Unethical Headline, Trump Derangement Division: Variety

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Some recent studies suggest that Trump Derangement is taking on the characteristics of mental illness. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who isn’t suffering from it, and this latest example should go into the research files.

Anne Schedeen was one of those moderately successful, fungible and forgettable actresses who can most charitably described as a “working professional.” When a sitcom role that has you starring as a puppet’s protector—Alf was an illegal alien from outer space who had crash-landed in a family’s garage, and Schedeen played the mother in the family that helped keep him secret from government authorities—-is your most famous credit, you will not get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But upon her death at 77, Schedeen’s family thought it appropriate to virtue-signal to their fellow Trump Haters by issuing this tribute:

“She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of creative energy, whip smart humor, delight in her family, adoration for little dogs, burning hatred for Trump, passion for second-hand thrifting, and love for a good story. We are bereft without her. We loved her so so much, as did all who met her.”

That, my friends, is insane. Variety, meanwhile, the so-called bible of the entertainment trade, didn’t have to put that feature in the statement in its headline, but did. None of the other outlets reporting the death thought that weird section was any more worthy of highlighting than Anne’s “passion for second-hand thrifting,” because it isn’t. Variety’s typical reader, however, is just as insane as Anne Schedeen.

I cannot imagine any previous President being used in this manner. Being noted for hatred of anything as a life highlight is hardly impressive; to me, that headline demonstrates what a wan career Schedeen had. No, she was never in a successful movie, never had a big role, never was nominated for an Oscar or Emmy, BUT she did hate the President of the United States, so there’s that.

The family might as well have pointed out that she won an award in the fourth grade for an essay about her goldfish. Having one’s family hurl your hatred at a President from beyond the grave is hardly as impressive as Ahab screaming at Moby Dick right before the Whaie Whale drags him down, “Thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee!” Ahab was nuts, but at least he wasn’t mad at Moby for mean tweets and enforcing immigration laws.

The family and Variety using the death of a minor actress to spit at the President, however, is a sad, foolish madness.

Life Competence Note To Spouses: Assume You Will Drop Dead Tomorrow

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I haven’t written much lately about my miserable existence since my wife of 43 years, Grace Elizabeth Bowen Marshall (who secretly commented here under the screen name “E2”) turned up dead Leap Year morning with no warning. Because I am at heart incompetent at anything other than the things that interest me and I am natively really good at, I am still struggling mightily with the wreckage of my life, home and business in the wake of her demise.

Just yesterday, I discovered an important task regarding legal obligations that I had completely forgotten about because it was in the category of “things Grace does so Jack can concentrate on other stuff.” I discovered it because a friend who is a talented operations whiz has been forcing me to go through files, papers, and accumulated memorabilia, especially in my office, something that I literally would never do without someone a) forcing me and b) telling me how to do it. This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life, because I don’t get enjoyment from nostalgia, only sadness, anger (at myself, mostly) and regrets.

The nasty surprises, especially from the financial side, have been arriving daily. (Sondheim’s “And Another Hundred People Just Got Off Of the Train” comes to mind). That important task I have completely whiffed on is typical of many: this was something Grace and I agreed would be her responsibility, and I happily left it in her usually capable hands for more than thirty years—never thought about it, in fact. Well, because of age, an illness that was worse than I knew and possibly other issues, she had just stopped taking care of this rather important matter for quite a while. Catching up now is going to be difficult, time consuming and expensive. I should have addressed this shortly after she died, but I was not exactly thinking clearly, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know, as Don Rumsfeld would say.

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Now THIS Is An Unethical Judge!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia had a habit of having noisy sex with a police commander in her chambers during office hours. This resulted in a “chambers workplace that was extremely uncomfortable and troubling for clerks,” a judicial panel concluded.

Gee, ya think?

Ross was nominated to the bench in the Northern District of Georgia in 2014 by President Obama. Of course she was. She’s a Democrat, she’s black, she’s arrogant, and she’s unqualified to be a judge. A special committee released damning findings of misconduct in a report two weeks ago. Ross was found to have lied about having sexual intercourse in her chambers—judges aren’t supposed to lie either—but inexplicably, the Eleventh Circuit and Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability decided sufficient punishment was to bar Ross from serving as a chief judge and require her to write apology letters to her clerks. Other than that, she only received a private reprimand. The disciplinary report signaled a whitewash by stating, “Although the special committee is deeply troubled by the conduct in which the judge engaged, the subject judge has demonstrated a strong propensity for rehabilitation and continued diligent service to the judiciary.” She lied to investigators! She was screwing around during work hours. That’s “diligent service to the judiciary”?

