Year: 2013

U.S. Journalism’s Integrity Meltdown, An American Tragedy, Starring CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

It has come to this.*

Poor Ashleigh and Brianna are just SO confused about it all!

Poor Ashleigh and Brianna are just SO confused about it all!

What should have been, indeed what was obligated to be a professional, objective and clarifying report on the President’s revealed Obamacare lie of three year’s duration became an ugly exhibition of news media government collaboration and shameless incompetence, perhaps the most unprofessional I have ever seen.

From the transcript of  CNN Newsroom on November 5 at 9:33 a.m. EDT: Brianna Keilar, CNN White House correspondent, is reporting on the controversy over the reality that what President Obama assured Americans would be the case regarding their health care plans was not how his health care law actually worked.

KEILAR : Good morning. Basically in the face that that promise could not be kept ultimately [ COMMENT:  Ethics Breaches #1 and #2. This is  horrible, biased, misleading journalism. Obama didn’t make a promise, he made a guarantee: he said what would happen, based om what the law he period. A broken promise implies a present intent to keep a promise that is later broken. That is not what the President’s statements about the ACA were. They were authoritative assertions, intended to be taken as truth.  “Could not be kept” suggests that the failure of the ACA to meet the conditions the President attached to it was beyond his control. This is a lie, or incompetent reporting. It certainly could be kept: the Democratic Senate defeated proposed measures that would have ensured that it was kept. The law’s effect of forcing insurance companies to cancel insurance plans that the policy holders liked was intentional, and well within the President’s control. CNN is a news organization, and is not supposed to be dealing in spin and euphemisms. Yet that is what Keilar privided here.] , and that it just wasn’t as simple from that, we’ve heard from President Obama last night at an OFA event – that’s his former campaign apparatus which is now a non-profit advocacy group which is working on ObamaCare and promoting it – President Obama spoke at an OFA event and here was the change that he made: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month AND The Jumbo: President Barack Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

“Now, if you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”

—–President Barack Obama this week, telling supporters of Organizing for Action what he should have said for three and a half years,  but representing the statement as if he had been saying it all along. A video is here.

Jumbo film“Elephant? What elephant?”

There’s not much more to write about this, except to debate whether we should weep, laugh, or take to the streets with torches and pitchforks. The President’s solution to the discovery that his repeated assurances that nobody would lose their doctor or their health plan under the Affordable Care Act were an intentional deception of the American public was not, as his various lackeys and underlings and media lapdogs have claimed in various devious ways, to deny that his statement was a lie (for it obviously was). Neither was it to justify lying, as others among his shameless enablers have done. He didn’t try to minimize the lie and say it was trivial, since only a relative few million Americans will be affected, like the New York Times did, to its eternal shame. No, President Obama is above such demeaning obfuscations and alibis. He simply re-wrote history, and claimed that he said (well, “we” said) words that he never said at all. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Virginia Democratic Lieutenant Governor Candidate Ralph Northam

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Democratic Party candidate Ralph Northam cannot possibly lose the Virginia Lieutenant Governor race today; in fact, he should win by a landslide. His Republican opponent, African-American minister E. W. Jackson, is so conservative he makes his running mate, gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, look like Saul Alinsky, and I’m only exaggerating a little bit. From the pulpit, he has made statements that sound like they were ghosted by Pat Robertson in one of his crazy moods, like when he seemed to be suggesting that children with birth defects were being punished for their parents sins. Jackson doesn’t believe in evolution, thinks that government programs have done more harm to blacks than slavery, and could fairly be described as homophobic.

Still, he is a citizen, a candidate and a human being, so when he offered his hand to his soon-to-be victorious opponent Northam following a TV debate, there was only one decent, civil, ethical, statesmanlike response for Northam: take it, and shake it. That is traditional, civilized, and polite, and for Northam to do what he chose to do instead—ignore Jackson and his hand and snub the Republican, refusing even to look him in the eye—on live TV, no less!— shows him to be an arrogant, unmannered, uncivil jerk of the breed that has brought American politics, government and discourse to a new low. Continue reading →

Workplace Ethics: 62 Things That Are Legal, But 22 Of Them Are Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
"Oh, sure, he's hell to work for, but he never breaks any laws, so you'll be fine."

“Oh, sure, he’s hell to work for, but he never breaks any laws, so you’ll be fine.”

I have been remiss in not adding the terrific blog Evil HR Lady to the Ethics Alarms links, and will finally do so as soon as I post this entry. No profession deal s with ethical nuances and dilemmas more frequently than human resources professionals, and they can be very difficult, even gut-wrenching. In a recent post, EHRL searched through the archives of questions she has answered over the past years, and compiled an eye-opening list, especially for non-lawyers, of the conduct employers could engage in legally, which is to say, get away with and not be successfully sued, to employees, together with some questionable kinds of conduct that are legal for employees to do to each other.

