Character

Ethics Observations On The Current State Of 2016 Presidential Campaign Before Hurling Myself Out The Window, PART 1 [ UPDATED ]

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

jumping-through-a-window

Yesterday marked the official beginning of the Bill Cosby Effect attaching itself to Donald Trump. Apparently (supposedly, allegedly…) spontaneously  spurred by Trump’s incredible-the-moment-he-said-it  statement to Anderson Cooper during Sunday’s debate that he never did any of the things he boasted about to Billy Bush, numerous women suddenly stepped out of obscurity to claim trump sexual assaulted them. We now have…

Jessica Leeds, 74, who claims the Trump groped her “like an octopus” when they were seated next to each other in first -class on a flight thirty years ago.

Rachel Crooks, who didn’t know Trump as  a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan when he  kissed her without warning, consent or invitation  in 2005.

People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, who wrote a piece yesterday claiming that while on assignment  to interview Donald and Melania Trump, Donald forcibly pushed her against a wall and “stuck his tongue down her throat.”

Mindy McGillivray, 36, another reporter, who told the photographer accompanying her on assignment 13 years ago that “Donald Trump just grabbed my ass!”

Cassandra Searles, Miss Washington 2013, who wrote on Facebook yesterday that Trump “continually grabbed [her] ass and invited [her] to his hotel room.”

Five in one day! I’ll have to check to see if that beats Cosby’s single day record. I think it’s close. I am certain that more accusations will have surfaced before today is over, and maybe before I post this. How many more of these victims—real ones; there may be some false accusations mixed in there—are there? As with Cosby, the sky’s the limit. I’d bet hundreds as a conservative estimate. An entitled, arrogant sexual predator like Trump starts early, and doesn’t reform.

UPDATE  (10/14/16 ): Three more accusers came forward today.

Observations: Continue reading →

Comments of the Day (2): “Donald Trump ‘When You’re A Star, They Let You Do It’ Apology, Take Two!”

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

train wreck - b

I am putting up these two Comments of the Day by johnberger2013 and Steve-O-in NJ together, not because the aren’t each worthy of a separate post, but because they both involve the flap over the Donald Trump-Billy Bush video, which has become a sub-ethics train wreck to the already out-of-control Donald Trump Candidacy Ethics Train Wreck, and I want to put it in my rear view mirror as soon as I can. Its noise is drowning out a virtual tidal wave of new information about how horrifying corrupt the Democrats have been (and are), and the public should know the utter ethical depravity of both the administration that is leaving and the one that is on the way. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, after all. If the news media keeps trying to hide it, at least Ethics Alarms can do its part to counter their efforts. It’s just a few thousand people a day, but if they tell two friends, and they tell two friends…well, it’s something.

First, though, let’s try to finish “Pussygate.” First, the Comment of the Day, on this post and the others on the topic,  from Steve-O-in NJ:

I know Bill [Clinton] did a lot worse. He started a process of ethical rot in the White House that continues today and is best known for getting hummers in the oval office. He wasn’t the first either, with JFK having affairs, FDR being wheeled to a girl friend, and Harding getting action in a White House closet. At least these earlier guys had the sense to keep it quiet, not boast openly about it, and not advocate not just frat boy attitudes, but criminal activity. I heard this kind of bluster and worse when I was high school age (one of my contemporaries boasted that he’d like to cut off a woman’s breast and suck on it). I haven’t heard anything like it since I was 22, and I haven’t openly or otherwise used a vulgar term for a woman’s genitals since I graduated college, not in conversation, not in joke, no way. Full disclosure, I find feminists tiresome at best, angering at worst, and I still think Hillary is a lying, conniving, power hungry grifter who will be a failure as president. That doesn’t mean I hold ALL women in contempt, nor do I see them as toys to be used and discarded. I’ve never been on so much as a first date, but I have worked with and known too many women (some good, some meh, and some pretty bad) to hold half the human race in the contempt Trump holds them.

Continue reading →

Presenting Rationalization #36 C. “Donald’s Dodge,” And The Complete Up-To-Date List Of Rationalizations

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments
But no, I guess you never did exactly say you were perfect...

But no, I guess you never did exactly say you were perfect…

It is fitting, the night after Donald Trump demonstrated what  “making America great” would be under a President Trump by reducing the Presidential debates to the level of The Jerry Springer Show just by running for the office, to install an entry on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations list named for him.

36 C.  Donald’s Dodge, or “I never said I was perfect!” was inspired by Trump, as he employed it among the deflections, excuses and rationalizations in his epicly awful “apology” for his virtuoso display of vulgarity and misogyny preserved in an old video, and leaked to the Washington Post. It is a really vile rationalization, one of the worst on the list. It posits the theory that as long as someone never says or suggests that he is above a particular kind of misconduct, he shouldn’t be judged harshly for engaging in it. This logic requires a certain genius in unethical reasoning.

