaning she has a diploma from a law school. That no more allows her to practice law than a diploma from medical school allows a grad to do brain surgery. She hasn’t passed a bar exam in any jurisdiction. She’s not a lawyer. Representing herself as a lawyer is a misleading statement and dishonesty (or stupidity). All by itself it is grounds for a bar association to decide that she lacks the character to practice law.

Trump’s Truth Social post about her selection to replace Karoline Leavitt described Zacharia as “a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney, and a frequent Commentator on outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax.” Wrong. Either Trump was misinformed or he doesn’t know what an attorney is. Technically, an attorney is a lawyer who represents a client, but the distinction between lawyer and attorney has gone the way of the distinction between “implied” and “inferred.” Either way, a JD degree doesn’t allow you to practice law and you aren’t either a lawyer or an attorney until you pass a bar exam and get a license. Fox News has identified Zacharia as a lawyer at least 18 times since March 2025. Same as with Trump: Fox News is misinformed or stupid. She isn’t a lawyer.

Zacharia’s LinkedIn profile says she was “General Counsel” for a nonprofit organization called “Fix California.” If she was, she was practicing law without a license, a bright-line ethics violation as well as illegal. She also claims to have been licensed to practice in China, which is interesting but irrelevant. It would not make her a lawyer in the U.S. any more than being chef in China does

The conclusion here is clear and unavoidable. Zacharia has been misrepresenting herself. It is no less serious than lying on a resumé. Such a gross misrepresentation is a serious ethical breach, and in my view, disqualifies her from getting a law license. She may have the job of White House paid liar, but even that job requires some level of credibility and trustworthiness. She doesn’t have either; she can’t have either.

She’s got to go, and now.

Whoever vetted her needs to go too.

Morons.

From The “Res Ipsa Loquitur” Files..

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Meet Jaime West, a Democrat running for Fayette County Council in Indiana.

I am not at all sure this is the “most embarrassing clip” from a Democratic candidate interview, but her smug demeanor does make West a contender for Dunning-Kruger victim of the decade.

Professional kudos to the interviewer for not dissolving into giggles.

Comment of the Day: “Help! My Ethics Conflict…”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

My recent post about an extreme Trump Deranged friend whom I have so far refused to disabuse of the false notion that I am a solid progressive Democrat, in her view the only people worthy of her company, attracted many excellent comments; several are Comment of the Day worthy. I’m giving CD-VAPatriot the honor, in part because I know her, and know how accurate her self-description is. It would be hard to imagine someone less fairly called “immoral” or less deserving of derision from the Trump Deranged.

Below is CD-VAPatriot‘s Comment of the Day on the post, “Help! My Ethics Conflict…” for your reading pleasure and edification. But first I would like to recommend that you track down Season 7 of “American Horror Story” on Amazon Prime. This brave, creative, often satirical, subversive, genre-savvy anthology series using a spectacular repertory company took on both political extremes in 2017, and many of its plot points proved disturbingly prophetic. It would not be unfair to say the theme of the season was the horror of Trump Derangement, triggered by the fury of progressives, especially feminists, who were emotionally broken by Hillary’s defeat. (We see a lesbian couple’s marriage deteriorate in part because one partner blames the other for Hillary’s defeat after she voted for Jill Stein. This is even funnier today than it was then.)

I had direct experiences with women exactly like the protagonists in “Cult,” the title of the season’s ten installment tale. They told me, one with tears running down her face, that they were terrified of the impending Trump Presidency, and, of course, the Democratic party exploited that irrational fear. Fear is the sub-theme of the season; ironically, it is the crazed conservative cult leader who preaches the power of fear in promoting political change, but we have seen that it is the political Left that has sown fear most relentlessly since 2017: fear of climate change, fear of the Wuhan virus, fear of AI, fear of “fascism,” fear of “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” fear of law enforcement, and fear of Donald Trump in general. The show makes all extremes of the political spectrum look bad without taking sides, an approach that is difficult, wise and in today’s Hollywood, courageous.

Now here’s CD…

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