Character

A Bar Owner Learns That If You Are Going To Grandstand On A Principle You Better Be Ready To Accept The Consequences

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

At least I hope that he’s learned that. Right now, he looks like a phony, a hypocrite, and an idiot.

First, McKinley Minniefield, the owner of Fairfax Bar and Grill in Bloomington, Indiana, a college town where the woke wun fwee, issued a ringing statement on Facebook informing patrons that those who objected to transgender performance artist Dylan Mulvaney’s embrace by Bud Light would no longer be welcome in his establishment. “We are tired of all of the hate. We are very open to debate and discussion and it’s truly a shame that we can’t have open conversations about this important political and cultural topic,” Minniefield wrote. “Unfortunately due to all of the bigotry and hatred that has surfaced around the Bud Light controversy any patron wanting to voice their concerns about the issue will be immediately asked to pay their bill and leave our establishment.”

How collegiate of him! He’s open to debate and discussion, but not if the views discussed are the “wrong” ones.

“If you are intolerant of other humans of any kind, we ask that you keep your opinions to yourself. Should you feel the need to discuss this matter in public you will be asked to leave. We will not tolerate intolerance here,” the post continued. You would think the obvious contradiction in that last bit would have tipped the bar owner off that he was on metaphorical thin ice ethically, but apparently not.

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Ethics Heroes: Dane County (Wisconsin) County Supervisors

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Race-baiting, race bullying and using the threat of being tarred as racist have worked speculatively well as unethical political weapons since Barack Obama’s party and supporters perfected them. Thus it is gratifying to see a municipal body refuse to be intimidated when confronted with the demands of a shameless practitioner and her supporters.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi nominated Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison) for director of Dane County Human Services, a position that oversees the county’s largest agency with a $240 million budget and around 800 employees. Almost simultaneously with her nomination Stubbs began mau-mauing those who had to approve the appointment. The weekend following the announcement from Parisi, Stubbs told members of the End Times Ministries International, a church she co-founded and serves as a pastor, that members of the board were putting her under scrutiny because she is black, saying “they have never had a black lead a department, and I would be the first.” She urged her congregation to email the Dane County Board supervisors and demand that she be confirmed. This was sufficient to inspire the good parishioners to threaten the board members with violence.

There were ample non-racial reasons to question Stubbs’ appointment. She was heard on video saying that she planned on keeping both her state legislative job and her new position once she was confirmed, thus acquiring two paychecks for two supposedly full-time jobs. “They said I can’t do two jobs at one time,” Stubbs says on the video. “I can walk and eat and talk if I need to. It’s my choice if I want to [resign].”

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Ethics Quote Of The Day: Ethics Villain Dr. Anthony Fauci

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Man, I think, almost paradoxically, you had people who were on the fence about getting vaccinated thinking, why are they forcing me to do this? And that sometimes-beautiful independent streak in our country becomes counterproductive.”

—Dr. Anthony Fauci, major architect of the Wuhan virus lockdown catastrophe, in a discussing how the government’s dictatorial vaccination policies caused a drop in pubic trust of all vaccinations.

I have a lot to write about Dr. Fauci’s long interview in the New York Times, as well as some of his other jaw-dropping comments last week, but I’m lacking time and energy right now, and this quote demands immediate attention.

Fauci, who used his reputation and influence to trap the United States into a disastrous course of action that caused lasting harm to the nation, its culture, its economy, its children and society, articulates above the totalitarian’s lament about the United States of America. We are hearing this a great deal of late, as the Democratic Party, now the locus of totalitarian aspiration here, is increasingly open and candid about what so many of its leaders hate about America. Too many people just refuse to take orders from the smarter, more virtuous, more social justice-minded in power. Clearly, something needs to be done about it.

