Character

Ethics Hero/Dunce: Charlotte Dujardin

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I haven’t had many of these, as you might imagine. In fact, I’m not even sure that this is one.

British Olympic dressage medalist Charlotte Dujardin holds six Olympic medals, three of them gold, in equestrian events. She just dropped out of the Paris Olympics, however, after a video was uncovered that reportedly shows her repeatedly whipping a horse on its legs.

“A video has emerged from four years ago which shows me making an error of judgement during a coaching session,” she said in her statement withdrawing from the Games. “Understandably, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) is investigating, and I have made the decision to withdraw from all competition — including the Paris Olympics — while this process takes place,” she said. The statement continues, “I am sincerely sorry for my actions and devastated that I have let everyone down, including Team GB, fans and sponsors.”

Some have described this as Ethics Hero-level contrition. She did wrong, she has admitted it without qualifications, and has administered her own sanctions. OK, I’m buying that, sort of. Maybe. With major misgivings.

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It Looks Like I’m Going To Have To Add Another Democratic Big Lie To The List…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I had to run up to the office to get this down before other outrages intervened. (The list I’m alluding to is here.)

To start off the hearing today continuing the House inquiry into the Trump shooting, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), began with a rant against “political violence” that he quickly turned into a partisan attack on Republicans. Among his statements was that Donald Trump had said that “there would be a bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected in 2024.

That’s a lie. It has been conclusively shown to be a lie. I wrote about the widespread misrepresentation of Trump’s comment at the time. Trump was using ‘bloodbath” in the economic sense, which is included in many dictionary definitions (“a period of disastrous loss or reversal“), referring to the auto industry. Quoting him out of that specific context, and placing the quote in the false context of “political violence” is intentional deceit, and deceit is lying.

The Democrats, including Nadler, know what Trump said and meant, but they keep using this false characterization anyway. Biden alluded to it repeatedly. Kamala Harris will be sure to do the same: let me know if I miss it when she does.

There are so many awful members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that I often forget about Nadler, one of the worst. He revealed himself to be a hyper-partisan hack during the Clinton House impeachment hearings, when he and the equally horrible Maxine Waters battled to a tie in the Democrats’ “it isn’t what it is” competition. He hasn’t improved since.

Democrats, all of them, are ethically estopped from repeating the mantra that Trump lies all the time as long as their party is addicted to Big Lies, which it is. Similarly, the newsmedia is hypocritical if it “factchecks” Trump without also pointing out deliberate dishonest smears like the one Nadler just vomited up.

Oh! I see that John Hammond has raised his hand! Yes, John?

I don’t blame you a bit.

Pssst! Bill Maher! The “Saved By God” Belief Has Inspired Some of Our Greatest Presidents. Shut Up.

/ Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

Atheists and agnostics in the public sphere don’t have to be obnoxious, but an awful lot of them are. Their explanation for where the universe came from is no more persuasive that that of the faithful (The Big Bang? Come on.) but they just can’t restrain themselves. HBO’s Bill Maher is a prime example: along with mocking committed relationships (he hates the concept of marriage), extolling drugs and debauchery, and generally keeping his Axis of Unethical Conduct membership current, he ridicules Christianity at every opportunity.

The fact is, and it is a fact, that the United States of America had a much healthier and ethical culture before organized religion had discredited itself so thoroughly, driving whole generations away. Moral codes are especially essential for those who don’t have the time or ability to puzzle through ethics, and believing in God is the best catalyst for an ethical society that there is….and it has always been thus.

Heck, just look at what a jerk Maher is. That’s what atheism can do to you. But I digress.

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Incompetent Elected Official of the…Let’s See Now…HOUR?: Taunton (Mass.) Mayor Shaunna O’Connell

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

She’s a Republican, incidentally. Ah, Taunton. Population: About 60,000. I remember it well from my Boston days. The city is famous for its dog-racing track. My Uncle Charlie, my mom’s youngest brother, a nice guy who blew his money on the greyhounds, went there often. And lost.

But I digress. Taunton Mayor Shaunna O’Connell was arrested and appeared in court to be arraigned on charges of charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and domestic assault and battery. Police arrested her after when her husband called police during a fight.

