Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Fake Charities Update: The Unethical Conduct That Makes All Of Us Worse

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

scamsIt’s one of the world’s oldest scams, one of the most lucrative and perhaps the most damaging: people preying on the best instincts of human beings to take their money for personal gain. The internet has made it easier to do than ever, and the  con is flourishing. I don’t often write about the incidents when they arise, in part because there’s nothing to argue about: everybody agrees that it’s not just unethical conduct, but bordering on evil. Fake charities are worse than scams, however, because they actively make people less kind, generous and caring for their own protection. Every fake charity exposed makes it harder for real charities to help people who genuinely need it. Like a friend of mine who never helped a homeless person again after seeing a beggar whom he had just given 20 bucks on a New York City street briefly get out of his battered wheel chair and nimbly run over to get a cigarette from a compatriot, those who stop trusting pleas for help seldom start trusting again. The fakes make us less kind and generous, and that makes society worse for everyone.

Fake charities large and small have been much in the news lately, so a little catch-up is warranted. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Slate Writer Jamelle Bouie

/ Jack Marshall / 86 Comments

hillary-clinton-winking“Barring an indictment for criminal behavior, Hillary Clinton, if she’s the Democratic nominee, will not lose the 2016 presidential election because of her emails. To think so, or to think they’ll change the race, is to say that scandal will override partisanship; that an otherwise liberal voter will walk into the ballot booth and mark the box for Jeb Bush or Gov. Scott Walker or Sen. Marco Rubio because of digital mismanagement. I liked what Clinton said about early childcare, thinks our hypothetical voter, but sending government email on a private server makes her unfit for the White House.”

—–Slate’s resident racial-distrust monger, Jamelle Bouie, writing about how Hillary Clinton’s still unfolding e-mail scandal will affect her candidacy.

What a cynical and frightening attitude to  express  about one’s own ideological kith!

Could he be right? The typical progressive/liberal/Democrat sees the blatant lies of Hillary Clinton exposed, that she deliberately risked national security, deliberately breached her own department’s and the Obama administration’s policy, falsely denied that any laws or regulations were involved, disingenuously said her conduct was no different from other officials, destroyed e-mails knowing they were about to be subpoenaed in a Congressional investigation, placed national secrets at risk, described the process of unraveling her deceptions and incompetence as “fun,” sent out one surrogate after another to obfuscate and deny the facts and the truth, and repeatedly lied about the matter herself, following a well-established pattern that already causes most of the nation to regard her as untrustworthy, and still that typical progressive/liberal/Democrat will say, “Hey, I like what she said about early child care, so what difference does it make that she’s devious, dishonest, incompetent,  possibly criminal, reckless and thinks the public is made up of dupes?”

Really? Really? REALLY???

Who are these creatures, and how did they get this way? Are all Democrats this completely unconcerned about character and ethics, or is Bouie, who obviously is, just projecting his own crippling ethics rot on others?

That does it.

I’m heading for the bridge…

 Update: A rather more rational and less depressing analysis from Ron Fournier, who, unlike Jamelle, doesn’t try to spin Clinton’s conduct as “digital mismanagement.”

 

Senator McCaskill, A Cheater And Proud Of It

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
Inexplicably, Richard Nixon never wrote an article boasting about how his campaign forged an attack letter that tricked Edmund Muskie into an emotional meltdown that let George McGovern get the 1972 Democratic nomination.

Inexplicably, Richard Nixon never wrote an article boasting about how his campaign forged an attack letter that tricked Edmund Muskie into an emotional meltdown that let George McGovern get the 1972 Democratic nomination. Strange…

What is increasingly disturbing is that so many of our representatives and high elected officials appear to have no idea what ethical conduct is. This leads them, as Donald Trump did in the Republican candidates debate, to boast about their unethical conduct in public and assume that the public, as well as the news media, will nod approvingly. It is more than disturbing that they are usually correct, and thus are both exploiting the nation’s ethics rot and contributing to it as leaders are uniquely able to do.

