“bias makes you stupid”

As I Predicted (Along With Many Others) Judge Breyer’s Partisan and Over-Reaching Order Has Been Blocked…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

…because it was unethical and legally indefensible. Of course, the libertarians loved it because they are almost as Trump Deranged as the Axis. Libertarians don’t like strong Presidents who don’t hesitate to use their Constitutional and statutory powers. Fortunately, most Americans do and always have. Libertarians’ list of favorite Presidents begin with Calvin Coolidge. What color is the sky on your planet, Illya Somin?

A federal appeals court on June 19 extended its block of a Judge Breyer’s flamingly partisan order that directed President Trump to return control of California’s National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was obviously determined to let pro-open border crazies harass ICE agents and riot across Los Angeles.

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 9th Circuit issued a unanimous order, and one of the three judges was a Biden appointee! The roughly 4,000 National Guard troops can now stay in Los Angeles, to protect federal property and U.S. immigration agents, while preventing a replay of George Floyd Madness that the Mad Left would dearly love to see. Could a “Undovument Migrants’ Lives Matter” group be far behind?

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Open Forum! [And One More Complaint About “The View”…]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I woke up today with so much already happening on the ethics front that I immediately knew I had no chance of making a dent in it, especially since I am facing deadlines and crises on other fronts. Let me get one minor matter out of the way before I turn it over to you, dear EA contributers.

There were two items in yesterday’s potpourri post relating to the persistent insanity on “The View.” I wonder if I should just ignore that idiot program from now on, applying the Julie Principle. Occasionally the thing makes news, but it is a blight on the culture and social discourse. Barbara Walters, who started it, needs to be marked down in critical assessments of her career because her creation inflicted Joy Behar, Whoopie and Sunny Hostin and the rest on our social and political discourse.

Here is one last “View”-related ethics ugliness. Speaking on the “Behind the Table” podcast this week (who listens to these things?), Hostin, arguably the worst of the worst on the current panel, discussed the moment when Kamala Harris declared on the show that she wouldn’t change a thing her alleged boss, Joe Biden, had done during his Presidency. Harris’s fatuous response—did she ever say anything that wasn’t fatuous?—came after Hostin tossed the Democrats’ DEI nominee the softest of softball questions: what would she do differently from Biden? “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” said Kamala.

Many believe that Harris lost the 2024 election in that moment, which is scary to think given how many other reasons she gave the voters to vote Republican. Hostin, in the podcast, said, “I knew it instantly when she answered it. Which is why I asked the follow-up question, ‘is there one thing?’  Because I knew, I could see the soundbite and I knew what was going to happen, but I thought it was a really fair question and I thought it was a question that she would expect… I feel terrible.” 

Bob Hoge writes at Redstate, “Such are the depths to which our mainstream media has sunk, that a professional pundit doesn’t have regrets about trying to push an incompetent candidate on the country; no, her real regret is that Kamala was exposed.”

Sad but true.

Your turn!

Case Study: How Broadcast News and “Experts” Deceive the Public

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

As I have mentioned here before, I usually sample broadcast news by simultaneously watching CNN, Fox News, BBC America and MSNBC on the DirecTV “News Mix” channel, never staying with any of them for more than a few minutes because they all are unethical, biased, and untrustworthy and it drives me CRAZY!

Just now, I saw Wolf Blitzer (has anyone ever parlayed a cool name into such a long, undeserved TV career despite persistent mediocrity?) interview an “expert,” clearly another Trump-hating law professor. She opined that President Trump “might” be violating the Constitution ( “KING! FASCIST!”) by directing ICE to again focus their illegal immigrant raids on restaurants, farms and hotels. It’s a likely violation of the Tenth Amendment, she opined. “The Tenth Amendment reserves the policing power to the states.”

