You may recall that Rush Limbaugh was lambasted in the non-conservative media when in March of 2008 he launched Operation Chaos. Rush directed his zombie followers to vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton to stop Barack Obama from clinching the Democratic nomination early and to maximize the chances of a messy Democratic nominating convention. In 2016, Rush declared Operation Chaos, The Sequel open for business. He instructed the Dittoheads to vote for socialist Bernie Sanders, whom none of them would consider voting for in a real election even if someone was pulling their fingernails out with pliers to make them Bernie Bros. Instapundit, Newsbusters and other rightward sites cheered Operation Chaos II on. As Ethics Alarms concluded at the time, “Conservatives are no more ethical than progressives, it’s just that their lack of ethics expresses itself in different ways.”
Or the same ways, in some cases. Trump Derangement, after all, justifies anything and everything, so Democrats in New Hampshire pulled off their own version of Operation Chaos (and didn’t even give credit to Rush, since departed to that Big Talk Show in the Sky, for their inspiration).
Exit polls in the New Hampshire primary indicated that 70% of Nikki Haley’s votes came from from non-Republicans who, at least one analyst surmised, had no intention of voting for her in a general election. They would be Biden voters, presumably, and some said so. More non-Republicans voted for Haley, in fact, than Republicans. (Also, Haley got more votes than the President did, but you had to write in Joe’s name, so that may not mean much.) Haley received a paltry 40,938 Republican votes compared to Trump’s 172,202, but the Left’s version of Rush’s unethical stunt allowed the mainstream media to spin the results into a “Trump is weaker than he thought” narrative.
In 2016, I wrote that “Rush’s steaming pile of depraved Machiavellianism is not worth my composing a new brief against it.” Then, I reprinted part of what I had written about Operation Chaos the first time. For the sequel, I substituted Bernie for Hillary. This time, I’ll use Nikki Haley, and I also have to replace “Republicans” with “Democrats” and strike the references to conservative pundits like Mark Levin who were cheering on Rush’s stunt.
And yes indeed, it is satisfying that the GOP and conservatives were hoisted by Rush Limbaugh’s stinky, unethical old petard. Continue reading →
Last week, the University of North Carolina’s Faculty Council met to consider, among other matters, a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on school’s campus. An on-campus event in November included a speaker who said, referring to the barbaric terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, that “October 7 was for many of us from the region a beautiful day.” No one at the event did or said anything to reject that sentiment. The proposed resolution stated, “We strongly condemn the antisemitic statements made during a Unity roundtable event No Peace Without Justice held on November 28, 2023.”
That’s Henry Hanlon, apparently a male basketball player who “identifies” as female. Clearly, it’s good for his ego. (Can’t tell who I’m talking about in the photo? Guess!)
The San Francisco Waldorf high school girls basketball team is on a roll, thanks to its court domination by team captain Henry Hanlon. No, he doesn’t even bother to carry a female name. California’s Interscholastic Federation (CIF) established “Gender Identity Participation” rule in 2013, and it is bats.“All students should have the opportunity to participate in CIF athletics and/or activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity,” the policy states. As CIF’s Associate Executive Director Brian Seymour explains, “All of our athletes, all the eligible athletes, are afforded the opportunity to compete with the gender they feel most comfortable with.” Oh. I can see where a high school athlete might be “most comfortable” with a fanciful gender ID that allows him to feel like the Harlem Globetrotters playing against their eternal patsies, the Washington Generals.
Ethics Alarms commented on Madonna’s inexcusable two-hour tardy appearance at her concert (item #4) without realizing that The Grand Ol’ Opry could have said “Hold my beer!” The Nashville shrine to Country Music officially apologized to fans and audience members after four-time Grammy Award nominee Elle King disgraced the venue and herself with a vulgar and drunken performance on an evening last week that was supposed to honor Dolly Parton. “We deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance,” the Opry wrote on X/Twitter over the weekend. That was an understatement of what happened.
My first reaction was to have sympathy for Brittany Pietsch, the Cloudfare account executive who somehow thought recording her Zoomed firing and posting it on social media would be a good idea. Then I learned she was 27. That’s much too old to behave like she did, much less to be self-righteous about it. Her experience ended up on every social media platform and was covered by media outlets from the New York Post to the The Wall Street Journal, and now she is the official “poster girl” for deluded and entitled young workers who don’t get the capitalist system and the competitive workplace.
You can see her nine-minute clip here. If you don’t wince through it, you may need a refresher course in workplace ethics yourself. An at-will employee, Brittany argues with the HR staff who were assigned to dismiss her. Here’s a typical exchange:
The NBA’s Chicago Bulls celebrated their “inaugural class” in the team’s new Ring of Honor ceremony during halftime of its game against the Golden State Warriors last week. The first Ring of Honor class included 13 men and the entire 1995-96 team, which went 72-10 and won the NBA championship. It didn’t help that the current Bulls gave up a season high in points in a 140-131 loss, but that was the least of the night’s low points.
