Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Once Again, “The View” Raises the Issue of Whether There Needs to Be a “Stupidity Rule” For Professions

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Back in 2024, I posited, only half in jest, that “The View’s” resident lawyer on the all-female idiot panel, Sunny Hostin, had made such a stupid assertion on the program that it should trigger legal ethics Rule 8.3, which mandates that a lawyer who has knowledge of another lawyer’s conduct that substantially calls into question that individual’s fitness to practice law must—must—report that unfit lawyer to bar authorities for professional discipline. Hostin had surmised that “climate change” causes earthquakes and eclipses, and stated this cretinous conclusion on national television, on an ABC News program, which is what “The View” purports to be.

I wrote in part (and in disgust):

“[S]ome people with law licenses are demonstrably too stupid to be trusted by clients. Hostin is screaming proof of the validity of this conclusion, yet there is nothing in the disciplinary rules governing the minimal ethics requirements of lawyers that mentions basic, personal intellectual competence as a mandatory component of professional, legal competence.

There should be. One would think that the challenge of graduating from law school and passing the bar exam would be sufficient to ensure that a lawyer is at least smart enough to come in out of the rain, but in extreme cases like Sunny, one would be wrong….believing that climate change causes solar eclipses is signature significance. You can’t come to such an idiotic conclusion and not be an idiot. This delusion [shows] a crippling deficit in critical thinking skills. One cannot be a trustworthy lawyer without minimal critical thinking skills. When a lawyer demonstrates such a deficit beyond a shadow of a doubt, that ought to be considered a legitimate reason for disbarment.”

Remember, professionals are special members of society whose important roles require that they be trustworthy. True professionals include the clergy, doctors, lawyers, judges, law enforcement officials, military leaders, public servants, accountants, psychiatrists, and teachers, and though it sounds absurd today, journalists. Really, really stupid people are not trustworthy, in fact it is dangerous to trust them. If they are sufficiently stupid, they should not hold any of those societal roles and positions.

Ethics Alarms, as those of you who have read the commenting rules here know, has among its provisions that the moderator, that’s me, may at his discretion ban a commenter who has demonstrated to my dissatisfaction that said commenter is too intellectually deficient to contribute substantively to the discussions. I believe that I have only had to invoke it twice.

Which brings me back to “The View”…

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Ethics Pro Tip: If You’re a Realtor Using AI To Scam Potential Customers, You’re Not Only Unethical, You’re an Idiot

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Since AI bots are gradually corrupting everything from funny dog videos to legal briefs, it should not surprise anyone to learn that the little buggers are making real estate ads unreliable too. “Realtors Are Using AI Images of Homes They’re Selling. Comparing Them to the Real Thing Will Make You Mad as Hell” lays out this revolting development. “Future” writes,

“Realtors have made extensive use of the tech, manipulating photos of properties beyond recognition by giving facades and interiors a heavy coat of AI-generated paint. Text descriptions of properties have turned into a heap of ChatGPT-generated buzzwords, devolving an already frustrating house hunt into a genuinely exasperating experience. Making sense of what a rental apartment actually looks like in the real world has regressed into a guessing game. We’ve already come across bizarre listings of inexplicably classified houses with smoothed-over architectural features, misplaced trees, nonsensically rearranged furniture, and mangled props.”

Fortunately, the people most likely to cheat using AI are also the ones who have exceeded their Peter Principle ceilings and are incompetent at their chosen fields, hence the felt need to used bots to try to fool others who probably are smarter than they are. The ethics values are incompetence and dishonesty.

And thus we have the risible tale of the listing for a property in Fort Totten, a suburb in northern Washington, D.C., that has been taken down from Apartments.com. While the ad was up, it seemingly promised that for just $1,800 a month, a lucky renter could have her own bathroom Hell-spawn. See it in the photo above, crawling onto the bathroom sink?

Giraffe360, an AI image editing tool for real estate photos, points out on its website that real estate organizations “consistently prohibit” edits that remove or alter structural elements, erase or modify views, or digitally renovate or upgrade interiors or exteriors. “Here’s a simple test: if an edit would require physical renovation to achieve in real life, it shouldn’t be in an MLS listing photo,” it advises. But there is a loophole: edits that create H.P. Lovecraft creature features on the property probably should also be taboo.

“How do you not notice the melted demon crawling out of the wall before you hit publish?” one user wrote, attempting to rebut the presumption that AI image editing tools were involved. That’s an easy question that regular Ethics Alarms readers can answer by quoting The Waco Kid: “You know. Morons!”

Addendum: In Addition To Being An “Incompetent Elected Official,” Rep. Boebert Is Also a Fick

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

“Fick” is the Ethics Alarms term for a particularly repugnant variety of Ethics Villain, the kind that is not only unethical but who openly admits it and is proud of it as well.

Two days ago, I wrote about Boebert’s stunning violation of House rules by taking a snapshot during Hillary Clinton’s closed door testimony and sending it to a slimy social media “influencer” in “Incompetent, Unethical Elected Official of the Month Who Wasn’t Behaving Like An Ass At The SOTU: Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Co)” As of now, the post hasn’t topped 50 views, which may be an Ethics Alarms record for disinterest. I don’t get it. Maybe this is an “echo chamber.”

On an ethics blog, the fact that any House member, regardless of party affiliation, is so unethical and unprofessional should not only incur interest but horror. An esteemed commenter explained on that post’s thread that the lack of interest was because stating that Boebert is disgrace is a “water is wet” analysis, in other words, a Julie Principle situation. Then why so much interest in members of the “Squad” acting like assholes during Trump’s SOTU address? Both displays were official misconduct that did harm to our institutions and the public trust. I’ll submit to the Julie Principle when, for example, Kamala Harris sounds like she’s speaking Erdu, because “fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly” and Kamala is an idiot. But Boebert drags all of us down with her antics. Attention should be paid. Americans should register their objections.

Well, let’s see if anyone cares about Boebert’s fick-y response to the criticism of her photo stunt. When asked by reporters as she left Hillary’s deposition in Chappaqua, New York about her leaking the photo, Boebert responded, “Why not?”

Oh, only because it’s against House rules, you scum.

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Ethics Quiz: Ethics Zugzwang From “The Ethicist”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

This time, not only does “The Ethicist,” aka. Kwame Anthony Appiah, give a bad answer to a reader’s ethics advice request, but I agree with it. [Gift link here.]

That’s because I don’t have a better answer, and that’s because there is no good answer. They are all bad; terrible in fact. The reader is in ethics zugzwang, from the term common in chess commentary, a situation where a player has no good moves available, only disastrous ones.

But I’m making this an ethics quiz on the chance that one of you out there in Ethics Land may have better answer than either of us.

As usual, it’s the pesky “Name Withheld” writing (What messes that poor boob gets into, with new ones every week!),

“My wife and I recently became the legal guardians of a teenager, and we are struggling with how to ethically navigate the emotional complexities of this arrangement.

“We met this person through our children’s athletic community. They come from an extremely difficult situation involving neglect and emotional abuse. A year ago, we offered them our home temporarily. As we learned more about their circumstances, we decided to pursue legal guardianship until they turn 18. We have no familial ties — we simply wanted to offer stability, safety and a chance at a better future.

“From the beginning, we agreed with our ward that we would treat them as we treat our own children — same expectations, same privileges and full support. For a few months, this arrangement seemed to be working: Our ward’s grades improved, they joined family activities and outings and appeared to settle into the rhythm of our family life. Then, little by little, they withdrew from us, no longer spending time with the family, and started getting worse grades again.

“Our ward has indicated that we intervene too much in their life and has complained to others that we’re “suffocating.” We’ve made adjustments — offering alternative meal arrangements, allowing them to stay with trusted friends on occasion and making space for their independence. Still, the distance has widened.

“My wife and I are about to engage in therapy with our ward. I am not looking forward to it; I worry that even in that safe space, I will not take well the possible complaints and criticisms we may hear from them.

“What obligations do we have — beyond the legal ones that we’ll meet — to our ward, and to ourselves, as we navigate a painful emotional landscape? And what moral, economic and emotional obligations should we anticipate when they turn 18 and become independent with no real support network?”

Yikes.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

What is the most ethical course for the couple to take now?

All I can offer, at least this early in the morning before a shot of coffee into my jugular, is “No good deed goes unpunished!” Somehow I don’t think this desperate couple will appreciate Oscar’s wit in their current dilemma.

Meanwhile, A Major Ethics Disgrace From The Other Side of the Aisle…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, though he has managed not humiliate himself and his party on the House floor like so many Democrats last night, is a revolting representative of Congress for other reasons.

Gonzales apparently had an affair in 2025 with his former district staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles. She committed suicide by setting herself later that same year, on fire last September. The San Antonio Express-News obtained alleged text messages between Gonzales and Santos-Aviles in which he requested a “sexy pic” and asked about her “favorite” sexual position. “This is going too far boss,” Santos-Aviles replied.

Ya think? How hard is it for high elected officials, charged with being role models sufficiently convincingly to allow the public to trust that the republic isn’t in the hands of scoundrels, to avoid workplace misconduct for the length of a term in office? Apparently too hard, for creeps like Gonzales, and, of course, Bill Clinton. I hate to sound like a broken record, but there is no excuse for this.

The texts were revealed by Adrian Aviles, her widower. It seems that he was the likely cause of his wife’s self-inflicted death, for the police report report states that before she died of her burns, Santos-Aviles told an officer that she learned that her husband had been having an affair with her best friend, and because of that she poured gasoline on herself and set herself ablaze According to the report, a video shows Santos-Aviles walking into the backyard, pouring liquid from a gas canister on herself and lighting herself on fire. (Tangential question: who took the video?)

In torts there is a maxim that one takes his victim as he finds her. Perhaps the object of his forbidden affections was emotionally unstable and Gonzales complicating her already complicated life was the final metaphorical straw pushing her over the edge. In that case, he is still responsible, because there was no reason for him to harass her. Even if the Congressman’s affair was not a proximate cause of her death, and even if there was no affair but just the text messages, Gonzales is still a blight on Congress.

A growing number of Republican have called for Gonzales’ resignation, including South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and Texas Rep. Brandon Gill. That’s nice, but nicer still would be if both parties could manage to find fewer creeps. lowlifes, morons and villains to present to voters, who obviously have the civic literacy of bread mold based on their choices.

Recent surveys show that Americans’ trust in their government institutions has never been lower. I guess the good news is that at least the public is paying some attention to the swill around them.

Imagine: You and I Have Friends Who Think This Bernie Sanders Quote Is Profound…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

…rather than unethical and idiotic. Some of these people even supported the old fool for President.

If fact, democracy dies in fatuous logic like that quote. Jeff Bezos has no more obligation to keep the Washington Post operating than I do. It’s a money losing operation that has squandered its reputation and good will by ceasing to trading objective journalism for leftist propaganda. At least Jeff’s $500 mil. yacht and his wife’s $5 million ring were worth what he paid for them. Bernie’s statement is like saying “If Bezos can afford expensive yachts and rings, then he should build bonfires with $100 bills.” Or “If Y spends money on A because he wants A, then he should waste money on X because I like X.” Brilliant, Bernie. But typical.

Without Bezos or some other billionaire with discretionary funds, there would be no Washington Post at all. Economics, however, has never been Bernie’s long suit, being the fan of Karl Marx that he is. There are few cognitive voids in Woke World more annoying that the “It’s wrong for people to spend money on what they want and care about because they should spend their money on what I want and care about.” The corollary to that is “Therefore, I should have control of those people’s money.”

In related news, climatologist Bjorn Lomborg has calculated that worldwide, governments have spent a staggering $16 trillion at least on climate change policies that have not succeeded in lowering the world’s temperature one bit. Meanwhile, not a single life has been saved. Limiting access to fossil fuels has made poor countries poorer by blocking their access to affordable energy. To be fair, many hustlers and companies have profited from this extravagant exercise in virtue-signalling. Why doesn’t Bernie focus on all those wasted taxpayer dollars? As Stephen Moore writes,

What could we have done with $16 trillion to make the world better off? What if the $16 trillion had been spent on clean water for poor countries? Preventing avoidable deaths from diseases like malaria? Building schools in African villages to end illiteracy? Bringing reliable and affordable electric power to the more than 1 billion people who still lack access? Curing cancer?Many millions of lives could have been saved. We could have lifted millions more out of poverty. The benefits of speeding up the race for the cure for cancer could have added tens of millions of additional years of life at an economic value in the tens of trillions of dollars. Instead, we effectively poured $16 trillion down the drain.

And…and…we could have saved democracy by keeping the Washington Post staff at full strength!

Verdict: Moore is correct. Well except that instead of “we effectively poured $16 trillion down the drain, he should have written we ineffectively poured $16 trillion down the drain.

Obesrvations on Gavin Newsom’s Unethical Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Listen above to Newsom, the incompetent governor of California, as he engagingly insults a roomful of African Americans. Promoting his Presidential campaign-launching memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” Newsom was asked about his dyslexia and his personal experiences that voters could relate to (the old “he understands people like me” trope that Bill Clinton exploited so well). He responded by describing his struggles with dyslexia and somehow managed to sound like he regarded his low SAT scores as a badge of honor, telling the almost all black audience: “I’m like you. I’m no better than you.”

Already there are many discussions of this—what was it? A gaffe? A canny bit of self-deprecation? Smoking gun patronizing?—on the web and social media. To me, and I admit I’m mired in confirmation bias when I look at anything Newsom does through the lens of his frightening EA dossier—I mean, just look at that mess!— I classify the remark as pure res ipsa loquitur: the thing speaks for itself. Newsom blundered into expressing the attitude progressives and Democrats have had toward American blacks for decades. They believe that it is a voting bloc that is easily fooled and exploited, and, as a group, gullible and not too swift on the uptake. That’s Newsom, and that’s the Democratic Party that he wants to lead.

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Will the Supreme Court Get An Apology From The Axis And The Trump Deranged? Nah. Of Course Not.

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Remember former Perkins Coie lawyer Bradley Datt, the ex-Perkins Coie litigator whose post-Charlie Kirk assassination Facebook Facebook entry began, “Charlie Kirk got famous as one of America’s leading spreaders of hatred, misinformation and intolerance.The current political moment—where an extremist Supreme Court and feckless Republican Congress are enabling a Republican president to become a tyrant…”? The firm correctly fired the jerk, but such worthies as Unethical Website “Above the Law” and a lot of my Trump Deranged Facebook friends endorsed his “extremist Supreme Court” and “tyrant” analysis.

The U.S. Supreme Court just confirmed a major constitutional limitation on presidential power by striking down the sweeping tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed in a series of executive orders. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the tariffs exceed the powers given to the President by Congress under a 1977 law providing him the authority to regulate commerce during national emergencies created by foreign threats.

The opinion is here; analysis is everywhere, but what I care about right now is that when the centerpiece of the President’s economic program and foreign trade policy was before the Supreme Court, the alleged “radical” Justices did not rubber stamp it and did not “bend a knee,” but rather, as they are sworn to do, followed the law and the Constitution and ruled that President Trump had exceeded his powers. Three of the supposedly “radical” justices (if you’re not willing to distort the law in the direction the Axis favors, you’re radical), Roberts, Gorsuch and Barrett, joined with the three lock-step progressive DEI Justices (a black woman, a lesbian, and the “Wise Latina”). They are the ones who apparently make up their hive mind on cases before they even read the briefs based on what Democrats want, to foil the Republican POTUS. Fortunately, the other six Justices have some integrity

Because, you see, Trump isn’t a “king,” and the system works, just as the balance of power among the branches of government is supposed to.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Cal.) Locks Up “Incompetent Elected Official of the Month” AND Chases the Leaders in the Super-Competitive 2026 “Unethical Asshole of the Year” Race!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This is so exciting!

Also depressing, of course. I believe it is fair to conclude that the U.S. Congress has never had so many unqualified, intellectually inferior, obnoxious, ethics-free jackasses staining its halls and reputation at the same time. True, it is difficult to assess the quality of our elected officials prior to, say, World War II, but my conclusion is based on the belief that if the U.S. ever had a government more dominated by knaves, villains and fools, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Even with such daunting competition (Marjory Taylor Green, “The Squad,” Rep. Raskin, Rep. Boebert, Senator Senator Hirono, et al.) Khanna managed to stand out yesterday. No only did he state on the floor of the House and on public media that four men were sex criminals when they were not, he followed up his indefensible gaffe by refusing to apologize and instead stooping to “Whataboutism,” Rationalization #2, the Democratic Party’s favorite after #22, “It’s not the worst thing.” Here is #2, if you haven’t reviewed the Rationalization List lately:

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Ethics Dunce (Again): Georgetown University Law Center…and May I Add: KABOOM!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

From Ethics Alarms, December 10, 2023…

Late yesterday,the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Magill, resigned, and the school’s chairman of the board followed with his own resignation a couple of hours later. Magill was one of three elite college presidents who embarrassed themselves and their employers with offensive, legalistic answers to pointed questions from Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) regarding their school’s tolerance of anti-Semitism on their campus in the wake of the October Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and their weak responses to demonstrations on their campuses that could fairly be called threatening to Jewish students.

UPenn’s situation became critical when alumnus Ross Stevens announced that he was withdrawing a gift worth around $100 million. That would be a significant loss even for Harvard, whose endowment exceeds the treasuries of many nations. The resignation immediately focused attention on Claudine Gay, Harvard’s president of just a couple of months, whose responses to Stefanik’s withering cross-examination in the Congressional hearing were extremely similar to Magill’s. The resignation of all three women was called for in an unusual letter signed by 72 members of Congress, many of them Democrats.

I just received this message as a Georgetown University Law Center alumnus:

Dear Georgetown Law Alumni,

It gives me great pleasure to share with you that M. Elizabeth (Liz) Magill has been appointed as the next Executive Vice President and Dean of Georgetown University Law Center, beginning August 1, 2026. President Robert M. Groves’ announcement is linked here.

Professor Magill brings to Georgetown Law a wealth of experience leading some of our nation’s most prestigious universities and law schools, including serving as President of the University of Pennsylvania, Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Virginia, and Dean of Stanford Law School. I am pleased to share that, in addition to her role as Executive Vice President and Dean, Professor Magill will join the Law Center as a tenured member of the faculty. And her Georgetown roots run deep—her father and three of her siblings are Georgetown graduates.

Professor Magill is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review. Following law school, she clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and then for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She is an award-winning scholar of administrative and constitutional law whose research focuses on topics such as the separation of powers, standing, regulation, and judicial review. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the American Law Institute.

This is a critical time for the Law Center and the University. I am confident that Professor Magill is the right person to lead the Law Center into a new era marked by academic excellence, financial resilience, and national prominence. There will be many opportunities over the next several months for you to meet Professor Magill. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming her to Georgetown University and to the Law Center. 

Sincerely,

Joshua C. Teitelbaum
Interim Dean & Executive Vice President
David Belding Professor of Law

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