Month: March 2025

Signal Chat Ethics Train Wreck Update…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

With Trump officials, the President, his paid liar Karoline Leavitt stating, and both John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard swearing under oath that top US officials discussing operational details of plans to bomb Yemen before the operation miraculously did not contain any, classified information, The Atlantic today released much of the transcript as collected by editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a new article. I haven’t read the whole thing because I will not give a cent to The Atlantic, now one of the most notorious Axis allies. But the excerpts I have read elsewhere are hardly the discussions of favorite recipes for guacamole.

The Guardian, another hack Axis member, calls the texts “disastrous leak of sensitive information.” Fake news, via deceit. Because of dumb luck, the sloppy and unforgivable way an approaching attack was discussed had no “disastrous” effects except for the degree to which it showed incompetence and recklessness by Trump’s national security leaders, and the fact that the reaction of the Administration, including the President, has been to emulate the Democrats’ “It isn’t what it is” playbook should set off ethics alarms coast to coast.

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Lizzo, Fat Championing Hypocrite

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I hadn’t followed the Lizzo dieting scandal because, frankly, I couldn’t care less about the in-your-face obese pop star who has been the current champion of the “love your body”/”fat is beautiful” mob. Lizzo, who performed with svelte female dancers to emphasize her proud flab, made defiant fatness part of her brand, wearing costumes that normally would be taboo for any woman not a size 6.

Well, if it works, it’s show business! But somehow toward the end of 2024, Lizzo started slimming down via Ozempic, dieting and a personal trainer, so she is now sporting a more conventional model of female beauty. Predictably, her fat fans feel betrayed, and they should.

We’ve seen this so many times before that I hesitated to even post on it, but no previous fat celebrity so aggressively asserted that she loved her extra pounds and that society’s obsession with fit female bodies had to be rejected. All of these photos…

…accompanied past features about how the singer insisted that fat was “normal” and that she “loved her curves.” And now what is she saying? She doesn’t need to say anything; her conduct speaks for her. She decided to exploit being fat as a gimmick, not caring how it would encourage unhealthy lifestyles among her female fans, then as soon as losing weight and becoming more typically attractive seemed like a wise career move—reinvention!—she discarded “fat is beautiful” like a house guest who had stayed too long.

We shall see if a performer of Lizzo’s rather unremarkable talents can stand out among all the other comely female pop singers. If not, don’t be surprised if she starts hitting the all-you-can-eat buffets again.

So Far, Flunking the Integrity Test of the “Signal Chat Ethics Train Wreck” [Part II]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

In the interest of time—mine—I’m going to list the relevant developments and my observations as bullet points, with the full knowledge that I will be posting on this again, and probably soon. So here we go, into the wreckage…

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So Far, Flunking the Integrity Test of the “Signal Chat Ethics Train Wreck” [Part I]

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Wow, THAT turned into an ethics train wreck in record time! (It’s “historic,” right! That means it’s good…)

I’m not a full-time blogger, so I didn’t find out about this inexcusable botch by Fox-News-talking-head-miraculously-turned-Defense-Secretary Pete Hegseth until late yesterday afternoon after I had thought the last post was up. But as soon as I did see the story I posted on it, and in the essay I endorsed the conclusion of vociferously NeverTrump conservative NYT opinion writer (He’s in the Times stable because he’s so reliably anti-Trump) David French: Hegseth should resign. Then I found out, not to my surprise but disgust, that many conservative news sources and opinion sites were taking the same “nothingburger” approach to this that the Axis took to Hillary Clinton’s deliberate breach of national security laws, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Joe’s senility and Hillary’s hubby’s sexual harassment hobby.

Yecchh.

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Addendum to “Enough Trivia and Silly Stuff: This Is Incompetence That Can’t Be Ignored”: Conservative Media Integrity and Competence Test Ahead…[Updated and Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

So far (7:25 pm, March 24), there is not a peep about this disturbing story at the Citizens Free Press or at PJ Media, including Instapundit. Not a good look.

Naturally the usual Axis media, anti-Trump news sources are all over the story, as they should be, perhaps with a little less glee, but still. Among conservative publications, I see it at the New York Post, the Boston Herald, and the Washington Examiner. The Daily Caller has the story, if a bit late. Fox News carried it, though their pundits tonight have been mum so far.

Citizens Free Press and PJ Media better catch up quick. If they stall much longer, they deserve no credibility and are ethically estopped from complaining about the “legacy media” burying stories uncomfortable for Democrats. There is no excuse for this.

Enough Trivia and Silly Stuff: This Is Incompetence That Can’t Be Ignored

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Ethics Alarms’ “Incompetence Monday” is concluding with a truly damning finale that should set ethics alarms ringing across the Trump Administration. We shall see.

It was revealed today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed highly classified plans for U.S. troops to attack the Houthi militia in Yemen to an encrypted private chat group. That was irregular enough, but Hegseth didn’t notice that the editor-in-chief of “The Atlantic,” Jeffrey Goldberg, had been added to the text “chat” on the commercial messaging app Signal by Michael Waltz, the national security adviser.

 Goldberg then wrote in an article published today telling readers that he had been mistakenly added into a discussion that could have led to a military disaster if the information had leaked. Great. Goldberg said he followed the conversation among senior members of President Trump’s national security team including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The attacks that were discussed in detail took place two days later. On  March 15, Hegseth posted the “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Goldberg wrote. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East.” 

Goldberg did not publish the details of the war plans in his article. I can think of a lot of journalists who would not have exercised such restraint. Hegseth, and the U.S., were lucky.

There can be no excuse for such an outrageous breach of security. Not only was a journalist inadvertently included in the group, but the conversation also took place outside of the secure government channels reserved for classified discussions and sensitive military planning.

