“bias makes you stupid”

Gee, Would It Really Have Been So Hard For Democrats And The News Media To Just To Admit That Rep. Richmond’s ‘The President’s Female Counselor Looks Like She’s Used To Giving Blow-jobs’ Joke Was Wrong, Period? Apparently So. Wow.

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

Great apology there, Cedric. Ugh.

Why do I think this story is a big deal? I think it’s a big deal because it exposes–

…the white-hot hatred of Republicans by so much of the Left, on the level we have seen with Sarah Palin being attacked for running for office while being a mother, and Martin Bashir on MSNBC wishing that someone would defecate in her mouth, to the extent that they are literally willing to abandon and reject their own alleged core principles…

…calling into question whether they even are core principles, rather than calculated pandering to receptive groups, and thus..

…raising the specter of epic hypocrisy, which is a lack of integrity and honesty.

Then there is this: I have a brilliant younger sister. She is a lawyer, a litigator, a singer, and actress, the hardest working person I know, and someone who has always been able to match or surpass me in every field. Yet I have watched as her achievements have occurred in the teeth of a stiff wind of sexist bias, often making her unhappy, angry, resentful and stressed when she deserved so much better. Growing up with her, it never occurred to me that this kind of prejudice existed until I was the captain of the high school chess team, and saw how the other teams’ players—all male: our team had the only female players (3) in the Greater Boston chess league— were openly contemptuous that a “girl” would presume to challenge them. It was great: my sister slaughtered them. She is a merciless chess player, a killer, and didn’t merely beat her male opponents but humiliated them. She had the best record on the team. Yes, gender bias is personal with me. I hate it.

To briefly recap: Cedric Richmond, an African American  Democratic Congressman, leeringly implied, as a speaker at an event, that KellyAnne Conway’s posture in a photo taken in the Oval Office, “really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don’t answer — and I don’t want you to refer back to the 1990s.” It was a reference to fellatio, and the old, old slur against successful women that they “suck their way to the top.” This was obvious and blatant, and yet when conservatives and Republicans–and only conservatives and Republicans—protested, Richmond, incredibly, denied that his comments had any offensive content or intent. He is a liar.

Then, in the wake of  stunning silence of any leader of the Democratic Party, major feminist, major news organizations and liberal pundits, CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Rep. Richmond’s leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, to condemn his remarks. She refused, and also lied. One prominent Democrat without portfolio or post, Chelsea Clinton, did condemn that “joke,” which hardly salvages the party’s integrity and honor. Her mother? Madeleine Albright? Elizabeth Warren? Donna Brazile? Michelle Obama? Senator Gillibrand? Maureen Dowd? Rachel Maddow? Anyone? Hello? Bueller?

Crickets. Yet it was undeniable, as one pundit noted, that a Republican who made such a comment about Valerie Jarret would have been “run out of town.” Wrote The Federalist’s Bethany Mandel yesterday,

This “on her knees” comment from a sitting Democratic lawmaker was largely ignored by the liberal media and those who consume it. This comment is just one of many recent incidents of sexism aimed in Conway’s direction, justified because she’s a traitor to her gender, as many feminists have claimed; a female Uncle Tom. Instead of being applauded for her groundbreaking work as a campaign manager on the biggest upset political campaign in American history, Conway is fodder for attacks on her looks and sexuality, often at the hands of individuals who claim to be feminists.Our president may have a history of misogyny, but it’s becoming increasingly clear many of those in the resistance against him are merely fair-weather feminists: happy to wage or at best ignore attacks on women based on their sex because they think it’s fair to attack the president at any cost.

Bingo.

Now comes the next chapter, as those who have exposed their deep hate and corrupting hypocrisy try to worm their way back into the public trust. Continue reading →

Double Standards, Hypocrisy, News Media Bias, “Bias Makes You Stupid” And Cognitive Dissonance—This One Has Them All! Thanks, Ben Carson!

/ Jack Marshall / 155 Comments

Here come some dreamy immigrants, longing to be free!

HUD Secretary Ben Carson is, as we learned last year, an idiot, or perhaps and idiot savant. He’s also a Republican and currently in the Trump Administration. Clearly, anything he says is likely to be  ridiculous, and probably offensive. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is brilliant. Brilliant, I tell you! He is also idolized by journalists—he sends a thrill up Chris Matthews’ leg!—, and, indeed in part because he is a Democrat and a liberal. Obama is also, of course, worshiped by blacks, intellectuals and progressives. Carson is black too,  but he is a Republican and a conservative, so the black thing is cancelled out.

Now, what happens when Carson and Obama say exactly the same thing?

