Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Ethics Villain and Unethical Quote of the Month: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (Guess What Party…)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yet more smoking gun evidence that the Democratic Party of the 21st Century does not want or support democracy. We shouldn’t need any more proof after the horrors of 2024, but an amazing number of Americans with misty-eyed memories of JFK, “The Great Society,” and even Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (the fools!) refuse to accept what the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Truman and FDR has metastasized into.

Pritzker was one of the primary state dictators during the stupid pandemic response, signing 41 consecutive emergency orders during the Wuhan virus freakout to give himself unlimited powers so he could keep businesses and schools closed. His whole family is a menace: his sister is the woke empress that had Harvard select the DEI plagiarist Claudine Gay to lead Harvard further down the path to intellectual corruption.

President Trump is doing no more (and amazingly, not much less) than what he promised Americans when he was the only choice voter were given to avoid a DEI fraud claiming perfection for the most incompetent President in U.S. history. The hysterical and hypocritical Left is screaming “Dictatorship!” when the elected President is using his powers appropriately and necessarily to address the looming debt crisis, enforce the law, protect commerce, and remove the metaphorical termites from the foundations of democracy and its institutions like universities, law firms, and journalism.

And just listen to those morons cheering for this jerk! It has been speculated that Pritzker’s insurrection act (his party’s prosecutors and pundits have taken the position that telling a crown to “fight” is a call for violence, remember) is a prelude to his entering the 2028 wide-open race for President among his party’s current group of boobs, totalitarians and losers. Yeah, good luck with that, J.B…

And no, I’m not making fun of the Guv’s weight, I’m making fun of the fact that he’s deluded. In fact, conservative writers and pundits are behaving unethically by taking the low road and issuing cheap shots based on Pritzker’s girth. Here’s Powerline, for example: “The underlying message of Pritzker’s call for ‘disruption’ is that he is running for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Heavy!”

It’s this man’s brain, not his belly, that’s the problem. Try to stay focused.

Comment of the Day: “Oh-Oh! President Trump Violated Another Norm!”

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

I confess (and it has been many months since my last confession): I was hoping to trigger this Comment of the Day or its equivalent with my criticism of the late Pope and the degree of influence and respect the position is still accorded by the news media and world leaders. Had I thought about it, esteemed commenter proe32754 would have probably been my top candidate for providing it too.

I will only point out by way of rebuttal is that Pope Francis’s Ethics Alarms dossier is a long as other prominent individuals who I have, fairly and correctly, designated Ethics Villains. Let’s see: he had four official Ethics Dunce awards and a couple more that I chose to frame differently. He has many Unethical Quotes on his record. He repeatedly presumed to meddle in the policies and politics of the United States (but his Holy predecessor during World War II refused to ever condemn Hitler’s Third Reich by name.) I have so many favorite outrages to choose from, but I think my favorite was when he dared to address Congress to pimp for the Democrats’ dream of open borders, despite severely limiting who is allowed to live in his own domain, The Vatican. Normally, anyone with a record like Pope Francis would be the star of a funeral no world leaders would dare to attend, lest they enter Cognitive Dissonance Hell with public opinion.

Yes, I suppose my remarks about the late Pope were “snide,” but I stand by them (and I do believe they were “called for.”) They were even mild compared to what I have written before; for example, here was my introduction to a post after the Pope’s visit in 2015:

I have been touched by the passionate defenses of the Pope during his visit here, by sincere believers who desperately wanted not to see what was going on. If only Pope Francis respected his supporters enough to live up to the ideals they projected on him, which included insisting, against all evidence, that he was merely talking in broad, moral generalities to Congress rather than lobbying for progressive policies, like making illegal immigration legal.

He was, we were told, only showing us where “true North” was according to the Church. I guess he just forgot to bring up abortion, which the Church regards as murder (and Joe Biden too, when he’s not playing politics) as he was lecturing our legislators about “human rights.”

