Month: June 2025

The Ethics Verdict on the President’s “No Kings” Trolling [UPDATED and CORRECTED]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Wonderful. Perfect.

Unfortunately, this was a hoax that fooled the mostly reliable source I found it posted on, with no hint that it wasn’t authentic. Twitter/X cheated me out of my blue check payment and blocked me from my account for no discernible reason and I am not going to follow Truth Social any more than I am likely to hang out at Bluesky.

I originally wrote in part, “Yes, this is a violation of “norms” except for Trump’s norms, of which this is a familiar example. No other President would issue such a sarcastic jibe at passionate protesters against his leadership and policies no matter how ell-earned. That, I believe, would be their failing. President Trump is the perfect person to deliver the devastating coup de gras to these foolish, hysterical, unhinged boobs. Only he can say with such vivid authority, “You didn’t lay a hand on me!”

Alas, it was too good to be true, and I should have realized that. The real Real Donald Trump could not resist writing something much cruder and insulting.

I’ll just end with my obligatory statement that deliberately posting false information on the web is unethical even if one isn’t a journalist.

Special thanks to my friend James Flood, who was the first one to flag my gullibility.

Can Anybody Point To A Single Thing Positive That the “No Kings” Protests Accomplished?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I can.

Three, in fact.

But I’ll save them for the end. Meanwhile, yesterday’s mass scream of frustration was about as futile and useless as a protest can be. Let’s review the Ethics Alarms Protest Ethics Check List:

1. Is this protest just and necessary?

2. Is the primary motive for the protest unclear, personal, selfish, too broad, or narrow?

3. Is the means of protest appropriate to the objective?

4. Is there a significant chance that it will achieve an ethical objective or contribute to doing so?

5. What will this protest cost, and who will have to pay the bill?

6. Will the individuals or organizations that are the targets of the protest also be the ones who will most powerfully feel its effects?

7. Will innocent people be adversely affected by this action? (If so, how many?)

8. Is there a significant possibility that anyone will be hurt or harmed? (if so, how seriously? How many people?)

9. Are the protesters prepared to take full responsibility for the consequences of the protest?

10. Would an objective person feel that the protest is fair, reasonable, and proportional to its goal?

11. What is the likelihood that the protest will be remembered as important, coherent, useful, effective and influential?

12. Could the same resources, energy and time be more productively used toward achieving the same goals, or better ones?

The cumulative clear answers show a protest that is even sillier than the usual ones. We don’t have a king, and Donald Trump doesn’t act like one. If he did (or could), all the obstructionist, partisan judges we have seen over-reaching to block his legitimate policies would be in prison, without heads, or on the lam. The anti-democratic citizens (and illegals) demonstrating yesterday are not the supporters of our elected President and our system that elected him, but those who still refuse to accept that election (or his first one, for that matte).

They were also carrying signs like this (in Boston, at least):

Yes, this guy’s a moron.

“Number of kings holding steady at zero,” one conservative wag tweeted.

“The No Kings protests appear to be a massive success,” wrote long-time Trump Derangement victim Jonathan Chait. Success at what? Meanwhile, con-artist Elizabeth Warren tweeted, ‘Today, I stand with the millions of Americans making clear this country doesn’t belong to a king. It’s a democracy, and it belongs to the people.”

And the people voted for Trump over the undemocratically-nominated DEI hack your party gave them as an alternative, after four years of using a shell of a man as a puppet POTUS.

Trump is as much a king as Warren is a Native American.

I see three positive results of the protests. First, they were entirely peaceful, reminding everyone smart enough to be reminded but dumb enough not to have figured it out themselves. The events produced what constitutional protests are supposed to look like, and they were exactly what the anti-ICE riots in L.A. are not. Second, the protests illustrated why the Democratic Party is so unpopular and in danger of crumbling, just like its representatives in Congress showed us when they acted like second-graders to protest Trump’s State of the Union speech a few months ago. The protests contained a mess of varied far-Left obsessions, illustrated by Pride flags, pro-Hamas displays, call-outs for illegal immigrants, and advocacy for socialism and Communism.

Mostly, however, the protests were a nice safety valve release for the Trump Deranged like the sad, once-intelligent seniors on my Facebook feed, who sounded like they were going to the senior prom.

Naming Ethics: Your Children Can Suffer For Your Ignorance

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This one will be short, if not sweet.

A Reddit user shared this baby shower announcement on the sub-reddit devoted to terrible baby names, mostly absurd spellings….but this isn’t a spelling problem:

Yes, the parents are morons.

It seems that they didn’t know about the worst nuclear facility disaster in history, which rendered the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl a veritable ghost town in 1986, In some movies, it’s a zombie town. But the parents just thought it was a pretty name. You know, like “Treblinka.” Or “Malmedy.”

It is unknown at this point whether someone will back Mom and Dad into a corner, slap them silly, and tell them that they cannot stick an innocent child with that name, although naming a child “Chernobyl” is perfectly legal. It did prompt some inspired mockery on Reddit, though.

My favorite: “I guess it’s a nuclear family.”

Now THIS Is Legitimate “Guilt By Association”…

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Vance Luther Boelter, the man being sought for the murder of two Minnesota state legislators, was appointed by Democratic Governor Tim Walz to a state board in 2019. Boelter also had flyers for today’s anti-Trump “No Kings” protests in his car along with a manifesto and a list of 70 political targets.

Minnesota House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot in their home, and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife barely survived the assassin’s attack on them. Hortman had received a lot of publicity for voting to block state benefits from going to illegal aliens.

Gov. Tim (Knucklehead) Walz said these appeared to be a “targeted act of political violence.” Boy, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to slip something by Tim…

Walz, as you probably know, has been fomenting violence against ICE and the Trump Administration by calling the immigration enforcement agency “the Gustapo.”

Kudos To The New York Times For Finally Eliminating All Doubt That It Is a Democratic Party Propaganda Organ And Not a “Newspaper”…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This would be an Unethical Quote of the Week if there were any reason to believe what the New York Times says about President Trump, and if the Times didn’t make equally unethical quotes every day.

Here’s part of the Times editorial titled, “Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses”:

“…The political right, including President Trump, deserves substantial blame. Yes, he has led a government crackdown against antisemitism on college campuses, and that crackdown has caused colleges to become more serious about addressing the problem. But Mr. Trump has also used the subject as a pretext for his broader campaign against the independence of higher education. The combination risks turning antisemitism into yet another partisan issue, encouraging opponents to dismiss it as one of his invented realities.

Even worse, Mr. Trump had made it normal to hate, by using bigoted language about a range of groups, including immigrants, women and trans Americans. Since he entered the political scene, attacks on Asian, Black, Latino and L.G.B.T. Americans have spiked, according to the F.B.I. While he claims to deplore antisemitism, his actions tell a different story. He has dined with a Holocaust denier, and his Republican Party has nominated antisemites for elected offices, including governor of North Carolina. Mr. Trump himself praised as “very fine people” the attendees of a 2017 march in Charlottesville, Va., that featured the chant “Jews will not replace us.” On Jan. 6, 2021, at least one rioter attacking the Capitol screamed that he was looking for “the big Jew,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Schumer has said.”

It gives me great pleasure to know that Times boot-licker ” “A Friend,” the long-banned EA commenter who has set a nearly unbreakable record for unauthorized posts here, most bleating about how unfair I am to the noble Times, will be desperately searching for a way to rationalize that verbal offal without having to admit, “Okay, the Times editors are partisan hacks.”

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Flag Day Parade [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The military parade planned today in my sort-of current hometown city, Washington, D.C., creates no valid basis for criticism…well, except for the Trump Deranged, the foes of the U.S. military, the pacifists (aka.”the deluded”) and in general the same people who find expressions of American patriotism distasteful because they detest the United States, its core values (not socialist or communist) and those who are and have been prepared to defend it.

My father, were he alive and not 105 years old which is what he would have been today if he hadn’t died in 2009, would have gone to see the parade, and not been particularly diplomatic with anyone who protested or criticize it. Dad was U.S. Army through and through (he was also a Boy Scout and family man through and through). He would get up and march all by himself at Fourth of July concerts on the Mall when they played a Sousa march. He would hang out at the W.W.II Memorial wearing his medals, so visiting school groups could see, meet and talk to “a real Second World War Army veteran.”

Yes, Jack Marshall, Sr. would have loved seeing, and, if possible, being a part of President Trump’s grand parade today to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. Making veterans young and old feel proud and appreciated by their country, its Capital and its President is, all by itself, justification for a parade.

Even if this were not the Army’s birthday, Flag Day alone would justify a parade today. The nation has some apologetic grovelling to do after the many examples of disrespect and slander over the decades by such despicable creeps as Colin Kaepernick and his pack of kneelers.

Best of all, from my perspective, is the fact that this is, absurdly, another Pride Month, which features parades and other “Look at us! Aren’t we great?” exercises of narcissism based on how one happens to have sex and whom with. In contrast, veterans really have done something worth celebrating and honoring, and they stand for values and ethics: those who cheer Pride parades and virtue-signalling are ethically estopped from saying a single discouraging word about today’s parade.

Nevertheless,

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of this July 14th is…

Is it responsible and prudent for President Trump to be holding this parade today?