There’s nothing paradoxical about the phenomenon Fauci’s whining about at all. The lying, manipulation, false “facts” and abuse of authority used by health officials, Fauci prominent among them, eventually became apparent. Americans, who call themselves that rather than United Kingdom citizens because a nation was organized around the bold theory that the people—not kings, not unaccountable groups, not “experts”— have the right and duty to decide what’s in their best interest, returned to core values. Millions of people moved here to embrace the new experiment, and as a result, the independent streak is more deeply embedded in the culture than our native fans of dictatorship seem to comprehend. Decades of indoctrination from the now fully complicit news media and most of the education sector have weakened it and threaten it, but like the flag over Fort McHenry, it’s still there.

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Trump Wraps Up The Ethics Alarms 2023 “Asshole Of The Year” Award In Record Time

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

I may even have to name it “The Donald Trump Award.”

At a New Hampshire campaign rally yesterday, the former President drew laughs and cheers from his crowd of human seals when he did an imitation of President Joe Biden being disoriented and getting lost on stage.

Nice. Stay classy, Mr. President.

“You would think at least one time he’d get up and say, ‘I’m running for President — where, where am I going, where the hell am I going?’” Trump, said, doing his best imitation of an addled old coot. “I want to get out, oh, no over there, over there,” Trump said as he wandered away from the podium.

The ugly routine evoked this episode from his 2016 campaign, in which Trump mocked a disabled reporter (and later denied that he did.)

Trump is out of control at this point, assuming he’s ever been in control. He’s convinced that he’s invincible and already has the GOP nomination wrapped up. The political hit jobs on him from the George Soros prosecutors, the House Democrats and the Justice Department have only made him stronger politically.

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Jerry Springer (RIP) Was An Ethics Corrupter

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Jerry Springer has died at 79. I’m not glad he’s dead, but when someone has as damaging an effect on the culture as he did, the fact belongs in his obituary. Attention should be paid.

Springer was the epitome of an ethics corrupter. He held the poor, uneducated, non-too-bright and badly socialized up to public ridicule. He encouraged foolish people to embarrass themselves on TV. He also sent the message to many of his less civilized, socialized and mature viewers that the best way to deal with conflict is a punch in the chops.

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What A Surprise: Trump’s Scorched Earth Premptive Attack On Ron DiSantis Is Hypocritical, Dishonest And Divisive

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Ronald Reagan’s “First Commandment” was “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan, and he’s only a Republican of convenience; nevertheless, his strategy of using negative campaigning to kneecap his presumed competition for the Republican Presidential nomination before Florida’s Governor Ron DiSantis has even announced his candidacy is particularly odious. Launching these attacks would be revolting if they were fair and accurate, but they are not.

That is who and what Donald Trump is, however. He’s not going to broaden his base this way, or make it more likely that the GOP can defeat the Democrats in 2024. Right now, he doesn’t care about that: all that matters is winning the nomination, and, like Scarlett O’Hara, he’ll think about the consequences tomorrow after playing as dirty as he has to.

I know I’m repeating myself, but what an asshole this guy is. It is a searing testament to just how unfit to govern the Democrats and Joe Biden are that I had to vote for him in 2020, and it really wasn’t that difficult a decision.

This week Trump and his campaign vomitted up a document claiming that “the real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair,” and arguing that Florida was a terrible place to live. This assertion has an immediate ring of hypocrisy surrounding it, since Donald Trump chooses to live there.

The Wall Street Journal was moved to fact-check Trump’s ruthless indictment, and it’s a legitimate fact-check, not the kind one gets from, say, the Washington Post. WSJ points out…

1. The Trump release relies on links to progressive-biased studies and anti-DiSantis news reports claiming that Florida is unaffordable and unsafe, and includes, “ESPN wrote that Florida is the Worst State in The Nation To Die.”

ESPN?

2. Many of the statistics cited in the Trump hit piece come from groups with progressive agendas, those that Trump would typically dismiss as “fake.” It cites a 2022 Oxfam report that says Florida is the 29th best state for workers, but down-rates states that have “so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws” and those that, like Florida, don’t allow “localities to implement their own minimum wage laws.” Trump has never been a fan of unions or the minimum wage. It also cites the Florida Policy Institute, which wants illegal immigrants to be able to obtain obtain driver’s licenses. “Wasn’t immigration Mr. Trump’s signature issue in 2016?” asks WSJ. “They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but Mr. Trump’s one-night stand with this outfit is bizarre.”