The most popular and famous stars of that team, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Dennis Rodman, didn’t show up. The team wasn’t expecting them to, because all three declined, but it allowed the fans to believe otherwise, at least the fans who didn’t research the matter beforehand. Continue reading →
…or the politicians and untrustworthy elected officials who use both for unethical ends.
Further reinforcing his Ethics Alarms status as an Ethics Villain, the now retired Dr. Anthony Fauci blithely told lawmakers on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic this week that “social distancing guidelines”—warning the public to keep six feet apart from anyone else supposedly to limit the spread of the Wuhan virus — “sort of just appeared” without scientific input, and was “likely not based on scientific data.”
Oh! That’s nice! Schools remained closed well into 2021 substantially as a result of the social distancing guidelines that he stood by and allowed to be issued without scientific data. I was screamed at in several public places because I knew the social distancing edicts were garbage from the beginning, just like the “don’t touch your face!” nonsense and 95% of all masks. My sister has been a phobic about physical contact ever since March of 2020: she has yet to allow me into her house, and will only speak to me at my home ten feet away on the front yard. Research studies and other health officials pooh-poohed the social distancing mandates early on while media scaremongers—-after all, it was vital to wreck the Trump economy if he was going to be brought down—were quoting some “experts” saying that we should all wear masks and socially distance forever. Fortunately my pop culture addiction served me well: I recognized all of the CDC recommendations from the 2011 pandemic movie “Contagion.” They were exactly the same, proving to me that “social distancing” and the rest were just boiler plate “Do something!” measures off the CDC shelf. (They didn’t work in the film, either.)
The Julie Principle comes into play when an undesirable or annoying characteristic or behavior pattern in a person or organization appears to be hard-wired and part of their essence. In judging such a person or entity, it is useful to keep the lyrics of Julie’s song from “Show Boat” (“Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man O’ Mine,” lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein Jr., music by Jerome Kern) firmly in mind, when she sings…
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…I’ve gotta love that man til I dieCan’t help lovin’ that man of mine!
It comes into play when one is tempted to keep criticizing and calling attention to such individuals or organizations behaving in the same unethical way they always do when there is no chance, literally none, that they will, or will even want to, change their habits. Beneficiaries of the Julie Principle on Ethics Alarms in recent years have included Kamala Harris, who always babbles semi-incoherently, White House paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre, who is forever incompetent, New York Times anti-white bigot and Trump Derangement victim Charles M. Blow, and PETA, which is reliably ridiculous.
It is true that Donald Trump will always get the benefit of The Julie Principle here in one area: his characteristic oblique and stream of consciousness manner of communicating. However, as recent outbursts have vividly illustrated, he cannot be julied—yes, I just invented a verb—when he (relatively) clearly states his intentions, beliefs, or versions of reality. Attention must be paid.
A recent feature in the intermittently cretinous New York Magazine feature “The Intelligencer” by the thing’s demonstrably inept editor Margaret Hartman illustrates the problem. Here are what she ranked as “8 Awful Things Trump Said in Iowa.”
At one rally, Trump said, riffing on U.S. aircraft carrier technology, “Think of it, magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” I can’t let that kind of ignorance go. That’s signature significance for someone who has inexcusable gaps in his basic knowledge, and who therefore cannot be trusted to make responsible and competent decisions. It also suggests the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Trump is ignorant and doesn’t know he’s ignorant, or he would not be broadcasting his ignorance in public.
In contrast, this quote: “First they say, ‘Sir, how do you do it? How do you wake up in the morning and put on your pants?’ And I say, ‘Well, I don’t think about it too much.’ I don’t want to think about it because if I think about it too much maybe I won’t want to do it, but I love it because we’re going to do something for this country that’s never been done before” is pure Trump Derangement fodder. He’s kidding around, but the dedicated “Get Trump!” bashers can’t resist treating such Trumpian flights of fancy as important. This is an example of why Trump critics are so biased that they can’t be trusted.
Hartman writes, “Trump claimed [the Civil War] — much like the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Hamas war — could have been avoided entirely if we had a master dealmaker like him in the White House back in 1861.” Trump has opined thus before. It is mandatory left-wing cant that to even suggest that the Civil War could have or should have been avoided is evidence of racism, so naturally Hartman pounced. Trump is certainly dead wrong that Lincoln could have avoided the Civil War without just letting the Confederate states leave the Union, but the position that more competent Presidents than Lincoln’s immediate predecessors Pierce and Buchanan (both in the finals of the Ethics Alarms “Worst President” competition) might have been able to come up with a compromise that eased slavery out without a disastrous war is held by a small group of historians. It’s not an “awful” thing to say.
#5 on Hartman’s list is so bizarre that it qualifies as another example of her own Trump Derangement. Read it yourself. Apparently it’s “awful” that Trump objected to a Ron DeSantis campaign ad. This is so dumb that I don’t need the Julie Principle to ignore it. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” works just fine.
