Month: September 2024

The News Media Has Sunk To Its Lowest Level of Journalism Ethics Yet During This Year [Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

…which is not to say that it won’t sink even lower. The slobbering Kamala Harris coverage by MSNBC may be the nadir so far: Is the network’s openly biased MSNBC host Stephanie Rule the symbol of the pre-2024 elections news media corruption, or is it ABC’s anti-Trump hacks Lindsey Davis and David Muir, who made the Harris-Trump debate a three-against-one affair?

Before being Harris’s choice for a friendly, softball interview, Harris said on “Real Time With Bill Maher” that it didn’t matter to her if Harris evaded questions and refused to clearly delineate her policy positions. Why? “Kamala Harris is not running for perfect, she’s running against Trump.”

Ruhle further rationalized, “We have two choices, so there are some things you might not know her answer to. And in 2024 — unlike 2016, for a lot of the American people –we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy.”

That’s journalistic objectivity in 2024. She “knows” what Trump will do? What, like letting mobs of illegals cross the borders? Prosecute political opponents? Explode the national debt? Appoint people for their ethnicity, sexual orientation and skin color rather than their ability to do the job? Refuse to fire even the most flagrantly incompetent? What is she talking about?

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Ethics Hero: This Kid…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I don’t grant the 10-year-old this honor because of his assessment of Harris, but because he had the guts and the integrity to give that answer, without blinking, to a CNN propagandist.

I fervently hope after our indoctrination factory in the public schools get their hooks into him, he maintains the fortitude and independence he declared here. Oh, I’m sure it’s likely that his parents would answer the same way. Nevertheless, it was a bracing moment. There is hope.

I’m surprised CNN didn’t “factcheck” him….

Scientists Who Make Recommendations Like This Forfeit the Privilege of Being Taken Seriously

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

And yet how many climate change hysterics, including some regulators and elected officials, will quote them as authority anyway? Geena has an answer…

Researchers at the University of Cambridge announced their solution to the contribution of air travel to world-ending carbon emissions: force airplanes to fly more slowly. Reducing flight speeds about 15% would add an average of 50 minutes to flights. The measure would slash fuel burn by 5 to 7%, reducing the 4% industry contribution to overall climate change. These findings will be presented to the science-savvy delegates at the United Nations.

The scientists argue that longer flights could be offset by more efficiently organized airports with fewer holdups. Apparently these people haven’t flown recently. Can distinguished scientists also be deluded morons? It’s a rhetorical question.

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Why I Just Billed A Client For My Dog’s Evening Walk….

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

In “The Firm,” the corrupt lawyer played by Gene Hackman tells new associate Tim Cruise that he is supposed to bill for every second he is thinking about a client’s work, in the shower, on the toilet, at the movies. Inflating fees is one of the most flagrant and common of all lawyer misconduct, and it is almost impossible to prove unless a lawyer does something stupid like billing more than 24 hours a day (and an amazing number of lawyers have tried that). In the film version of “The Firm,” in fact (though not in the novel) Cruise’s character uses proof that the mobbed-up firm he worked for was over-billing clients to wiggle out of his own legal and ethical dilemma.

As a general rule, I think it’s generally dishonest to bill clients for every thought.

I am preparing an ethics report, and doing so with a famous, legendary, super-credentialed lawyer who charges four times what I do as my ethical adversary. His experience and credentials make me look like comparative piker, but 1) I’m on the right side of this issue 2) his ethics report was pathetic and 3) this case is in my wheelhouse, not his.

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Huh. I Wonder Why There Are No “Trump-Vance” Signs Anywhere In My Neighborhood?

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Virginia is a so-called “purple state,” and even though Northern Virginia is Woke Central (Remember my neighbor who had a giant “Black Lives Matter” display in front of her house for almost three years?), there are plenty of Republican, conservatives and Trump supporters. And yet I have driven my car and walked Spuds all over the area, and I see only Harris-Walz signs. Why is that?

I think it is because Republicans have been intimidated. Professing fealty to the Leftist totalitarians who propped up a puppet President and covered up his disability, then appointed his successor while blathering on about how they were protecting Democracy, is considered proof of virtue. Expressing a contrary view risks being Dershowitzed and cancelled. I see the same phenomenon on Facebook. The vast, vast majority of my friends write the most fatuous, absurd pro-Harris propaganda imaginable, but the conservatives I know are posting pictures of their dogs and talk about movies and TV.

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Ethics Villain: Former NYC Pandemic Lockdown Czar Dr. Jay Varma

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

We can now add this shameless creep to the list of powerful state and municipal hypocrites—they are too many to list, but EA spotlighted some of them— who violated their own excessive pandemic restrictions because, after all, they are better than the little people, and because they could. I’m filing all of them with the health officials who announced that letting Black Lives Matter disrupt cities and government functions while doing millions of dollars in damage made the racist, Marxist group immune from the restrictions on church gatherings, funeral and family gatherings.

