Ethics Dunces

Virginia House of Delegates Member Chris Hurst (D) Hits The Ethics Alarms Trifecta!

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Chris Durst

That would be “Ethics Dunce,” “Incompetent Elected Official of the Week” and “Unethical Quote of the Month.” If I had an official “Asshole of the Month” designation, he’d have that wrapped up too.

The day before the Virginia elections, Democratic Virginia House of Delegates Member Chris Hurst and his girlfriend, Emily Frentress, were pulled over by a deputy who spotted them tampering with campaign signs at a polling location. (The 12th District incumbent was also cited for or driving with a suspended license and given a “driving while suspended notification.”) Here is his exchange with the officer as recorded by the officer’s bodycam:

Officer: “I think what you need to do after I deal with you here is go back and fix those signs. What do you think? You try to resort to doing this? Instead of doing a fair election? Chris, quit playing. Quit playing. Y’all are up there turning over signs at the polling area and you’re sitting here acting like you don’t know what’s going on?”

Hurst: “…Here’s what I would say. I would think that something that was a little hijinks and steam blowing off is exactly what everybody over on the other side of the mountain does and people all over this district do.”

Officer: “So you’re going to resort to that and represent us?”

Hurst: “I need you to just do your job here tonight and I’ll do mine. I have nothing more to say to you, officer. I’m sorry for actions that I may have done or my partner may have done, but I think you’re getting a little emotional here.”

Officer: “I’m not getting emotional at all, you’re supposed to be representing us. You’re supposed to be out here representing us and not out here acting like a school kid. How am I supposed to vote for you if you’re out here doing this?”

Hurst: “Were you planning on voting for me?”

Officer: “Well, that’s all up in the air now.”

Hurst: “I’m sorry if I lost your support, sir.”

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Ethics Tricks And Treats, 10/31/2021: Kendri Traps Himself, A Good Man Dies, And More “Let’s Go Brandon!” Follies [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Trick or treat

Jerry Remy died over the weekend. Unless you’re a Red Sox fan, you may not have heard of Remy, but he was a Boston icon by the time he died at the age of 68. I was trying to come up with an ethics theme to justify writing a post about him: I can’t, in fairness. He was just a normal guy who got to live his dream, some would say: a Boston kid (Fall River, to be accurate) who grew up, like me, loving the home town team with all of its drama and disappointments, and was talented enough to play for it, after being traded by the Angels to the Sox in 1976. Then Remy became part of Sox lore, the frustrating parts, as his team battled the New York Yankees in their most repulsive incarnation for primacy in the late ’70s, always falling short. In the most famous and tragic of those near misses, Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent’s cheap home run became the decisive blow in a single play-off tie-breaker in 1978, making Dent a a Yankee immortal. Only moral luck prevented the hero of that historic game from being Remy. In the bottom of the 9th with the Red Sox trailing by one run, Remy hit a blast to right field that Yankee outfielder Lou Piniella lost in the sun. It landed in front of him and bounced to his left: Piniella threw his glove up in blind desperation, and the ball, somehow, landed in it. Lou later told Remy that he never saw it until it was in his grip. Had that ball gotten by him, Rick Burleson would have scored the tying run from first, and Remy would have had an easy triple. He might even have had an inside-the-park homer, winning the game, the division championship, and immortality for getting the biggest hit in Red Sox history.

Remy’s knees gave out eventually, like many second basemen before base runners were forbidden from breaking up potential double-plays with hard slides. He eventually became the Sox cable broadcast color man for 34 years, until he left the booth in August to battle lung cancer. Remy was warm, informative, candid, modest and funny, all while describing himself as a mediocre hitter who felt honored to play on a team with stars like Jim Rice and Carl Yastrzemski. He also kept doing his job, despite more than his share of tragedy and pain. His oldest son was a drug addict, and murdered his girlfriend in a steroid rage. He is serving life without parole in prison; Jerry and his wife took on shared custody of their infant granddaughter. Remy’s battle with lung cancer began in 2008; he kept fighting off multiple recurrences with operations, radiation and chemo, and it kept coming back. He battled depression as well, and spoke and wrote about the illness, inspiring and comforting many who shared that often crippling condition.

Jerry’s last appearance on a baseball field was, appropriately, when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch on October 4 for another one game play-off with the Yankees, who had ended the season tied with Boston, just as in 1978. I knew he was through: he looked pale and weak, but Remy beamed at the huge ovation he received from the Fenway Park crowd as he lobbed the ball to his frequent NESN broadcast partner and fellow member of that tragic 1978 team, Dennis Eckersley. This time, the Red Sox beat the Yankees.