This was what the leader of Senate Democrats, Harry Reid did when he expressed no remorse for lying about Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign (“Romney lost, didn’t he?”). Now, in a signed article in Politico, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has explained how she gained re-election by manipulating the democratic process in Missouri. Obviously, she sees nothing the matter with what she did: the article is essentially one long gloat.

With it, she marks herself as a cheat, a fick, and an ethics corrupter, as well as a disgrace.

But she’s a winner, so it’s all good!

In the essay called “How I Helped Todd Akin Win — So I Could Beat Him Later,” McCaskill explains how, after her campaign identified Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin as the weakest Republican candidate to run against her, it ran cognitive dissonance ads engineered to increase his support among the most ignorant and extreme Republican primary voters. She writes,

So how could we maneuver Akin into the GOP driver’s seat? Using the guidance of my campaign staff and consultants, we came up with the idea for a “dog whistle” ad, a message that was pitched in such a way that it would be heard only by a certain group of people. I told my team we needed to put Akin’s uber-conservative bona fides in an ad—and then, using reverse psychology, tell voters not to vote for him. And we needed to run the hell out of that ad….Four weeks out we would begin with a television ad boosting Akin…then we’d go back into the field and test to see if it was working. If it was, we’d dump in more “McCaskill for Senate” money, and we’d add radio and more TV in St. Louis and Kansas City. ..As it turned out, we spent more money for Todd Akin in the last two weeks of the primary than he spent on his whole primary campaign..

Let me explain this so even the most hopeless “the ends justify the means” partisan can understand it. The idea behind democracy is to have the best possible candidates run for office, and to give the public good choices rather than lousy ones. Each party has an obligation to run a fair competition to find the candidate it believes is 1) best qualified for the office and 2) most able to prevail in the election. It is not fair, ethical or legitimate politics for the opposing party to interfere with this process to ensure weaker competition. This is not fair to the public, which has a right to have a good choice, not a horrible one. It is also undemocratic. It is wrong, no matter how clever it is. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Natural Lawn

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

lawn

(Commenters complained that the last quiz was too easy. This one is not.)

In the St. Albans Township, outside of Alexandria, Ohio, Sarah Baker and her partner  violated the local ordinance and stopped mowing their one acre of property. “A potpourri of plants began to flourish, and a rich assortment of insects and animals followed. I had essentially grown a working ecosystem, one that had been waiting for the chance to emerge,” she wrote in the Washington Post. The first time the couple tried this, they were fined a thousand dollars but capitulated and mowed their lawn. Now, though they have been found to turn their property into a “public nuisance” due to neglect, they are defying the town and certain that they are in the right. Baker writes in part:

” About 95 percent of the natural landscape in the lower 48 states has been developed into cities, suburbs and farmland. Meanwhile, the global population of vertebrate animals, from birds to fish, has been cut in half during the past four decades. Honey bees, on which we depend to pollinate our fruits and other crops, have been dying off at an unsustainable rate. Because one in three bites of food you take requires a pollinating insect to produce it, their rapid decline is a threat to humanity. Monarch butterflies have been even more affected, with their numbers dropping 90 percent since the 1990s. Butterflies are an important part of the food chain, so ecologists have long used them to measure the health of ecosystems.

Nature preserves and parks are not enough to fix the problem; much of wildlife is migratory and needs continuous habitat to thrive. Natural yards can act as bridges between the larger natural spaces…[M]aintaining a mowed and fertilized lawn also pollutes the air, water and soil. The emissions from lawnmowers and other garden equipment are responsible for more than 5 percent of urban air pollution. An hour of gas-powered lawn mowing produces as much pollution as four hours of driving a car. Americans use 800 million gallons of gas every year for lawn equipment, and 17 million gallons are spilled while refueling mowers — more than was leaked by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops, chemicals that can end up in drinking water and waterways…I’m not alone. Homeowners across the country have latched on to the natural lawn and “no mow” movement.

… If we allow ourselves to see a mowed lawn for what it is — a green desert that provides no food or shelter for wildlife — we can recondition ourselves to take pride in not mowing.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is...

Is Baker’s unmown, natural lawn in defiance of the town ordinance ethical?

