Ethics Villain: Former NYC Pandemic Lockdown Czar Dr. Jay Varma

We can now add this shameless creep to the list of powerful state and municipal hypocrites—they are too many to list, but EA spotlighted some of them— who violated their own excessive pandemic restrictions because, after all, they are better than the little people, and because they could. I’m filing all of them with the health officials who announced that letting Black Lives Matter disrupt cities and government functions while doing millions of dollars in damage made the racist, Marxist group immune from the restrictions on church gatherings, funeral and family gatherings.

Jay Varma, however, is special.

Dr. Jay Varma was the senior advisor for public health in New York City under Mayor Bill de Blasio, another ethics villain. Varma imposed extraordinary restrictions on public outings, gatherings, and personal activities. But a video has been released showing Varma admitting that he ignored his own policies to attend sex parties. A spokesman for Varma told CBS News New York he and his wife held two sex parties in a hotel with friends after he had banned such gatherings; Varma also admitted participating in a dance party with about 200 people underneath a Wall Street bank in June of 2021.

Varma was fired as executive vice president and chief medical officer at SIGA Technologies after confirming the reports about the video. Good. But it’s not enough. There have not been adequate consequences for any of these power abusing, elitist totalitarians and liars.

Surprise ! Open Forum!

September and October 2024 are going down in the ProEthics annals as the busiest months since the pandemic freakout and among the busiest months of ethics consulting I’ve had ever. What this means, I do not know, but today, once again, I have legal training session that will occupy my attentions this morning. Thus I am opening the weekly free-for-all a day early.

The big news, but with no details yet, is that New York City Mayor Eric Adams is about to be indicted. I expected this, not necessarily with Adams but with one or more of the horrible crop of arrogant, autocratic Democrat mayors who run so many of our major cities. They have a collective chip on their shoulders the size of El Capitan, most of them are “of color” and determined to make up for lost time and opportunity. I expect more of this: the Democratic Party has spawned a culture of corruption that is dangerous and increasingly difficult to hide.

Speaking of a culture of corruption, Paul Pelosi once again read tea leaves or something and guessed what the Feds were about to do to Visa, so he dumped $500,000 in the company’s stock two months before the company was sued for anti-competitive business practices. He has done a lot of this investment management magic since his wife has been a power in Congress. The X account “Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” flagged the trade when the Department of Justice filed its lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the company maintained an illegal monopoly over the U.S. debit card market.

Nothing to see here, move along…

But I digress. The ethics topics are up to you.

A Visit to Football’s Bizarro World

Sure, I guess in a crazy system where universities pay students to play football for them, this story makes sense, sort of.

The star starting quarterback for UNLV, Matthew Sluka is quitting the team after UNLV’s first 3-0 start in 40 years. He says he will sit out the rest of the season because the school hasn’t ponied up the $100,000 he says he was promised by an assistant coach before committing to the school this offseason.

Ah, remember those quaint old days when college football heroes devoted their passion and athletic talents to winning for team, the school, and fellow students? Today instead of “Win one for the Gipper,” it’s “Show me the money.” Tell me again why we let educational institutions run professional football and basketball teams stocked with phony students who usually graduate, if they graduate, having learned nothing but how to talk to their accountants?

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Unethical Quote of the Week: President Joe Biden

“Some things are more important than staying in power.”

—-President Biden at the U.N., stumbling through his speech on world affairs even with the assistance of his teleprompter.

Even though our President is demented, deluded, habitually dishonest and without shame, I am still astounded that he would have the gall to say that at the United Nations. I guess he thinks the delegates are as stupid and gullible as his party evidently thinks the U.S. public is.

No, the context of that head-exploding statement doesn’t make it less nauseating:

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I’m Sorely Tempted To Offer Ivanka’s Question As An Ethics Quiz…

But I won’t.

Ivanka Trump, Donald’s eldest daughter, asks on Twitter/X: “What comes to mind when you see this team?”

You’ll be sorry you asked, IT, at least that you asked me.

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Unethical Quote of the Week: Hillary Clinton

“I think it’s important to indict the Russians, just as Muller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in 2016. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda. And whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence, because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States.”

