Thing I: The most obvious ethics issue going on is, still, the post 2024 election Axis freakout. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. When Ronald Reagan, whom the Democratic establishment in Washington regarded as a Neanderthal, washed-up actor whose most memorable film had him co-starring with a chimp (“Bedtime for Bonzo”), the reaction of liberals and Democrats wasn’t nearly this hysterical…or demeaning to them. The news media has been equally bonkers. The faces of network news anchors and hosts when a Trump administration supporter is talking are uniformly mask of pure hatred: I started noticing this yesterday. It reminded me of Katie Couric when she interviewed Ross Perot in the “Today Show” with an expression she reserved for people like David Duke…or Satan. Facial expressions and body language that tell an audience that an interviewer detests her interview subject is unprofessional, but it has now become the norm.
The same faces, restrained (and sometimes unrestrained fury) have been on display as the Democratic Senators question virtually all of Trump’s nominees. It says something that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who was derided by the Right for running for the Senate after suffering actual brain damage from a stroke,has emerged as the sole voice of reason in his party. “There isn’t a constitutional crisis, and all of these things ― it’s just a lot of noise,” Fetterman said this week. “That’s why I’m only gonna swing on the strikes. I’m still wishing him the best. I’m effectively rooting for [Elon Musk] and all the nominees because they’re working for America.” This should be the position of all Democrats and progressives, especially since, unlike 2017, the majority of American feel the same way, and it is the way Americans have usually regarded newly elected POTUSes and their emerging administrations.
The fury being directed at Elon Musk, a brilliant man who is giving his time to his nation as it tries to solve the problems of government bloat, waste, corruption and abuse that everyone at least claims they want to solve is an embarrassment for the Democrats and their Axis allies. Infamous dim-bulb Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson (he’s the one who worried that Guam would flip over because too much U.S. military material was on the island) raged yesterday, “What does that mean when an unelected billionaire can waltz into our agencies and slash and burn the whole thing to the ground like a Taliban terrorist, This level of corruption is shocking. President Trump and the Republicans in Congress, all of whom have abrogated their legislative power to the King, have handed the keys to the nation’s treasury to unelected co-president Elon Musk. Their actions are taking what we know as corruption to a whole new level. This is Banana Republic style corruption at its ugliest.” I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that this idiot doesn’t know how the Executive Branch works, but the frightening thing is that so many lawyers are behaving similarly based on their social media rants. Is it possible that they are really this stupid.
Thing 2: The guest post submissions I solicited a week ago are finally coming in: another will go up today. I thank you all: what I have seen so far is of excellent quality. This effort to try to keep up with an unprecedented wave of ethics stories while freeing me from a permanent government and politics beat is important; I also want to emphasize that it does not eliminate the Comment of the Day feature here. (I think I have at least one of those languishing).
I’m sorry: that was a longer intro than I anticipated.
The stage is yours.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack wrote, “The most obvious ethics issue going on is, still, the post 2024 election Axis freakout. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it.”
I’ve seen it before and I think you’ve written about it before.
What we have is a major moral and ethics flush of the political left, part two…
If we review what happened in the recent years, 2016 thru 2021, we’ll see many tactical similarities. It started before the inauguration but since that was the actual beginning of President Trump the First’s administration we should begin with the long list of DC Democrats that boycotted the inauguration, protests saying that Trump was not the legitimate President, then on inauguration day DC Democrats stating that the impeachment process is under way, then the Washington Post starting their pure anti-Trump propaganda page declaring that they were tracking President Trump’s “lies”, then the majority of the mainstream media complex going full bore advocacy journalism favoring Democrats and publishing pure anti-Trump propaganda, remember how the left intentionally lied about the “good people on both sides” comment from Trump to tar him as a white supremist racist, everything Trump did was racist, fascist, unconstitutional or illegal. Trump was tarred as an anti-Christ demon, etc, etc. The list goes on, and on, and on.
Remember that…
…President Trump’s presence has caused the political left to revealed their immoral anti-American tendencies, again! Their cultish behaviors dictates that they must oppose absolutely everything that Trump does, because everything a fascist demon does has to be evil, and that puts them on the side of being anti-American and against “we the people”. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is now in its acute phase, post brainwashing deprogramming by professionals is the only solution for these obsessed wackos.
