Ethics Train Wrecks

Ethics Dunce: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

[My leg is still killing me, I hope not literally, and sitting at my desk is excruciating, but I have to post this, truncated though it may be.]

The President should not cave to the “Think of the Children!” lobby that wants the United States to send aid to a rogue, terrorist state that is also the enemy of a just combatant the U.S. is supporting. It seems that he is. That is asinine and cowardly.

If children are starving in Gaza, the Gazans, and specifically Hamas, are responsible. Not Israel. Not the United States. The mission in warfare is to win the war, and one does not win a war by making warfare less unpleasant for the enemy. Frankly, it astounds me that I, or anyone, should have to make this point.

The last time the United States won a war (I do not count Grenada) was World War II. The Pentagon did not allow the publication of photographs of dead babies and malnourished Japanese and German children for exactly the reason we are seeing now, and have seen many times since 1945. War is ugly, and winning a war requires acts that in any other context are rightly regarded as immoral and unethical. This what a professional military is for: it (theoretically) doesn’t become sentimental about the necessities of warfare.

[Footnote: This was one of my late father’s objections to “Saving Private Ryan.” He said it was an insult to George Marshall and a deliberate effort to confuse the public to claim that the General would feel obligated to reduce the sacrifice of any single family while his army’s mission was to win a war.]

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Comment of the Day: “About That Climate Change ‘Consensus’”….

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It’s about time recent EA comment auteur Holly A. was recognized with a Comment of the Day, and she actually had two strong candidates back-to-back. I chose the second. Both involved the same issue: garbage “climate change” advocacy and activism unhinged to actual facts. In the first comment, Holly impressively examined both the professors and the paper that sparked my post. I responded with gratitude, but noted that the technical details of the paper were not my concern. I wrote in part,

The ethics bottom line remains the same. There is not any “consensus.” The data is inconclusive. The hysteria is manipulated and politically motivated. Spending large amounts of treasure to alleviate a problem that is not well-understood is irresponsible. The news media has no interest in informing the public, and the people and politicians talking most loudly about climate change literally don’t know what they are talking about.

Fair?

Here  is Holly A.’s response, the Comment of the Day on the post, “About That Climate Change ‘Consensus’”….

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I would say mostly fair.

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I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!…That Major League Baseball Is Facing a Gambling Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Cleveland Guardians (you know, the Indians?) pitcher Emmanuel Clase has been placed on non-disciplinary administrative leave through August 31 as part of Major League Baseball’s ongoing investigation into gambling. Clase’s teammate, pitcher Luis Ortiz, was the first player placed on leave under the ongoing investigation.

“The Guardians have been notified by Major League Baseball that as part of their sports betting investigation Emmanuel Clase has been placed on non-disciplinary paid leave per an agreement with the Players Association,” the team said yesterday in a statement. “We have been informed that no additional players or Club personnel are expected to be impacted. The Guardians are not permitted to comment further at this time, and will respect the league’s confidential investigative process as we continue to fully cooperate.”

Clase, an elite closer (the relief pitcher who pitches in the 9th inning when his team is ahead) signed a five-year, $20 million extension in April 2022. He’s being paid $4.5 million this year and has a $6 million guarantee for the 2026 season under the terms of that contract. Why would anyone making that much money risk it all to get involved with gambling in a sport where doing so guarantees banning from the game? That’s easy: professional athletes are not, as a rule, very bright, but are greedy,and have the ethics alarms of 12-year-olds.

I covered this issue in a longer post in February. I was right, the professional sports leagues are wrong, any fool could see it (but these organizations are not run ny just any fools, but very special fools), and the result is unavoidable. The embrace of gambling by sports organizations is going to be a disaster. It is hypocritical, incompetent and irresponsible.

Trump Derangement Monday Begins With a “Nelson” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The New York Post reports that a Manhattan rally in support of “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert drew about 20 protesters yesterday. The NYPD police who were there to prevent violence (I can’t believe I am writing this!) quickly left when the indignant Trump-haters dispersed after just a few minutes. The leaders of the stupid “We’re With Colbert” rally outside the CBS Broadcast Center on Manhattan’s West Side had said that the protest was part of a nationwide call for “integrity.”

As we all know, late night network talk shows go with integrity like sushi goes with Turkish taffy and ketchup.