The lack of serious sanctions is indefensible. Ross shattered the following Canons in the Federal Judicial Code of Ethics:

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Riddle: “What Do You Call A Partisan Pundit Who Uses a Law Degree To Give False Credibility To A Unethical Medical Diagnosis?”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The answer:

Kim Wehle

I’m sorry, Kim, to have to call you out as the unethical hack you are—I’m an ethics expert, you know— but then I didn’t ask you to invade my email inbox with your incompetent and deceptive substack essay, “Stop Talking About Biden. Start Talking About Trump. And no, I’m not linking to that dumb screed, because I’m not going to help you promote alleged expert commentary that in fact makes the public more ignorant than they already are.

Wehle is a member of the law professor Trump Deranged ward, which is quite extensive, as my recent unpleasant experiences with my own ilk, legal ethics professors, has amply demonstrated. Her background doesn’t suggest that that she is a progressive, but who knows. It is hard to believe that any lawyer who cites as authority the likes of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), both with extensive Ethics Alarms dossier s(because they are both spectacularly dishonest, biased and unethical) has any other excuse for doing so.

The argument that President Trump should be removed because he is mentally ill or demented has been a go-to “let’s get rid of Trump without having to beat him in an election” almost from the moment he was elected in 2016. It was high on the list—Plan E-— of my “Presidential Impeachment/Removal Plans, 2016 to 2020,” which you can easily review at the link above. As I wrote then, here Democrats and their allies expose their totalitarian drift: declaring anyone who opposed Soviet Communism had to be mentally deficient was a staple of the USSR. At this point, I consider anyone making that argument today proof of one or more conditions: crippling Trump hate, total lack of integrity, or wilful blindness. Since I don’t like writing the same post twice, I adequately explained what was so blatantly biased about the Second Term’s 25th Amendment bleating when I wrote in disgust in “Presidential Removal Plan E” In the Dumbest Way Possible, Raising the Need For a Similar “Incompetent Journalist Removal Plan”,

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What’s An Appropriate Name For This Kind Of Fake News?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Psychic news? Theoretical news? Thought-crime news?

Stupid theory news?

Maggie Haberman, the unethical and biased Times reporter who, often with her colleague Jonathan Swan, diligently devises news angles that will cause gullible Americans to fear and hate their President, has a new “scoop.” “Frustrated by Courts, Trump Weighed Suspending a Constitutional Right” the story is headlined. Let’s begin with the fact that as is so often the case with the Times, the headline is misleading and deceitful. When I read it, I assumed that the President had considered suspending a Constitutional right guaranteed to all Americans. Wouldn’t that be how you would read it? But the subhead makes it clear that the headline is scare-mongering: “Secret memos show that the White House debated last year, to a greater degree than previously known, whether to limit habeas corpus rights for undocumented immigrants.” Wait, the Times is playing language games again—undocumented immigrants? What the Times means is illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants are people who have no right to be in the country at all. The U.S. generously (and unwisely, in my opinion) extends the constitutional rights all citizens possess to non-citizens, but that doesn’t mean that a strong argument can’t be mounted (as it has been and should be) that under certain conditions, people who are here illegally can have those rights suspended.

Maggie’s hit job story goes on to describe how a White House lawyer circulated a“confidential” memo explaining why this would be a bad idea, and as a result, the option of attempting to lock up illegal immigrants without due process of law was abandoned. In other words, nothing happened. The “news” is that the President and his advisors and lawyers discussed a possible solution to the deep and dangerous problems caused when the previous administration did not enforce U.S. laws, and decided against it. Oh, but see, it was “debated” to a “greater degree” than “previously known.” Hmmmm. At what point is debating an out-of-the-box policy too much debate when the end result is…nothing? Is a policy consideration not news when someone says, “We could do this!” and everyone says, “Nah. Are you nuts?” but suddenly is news when they say, “OK, let’s think about that” but soon someone delivers a memo that says “The idea is nuts” and then the idea is abandoned?

