Ethics Train Wrecks

A Popeye: A Trump Derangement Note That I Have to Mention…[Corrected and Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Several readers have sent me this insane, hysterical post by a guy who claims to be “middle of the road” and it caused me to pledge not to keep posting on Trump Deranged outbursts: there are too many of them, they are embarrassing, and it doesn’t change anything. Then I see a post by an old freind, a tenured history professor at a major U.S. university, in which he writes, “106 years ago today (i.e., 02 Oct 1919), President Woodrow Wilson suffered an incapacitating stroke. His wife Edith essentially took over running the White House for the rest of is term. The 25th Amendment was still 48 years away in the future. No particular reason for mentioning the 25th Amendment right now…”

You mean now as opposed to during the previous four years, when this same scholar saw no reason to make a comparison with Wilson when it was screamingly obvious that the President really was cognitively disabled and needed to be removed?

Of course this objective, trustworthy “expert” detected no parallels with Wilson while POTUS shambled around, got disoriented and had his wife handling him like a member of Visiting Angels, but now, as his successor displays staggering amounts of energy and purpose not just for a man his age but for anyone of any age (the correct parallel isn’t Wilson but Teddy Roosevelt), a credentialed historian thinks he can’t do the job, and that an elected President should be removed from office as “disabled.”

Translation: “Disabled”= “Not a Democrat.”

Trump won’t do the job the way that the batty American Left wants him to do it. That’s all.

I need some spinach…

Unethical Quote of the Month: Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

“Diversity involves recognizing, including, celebrating, rewarding and utilizing differences of gender, race, ethnicity, age and thought – sweetening and often strengthening the pot.”

—-The Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism in the document supposedly designed to give Continuing Legal Education trainers (like me) guidance in preparing seminars on “professionalism,” exemplary conduct that goes beyond the Rules of Professional Conduct to bolster public trust and the reputation of the legal profession.

What utter, illogical, embarrassing, unethical, woke garbage this is…and from a judicial commission no less! I dare anyone to defend it. The putative author is someone named Karlise Y. Grier, who is supposedly a lawyer, and lawyers are supposed to be trained in critical thought. Gee, I wonder if…[checking]….of course she is. Only the undeserved beneficiary of such nonsense could endorse it so fatuously.

I’m going to be teaching, not for the first time, a professionalism seminar for Georgia lawyers, who are among those in the few states that require special “professionalism” credits. I had to read, in due diligence, the guidelines for such programs in Georgia that almost took longer to read than the course will last (one hour) because it was full of bloated bureaucratic babble. It is a professional requirement for lawyers to write clearly, but most don’t, and this thing was a disgrace. Nothing was as bad as that paragraph above, though.

What does “recognizing” differences in gender mean, and what does it have to do with the ethical practice of law? (Hint: Nothing.) Lawyers should treat all clients and adversaries the same regardless of race, gender or other group characteristics. Is that paragraph saying that Georgia lawyers should be able to tell a man from a woman? Is this a problem in Georgia?

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Unethical Tit-For Tat: Great, Now The Trump Administration Is Playing “WrongSpeak” Games…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

This revolting development was completely predictable to the extent of being virtually inevitable. Nonetheless, it is ominous, dangerous and disgusting, not to mention Orwellian, for the government to try to manipulate public opinion by banning words and phrases that can support opinions and beliefs authorities don’t want the public to hold.

The Energy Department last week added “climate change,” “green” “emissions” and “decarbonization” to its list of banned words and phrases at its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The WrongSpeak/ThoughtCrime linguistic offenses already included “energy transition,” “sustainability/sustainable,” “‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ energy,” “Carbon/CO2 ‘Footprint’” and “Tax breaks/tax credits/subsidies.”

“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid — and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the Administration’s perspectives and priorities,” the acting director of external affairs Rachel Overbey decreed.

The order applies to both public and internal communications and extends to documents such as requests for information for federal funding opportunities, reports and briefings. It’s obvious why the Trump Administration is going down this pro-indoctrination path. “It works!” as the late Harry Reid assures us from Hell. The ends justify the means, “They (the Democrats) did it first,” “Everybody does it,” yada yada yada: there are at least a dozen rationalizations on the list including #31. The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now” that will doubtlessly be resorted to by our current ruling censors. The practice is still unethical and the impulse is anti-American.

I believe that the linguistic attacks are encouraged by the reality that the news media is engaged in permanent pro-climate change hysteria propaganda. “Climate change is caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions, which is driven primarily by burning oil, coal and natural gas for energy,” Politico states confidently while reporting on the new language edict at Energy. More:

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The Democrats’ Way: When The Facts Are Damning Just Make Stuff Up and Count On Your Complicit News Media To Have Your Back.

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Kamala Harris, the worst, most unqualified major party Presidential candidate since Horace Greeley, continued her ridiculous “It wasn’t my fault!” tour last week by telling Rachel Maddow on MS (MSNBC) that 2024 was “the closest presidential election in the 21st Century.”

It wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to the closest. Donald Trump beat Harris in the Electoral College 312-226. Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020 by a tighter margin, 306-232. Trump beat Hillary Clinton 304-227 in 2016. also closer. Only two elections in the 21st Century have been decided by wider margins in the EC, 2008 and 2012.

The 2024 election wasn’t closer than most of the recent elections in the popular vote either. Bush lost the popular vote, but won the Electoral College in 2000, as did Trump in 2016. Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Clinton in 2016, and Trump in 2020 all needed fewer votes to flip to win the Electoral College than Harris in 2024 too. In short, Harris’s claim had no basis in reality. At all. Whatsoever. Sort of like the claims that she ran a “flawless” campaign. Or the DNC’s spin that Harris lost because America is racist and sexist.

Did you know Donald Trump lies all the time? He exaggerated the size of his inauguration crowd in 2017!

Yet there was Rachel Maddow, nodding and smirking away as Kamala flogged her fake history, helping to make her show’s viewers more ignorant and misinformed that they already were, which, he show being on MSNBC, was already considerable.

Nice.

Oh-Oh. Here Come the Robo-Judges…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Google “AI judges” and you will see many links to news articles and even scholarly treatises about the use of artificial intelligence in the judiciary. There are already bots trained as “judicial opinion drafting tools,” and manuals written to help judges master them.

There have already been incidents where judicial opinions have been flagged as having tell-tale signs of robo-judging, and at least two judges have admitted to using AI to prepare their opinions.

I hate to appear to be a full-fledged Luddite, but I am inclined to take a hard line on this question. The title “judge” implies judgment. Judgement is a skill developed over a lifetime, and is the product of upbringing, education, study, observation, trial and error, personality, proclivities and experience. Every individual’s judgement is different, and in the law, this fact tends to imbue the law with the so-called “wisdom of crowds.” There will be so many eccentric or individual analyses of the troublesome, gray area issues that cumulatively there develops a learned consensus. That is how the law has always evolved. In matters of the law and ethics, an area judges also must often explore, diversity is an invaluable ingredient. So is humanity.

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James Comey Is Indicted. I’d Love to Say “Good,” But I Can’t

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

There is evidence that former FBI director James Comey leaked information to a third party to ensure that it reached the news media—a legal breach—and lied to Congress. Is it strong enough to meet a beyond a reasonable doubt threshold? Maybe not.

He is still an ethics villain. Comey managed to make hash out of the 2016 election, first refusing to charge Hillary Clinton for a crime that he—falsely—claimed other, lesser officials had never been charged with, and then tried to make up for handing Hillary a “Get out of the negative headlines free” card by opening a new investigation even closer to the election sparked by the appearance of some of Hillary’s emails on her assistant’s boyfriend’s computer. Comey was the epitome of the “Deep State” embedded foe of President Trump—you will recall that he recently approved of the legend 8647, as in “Kill President Trump,” in a social media post. A a fan of ethical government and democracy, I am not sorry to see some adverse consequences coming Comey’s way. As a legal ethicist, I am dubious about the indictment.

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The Trump-Epstein Statue Mini-Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

[Before I return to my own blog after circumstances beyond my control left me unable to post for most of yesterday, I want to thank the EA commentariate for coming through with a stellar performance on yesterday’s emergency Open Forum. I expected nothing less, but the range of posts and topics was dazzling.]

I missed the Mall statute controversy until this morning. Here is the statue, which was only on display for a day before the National Park Service took it down:

Nice.

A permit for the thing was approved on September 16, and originally authorized the disparaging statue to remain on display at the National Mall until 8 p.m. ET this coming Sunday. A plaque beneath the bronze figures of the late convicted pedophile and sex trafficker and the President of the United States read: “In honor of friendship month, we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein,” followed by a silhouette of two hands making a heart shape. The stated purpose of the artwork was “to demonstrate freedom of speech and artistic expression using political imagery.” That was deceit. The purpose of the statue was to promote the desperate Axis talking point that President Trump was involved in Epstein’s criminal activities, of which there is no evidence whatsoever and has never been any evidence.

Again, nice.

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Sunrise Open Forum & a Few Topics To Consider [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

I’m in Richmond, preparing to do a 3 hour legal ethics CLE seminar for one of my last remaining live presentation clients since the stupid Wuhan virus lockdown ruined my business, along with oh, so much else. (Thanks, CDC! Thanks, teachers! Thanks, Democrats! Thanks, “science.” Thanks, fear-mongering news media! Assholes….) I barely have time to wake up after a long drive in the wee hours last night from Alexandria, so I’m going to have to rely on you, dear readers, to keep things lively while I am otherwise occupied.

