As chronicled here, CNN’s talking heads lied repeatedly in an attempt to blame the attempted terrorist bombing in New York City on anti-Muslim, right-wing bigots. First Abbe Phillip repeated the Big Lie that had already been proven false, then she deceitfully continued it with a misleading “clarification” on X, and then “The View’s” fake conservative Ana Navarro repeated the fake Axis narrative a day later. The criticism of Phillip’s lie was so loud on social media that CNN apparently told their incompetent (but black and female, so she will be hard to fire) to do an on air apology, so we got this:
🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: CNN’s Abby Phillip was FORCED to issue an on-air correction after she claimed the Muslim bombers in NYC targeted Mayor Mamdani, not Christians
[This is a long post, but I urge you to read it all the way through. I cannot imagine a more powerful rebuttal to the advocates of “diversity, equity and inclusion.”]
Last October, in “Harvard’s Self-Indicting Grade Inflation Report,” I wrote about the school’s embarrassing report that revealed that 60% of the grades handed out at the supposedly elite college (my alma matter, and my sister’s, and my father’s, where my mother was Dean of Housing once-upon-a-time) are now As, making Harvard resemble Garrisons Keilor’s imaginary Minnesota community where “all the children” seem to be are “above average” even though that’s impossible.
In a prescient comment (as is often the case), AM Golden wrote in part, taking off from a Dean Amanda Claybaugh’s statement that it was desirable to “ produce a broader distribution of grades,”
That’s the problem. They don’t want to admit they accept unqualified applicants because many of those applicants will be disproportionately minorities. Returning standards to what an elite institution should have will mess with the faculty push for D.E.I. The standards have to stay low if the experiment is to be prioritized over pure academics. They have set too many precedents to easily back away now…
They have created bubbles where remote learning, mask wearing, protesting for the correct causes and making equal outcomes are virtues valued over a solid education. Backing up now will cause mass revolt on campuses. Like the news media, the colleges will be accused of caving to Trump. The asylum has been run by people who should have been inmates for so long that the actual inmates can’t be helped.
Sometimes I think Ethics Alarms is the only online community where clear-eyed vision dependably resides. For right on cue, as Harvard announced a long term effort to start grading seriously again, a coalition of “of color” Harvard students sent this open letter to the campus:
The widow of high school teacher Jason Hughes, 40, who died during a student prank gone horribly wrong in Gainesville, Georgia, is demonstrating how some human beings can overcome anger, bitterness and the emotional need for retribution, choosing compassion and empathy instead.
Around 11 p.m. on March 6, Jordan Wallace, Elijah Tate Owens, Aiden Hucks, Ana Katherine Luque and Ariana Cruz, all 18-years-old, toilet-papered trees outside the Hughes’ home, a continuation of their school’s tradition of such pranks during exam week. As the group piled into two vehicles to flee, Jason Hughes ran out of his home to confront the teens, but tripped and fell into the road. Wallace, who had already begun speeding away in a pickup truck, accidentally ran over the prone teacher. The teens left their vehicles to render aid, but Hughes perished in the incident.
All five teens were charged with criminal trespassing and littering on private property; Wallace has has been charged with first degree murder as well as reckless driving.
Laura Hughes, who is also a teacher, is pleading with authorities to drop the criminal charges. “We ask that you continue to pray for our family and also for the students involved in the accident along with their families,” she said in a statement to reporters. “Please join us in extending grace and mercy to them as Christ has done for us…This is a terrible tragedy, and our family is determined to prevent a separate tragedy from occurring, ruining the lives of these students.”
The late father of two (above, next to his wife) wasn’t trying to angrily confront the pranksters but “was excited and waiting to catch them in the act,” Laura told the New York Times. Insisting that her husband was not pursuing the students to reprimand them but rather to express comradery with their innocently-intended prank. Hughes said that criminal punishment “would be counter to Jason’s lifelong dedication of investing in the lives of these children.”
First degree murder sounds like extreme over-charging by authorities. The entire episode is a blazing example of the caprices of moral luck. I agree that the students’ punishment should be left to the school if Laura Hughes doesn’t want to press charges. Ethics tells us that it is time to mitigate the damage, not to make the damage worse.