Continue reading →

Protest Ethics: Of Ferguson, “Facts Don’t Matter” And The Unethical Anniversary

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Ferguson anniversary

On August 8, political leaders, national activists and hundreds of people including Cornel West and the relatives of Eric Garner and Oscar Grant came to Ferguson, Missouri. They chanted, sang and marched in a vigil to commemorate the death of a young black man who was shot in the act of attacking a police officer, because a false account by one of the young man’s pals created racial division, began an unraveling of trust in police nation wide, ruined the police officer’s career, prompted attacks on the grand jury system, and launched a lie, “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!,” that dominated protests in many cities for months. There are many destroyed businesses and lost lives because of the events in Ferguson last year.

Why is anyone commemorating them?

Because, in this issue, facts don’t matter. Or “Facts Don’t Matter.” This will be a regular mantra on Ethics Alarms, until they do.

Activists urged the crowd not to let Brown’s death “be in vain.”  What does that mean? Mike Brown threw his life away. He was no martyr, no hero. Can an ethical and positive movement be constructed on a false narrative and a phony hero?

Nope. Continue reading →

Bernie Sanders Flunks His Leadership Test…Too

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

Bernie3

When the racist group “Black Lives Matter” hijacked Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ rally in Seattle,  shoved him aside and took over the microphone, Sanders slipped into passive, pander-to-black-racist mode and let his supporters be turned into a captive audience. As Sanders stepped back as ordered, the the group ranted about Ferguson and the killing of Michael Brown ( “Facts Don’t Matter” ) and held a four minute moment of silence. Then the crowd demanded that the activists to allow Sanders to speak, since that’s what they were there for, so one activist called the crowd “white supremacist liberals.”

Racists.

Another Black Lives Matter activist confronted Sanders, stating he needed “to be held accountable.” Bernie remained silently cowering.

Now there’s a leader for you. Sanders talks a good game, though his policy recommendations come straight from Socialist Fantasyland: free college, free health care, a crippling minimum wage nationwide, and other nonsense guaranteed to turn the U.S. into Greece.  Senators are usually good at talking. The Presidency, however, requires standing up for law, fairness, order and the rights of everyone. Is Sanders going to be able to stand up to ISIS, Putin, or urban rioters when he allows his own rally to be stolen by “I can’t breathe!” chanting bigots?

After the activists remained on stage and forced the event to end, without Bernie doing anything to assert his authority, he waved goodbye, and actually left the stage with a raised fist salute, which may set a record for pandering gall.

Having flopped as a leader—don’t tell me he’s an old man; if he’s too old to insist that some protesters get off his stage, he’s too old to lead anything but senior’s shuffleboard league—he then showed that he’s going to loyally follow the current progressive playbook by attributing legitimate criticism of Democrats to racism, sexism…anything to distort public opinion and avoid accountability for corruption, dishonesty and incompetence. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical Politician!

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Michigan reps

Aren’t they a cute couple?

And dumb as two bricks in a swamp!

Michigan state Rep. Todd Courser (left) had an email sent to his Republican supporters that falsely claimed he had been caught having sex with a male prostitute. That’s right: he sent out his own, self-smearing lie, apparently because he thought this would help him distract attention from another scandal, a heterosexual one. The  married father of four is having an extramarital affair with fellow state Rep. Cindy Gamrat (right), a married mother of three.
Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Not Only Anybody Who Actually Thinks Donald Trump Would Be Anything But An Existential Disaster As President, But Anyone Who Isn’t Disgusted By His Existence

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments
Megyn Kelly's "wherever," according to Donald trump.

Megyn Kelly’s “wherever,” according to Donald trump.

I’m not exaggerating. At this point, saying that one supports Donald Trump as President—or that one even “likes” such a destructive and despicable jackass—is signature significance. Such a person rejects responsible citizenship, basic decency, and civilized values. Such a person is warped and a misanthrope, or so stupid that their ability to function at all is a medical miracle.

The ethics tipping point even for the most jaded and alienated American who tolerated this juvenile delinquent in billionaire’s clothing (my tipping point was years ago, I am proud to say) should have been the combined impact of Trump’s outrageous comment to CNN, as he attacked Fox journalist Megyn Kelly for her questioning him on his uncivil public rhetoric, and his lie about it afterwards.

