Ethics Dunces

Ethics Dunce: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I assume the President will get severely criticized for this, and he will deserve it. “Make America Weenies Again.” Is that the strategy?

President Trump said yesterday that he has personally ordered the withdrawal of 700 I.C.E. officers from Minnesota and that his administration could use a “softer touch.” Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the White House mush-mouthed “border czar,” said about 2,000 officers and agents would be left in the state because an “unprecedented number of counties” were finally cooperating with federal officials and allowing ICE to take custody of unauthorized immigrants before they were released from jails. “This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement,” he said.

Okaaaaay. Maybe that’s true. It doesn’t matter. How the action will be received by the open borders mob, not just in Minnesota but in Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Virginia and the rest, is that interference with law enforcement works, riots work, elected officials demonizing law enforcement works, and open defiance of the federal government and U.S. laws work. Trump’s move, especially in a week when The Nation, the Far, Far Left magazine, nominated Minnesota for a Nobel Peace Prize for encouraging attacks on I.C.E officers, is a retreat that can only encourage more George Wallace -style nullification.

I know he is stuck with a party of weenies who will always surrender first principles when the whining from voters gains volume (“Why does law enforcement have to be so mean?”) Nevertheless, The President should have driven a hard bargain here, beginning with a demand that Tim Walz and his lackeys shut the hell up and stop talking about fighting law enforcement, arresting officers, the Civil War and the Holocaust. Trump should have threatened to use the Insurrection Act and added a “Dirty Harry”-esque “Go ahead. make my day.”

I get it: Trump doesn’t want to invoke the Insurrection Act. But his decision to try to avoid conflict only increases the likelihood that he will have to.

Frank Thomas Feels Insulted By The Chicago White Sox Black History Month Graphic. He Should Be.

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

After the Chicago White Sox posted the above graphic to honor “momentous firsts for the White Sox organization related to Black History Month,” White Sox slugger and Hall of Fame member Frank Thomas, “The Big Hurt,” posted bitterly on “X”: “I guess the black player who made you rich over there and holds all your records is forgettable!”

Petty? Childish? I don’t think so. If you look at the graphic, Frank Thomas appears only a virtual footnote, an afterthought following the recognition of Dick Allen, nowhere near as great a player as Thomas and certainly not the credit to the game that Frank was, as the Chisox’s first black MVP. Yet if the purpose is to honor standout African -American members of the team over its long history, Thomas’s record should have earned him top billing.

Thomas played for the White Sox from 1990–2005, winning back-to-back American League MVP awards (1993–1994) and now holds franchise records for home runs (448), RBIs (1,465), and walks. He tied Ted Williams on the lifetime homer list with 521, and ended his career with a .301 lifetime batting average in an era when .300 averages have become rarer every year. Thomas has the highest on-base percentage of any modern player who wasn’t Barry Bonds, as in “a freak steroid mutation that pitchers were afraid to pitch to.”

Thomas isn’t just the greatest black player in White Sox history, he is the greatest player in White Sox history of any color or ethnicity. But Thomas’s snub by his team is even more outrageous than those facts suggest.

Chicago is one of the eight original teams in the American League, meaning that the franchise has been operating as a major league team since 1901. Of the eight, only the White Sox can boast that a black man was unquestionably its greatest player.

The greatest Boston Red Sox player was Ted Williams. The New York Yankees: Babe Ruth; the Cleveland Indians: Bob Feller or Nap Lajoie; the Detroit Tigers: Ty Cobb; Washington (now Minnesota): Walter Johnson ; St. Louis (now Baltimore): Cal Ripken; Philadelphia (now Las Vegas, previously Kansas City and Oakland): Jimmy Foxx. All white. Frank Thomas stands alone as the sole black star to dominate an American League franchise over 125 years. If the idea is to honor “firsts,” he is the first black star in the league to achieve the status of all-time franchise great.

So the Chicago White Sox, seeking to celebrate Black History Month, minimized the impact, contributions, achievements and reputation of its greatest player, even though he is black.

Frank Thomas regards that as a slap in the face, and I don’t blame him.


Here’s Absolutism At Work: Nobody Should Ever Die As A Result Of Hazing, And The Only Way To Make Sure Is To Ban Fraternities.

/ Jack Marshall / 69 Comments

Those three college assholes made a “pledge” drink himself to death, or helped him end his life in some other foolish way. Nice.

An Arizona college student was found dead over the weekend after attending a fraternity rush event the previous night. The 18-year-old student couldn’t be revived at a residence near the campus of Northern Arizona University, even after bystanders in the home had performed CPR on his lifeless body. The student was pronounced dead at the scene despite their efforts.

Interviews with witnesses revealed that the student was a pledge candidate at Northern Arizona University’s Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Police arrested three students who were members of the fraternity’s executive committee: Carter Eslick, 20, the chapter’s “member educator” (that pledge sure learned his lesson, right?) Ryan Creech, 20, the fraternity vice president; and Riley Cass, 20, its treasurer. They were booked and charged with hazing.

Northern Arizona University issued a statement announcing that it had suspended Delta Tau Delta and pledged to support the police investigation.”We want to be clear: The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priorities,” the university said. “Violence hazing or any other behavior that endangers others has no place at NAU. The university has robust hazing prevention training and requirements, and has high standards for the conduct of all NAU-associated organizations and individual students.”

Not “robust” enough, though, right? This is garbage. Where there are fraternities there is a risk of hazing. (Sororities engage in hazing too, but it’s usually not fatal. Only two verified sorority hazing deaths have been recorded. That’s still two too many.) The latest death means that therehas been at least one hazing death every year from 1959 to 2026, and more than one in many of those years. 2026 is a good bet now to be a multiple death year. That’s more than 87 needless deaths.

The all-time total is, counting from the mid 19th Century, is believed to be more than 330 deaths from hazing.

Delta Tau Delta International also issued a statement, saying,”The Fraternity is aware of an ongoing investigation into the incident and encourages its members’ cooperation with local law enforcement.Our position on hazing is clear: it is the antithesis of brotherhood and a violation of the values of Delta Tau Delta.” The organization “vigorously supports the implementation of anti-hazing legislation” in Arizona and federally.

Well, legislation wouldn’t be needed if fraternities voluntarily accepted that they are archaic and dangerous relics of a more ignorant time.

Harvard has done a lot of things wrong, but it was astute enough to get rid of fraternities in the 1850s. There is no record of any Harvard student ever dying from hazing, which strongly suggest that the solution works. What benefits do fraternities confer on an educational institution and society to justify sacrificing one or more young lives every year?

Isn’t the clear answer “None”?

Nominee for Unethical (and Stupid) Quote of the Decade: Someone At The Grammys, It Doesn’t Matter Who, Since The Audience Erupted In Cretinish Applause…

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

“No one is illegal on stolen land.”

—Okay, I do know who it was: Billie Eilish, accepting the Grammy for song of the year.

I can’t imagine why anyone would watch the Grammys, and find it even more unimaginable that anyone would care what these under-educated, bubble-dwelling narcissists think about anything, but as usual for this crowd, one after another stepped up to the mic last night and again proved the immortal wisdom of Laura Ingraham’s edict, “Shut up and sing!”

Eilish’s quote is legally, logically, historically and factually absurd, and yet progressives increasingly find it inspiring and persuasive, which should tell you all you want to know about the current state of that ideological malady. Eilish’s nonsense was the most catchy of the many open borders outburst of the night, but there were many others, like…

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Kristi Noem Shouldn’t Be Impeached But She Should Resign

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Being inclined to shoot off one’s mouth like the President does not a qualified and responsible Cabinet member make.

Handling the necessarily ugly process of removing the illegal immigrants deliberately inflicted on the U.S. by Joe Biden (or whoever was pulling his strings) and the incompetent Sec. Mayorkas requires skill, courage, and media savvy. Well, one out of…wait, one out three is terrible. Kristy Noem is a detriment to the policy and the President.

Noem told the world that Alex Pretti committed an “act of domestic terrorism” against immigration agents. That wasn’t true, and even the videos most damning of Pretti didn’t indicate anything of the sort. But her outburst undermined the credibility of Homeland Security and I.C.E., giving the open borders, nullification extremists on the Left just what they wanted.

Noem isn’t clever enough to talk her way out of this, either. She told Fox News last week, Oopsie!… the situation immediately following the killing was “very chaotic,” see, and she was just “being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there.” “We were using the best information we had at the time,” Kristi blathered. Right: the best she had at the time was bad information, uncorroborated, and only an irresponsible ass would announce it to reporters as fact.

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A Sanctuary State By Any Other Name…Will Still Smell Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Democrats truly are addicted to “It isn’t what it is,” or Yoo’s Rationalization. It is this characteristic that has led them so deep into George Orwell territory and why the 21st Century mutation of the party is so untrustworthy. “War is Peace,” and an open border was a secure border, according to Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security. “Slavery is Freedom,” and President Biden was sharp as a tack even as he descended into gibberish on national TV. And, as we all know, “Ignorance is Strength,” and Kamala Harris was the most qualified Presidential candidate ever, ran a perfect campaign, and only lost because Americans are sexists and racists.

Maura Healy, the Democratic governor of my original home state (which has always been a little bit nuts) really opted in to Yoo’s Rationalization big time this week. She submitted a radical pro-illegal immigration bill to designate schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses as official “ICE-free zones,” which would have the effect of sharply (and I believe illegally) limiting where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can operate in the Bay State.

Healy’s bill would require ICE agents to obtain a judicial warrant before making civil immigration arrests in so-called “sensitive locations,” effectively placing some of the most common public spaces off-limits to routine federal enforcement. I.C.E. agents would have to obtain a judicial warrant before making civil immigration arrests in so-called “sensitive locations,” effectively placing some of the many public spaces off-limits to routine federal law enforcement. The bill would direct state agencies not to allow I.C.E. to use state-owned property for enforcement operations and restrict cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. And the proposed legislation does not distinguish between non-violent illegal immigration cases and criminal offenders: apparently in the Bay State, any illegal immigrant is a Good Illegal Immigrant.

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Ethics Alarms #&%@ed-Up. Again. Abject Apology Follows…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Why not start off the day with a humiliating confession? Nothing else has been working lately…

Back in May, I wrote about that ad above in which a goofy pitchman for the Allied Injury Group nicked or squashed a couple of legal ethics rules in the course of exactly the kind of lawyer advertising the profession was afraid would result when it had to eliminate the unconstitutional ban on the practice. It was a harsh post and should have been. I wrote in part,

“…the spokesperson calling himself “Your Favorite Attorney” is an actor, indeed a stand-up comic named Shaun Jones. All of the jurisdictions prohibit lawyer advertising in any form that is misleading or that includes false information. A sole practitioner can’t call her firm “X & Associates,” for example, if she’s the only lawyer in the firm. Putting a non-lawyer in front of a camera and calling having him call himself an attorney is an undeniable violation, and an intentional one… Jones also says that if the client doesn’t make money, “I” don’t make money. That is deceit. The firm will argue that the actor is only saying that if the firm doesn’t win its cases, the actor won’t get paid. But his statement is intended to refer to contingent fees for attorneys, and he isn’t one. “

Having done my duty to flag these hacks, I then proceeded to put the wrong law firm name in the headline! I have a typo and proofreading problem, as even casual visitors here know; I’ve gotten better, but the fact that these posts are usually written in fits and starts while I try to complete actual income-relating work [Thank you, by the way, to those of you who sent me generous contributions or gifts over the holidays, or kind words of encouragement that I appreciated just as much.] means that I sometimes miss glaring errors. That’s not an excuse. But it’s true.

This one was a doozy, made worse by my obstinate habit of proofing everything but the headlines. And so it was that The Allied Law Group, a distinguished and, based on my research, an impeccably professional and trustworthy firm that specializes in civil appellate law, media and First Amendment law, open government laws, regulatory litigation, legislation and general litigation, but not personal injury law, was unjustly and wrongly impugned.

That firm’s clients include lawyers, public interest groups, trade associations and media organizations. Their website is impressive and professional; I would even say, as one who is often asked to review the content of lawyer websites for ethics violations, exemplary.

So this was a really bad mistake on my part, and I could not be more sorry, embarrassed, contrite and remorseful. I apologize to the firm, its lawyers, its staff and clients. The post has been corrected, and let us never speak of it again.

I want to note that the firm attorney I spoke with was thoroughly civil, respectful, and, frankly, nicer than I might have been in a similar situation. She did not threaten me, as many lawyers are wont to do. She did inform me of the undeserved abuse that her firm has been getting—even death threats!—from people who have confused the firm with Allied Injury Group. People want to kill unethical lawyers now? I did not see that coming. I do have a hard time believing that anyone inclined to send death threats reads an ethics blog, but never mind: I accept responsibility for contributing to the confusion.

The Allied Law Group’s representative also didn’t make any demands during our conversation, because before she finished her second sentence I said: “I’ll fix that post immediately.” Nor did not instruct me to post this: I told her that I would compose an apology and get it up as soon as possible, because that’s my policy when I screw up.

Finally, I want to thank commenter Ric, who sent in a comment flagging the error last November. As Herman Kahn said, unlikely disasters occur when there’s a 1% confluence of bad management and bad luck. I try to read all reader comments. I missed that one.

Thus endeth the grovel.

Now to proof read the headline…

Bite Me, “Doomsday Clock”!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

If anyone or anything ever deserved an Ethics Alarms “Bite Me!,” it’s the ridiculous Doomsday Clock and the pompous, biased, fear-mongering scientists who set it.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the clock each year since 1947, and to say it does not have a sterling record, whatever standards one uses, would be an understatement. Well, I’ll take that back: they have a sterling record for being wrong. Still, once again the thing is in the news. “The ‘”‘Doomsday Clock'”‘ — a symbolic clock that supposedly represents how close humanity is to global catastrophe according to “experts” — “has moved closer to midnight,” ABC News tells us. “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday that the clock is now 85 seconds to midnight, with midnight representing the apocalypse.”

That’s the closest its ever been! AAAAIIIIIIIIII!!!

[Watch out now, you have to click on “2” below to keep reading…]

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Jeez, Conservatives! Ever Heard of the Ethical Virtues Prudence, Proportion, Self-Restraint, Respect and Fairness?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

How about “priorities”?

Who would have guessed that Otter would become a conservative? The Rule of Law is under organized, well-funded attack in this country, states are defying federal law and law enforcement, elected Democratic officials are telling citizens that the national government is the Gestapo and should be violently opposed, the news media is paving the way for two years of Congressional obstruction, and conservatives are organizing…against gay marriage?

A coalition of 47 conservative organizations is launching a campaign to challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, declaring same sex marriage to be a civil right. Wow, what great timing. The Democrats are intent on packing the Supreme Court already, the news media is fear-mongering daily about what the Evil Republicans have in store, and just in time for the mid-term elections, which already are looking like an open door to an impeachment orgy and a return to open borders and weenie foreign policies, conservatives decide to metaphorically die on a hill for a cause that is both futile, unpopular and unethical.

Among these deluded obsessives are Them Before Us , the American Family Association, the Colson Center for Biblical Worldview, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family,the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Live Action, the Ruth Institute, the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, and family policy nonprofits across the country, representing Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and others.

This group of bitter-enders should be joining principled conservatives in critical, winnable battles instead of focusing their time, trumpets and resources on an issue that has not only been settled but settled ethically. The right to same-sex marriage cannot be reversed without cruel and massive upheavals of lives and families, never mind giving the Left something else to riot about. Such a movement also guarantees the alienation of libertarians, who already line up with the Left regarding open borders.

The stubborn foes of the right to marry have laid out a three-prong strategy: “returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship; changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children; and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.”

Hmmm, let’s see:

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Inside The Mind Of The Kind Of Progressive Fighting Law Enforcement In Minnesota

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

The term suggested is “pro-crime” leftist. I’d prefer pro-chaos leftist, because the Far Left has always sown chaos as the perfect compost for expended government power and totalitarianism. Somehow, the Far Left is now just the Left. How unhinged (or sinister) are these people? Behold Anna Krauthammer, for whom indoctrination, mainstreamed bias from the new media and an IQ below freezing resulted in her authorship of “Why I Didn’t Report My Rape” at the Socialist/Communist rag “The Nation.”

She’s a “prison abolitionist,” as well as a Defund the Police lunatic and a “law enforcement is racist” puppet. Here’s enough of a sample of her nonsense to send you to the nearest toilet:

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