Jay Varma, however, is special.

Dr. Jay Varma was the senior advisor for public health in New York City under Mayor Bill de Blasio, another ethics villain. Varma imposed extraordinary restrictions on public outings, gatherings, and personal activities. But a video has been released showing Varma admitting that he ignored his own policies to attend sex parties. A spokesman for Varma told CBS News New York he and his wife held two sex parties in a hotel with friends after he had banned such gatherings; Varma also admitted participating in a dance party with about 200 people underneath a Wall Street bank in June of 2021.

Varma was fired as executive vice president and chief medical officer at SIGA Technologies after confirming the reports about the video. Good. But it’s not enough. There have not been adequate consequences for any of these power abusing, elitist totalitarians and liars.

Surprise ! Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 64 Comments

September and October 2024 are going down in the ProEthics annals as the busiest months since the pandemic freakout and among the busiest months of ethics consulting I’ve had ever. What this means, I do not know, but today, once again, I have legal training session that will occupy my attentions this morning. Thus I am opening the weekly free-for-all a day early.

The big news, but with no details yet, is that New York City Mayor Eric Adams is about to be indicted. I expected this, not necessarily with Adams but with one or more of the horrible crop of arrogant, autocratic Democrat mayors who run so many of our major cities. They have a collective chip on their shoulders the size of El Capitan, most of them are “of color” and determined to make up for lost time and opportunity. I expect more of this: the Democratic Party has spawned a culture of corruption that is dangerous and increasingly difficult to hide.

Speaking of a culture of corruption, Paul Pelosi once again read tea leaves or something and guessed what the Feds were about to do to Visa, so he dumped $500,000 in the company’s stock two months before the company was sued for anti-competitive business practices. He has done a lot of this investment management magic since his wife has been a power in Congress. The X account “Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” flagged the trade when the Department of Justice filed its lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the company maintained an illegal monopoly over the U.S. debit card market.

Nothing to see here, move along…

But I digress. The ethics topics are up to you.

A Visit to Football’s Bizarro World

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Sure, I guess in a crazy system where universities pay students to play football for them, this story makes sense, sort of.

The star starting quarterback for UNLV, Matthew Sluka is quitting the team after UNLV’s first 3-0 start in 40 years. He says he will sit out the rest of the season because the school hasn’t ponied up the $100,000 he says he was promised by an assistant coach before committing to the school this offseason.

Ah, remember those quaint old days when college football heroes devoted their passion and athletic talents to winning for team, the school, and fellow students? Today instead of “Win one for the Gipper,” it’s “Show me the money.” Tell me again why we let educational institutions run professional football and basketball teams stocked with phony students who usually graduate, if they graduate, having learned nothing but how to talk to their accountants?

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Ethics Dunce: Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Would it be unfair of me to write, “Now there’s a face you can trust!”? Sure it would, but I don’t care. He is exactly the kind of unethical politician that Congress has way, way too many of. He upsets me so much, I ended a sentence with a preposition.

Shortly after taking the oath of office following his election to Congress in 2022, D’Esposito hired his fiancée’s daughter to work as a “special assistant” in his district office at a salary that eventually reached $3,800 a month. Then D’Esposito hired a woman with whom he was having an affair. Devin Faas collected $2,000 a month for a part-time job in the same district office as his fiancée’s daughter. (Uh, this is not the smartest way to cheat on your beloved.) When D’Esposito’s fiancée discovered the affair with Faas in July of 2023, she broke up with him, and both of the dubious hires had to find other employment.

Apparently the lovebirds are back together again. That’s nice.

She’s an idiot.

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This Is So Stupid I Can’t Even Come Up With A Headline That Does It Justice…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

However, I did summon George Costanza…

CTV News in Calvary, Canada blithely reported this as if it made perfect sense…

“Calgary police have released a photo of a suspect wanted in connection with a fire in the community of Riverbend that damaged multiple homes. Emergency crews were called to a home in the 100 block of Riverglen Crescent S.E. at 12:40 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22 for reports of a blaze. The fire gutted a garage and caused damage to two homes. No injuries were reported.”

And here’s the photo police posted:

Yup, it was that infamous Dick Tracy villain, Blur-Face! “Because police think the suspect is a teen, they blurred the face in the photo that was released,” the CTV says. Oh. Makes perfect sense—in Canada, maybe. “The identity of young offenders is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act,” we are told.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if young offenders’ identities are protected, why are police asking people to identify this one? Officers are hoping someone may recognize the teen’s clothing, you see. My brain hurts: so they can publicize aspects of a “young offender’s identity” as long as it’s…what, not sufficient to be likely to identify him?

How does it advance respect for law enforcement to have police do something this pointless without out their appearing to acknowledge it’s probably futile? How does news media justify reporting the senseless as if it makes perfect sense?