The second he returned home, the Pope threw gay couples under the Popemobile, stating that Kim Davis’s position as a government official refusing to obey the law was a “right.” Again, his defenders insisted that this was just an abstraction. Now we hear from Davis’s lawyers that she had a secret meeting with Pope Francis. Davis says that he hugged her, gave her a rosary, and told her to “stay strong.”

“That was a great encouragement. Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we’re doing, it kind of validates everything to have someone of that stature,” Davis said.

Naturally, those who can’t handle the truth will say she is lying. There is no evidence that Kim Davis is untruthful, and her lawyer would be facing discipline if they falsely reported what did not occur. This really happened.

Got that, Popophiles? While a guest in this country, while progressives were tripping all over their usually Christian-mocking selves to proclaim him as a moral exemplar for setting U.S. policy, while he was being honored by the President and treated with more deference by the news media than any foreign leader, Pope Francis was surreptitiously encouraging an anti-gay zealot to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and the rule of law, while withholding the human right to be married from gay Americans.

I have already pointed out that the Pope is a hypocrite and a coward. With this conduct, he showed that he is a sneak as well, and blatantly disrespectful of the laws of the nation in which he was an honored guest. This was a breach of manners, protocol and a betrayal of trust on a massive scale.

I understand that religious faith by its very nature is an exercise in “My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts,” and also that organized religion has a traditional and important role to play in maintaining civilization in a world where the vast majority of human beings won’t be civilized on their own. Thus I am not only sympathetic but in some respects encouraged by the passion and the passion and the loyalty of Catholic Church defenders like proe32754, who is obviously more articulate and capable than most.

Here is the Comment of the Day on: “Oh-Oh! President Trump Violated Another Norm!”…

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“Cornell Just Doesn’t Get That Freedom of Speech Thingy” and Other Observations On a Campus Fiasco

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Read this whole jaw-dropping NYT article (Gift link!) and see if you can find evidence of anyone ethical in the entire story. It’s kind of like “Where’s Waldo?”

1.The headline is “Cornell Cancels Kehlani Performance Over Alleged Antisemitic Statements.” The caption under the photo (above) adds, “Kehlani, a popular R&B singer, is being replaced as the headline act at Cornell University’s annual concert.”

Observation: If she’s a popular performer for her singing ability and presentation, her “alleged Anti-Semitic statements should be irrelevant. This pure cancel culture stuff. Still. How can Cornell teach anybody if its administrators learn nothing?

2. “In a 2024 music video for the song “Next 2 U,” Kehlani danced in a jacket adorned with kaffiyehs as dancers waved Palestinian flags in the background. During the video’s introduction, the phrase “Long Live the Intifada” appeared against a dark background.”

Observation: So what? The event organizers can tell her not to perform that number.

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Unethical Quote of the Month in the Unethical Speech of the Year So Far: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“Now, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have university students being swept up and shoved into unmarked vans, and fathers being tossed into Salvadorean gulags without a hint of due process.”

—-Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D, as you know) repeatedly lying his fool head off, fearmongering and generally appealing to the ignorance of uninformed citizens in his disgraceful and shameless “State of the State” speech this week.

So much about that quote makes me angry, and I usually don’t get angry at unethical quotes and don’t want to, because emotion interferes with rational analysis and critical thought. Corrupt and unscrupulous politicians, demagogues and Axis agents depend on that principle, which is why, in the absence of facts, common sense, law, principles and ethics, they are all relying on seeding fear and hate, just as Walz’s party did as it tried to inflict another four years of ruinous progressive rule on the nation last year.

