Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The Congresswoman’s Prayer Breakfast Joke

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Outspoken freshman Congresswoman Nancy Mace, (R-SC), decided to throw away her prepared remarks and riff at the beginning of her speech at fellow South Carolinian Sen. Tim Scott’s prayer breakfast last week. That was her first mistake.

“When I woke up this morning at 7, I was getting picked up at 7:45, Patrick, my fiance, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed. And I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning,'” Mace began. “I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.”

Yes, there’s nothing better to warm up the crowd at a prayer breakfast like a pre-marital sex joke!

Seriously, how hard is it to avoid making comments about sex at a prayer breakfast? She probably embarrassed Sen. Scott thoroughly, who was metaphorically batting second behind the nookie narrative in her remarks as she praised him profusely. Scott is running for President, however futilely, and doesn’t need any silly but completely avoidable controversies. Mace also probably made Seacoast Church Pastor Greg Surratt a little uncomfortable, who had honored both her and Scott as a part of his congregation.

Continue reading →

Our Woke Education Apocalypse Update: The Failure Of The “I Promise” School, And Other Horrors

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

With great fanfare, NBA immortal LeBron James established the “I Promise charter school in 2018 to educate “at-risk” students. The I Promise School, which teaches children from 1st to 8th grade, promises:

With education as the driving force of change, the LeBron James Family Foundation is not only spreading that impact and improving lives of inner-city students and families, but also shifting the course of an entire community. Focusing on his hometown of Akron, the Foundation’s I PROMISE program provides year-round resources, access to opportunities, supportive skill development, constant encouragement and other wraparound supports to more than 1,300 Akron Public School students who have all been guaranteed college scholarships if they do their part. These efforts have culminated in the groundbreaking new public school – the I Promise School – that is taking an innovative approach to providing a challenging, supportive, and life-changing education, creating a new model for urban public education.

Soaring and inspiring words…it’s too bad that the Akron Beacon Journal reported this week that the 2023 “class of eighth graders at the I Promise School hasn’t had a single student pass the state’s basic math test since the group was in the third grade.” Moreover, “The state has also issued its first concern about the school: two of I Promise’s biggest subgroups of students, black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education’s list of those requiring targeted intervention.”

The response from those responsible? “Huminahuminahumina…” Stephanie Davis, the new principal of the school this year who was introduced as “the perfect person to lead the I Promise School and all of our families to the success we know they will achieve,” according to the school district, had no immediate explanation.

Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unthical Judge…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In fact, “unethical” doesn’t do her justice.

A courtroom security camera caught Lincoln County (Oklahoma) District Judge Traci Soderstrom during a murder trial as she paged through her iPhone, checking Facebook, surfing the web, and texting as the trial went on, supposedly under her supervision. This continued for hours. The case involved the brutal murder of Braxton Danker, 2, who was beaten to death by 32-year-old Khristian Tyler Martzall. Soderstrom ordered the jury at the outset of the trial to turn off their phones. “This will allow you to concentrate on the evidence without interruption,” intoned the judge. Then she had her own eyes glued to her phone screen during opening statements and witness testimony.

After the video was discovered, the judge dealt with the scandal by having camera moved rather than try to explain or apologize for her behavior.

Continue reading →

What Should Ethics Alarms Call Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene After Her Hunter Porn Stunt? Ethics Dunce? Incompetent Elected Official?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I choose “disgusting.” The GOP Georgia representative embarrasses me as an American. And she’s incompetent and unethical.

A member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Rep. Greene thought it was appropriate to use her allotted time during a hearing to display nude photographs of Hunter Biden in various situations that could not be put on non-porn television (except, in this case, C-Span, as in the photo above). A member of Congress was displaying graphic shots of the President’s son engaged in sexual acts with alleged prostitutes. “Here is proof Hunter Biden paid prostitutes through his law firm, OWASCO PC, and trafficked his victims across state lines in violation of the Mann Act,” she tweeted. “Not only that, IRS whistleblowers confirm Hunter Biden committed tax fraud by deducting payments to prostitutes from OWASCO’s taxes.”

The photos “proved” neither. In a trial, they would be excluded as prejudicial and irrelevant.

“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home know that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said. That was thoughtful. The obscene photos shed no light whatsoever on any of the matters regarding the President’s sad and corrupt son that are legitimate topics of Congressional attention: whether he engaged in influence peddling with foreign governments that benefited his father or influenced his actions, and whether he has been shielded from the legal consequences a non-Presidential family member would face who engaged in the same activities. Greene claimed the photos were important supporting evidence regarding a tax fraud coverup and special treatment that resulted in Hunter cutting a deal with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes.

Oh. Huh?

Continue reading →

From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: House Democrats Vote To Censor Robert Kennedy, Jr. During A Hearing On Government Censorship

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

What more is there to say? Not much:

Continue reading →

Easiest Ethics Quiz Ever!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Your Ethics Alarms Easiest Ethics Quiz of All Time is…

Do you detect any bias in the CNBC lists of the Best and Worst States to Live and Work in?

Here they are:

CNBC’s top 10 worst states to live and work for 2023 are…

  1. Texas
  2. Oklahoma
  3. Louisiana
  4. South Carolina and Alabama (tie)
  5. —
  6. Missouri
  7. Indiana
  8. Tennessee
  9. Arkansas
  10. Florida

CNBC’s top 10 best states to live and work for 2023 are…

  1. Vermont
  2. Maine
  3. New Jersey
  4. Minnesota
  5. Hawaii
  6. Oregon
  7. Washington
  8. Massachusetts and  Colorado (tie)
  9. —
  10. Connecticut

One of the criteria for determining the best states to live and work in is is the extent to which they permit relatively unrestricted abortion, since many single women regard this as a priority. Ironically, such states are not desirable places for unwanted children to ever have a chance live or work, but this was not one of the criteria.

USA Today and other mainstream media outlets reported the CNBC woke propaganda effort uncritically without noting the obvious. The USA Today article began, “How does life in your state compare to the rest of America?”

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

Ethics Hero (Corporate Division): In-N-Out Burger

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Among the many ways the last few years of Wokemania has reduced the quality of American life and our access to the pursuit of happiness is the creation of the ideology-linked addiction to virtually useless masks and a near-crippling phobia regarding the threat of air-borne illnesses created by fearmongering during the pandemic.

Continue reading →

On Lady Gaga’s Frenchies: Not Surprisingly, Criminals Don’t Comprehend “The Unclean Hands Doctrine” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

[In the original version of this post I confused readers by forgetting to erase pieces of the source article that I had pasted to the draft to save me the time of jumping back and forth between screens. My fault. Then I compounded the problem by leaving out the link. Fixed. It was all my fault; can’t blame WordPress this time.]

What a moron.

But then if criminals were smart, we’d be in even more trouble than we are…

Lady Gaga promised to pay a $500,0000 reward for the return of her two kidnapped French Bulldogs Gustav and Koji (two of the three above: sorry, I don’t know which). The pop icon’s dogwalker was shot and injured during the theft. Emulating the plot twist in the Mel Gibson thriller “Ransom,” however, one of the participants in the kidnapping scheme decided to collect the reward, arguing that because Gaga had said she would pay for the dogs’ return “no questions asked,” she was obligated even to pay someone who was involved in the crime.

Seeking the outlandish reward, Jennifer McBride was arrested when she turned in the dogs at a police station. She pleaded no contest to knowingly receiving stolen property and was sentenced to probation. I suppose the scheme was to have her collect the reward and split it with the dognappers.

After Lady Gaga warbled, “You’ve got to be kidding!’ when McBride asked for the money, McBride sued her for breach of contract.

Uh, no.

In rejecting the claim, Judge Hollie J. Fujie of Los Angeles Superior Court cited the ancient “unclean hands doctrine,” which holds that a litigant cannot benefit from a situation he or she deliberately helped to bring about by illegal or unethical conduct.

“The unclean hands doctrine demands that a plaintiff act fairly in the matter for which he seeks a remedy,” Fujie wrote, adding that the UHD “is an equitable rationale for refusing a plaintiff relief where principles of fairness dictate that the plaintiff should not recover, regardless of the merits of their claim.”

Continue reading →

Wait…What’s The Problem? Isn’t Mayor Wu Just Following The Tactics And Principles Of Her Party?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I don’t understand. The Biden Administration has declared that opponents of his policies are threats to democracy. The current Justice Department has sought extreme and excessive punishment for the protesters and rioters at the Capitol in January of 2021 while ignoring the violent and disruptive acts of the George Floyd Freakout rioters and demonstrators. The Democratic Administration sought to intimidate parents who were critical of woke school boards seeking to inject sexual politics and CRT ideology into public school curricula. And yet when Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu admitted that her staff compiled a list of her most vocal critics and protesters to hand to local law enforcement authorities, the public, which in Boston is primarily Democratic and progressive, howled in outrage.

This is how their increasingly totalitarian party operates in 2023. This is what they voted for. What are they complaining about?

Continue reading →

Ethics Verdict: Disney Is Officially Incompetent

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Yes, those are “the Seven Dwarfs” of “Snow White and” fame, according to our national steward of childhood fantasy and iconic fables, the Disney Corporation. That photo is smoking gun evidence of insanity, a production shot from the upcoming live action version of the 1937 movie that made Walt Disney’s artistic vision a cultural force, now retitled “Snow White.” Of course Snow White is going to be Snow Of Color, as the actress playing the German fairy tale princess is Latina Rachel Zegler, who has already embraced the company’s current “screw tradition, common sense and legacy” attitude by tweeting, “Yes I am Snow White; no, I am not bleaching my skin for the role.”

You do recall why Snow White was called Snow White, right?

Continue reading →