As I already noted in this post, Trump told CNN’s Don Lemon, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

The man is a thug and a boor with money, the political equivalent of a four-year-old with an AK-47. His vaunted “candor” (as in “lack of couth, taste, civility, prudence, decency and restraint),  caused him to say, in essence, “this woman must have been on the rag” on national television. Is this worse than calling a tortured prisoner of war like John McCain less than a hero because he was captured? Sure it is: the earlier comment was stupid and disrespectful, but if that’s what Trump thinks, great: Out with it. The attack on Kelly is misogyny and gutter-level rudeness that must not be tolerated at the dinner table, in the workplace, or in polite company, much less in national politics. It transforms the whole nation into a cheap saloon, and tears down a wall that once gone, will eventually permit tossing feces like apes and aimed projectile vomiting before the entire civilization collapses in the stench of its own corruption.

This isn’t just a “war on women,” it’s war on dignity, decency and civilized discourse. You like that? You support that?

You’re a moron. Continue reading →

Further Thoughts And Questions On “The Lottery Winner’s Sister-in-Law” (Part 1)

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

lottery win

The last ethics quiz posed the questions of whether a financially struggling (that is, like most people) brother [NOTE: In the earlier version, I incorrectly said they were twins. Why, I don’t know, except that it makes the set up more perfect. I apologize for the error. It didn’t change the issues any, or the commentary.]  in his Sixties should suggest to his lottery-winning brother, now 50 million dollars richer, that he could use some of that excess cash…and whether the brother would be unethical to refuse.

The more I think about it, the more I am sure that Slate advice columnist Emily Yoffe was answering a fictional hypothetical carefully devised to coax out the answer it did. I write these things for a living, and the brothers element is suspicious. The idea was to emphasize the perception of unfairness: here we have two genetically similar human beings raised with the same advantages and disadvantages, not just metaphorically “created equal” but equal in fact. How cruel and unfair that, in “Dear Prudence’s” words,  “your brother-in-law, through no effort of his own—save the purchase of a quick pick—was smiled on by fate and now enjoys luxuriant leisure. Especially since the two brothers suffered from a start in life that would have crushed many, it’s disturbing that the lottery winner hasn’t been moved to share a small percentage of his good fortune so that his brother doesn’t spend his last years scrambling to meet his basic needs.”

I didn’t exactly give my preferred answer to the quiz, but I did suggest that Yoff’e’s answer and the orientation of the questioner were redolent of the prevailing ethos of the political left. This was met with some complaining in the comments, but come on: “it’s disturbing that the lottery winner hasn’t been moved to share a small percentage of his good fortune so that his brother doesn’t spend his last years scrambling to meet his basic needs” would be a great Occupy Wall Street poster if it wasn’t so long, and it perfectly states the ethically dubious mantra we can expect from Bernie, Hillary or Elizabeth and probably any other Democrat who is selected to be called “a lightweight” and “a loser” by Republican nominee Trump.  In fact, I think this hypothetical would be a great debate question….and better yet if we explore some of the  variables.

For example: Continue reading →

Whole Foods Thinks Its Customers Are Idiots…And They Are Right!

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

asparagus-waterThis sounds like a fake Saturday Night Live commercial. What it is, however, is an example of how affluent shoppers who are gulled into paying premium prices for upscale marketing ploys eventually forfeit the respect of the retailers who serve them, and end up fleeced like the metaphorical sheep they are.

The Whole Foods in Brentwood, California is offering bottles labeled “Asparagus Water” for  $5.99 each. The bottles appear to be filled with water and three stalks of raw asparagus.

A call to the supermarket by the food site Eater at first produced a denial that the product existed. Eventually the inquirer reached someone in the produce department who  explained that the product was new. When asked how “asparagus water” is made, he explained that “It’s water, and we sort of cut asparagus stalks down so they’re shorter, and put them into the container…it’s to drink.” He then elaborated, “The nutrients from the asparagus do transfer into the water.” Continue reading →