Month: December 2023

Just In Case You Don’t Appreciate How Much Of A Progressive Hack Site Politico Is….

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

…consider this coverage of the Jamaal Bowman censure. Some quotes:

  • “The House voted mostly along party lines to formally reprimand Rep. Jamaal Bowman over triggering a fire alarm last September, the latest episode of the GOP’s censure ire.” That’s the first sentence, essentially “Republicans pounce.” Bowman broke both a DC misdemeanor law by deliberately pulling a fire alarm without any fire, a federal law by disrupting a vote in Congress, and the House ethics rules as well. Politico frames this as a contrived partisan “gotcha!” by Republicans as in“There they go again, making a big deal out of nothing.” This is ethics corrupting behavior by Politico.
  • “Bowman (D-N.Y.) is the third Democrat that Republicans have voted to censure this year.”  Same thing: the sentence implies that the censures were just partisan attacks without basis. Twenty-two Democrats joined  Republicans in censuring Rep. Tlaib, whose repeated statements and tweets excusing Hamas while rationalizing the anti-Semitic chant “from the river to the sea” were exactly the kind of conduct condemned by the House ethics code. The hyper-partisan conduct in both cases was by the Democrats, most of whom couldn’t bring themselves to enforce Congress’s ethics standards as they must be enforced to protect the integrity of the institution. The House failed to censure Rep. Adam Schiff for his repeated lies in the media about the evidence of Trump campaign with Russia because Democrats protected him. The significance of the three censure votes involving Democrats is that the party’s ethics have rotted so thoroughly that Republican look relatively chaste by comparison.
  • “Bowman already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for pulling the fire alarm in a House office building during a chaotic vote on government funding at the end of September. The lawmaker had also agreed to pay the maximum fine, but some House Republicans who’d been incensed by Bowman’s actions demanded further punishment.” That commentary is moronic, and deliberately misleads readers. Its thrust is “he’s suffered enough,” as if the legal consequences of Bowman’s actions should preclude official sanctions by Congress. They are separate and distinct. Moreover, Bowman’s obvious lies about mistaking the fire alarm for a device that would unlock the door were worthy of House discipline themselves.
  • “Some on the right have charged that Bowman triggered the alarm to obstruct or delay the House proceedings that day, though he’s maintained he did not intentionally set off the alarm.” “Some on the right?” Bowman was caught on video doing exactly what he repeatedly claimed he did not do—still claims, in fact.  In the video, he doesn’t try to get out of the building; he takes down the two signs that would undermine his lie about finding the doors locked and mistakenly pulling the alarm in  a state of confusion and panic. The evidence is clear and undeniable: he intended to pull the alarm.  Politico’s report sets out to mislead readers who haven’t followed the story so they will believe there is a legitimate controversy over Bowman’s actions and intent. There isn’t. Democrats decided to support an obvious lie.

Politico is considered a major political news source. It is biased and unreliable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), Rep.Jahana Hays (D-Conn) and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The three Democratic members of the House of Representatives, Pappas, Hays and Gluesenkamp Perez, had the courage and integrity to join Republicans in a successful effort to censure “Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., for pulling the Cannon House Office Building’s fire alarm in September and, by extension, lying about it outrageously. Earning half-Ethics Hero status were Democratic Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Glenn Ivey of Maryland, and Deborah Ross of North Carolina, who all voted “present,” helping the Republican motion for censure to succeed. Although he should have been forced to resign, at least this was a public rebuke of Bowman making him the only the 27th lawmaker to be censured by the House out of thousands in four centuries.

That more Democrats couldn’t put aside party loyalty and their blind enabling of inexcusable conduct that violated both the law and House ethics rules is one more black mark on the party’s recent ethics record. Typically and nauseatingly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. described Michigan GOP Rep. Lisa McClain’s censure motion this way: “We’re all on the House floor wasting time talking about fire alarms. Not the economy, not inflation, not affordable housing, not lowering costs, not the gun violence epidemic that continues to claim the lives of our young people all across America.” What a jerk.

