Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Unethical Quote Of The Week (Or At Least It Would Be In A Serious Campaign Where The News Media Was Interested In Covering Both Candidates Fairly): Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

2faced-hillary

“You just have to sort of figure out how to — getting back to that word, “balance” — how to balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and that’s not just a comment about today…. I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

—-Hillary Clinton, in a quote from one of those speeches she got $225,000 to make, for the National Multi-Housing Council, 4/24/13

We all knew we would eventually learn what she said in those speeches, didn’t we? It was just a matter of time. Luckily for Hillary, this leak arrived the same day as Trump’s Billy Bush piggery, giving the news media a chance to bury it for a while.

Hillary’s foe Julian Assange  released a hacked e-mail from Clinton minion John Podesta. Podesty was flagging sections of various Clinton speeches that might cause trouble for Hillary if they ever became public, so she could have an instant response, that is, spin, ready. (I have to admit, these guys are good.) The heading on this one was, Continue reading →

Donald Trump “When You’re A Star, They Let You Do It” Apology, Take Two!

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Trump’s initial, typically off-the-cuff, dismissive non-apology-apology for the leaked tape of him talking exactly like the piggish narcissist he is was not sufficient to stem his latest self-made campaign crisis. Then he wrote:

“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”

CUT! I’m sorry, Don, that didn’t come off right….not sincere enough. Can we try it another way? Great!

So Trump got serious, and shot the video above. In case you, like me, got nauseous half-way through, this is what he said:

I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not. I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize. I’ve traveled the country talking about change for America, but my travels have also changed me. I’ve spent time with grieving mothers who’ve lost their children, laid-off workers whose jobs have gone to other countries, and people from all walks of life who just want a better future. I have gotten to know the great people of our country, and I’ve been humbled by the faith they’ve placed in me. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never, ever let you down. Let’s be honest — we’re living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we’re facing today. We are losing our jobs, we’re less safe than we were eight years ago, and Washington is totally broken. Hillary Clinton and her kind have run our country into the ground. I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.

Anyone, and I mean anyone, who sees the video or reads those words and concludes, “OK, he apologized. He’s still got my vote!” has proven my point made a week ago, here. Such an individual is too deficient in critical thinking skills to be anything but an impediment to democracy.

What’s the matter with the second apology? Let’s see..how about “Everything”? Continue reading →

Republicans Leaders Are Shocked…Shocked!…That Donald Trump Is Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Cynical, principle-free morons, every single one.

Everyone knew that Donald Trump was a low-life, belonging in the political genus containing human leaches and anthropomorphic pond scum, long before he even announced his candidacy. They knew or should have known, to apply a common legal standard. I’m no genius, but the millisecond his joke candidacy for President began smelling viable back in August 0f 2015, I wrote here what GOP leaders with any sense or integrity should have known without me having to write a word. They needed to tell Trump to go haunt a casino somewhere, because he wasn’t fit to represent the Republican party as a candidate—not as President, not as dogcatcher, not as a gag on a Saturday Night Live skit.

Nahh! GOP Chair Reince Priebus —Fun Fact: Did you know that “Reince” means “spineless tool”? Well, it does now!-–apparently thought Trump would bring a little pizzazz, publicity and new voters to the GOP primary campaign. Well, it sure did that, didn’t it, Reince, you pathetic failure as a leader, manager, Republican and an American? Continue reading →

From The “The Ends Justifies The Means” Files, Election 2016 Tab: Why Does Hillary Clinton Think That It Is Responsible, Respectful And Fair To Intentionally Deceive Voters With Schemes Like This?

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

And why does the mainstream news media think it is ethical to let her get away with it?

A YouTuber named Spanglevision decided to do the job that the mainstream news media has resolved to forgo, checking up on a suspicious Hillary Clinton campaign moment that seemed to good to be true. 

At a Hillary Clinton town hall yesterday in Haverford, Pennsylvania, a 15 year old girl was supposedly chosen at random to ask a question of her own devising. She delivered a carefully worded query that she read from a script:

“Hi Madam Secretary.  I’m Brennan and I’m 15 years old.  At my school, body image is a really big issue for girls my age.  I see with my own eyes the damage Donald Trump does when he talks about women and how they look.  As the first female president how would you undo some of that damage and help girls understand that they’re so much more than just what they look like?”

Clinton responded,

“I’m so proud of you for asking that question. You are right — my opponent has just taken this concern to a new level of difficulty and meanness.  And, it’s shocking when women are called names and judged solely on the basis of physical attributes.* My opponent insulted Miss Universe. I mean, how do you get more acclaimed than that?  But, it wasn’t good enough. So we can’t take any of this seriously any more. We need to laugh at it. We need to refute it. We need to ignore it. And we need to stand up to it.”

