I have to squeeze in some EA Catch-up today despite an unusual number of paid ethics work projects. I hope the forum takes up any slack.
Yesterday’s posts were truncated mid-day by my first excursion to a baseball game (Red Sox vs. Nats) since 2021, when I found having to eat a hot dog while wearing a stupid mask made the game unbearable. But there have been some alarming developments since then too…
Play Ball!
Ethics Alarms 
Maryland Parents Can’t Sue School Over Policy On Secret Gender Transitioning, Federal Appeals Court Rules
I still cannot understand why schools are allowed to encourage or embrace gender transitioning of students. This is not their place.
Doesn’t a parent have the right to know what is going on in the schools any more?
I mean, is this the whole story? Because, to me, it’s like being in a Twilight Zone episode. It just seems so bizarre to me that this is happening. These young people don’t know the long term consequences of these choices related to “gender transitioning”. I guess this has all been discussed here before but I’ll never understand how all this has been allowed to continue and progress to this level.
I found the reasoning for the appeals court circular. It stated that parents lacked standing because they had no transgender kids. This means that to be able to sue to stop a harm it must first suffer that harm.
Suing for parental consent after the fact is ludicrous.
Lacking standing seems to be popping up a lot lately.
So, let me get this straight. Parents sued the school district over these transitioning plans because the parents don’t want to be kept in the dark about what is happening with their children at school and two courts ruled against them on standing grounds, holding that the parents lacked standing because they didn’t allege their children are transgender because, well, the school won’t tell them. Kafka couldn’t make this up.
This is a really crazy position for the Court to take:
“The parents have not alleged that their children have gender support plans, are transgender or are even struggling with issues of gender identity. As a result, they have not alleged facts that the Montgomery County public schools have any information about their children that is currently being withheld or that there is a substantial risk information will be withheld in the future. Thus, under the Constitution, they have not alleged the type of injury required to show standing.”
The mind boggles that a court would write that.
jvb
I think it seems bizarre because it is bizarre. LGBTQ+ proponents took a perfectly reasonable position of accepting other people for who they are and ran so far to left with it that they seem to have snapped reality. Accepting people for who they are does not require endorsing the spaying and neutering of children. These are not cats, they are people. You cannot just sterilize them. Accepting people does not mean rushing them into irreversible surgeries at at age 9. It does not mean pumping 6 year olds full of cross sex hormones or blocking puberty. If you really accept people for who they are, they should not need any medical interventions whatsoever to be who they are. If you have to do something in secret, you are doing something wrong.
Who on earth ever saw this insanity coming? What is wrong with people working in public schools? Maybe they’re all as nuts as people working in colleges and universities? I’ve read some believe outfits like the Human Rights Campaign had to move on to transgenderism following their victory on gay marriage. Otherwise, they’d have to shut down. Julie principle, I suppose: advocacy groups gotta advocate. Or as my mother accurately said, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
There is an explanation on how some activist organizations become more radical.
If an organization achieves one of its major lobbying goals, people quit. People stop donating. They volunteered, they donated because of that policy goal, and now they have succeeded.
Those who remain are more radical, feeling that they need more done. Likewise, those who continue to donate are those who are radical.
Promising to be eternally vigilant does not attract recruits or donors.
“If an organization achieves one of its major lobbying goals, people quit. People stop donating.”
IOW: A goal achieved no longer motivates.
So in turn, those who join or continue to volunteer, or those who continue or start donating, have a different goal.
I’d like to say that I, and many young(ish) parents like me did. Maybe it’s just a matter of timing. I’m on my mid-40s, and when I was in college in the late 1990s, you can sense Education colleges taking hard turn left, especially on sexual matters, and their students getting more and more radicalized. Most teachers nowadays, especially the ones pushing the sexual/gender fanaticism, are young, very “progressive”, unmarried and/or childless women. So, yeah, it makes sense this crap is happening.
