When we last left the lovable and unpredictable Conways, Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to President Trump, announced that she was exiting her White House post to focus on her family after her 16-year-old daughter, Claudia, claimed she was seeking emancipation from her parents over alleged “trauma and abuse.” At the same time, George Conway, the D.C. lawyer who repeatedly embarrassed his wife by attacking her boss and helping to create the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, quit his role with the group, also to deal with the family crisis.
In this week’s Very Special episode, a topless photo of Claudia was posted on Mom Kellyanne’s Twitter account using Twitter’s recently launched Fleets feature, which deletes posts after a 24-hour period. The Fleet was captured by many Twitter users anyway. Claudia then posted videos on TikTok, her favorite milieu (they are now deleted but also captured by others and reposted) confirming that the nude picture was authentic. Claudia speculated, “I’m assuming my mom took a picture of it to use against me one day and then somebody hacked her or something. I’m literally at a loss for words. If you see it, report it.” In one of the TikTok videos, Claudia Conway said that “nobody would ever have any photo like that, ever. So, Kellyanne, you’re going to fucking jail.”
Yesterday, Claudia announced that she and her mother will be “taking a break from social media” and will work on their relationship adding, “I know that my mom would never, ever post anything to hurt me like that intentionally, and I do believe she was hacked…… Please do not incite hate or violence on my family. Please, no threats, no calls to authorities. I love my mom and she loves me.”
Forgive me if I am skeptical that a daughter who just this month again said her parents abused her authored that voluntarily.
Observations:
1. Donald Trump said during the 2016 campaign that he would be appointing “the best people.” This disaster is more evidence that he could not and did not. His most loyal and visible advisor other than Trump family members was a flaky pollster who made repeated gaffes on TV (including the infamous “alternative facts” line), violated the Hatch Act, and allowed her attention-addict husband to exploit her position to undermine the President and the administration.
2. The children of successful people in politics, as in many other fields, are frequently neglected and become resentful and destructive as a result. Claudia should be a poster model for this phenomenon. She is a child, and thus cannot be blamed too much for her acting out, but Claudia’s parents can be.
3. It is outrageous that an angry teen was allowed to have an impact on a national election. Kellyanne Conway’s main value to the President was in campaigning; her absence after August was critical, and may even have been decisive. So a perpetual teen’s tantrums and acting out episodes was allowed to affect the fate of the nation. Nice going, Conways!
4. Why does a 16-year old have a nude photo of herself on the internet? Claudia’s not too young to be told that she is an irresponsible fool, and to have to live with the consequences. Why is she still using social media after humiliating her parents over the summer? The elder Conways should have dealt with her behavioral problems long ago, and were presumably the reason she had those problems.
5. Social media has the power to turn children into monsters, and if they are public figures as well as children, those monsters will create other monsters. Claudia has more than 1 million TikTok followers. NO 16-year old should have that much influence and power, and a troubled, angry teen like her is like contagion. Again, the adult Conways allowed this to happen, and are accountable.
6. John Duffy, a psychologist who specializes in adolescence and anxiety, says that teens all over the country are talking about the latest “episode” of “The Conways.”“It’s an issue of emotional safety,” he says. “I usually caution kids to have some sense of boundaries, to think about what you want to share about yourself and your family. Because now this whole (Conway) family is kind of wrecked by this — nobody more so than Claudia, no matter what the truth is.”
Gee, ya think, Doc?
________________________
Pointer: valkygrrl
Ethics Alarms 
I sometimes wonder if Claudia has psychological problems that haven’t been addressed. Neglected the children of public figures may be, but most don’t repeatedly fall off the deep end so dramatically as she regularly seems to do.
I’m not sure if you’re victim-blaming a teenager for being in conflict with a Trump loyalist or just stating the obvious that any child that of those two parents could certainly benefit from a bit of therapy.
I’m almost 100% certain that A.M. Golden is not victim blaming with the suggestion that the younger Conway might have an undiagnosed mental illness. A.M. is just throwing out another possibility.
Interesting that you frame it as a teenager in conflict with a Trump loyalist. One would think that Biden being sworn in as President would be enough.
I’m not sure how being concerned that a teenage girl has psychological issues is blaming the victim, but that was not my intent.