The issue was not “fire alarms” but the ethical duties of members as high elected officials, representatives of their districts, lawmakers and exemplars of law-abiding conduct. Jeffries should have been leading the effort to rebuke Bowman. Leaders like him are why Bowman felt secure in behaving as he did.

A Boy Who Identifies As A Girl Won An Irish Dancing Competition…Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I was thinking of making this an ethics quiz, but I couldn’t decide what to ask.

The Daily Signal reports—an exclusive!—that a teenage boy who identifies as a girl is heading to the Irish Dancing World Championships after placing first in the U14 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas competitions. The conservative website tells us that the winner competed as a boy and placed 11th in the world in the Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) World Championships just eight months ago, in April 2023. (These kids just grow up and change sex so darn fast these days!). In the meantime, a “non-binary” contestant won another Irish dancing competition in August.

Irish dancing competitions are typically divided by gender. The Daily Signal reports, “Parents of girls competing in Irish dance are frustrated and outraged, saying that they cannot understand why a boy with physical advantages is allowed to dance against their daughters.” Huh? I would think a male would have only physical disadvantages in competing against girls in a dancing competition, just as a male dancer would be at a disadvantage trying to win the part of the Sugarplum Fairy in “The Nutcracker.” I assume female Irish dancers are supposed to appear, well, feminine while wowing judges with their footwork. If not, why is the competition restricted to girls?

Continue reading →

While We’re On The Topic Of Derek Chauvin…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

…do you know what the difference is between him and this Alabama cop?

Moral luck. That’s all.

If the tasering killed the man, and it was possible, she’d be exactly as culpable as Chauvin. She might be more culpable, because her victim wasn’t actively resisting arrest when she used the weapon.

“Does Anybody Care?” The Justice System’s Ominous Sacrifice Of Derek Chauvin

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Glenn Loury, is an economist, academic, and author who holds the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University. Since he is tenured, Loury doesn’t feel constrained by the lock-step ideological conformity so many of his race (he’s black) hew to in the wake of the George Floyd Freakout. In his latest newsletter on substack, Loury writes in part,

Poetic truth “thri[ves] more by coercion than reason,” accusing all who dispute it of complicity with the ineradicably racist system that governs and has always governed the country.

That Darren Wilson executed Michael Brown is one such poetic truth; that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd is, I believe, another. Despite the aptness of Steele’s term, poetic truth is no truth at all, nor is it particularly poetic. It is power masquerading as fact, brute force in the guise of knowledge. The cities that burned across the country following Floyd’s death were expressions of such a truth, as was the incarceration of the police officers convicted of a crime they did not commit. The scramble to implement race-based policies and quotas, to elevate self-appointed gurus of “antiracism,” and to proclaim, against all evidence, the unreconstructed nature of American society were all tendrils of the same truth, which still threatens to assert itself whenever an incident emerges that fits its preferred pattern.

The cost in life, limb, and property incurred by this particular poetic truth would be bad enough. But I fear that, in the aftermath, when the embers have cooled and Chauvin’s name has been forgotten by everyone save his family, the true danger of the poetic truth of George Floyd will come to fruition.

Later in the piece, Loury quotes John McWhorter, the New York Times pundit: Continue reading →

It’s Time To Play That Exciting New Game Show, “Who’s The Dictator?” !!!!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hello everybody! Welcome to “Whose the Dictator?” the popular ethics game show!  Welcome panel! And here’s today’s challenge…

You see before you two Presidents: one, Joe Biden, a Democrat and current residence of the White House. Next to him is Donald Trump, previously President, and currently seeking to be the candidate of the Republican Party for his old job in 2024. Currently, the mainstream media is calling Mt. Trump an aspiring dictator, based on banter with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall. Here’s CBS’s report…as you know, CBS is the most trusted name in news, being the network that gave us Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Dan…never mind, let’s stop at Walter:

Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday in Fox News Town Hall that he would not be a dictator “except for Day One” if he is elected to the presidency next year.

In a taped town hall with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity in Iowa, the former president was asked whether he would use the presidency to “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people” several times.

“You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.

“Except for Day One,” Trump said.

When asked to clarify, Trump said he would use the presidency to close the border and increase oil drilling in the U.S.