Why is it that a 6 year old is mature enough to decide, and is capable of deciding, he or she is a different gender but that same 6 year old is not mature enough to drive, vote, sign contracts, or buy cigarettes? I remember our son at 6 years old. He thought he was Thomas the Tank Engine and at times a panda.
jvb
Well, let’s see what type of people these are. I mean, they all seem to insist that they HAVE to be allowed to talk about their sex lives to small children. They HAVE to go into bathrooms with children of the opposite sex. They HAVE to go to libraries and have kids put $1 bills in their g-strings. They HAVE to have parades where they simulate (or perform) sex acts in front of children. A big part of grooming behavior is to isolate the child from their support networks (family and friends) then engaging in ‘boundary pushing’ behavior and also telling the children to keep the incidents secret from the parents. The trans movement seems like textbook grooming behavior. I had to take a class in grooming behavior to be allowed to participate in an educational activity with teenagers last year and the transgender movement meets the grooming criteria almost perfectly. Note that many of these men now identify as ‘girls’, not women. Seann Altman (Disney influencer) and Dylan Mulvaney don’t identify as ‘women’, they identify as ‘girls’ and cultivate a teenage girl audience. It is all about the children.
Here is a comment I originally left on a Reason.com article.
https://reason.com/2023/08/17/could-louisianas-governor-empty-the-states-death-row/?comments=true#comment-10202376
If an innocent person is sent to jail for let’s say murder, then when they finally get out, it is likely that because they are not a criminal then they would not be of a mind to become a criminal by murdering the police or prosecutor who sent them there.
If anyone upon release from prison does kill the police or prosecutor then it is probable that they were not innocent of the crime they were sent to prison for, as unlike what we see in films and television, innocent people wrongly sent to jail do not turn into killers and kill those that wrongly sent them there.
Surely, at least one of them would become a criminal, hell bent on vengeance at any and all costs.
This never happened before in human history, not even once?
I would usually send this to Jack, but we have this nice little Open Forum today.
I am pretty sure Jack’s response would be: The Show MUST Go On!:
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/fiona-apple-cancels-tour-to-care-for-dying-dog-474065/
What say you?
-Jut
Here is an article worth commenting about.
https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-are-using-criminal-law-fight-their-political-battles-its-very-very-dangerous-1820619
In their quest to sink Donald Trump, state prosecutors have expanded the criminal law dangerously far into the realm of politics, and have threatened legitimate First Amendment activity. District Attorney Fani Willis’ use of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”) Act to charge a political campaign with conducting a criminal enterprise makes innocent political activity into fodder for prosecutors, all without providing defendants a clear guide as to what conduct violates the law. While Democrats may cheer Willis on in her effort to convict Trump and his hodgepodge of allies who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, their triumph may turn to regret when Republican prosecutors turn these tools on their own political campaigns.
RICO prosecutions are not limited to organized crime families or gangs, but there has to be an actual criminal enterprise and related criminal acts to further the enterprise. This is true even in Georgia, whose RICO statute is broader than others, including the federal one, because it combines a longer list of predicate offenses with a looser definition of “enterprise” and “racketeering.” A Georgia RICO conviction is a felony that has a statutory prison term of five to 20 years, a fine of the greater of $25,000 or three times the amount of money gained from the criminal activity, or both a prison sentence and a fine.
Right off the bat, the indictment’s first alleged overt act against Trump is his nationally-televised “victory” speech on the day after the election, which already goes beyond RICO case norms. Yet at the time of the speech, there was insufficient information available as to whether any voting fraud in Georgia had tipped the scales, no plan existed for alternate electors, and Trump seemed to genuinely believe that he won. Trump’s speech was protected under the First Amendment, which protects political speech, even if no one else believes the speaker, and even if it contains false information.
Trump
Former US President Donald Trump points at the crowd as he attends Round 3 of the LIV Golf-Bedminster 2023 at the Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey on August 13, 2023.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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Furthermore, while Georgia RICO forbids defendants to “acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise, real property, or personal property of any nature, including money,” no one alleges that Trump engaged in his post-election shenanigans because he was trying to gain money or property or control of a business. Moreover, unlike in a traditional RICO case, Trump did not create or belong to a criminal enterprise, as traditionally known, nor did he intentionally commit criminal acts for the purpose of keeping that enterprise going for the acquisition or control of property, money, or businesses. Instead, Trump wanted to be declared the winner of the 2020 election because he apparently genuinely believed that he won, regardless of what some advisers told him.
The indictment also cites as crimes the legal advice that Trump received. This sets a very dangerous precedent, because legal advice, even outlandish or bad advice, should not be criminalized, especially where the issues are novel and untested in court. For example, lawyers in famous Supreme Court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda, Griswold, and many others argued against the existing precedent and legal thinking of their time, and certainly they were not and should not have been prosecuted.
Furthermore, it is quite possible that Trump’s post-election lawyers’ misguided strategy to create alternate slates of electors and the legal advice supporting it were based on two historical events: the 1876 Electoral College drama between Rutherford B. Hayes (R) and Samuel J. Tilden (D), and the 1960 presidential election drama in Hawaii between Richard M. Nixon (R) and John F. Kennedy (D). In 1876, Tilden won the popular vote and 184 electoral votes, but Republicans challenged the election results in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, because, they claimed, the Democrats engaged in election fraud and intimidated Black voters. Hayes eventually won with 185 electoral votes, but the Democrats had presented alternate slates of electors from Oregon, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Vermont, knowing that their alternate slates from at uncertified or doubtful. No one was criminally charged, nor should they have been, even though Tilden’s nephew, William Tilden Pelton, admitted that he tried to bribe local election officials in Oregon, Florida, and South Carolina.
Similarly, in 1960, Hawaii Democrats challenged Nixon’s initial win, signed alternate elector certificates, and sent them to Capitol Hill, even though JFK was not declared to have won Hawaii until later. Again, no one was criminally charged and in fact the judge praised the Democrats for creating and signing an alternate slate.
In fact, on November 4, 2020, while Pennsylvania was still counting votes, Van Jones of CNN and Professor Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law published a CNN article citing these events and endorsing alternate electors! Indeed, it’s worth noting that after the 2016 election, the Clinton campaign and allied groups such as Unite for America recruited celebrities like Martin Sheen to importune electors not to cast their electoral votes for Trump; electors received death threats, harassing phone calls, and hundreds of thousands of hostile emails. The Clinton campaign also tried to request an intelligence briefing on foreign election intervention in order to sway the electors with false information; the Clinton team cooked up the phony “Steele Dossier” and knew that it and other claims regarding Trump and Russia were false. Anyone who thinks that Clinton or her campaign staff—an actual organization or enterprise—should not have been criminally charged, as they were not, must therefore also think long and hard about whether Trump should be.
It may have been an irresistibly tempting part of District Attorney Willis’s calculus to file criminal charges against the leading Republican presidential candidate, especially because Fulton County is reliably Democratic and went for every single Democratic presidential candidate since 1976. However, her over-broad indictment should serve as a cautionary tale against twisting and distending criminal laws beyond their norms. Prosecutors should recognize that what can be charged is not always what should be charged.
John Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. John Shu is an attorney and legal commentator.
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
Presidential communications ethics.
Is it ethical for POTUS or VP to use multiple pseudonym email accounts? It seems that many politicians use a secondary government account for some communications, but it has come out that Biden has been using multiple accounts with false names. One such, sent to “Robert L. Peters” (one of his pseudonyms) with then VP Biden’s daily schedule in 2016, includes a call with the then-president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. The only other person copied to receive that email was…. Hunter Biden.
Is it ethical to continue to employ an incompetent person to communicate with the public?
We know that Karine Jean-Pierre (Biden’s “paid liar”, as Jack calls her), under pressure from recent revelations, Orwellianly said that Joe’s claim has always been that he was “never in business” with Hunter, while he has said for years (widely reported) that he had never even “spoken with Hunter about his business”.
