Month: May 2025

I Think It’s Admirable That the Pulitzers Are So Transparent About Their Blatant Partisan Bias, Don’t You?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

The announcement of the Pulitzer prizes were broadcast live on the organization’s website, and what everyone should be able to agree was the photo of the year was snubbed. That, of course, is the second photo above, shot by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press and generally appreciated as a masterpiece of composition, story-telling and drama. But, of course, the photo is alao widely believed to have helped Donald Trump get elected President, so by definition the photo is bad, and must not be honored. Another photo related to the assassination attempt, the first one above taken by Doug Mills, won the prize instead. After all, that one had the good people thinking ruefully, “Damn. Missed him by that much!”

The snubbed photo will be in history books and regarded as one of the most memorable moments captured on film, along with the GI kissing the nurse in Times Square, Harry Truman holding up the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, the naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack, and the Frenchman weeping as Hitler’s army swept down a Paris street. An angry Monica Showalter writes at American Thinker,

The picture turned up on t-shirts, coffee mugs, stickers and posters, signaling how much the public was moved by it….But it was hardly propaganda — it was the work of an experienced photographer able to act with split-second instincts in a dangerous situation with events still unfolding….I have no inside line on why this photo didn’t win the Pulitzer, despite being so deserving of it. Did the AP not promote it, or did the Pulitzer board shun it, on what could only be political grounds? Either way, it’s a disgrace. The photo had Pulitzer written all over it, and the judges could only view the thing through wokester-impaired eyes.

As for me, I an neither disappointed nor surprised, not after this now thoroughly corrupt organization awarded a Pulitzer prize for the racist, fake history lesson of “The 1619 Project.” In truth I am impressed: the deliberate decision to ignore such a deserving photo says to all, “Yes, the Pulitzers are partisan and politically biased. We don’t care. In fact, we’re proud. Suck it!”

Thanks for your candor. We get the message.

Oh Yeah, THIS Will Work Out Well: Minnesota Rules That Women Going Bare-Breasted in Public Isn’t Illegal

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

You know: Minnesota.

Leaping down a particularly slippery slope, the The Minnesota Supreme Court last week overturned the conviction of Eloisa R. Plancarte for indecent exposure after she bared her breasts in a parking lot in 2021. Olmsted County prosecutors charged her with a misdemeanor after police responded to a complaint about a woman walking around topless. Judge Joseph Chase found Plancarte, 28, guilty of indecent exposure and the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld Plancarte’s conviction in 2024. Now the woke Supreme Court in the Land of Lakes has reversed the conviction.

Writing for the majority, Justice Karl Procaccini wrote that Plancarte had not engaged “in any type of overt public sexual activity….the State has not met its burden of proving that Plancarte’s exposure was lewd, because none of the evidence in the record suggests that her conduct was of a sexual nature.” In her concurring opinion, Justice Sarah Hennesy wrote that criminalizing the exposure of female, but not male breasts “fails to recognize the more nuanced physical realities of human bodies.”

Whatever that means…

“Would a transgender man be prohibited from exposing his chest?” Hennesy continued. “What about a transgender woman who has had top surgery? Where do the chests of intersex and nonbinary persons fit within this dichotomy? And how do we treat the exposed chest of a breast cancer survivor who has had a mastectomy? Interpreting this statutory scheme as differentiating between male and female breasts is not sufficiently clear and definite to warn Minnesotans of what conduct is punishable.”

Great. Clearly, in Minnesota the conduct of a man walking around with his naughty bits hanging out would also be deemed non-sexual. There is nothing improper about reasonable laws upholding and enforcing societal standards of decency, decorum, respect, civility and modesty. Would the result have been different if a male motorist had been distracted by the bare-breasted pedestrian and run down a child in a crosswalk? That this didn’t occur is only moral luck.

Using the Ethics Incompleteness Principle examples of transgender conduct to eviscerate the law involved is intellectually dishonest: those cases would be difficult, but would also be recognized as narrowly applicable. If Sydney Sweeney’s conduct in walking bare-breasted in a parking lot would be legitimately seen as sexual—and it would—then a law prohibiting such conduct by women generally is reasonable. The pursuit of happiness is not without borders in a civilized society that wants to stay that way.

_______________

Pointer: Jutgory

“Res Ipsa Loquitur” at the Vatican: The Pope’s Tombstone

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Did you know that the spacing between letters is known as kerning? I had never encountered the term before, so the high profile botch committed by the stonecutter and those responsible for overseeing the completion of the recently deceased Pope’s tombstone has had at least one salutary effect: it has shined a spotlight on a seldom used word. Thanks, you boobs!

