Month: December 2023

Scary and Unethical Reactions to the Hamas-Israel War on the Left and Right.

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I don’t want to end the year on a down note, I really don’t, but…

The ugly head of anti-Semitism or, giving some of the reaction a more charitable spin, the callousness and lack of sufficient concern for the fate of Israel has been a revelation for me. I’ve never understood anti-Semitism, and being forced to acknowledge that this contagion that once was at the heart of the evil plunging the world into a catastrophic conflict is still thriving came as a shock this year. Over at Simple Justice, liberal (but not progressive) criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield neatly assesses the significance of the anti-Jew and anti-Israel sentiments erupting on college campuses, in the black community, in the Democratic Party and other places where the woke run free. He writes in part (today),

“….the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th and its ensuing war in Gaza has bubbled up the fundamental differences between a liberal democratic nation and the swell of simplistic authoritarianism of the young.

Others in my position have adopted the woke view of the world, some because they needed the validation that comes from espousing the popular views of progressives, and others because they were never quite as serious as I thought. Or hoped. But how many more marches by  the young and unduly passionate who justify terrorism and suddenly find rape and murder acceptable when done by those their tribe tells them to favor?

Will 2024 be an inflection point, where people finally come to grips with the fact that they’ve become the enemy they righteously believed they were fighting? At first, it seems there might be an epiphany, a realization that dividing the world into the oppressed and oppressors was an infantile way to deal with the many problems facing society. But since then, it’s become apparent that the young and unduly passionate have fallen back into their tribal ways, enjoying the fresh air of sowing misery on blocked highways for an irrational and destructive cause.

I never would have believed in my old man head that we would be back to open Jew hatred again. Yet here we are, and tens of thousands of people who would claim the mantle of progress fully embrace the end of Jews. Never in its wildest dreams would Hamas have believed that raping and beheading Jews would turn them into progressive darlings, but here we are.

Will this cause young progressives to recognize the error of their ideology? Will they realize that their sudden existential concern for Palestinians when they cared nothing about them until it meant they could openly hate Jews, proves that they are just another flavor of haters, of authoritarians, of racists?”

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Yes, “Auld Lang Syne” Is an Ethics Song [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

New Year’s is the one holiday that has a single ethics song permanently associated with it: “Auld Lang Syne,” despite the fact that almost nobody knows what the words mean if they know all the words at all. One problem is the title and the phrase, which is best translated as “old time’s sake.” The other is that it shares a text-setting flaw with the National Anthem, beginning with a question. Nothing in the music makes the line “Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?” resonate as a question; if fact, I’m ashamed to admit, for a long time I thought “should” was used in the sense of “if.”

I was stunned to learn recently that singing the song on New Year’s Eve is not an ancient tradition. In fact, the practice as a tradition began in 1929, when bandleader Guy Lombardo needed something to play at the stroke of midnight and chose “Auld Lang Syne” because it had a sentimental vibe and the band knew it. Then Lombardo’s (somewhat whiney, annoying version) continued to be a staple on New Year’s Eve TV broadcast as long as Guy was still kicking.

The full poem, usually attributed to the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796) but probably with other contributors, reads,

1. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Chorus:

For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

2. And surely you’ll have your pint cup! and surely I’ll have mine!

And we’ll drink a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Chorus:

For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

3. We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine;

But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne.

Chorus:

For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

4. We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine;

But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.

Chorus:

For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

5. And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give us a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne.

Chorus:

For old times since, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

6. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne!

The song tells us to remember the good times and not to forget that in the end it is human relationships, good will and kindness that matter most. We should sing in the new year with confidence that whatever happens and whatever it brings, we can endure if only we can keep our priorities straight.

Happy New Year, everybody.

A Supreme Court Section 3 Ruling Preview?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy on Reason’s website, where constitutional law experts hang out and opine and then mostly inarticulate readers pile on, Steve Cabrizzi has pretty much slam-dunked the position that the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against those who supported the Confederacy in the Civil War holding office in the re-united United States of America can’t be used against Donald Trump. Unlike the convoluted and boot-strapping decision of the Colorado Supreme Court and the transparently partisan decision by Maine’s Secretary of State (both part of the now eight year-old effort by Democrats to use extra-legal means to destroy an adversary they fear and loathe), Bacrizzi’s brief is clear and straightforward.

First he explains the technical reasons why “Donald Trump is obviously not disqualified from seeking re-election under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” writing in part,

The words “President or Vice President” were deliberately edited out of the final version of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, together with the disqualification of presidential electors and vice-presidential elector who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” makes it clear that the Framers’ of Section 3 did not intend for it to apply to presidents or vice presidents who engaged in insurrection. This impression is augmented by the fact that Section 3 methodically applies in order from the highest office to the lowest office. Section 3 first disqualifies insurrectionist Senators and then Representatives. It then disqualifies all appointed civil or military officers; it then disqualifies insurrectionists from serving as a member of any State legislature, and it finally disqualifies in insurrectionists from serving as State executive or judicial officers. This careful hierarchy suggests that the phrase “or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States” does not apply to the President or Vice President, but applies only to appointed federal officers…

This fact is further confirmed by the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, which says [The President shall nominate, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.”  The President does not appoint himself so obviously he is not an Officer of the United States under the Appointments Clause. Moreover, the Commission clause of Article II, Section 3 says that “[T he President] shall” i.e. must, “Commission all the Officers of the United States.”  No President has EVER commissioned himself or his Vice President either before or after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The President is obviously not an Officer of the United States for the purposes of the Commission clause.

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The Harvard President Ethics Train Wreck Continues With 2023’s Most Unethical Defense of Claudine Gay: Dr. Genevieve Guenther

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

As I’m sure most readers here saw coming, I have elevated the Claudine Gay fiasco taking place in the halls of Old Ivy to official ethics train wreck status. This mess is not going to stop advancing or be cleaned up any time soon. The recent developments:

1. Winkfield Twyman Jr., the African-American author of “Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America,” authored a column for Newsweek arguing that the DEI-obsessed Gay doesn’t deserve to have “racial wagons” circled around her. “Did you know that Claudine Gay during her Harvard career has repeatedly targeted and disrupted the careers of prominent black male professors?” I did not know that, but he writes that she was behind the dumping of black law professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. as dean of Harvard’s Winthrop House in 2019 because he was representing Harvey Weinstein. (This episode was the major, though far from the only reason for my decision to boycott my Harvard reunion in 2022.) Twyman also writes that Gay “coordinated a ‘witch hunt’ against [black] economics professor Roland G. Fryer Jr. after his research into the killings of unarmed black men in Houston, Texas, found no racial disparities.” He concludes by stating that Gay “has waived any benefit of the ‘first Black’ defense.”

2. Roger Kimball writes in “When will Harvard give Claudine Gay the boot?,” “Gay is bad for Harvard, but Harvard is bad for the country, so her continued presence is a net positive.” He also alerted me to this, from last week in “The Manhattan Contrarian”….

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Comment of the Day: “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Nikki Haley’s Answer To ‘What Caused The Civil War?’

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This choice was tough: yesterday’s post on Nikki Haley’s bone-headed and tone -deaf answer to the soft-ball question about the cause of the American Civil War sparked several COTD-worthy observations, but I chose this one, by Chris Marschner, to represent the field. Haley’s gaffe, along with her typically weaselly attempt to wiggle out of it, is looking like that rare breed these days, a botched public statement that actually has “legs” and does serious harm to a candidate’s prospects, like President Gerald Ford’s assertion in a debate that Poland wasn’t an Iron Curtain country, or Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” statement. Naturally some on the Right rushed to Haley’s defense, as with this WSJ piece, and critics on the Left “pounced,” as with historian Heather Cox Richardson’s substack piece that called Haley’s answer “the death knell of the Republican Party.” ( This is known as “wishcraft.”) To me, this was just one more instance of Haley proving that she is untrustworthy and excessively calculating to ever believe. In some respects she’s the opposite of Trump, who is, mostly correctly, regarded as an authentic character who believes what he says, at least when he says it. Like the vast majority of politicians, Haley appears to believe what she thinks the most people want her to believe, until she discovers that they don’t.

