I wish I had the gust to post this on Facebook. And the fact that I know that it would upset so many of my long-time friends is itself an indication of how ethically warped the political Left has become. In fact, “ethically warped” is a euphemism for a far more damning and accurate term.
[This one is pretty funny too, but it’s not really an ethics meme…]
An awful event that could have been avoided in many ways if even one of the key players had just behaved responsibly and ethically, or knew what behaving responsibly and ethically is…
Bert Atienza, 77, was shopping at Walmart with his wife after church a week ago when store a 17-year-old store employee rushed down the aisle narrowly missing Josephine Atienza with a cart. Bert sharply admonished the young woman, saying, “You almost hit my wife with your heavy cart, and you did not even say excuse me or apologize to her,” according to his wife in interviews after the event. The African- American staffer argued with him briefly and then tossed a can at the couple as they walked away. Minutes later Travis White and Erika Mitchell attacked Bert as their daughter, the reckless employee, watched according to store surveillance video. [Note: Accounts say they “allegedly” attacked him. It it’s on video, it happened, unless the claim is that the video is a “deep fake.” I hate that reflex news media characterization. (‘John Wilkes Booth allegedly shot Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theater in front of hundreds of witnesses…’) Even the attorney for White and Mitchell doesn’t dispute the attack].
The two parents shoved Atienza from the back, one punched him in the face, then they pushed him into the shelving unit. After he fell to the ground, as one of the attackers kicked him. “While he’s on the floor, they’re still kicking him and I told them stop. My husband has heart problems,” Josephine said.
Oh! We’re sorry, if we knew the 77-year-old man had heart problems, we never would have attacked him!
Bert Atienza lost consciousness before help arrived and he was rushed to a hospital where he died the next day. White and Mitchell were arrested days later and charged with second-degree murder. Their daughter (described as “no longer employed by Walmart”—ya think?) has also been charged with assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit a felony. Her name has not been released to the press because she is a minor.
Well! What a nice story! Let’s see..
In a remote neighborhood in Herriman, Utah, there is a charming subdivision with streets named only for past Boston Red Sox stars. Ipswitch Way and Yawkey Way—named after streets around Fenway Park—surround Fisk Drive, Remy Road, Pesky Lane, Eovaldi Avenue, Pedroia Street, Xander Lane, Varitek Drive and Boggs Way. Never mind if you don’t recognize those names: I do, but it’s likely that very few residents know their Boston Red Sox lore.
The project manager is a man named Brandon Parr who has lived in Utah his entire life, started following the Red Sox when he was 7, and now, in his forties, carries a Red Sox water bottle and wears a Red Sox cap every day. Developing the subdivision in Herriman was his first assignment as a project manager in 2021. Apparently the builder gets to name any new streets in any proposed project—I did not know that!—and when Parr was told about the honor, he said, “I’m doing Red Sox!” He submitted ten street names for approval, all well-known to Sox aficionados.
Ethics issue #1: Is it fair and responsible to use the naming power to satisfy a personal passion when it is completely divorced from the region and the community as well as the likely future residents? Utah doesn’t even have a Major League baseball team. Maybe the Miami Marlins are further away that the Red Sox , but not by much (don’t check that: I won’t, and if I’m wrong, I don’t care). My verdict? A mild “unethical.” I don’t know the origins of most of the streets in my Alexandria neighborhood except the section where all the streets are named after Presidents (Tyler intersects Taylor). Still, turning a Utah neighborhood into a Boston Red Sox fan display seems a bit excessive.
Ethics issue #2 struck me immediately, however: If a Sox fan is going to do this, there is an obligation to do some research and due diligence. With 10 streets to name for Red Sox favorites, where is the homage to Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, David Ortiz, and Pedro Martinez? OK, I’ll forgive Roger Clemens: I wouldn’t name a street after that asshole either.
