Ethics Train Wrecks

Two “Opinions”…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

A dumb or obviously biased opinion column in what passes today for our journalism platforms arguably isn’t strictly “unethical.” It does, however, demonstrate incompetence, contempt for the public, or in many cases indolence, as in “Hey Marge! We need something to fill that space on the Op-ed page!” “Oh hell, let’s publish that thing about reparations. It will be good for a few Letters to the Editor.” “Okay! You got it!”

And so we get junk like “Illinois city’s reparations plan is misguided, divisive and likely unconstitutional” on the Fox News website. To begin with the obvious, this is old news. I wrote about Evanston, Illinois’s City Council’s bat-house crazy plan back in June, and the city has been obsessed with this since the it agreed in 2019 to use tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales to generate a reparations fund.

“This year, Evanston, Illinois, will send $25,000 payments to 44 Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969,” writes Erec Smith, a research fellow at the Cato Institute and a former associate professor of rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. Oh! He must be an expert, then! How come he can’t spell “Eric”?

Erec continues,

“At its core, the Evanston program is race-specific, providing benefits solely to Black residents who meet narrow historical criteria. This raises an obvious legal question: Can the government dole out money based on race? Critics have already flagged the program as constitutionally questionable under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Beyond legality, there is a broader question about fairness. The program compensates some individuals while excluding others who may face equal or even greater financial need. Wealthier Black residents in Evanston receive the same payments as those struggling economically, while low-income residents of other races receive nothing. Isn’t a poor White person more in need of that money?”

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Ethics Villains: Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D), Gov. J.B. Prizker and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
New Juliana Stratton Ad “Fuck Trump, Vote Juliana”
byu/GeckoLogic inillinois

Stay classy, Juliana, Tammy, Governor, Illinois, Democrats.

There is no excuse for this.

Stratton is seeking retiring Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) seat, with the state’s primary taking place on March 7. This is impressive in one respect: she is actually giving voters a chance to replace the objectively awful Durbin with someone even worse. the At least Polling averages from Decision Desk HQ show Stratton trailing behind Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) with 18.5 percent compared to Krishnamoorthi’s 30.5 percent. So I guess Stratton decided that the best way to make up ground is to energize the Trump Deranged vote and say “fuck.”

Right on cue, later last week there was another foiled assassination attempt on the President whom Democrats call racist, a dictator, Hitler and a fascist, all provocation for the weak of mind and ethics to view as justification to murder our nation’s leader. As a Fox News history-reading reporter noted, they want Donald Trump assassinated just like Benjamin Harrison.

Since anyone likely to be persuaded—or even entertained—by this bottom of the unflushed toilet bowl political offal, it’s unlikely that any of them will be bothered by the candidate lying to their faces in the ad, smirkingly saying. “They said it, I didn’t!” That’s deceit, and deceit is lying. This miserable excuse for a public servant is openly lying in her campaign ad, and thinks it’s funny.

I’m so old I remember when the Democratic Party and its zombie media accused Sarah Palin of causing Rep. Giffords to be shot because Palin put her face in cross-hairs on a campaign map to indicate that the Arizona Democrat could be defeated. In addition to their other anti-virtues, Democrats are hypocrites on a level previously unapproached by mortal man or woman. As in 2024, they deserve to lose in the mid-terms, and if Republicans can’t accomplish that against such a vile, destructive, divisive and ugly party, they should just give up and start pottery barns or something. Maryland. Oregon. California. Minnesota. Illinois.

Not just unethical.

Not just irresponsible.

Disgusting.

Updates On “The Great Stupid”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Let’s start our review of just how dumb our population, society and culture have become since The Great Stupid spread its dark wings over the land with the book covers above. The book, current on sale and display at Barnes and Noble among other stores, is called “Mona’s Eyes,” referring to the “Mona Lisa,” perhaps the best known and most famous painting of all, by Leonardo Da Vinci. But the publisher allowed the eyes being used on the cover jacket to be those of a completely different woman in a different painting by another famous painter. Those eyes belong to “The Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Vermeer.

Morons.

There is a silver lining here, however. In mocking that cover, “Instapundit’s” Ed Driscoll quoted a minor Ethics Alarms post from 2023 on a book about Pearl Harbor with a cover graphic showing German planes attacking our navy on December 7, 1941. I clicked on the link and was amazed to find myself reading my own post, which I had completely forgotten about. In the resulting phenomenon known as an Insta-lanch (this is EA’s third), that post got over 3,600 views (and counting) after only being read about 500 times in three years.

Meanwhile:

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Unethical Quote of the Day, (Also Stupid): Theater Critic Nuveen Kumar

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“But I don’t think it’s necessarily antiwoke to tell an all-white story or to relegate nonwhite characters to the margins, if that’s where they fit the creative intentions.”

—Former Washington Post theater critic Naveen Kumar in the paper’s “Whitewashing ‘Wuthering Heights.'”