She listed 62 of them, many of which are reasonable ( it’s okay to fire an employee for “being a jerk”) and some are obvious, or should be;  it is legal to quote the Bible in the office, for example. What is legal is not always good, fair, or right, however, and I perused the list with an eye out for legal workplace conduct that was legal but still unethical. About a third of the types of conduct on the Evil HR Lady’s list made mine. What follows is the sub-list of the 62 things it is legal to do at work, the 22 things it may be legal to do at work, but which are still unethical. The reasons for my unethical verdict follow Evil HR Lady’s items.

Here’s the list of the unethical 22 workplace practices: Continue reading →

I Regret Being Obligated To Say It, But I Told You So…

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments
You might want to get to know these guys, Mr. President: you are probably going to spend a lot of time with them in the history books.

You might want to get to know these guys, Mr. President: you are probably going to spend a lot of time with them in the history books.

(I have wrestled to the floor past urges to write a post like this, but this time, I think I have to.)

In May, I concluded a post about the “scandal trifecta” with this:

“Four years of hyperpartisan, arrogant, irresponsible, rudder-less and badly managed government have had the predictable result, and I will be stunned if we have yet seen the worst of it.”

I was not stunned, unfortunately. And we may see worse yet. We probably will.

May 2013 was far from the first time I noted the apparent vacuum of leadership in the Oval Office. Two years earlier, when the Administration was breaching security to take credit for Bin Laden’s death, I wrote, “To hell with “Hope and Change”…I’ll settle for responsibility and competence.” Of course, we have gotten neither, nor did I expect a different result even then. I didn’t expect a different result in January of 2009, to be frank. Oh, I hoped, as I think almost everyone but Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell did, that Obama would prove adept at the job he had the audacity to seek.  Some Presidents with leadership credentials almost as thin as Obama’s have turned themselves into competent executives, though I suspect that those successes had the self-awareness and humility to know that they had some learning to do, as Obama does not. They also did not have a chorus of sycophants in the media and the public telling them how magical they were. It was quickly obvious, however, that President Obama’s concept of leadership was (and is) to give speeches, raise campaign funds, appoint loyalists, and sit back while they do the best job they can until they royally screw up, then express surprise and disappointment and let the same people have another crack at it.

And lie, of course. Can’t forget that. Continue reading →

“Walking Dead” Ethics: Hypocrisy, Substance Abuse And Survival

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments
"The Walking Dead"...as always, providing abundant ethical dilemmas to chew on...

“The Walking Dead”…as always, providing abundant ethical dilemmas to chew on…

If you can stand the periodic spectacle of shambling, rotting flesh and heads being lopped off or split down the middle, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” still provides the most daring and interesting ethics storylines available on television.

The latest episode, titled “Indifference,” raised two gutsy issues that are unpopular in today’s culture to the point of taboo. It was revealed that Carol, previously the simpering and tragic mother of the now dead, zombified and executed little girl Sophia, has morphed into a stone-cold pragmatic survivalist who advocates killing on instinct when the threat is sufficiently severe. In addition to teaching methods of mayhem to the children entrusted to her instruction in the grim, abandoned penitentiary where our heroes have fortified themselves against the roaming zombie hoards, Carol summarily executed two members of the community who were fatally ill with a pernicious virus on the grounds that they threatened the safety of the rest. For this, Rick, the sheriff-turned farmer alleged leader of the non-zombies, orders her out of the prison.

Strange. In a world without doctors, medicine and hospitals, where the objective is simply to survive long enough for some remote miracle to rescue humanity, a runaway virus is as much of a threat as a maniac with a hatchet. Rick and the rest have long ago accepted the necessity of killing members of their group who are bitten by zombies, since they are certain to “turn”after death and start indiscriminately eating people. True, the preferred method is to withhold execution until the second after the living become undead after becoming unliving, but this is a distinction without a difference. Carol is quite right that a breathing, doomed, virus-carrier is as much of a threat to the group—perhaps more—as a newly-minted brain-muncher. Why is her strong action in defense of the group, a defensible utilitarian act, reason for exile? Continue reading →

More Integrity Test Results: The Bad, The Cynical, The Desperate, The Ugly And The Mind-Blowingly Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

denial1The last couple of days have added more embarrassing examples of desperate supporters of the Democrats, President Obama and/or the Affordable Care Act thoroughly disgracing themselves by adopting rationalizations, distortions, denial, tortured reasoning and worse to avoid holding President Obama accountable for intentionally misleading the American people for more than three years regarding whether they could keep their healths plan if they liked them, “period.”

Two aspects of this disgusting spectacle are remarkable. One is that there is such a wide and creative variation among the integrity-defying tactics taken by this distinguished assortment of pols, elected officials, hacks, flacks, pundits and journalists. The other is that after this is all over, nearly half the American public will still loyally insist on trusting the promises and pronouncements of this very same group, though they proved themselves, in this episode, untrustworthy beyond a reasonable doubt. The first of these developments is surprising. The second extinguishes all hope.

