Tuning in for literally minutes this morning, I saw Fox News this morning run the video of the Cleveland Ind…sorry, Guardiansstunning the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series with an extra innings walk-off home run after tying the game with another homer in the 9th, as the Yankees were one out away from victory. Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino then spent an unusually long time expressing their enthusiasm for baseball and the play-of while making it crystal clear that neither of them knew what the hell they were talking about.
They said—twice!—that Cleveland was one strike away from elimination before that 9th inning home run. Morons. A Yankee win would have given New York a daunting 3 games to 0 lead (though the Yankees lost after having exactly that lead over the 2004 Boston Red Sox in that seasons’ famous ALCS), but the ALCS is a best-of-seven series, not best-of-five.
It’s disrespectful of baseball fans and the sport itself to presume to report baseball news and report it so carelessly and ignorantly. Perino and Hemmer obviously didn’t care enough to do their homework and to acquire sufficient basic knowledge about the play-offs to talk about the play-offs. Their feigned excitement was as fake as their commentary was incompetent. They are supposed to be professionals. A reporter thinking the ALCS is only five games while reporting on baseball’s play-offs is like thinking the popular vote determines the winner while reporting on a Presidential election.
Is a network that is this sloppy and unprofessional covering baseball likely to be more reliable when it reports on other matters?
A usually astute and beneficent friend of long-standing posted that on Facebook recently.
I’d love to know what Marxist Ethics Corrupter wrote it, so I can hold him or her up to the derision, contempt and shunning such a sinister argument deserves. The obvious smoking gun in the statement is “what society needs to know.”
Who determines what society needs to know? Current public schools, administrators and teachers have concluded that society needs to know that the United States was based on slavery, that its Founders were villains, that U.S. is currently a racist nation that citizens “of color” cannot succeed in without special assistance, that sexual identify is fluid and that socialism is the only morally defensible form of government.
None of that belongs in a public school curriculum. Public school exists to teach skills and critical thinking: it should no more be teaching political cant than religion. The totalitarian who issued that poison above is advocating indoctrination, and worse, indoctrination by people who I don’t know, trust, or believe have the education, perspective or intelligence to decide what “society needs to know.”
This story surprises me not in the least, as former representative Liz Cheney has the approximate respect for ethics of a wolf spider.
While vice chairwoman of the House committee “investigating” the January 6 Capitol riot (the correct term would be “exploiting”), Cheney used an encrypted phone app to directly communicate with witness Cassidy Hutchinson (above, with Cheney), who later changed her testimony. Cheney did this without alerting or having the permission and participation of Cassidy’s lawyer, a direct and serious violation of both legal ethics rules (Cheney is a member of the D.C. Bar and licensed to practice there) and Congressional rules as well.
Hutchinson was represented by D.C. attorney Stefan Passantino at the time, who says that he did not authorize the contacts with Cheney and was not aware of them until recently.
The D.C. Bar Rule of Professional Conduct 4.2 states that “a lawyer shall not communicate or cause another to communicate about the subject of the representation with a person known to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the lawyer has the prior consent of the lawyer representing such other person or is authorized by law or a court order to do so.” Indeed every bar’s rules state this, as do the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. It is one of the oldest and most strictly-observed legal ethics principles there is, pre-dating the first official set of legal ethics rules issued by the American Bar Association in 1908.
I’m still trying to decide how much to beat myself up after an epic botch yesterday. I completely whiffed on one of my monthly (and sometimes bi-monthly) legal ethics Zoom seminars after I forgot to set my alarm clock. This has been an exhausting and stressful week, as if follows the long-planned memorial event for my wife, who died on Leap Year. Old friends and colleagues that I hadn’t seen for many years came from all across the country over the long weekend, and I was left gratified but emotionally and physically exhausted. Then I had to hustle to catch up with work, including preparing for a complicated new musical ethics program in the evening on the 16th. Then things went crazy: I had emergency calls from clients, a surprise house guest whom I had to drive to the train station at 5 am the next morning, and assorted other crises. Despite having my scheduled seminar at 9 am, I lay my head down at 6 am with the intention of catching a couple of hours sleep, but didn’t set the alarm. I woke up at 10.