Writing in the New York Times, David French, a former JAG officer, was apoplectic.  Hegseth, he raged, had “just blown his credibility as a military leader.”

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Ethics Dunce: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

President Trump is an important figure in American history, perhaps a transformational leader, and definitely a crucial one whose success or failure will have an enormous effect on the fate and future of the United States of America.

Thus it is all the more alarming that the man has so many Achilles heels that he could be some hind of monstrous human-arachnid hybrid.

Take that portrait above… please! Yes, it stinks. I don’t know who painted it and I don’t care, but somehow this obscure painting, hanging in the Colorado State Capitol building with portraits of the other U.S. Presidents, is the object of our President’s ire.

“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all the other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump birched on Truth Social. “In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one.”

Oh for the love of Mike, man, grow the hell up! Who cares about your portrait in Colorado? With everything else going on, with the Axis trying to foment domestic terrorism and rogue judges trying to kneecap your policies, why are you complaining about a crummy piece of art? Sure, that doesn’t look like you—it reminds me a bit of Millard Fillmore—but so what?

I have criticized Jethroe Gibbs of “NCIS,” Nathan Brittles of “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and John Wayne for promoting the false ethical standard, “Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness,” but that’s a minor misconception compared to the leader of the free world throwing a hissy fit over an oil painting. Trump’s insecurity, narcissism, obsession with meaningless symbols of popularity and personal slights constantly leads him into unforced errors, blunders and needless controversies. He doesn’t have the luxury of indulging these infantile habits. If this life-long weakness doesn’t sabotage his ability to accomplish his mission, it will just be moral luck.

The President’s vanity is one of many gifts to the foes who are determined to halt and destroy him.

“Incompetence Monday” Continues With the “Incompetent Driver of the Year” (So Far)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

But her drives from the tee have improved dramatically!

Ellen Richman of Palm Beach Florida was driving to her golf lesson a week ago when her Mercedes struck bicyclist Justin Rogers. Instead of stopping she continued to drive, dragging both the cyclist and his bicycle down the highway. Eventually both were released from the car; meanwhile Ellen continued to drive happily along to the Palm Beach Country Club where she handed her car over to valet parking.

Following cyclist’s description of the vehicle that hit him, leaving him in the road with compound fractures to his tibia and fibula as well as other lacerations and dragging abrasions on his left leg, police located the car in the country club parking lot. Officers were informed by employees that Ellen was taking her golf lesson.

The car had broken headlight glass and evidence of missing pieces that were found at the accident scene. The undercarriage of the Mercedes also showed signs of a recent accident. The club’s parking valets told police that Richmond had volunteered the information that she had “struck something” when she gave them the keys to the car.

The avid golfer was read her rights, arrested, and is being held on $10,000 bond, which is, as the saying goes, par for the course.

In What Is Shaping Up As “Incompetence Monday” on Ethics Alarms, THIS…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Yes, that is indeed a woman’s hand stuck in that Chinese gentleman’s mouth. Two morons for the price of one. (Ha! I originally typed “rice of one”!)

Doctors at a hospital in Jilin, China treated a couple that came awkwardly walking into the emergency room. The woman had her hand stuck in her boyfriend’s mouth. They were trying to shoot a funny video, see, to post online so it would go “viral.” The woman, who has a small fist (but unfortunately not quite small enough) managed to stuff her hand in the guy’s mouth but when she tried to pull it out, his mouth muscles spasmed and his jaw clamped down.

The woman told the puzzled medical staff that her boyfriend’s face turned red as her efforts to yank her hand free proved futile. He was drooling and his throat made a gurgling sound, while his teeth dug into her wrist. “Saliva ran down my wrist to my elbow,” the woman said, but in Chinese. “It felt like my hand was stuck in a meat grinder.”

Doctor Zhang Mingyuan, who finally got the woman’s fist free, explained that the couple had triggered a dangerous cycle in which the increasing pain in the boyfriend’s jaw caused his jaw muscles to contract more. The medical staff tried to prevent the man from choking or vomiting by playing soothing music—you know, like “Feelings,” though I would think that would increase the vomiting risk—then used a mouth opening device to pry open his jaws sufficiently to inject a muscle relaxant. It took 20 minutes, but Doctor Zhang eventually was able to rotate the woman’s wrist enough to carefully slip it free.

Well, they got their viral video!

‘Chesapeake Bay, We Have a Marketing Competence Problem….’

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Remember that little problem with the new Texas Rangers “double logo” cap? The Chesapeake Baysox say “Hold my beer!”

The Double-A minor league affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles in the Eastern League unveiled a new “alternate identity”: the team is also calling itself the Chesapeake Oyster Catchers as “a tribute to the Chesapeake Bay’s rich heritage and thriving ecosystem.” Let me interject here that I don’t understand why a baseball team wants or needs an “alternate identity,” unless it’s the Chicago White Sox, who last season broke the modern record for lousiness with 121 losses (out of 164 games).  How does a baseball team turn into Batman? Well, never mind…

The team unveiled two new logos centers inspired by the oyster catcher, a distinctive black-and-white shorebird with an orange beak that flocks in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. The bird hunts shellfish, and thus “is a symbol of strength and ingenuity—qualities that define both the Chesapeake region and its passionate baseball fans.”

Yyyyyyeah….

So here are the new logos…

And here is a close-up of the one that no one connected with the team seemed to be paying enough attention to…

“Wait,” some social media wags noted on social media, “Isn’t that thing in the glove a…?”

Yikes and holy female anatomical parts, Batman! The Baysox/Oystercatchers quickly removed that onscene logo from its social media posts, website, and online stories. That’s a good first step: now fire everyone in the marketing department who didn’t see what that “oyster” looked like and say something before the team embarrassed itself and everyone else.