First, it argues that the application of integrity, an ethical value, to wrongdoing cleanses the wrongdoing. As long as one always beats one’s wife and never pretends to be above such brutality, it is less of an abuse of decency, and that as long as one’s misconduct doesn’t prove previous dishonesty, then the conduct is lass objectionable. In this Donald’ delusion has kinship with Rationalization #22, The Comparative Virtue Excuse, or “There are worse things.” Yes, I suppose showing oneself to be a boor and a misogynist is technically worse when you have represented to the world that you weren’t one, but pointing to that as a mitigating factor is an insult.

Second, it repeats the disingenuous assertion inherent in #19. The Perfection Diversion: “Nobody’s Perfect!” Continue reading →

Nobody Cares, But NBC Has Been Wildly Unethical In The Trump-Bush Video Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

nbc-peacock-ap

NBC deserves to be condemned for its conduct in many ways in reference to the Trump Pussy Tape episode, going back eleven years.

1. NBC technicians allowed Trump to continue talking without his realizing that his microphone was on. Unethical, and unprofessional, as well as a pure Golden Rule violation. Basic decency, fairness and professionalism requires that when a guest is doing this, his mistake must be  made known to him at the earliest possible time. This is the rule when someone continues to speak on a conference call believing the call has ended. It is the ethical thing to do  when you are in a bathroom stall and your opponents in a law suit start discussing strategy while they are washing their hands. I have several times, at taped seminars, begun to answer questions during a break and realized that I was still being recorded. Sometimes a technician has reminded me. Worse (but funnier) I have done a full “Naked Gun”, using the Men’s Room while wearing a live mic…and the technician dashed in to get me to turn it off, just in time. (Well, almost.) Allowing a guest to embarrass himself on tape as Trump did is despicable and unprofessional in every way.

2. NBC betrayed its own employee, Billy Bush, by not alerting him, either.  Disloyal, unfair, and uncaring.

3. Once the recording was made, it should have been destroyed as soon as anyone in authority realized the participants were speaking without knowing the mics were on.

4. Attorney Robert Barnes makes a compelling argument that NBC’s conduct violated California Penal Code 632, which criminalizes the act of any person who “without the consent of all parties” records their conversations. Of course, violating the law is also unethical. Trump might  have a just lawsuit, though the damage can’t be undone: the pussy’s out of the bag, so to speak.

5. Bush, as an NBC employee, should have been told about the recording and its contents long, long before it was made public. NBC was obligated to inform him as a basic courtesy. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Donald Trump ‘When You’re A Star, They Let You Do It’ Apology, Take Two!”…Plus The Last Comments I’m Going To Make About Trump’s “Pussy” Tape, Because Life’s Too Short

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

princess-bride

Ethics Alarms works best when commenters take a post and extend the issue to the next stage, expanding the inquiry and making useful observations. This Comment of the Day by Charles Green is an example. I had just written three posts (including this, and this, that related to Charles’ commentary more closely than the post it actually followed) about various ethics aspects of the Trump-Billy Bush tape and the reaction to it, and Charles flagged enough additional material for a fourth.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, Donald Trump “When You’re A Star, They Let You Do It” Apology, Take Two! (I’ll be back to add a bit to Charles’ points at the end.)

Trump is of course a troglodyte. But Jack, this is an ethics swamp – look at all the other arguments showing up.

The most obvious one is Billy Bush’s “It was a long time ago.” So, there’s a statute of limitations on unethical behavior? (Trump went him one worse, saying that was ten years ago – and look at what Clinton did 20 years ago!).

But there’s another meme that keeps showing up. For example, Mitch McConnell saying, “I have daughters, and I…” So, is what Trump said inoffensive if you only have sons and brothers?

Mike Pence says, “As a husband and a father” he was offended. So, my single childless son shouldn’t be offended?

Jeb Bush says, “As the grandfather of two girls…reprehensible…degrading…” Jeez, do you have to be a grandpa before you can be offended?

What about Paul Ryan, saying, “Women should be championed and revered.” As a friend of mine says, “Would that be like a Special Olympics athlete? Or the biblical Mary?”

In their own bizarre way, these conditional statements are as ethically suspect as Trump apologizing “if I offended anyone.”

The common logical construct is a leading clause which SOUNDS like it should have something to do with what follows. But really, does “I’m a grandfather, so what he said was reprehensible” make any more ethical sense than “I’m a vegetarian, so what he said was reprehensible.”

As someone might have said, “What difference does it make!?”

Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week (Or At Least It Would Be In A Serious Campaign Where The News Media Was Interested In Covering Both Candidates Fairly): Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

2faced-hillary

“You just have to sort of figure out how to — getting back to that word, “balance” — how to balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and that’s not just a comment about today…. I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

—-Hillary Clinton, in a quote from one of those speeches she got $225,000 to make, for the National Multi-Housing Council, 4/24/13

We all knew we would eventually learn what she said in those speeches, didn’t we? It was just a matter of time. Luckily for Hillary, this leak arrived the same day as Trump’s Billy Bush piggery, giving the news media a chance to bury it for a while.

