Month: January 2023

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Karine Jean-Pierre

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

“Ed — Ed — Ed, I am — we don’t need — we don’t need to have this. We work very well together… You don’t need to be contentious with me here, Ed.”

—-White House paid-liar Karine Jean-Pierre in a press briefing session yesterday, expressing her shock that a non-Fox mainstream media reporter would be so boorish as to ask her a tough question.

Redolent of the some of the same issues surrounding the inept Secretary of Transportation (who would surely have been sacked long ago if he were not gay and in a cute same-sex marriage), press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was obviously hired because she’s black, an immigrant, and a lesbian who is also in a same-sex marriage. Against all odds, she is even worse at her job than Pete Buttigieg is at his. It’s impossible to hide: she is frequently unprepared, she sometimes reads from the wrong crib notes, she can’t pronounce key words and phrases (Like that toughie, “Nobel Prize”), she gets petulant when she’s challenged, and is almost as incoherent as the President and Vice-President. Worst of all for a paid liar, she sometimes reveals inconvenient truths.

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Friday Open Forum If You Have The Stomach For It…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I have to confess, this past week has me feeling overwhelmed. There may have been other weeks where the mendacity, corruption and hypocrisy were more apparent, and the prospects for a healthy nation and an ethical culture seemed dimmer, but I must have repressed those memories.

Yesterday, fraudulent GOP House member George Santos said that he had “led an honest life,” Joe Biden excused the latest discovery of classified documents in his garage by saying the garage was “locked,” and three more Virginia high schools admitted that they had withheld notice of National Merit Scholarship awards from students. The school superintendent, who is an DEI consultant and who pledged to seek “equal outcomes” for all students, swears these were independent, unrelated “mistakes.” All made by six high schools in her state. Coincidentally.

Give me hope today.

“Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This week Netflix offered another true crime documentary, “The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker.” It tells the weird tale of Kai Lawrence (his real name  is Caleb McGillvary) who went from viral celebrity to convicted murderer in less than a year. It is a very disturbing story, and not just because of the murder. What I found most illuminating if not surprising was the eager exploitation of an obviously disturbed young man with violent tendencies by media types who gave no thought to the likely consequences of their actions.

In  2013, McGillvary, aka “Kai” was a homeless pot-smoking vagrant, living on the streets and depending on the kindness of strangers.  Hitchhiking in the Fresno (California) area, he was picked up by Jett McBride, who, Kai revealed later, he had given a cigarette laced with a hallucinogenic drug. Perhaps as a result, McBride ran down a pedestrian  When a woman rushed to the pedestrian’s aid, McBride, apparently bonkers, assaulted her. This is where “hatchet-wielding” comes in: Kai got out of the car and stopped McBride’s attack by hitting him three times over the head with a hatchet he had in his bag.

Yes, he became a hero by striking a man with a hatchet. The woman felt Kai had saved her life, and a local reporter on the scene quickly grabbed the long-haired, handsome young man for an interview. The reporter was obviously amused and delighted by Kai’s spontaneity and affinity for the camera. At one point McGillvary turned directly to viewers and delivered a well-rehearsed call for all human beings to be “respected for who they are.” The reporter was charmed, even though anyone with open eyes should have known then that they were witnessing the act of seasoned grifter. Continue reading →

It’s Unethical For A Leader To Refuse To Fire Incompetent Subordinates. Somebody Tell President Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The current poster boy for incompetent Biden appointees and subordinates who are apparently immune from firing is Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Like so many in this administration, Buttigieg was hired to please a Democratic Party constituency, not because there was any reason to believe he would be good at his job. He was an ineffective mayor of a small city: that gave him neither experience in key transportation systems or a background in running a large bureaucracy. Buttigieg’s sole qualifications for the Cabinet position were and are that he is openly gay and in a same-sex marriage, making him “historic.” I know, I know: I don’t understand how where you want to put your whackadoodle makes you better at keeping the trains running on time either, but that’s apparently the theory.

To call Buttigieg a disaster in his job would be too kind. The supply chain fell apart on his watch. Shortly after taking over his 58,000-employee department, a supply chain breakdown damaged businesses, harmed consumers and fueled inflation. Meanwhile, the DOT Secretary has prioritized touch-feely DEI measures above actually overseeing the transportation systems. In the midst of the worst of the supply chain crisis, he took two months paternity leave. Throughout Buttigieg’s tenure, railroads had been unable to reach an agreement with the dozen labor unions representing their workers. Buttigieg was vacationing in Portugal when a rail strike seemed imminent in September, so Labor Secretary Marty Walsh stepped in to avert one. So far.

