Ethics Dunces

And This Is Supposed To Be A Rising Leader of the Democrat Party…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Unbelievable. Or at least it should be unbelievable that an elected member of Congress would behave like this. That the party such an indefensible hack belongs to—and who is regarded as a leader of???— wouldn’t collectively disclaim any responsibility for said hack and wear paper bags over their heads in penance. That…oh, never mind. Why do I bother?

Diving in to try to defend Virginia Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D) after the Epstein files revealed that she had been reading texts from the convicted sex-trafficker during a House hearing, Crockett got up and accused Mitt Romney, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Trump official Lee Zeldin among other Republicans officials of receiving political contributions from “someone named Jeffrey Epstein” as she claimed that Republicans were exacting a double standard—you know, like Democrats do routinely. But the Jeffrey Epstein she was tying to Romney et al. was a completely different person.

Was the ethically-inert Texas Congresswomen shooting off her mouth using false information because she is irresponsible and incompetent, or was she engaging in despicable deceit (that is, lying) to mislead the public? Who knows, and I don’t care: her declaration was a bright-line ethics breach and sanctionable in either case, as well as signature significance both for an untrustworthy member of Congress and a hyper-partisan asshole.

Ah, but this in-your-face blot on the U.S. Legislative Branch wasn’t done. When her false innuendos were raised in a CNN interview, Crockett exploded in double-talk to try to weasel out of her indefensible conduct:

“Listen, I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein. Just so that people understand, when you make a donation, your picture is not there. And because they decided to spring this on us in real time, I wanted the Republicans to think about what could potentially happen because I knew that they didn’t even try to go through the FEC,” this awful woman humina-humina-ed. “So my team, what they did is they Googled. And that is specifically why I said, ‘a Jeffrey Epstein’. Unlike Republicans, I at least don’t go out and just tell lies.”

Somebody pleas explain to Crockett what a lie is.

” Because it was not the same one, that’s fine,” she continued, spinning like Dorothy’s cyclone. “But when Lee Zeldin had something to say, all he had to say was it was a different Jeffrey Epstein. He admitted that he did receive donations from a Jeffrey Epstein. So at least I wasn’t trying to mislead people. Now, have I dug in to find out who this doctor is? I have not. So I will trust and take what he says is that it wasn’t that Jeffrey Epstein, but I was not attempting to mislead anybody. I literally had maybe 20 minutes before I had to do that debate.”

Right. Of course she was trying to mislead.

Kaitlin Collins responded (more equivocally than she should have): “Yeah, but people might see that say, well, you’re trying to make it sound like he took money from a literal sex offender.”

“But I literally did not know,” Crockett answered.

Jasmine Crockett is a walking, jive-talking insult to the nation.

Incompetent Elected Official and Ethics Dunce (But You Knew That, I Hope): Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene amazed Washington, D.C last night when she announced that she will resign from Congress after the first of the year, refusing to meet her obligations to the (dumb) voters who elected her and leaving them without a voice in Congress—an obnoxious and foolish voice, true, but still—for months.

As is often the case with the ethically-challenged, Taylor-Greene has managed to exceed the worst expectations of her. She has been a disgrace; now she is further disgracing herself and doing so with the vacant stare of the IQ-deficient and the phony smile of the bad liar. Like other recently departed creeps (George Santos, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Matt Gaetz) elected by exactly the kinds of voters the Founders were worried about when they decided to try the republic thingy, Taylor-Greene (henceforth just “Green” because I resent having to spend any more time typing her name that I have to) will leave Congress and our government a better place by leaving them.

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No, Rachel Maddow Did Not Demonstrate a Sudden Attack of Decency and Bi-Partisanship By Attending Dick Cheney’s Funeral

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Oh come on. Does anyone really believe this? Seriously?

Dishonest and frighteningly biased like the paper he works for, New York Times pundit Peter Baker actually had the gall to post this on “X”:

To which Sidney Wang quickly responded,

“Changed” since when? Maddow has been allied with the Trump-hating Cheneys and Bushes since at least 2015.

Maddow was invited to Chaney’s funeral, a gathering one wag described as a meeting of the “I Hate Trump” club, by Liz Cheney, who became a favorite of MSNBC’s talking heads once she voted for the second of Nancy Pelosi’s partisan impeachments against President Trump and was complicit in the rigged Star Chamber hearings on the so-called J-6 riots. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is an ancient proverb that has turned up in many cultures and in the mouths of many philosophers since the dawn of speech. It is simple Cognitive Dissonance Scale reality. Glenn Greenwald gets it, but then do Elmo and the cast of “Jackass!”, I bet:

It isn’t Maddow’s presence at the funeral but the absence of President Trump and Vice-President Vance that shows the collapse of professionalism, mutual respect, decency and decorum in today’s politics. Neither were invited to attend. Trump recklessly (and, as I have written before, stupidly) insulted the Bush-Cheney political machine when he was running for President in 2016, and it wreaked its revenge by abandoning the supposed conservative principles its members stood for to become bitter and fanatic NeverTrumpers. Dick Cheney and his daughter endorsed Kamala Harris, proving that personal vendettas were more important to them than the welfare of the nation. 