Indeed.

3. Trump’s vicious hit job relies heavily on the website WalletHub, which ranks Florida 26th on its “best states for working moms” ranking using a witches brew of “17 relevant metrics” that were given different weights, a classic device in pseudo-science. Many WalletHub rankings not mentioned by Trump’s campaign rank Florida highly: the site says Florida is the second best state in which to retire, second best for starting a business, second best for for fewest Wuhan virus restrictions, the second “most fun” state, fourth best for teachers, sixth for low taxes, and the seventh best state to live in. This is the epitome of cherry-picking, a dishonest and unethical advocacy trick.

4. WSJ also points out that hundreds of thousands of Americans are moving to Florida, which strongly suggests that the public doesn’t agree that the state teems with “misery and despair.” The Census Bureau says Florida gained a net 318,855 under DiSantis from July 2021 to July 2022, and leads all states, by far, in attracting new residents.

One conservative blogger writes in reaction to the attack,

[W]hat makes Trump any different than Biden, who constantly lies about the GOP with absurd claims such as the ones being made by Trump? What makes Trump any different than those Democrats and media outfits who smeared him for years during his presidency? What makes him any different than those trying to smear him now?

Are there really still people who expect consistency, integrity, fairness or The Golden Rule from Donald Trump? He believes that the ends justify the means. He fights to win. Collateral damage doesn’t trouble him one bit, and ethics are for suckers. By attacking DiSantis and in his manner of doing so, he is showing once again that whatever his faults, pretending to be someone he’s not isn’t among them.

Who Do You Trust, CNN Or Don Lemon? (Hint: It’s A Trick Question)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Here is how Don Lemon announced his firing from CNN on Twitter…

Here was CNN’s response:

Lemon is an incorrigibly unprofessional and biased pseudo-journalist who has one of the most damning and extensive Ethics Alarms dossiers extant. he’s thrown tantrums, made up fake history, lied, peddled fake news and appeared drunk on the air. I think my favorite inexcusable babbling self-indulgence by Don was this, but I easily could have missed one, or dozens. Anyone that believes anything Don Lemon says, writes, publishes or tweets is dangerously gullible.

CNN, meanwhile, kept Lemon on the air in a high-profile, prime-time slot despite his lack of integrity and journalism competence, because it viewed him as an attractive messenger for its steady diet of biased, slanted and occasionally fabricated news stories serving its management’s partisan objectives. CNN is a little less trustworthy than Fox News, and a little more trustworthy than MSNBC, or, to be brief, completely untrustworthy.

The answer to the question posed in the headline is “Neither.”

Easiest Ethics Verdict Of The Month: Using A Car To Win A Marathon Is Cheating

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Joasia Zakrzewski finished third in the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race on April 7. It was subsequently discovered that she traveled by automobile for about two-and-a half miles of the course, since she was tracked on GPX mapping data as bridging one mile of the race in a minute and 40 seconds. That’s fast, man!

The 47-year-old Scottish runner, who has won several championships and set records, surrendered her medal and fully cooperated with officials. She would have looked better in the ethics files, however, if she had just confessed to cheating and left it at that.

She can explain, you see. Zakrzewski had arrived the night before the race after flying for 48 hours from Australia, where she now lives. She said she became lost on the course near the half-way mark and one of her legs began hurting. She saw a friend on the side of the course and accepted a ride in his car to the next checkpoint where she planned to tell officials she was quitting the race. But when Zakrzewski arrived, the officials told her that she would “hate herself if she stopped.”

Oh! Then I guess its OK for me to continue, she apparently thought, even though I’ve been riding in a car.

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On Waco, “Waco,” And Cults

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Another horrible occurrence that I did not mention yesterday while review the ethics-related events of April 19 through the centuries was the tragic conclusion of the FBI’s seige against Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, in 1993. After a 51-day stand-off between the federal government and an armed religious cult, the compound burned to the ground, with about 80 members of Branch Davidians, including 22 children, dying in the blaze.

This was an ethics train wreck to be sure, and an unusually deadly one. There are so many documentaries and online accounts of the incident (of various quality and accuracy) that I’m not going to add to them here. I do recommend the 2018 Showtime docudrama series “Waco,” which is now streaming with a fascinating new sequel, “Waco: Aftermath,” currently being presented on Showtime.

There is a natural bias in “Waco”: its main sources were a book by one of the survivors and cult members whose wife perished in the fire, and another by an FBI negotiator who was extremely critical of how the agency handled the situation. Both authors come off as heroes of the disaster to the extent that such a botch can have heroes. When the docudrama premiered in 2018, many reviewers complained that the writers treated the FBI as the villains of the story, with cult leader David Koresh portrayed too sympathetically.

My impression, seeing “Waco” now, is that the series’ creators were on to something that has come into sharper focus in recent years. The FBI abuses its power, is badly managed, has too much autonomy, and can’t be trusted. That should have sunk in in 1993, but the news media was determined to let the hallowed law enforcement agency, Attorney General Janet Reno, and especially President Bill Clinton off the hook. I remember the coverage well: Koresh’s cult was lumped into the paramilitary and survivalist anti-government movement of the period. The Waco siege followed on the heels of the Ruby Ridge fiasco the year before, involving the same federal agencies, the FBI and the ATF. Even though that fatal showdown was ultimately shown to be exacerbated by the Feds (and a lawsuit found the agencies liable for damages), the public and media still were conditioned to regard the FBI as the “good guys.” Sure, it was tragic that people died, but the consensus was that they brought it on themselves, sad as the outcome was. At the time, I found it astounding that Reno wasn’t forced to resign, and that President Clinton escaped any accountability at all.

Much of that result was because of the subsequent Oklahoma City Bombing by Timothy McVeigh in 1995. Public opinion was turning against the trend of over-aggressive government following Waco: Rush Limbaugh in particular was leading a daily attack on what he saw as as Big Government restrictions on personal liberties (like the right to live out in the desert with fellow followers of a deranged but charismatic religious fanatic who claimed to be chosen by God). Once McVeigh’s truck brought down the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, killed 168 people and injured 680, however, public opinion turned decisively the government’s way. McVeigh cited Waco as a major reason for his terrorism, and the Cognitive Dissonance Scale worked its predictable magic: now the Branch Davidians were linked to pure evil. The FBI, and thus the U.S. government, propelled to the other side of the scale, the “good guys” at Waco, at Ruby Ridge, and always.

They aren’t, and weren’t. “Waco,” for all its flaws, makes that contrary conclusion unavoidable.

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Dear Proudly Obese Lady: It Is Not Everyone’s Obligation To Solve Your Problems

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I hate to be unkind, but this is a Popeye if I ever there was one.

Jaelynn Chaney (above) is a fat positivity activist, which is jake with me, sort of, if I apply the “its not the worst thing” rationalization. (Maybe Bud Light will put her on a beer can, if possible.) However, she is now demanding, via a Change.Org petition, that the rest of us pay to make it easier for her (and her not quite as obese love-bunny to fly on commercial airlines.

Poor Jaelynn! As she writes in her repetitious and ungrammatical introduction to her demands,

Air travel should be comfortable and accessible for everyone, regardless of size. As plus-size travelers, my partner and I have unfortunately experienced discrimination and discomfort while flying. During a flight from Pasco to Denver, my fiancé was subjected to hateful comments, disapproving looks, and even refusal to sit next to them, amounting to discrimination. Similarly, on another flight, I was forced to occupy only one seat with immovable armrests that caused me pain and bruises. Being forced to occupy only one seat can result in pain and vulnerability to poor treatment from fellow passengers, including hateful comments, disapproving looks, and even refusal to sit next to them. This mistreatment of plus-size passengers is unacceptable, and it highlights the urgent need for better policies that protect the dignity and rights of all passengers, regardless of size. Unfortunately, plus-size passengers often experience discomfort and discrimination when flying. The lack of a uniform customer-of-size airline policy is unacceptable and must be addressed.

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