What we’re seeing might be slightly different than 2016-2021 on the visible surface but the underlying tactics are just more of the same. The political left is again showing us their core tactical “the ends justifies the means” moral bankruptcy…
This the same kind of things that was put into practice by the master propagandist Paul Joseph Goebbels who was a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.
What we’re seeing has been done before, the only question I have right now is how fare are the Trump deranged willing to push their absurdity. Some of them are openly calling to bring weapons to the fight against what Trump is doing. We’re in for a rough four years if the Democrats continue down their path of moral bankruptcy.
Yes, I think we’ve seen this before.
Would it be ethical for President Trump to ignore rulings of third tier federal judges, who issue injunctions and restraining orders against his actions to bring the federal bureaucracy to order (DOGE, layoffs and firings)?
I am not a lawyer, but based on what I have read in the last days is that the following considerations are important:
President Trump appears to follow lower court rulings; this may be out of comity. However if this lawfare by the lower courts continues, and it endangers the Trump administration from governing, what would be the ethical impact of Trump ignoring the courts?
The following scenarios may be considered:
I don’t think so… But only because the system needs some base level of adherence if it’s going to continue functioning. Some of these judges are so far out over their skis that I feel like sanctions, if such a function exists, are appropriate.
Take the Federal Judge who put a hold on Trump’s executive order authorizing buyouts…. The argument was that congress had to authorize spending. The obvious problem with that is that congress already did… Trump wasn’t going to pay out more in salary than the employees were already getting, and there’s an obvious difference between authorizing spending on payroll and micromanaging how and who that salary is spent on. It’s a bizarre ruling. It’s embarrassing.
One of the questions I have seen raised is: Are national injunctions constitutional? What many of these lower court rulings have in common is that someone sues against a specific policy and the judge they go to issues an injunction that covers the entire country.
I don’t think that’s usually how federal courts work — don’t you have to actually show that you have been injured by a particular policy to be able to sue in federal court? So a nation wide ban would extend that one person to the whole country.
I am not a lawyer, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night, so I cannot judge the merits of the argument. But it does seem that it is being used in an unprecedented number of instances to oppose Trump policies.
I think Turley had a column on this, maybe in USA Today.
Here is a blast to my law school class from the class notes secretary (who by the way is the nicest guy you will meet). At first, I thought it was a joke, but it isn’t.
Hello all!
I’m going to drop all pretense. Class notes can serve as a historical record. Ours serve as a very small slice of what the elites were up to at the time. Will our class notes contain anything that reflect efforts to oppose the current unprecedented attacks on our democracy and our descent into a dictatorship. Our self-declared “dictator on day 1” is clearly not satisfied with just a day. Will historians look at our notes decades hence and see business as usual, or will they see the seeds of resistance and fight? So, if you are fighting back in any fashion (demonstrations/civil disobedience, law suits, contributions of time or money, etc), I’d like to showcase news about any of your efforts to stand up for the rule of law, human decency, and our democracy.
This will be the last class notes prior to our 40th class reunion this coming fall. I’d like to make it a hopeful one.
This reveals so much about the mind-set of the “elites” that any commentary on my part is unnecessary.
P.S. My daughter (also a lawyer) pointed out the unlikelihood that years from now people will be looking to class notes as a “historical record.”
I don’t know about you, Curt, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the vast majority of retired, or soon to be retired lawyers, i.e. fully adult and senior lawyers, is that the elites (i.e. they themselves) know best, Trump is not an elite, and therefore, he is simply not acceptable. Very shocking. The contempt is wide and deep. It drips from anything they have to say about the current administration and it’s executive. And ironically, Joe Bide was deemed an elite, all the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Or else they thought, “Joe’s okay, he’s being run by elites like us. Good.”
I am however, annoyed by the continuing rhetoric around the 51st state.
I don’t understand the thought process. Every bit of this was so self defeating. From the utterly ridiculous original blanket tariff, to the almost immediate capitulation, to the newer (and more understandable) metals tariffs, to the withdrawal of military co-operation… All the while Ribbing a Prime Minister who has resigned about his “governorship”.
I don’t get the joke, I don’t see the leverage, he seems to be looking at bits of the world to see if he can expand America’s borders, maybe on the auspices that doing so would cement his place in history: The first president to expand the union since 1959. But he’s like a dog chasing a car… What would he do if he actually got it? 51st state. 2 senators, probably 50 electoral votes, and just as many house seats. Republicans would never form government again.