One thing to look forward to:EA will launch a new regular column authored by our alien philosopher, Extradimensional Cephalopod! We have had two other attempts at a regular column to inject diverse (ooo, that word!) ideas and opinions here beyond the guest posts and Comments of the Day, both evaporating for various reasons, in the case of the most recent contributor, incipient insanity. “Curmie’s” Trump Derangement proceeds apace: in his latest post, he declares that “There is no such thing as free speech if a state employee can be fired for saying something someone in power finds distasteful.” This is nonsense, as the Curmie I knew would have quickly pointed out. “Distasteful” is a deliberately and deceitfully vague term: any 12-year-old could probably imagine dozens of “distasteful” comments that a government employer could justifiably decide are intolerable from an employee. The courts agree, you know.

In other news, France and other U.S. allies decided to make terrorism great again, rewarding Hamas for its October 7 attack on Israel by “recognizing” the non-existent Palestinian state. President Trump correctly excoriated those nations at the U.N.

Meanwhile, in more important news, Major League Baseball announced that the new robo-strike calling system will indeed be instituted next season. It’s about damn time. In the game I listened to on the way to Richmond (Boston defeated Toronto, 4-1), the announcers admitted that the home plate umpire was missing calls all through the game. “Well, that pitch was well off the plate, but that’s how he’s been calling strikes all night!” Boy am I sick of that.

Finally, a “The Unabomber was right” note. My new Apple smartphone wouldn’t allow me to set an alarm for this morning as insurance against the hotel skipping my wake-up call until I signed up for its “health app,” which took 8 screens, and ended up telling me that I shouldn’t get up when I wanted to.

Well, wish me luck. I have about 150 Virginia lawyers to make ethical this morning, only 14 of them in person. %$#@!& lockdown….

Added: Oh, I forgot: Disney relented and let Jimmy Kimmel back on the air last night. Oh, so what? If ABC wants to have a late night show hosted by a not-too-bright, occasionally funny, progressive scold lose money, that’s their choice. The President should shut up about it; he just gives Kimmel significance and attention that his meager talent doesn’t justify. And threatening ABC for its broadcast content is beyond stupid, as well as unconstitutional. Trump’s thin skin regarding criticism is a serious weakness, but as with the others, he appears incapable of ameliorating it.

Most Fascinating Ethics Quote of the Year: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

President Trump, in his eulogy for assassinated conservative activist Charley Kirk at the massive memorial service in Phoenix

Can a quote be both ethical and unethical at the same time? You have to hand it to Donald Trump: his statement above at the Kirk memorial service had progressive heads exploding all over the map, and some conservative heads too. It was a genuinely provocative line, rich with contradictory meanings and implications. Did the President intend it that way? Who knows? They will be arguing about Trump’s brain in history and psychology tomes for a hundred years. I find myself hearing Wilford Brimley’s voice echoing through my brain in his iconic scene from “Absence of Malice”: “Mr. Gallagher, are you that smart?” Except in this case, it’s “Mr. Trump.”

Of course the line triggered the Trump-Deranged into self-identification, as with this guy…

But Trump didn’t say he hated half the country. Now Joe Biden came a lot closer to doing that when he accused Republicans of being fascists who are existential threats to democracy, though it was in a national speech to the nation not a memorial service. (I think that’s worse, myself.) We can’t be sure whom Trump regards as his “opponent.” Those who want him dead, as about a quarter of all Democrats according to one poll? Those who tried to impeach him twice and put him in prison using contrived prosecutions? Those who call him Hitler? The journalists and pundits who have been lying about him since he was elected in 2016 and before? Continue reading →

Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Update, 9/21/2025

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I have to say that I’m pretty sick of hearing and reading about Charley Kirk. The hagiography on the Right and the desperate spinning from the Left, which fears, with considerable justification, that the activist’s assassination will be a devastating tipping point that will doom their prospects in the 2026 election, are both relentless. The Kirk memorial service i is being compared to a state funeral, and that diminishes the tradition and the status of state funerals. Whatever Kirk was, he was not a national public servant. He wasn’t Charles Lindbergh either. The Democrats approached this level of creating exaggerated status when they held a Capitol Rotunda viewing for a Capitol police officer on the pretense that he was killed by the mob on January 6, 2021. He wasn’t, but the charade was all part of the coordinated effort to demonize Republicans, just as the deification of Kirk, a partisan organizer, is a Republican effort to show that the American Left approves of and encourages violence as a political weapon. (It does, you know.)

The obvious comparison is with George Floyd, but like most obvious comparisons, it’s not valid. To begin with, there really are good reasons to mourn Kirk. George Floyd was a blight on society, if an insignificant one. His ambiguous death was brilliantly exploited despite the fact that it signified nothing except that some cops aren’t very good at their jobs (we knew that). Floyd’s death didn’t result from racism or bigotry. Sure, the lifetime petty crook and drug addict’s life “mattered,” but it didn’t matter enough to him to do something positive with it. Also, to state the the most vivid distinction, conservatives didn’t use Kirk’s murder to go on a destructive nationwide “mostly peaceful demonstration” spree resulting in billions of dollars in damage, over 30 deaths, and the disruption of daily life for Americans who had nothing to do with Floyd’s demise.

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