I spent all day yesterday still exhausted and furious at myself, and woke up no better. After almost 8 months, I still haven’t adjusted to living and working alone. Grace handled my schedule, served as my back-up, kept me alert to upcoming appointments and commitments, screened my calls and emails, and generally made it possible for me to be productive and creative as I juggle disparate tasks and multi-process compulsively without not falling flat on my metaphorical face. And I’m just not good at that stuff. I’m not good at living alone. When unexpected complications merged with my not being at top form mentally, emotionally and physically, I couldn’t navigate the perfect storm and let a lot of people down. It’s over, there’s nothing more I can do about it, but I’m not accepting my own apology.
Well, enough about me: please use this opportunity to discuss important things involving ethics, leadership….you know, the usual.
In a post three days ago, Ethics Alarms examined Christopher Rufo’s claim that Kamala Harris engaged in plagiarism in her first book, and concluded, based on the New York Times reportage, that unlike, for example, the substantial plagiarism indulged in by ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay, prompting her exit, Harris’s uncredited lifting and copying (in a book written with a co-writer, or maybe not written by Harris at all) was careless and accidental rather than deliberate.
Now another metaphorical shoe has dropped.
The Times claimed to show plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey the passages Rufo cited as plagiarized. It reported that he ruled that the material taken without attribution “were not serious, given the size of the document.” Now Bailey writes that he was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations.” That means that the Times gave readers the impression that he had seen all of the questionable sections when he had not.
Now that he has reviewed everything, Bailey’s conclusion is a bit different. He writes that he now believes that the “case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times.” And with that, we are thrust into a sick version of Johnny Carson’s launching pad quiz show, “Who Do You Trust?” I will not leave you in any unnecessary suspense : the answer is “Nobody.”
[I just added what follows to the previous post, but I want to highlight it. Like Brett Baier, I was slow on the trigger to come up with the proper response to Harris’s dishonest rant about Trump’s alleged reference to “the enemy within,” which occurs toward the end of the interview.]
Harris had some gall going on about Trump’s “enemy within” quote, which she and others, including the New York Times, mischaracterized. Here’s the Times [I think all Harris did is read the Times piece and adopted its spin.]…
[For some reason I can’t unembed the previous version of the video that worked this morning…]
I’m still waiting for a transcript, but if you were lucky enough to miss last night’s Kamala Harris Hail Mary interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, that’s the whole thing above. Harris arrived 10 minutes late for the interview and her staff cut it off early, so instead of the promised 30 minute interview with someone more prone to asking genuine questions than, say, The View’s panel of progressive dolts, Harris struggled through less than that. She is literally trying to run out the clock, perhaps a sound strategy when you’re ahead, but a cowardly when you are behind.
Observations:
Yesterday I opined that Harris has virtually nothing to support her argument for being President other than the irrefutable fact that she isn’t Donald Trump and that women should be able to kill their unborn children at will—and the President has almost no power to assist with the latter. Based on last night’s interview, I was literally correct. I expected Harris to be a little better prepared to issue some substance in the interview; now that I saw it, I don’t know what I was thinking. There literally is no substance to Harris or her candidacy, at least nothing she’s willing or able to express publicly. She really thinks she will get away with this, and that not being that Hitler/dictator/liar/super-villain/monster Trump is enough to win. Fascinating.
Harris did everything she could to avoid answering questions. constantly shifting to “But Trump…” I assume this was the agreed-upon strategy because she and her party think the American public is stupid and can’t recognize desperate deflection and fakery when it is right in front of their eyes. Maybe they are stupid. We shall see.
When Baier asked the obvious question about why Harris kept talking about “change” and “turning the page” when she, her party, and the man whose policies she endorsed without exception or reservations on “The View” have been in the metaphorical driver’s seat since 2021, Harris answered,
“Well, first of all, turning the page from the last decade in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed and implemented to divide our country…”
Later she elaborated, sort of, saying “Let me be very clear—My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. Like every new President that comes into office I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas.”
Then..
Baier: “[M]ore than 70 percent of people tell the country is on the wrong track. They say the country is on the wrong track. If it’s on the wrong track, that track follows three and a half years of you being Vice President and president Biden being President. That is what they’re saying, 79% of them. Why are they saying that? If you are turning the page, you’ve been in office for three and a half years.”
Harris: “And Donald Trump has been running for office since …
Baier: “But you’ve been the person holding the office!”
Harris: “Come on, come on!”
Baier: “Madam Vice President.”
Harris: “You and I both know what I’m talking about. You and I both know what I’m talking about.”
Baier: “I actually don’t. What are you talking about?”
Harris: “What I’m talking about is that over the last decade, people have become …”
Baier: “But you have the lever of power!”
Harris: “But, listen, over the last decade, it is clear to me and certainly the Republicans who are on stage with me. The former chief of staff to the President, Donald Trump, former defense secretaries, national security adviser and his Vice President, one that he is unfit to serve that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader who spends full time demeaning and nd engaging in personal grievances and it being about him and…”
Baier: “Madam Vice President.”
Harris: “… instead of the American people. People are tired of that.”
Baier: “If that’s the case why is half the country supporting him? Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states? Why, if he’s as bad as you say that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?”
Harris: “This is an election for president of the United States. It’s not supposed to be easy.”
Baier: “I know, but if it’s as…”
Harris: “It’s not supposed to be a cake walk for anyone.”
Baier: “So are they misguided, the 50%? Are they stupid?”
Harris: “Oh, god, I would never say that about the American people. And, in fact, when you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he is the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He is the one who talks about an enemy within — within — an enemy within — talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”
Here’s another glaring example of how all Harris could do was deflect to Trump rather than discuss her own positions:
Baier: “So, are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates to detained illegal aliens on inmates to transgender?
Harris: “I will follow a law and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You’re probably familiar with — now it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system and I think, frankly, that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of, like, throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in a glass house.”
Baier: “The Trump aides say he never advocated for that prison policy and no gender transition surgeries happened during his…”
Harris: Well, you know what? You gotta take responsible for what happened in your administration.
Baier: “He had no surgeries happened in his presidency.”
Harris: “It’s in black and white.”
Baier: “So, would you still advocate for using taxpayer dollars for gender reassignment surgeries?”
Harris: “I will follow the law, just as I…”
Baier: “But you have a say in…”
Harris: “I think Donald Trump would say he did.”
Baier: “You would have a say as president.”
Harris: “Like I said, I think he spent $20 million on those ads trying to create a sense of fear in the voters because he actually has no plan in this election that is about focusing on the needs of the American people whereas a $20 million on that ad on an issue that, as it relates to the biggest issue that effect the American people, it’s really quite remote and, again, his policy was no different. Look at where we are though.”
Oh.
This was Harris’s “But Trump!” deflection when Baier asked when it was that she began to figure out that President Biden was losing marbles at a rapid rate, and why she kept insisting he was as sharp as ever:
“Joe Biden I have watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people. Brett, Joe Biden’s not on the ballot, and Donald Trump is … I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump.”
I would like to read or hear the reasoning by a Democrat zombie that Harris was effective in this interview. I ban commenters on Ethics Alarms who argue like she did.
Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias (or coordination of the news media through Axis High Command)! The memo went out that the official spin to be put on this debacle is that Harris showed she was strong and combative. The official word-of-the- day was “feisty” which—I’m sure it was a coincidence—shows up again and again. Baier, naturally, is being criticized for being “rude” by trying to get Harris to answer his questions. “Kamala Harris Arrived for a Fox Interview. She Got a Debate,” whined the Times, as if the mainstream media hacks haven’t treated every interview with Trump or Vance as an adversarial encounter.
Over at Alhouse’s place, the supposedly “fiercely” objective blogger’s reaction to the interview was “I’ve been waiting for Harris to do a tough, challenging interview, and it was painful to watch the deflection and evasion. The main defense seemed to be to make Bret Baier look bad because he interrupted. Terrible.” In the almost 200 comments to her post so far, only “Inga,” the Democrat troll that Althouse tolerates for some reason, was anything but disgusted with Harris’s performance. Inga wrote in part, “Harris did an excellent job. Much much much better than Trump if he were to have been interviewed by Rachel Maddow or someone on MSNBC or CNN, that’s why he is chickenshit to face a tough interviewer.”
How deluded or dishonest must someone be to call Harris’s performance “an excellent job”?
Baier is getting criticized by Trump supporters because he didn’t ask other questions, such as grilling Harris about the FBI report just released that showed a much higher murder rate in the U.S. under Biden than had been reported before. If Harris had submitted to an hour-ling interview as she should have, Baier would have been able to ask more questions.
ADDED…
Harris had some gall going on about Trump’s “enemy within” quote, which she and others, including the New York Times, mischaracterized. Here’s the Times [I think all Harris did is read the Times piece and adopted its spin.]
