The fact that my leg appears to be rotting off seriously impeded my Ethics Alarms activity this entire week, so a round-up of lingering ethics tales is desperately needed. The stupid wound, complete with a giant blood-blister the size and color of an eggplant, isn’t going to hurt any worse if I sit at my desk a bit longer, so here we go…
1. That painting above, “American Progress” by John Gast in 1872, was posted on the Homeland Security Facebook page with the message, “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” Right, and right. Some Americans weak in citizenship are apparently offended by the statement and the painting. What’s wrong with them, and how did they get this way? The U.S.’s saga is objectively an inspiring one. I do not blame Native Americans for being bitter about how things worked out for them, but a Stone Age civilization was going to fail eventually one way or another, and the resulting culture, society, government and civilization has been a blessing to humanity. My only cavil with the painting is that it might be deliberate trolling. I think government departments and agencies shouldn’t troll. Neither should Presidents.
2. And speaking of Trump Derangement, there is a Stage 6 cult out there in the shadows that is certain Kamala Harris really was elected President and that we shifted for some reason into an alternate universe where Trump won instead. Known as the 4am Club, the movement is founded by Gia Prism (like that’s her real name…), a psychic medium and healer. Videos of “4am clubbers” have gone viral on social media, as various nutballs describe a magic moment on election night. At 4 am, these people claim to have awakened certain that Trump would win the election. “It wasn’t just a feeling, we had a shared mystical experience that night,” says Prysm in one of her videos. “We had the same dreams, we had the same visions, we heard the same songs, we heard the voices of our deceased loved ones.” And the conclusion all of it pointed to is that we are in the wrong parallel universe, with a shift to the just world of a Harris Presidency sure to arrive eventually. The Telegraph story says, “The movement has been ridiculed by Trump supporters, who have dubbed their beliefs ‘Harris hallucinations’ and ‘Democracy with a side of astrology.’”
It’s only ridiculed by Trump supporters?
3. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…A study by Axis media critic NewsBusters shows that since 2022, Stephen Colbert had 176 progressive and Democrat guests and only a single Republican on “The Late Show,” and 43 leftist political guests in 2025, with no conservatives at all. That’s fine: if a “Let’s hate Trump and conservatives” nightly show makes money for CBS, the network doesn’t mind that its choice in programming shows a flagrant bias, and the network thinks promoting division and hostility toward the President of the Unites States is a worthy mission, good luck with that. But Democrats have thoroughly disgraced themselves, and there is ample reason for CBS to decide that this kind of programming no longer makes sense (It was always irresponsible). Nor does Colbert or anyone else have a right to get a nightly platform for his political agenda. If CBS executives determined that being seen as nothing but a kneejerk foe of the President isn’t good for business, its audience or its newscasts, that was a legitimate business decision. And a wise one. Notes American Prospect, “The CBS Late Movie… aired against “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in the 1970s and ’80s, had an audience in 1972 of nearly seven million adults per film, nearly three times as many viewers as Colbert’s “top-rated” Late Show a half-century later. The movie cost nothing but library rights. The Late Show costs $100 million a year.”
4. Stop making me defend ChatGPT! The Atlantic—what a crappy magazine it has become!—published an essay called “ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship.” Of course it did, if that’s what someone asked the bot to do. So what? The article also discusses how the bot, upon being asked, explained how murder could be justified, and how to perform demonic rituals. None of this suggests or proves that the generative AIs are sinister or evil. The publishing of such deliberately misleading articles does make me wonder (even more than I already do) about The Atlantic, however.
5. This is both a legal and an ethical problem. The program that pays court-appointed private attorneys to represent indigent federal criminal defendants is out of money. Now a three-month delay looms in paying these attorneys and their related service providers for constitutionally mandated criminal defense work. The attorneys, who allow the government to meet the 6th Amendment requirement for every criminal defendant to have legal representation, are paid from funds appropriated by Congress to the Judicial Branch’s Defender Services program. The payments have been suspended as of July 3 , and absent action from Congress, the participating attorneys will not be paid until October 1 for the work they have already performed. Many of these private lawyers will start to refuse new cases, leaving defendants, including those on death row, without representation.
Over 90% of defendants in federal criminal cases have court-appointed counsel because they cannot afford their own lawyers. Federal defenders’ organizations handle about 60% of these cases, but the remaining 40% are assigned to private, defense lawyers, about 12,000 of them. The Federal Judiciary is asking congressional appropriators for $116 million in supplemental funding to mitigate these payment deferrals and avert a continuing crisis.
Specialists such as investigators, interpreters, and expert witnesses who are employed by the defense in support of their their clients’ cases are also being hampered by the funding crisis. Federal defender organizations across the country will not be able to make up the shortfall in attorneys because those offices are already seriously understaffed. The result of this funding crisis, should get the public’s attention: if accused criminals cannot receive their civil rights, they can’t be tried or imprisoned. So back out into the streets they will go.