Trump did nasty imitations of Biden, his speech issues and his confusion. Verdict:Pure Julie Principle. Hartman finds this disgusting and so do I, but that’s who this guy is, and anyone paying attention knows it. It’s not worth reporting or complaining about at this point.
Trump again mocked the late Senator John McCain’s physical disabilities while condemning his decisive vote that killed the attempted Obamacare repeal. That’s not Julie Principle stuff, that’s insanity. It broadcasts Trump’s flat, indeed declining, learning curve, and shows that a man who wants to be President is obsessed with grudges and revenge, which is scary. Trump’s attacks on McCain when the ex-prisoner of war was alive cost him support from many veterans. Mocking him now again is beneath what even I thought Trump was capable of. No Julie here.
“He glorified January 6 insurrectionists” writes Hartman.Anyone who calls the rioters “insurrectionists” forfeits the right to be taken seriously or trusted. Trump said they are being persecuted, which is true. He called the Biden-enabled stampede of illegals at the border an insurrection, which is sloppy hyperbole, but that’s typical Trump, and Julie Principle all the way.
The worst of Trump’s “awful things,” according to “The Intelligencer” was that when he touched on the recent school shooting in Iowa, he said,
“I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa.It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it, we have to move forward.”
That’s Trump, through and through. It’s not Julie Principle territory, though. It’s worth pondering. He is right, after all, in the sense that these tragedies cannot be allowed to get in the way of facing immediate long term problems. This is a competent military leader’s attitude, as well as a typical CEO’s. Our current reaction as a culture is to turn particularly horrible tragedies into opportunities to appeal to emotion and signal our virtue: Trump doesn’t do virtue-signalling, and I regard that as one of his strengths much of the time. On the other side of the matter, effective leaders have to know when to play mourner -in-chief. This instance show that Trump can’t perform that function: if he had to announce the Challenger disaster as President, he would have said, “This is a terrible tragedy, but we can’t let it slow down our space exploration,” instead of quoting “High Flight,” as Ronald Reagan did. This is useful intelligence regarding Trump. Verdict: No Julie Principle pass.
The final tally: only three of Hartman’s “eight awful things” are worthy of special attention, and escape the Julie Principle’s pass.
***
A diversion: In that video clip from the MGM “Showboat,” Ava Gardner as Julie is being dubbed by singer Annette Warner, who was not credited. This was back in the day when studios dubbed actors routinely if they weren’t primarily singers; today, the pendulum has swung completely, so the voices of non-singers like Russell Crowe (in “Les Miserables”) are inflicted on audiences. The dubbing of “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine” was particularly unfair, for Gardner could sing, and worked hard on the song. She didn’t know until she say the movie that Warner had taken over her vocals.
Warren, I discovered researching the story, was still performing as recently as 2017, and is apparently still with us at the age of 101. Ava Gardner, born in the same year, has been dead for 33 years.
It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday.
The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon.
Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House.
The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said.
Meanwhile, conservatives “pounced”: “What possible motive could there be for doing this? Who knows? It didn’t make a lot of sense, but the Biden administration has an extensive record of covering up scandals, so it wasn’t exactly out of character for the Biden administration to cover something up,” wrote PJ media’s Matt Margolis. Other wags noted that hiding such health-related information about important government officials is the kind of thing China does.
The trouble with protesters, to cut to the chase, is that a large percentage of them in virtually every protest and demonstration don’t know what they are chanting about and are just happy mob participants. I remember when my college was shut down by a student strike my freshman year, several of my friends were happily raising their fists and carrying signs despite the fact that they weren’t interested or informed on the matter being protested. They all reassured me that they were involved to meet girls. Later, in my first job after law school, the PR director I worked with in D.C. seemed to be attending a protest or rally every weekend. When I remarked that she was unusually politically active for someone who never discussed politics at all, she assured me that she just enjoyed the energy of crowds…and found it a good way to meet guys.
Since yesterday was “Capitol Insurrection Day,” which I predict will be made a national holiday as soon as Democrats get control of Congress, it seems a propitious opportunity to ponder an equally stupid protest in Clifton, Bristol (Great Britain). A resident reported that his Tesla’s tires were deflated, and on the windshield was this message:
Other automobiles on his street were also victims of tire-deflating. The group behind the mass flattening calls itself “the Tyre Extinguishers.” ( The play on words would work better if the Brits spelled “fire” as “fyre.”)
The annoyed Tesla owner told reporters, “It’s ironic, because I was trying to do the right thing by buying an electric car. It’s ridiculous and inconvenient. I get why [climate activism] is happening, but I’m not seeing the point of this.”
The point he ought to derive from the incident is that most climate change protesters know almost nothing about climate science and related matters, like the full environmental effects of electric vehicles. They are passionately protesting what they don’t understand sufficiently to have an informed opinion about, and therefore shouldn’t influence anyone beyond persuading observers that they are passionate, unethical dolts and blights on society.
Ethics Alarms 