Jerry Remy made a lot of people happy during his life, was respected and loved by those who knew him and worked with him, and kept fighting his way through what chaos threw at him, becoming a better, kinder, nicer human being in the process. That’s a pretty good legacy, better than many greater baseball players. I know he made me happy lots of times, and did so while he must have been suffering.

Good for you, Jerry. Good job at life. I’ll miss you, and so will everyone else. The more good, hard working, courageous human beings we have around, the better it is for everyone.

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Ethics Observations On The Lincoln Project “False Flag” Stunt In Charlottesville [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Lincoln Project Stunt

In case you missed it (or have a life and aren’t following the nauseating race for Governor in Virginia) five people holding tiki torches and pretending to be fans of the Charlottesville white supremacy group, Unite the Right, that sparked a riot in 2017 showed up to show their support for GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin last week. The stunt was met with furious criticism of Youngkin’s opponent, Terry McAuliffe, who was presumed to be behind the incident, and why wouldn’t he be? As the slimy former Clinton fundraiser has slipped in the polls, his “ends justify the means” approach to politics (and life) has become especial pungent. However, the Never-Trump group The Lincoln Project came to McAuliffe’s rescue, claiming responsibility for the deception.

Hmmmm…

Yesterday one of the group’s co-founders, Stuart Stevens, refused to apologize for attempting to influence an election by deceiving voters. “Listen, every day I hear people pleading with the Lincoln Project to help show Democrats how to win, how to play hardball. You know, this is an example,” he said on CNN. “The question here is not about some guys who showed up at a rally,’ said Stevens. ‘It’s why hasn’t Glenn Youngkin denounced Donald Trump for saying that there are good people on both sides? I mean, that is absolutely outrageous. And it’s because Glenn Youngkin wants it both ways. And I think that’s the message that needs to be driven here. You know, the Lincoln Project was the first in this race to put Charlottesville in an ad. And some people thought maybe it went too far. But we did it. And it worked. And then McAuliffe’s campaign followed us and put Charlottesville in a very good ad they did. So I think the question here is, we can’t ignore what happened in Charlottesville, the question is why hasn’t Glenn Youngkin denounced Donald Trump?”

Meanwhile, the McAuliffe campaign pronounced the hoax “disgusting” and called on the Lincoln Project to apologize.

Ethics Observations:

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Not Helping: Houston Texans Owner Cal McNair Grovels An Apology For Telling The Truth

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

A while back I asked readers if I should start a “Weenie of the Week” category or its equivalent. The feedback was mostlynegative, but I still have to shine a sickly green light on those who are eroding my free speech rights by refusing to fight for their own.

Back in May, the owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans owner Cal McNair commented during the team’s Charity Golf Classic at River Oaks Country Club, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t get together last year, because of the China virus.”

For some reason, a muckraking political correctness-fomenting sports journalist named Michael Silver decided that this was a scandal, or a scoop, or something, now, months later. “Said one unnamed witness,” Silver writes, ‘Everyone gasped, especially the people directly across from him.'” Gasped! My god, the man called a virus that unquestionable began in China the “China virus”! This was “racially insensitive” says NBC Sports, echoing Silver.

No, it wasn’t.

Never mind: McNair, showing himself to have the spine of an annelid worm, quickly grovelled an apology:

“My comments at the event last May included an inappropriate choice of words. I immediately apologized to people who approached me then and I apologize again now. I know how important it is to choose my words carefully. I would never want to offend anyone.”

Even as forced apologies go, this one is especially cringe-worthy. No, the words were not “inappropriate,” they were accurate. Ooh, better choose your words carefully so as not to trigger those who will try to ruin anyone who doesn’t obey the political correctness edicts from the Left! The only way not to “offend anyone” is to avoid speaking and writing.

I hereby move that people who prove they have been thoroughly weenie-ized save us time by skipping these sickening, virtue-signaling apology by simply stating, “I love Big Brother,” and get it over with. That’s what this kind of grovel means. Maybe they should sign a registry or something that gets them discounts on Coca-Cola products.

But…but…TRUUUUUMP! “The term used by McNair was used multiple times by the former president in the early months of the pandemic, and many still use the term (and similar ones) when referring to COVID-19 without apologizing or even flinching,” writes good little censorship soldier, NBC’s Mike Florio. Bite me, Mike: I’m one of those many, though I prefer the more specific “Wuhan virus.” You tell me why a completely accurate name is “racially insensitive.” I’ve asked many lock-step woke friends and relatives to explain what racially insensitive, and the answer basically comes down to “Trump used it, and he’s a racist” or “Because that’s what the directive from The Ministry Of Truth” says. Then there are wimpers about all the Asian Americans being attacked when there is scant evidence that what we call the virus has anything to do with such incidents, and since when did we let the actions of idiots determine what information has to be de facto censored?

