Around the World

Ethics Villain: Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There is no honest way to spin this, but Murphy, truly one of the most despicable members of the Senate, tried anyway.

Democrats, like Murphy and the ethics-blind citizens who elected him (and many equally terrible people), really and truly hate the President of the United States so much that they are actively rooting for Iran to prevail in the current conflict. This is a half-century-long enemy of the United States that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans as well as terror attacks all over the Middle East, and that has made “Death to America” and the end of the state of Israel its openly stated mission, and that recently massacred tens of thousands of its own people because they demonstrated against Iran’s dictatorial theocracy.

Has any member of Congress publicly cheered the enemy during a U.S. war? Is that not, as Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution defines treason, “adhering” to enemies of the U.S. and, “giving them aid and comfort”?

Then, after the response to Murphy’s stunning declaration of pleasure in a setback for the U.S. and the success of an enemy’s efforts to defeat his own nation, Murphy managed to further prove his warped character by lying, and obviously so:

He really expects anyone to believes he was being “sarcastic,” and is trying to blame the public for not understanding his subtle wit. He’s an asshole, but that label is too good for him.

Murphy should be prosecuted, and if not, then rebuked by his own party.

He won’t be of course. He’s invoking Rationalization 55. The Joke Excuse, or “I was only kidding!”…

“This is a common backtracking strategy when someone has been caught making a hurtful, unfair, false or otherwise unethical statement… defenders of comedian Wanda Sykes apply[ed] the joke excuse to her purely mean-spirited comment about Rush Limbaugh at a White House Correspondents Dinner, when she said “I hope his kidneys fail.” What a knee-slapper! As a general rule, “I hope you die” is not a joke, no matter who says it. Even when it is a joke, the jokester is still accountable for how people react to it. When a Washington D.C.’s shock-jock  made the second of two racially-charged quips…he lost his job and his career, because his employers didn’t want somebody on their payroll who made those kinds of “jokes.” …Nobody should accept the defense that “it was a joke” if it wasn’t a good enough joke to compensate for the damage it did, the people it hurt, or the trouble it will cause. …[P]eople and organizations …make jokes in public at their peril. Professionals. Elected officials. Scholars. People who expect to be taken seriously and trusted.”

 

But he wasn’t making a joke or being sarcastic. You know, I know, and he knows he was pandering to the anti-Americans and Trump Deranged in his increasingly perverted party.

The Democrats have given Republicans and the voting public so much evidence of their party’s ethics rot that the campaign ads write themselves. If the GOP cannot convince its supporters and a wave of progressives with a conscience to reject what the Democratic Party has become, it won’t be able to blame gerrymandering in Virginia or anything other than its own incompetence and the self-destructive ignorance of the American people.

Comment of the Day: “Briefly Noted….” (Corrected)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Comment of the Day was inspired by the short post focusing on the video above, in which people who have been doubtless throwing up comments on social media about the poor, abused citizens of Gaza and Israeli “genocide” were confronted with easily available facts regarding the how the endless Palestinian conflict is fueled by decades of demonizing Jews, and were shocked–shocked!—that indoctrination and propaganda have consequences.

Sarah B., (not to be confused with Sarah Bales, who is also an ace commenter) as is her wont, posted in response two trenchant comments which I am combining as one. I’ll divide them with a page break to “split the baby” regarding the current complaints regarding the new WordPress page break system.

Here is Sarah’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Briefly noted…”:

***

Yes, being this ignorant is a problem, but the big question now is where were they to learn this? Surely not in school. As an early millennial, we sort of covered the Muslims in the Crusades, where the Muslims were poor, abused peaceful people who were abused by those nasty Catholics, skipping the years upon decades upon centuries of aggression beforehand. I watched footage of the Twin Towers my senior year, as parts of it were happening, but was cautioned not to think that this was done by Muslims, but instead some ragtag extremists.

The indoctrination has only gotten worse, I believe. And since it was already evil to think Muslims could be other than peaceful when I was in school, and the fact that several of my contemporaries who got pregnant right out of high school are already grandparents, that means we are multiple generations of indoctrination in. Other than my favorite option of razing the DOE to the ground, salting it, and going back to private tutors/mini-schools/homeschools, what can be done? If you are told the same thing by everyone, and it is common knowledge, why would you even think to look at another viewpoint. Only the old fogies, who are Islamophobes say otherwise and we already know to ignore Boomers.

We have an education crisis, but rather than calling those who suffer from it morons and unethical, we should celebrate things like this that start to explain how the real world works to those who have been brainwashed into believing falsehoods.

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Today’s “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias” Headline…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“Analysis: Failed peace talks leave Trump with few options to end Iran conflict“

That’s CNN.