While speaking to a group of employees at his department on Monday, Carson said:

“There were other immigrants who came in the bottom of slave ships, who worked even longer, even harder, for less, but they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

What an idiot! “Immigrants?” mocked the NAACP. The Washington Post, New York Times, the Hill, Politico, and others headlined Carson’s comments, so bizarre, stupid and insensitive were they. Listen to this dummy! And Trump appointed him as a Department head! “Ben You’re A Fool! Slaves were not Immigrants!“ headlined the Miami Herald.

Now, a while back, when the brilliant, progressive, President Barack Obama ,said this about slave ships:

We say it so often, we sometimes forget what it means — we are a nation of immigrants. Unless you are one of the first Americans, a Native American, we are all descended from folks who came from someplace else — whether they arrived on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, whether they came through Ellis Island or crossed the Rio Grande.

Continue reading →

The Unmasking Continues: Kristof’s Unethical Tweet, And Pelosi’s Hypocrisy

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments

Let’s start with the tweet yesterday from Times columnist Nick Kristof:

kristoff-tweet

No, Nick, mustn’t do that. While a paper can print illegally procured documents that are leaked by others, it cannot encourage and call for illegal conduct. That’s conspiracy. Tax returns are private, and releasing them is a federal crime. With this tweet by its agent, The New York Times is soliciting a crime, and one against the President of the United States no less

By the time the Democrats, progressives and their confederates in the news media have completed their freakout, no one but fools and those in denial will have failed to recognize their exposure as frauds, whose posturing as supporters f proceess, democracy, fairness, decency and the rule of law was a cynical illusion since all they really believe in is “the ends justify the means.”

This is depressing and tragic, but it is also frightening. How thin the patina of principle is with these ideologues! Why would anyone trust them ever again?

Then there was Nancy Pelosi’s performance on CNN yesterday, disgracing herself and her party, as usual.

Asked by Jake Tapper to do what should have been easy for a proud feminist who had her female members grandstand at the President’s speech last week by wearing suffragette white: condemn the ugly remarks of Democratic Congressman Cedric Richmond, who implied that White Haous aide Kellyanne Conway was used to performing fellatio, Pelosi said,

“Well, I wasn’t at the dinner. I’m just finding out about this. But the fact is, I’m still in sort of a state of, what is going on here that the person who occupies the White House is a person who was on that Hollywood video that said the crude things he said about women.You all are criticizing Cedric for something he said in the course of the evening. And he maybe should be criticized for that. I just don’t know the particulars. But I do everyday marvel at the fact that somebody who said the gross and crude things that President Trump said — wouldn’t even be allowed in a frat house — and he’s in the White House.”

Ugh. Continue reading →

“The Good Immigrant” III, or Fake News? The Incredible Sobbing 13-Year Old

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

A 13-Year-Old Girl Sobbed While Recording Her Immigrant Father Get Arrested By ICE Agent  is the headline at Buzzfeed. Wait, teenage girls weeping is news now? Was she the only teen sobbing this week? How is this news, by any standard?

Of course, it’s headline worthy if the objective is to provoke an emotional reaction rather than to inform the public objectively. In fact, nothing about the story is newsworthy, except as pr0-illegal immigration, anti-law enforcement, anti-President Trump propaganda and hate-mongering. Illegal immigrant and scofflaw Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez had dropped his daughter off at a Los Angeles school, and six blocks from the school his car was surrounded by immigration enforcement agents who took him into custody, just as law enforcement takes law-breakers into custody every hour of every day of the week.  Gonzalez had a 2014 deportation order against him issued by an immigration judge, and violated it every day he spent in the U.S., masquerading as a law-abiding citizen, since then.  He also had a 2009 DUI conviction. This wasn’t even a close call.

I’m pretty sure the children of gang members, drug dealers, muggers and serial killers also sob when daddy is taken away, and while I feel sorry for the children,  it doesn’t make me want to let their fathers go free, it doesn’t mean we should change the laws, and it isn’t news. 

ICE said Avelica-Gonzalez is scheduled to be deported to Mexico, where he was supposed to have returned three years ago. This isn’t cruel, this isn’t unfair, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Brenda Avelica, a different daughter from the one heard sobbing on the viral video of her father’s arrest—YES! It really happened! The girl SOBBED! Film at 11!— said that her father has been in the US for 20 years and has four children, two of them adults.

So?

“It’s really hard what we’re going through,” Avelica told reporters. “I never thought we’d actually go through something like this. It’s terrible to feel and see your family being broken apart.”