That quote above is pure deceit, which makes it a lie start to finish. Saying “university students” are being “swept up” is a deliberate effort to confuse and misinform with technically accurate facts; it is like saying that “young people with ten toes are being swept up.” The students in question are not citizens, which is the critical fact underlying their removal, that and the fact that they have violated the conditions under which they are allowed to be here. Describing the Maryland illegal alien and alleged gang member and human trafficker as a”father” is almost a parody of deceit: Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s parental and marital status has absolutely nothing, zilch, nada to do with his deportation, and Walz, the asshole, knows it. No father in this country has any reason to fear that their being a father will lead to their deportation; Walz’s dishonest rhetoric is like a capital punishment foe describing the execution of serial killer Ted Bundy as the state “choosing to execute husbands.” I also must note that Garcia the father is a single individual, not a plural, unless his pronouns include “they.”

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Trump-Derangement Rant of the Month: WaPo Propagandist Dana Milbank

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

[Note: this post was supposed to go up yesterday. I aim at at least three and usually four substantial posts a day, but this week I have lost control of my schedule, my routines are shot, and I have been squeezed regarding my time, research and energy. A lot of what’s going on is important, some of it is lucrative, and all of it is exhausting, but that’s my problem, not yours. I am trying to get back on track.]

Dana Milbank is in a perpetual dead heat with Phillip Bump for the title of most unethical, dishonest and biased Washington Post columnist. He’s an embarrassment, frankly; the fact that Jeff Bezos allows him to continue to have a platform for his partisan attacks should be sufficient to assuage the anger of the Post’s almost entirely biased staff and readership. I decided to ignore Milbank years ago, because in addition to being intellectually dishonest, biased and none-too-bright, he’s a flaming asshole, as his most recent diatribe demonstrates.

Its title is “Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure: America has seen ruinous periods, but never when the president was the one knowingly causing the ruin.” Punditry like this isn’t worthy of publication, and responsible journalistic publications, if there were such things anymore, would never permit such garbage to see the light of day except on an obscure blog—you know, like mine. If someone has made up his mind that everything a President says or does is wrong no matter what it is, that individual obviously is incapable of fair analysis: this essay might as well consist of 750 words-worth of “I hate him I hate him I hate him” repeated over and over.

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Ethics Dunce: Elon Musk [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Oh fine. Now Elon Musk is proving that domestic terrorism works.

Elon Musk said yesterday that he will significantly cut back his commitment to DOGE beginning in May to focus more time and energy on Tesla, which this week reported a 71% drop in profits compared with the first quarter of 2024. In so doing, he immediately validated the illegal and unethical domestic terrorism campaign against him that has been wink-winked as valid by leading Democrats and Trump-haters.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Gee, What a Christian, Presidential, Sincere and Uniting Easter Message!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I know, I know…The Julie Principle.

Even so, as I said in brief summary of Rep. Mace’s uncivil and disrespecful treatment of a constituent who dared to imply criticism of her representational, “This doesn’t help.”

Once upon a time, Presidents chose their words carefully for their public pronouncements. I defy anyone to explain how the Truth Social rant above can accomplish anything positive. I place it in the same category as the Trump Hate outbursts by the likes of Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff or Jasmine Crockett, all of which are designed to inflame rather than to unite, except that a President should be held to higher standards than members of Congress.

The only question in my mind is whether exploiting the holiest of Christian holidays to barf out insults and declarations of personal pique is less revolting, more revolting, or about as revolting than President Biden’s use of the day last year to issue a pandering, celebratory proclamation about “Transgender Day of Visibility.” I score Trump’s message as worse, as in “more unethical,” because its language is, though typical of this President, still inappropriate for any resident of the White House. (Trump issued a similar message last Easter, but he wasn’t President them. That’s a material distinction, or should be.)

It is also, like Biden’s message, stupid and incompetent. Trump has a challenging agenda and a tough road ahead; his personal popularity is crucial to achieving that agenda, and there is no way these kinds of self-indulgent outbursts can do anything but alienate potential supporters.

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Nancy Mace (Res Ipsa Loquitur Division)

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This doesn’t help. The Speaker of the House needs to insist that his party members adhere to basic standards of dignity, civility and decorum both in the House and in public. Mace is a repeat offender. She’s an embarrassment to her party, her district, Congress and the nation. Behold….

Ethics verdict: the Representative is 100% in the wrong in this confrontation. To say Mace was looking for a fight is an understatement. There was nothing inappropriate or uncivil in this constituent’s demeanor or rhetoric. For Mace to immediately stereotype him because he appeared to be gay was obnoxious; for her to resort to crude language, especially in a public setting, is indefensible.

Finally, for Mace to post this incident as if it is something to be proud of is profoundly disturbing. She appears to be seeking cognitive dissonance points with homophobics.

What did this Democrat (if he indeed is a Democrat) say that marked him as “nuts”? He was being civil, and it was Mace who acted like she was angry at the man’s very existence.

I challenge anyone to offer a justification or excuse for her conduct. (Hint: There isn’t any.)

CNN Issues Perhaps the Dumbest Factcheck Ever!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Wow. CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez appeared on last night’s episode of Wolf Blitzer’s “The Situation Room” and attempted to refute President Trump’s assessment of Harvard as a “cesspool of leftist thinking.” (Harvard is, in fact, a cesspool of leftist thinking.) Perez thought he had definitive proof that the representation was false.

“Now, what [the Trump administration] is asking for, Wolf, is for Harvard not only to comply with what they say are anti-Semitic, control of anti-Semitic issues on campus, but they want bigger changes. They want to oversee hiring and admissions standards. They want to make sure that conservative views are being represented on campus.”

Here comes Perez’s brilliant argument: wait for it….

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The Guardian’s Blue Origin Flight Critique: Into The Mind of America Haters, Where No One Rational Has Gone Before!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

What a fascinating article from the British hard left tabloid “The Guardian!” Simultaneously taking aim at a legitimate target and exploding into a furious attack on the United States and Donald Trump, it is invaluable for plumbing the depths of how the extreme progressive Left takes in information, filtering it through a confirmation bias to reach false but—for them—comforting conclusions. Stephen Green nailed some of what’s wrong here, “writer Moira Donegan’s utter lack of self-awareness while decrying our lack of self-awareness.” She uses Blue Origin’s all-female passenger flight to as evidence of U.S. decline, but the too-obvious-to-mention reality is that the U.S. has more than one private company capable of putting humans into space, and the crumbling U.K. can’t come close to producing the same.

How can an essay be simultaneously astute and idiotic at the same time? Easy. Donegan accurately writes that for the most part, the high visibility female celebrities taking this expensive joy ride embarrassed themselves and their sex by acting like sorority girls exclaiming, “Like, omigawd! Stars!” Leaving out the gratuitous political shots, Donegan writes in part,

Space used to be a frontier for human exploration, a fount of innovation, and a symbol of a bright, uncertain and expansive future. Now, it is a backdrop for the Instagram selfies of the rich and narcissistic….the flight, and its grim promotional cycle, might be most depressing for what it reveals about the utter defeat of American feminism. Sánchez, the organizer of the flight, has touted the all-female crew as a win for women. But she herself is a woman in a deeply antifeminist model. It is not her rocket company that took her and her friends to the edge of space; it’s her male fiance’s. And it is no virtue of her character that put her inside the rocket – not her capacity, not her intellect and not her hard work – but merely her relationship with a man….There are at least two women on the mission who can be credited as serious persons: Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer, and Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights entrepreneur…But most of the crew’s self-presentation and promotion of the flight has leaned heavily on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness that insults women by cavalierly linking their gender with superficiality, vanity and unseriousness. In an interview with Elle, the crew members paid lip service to the importance of women…but mostly, they seemed interested in talking about their makeup and hair. “Space is going to finally be glam,” Katy Perry said…“Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.” “Who would not get glam before the flight?!” asked Sánchez, who evidently can’t imagine that women might prioritize anything else. “We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule.” Bowe, too, joined in, saying that she had gone to extreme lengths to make sure that she would be, of all things, well coiffed for the experience. “I skydived in Dubai with similar hair to make sure I would be good,” she said. “I took it for a dry run.”

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