Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Ethics Heroes: New York Times Readers

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Who would have thought that New York Times readers could do such a terrific Peter Sellers impression?

Paul Krugman, once a Nobel Prize winner, now the very model of a modern progressive hack, issued his contribution to the current “Protect Joe Biden!” hysteria among pundits and journalists. It’s called “Why You Shouldn’t Obsess About the National Debt,” and if this won’t get the Nobel people to demand their prize in economics back, nothing will.

The intellectual dishonesty of the piece is stunning even for Krugman—I remember how an old friend favorably posted one of Krugman’s columns to Facebook and the scales fell from my eyes making me realize that the old friend was an idiot and had always been one—and the rationalizations he uses to shrug away the $34 trillion national debt are breathtaking in their audacity. Some examples:

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My Challenge to Tom Selleck: I Dare You to Put This Story On “Blue Bloods”!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Let me summarize:

1. In the summer of 2022, approximately 10,000 NYPD officers took the exam to get promoted to sergeant—you know, the one they’re always talking about on “Bluebloods,” now heading into its 15th and final season, Tom Selleck’s paene to NYC’s men and women in blue. This was an unprecedented number because the pandemic lockdown had delayed the exam for two years. The exam was offered in four sessions over two days to accommodate the unusually large number.

2. An investigation from the City’s Department of Investigation has determined that about 1,200 of the cops who participated cheated.

3. Those officers brought cell phones with cameras into the exam and participated in group chats to help each other through the test. They discussed possible answers and offered advice to each other, with those who had already taken the exam on the first day helping out the officers taking the exam on the second day.

4. This, of course, was explicitly forbidden, as the officers were told to place their cell phones in plastic bags under their chairs. But more than10% violated that rule.

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Ethics Dunce, Redux: Justice Clarence Thomas

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

In a new filing released today, Justice Clarence Thomas amended his financial disclosure for 2019 to note that he “inadvertently omitted” reporting two extravagant vacations paid for by conservative billionaire Harlan Crow, one to Indonesia and the other to the Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat in northern California. Just slipped his mind! Hey, it could happen to anybody! Who hasn’t completely forgotten about a luxury trip they have enjoyed on the dime of a politically active tycoon? Heck, I know I just remembered one today, after I read this story. Well, it’s all better now; Thomas just retroactively corrected his lie of omission from five years ago.

Anyone who accepts this is ethically estopped from complaining about the White House editing Joe Biden’s blabberings to make him sound less like he belongs in a hospice.

Pro Publica correctly notes that last year, when these and other examples unusual largess from Crow—like paying for Thomas’s mother’s house—were revealed, Thomas’s “Justice Thomas’s lawyers issued a statement on the Justice’s behalf. saying that the allegations were untrue.

Like all lawyers, Supreme Court Justices are prohibited from lying in the course of their professional conduct. The prohibition on lawyer conduct is serious, but even more serious for judges, and extra-special, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious serious for the highest judges in the land.

Thomas is a disgrace, as I have said before.

But at least he never let his wife fly a 250-year-old historical flag that some idiots used to express their own political opinions…

Signature Significance: China’s Fake Waterfall

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Why would anyone—any nation, any organization, any business or individual—trust a nation that would do something like this?

A major tourist attraction, Yuntai Falls, at the Yuntai Mountain scenic resort in China’s central Henan province, has been promoted as China’s “tallest uninterrupted waterfall” to its millions of yearly visitors. But this week a hiker’s video revealed that the falls are fed by a secret network of water pipes. In a statement, officials admitted that they added water to the cascade to improve the viewing experience for tourists. OK, technically the waterfall admitted that it was phony, as the statement said, “Depending on the season, I cannot guarantee that I am in my best condition whenever my friends come to see me.”

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Confronting My Biases, Episode 9: People Who Use Profile Photos Like This…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

That’s Liz Wolfe, a regular writer at Reason.

