Month: January 2024

Fani Willis’s Sermon

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It is beginning to look like Fani Willis, Georgia’s African-American Democrat Fulton County prosecutor who pledged to “get” Donald Trump, really is involved in a serious conflict of interest involving the case and even criminal conduct. The mainstream media is taking notice, it is no longer a “right wing conspiracy theory,” and most interestingly, Willis has not denied the allegations, which appeared in a court filing.

The New York Times published a story headlined “Atlanta D.A. Defends Qualifications of Outside Lawyer She Hired for Trump Case/At a historic Black church, Fani T. Willis pushed back against an accusation that Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she brought on, was unqualified for the job” in which we learn that Willis spoke yesterday before the congregation of one of the oldest Black churches in Atlanta, which had invited her to be the keynote speaker for a service dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not mention the details of allegations that she is in an intimate relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired in 2021 for the Trump-getting, and has earned more than $650,000 in the job to date with some of the lucre benefiting her directly. Instead, she said in part,

“Wait a minute, God! You did not tell me,” she added, “as a woman of color it would not matter what I did — my motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked….A divorced single mom who doesn’t belong to the right social groups, who doesn’t necessarily come from the right family, doesn’t have the right pedigree — the assignment was just too high for lowly me. All I brought to the table, God, is my mind, my heart, my work ethic, my undying love for people and the community.”

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Of Course the Jan.6 2021 Capitol Riot Wasn’t an “Insurrection”; the Real Question Is What to Call Those Who Keep Saying It Was…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Liars? Democrats? Journalists?

One of the New York Times’ least Stockholm Syndrome-suffering conservative pundits, Ross Douthat, has an entry at the Times digital page called “Why Jan. 6 Wasn’t an Insurrection.” He does a good job, and the column would be useful one to circulate to your Trump Deranged social media buddies who have been brainwashed by the constant use of the word to falsely describe the idiocy that unfolded on that day…President Biden being one of the main offenders. Douthat begins with the same expression of frustration over the constant Big Lie-mongering on this topic that I have been suffering from over the entire three-year interim:

I’ve written several times about the case for disqualifying Donald Trump via the 14th Amendment, arguing that it fails tests of political prudence and constitutional plausibility alike. But the debate keeps going, and the proponents of disqualification have dug into the position that whatever the prudential concerns about the amendment’s application, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, obviously amounted to an insurrection in the sense intended by the Constitution, and saying otherwise is just evasion or denial.

I know the piece is behind a paywall, so hopefully Mt. Douthat’s understanding, I’m going to quote a bit more freely from his work—with attribution!!!—than I usually would. He announces his agreement with legal scholar Steven Calabresi in Reason magazine, who has pointed out that the “paradigmatic example” that the drafters of the 14th Amendment had in mind “should guide our understanding of its ambiguities.” That would be the Civil War, “in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.” Says Douthat, perhaps wondering why he should have to, “a five-hour riot probably doesn’t clear the bar.” Ya think?

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Ethics Dunces: The Chicago Bulls and Their Fans

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

That went well, don’t you think?

The NBA’s Chicago Bulls celebrated their “inaugural class” in the team’s new Ring of Honor ceremony during halftime of its game against the Golden State Warriors last week. The first Ring of Honor class included 13 men and the entire 1995-96 team, which went 72-10 and won the NBA championship. It didn’t help that the current Bulls gave up a season high in points in a 140-131 loss, but that was the least of the night’s low points.

The most popular and famous stars of that team, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Dennis Rodman, didn’t show up. The team wasn’t expecting them to, because all three declined, but it allowed the fans to believe otherwise, at least the fans who didn’t research the matter beforehand. Continue reading →

Reminder: This is Why Ethics Alarms Doesn’t Use Breitbart

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Ethics Alarms put the much-admired (by conservatives) website Breitbart on its black list at least as far back as 2016. It might even be earlier, but finding the exact date when I got disgusted isn’t worth the time it would take away from my sock drawer inventory. It would be nice if the site were trustworthy, but Breitbart is as biased and devoted to manipulating public opinion to view conservative agenda items (and conservative figures, especially Donald Trump) in a positive light as the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast are in the opposite direction.

The latest example appeared two days ago at the links provided by Citizens News Daily, the popular conservative news link farm that has taken over the position on the Right once held by the Drudge Report, which was sold, or taken over by Trump-haters, or something. The CND link (still) reads, “Nikki Haley — Climate change is causing Illegal Immigration, ” and went to this story at Breitbart. The typically Breitbart-y headline reads, “Nikki Haley Parroted Leftist Talking Point Suggesting Climate Change to Blame for Mass Immigration.”

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The Entertaining Prof. Jennifer L. Hochschild Car on the Harvard President Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

If you enjoy watching a Harvard professor revealing herself as complete asshole to colleagues, students, the news media, everyone, really—and who doesn’t?—-you’ll love this story.

Harvard professor Jennifer L. Hochschild was one of the scholars ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay plagiarized on the way to academic infamy. She was also one of those who lacked the integrity to agree to what should have been obvious, which is that having a record of serial ethical misconduct was something no president of Harvard could or should weather. Like many on the DEI side of the culture, her response to the revelations of Gay’s lack of fitness for her job was to attack the conservatives, notably gadfly Christopher Rufo, who uncovered the damning evidence that Gay was a cheat. Rufo cites among his own credentials“a master’s from Harvard,” and Hochschild set out to tar him as a hypocrite for this, tweeting,

Even if the criticism of Rufo were justified—more on that in a nonce—this was a damning tweet…for the professor. Attacking the messenger who carries unwelcome but accurate information is a logical fallacy, an ad hominem attack, and exactly the kind of weak reasoning and unethical practice the world’s most self-congratulatory university is supposed to purge from its graduates. But those determined to protect Gay, Harvard’s diversity-hire, “historic” female president “of color” by any means possible, stooped to this gutter tactic en masse and almost the second Gay’s embarrassing performance at a congressional hearing focused national attention of her deficits and the sick university culture she represented. Her performance was just fine because conservatives criticized it.

The tweet was especially odd for Hochschild, who teaches at the very same Harvard Extension School whose students she slammed as “not really Harvard grads.” The “X” community quickly slapped a “context” note on the tweet…

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The First “Bite Me!” Award of 2024 Goes To…The Department of Transportation

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Last January, Ethics Alarms introduced the “Bite Me!”, an Ethics Alarms designation reserved for either an individual whose “response to being bullied, pressured and threatened into submissiveness is to say, “Do your worst. I believe in what I am doing, and I don’t grovel to mobs,” or as used several times in the course of 2023, the author of unethical conduct that demands the response, “Bite me!”

Our increasingly (under President Biden) power-abusing and dictatorial federal government ranks the first “Bite Me” of 2024 for this “Karen”-ish nonsense: the federal government is asking state agencies to stop posting traffic signs using humor, like one above in Maine, and has given the states two years to ease off the funny stuff, after which the “or else” will kick in. DOT says that funny signs can be distracting, and, of course, since all Americans are hopeless sheep who must be protected from even the periodic ill-timed giggle, Biden’s micro-managing minions think it is in their legitimate jurisdiction to dictate the tone and wording of traffic messages.

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Ethics Quote of the Month: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“So… it didn’t work to change the culture temporarily, to deal with Trump, that horribly abnormal President. The old culture didn’t just pop back into place when Trump was gone. You have to take care of a culture and maintain its values in good times and bad.”

—Retired law professor and active blogger Ann Althouse, reflecting on how the cultural norms violated by the Left to “get” Donald Trump didn’t recover once he was out of the White House.

Ann warrants a Super Bingo for this. It neatly fits in with the EA post about what we are facing once the courts make it official that Presidents can be prosecuted for their acts while in office. Her observation—spot on—was prompted by the Politico piece, “Bosses in the Biden admin are pressed over young staffers’ anonymous letters/Protest letters, like those over Israel, were rare in past administrations. White House veterans can barely contain their disdain over how times have changed”. Ethics Alarms posted many articles about how members of Trump’s staff and other officials in his administration, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, behaved unethically by abusing their positions of trust, leaking confidential information, and working behind the scenes to sabotage their superiors. The government simply cannot function without government staff and subordinates accepting the basic principle that while they are employed, as Paul Begala (the loyal Clinton henchman) says, “If confronted with a decision that crosses one’s ethical, moral, social, political lines, the choice is clear: Shut up and support it, or resign.”

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Playing “Good Racial Discrimination” Whack-A-Mole

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Campus Reform and College Fix are two generally excellent sleuth sites from the Right that focus on progressive misconduct and indoctrination in higher education. There are no equivalent sites on the Left, because such sites would have material to report about once a week, if that. Since the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down affirmative action, which was always unfair and illegal, all manner of anti-white discrimination in academia, government, the corporate world and the professions are being exposed, attacked in court, and being reversed. The sheer number of these is staggering, however, and eternal vigilance is the price of an ethical culture. How many of these prejudicial and discriminatory programs are there? After careful research and statistics gathering, I can safely say “A lot.” Also: “Too many.”

Campus Reform threw its metaphorical flag on USC and Compton College, which announced that they have created a “Faculty Prep Academy” for “students of color” only. You could stop right there: that’s illegal, and the schools must know it’s illegal. Never mind: apparently the theory behind such efforts is that they can get away with it.

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The Rest of the Story: One of Biden’s Ridiculously Unqualified Judicial Nominees Has Been Forced Out.

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Last March, Ethics Alarms reported on the stunning lack of ability and expertise being demonstrated by some of President Biden’s appointments to federal judgeships. At least Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) had some fun exposing their incompetence, though Democrats and pundits in the mainstream media mocked him for what they termed his “gotcha!” questions….you know, horribly unfair queries like “What’s a Brady motion?,” which any first year law student should know.

The worst of Biden’s dim legal bulbs was probably Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, nominated to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Washington. Kennedy’s questioning revealed her to be almost completely unfamiliar with the U.S. Constitution. Kennedy asked her, “Judge, tell me what article V of the Constitution does?”  “Article V is not coming to mind at the moment, she replied.  “How about article II?” he asked, Her response: “Neither is Article II.” I wrote of the judge’s performance a year ago,

This is more than evidence of incompetence, it shows arrogance. The woman is going to be vetted in a Senate hearing; wouldn’t you think she would at least do a little bit of preparation? Nah…she knows she’s assured of being confirmed, because no Democrat would dare vote against a female nominee “of color” no matter how unqualified she appeared to be, After all, as Senator Murray said, Murray said, what matters most is “a judiciary that reflects the diversity of this country.”

And indeed,  Sen.  Murray really did say she was very qualified for the job and “truly exceptional”—as in exceptionally not-white and exceptionably female. Well, it turns out that Murray was wrong, and so was I. Bjelkengren was informed that she wasn’t going to make it after all, and is one of five nominees whose nominations to the bench expired at the end of 2023 who was not among 18 nominees the White House resubmitted to the Senate this week.

Good.

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“Confronting My Biases” Meets “The Ethicist”: The Webcam Model Son

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“The Ethicist,” Kwame Anthony Appiah, was oh so sensitive answering this query from a concerned parent:

….I have just found out that my [college age] son is a “model” on a pornographic streaming service. My initial reaction was shock, revulsion and shame. But the longer I think about it, the more I wonder, is there really anything immoral or otherwise wrong about what he is doing? He does it from the privacy of his home, alone, and seems to earn a substantial amount of money. If he likes what he does, is there any reason on my part to feel alarmed, ashamed, guilty or worried?

The NYU philosophy prof essentially says that nobody is being hurt by the son’s activities, so they cannot be called “wrong.” He then explains, as I cut through the verbiage…

“If we agree that your son’s camming isn’t wrong, what explains your initial sense of revulsion? Part of your response might arise from the familiar intrafamilial squeamishness about sexual disclosures. That response, then, may have been connected not with what he was doing but with you, as his parent, knowing about it….you can also have prudential concerns. How would his prospects be affected if word got out about his webcam gig? Livestreams can be recorded and uploaded. Even if you think that erotic livestreaming is neither wrong nor shameful, it’s natural, as a parent, to worry about how others might react…There’s nothing hypocritical about compartmentalizing a cam gig. Pretty much all cultures — and subcultures — have ideas about modesty, privacy and discretion, and so understandings about the contexts where erotic display or simply nudity is appropriate.”

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