“That is not retribution,” Hannity said.

“I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. Other than Day One.’ We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator,” Trump said.

The Biden campaign immediately pounced on the comments in a campaign email and posted a clip of the exchange to X.

“Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.

The report didn’t bore anyone by discussing why “drilling, drilling, drilling” suggests dictatorial conduct or aspirations, or what the statutory authority is for the President closing the border legally and constitutionally, but, as you know, panel, the American voter is already fully cognizant of and sophisticated in its knowledge of these things, thoroughly educated on the President’s role in constitutional government and the limits of Presidential power thanks to the excellent training in civics that our public school system provides. Besides, everyone knows what Trump is like and what his real motives are, right?

Continue reading →

Two Corporations Behaving Unethically…Part II: AT&T

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Now THIS is a two-faced company!

Following pressure from stockholders, AT&T reluctantly produced a report comparing its campaign contributions to its stated (woke, naturally) “values.” Surprise! While publicly proclaiming its left-approved virtues, the company gave millions to politicians holding opposing views.

  • AT&T asserts that it “recognizes, embraces, and stands with LGTBQ+ people,” but donated at least $1,396,650 to legislators who are regarded by progressive activists as hostile to their cause between January 2022 and June 2023.

  • From 2018 to 2021, AT&T donated at least $574,500 to the politicians who crafted and passed Texas’s voting reform legislation and at least $99,700 to  Georgia Republicans who helped pass the law Joe Biden called “Jim Crow on steroids.” Now, neither law was actually a restriction on the right to vote, but the company has pandered to progressives who believe both laws are, posturing as an ardent supporter of “voting rights” as defined by the Left. This is a  deceitful metaphorical tightrope to walk.
  • In AT&T’s 2020 Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Report, CEO John Stankey said one of the company’s “core values” was “gender equity and the empowerment of women.” Most women interpret that to mean support for Roe-style abortion rights, but from 2018 to 2021, AT&T donated $301,000 to the sponsors of Texas’ restrictive abortion law, and after it was passed an signed,  gave $50,000 directly from its corporate treasury to the Texas Senate Republican Caucus which unanimously voted in favor of the abortion regulations, and $30,000 to House Speaker Dade Phelan (R), a champion of the bill.
  • In 2022, the majority of members of Congress given donations by AT&T opposed the “Dream Act,” though the company had previously proclaimed its support for the illegal immigration-supporting measure.

Continue reading →

Two Corporations Behaving Unethically…Part I: Macy’s

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The principles elucidated by the June 2023 Supreme Court ruling outlawing affirmative action admissions policies at colleges and universities are apparently going to have to be fought out in lawsuits corporation by corporation, as many DEI execs seem determined to employ racism as a company mandate, but the “good” kind—that is, discrimination against whites, and especially white males.

America’s First Legal (AFL), a pro-bono non-profit public interest law firm has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Macy’s alleging egregiously illegal and unconstitutional hiring practices. AFL’s letter to Macy’s announcing the complaint is here.

A Macy’s 2019 press release —this company was ahead of the George Floyd Freakout DEI fad!—titled a “Bold Vision To Advance Diversity and Inclusion and Ensure The Company Reflects The Diversity Of The Customers and Communities Served” laid out a five-point plan to “[a]chieve more ethnic diversity by 2025 at senior director levels and above, with a goal of 30 %,” and to initiate a “12-month program designed to strengthen leadership skills for a selected group of top-talent managers and directors of Black/African-American, Hispanic-Latinx, Native American and Asian descent.” Racial quotas are illegal. The 30% quota requires managers to favor specified races and ethnicity races in hiring decisions, which directly breaches civil rights laws (though you and I can imagine how the company would try to argue that a goal isn’t a quota.) The plan also directs Macy’s advertising to hire 50% of all actors in their commercials from minority groups, meaning, obviously, non-whites.

I wonder how many other companies have internal directives like that? Based on what I see on TV, I’d guess quite a few.