Hillary’s foe Julian Assange  released a hacked e-mail from Clinton minion John Podesta. Podesty was flagging sections of various Clinton speeches that might cause trouble for Hillary if they ever became public, so she could have an instant response, that is, spin, ready. (I have to admit, these guys are good.) The heading on this one was, Continue reading →

Donald Trump “When You’re A Star, They Let You Do It” Apology, Take Two!

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Trump’s initial, typically off-the-cuff, dismissive non-apology-apology for the leaked tape of him talking exactly like the piggish narcissist he is was not sufficient to stem his latest self-made campaign crisis. Then he wrote:

“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”

CUT! I’m sorry, Don, that didn’t come off right….not sincere enough. Can we try it another way? Great!

So Trump got serious, and shot the video above. In case you, like me, got nauseous half-way through, this is what he said:

I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not. I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize. I’ve traveled the country talking about change for America, but my travels have also changed me. I’ve spent time with grieving mothers who’ve lost their children, laid-off workers whose jobs have gone to other countries, and people from all walks of life who just want a better future. I have gotten to know the great people of our country, and I’ve been humbled by the faith they’ve placed in me. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never, ever let you down. Let’s be honest — we’re living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we’re facing today. We are losing our jobs, we’re less safe than we were eight years ago, and Washington is totally broken. Hillary Clinton and her kind have run our country into the ground. I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.

Anyone, and I mean anyone, who sees the video or reads those words and concludes, “OK, he apologized. He’s still got my vote!” has proven my point made a week ago, here. Such an individual is too deficient in critical thinking skills to be anything but an impediment to democracy.

What’s the matter with the second apology? Let’s see..how about “Everything”? Continue reading →

Republicans Leaders Are Shocked…Shocked!…That Donald Trump Is Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Cynical, principle-free morons, every single one.

Everyone knew that Donald Trump was a low-life, belonging in the political genus containing human leaches and anthropomorphic pond scum, long before he even announced his candidacy. They knew or should have known, to apply a common legal standard. I’m no genius, but the millisecond his joke candidacy for President began smelling viable back in August 0f 2015, I wrote here what GOP leaders with any sense or integrity should have known without me having to write a word. They needed to tell Trump to go haunt a casino somewhere, because he wasn’t fit to represent the Republican party as a candidate—not as President, not as dogcatcher, not as a gag on a Saturday Night Live skit.

Nahh! GOP Chair Reince Priebus —Fun Fact: Did you know that “Reince” means “spineless tool”? Well, it does now!-–apparently thought Trump would bring a little pizzazz, publicity and new voters to the GOP primary campaign. Well, it sure did that, didn’t it, Reince, you pathetic failure as a leader, manager, Republican and an American? Continue reading →

Observations On The Obscene Trump Audio Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

4217128-caveman

A leaked audio  obtained and released by the Washington Post has Donald Trump commenting to media personality Billy Bush about his attempts to bed a married woman, a few months months after he married Melania Trump, his third wife. When he sees a beautiful woman, the GOP standard-bearer said, he  kisses her without consent.  “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” he explains. He describes a married woman who wouldn’t sleep with him by making fun of her as having“phony tits.” Then he advises Bush, “Grab them by the pussy.”

Nice.

But not surprising. Not even a little bit.

Observations:

1. CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta believes this may finish Trump’s presidential campaign. Utter incompetence and confirmation bias: why does anyone listen to “experts” this dense? Acosta, and I’m sure he has lots of company, apparently has learned nothing over the past year. What kind of person who currently supports Trump despite his constant vulgarity, misogyny, meanness, dishonesty, irresponsible statements and foolishness would regard this unremarkable male jerkishness as a last straw? Of course he talks like that. I never had any doubt that he talked like that, just as I never doubted that Hillary Clinton regarded Bernie’s supporters as gullible children, as a recent leak of her candid comments revealed. Did you think Trump talked about women differently than this when he was with other guys? Continue reading →

Look! A Good Ethics Result From The 2016 Campaign!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

ant-and-grasshopper

Donald Trump is  making it clear that he isn’t going to study, prepare, prep or train seriously for Sunday’s presidential debate. Well, why not?  After all, without substantive or appropriately focused preparation for the first debate, he was…oh, right, he was lousy. Donald doesn’t think so, however, and that’s what matters. He is now mocking Hillary Clinton for doing what anyone would do who understands the crucial mission at hand, and the importance of hard work. She is preparing, just as she would if she wasn’t going to be debating an ignorant buffoon.

One thing the Clintons cannot be criticized for is their determination and diligence. They both always work hard, and are thoroughly prepared for whatever they do. Trump, in contrast, has prospered his whole life by bluffing, bullying, posturing and faking. He had his career and a fortune handed to him by his father, and really is the embodiment of Ann Richards’  famous jibe at George H.W. Bush that he was someone who woke up on third base and thought he had hit a triple. Continue reading →