If Maddow’s smirking presence at the funeral showed how “politics have changed in America,”it only demonstrated that they have become more petty and and vicious, with its institutions being weakened and the public trust in its motives justly reduced to vapors.

Now THIS Is An Unethical Judge (Or Just A Nut Case…)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Matthew E.P. Thornhill was the longest-serving circuit judge in St. Charles County, Missouri. A judicial conduct commission recently demanded that he be suspended and then resign, and Thornhill has agreed to retire pending the approval of the Missouri Supreme Court. Why is he leaving? Well…

1. He promoted his election campaigns by asking litigants, witnesses and lawyers if they had seen his “Thornhill for Judge” signs.

2. He gave a personal reference on behalf of the petitioner in an adoption case that was pending before another judge. A judge can’t be a character witness without a subpoena.

3….and then there was the judge’s obsession with Elvis Presley:

  • According to his biography page on the St. Charles County Circuit Court website, he “loves Elvis.” So much so that he would refer to the dates of Presley’s birth or death “when such statements were irrelevant to the proceedings before the court.”
  • He frequently recited Elvis’s song lyrics in court.
  • He asked litigants and witnesses if they wanted Elvis’s songs played as they were being sworn in.
  • He indeed sometimes played Elvis recordings in the courtroom and (Drumroll!)…
  • Dressed up as Elvis during trials, sometimes wearing an Elvis wig.

The state’s Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline of Judges found that Judge Thornhill had “engaged in a course of conduct in which he failed to maintain order and decorum in the courtroom, in his chambers and in the courthouse, and further failed to maintain the dignity appropriate of judicial office.”

In a letter to the Missouri Supreme Court, Thornhill wrote that wearing an Elvis wig and playing Elvis songs in court had been to “add levity at times when I thought it would help relax litigants….I now recognize that this could affect the integrity and solemnity of the proceedings.” The Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline of Judges has announced that Judge Thornhill had “admitted to the truth and substantial accuracy” of the allegations against him and would be retiring after his suspension.

In a local television interview last year, Thornhill said that he had visited Graceland 13 times. “Burning Love” is one of his favorite Elvis songs.

Me too!

So here it is….

Regarding That “Seditious” Democrat Video…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Who’s kidding whom?

You know that six former members of the military who by chance happened to be Democrats didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to “remind” members of the military that they are not supposed to obey “illegal orders.” They know that: every member of the military is taught the principle, though few have the fortitude to actually defy a superior officer on that basis. (My father did it at least three times during World War II while in the infantry.) This fake public service message or whatever you’d like to call it was a cheap, deceitful, underhanded way of advancing the Democratic Party’s “autocrat”/”threat to democracy”/”end elections” narrative to smear President Trump while exacerbating the brain fever of Trump Derangement Victims. Oh, it’s clever in the same diabolical way the “It’s OK to be white!” signs were, or the whole Black Lives Matter scam, or “Let’s Go Brandon!” Wink-wink. nudge-nudge, you get what we really mean, don’t you?

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University Presidents Say That Higher Ed Has “Lost The Trust” of the Public—Gee, Ya THINK?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

When it takes universities and colleges this long to figure out what was already obvious for years, no wonder the public has lost trust in them.

“We Lost Our Mission’: Three University Leaders on the Future of Higher Ed” is the latest “Breaking: Water is Wet!” media headline, this one at the New York Times[gift link]. Sian Beilock, president of Dartmouth College, Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, and Jennifer Mnookin, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, spoke with Times’ opinion editor Ariel Kaminer. Despite the headline, it is not an encouraging discussion.

The gist of the three presidents’ “confession” is the same as that of the Biden Administration’s response to the public’s gradual realization that its policies were a disaster. “We need better messaging!” Translation: “We need to get better at fooling people into thinking we are doing what we are not.”

The three university presidents criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to reform higher education’s conversion from educating to indoctrinating while saying they must work to regain the trust of the American people and emphasize viewpoint diversity. “I don’t believe a compact with a Republican or Democratic-led White House is the right way to effect change in higher ed,” Beilock said. Funny though: the three wouldn’t be making having this discussion if the Trump administration wasn’t throwing a spotlight on their bias and failure. “The Trump administration is cracking down, artificial intelligence is ramping up, varsity athletes are getting paid and a college education is losing its status as the presumptive choice of ambitious high school seniors,” the article begins. Yes, that’s a fair summary of where higher education is right now, with no improvement in sight.

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Discovered While Researching “Trump Derangement”(And Seeking A Cure)…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

The poster, who didn’t created the bad “Calvin and Hobbs” meme, is a Facebook freind, a Harvard grad, a performing arts executive and very nice man. I left his name off this because I don’t want to embarrass him. He made the silly and wrong comment on top of the meme, which he got off the page of the user below the meme, who authored the fatuous idiocy under it. He once was smarter than this. He is hopelessly Trump-Deranged: I have posted his symptoms on Ethics Alarms before.

Christina Lorey is a journalist who has hundreds of thousands of followers all over social media, and claims to be a “Good News” reporter. Is it “good news” that a journalist has so many followers who take such self-contradictory junk as what she wrote under Calvin and his friend (after having dumb words cruelly rammed down their throats) seriously?

I think her display is self-indicting (res ipsa loquitur) but to start you off:

1. Woke” does not mean “treating everyone the same” (it is the condition of trying to prove to doctrinaire progressives that you embrace all of their cant, narratives and delusions no matter how harmful and illogical, and thus deserve to exits), nor does “treating everyone the same” describe what DEI aims for. That definition is a radical concept, because people are, and always should be, treated according to their conduct and positive (or negative) value to society. It isn’t even a concept that my demented fried and his fellow travelers believe in or practice. Heck, they don’t even believe that elected American Presidents should be “treated the same.”

2. Calvin’s statement, in addition to being dumb and depressing in its stupidity unlike Calvin’s real observations, which were wise and funny, is self-rebutting. What it advocates is presumed racism, the rotten heart of the George Floyd Freakout, in which discriminating against whites is declared to be the necessary means of keeping the intrinsically evil race and the organizations members of that race lead from discriminating against minorities, which they will always do. A clogged toilet full of glaring examples renders this proposition null and void: disgraced DEI Harvard President Claudine Gay; Kamala Harris, of course (Do Democrats really believe that she was the best nominee they could find for either President of Vice-President?), the Worst Paid White House Liar Ever, Karine St.Pierre, now embarrassing herself and her party coast-to-coast on a book tour, the two DEI SCOTUS Justices, Sonia The Wise Latina and Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson; finally fired MSNBC host Joy Reid, the current and previous mayors of Chicago…you can add to the list if you have the time and stomach for it. Sure, no white candidates were more qualified and able than those villains and fools.

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The U.S. “Isn’t Ready” For a Woman President? Oh Shut Up, Michelle!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Michelle Obama‘s latest nonsense was too stupid for an “unethical quote” award and she’s never been elected to anything, so the “Incompetent Elected Official” designation is also beyond her grasp. If “Most Over-rated, Arrogant, Narcissistic First Lady in U.S. History” title was the prize, Michelle would lap the competition.

Here’s her whole, nauseating quote in response to actress Tracee Ellis Ross (Diana’s daughter) on whether there has been enough “room” created for a woman President, whatever the hell that means:

“As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready. That’s why I’m like, don’t even look at me about running ‘cause you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman. We got a lot of growing up to do and there’s still … a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman and we saw it.”

What? Who admires this woman, and how do they justify it? To begin with, Hillary Clinton, a woman last I checked, won the popular vote in the 2016 election, meaning that our bigoted, juvenile population still voted for a female President despite her running one of the most inept and offensive campaigns in U.S. Presidential history…until the next woman ran. You can see that one with full babbling cretinism flying in the video above, where Kamala gloats about her “three dimensional chess” brilliant strategy that lost.

It isn’t that the U.S. isn’t ready for a female President: it isn’t ready for a phony, blithering, incompetent female President. Kamala lost by less than 2 percentage points despite being unable to put together a coherent argument, getting an unearned nomination, picking a complete boob as her running mate, and praising the record of the even bigger boob who picked her as VP, and who was the Worst President Ever.

“Harris lost because of sexism” is a despicable, dishonest and insulting excuse for her party’s defeat, and the fact that Michelle Obama would stoop to it gives us one more, like, incompetent and untrustworthy, like, female not to vote for as, like, President.

What an asshole.

So What’s With The “Groypers”?

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

I guess because I regard podcasts as a waste of time, the term “Groyper” was happily outside my consciousness until very recently. The main reason I encountered it at all was the latest Tucker Carlton controversy that metastasized into a big PR problem for the Heritage Foundation. Tucker—note please that Ethics Alarms identified him as a principle-free, self-aggrandizing, cynical Ethics Villain years ago, even before his Fox News stardom: See? “I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everybody says!”—has been cozying up to Hitler apologists, Holocuast-deniers, anti-Semites and white supremacists because, as usual, he’s decided that its where the clicks and “likes” lie among the easily fooled and ignorant. After he had a slobbering interview with white supremacist (above) Nick Fuentes (whose followers call themselves “Groypers“), Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, posted a disgaceful video on social media praising and defending the creep (I mean Carlson in this case) while using terms that sounded like anti-Semitic dog-whistles.

I should have posted on it, but I wrongly assumed Roberts would have been forced to resign by now. The board of Heritage should get cracking: one thing conservatives, Republicans and MAGA do not need is for the #1 conservative think tank to be perceived as backing fascists (referring to Fuentes this time) and lying assholes (back to Tucker).

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Note To ABC News: “Live By The Bias, Die By The Bias!”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

ABC News got its just desserts on Sunday, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made an appearance on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” to discuss with George the government shutdown and correctly characterize it as the Democrats holding the innocent Americans hostage while they try to refuse to acknowledge that they no longer run the country.

Bessent made it clear—because, you know, it’s the truth— that the Democrats’ aim was to sabotage Trump’s record going into the midterm, as he described the “human costs” of the Left’s tantrum including holiday air travel, cargo transport and supply chain disruptions. When Stephanopoulos acted as he always does, as an advocate for his political party, Bessent pointed out his hypocrisy.

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