Ethics Dunces

Don’t Kid Yourself: This Unethical Quote Of The Month From MSNBC’s Dean Obeidallah Is More Indicative Of Where The Left Is Headed That You’d Like To Think…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“I think Donald Trump MUST die in prison…because either we’re going to protect the Democratic Republic or we’re going to allow people, in this case Trump to chip away at our democracy and chip away at what we believe in these institutions.”

That was Dean Obeidallah, long an extreme deranged leftist featured on the air and on the web by MSNBC (because extreme deranged leftists are the only alleged journalists and pundits that MSNBC deems worthy of a public platform), confirming again the totalitarian impulses of Democrats and the progressives of 2023. In an interview with Mediaite’s most left-biased reporter, Obeidallah ranted in part,

Trump MUST die in prison because I don’t care if he was 45 years old, you should get life in prison if you attempt a coup, and there should be no chance of parole. I don’t care who it is….That’s why I’m so passionate about, like with every fiber of my being, that Donald Trump has to live out his natural days, his last days of natural life in a prison cell…….And people accuse me like, oh, you say things that get people riled up like, nope, I or get what you said. I get organically riled up about this because I believe in this system. And, and if you don’t believe in it, so be it. But if you believe in it, I don’t think there’s any conclusion could bring that. Donald Trump has to end up in a prison cell and live his last days out in that prison cell.

In those three dots, Obeidallah claimed that the riot at the Capitol was an “attempted coup,” which is legal, factual and linguistical nonsense, and that’s what he thinks Donald Trump should be locked up for without a chance of parole. I’ve instructed my family that if I ever say anything that stupid in private they should bash in my head with a brick, and Obeidallah is paid by MSNBC for to give that level of ignorant, hysterical, inflammatory and irresponsible commentary over the air. I guess I owe Tucker Carlson a mea culpa: I thought he was too much of a demagogue to be allowed on TV. Continue reading →

The Democrat Porn Star Virginia Legislature Candidate Renders The “Ethics Dunce” Designation Obsolete: “The Naked Porn-Performing Political Candidate Principle” Perhaps?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I don’t know what you call this, but whatever it is, “ethics dunce” just isn’t enough.

That’s Susanna Gibson above with her husband (I don’t know where those annoying stars came from) performing on a porn website while she was already running as a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. The 40-year-old Democrat, along with her lawyer husband, have been appearing in flagrante delicto on an X-rated website, and offering to perform sundry sex acts in front of the camera, including those involving violence and bodily excretions, in exchange for money—not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But after the conservative Washington Free Beacon was tipped off to this rare proclivity on the part of a political candidate and wrote about it, Gibson announced that she was shocked—shocked!—that anyone would feel that a candidate for the legislature soliciting money for sex acts was something the public had a right to know about. She found a lawyer willing to try to use Maryland’s “revenge porn” law to punish such people. Daniel P. Watkins of the Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch firm, argues that “it’s illegal and it’s disgusting to disseminate this kind of material”and says that he is “working closely with the F.B.I. and local prosecutors to bring the wrongdoers to justice.”

Sure, Danny, good luck with that! It’s a ridiculous idea for a law suit, but ya never know, so it slips under the wire as “ethical,” though any lawyer bringing such a suit should have to wear a bag on his head.

Ugh. Where to begin?

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That Bomb “Finger Gun” Should Have Never Been Made At All: How Did We End Up With “Finger Gun 4”??

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The first stunned Ethics Alarms story about a cabal of idiots with education degrees persecuting a little boy for making a crude imaginary gun out of his fingers was in 2013, just as the Post Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck got rolling and the anti-gun hysterics were going off the rails (to which they, obviously, have never quite returned). I wrote of the first incident, which was in Montgomery County,

The NBC story concentrates on  “whether the boy understands the implications of the gesture.” What implications of the gesture? That he is about to shoot bullets out of his finger? That he intends to kill someone with all the firepower an unarmed 6-year-old can muster? That he is making a mimed reference to a Connecticut school massacre he probably doesn’t know a thing about? Why should it matter what his “intent is? It’s a hand gesture! It isn’t vulgar or threatening except to silly phobics in the school system.

I concluded that it was child abuse by the school, and that “such irrational fearfulness, bad judgment, panic, disregard for the sensibilities of the young, lack of proportion and brain dysfunction forfeits all right to trust, and such fools must not be allowed to have power over young bodies and minds.”

But the finger gun lunatics struck again the next year, as Ohio crazies punished a 10-year-old boy for wielding an imaginary gun without a license. This time I figured out what was really going on—political and cultural woke indoctrination— writing in part,

The radical gun-hating progressives who disproportionately occupy administrative positions in the schools are willing to endure some ridicule as well as to victimize some children if it helps make guns and gun-related play less attractive, thus pointing to a Nirvana where the NRA is a shadow of its former self, and the only ones who own guns are criminals, the police and the government….Is public school political indoctrination more sinister than the proliferation incompetent teachers and administrators? Yes.

I also should have realized that this was the dawning of The Great Stupid.

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The Nation’s Moral, Legal And Ethical Incoherence On Abortion, In Two Articles

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

In the first, “In Post-Roe America, Nikki Haley Seeks a New Path on Abortion for G.O.P.,” we learn that

“We need to stop demonizing this issue,” Haley said at the first Republican debate. “It’s personal for every woman and man. Now, it’s been put in the hands of the people. That’s great.”

No, it’s not just “personal.” It is societal. Moral and ethical principles exist, and they aren’t principles if any individual can reject or ignore them as everyone shrugs and says, “OK! Different strokes for different folks!” That’s how we end up with mobs shoplifting at Walmart with no consequences. Is theft right, fair, acceptable and ethical, or is it wrong and damaging to society and humanity? Is that a hard question? No?

Great! Now lets do killing growing human beings.

The Times, naturally, quickly establishes itself as a flack for “choice,” writing about Haley’s search for “an anti-abortion message that doesn’t alienate moderate Republicans and swing voters,” because, presumably, anyone who isn’t a radical, extremist Republican will be alienated by advocating anti-abortion policies that treat abortions as they should be treated: legalized killings of human beings. Those who won’t recognize abortions as what abortions are—the word “kill” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Times news story, nor is there any reference to ending a life or lives—either haven’t thought very deeply about the matter, don’t want to, or won’t admit to themselves what the issue is. For example,

Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster, doubted whether Ms. Haley could square her “respectful and middle-ground, compromise approach” with a decade-long record of “actually not doing that when in office.” Republicans, she said, have far to go before voters will give them the benefit of the doubt on the issue. “Those candidates trying to walk back their previous positions on abortion look incredibly political and non-trustworthy,” Ms. Murphy said. “Their credibility is so low on this issue that voters just fundamentally believe Republicans want to ban abortion.”

Ethically and morally, how is legalizing abortions when the birth doesn’t genuinely imperil the life of the mother a “respectful and middle-ground” or “compromise” approach that can pass any ethical system without setting off sirens? Kant held that using another’s life as a means to an end was per se unethical. “Reciprocity” fails, obviously: would abortion advocates be supportive of their own mothers aborting them because their births would be inconvenient and a career handicap? Or are a half-million aborted babies every year in the U.S. just the price of equal opportunity? The ends justifies the means: brutal utilitarianism.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Chris Christie’s Revealing Comment

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On a podcast called “All In” hosted by a bunch of people I never heard of, deluded Presidential candidate Chris Christie ( I might not get quite as many votes as he will if I declared my candidacy tomorrow, but it would be close) said, among other things, in discussing Vivek Ramaswamy: “To me, he looks like the guy you wanted to stuff in the locker in the 11th grade.”

Good to know, except that if you’ve been paying attention to Christie’s character as he’s revealed it over his up and now downdowndown career, you probably know it anyway. Nobody who isn’t a toxic, ethics-challenged bully ever wants to stuff anyone into a locker when he is a kid, or would have the thought even enter his mind. Nobody who isn’t still a bully would think that comment is anything but damning—to the speaker. So…

1. Christie is still a bully, and with that line, is trying to appeal to bullies, people who admire bullies, people who haven’t learned yet how bullies think, and people who don’t understand what’s wrong with bullies.

2. The ex-New Jersey governor, who is running primarily to try to get even with Donald Trump, shows that in this way, at least, he is exactly like Trump. Trump would say that. Trump is a bully without functioning ethics alarms too.

3. There is much to criticize about smug political tyro Ramaswamy, beginning with the fact that he has no relevant experience to be President whatsoever and has no business running and wasting our time. What he “looks like,” however, is not one of them. The reason so many Americans stoop to ad hominem attacks when they should be focusing on substance is that the culture keeps teaching them that it is valid and acceptable, in instances like this one.

4. I no longer will defend Chris Christie when a critic mocks his weight. He has officially consented to that form of juvenile discourse, which, of course, is also a specialty of Christie’s bête noire, Trump. One of Althouse’s commenters (Ann found this, Lord know how) wrote in part as a reaction, “You fat fuck. If I saw you doing something like that I’d kick you fat ass and beat your ignoramus head head on the locker door till you apologized for your stupid behavior.” Yes, Chris Christie is a fat fuck.

From The “Eternal Vigilance Is The Price Of Liberty”: A Law Firm Is Caught Inflicting “Good Racial Discrimination” And Backs Down

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The scary part is that a major law firm really thought it would be legal to do this, or perhaps knew it wasn’t legal but thought it could get away with it anyway.

The law firm Morrison Foerster, based in San Francisco, was sued for excluding non-minority students from its so called “diversity fellowships,”described as a program for first-year law students who are members of “a diverse population that has historically been underrepresented in the legal profession,” such as black, Hispanic, Native American and LGBTQ+ individuals. The plaintiff in the suit was the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), founded by same conservative activist who brought the lawsuits that resulted in the Supreme Court finally declaring affirmative action in college admissions what it had always been: unconstitutional racial discrimination.