I’ll say here that I think Chris is too easy on Haley. To answer that question without even mentioning slavery is incomprehensible, especially in 2023, when an entire political party has bet all its chips on racial grievances, “a threat to democracy” by racist fascists, and Trump Derangement. Any minimally educated and aware politician should be able to say, succinctly: “There were three primary causes: slavery, states’ rights, and to preserve the union. Next question.”

Here is Chris’s Comment of the Day on the post, “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Nikki Haley’s Answer To ‘What Caused The Civil War?’”…

***

South Carolina the first state to secede from the union did so on December 20, 1860. The rationale for secession was the fear that the institution of slavery was being threatened by the federal government. There was no blood spilled until the decision to preserve the union was made a year later.

According to Historytoday.com, “The American Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. There had long been tensions between the rights of the states under the constitution and those of the federal government, so much so that South Carolina and the administration in Washington almost came to blows over the issue of tariffs in the 1830s. It was slavery, however, that brought matters to breaking point.”

The Civil war began in April of 1861 when Abraham Lincoln ordered that Fort Sumter, under the command of U.S. Major Robert Anderson who occupied the still under construction fort during the approximate 15 month standoff between Union forces and the South Carolina militia, be resupplied with fresh troops and “humanitarian aid”. Naturally this was seen as an encroachment by U.S. troops on sovereign ground by the South Carolina Governor. Nonetheless, Lincoln sent the ship called the Star of the West with 200 troops and supplies to resupply the fort. When it arrived in Charleston harbor it was driven back to sea by the militia.

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Obama’s Favorite Songs: An Often Ignored Insidious Form of “Fake News”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Among the Ethics Alarms long-promised essays that have yet to be posted (you never know when one will finally pop up!) is the Ethics Alarms Fake News Directory. A story that has ended up on many MSM news sources reminded me of why what I thought it would be an easy list to compile turned into a chore. It has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Variety, CNN, the Hill, the Chicago Sun -Times, Yahoo!, AOL and dozens—yes dozens— more. The breathlessly urgent story: Barack Obama shared his list of favorite songs for 2023, or, as the Post put it, “Obama’s 2023 bangers include Beyoncé, Burna Boy and Blondshell.”

There was real news about Obama recently: several conservative-leaning news sources like the New York Post and Fox News reported that the ex-President had lobbied Harvard’s governing body to keep unqualified serial plagiarist Claudine Gay as president of Obama’s alma mater. Of course, the “good” media didn’t see that as newsworthy, or felt that the public didn’t need to know about it. Instead, many of them chose to treat Obama’s annual favorite music list as worthy of breaking news treatment.

This is favoritism and propaganda by innuendo. Only a celebrity presumed to be deserving of top of the cognitive dissonance scale status can get such treatment. The publications that printed this non-news as news are pushing readers to adopt their position: this is an inarguably good and great man of iconic stature, and so attention should be paid to his every thought, statement and opinion. It is a familiar media propaganda tactic and was one of the ways the news media propped up Obama during his mediocre terms as President (and I’m being kind) when they treated his college basketball tournament bracket choices as worthy of attention. These same news sources didn’t think the Hunter Biden laptop discovery was news in the middle of a hotly-contested election, nor did it rush to cover an accusation by a former Biden Senate staffer that he had raped her, but the music playlist of a politician with no special expertise in music at all—at least Bill Clinton played the saxophone—warranted coverage.

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Now THIS is an Unethical Lawsuit (But Not Frivolous!)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Hershey company (in Hershey, Pa.) has been sued by Cynthia Kelly in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on behalf of herself and everyone who purchased Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Halloween candies advertised as pumpkins and white ghosts. The class action lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages and a court order requiring the company to change its advertising next year so purchasers won’t feel that they have been victimized by a bait-and-switch. It alleges that Hershey falsely advertised the seasonal candy as having “explicit carved” out designs, and there were no such carvings in the actual products.

Kelly’s complaint says that she purchased a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter pumpkins for $4.49 at an Aldi’s last October 2023 because she was impressed by the artistic carvings depicted in the advertisements and the packaging, and would not have bought the candy if she knew that it was uncarved. And she wasn’t alone in this painful disappointment, as shown by comments on Hershey YouTube ads written by heart-broken candy-lovers:

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Miserable Holidays Ethics Dispatches, 12/29/23

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I really am hoping I don’t have to go through another holiday season like this one has been, both here at home and around the ethics world. It hasn’t quite reached the gloomy depths of the Christmas of 2010, the second one after my father had died on my birthday on December 1, 2009, with the hospital my mother was in for an infection that another hospital had given her trying to dump her on Christmas Eve, only to have me realize while wheeling her out to the car that she was desperately sick still, turning around and getting her readmitted, as Mom kept insisting tearfully that she was okay and wanted to be home for Christmas. Ah, those wonderful holiday memories! (The infection killed her in February.)

Well, not having any Christmas decorations up and with nobody opening gifts, clean-up this season has been a breeze. I did get some mordant good news: the law firm I was recruited into as an ethics partner along with a distinguished group of successful lawyers five years ago (that subsequently failed to meet its funding goals after debuting with a dazzling business plan and has been slowly shedding its initial cases as it winds down) finally sent me my first check from the enterprise. It was for $64.52.

Happy New Year!

1. The rest of the story: you recall that earlier this month I wrote that the lawyer representing Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s now disbarred sleazeball lawyer in his pre-White House days, had submitted a court document with three fictional cases cited. Well, guess who found those fantasy cases? Yes it was Trump’s old legal eagle himself. Cohen said in court papers unsealed this week that he had mistakenly given his lawyer bogus legal citations generated by the artificial intelligence program Google Bard. Cohen explained that he had not kept up with “emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology and did not realize that Google Bard was a generative text service that, like ChatGPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not.” Of course, the fact that Cohen’s lawyer accepted the research done by a disbarred lawyer who was never reliable to begin with means that he is still responsible for the botch, and could be sanctioned.

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Believe It Or Not! The Best “Naked Teacher Principle” Variation Yet: The Porn Actor University Chancellor!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I was tipped off to this story, which I hereby designate a Ripley, yesterday, and regret not getting it up before the rest of the news media and blogosphere caught up.

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously this week to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. UW System President Jay Rothman said the university leadership had discovered “specific conduct”that caused harm to the university’s reputation. 

The “specific conduct” was appearing in online porn videos with his wife.

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Observations On The NeverTrump Section 3 Big Lie Push

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Maine joined Colorado in barring from its GOP primary ballot yesterday, as Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) decided that she “had no choice.” She had no choice because she is a rapid partisan Leftist who, like many Democratic operatives in various positions of power within the legal establishment, she is determined that President Biden be rescued from his election peril by any means necessary. Trump’s actions before and during the January 6, 2021, riot in the U.S. Capitol do not justify charging him with inciting a riot, much less an “insurrection” that would trigger Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Maine’s completely partisan and anti-democratic move is sure to be appealed along with Colorado Supreme Court’s finding last week that Trump could not appear on the ballot in that state under the 14th Amendment provision designed to keep members of the Confederacy that prevents insurrectionists from holding office. The U.S. Supreme Court will review the case, one hopes quickly, and had better resolve the issue of whether Trump can run again or if the nation will be thrown into Constitutional chaos by allowing some states to block him.

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