Note the emphasis. This is Trump’s failure. The near universal framing of the Iran campaign is that the United States is losing, somehow, and it is Iran that has the U.S. at its mercy—you know, like the iconic Black Knight above from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail who insists that he is winning despite losing his arms and legs.

You see, the side that is being throttled in a war is the one with “few options,” and the collapse of peace talks are primarily a problem for the side that is losing. Ending the war is primarily in the best interests of Iran and its people. The anti-U.S., anti-Trump propaganda being spewed by the Axis news media in their reporting on the Iran war may be the most flagrant and unforgivable yet: it isn’t just Trump that they are hurting, or Republicans. They are deliberately harming our nation while giving Iran motivation to stall as long as possible.

Next, we will be reading “Poor Iranians” essays like the Times lament for Gazans. Our news media’s objective appears to be national euthanasia.

Ugh…So The President Attacks The Pope! The Two Diagrams Trump Doesn’t Understand…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This is ridiculous.

The President took to social media again yesterday to announce that he doesn’t like the Pope:

What an irredeemably stupid thing to do.

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Ethics Villains: Yes, The New York Times Again…And Its Biased, Ignorant, Pro-Terrorism Readers

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The gift link to the NYT article at issue is here.


I’m not going to quote it or summarize it. I will characterize it: the opinion piece, Gaza’s Rubble Is the Grave of Our Future, by Ghada Abdulfattah, “a writer who lives in Gaza,” is anti-Israel, pro-Hamas propaganda that the Times has handed a large amount of space to promote. This is a “poor Gazans being victims of genocide by those inhuman, cruel Jews” essay. The writer never comes right out and says that, but her chronicling of the devastation in Gaza since the Israeli assault began three years ago is definitely aimed at conveying that misleading message.

All right, I will offer a quote:

“It isn’t just the sadness of what was demolished. Seeing endless piles of concrete brings a second layer of violence — the violence of being forced to live with destruction. Rubble doesn’t just destroy the past; it erases the future. It forces your mind to stop imagining, to stop thinking, to stop dreaming about life after today.”

Gee, I guess launching a sneak terror attack on civilians in your neighboring state, killing over 1200 people, including infants, raping woman and taking 250 hostages isn’t such a good idea, eh? Huh. Who knew?

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Anyone Who Genuinely Couldn’t Figure Out That Trump’s Threats and Deadline For Iran’s Annihilation Weren’t Bargaining Ploys Should Shut Up… Forever

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

…or at least stop weighing in during this President’s term.

What does it take for the Trump Deranged and hopelessly biased (or hopelessly stupid, or hopelessly dishonest) to be embarrassed? Surely there has to be a tipping point where the public starts pointing and laughing. Surely. Surely.

No? Wasn’t it obvious that Trump’s “war crime” ultimatums were designed to get Iran to make concessions? I don’t mean just obvious to me (“I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everyone says!”) but obvious to doctors, lawyers, beggarmen, thieves and Indian chiefs along with anyone else who has watched this guy operate since his real estate days? Seriously? Really? No? Wow.

I’d like to make Rep. Ro Khanna the poster fool for this malady. Shortly after this EA post, Trump announced the two week cease-fire and Khanna did a double back-flip with a twist, stood on his metaphorical head and called the President a TACO, as in “Trump Always Chickens Out”! This is another clear Trump Derangement symptom. Attack the President on the presumption that he is doing or will do one thing, then attack him when he does the opposite.

Why isn’t this embarrassing to those exposed again and again as reflexively criticizing whatever the President does? Let’s see: the ethical values here are fairness, honesty, integrity, accountability, consistency (being consistently inconsistent doesn’t qualify), prudence, proportionality, humility…there are more, but I don’t feel like looking up the list. Ethics, analysis, logic and reality has nothing to do with how these critics react. It’s all emotion and the Cognitive Dissonance Scale:

Imagine, however, that sub-zero section reaching down forever to infinity, with Trump there rather than only at -10. Prof. Festinger’s theory holds that a negative bias that strong is enough to pull anything…literally anything, people, ideas, books, policies, bunnies, rainbows, babies, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Nancy Guthrie, opposing cannibalism…into negative territory. What’s going on here? THAT’S what’s going on.

Podcaster Dave Rubin wrote on X: “Trump has been running the same negotiation playbook forever. Pressure, escalation, chaos… then leverage a deal. We’ve watched it happen again and again. This wasn’t complicated. It was basic pattern recognition.” Yup! What does this tell you about people who refuse to see that pattern? Go ahead: come up with a kind description. I can’t think of any.

While Fox News and even CNN were properly reporting on the developments in Iran (Not a word about Nancy Guthrie!) do you know what MSNOW decide was the big news? The danger that Trump was going to come up with some way to steal the mid-terms! Yes, that well-used “future news” subcategory of fake news.