Continue reading →

Ugh.How Many Times Will Trump And The Mainstream Media Make Me Write This Post?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I can’t avoid it this time: the episode comes too close on the metaphorical heels of Curmie’s examination of biased and misleading reporting (here and here) and the post about the desperate AUC (the Axis of Unethical Conduct) settling on declaring Trump an American Hitler as its best shot at keeping him out of the White House if they fail at “locking him up.”

What happened next was so similar to what was described in my post that it’s almost comical. In an Iowa town hall with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump was asked about the current scare-mongering narrative that he was going to be a dictator. Trump, who apparently can’t stop himself from trolling, said,

“He says, you’re not going to be a dictator, are you? I said no, no, no — other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling (for oil). After that I’m not a dictator.”

And how was that quote relayed on multiple outlets? “Trump says he’ll be a dictator from Day One.” See? He admits it! Aaron Rupar, the same shameless hack I mentioned in the earlier post, tweeted, “Trump admits he plans to do some dictatorial things on “day one” of his second term.” Rupar’s a dishonest asshole, but he’s not stupid. He knows that what Trump was describing isn’t “dictatorial,” but he exploited, as usual, Trump’s inflammatory language.

The executive branch has statutory power to close borders under certain circumstances. If Trump used that power, it wouldn’t be “dictatorial,” it would be legal and backed by democratically- determined laws. If the President doesn’t have statutory power to do something, he can’t do it. As for “drilling”: all Trump can do is lift Biden’s executive orders blocking drilling. The measures he’d be eliminating were no less “dictatorial” than his orders cancelling them. The President can’t order private companies to drill (or else what, shoot the executives?). So once againTrump was being careless in his rhetoric, thus throwing raw meat for his foes in the media and the Trump-Deranged to freak out over. And, of course, they took the bait.

Trump enjoys doing this, even though it fuels the hysterical and biased coverage of everything he says or does, even though it increases political divisions in our society. He’s having fun giving the news media what it wants, and they have no scruples or restraint either. The rest of the country are victims.

We have almost a year of this to go. Isn’t that great?

Curmie’s Conjectures— Punk’s Guide to Ethics, Part II: Strategies

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

by Curmie

The title for this two-part edition of Curmie’s Conjectures refers to a song by the Irish punk band the Boomtown Rats, “Don’t Believe What You Read,” which includes not only the title admonition but also lines like “I know most what I read will be a lot of lies / But you learn really fast to read between the lines.”  Part I of this exercise attempted to suggest something of the parameters of the problem.  As Jack suggested in his introduction to that piece, it’s not an exhaustive list of the various forms of journalistic chicanery, but I hope it served as a representative sample.

Here in Part II, I’ll attempt the daunting task of examining strategies to “read between the lines” and come at least a little closer to the truth of what happened in a given situation.  So, what to do?  How do we determine if that less-than-objective source we’re reading actually has this one story right, especially if it’s the only source about a particular story?  Boy, do I wish there was an easy answer to this one.  That said…

The most effective means of ascertaining the truth, of course, is to get different perspectives on the issue.  I think I’ve mentioned both here and on my own blog that when I was in England doing my MA (at the time “Don’t Believe What You Read” was released, as it happens), I’d alternate between reading the Telegraph, which leaned right, and the Guardian, which leaned left.  If the former said “X but Y,” thereby suggesting that Y was the more important point, the latter would likely say “Y but X.”  But whichever paper you read, you’d know that X and Y, though perhaps seemingly in opposition, were both true, and both worth knowing about. 

Of course, both the Telegraph and the Guardian were, whatever their political perspectives, both reputable news sources.  That’s a statement that would be difficult to make about many of the most prominent news media in this country in the 2020s.  Equally importantly, as suggested in Part I, the problem is often that we hear only from one perspective. 

There are three possibilities for why this should occur.  One, which is (alas!) probably the least likely, is that both X and Y editors make an honest decision that a story is or is not newsworthy.  Or X media outlet knowingly runs with a story that is either grossly distorted or fabricated altogether.  Or outlet Y, knowing the story casts their team in an unfavorable light, ignores it, hoping it will just go away.  At some point it becomes untenable to try to ferret out the true motives; the truth of the story may be a little easier to discern, although there are no guarantees.

Continue reading →