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The “Unconscionable” UFC Flag Day Fight At The White House

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

For a long time, I have been sick of writing about Anti-Trump bias, anti-Trump hate, Trump Derangement and “Get Trump” indoctrination and propaganda the Axis media, I really have. After all, it has been more than a decade since the Post 2016 Election Ethics Train Wreck first jumped the rails. But these awful, unethical fanatic unethical people keep getting worse, lying, and saying increasingly crazy things. Among the worst of the worst, ex-CNN hack Jim Acosta, who CNN elevated to White House Correspondent during Trump’s first term, compared the court ordered erasure of the President’s name from the Kennedy Center to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He really did. These people don’t even realize how insane they sound to normal people. Wrote one wag on “X”: “I missed the time when people were SHOT DEAD trying to get into the Kennedy Center for 40 years.”

The Trump Outrage Du Jour yesterday was the Flag Day UFC cage match on the White House lawn. On PBS—BOY am I glad not a penny of my taxes go to that propaganda machine!—erudite professional intellectual David Brooks provided Exhibit A of the class snobbery that has always been the root of so much Trump hostility. Asked about the event, Brooks huffed,

“Well, I first thought of, like, who are the artists John F. Kennedy brought to the White House? It was like W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein. And now we have got cage fighting. Don’t anybody say America’s in cultural decline!”

Got it. Because Brooks doesn’t enjoy the UFC, the White House hosting a popular sports event means America is in decline. I don’t care for either, but if I had an Uzi at my head and was forced to pick one, I’d take a UFC cage match over one of President Obama’s hip-hop artists he hosted when he was President. Funny, Brooks didn’t mention JFK’s preference for Robbins and Bernstein. Let’s see: Barack and Michelle feted Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monáe: Common, Queen Latifah, Big Sean, and Chance the Rapper, among others.

You know who would have lovedthe cage match? Teddy Roosevelt. He was the first President I thought of when Trump’s spectacular was announced. Young Teddy was a boxer and a lieftime fan of “manly arts.” His most famous speech is titled “The Man in the Arena,” which I wrote about here.

Progressives don’t much care for Teddy, one of Trump’s favorite Presidents (and mine). They keep waxing poetic about Kennedy, who has a large mausoleum that holds cultural events for the rich glitterati of D. C. memorializing his largely negligible Presidency. Kennedy was also maintaining sexual affairs with the help of the Secret Service as he and Jackie posed as the ideal couple, but he pretended to be admirable well. And he went to Harvard.

Ann Althouse reports that, contrary to how the UFC event was reported as Trump celebrating himself (Flag Day is his birthday) didn’t have any birthday celebration vibe at all:

“The event was called UFC Freedom 250, and, true to that name, it turned out to be about the UFC and the United States of America. Three days before his birthday, Trump had said — quoted at USA Today — “You don’t have to wish me happy birthday because I’m not happy about that birthday that I’m having. That’s a number that I never thought really too much about. It’s not a number I like, but I’m here, nevertheless.” And at that huge event on the White House lawn on the evening of his birthday, last night, I don’t think there was even a passing mention of his birthday.”

Fact Don’t Matter, however. All that matters is to denigrate President Trump for anything and everything. What kind of nation has a news media that devotes itself to projecting hate on its elected leader? Answer: a very, very sick and confused one. Here is the current headline at Salon, the virulently leftist site:

Nice.

Sunday Ethics Horrors Starring Charlie the Raccoon

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Taking their cue from Democrats, who seem hell-bent on proving that American voters are too stupid, inattentive and trivial to be entrusted with a Republic, here is an AI TV campaign attack video in the Alabama Lt. Governor race. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen approved the head-exploding ad against John Wahl, the former Chair of the Alabama Republican Party to gain an advantage in the party’s runoff for the position. Trump endorsed Wahl, who finished in first place in the primary earlier this month but short of the 50% of votes necessary to win outright. Apparently he has a pet raccoon that sleeps on or in his bed with him. Now me, I would automatically vote against any candidate who would insult my intelligence with such an ad.