Ethics Alarms 
2. I’ve often suspected I was in the wrong parallel universe. This confirms my suspicions.
RE #5: Last week, a Massachusetts judge released more than 100 criminal defendants because legal counsel had not been secured for them within time limits set by law.
The private attorneys in the state who have accepted these cases in the past are “on strike,” demanding higher pay.
Read about it here: https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/07/22/100-boston-criminal-defendants-have-their-cases-tossed-due-to-attorney-strike/
Sounds like the attornieys did a zealous defense, rye accused was released a free man. If it was without prejudice, the state can always try again.
#3. Without looking, my guess as to the lone Republican on Colbert since 2022 would be Liz Cheney.
#1/American Progress: Knowing your penchant for westerns, if you’ve seen Horizon: An American Saga, Part 1 (with the [IMO] très fetching Sienna Miller and Abbey Lee) would you say it’s historically accurate?
PWS
I’m sure.
#2
As far as lunatic conspiracy theories go that’s a friggin doozy!
Funny thing conspiracy theories, sometimes they’re actually proven to be true. Logic is also a funny thing, it can be used to destroy delusional thinking. Maybe we are in a parallel universe, but the problem is, there is absolutely no way for us to ever prove the theory to be true, never! The fact is that we’re faced with something that those “parallel universe” people absolutely refuse to accept and that’s our the reality that’s staring us all in the face, and yet these fools absolutely refuse to accept it and live with a verifiable delusion clouding their every thought.
Delusion: a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
Reality is “incontrovertible evidence“.
As an example of a conspiracy theory that’s being proven true, how about this one.
There once was a conspiracy theory that the political left was intentionally fabricating lies about Russia collusion to “Get Trump”, but that conspiracy theory was thoroughly debunked and shot down by the political left and their lapdog Pravda-USA media attack dogs. Anyone that believed that nonsense was publicly tarred as a lunatic and a liar.
That was then; this is now.
The statement that “Trump was right about everything!” has been given relevance and legal standing outside of the circles that are publicly tarred as lunatic conspiracy theorists. First the political elite and their corrupted minions fabricated verifiable lies, to “Get Trump”, then they used their miles deep bureaucracy that was controlled by their minions to hide their verifiable lies for over eight years, now the veil of secrecy has been stripped away. Personally I think the statute of limitations in this case should be stripped specifically because they used their corrupt system to intentionally hide their corruption beyond the statute of limitations, this kind of abuse of the system cannot be allowed to stand without severe punishment, throw the book at all of them.
Who knew that the political left were such liars?
Oh wait…
The shameless political left, their Pravda-USA media, and their blind sheeple supporters keep providing evidence proving my quote above to be correct. The Democratic Party has removed their false “liberal” facade and fully revealed the illiberal totalitarian, morally bankrupt, and the blatant cancel culture lying core of their anti-American party.
The left’s constant lies and fear mongering tactical patterns are now quite obvious to anyone that still has a couple of uncorrupted brain cells left to think critically. The political left is fully onboard with the unethical rationalization that “the ends justify the means” and their obsessive ends since 2015 has been pure anti-Trump and almost everything they do and say is in support of that end goal. These people have openly adopted Stalin’s Marxism–Leninism tactics…
These leftist fools have allowed their extreme bias and hate to morally bankrupt and indoctrinate themselves.
Yes, some conspiracy theories are proven to be factually true.
“And the conclusion all of it pointed to is that we are in the wrong parallel universe, with a shift to the just world of a Harris Presidency sure to arrive eventually.”
I have seen a few of these!!
Sometimes paired with a complementary prediction of an upcoming “split” in timelines (kind of like a New Age version of the Rapture) in which those with higher frequency vibrations “ascend” to a “fifth-dimensional” Earth (which is characterized by world peace, which definitely DOES sound attractive!) while those not ready for Ascension either stay behind in current Earth (which is three-dimensional… with maybe a little 4D? accounts differ) or head off to another planet more aligned with their vibrational preferences / accomplishments.
Perhaps not coincidentially, my more fervent evangelical Christian acquaintances seem to be increasingly convinced that the Second Coming / Rapture is nigh (certainly within their lifetimes! bring those prodigals to Jesus before it is too late!), in which those who have accepted Jesus will “ascend” while the rest of us stay behind and (one hopes) are inspired to take care of abandoned family members and pets who didn’t make the cut.
Interesting times apparently call forth dramatic explanations and visions!
I just find it moderately hilarious that the “Angel of Progress” (or whatever she is) in that painting is helping out by stringing a telegraph line for the pioneers and homesteaders 🙂
And take care of your damned leg, Jack!