—-Ethics Villain Hillary Clinton, on MSNBC (of course) this week, as Rachel Maddow nodded in agreement.

The irony and hypocrisy in Hillary’s statement are striking. After all, it it was her campaign that funded the infamous Steele dossier and spread false stories of Russian collusion during her failed 2016 Presidential run, culminating in the investigation Democrats used to cripple and delegitimize the Trump Presidency. Meanwhile, Hillary remains an icon to the same party that claims Donald Trump is a threat to American liberty, and much of the insane hate the Axis has been focusing on Trump since 2016 was inspired by his “crime” of stopping Clinton from becoming President.

__________

Pointer: Jonathan Turley

Kamala Harris, the “Integrity? What’s Integrity?” Candidate

As an ethicist, I don’t have to agree with a Presidential candaidtes policies to find him or her ethical, unless a policy are per se unethical (like validating terrorism by forcing a ceasefire on Israel before it has destroyed Hamas), involves not enforcing laws (like at the Southern border) or violates the Constitution (as with Gov. Walz’s declarion that “hate speech” should be illegal). However, as an ethicist, it is explicitly my business when a Presidential candidate demonstrates a cynical contempt for integrity as an ethical value, for integrity is one of the most important of ethical values. An individual without integrity cannot be trusted.

Harris’s whole campaign is an effort to pretend integrity is a myth. Bernie Sanders issued a damning verdict on Harris (and himself) when he told NBC’s “Meet the Press “ that despite her efforts to moderate her positions since taking over from Joe Biden on the top of the ticket, such as purporting to support fracking and opposing “Medicare for All,” Harris was just being “pragmatic” and “doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

In other words, lying.

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Everything Is Seemingly Spinning Out Of Control: Meet GOP Candidate For North Carolina Governor and Incompetent Elected Official of the Month Mark Robinson

The Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, either went nuts, is nuts, or has been nuts all along. CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski reported that Robinson called himself a “black NAZI” and a “perv” online, boasted about sneaking looks at nude women in public showers, loving pornography (“I like watching tranny-on-girl porn! That’s fucking hot!”) and reinstituting slavery. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,” the black politician wrote. All of this was on Nude Africa, a message board for sharing porn.

Naturally, Robinson is denying everything, says he won’t be forced out of the race, yada-yada. He’s an idiot. Be proud, Republicans! How do utter jerks like Robinson—although he does appear to be a very special kind of jerk— keep getting nominated and elected? The parties don’t vet them, the media doesn’t vet them, and the public doesn’t check on what it is voting for either until the damage is done.

May I also suggest that Donald Trump try to have someone on staff perform a little due diligence on such characters before he endorses them?

We’re saving democracy for this?

Friday Open Forum!

The tweet above exemplifies one of the lessons of today’s sordid, multi-level ethics scandal (as in “the people involved have none”), andwhich is too rich to ignore. Let me comment briefly and then you write about any ethics issues that interest you, as usual.

New York magazine’s high-profile Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi is on leave—she’d better be fired, but in today’s journalism, conflicts of interest are no big deal— after admitting to a romantic relationship with (married) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while covering his campaign. RFK Jr.’s Wife #3 isto Hollywood actress Cheryl Hines; Nuzzi was engaged to Politico reporter and collaborator Ryan Lizza until recently. 

What an incestuous and untrustworthy cabal our political, media and entertainment elites have! But you knew that already, I hope

Conservative pundit Stephen Miller couldn’t resist tweeting, “I know a lot of people are dunking on @Olivianuzzi right now over the whole Kennedy thing, but as a friend, I’m just thankful that she’s not drowning in the backseat of a car right now.”

Mean. But funny!

Carry on….

You Laugh, But This Tells Us a Lot About China

When I saw the story above last night, what I foolishly call my mind raced to two other related matters. One was the failed pseudo-sequel to “A Fish Called Wanda,” “Fierce Creatures,” in which the entire cast of the earlier, far superior comedy reunited to perform a John Cleese screenplay about a corrupt zoo-owner who, among other schemes, tries to pass off a mechanical panda as the real thing. The other was this story….

…from 2011.

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