Parr has his excuses lined up: “Williams,” “Ortiz” and “Martinez” streets are too common, and “Yastrzemski Road” is too hard to spell. He also claimed that alternatives to “Williams” like “Splendid Splinter Street” were too long. I’m not buying it. “Big Papi Drive” would cover David Ortiz. “Yaz Ave” is an easy call. What’s the matter with “Ted Williams Way”? Meanwhile, as a Red Sox fan, I respectfully object to some of his choices. “Eovaldi Ave.” is named for a Sox pitcher whose fame is based on a single game performance in relief during the 2018 World Series. Does this alleged Sox fan recall Curt Schilling and the “bloody sock” games in 2004? He admits to being a big Xander Bogaerts fan, hence “Xander Lane.” Bogaerts abandoned Boston as a free agent choosing money over team (so did Nathan Eovaldi). There are too many superior Sox players who did not place cash over loyalty, and leaving Tony Conigliaro out of the street names (Tony C. Court) while honoring sex-addicted, Yankee traitor Wade Boggs is deeply offensive.
Ethics Observations:
1. These people cheat. They are proud of their cheating: it’s “the ends justifies the means” exemplified. This is a law school dean—at a prestige law school!— openly admitting and rationalizing violating the law.
2. He also says that he’ll lie under oath to deny what he said.
3.Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has a long and disgusting EA dossier (at the link) but is always—always, no exceptions—represented in the mainstream media as respected legal scholar. I don’t respect him: he’s an Ethics Villain, and undeniably so.
4. Notice that he says “diversity is important” but he never says why it’s important. This is just an article of faith with the Left. It is important because it just is, that’s all, and they say it is, so there.
5. I’m playing the Learned Judge tonight in a law school production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial by Jury” (1875, and as funny and sharp now as it was on opening night.) The Foreman of the Jury, a bass-baritone role, is being played by tiny female student, a soprano, who is inaudible and who can’t remember her entrances. She is easily the least able member of the chorus. Why was she cast in that role? She is the only “student of color” who auditioned, and the student organization has by-laws requiring “diversity” in casts. As a result, the show sounds worse, looks worse, all of the cast members who are qualified for their roles will get fewer benefits from their work and dedication as a result, the audience will enjoy the show less, and the exploited student, who is a very nice young woman, will be embarrassed in public. If I had to describe a perfect example of what’s wrong with DEI logic, I doubt that I could come up with a better one. Yet ideologues like Chemerinsky still use their authority to assure the world that discriminating against white males in pursuit of diversity is an “unalloyed virtue, as Gilbert might say.
6. Our cast—all of them (but me!) list their “pronouns” in their program bios— had a rehearsal in the faculty lounge. There are only two newspapers there for faculty perusal: The New York Times and the Washington Post. Nah, U.S. law schools aren’t Leftist indoctrination centers! What a ridiculous conspiracy theory…
7. Do let me know if any Axis news media outlet breathes a word of this incident. My bet: there won’t be any.
The Impeachment Clause in the U.S. Constitution was written by the Founders to create an emergency “Get Rid of a Rogue President (or other high Federal official) Free Card,” to be used in a bid-partisan process featuring due process, hearings and a trial. The Democrats cynically used the process as part of their undemocratic and ruinous campaign to make it impossible for the elected President to govern, because he had committed the unforgivable sin of blocking Hillary Clinton’s rose-strewn path to the White House. Like the fake, Hillary and Obama engineered Russian collusion hoax (and in Trump’s second term, the J-6 kangaroo hearings in the House, both of Trump’s impeachments were contrived, politically motivated, and Constitutionally indefensible. The damage was done, the precedent set. Impeachment is now toothless; the Founders’ metaphorical safety valve is done. What once was framed as cooperative, bi-partisan inquiry to be triggered by genuine abuses of power is now just another toothless and corrupt tool of political warfare. Good job, everybody!
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), on the way out after losing the primary for his seat earlier this year, filed eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this week.
I could write full posts about many of these, and if I had time, I would. The networks and the Axis want to ignore it and are trying to bury it in negatives, but the event is obviously news, and attention should be paid….