A few weeks after the lawsuit was filed, the firm removed all references to race from the program page on its website, an implicit statement that “OK, you caught us. Never mind!” The program now is described as

designed to recognize “exceptional first and second-year law students with a demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.” In other words, the firm is substituting viewpoint discrimination for racial discrimination.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The Education Secretary’s Play List

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Wow. What an idiot.

Here are some sample lyrics from the songs our Education Dept. Secretary loves:

“Out o’ town, put it down for the Father of Rap And if yo’ ass get cracked, bitches, shut your trap. Come back, get back, that’s the part of success.”

“Fuck all you hoes. Get a grip, motherfucker!”

“My my, I’m big huh, I rip my prick through your hooters I’m sick, you couldn’t measure my dick with six rulers”

Secretary Cardona can listen to, read and love whatever he chooses, but his tweet—he quickly deleted it, of course, after multiple social media commenters explained to him that the tweet called into question his priorities and judgment—is a red flag to parents who don’t want their children to be immersed in a sexually-obsessed culture when they need to learn academic skills. This is the official who is overseeing U.S. education policy, and he saw nothing inappropriate about endorsing songs with lyrics like “Fuck all you hoes.”

Now THAT’S An Unethical Lawyer…And An Ethics Dunce Too!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Lawyer Nicolle T. Phair of Sanford, North Carolina was representing a client in an alleged hit-and-run accident in Lee County, North Carolina, and thought she had an idea for a strategem worthy of Perry Mason. At a hearing, the victim of the accident was going to be asked to identify the defendant, Phair’s client. Shortly before the hearing began, the attorney asked her client to step outside the courtroom. She then went to another courtroom and asked a party in a civil case to “do her a favor.” The favor was to stand beside her in court in the hit-and-run hearing so the victim might identify the wrong man as the driver. Instant reasonable doubt! Brilliant!

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Nobody Intelligent Can Deny That Biden’s Statement In Florida That “Nobody Intelligent Can Deny The Impact Of The Climate Crisis” Proves That He Isn’t Intelligent Himself

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I was considering posting about a completely superfluous article in The Atlantic called “Why Biden Just Can’t Shake Trump in the Polls,” as an insult to the intelligence of the literate American public. Gee, that’s a tough one! What could the answer be (other than the fact that the biased and dishonest American pollsters haven’t started cheating yet)?

Could it be, perhaps, that Joe Biden has been a spectacular failure in the White House by almost any measure, has overseen an unprecedented attack on personal liberties and Constitution, has directed a banana republic-style effort to remove his primary political opponent by abuse of the justice system, and is older than dirt? Could it be that he is obviously in a state of cognitive decline from an intellectual foundation that was never adequate in the first place? I suppose readers of the Atlantic are so Trump-Deranged and dyed-in-indigo blue that none of that would occur to them.

This, in turn, got me thinking about my still-unfinished survey to determine whether Joe is the Worst American President Ever. I stalled after covering Woodrow Wilson, and realizing again how that awful man laps the field, making the task of covering the group of 18 POTUSes remaining (Woody was only #28) seem like a low priority. But the report about Biden’s statements in Florida over the weekend sparked an epiphany: even if Joe isn’t the worst President, he is unquestionably the dumbest. I don’t think anyone else comes close.

Back to Florida: After the President toured the damage in Florida from Hurricane Idalia, he had to politicize the visit by stating,

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“Ick” vs. Ethics: The Nazi Gems Collection

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Once again, we encounter the conundrum of so-called “dirty money.”

In May, the auction house Christie’s sold a collection of jewels and jewelry from the estate of Heidi Horten, an Austrian philanthropist. The auction earned $202 million, establishing the Horten sale as the biggest precious gem sale ever. There was, however, an ethics controversy: all that jewelry had been bought with a fortune amassed by Horten’s husband Helmut, a Nazi who bought up Jewish businesses in forced sales during the Holocaust.

The Holocaust Educational Trust called the May auction a “true insult to victims of the Holocaust.” Yoram Dvash, president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, wrote, “In a time of Holocaust denial and the resurgence of antisemitism around the world, we find it especially appalling that a world-renowned auction house would engage in such a sale.” David Schaecter, president of Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA, which represents support groups for victims’ families in the U.S., called the sale “appalling” and said it had perpetuated “a disgraceful pattern of whitewashing Holocaust profiteers.” But Christie’s officials argued that the proceeds of the sale would go to the Heidi Horten Foundation, which supports medical research and a museum containing her art collection. The auction house also pledged to donate some of its own profits arising from the sale to Holocaust research and education.

Since May, however, attacks on the collection, Chistie’s, and the money paid for the jewels at auction have escalated. Christie’s announced this week that a scheduled November sale of more lots of jewelry from the Heidi Horten collection would be canceled, citing the “intense scrutiny” from Jewish organizations and some critics. The Jerusalem Post reported that other Jewish groups had rejected Christie’s donations from the May auction.

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