One might think you said a teenage girl has psychological issues because you wished to discredit her and defend the partisan figure she’s in conflict with. One might be defensive when an accusation against Kellyanne Conway is followed by an accusation against her accuser.
One might think those things in this world we live in now where the benefit of the doubt is never given and the worst is assumed. I try to assume positive intent in situations where there is no history to cause me to do otherwise.
“I’m not sure if you’re victim-blaming a teenager for being in conflict with a…”
Someone with a better memory might recall your assessment of the victim-blaming (on an infinitely greater stage) of teenager Nick Sandmann.
The most likely scenario (but who knows for sure) at the moment really seems to be that someone got hold of the child’s pictures, and also hacked Mom’s phone. IF that’s what happened, then we really should be talking about this hacker, or group of hackers. Because that would have taken some serious commitment and a lot of effort for what seems to be reasons of pure political hatred. It’s more than a little terrifying, if pulling off a scheme this sinister can even be possible.
My first thought was that Claudia got access to her mother’s phone and posted the photo from it, then concocted the hacker story. The poor girl clearly has some serious mental health issues that are not being addressed, not least of which are obvious deficiencies in impulse control. This feels to me like a cry for attention coupled with something that an immature teenager with no ability to think about future consequences would concoct to embarrass and humiliate her parents. “Hackers” are constantly cited as an explanation for bad online conduct, but how often has there been any actual evidence of a hack in such cases? I can’t think of a single high-profile case off the top of my head.
The Conways are a fucked-up family, so anything is possible, but I’m not sure they’re fucked-up enough for mom to keep nude photos of her teenage daughter as potential blackmail ammunition, so that explanation feels a little sketchy. But one never knows with this trio of broken misfits…
Also, Jack, you mentioned the “adult Conways” a couple times in the post. I know what you mean with that turn of phrase, but there are obviously no adults in that family…
I’m not convinced there are any adults, anywhere.
When people get angry enough adulthood goes out the window. Someone should make a poster similar to the one about “I was so drunk that I…” with real world, likely, lousy consequences.
I was so angry that I…
…smashed the mirror with my fist. (Jim, ER visit, 30 stitches, permanent scars and loss of mobility)
…punched him in the face and broke his jaw. (Joe, arrested, charged with aggravated assault, 3 years in prison)
…finally told the boss exactly what I thought of him. (Mary, fired, still unemployed after a year because of bad references)
…slapped her. (Eric, arrested, charged with domestic violence, a year in jail, wife divorced him and took him to the cleaners financially)
You get the idea.
The fact that it is posted from Mom’s phone lends one to think it isn’t an outside hacker, it is mom or Claudia. There certainly hackers out there trying to steal nudes in any way they can. Many hollywood starlets have found this out when they are not careful of their iCloud security. They just are after fap material to share, and are going to share it in dark web forums. Particularly so with child porn.
Putting it out in the open web is going to get attention. The FBI is going to look into this because she’s 16. No hacker wants the attention.
That’s like the reverse Occam.
Try this on for size.
The most likely scenario is that Kellyanne’s home behavior is the same as her public behavior. It isn’t an act, she’s really morally and ethically bankrupt and therefore would in a pit of pique snap a photo of her daughter and save it for another fit of pique to use against her.
Then she did it and is now trying to escape the consequences.
Don’t like that one? How about this?
The above but she kept the photo in her iCould and didn’t use it but a hacker got in and did.
Don’t like that one either? How about this?
Claudia is the morally and ethically bankrupt one and managed to access her mother’s phone, snapped a photo, and used it to frame her mother.
Come on, you must like that one. It takes the blame off an awful person on Team Trump.
A politically motivated double hack to harm both Kellyanne and Claudia is one of the less likely scenarios. Why would someone with partisan motivations go after BOTH of them when they’re on opposite sides?
Option 1:Why post it to her own Twitter, but set it to disappear?
Option 2: Why post it to Twitter at all? There are plenty of ways to distribute the results of a hack that are more premanent, it’s not like the entire internet wouldn’t know in a day anyway. (Consider the Jennifer Lawerence hack.) And that’s the only thing the hacker felt like revealing? They only wanted to flash a topless picture and cause trouble within the family?