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Ethics Dunce: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

This video, from Garland’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, tells you everything you need to know, but I have a bit to add…

Observations:

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Ethics Dunce: Secretary Of Transportation (And Proud Dad!) Pete Buttigieg [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

pete-buttigieg-chasten-

When I wrote in September about Boston Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo abusing his paternal leave privileges to abandon his team at a crucial time in its battle to make 2021 the play-offs, I expected a lot of heated criticism (I didn’t, though I did get a provocative counter argument that became a Comment of the Day.) I wrote in part,

“The Boston Red Sox recently completed a disastrous collapse that dropped them from first place in the American League East to third. As they went into battle with the two teams now ahead of them, their hottest hitter, Alex Verdugo, vanished on a four game paternity leave. Shortly thereafter, another hot hitter, Hunter Renfroe, was lost for five days on bereavement leave after his father died of cancer. T’was not always thus: in the days before the Players’ Union bargained to add such mid-season leave as a new benefit, if a player’s wife was in labor or a loved one died, it was at the team’s discretion whether he would be permitted to leave the team. OK, I can appreciate the need for the benefit, but both players abused the right. These guys both earn millions of dollars a year. They both routinely talk about the team’s quest to win the World Series, yet when their team really needed them, they absented themselves for many days because they could. That’s a betrayal of the team, team mates, and fans.“

By the force of pure moral luck, Verdugo’s indulgence did no damage in the end: the Sox made the play-offs and have prospered (so far, though they lost last night), in great part because of Verdugo’s clutch hitting upon his return. That doesn’t change my ethics verdict on his dereliction of duty however (which the player reminds me of every time he gets a hit now, because Verdugo makes a baby-rocking gesture to his team mates in the dugout.) Compared to the Biden administration’s Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, however, Alex Verdugo is a model of dedication and responsibility.

Buttigieg and his husband Chasten adopted infant twins named Penelope and Joseph in August. The little bundles of joy arrived as product shortages and the supply chain problems had made themselves evident, a developing crisis that is worsening, and one that threatens the economy as well as businesses, jobs and the welfare of millions of Americans. It is also a situation squarely within the jurisdiction of the Transportation Department. Not since the airplane-executed terror attacks of September 11, 2001 has that agency had such a crucial task before it, nor have more Americans needed the performance of DOT to be diligent, timely, and effective.

Never mind! The Secretary of Transportation decided that this was still an appropriate time to take advantage of the Biden administration’s “family friendly” policies, and took two full months of paid leave while the supply chain problems multiplied and expanded. He wasn’t even online with his department during most of that time.

I apologize, Alex! Compared to Paternal Pete, you’re a self-sacrificing hero. I wish you were Secretary of Transportation.

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Katie Couric Thinks This Revelation In Her New Book Makes Her Look Good. In Fact It Makes Journalists Look Ignorant, Untrustworthy And Biased, Which Most Of Them Are

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Advance copy from Katie Couric’s soon-to-be-released memoir “Going There” reveals her to be an unethical human being: manipulative, vindictive, mean and disloyal. A section of the book, however, that she doubtless thinks will endear her to readers and her colleagues really shows how unethical the “profession’ of being a mainstream news media has become.

Couric writes that she edited out part of the 2016 interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which the liberal icon said that football players who were kneeling during the National Anthem were showing “contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life … which they probably could not have lived in the places they came from….And that’s why education is important.” Couric says that she wanted to protect Ginsburg, then 83, who was “elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.”

In the portion of the interview that did air, Ginsburg said: “I think it is really dumb of them. Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it is dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it is a terrible thing to do. But I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act. But it is dangerous to arrest people for conduct that doesn’t jeopardize the health or well-being of other people. It is a symbol they are engaged in….If they want to be stupid, there is no law that should prevent that. If they want to be arrogant, there is no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.”

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A Déjà Vu Ethics Dunce: Pete Rose

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Pete Rose

I confess that at this time of year, with the Boston Red Sox in the play-offs (and doing splendidly so far), my thoughts keep defaulting to baseball and baseball ethics. However, I couldn’t have resisted this inspiration in the dead of winter.

I was already considering writing about how Major League Baseball has now abandoned its former principled stand against gambling on the game to the point where its gambling industry partners are encouraging suckers to bet on game details like extra-base hits and runs-batted-in, and during games, using special bonus pay-offs—you know, like the casinos that give out free chips to get tourists hooked? How MLB is going to square this sudden embrace of professional gambling with the sport’s so-called “third rail” rule that demands a lifetime ban of any player, coach or manager who is caught betting on baseball games is anybody’s guess.

Pete Rose, the all-time career hits leader, is the most famous victim of the third rail, and he was also my very first Ethics Dunce. In January of 2004, Pete’s sleaziness helped launched The Ethics Scoreboard when I wrote,

“Pete Rose now admits he bet on baseball (after ten years of lying about it) but says that his bets (always in favor of his team, never against it, he says) as manager of the Cincinnati Reds never effected his management decisions, and thus he did not harm the integrity of the game. He feels he should be let back into the game as a manager.

A couple of things, Pete:

1) Even if this were true, fans of the game cannot put their faith in the outcome of games when they know that those who help determine the outcome might be motivated by their wagers. This is the reason that we call “the appearance of impropriety” an ethical problem.

2) Presumably you did not bet on the Reds when a key player was sitting out, or when your starting pitcher wasn’t feeling good. Right? Or are we supposed to believe that you bet large amounts of money while already in debt to bookies in circumstances when you thought you would lose? So every time you didn’t bet on the Reds, you were sending information to the bookies, and it affected their odds on the game. Got it?

3) You say you never bet against the Reds. You used to say you never bet on baseball. You’re a liar. Why should anyone believe you now?“

Pete continued to embarrass himself and baseball, leading to several posts on Ethics Alarms. My favorite Pete Post is this one, in which I wrote in part,

“All of the above could be more concisely summarized by six words: Pete Rose is a stupid man. As comedian Ron White says, “You can’t fix stupid.” Manfred, in his letter telling Pete that he can forget about any future employment in baseball, noted more than once that Rose does not appear to understand the import and purpose of the rule he violated, which exists  to protect the integrity of the game. Indeed,  Pete Rose wouldn’t know what integrity was if it sat on his face.

“This final chapter (I hope) in the sad Rose gambling saga drives home a fact that is under-appreciated in the ethics world. Ethics is hard, and requires attention, critical thinking, and a modicum of intelligence. Ethics involves choosing among competing options in difficult situations, often under pressure; it involves recognizing when non-ethical considerations are threatening to overwhelm ethical principles; it involves being able to understand why an ethical society is preferable to a corrupt one, and the difference between rationalizations and ethical values.

“When tying your shoes is a challenge, most of this is out of the question. Or to put it in Pete Rose terms, if you are seeking forgiveness for  placing bets on baseball when you knew that baseball bans anyone who does that, and can’t figure out that continuing to gamble on baseball isn’t going to help your case, the chances that you are going to be able to figure out whether a particular situation requires an application of the Rule of Universality or not are those of Frosty the Snowman bumpety-bump-bumping safely through Hell...”

As you have probably guessed by now, that was not “the final chapter.” A new chapter came out today. Pete, who is always playing some angle to make money off of his baseball exploits because he is perpetually broke, has launched a sports gambling podcast.

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Ethics Dunce: President Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

biden dummy

Great. Now the United States of America has had two Presidents in a row who couldn’t tell an ethics principle from beef stroganoff. This is obviously not a good thing, since our leaders inevitably bolster or short-cicuitour culture’s ethics alarms. In Joe Biden’s case, of course, this should come as no surprise, just as Trump’s ethics void couldn’t have surprised even the previous President’s most fervent supporters. Still, it would be hard to invent a more phosphorescent example of ethics ignorance than Joe’s comments on the harassment of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va)., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, (D-Ariz.) because they refuse to accede to the Democrats’ insane $3.5 trillion infrastructure-plus-socialism wish-list spending scheme, “Build Back Better,’

Last week, several protesters affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy and other groups showed up in kayaks at the Potomac River dock in Washington, D.C., where Manchin keeps his houseboat. That was relatively mild compared to what Sinema endured over the weekend, when illegal immigration activists from Living United for Change in Arizona confronted Sinema in a building at Arizona State University, eventually following her into the bathroom.

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This Weekend In Pro-Abortion Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

SCOTUS protest

Let’s examine this by categories….

Warped Concepts of How the System Works: Yet another Women’s March, like all of them, misleadingly labeled to avoid the ugly transparency that “March to be Able to Kill the Unborn at Will” would broadcast, ended up at the steps of the Supreme Court yesterday. Thousands traveled to Washington, D.C. to demand abortion rights, as if the Supreme Court decides complex issues according to who shouts the loudest, is most passionate, or has the coolest signs. Demonstrators surrounded the court,shouting “My body, my choice” and cheering loudly to the beat of drums.

Morons. These assaults on the Curt have driven me mad for decades, as what they demonstrate is that difficult matters of law, precedent and policy can be decided by slogans and the incoherent bellows from a mob. It’s an insult to the Court, the Constitution, and the system. If you have a valid argument, file an amicus brief. These demonstrations, and it doesn’t matter what their goal is our which side of the ideological spectrum they come from, waste time, energy, passion and taxpayer funds. Is the idea intimidation? Good luck with that. Persuasion? Sure, a bunch of screaming and weeping activists are going to persuade anyone but TV talking heads. Narcissistic grandstanding?

There you go.

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