Author: Jack Marshall

It’s Not The Ignorance and Cultural Illiteracy So Much, But The Shamelessness…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Ugh. Ann Althouse flagged this comment from a reader named Malika, reacting to a New York Time Crossword Puzzle clue that read, “Girl in Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit'”:

“I love this style of clue, where even if you don’t know the exact trivia (I’ve never heard of the band or the song) you can puzzle it out based on the context.”

The answer is “Alice,” and if Malika doesn’t know the “exact trivia,” she never heard of “Alice in Wonderland,” which is a foundational work of English literature with important literary, historical and satirical significance. It means she is unaware of the many movies made of that book (and its twin, “Through the Looking Glass”), doesn’t know who Lewis Carroll is, has no idea what firmly established “mad hatter” in our lexicon, or “Cheshire cat,” or what “Jabberwocky” refers to.

Then there’s the ignorance of the Sixties, the Vietnam era and the drug culture indicated by her lack of familiarity with the iconic song “White Rabbit.” The Jefferson Airplane anthem has been used on “The Sopranos,” “Stranger Things,” “The Twilight Zone,” “The Simpsons,” in the films “The Game,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “The Matrix,””Platoon.” Not only doesn’t Malkia know about any of this, she doesn’t think she should and is willing to broadcast the fact that she doesn’t.

What else didn’t her schools, parents and narrow culture teach her? How many reference points that would help her understand the context of the issues, events and people affecting her life is she lacking? As Don Rumsfeld might say, it isn’t just that she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, and doesn’t know that it’s a problem that she doesn’t know it.

Picking My Way Through Alex Berenson’s Ethics Minefield

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Alex Berenson is one of the former Axis journalists (Matt Taibbi is another) whose conscience and cerebrum just couldn’t take the lies and craziness of the Left any more and went rogue. He’s done yeoman work for Truth, Justice and the American Way on Twitter/X and on his substack. Berenson’s latest post there gives readers a glimpse into his ethical orientation, and it’s nothing if not thought-provoking.

Berenson makes statements that make me wonder if he’s worth paying attention to at all, however. A prime one is this: “I am pro-choice, though I find abortion personally abhorrent…Those are medical decisions, and they are governed by a principle of near-absolute autonomy.”

Why does he find abortion “abhorent”? Presumably it is because abortion most frequently involves the killing of a nascent human being who would have a shot at a long, exciting, productive and possibly consequential life were it not for another individual, his or her mother, deciding that her life would be easier if this separate individual’s existence were sacrificed.

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Ethics Quiz: The USNS Harvey Milk

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

That name is sure to strike terror in the hearts of our enemies.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today ordered the Navy to review the names of its vessels honoring prominent civil rights leaders and other figures of note not exactly identified with the armed services or its mission. The ships include those named for Harvey Milk (above), one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials and a Navy veteran who was assassinated; Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice; Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Harriet Tubman, the heroine of the Underground Railroad; Lucy Stone, an abolitionist and suffragist; Medgar Evers, the assassinated civil-rights leader; labor leader and activist Cesar Chavez, a labor leader; and Dolores Huerta, another labor leader.

Hegseth’s decision, reported by Military.com, is being interpreted by critics as an intentional slap at Pride Month, which is in June. “Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander in chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” the Pentagon said in a statement today, adding that potential ship renaming “will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

Your Ethics Alarms Pride Month Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is this order responsible, fair, respectful and ethically justifiable?

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“Oh, And We Have Deadly Snakes In Our Yard…”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The Ethicist (Kwame Appiah to his friends and NYU students) gets a lot of questions about a common dilemma: what kind of things does a selling homeowner have an ethical duty to inform a potential buyer about? My favorite version of this issue—because you know how I am—involves houses where horrible murders have taken place, or ones that are rumored to be haunted.

Most of these non-horror movie situations are solved by a strict adherence to the Golden Rule. Would you want to be told that a property has X? If so, tell the potential buyer. Yeah, being ethical may cost you some money, or even a sale. Nobody ever said being ethical was easy or always beneficial to the ethical actor.

