Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Breaking: Trump Has A New Attorney General Nominee, and Arguably, She’s Worse Than Matt Gaetz…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

It’s Pam Bondi.

Ugh.

  • She was the Ethics Alarms Unethical Prosecutor of the Year in 2016.
  • That year I wrote,

    “Florida’s attorney general Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump while she considered joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates, AP reports Trump’s $25,000 donation to Bondi came from a Trump family foundation in a likely violation of rules surrounding legitimate activities by 501 C (3) charities, which are not allowed to engage in political grant-making. And Justice for All, a political group backing Bondi’s re-election,  reported receiving the check on Sept. 17, 2013 — four days after Bondi’s office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University’s activities.”

  • Still later, after the 2016 election, I wrote,

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Weenie of the Week: Disney [Pointer Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Is it too much to ask Disney to at least have the courage of its oppressively woke convictions?

An episode of the new Disney animated show “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” that centered on a transgender character was pulled from the series and there are no plans to broadcast it.

The Disney Channel will not show the episode in 2025 apparently because of its LGBTQ storyline, which involves a transgender character named Brooklyn who is on the girl’s volleyball team and faces discrimination from the opposing team’s coach. The evil coach uses a magic key to lock Brooklyn and her teammates in the girl’s locker room so they can’t play. Brooklyn, who wears pride-themed kneepads and has a “Trans is beautiful” sticker on her water bottle, tells her team mates, “I’m trans, my very existence breaks Greer’s rules.”

Although Disney claims that the timing of the cancellation notice is a coincidence, it seems that all of the artists involved in creating the episode believe that the Presidential election results motivated the decision. Emmy Cicirega, a storyboard artist, wrote on X, “Disney should be ashamed of themselves for canning this episode. You don’t get to approve approve approve something and then destroy it at the last minute, shattering the crew’s hard work and hopes.” Another animator tweeted, “If an episode got this far, it was approved multiple times by multiple divisions, only to suddenly be struck down at the last second? Total breakdown of process and spitting on your team’s careful/thoughtful work…The action being preemptive makes it so much worse to me. The absolute cowardice and second guessing when actually this is when this content is needed most.”

Disney denies it all, but why should anyone trust Disney these days? It does seem spectacularly stupid to self-censor a work of art because of a Presidential election and a close one at that. It seems just as stupid to pull an episode that everyone will think became too controversial because of Trump’s win. If Disney believes as fervently in its all-in support of LGBTQ issues as its much maligned output in recent years suggests, then the company should show some integrity and guts, stick to its metaphorical guns, and tell Brooklyn’s story. One thing you could count on Walt for: if he had a vision, he didn’t care whose ire it aroused. Like all great artists, innovators and creators, if where he was going was into a headwind, he wouldn’t turn back. The decision to red pencil Brooklyn’s story reeks of a company without principles just trying to go where the winds seem to be blowing. Weenies.

Now watch everyone blame the lost episode of “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” on Trump.

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Pointer: Willem Reese [This is a correction: I initially credited JutGory for the tip, who quickly disavowed. EA apologizes to all concerned.]

Thanks, BlueSky!

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The self-proclaimed progressive onclave social media platform designed to isolate the Good people from unclean thoughts and their Nazi neighbors is proving to be a magnificent social experiment testing the proposition that the Mutated Left of the 21st Century can’t tolerate dissent or any ideas that don’t make them feel warm and cuddly.

As first noted here by commenter Michael R., “Apparently, all the liberals who left X went to BlueSky and immediately started reporting everyone else for not being ‘woke’ enough for their tastes. Their ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ reports have gone from 350,000 in all to 2023 to over 40,000/day since the election. Of course, some moderation requests probably can’t even get in because they are busy.” Yes, the experiment is working out just fine. These people, as they and their Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates demonstrated, don’t get that freedom of speech thingy. The funny part is that it was in great part the bubble progressives live in that led their party to its2024 disaster, and their solution is …..to construct a stronger bubble.

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Ethics Quiz: Smoking Daddy

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In the YouTube video posted by “web influencer” Rosanna Pansino (over 14 million YouTube subscribers—I’m all the way up to around 230 followers in my recent return to Twitter/X!—the 39-year-old baking star smokes her dead father’s ashes in accordance with his dying wish. She says her father, dying of leukemia, wanted her to grow a marijuana plant with his ashes and then smoke him. So five years after he died, with his pot plant flourishing, Pansino lit a joint that had particles of her father in it and smoked it for the entertainment of her YouTube audience.

Classy. So tasteful.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day…

“Is this unethical, or just icky?”

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Wait, I’m Sorry, I’m Getting All Confused: WHICH Is the Party That Is An Existential Threat To Democracy?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Yesterday, Ethics Alarms noted [Item #6] that Democrats in Pennsylvania had voted in favor of counting mail-in ballots that were ruled invalid by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and will be counting those disqualified ballots to try to overturn the apparent victory of GOP Senator-elect Dave McCormick over incumbent Sen. Bob Casey in the upcoming recount. The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on November 7, and he is now leading Casey by over 17,000 votes.

This fondness for counting void votes is, of course, passing strange conduct from the party whose captive journalists keep saying that President-Elect Trump’s four years of claims that the 2020 Presidential election was “stolen” from him are “completely groundless.” Pennsylvania’s electoral college votes are among those the incoming President felt were stolen. Call me crazy and paint me puce, but I’d say deliberately and openly counting votes the state Supreme Court says are invalid is prima facie evidence that this a party not above cheating to hold onto power.