It and they have also revealed stunning ineptitude and carelessness at the highest level of public visibility and historical permanence. The kerning between the letters on Pope Francis’s tombstone make the ten letters read “F R A NCISC VS, rather than how it was supposed to read, “FRANCISCVS,” his name in Latin.

Brilliant. I wonder…. what’s the punishment in Hell for poor workmanship?

Continue reading →

‘Don’t Be Shy, Just Say What You Really Think, Counsel!’

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

New York lawyer Rahul Dev Manchanda was disbarred in 2024 by the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court. The primary charge was that he persisted in using racist and anti-Semitic language in his disciplinary complaints against other lawyers and judges. “Words fail to capture the severity and extent” of the lawyer’s bigotry, the appeals court wrote in its order.

Among other offenses, Manchanda was found to have,

  • Filed documents with “unacceptably bigoted language” in state and federal courts and “a panoply” of agencies.

  • “Used intolerably vile and foul language and divulged privileged information” when responding to clients’ online complaints.

  • “Used racist, antisemitic, homophobic and misogynistic statements while holding himself out as a well-trained and extremely experienced lawyer” in New York City.

  • “Repeatedly made meritless, frivolous and vexatious arguments well beyond the point at which he should have known better.” His “targets for such filings have grown to include this very disciplinary proceeding and collateral attacks that he has launched on it in state and federal courts.”

No weenie he, the lawyer is striking back. Manchanda has now sued the Attorney Grievance Committee for New York’s First Judicial Department, seeking $20 million in damages, which he claims he would have made in his practice over the next 20 years.

Yeeeeah.….

The suit alleges that the lawyer was disbarred because he is “a Republican, conservative, Christian values lawyer” who is Indian-American, and that the discipline he has been subjected to was “a simple, draconian, defamatory, slanderous, libelous death sentence, simply for exercising protected speech” against “activist extreme feminist and lesbian judges, racist law clerks, LGBTQ+ and biased court administrators, who routinely would lose his motions, sabotage his filings” and “arbitrarily and capriciously threaten him with contempt or arrest.” Manchanda has been persecuted, his suit claims, because his actions targeted agencies in which “the vast majority of New York City government employees” are “predominantly leftist, communist, Democrat, … of African American descent, with predominantly Jewish supervisors, as well as LGBTQ+ activists and extremists.”

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The Ethics Alarms Obligatory Nod to “Star Wars”…

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I deliberately did not post this yesterday because I object to holidays based on bad puns, but I’ve been holding it for a while, ever since the demise of one of the quirkiest and most original ethics websites, Law and the Multiverse, still on the links list because its essays are timeless.

Ethical Standards Needed, Precedents Lacking

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In the gap between a Presidential election where the office is turned over to a new POTUS, and especially a President from the opposing party, a lot of partisan mischief can be done before the lame duck limps out the door. This is legal, of course: every President has a right to serve four full years. However, when the exiting Chief Executive deliberately acts to throw obstacles in the way of the People’s Choice or lock in policies that the incoming President is certain to oppose, the conduct is unethical in my view. It is giving a metaphorical middle finger to the newly elected President.

Ethics Alarms discussed several instances between the November election and January 20 in which whoever was pulling poor Joe’s marionette strings engaged in particularly egregious examples of this kind of divisive conduct, and more have been uncovered since.

Here’s one that made me do a Danny Thomas spit: In the last days of Biden’s administration, a $89 billion, 25-year grant was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to the Alliance for Advancing Biomedical Research. The nonprofit, which “operate[s] exclusively for the benefit of” the University of California system, according to its tax filings has never raised or spent any money since it was formed in 2022. The new regime at NIH is investigating, as well they might, and the massive grant is likely to be cancelled.

Then there’s the board that oversees the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. On January 17, 2025, “Biden” stacked the Holocaust Museum board with Democrats, appointing Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, Susan Rice, Biden’s director of Domestic Policy Council of the United States, Tom Perez, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Anthony Bernal, who was an advisor to former First Lady Jill Biden, and best of all, Doug Emhoff, whose claim to prominence is that he married Kamala Harris. Trump dismissed all of them last week, but he shouldn’t have had to.

The Axis is always blubbering about “democratic norms”: one norm I would like to see solidly entrenched in tradition is for Presidents ending their term to do nothing that will interfere with the agenda of the leader the electorate has made clear that it wants to shepherd the government. That shouldn’t be too hard.