Last week Kwame was asked by condo seller of she was bound to tell a potential buyer that the condo association uses “pesticides, herbicides and other chemical treatments” that environmentalists regard as harmful, even though they are legal. The seller has been part of a group trying to force the association to go “green” without success. The Ethicist’s answer was reasonable: if the condo association was obeying local laws and ordinances, the dispute was none of the purchaser’s business until after the property was transferred. “[W]hen it comes to selling your unit, your responsibility doesn’t extend to reshaping a buyer’s worldview,” he wrote. “Those who dissent should make their case for reform, but disclosure is usually reserved for departures from what is recognized and approved — from what a reasonable person would anticipate. You’re free to voice your concerns. You’re not required to.”

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Pre-Coffee Ethics Thoughts…

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

An early morning meeting I had to drive a long way for got cancelled at the last minute, and now I’m walking around like a zombie Maybe trying to type up a few percolating ethics matters will help me wake up…

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If I Were Ann Althouse, I’d Issue a “Bite Me!” Post and Switch to WordPress

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Is Ann Althouse a secret weenie?

My favorite Wisconsin-based female retired law professor blogger revealed today that her blogging platform, Blogger, had taken down one of her posts as a violation of its “Hate Speech” policy. She was informed,

“Your post titled ‘Is the news of Biden’s advanced cancer news of a terrible scandal?’ was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously [here] Why was your blog post deleted? Your content has been evaluated according to our Hate Speech policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page… to learn more…. We encourage you to review the full content of your blog posts to make sure they are in line with our standards as additional violations could result in termination of your blog.”

Ann says that she is going through the appeal process and expects to be exonerated with the post being restored. But she writes, “[W]hat jackassery! Was I “inciting hatred against” Joe Biden “on the basis of” his “disability”?!I’d linked to something titled “This is the Most Dangerous Cover-up in the History of the Presidency….” Ann then asks in bold, “Is “the most dangerous cover-up” something that must be… covered up?“

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“Harvard Derangement Syndrome?”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and a conservative, which at Harvard is like being a Stegosaurus in the National Zoo, rose to defend his employers and colleagues with an op ed in the Times with the title above as its headline (but without the question mark). The theory is that since he’s not a typical campus leftist, his arguments should carry more weight when he takes the side of the people who issue his paycheck rather than the President who called the school “an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution,” a “Liberal mess” and a “threat to Democracy,” which has been “hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called future leaders.”

Actually, the op-ed is pretty funny. (That’s another gift link.) It brought to my mind two quotes: “Hitler did some good things too!” (From “Judgement at Nuremberg”) and “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” (Attributed to comedian Joey Adams.) Pinker lists a lot of the same problems (but far from all) at Harvard that I described and condemned long before Trump went after the school. Tellingly, he somehow neglects to mention the whole Claudine Gay fiasco, when Harvard selected a DEI-obsessed dean who had risen to a tenured place on the Harvard faculty with the help of academic plagiarism, then embarrassed the school testifying before Congress, and was initially defended by the Harvard brass even when it was revealed that her scholarly publications were so tainted that the equivalents would have gotten any student expelled. Funny how all that would slip his mind.

Pinker still makes a damning case against Harvard. He writes,

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A Reminder: James O’Keefe and His Ilk Are Unethical Regardless of What Their Methods Uncover

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I just answered a reasonable question from a commenter on this post, who asked, “I have some questions about the unethical nature of James O’Keefe’s “journalism.”I would say his methods are ugly, but sometimes ugly things are discovered in ugly ways. Anybody who happily uses the results of his “journalism” enables this type of journalism; condemning this type of journalism sounds hypocritical to me after using his results.”

The comment continued, “Personally I have fewer inhibitions than you on his style; perhaps that is because of a different appreciation of Machiavelli. Sometimes the end does justify the means; it all depends on the end and on the means. Also James O’Keefe (above, before he was fired by his own organization) is not an official journalist, and may therefore not feel bound by any ethics code for journalist he has not signed, and therefore feels free to act as a free agent.”

After I posted my reply, I realized that I had just written a post, and one that was necessary despite the fact that I have written on this topic (and related ones) often here. This is what I wrote, lightly edited:

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How Many Other Government Workers Are Like This, I Wonder…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I presume that I have made it clear over the years that I regard James O’Keefe’s hidden camera “gotcha!” stings both unethical journalism and just flat-out unethical generally. This is “the ends justifies the means” exemplified; I don’t care how much corruption O’Keefe uncovers and what outrages he broadcasts. His methods are unjustifiable. A so-called investigative journalist who uses such tactics is untrustworthy.

Having said that, I don’t feel constrained to ignore the evidence his wrongful methods reveal when it is persuasive, for this isn’t the courtroom. His latest bust is an example. Deshaun Eli Mack (above), a Family Services Specialist with the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), was caught on one of O’Keefe’s hidden cameras admitting how he manipulates the system to offer extended emergency Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants, proudly boasting, “I get them emergency medical all the time… just because I want to.” Emergency Medicaid for illegals is supposed to be granted on a month-to-month basis and only for severe conditions. Mack said on camera, however, that he ignores the policy and the process.

“They’re supposed to apply every month,” he said, “so I just approve them for 12 months… because I can. I make it so. I bend the rules a lot….I will twist and turn our provisions to fit the way that I want them to be.”

Nice. The arrogance is as nauseating as it is unsurprising. Asked if he felt that he was subverting the law, Mack answered, “I do that a lot.”

O’Keefe’s group confronted Mack with the surreptitious recording, and he denied that what he was recorded saying was really true. “I say a lot of things that I don’t mean,” Mack said, adding “I lie all the time.” “None of those words I said were true,” he insisted.

It should be extremely easy to check that. But even if Mack was telling the truth when he said he was lying, can a government agency defend employing someone who “lies[s] all the time”?

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Pointer: JutGory

Now THAT’S an Unethical Doctor!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

That’s Jorge Zamora-Quezada M.D., 68, of Mission, Texas above, who was sentenced this week tten years in prison and three years of supervised release for perpetrating a health care fraud scheme involving over $118 million in false claims. More than $28 million was paid out by insurers because he falsely diagnosed patients with chronic illnesses to bill them for tests and treatments that the patients did not need. Zamora-Quezada also falsified patient records to support the false diagnoses.

Yikes.

The Justice Department press release reveals that Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed his patients with rheumatoid arthritis and administered toxic medications in order to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. His patients were told that they had incurable conditions that required regular treatment at his offices, where Zamora-Quezada administered unnecessary drugs and ordered unnecessary testing. These included injections, infusions, x-rays, MRIs, and other procedures, risking harmful and in some cases deadly side effects. Then the doctor fabricated medical records and lied about the patients’ condition to insurers.

Among the debilitating side effects suffered by his patients were strokes, necrosis of the jawbone, hair loss, liver damage, and crippling, chronic pain. “Constantly being in bed and being unable to get up from bed alone, and being pumped with medication, I didn’t feel like my life had any meaning,” one patient testified. Others described abandoning plans for college or feeling like they were “living a life in the body of an elderly person.”

At trial, the more ethical rheumatologists in the Rio Grande Valley testified that they saw hundreds of patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis by Zamora-Quezada that did not in fact have the condition. Meanwhile, he was an abusive, dominating supervisor to his medical staff. Former employees said Zamora-Quezada imposed strict quotas for procedures. He threw a paperweight at one employee who failed to generate enough unnecessary procedures, hired staff he could manipulate because they were on J-1 visas and knew their immigration status could be jeopardized if they lost their jobs. Zamora-Quezada also took ultrasounds of employees and used those images to falsify patient records.

Following a 25-day trial, a jury convicted Dr. Zamora-Quezada of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, seven counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. To go with his prison term, Zamora-Quezada was ordered to forfeit $28,245,454, including 13 real estate properties, a jet, and a Maserati GranTurismo.

My question: why only ten years in prison for such conduct? He should have been sent away for life.