Author: Jack Marshall

Post Election Insanity Week Ethics Inventory, 11/10/24

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

I have accumulated so many items, election-related and non-election related, that I am forced to get up one of the potpourri posts even though their work/response ratio is terrible.

I did have a moment of clarity regarding our Once and Future President, however. Trump’s insistence that he won the 2020 election, not just that it was rigged (as it was) against him, and not just that he should have won the Electoral Vote, but that he literally won it, as in getting more votes than Biden, has always been pretty embarrassing, especially since he never yielded on the point and repeated it ad nauseam. The claim certainly gave ammunition to the Trump Deranged, the Axis of Unethical Conduct, and the “Trump lies all the time” mobs. He couldn’t prove it, and it seemed like a scab that Trump kept picking at and wouldn’t allow to heal. I now think that it is possible that there was a method to his madness [“Hamlet” by William Shakespeare: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it;” Act 2, Scene 2.] as there often is.

I realized this after writing the post about the history of Presidents winning elections after losing one. Only Richard Nixon won the Presidency after losing both the popular vote and in the Electoral College in a previous election. Usually losing Presidential candidates are permanently tarred after a loss; they are seen by both their parties and the public as “losers.” Why nominate or vote for a loser? Even in Nixon’s case, he felt the need to separate himself from his past: in 1968, he branded himself as “the new Nixon,” even appearing in a self-mocking cameo on “Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-in” (“Sock it to me??).

As a salesman and promoter, Trump had to know the toxic effect of being branded a loser, and “loser” is one of his go-to insults. I don’t think he really was convinced that he won the popular vote, but rather that he felt branding himself as a foiled winner rather than publicly accepting the reality that he lost was the right play. Trump could run as a winner, and if his obstinate insistence that he won in 2020 was a target for Axis ridicule and condemnation, so be it. It was worth it for him to never accept the label “loser.”

Dishonest? Unethical? Sure. But not crazy. And in the context of Presidential campaign framing, not very far outside the norm, if at all.

And now here’s the rest of the story…

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The Editor-In-Chief of Scientific American Invokes The Demon Pazuzu!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Odd. One would think that the editor of a (once) respected science magazine would not resort demonology to explain her own conduct. Indeed, one would think that such conduct would disqualify said editor from continuing in her position.

Laura Helmuth, a woke activist who has destroyed the credibility of Scientific American by politicizing its content, went bonkers after Trump defeated Kamala Harris and tweeted,

How professional! How trustworthy! How scientific! Who wouldn’t trust the analysis of a science magazine edited by someone who makes such declarations in public?

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Number Appropriation Ethics! Yes, The Great Stupid and the Post 2024 Election Freakout Have Teamed Up…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I am really trying to find ethics topics that don’t focus on Trump Derangement, the 2024 Post Election Freakout and the Post 2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck. I am. I’m as sick of the idiocy and ethically-clueless (Accountability? Responsibility? Honesty? Fairness?) outbursts as much as you are. More than you are—I have to write about this crap. Then a story like this one slimes by my eyes. I can’t ignore something this stupid. So, it pulls me back in.

Before I get into this embarrassing muck: above is a clip from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood Clip Archive, listing the videos I use regularly to categorize a particular type of ethics tale. I considered commenting on this story by posting every video that applies. I think it’s an all-time record—go to the post and see how many you would include. I count nine.

Now hold on to your skull: The New York Post reports that students and alumni of Pomona College are furious with Donald Trump because…wait for it…he has ruined their favorite number for them.

You see, 47 is Pomona’s lucky number. Now, I would think that one of the purposes of an institute of higher edication is to disabuse its eventual graduates of the idea that there are such things as lucky numbers, but never mind.
The number 47 has eerily appeared repeatedly in the 137-year history of the private liberal arts college, located in Claremont, California. Exits on the 10 and 210 freeways to get to Pomona College are both number 47. The organ at the college’s music auditorium has 47 pipes in the top row. There were 47 enrolled students at the time of the first graduating class in 1894. The largest dorm on campus, officially known as Florence Carrier Blaisdell and Della Mullock Mudd Hall, has 47 characters in the title and was completed in 1947. The dorm’s staircase contains 47 balusters. So, naturally and completely reasonably, alums of the school have a “47 Society.”