On Tuesday, this tweet was sent out under KJP’s X account: “Investing in America means investing in ALL of America, “When I ran for President, I made a promise that I would leave no part of the country behind.” It was quickly deleted, but not before being caught by lurkers on the interwebs, of course. https://nypost.com/2023/08/15/karine-jean-pierre-mocked-for-deleted-tweet-saying-she-ran-for-president/
Now, probably nobody with an IQ over 70 believes that Joe sends his own tweets. A safe bet would be that he doesn’t even know how, probably doesn’t even compose them, and, at best, may be asked to approve a few before they go out. Still, shouldn’t a competent aide at least be able to try to maintain the illusion? I can’t imagine a Dana Perino being this incompetent…but we all know that KJP was chosen from the DEI “checklist”, not the “best for the job” file. Isn’t it time for her to go?
It isn’t just that he had a pseudonym e-mail address. He had a pseudonym .gov e-mail address. He had a fake e-mail address from the US government. I would qualify this as much worse than Joe Biden also had used covettejoe6969@hotmail.com. He had to get a government employee to give him an e-mail address in a fake name.
That actually is pretty serious. The dotgov.gov registry is very strict on who can register and use xxx.gov domain names and for what purpose.
–Dwayne
And one more little example of lefty jurisdictions attempting end runs around the Constitution and rule of law. Do we think Hanlon’s razor applies? Can’t it be both malice and incompetence?
https://bearingarms.com/ranjit-singh/2023/08/17/erie-county-ny-loses-pistol-permit-applications-n73796?utm_source=badaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=3ab34d6e476416c49c095585c5ea5e7481d0093dd0e835d90ba90ff470f62ce1
Can anyone tell me a bit about American law? The way I read it is that if Trump is convicted of a Federal law and then is elected President then presumably he can pardon himself of the crimes he is convicted of. But if he is convicted of a state law and sent to a state prison then is he still able to pardon himself or is he reliant on the state Governor (possibly a Democrat) to pardon him, otherwise he must carry out the duties of President from a state prison cell.
The first scenario seems to be up in the air at this time…conceivably a possibility, but never tested..much speculation both ways.
He can’t pardon himself for a state conviction
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/frequently-asked-questions
but a governor could. (In Georgia, the governor is a Republican, but not a big fan of Trump)
Aside: in Georgia at least, the state senate can impeach a county prosecutor.
From DOJ: “the President’s authority to grant clemency is limited to federal offenses and offenses prosecuted by the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia in the name of the United States in the D.C. Superior Court. An offense that violates a state law is not an offense against the United States.”
Whether a President can pardon himself is a matter of some dispute, since nobody has tried it yet.
Better option: Elect DeSantis or Haley or Scott or someone and have that person pardon him. No questions there about a president pardoning a former president and it has actually been done before.
Much better option. Or Biden could pardon Trump right now!
The ideal and, it seems to me, the ethical solution. Also would be nice to have pigs flying over a frozen hell.
OK, here is a baseball question. But first, MLB has an advertisement that’s been running all season about the rule changes (actually it’s better than having to listen to commercials for Planned Parenthood, which were prominent earlier in the season).
So the ad touts these ‘fan supported’ rule changes and one of the things they state is ‘more ball put in play because of shift restrictions’. I hear that and I’m thinking, wait what? How does eliminating the shift cause batters to hit the ball more often? That makes no sense.
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My actual question does, in fact, address the shift — for those who are not baseball fans, a shift was when teams would put 3 infielders on one side of the field, rather than two and two. They started doing this because research showed many pull hitters hit most of their balls to one side. They idea was to put the infielders where the ball was going to be hit and thus convert some of those hits into outs. And it worked. It worked so well that MLB banned it starting in 2023.
So here is my question. For years I maintained that professional hitters — which all MLB players are supposed to be — would adapt to shifts by adapting their swings and hitting the ball ‘where they ain’t’. If there is only one infielder on the left side and you hit it in that direction — how much higher are the odds you’ll get a hit? And by doing such a thing, they would force clubs to abandon the shifts and return to a regular defense.
But they didn’t. These supposed professionals just kept doing what they had always done. Yes they were hitting a lot of home runs, but they were also making a lot of outs when they didn’t hit the ball hard enough for it to leave the park. Instead they whined to MLB and the commissioner, and finally got baseball to change the rules. Sidenote: I realize Ted Williams was shifted against and never changed his style of hitting. But, you know, he also hit .400 and I’m willing to cut him some slack.