That’s funny, I thought. I don’t recall the Tenth Amendment saying anything about police, and indeed, it doesn’t. What it says is that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Like the Second Amendment, the Tenth was not the Founders’ most shining hour in terms of clear, unambiguous language. The Tenth continues to be a rich and never-ending target for the Supreme Court controversies, but SCOTUS did rule, in McCulloch v. Maryland, that there is a principle of implied powers where the federal government (Congress or the Executive) can exercise powers not explicitly listed in the Constitution if they are necessary and proper for carrying out its enumerated powers. Obviously the ability to enforce federal law would fall under that category, but okay ICE foes, take your best shot and see what SCOTUS says.

However, what the “expert” implied was that the Tenth explicitly included policing as one of the powers reserved to the state. Wolf, either as a deceitful accomplice or as an ignorant boob (I’m guessing the latter to give him the benefit of the doubt) just sat there nodding. Thus any viewer who wasn’t moved to check the Bill of Rights (I’m guessing that’s 99.9% of CNN’s audience) was left with the false impression that President Trump is being a dictator again by directing a Federal Agency.

Let’s see: fake news, misinformation, partisan spin, deceit. Take your pick. No wonder the Axis was able to gull thousands of citizens into wasting time on “No Kings” day.

The Ethics Verdict on the President’s “No Kings” Trolling [UPDATED and CORRECTED]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Wonderful. Perfect.

Unfortunately, this was a hoax that fooled the mostly reliable source I found it posted on, with no hint that it wasn’t authentic. Twitter/X cheated me out of my blue check payment and blocked me from my account for no discernible reason and I am not going to follow Truth Social any more than I am likely to hang out at Bluesky.

I originally wrote in part, “Yes, this is a violation of “norms” except for Trump’s norms, of which this is a familiar example. No other President would issue such a sarcastic jibe at passionate protesters against his leadership and policies no matter how ell-earned. That, I believe, would be their failing. President Trump is the perfect person to deliver the devastating coup de gras to these foolish, hysterical, unhinged boobs. Only he can say with such vivid authority, “You didn’t lay a hand on me!”

Alas, it was too good to be true, and I should have realized that. The real Real Donald Trump could not resist writing something much cruder and insulting.

I’ll just end with my obligatory statement that deliberately posting false information on the web is unethical even if one isn’t a journalist.

Special thanks to my friend James Flood, who was the first one to flag my gullibility.

Kudos To The New York Times For Finally Eliminating All Doubt That It Is a Democratic Party Propaganda Organ And Not a “Newspaper”…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This would be an Unethical Quote of the Week if there were any reason to believe what the New York Times says about President Trump, and if the Times didn’t make equally unethical quotes every day.

Here’s part of the Times editorial titled, “Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses”:

“…The political right, including President Trump, deserves substantial blame. Yes, he has led a government crackdown against antisemitism on college campuses, and that crackdown has caused colleges to become more serious about addressing the problem. But Mr. Trump has also used the subject as a pretext for his broader campaign against the independence of higher education. The combination risks turning antisemitism into yet another partisan issue, encouraging opponents to dismiss it as one of his invented realities.

Even worse, Mr. Trump had made it normal to hate, by using bigoted language about a range of groups, including immigrants, women and trans Americans. Since he entered the political scene, attacks on Asian, Black, Latino and L.G.B.T. Americans have spiked, according to the F.B.I. While he claims to deplore antisemitism, his actions tell a different story. He has dined with a Holocaust denier, and his Republican Party has nominated antisemites for elected offices, including governor of North Carolina. Mr. Trump himself praised as “very fine people” the attendees of a 2017 march in Charlottesville, Va., that featured the chant “Jews will not replace us.” On Jan. 6, 2021, at least one rioter attacking the Capitol screamed that he was looking for “the big Jew,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Schumer has said.”

It gives me great pleasure to know that Times boot-licker ” “A Friend,” the long-banned EA commenter who has set a nearly unbreakable record for unauthorized posts here, most bleating about how unfair I am to the noble Times, will be desperately searching for a way to rationalize that verbal offal without having to admit, “Okay, the Times editors are partisan hacks.”

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Some Ethics Alarms Have Failed To Ring Here…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I am not passing judgment on the SNAP controversy, and Felicia may be a nice person and a wonderful mother.