No I’m not making this up. See?

But the evil…EVIL! Donald Trump is the 47th President, damn him, so now it’s all ruined…

Graduate Terril Jones told reporters taht he fears that he can’t wear his Pomona 47 hat in public, lest he be identified as a Trump supporter in public. “I definitely feel that the Trump campaign has co-opted it in a way that makes it difficult for all people who love 47 to display it.” Another alumni scratched his number 47 car sticker off of his rear window. Yet another has reconsidered getting an honorary 47 tattoo since Trump’s win. Trump’s victory “is the worst thing to happen to our beloved number, possibly ever,” one graduate wrote on the “47 Society’s Facebook page.

Trump now sports a MAGA hat with the numbers 45-47 on the side. His campaign platform was called Agenda 47. An LA Times assistant editor complains in an op-ed “It feels like Trump and his followers have appropriated my favorite number,” he whines.

It feels to me like you’re a Trump Deranged idiot.

What, No Cancelled Classes, Cookies and Legos For Students Upset About Attacks On Jews In Amsterdam? [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

What attacks on Jews in Amsterdam?

On the evening of November 7, scenes of Jews being ambushed and beaten on the streets of Amsterdam were appearing on social media. Most of the news media couldn’t be bothered to report this until days later, however. After all, colleges and public schools were worried about the mental health of their delicate students, traumatized dangerously by the outbreak of democracy in their country and a result that didn’t please them (or their parents, in the case of 10 years olds).

Georgetown, one of the universities that has a diploma with its name on it turned face to the wall in my office, invited students to a “self-care suite” while its McCourt School of Public Policy offered milk and cookies, hot cocoa, Lego blocks and “Coloring and Mindfulness Exercises” to keep students from plunging into the depths of despond. Harvard, the other school with a front-to-the-wall diploma in my office, cancelled classes in mourning along with other elite universities, aka progressive indoctrination camps. So reporters and talking heads were focusing on the real news—you know, how racist, sexist, stupid, uneducated and irresponsible voters were not patriotic enough to embrace the empty and dishonest candidacy of Kamala Harris. Social media videos showed distraught and panicked Americans screaming, crying, and vowing vengeance.

I missed the Amsterdam story entirely because the headlines I glanced at, always well below the election freakout headlines if they were there at all, made it look like just another European soccer riot. Ho hum. It was a lot more than that.

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Today’s Trump-Deranged Lament (Or Lamott?)

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This one is by novelist Anne Lamott. At least it’s well-written. It still is evidence of what the Axis propaganda has done to many previously rational minds, though Lamott is a long-time woke activist (she lives in California, naturally) so she probably is more a purveyor of anti-Trump hysteria than a victim of it.

She contributes to Salon, which is pure leftist propaganda 90% of the time. She called the Tea Party “hateful.” She actually praised Harry Reid, at last report being butt-raped by flaming demon water buffalo on a bed of spikes in Hell.

Her cry of pain is all emotional argle-bargle with very little paranoid progressive fantasy, but some. Nonetheless, treating the electoral defeat of a candidate as irredeemable as Kamala Harris as if it were the death of a lover is evidence of warped priorities and historical naivete, as well as far too little diversity in thought among one’s friends. Aren’t people like her supposed to be champions of diversity and inclusion? I have diversity and inclusion among my friends: that’s why visiting my Facebook feed is like watching a performance of “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade” usually shortened to Marat/Sade.

Here’s Anne……….

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Ethics Observations on the Unethical Tweet of the Month

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Wowsers.