Anyone who watches MSNOW for anything but amusement or intelligence on what the Axis of Unethical Conduct is plotting next should also be embarrassed. How I long to post an entry like this on Facebook…but that would be mean. But fun. But mean…

Over at the New York Post, conservative pundit and law prof Glenn Reynolds wrote, before yesterday’s late developments,

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Meet Amanda Lynn Tully, Expatriate, Student Loan Delinquent, Sociopath, Fick

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Amanda Lynn Tully, pictured above and one of the subjects of a New York Times article (gift link!) about people so troubled by the legal and ethical requirement of living up to their student loan agreement that they move out of the country to avoid paying up. More than 40 million borrowers have federal student debt to pay back, and 7.7 million have defaulted on their loans, according to recent data from the Education Department. Anecdotal evidence and conversations on Reddit and other social media indicate that some borrowers, like the dislikable young woman pictured above, think moving to another country is a dandy way to solve their problems.

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OK, Now “What’s Going On Here?” Saturday Is Starting to Scare Me…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

What the hell?

I’m seriously considering letting Ethics Alarms comment-bomber and New York Times/Axis News Media apologist “A Friend” try to defend this.

Neither the reporter who wrote the story nor the editors who passed on it, nor anyone else in the draft-to-publication process, knows what NATO stands for, yet the paper presumes to opine about it. And this isn’t Weekly Reader; this is the New York Times, supposedly the gold standard for U.S. journalism.

Why would anyone trust a news source that would do something this incompetent and careless?

How Ignorant and Biased Are Reporters? This Ignorant and Biased…

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Oh great: “war crimes” again. I’m afraid to check Facebook because I am sure that about 20 of my Trump Deranged show biz friends will be ranting about this.

Yesterday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that a number of Iranian targets would be obliterated if Iran does not allow the Hormuz Strait to be opened immediately. NBC White House correspondent Garrett Haake channeled his inner John Lennon and mewled to White House Paid Liar Karoline Leavitt,

“The president posted this morning about his threat that on leaving Iran he said, ‘Blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, hard island, and possibly all desalination plants,’ Under international law, striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited. Why is the President threatening what would amount to potentially a war crime with the US military? And how do you square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the US does not target civilians?”

My metaphorical hat is off to Leavitt, who was appropriately diplomatic and did not smite this Axis idiot with the rhetorical barrage that I would have.

“Look,” she said. “The President has made it quite clear to the Iranian regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the statement that you just read, that their best move is to make a deal, or else the United States Armed Forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination and the President is not afraid to use them.” Shethen denied that that Trump was contemplating “war crimes.”

I would have said, “Garrett, the United States is in a war, and the Geneva convention, which is an imaginary set of pacifist edicts that the United States does not feel bound by when the interests of the nation, Americans and civilization itself are at risk, will not restrain the United States in its efforts to conclude this conflict or any conflict as quickly as possible. Moreover nothing in the President’s message suggested that he was “targeting civilians.” But if civilians are at risk because it is necessary to remove facilities and resources that Iran needs to continue fighting, and if the real threat of losing these prompts Iran to surrender or make a good faith effort to negotiate a peace settlement, that is regrettable but unavoidable. This is a war. The United States will not limit its options to prevail.”

I might have been able to avoid concluding with, “you idiot.”

Several commentators have noted that the Axis media and the anti-American Left are using the same playbook and propaganda to support Iran against their own country that they embraced to support Gaza (Hamas, terrorists…) against Israel. I still await the tipping point when the public turns decisively and permanently against these people.

Surely it must be on the horizon.

Addendum To and Ethics Quote of the Week on “The EA ‘Imagine’ Award Goes To Pope Leo, Who Should Put A Bag Over His Head…”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The quote is from Steve-O-in NJ’s most appropriate comment on Pope Leo’s call to “ban” aerial bombing in his response to last night’s post, “The EA “Imagine” Award Goes To Pope Leo, Who Should Put A Bag Over His Head…”.

Steve’s comment begins with “This is an embarrassment”—it is—and ends with a declaration for the ages:

“…[T]he leader of the world’s largest Christian sect needs to do better than be absurd.”

Exactly. Pope Leo is in a particularly important role not to misuse by shooting off his mouth irresponsibly, because millions of people around the world assume that he has moral authority, more wisdom than they, inherent virtues, and a pipeline to God. When I hear someone say something that stupid, I assume that they are stupid, or posturing, which is a type of lying. That is not a good look on the Pope.

Steve’s bon mot also follows neatly on what I wrote in the post, which was, “The more revered and powerful the advocate for virtue-signaling nonsense, the more unethical such demagoguery is.” There is far too much of this flagrant abuse of position and authority going around.

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