She hit him with a crowbar. Allegedly.

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A Sociopath Asks “The Ethicist” For Advice

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This was weird; I wonder if The Ethicist (his friends call him Kwame Anthony Appiah, or just “Professor”) just felt like slapping down someone despicable. When I read the creepy question posed, I immediately thought, “Who needs an ethicist to answer this?”

“Name Withheld” (that guy writes an awful lot of questions to The Ethicist) wrote in part,

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Sorry Joe: You Knew She Was a Scorpion All Along

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Here I am still fighting off multiple crises personal, professional and financial arising from my wife’s sudden death, and trying to actually earn money, no easy task in the field of ethics unless one is unethical, which so many of my more successful colleagues are. Unfortunately, I have no discipline. I am behind on several deadlines that will keep me working into the wee hours this weekend, and yet emanations from the twin ethics train wrecks that are Biden’s debate melt-down and Trump’s near-miss assassination attempt keep dragging me back to Ethics Alarms.

Like this one: sources are reporting that the President is “seething” at Nancy Pelosi, who is widely believed to be behind the wave of House Democrats calling for Biden to step down as the presumptive nominee. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a close ally of Pelosi—figures—released a letter calling for Biden to step aside. House Democrats close to Pelosi, attributed today’s new defections, especially Lofgren’s letter to Biden,to the former speaker. Biden regarded Pelosi as an ally. He trusted her.

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AOC Is Here To Tell Us That…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Well, something. Yes, hold on to your butts: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is imparting what she regards as wisdom. I was going to make this an Unethical Quote of the Week, then I decided that I didn’t know what it was, except disturbing. Here is what she ranted last night in a live stream; I’ll have some rueful comments at the end…

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Ethics Dunce: MSNBC (In Related News, Night Is Dark!)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

MSNBC, the fake news champ, expanded its unethical practices to deceptive broadcast settings for the Republican National convention this week. MSNBC’s prime-time coverage of the Republican National Convention looked familiar to the other networks and what veteran viewers are used to from past convention coverage: anchors at a desk positioned above the convention floor. Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Jen Psaki, Joy Reid and the rest of the MSNBC anchors were not inside the convention hall as it was designed to appear, however. They were in a Manhattan studio. That backdrop of the convention floor was being projected on a screen behind them.

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Accountability? What’s Accountability? Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Still Has Her Job, and Only the Prominence of a Confederacy of Ethics Dunces Can Explain That [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

I could go into an analysis of what was so stunningly dangerous and incompetent about the Secret Service FUBAR that almost got Donald Trump murdered, at this point just about the only way the Democrats would be able to keep the White House. I’m happy to wait for the results of Congressional hearings and the investigation, but as I heard many experts say on multiple networks, you don’t have to be an expert to figure from the time-line and what we do know that the Secret Service was spectacularly incompetent, and that Cheatle’s pathetic explanations (I particularly like “the sloped roof was too dangerous for our agents so we let a gunman use it to shoot Trump”) haven’t passed the giggle test. Her ridiculous statements and the fact that the agents knew an unknown person with a gun was within killing distance of Donald Trump and waited for him to take a shot before doing anything (like, say, keeping Trump off the stage: don’t those little earpieces work?) are res ipsa loquitur, so damning that conspiracy theories are unavoidable.

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There Is Hope! Another Incompetent “Squad” Member Is Headed For Defeat

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Above is one of “Cori Bush’s Greatest Hits,” the time in 2021 that she “explained” why she had taxpayers fund a security detail for her so she could advocate de-funding the police. This won her the Ethics Alarms title of “Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month, Year, Decade, Century, And Eon” at the time. Bush, a Democratic House member from the Missouri district occupied entirely by the brain-damaged, isn’t just an “idiot” in the sense that Ethics Alarms usually uses the word. No, the college drop-out and former nurse is a genuine, clinical idiot and an ignoramus to boot. Naturally, she is a member-in-good-standing of The Squad, where being the dumbest in the batch—dumber even than the recently defeated Jamaal Bowman—is quite an achievement.

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