Author: Jack Marshall

Saturday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, Oct. 7, 2023: It’s Not Like The Old Saturday Morning Cartoons, But It Will Have To Do…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Some upsetting ethics episodes, like a Democratic Congressman behaving like a 7th grade jerk, lying about it, and being supported by his party and the news media, and this story, sufficiently monopolized my time and thoughts this week that quite a few issues and stories that need exposing risk being left behind…so here we are.

And I find myself wishing there was some Saturday morning adult TV equivalent to the old array of Saturday morning entertainment shows for kids that used to begin my weekends when I was just a sprout. Those shows above were actually a later generation’s (inferior) options. For me, my Saturday mornings were affirmatively weird, including non-cartoon fare like Andy Devine’s show (“Twang your magic twanger, Froggie!”), Ventriloquist Paul Winchell with his dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith (why Edgar Bergen didn’t sue, I’ll never know) , lisping vaudevillian Pinkie Lee (“Hello, it’s me! My name is Pinky Lee! With a checkered hat and a checkered coat, a funny tickle in my throat, and a silly laugh like a billy goat…”) and of course, “The Howdy Doody Show.” Cheap Hanna-Barbara cartoons were just starting to take over: “The Adventures of Ruff and Reddy” was the camel’s nose in the tent.

Well, maybe I’ll see if I can get early morning Saturday ethics entertainment up on Ethics Alarms for adults and ethics-minded teens needing stimulation. I guarantee it will be better than “The Banana Splits.”

1. Trick or Treat! Where to begin? Well, Halloween has become a frolic for The Great Stupid in recent years, and 2023’s scary days are starting off in a similar vein. In my increasingly silly state of Massachusetts (which is considering killing Columbus Day and replacing it with “Indigenous Peoples Day”) the Northboro Public Schools sent a letter to parents this week noting that students aren’t allowed to wear costumes to school for Halloween and the traditional parade through the hallways was canceled. Why? Oh, come on, it’s easy. DEI! The banning of the Halloween fun will supposedly advance the district’s “core values of equity and inclusion.” How, nobody would say. Instead of costumes and a parade, the school district told parents that students would participate in a “Fall-themed spirit day.” Catchy! I feel more inclusive already. Still, nobody really explained why not letting kids dress up in costumes one day a year advances “diversity, equity and inclusion.” One knee-jerk woke parent quizzed about it ventured, “There is the money aspect: Not everyone can afford a Halloween costume.” BUZZZZZZZ! Wrong, Equity Face. Great Halloween costumes require creativity, not money. Schools are supposed to cultivate creativity. Dumb, woke, incompetent people are running public schools, and the result is going to be more dumb, woke, incompetent citizens.

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The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck, Part 2: Villains, Victims, Heroes And Confusion

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

There has already been an addition to what is known about this horrible ethics story. That’s the main (but far from only) villain of the tale above, Lindsey Hill, who plotted to extort Major League pitching star Trevor Bauer, as described in Part 1. I had never seen a photo of her before: she looks exactly as I would have expected her to look. Hill is already hard at work trying to squeeze every last drop of celebrity out of her scheme, and, of course, the popular culture being the scummy place it is, there are plenty of disgusting people out there ready to accommodate her. Now that Howard Stern is old and woke, she moved on to Alex Stein, who had her as a guest on his show “Prime Time With Alex Stein” on Glenn Beck‘s Blaze Media network. Stein is a professional asshole whose idea of comedy is to disrupt public meetings and confront politicians in public. Having Hill on his show gave this creep a chance to get into graphic descriptions of sexual activities, a la Stern.

Hill played the cliche “I’m an alcoholic, pity me” card, then tried to stick to her lie using various strategies. She reminded her host that two more women came out as she was in the process of extorting Bauer to claim he had abused them too. Two words regarding that: Bret Kavanaugh. The me-too #MeToos provided even less convincing evidence than Hill did, and we now know she was lying. She also offered the risible explanation of the damning morning-after video revealed by Bauer that bad lighting was to blame for the apparent absence of the injuries she had claimed. Was bad lighting also responsible for her grinning like the Cheshire cat?

Since we’ve started on Hill, I might as well finish.

1. Lindsey Hill, Villain

As I said, she’s the Number #1 Ethics Villain, and she did far more harm than just derailing Trevor Bauer’s career and reputation. She kicked #MeToo in the metaphorical solar plexus when it already was reeling. “Believe all women” had already been discredited as a slogan, but thanks to Hill, “Don’t automatically believe any women” is about to take its place. And there was more damage, which I will discuss here later.

Several conservative commentators have already opined that the law needs to find some way to punish sociopathic predators like Hill. Writes Miranda Devine in the New York Post, “It will never end until there are penalties for making false allegations that ruin a man’s life. Hill needs to be charged, like Jussie Smollett was for faking a hate crime.  Without consequences, malignant behavior only proliferates.” That sounds good, but this will only happen when women’s rights activists and the eager-to-pander politicians who grovel to them reverse course after opposing any negative consequences for women who falsely claim rape, harassment or sexual abuse. The standard argument remains the same: women are already too reluctant to accuse powerful men of sexual misconduct, and if they face real penalties should their allegations not meet evidentiary standards, even fewer will brave the storm, so more evil men will have their way. This is, and has always been, a utilitarian balancing act, with no clear or ideal solution.

The best that can be done about people like Hill right now is cultural and societal shunning. We should make sure everyone knows that generically attractive blonde face and her name, and employers as well as potential friends and lovers should be well aware that she’s a grifter who cannot be trusted. Post her image and deeds widely. If she ends up alone and making a living in low rent peep shows or as a geek biting the heads off live chickens, good. That’s one kind of justice.

It is only fair to mention that there is an unintended benefit of Hill’s vile conduct. Providing an ugly, throbbing example of how the #MeToo ideology can be abused (and why the Obama/Biden directive to colleges and universities to stack sexual misconduct cases against male students) is useful to those fighting these excesses. Thanks, Lindsey! You’re a blight on society, but not a completely useless one.

2. Trevor Bauer, Ethics Hero

Bauer is the only hero in the train wreck. He did nothing wrong (how he and his consenting sex partners choose to enjoy themselves is not wrong) and consistently denied wrongdoing throughout his ordeal. He followed the system, worked through his labor union and kept his mouth shut other than to tersely insist on his innocence. He did not attack Major League Baseball, nor take to social media to tell the world about Hill. Although well-versed in that mode of pubic communications, Bauer did not seek pity, threaten, or post drawings of himself standing with Jesus. His conduct throughout has been exemplary.

Most admirable of all, Bauer did not pay off Hill. No weenie he. It would have been easy to do so, his career would have continued unblighted, and he would barely miss the money: even with his suspension without pay for more than a season, Bauer has made $111,654,099 so far in his career, and at 32, he may not be done yet. In this matter he is an exemplar and role model. He was determined to fight, and that’s what ethical people should do. True, because he was already rich, Bauer could afford to be principled, but so many others who also can afford it, don’t.

This is as good a place as any to note Hall of Fame Braves pitcher Tom Glavine’s comment on the Bauer fiasco. “I would not want to be playing any professional sport in today’s world,” he said. “Listen, the money’s great, it always gets better every generation, but the things that guys have to deal with today, it’s off the charts. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without somebody having a camera. You can’t go anywhere without somebody videotaping.” In short, they are marks for evil people like Lindsey Hill, and unscrupulous women empowered by society’s current groveling to feminists and #MeToo activists.

3. Ethics Villains, the sports media.

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Why The White House Dog Bite Scandal Matters

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

For the record, I don’t regard the video above, by itself, as convincing evidence that President Biden abuses dogs. It sure is suspicious, but confirmation bias is strong here: I firmly believe Biden is a bad guy who has masqueraded as otherwise his entire career, and since abusing animals is signature significance for unethical, untrustworthy people, Biden mistreating his own dogs seems consistent. That video does show me someone who doesn’t know how to interact with dogs in a kind and supportive way. I have used my foot on a dog in an adversarial manner exactly once on my life: when a stray dog broke into my yard and had my girlfriend’s cat in its mouth. In that video above, it is unclear whether Biden is actually kicking Commander, but he definitely is using his foot to keep the dog in line. It’s a bad sign.

The Bidens’ first German Shepherd, Major, was exiled to a family friend in Delaware in 2021 after biting several people at the White House. Commander was an innocent puppy when he was brought into the President’s home as a replacement, and now he has bitten more people than Major did. The most recent known incident was on September 25, when the dog bit a Secret Service officer seriously enough to require medical attention. Naturally, because this is how this White House deals with its embarrassments and mistakes, the President, his aides and the mainstream news media are spinning, denying, and minimizing the incidents. (Here’s the Times this week discussing the issue without impugning the Bidens at all.) With Major, the Bidens implied that a bitten Secret Service agent was lying about a bite that required him to seek medical treatment. This time, the White House claims that the President’s security detail has triggered the attacks with “unfriendly expressions”—you know, microaggressions. Right.

