Month: October 2022

Presenting The Head-Exploding Left-Pandering Virtue-Signaling Of The Year!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There really needs to be some kind of societal consequences when virtue-signaling gets this sickening.

I suppose Major League Baseball still will win the prize for the most unethical and irresponsible virtue-signaling of the decade with its craven and ignorant abandonment of the 2021 All-Star Game in Atlanta because Stacey Abrams told them to (and later criticized MLB for doing exactly what she had advised). In that case, businesses were hurt, the city lost money and commerce, and there were real and substantial detrimental effects on innocent, normal citizens, and all because a bunch of millionaires want to protest a new voting law that they hadn’t bothered to read. OK, now I’m mad about that fiasco all over again, so no, The Oregonian’s vomit-inducing mea culpa to the world is an unethical virtue-signaling as that of Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and his minions.

Nevertheless, the paper’s announcement from its Weally Woke editor Theresa Bottomly today is disgusting in a far more visceral way.

In a a special editorial called ‘I unreservedly apologize,’ Bottomly grovels an endless apology on behalf of her paper for…well, everything bad it hasn’t furiously opposed since its founding in 1861, and everything good it hasn’t promoted. Never mind that neither she (I assume, but she could be 150 years old I guess) nor anyone else connected with the paper were in a position to do any of the vast majority of what she’s apologizing for, she wants everyone to know that by not anticipating the natural and unavoidable evolution of cultural and societal values in the United States—an example of necromancy that would have exceeded the abilities of the Amazing Kreskin—the Portland paper was exactly as the Crazy Lady in “The Birds” pronounced Tippi Hedren in “The Birds”.”…

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The U.N. Is Stunned To Find That Nations Are Not Living Up To Their Climate Change Policy Pledges

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I don’t want to belabor this too much, as Ethics Alarms has been making the same point for more than a decade, but I like posting that “Casablanca” clip, and I must ask: How long will it take the majority of people to realize what a pie-in-the-sky con job and “It isn’t what it is” exercise in magical thinking the climate change emergency is?

Here’s the New York Times: Continue reading →

Here’s A Revolutionary Ethical Concept: Admit To The Public When You’ve Screwed Up Instead Of Treating Them Like Idiots And Defaulting To Obvious Lies

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

After last night’s disastrous debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race that may determine which party controls the U.S. Senate, John Fetterman’s campaign said that he “dominated.” Yes, it really said that.

Perhaps it was covering its own incompetence: he should not have been allowed to debate at all. Ducking the debate would have done less damage to Fetterman’s prospects than the painful display last night. Horrified audiences were subjected to Fetterman responses like…

  • “We all have to make sure that everyone that works is able to. That’s—that’s the most American bargain, that if you work full time, you should be able to live in dignity as well true.”
  • “And I believe they haven’t have any businusses being being. You can’t have businesses being subsidized by not paying… individuals that just simply can’t have avave [?] to pay their own way.”
  • Then there was the endless dead air when Fetterman was asked about his flip-flop on fracking. Finally he said, “I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t — I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.”

Despite claiming that their candidate triumphed while his campaign was falling apart in chunks on TV, Fetterman’s spokespeople blamed malfunctions in the special closed captioning system he required. The technicians responsible responded that the system worked perfectly. Continue reading →

Autumn Afternoon Ethics Leaves, 10/25/2022: Hope, Harvard, Fakes, And Weenies.

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

So far, at least, Biden’s spectacularly incompetent and unethical Cabinet hasn’t seen anyone indicted, though there are good arguments that at least two of them should be impeached. This date in history, October 25, marks the day in 1929 when Albert B. Fall, Secretary of the Interior in President Warren G. Harding’s cabinet, was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office. Fall was the first Presidential cabinet member to be so humiliated. There would be others.

Fall accepted a $100,000 interest-free “loan” from Edward Doheny of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company in exchange for Interior granting him a valuable oil lease in the Elk Hills naval oil reserve, which together with the Teapot Dome naval oil reserve in Wyoming, had been transferred to the Department of the Interior as part of Fall’s scheme to profit by receiving bribes. The Senate Public Lands Committee launched an investigation that revealed not only the $100,000 bribe that Fall received from Doheny, but also a $300,000 bribe that Harry Sinclair, president of Mammoth Oil, had given to Fall for use of the Teapot Dome reserve in Wyoming.

Yet Fall was only sentenced to a year in prison. It’s comforting to know that laws were only for the “little people” 100 years ago too, don’t you think?

A Cabinet member who betrays the public trust like that belongs in prison for decades, if not life.

1. There is hope! At least one committed progressive activist of note has the integrity to be revolted at what her party of choice is doing. Susan Sarandon, a charter member of the Hollywood Left, posted this on Twitter:

Good for her.

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Unethical Headline Of The Month: The New York Times

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Oh, the horror of it all! State Representative Shri Thanedar, a 67-year old Indian- American multimillionaire, beat eight Black candidates in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.

Democrats voted for him, that’s all. Would the Times dare to ask accusingly in bold type, “Why a White Democratic City Won’t Have a White Democrat as Mayor”? in response to the election of Michelle Wu? I’m guessing no: that would be perceived as racist, because it would be. The article is full of statements like, “Black leaders describe it as “embarrassing” and “disappointing,” and argue that Detroit should have representation that reflects its population, which is 77 percent Black” and “The outcome is also testing the limits of racial representation in a city with a long tradition of Black political power.” Wait—isn’t “racial representation” the supposed pernicious tradition of systemic racism in the U.S.that is being used to justify outright racial discrimination against whites in 2022? Was Barack Obama’s election “embarrassing” and “disappointing” to white Americans? Do our leaders and representatives have to “look like us” to be acceptable? Clearly, only leaders who black Americans trust have to “look like them.” Really? If true, that wouldn’t speak very well of black Americans. But wait–isn’t making that observation “racist”?

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Another Damning IIPTDXTTNMIAFB: President Biden Intentionally Violates The Constitution, Hoping He Can Get Away With It

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

IIPTDXTTNMIAFB are the Ethics Alarms initials for “Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.” The phenomenon has been a theme of the Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck so far: The Washington Post isn’t keeping an archive of Biden’s lies like they did for President Trump (and most of what they archived weren’t lies anyway), and Biden has arguably engaged in far more substantive and deliberate untruths in less than two years than Trump did in four. It was a recent Biden lie of breathtaking audacity that reminded me to write about this issue: over the weekend just passed, Biden told an interviewer regarding his student loan debt bailout: “It’s passed. I got it passed by a vote or two.”

No, this was an Executive Order. It wasn’t a bill, it wasn’t voted on by Congress, and it didn’t “pass”—that’s exactly why it is unconstitutional. The scary possibility is that Biden actually thinks it did pass, but I refuse to accept “He’s senile, and doesn’t know what the hell is going on” as a defense for such blatant falsehoods.

Prof. Turley, who is becoming increasingly outraged at the Democratic Party’s disregard and disrespect for the Constitution, blasted away at Biden’s deliberate defiance of the law of the land in a recent post. Noting that Biden falsely (or ignorantly) boasted that the courts “are on his side” regarding the illegal EO despite the fact that the initial law suits blocking it were rejected on procedural and not substantive legal grounds (amazingly, Biden went to law school), Turley fumed…

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Translation: “Our Candidate Is Going To Stink In The Debate, But Pay No Attention.” What IS This?

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Honest? Sad? Desperate? Hilarious?

I’ve never seen anything like the memo above sent via Twitter by the John Fetterman Campaign in advance of tonight’s only debate between the GOP and Democratic candidates for U.S. Senator, and I don’t mean just in politics. The Philadelphia Phillies are preparing to play the American League Houston Astros in the World Series, and are obviously out-matched: the Astros were the best team in their league and have won every post-season game so far. The Phillies didn’t even win 90 games (the Astros won 106) and finished third in their own division. Yet the team hasn’t issued a press release saying, “The Astros are the superior team, so we don’t want baseball fans to expect very much from the Phillies. Frankly, we’re just not that good.”

Here is the memo’s equivalent effort at lowering expectations…to the floor:

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Monday Night Ethics Fights! 10/24/2022…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

For your cultural literacy enlightenment of the day, the painting above is George Bellows’ “Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Firpo,” depicting the most dramatic moments in one of the most famous fights ever before professional boxing fell into corruption, disrepute, and irrelevance. The date was September 14, 1923; the place was the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fighters were National Boxing Association heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and Luis Ángel Firpo, the heavyweight champion of South America known as the “Wild Bull of the Pampas.” The match only lasted two rounds of a scheduled 15, but the fight included 11 knockdowns, notably the one portrayed in the painting (which hangs in the Whitney), when “the “Manassa Mauler” actually knocked Firpo out of the ring.

1. Stacey Abrams, who once was thought to be Joe Biden’s likely VP pick (since he was limiting himself to unqualified black women) is proving herself to be the incompetent clown the aware and non-politically correct pegged her as long ago. Now running ten points behind in the polls behind the man she claims “stole” the governorship from her in their first meeting, Abrams decided to appeare on stage at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena during the Lizzo concert with opening act Latto, holding up a sign that read “My Body My Choice.” Abrams is determined to go down pimping for abortion even though all evidence shows that the issue is not one of those primarily on voters’ minds. Her stunt was particularly ill-considered since she held up the sign in front of a sign announcing Latto’s biggest hit, “Pussy”:

Stay classy, Stacey!

2. Another effort to target a Christian baker by gay activists has failed, though not before causing a lot of expense and wasted time to the baker. Cathy Miller is owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, and was asked in 2017 to bake a special same-sex wedding cake for Eileen Del Rio and her fiancé. Miller felt that doing so would be a violation of her religious beliefs. (I disagree, but I also object to customers setting out to bend others to their wills). Miller offered to refer the job to a competing bakery, or to sell the couple a pre-made cake they could have customized elsewhere. No, the same-sex couple wanted to punish the baker. After their complaint, which was the plan all along, California’s Department of Fair Housing and Employment filed legal action against Miller’s business under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state law aimed at protecting consumers from discrimination by businesses on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion. Last week, the Superior Court of California in Kern County ruled against the militant couple. Miller’s lawyer called the ruling ironic since “a law intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination was used to discriminate against Cathy for her religious beliefs.”

I don’t know why both parties in such a controversy can’t be reasonable and compromise, but since they can’t while The Great Stupid runs amuck, this was the right, and most ethical, result.

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2022 Mid-Term Elections Panic Report: The New York Times Editors Endorse Terrorism

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

There are a lot of signs that the Woke, the Left, the Resistance, Democrats and the news media that filters reality for their objectives are collectively losing their grip in theincreasingly unavoidable realization that their dreams of societal transformation in America are going to be significantly hobbled by the upcoming vote-fest. We saw this stage coming (or should have) some time ago, with perhaps the most striking confirmation arriving when Joe Biden decided to channel Der Fuhrer while calling half the population fascists. Yet I didn’t see this coming, because I am a sap, and persist in my childish idealism telling me that as wacko as they seem right now, these are all traditional, ethical Americans at heart who are just having a bad six or seven years.

In the span of less than a week, the New York Times editors thought it responsible to publish two op-ed columns extolling the virtues of terrorism when not enough people want to do what the Good, Wise, Smart People—you know, like them—have decided is best. Jamelle Boiue, whose usual specialty in Times punditry is anti-white racism, actually lionized John Brown, whose body not only lies a-moldering in the grave but was an engine of random murder and terrorism.

Channeling W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1909 ode to Brown (the populists of that era often admired the lunatic: Clarence Darrow was also an admirer), Bouie agrees that Brown was motivated by “social doctrines of the French Revolution with its emphasis on freedom and power in political life” (Speaking of terror!), and his “inchoate but growing belief in a more just and a more equal distribution of property.” He continues in part,

“Has John Brown no message — no legacy, then, to the twentieth century?” asks Du Bois. “He has and it is this great word: the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression….Viewed in this light, Du Bois says, the memory of John Brown stands as a “mighty warning” to the United States and its peers. To wait to rectify the sins of the present — to sidestep justice in favor of comfort — is to make the final price of liberty all the more expensive…

“What Brown decided, Du Bois continues, was that he had to strike a blow for justice in his time. “It will cost something — even blood and suffering — but it will not cost as much as waiting…Du Bois’s broadside against hierarchy and exclusion still lands with as much force in 2022 as I’m sure it did in 1909. His warning that the tolerance of injustice will only lead to darker places and “darker deeds” is still relevant. And his closing reminder that without real “equality of opportunity” the best in humanity cannot be “discovered and conserved” remains as true now as it was then.”

Who’s advocating civil war now?

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Briefly Noted: Cute! But Insane…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Awwww!

That’s a mastiff, arguably the gentlest dog breed there is. And whoever put that tiny baby there should be arrested.

These are the kinds of episodes that lead to furious protests about “vicious dogs” and legislation that forces people to euthanize undeserving pets. Whoever posted that photo online is an irresponsible idiot as well, even if it isn’t the same dolt who put the baby there. This gives the multitude of ignoramuses who own dogs or have babies (or both) potentially deadly inspirations.