For the record: A tariff is a domestic tax. Americans are paying it. It’s why the markets shat themselves on his first round of tariffs. They’re a protectionist measure designed to prop up struggling domestic industries: If you make it more expensive to import, maybe people will buy local. But that only works if you have local production. Despite Trump saying that America has all the lumber and energy it needs, that isn’t currently true. You don’t get to a $200 billion dollar trade deficit while having domestic capacity.
And never mind building materials, electricity or oil. America as a whole has a $50 billion dollar trade deficit on food. Without trade, your people would *literally* starve. But yes, let’s tariff food imports because there’s 20 pounds of fentanyl coming over the border, and Trump’s deep unhappy with the USMCA agreement that *he himself* negotiated.
It’s trolling, and yes, I agree, stupid trolling. It’s like the “Gulf of America” stunt. This a restatement of the “brash, cocky, Americans” stereotype, exceptionalism, etc. I like part of that tradition, and it was deliberately spat upon by Obama and Biden, so that’s why its part of the MAGA rebellion. In “The Mummy,” there are three American cowboy types competing with the heroes in the Egypt treasure hunt, and when the steamer everyone is on traveling down the Nile is invaded by the bad guys, the three are seen shooting with Colts in each hand and shouting “Yee haa!” The bother of the British librarian teaming with hero Brendan Frasier sniffs in contempt, “Americans!” This kind of thing is is laced throughout our popular culture, in movies as diverse as “The Wind and the Lion” and “Independence Day. It’s smart salesmanship for Trump, and he doesn’t care if it insults Canadians.
But again, it’s substantively stupid.
I don’t think we’d be in any danger of starving, just a blander diet. The use of dollars to measure imports vs exports is a little misleading. The dollar per calorie is variable by product. We import some fruits, vegetables, sea food, and processed foods. We export grains and meat.
I can’t easily find solid data on the trade imbalance in calories. Calories isn’t necessarily a great marker either.
Am I missing something? Isn’t there a substantial difference between threatening tariffs and imposing them? Why does everyone zoom right past that “threat” thingy?
I’m more interested in the U.S. imposing reciprocal tariffs, particularly on the EU. “Goose, meet Gander.” And again, they are being “studied.” Good. Let’s see what falls out of the tree when you shake it.
Like I said… Trump *DID* sign the 25% tariff on all Canadian goods, which included food, and was so cripplingly stupid that the markets shed like 6% on the day, after which he ended the tariffs by graciously accepting the Canadian offer of “exactly what was on the table a year ago”.
I don’t know…. There’s a chance that this is right, but A $50 billion dollar deficit is big enough that it almost definitionally feels like it has to accompany a calorie deficit.
HT,
A tariff on goods is a domestic tax on goods only if there are few substitutes. A tariff makes one good more expensive relative to another product. Right now, eggs are expensive here because the last ag secretary forced the extermination of millions of hens because of Avian flu outbreak here. Are people buying the same number of eggs? Nope they switched to other, perhaps less healthy alternatives or simply did without.
The tariff threat is to get people to the table to come to an agreement. If human trafficking across Canada’s border into the U.S. gets them out of Canada why should they be concerned. If precursor chemicals pass through Mexico into the U.S. why should they care if it is not affecting their citizens. The tariff threat forces them to act because it could impose some type of cost on their citizens and that is not politically desirable. The U.S. is already burdened with the costs of those exports from those countries so eliminating those costs in the long run may offset any small tariff in the short run. The tariff threat worked. Trump would prefer free trade but he will not be played.
Trump negotiated the USMCA agreement to eliminate tariffs on some goods to get access to Canadian and Mexican markets. The problem was that both nations erected non-tariff barriers that prevented exports our goods to those countries. If our corn and other grains could be sold in Mexico their would be no deficit with them. If Canada stops subsidizing its high powered dairy farmers and allowed unfettered access to Canadian consumers that trade deficit with Canada would shrink. Exactly how many members of Parliament come from dairy producing provinces? Quite a few I believe.