Let me fix that for her. It’s terrible to finally have the law catch up to you when you are guilty as hell. The James brothers said that, I think. Maybe it was Bonny and Clyde. Or Bernie Maddoff. ICE agents are not the bad guys here. The elected officials, activists, and journalists who want us to think that, however, are. Very bad. Continue reading →

Update On The Jeff Sessions-Russian Ambassador Fiasco: A Confederacy Of Ethics Dunces

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

dunces2

Everyone—almost literally everyone— involved in the Jeff Sessions flap has beclowned themselves and revealed that a gerbil running around in a wheel is powering their ethics alarms.

These include such previously noted Ethics Dunces as..

  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who couldn’t or wouldn’t answer a simple question clearly….
  • Democrats, who continue to act like spoiled siblings trying anything to make mommie get mad at the one she likes best, embracing conspiracy theories, smearing former colleagues, and generally morphing into walking, talking rectums before America’s eyes, to appeal to their deplorable hard core base made up of people who completed that mutation long ago…
  • Senator Chuck Schumer, displaying a partisan double standard so blindingly, throbbingly obvious than anyone can identify it….
  • Senator Claire McCaskill, engaging in perhaps the best timed hypocrisy and inexplicable amnesia of all time….
  • Deranged Trump-haters, determined to expose their legal ignorance to the world, who proclaimed Sessions guilty of perjury, when he obviously was not…
  • Every reporter, editor and news source who rushed into the trap of declaring that having contact with the Russian ambassador justifies  being “linked’ to Russia, when any dolt should have known that by that formula, anyone in Washington could be “linked” to Russia or be accused of having “Russian ties.”

But wait!

There’s more!

Now we have… Continue reading →

From The “A Nation Of Assholes” Files: Misogyny Against Republican Women Is Justified…And Funny! [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 72 Comments
Stay classy, Congressman!

Stay classy, Congressman!

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) was speaking at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, and made the following “joke”  about  the photo of Presidential  adviser Kellyanne Conway  kneeling on an Oval Office couch in order to take a photo of President Trump with the heads of  the nation’s black colleges:

Directing his remarks to  Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who was at the White House event and, speaking before Richmond,  had previously alluded to the  (stupid, but typical of the manufactured Trump “scandals” of late) controversy over Conway being too casual, or something, by kneeling on the Oval Office sofa by noting that “a whole lot worse” had occurred on that sofa when Clinton was in office, Richmond  snickered, 

“I really just want to know what was going on there, because, you know, I won’t tell anybody. And you can just explain to me that circumstance — because she really looked kind of familiar in that position there. Don’t answer — and I don’t want you to refer back to the 1990s.”

HAHAHAHA! That’s denigrating  innuendo, clear as the prairie skies, suggesting that Conway, because she is a woman, routinely engages in fellatio.  It’s a powerful male slut-shaming  a professional woman, because Richmond doesn’t like her boss, so she deserves it. The “but don’t answer” makes the statement’s intent clear. This was as obviously an ugly, sexist, misogynist remark as Candidate Trump’s infamous, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” in reference to Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. It is another example of the rampant Asshole Virus that has infected, perhaps fatally, the Democratic party,  its leaders, and its allies.

More proof of the scope of the epidemic is that no feminist activists, nor Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris or any  prominent progressive women, reacted by condemning Richmond—but then he’s a black Democrat, so nobody on the Left will hold him accountable. That’s how they roll, now. It isn’t what you do, it’s who does it.

The Washington Post, which last year meticulously set out to demonstrate that Trump’s ridiculous contention that by “wherever” he meant Kelly’s nose (it was a menstrual joke), naturally glosses over what Richmond said,  noting,

“But it seemed to some in the audience that he was making a reference to a sexual act.”

Oh did it? My, what dirty minds some have! It seemed to everyone but dim bulbs and those trying to cover for the smug, partyist, sexist pig (Ah, but a Democratic  smug, partyist sexist pig!) that he was alluding to blow-jobs, because of course women with influence and power in a Republican administration could only acquire them by submitting to male dominance  by servicing their baser needs.  The Post (and its female reporter) disgraces and exposes itself by pretending Richmond could have meant  anything else.  Then it offers Richmond’s mind-meltingly dishonest explanation without providing  a rebuttal or even a metaphorical arched eyebrow. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.)

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

lynch7

 

I am obligated to name as an Ethics Hero any Democratic official  who is principled enough to try to lead his party, its supporters and the complicit mainstream news media away from their current dangerous and destructive scorched earth efforts to destroy the President of the United States.