No denial and Trump Derangement here! 

Jed Handelsman Shugerman is a renowned and respected law professor at Boston University. A credentialed legal scholar specializing in constitutional law and governance, he is a co-author of “Amicus briefs on the history of presidential power, the Emoluments Clauses, the Appointments Clause, the First Amendment rights of elected judges, and the due process problems of elected judges in death penalty cases,” among other publications. Yet the professor is apparently a Trump-Deranged, woke bigot no longer capable of rational and objective analysis.

Observations:

1. This guy blogged on Election Day that Harris would win easily. Such a declaraion was the result of inexplicable delusion for a government scholar, unless the explanation is that he is a fraud with no business teaching anyone. I regret my decision not to be more emphataic in my learned and informed conclusion that Trump would win the election and quite possibly in a landslide. I hinted at this belief in many comments, but never stated it in a post. I was discouraged from my previous failed predication that Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama. I shouldn’t have been: I was a weenie. I was much more certain that Trump would win than of my prediction in 2012. Romney was running against Obama, a skilled campaigner and incumbent President; Trump’s opponent was a terrible campaigner and a Vice-President. Romney was knee-capped by the biased news media, but its power and credibility was much stronger then. Romney never had enthusiastic support from conservatives, who rightly regarded him as technocrat with flexible principles. Not being willing to come out and predict that Trump would defeat Harris was wrong, but anyone stating from a position of authority that Harris would win is unforgivable. The polls that showed a dead heat made no sense, as many pointed out. Trump was running confidently, while Harris was running a desperation campaign, and running it badly, depending on voter amnesia and gullibility. By any objective observation and unbiased analysis of the issues around the election, the conclusion that Trump was a likely victor was unavoidable if one had to choose one result or another to predict. Predicting that Harris would prevail demonstrated an “It isn’t what it is” mindset and an abuse of authority by a presumed “expert.”

2. Blaming Harris or Walz for the most incompetent campaign in modern Presidential history is “missing the point”? It’s the only point anyone needs. The partisans who defend that campaign, with Walz being a walking, talking joke except that opposing free speech isn’t funny, and Harris resolutely refusing to answer direct questions directly while “protecting democracy” by using fascist tactics against her opponent can be fairly described as gaslighting.

3. Back to Romney in 2012: I predicted Mitt would win because, I wrote, Americans want strong Presidents. Obama was weak and feckless, but he played strong well. American still want strong leaders. Both Harris and Walz projected weakness. Indeed, the whole woke movement embraces weenyism. Strength is bad, toxic. Men tend to be more assertive, confrontational and agressive than women, so being a male is toxic. The United States was founded on risk-taking, defiance, strength, confrontation and willingness to fight for principles, so the United States itself is toxic.

Well…WRONG. These qualities have made the nation what it is, and what it is is brash, cocky, intolerant of weakness and anti-weenie. it’s a guy thing, but that doesn’t mean women can exhibit the same essential leadership qualities. There is a lot wrong with Hillary Clinton, but being a weenie isn’t one of them. “Toxic masculinity” is nothing better than a pejorative way to describe the unique character of the nation. I prefer American exceptionalism, and weenies need not apply. John Wayne lives, metaphorically of course. Good. Shugarman doesn’t understand or like his own country: why is he a professor anywhere?

4. Oh, fine, here it comes: “white supremacy.” Wouldn’t you think a scholar could come up with something more original (and true) than racism to explain Harris’s defeat? It’s insulting, but worse, it’s stupid. If Trump ran a campaign like Harris, ducking all substantive questions, basing his election on how bad Harris was rather than on what he wanted to do, he would have lost. If Harris hadn’t insulted young men, had she taken the interview with Joe Rogan, were she able to speak off scripts without sounding like Gabby Johnson, she would have won the election. If everything else were the same, but Trump were black and Harris was a white female weenie like, say, Amy Klobuchar, do you think the result would have been any different? I don’t.

5. This is a useful tweet, simultaneously indicting the competence and trustworthiness of academia, lawyers, law professors, law schools, Democrats and progressives.

The Final Scene in “Michael Clayton” As a Metaphor For the 2024 Election And A Lesson For Democrats Which They May Be Incapable Of Learning…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In the scene above, which has already made it onto many lists of American cinema’s best ending scenes, Michael Clayton, a law firm fixer who has survived a murder attempt paid for by the general counsel of a chemical company that presents its products as boons to civilization but which is really covering up a massive pollution scandal, confronts the general counsel with his survival, knowledge of her and her company’s crimes. Unknown to her Clayton is wearing a wire, and her incriminating responses to the confrontation will bring down the company. Arthur, Clayton’s friend whom he refers to, was the whistle-blowing lawyer that the general counsel had murdered to prevent him from revealing the smoking gun company document Clayton is holding, evidence of the company’s knowing contamination that harmed or killed millions.

It is ironic that George Clooney, in what is easily his best movie and best performance, played a central role in the failed Democratic Party palace coup that resulted in the disastrous campaign and defeat of Kamala Harris. The unhinged and folish reactions of the now re-loading “resistance,” Democrats and their corrupt media allies (“The Axis of Unethical Conduct” in Ethics Alarms parlance) brought this scene to mind. You should show it to your deranged Facebook friends and relatives, but here’s a guide for you to use if they are incapable of grasping the lessons it holds…

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Some Objective Historical Perspective on the Election, Because I’m a Better Presidential Historian Than Allan Lichtman

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Hack American University historian Allan Lichtman could have chosen to enlighten his audience with genuine perspective on why the 2024 election didn’t fit in his little election-predicting formula. Instead, as I’ve written about here, here and here, he chose to parrot partisan talking points and excuses because, sadly, he is a biased, publicity-seeking hack. Thus I’m forced into doing his work for him. Well, that’s okay. I’m qualified, and unlike him, I have integrity.

Let’s begin with this fact nobody has mentioned: only three men before Trump were elected President after losing a Presidential election. Three. Andrew Jackson was the first, but he gets an asterisk: Andy won the popular vote when he ran the first time but lost to John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives. Like Trump, he said the election had been stolen from him. The second time a defeated Presidential candidate came back to win was in 1892, when Grover Cleveland, like Trump, ran again after losing his first bid for re-election to win the White House back, thus becoming the 22nd and 24th President. He has the same asterisk as Jackson, however. Grover the Good (in truth, he wasn’t all that good) never lost the popular vote: Benjamin Harrison defeated him with the first fluke Electoral College victory (Rutherford B. Hayes doesn’t count, but that’s another story.) So Cleveland won the popular vote in all three of his Presidential elections.

Richard Nixon is the third member of this odd club. He lost a squeaker to JFK in 1960 ( or maybe he didn’t, but unlike Trump, Nixon refused to challenge the result “for the good of the nation.” If Trump had only followed Nixon’s example, he would have won a real landslide this week), and then came back eight years later to defeat Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace to finally win the Presidency.

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To Bring “Trump Derangement Friday” to an Appropriate Finale…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Sky News has been running a funny and disturbing program since the election highlighting the hysterical reactions of both anonymous Trump Derangement victims and some whose faces we know, unfortunately…

As discussed in earlier posts, those propagandists, fearmongers, irresponsible journalists, academics, “experts” and Machiavellian politicians who intentionally induced such unhinged reactions to a Presidential election are cruel Ethics Villains all. They should be exposed, mocked, shunned and disgraced.

I have followed every Presidential campaign and election since I was 10 years old. I have always carefully tracked the issues, competing policies and personalities. I have never been so emotionally involved that any result could or would cause me to behave like these poor people. I have also studied the history of campaigns, Presidencies, and the men who became President before I began watching and reading about history as it happened.

The Americans who are reacting with such extreme emotion, fear and hysteria are doing so first, because they have been deliberately deceived, and second, because they don’t understand our culture and the deep resiliency of our traditions and values.

The United States is better and stronger than these deficient citizens think. It is better and stronger than the unethical people who unhinged them.

Academic Fool of the Post 2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck: Yes, It’s Allan Lichtman!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

When we last left American University Allen Lichtman, he was smarting from his obviously incompetent and biased prediction that Kamala Harris would defeat Donald Trump proving to be spectacularly wrong. On Wednesday after Election Day, Lichtman told USA TODAY, “Right now after a very long night I am taking some time off to assess why I was wrong and what the future holds for America.” That was enough for me to enshrine him in the “Bias Makes You Stupid” Hall of Fame.

So Lichtman thought and he thought, and he reviewed his over-hyped formula that had delivered 9 out of 10 correct predictions in races that anyone could have predicted with no formula at all (Lichtman’s: go with who looks like the obvious winner, and when in doubt, pick the Democrat), and he applied his training and skills as a an American Presidential historian, and guess what he figured out! No, really, guess. I’ll give you time to think…

Ready?

On his YouTube channel, Lichtman that voters were not “rational” or “pragmatic,” succumbed to “disinformation” and Trump’s promotion of “xenophobia,” “misogyny” and “racism”!

Gee, the Ladies of “The View” came up with that, and they’re all biased, Trump Deranged morons. The voters were stupid, the brilliant Democratic message was muted by social media lies, and half of all Americans wouldn’t vote for a black woman as President because of bigotry.

I think the professor should have “assessed” a teeny bit longer. But it probably wouldn’t have done any good.

“I think two things this year, and maybe going forward, broke this premise of a rational, pragmatic electorate, and these are trends that are not new but have exploded this year beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. First is disinformation,” this clown said. “Always had disinformation, but we’ve never had anything remotely on this scale, where billionaires — I don’t know how much Elon Musk is worth, I’m sure more than a hundred billion dollars — who control critical sources of information for the electorate. I mean, Elon Musk owns X, and I’ve seen reports that his disinformation that he’s put out, has been viewed by two billion viewers, vastly more influential than New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CBS… the incredible explosion of disinformation…makes it very difficult for a rational, pragmatic electorate to operate.”

“Then add to that that we’ve seen Trump and his allies exploit, far more than ever before — even 2016 and 2020 — trends that run deep into American history and still resonate at this time: xenophobia, fear of foreign influences … We have never seen, in recent history, xenophobia to this level, and it digs deep into a trend in American history. It’s not something brand new, and it’s not just white people, you know?” Lichtman said. “People of all races and ethnicities can be subject to xenophobia. And finally, there’s racism, one of the deepest, most pervasive trends in American history. And we have seen, just as Trump and his allies have brought misogyny and xenophobia to a new level, he’s also brought blatant racism to a new level … So we see then the explosion of disinformation and these three dark trends from American history, and that calls into question the whole premise behind the keys of rationality and pragmatism.”

Wow. What a hack!

If I had a son at American, this would be sufficient to have me seek another school to send him to, because such a complete lack of perception, analysis and accountability shouldn’t be permitted on any faculty, in any department.

“Experts” like Lichtman will now validate the fact-free rationalizations of the current Trump-Derangement victims and Democratic Party leadership seeking ways to duck responsibility for running a terrible candidate (whom everyone paying attention knew would be a terrible candidate before she was “selected). He blames Elon Musk? Did Musk magically make Harris sound like an evasive, babbling phony who couldn’t function without a script or a teleprompter? That’s a neat trick! Isn’t part of a college education to learn the life skill of recognizing when you’ve screwed up and learn from the mistake? Clearly Lichtman won’t teach his students that.

Small wonder that Lichtmas thinks Harris was the “rational” choice for President: he’s almost as much of a phony as she is.