So this approach by MLB hitters — is there any way this is not an unethical approach? Didn’t they have an obligation to any number of people to act so as to maximize their chances at the plate?
Surely, any good batter should be able to adjust his batting to be able to hit where the fielders aren’t.
In cricket, when a good batter is really in form he is able to hit the ball the full 360 degrees around him making it impossible for the opposing captain to set a field to contain his scoring. But if a batter is hitting the ball mainly in one direction the fielding captain will move more fielders into that area to slow the scoring and increase the chances of having the batter caught out.
The MLB should not have changed the rule and the batters should learn to hit the ball to both sides.
I agree in principle, and have opposed the banning of the shift from the first time it raised is ugly metaphorical head. However, the absence of the shift is certainly not noticeable during games, and one of the main objectives of most of this season’s rule changes has also been a spectacular success: the game has been sped up. Those elaborate shifts too time, and the specter of players checking little notes in their hats before every batter was both ugly and annoying. I also miss the occasional four outfielder tactic and the even rarer six infielder array, but it’s a utilitarian trade-off. The shift also had the unanticipated consequence of making a lot of batters choose to uppercut the ball to hit over the infield, leading to more homeruns but less contact. That’s the same decision the first batter subjected to extreme shifts, Ted Williams, came to as his response, but then, he was Ted Williams. (Ty Cobb called him an idiot to his face. If they had shifted on Ty, he would have hit .450.)
A couple things, again on the shift. It seems that MLB, as is the wont of large organizations, used a hammer to kill a gnat approach. Intuitively it seems as though there ought to be a better way to eliminate routine shifting, but I guess they accomplished what they wanted.
I’ll confess that I hadn’t thought about saving time by eliminating the shift — perhaps it’s a different perspective because I consume almost all of my MLB experience via radio — but I can see your point and it’s a good one. I also agree that fans don’t want to see players constantly consult their notes and cheat sheets. We cling to the illusion that players go out every day and just play the game. It is an illusion, for the most part, because modern players reach their pinnacles in part due to careful preparation, both physical and mental.
NB: Doesn’t everyone wonder what Babe Ruth might have accomplished had he trained and prepared as current day players do? He might have been really good!
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The other thing that struck me was that we both have the same attitude regarding Ted Williams. But are we giving him a King’s Pass because he was, truthfully, one of the best ever to play the game? Is this a case where it is justified, when you really might be the greatest of all time?
Dear George,
You’ll have moments when you want to use this particular stationary. Well, go to it.
George, I treasure the memories we share and I wish you all the very best. You’ll be in my prayers. God bless you & Barbara. I’ll miss our Thursday lunches.
Ron
Dear Bill,
When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too.
I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described.
There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I’m not a very good one to give advice; but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course.
You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well.
Your success is now our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.
Good luck –
George
Dear George,
Today you embark on the greatest venture, with the greatest honor, that can come to an American citizen.
Like me, you are especially fortunate to lead our country in a time of profound and largely positive change, when old questions, not just about the role of government, but about the very nature of our nation, must be answered anew.
You lead a proud, decent, good people. And from this day you are President of all of us. I salute you and wish you success and much happiness.
The burdens you now shoulder are great but often exaggerated. The sheer joy of doing what you believe is right is inexpressible.
My prayers are with you and your family. Godspeed.
Sincerely,
Bill
Dear Barack,
Congratulations on becoming our President. You have just begun a fantastic chapter in your life.
Very few have had the honor of knowing the responsibility you now feel. Very few know the excitement of the moment and the challenges you will face.
There will be trying moments. The critics will rage. Your “friends” will disappoint you. But, you will have an Almighty God to comfort you, a family who loves you, and a country that is pulling for you, including me. No matter what comes, you will be inspired by the character and compassion of the people you now lead.
God bless you. Sincerely,
GW
Dear Mr. President –
Congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and all of us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure.
This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don’t know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful. Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years.
First, we’ve both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. It’s up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that’s willing to work hard.
Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable. It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend.
Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.
And finally, take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family. They’ll get you through the inevitable rough patches.
Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.
Good luck and Godspeed,
BO
One of these things is not like the others