Continue reading →

Some Ethics Alarms Have Failed To Ring Here…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I am not passing judgment on the SNAP controversy, and Felicia may be a nice person and a wonderful mother.

However, rudimentary thought and consideration regarding perceptions, personal responsibility and common sense ought to make all but the hopelessly obtuse realize that a morbidly obese woman is a self-rebutting advocate for food stamps, as well as a meme waiting to be posted. Moreover, why is a single mother who has to work three jobs having four children?

Is Sen. Klobuchar really so dense (well, yes) and crippled by tunnel vision that the flaws in this particular advocate’s position never occurred to her? I have to believe Felecia exposes the astounding immunity progressives seem to have to reality, unless they are cynically convinced that the American public really is dominated by morons.

Any other theories?

Another Day, Another Partisan Judge Tries To Foil the President, Another Libertarian Shows Bias Has Made Him Stupid…

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

And another irresponsible and partisan court ruling is stayed…

Last night, in Newsom v. Trump, Federal District Court Judge Charles Breyer issued a ruling against President Donald Trump’s federalization of some 4000 California National Guard troops without California Governor Newsom’s request to stop the violent protests against ICE deportations in Los Angeles.

Gee, what a surprise: the judge is the brother of retired knee-jerk progressive Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. With amazing speed, Reason had a “Yay team!” essay to post by libertarian legal scholar Ilya Somin, who wrote, “Judge Breyer’s opinion strikes me as impressive and compelling.”

That’s odd: Breyer’s opinion strikes me as “it isn’t what it is” partisan junk, and plainly so. Somin’s defense of it struck me as libertarian junk. Somin:

“As Judge Breyer explains, National Guard troops are normally under the control of their state governments, and can only be federalized in narrowly specified emergency circumstances. The statute Trump relied on to federalize California National Guard troops, 10 U.S.C. Section 12406, can only be used in one of the following situations:

1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;

(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or

(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States

The professor then writes that (2), the obvious justification being used by Trump, doesn’t work because “there is no rebellion.” There isn’t? Democratic cities across the country have been refusing to allow illegal aliens to be arrested and deported and openly defying Federal law. Now the “sanctuary cities” are allowing those illegals and their supporters to riot and endanger ICE agents while mayors and governors call the protests “peaceful” (and some governors call the Ice Agents “the Gustapo”…)

Rebelling against Federal law is a rebellion.

Breyer’s opinion did not even mention President Johnson sending in the Guard to Birmingham, Alabama without Governor George Wallace’s assent, the famous precedent for Trump’s action. How convenient.

Then, after Reason’s applause, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused Breyer’s order A three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit scheduled a hearing in the case five days from now.

Sooner or later, Trump’s move will be ruled ethical, legal and legitimate.

Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Gee, I don’t know what ethics news and issues you could want to discuss today…

Me, I’m just trying to decide which is more fatuous, the drivel I am reading from the Trump Deranged among my D.C. showbiz friends, who once had functioning brains even as you and I, on my Facebook feed (Did YOU know that there was a First Amendment right for illegal immigrants to riot?) or the selection Ann Althouse posted from Reddit regarding the crowd reaction to Trump’s appearance in the audience at the Kennedy Center performance of “Les Miserables”: “Honestly it sounds like a mix of both? Boos and cheers/clapping together. Because as disappointing as it is, there is a lot of people who literally reside up Trump’s ass crack & worship this man. I fully despise him and everything he stands for. And the fact that he simultaneously, gets to go to the theater and exist peacefully while terrorizing the immigrant populations in LA & around the US.”

That last could have been written by many of my friends, from whom I would withhold my comment that many Americans have the courtesy to treat the President of the United States with formal respect, as Americans have done since George Washington, without “literally” residing up the President’s ass crack…

From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Unethical, Inexcusable Conduct By a U.S. Senator

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Democrats are whirling like a proverbial dervish to see if shouting and faux outrage can overcome the obvious conclusion that California’s Senator Padilla behaved like a total asshole and thinks he can get away with it. With crazies running amuck in the streets of L.A., Noem’s security had no reason to allow a shouting fool get withing shooting distance of the Secretary. He was, we are told, not wearing the pin that identifies him as a U.S Senator, and he wasn’t behaving like a Senator, but rather as an uncivil activist trying to disrupt a press conference. He shouted a question while Noem was speaking, and was obviously trying to create a scene.

The narrative that Senators should be granted “deference” does not apply when they don’t act like Senators, or even relatively well-mannered plumbers. I’d have Padilla thrown out of D.C. Bar CLE ethics presentation if he barged in like that.

Democratic Party leaders are fomenting violence by behaving this way and trying to justify it.