Option 3: I don’t think a troubled teenager would have to be morally and ethically bankrupt for that. It’s in line with what I’ve known of many troubled teens with obviously bad relationships with their family, most of them upper middle class I personally know perfectly ethical adults who, as teenagers, forged checks for thousands of dollars, sent around naked pictures of themselves and left them for their parents to find, called the police on their non-abusive parents, attempted suicide, ran away with adult men, etc. And they didn’t have access to a national stage.
Teenagers make very poor decisions, especially when they have issues, and especially when they decide a parent is The Enemy. Hopefully they get help and grow up into responsible adults.
My money is on 3.
Because a lot of people with partisan motivations are vicious, horrible, sociopaths? I don’t think that option is unlikely at all. Or are you deliberately ignoring the assholes who harassed various public servants at restaurants and elsewhere? Or the one respectable legal ethicists who filed bogus ethics charges against Conway withe the DC Bar?
I agree, however, that the most likely scenario is that both elder Conways are awful people and they raised a daughter who is well on the way to being awful aw well.
Partisanship trumps all these days. To those who truly hate Trump and all associated with him (and a lot do) going after Republicans who are out for a meal is just striking a blow for social justice and filing bs ethics charges is just one more way to get someone out of the picture who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Says the man who’s called for death squads.
Says the woman who called for murdering governors. Bring ’em back, dead or alive!
Says the bald-faced liar who accuses me of calling for something that I said would be bad. Why don’t you run off and finish lovingly suckling your bag of dicks?
Jack, I want a call on this.
Oh, kiss my ass, you and your talk of revolts and how governors would be dragged from their statehouses. Yes, let’s have a call on this.
Save your ass-kissing fantasies for the Celtic singers you send creepy thirsty tweets to. I ain’t interested.
Jack, we need a call.
Ahahaha, I don’t think I’ve sent a tweet to any celeb or entertainer in four years. Actually strike that, I did tell former governor and sometime Irish musician Martin O’Malley what an asshole he was after his verbal assault on Ken Cuccinelli, who couldn’t do anything then and there as a public official, but maybe now can ask him to meet him in an alley. Jack, can we get some discipline in here before things get any uglier?
vaklkygrrl,
I don’t give a damn what led to this doxing but it’s my opinion that this intentional doxing should get you permanently banned.
Stalker much?
And in 2011 lefties stormed the Wisconsin Capitol and took over, while legislators fled to nearby Illinois to avoid a vote on a right to work law. It “fucking happened” from your side long ago. This is before we even talk about last summer and the mindless destruction by BLM or Portland. Yes, I’ll take that call now.
Liar much?
I’m tempted to say no Jack, regrettably this can’t stop. When someone goes beyond fighting here and starts stalking me off site, it’s beyond disputes and into the realm of a personal problem. I defer to you, but I think a line was crossed here.
Several lines, in fact. The point is that this forum isn’t the place to deal with them. Weehauken maybe?
Weehawken, but close enough.
Weehauken is a private EA reserve in Weehawken where duels between commenters are permitted. TGT and Stephen Pilling met there, and never were heard from again…
Matter of fact, I’ll save you the trouble. On November 18, 2016 you said:
” We’re not living in an age of states raising militias to go fight. We live in an age of high performance aircraft, infantry in the field is meat for the grinder. In this day and age if there’s a rebellion it’ll come in the for of an angry mob throwing bombs, losing thousands to militarized police and still coming. Storming state houses. It’ll be with impromptu people’s courts and governor’s being hanged. It’ll be the president hiding in an undisclosed location while the White House is burned. A bacchanalia of violence with people on each side going hunting the other.
And that word, other will be an important one because hunters on either side won’t consider their prey human.
Basically the worst thing that can happen short of someone pressing a button and burning us all with the nuclear fire”
And after that I said:
“We’re living in a world where one high-performance drone can reduce your head to a wet pink cloud, and probably will if you keep spewing this Timothy McVeigh-esque craziness. If infantry in the field is in fact meat for the grinder, as Saddam’s army found out very quickly when they were caught out by the USAF, USN, and USMC pilots, what makes you think a bunch of angry but afraid of guns lefties trying to play Bolshevik will do any better? Do you really think this movement could take on thousands of local and state police with military grade equipment and helicopters, thousands more federal agents with even better gear, and finally the regular military, with if-you-hear-them-you’re-already-dead jets, armored vehicles they’ve learned a thing or three about making impervious to attack, and thousands of expert riflemen guaranteed of shooting your head off up to 1000 feet away?