In one attack by Commander, an agent used a chair to defend himself from the dog . The latest victim was Dale Haney, 71, who is not part of Biden’s security team; so far, there’s no evidence that he was making faces at the dog. Judicial Watch, in a press release yesterday, claims to have evidence that Biden “has punched and kicked his dogs.”

What’s going on here? I think it’s mostly pretty clear.

First, the White House is a terrible place for any dog. Lots of strangers are coming in and out, and a dog’s “masters” are usually busy or missing. A herding breed like a German Shepherd is a particularly bad choice as a First Dog. Working dogs are generally strong-willed and need a job as well as lots of play, attention, training, socialization and exercise. If they don’t get it, they become nervous and stressed as well as fearful. Obviously, the Biden dogs weren’t getting it.

Donald Trump was sneered at by various pundits for being the first President within memory who didn’t have a dog or cat in the White House. You know—more proof that he’s evil. Trump said that he didn’t have time to take proper care of a dog, and that was a responsible answer. Presidents have often used dogs as props, especially after FDR’s Scottie, Fala, became popular and was referenced in Roosevelt’s less weighty speeches. (Fala bit a couple of people too.) When a POTUS has young children living at the White House, a family dog may get sufficient love and attention to be well-adjusted. (In the film of “The Pelican Brief” the corrupt and dim-witted President played by Robert Culp is better at teaching tricks to his dog than governing. You might think Biden would be an ideal real-life version of that President, but it appears not.)

Dog lovers whose brains and values have not been complete overcome by fealty to the Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck are beginning to be alarmed. Prof Turley wrote this week that the Bidens are breaking the law:

[T]he Bidens…are subject to strict liability. However, it is difficult for Secret Service agents to sue a protected family and the Bidens know it. They are the ultimate captive audience. That is not the case for civilians in the White House compound.They are not required to assume the role of chew toys for presidential pets. The Bidens are well beyond their one free bite. They are now clearly in possession of a vicious animal under the common law and can be held strictly liable as a result.

In other words, we are in familiar cover-up territory. Conservative pundit Stephen Green is more emotional, and wrote after noting the Judicial Watch allegation;

I must pause and collect myself before writing any further.I’m a dog person. My wife is so much of a dog person that the first big test of our budding relationship was when she looked me square in the eye and asked if I was a dog person….So it’s with outrage and trembling hands that I’m writing this report. Biden has now had two different German Shepherds, Commander and Major, who have repeatedly bitten Secret Service agents and other White House staff. That much is an established fact. There’s a pattern here, and that almost always reflects on the owner, not on the dogs.

I know this is true. Our rescue dog, Spuds, was neglected and abused before we adopted him. He is the sweetest dog we have ever had, but he is still suspicious of strangers when he is on a leash. (If I let him off the leash, he takes it as a sign that the individual is a friend to be trusted, and immediately sits on his or her foot and offers his magnificent head for an ear rub…) Spuds did bite a neighbor, and it was completely my fault: I had given him too much leash and let him go around a corner without my knowing that the area was clear. A man was on his hands and knees, working on some plants, and Spuds was startled—I don’t think he had ever seen a human in that position before. My fault, 100%. I also believe Spuds was kicked by his previous owner. I have often rubbed the backs of our other dogs (and cat) with my foot: Spuds growled and leaped up when I tried that with him initially, obviously regarding my foot as a threat. Now he trusts me, and enjoys the occasional foot-pat.

Green continues:

I’m inclined to believe that a guy who humiliates his constituents in public, as Biden has done his entire career, is likely to abuse his dogs in private. That he’s had at least two dogs with behavior problems is yet more evidence of possible abuse.Or, and this is the most generous interpretation, maybe Biden merely neglects his dogs….If there’s yet no direct evidence of abuse, there’s also zero direct evidence that Biden cares for his German Shepherds with the love and playtime they require. Abused or neglected, dogs treated either way will act out. Biden’s surviving adult children both show evidence of emotional abuse or neglect, and one of them even wrote about it extensively in her now-public diary…At this moment, all I can care about is the shallowness and callowness of a two-bit schemer who has abused or neglected his public trophy dogs to the point where two sweet animals are dangerous to those around them.