Oh, well that’s really big of the critic, don’t you think? How generous of him! He is willing to concede that a director might still be regarded as a good person if he or she doesn’t cast actors “of color” (you know, like the critic) to play characters written as white, visualized by the playwright as white, in a story obviously about white people!

Yes, this fatuous, offensive statement came late in an essay that was already obnoxious, with the biased and reductive headline, “Whitewashing ‘Wuthering Heights’.” [Gift link!] The Post post was defending, sort-of -but- not-really, Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” film, in which Heathcliffe, Emily Bronte’s hormonal romantic anti-hero, is played…

…by a white actor. Never mind that previous film adaptations have cast Heathcliff as white, notably the classic starring Lawrence Olivier in the role, probably because he was the best actor alive at the time.

Yes, it is true that the ethnicity of Heathcliff has always been a matter of debate: with Bronte describing him as “dark-skinned,” a “gypsy,” and a “little Lascar,” a term for South Asian sailors. The idea is that he is an outsider and at the bottom of the social ladder; that certainly would justify casting a black, Indian or other non-white actor, but certainly doesn’t mean he has to be played that way. (I would not think that casting Heathcliff as Swedish would work, but you never know: I could see one of the Skarsgaard boys pulling it off.)

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Friday Rainy Day Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

I used to complain about how much of Northern Virginia winters were spent in the rain, but the deluge overnight here, which is going to restart any minute, could not be more welcome. My neighborhood has been iced-over for weeks, with snow on the ground longer than any time during my decades long residence. (Naturally, this is just more evidence of climate change and global warming, “experts” say, and they know best.) The warm rain is ending that, meaning that walking my over-enthusiastic dog, Spuds, will no longer be life-threatening…at least not as life threatening.

I have too many things I want to write about, and as always, I am hoping to find some guest posts (as in “you write about it so I don’t have to” posts) here today when the dust settles. Olympics ethics stories will be especially welcome, because I refuse to watch the hypocritical spectacle or read about it unless someone sends me a tip. I am very tempted, however, to write about Elaine Gu, the all-American super-star skier who competes representing China in this Winter Olympics. According to the Wall Street Journal, Gu and Zhu Yi, a fellow American-born figure skater who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025 for “striving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.” In all, the two were reportedly paid nearly $14 million over the past three years. The payments were revealed when the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau budget was posted online with the names of Gu and Zhu. Their names have since been scrubbed from the public report.”

Nice. Gu is revolting, and it also proves how far the Olympic have come from their original roots of extolling amateur athletic competition. Gu still is paid by some American corporations to be their sponsors. They are also revolting. Gu’s betrayal of her own nation raises the ethical issue of dual citizenship. She’s a great walking, talking, greedy, ethically-inert example of why we shouldn’t allow it.

But don’t get me started. You get started…

No, Washington Post Editors, THIS Is What Stephen Colbert’s Spat With CBS Is REALLY About…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

….and you all know it as well as I do.

Proving that the Washington Post wasn’t recently gutted by its Gazillionaire owner Jeff Bezos to make it more fair and objective but just to try to save money while keeping it dishonest and partisan, the paper’s Editorial Board published a disingenuous, politically motivated and deliberately misleading editorial [gift link!]explaining that the Trump Administration’ resuscitation of the long dormant—but still on the books—FCC “Equal Time” rule is simply a pretense for using the regulation for political censorship. You see, as the Post editors “explain,” the rule is no longer needed! here is how they frame the current controversy:

“Passed by Congress as a part of the 1934 Communications Act, the equal-time rule says that if a broadcast station features a candidate for public office, it “shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office.” The FCC is charged with enforcing it. On Monday, Colbert said that CBS prohibited him from airing an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D). He claimed the network’s lawyers were worried about clashing with the FCC.

“CBS told a different story. It said Colbert wasn’t prohibited from airing the interview, but rather warned that it might “trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett.” Talarico, a state representative, and Crockett are the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination in the 2026 Texas Senate race. The network claimed it presented Colbert with “options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”

“On Tuesday night, Colbert rebuked the network again, but the finger-pointing misses the point of how a zombie regulation created this mess in the first place.

“The government shouldn’t be dictating the political content of late-night television — or of any other entertainment Americans choose to consume. But that’s exactly what the equal-time rule does. It is rooted in an entirely different technological landscape; in the early 20th century, scarce radio frequencies meant that the means of mass communication were limited. That’s why Congress saw fit to try to mandate that all candidates got a hearing.

“Since the advent of cable news and the internet, the possibilities for transmitting information and entertainment have exploded. Colbert’s Talarico interview, for example, was posted on YouTube, where it already has more than 6 million views — far more than it probably would have received if not for this controversy. Politicians can compete for attention without government help….”

The Post’s subterfuge would be a legitimate argument except for the democracy-rotting condition that the paper is ignoring because it is part of it. That condition is the near total ideological monopoly of the entertainment industry, giving the Left—again, the Post and its pals—access to the controls of the powerful propaganda and indoctrination weapon television still is.

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Ethics Observation on the Larry Bushart Fiasco

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Do read this New York Times story [gift link]about Larry Bushart, a progressive Facebook addict who was arrested and spent 37 days on jail after being arrested on the theory that a meme he posted (that he didn’t create) was a “true threat” and thus a felony. He was held on a two-million dollar bond. I mentioned the case last November, but had limited information then.

Believe it or not—I can barely believe it—the meme above is what got Bushart arrested! Eventually the charges were dropped, but understandably, the 61-year-old retired police officer isn’t posting memes on Facebook any more, and is hesitant to express his contrarian opinions on social media. In a real sense, his free speech has been “chilled” by state action…state action that was unethical, illegal, an abuse of discretion and power, and mind-numbingly stupid. It is also a cautionary tale.

Observations:

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A Happy Valentine’s Day To All, And To “A Friend,” A Gift!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Behold (below) yet another “smoking gun” delineating the bias and lack of objectivity and integrity of the New York Times. The paper is the very model of a modern “dishonest waiter”, for all of its double standards, contradictions and hypocrisy goes one way: to advance progressive agendas and Axis propaganda. See?

Yet for years now, self-banned commenter “A Friend” has comment section-bombed Ethics Alarms with defenses of the New York Times when it is criticized here, usually with posts beginning with “Come on, Jack!” These get sent to EA Spam Hell when they show up as soon as I see them of course, each one putting “A Friend” even deeper on the black list than he already is.

Today, however, to show my love for all of this blog’s readers, even the trolls, deranged and assholes, I will offer a symbolic temporary suspension of “A Friend’s” ban, if he offers a sincere, rational, defense of the Times’ “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” performance in this case.

Can he (or anyone) rebut my conclusion that the Times, forever allying itself with climate change confirmation bias victims, has proven that it will contrive an argument that literally any occurrence, statistics or phenomena is proof of the dire effects of climate change according to “scientists,” which often means to the Axis media of which it is a charter member, “some old guy with a duck on his head holding the Bozo Chair in Chemistry at Itawamba Community College that we found after searching for a week.”?

The offer will stand for 48 hours.

I’m expecting great things.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Cal.) Locks Up “Incompetent Elected Official of the Month” AND Chases the Leaders in the Super-Competitive 2026 “Unethical Asshole of the Year” Race!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This is so exciting!

Also depressing, of course. I believe it is fair to conclude that the U.S. Congress has never had so many unqualified, intellectually inferior, obnoxious, ethics-free jackasses staining its halls and reputation at the same time. True, it is difficult to assess the quality of our elected officials prior to, say, World War II, but my conclusion is based on the belief that if the U.S. ever had a government more dominated by knaves, villains and fools, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Even with such daunting competition (Marjory Taylor Green, “The Squad,” Rep. Raskin, Rep. Boebert, Senator Senator Hirono, et al.) Khanna managed to stand out yesterday. No only did he state on the floor of the House and on public media that four men were sex criminals when they were not, he followed up his indefensible gaffe by refusing to apologize and instead stooping to “Whataboutism,” Rationalization #2, the Democratic Party’s favorite after #22, “It’s not the worst thing.” Here is #2, if you haven’t reviewed the Rationalization List lately:

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Ethics Quiz: The I.C.E. Endorsement

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Sarai Jimenez, a special education teaching intern at in Pajaro Valley School District’s Watsonville, California-based MacQuiddy Elementary, endorsed the presence of I.C.E. officers in her town in a comment on Facebook last month.

“Yay!!! We need ICE in Watsonville!! It’s been getting out of hand,” Jimenez wrote, as you can see above. But the parents in Pajaro Valley Unified School District, where 84% of students are Hispanic and, given California’s sanctuary state aspirations, might belong to families with one or more illegal immigrants, considered Jimenez’s support for ICE….that is, enforcement of U.S. law…unconscionable. Many complained, and Jimenez was placed on leave from her job in Pajaro Valley School District. It appears that she will be fired, if she hasn’t been already.

“You can’t just tell the world how you feel and not expect repercussions from people because of how they feel about I.C.E.,” local parent Jorge Guerrero said. If I were awake completely, which I’m not, I would compose several alternate versions of this statement with provocative substitutes for “I.C.E.”

Jimenez tried to save her job by groveling a politician-style denial rather than an apology,“I’m sorry that the comment was taken out of context,” she told reporters. “But my actions speak so much louder than all those hateful bullies’ words.” The hateful bullies are the ones who bombarded her with threats and insults until she took down her Facebook page. “You are a shameful disgraceful disgusting woman,” one critic wrote.

Predictably, though apparently not by the interning teacher, the school administrators sided with the bullies if not their methods (although firing someone for supporting law enforcement is a lot more harmful than insulting her).

MacQuiddy Elementary Principal Sara Pearman said in a statement that Jimenez’s comment “does not reflect the values” of the school or district.

Hmmmm…

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is it ethical to fire Jimenez for expressing support for law enforcement officials doing their jobs?

I think this is a close call. Some points:

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