Is There Any Way To Know If The Public Is Turning Against Trump As the Axis Claims?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

So far, I can’t find any. The Axis news media has made it clear that it is still determined to spin everything to undermine this President’s agenda to the point of flat-out deceit and misrepresentation. (I saw several other news platforms this morning claiming that Trump had said that he “didn’t know” if he would uphold the Constitution, a Big Lie, as I explained here.) In addition to polls being both incompetent and dishonest for at least a decade, there is an unforgivable lack of context in interpreting them, as I noted in this post.

Meanwhile, from the Right, I am reading claims that the polls showing Trump voter remorse are simply fake. Charlie Martin, one of the more rational pundits at PJ Media, writes in part,

…recent focus groups clearly demonstrate that Trump voters aren’t experiencing an ounce of buyer’s remorse. The mainstream media can push their fake polls and doomsday economic forecasts all they want—Trump’s base isn’t budging.

During a revealing segment on Fox News, Sean Hannity highlighted what the liberal media doesn’t want you to see: a focus group conducted by CNN’s Van Jones showing unwavering support for President Trump. Pollster Robert Cahaly, the founder of Trafalgar Group, exposed the left’s transparent strategy, explaining how they’re trying to drive a wedge between Trump and congressional Republicans.

“People are not regretting voting for Donald Trump. And then to watch their pollster say, ‘Yeah, if the election were held today, Trump would still wipe the floor with Kamala Harris,’ or probably any other Democrat, for that matter,” Hannity pointed out. “Why are they doing that? Are they trying to divide Trump with congressional Republicans and senators to stymie his agenda?”

“That’s exactly why they’re doing it,” Cahaly revealed. “They realize that Washington is full of political animals. And if they can convince the people in Congress that Trump is somehow becoming more toxic, then they can damage his agenda.”

The playbook is painfully obvious. The same pollsters who spectacularly failed to predict Trump’s electoral success are now doubling down on their flawed methodology. 

Well, is that fair? If polling can be distorted by rigged group selection, focus groups and “man-in-the-street” interviews are even more unreliable. I’m sorry to have to say it (all right, no I’m not), but Sean Hannity is not exactly a paradigm of objectivity. The theory that the Axis would use rigged polls as a “by any mean possible” weapon to stop Orange Hitler makes sense based on past experience, but that isn’t the same as evidence.

In a democracy, having a sense of what the public is thinking is important. It doesn’t mean that elected officials should rush to follow public opinion whatever it may be, since a) the public is substantially emotional, ignorant, selfish and/or stupid, which is why we have a republic rather than a pure democracy, b) they are elected officials theoretically because they are more reliable and trustworthy than the hoi pollois, and c) public opinion is constantly being warped by bad actors, also known as “journalists.”

But is it too much to ask that some trustworthy, unbiased, competent organization can provide a reliable snapshot of what the public’s view of this administration’s epic first three months is? Apparently, yes, it is too much to ask. All we are left with is confirmation bias.

I resent it.

Meet JoAnna St. Germain, the Face of Trump Derangement

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

JoAnna St. Germain, a public school teacher (for a bit longer)at Waterville High School in Waterville Maine, personifies what the decade-long hate, fear and anti-democracy campaign from “the resistance,” Democrats, and the mainstream media has inflicted on the soul of America. Once, presumably, she was a normal, rational human being like you. Now, she posts screeds like this on social media:

The Secret Service has the perfect opportunity, if they choose to step up and take it. You are the ones with power. Coordinate. Take out every single person who supports Trump’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts. Look at the sycophants and give them what they’re asking for.
 
Every other country sees what’s happening and they are taking stands.
If you step up, we can avoid a civil war. I’m not talking about assassinating a president. A president is a person duly elected by the American people.
Tr*mp has shamelessly bragged openly about stealing the election. He is making plans to give himself a third term. I’m talking about Americans recognizing a fascist dictatorship and standing against it.
 
Secret Service, you are Americans.My beloved military, you are Americans.
We, the people, are counting on you.

Nice. Even with rampant madness oozing through social media and the op-ed pages every day, calling for the execution of the President of the United States and all of his supporters from someone not in already in restraints like this guy…

…is unusual, especially when the provocateur has been entrusted with molding young minds. A few hours later, the teacher wrote, “I have zero shame about what I’ve said. I’m not backtracking a single thing. I believe Trump and every sycophant he has surrounded himself with . . . needs to die,” adding that she posted “knowing I’d likely lose my job and benefits.” When her call for violence was reported in some media outlets, JoAnna “doubled down,” and quite arrogantly too, writing a week ago on her Facebook page:

Apparently, I have made the news. People are quite angry with me for stating openly that Trump and his cronies need to die. Gosh, I fear I may have “Trump Derangement Syndrome”!
 