Investigation yielded the fact that  that the “random” participant was child actress Brennan Leach Her father is Pennsylvania democratic State Senator Daylin Leach, a Hillary Clinton ally. Brennan has performed in her father’s campaign ads, and also in a commercial release: she has an entry in the Internet movie data base.  Thus it was a lie to present the girl as a randomly chosen questioner, and it was a lie to create the illusion that Clinton was answering a spontaneous question.

Then the news media took the falsely presented episode and spread the lie far and wide as truth.

As Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge illustrates, the fakery was presented as authentic by the New York Times….

https://static01.nyt.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000004690624

 

CNN, which gave us the video at the top of this post, and many others, including  The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan. Continue reading →

Coulrophobia Ethics: The Irresponsible Clown Dad

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

There has been an outbreak of coulrophobia (fear of clowns) for some reason, heightened by pranksters and web satirists taking advantage of one of our periodic societal freakouts as Halloween approaches:

  • Hundreds of students at Penn State set out to hunt clowns this week after rumors that clowns were loose on campus, chanting”Fuck the clowns!”
  • A dorm was evacuated at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, after the “Clown Watch” Twitter feed reported a sighting of a scary clown with a rifle. It was a hoax. 
  • In Portland, Oregon, police arrested David Dahlman, 55, for wearing a clown mask and boxing gloves and threatening middle schoolers. This clown charged an assistant principal who intervened.
  • A 13-year-old girl was arrested in Hampton, Virginia., for trying to get a person posing as a clown online to kill one of her teachers. 
  • A 14-year-old boy in Houston was charged with making terrorist threats toward his school using an online clown image.
  • Also this week, several hundred University of Connecticut students  gathered in a cemetery near midnight, ready to do battle with the evil clowns they had heard were hiding among the headstones. Police had to respond, and were not amused.
  • Police in  Lancaster, California warned that men wearing “ugly-looking clown masks” were using kitchen knives to frighten people and then videotaping their reactions.
  • Menacing clowns sightings were also reported in Modesto,  prompting police there to issue a warning to residents saying, “If you see anything or anyone suspicious, including individuals dressed as clowns, to avoid contact and report the circumstances to us immediately.”

Fear of clowns has been a cultural joke for decades. “Seinfeld” had whole storylines based on Kramer’s coulrophobia.Why is this happening now? I have no idea, and neither does anyone else, though CNN came up with five equally unsatisfying theories. Why? Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Why do fools fall in love? Why isn’t Hillary ahead by 50 points?

As long as the fad and its manifestations are in good fun and don’t endanger anyone, there’s nothing to be concerned about, though Stephen King felt compelled to try to calm the madness:

king-tweet(This is rich coming from King, who created the creepiest clown in literature as the villain of his novel “It.”)

Unfortunately, there are always those whose ethics alarms don’t ring. In Auburn, Massachusetts,  a father who followed his child’s school bus from the bus stop, wearing a scary clown mask. The middle school students in the bus were reportedly terrified. He was charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Libertarian VP Nominee William Weld

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
And by the way, nice hair color, very natural, Bill. I believe it like I believe you're a libertarian.

And by the way, nice hair color…very natural, Bill. I believe it like I believe you’re a libertarian.

The Boston Globe reported that former GOP Massachusetts governor turned Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee William Weld told its reporters that he would be focusing his campaigning against Donald Trump because  he did not want his Libertarian ticket to undermine efforts by Clinton to defeat Trump.  This follows Weld’s earlier statement that  “I’m not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States.”

Has anyone told Bill that the objective of a presidential ticket is to win the Presidency, and that when a party nominates candidates for the two top leadership jobs in the nation, it is supposed to represent an assertion that they are the best people for those jobs? Apparently not.

How about loyalty? Has anyone explained the ethical value of loyalty to Weld? See, that means that when a Presidential nominee asks you to run with him, by accepting his invitation you agree to assert that he should be President, not a candidate he’s running against. If a candidate’s running mate doesn’t unequivocally support him as the best candidate, why should anyone else? If Weld thinks Hillary is the most qualified individual to be President (Nonsense: WELD is more qualified), then he should endorse her and drop off the ticket.  Indeed, many reporters, including Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, have reported that Weld has considered doing just that. Continue reading →

Here Are Two Victims I Am Happy To Blame: The Late Christopher Dilly And Jessica Lally

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

overdose3Tell me more about how drug use is a victimless crime. I’m sure these assholes loved that argument

Lally 25, and Dilly, 26, were found dead of overdoses in the den of their McKeesport, Pennsylvania home this week,  with three young children elsewhere in the house. They had recently posted on Facebook about how much they loved their children.

Not more than getting high, of course.

The parents may have been dead for a day or more before their bodies were found, after their 7-year-0ld daughter had told a school bus driver that she didn’t want to go inside her home because she couldn’t wake up her parents before dressing herself and heading to school. The  bus company notified the school, and school officials called the police.

The girl,  her 9-month-old girl, a 3-year-old boy and a 5-year-old boy were examined at a hospital, and  social welfare officials assumed custody of the children. All in all, this is a good development for the children, whose parents were irresponsible, irredeemable, reckless fools. Continue reading →

Observations On The Revelation That The Republican Party Has A Time Machine.

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

gop-announcement

The The GOP  accidentally released a statement congratulating Pence on his victory in last night’s Vice-Presidential candidates debate about two hours before the debate started.

Observations:

1. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza mentioned the embarrassing release but brushed it aside as “sausage-making.” No, the word for it is lying. The statement implies that someone actually “fact-checked” what had not taken place when that was obviously impossible….unless, of course, the GOP really has a time machine.

2. Does anyone believe this junk? They must, or nobody would issue it. Thus it is intentional deception.

3. It also shows how incompetent the Republican Party is that this lie would be released before the debate. But we knew that...

4. Apparently Pence did win the debate, mostly because of Kaine’s obnoxious performance and the blatant bias of the moderator.  You don’t think…?

5. The really depressing thing is that so many journalists and voters also decided who won the debate before it occured.

KABOOM! Gary Johnson Argues That His Ignorance Is A Virtue

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments
Bite your tongue, Gary!

Bite your tongue, Gary!

I’m not going to include the traditional KABOOM! graphic of a head exploding, since the explosion that has evidently occurred inside Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s head is the issue here. Normally I wouldn’t care about a third party candidate and few others would either, but many voters who recognize how certifiably disgraceful the choices presented to us by the two major parties. They are desperately looking for an alternative. How nice, and timely, and opportune it would have been if the Libertarian Party had come through in the clutch and  nominated someone who presented themselves as competent, honest, and trustworthy! Unfortunately, it nominated Gary Johnson.

Asked on MSNBC to explain his twin failures to show that he ever reads the World News section (showing complete unfamiliarity with the epicenter of the Syrian disaster in one interview and not being able to name a single world leader  in another—he has yet to offer any explanation for his bizarre tongue episode), Johnson took another leap into weirdness. Instead of offering one of the excuses his supporters defended him with on Ethics Alarms and elsewhere (“It was a simple lapse;” “it wasn’t significant;” Trump and Hillary are so bad that he’d be a better choice if he couldn’t remember his own name…), Johnson came up with the head-exploding argument that it’s good for him to be ignorant. He really did., espousing this original theory to Andrea Mitchell

“The fact that somebody can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on a foreign leader or a geographic location then allows them to put our military in harm’s way,”

Continue reading →

The NFL Has No Problem With A Player On The Field Pronouncing the Entire Nation Racist, But Won’t Tolerate A Player Pretending To Shoot A Bow And Arrow. Please Explain.

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

nfl-bowarrow

The explanation is simple. The National Football League has no values, just assorted and unrelated reactions dictated by money, expediency, fear of activist groups, and stupidity.

This was the most recent example:

Washington Redskins cornerback Josh Norman was flagged after his  fourth-quarter interception Sunday  in a win over the Browns. He pretended to shoot an arrow from a mimed bow–veteran MLB relief pitcher Fernando Rodney has done this after every save his entire career–and was penalized for the unsportsmanlike foul of ” shooting a bow and arrow,” as announced by the ref. Fox analyst Mike Pereira explained to the TV audience that “Shooting a bow and arrow is just like simulating shooting guns. It’s a foul and it’s not allowed.”

The NFL refused to allow the Dallas Cowboys to commemorate the Dallas officers shot in a Black Lives Matter fueled massacre of police. Then it announced its support of the ridiculous Colin Kaepernick’s grandstanding protest of the National Anthem because, he says, “the United States systematically oppresses African-Americans.”  Next, it submits the name of Darren Sharper—one of those oppressed African Americans, by the way— as a nominee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He is serving 20 years in prison for drugging and raping women. Now it deems a bow-and-arrow gesture as so offensive to the sport that it requires a major game penalty.

Meanwhile, the league still officially denies that the concussions it routinely inflicts on its players are the cause of their brain damage when they cease to be able to function and slide into depression and dementia in middle age.

Those who continue to support the NFL knowing all of this (you put money in the league’s coffers by just watching the games) are allowing their own values and their children’s to be compromised and corrupted in exchange for a few visceral thrills.