“Broad trade liberalization through agreements such as the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations and many other free trade agreements have steadily diminished U.S. agriculture’s position and given up vast market share to imports. Currently, the largest agricultural trade deficits for the United States are with Mexico and Canada. These two countries are vivid examples of how trade liberalization has led to worse trade deficits for U.S. agriculture. Agricultural trade with Mexico and Canada has been extensively liberalized through trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), effective 1994, and most recently, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USCMA).
USMCA came into effect in 2020 and carried over all the zero tariffs rates for agricultural products from NAFTA. USMCA also introduced additional market access for foreign agricultural imports in exchange for U.S. export access. For example, the U.S. granted Canada additional market access for dairy, peanuts, processed peanut products, and sugar products (1). However, this trade in U.S. agricultural market access in an effort to benefit exports backfired.
According to U.S. Department of Agriculture trade data, in the aftermath of the USMCA agreement, the U.S. agricultural trade deficit with Mexico expanded by $4.1 billion from 2020 to 2024. And the agricultural trade deficit with Canada increased by $9.4 billion during the same time period (2).
As shown in Figure 3, the U.S. is on pace for a $18.8 billion agricultural trade deficit with Mexico and a $12.5 billion agricultural trade deficit with Canada in 2024. The U.S. also has major agricultural trade deficits with South American countries such as Brazil, Peru, and Chile, as well as European countries like Italy, France, and Ireland. Meanwhile, the United States’ trade surpluses with countries in East Asia, most notably with China (at $18.3 billion), as well as Japan and South Korea, fail to make up the deficit losses elsewhere.”
U.S. Faces Record Agricultural Imports, Worst Trade Deficit in History | Coalition For A Prosperous America
Canada and Mexico have not lived up to the terms of the USMCA by initiating quotas for dairy imports. By subsidizing domestic production and requiring exports to be sold a full Canadian costs that amounts to a non tariff barrier.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Feb 1 (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday said it was seeking a second trade dispute settlement panel over Canada’s dairy import quotas, accusing Canada of not meeting obligations to open its market to American producers. The move is the latest salvo in longstanding tensions between the trade partners over Canada’s protected dairy industry.HOW DOES CANADA’S DAIRY SYSTEM WORK?
Canada has tightly controlled supplies of dairy, eggs and poultry since the 1970s, restricting how much farmers can produce and limiting imports through onerous tariffs.
Explainer: Spilt milk? Why are the US and Canada fighting over dairy? | Reuters
The U.S can decide to eliminate tariffs and do as other nations have done to us by imposing import quotas. We could even subsidize our farmers production and allowing it to be sold in export markets.
We are long past the notion that comparative advantage is why we should trade. It assumes that all nations play fairly. They don’t. Mexico bans our corn because it may be genetically modified. Canada protects its dairy farmers by limiting all types of dairy products except for those to be re-exported. The Canadian government subsidizes domestic production so that its citizens find imports more expensive. I am not even going to get into what happened to our Ag exports in the Uruguay round.
We won’t starve if we stop buying Canadian or Mexican ag products.
Non-tariff barriers such as quotas limit supply and drive up prices. Subsidies to dairy farmers help hide the fact that the non-tariff barrier with subsidies simply tax the Canadian consumer differently.
“A tariff on goods is a domestic tax on goods only if there are few substitutes. A tariff makes one good more expensive relative to another product. Right now, eggs are expensive here because the last ag secretary forced the extermination of millions of hens because of Avian flu outbreak here. Are people buying the same number of eggs? Nope they switched to other, perhaps less healthy alternatives or simply did without.”
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here, but saying it this way seems self defeating; Either the tariff is applied to the normal price, in which case the American consumer pays the cost, or the exporter charges less in order to make the consumer whole after the tariff is applied, in which case the exporter makes less in margin. But at 25%, most margins would be gone, so maybe the sale just isn’t made. You said it yourself: Eggs are expensive because of a supply side problem. Covid lockdowns exacerbated an already lagging production market, from vehicles to food to energy, and years of immigration mismanagement has ramped up demand. So…. Why would Canadian dairy producers lower their prices when there’s a global dearth of eggs? The answer: We won’t. Someone else will buy them at full price if you won’t. And Americans will pay more for eggs. Or not eat them. And that logic carries down to most of the other things we trade.
The problem is that you don’t have domestic substitutes for the vast majority of products you buy from Canada or Mexico. Someone earlier said that they thought you wouldn’t starve, but selections might suffer. I don’t know. I think when you have 50 billion dollars as a food trade deficit, you’re probably net importing calories. This most recent steel and aluminum tariff at least makes sense because you have domestic production of both, and you’ll notice the markets agreed with me: They didn’t move much on the announcement.
“The tariff threat is to get people to the table to come to an agreement. If human trafficking across Canada’s border into the U.S. gets them out of Canada why should they be concerned. If precursor chemicals pass through Mexico into the U.S. why should they care if it is not affecting their citizens. The tariff threat forces them to act because it could impose some type of cost on their citizens and that is not politically desirable. The U.S. is already burdened with the costs of those exports from those countries so eliminating those costs in the long run may offset any small tariff in the short run. The tariff threat worked. Trump would prefer free trade but he will not be played.“
This a deeply stupid way to look at international trade. When you buy your groceries at Safeway, you have a trade deficit with Safeway, having a trade deficit isn’t bad if you get value out of the transaction.
And “The tariff threat worked” is… absurd. I’m sorry, but what do you think the 24 hour tariff threat netted America? The 10,000 troops Mexico pledged? Already pledged to Biden. The 1.3 billion on the Canadian border? Already pledged to Biden. Both these plans were hashed out before the October election was counted. And the differences between the new deals and the old are sparse. As far as I can tell, the only difference from Canada is the appointment of a Border Czar.
And don’t get me wrong, I like the attention being paid to the border. I would just like it if there was y’know… coherent policy being discussed.
“Trump negotiated the USMCA agreement to eliminate tariffs on some goods to get access to Canadian and Mexican markets. The problem was that both nations erected non-tariff barriers that prevented exports our goods to those countries. If our corn and other grains could be sold in Mexico their would be no deficit with them. If Canada stops subsidizing its high powered dairy farmers and allowed unfettered access to Canadian consumers that trade deficit with Canada would shrink. Exactly how many members of Parliament come from dairy producing provinces? Quite a few I believe.“
Bullshit. Not only did the USMCA agreement include the existence of dairy tariffs, but the dairy subsidies don’t keep American producers out: There is something called a “Tariff Rate Quota” which applies something like a 300% tariff on dairy imports in excess of the TRQ. America fills that quota and competes with Canadian prices up until the tariff kicks in. This was not only considered under the USMCA, but had it not been Canada would never have signed it. We view our dairy industry as being necessary for our national security, but we realize that we have winter here, so our industry is going to be relatively inefficient. No one is confused by this. America just lost the challenge it made on the issue. And maybe the nation that doubled softwood lumber tariffs just last year shouldn’t be talking about the greedy, protectionist Canada dairy market.
You completely misstate what the USMCA position on tariffs is, What USMCA did, and again… Donald “Who Negotiated This Horrible Deal” Trump should know this, because he signed it, was (in section 2.4) prevent the *increase* or *addition* of tariffs on goods originating from a signatory nation, which almost certainly made not only the original 24 hours of tariffs, but also the new tariffs on metals, illegal.
While it may have been unethical to leak this Jamie Dimon vid does it change the fact that he’s zeroed in on part of the problem?
PWS
A substack I follow just made a case for NOT taking a meat axe to government spending, at least as far as the National Science Foundation is concerned:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-woke-science
Thoughts?
I would suggest that those grants should be rewritten without the token woke language. The fact that they felt the need to add trivial statements to get funding is highlighting the problem. Trump could get some mileage out of ordering an expedited review process to allow them to remove the token language.
To quickly address something the banned internet troll, A Friend, submitted in this thread at 11:13am…
A Friend wrote, “it was Steve Witherspoon who put up a “TROLL” sign against a post of mine once that as I recall was not particularly ideological one way or the other, just not in conformity with what Steve requires.”
So everyone knows the facts regarding my conversation with A Friend, here is the comment I posted using the troll graphic. Take a couple of minutes out of your busy life and scroll through that comment thread, see what took place, and make up your own mind.
I tried to have real discussions with A Friend back when his/her comments first appeared in EA threads, but A Friend’s motives became evident so I gave up. I understand that A Friend is actually “a friend” of Jacks, but A Friend has also shown that he/she is also a genuine internet troll.
https://x.com/AbigailShrier/status/1889940457674981580
-Abigail Shrier