Meanwhile…

1. And now, the rest of the story.…Last August, EA told the story of Shannon Joslin, a Yosemite park ranger fired for mounting a Pride banner on El Capitan. Poor Shannon! “I’m devastated, said Joslin, “We don’t take our positions in the park service to make money or to have any kind of huge career gains. We take it because we love the places that we work. I have a Ph.D. in bioinformatics, and I could be making a lot more money in Silicon Valley, which is only a few hours away, but I made career choices to position myself in Yosemite National Park, because this is the place that I love the most.’” I asked, “Then why did you use your position to make an unauthorized political statement while marring the natural beauty that tourists expect to see in National Parks?”

Well, Shannon sued the Park Service (the lawyer who came up with the theory should be sanctioned), claiming that his/her First Amendment rights were breached—you know, because any other employee gets to put up political signs in the middle of their workplace without approval or permission, right? No? The dismissal was “vindictive” and “retaliatory” and meant to “communicate disapproval of a particular point of view”? Really? Uh, no. The stupid suit was dismissed last week.

In a side Great Stupid issue of continuing annoyance, the New York Times begins its report announcing that Shannon is non-binery and uses “they and them” pronouns, so it feels required to confuse readers by using plural pronouns to describe a single idiot throughout the story. Typical section: “To me this ruling isn’t a ‘win’ for the federal government,” they added in a text message. “This just slows down the process of allowing justice to be served for the American people and slows down allowing National Park Service employees to be effective stewards of public lands.” And the way to be stewards of public lands is to allow rangers to mar them with Pride flags. Brilliant! “Right now, it is unclear whether Dr. Joslin will ever have their day in court,” “their” lawyer said. Awww. What a shame that would be!

Sorry, back to the pronouns; the sheer stupidity of this whole episode got me off track. The duty of a news source is to make the facts clear to readers, not to accommodate all the political correctness hoops the subject of the story insists everyone jump through. Don’t know whether you’re male or female? Too bad. Pick one. Or be prepared for the singular pronoun “it.”

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Traditionally, the tale of the plug of tobacco has been law students’ favorite anecdote explaining the term “res ipsa loquitur,” or “the thing speaks for itself.” I have reprinted the story or a link many times, but not yet in 2026, so here you are…

“It seems that appellant [Mr. Pillars] consumed one plug of his purchase, which measured up to representations, that it was tobacco unmixed with human flesh, but when appellant tackled the second plug it made him sick, but, not suspecting the tobacco, he tried another chew, and still another, until he bit into some foreign substance, which crumbled like dry bread, and caused him to foam at the mouth, while he was getting “sicker and sicker.” Finally, his teeth struck something hard; he could not bite through it. After an examination he discovered a human toe, with flesh and nail intact. We refrain from detailing the further harrowing and nauseating details. The appellant consulted a physician, who testified that appellant exhibited all of the characteristic symptoms of ptomaine poison. The physician examined the toe and identified it as a human toe in a state of putrefaction, and said, in effect, that his condition was caused by the poison generated by the rotten toe.[emphasis added]…Generally speaking, the rule is that the manufacturer is not liable to the ultimate consumer for damages resulting from the defects and impurities of the manufactured article…[but the Court can] “imagine no reason why, with ordinary care human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it seems to us that somebody has been very careless.” Agreed. The case is Pillars v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. et al., 78 So. 365 (Ms. 1918).

Similarly, 21-year-old woman Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas is dead because the idiot staff at a bungee-jumping event threw her from a bridge but forgot to attach the cord, leading to the poor woman plunging about 130 feet into a ravine. Maria was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident occurred on the “Skeleton Bridge” in Limeira, in the state of São Paulo.

Six people have been taken into custody. Good.

You know, hiring the equivalents of Moe, Larry and Curly to supervise bungee jumping is even more irresponsible than letting the Three Stooges be plumbers, carpenters or surgeons, which were among the set-ups for many of their slapstick film misadventures. Neither their employers nor the negligent homicide perps themselves can fall back on any rationalizations on the list and get away with it. #19. The Perfection Diversion, or “Nobody’s Perfect!” and “Everybody makes mistakes!” or #20. The “Just one mistake!” Fantasy are probably their best shots, but the problem is that literally nobody does this, ever, unless they are menaces to society who need to be locked away for the greater good. Tossing a trusting thrill-seeker off a cliff and neglecting to fasten the cord expected to safe her life is signature significance for a reckless moron. I guess #20A, “Everyone Deserves a Second Chance,” is also worth a try, but I would require such a bungee jumping establishment to prominently display a sign that says:

“Warning! Occasionally our staff neglects to attach the cord, which will result in a jumper having their brains splattered all over the ravine floor.”