“Our country is not perfect, never has been,” said the event’s organizer, whose name isn’t worth mentioning since he is clearly, you know, a moron. “But we’ve always had the First Amendment, and now Mango Mussolini is trying to take that from us.” Right. The party this guy obviously supported actually set up a federal agency to restrict speech, conspired with the news media to embargo facts, statistics and news that it found inconvenient to its aspirations, conspired with that news media to feed partisan propaganda to the public, employed a White House spokesperson who routinely spewed disinformation, and pressured social media platforms to censor critics. Then it ran a ticket that openly promoted censorship of “hate speech,” which means, as always, “whatever the Axis of Unethical Conduct doesn’t like.” “Mango Mussolini” (Nice!) is anti-First Amendment because he correctly sought to hold CBS accountable for a brazen act of election interference as it surreptitiously tried to make Kamala Harris seem less like the babbling fool that she is and was caught red-handed.

Meanwhile, another clear example of how the President’s weaponizing of tariffs is defying the doomsayers cannot attract any positive coverage from most of the “enemies of the people”, nor, of course, the “my mind’s made up don’t confuse me with facts” Trump Deranged like whatever his name is above. The EU trade deal announced yesterday “will likely not do much for economic growth on either side,” sayeth the Times, despite confessing elsewhere that the European Union had agreed to purchase $750 billion of American energy over three years and to increase its investment in the United States by more than $600 billion above current levels. How could that possibly be a bad thing? How could critics not give the President some credit for the deal? That’s easy: whatever President Trump does or says is by definition bad.

Seems fair…

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Today’s “The Unabomber Was Right” Note…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I don’t find any of these funny.

I ended up in the emergency room of my local hospital thanks to a massive leg hematoma that has produced the most disgusting symptom you could imaging in your worst nightmares. (Think the first feature of Tarantino’s “Grindhouse,” “Planet Terror.”). I was quickly checked out and sent home (diagnosis: painful, ugly, incredibly swollen, blistered and bruised, but healing slowly but surely), but checking out was like a nit from an old Woody Allen movie—you know, back when he was funny.

I had to get a text, then click on the link, then jump through a half-dozen other hoops, read serial messages sent to me, sign three documents with m with my finger, all also I could be pestered by more texts, a survey, another disclaimer and more when I got home. I also witnessed two elderly patients (I’m afraid they were both younger than me) get upset and profess complete helplessness regarding the process because they didn’t know how to use their smart phones.

This is not “progress.” It is not caring service. It is neither reasonable nor necessary.

Post Script: I have no idea how much I will get posted today. I have a Zoom legal ethics seminar to teach, I had almost no sleep last night because my leg was hurting so much, and sitting at my desk isn’t a good idea (but still necessary) because I’m supposed to keep this misshapen red, yellow and purple-mottled thing elevated. I’m sorry: there is a lot I need and want to write about. We will see how it goes.

Ethics Hero: Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Perez, a 37-year-old auto shop owner, second-term congresswoman and co-chair of the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, horrified colleagues on both sides of the aisle by offering an amendment to the “Legislative Appropriations Act”, H.R. 4249. Her addition would have required Congress to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to serve the public “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.” The amendment was unanimously rejected, but she is not giving up. In a poll of the 230,000 people who subscribe to her newsletter, more than 90% supported the proposal. Perez says her constituents raise the issue frequently, and their belief that elected officials are frequently too impaired by age to be effective is causing spreading distrust of our government.

Gee, I can’t imagine why they would feel that way…

…but I digress.

Rep. Perez noted that she found it disturbing that among the oil paintings of the past chairs of the powerful Appropriations Committee is a large portrait of Kay Granger, the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who suffered from mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet found her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she still held office.

There are now more members of Congress age 70 and above than ever before, while the second oldest President ever to serve is in the White House. Perez insists that there should be standards that prevent members from serving past the point where they no longer have the capacity to cast votes and do business on behalf of their constituents.“It’s a question of whether the elected member is making the decisions,” Rep. Perez said. “It’s really not about a single member; it’s about a systemic failure.”

Bingo.

Nah, The Democratic Party Hasn’t Become Openly Anti-Semitic! It’s Just That One of Its Biggest Allies Wants To Erase Jews From the Holocaust…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

When I read about this, I was certain that some NEA-hating conservative news source was exaggerating. Nope. It is right there in black and white, as you can see above in the entry from the National Education Association’s newly released 2025 handbook. My brain found this so shocking that it refused to explode as it should have, and just went into a safety shutdown. I can’t account for the last three hours…

The nation’s largest teacher’s union is a massive contributor to the Democratic Party, a major reason why public education has deteriorated into ideological indoctrination, and a force for ill in American culture and society. It was, for instance, substantially responsible for the disastrous decision to close the schools in the midst of the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck. Now it has openly proclaimed its hostility toward not just Israel, but the Jewish people.

The handbook, the NEA’s guide for the union’s nearly 3 million members, describes the Holocaust as having “12 million victims… from different faiths.” As unquestioned historical sources make undeniable, “The Final Solution” was at the core of Hitler’s extermination project. The NEA says the union will “promote the celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day” by “recognizing more than 12 million victims of the Holocaust from different faiths, ethnicities, races, political beliefs, genders, and gender identification, abilities/disabilities, and other targeted characteristics.” This section is on the page before the one shown above:

The NEA then promotes “Nakba” education, which describes Israel’s founding in 1948 as the “forced, violent displacement” of 750,000 Palestinians. The document further pledges to teach that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” and defends educators’ and students’ “free speech in defense of Palestine.” In case the graphic above is too hard to read, here are the key sections:

States one news source, “Critics argue the NEA is promoting a one-sided, revisionist history while ignoring the central role of Jews in the Holocaust.” This would warrant a “Ya think?” except that I have used my quote for today in the previous post. Where’s the “argument”? That is exactly what the NEA does in the handbook, and the position goes beyond unethical into evil. The group is obviously proud of its position and confident that the Democratic Party and the public supports it.

Did you know that the Republicans and Donald Trump are Nazis?

Now what? Here is what…

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The State Dept. Strikes a Blow Against Utopianism and Unethical Virtue-Signaling

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The U.S. State Department announced that we will not participate in next week’s conference regarding the imaginary “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians. Good.

France and Saudi Arabia are the hosts, and France has already announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state. The U.S. called the meeting “counterproductive to ongoing efforts to end the Gaza war and release hostages” Ya think? Permitting Hamas and the Palestinian to benefit in any way from its 2023 terrorist attack on Israel only ensures more of the same.

This is another throbbing example of the Ethics Alarms nostrum that proposing impossible “solutions” to persistent problems is unethical, no matter how “Imagine”-ish they seem on paper. No, we are not going to engage in a trillion dollar transfer of wealth from white Americans who had nothing to do with slavery to black Americans who were never slaves. No, there will be no unilateral disarmament by any nation that has enough firepower to matter. No, the United States will never accept an Australian-style gun ban. No, the dangerous National Debt will never get smaller.

The two-state solution is arguably more impossible than any of these other impossible dreams. The Palestinians have been rejecting various two-states solution since 1948; their favored solution—wiping out Israel and slaughtering as many Jews as possible, “from the river to the sea” and all that—is far more likely. The Biden administration, being incompetent and addicted to wrong-headed policies, had the useless John Kerry flying around as some kind of ambassador for two-state peace: gee, that worked out well, don’t you think?

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The U.S. State Department announced that we will not participate in next week’s conference regarding the imaginary “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians. Good.

France and Saudi Arabia are the hosts, and France has already announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state. The U.S. called the meeting “counterproductive to ongoing efforts to end the Gaza war and release hostages” Ya think? Permitting Hamas and the Palestinian to benefit in any way from its 2023 terrorist attack on Israel only ensures more of the same.

This is another throbbing example of the Ethics Alarms nostrum that proposing impossible “solutions” to persistent problems is unethical, no matter how “Imagine”-ish they seem on paper. No, we are not going to engage in a trillion dollar transfer of wealth from white Americans who had nothing to do with slavery to black Americans who were never slaves. No, there will be no unilateral disarmament by any nation that has enough firepower to matter. No, the United States will never accept an Australian-style gun ban. No, the dangerous National Debt will never get smaller.

The two-state solution is arguably more impossible than any of these other impossible dreams. The Palestinians have been rejecting various two-states solution since 1948; their favored solution—wiping out Israel and slaughtering as many Jews as possible, “from the river to the sea” and all that—is far more likely. The Biden administration, being incompetent and addicted to wrong-headed policies, had the useless John Kerry flying around as some kind of ambassador for two-state peace: gee, that worked out well, don’t you think?