With three weeks left before Election Day, former President Donald J. Trump is pushing to the forefront of his campaign a menacing political threat: that he would use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him.
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump framed Democrats as a pernicious “enemy from within” that would cause chaos on Election Day that he speculated the National Guard might need to handle.
A day later, he closed his remarks to a crowd at what was billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania with a stark message about his political opponents.
“They are so bad and frankly, they’re evil,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re evil. What they’ve done, they’ve weaponized, they’ve weaponized our elections. They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.”
How the Times gets from those comments to “use the power of the presidency to crush those who disagree with him” I don’t know. Do you? He predicted Democrats rioting, and that is exactly what others (including me) have predicted. The National Guard quells riots. If the National Guard is called out on Election Day, it will be the Biden Administration that does it.
Harris said that Trump called “the public” the “enemy within,” which makes no sense and isn’t what he said. He called her party “the enemy within.” That’s what it is, as I have documented here for months and years. Trump is, as usual, sloppy with explaining himself, but if there is anyone who has no standing to criticize him for characterizing her party as “the enemy within,” it is a member of this…
…administration. As for “They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible,” that is true. Beginning with executing an investigation of the President based on false information from the Democratic Presidential campaign, Harris’s party has executed two impeachments that did not conform to Constitutional and established norms, corrupted a Presidential election by loosening ballot security standards, held a partisan star chamber inquiry over a single riot at the Capitol to establish the falsehood that Trump attempted an “insurrection,” and used partisan prosecutors to pursue multiple legal cases against their most formidable political opponent. Then they appointed a Presidential candidate with no participation by the voting public whatsoever, Soviet-style.
Trump’s statement was essentially correct. The Democrats have become a pernicious enemy of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the political process.
I don’t believe a lot of commentary is needed here…
The town of Stadtallendorf in western Germany lost its state-of-the-art fire station, which cost the municipality tens of millions of euros, when it burned to the ground yesterday in part because the building had not been equipped with a fire alarm. A fire started in a vehicle and quickly spread; although about 170 firefighters battled the blaze—that’s one advantage a fire at a fire station has: it doesn’t take long for the firefighters to get to the fire—10 fire engines were destroyed and the building was a total loss. Members of the local volunteer fire brigade tried to help.
At least no one was injured although, though the town planner will have to wear bags over their heads for the foreseeable future.
“You know what he says he’ll do? Terminate the Constitution United States. Let me remind folks: You know what’s in the Constitution of United States? The Fourth Amendment, which protects you against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment. And he’s going to terminate the Constitution of the United States? Which in most of those amendments, one thing or another, was about a movement spurred by black people to ensure that we would be equally protected under the law. Come on.”
—Kamala Harris, lying her metaphorical head off, fearmongering and generally demonstrating why those voting for this unprincipled demagogue should wear bags over their heads forever more.
If I have to explain all that is wrong with that idiotic statement, you’re not smart enough to be coming here. Try this instead.
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
I guess this seems a bit harsh, but then, I never let my late wife forget that she threw out our Paul McCartney concert tickets, and that was only $500 down the metaphorical drain.
$527 million! And it’s really worse than that, believe it or not.
James Howells, 39, accidentally threw out a hard drive containing his bitcoin stash in 2013. It was worth around $1 million then but now has an estimated worth of about $527 million.
Since that epic “Oopsie!” Howells has requested, demanded and implored the Newport, Great Britain, Council, which oversees the landfill where his hard drive ended up, to retrieve it for him. The body has refused; after all, the necessary excavation will take between 18 and 36 months followed by a year of area restorative work, and the council says that all of this would be environmentally irresponsible. Now Howells is suing the council for $646 million in damages because it won’t remedy his mistake. Hoping that the lawsuit will leverage the council into being “reasonable,” Howells has assembled a team to carry out the $13 million excavation. On the team is the council’s former head of landfill, who claims to know the exact area where the hard drive is. He’s also dangling the prospect of a 10% commission to the Council when the hard drive is found.
The Ethics Verdict here: Howells’ dumb mistake is not the Council’s responsibility. Their duty is to the community, not him. The appropriate and ethical response to Howell’s threats is “Bite me!” He and the former landfill head can get shovels and dig for the thing themselves. Who knows? They might get lucky.
Ethics Alarms 