I hate blaming victims, but I feel compelled to add that those of us who deliberately engage in activities that have no societal utility whatsoever and that innately involve the risk of death or serious bodily injury are limited in the amount of sympathy they can expect from me when their metaphorical tossing of the dice comes up snake-eyes. There are several posts on EA about the topic, as with people who pay absurd amount of money to climb Mount Everest or who go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Those who feel something as pointless as bungee jumping will enrich their lives and signify a purpose to an otherwise empty existence have their priorities seriously out of order. They don’t deserve to die, but they do deserve to have St. Peter say, when they knock on the Pearly Gate, “You died how? What were you thinking?”

Madison Square Garden/New York Knicks Ethics [ Updated ]

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The New York Knicks finally won an NBA Championship after over half a century, bringing to a happy end one of the longest current fan base frustrations in professional sports, but also a series of ethics messes arising out of Madison Square Garden.

There were some post-victory ethics botches outside of the Garden last night. I don’t understand why winning a sports contest is provocation for a riot. I get the drunken fool effect, but even so: there were no riots in Boston when the Red Sox broke their 86 year-long World Series blight, “The Curse of the Bambino.” Gee, I wonder how many of those Knicks fans will be sent to jail for long periods on the theory that they threatened an “insurrection.” After all, President Trump made it clear that he was rooting for the Knicks. Wait, that’s it! The rioting was Trump’s fault!

Here’s an incomplete list…

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The Kiss-Off

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

One reason I moved from a writing a website that had formal essays on ethics issues to a blog format is that I wanted my commentary to be more visceral and personal, even venturing into my personal relationships when it seemed appropriate, as when a situation I encounter is one that I believe is an enlightening part of the human experience.

I just had one of those. A woman I consider a close friend, one I have known for nearly 40 years, had a major change in her domestic arrangement and moved out to a more distant section of the Greater Washington area. I have always maintained periodic contact with her—lunch, dinner or drinks—but hadn’t seen her for over a year. I sent her an email inviting her to catch up.

I believe I am fair in saying I have played a substantial role in my friend’s life, beginning when I cast her in a major theatrical production I was directing at a time when she was lost, depressed and seeking a new course in her life. She had no experience but I saw talent: from a chorus part with no lines I encouraged her to take greater risks in theater and to expand her experience and abilities. Eventually she became a successful professional actress in regional theater.

Off the stage, she was one of my favorite people: funny, strong, gutsy. I do not believe we ever had a serious argument. When she needed my advice and intervention, I helped her cope with with a health crisis in her family; when she went through her divorce, I was supportive. (She had met her husband in that first show of mine that she auditioned for.)

Given this background, I was stunned when the answer to my friendly email arrived. It stated that her former life seemed far away now, and apparently I had been filed among “many of all the people” who were involved in theater with her in Northern Virginia. “I just don’t want to look back,” she said. “I wish all good things for you, Jack, I really do. And who knows? Perhaps our paths will cross again someday.”

Not if I see you first, bitch.

I must admit, I was hurt by this abrupt end to a long friendship. I have had the pleasure of making a positive difference in many people’s lives; I don’t expect flowers, demonstrations of ostentatious gratitude or testimonial dinners, but I don’t expect metaphorical kicks in the teeth either. The email was patronizing, and I have a low tolerance for that. It was cold, and I didn’t deserve that either. My response could easily have been “Bite me!” but instead I just expressed my amazement and disappointment. “I don’t reach out to people I’ve cared about out of nostalgia or to relive old times,” I wrote, ‘I reach out to people who I believe are special and who I would prefer to have in my life than not. I’m not sure what I did or didn’t do to warrant exile , but OK, I respect your choices and always have.”

To encapsulate the painful episode, someone I thought was a good friend and someone I know I had always been a good friend to summarily announced that she didn’t want to be friends any more. I find that gratuitously cruel, and cruelty is unethical. I have never done that to anyone, and I never would.

Has this ever happened to you? If so, how did you handle it?