I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, and I say it with my full chest:
Fuck fascism. Fuck a country that suppresses the media. Fuck a country that moves to weaken the education system in order to produce weak-minded people who will follow orders. Fuck a country that sends innocent women and men to die thinking they’re defending democracy when they’re really defending the rights of corporations to fuck over the very people lining their pockets.
 
If you’re mad at this post, knowing that I just threw away a decade of experience teaching the truth, fully knowing that my superintendent will have to fire me? If you’re mad that I’m speaking truth to power?
 
Fuck you. I’ll still take a bullet to keep your child safe.

Niiiiice!

Later, as she had to know would happen, Waterville Public Schools Superintendent Peter Hallen emailed a statement to parents that said in part, “Please know that I have taken steps to ensure everyone’s safety and am, along with the appropriate authorities, actively investigating the incident.” St. Germain’s reaction:

Well all righty then!

Observations:

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No, President Trump Did NOT Say That He “Didn’t Know” If He Had To Uphold the Constitution…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I’m sorry that I used the “However Much Contempt You Have For [Fill in the blank], It’s Not Enough…. already today, because the unethical Axis news media earned the introduction today repeatedly. The prize goes to Mediaite (and others) who pulled a Trump answer out of context to claim that “Trump Stuns By Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ When Asked Directly NBC’s Kristen Welker ‘Don’t You Need to Uphold the Constitution?’” The exchange was clarified in the body of the article, but, as Mediaite knows well, the anti-Trump crazies largely wouldn’t bother to read the whole story (it’s hard to read with all that mouth-foam on the computer screen) and just cited the headline as more evidence that Trump is Hitler.

Reading the exchange, it is clear as crystal that Trump was expressing uncertainty about the degree to which various sections of the Bill of Rights applies to illegal immigrants and other non-citizens, and, therefore, what upholding the Constitution means in that specific context only. Ethics Alarms expressed uncertainty in the same matter yesterday, but I am not at all in doubt as to whether a President must uphold the Constitution.

The news media is despicable, untrustworthy, unethical and destructive. Enemies of democracy, the public, the people, and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I have no idea what can be done about it. Partisan, corrupt unethical law firms can be targeted and punished, indoctrination factories pretending to be independent institutions of higher education can be hobbled and discredited, but they don’t have specific Bill of Right’s provisions singling them out for immunity from government action.

The New York Times Editorial Board today issued a dishonest, hysterical editorial employing hyperbole, massaged facts and biased analysis to accuse the President of having “wounded this country, and there is no guarantee that we will fully recover” while comparing the first 100 days of his term to” the post-Reconstruction era, Jim Crow, the Red Scare, Watergate and other times.” This, from a newspaper that saw nothing untoward about unelected ideologues using a demented President, whom the Times helped elect, as its beard, and its favorite party employing politicized prosecutions of its primary opposition to hold power through undemocratic means. You can read it: [Gift link!]I don’t deem it worthy of fisking, frankly. The Times editors are part of the same dangerous corruption that Mediaite’s hacks engage in, just from a loftier perch.

Addendum to “Ethics Dunce : President Trump. Again.”: Ethics Dunce: V.P. J.D. Vance

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Ugh. Then conservative pundit at Townhall writes, “JD Vance Absolutely Wrecked an Anti-Trump Commentator Over This Trump White House Post.“

No, Matt, that is not a witty, persuasive or devastating reply to poor, useless Bill Kristol’s tweet. Vance’s retort is the equivalent of “Oh, yeah? Well, your mother is fat!” or You suck!” or “Your favorite President, Bush, would make an even worse Pope!” Or George Costanza’s immortal, “Oh, yeah? Well, I had sex with your wife!”

True, there are some mitigating elements here. Vance, as Veep, is obligated to defend the President even when Trump’s words or conduct are indefensible. It is also true that Bill Kristol, who became so Trump-Deranged that he has turned against principles his entire career was dedicated to advocating and defending, is such an embarrassment that the response he deserves would be, “Bill, nobody cares what you think about anything any more, including me. Go away.”

But Vance resorting to flagrant deflection and “whataboutism” further corrupts civic discourse by endorsing logical fallacies and rationalizations. And for Vespa to cheer such lazy argumentation on compounds the sin.