Ethics Alarms has been calling for responsible leadership in this matter since November 9th, to no avail. President Obama is backing “the resistance,” behaving unlike any previous  ex-President since John Tyler joined the Confederacy. Hillary still has her own confederates calling for preemptive impeachment. The new Vice-Chair of the DNC claims that President Trump can and should be impeached immediately.  The new Chair thinks it fair and honest to call Trump “the worst President” in history after a single month in office, and issues outright lies like claiming the President wants to eliminate overtime pay. (Come back, Debbie! All is forgiven!) Schumer and Pelosi look the other way, or gently applaud, their most outrageous and uncivil colleagues. Senator Warren reads a decades old letter to call a Senate colleague a racist, and becomes a feminist martyr through some twisted logic.

In this vacuum of integrity, statesmanship, decency, fairness and responsibility, even an obscure House Democrats stands out for just meeting minimal standards of fairness and rationality.

Moreover, this obscure House member is from Blue on Blue Massachusetts, where presumably he risks partisan fury for not following the “Trump is Nazi Satan Hellbeast and Must be Detroyed By Fire! ARGHHHHHH! “ narrative.  Congressman Stephen Lynch didn’t exactly celebrate the President’s recent address, he was just open-minded, thoughtful, and responsible—you know, unlike everything else we have heard from his party and colleagues. He said in part,

“I think his words were a significant shift from his previous, sometimes inflammatory rhetoric. I thought he was much more conciliatory.He urged us at one part to get past the trivial differences and work together. That’s not been his mode of operating, at least up until this point.”

Lynch went on to say that he remains skeptical of the President’s agenda and ability to achieve it, and that is fine. He’s a Democrat. He should feel that way.

“We’ll just have to wait and see if his actions are similar to the speech last night, or more akin to what we’ve seen thus far,” Lynch said.

Fair enough. Continue reading →

Washington Post Writer Stephanie Merry Has A Devastating Metaphor Right In Front Of Her, And Can’t See It. Three Guesses Why…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

oscar-mix-up

In an essay recounting the Wrong Envelope Oscars Disaster, Washington Post writer Stephanie Merry lionizes  “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz, who after learning that his movie was not, in fact, the actual “Best Picture” winner, took charge. Faye Dunaway was dashing for cover, MC Jimmy Kimmel was wishing he was in an undersea paradise, and in general everyone was losing their their heads and blaming it on Warren Beatty, but the producer took the microphone and said,“‘Moonlight’ won. Guys, guys, I’m sorry, no. There’s a mistake. ‘Moonlight,’ you guys won best picture.This is not a joke. Come up here.

Then he held up the card just pulled from the actual award envelope, so that the cameras could zoom in.

“Moonlight,” he said. “Best picture.”

Merry seems to think this was some extraordinary act of improvisation and heroism. True, Horowitz did what ethical people do when in a position to: he fixed the problem.  Still, his actions only seem remarkable in light of the incompetence all around him. Ah, but Merry has an ulterior motive, you see, because the Post, like the New York Times and so many other news sources, apparently pay a bounty for every story that can somehow betwisted into a attack on the President. That’s the full time mission now, and journalists really, truly think that’s responsible journalism, and responsible citizenry, though it is neither. So she wrote:

He told the truth even though it was difficult and awkward and embarrassing, because he had just stood in front of the world and thanked his friends and family for an award that wasn’t his. But that didn’t stop him from admitting that he was wrong, even though he was a victim of circumstance. He could have slunk offstage and let Jimmy Kimmel and Warren Beatty continue to fumble through an explanation. Instead he did the dirty work with what looked like pride.

This behavior shouldn’t be all that exceptional, but truth has been hard to come by lately. We’ve all just come off an election in which politicians have happily danced around facts, and the president continues to make false or misleading claims. When the truth is inconvenient, a lot of people spin it or bend it to their will. But that’s not Horowitz’s style.

What, holding on to the Oscar like grim death and screaming, “I WON! I WON!” and running into the wings cackling maniacally isn’t his style? I should hope not! What possible alternative did he have in that situation? He didn’t have to “tell the truth,” he just had to submit to it. Yes, he was gracious. But the episode had no lessons for President Trump, except in Merry’s fevered, Trump-addled mind.

Yet she had laid out a very useful and germane metaphor, so good and timely that I will give her credit for it even though Bias Made Her Stupid, and blind to boot.

Here, let’s see if you get it; it isn’t hard:

“La La Land” had been conceded the Best Picture award for months. Virtually every critic and prognosticator predicted its victory, even when one felt another film was more deserving. The film’s cast and crew had to be very confident entering the theater that night, though the film’s failure to win some of the lesser awards was ominous: the predicted sweep wasn’t happening. Still, all the polls said the movie was a lock.

Then, just when victory seemed certain, it was gone. An underdog competitor took the prize, and not cleanly, either. After all, the deck had been stacked in favor of giving black artists more recognition. And what the heck was going on with the alleged guardians of the voting results?

Remind you of anything? Continue reading →

The “Transitioning” Female Wrestler: A Failure Of Ethics And Common Sense

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments
The girls wrestling champion, Matt Beggs.

The girls wrestling champion, Mack Beggs.

Mack Beggs is a competitive wrestler at Euless Trinity High School, and also is a biological female more than a year into the process of “transitioning” to male.  Beggs just won his third consecutive girls’ wrestling tournament victory in the 110-pound weight class. I’ll call him “he” because that is what the student wants to be called, and he, in great part due to the male steroid treatment he has been undergoing,  is now 55-0 on the season. All of his opponents have been high school girls who are not taking steroids, and unlike Mack, do not intend to become, for all intents and purposes, male.

While Beggs says he wants to wrestle in the boy’s competitions,  the University Interscholastic League rules use an athlete’s birth certificate to determine gender, a measure that makes sense in most cases, just not this one. (See: The Ethics Incompleteness Principle) The rules prohibit girls from wrestling in the boys division and vice versa, and rules are rules. If you are a rigid, non-ethically astute bureaucrat, you follow rules even when you know that they will lead to unjust, absurd results, like Mack’s 55-0 record in matches.

The  rules also say that taking performance enhancing drugs like the testosterone that has given Beggs greater muscle mass and strength than his female competitors is forbidden, but  UIL provides an exception for drugs prescribed by a doctor for a valid medical purpose. After a review of Beggs’ medical records, the body granted him permission to compete while  taking male steroids—compete as a girl, that is.  Rules are rules!

One athletic director, after watching Beggs crush a weaker female competitor who left the ring in tears,  asked for his name not to be used as he commented to reporters, and opined that “there is cause for concern because of the testosterone,” and added, “I think there is a benefit.”

Really going out on a limb there, sport, aren’t you?

Here, let me help.

This is an unfair, foolish, completely avoidable fiasco brought about by every party involved not merely failing to follow ethical principles and common sense, but refusing to. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “The Unethical, Depressing, Bar Complaint Against Kellyanne Conway”

/ Jack Marshall / 83 Comments

trump-as-hitler

This Comment of the Day by Isaac—not his first—again raises the issue that Ethics Alarms periodically faces in querulous e-mails from subscribers who announce their withdrawal by accusing the site of covering politics rather than ethics. As the facilitator/proprietor here, I struggle with this every day. Ethics Alarms, as the title suggests, conerns applied ethics, not Plato’s Cave. The mission is to assist the culture’s ongoing and never ending search for beneficial, rational and effective standards of right and wrong. This is best accomplished by monitoring and analyzing all corners of the culture and society, including its institutions. Government is both a reflection of the culture’s values and an enforcer of them; politics is the means by which a government’s values, priorities and methods are determined. It is literally impossible to examine the march of ethics without politics and political ethics, as well as the institutions that influence them, notably the news media, taking a central role. 

Here is Isaac’s Comment of the Day on the post “The Unethical, Depressing, Bar Complaint Against Kellyanne Conway”:

I stand by my theory that the Left is suffering from such serious cognitive dissonance right now that they are almost literally mass-hallucinating. They believe that Trump is lighting the Constitution on fire and dancing on it. If he isn’t, they will create their own reality in which he is.

Look at how angry they get whenever a media outlet portrays Trump as a human being. “They’re NORMALIZING his EVIL!” “Don’t they know he’s Hitler?”

The Left is acting like a Doomsday cult typically does, in the months after the predicted Doomsday fails to arrive. In those situations most cult members have invested so heavily in the cult-leader’s scam, that they’d rather go on following than just admit that they were taken for fools. And so the cult goes on, even as its predictions keep failing.

These people bet everything on Trump being an unelectable devil. Just watch that clip of Ann Coulter from 2 years ago on the Bill Maher show being laughed at by everyone, to her face, for declaring Trump the most likely to win. What do you do when you were so horribly, horribly wrong, and you spent months mocking, cursing, and shunning everyone who turned out to be right? You either humble yourself and be decent, or you double down. Human nature is to double down. In this case, that means the Left NEEDS Trump to be Hitler. They need to believe that his election was a “white-lash” even after the numbers come in to prove it wasn’t. They now need to believe not only that Trump is Hitler, but that millions of American voters are willing, aspiring Nazis who made the biggest mistake in all of history. If Trump isn’t Hitler, they will MAKE him Hitler. They are doing it for their own psychic well-being. Continue reading →