This week is always the deadest of the year as far as EA traffic is concerned, and therefore doubly depressing. This year the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, an ongoing trauma, along with my wedding anniversary (41 years!) today, making me unpleasantly conscious of the rapid passage of time and opportunities, and Thanksgiving, which is an annual pageant of loved ones lost forever, was stuffed into four days. Along with all that, there is the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking and the other annoying preparations for judgemental guests—and the duty of getting ethics posts up that few bother to read.

But hey, I’m thankful! I am!

1. That’ll teach him! (Well, possibly not…) An arbitrator ordered actor Kevin Spacey to pay nearly $31 million to MRC, the production company that owned “House of Cards,” afterconcuding that Spacey breached his contract by violating the company’s sexual harassment policy. Spacey’s sexual harassment scandal, which began with a now withdrawn accusation and poor response by the actor, and then quickly mushroomed into multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. MRC severed its relationship with Spacey and the successful political drama he dominated, and cancelled the 2017 season after members of the production people came forward to allege a pattern of sexually predatory conduct.

This is an extreme example of what having dead ethics alarms can do to one’s career and life.

2. Not for the first time, the American Bar Association oversteps its authority and mission. The now thoroughly woke and politically oppressive ABA has proposed that law schools be required to achieve “diverse” and “equitable” environments, as defined by the progressive lawyer’s association, of course. Here’s the newly revised rule (after the last try was justly criticized out of existence):

Standard 206. DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

(a) A law school shall ensure the effective educational use of diversity by providing:

(1) Full access to the study of law and admission to the profession to all persons, particularly members of underrepresented groups related to race and ethnicity;

(2) A faculty and staff that includes members of underrepresented groups, particularly those related to race and ethnicity; and

(3) An inclusive and equitable environment for students, faculty, and staff with respect to race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, and military status.

(b) A law school shall report in the Annual Questionnaire and publish in accordance with Standard 509(b) data that reflects the law school’s performance in satisfying Standard 206(a)(1)-(2).

(c) A law school shall annually assess the extent to which it has created an educational environment that is inclusive and equitable under Standard 206(a)(3). The law school shall provide the results of such annual assessment to the faculty. Upon request of the Council, a law school shall provide the results of such assessment and the concrete actions the school is taking to address any deficiencies in the educational environment as well as the actions taken to maintain an inclusive and equitable educational environment.

3. The Black Lives Matter con continues, perhaps fooling fewer people less of time, but still too many. Somehow I missed that the Trump administration’s Office of Special Counsel issued an advisory on the relationship of Black Lives Matter to the Hatch Act that held it was a non-partisan organization, so government workers could legally promote its mission, fundraising and riots in the workplace. This non-partisan, anti-American, anti-white, anti-police groups with the cleverly misleading name is, according to a recent poll, supported by 85% of Democrats ( just 4% oppose it) and only 3% of Republicans while 87% oppose it. You know: non-partisan! Overall, BLM approval is 47%, inflated by the affection of more than 80% of blacks, 51% of women, and the young, idealistic, and ignorant. You judge a group by what it does, what it stands for, and how its leaders behave. On that basis, the only excuse for “approving” of BLM is swallowing the threadbare, fatuous, “Of course black lives matter!” mantra while ignoring everything else other than a bumper sticker motto.

4. Thanks, that’s all I need to know. In her new memoir, Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide and the ex-Mrs Anthony Wiener, Huma Abedin, writes of the moment when Hillary Clinton recognized that Obama had won the 2008 nomination: “When it was time to concede, she would do it as she always conducted herself: with grace.”

There are many adjectives that I associate with Hillary. Some even are positive. “Grace” is not among them. That sentence is signature significance. Huma’s a liar. Why would anyone want to pay to read what spin, deceptions and propaganda she’s selling?

5. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” Incredibly, the New York Times is still trying to spin Terry McAuliffe’s defeat in Virginia and the legitimate rebellion of parents against Loudoun County’s attempt at a an ideological takeover of the school (and their students’ minds) as the success of a right wing, Fox News fearmongering. “Loudoun County tried to address racism and promote diversity within its schools. Then it found itself on Fox News,” the Times special report begins. That’s deceit. The county wanted to “address racism” by teaching that whites and the United States were intrinsically racist, and promote diversity by allowing diversity of sex organs in the girls’ restroom. Here’s one section:

And evangelical Christians objected to a proposal to give transgender students access to the restrooms of their choice — complaints that were magnified when a male student wearing a skirt was arrested in an assault in a girl’s bathroom….

[Parent] Scott Smith was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after getting into a scuffle [at a school board meeting]. He had been upset because his 15-year-old daughter had been sexually assaulted in a high school restroom by a 14-year-old student, identified by Mr. Smith as a “boy wearing a skirt.”

The incident played into the fears of some parents about the new transgender bathroom policy.

Conservative media outlets zeroed in on the transgender angle; Fox News aired 88 segments in just over three weeks, according to an analysis by Media Matters.

The events turned out to be different than originally cast.

At a juvenile court hearing, it was revealed that the two students had an ongoing sexual relationship and had arranged to meet in the bathroom. The crime, which took place before the transgender policy went into effect, was not a random assault.

But the narrative had been set.

So the times wants to set another one by distorting the facts:

• Note how objections to the transgender bathroom policy is attributed to “evangelicals”—you know, those fanatic Christians who think unmarried sex and homosexuality are sins and that Noah built an ark. In fact, lots of (diverse!)people have objections to the “pick your gender, pick your bathroom” policy. This trick is called “poisoning the well.”
• Smith was also upset because the assault was covered up by the school administrators, as well he should have been. The Times doesn’t think that part of the story is “fit to print,” because the idea is to represent Smith as a hot head—you know, the kind of dangerous parent Merrick Garland has to use the FBI to protect school boards from.
• Fox aired all those segments because the rest of the media was burying the story. Good for Fox News.
• The Times is using Media Matters, a professed left-wing propaganda media “watchdog” that only finds fault with Fox News, as a source. What does this suggest?
• So what if the crime was not a random assault? That’s not relevant to the parents objections to the bathroom rule! A biological male was able to enter a girls’ restroom with his male equipment in full operation by wearing a skirt. A girl was raped as a result. This therefore illustrates the risk of allowing students with such organs to use the girls bathroom because they “identify” as female.

All I ask is that the news media reports the news straight, without distortion, omissions, innuendo, spin or bias. Is that so unreasonable? Yet they just can’t do it.