That’s a bit too far for me, but not too too far. It’s clear the Democrat Woke will tolerate constant lies, totalitarian tactics, the use of the justice system against political enemies, the presence of a mentally declining mediocrity in one of the most difficult jobs in the world and more, and also that the mainstream media lacks the integrity, courage and dedication to its role in a democracy to be critics and whistleblowers rather than accessories. I wonder, however, if the “dog people” among them will support a President whom they conclude is cruel to his dogs.

Do Progressive Voters Comprehend The Significance Of Their Elected Officials’ Hypocrisy And Flip-Flops?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Rhetorical question. Based on the evidence, the clear answer is “No.”

Exhibit A for today is that part of the 16th St. “street mural” that Black Lives Matter protesters painted next to the official “Black Lives Matter” lettering ordered up by Democratic Mayor Murial Bowser in 2020, when she pandered disgracefully to the Marxist, racist, scamster movement by re-naming the area running directly to the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” At the time this stunt was intended by Bowser and teh D.C. City Council as a rebuke to then-President trump, but its syill there, even though Bowser has, weasel-like insisted that the “Defund the Police” message isn’t part of the official D.C. mural. Typical Bowser: the protesters are correct; that’s an equal sign to the left, making the full message “Black Lives Matter = Defund the Police.” BLM does stand for defunding the police, among other things (riots, unpunished crime, thugs resisting arrest…). Three years ago, Bowser dodged the a question on ABC’s “This Week” as to whether she would remove the unauthorized message. “It’s not a part of the mural,” mewled, adding that she hadn’t “had the opportunity to review it.” It’s still there, of course.

Nonetheless, just a few days before the embarrassing episode where a Democratic Congressman had his car hijacked at gunpoint, Bowser, whose city is in a crime wave like so many other Democrat-run cities in the thrall of the George Floyd Freakout and The Great Stupid, announced that her city needed more police. “We don’t have the officers that we need, and sadly we’ve lost three to four hundred officers in the last four years,” she said. “We haven’t had officers in our schools, and we have policies that make it difficult to recruit new officers.”

The obvious rejoinder should be, “And whose fault is that, you dummy?” But it isn’t. Joe Biden’s intellect-challenged mouthpiece blamed Rep. Cuellar’s hijacking on Republicans, though the party virtually doesn’t exist in the nation’s Capitol. Moreover, who voted for Bowser, not to mention that long trail of incompetent and/or corrupt Democratic mayors before her stretch back to convicted felon and crack-head Marion Barry (who has a statue honoring him downtown)?

When elected officials act like Bowser, it is convincing evidence that they can’t be trusted. Changing one’s position in the wake of facts that show you were wrong is simply competent leadership, but arguing two positions that are mutually exclusive is the mark of a politician who lack integrity, accountability, and sufficient brain cells to rub together to make small fire. We are seeing this self-indicting conduct coast to coast, from New York—where New York City’s major and the state’s governor still insist that they govern “sancuaries” for illegal immigrants but who are complaining that they don’t have the space or funds to actually be what they say they are—to California, where Gavin Newsom, hoping to fool an entire country into giving him power when he has presided over the ethics and societal rot that is now California, is brazenly taking contradictory positions on a slew of issues. President Biden, much to Donald Trump’s amusement, is now trying to build Trump’s “wonderful wall.”

Hypocrisy and a flagrant flip-flopping apparently means nothing to voters, perhaps because they have been raised to lack integrity themselves.

Meanwhile, back in D.C., the CVS in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. regularly looks like this:

You see, black lives matter, and black teens, gang members and thieves regularly loot the store, leaving almost all the shelves empty. “A big group of kids, like 45 or more, walk in before school, after school and late at night to steal chips and drinks,” local station Fox 5 reported this week. “They even throw the food and beverages on the ground and stomp on them, leaving behind a big mess. Staff at CVS have been alerted that thieves are aware of when new shipments come in and that’s when they target the store.” Street vendors are allegedly paying people to go in and steal the merchandise so they can resell it.

The neighborhood is almost exclusively black, so the majority of law abiding citizens in the area are the ones being most harmed by the collapse of the rule of law in the District (Black Lives Matter = Collapse of the Rule of Law), but you watch: they’ll still vote for Bowser next time around, or if not, someone as bad or worse. This was the result in Chicago, when voters got rid of one incompetent, lying, leftist mayor only to replace him with someone more radical and inept than even she was.