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Comment of the Day: “Return of the ‘2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck’”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

AM Golden invades the realm of Ethics Alarms long-form historical ethics commenter Steve-O-In NJ with an epic Comment of the Day, and a thing of beauty it is indeed. The post also brings back many memories I would rather have left buried. Here it is, in reaction to the essay, “Return of the ‘2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck'”:

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This is a 60-plus year process in the making. Barry Goldwater ran a fairly incompetent campaign but he absolutely had the news media biting at his heels the entire time. They gushed about Bobby Kennedy in ’68, they took potshots at Nixon. By the time Reagan came along, he faced hostility from a large segment of the press and Hollywood. In the meantime, Brain Trusters infiltrated the universities and encouraging the student protest movements instead of explaining how our Constitution was designed to work, culminating in a culture 50 years later that understands its country so poorly that it gets its news from Jon Stewart who is able to ignorantly proclaim that the Constitution doesn’t say that protests have to be peaceful.

In the election of 1992, Arsenio Hall ranted in his monologue when President George H.W. Bush said he probably wouldn’t appear on Hall’s show after Gov. Bill Clinton did, yelling about what made Bush think Hall wanted him on his show. Open hostility over who may or may not be a guest on Hall’s show paved the way for the venom spewed on every Late Night show today.

Believe all women? Not if they accused the first “black” President, Bill Clinton, of sexual harassment and even rape. “Anyone can drag $100 through a trailer park,” right? Bubba was caught with his pants down and allowed us to be caught with ours down on 9/11/2001 when he blew off an offer to hand over Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, the culture wars were heating up and Americans were becoming concerned about the country’s direction.

George W. Bush – faced with a supremely hostile news media and entertainment industry – endured screeds about stolen elections, fake Presidencies and two mocking cable television shows (“That’s My Bush!” and “Lil Bush”) before he gained some respect after 9/11, but never really got the credibility he deserved. In pop culture, far too many Bush-deranged Harry Potter fans believed they saw the myopic Ministry of Magic’s denial that the evil Voldemort had returned in the efforts by the Bush administration to urge vigilance in watching out for terrorists. Ah, remember when J.K. Rowling was the voice of truth? The damage to the American public’s understanding of the Constitution, particularly the Judicial branch, continued apace

Bob Dole and John McCain were treated as racist, sexist old men who would put this country into a Nazi theocracy; Mitt Romney was framed as a racist, sexist and religious nut who would send this country into a weird Mormon Nazi theocracy. All three were all virtually Hitler.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama was the be all and end all of existence. He who could do no wrong—and could not be touched because he had black skin and anyone who criticized him was a racist—took full advantage by damaging America on the world stage and inciting racial divisiveness on a scale that hadn’t been seen in 50 years.

When Donald Trump was campaigning in 2016, the news media covered him incessantly. It now appears that they wanted him to be the nominee because, in the words of Stephen Colbert on the day my family and I sat in his audience in NYC on a hot July day as he did a riff on how corrupt Hillary Clinton was, “Hillary so corrupt the only candidate she can beat is Donald Trump!”

It turned out she couldn’t even do that.

So the forces that had been coming together for 60 years—the biased news media, the leftist entertainment industry, progressive-dominated academia and other elite, corrupted professions coalesced into a single so-called Resistance Movement. Trump says people coming through our border with Mexico aren’t all angels, they accuse him of saying all immigrants are criminals. Trump says not everyone protesting in Charlottesville was a racist Nazi, he’s accused of “bothsidism” and pestered endlessly about condemning white supremacy even though he did condemn it. Trump is falsely accused of colluding with a foreign power, leading a big chunk of the population to believe his Presidency is the result of another stolen election.

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Return of the “2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck”

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Here is another important news story that the mainstream media (or Democratic operatives, per Instapundit) is ducking, spinning and warping like mad in order to protect its totalitarian allies in the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“The resistance”and the Democratic Party): the emails and other material recently declassified and released by Tulsi Gabbard backs up the contention Ethics Alarms began putting forward in the first Trump administration when it christened the 2016 Post-Election Ethics Train Wreck.

This morning I stumbled on Fox News contributor and former GOP House member Trey Gowdy flipping out in frustration over the revelations and pretty much quoting Ethics Alarms from years ago. I can’t find a video of his explosion that will embed, and I can’t type well enough to make a transcript, but here’s the link, and here is a close approximation of the key quote:

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