Author: Jack Marshall

Ethics Observations on President Trump’s White House Cabinet Meeting/Press Conference

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

1. Well, Biden didn’t have Cabinet meetings at all for the most part, so I hate to complain. But a public Cabinet meeting is not a real Cabinet meeting. True, Trump proved in the epic confrontation with Zelenskyy that the presence of cameras won’t always inhibit him, but still: a true Cabinet meeting must be private and permit candid and open discussion from all involved.

2. This leads to the second problem: because it is a PR exercise and not a real Cabinet meeting, everyone except Trump comes off as scripted. Worse, they all come off as yes-people and sycophants. However, in front of cameras, Trump’s appointees can’t exactly start arguing with each other or the President. That should be obvious, but I’ve already had one Trump-Deranged colleague get on the phone to say, “See? It’s just like Stalin!” That’s the narrative, and all of the obsequious “Yes, under your leadership, Mr. President, the improvement in this area has been remarkable and America is truly great again!” boot-licking supports it. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Trump should hire me to train his team to be more convincing and less obsequious.

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One More Bit of Evidence That The Government Is Too Incompetent To Be Trusted With So Much Power And Money

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

 The Transportation Security Administration has started to phase out its rule requiring travelers to take off their shoes before going through airport security.  The New York Times writes that “the agency has not officially announced this change and did not confirm the new policy” but it “appears to be taking effect at airports across the country.” Caleb Harmon-Marshall, a former TSA officer, first reported the soft launch of this policy via his travel newsletter. It appears to be happening first at major airports, then trickling down to all of them.

The requirement was one of the best examples of what Ethics Alarms calls The Barn Door Fallacy: a rare or preventable incident occurs attracting lots of media attention, and lawmakers or regulators react hysterically with draconian measures that are expensive, obtrusive, ineffective and unnecessary to ensure that what had never happened before won’t happen again.

Richard Reid (above) is an incompetent British terrorist who tried to bring down a passenger plane in 2001 by igniting a plastique bomb in his shoe. (The fuse was wet, and he couldn’t get it to light.) This coming being so soon after the September 11 bombings and everyone being freaked out over the failure of airport security that allowed that tragedy, the TSA decided to make all commercial airline passengers remove their shoes and have them x-rayed forever. Morons. (My mother observed that we should regard ourselves as lucky that a female terrorist hadn’t tied to set off a bomb in her brassiere.) And it has taken 24 years for someone in charge to decide, “You know, this is kind of stupid.”

“Why now?” Harmon-Marshall asked in his newsletter. “I think it’s politics, not security. A handful of lawmakers have recently ramped up criticism of the TSA, with some even floating the idea of dismantling the agency altogether. From complaints about long lines to inconsistent screening experiences, the pressure has been mounting. And this shoe change? It feels like a direct response to that pressure.”

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President Trump: The Kennedy Center, NPR, PBS…Now Fix The Smithsonian, Please

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

I knew there was a reason I hadn’t been to the Smithsonian Institution for so long. Like so many other crucial institutions the apathy of sane and patriotic American allowed to become leftist propaganda weapons over the last 50 years or so, the Smithsonian, along with most of the major museums across the country, “stress on narratives over artifacts.” That’s a quote from Jonathan Turley in his annoying understated mode.

White House official Lindsey Halligan condemned the new National Museum of American History’s Entertainment Nation exhibit, writing, “American taxpayers should not be funding institutions that undermine our country or promote one-sided, divisive political narratives. The Smithsonian Institution should present history in a way that is accurate, balanced, and consistent with the values that make the United States of America exceptional.”

Gee, ya think?

That Star Wars exhibit above would have prompted me to walk out of the building. Turley comments, “I was one of those who went to the movie when it came out, and I cannot recall anyone thinking, let alone connecting, the film to Nixon or Vietnam.” Nor can I, because nobody thought that, even the most politics-obsessed. Even film reviewers, always mostly left-leaning and desperate to find hidden messages in the most apolitical films, didn’t think Jabba the Hut was meant to suggest Spiro Agnew, or something.

We’ve known this about the Smithsonian for a long time, of course, but just shrugged it off because so many other example of insidious political corruption are worse. The Institution tried to slap a war crimes narrative on the Enola Gay. It left Clarence Thomas out of the National Museum of African-American History because being conservative means that he doesn’t count.

Among the flagrant propagandizing noted by Turley:

  • The commentary tied to a 1923 circus poster, reads: “Under the big top, circuses expressed the colonial impulse to claim dominion over the world.” Ah. So those clowns were supposed to be scary…
  • The Smithsonian declares “One of the earliest defining traits of entertainment in the United States was extraordinary violence.” You know, because United States BAD. One of the earliest traits of HUMAN entertainment for thousands of years was “extraordinary violence”! That one would have also had me running for the exits. Gladiators? Bull-baiting? Public executions? Grimm’s Fairy Tales???
  • The Lone Ranger display states: “The White title character’s relationship with Tonto resembled how the U.S. government imagined itself the world’s Lone Ranger.”

Oh for God’s sake…

Fix this, Mr. President. Fire the administrators and curators, all of them. Start from scratch.

The Ethicist Answers An Officious Jerk

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

…and much more nicely than I would have,

“Name Withheld” says that a member of her book club typically regurgitates online reviews of the assigned books that she seldom reads, aggressively presents them as her own, and is begging for a slapdown. “In the days before a meeting, she will casually share with me that she ‘couldn’t get into it,’ but she never says so to the other members. I sit there steaming but don’t reveal her duplicity. What would you do?,” she asks Prof. Appiah, the Times Magazine ethics advice columnist in lat week’s column, “A Woman in My Book Club Never Reads the Books. Can I Expose Her?”

“I get why you’re peeved,” the professor says. So do I: she thinks a social book club is a seminar for credit. “Still, the first rule of book clubs is that someone will always show up having read only the first chapter and the last page, armed with three profound observations from Goodreads.” No, that’s the second rule of book clubs. The first rule is to provide a regular opportunity for people to get together and socialize in the context of a structure more potentially engaging than arguing about Donald Trump. “Your job, in any case, isn’t to police her page turns. Cast yourself as the enforcer, and you betray the spirit of a group dedicated to forging connections through stories.”

Bingo.

“But the goal isn’t to humiliate her…maintain your small, imperfect community. One thing you’ll have learned from your books, after all, is that the flawed characters are always the most human.” Yadayadayada. Maybe she’s having cognitive issues. Maybe she’s dyslexic. Maybe she’s lonely and just wants company. Maybe she’s insecure about her analytical ability. The woman’s cheating in her book club exploits literally hurts nobody but herself at worst, and possibly allows her some human contact that she desperately needs at small cost to the other members.

Sure, the inquirer can expose her. To me, however, the fact that she’d even consider it means I’d rather have the book faker in my club than her.

The Hate [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

I initially was going to make those teets above the subject of an ethics quiz. The question: “Is it fair to use cherry-picked Trunp-Deranged quotes from social media to show that Democrats and progressives have lost all sense of proportion, decency, fairness and even humanity?” But the answer is obvious, isn’t it? No! Social media is a toxic waste dump of awful people and thoughtless expression based on irrational emotion. I daresay one could find many idiotic, nauseating and disgusting statements on all topics and from any ideological point of view. “Democrats” aren’t celebrating the deaths of the flash-flooding victims; sick, warped Democrats are, and they are not representative of their party or their communities.[“I hope.” “Yet.” “Ya think?”]

And yet these outliers are plentiful enough that they lead members of the hateful to blurt out their corrupted attitudes, with, frequently at least, disastrous consequences that are richly deserved. Case study: Dr. Christina B. Propst, a pediatrician, was deluded by her social media bubble and sufficiently de-brained by Axis media propaganda that she really thought she would receive nothing but plaudits for vomiting out this Facebook post:

“May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry. Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts.”

Why, how did she think it could ever be acceptable for a medical professional to wish death on anyone, never mind a pediatrician claiming that the death of children is just desserts?

Propst’s employer, Blue Fish Pediatrics, couldn’t announce that “the individual is no longer employed” there quickly enough, posting,

The head of the Texas Medical Board, Dr. Sherif Zaafran, tweeted, “There is no place for politicization. The entire focus needs to be on looking for survivors. Any complaints we may receive will be thoroughly investigated.”

It is frightening that once-reasonable people really have surrendered their rational thought and common sense to hate so thoroughly in the throes of Trump Derangement that they could think that a public statement like Dr. Propst’s would be anything but career ending. This was signature significance: no professional who posts such a vile sentiment even once can ever be trusted again. She has terrible judgment and detestable values. 

Update: Here is another one. [Pointer: Other Bill] This woman’s comments are more than “inappropriate”…

“Can The Princess Treatment Go Too Far?” Answer: No, If Your Ethics Alarms Function…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I heard the term “The Princess Treatment” for the first time last week, then right on cue the New York Times produced a feature called, “Can the ‘Princess Treatment’ Go Too Far? A popular video has prompted discussions about how to treat your significant other, what qualifies as “the bare minimum” and how this all relates to traditional gender roles.” It begins in part,

A husband opening the car door for his wife. A boyfriend surprising his girlfriend with flowers. Remembering her birthday. Tying her shoes. Paying for her nail appointment. Are these normal expectations or examples of the “princess treatment”? A recent slew of popular videos on social media have debated the concept, and what it means for women in relationships…Last week, Courtney Palmer, 37, reignited that discussion with a video that has garnered more than three million views. In it, she describes how princess treatment informs her relationship, including how she will sometimes defer to her husband. “If I am at a restaurant with my husband, I do not talk to the hostess, I do not open any doors and I do not order my own food,” she says in the opening of the nearly six-minute video, which has prompted a wide-ranging discussion about gender roles, restaurant etiquette and relationship expectations…

You can read it all: it’s a stupid debate. Not only with “significant others” but with all women (and, for that matter all men), how I treat them in private and social situations is based on 1) how I would like to be treated, Golden Rule 101, 2) how I have been told or discerned that they would like to be treated, and 3) what I have concluded is basic manners, and ethical societal norms that I believe should be cultivated. Why is this hard? Continue reading →

More Fun With Zohran!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Zohran Mamdani, the slick Muslim communist who bids fair to be New York City’s next incompetent, ruinous mayor, is already showing himself to be useful and amusing in the ways that he is inspiring his Axis defenders to reveal to all just how dishonest and corrupt they are. For example…

Item I: The New York Times, which broke the story on how Mandani claimed to be black on his application to Columbia, has been attacked in some woke quarters (that is, much of New York City) for, you know, practicing actual journalism rather than burying inconvenient news and issuing useful leftist propaganda. Keith Olbermann, Professional Progressive Asshole, tweeted on behalf of the lunatic fringe by issuing this…

Since the story has been authenticated by multiple sources including  Mamdani himself, one must wonder what “standards” Keith is referring to if not “the Axis media’s job is to support all Democrats and progressives, and to deceive the public to the extent possible when necessary.”

Times assistant managing editor for “Standards and Trust” Patrick Healy rushed to tweet the official explanation for why the Times would published such a story. Oddly, the paper never did this when it was asserting that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election, or when it was publishing misleading statistics to terrify readers about the Wuhan virus so a panic-fueled lockdown would wreck the economy, or when it declared that the Deep State intelligence community was quite sure that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a nothingburger. But I digress. Healy grovelled,

“Our reporters obtained information about Mr. Mamdani’s Columbia college application and went to the Mamdani campaign with it. When we hear anything of news value, we try to confirm it through direct sources. Mr. Mamdani confirmed this information in an interview with The Times. Mr. Mamdani shared his thinking about the limitations of identity boxes on forms like Columbia’s, and explained how he wrote in “Uganda,” the country of his birth – the kind of decision many people with overlapping identities have wrestled with when confronted with such boxes. We believe Mr. Mamdani’s thinking and decision-making, laid out in his words, was newsworthy and in line with our mission to help readers better know and understand top candidates for major offices.

“We sometimes receive information that has been hacked or from controversial sources. The Times does not solely rely on nor make a decision to publish information from such a source; we seek to confirm through direct sources, which we did with Mr. Mamdani. On sourcing, we work to give readers context, including in this case the initial source’s online alias, as a way to learn more about the person, who was effectively an intermediary. The ultimate source was Columbia admissions data and Mr. Mamdani, who confirmed our reporting.

“We heard from readers who wanted more detail about this initial source. That’s fair feedback. We printed his online alias so readers could learn more about the person. The purpose of this story was to help illuminate the thinking and background of a major mayoral candidate.”

Translation: “Oh please, please, don’t be mad at us! We were just trying to be a real newspaper for a change! It’s been a while!”

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Revisiting “I Don’t Understand This ‘Niggardly Principle’ Story At All…Or Maybe I Do and Am Just Afraid To Accept the Truth”

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The Rest of the Story: I’m reposting this essay from almost exactly a year ago because the Free Press has a disturbing update on Holden Hughes (“He Was Falsely Accused of ‘Blackface.’ It Derailed His Life.”), one of the boys whose 2017 selfie was used by an unidentified woke ethics villain to have the children tarred as racists during the George Floyd Freakout in 2020. That ethics villain was an ideological compatriot of my friends who are raving about MAGA and Trump today. That is their “side.”

He’s an adult now, but Holden’s life plans were seriously derailed when the private school he was attending expelled him, not because he really was wearing “blackface” in that photo (he and his friends were smeared with green anti-acne facial masks) but because the woke head of the school believed that appearances mattered more than reality. Last year, a successful law suit by his family against the school ended in a one million dollar verdict for him and another one of the boys. That was just money, however, the damage remained

Everyone should reflect on this cautionary tale (which the mainstream media scrupulously avoided reporting on, and you know why) when the Trump Deranged claim that progressives defend democratic values and deplore ideological bullying. The piece ends,

Last year, shortly after the lawsuit was settled, he started dating a girl he liked. On their second date, he told her about his past and after that, he said, she stopped responding to his texts. He told me that it’s hard to accept that “something completely out of my control kind of inhibits that relationship from going farther.” But he can’t change the past.

“It’s my life, and there’s no avoiding that. It made me who I am today.”

Throughout the entire ordeal of the last five years, Holden told me he would remind himself: “I know who I am. I know my values. I know the real story.” He knows the other story—the one that isn’t true—will continue to haunt him. “I don’t think it’s ever gonna leave me,” he said. But he wanted to speak to me because he believed that putting his story in print, knowing it would be on the internet forever, would be cathartic. For him, it is a chance to finally set the record straight, after trying to hide the lies for so long.

“I am not ashamed of anything that happened,” Holden said. “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I make them every single day, but doing an acne face mask in eighth grade was not one of them.”

Here is the post, from May 11, 2024:

Now get this: In 2017, three 14-year-old California teens, two of whom, Holden Hughes and Aaron Hartley, were about to begin attending St. Francis High School, a Catholic private school in Mountain view, were modeling anti-acne medicinal face masks that involved smearing dark green goo on their faces. (One of the boys had severe acne and his friends put the stuff on their own faces in an act of support). The teen who wasn’t headed to the private school snapped a selfie because the boys thought they looked funny. A similar photo taken a day earlier indicated that they had tried white medicinal face masks as well. 

A student at St. Francis found the image online and uploaded it to a group chat in June 2020. Not only was the George Floyd Freakout in full eruption, but the photo was circulated on the same day that recent SFHS graduates had posted on Instagram a satirical meme pertaining to Floyd’s demise, so the school was “triggered.” The gloriously woke student who decided to publicize the greenface photo claimed that the teens were using blackface; “another example” of rampant racism at the school, he posted, and urged everyone in the group chat to spread it throughout the school community—you know, to cause as much anger, division and disruption as possible.

I can’t find the name of that charming kid. He’ll probably be Governor of California some day.

Soon after this seed was planted, the Dean of Students at St. Francis Ray called the Hughes’s and Aaron Hartley’s’ parents to ask them if they were aware of the photograph. They explained that the teens had applied green facemasks three years earlier, long before the non-racial Minnesota incident that had no demonstrable racial significance and definitely no relevance to blackface. The parents added that the teens’ use of the acne medication had “neither ill intent nor racist motivation, nor even knowledge of what “blackface” meant.”

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“Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” CNN—AGAIN—Uses a Disaster to Broadcast Democrat Talking Points

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Just as it does with almost every mass shooting, CNN pounced on the opportunity created by the fatal flash-flooding in Texas to weaponize it for the Axis of Unethical Conduct, or which it is a card-carrying member. Partisan propaganda is not the function of ethical journalism, if anyone can even remember what that is now. Nor is lying outright, as CNN does in this passage:

“The NOAA research cuts would come just as human-caused climate change is resulting in more frequent and intense downpours like the ones that led to this tragedy in Texas.”

Nice! CNN states as fact what many scientists and researcher deny. Climate change hysterics keep claiming that weather events like hurricanes are increasing, but so far, their predictions have proven repeatedly and inconveniently wrong. Nor is there evidence of “more frequent downpours” like what just hit Texas: what made that downpour newsworthy and disastrous was that it was so unusual. One freak weather event doesn’t prove anything, but nevermind: CNN’s goal is a political agenda, not informing the public.

Most of the news story tries to blame the disaster on the Trump budget cuts, even though at one point CNN says that the flood warnings were timely. That doesn’t stop it from littering the piece with subheads like “Forecast offices stretched thin,” though their own reporting makes it clear that this is irrelevant to the Texas flooding.

Well, hey, if the spin can know a point or two off Trump’s approval rating in a poll, it’s worth it, right?

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Pointer: Arthur in Maine

Trump Derangement Saturday Note…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Yes, that’s the Fourth of July tweet from poor, deluded Kamala Harris. Since I’ve posted on several examples of Trump Derangement today (the ridiculous Indian bridge is the one exception, but I try to avoid politics, I really do), I feel like Harris’ statement deserves a little attention. Like Ken White, she just assumes everyone sees through the same jaundiced eyes and knows why “things” are really, really terrible, but she doesn’t give any specifics. That strategy is so much safer than saying, “It’s really terrible that we crunched Iran’s nuclear weapon capabilities, it’s so horrible that criminal illegal aliens are being deported, it’s just outrageous the news outlets that try to rig our elections and that the universities that discriminate against men, whites, and Jews* are being held to account.’

Unemployment is down, the stock market is up, inflation has slowed, DEI is fading away, sanctuary cities are finally being confronted, and Congress passed a budget. The male swimmer who cheated female swimmers out of records and titles has even been rebuked. What’s “hard,” Kamala? Hard for whom?

And what ideals is she talking about? To repurpose her own infamous indignant quote her, “How dare she?” She represented an administration and led a party that ran roughshod over “American ideals” like no other. A fake President. Criminalizing politics. An appointed Presidential candidate who never faced a primary challenger. Refusal to enforce the nation’s laws. An administration built on demographic bias instead of merit.

The amazing thing is that anyone would care what Kamala Harris says, thinks, or wants at this point. She really seems to think she has a career in politics. She’s like the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” still issuing challenges and bravado despite having lost his arms and legs.

Just not as funny.

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*Note: Harvard’s alumni magazine this month congratulates the Class of 2025 on its back page, featuring a photo of a white, maybe mixed-race female grad, a Hispanic female grad, and an Asian male, all smiling away.