Now the latest additions to the list of shame:

  •  David Axelrod, Obama political advisor. Today on “Meet the Press, ” Axelrod chose as his truthbuster the rationalization that since the President wasn’t lying to all of the Americans he was addressing, he wasn’t lying at all. Continue reading →

Hallmark’s Christmas Carol Ethics Misadventure

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

holiday-sweater-keepsake-ornamentTo consider this ridiculous controversy, let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start):

Here are the lyrics of the 19th Century Christmas carol “Deck the Halls,” one of the best known and most sung of the traditional carols these days because it doesn’t mention God, angels, Jesus or anything overtly religious:

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Don we now our gay apparel,
Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Troll the ancient Yule tide carol,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

(There are four more verses, but these are the ones most of us know.)

You would think that nobody could get in trouble using this particular holiday song, but Kansas City-based Hallmark was equal to the challenge. It decided to change the words for one of its new holiday ornaments, designed by “Keepsake Artist,” Matt Johnson. He  designed an ornament shaped like a typically gaudy Christmas sweater  sporting the altered lyric “Don we now our Fun apparel.” The word “gay” was removed.

Hallmark, much to its surprise, was flooded with complaints, and not just on the basis of one perceived offense, but several, and contradictory ones at that:

1. How dare they mess with the lyrics of a traditional and well-loved carol?

2. This was an anti-gay decision, literally and figuratively.

3. This was political correctness, to avoid criticism from gays.

Confronted with unseasonal hate mail and threats of a boycott, Hallmark did what many corporations do in such crises. It lied. Here was its initial statement, before Hallmark surrendered and apologized with one of those ‘we didn’t mean to offend anyone’ things : Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Print the Legend Ethics: The War of the Worlds Panic”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

war_worlds

Bravo and thanks to penn for a thoughtful and thought-provoking personal reminiscence that supports my recent post about the claim that the famous panic over Orson Welles’ famous 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio drama never happened. Here is his fascinating Comment of the Day on Print the Legend Ethics: The “War of the Worlds” Panic:

This story came up every Hallowe’en in my family as I was growing up. We had family living in Toms River and in Lakewood, NJ (about 35 miles from Grover’s Mill) at the time Orson did his thing. The different reactions to the broadcast by the people living in the two places resulted in a minor family schism which continues to this day in the attitudes of their descendants.

It was a city mouse/country mouse situation. The Lakewood adults were elementary school teachers — the sophisticates. They listened to that program as a matter of course and as they later reported, they declared this one silly from the very beginning. But then, all science fiction was silly to them (really! space ships and aleeums? pshaw!) — my father (it was his side of the family) always contended they had no imagination. My mother recalled, however, many years later (and after taking several psychology courses at the New School), that commercials or not, she was convinced they had been very disturbed, if not downright scared. Scared enough to sit through the whole “silly” program in the first place, and for the rest of their lives to focus an uncharacteristic rage on the writers … for using the name of a real location in the program. [I think this naming of Grover’s Mill may account for some of the anxiety, if not the panic — people were sooo trusting of the media in those days .. . .] Continue reading →

Can A Prostitute Be Raped?

/ Jack Marshall / 79 Comments
On Nov. 5, we'll find out if W.C. Fields' low opinion of Philadelphia was justified...

On Nov. 5, we’ll find out if W.C. Fields’ low opinion of Philadelphia was justified…

An unethical and incompetent judge in Philadelphia doesn’t think so, thus making a powerful argument against electing judges, being a prostitute, and living in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Municipal Court judge Teresa Carr Deni ruled that the 2007 rape of a prostitute at gunpoint was merely “theft of services.”The  woman had agreed to meet a man have sex with him for the bargain fee of $150. He asked her if his friend could join in the fun for an additional $100, and she agreed. When these two sterling citizens arrived for the appointment, however, they held her at gunpoint and forced her to have sex with them free of charge.

If this isn’t rape when a prostitute is involved—forced, unconsented intercourse, through the threat of deadly force—then any prostitute can be raped at will, with the worst charge being “theft.” Selling sex doesn’t convert sexual battery into nothing, a non-crime, once consent for that sale is withdrawn. If you know someone is preparing to sell blood to a blood bank, and you attack him, subdue him, and drain his blood to sell yourself, is this merely theft, or a crime of violence? If he was going to be an organ donor, and you rip out his kidney, is that just theft? There is no route through law or reason that allows us to ignore the fact that a woman was forced to have sex with two men without her consent. Judge Deni clearly has a monstrous bias against prostitutes, and thus believes that they shouldn’t receive equal protection under the law. When criticized, her rationalization was that prosecuting the men for rape “minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.” Continue reading →