Jackson said, during a private memorial service at Rainbow Push Coalition headquarters in Chicago, that “[Y]esterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson.”
He continued,
“He maintained a tense relationship with the political order, not because the presidents were white or black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these — those who are disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected — demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as people. And it speaks volumes about who the Rev. Jesse Jackson was.”
Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Joe Biden all used their eulogies to attack the President and his policies, though, as you might have guessed, Harris was the most obnoxious and made the least sense. “Let me just say I predicted a lot about what’s happening right now,” Harris smirked. “I’m not into saying I told you so but we did see it coming.” I’d love to ask her what it was exactly that she “saw coming.” The forceful repudiation of the weak, zombie administration she was part of? The voters’ rejection of her embarrassing DEI candidacy? Her running mate’s utter disgrace and exposure as a corrupt hack?
Jackson’s was a subtle and measured rebuke, so subtle and measured that most of the Axis media felt it necessary to ignore it. Many, realizing how inappropriate it was for Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to turn attention away from Jackson’s father and onto their hatred of Donald Trump at Jesse Jackson Sr.’s funeral, also worked to hide the Democrats’ nauseating conduct from the public…after all, there’s an election coming!
One out of every 20 deaths in Canada is now caused by the government’s assisted suicide program. What’s even more shocking is how fast the deaths are approved.
It is reassuring to know, at least for me, that the ethics issues EA has been most adamant about continue to inspire the same analysis from me. On the topic of legal human euthanasia (assisted suicide), the position here hasn’t changed since the policy, now legal in Illinois, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey,New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington first began to spread. Gee, I wonder what those states have in common? Oh…right. An ideology that devalues life: that’s today’s progressive movement and its Democratic Party.
This toxic and corrupting culture holds that individual life is not precious, but rather is subordinate to the needs of the many. Letting people kill themselves, or, if necessary, allowing their families and care-givers to let them be killed, costs a lot less than letting the old, sick, depressed and poor try to hold on to every last minute of existence. Masquerading as individual “choice,” the versatile word that encompasses letting mothers snuff out burgeoning young life in their wombs for their convenience and career advancement, the right to have the government kill you quickly metastasizes into a cultural norm where autonomy, courage, fortitude, individualism and reverence for life erodes in the interests of affording a nanny state.
Euthanasia is a straight violation of Kant’s Categorical Imperative; it also, in cases where the object of this kind of “palliative care” is forced on victims, as it frequently is in Canada, a Golden Rule breach. The only ethical system it can be squared with is Utilitarianism, but only of the most brutal kind that was used as the justification for the mass murders under Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
In the first post, I wrote, “I believe that permitting an individual to kill another with the victim’s consent is so ripe for abuse—Dr. Kevorkian comes to mind—that it crosses an ethical line that should be thick, black, and forbidding. The alleged consent of the doomed can too easily be coerced or manufactured for the convenience of others.” That position hasn’t changed one whit.
This is the first new rationalization added to the rationalizations list in a long time, though I have at least two others I have been pondering for a while. Rationalization #31 A, however hit me like Pete Buttigieg’s imaginary maul when a respected legal ethicist wrote on the listserv for the Association of Professional Liability Lawyers today that “Lefties” like him were suddenly embracing state’s rights in response to the need to “resist” President Trump, and attempted to justify this reversal by shrugging, “Any port in a storm!”
And there it was. I could hardly believe that wasn’t on the list already, but it wasn’t. I assigned “The Hypocrite’s Balm” as a sub-rationalization to the infamous #31, The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now.” I also could have placed it under #25. The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!,” but it is distinct from both.
#31 stands for brutal Utilitarianism, “the ends justify the means.” #25 is the whine of someone who is too cowardly to make the kind of tough ethical choice that has unpleasant non-ethical consequences. But “Any port in a storm” is the motto of activists who decide that their minds are made up, facts and logic no longer appeal to them, and they are willing to ally themselves with beliefs, organizations, individuals and missions that they have previously reviled in order to avoid admitting they may have been wrong, or that they should reassess their position based on new information, experience, or the metaphorical ice water of reality being thrown in their faces.
Rationalization #31 A describes the warped, desperate and destructive mindset of the Axis of Unethical Conduct today along with the Trump Deranged. So obsessed are they with their hatred of Donald Trump and the fact that he has at least temporarily derailed the Mad Left’s march to single party, nanny state, multicultural, anti-American DEI dominance that they are willing to anchor themselves in “ports” sane liberals would have avoided like ebola in the recent past.
The recent post about a highly-paid baseball player recently being suspended for the entire next season after being caught using forbidden PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) inspired a fascinating comment by Ryan Harkins that examined an entirely separate aspect of the incident than any I had considered.
There is another angle on the case that I missed too. I had focused on how foolish it was for a player who had already achieved a guaranteed contract to risk it by cheating; so far, offender Jurickson Profar has forfeited over $20 million. But in today’s Athletic, Brittany Ghiroli observes that even though he has been revealed to be a cheat and that the one outstanding season he had that caused the Atlanta Braves to sign him to a three-year, $42 million guaranteed contract was likely the result of “juicing,” Profar still will receive all of his salary for the final year of his contract, $15 million. She writes in part, regarding why players risk taking steroids in the first place, what she has been told by other players:
“Guys didn’t take performance-enhancing drugs thinking they were risking their careers. Many of them did it so they could have careers — so they could elevate their stats, sign a big multiyear deal and set themselves and their families up for life. Sure, there was a risk of getting caught and forfeiting some pay. But baseball contracts are guaranteed. So as long as they didn’t get caught three times, teams were on the hook to pay them. Big risk, big reward. And until that reward goes away, the risk will always be worth it to certain players.”
Her solution, which she says the players union will never allow, is to make a rule that being caught using steroids allows a team to cancel the rest of a players’ contract.
The Alamo fell just before dawn 190 years ago today. An estimated 220 men died in the furious attack by would-be Mexican emperor Santa Ana’s army of 5,000: once it breached the walls of the fortified mission, a massacrec commenced that was over in 20 minutes.. The defenders had come from many states, territories and nations, and eventually they knew they were going to die if they stayed. Only one of them, Lewis Rose—maybe—decided to leave. Even the messengers sent out by William Barrett Travis to seek rescuing troops returned to the Alamo knowing hope was lost, and they they would be killed. After 13 days, during which the Alamo was pounded by cannon fire, forcing the men to spend the night making repairs, the battle was over. But those 13 days gave Texas General Sam Houston time to raise the army that would defeat of Santa Ana at the Battle of San Jacinto.
Ethics Alarms has posted ethics essays about the Alamo almost every year since the blog began. It is my favorite U.S. historical story, mixing drama, legend, ethics lessons and fascinating personalities, notably Jim Bowie, Travis, and, of course, Davy Crockett. Here is my first post about Davy, from March of 2010, posted to mark the passing of Disney legend Fess Parker, whose portrayal of the frontiersman on TV brought Crockett out of the historical shadows.
Crockett was the most important casualty of the battle, because at the time of his death he was the first modern celebrity, famous in part for being famous, celebrated by dime novels and sensational, and fictional, stage plays. His death focused public attention on Texas as nothing else could. Actress-singer Zendaya is the most popular celebrity in the U.S. today: imagine what the public reaction would have been if an Iran-backed terrorist attack had eliminated her. (Try to imagine it without reflecting on the relative values of a nation whose top celebrity is Zendaya as compared to a nation whose children idolize “The King of the Wild Frontier”). In that 2010 post I wrote in part,
“Like another iconic figure who once portrayed him, John Wayne, what Davy Crockett symbolizes in American culture matters more than his real life story. He built a reputation for being the perfect example of the rugged American individualist, standing tall for basic values, especially honesty and courage, while keeping a sense of humor and an appetite for fun. In his doubtlessly ghost-written 1834 hagiography, “Narrative of the life of Colonel Crockett,” Crockett stated his credo as
“I leave this rule for others when I’m dead: Be always sure you’re right–then go ahead.”
It is as good an exhortation to live by the ethical virtues of integrity, accountability and courage as there is, and it gained great credibility when Crockett remained in the Alamo to die defending a nascent Texas republic, in complete harmony with his stated ideals. Battling for right against overwhelming odds,remaining steadfast in the face of certain defeat, never complaining, never looking back once he had decided to “go ahead,” Crockett’s legend is a valuable and inspiring, if not always applicable, example for all of us when crisis looms. Nobody who ever saw the final fade-out of the Disney series’ final episode, with Fess Parker furiously swinging “old Betsy,” Crockett’s Tennessee long rifle, like a baseball bat at Santa Anna’s soldiers as they swarmed over the walls, ever forgot the image, or mistook what it meant. Davy knew he was going down, but he would fight the good fight to the end….”
They don’t teach the Alamo in schools any more except in Texas, and the woke historical revisionism of the battle casts it as a minor event and even a shameful one, since many of the Texas settlers Mexico invited to settle its Texas territory brought slaves with them. In our “1619 Project” World they were fighting for white supremacy against a brown army.
Imagine: You are a mediocre journeyman baseball player past your prime and holding on the big league job by your fingernails. In desperation, you decide to cheat, using banned performance-enhancing drugs, risking suspension and a career of being regarded as untrustworthy by fans and future employers—and you get away with it, Not only that, but you have the best season of your career by far, make the All-Star team for the first time, and because you were playing out a one-year contract, you win a\three-year, $42 million guaranteed contract. It all worked! You have a job for three seasons, and you’re set for life. even if your arms fall off.
Then you cheat again, lose half of year one (2025) with an 80 game suspension, and cheat again, and get banned for an entire season. Total loss: 21 million dollars.
Meet Braves outfielder Jurickson Profar, possessor of one of my all-time favorite baseball names (along with Van Lingle Mungo , Urban Shocker and several others) who was just hit with his second PED offense and a 162-game ban, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. Now he’ll miss the entire 162-game season in 2026 and will get a lifetime ban if he gets a third positive test in the future, which, given his apparent IQ, seems plausible if not likely. Profar will not be paid his $15MM salary this season, and he will be ineligible for postseason play in 2026 if the Braves were to get into the playoffs, which his conduct has made less likely.
Profar turned 33 a couple weeks ago, so in baseball terms he is in the twilight of an undistinguished career with the exception of that single shock 2024 year where he played like he was on steroids or…oh. Right. He’s signed through the 2027 season and is owed a $15MM salary again in that disastrous (for the Braves) contract’s final year. They likely will release him as soon as Profar’s year-long ban is up. He has probably played his last game in the Major Leagues.
A lot of my Trump Deranged Facebook friends flipped out in fury after owner Jeff Bezos fired much of the Washington Post staff, including many unethical, lying pundits and columnists. How dare Bezos interfere with his paper’s partisan propaganda just because it was losing money by the millions? Many of my mentally ill friends announced that they would boycott Amazon in vengeance.
I’m thrilled to be able to inform my miserable friends, relatives and colleagues that they now have a reason to buck up. The Post may be gutted, but whatever remains in the ruins is still dishonest, unethical, biased and as partisan as ever.
In a story three days ago headlined, “Outside White House, hundreds protest attack on Iran, urge end to conflict,” the Post highlighted a protest that broke out near the White House hours after “Epic Fury” began. The reports chose to explain the event though the eyes of Ermiya Fanaeian, “a 25-year-old PhD candidate in political science at Howard University” whom the Post introduced as a young woman who “has lived in the United States since she was 1, but still has family in her home country of Iran.”
As “word spread of attacks there by Israel and the U.S.,” Post reporters Jasmine Golden and Liam Scott wrote, Fanaeian “grew concerned about her relatives and other Iranians” and “decided to protest the military action.” “It hits close to home,” Fanaeian was quoted as saying. “I also know that the people in Iran are the ones who are going to experience the most, the biggest consequences from these attacks.”
Poor Ermiya! This is the news media playing the cognitive dissonance game. Let’s watch the President’s attack on an international villain and purveyor of terrorism that has been declaring “Death to America!” and planning death to Israel for decades, as filtered through the emotions of an innocent young female student worried about her family.
Ethics Alarms 