Why would anyone present themselves to the world and strangers with a pose like that? (I am going to try to ignore another bias in this post, otherwise attractive people who wear nose rings, which I regard as the equivalent of deliberately having a booger hanging out of a nostril.) I’m a stage director: interpreting and evoking facial expressions and body language is what I do (and well, by the way). I would direct an actress to use that pose and expression if she were playing a character who was arrogant, defiant, remote, contemptuous of the world and hostile.

Someone who presents themselves in such a manner in real life is either so insecure that she is trying to keep everyone at a safe distance, or arrogant, defiant, remote, contemptuous of the world, hostile, and proud of it. This is a form of visual incivility. “Why should I waste time with you, peasant?,” that look says to me. And my response to that look is, “Oh, bite me. Get over yourself. Grow up.”

Unethical Quote of the Month: President Joe Biden (Alternate Headline: “What a Shameless Asshole!”)

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

“We must face a simple truth.To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.”

—President Biden, outrageously adopting Donald Trump’s long-standing position that he party has condemned as racist and “xenophobic” because his poll numbers are looking bad.

Seldom has the “Die Hard” clip (from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood Clip Archive) been more appropriate or infuriating. For more than three years, Joe Biden’s administration deliberately signaled to aspiring alien lawbreakers that they would be wink-winked into the United States despite defying immigration laws, let free to run amuck if that’s what they chose to do, and law enforcement would look the other way. Officials like Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas gaslighted the public by insisting the border was secure when anyone with eyes or a camera could see it was anything but. An estimated 2.5 illegals have entered the country across this “secure border.” Awakening to the reality that the majority of the American public doesn’t view that as “a Great Replacement Conspiracy,” but simply as incompetent, irresponsible, dangerous and wrong—you know, like Donald Trump said in 2015 as he launched his (quixotic, everyone thought) candidacy for the Presidency and was tarred as a racist for it?—suddenly, Mirabile Dictu!, Biden is singing a different metaphorical tune.

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Ethics Observations on the Harvard/Columbia “Nakba” Article Episode

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

What’s Nakba? It is a pro-Palestinian framing of the forever conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. Nakba refers to the beginning, when the United Nations announced its two-state resolution of the Palestine conflict with Israel getting one of them, and the Arab states along with the Palestinians attacked the new Israel territory with the objective of making the Israeli state a single Palestinian state. Israel won, and that historical episode is referred to as Nakba, “the disaster,” by the Palestinians.

I view it as the equivalent of the die-hard Confederacy fans in today’s South calling the Civil War “the war of Northern aggression.” It’s a false and biased framing that justifies everything the Palestinians do and try to do to Israel (like wiping it off the map), including terrorism. It is the reverse of the more correct and honest Israeli framing, which is that Palestinians could have had their state in 1948, tried to wipe out Israel instead, and now reside in the mess of their own making.

Soon after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack (the hostages appear to all be dead by the way, which should have been assumed by now), the Harvard Law Review asked Rabea Eghbariah, a Palestinian doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School and human rights lawyer, to prepare a scholarly article taking the Palestinian side of the latest conflict. Eghbariah, who has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court, submitted one, a 2,000-word essay arguing that Israel’s attack on Gaza following the Hamas act of war should be evaluated through the lens of Nakba, and within the “legal framework” of “genocide.”

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I Wonder: How Long Before Enough of the Public Finds the Anti-Democracy Maneuvers of the Party That Claims to be Defending Democracy Hypocritical, Cynical, and Unacceptable?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

The Washington Times reports that the Democratic National Committee today will vote to change party rules so the party can quietly nominate Joe Biden via Zoom before its convention. Not only will this maneuver supposedly enure that an early ballot filing deadline in Ohio won’t keep Biden off the ballot there ( Gov. Mike DeWine has already signed a law to extend the filing deadline to make sure Biden is on the ballot, so the party’s claim that the virtual nomination is necessary for that reason is hooey), it will “eliminate any realistic chance disgruntled party members will try to replace Mr. Biden on the ballot with a more desirable candidate amid alarming poll numbers that show him trailing former President Donald Trump both nationally and in the critical battleground states.”