Observations:
1. Competence! If this was the President’s idea, it was a great one. The GOP has to get voters to the polls (or to mailboxes, if he can’t stem mail-in balloting). If the event picks up just one or two percentage points in Republican voter participation, it will have been a success. If Republicans hold Congress, I guarantee both parties will make this tactic a tradition.
Incidentally, adding a mid-term convention is another so-called “democratic norm” that Trump is violating. The Horror.
2. Fetterman! One of the two biggest stories to come out of last night’s opening of the convention was Senator John Fetterman’s surprise video appearance, shot in front of a steel mill. Fetterman praised and endorsed his fellow Pennsylvania Senator David McCormick, a Republican, and said that they would work together “and work with President Trump and defend the steel way of life.” This makes Fetterman the Ethics Hero of the convention thus far. It also tells Democrats that if they are going to try convict Trump after a House impeachment and try to pack the Supreme Court, they will need to flip an extra Senate seat to their side.
WSYX is the Columbus, Ohio ABC affiliate, and the reaction to that head-exploding tweet was so negative that the station took down the tweet as well as the article it was linked to. That doesn’t change the fact that to even suggest that U.S.schools shouldn’t teach the single most important event in the 21st Century and one of the most transformative events not only in U.S. history but modern world history is signature significance. To even ask the question demonstrates fealty to propaganda over truth, and a conviction that generations must be taught by withholding any information that might provoke non-conforming thoughts and belief.
The U.S. has a major broadcasting network—several, if we’re being honest— that employs people who want to manipulate the public, lying about the past through omission. Every now and then the aspiring totalitarians of the Left slip up and tell us who they really are. This is one of those times.
Yes, the 9-11 attacks should be taught in schools so Americans learn that Islam is not “a religion of peace,” and that unrestricted, unvetted immigration from Muslim nations poses an existential threat to our values, culture and democracy. It also should be taught in the schools because it is history, and those who want to obscure history never have good intentions.
[As an aside, my harsh response may have run off commenter kawaii65c843be72 after he compared the Left’s tearing down statues of Confederate generals with the fact that there are no statues of Hitler’s henchmen in Germany. I certainly hope so.]
I have mentioned that Democrats cheat, haven’t I? I’m pretty sure I have.
This episode is pretty nauseating, though I must say I don’t recall any non-President earning two EA brickbats in such rapid succession, so Acton has at least distinguished herself. At the same event where the Democrats’ candidate for Governor of Ohio demonstrated how not to speak in public (Hey Amy: I could fix that in about two hours if you had the sense to hire me, or any other competent speech coach for that matter) Acton witnessed a brief disruption in the crowd which her campaign decided to sell as an assassination attempt.
Naturally, the Axis news media rushed to spread the false narrative. As usual. Gotta elect these Democrats, Socialists and crypto-totalitarians by any means necessary, right guys?
Here is how the New York Times described the incident:
“Dr. Acton was giving a speech at the Mahoning County Democratic Party tent at a fair in Canfield, in the northeastern part of the state, when a man pushed through the crowd, knocking over two elderly audience members, according to the county sheriff, Jerry Greene, and two witnesses. The man did not draw his weapons, according to Sheriff Greene and the witnesses. Dr. Acton was not injured. Two officers of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, part of Dr. Acton’s security detail, detained and handcuffed the man, according to Dr. Acton’s campaign and the sheriff. The man was found to be carrying two pistols and a Taser in the shape of brass knuckles after he was detained, according to the sheriff and the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Ohio law allows residents to possess and carry concealed firearms without a permit.”
That was, by far, the most accurate report I have read. I won’t even blame the Times for its misleading headline (“Armed Man Arrested After Charging Toward Democratic Candidate for Ohio Governor”) since its report had to debunk what other news organizations were claiming, thanks to Acton’s campaign’s deceit. The incident didn’t “involve” Acton, unless you regard anything that happens in a crowd listening to a speaker as involving the speaker. The arrested man also didn’t “lunge” at Acton. He wasn’t close enough to her to “lunge.” Acton was never touched, injured, or threatened. Nor has his motive in rushing through the crowd been determined; the incident is still being investigated.