As Pete Seeger, himself a reality-challenged Marxist, sang in his best composition, “When will they ever learn?” It’s beginning to look like the answer may be “Never!”

Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

An administrative note: I know WordPress’s pointless and gratuitous “improvement” of its comment registering system is confusing. But it does work: I spent an hour last week with a “Happiness Engineer” who tested it out with me. I’m sorry for the frustration and inconvenience: from my end, new glitches from WP innovations are a daily feature of writing the blog, so believe me, I feel your pain.

Coming attractions: the rest of the disturbing and perplexing Trevor Bauer saga; the significance of Biden’s second German Shepherd banishing; the education apocalypse, and D.C.’s Black Lives Matter-lovin’ mayor suddenly deciding that police are necessary after all. Lots of other issues rattling around, but as long as you don’t scoop me (or Curmie, who has a guest post coming) on those three, write about any ethics matter you choose.

Ready…on your mark…get set…GO!

The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck: It Has Everything: #MeToo, Kinky Sex, Ethics Zugzwang, Predatory Women, ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent,’ “The Asshole’s Handicap,” Legal Ethics And Baseball! [Part I: The Story] (Updated And Corrected)

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

This story broke a couple of days ago, and readers have been chiding me for not posting on it. I must admit, I was stalling, because it is a total mess that will take two major posts to unravel, and to cap it all off, my baseball posts don’t attract enough interest to meet the time/reward minimum. Nevertheless, this disaster raises major ethical issues. Ignore at your peril.

1. Background: Trevor Bauer: I have written a great deal about Trevor Bower, a talented Major League starting pitcher who, somewhat like Curt Schilling (recently discussed here), had a well-earned reputation for being an eccentric, and kind of a jerk. Bauer was also Donald Trump-like on social media, with similar, if more narrowly focused, results.

He once knocked himself out of a crucial post-season start by cutting a pitching hand finger playing with a drone (he loves drones). In 2018, while pitching for the Cleveland Indians, Bauer appeared to carve “BD 911” into the pitching mound during a game. That has been Truther short-hand for “Bush Did” the 9-11 bombings, and Bauer was widely criticized for the stunt. He then angrily denied that the message meant anything political, but never explained what it did mean. This also did not make him popular in a sport that is branded as patriotic and embodying core American values. In 2019, a sportswriter started claiming that Bauer’s tweets made him a “problem” because he had a contentious exchange with a female Twitter user. He was accused of harassment. It wasn’t harassment, but a pattern was set that eventually bit Bauer, hard.

In 2019, after allowing seven runs, Bauer threw a baseball over the centerfield wall after seeing his manager Terry Francona come out of the dugout to remove him from the game. Bauer apologized profusely, but it was the final straw for Francona, and the Indians traded him. Bauer was among the most vocal critics (and one of the few player critics) of the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal (see here), and cheating in baseball generally. This is also not the way to be popular in the clubhouse. In 2021, MLB announced that umpires would be checking the balls more carefully and regularly to ensure that the rule against doctoring pitches wasn’t being violated. The first pitcher to have his thrown baseballs collected for inspection based on suspicion of doctoring was…Trevor Bauer, Anti-Cheating Crusader. Bauer reacted sarcastically to the report on his Twitter account, and noted that many baseballs were being collected from games across baseball, not only from him. I wrote that this was an ethics red flag for me, as was his reaction when baseball announced the new policy, saying that there would be no way to determine who doctored the balls.

Luckily for Bauer, the SOB can really pitch. In the shortened season of 2020, Bauer won the National League Cy Young Award as one of the two best pitchers the Major Leagues. The King’s Pass reigns supreme in baseball (as in other sports): if a player is good enough, he can get away with almost anything. Almost. The Dodger signed Bauer to a rich, three year contract.

2. The Scandal. Bauer had a much larger scandal coming. A restraining order was taken out against him in late June of 2021 by a former sex partner. The woman claimed she had what started as a consensual relationship involving rough sex with the pitcher, but in a 67-page document, alleged that Bauer assaulted her on two different occasions, punching her in the face, vagina, and buttocks, sticking his fingers down her throat, and strangling her to the point where she lost consciousness twice, an experience she said she did not consent to. After the second choking episode, the woman claimed she awoke to find Bauer punching her in the head and face, inflicting serious injuries. She contacted police, and an investigation of Bauer by the Pasadena, California police department began.

Baseball, which had made the NFL and the NBA look bad (they are bad) by cracking down on domestic abuse by players, placed Bauer on indefinite “administrative leave” although her allegations were unsubstantiated. At the time, I wrote,

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More Ethics Estoppel: President Biden Is The Last One I Want To Hear Call “To Change The Poisonous Atmosphere In Washington”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This is head-exploding hypocrisy, and I’m not going to let it pass.

Yesterday, announcing yet another give-away of money the U.S. doesn’t have to people who don’t deserve it—a student loan forgiveness stunt—Biden said,

“More than anything, we need to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. You know, we have strong disagreements, but we need to stop seeing each other as enemies, need to talk to one another, listen to one another, work with one another.”

How dare he? It was just about a year ago when Biden called Republicans fascists and dangers to democracy. Has he forgotten? Oh, heck, its poor addled Joe: maybe he has. I don’t care. This is ethics estoppel in its purest form: even though addressing the culture of hate, revenge and demonizing in politics is desperately needed, Joe Biden is among those who mock a legitimate ethical objective by endorsing it. Maybe there is a Democrat somewhere who isn’t in that position, but I can’t think of any.

Have any Democrats criticized the endless Jan. 6 kangaroo hearings? How about Rep. Bowman’s “poisonous” “talking points” blaming Republicans because he broke the law and lied about it—remember them?

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Incompetent Tweet Of The Month

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“Penny” is an LGBTQ activist who didn’t think this tweet through before posting. (This is why Twitter is dangerous to the impulsive, emotional and none-too-bright.) After someone pointed out what the tweet seemed to be saying, it was taken down.

Too late.

Confronting My Biases, Episode 2: The Presumptuous And The Officious

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

If I didn’t find the term offensive, I might have called this post “The Attack of the Karens” (The first love of my life, in high school, was named Karen. She married my best friend. I don’t want to talk about it…). It’s also another Spuds story. Let me state right up front: this is one bias I have no intention of banishing.

We live in a cul-de-sac by a church, its parking lot and a public grade school, with a picnic area, a playground and an athletic field nearby. Spuds needed to attend to his morning toilette, so as I have for the nearly three years we have had the pleasure of his company, I followed my pit bull mix on his leash as he went to his favorite peeing place, on the grass just across the cul-de-sac from our home. My dog was just about to complete the job, whereupon he would quickly return to his perch on our sofa, when we were interrupted by a woman, who walked up to within about 15 feet of us and said, “Sir, dogs upset my animals.”

I had noticed that on this day the church or the school had set up a temporary petting zoo near the picnic tables and by the school playground, about 10 yards from where Spuds and I were. Quite a few young kids and their parents were crowded around a pen that appeared to contain a couple of goats, a lamb or two, and an alpaca.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, annoyed at her attitude.

“Well, sir, I don’t want you to bring your dog up to the pen. It will upset my animals.”

I was not in the mood to put up with this, in part because I have long vowed not to.

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Incompetent Elected Official Of The Week: Ector County (Texas) Commissioner Michael Gardner (R) [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Alternate headline: “Wow! What an idiot!

Michael Gardner, an elected commissioner in Ector County, Texas, was officiating at his nephew’s wedding in Nebraska and had the cool idea of calling the throng of 200 guests gathered at the outdoor ceremony to order by shooting a pistol into the air. Gardner cocked back the hammer of the weapon but it slipped—he had never fired the Pietta 1860 revolver before—and the gun went off prematurely. Worse yet, the blank he thought he was shooting off was home-made (for a borrowed gun he was unfamiliar with, remember) and wasn’t nearly blank enough. As a result, his misfire shot his 12-year-old grandson in the shoulder.

Other than that, the wedding went off without a hitch.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Gardner said he regretted using a homemade blank, since he had never made one before, and also using a gun that didn’t belong to him and that he had never used . Then there was that shooting his grandson thing. He regrets that too. Luckily, the boy is okay.

Gardner was charged with felony child abuse committed negligently and resulting in serious bodily injury. He turned himself in to authorities the day after the wedding and was released on a $10,000 bond. Gardner could face up to three years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both. He says that the shooting has put his political future in jeopardy.

Ya think?

He also said, incredibly, “Accidents happen.” Well, that accident never happens unless some idiot has the brilliant idea of firing a gun to start a wedding.

Stories like this are why the rest of the world thinks Americans are nuts.