You know: can’t let that democracy thingy get in the way of The Party’s anointment of its Leader.

“Once President Biden is virtually nominated, then that will be it. He will be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and only death or incapacitation will prevent that moving forward,” said Josh Putnam, party rules expert and founder of FHQ Strategies LLC, a non-partisan political consulting venture. “There will be no substitutes.”

Nominating Biden ahead of the convention also has the advantage of minimizing the bad optics of the anticipated convention protests by several groups who believe Biden has betrayed their interests. It also will ensure that the convention, and thus the “mostly peaceful” protests get as little TV airtime as possible. A coalition of organizations under the banner “March on The DNC” announced they plan to “bring our demands” to the Democratic National Convention. They want permits to demonstrate near the convention center “to bring the people’s agenda to within sight and sound of the Democratic Party leadership.” Oh, can’t have that! To re-phrase a memorable line from “Dr. Strangelove”: “You can’t have a political demonstration here! This is the Democratic Party Convention!”

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Charities and Non-Profits That Assist Illegal Immigrants Have “Become Targets of Extremists.” Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I suppose I should clarify that by noting that what the New York Times calls “extremists” are really “Americans who believe that organizations shouldn’t be aiding and abetting law-breakers and those who deliberately defy U.S. immigration laws.”

This Times story (again, I’m making a gift of it, because I pay the Times fees so you don’t have to) is a virtual cornucopia of fake news and progressive propaganda devices by the Times (but I will doubtless get a protesting email from self-banned Time apologist “A Friend” saying that it’s OK because some Times readers point out the dishonesty.)

Let’s see: the gist of the thing is that “after President Biden took office in 2021 promising a more humane approach to migration, these faith-based groups have increasingly become the subjects of conspiracy theories and targets for far-right activists and Republican members of Congress, who accuse them of promoting an invasion to displace white Americans and engaging in child trafficking and migrant smuggling. The organizations say those claims are baseless.”

I’m dizzy already:

  • “More humane approach to migration” means  and meant “less enforcement of immigration laws against illegal immigrants.” Enforcing laws in general is considered cruel and racist by the 21st Century version of progressives.
  • “faith-based groups” is being used here to signal virtue and good intentions because that suits the writer’s agenda and that of the Times market. Being “faith-based” is considered meaningless, however, when the “faith-based” are opposing the killing of unborn children or objecting to being forced express support for same-sex weddings.
  • See that framing? Any objections to open borders is based on the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, sayeth the Times. That’s a lie by omission. Most Americans who object to letting illegal immigrants get away with breaking our laws do so because illegal immigrants shouldn’t get away with breaking our laws. I, for example, don’t care if they end up voting for Truth, Justice and the American Way. I wouldn’t care if they were all white, or albinos even. They don’t belong here. Let them get in line like they are supposed to. And the “human trafficking” stuff: this is a classic example of deceptive cherry-picking, making a position look ridiculous by only mentioning the bad arguments for it while ignoring the valid ones.
  • Sure, those claims are baseless. The claims that the “faith-based organizations” are aiding and abetting illegal conduct, however, are 100% true.

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The DEI-ing of Major League Baseball’s Statistics: Oh. Wait, WHAT?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Major League Baseball’s absurd and self-wounding decision to lump all of the old Negro League season and career statistics in with those of its own players is impossible to defend logically or ethically. Ethics Alarms discussed this debacle of racial pandering here, three days ago. What is interesting—Interesting? Perhaps disturbing would be a better word—is how few baseball experts, statisticians, historians, players and fans are defending this indefensible decision or criticizing it. As to the latter, they simply don’t have the guts; they are terrified of being called racists. Regarding the former, there is really no good argument to be made. MLB’s groveling and pandering should call for baseball’s version of a welter of “It’s OK to be white” banners and signs at the games. Instead, both the sport and society itself is treating this “it isn’t what it is” classic like a particularly odoriferous fart in an elevator. Apparently it’s impolite to call attention to it.

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