The Times story says that 38-year-old Patrick Havas has been charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of misdemeanor assault, one for each of the seniors he knocked over, who were apparently uninjured. There were no charges involving any crime aimed at Acton. Witnesses say he was trying to get close enough to the candidate to ask a question, because he was calling her name.
Never mind. Democrats still leaped at the opportunity to paint Acton as an assassination victim.
Two “the rest of the story” items to kick things off:
See? I said this was an ethics train wreck!
Meanwhile…
1. The NFL is increasingly ridiculous, and I continue to wonder when it’s core audience will just say, “Enough already! Bye!” The league’s woke virtue signaling and DEI embrace is obnoxious, but its recent decision that football needs screamingly fey male cheerleaders boggles the mind. Look at this guy:
What the hell? I find female NFL cheerleaders an embarrassment, but this…any idea what the NFL is going for here or why? Tim O’Brien writes in part,
“I mean, who in the world asked for this? What market research told the NFL that what it really needed to do was complement all that toxic masculinity during the game with this? Seriously, are gay men a viable market for the NFL? How big is that market? Perhaps even more pointedly, as a percentage, how many not just gay men, but flaming gay men, watch the NFL on Sundays? Are we missing something? …[T]he NFL continues to find ways to alienate me and the millions of others who tune in because all we want to do is watch good football, see a little patriotism, and get a dose of a high-energy, traditional game-day atmosphere, nothing more….All of it is telling me the NFL no longer wants or needs people like me as fans. I’m cool with that, but if I have one message for the league, it’s this: “Be careful what you wish for.”
The NFL is already the most unethical sports league in existence (after the WNBA, of course). More on that tomorrow.
2. Speaking of the WNBA, ESPN’s headline was “Cathy Engelbert, who oversaw WNBA boom, to retire as commissioner.” It could well have read, “Cathy Engelbert, who proved completely incapable of leading the WNBA as it found itself immersed in racial and gender controversies, is running away. Good.” “Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women’s sports,” Engelbert said in a statement. “I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined. I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA team owners and staff, players, investors, fans and the powerhouse league office staff, who believed in what this league could become. I retire with immense gratitude and tremendous optimism for the future of the WNBA, with the best yet to come.”
Englebert is an accountant, and served as the CEO of Deloitte. She was brought in to develop the WNBA as a business, but had no skills or orientation that qualified her to deal with the league’s image and public relations problems. It took some gall for her to talk about the surge in “women’s sports” as so many of her league’s coaches speak as if they don’t know what a woman is.
Players and coaches have described her as “negligent.” One player said that the WNBA had the “worst leadership in the world.” From my observations, this was a severely limited leader who saw her job in the narrowest possible terms. She was hired to cut business deals and make money for the owners. She was good at that. Meanwhile, under her stewardship the WNBA has acquired the reputation of being dominated by lesbian thugs who resent the few white heterosexuals in their midst.
Maybe the WNBA should acquire the NFL’s gay cheerleaders…
I could teach a conflicts of interest course based on lessons spewing out from the recently-canned NFL reporter’s certitude that she did nothing wrong despite being caught canoodling with one of the sports figures she was charged with covering….objectively, independently. You know. Like all the other journalists do. <cough!>
Dianna Russini was the senior NFL reporter for The Athletic, which serves as the New York Times’ sports pages. She resigned last week after photographs “surfaced” of her hand-holding with and embracing Mike Vrabel, the head coach of the New England Patriots.
“While I can’t share the details of our investigation into Dianna’s conduct,” Steven Ginsberg, executive editor of The Athletic wrote to his staff, “I want to emphasize that the leadership of The Athletic has taken this matter seriously from the moment we learned about it.”
The publication’s editorial guidelines demand that its journalists avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of a conflict. This is standard stuff, even though such prohibitions are too often weakly enforced, if at all. Remember Nina Totenberg reporting on Supreme Court decisions while she socialized with her pal, Justice Ginsberg? That violated NPR’s ethics code. Naturally, the brass ignored the breach.
This is Russini’s resignation letter:
