Ethics Dunces

Former President Barack Obama Runs For 2024’s “Hypocrite Of The Year”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Oh, shut up, Barack!

In a speech yesterday at his foundation’s Democracy Forum, Barack Obama demonstrated his abundance of gall by calling for an end to “divisiveness” and for Americans to embrace compromise while building coalitions, something he refused to do as President.

Obama, after pledging to be a President of all the people, “bringing black and white together,”also exacerbated racial divisions like no President before him since Woodrow Wilson, a big Jim Crow fan. He chose to avoid political compromise during his entire term, laying the foundations of the gridlock we have seen since with the enthusiastic assistance of Nancy Pelosi in the House and the now thankfully dead Harry Reid Senate. As a former President, Obama did not extend his successor the same courtesy George W. Bush extended to him, which was to stay on the sidelines and withhold public criticism. He vividly illustrated why the unwritten rule and “democratic norm” in the U.S. has been that former Presidents, as the New York Times stated in 2007, “should speak respectfully of their successors, or at least with some measure of restraint.”

Did you know that Donald Trump doesn’t respect “democratic norms”?

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Trump-Deranged Exploding Axis Head of the Week: LA Times Senior Legal Columnist Harry Litman

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’m going to send you over to Harry Litman’s substack to read his whole rant against Donald Trump and the LA Times: who knows, some of you may want to subscribe. As for me, “Why I Just Resigned From The Los Angeles Times” just fills me with sympathy for the poor guy, and hope he finds some help. He’s not an idiot, or wasn’t: he’s a lawyer with an impressive CV, and has all the markers of a normal, functioning citizen like you and me. This is what living in California, allowing yourself to be lobotomized by the Axis of Unethical Conduct’s Big Lies, and and being blind to the misconduct and flaws of your own party will do to you. Litman just metaphorically set himself on fire to protest Trump’s election and signs that his trade, which has completely disgraced itself over the past decade, might be slowly reforming.

The thing is more than 2000 words, almost all of them you have read or heard before from Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, The View, Charles M. Blow, Jonathan Capeheart, Van Jones, the Lincoln Group, among others, including…

…you know. Here are some choice excerpts:

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Obnoxious and Unethical Post-Election Reaction #1: Comedian Jim Gaffigan

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Shut up and be funny, Jim.

Jim Gaffigan can be a funny stand-up comic, but whoever it was at CBS who invited him to write a political op-ed piece should be fired. Here it is, with a few comments from me…

“How are you holding up? Are you over it? I’m over it. I’m fine. At least, at times I think that. It’s obviously not what I wanted but that’s life. I’m not going to lie. It been an adjustment, but the world continues to spin.”

It’s an election, you fool. Just because you hang out with people who are Trump Deranged and think anything short of woke insanity, mandatory political correctness and free “gender-affirming care” for illegal immigrants in prison is fascism doesn’t mean this or any election is something you have to “hold up” after. This kind of talk spreads panic, paranoia, division and craziness. Shut up.

“And I’m an adult. I have children that are counting on me. I mean, they don’t listen to me, but I can’t just curl up in a ball and mope.”

Then you’re not an adult.

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If There Was Any Doubt That “The Ethicist” Is Pandering To NYT’s Trump Deranged Readers, There Is No Longer…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Since last week, in succession, “The Ethicist” who hangs out at the New York Times Magazine has chosen to answer “My Mom Voted for Trump. Can We Let It Go?,” then “Am I a Hypocrite for Calling Donald Trump a Liar?” (which was too stupid for Ethics Alarms to even make fun of) and now comes the brain-melting “Shouldn’t Trump Voters Be Viewed as Traitors?”

“Name Withheld” writes, “From my perspective, the attack on the Capitol spurred on by Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, the efforts to nullify the results of the 2020 election with false electors and unfounded court cases and the persistent effort to discredit those election results without evidence amounted to an attempt to overthrow a pillar of our democracy. More to the point, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 includes crimes against the nation described as treason, misprision of treason, rebellion or insurrection, seditious conspiracy and advocating the overthrow of government. I hold anyone voting for Trump at least morally guilty for the consequences of Jan. 6 and everything that follows the recent election. Would you agree that people who vote for Trump in light of these circumstances are themselves guilty of treasonous acts?”

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No Wonder Today’s Great Britain Is Choking With Woke Insanity, Censorship and Weeny-ism…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The Hollywood version of the Broadway cult musical “Wicked” appears to be a holiday box office smash. I suppose I’m going to have to see it, though “Wizard of Oz” worship alienated me long ago and how they can justify making a two hour, 45 minute film of just Act I of a three hour musical mystifies me. However, there is something to be learned from the nanny state’s British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC) felt that it had to put out these ridiculous trigger warnings for what is essentially a family movie:

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Unethical Tweet Of The Week: President-Elect Donald Trump (Sigh!)

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I didn’t see this until I had already put up the previous post about “Stupid Thanksgiving Tricks.” If I had, it would have been included. Above all else, the tweet is stupid.

I know, I know…this may be Julie Principle territory. Still, the conduct of the President of the United States is always of special significance, so I am loathe to declare before the second roller-coaster Trump term begins that he will be given an Ethics Alarms pass for the inevitable social media outbursts to come. What is so discouraging, not to mention unethical, about Trump’s Thanksgiving Day tweet is that it shows, again unfortunately, that our soon-to-be 47th President has a flat learning curve, at least in the area of public statements.

There is no reason for Trump to issue a back-handed  “Happy Thanksgiving” message, and so many reason not to. He certainly knows that somehow managing to at least alleviate the toxic partisan divisions in America is not only an important task he must face and treat seriously, but also essential to the success of his administration. Trump Derangement is also approaching national health emergency status. What ethical objective can a tweet like that possibly accomplish? The answer is, I hope all can agree, none. Well, none except making Trump feel good. How juvenile and self-indulgent, in addition to selfish. The tweet is essentially gloating, a “Nyah, nyah, nyah!” to his foes. All it does is make them angrier, more hateful, more irrational, and more convinced that all Trump wants to do is inflict revenge on “Radical Left Lunatics.” The substantive goals he has claimed to be seeking will require his full attention; there is no time for such pettiness.

Yet there is it. No self-control, no hint of appropriate priorities, no sense of “I could tweet this, but it would be wrong.” No nation will be respected whose elected leader behaves that way.

 

Why American Journalism Is Ethically Clueless And Doomed In One Rant….

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I wish I could find a video of Axios CEO Jim VandeHei‘s embarrassing rant at the recent National Press Club gala that wasn’t tricked up like this one, but it’s sufficient to make the point. Naturally, Axios called the thing “inspired” and the assembled hack propagandists at the Press Club applauded like seals. He passionately defended “fearless reporting,” meaning with no fear of accountability. “Everything we do is under fire!” he warned. Yes. That’s because what you do so often is destructive, reckless, incompetent and biased. It should be under fire.

“I hate this damn debate about,‘ Oh, we don’t need the media,’ he said last week night as VanderHei and co-founder Mike Allen accepted the Fourth Estate Award for “lifetime achievement.” “It’s not true!”

Let me explain, Jim: we don’t need the unethical, arrogant media we’re currently stuck with, which is untrustworthy and dangerous. “But at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying about going to jail, maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what’s actually happening!” Oh, bite me.

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A Show Of Hands, Now: Who’s Shocked That A “Technology Misinformation” Expert Used A.I. Generated Fake Information?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

geewhatasurprise. But as Mastercard would say, this story is priceless.

Professor Jeff Hancock is founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, and his faculty biography states that he is “well-known for his research on how people use deception with technology.” Apparently he knows the subject very well: Hancock submitted an affidavit supporting new legislation in Minnesota that bans the use of so-called “deep fake” technology in support of a candidate (or to discredit one) in an election. Republican state Rep. Mary Franson is challenging the law in federal court as a violation of the First Amendment (which, of course, it is). But Democrats don’t like the First Amendment. Surely you know that by now.

But I digress…

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Whoa! “The View” Has Had To Issue 36 “Legal Notes” So Far This Year

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The imposition of “legal notes” on “The View’s” panel of bigots, incompetents, liars and fools received a lot of attention last week because there were four of them, as ABC’s lawyers were quick to force clarifications on potentially defamatory statements by Sunny Hostin and the rest of the coven. Because I don’t watch the show ( because anyone who does is risking permanent brain damage or a stroke), I assumed this was a new development. The indispensable Axis media watchdog Media Research Center, which monitors this leftist clown act so I don’t have to, reports that in fact Whoopi’s gang has had to read 36 such disclaimers so far in 2024.

The ladies of “The View” seem to think this is funny. It’s not. The fact that so much of what they bleat on this daily show, which is, incredibly, categorized as a news program on ABC, has to be corrected in real time lest the network be subject to law suits is indisputable evidence that the cast is incompetent, lazy and vicious, and that ABC is irresponsible to allow them to remain on the air.

Condign justice may be coming Disney’s way: ABC News is being sued by Trump over on-air comments made on “Good Morning America” by co-host (and Clinton-allied hack) George Stephanopoulos when he kept asking Rep. Nancy Mace to comment on how Trump had been “found liable for rape.” Trump was not found liable for rape in the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll even after New York stacked the legal deck against him as part of the Democrats’ lawfare strategy. ABC’s lawyers have so far failed to get the lawsuit dismissed and it is entering the deposition phase.

Asks PJ Media columnist Rick Moran regarding “The View” panel, “Is it that they feel so entitled that the truth shouldn’t matter, or are they so stupid they think that just because they believe something, it must be so?”

I’m pretty sure the answer is “Both.”

Rationalization #19B, ‘The Insidious Confession,” or “It Wasn’t the Best Choice” Is Officially Re-Named: “The Bus Driver’s Mitigation.” Here’s Why…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Talk about a parent’s worst nightmare…

In Castle Rock, Colorado, a relief school bus driver got rattled and confused when the kids wouldn’t quiet down and the tablet showing his route broke down. His solution was to drop all the students off at an unscheduled stop miles from their homes. More than 40 students were abandoned at a busy intersection, and the bus drove away.

Parents were not pleased.

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