A lot of unethical junk has been flying around lately, and just to keep my brain clear (and yours) I feel the need to take stock. This isn’t a complete list, of course, just one that includes miscreants whose conduct and/or character I feel need additional attention here…
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Ethics Alarms 
Eason Jordan wrote “The News We Kept To Ourselves” in April 2003. (Archive link.) Have they revealed more or are they bringing it up again?
No, but it is being yanked back from the memory hole now that the US is fighting another Middle East enemy. I, for one, had forgotten.
From Truth Social
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Love it.
Kamala Harris at Jesse Jackson’s funeral: “Let me just start out by saying: I predicted a lot of what is happening right now,” she said while laughing ed. cackling, no doubt. “I hate to say I told you so, but we did see it coming.”
Every time she opens her mouth, we have to be grateful she didn’t win.
“Every time she opens her mouth, we have to be grateful she didn’t win.” (bold mine)
Masterfully understated…and grateful doesn’t even begin to describe it!
PWS
What an irredeemable asshole.
Just a sampling of why President Trump was wise to skip Jackson’s funeral:
Barack Obama launched a ferocious rebuke of Donald Trump’s America, claiming it is stained by ‘bigotry, corruption and dishonesty,’ at the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s funeral.
The former president broke down in tears at a packed church on Chicago’s South Side on Friday, telling the congregation ‘we are living in a time when it can be hard to hope.’
Obama said: ‘Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency, everyday you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible.’
Go to Obama launches ferocious attack on Trump as he breaks down in tears at Jesse Jackson funeral | Daily Mail Online for more Obama sophistry.
Him too.
They’re going to hold onto this kind of rhetoric like Rugby holding onto a chewy toy until they regain the presidency. And they will revert to it any time there is a Republican president.
What do we want?
Single party rule!
When do we want it?
Now!
Isn’t Obama an illegal alien or something? Trump always misses opportunities! He should have showed up with full force of ICE, arrested him, and exported him to Somalia.
Trump needs better advisors …
Or is it Indonesia?
Don’t be silly; everyone knows it would be Kenya.
I concur with this.
There are more funerals that Trump did not attend. Dick Cheney, Barbara Bush, John Lewis, John McCain.
Not attending a funeral may be an ethical choice for a number of reasons:
I think Trump made the right choice here, also given the political mood at the funeral. The Trump deranged will brand Trump a racist no matter what he does or which funeral he attends.
One huckster eulogizing another.
We have a friend who’s ex-Secret Service, mainly in Carter and Regan era (you can see him on the other side of the street in some pics of the Hinckley assassination attempt.)
One assignment was on the protection team for one of Jackson’s presidential runs. He says that in private, Jackson would self-mockingly satirize his own public “reverend-style” oration.
He also said they ate well…the women of the black churches that often hosted Jackson could lay out good spreads.
The BBC article linked doesn’t say anything about Hegseth’s address. Did you mean to link to a different article?
Yup, wrong link. Now fixed. Thanks.
OK I have some questions about this, especially about mentioning Bill Maher and Donald Trump as ethics villains. I will focus on Bill Maher in this comment however, as I think he deserves a defense.
Bill Maher always has been a first class asshole, proudly, cheerfully, and unapologetically. That is what makes him so attractive to watch. He would be the ideal person right from casting central to play to the role of Satan in a passion play. He has a sex life many man are jealous off, as chicks dig jerks or women keep falling for bad boys. He ranks high on dark triad personality traits.
Come to think about it, Donald Trump is a narcissist asshole as well. And Winston Churchill and FDR too. Winston Churchill is also unquestionably one of the great man in history. Donald Trump is growing into a historical President. There is a saying “I do not care that he is an asshole, as long as he is my asshole”. The accomplishments of many great man in history is often related to their flaws, to them being such assholes.
For this reason I have less a problem with Bill Maher being an all out asshole.
My impression is that Bill Maher’s condemnation of Obama’s statements is not unethical perse. I would guess that if somebody else than Bill Maher (e.g. Piers Morgan) said exactly the same things as Bill Maher, that person would not have been condemned on Ethics Alarms as an ethics villain. Some commenters (or even our host) may even have given a “hear! hear!”.
So calling Bill Maher out as an ethics villain appears to me an example of dispositional ethics, where an act is praised or condemned not primarily based on the act itself, but based on the disposition or the character of the actor. Dispositional ethics is related to virtue ethics, which emphasizes the building of a virtuous character and being in control of the vices. Dispositional ethics therefore has a tendency to judge the person instead of the act. In my opinion this also highlights a flaw in dispositional ethics, namely the tendency to unfairness to a person we already judged as flawed, even if that person does something that is praiseworthy on its own. So whatever that person does, it does not matter, as that person is considered irredeemably bad, and therefore will be condemned for anything he does. The act is considered impure, and various bad motives are assigned. This is how we get various derangement syndromes, such as Trump Derangement Syndrome.
I would consider it a pity if we develop Maher Derangement Syndrome at Ethics Alarms. Looking at Maher’s statements since Trumps election in 2025, it appears to me that he is one of the sane liberals who has not fallen to Trump Derangement Syndrome. In this he compares to Stephen A. Smith, and is unlike Colbert and Kimmel. I do not think we should assume any motives here; I prefer to be charitable even to people who are personally not likable. Perhaps the left has marched too far leftwards in crazy la la land, leaving rationalists as Bill Maher behind.
The ethics value I find that Bill offends is sincerity. On X, a conservative commentator calls Megyn Kelly “a shape shifting chameleon whose political views align with whatever brings her the most views. She is a fraud with no real views or convictions apart from what she think gives her engagement.”
That’s Bill Maher exactly.