When soaring gas prices made highway transportation too expensive for many Americans, Buttigieg’s contribution was to lecture us on the need to buy electric cars. A system wide collapse at Southwest Airlines resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and delays over the holidays, stranding thousands of travelers. A primary cause was inadequate oversight of the airlines by the agencies under Buttigieg’s command. Then this week, a safety system outage forced the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground all U.S. flights for the first time since the 9/11 attacks.

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The Bottom Line On The Moderna Booster Scandal: Apologies Please, And Now

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It is nice to see CNN practicing journalism again. though.

A CNN report published yesterday revealed that the pharmaceutical company Moderna withheld data from both U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisers last summer pointing to “the possibility that the updated booster might not be any more effective at preventing Covid-19 infections than the original shots.”

The booster’s impact on actual infections, based on trials, indicated that “1.9% of the study participants who received the original booster became infected” while “those who got the updated bivalent vaccine – the one that scientists hoped would work better – a higher percentage, 3.2%, became infected.” The FDA authorized the Moderna bivalent vaccine on August 31, and did not publicize the previously omitted infection data until September 13. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: As The Founders Roll Over In Their Graves…[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The headline: “Hamtramck City Council votes to allow animal sacrifice for religious purposes in the city.”

The act of animal sacrifice is often practiced among Muslims during the celebration of  Eid al-Fitr, and Muslims make up a majority on the council, it seems. There’s not much more that needs to be said, is there?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz to begin this cold and gloomy Thursday (at least where I am) is…

Are animal sacrifices for any reason ethical in the United States of America?

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Wednesday Really Early Thursday Ethics Warm-Up, 1/11/2023: Jogging, Spinning, Damning, Lying…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Dilemma: the warm-ups and their equivalents take more time to prepare and post than regular, single topic posts, and usually generate less traffic. Yet without them, EA would fall hopelessly short of covering as many interesting and relevant ethics topics as they arise. The suggestions from readers (that’s jamproethics@verizon.net, folks!) help a lot. Dribs and drabs to get ME warmed up…

  • Once again, a kamakazi jogger charged silently out of the darkness right at Spuds and me, requiring me to yank my dog back with all my weight to protect the fool from a lunge by a 70-pound pit bull mix. I initially said, “Sorry, didn’t see you,” thought better of it, and called after him, “LIGHTS, asshole!” It’s amazing how frank one can be with a large dog at the ready…
  • Speaking of pit bulls, Sadie Davila, 7, died after she was attacked by a neighbor’s pit bull in Baton Rouge last week. The articles have been, as usual, filled with the false stats about the “breed” (actually at least four distinct breeds) spread by the despicable and destructive Dogsbite.com. This time, at least, the dog really was an American Pit Bull Terrier based on the photo: I check these things, and often the alleged “pit bull” is something else, accounting for the inflated statistics. The owner is under arrest, because he let the dog roam free. I’m just guessing what kind of treatment, care and training this dog got from an owner that irresponsible: this is another factor in the large number of pit bull attacks. It’s the dog of choice for irresponsible people who should never be trusted with a Yorkie, never mind a larger breed,
  • Neil Dorr was kind enough to pass along this funny piece in the Hill. Now Biden and Co. are swearing that nobody ever, ever considered banning gas stoves. This is because to outpouring of anger from more than one side of the political spectrum was so vociferous after CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.  said that a forthcoming information request from the committee might be “the first step in what could be a long journey toward regulating gas stoves,” as The Hill reported at the time and that said that an outright ban was “a real possibility.” An honest, trustworthy government would just say after the public reaction to this (lead) trial balloon, “Well, the public has spoken, so we will cease any efforts to limit the use of gas ovens.” But no. Instead, this administration acts as if the news media made the whole thing up.

1. See the Washington Post spin. Spin spin, Post! Ace of Spades has a rueful and deft take-down of the Washington Post’s Dervish-like coverage of a new study that concludes that  “Russian influence operations on Twitter in the 2016 presidential election reached relatively few users, most of whom were highly partisan Republicans, and the Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior.”  “But the study doesn’t go so far as to say that Russia had no influence on people who voted for President Donald Trump” writes the Post. Ace: “Oh, it doesn’t say there was zero influence, so let’s assume we’re still Basically Right.” The Post, as we all know, was one of the leaders of the “Trump had Russia steal the election from Hillary” narrative. The Post: “It doesn’t examine other social media, like the much-larger Facebook….” Ace: “Where Russian-affiliated companies spent a staggering One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars on ads.” The Post: “Nor does it address Russian hack-and-leak operations….” Ace: “Like the Hunter Biden laptop…The article keeps bringing up “hack-and-leak operations.” Let’s be clear about what happened there: Hillary Clinton and the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders, and leakers exposed this fact. That wasn’t a lie. That wasn’t “Russian Disinformation.” That really happened. The leakers just revealed the truth which Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her Media Mafia wished to conceal.” Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The 2022 Gallup “Americans’ Ratings of Honesty and Ethics of Professions”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Here it is…

Those polled were asked, “Please tell me how you would rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in these different fields — very high, high, average, low or very low?” Continue reading →

What’s Going On Here? You Tell Me…[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

This isn’t an ethics quiz. It’s not ethics commentary. This is clearly an ethics episode, but, frankly, I’m exhausted. I’m fighting some kind of flu (no, not Wu-Flu); I have a pile of half-begun and half-thought out ethics stories on a cyber-pile, and I just feel overwhelmed and depressed. So I’m just going to present this weird event from the public [NOT ‘pubic,’ as I typoed once again] school chaos, and I invite readers to explain what ethics issues they see here.

Ready?

For  the latest edition of  the NPR’s podcast “Planet Money”,  Shale Meadows Elementary School third grade teacher Mandy Robek was scheduled to read books reading “The Sneetches” to her class as part of about the theme of economics education from in children’s books. Amanda Beeman, the assistant director of communications for the Olentangy Local School District (in Ohio) prepared for the segment by choosing books from the school’s library. The district had stipulated that politics were off limits for discussion. “Pancakes, Pancakes!” by Eric Carle; “Put Me In The Zoo” by Robert Lopshire; a poem from “Where The Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein, and “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss were ultimately read to the class. Well…almost.

You know “The Sneetches,” right? Published in 1961, the story is about a community of long-necked birds that all look identical except that  some have stars on their bellies and some don’t. The Plain-Belly Sneetches are traeted by the rest as inferiors, so entrepreneur Sylvester McMonkey McBean sells them stars so they can aspire to be Star-Belly Sneetches.The Star-Bellied Sneetches, resenting the intrusion on their select domain, then succumb to a scheme to have them pay to remove their natural stars. Now the once- Star-Bellied Sneetches will be Plain-Belly Sneetches, and can look down on the former Plain-Belly Sneetches all over again. Meanwhile, supply and demand makes the local capitalist rich. 

“I don’t know if I feel comfortable with the book being one of the ones featured,” Beeman was heard saying on the podcast during the middle of “The Sneetches” reading by the teacher. “I just feel like this isn’t teaching anything about economics, and this is a little bit more about differences with race and everything like that.” As if on cue, a third-grade student soon piped up, “It’s almost like what happened back then, how people were treated … Like, disrespected … Like, white people disrespected Black people!” Continue reading →

On The Biden Administration’s Proposed Gas Stove Ban

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

If this doesn’t make a lot of Americans understand the conservative agenda items seeking smaller government, less powerful government agencies and reduced federal regulation, nothing will.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is opening a period of public comments on the “dangers of gas stoves.” An estimated 40% of the public uses gas stoves. Most restaurants use gas stoves; some foreign cuisines, like Chinese varieties, depend on them. Nobody has complained noticeably about gas stoves being deadly in the 200 years they have been in use. Never mind: CPCP commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg News, “This is a hidden hazard. Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

How are gas stoves “unsafe”? The EPA and WHO say they “emit pollutants including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter” above levels deemed acceptable. The sudden rush to ban the stoves appears to have been triggered by (or was waiting around hoping to find such a claim as) a single study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Of course, the Climate Nazis have been agitating about gas stoves on the sidelines for decades, which, they say, “jump-starts childhood asthma, increases the risk of respiratory problems, and emits planet-warming gasses.” Naturally, then, the mainstream media can be expected to cheer-lead the latest government effort to use the environment as an excuse to control American lives and choices just a bit more, because they know best. The Washington Post’s climate change propagandist gave her seal of approval yesterday.

Don’t worry about the extra costs of getting those electric ovens, she assures us. After all,

…the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate bill passed last year, includes cash to help low- and moderate-income households move away from their gas stoves. Starting later this year, millions of Americans could get up to $840 off the cost of an electric or induction stove.

Inflation reduction! Landmark! Hand-outs for low- and moderate-income households, as long as they spend the money on what they’re told to! National debt? What’s that? Nah, the mainstream media isn’t pimping for the Democrats! Why would anyone think that?

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