However, rudimentary thought and consideration regarding perceptions, personal responsibility and common sense ought to make all but the hopelessly obtuse realize that a morbidly obese woman is a self-rebutting advocate for food stamps, as well as a meme waiting to be posted. Moreover, why is a single mother who has to work three jobs having four children?

Is Sen. Klobuchar really so dense (well, yes) and crippled by tunnel vision that the flaws in this particular advocate’s position never occurred to her? I have to believe Felecia exposes the astounding immunity progressives seem to have to reality, unless they are cynically convinced that the American public really is dominated by morons.

Any other theories?

Unethical Quote of the Week, In So, So Many Ways: Becky Pringle, National Education Association President

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“We know what this administration is doing, so we are saying to Donald Trump and all of his allies, we will not, we will not scapegoat immigrants, we will not—the people who have built this country—we will not stand by and allow you to do that.”

—-Becky Pringle, President of the NEA, declaring her union’s support for open borders and illegal immigration while demonstrating dubious critical thinking skills.

Pringle just got up at a microphone and screamed all of that, and more. There’s a video here that I can’t embed; I have to say that I am suspicious that YouTube does not yet have a video of the hysterical display and that Pringle’s rant has not been more prominently shown on broadcast media. For it is tey another clip that will make a wonderful campaign ad for Republicans. Here is more of her craziness: I could have picked almost any sentence as an “unethical quote”:

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What Is the Ethical Significance of ABC Firing Terry Moran?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

ABC News today essentially fired senior correspondent Terry Moran after he wrote derisive comments on social media, as Ethics Alarms discussed here. Moran had already been suspended for making gratuitous personal comments about the character of Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, and President Trump, using the term “world-class hater” to describe each.

Moran had worked at ABC News for 28 years, and his contract was up for renewal.

“We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran, and based on his recent post — which was a clear violation of ABC News policies — we have made the decision to not renew,” the network said in a statement. “At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.”

Riiiight.

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What Is “The Achingly Simple Lesson That Democrats Seem Determined Not to Learn?” It’s Not This….

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Wow. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Here’s a guy I have never heard of (and don’t particularly want to know more about) claiming that silly Democrats (his pals and ideological colleagues, obviously) need to learn to talk to dumb, ignorant Americans—you know, like the ones they thought they could fool for four years with a fake President and could convince that Donald Trump was really a new Hitler—by communicating with them like and through other morons.

That’s what the New York Times deems worthy of an op-ed.

Here’s a gift link to the essay, though trust me, it isn’t worth your time to read all of it: I read it so you wouldn’t have to. Michael Hirschorn, a Hollywood progressive, really and truly thinks that it isn’t the Left’s batshit crazy extreme and unethical policies that alienate so much of the public, but their way of explaining them. But that isn’t a new (stupid) theory at all: throughout the “Biden” administration, Democrats kept telling anyone who would listen that things were really, really great, and the problem was “messaging.” Which meant “We need more believable liars.” Which meant “These idiots will believe anything as long as we know how to fool them.”

No. The problem was and is that the whole party and the progressive radicals who occupy it suck. But Hirschorn obviously doesn’t know that, because he’s one of them. It isn’t that the Democrats are wrong to try to “reach young men,” whom they have vilified, insulted (“Believe any woman who claims to have been sexually insulted, because the man she accuses probably did it!”) and discriminated against for decades, it’s that they are going about it all wrong. Hirschorn might as well be the Ringo Kid with Democrats in the role of Sheriff Bart…

Here are some tells from the piece:

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Ethics Dunce: The 100-Year-Old Psychotherapist

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Yes, this topic again: the aging professional who lacks the courage, integrity and common sense to “hang it up” before too much harm is done.

Ethics Alarms had explored the issue with judges (Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among others), baseball players (Albert Pujols, for example), lawyers (Rudy Giuliani), actors (Bruce Willis), singers (Joni Mitchell, and so, so many others) and Presidents of the United States. It’s always the same tragic tale with different details: someone who has always been remarkable at a difficult, powerful and often high-profile job can’t bring herself or himself to retire with dignity, even when it should be obvious that age is leaching their abilities from them.

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