No mob ever got near any statehouse even in the 1960s, and it isn’t happening now. Just for the record only four governors have ever been killed in the entire history of this country, one a territorial governor killed by Indians, another shot dead after a disputed election in 1900 (when security was minimal), another killed by a bomb in 1905 because he dared break a lawless mining strike, and of course Huey Long, shot dead by a political enemy who was promptly riddled with bullets by his bodyguards. I’m sure you recall the last time anyone touched the White House was 1814, over 200 years ago, when the British tried to destroy Washington in retaliation for the burning of York and Port Dover. No pathetic people’s movement is getting anywhere near it, leave alone sending the President into hiding.
You accuse me of being creepy for talking about roughing people up face to face who’ve offended me, and I must admit, it IS creepy to talk about beating someone up because you are angry. However, this apocalyptic fantasy, redolent of the French Revolution and the Portuguese Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution is a hell of a lot creepier. ”
Talking about statehouses being stormed and governors being hanged isn’t a call for violent revolution and the murder of elected leaders? You go to Hell, and take your apocalyptic fantasies with you.
And not only did I call it the worst thing that can happen, it fucking happened.
Trumpists stormed the Michigan Statehouse because they didn’t want to stay home and wear masks, they wanted to abduct and rape the governor, and then 3 weeks ago Trumpists Stormed and sacked the capital and we have some of them do with flex cuffs, we have some of them on video changing hang Mike Pence. They plowed through the cops and just kept coming. Congressional leaders had to be taken away and hidden.
And guess what? I still think it’s bad.
Jack, I’ll have that call now.
You and I? Steve and I? You, Steve and I? Everybody? Please specify.
Although “lovingly” sucking IS specific…
You’re the ump.
Call the balls and strikes.
Who’s right and who’s a lying Steve who lies?
Unlike Colin, I believe I have to know the facts first, and this exchange is wildly off topic, you must admit. When I can, I will. I’me very busy with actual paying work this morning….
So “call” means “balls and strikes.” Got it. I actually thought you meant a phone call.
It’s early.
Well, Jack, I think she wants me called a liar for saying she called for the death of governors in her November 18, 2016 post. Apparently she’s also been stalking my twitter account, which I’ve now protected so that can’t happen again, and using that as a back door to personal attacks, You make whatever ruling you think is appropriate. Apparently Valky’s gone into one of her occasional vicious rages, but I’m not going to get vicious back. However, I’d say she’s crossed the line into being dangerous here.
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. She used something I posted in a public forum that I denied doing to discredit me while I blatantly misrepresent things she said in a public forum. She’s supposed to sit and take my attacks and nothing I do or say is ever fair game. She’s the bad one!
Cry harder.
Blatantly misrepresent my ass. The record speaks for itself. I’ve never brought in stuff from outside here, nor stalked other posters on whatever social media they’ve used. Because once or twice I’ve slipped while posting due to automatic filling and used my real name, she’s stalked me on social media to attack me. That doesn’t strike you as creepy? Pray I don’t find out your real name, or you’ll be the one crying.
Oh, look a threat.
Oh look, stalking and taunting. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Can we stop this, please? The site is not a playpen for personal spats, no matter how they started and no matter who is aggrieved.
Oh no, someone’s been at me for days and now has his fee-fees hurt. Now he’s making threats. Next, he’ll compare me to 18’th century philosopher Immanuel Kant again.
If you didn’t act both dumb and vicious, citing that stupid Belknap impeachment, which Jack also shot you down on pretty decisively, better than I did, then I wouldn’t be after you. Look here, valky, sometimes you have some interesting things to offer, and it’s got to be tough being pretty much the only lefty here after the self-exile of most of the lefties and the Chris’ behavior that got him booted, but every so often you go so far off the rails that it stops being about ethics and it becomes all about you being right and being angry about it. This forum isn’t for that, and it’s not about vilifying one another.
I’m not ignoring the assholes. There are a lot of assholes in the world.
What do you think is more likely?
1: Kellyanne Conway’s public face is her real one. Ms. Alterntivie facts is exactly the sort of person she presents herself to be.
2: A partisan asshole managed to
a: Hack Claudia Conway’s cloud storage. Probably not easy.
b: Found a topless photo there. I’ll give that even odds as this seems popular with teens but they should know how to hide it.
c: Hack Kellyanne Conway’s Twitter. Probably not easy, we haven’t heard of it happening before.
d: Kellyanne didn’t have 2-factor authorization on her high profile target of a Twitter account.
e: Instead of leaking any potentially politically damaging DMs in Kellyanne’s Twitter instead chose to post the photo even though Claudia Conway is a potential ally.
f: Not be afraid of having all the records of their log-in to Kellyanne’s account handed over to the FBI who take a dim view of child porn.
1: Relies on facts already in evidence.
2: High complexity, epic difficulty, non-zero chance of prison.
Yeah, sorry valkygrrl, but you’re too excited about this.
Mothers generally don’t want their daughters to have topless photos. Not even mothers who worked for a politician whom you have an unhealthy obsession with.
Someone above already suggested that Claudia herself might have planted and posted the photo, which I hadn’t thought of. That’s pretty crazy, but still more likely than the narrative that the crazies are so readily running with (which is possible, sure, but the least likely.)
Seriously, I don’t think there are enough regular commenters on this blog to risk losing any.* For different reasons, both Steve-O and Valky G are
immensely knowledgeable (in various areas), rational and excitingly intelligent writers. On alternate sunny days, I can suck in or suck up the information offered by either. It’s not like I haven’t gone off-rail here myself (in case anyone cares to point that out) but this cat-fight hurts all of us. Okay, just me.
* (“any” is not necessarily referring to the participants)
Me too.
That may well be. However, the line needs to be drawn somewhere. Keeping this to a behavioral issue, I know I’ve been pretty vicious at times when it wasn’t warranted. I don’t include the time I dinged Chris, because that was not designed to be cruel, but instead to give him a deserved taste of the medicine he was perfectly ok with seeing meted out to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who should have gotten her coat and left the function at which she was being abused. One thing I have never done, however, is bring real life into this forum. Apart from yourself, who I think I will finally tune in to see later this month, I barely know the first thing about anyone on this forum. We almost met a few years ago, but circumstances prevented that from happening. Actually, let me amend that, I did look at Jeff Field’s facebook page once you mentioned him by name. I was unimpressed. I also have followed Steve Witherspoon’s blog because he put the link here.
What I haven’t done, and I don’t think should be encouraged, is to pursue the identity of others who choose (but for mistake) to remain anonymous and then bring whatever they post somewhere else here, especially not as part of a fight that’s not really about an issue of substance here, but has become about personal dislike and throwing mud. Like I said, I’ve now protected my online presence so no one can see it except those I allow to. I find it disturbing that a participant here who clearly hates me, who knows my name by happenstance, since I don’t choose to use my real name here, but it’s once or twice appeared due to autofill, too quick of a click, and then inability to amend a post once it’s up, would stalk my online presence, looking to dig up dirt on me. I find it doubly disturbing that the participant would then bring that here in a purely personal attack as part of a series of personal attacks that she started in this thread in the first place. The point of this forum isn’t supposed to be tweets that have nothing to do with the subject being discussed, or playing “gotcha” with your off-site presence, or bringing that extraneous stuff here. Doxing is something that can have real-world consequences. In this case it’s basically bullshit, but, the fact that another participant is willing to do that should really tell you all you need to know.
Both of us asked for a ruling. I would ask that you issue one. I do not intend to let this issue “blow over,” nor to see the page just get turned on it.
My call is and was that this is res ipsa loquitur. So many lines were crossed on all sides that both lost any ethical high ground. I don’t understand why two intelligence people can’t disagree violently without resorting to violent and hateful rhetoric, and I shouldn’t have to make a call regarding that. Mistakes shouldn’t be characterized as lies, and regular posters here are presumed to be commenting in good faith—if I decided otherwise, they would lose the privilege.
Incidentally, I read the first personal attack as being on ME, but in a mocking tone that I am used to from the commenter in question, and at which I do not take offense. As you know, I make allowances for personal style.
I regard using a commenter’s comments elsewhere on the web without permission as well as checking social media posts as creepy, but there was no prohibition about it, and nobody’s ever done that before (except, again, to me). Doxxing is per se unethical, but is that what happened here? Doxxing is “to search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the internet, typically with malicious intent.”
My final call would be that apologies are appropriate, to be exchanged and accepted. I will not require any, but it should not be necessary to say that debates that turn that ugly do not enhance my work here.
You mean disagree sharply?
Indeed, and you have long since crossed any rational line.
And you’ve suffered no consequences, issued no apologies to the people you’ve hurt. Repeated your childish behavior time and again. You start fights then whine and cry about it when someone snipes back. You’re not a victim, you’re an instigator and an abuser. Cut it the fuck out.
Permanently.
But I do. You treated Chris abominably, you did it not because of Sarah Sanders, you did it because he holds opinions you dislike and dared slap-back when you go off on your masturbatory fantasies about murdering people like him, people like me, people who hold differing views.
How would anyone know that? Why would anyone believe that? YOu have a history of being truth-deprived when dealing with people you’ve taken a dislike to. You’ve made threats. Before your above promise to make me cry you threatened to break my arm. This was years ago and I’ve been worried about it since. Now there’s a second threat.
Now I get to wonder even more if one day I’m going to get hit from behind, beaten–and since you’re a 50-year-old woman-hating incel–maybe raped.
Good times. No, not really. It’s scary.
It’s scary because you love to talk about hurting people, you love the idea of threats, you apparently idolize Tony Soprano, a fictional sociopath who can’t understand the feelings of people around him insists on total control and uses violence as a default.
I’m a person and because I hold differing options you’ve made yourself a threat to me, not online, everywhere.
That’s the choice you made, to treat Ethicsalarms like 4chan where nothing you say has any meaning.
It does.
And I’ve saved screengrabs. You are a threat to me. I need that information in case you try to kill or injure me. It’s self-defense.
As to your name. You used it. When I used the diminutive ‘Olive’–which you really should have taken as a brush-back pitch–You even told me to use your full name. You don’t like it? You feel disturbed? Don’t threaten people.
Other people are real. This isn’t a game, maybe you’re finally starting to figure that out.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2021/01/26/ethics-dunces-the-55-u-s-senators-who-voted-that-it-is-constitutional-for-the-senate-to-impeach-a-private-citizen/#comment-739484
You started this, you like starting things. You think it’s fun to toss out these little attacks in an attempt to smear me and then claim to be the wronged party. It is dishonest and dishonorable. I will not be blamed for your complete lack of self-control. You are the architect of your own misfortune here. If you don’t like it then back the fuck off.
And if you’re disturbed by purely personal attacks then perhaps we should consider Chris. You attacked his wife. She never participated here. She never did a thing to you. She is not a public figure. She loves someone you dislike and that was enough for you.
Poorly-spelled comparisons to Immanuel Kant are also considered personal attacks, just FYI.
No apology was ever issued. It’s still owed and Chris should be here to receive it.
When I mentioned your tweets you could have taken that as the second brush-back pitch. You could have backed down. You could have even said leave tweets out of this. I might have done so. Instead, you doubled down and lied about the contents of your Twitter feed opening yourself up to having your tweets used to impeach you.
You lied about creepy thirsty tweets. I offered proof. Again you are the architect of your own misfortune.
I could have left Ethicsalarms, I’ve considered it, I’ve made the offer to Jack. We decided that I shouldn’t. That means this doesn’t get to be your safe space where people you’ve decided to hate aren’t allowed and opinions you despise about the posts, the comments, society, government, religion, or anything else are not verboten.
You don’t get to drive people off. If you can’t stand me–or anyone else–door’s to your left. If you manage to somehow stop giving me a reason to be looking over my shoulder I’ll even wish you well.
Otherwise, grow the fuck up and stop sniping at me. While you’re at it cut out the murder fantasies and find a better role model Tony Soprano is a monster. Try the Emperor Edrehasivar the Seventh, he’s a near-absolute ruler and still manages to be nice to everyone.
But I guess that isn’t going to happen so all of this *gestures wildly* will keep happening.
On your own head be it.
Welp, I guess that squelches any hope of either of us following Jack’s suggestion.