Now, after the Republican National Committee sued last week after several counties decided to openly cheat by counting ballots with incorrect dates, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court today reiterated its decision from November 5. Justice David Wecht wrote in his concurring statement that it is “critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court.” Justice Kevin Brobson likewise wrote that local election officials do not “have the authority to ignore Election Code provisions that they believe are unconstitutional.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed on November 1 that requiring mail-in ballots to have handwritten dates is constitutional.

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It’s Time To Accept Reality: We Can’t Trust Science Writers, So We Can’t Trust What We Read About Science

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The ethics rot of “Scientific American” came to a climax last week with the firing of longtime editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth after she went on a social media tirade against Trump voters and tried to blame it on the demon Pazuzu (well, not explicitly, but that was what her “apology” amounted to). During her tenure she had politicized the once respected science magazine, using it to advance her own social justice agenda which dovetailed nicely with that of the extreme progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Weaponizing science for political advantage is more totalitarianism on the hoof, and one might think that Helmuth’s demise might slow down or even begin to terminate this dangerous trend, once rampant on the Reactionary Right, now characteristic of the Doctrinaire Left. Nope.

Based on the latest from esteemed (not by me, but still…) science writer John Horgan, who modestly calls himself “The Science Writer”—he’s a science writer—the political roots of the field’s ethics rot is already embedded too deeply to extract. Horgan has strong credentials, as he’d be the first to tell you. He’s been writing for Scientific American since 1986 with an eight year break in the middle, and also authors pieces on science issues for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Washington Post, Time and Newsweek. He has written several books; he’s has been interviewed on PBS, MSNBC, NPR, AP, BBC, and other broadcast media. He’s  lectured at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, McGill and the London School of Economics, among other institutions.

Yet Horgan still thinks that scientists are correct to be driven by political bias and to let it affect their work. His recent essay in the wake of Hormuth’s oh-so-well-deserved demise is a flashing neon warning that science, as an objective, fact-driven, intellectual pursuit for the good of mankind (aka “a profession”) is as dead as Darwin, or mighty close to it. Horgan’s website piece is titled, “Scientific American Loses Its Bold Leader.” “Bold” is a terrific ambiguous cover word. In the case of Hormuth, it means courageous and reckless to the point of subverting her duties. From there, The Science Writer argues,

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In New York, Dishonest Progressive Math: Not Charging Commuters As Much As Was Originally Proposed Saves Them Money

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What is this? Gaslighting? Misdirection? Whatever it is, it’s unethical.

But typical.

“I always have and I always will fight to put more money in the pockets of everyday New Yorkers,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, as she imposed a new 9 dollar commuter toll on New Yorkers who drive into the Manhattan business district. How is a new toll that will go into effect in January 2025 for the first tine saving New Yorkers money by putting more money in their pockets? It isn’t.

Follow closely, now. The original “NYC congestion plan” was supposed to cost $15 when it was proposed, but the plan was suspended by Hochul until after the election, because she was afraid it would cost her party votes. Now that the election is safely over in the state, she’s reinstating the plan, but at a lower cost. Nonetheless, lowering the cost of a new state expense being imposed on commuters isn’t putting more money in anyone’s pocket but the state’s. The new toll takes money away from commuters, just not as much money as was originally announced.

I’m not evaluating whether the toll is a responsible and fair policy; I don’t care. I do care about the apparently never-ending “It isn’t what it is” addiction of elected officials who try their damnedest to confuse and mislead the public. Hochul is literally saying to the public, “Be grateful that I’m not taking more of your money than I might. Why, it’s almost like I am giving you money!”

No, charging commuters more than nothing, which is what they had been paying to come into Manhattan, is taking money, not giving it. War is Peace, and the state taking your money is putting money in your pocket, because it could be taking even more.

Got it.

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Sources: NYT 1, 2, and 3.

An Arizona Judge Does The Right Thing And Recuses, But Not Until He Shows That Bias Has Made Him Stupid…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What does it say about a judge’s competence and judicial temperament when he can’t restrain himself from posting attacks on conservatives while presiding over a politically-charged trial? It says, I think, “Time to retire!” In the case at hand, it also said; “Your recusal light is flashing.”

Maricopa County Judge Bruce Cohen, the judge overseeing Arizona’s case against allies of Once and Future President Donald Trump based on their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, recused himself last week after it was revealed that he had emailed colleagues urging them to speak out against conservative attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign.

In an email sent to fellow judicial officers on August 29, Cohen criticized those who labeled Harris a “DEI hire” and said he was “sickened” when Fox News host Jesse Watters said on air that if she were elected, she would “get paralyzed in the Situation Room while the generals have their way with her.”

“White men…must speak out,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by state Rep. Travis Grantham (R) and reported by local news media. Based on the email, one of the defendants’ lawyers called for his dismissal. Based on that email I conclude that the call for the judge’s recusal was a proper response. Even if the message didn’t prove that he would be biased against the pro-Trump defendants, it definitely proves he is incapable of processing information, either because bias has made him stupid, age has crippled his faculties, or because he was dumb to begin with.

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Creative! Funny! But Unethical [Video Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A video submitted as part of an insurance claim in January appeared to show a brown bear tearing up the interior of a Rolls-Royce.Similar videos involving other cars were turned in to two additional insurers. All together, the three insurance companies collectively paid out over $140,000.

But an investigation called Operation Bear Claw revealed that the attacks were really insurance scams.“Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the department said in a news release. This bear suit…

Those things at the bottom were used to imitate bear claw marks.

The California Department of Insurance has arrested Ruben Tamrazian, 26; Ararat Chirkinian, 39; and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, Calif.; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Los Angeles. They face charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy.