Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Insulting Chutzpah Of The Year: Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Donald Trump may win the Ethics Alarms Ethics Dunce of the Year title (he has several entries in the field, and the year is young) as well as the Unethical Quote of the Year distinction (ditto). He has already won Asshole of the Year in record time. But with this one, he has forged a new category entirely.

During a rally over the weekend, following Mike Pence’s inevitable withdrawal from the Presidential race he never should have entered, Trump said, “People are leaving now and they’re all endorsing me. I don’t know about Mike Pence. He should endorse me. You know why? Because I had a great, successful Presidency and he was the Vice President. But people in politics can be very disloyal. ”

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Unethical Quote Of The Month & Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Many of these lawmakers on the other side of the aisle who had their hair on fire about what appears to have been an inadvertent action taken by Congressman Bowman, to which he is now being held accountable for, within the criminal justice system, regularly defend violent individuals who overran the Capitol on Jan. 6, as part of an effort to halt a peaceful transfer of power. And these violent individuals brutally beat and seriously injured 140 police officers, on the day of the insurrection. And many of them, who are having a panic attack, publicly, about Jamaal Bowman have actually defended or refused to comment on the violent mob on January 6.”

—House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the man every Democrat in the House voted for to be Speaker, “explaining” why Rep. Bowman shouldn’t be censured by the House for breaking the law, indeed two laws, as well as violating the House ethics code. 

To be blunt, this statement by Jeffries exhibits the approximate ethical comprehension of a Cocker Spaniel. It reveals him to be a shameless liar and an ethics corrupter:

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Minneapolis’s Woke And Deluded DA Foiled By An Ethical Judge

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Good.

In 2019, 39-year-old Steve Markey, sitting in his car in Minneapolis, was murdered during an unsuccessful carjacking attempt. The two teenage suspects both fired shots at Markey. They were arrested the next day after a string of other violent crimes. Both confessed to the murder.

Minneapolis’s DA before the current woke District Attorney Mary Moriarty said he would try the defendants as adults. One of the defendants, Husayn Braveheart (above), now 20 years old, fought to have his case remain in juvenile court where the punishment would be more moderate than in adult court: his co-defendant received a 22-year sentence when tried as an adult. In November 2022, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Braveheart should be certified for trial as an adult after determining the State had met the burden of proof on a series of public safety factors including Braveheart’s culpability and his history of failing to participate in diversion programs and other therapy.

But at a pretrial hearing in August, Moriarty announced that she had entered into a plea agreement in which Braveheart would serve just 1 year in a workhouse and 5 years of probation.  Under the deal, the 20-year-old would serve no prison time for murder.

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Alternate Titles: 1. “Coke Says ‘Never Mind!'”; 2. “One Down, Thousands To Go” 3. “Black Lives Matter? We Have No Idea What You’re Talking About!”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

This is what George Will likes to call “condign justice.”

Coca-Cola was one of thousands of corporations large and small to leap onto the George Floyd Freakout bandwagon and endorse Black Lives Matter even though it should have been obvious that the group was 1) racist 2) Marxist 3) violent and 4) a scam. Now is reaping the consequences it so richly deserves, as BLM has, naturally, come out in support of Hamas’s terror attack on Israel.

Many who were disgusted (like me) at the transparently cynical and opportunistic toadying by the corporate sector when it realized bashing police and demonizing whites was cool have been quick to point out Coke’s transgression. Here’s an example:

Coca-Cola’s reaction, cowards and ethics-free louses that they are, has been to quietly remove all references to BLM from the company’s website, where it once boasted of its financial support (now doubtless being used to fund one or more of the BLM leaders’ extravagances). Here’s the page: no mention of Black Lives Matter in sight.

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“Do You Know Who I Am?” Yes. You’re Under-Educated Knee-jerk Progressive Celebrities Under The Delusion That Your Opinion Is Special

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

What makes a washed-up child star like Alyssa Milano think that her analysis of the Hamas-Israel war should carry any special weight with the President of the United States? What makes any of the other acting Leftists who signed the statement—this predictable crew—

—think their letter should be taken any more seriously than, say, one signed by 60 or so dog-walkers or 7-11 clerks? It shouldn’t, you know. I know lots of actors; some of my best friends are actors, really and truly. But with notable exceptions, their political views are the product of working and socializing in a bubble where there are virtually mandatory political beliefs. Most of my acting friends–“artists”–would watch an hour of MSNBC and say, “Sounds good to me!” because they lack the historical perspective or depth of understanding to challenge the woke orthodoxy of their peers and employers.

Alyssa’s screed goes off the rails immediately. There is no “Palestine.” People who elect a terrorist group to represent them are responsible for the predictable consequences. As one wag neatly put it, Hamas “pearl-harbored” Israel: that’s a brutal act of war, and demands a response that will teach the lesson forever that you can’t do that, and if you do, the results will be dire. Hamas uses Gaza’s children as human shields, and that tactic must never be allowed to work. Calling for a cease fire when the piper is about to be paid makes Hamas’s intolerable conduct practical. Calling for Palestinians to benefit in any way as a result of the terror attack validates terrorism.

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Oregon Again Proves You Always Hurt The One You Love…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

…at least you do if wokeness has eaten your brains and you have the common sense of a shallot. This is just tragic, nauseating news. (Spike Jone’s rendition of the 40’s hit, in contrast still makes me laugh, and that’s why I need to hear it right now…)

The Oregon Board of Education decided unanimously—unanimously!—that high school students won’t need to demonstrate basic skills in reading, writing or math to graduate from high school until at least 2029. The state instituted the elimination of the basic graduation requirements in 2020. The pandemic, you know. It justified wrecking everything, and the more infected with the Great Stupid a state is, the worse its carnage.

Many Oregonians submitted public comments insisting the standards should be reinstated, arguing that pausing the requirement devalues an Oregon diploma. 1) Gee, ya think??? 2) NONONONONO. The reason for an education is not “the value of a diploma,” but the value of being educated.

ARRGGH. The delusion that the credential is what matters and not what the credential should signify is how we end up with policies like this.

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Next, SAG-AFTRA Will Tell Its Members To Paint Themselves Blue And Wear Ducks On Their Heads…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

I would quit any union that started behaving in the fascist manner of The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

The labor union representing approximately 160,000 media professionals worldwide is currently on strike, and as labor unions seem inclined to do, is making nutsy-cuckoo demands of its members. They have been assimilated, after all, and resistance is futile.

Yes, as that graphic from the unions shows, members have been told that they are doing a bad, anti-labor thing by dressing up as characters from “struck content,” meaning any movie or TV show, recent or ancient. That means they can’t be King Kong, Dracula (but a generic vampire is OK), Abe Lincoln, or Barbie, or else.

Morons. Worse than that, autocratic morons abusing their power.

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When Is The Best Apology The Worst Apology?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

One of the few benefits of the Hamas premeditated murder strike on Israeli civilians and Israel’s perfect response to it (‘OK, enough. You’re toast.’) is that it simultaneously ripped the masks off the corruption and the ethical vacuums in our two most ideologically compromised professions, journalism and education. Of course, the former will do its utmost to avoid reporting on the latter, but who knows? Maybe the truth will finally permeate the walnut shell-sheathed brains of the gullible and apathetic public.

Nah. What am I thinking?

Several professors have announced, often in truly disgusting terms, their belief that the Hamas terrorist attack was justified, and that it is “murder” for Israel to respond with deadly force. One poisoned school, CUNY, apparently has a faculty stuffed with such anti-Semitic fools: here’s a letter signed by over 80 professors and lecturers, including the celebrity ethics dunce Marc Lamont Hill, asserting the whole panoply of anti-Israel talking points. Any parent who allows their children to be indoctrinated at a college that would employ such intellectually dishonest activists as these as teachers is incompetent and irresponsible.

But I digress. Mika Tosca, an associate professor with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, went way, way beyond CUNY’s credentialed leftists in a rant on Instagram:

Yikes. Israelis are pigs, savages, and shit, disgusting and grotesque, and should rot in hell. How do you really feel, professor? Apparently, based on her subsequent post on the matter, she really feels completely differently:

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The President Going To Israel Isn’t A “Remarkable Gamble”—It’s Stupid, Desperate, Irresponsible And Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

According to the front page of the New York Times, President Biden is taking the trip this week “to show unwavering support for Israel — after what officials say was the deadliest day in its history — and to speak with the country’s leaders about several urgent issues, including hostages held by Hamas and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.” The Times calls it “a remarkable gamble,” but one should gamble, if at all, only when the potential reward is somewhere close to the anticipated risks, and sufficiently beneficial. There is no rational calculation that makes this absurdly risky journey a justifiable gamble by that definition. The President of the United States is risking the stability and welfare of the nation he was elected to lead to “show support”? Joe Biden can show sufficient support for Israel from the safety of a padded room at the White House.

The trip can only be explained as a Barn Door Fallacy operation, like the reported temporary retraction of the unfrozen Iranian funds that may well have given Iran the encouragement it needed to back the deadly Hamas attack. The President is grandstanding to avoid Democratic Party accountability after that botch before the attack, and for the disgusting, “let’s look at the context,” pro-terrorism and anti-Semitic response of so many Democratic supporters after it, notably on college campuses. It is a purely political move, and not even a smart one even from that cynical perspective.

Making the visit as futile as it is reckless is the undeniable fact that the Israeli government is not going to back away from its pledge to crush Hamas, with all the carnage in Gaza that objective implies. So Joe is putting himself in harm’s way, risking the horror of a Kamala Harris Presidency, to be able to tell Donald Trump that “at least he tried” in the debates? Oh, good plan.

Moron.

President Bush’s surprise 2003 Thanksgiving appearance in Iraq was also irresponsible grandstanding, but at least he was showing symbolic support for the U.S. troops he sent into harm’s way. Biden has no such justification for taking this risk. All I can conclude is that the internal polling at the White House regarding Joe’s popularity is so bad that Biden aides decided to appeal to his macho fantasies and convince our addled POTUS that the trip makes sense. And at least Bush didn’t announce the trip in advance, as Biden has. Brilliant.

The Israeli visit shows warped values, priorities and logic at the very top of our government. I would say that at least it’s useful information, but we already knew that about Joe and his party.

A Ruthless CEO Explains What To Do “When Life Hands You Lemons”

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Mike Flannagan (not the old Orioles pitcher) is a rising star director/screenwriter in the horror genre. His brilliant and complex mash-up of “The Haunting of Hill House” was as good as any horror movie or series I’ve ever seen, and his two follow-ups, one a re-thinking of “The Turn of the Screw,” are also smart, original and excellent. Now his mash-up of Edgar Alan Poe tales in a modern day horror story evoking the Sackler family and the opioid scandal is on Netflix. As with the previous three, “The Fall of the House of Usher”—the Ushers are the Sacklers— is cast substantially with his “rep company” including E.T.’s Henry Thomas and Annabeth Gish.

Last night I saw the episode in which the Faux Sackler family head and chief villain, played by Bruce Greenwood, gives a spontaneous speech about what smart businesses do when “Life hands them lemons,” and boy, it sure isn’t “make lemonade.” The second I heard it, when I had stopped applauding, I decided that the speech was an instant classic, much cleverer and better than Oliver Stone’s celebrated “Greed is good” speech that he wrote for Michael Douglas in “Wall Street.” It should be appearing soon in business school lectures across the country, and maybe laws schools too. I’m going to use it in an ethics seminar.

Flannagan’s speech for the bitter Usher family head is at once funny, chilling, revealing and true, perfectly encapsulating the ruthless logic of 21st Century capitalism as well as the soul of entrepreneurism.