Ethics Train Wrecks

Your Daily Dose of Trump Derangement…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

This turned up on my Facebook feed this morning.

Nice.

Among the dozens of immediately likes, “hearts” and LOL emogis, right at the top, was the name of a long-time dear friend, usually wise, kind, and rational, a religious woman who believes in the Golden Rule. But she is hopelessly Trump Deranged, so all of those qualities go AWOL when the President is the topic.

I thought a lot of the attacks on Michelle Obama from the Right were vicious and indefensible, but her conduct was being criticized on its own terms rather than simply consisting or contempt for having the bad taste to marry Barack. Michell also kicked the bees nest more than any previous First Lady and had more than her share of well-earned ridicule…

….but no First Lady has ever been savaged like Melania. (Rachel Jackson’s treatment by her husband’s opponents was the closest.)

If she were not a public figure, a public statement that Melania was a sex worker would be per se defamation. But she’s the President’s wife, and apparently even to good Christians when they are Trump Deranged, Melania is fair game, just as David Letterman (who is scum, in case you have forgotten) thought it appropriate to suggest on national television in 2009 that Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter had sexual relations with Alex Rodriguez, the Yankee All-Star steroid cheat.

Please get well soon, my friend.

Jeez, Conservatives! Ever Heard of the Ethical Virtues Prudence, Proportion, Self-Restraint, Respect and Fairness?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

How about “priorities”?

Who would have guessed that Otter would become a conservative? The Rule of Law is under organized, well-funded attack in this country, states are defying federal law and law enforcement, elected Democratic officials are telling citizens that the national government is the Gestapo and should be violently opposed, the news media is paving the way for two years of Congressional obstruction, and conservatives are organizing…against gay marriage?

A coalition of 47 conservative organizations is launching a campaign to challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, declaring same sex marriage to be a civil right. Wow, what great timing. The Democrats are intent on packing the Supreme Court already, the news media is fear-mongering daily about what the Evil Republicans have in store, and just in time for the mid-term elections, which already are looking like an open door to an impeachment orgy and a return to open borders and weenie foreign policies, conservatives decide to metaphorically die on a hill for a cause that is both futile, unpopular and unethical.

Among these deluded obsessives are Them Before Us , the American Family Association, the Colson Center for Biblical Worldview, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family,the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Live Action, the Ruth Institute, the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, and family policy nonprofits across the country, representing Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and others.

This group of bitter-enders should be joining principled conservatives in critical, winnable battles instead of focusing their time, trumpets and resources on an issue that has not only been settled but settled ethically. The right to same-sex marriage cannot be reversed without cruel and massive upheavals of lives and families, never mind giving the Left something else to riot about. Such a movement also guarantees the alienation of libertarians, who already line up with the Left regarding open borders.

The stubborn foes of the right to marry have laid out a three-prong strategy: “returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship; changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children; and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.”

Hmmm, let’s see:

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FIRE Fights To Maintain Neutrality, Objectivity, Fairness and Integrity

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I’m not sure that’s possible in this situation.

FIRE is in Ethics Zugzwang.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression bravely and admirably expanded its mission when it became clear that the ACLU no longer cared about protecting the rights of all Americans, just those whose political views it supported. Now the expanded FIRE is trying its mightiest to maintain a politically neutral stance while involving itself in the current rebellion against the rule of law and immigration enforcement in the “sanctuary” states and cities.

Stipulated: This is unquestionably the right position for a civil rights watchdog to take. I also believe it is a position that cannot be effective or even coherent.

The latest statement by FIRE is an essay on its website called “The Alex Pretti shooting and the growing strain on the First Amendment.” Everything in the essay is fair and accurate. Unfortunately, FIRE’s position is likely to get people killed, as fair as it seems. Or in the immortal words of my father’s favorite epitaph,

He was right, dead right

As he sped along

But he’s just as dead

As if he were wrong.

The points FIRE makes about Pretti are arguably legitimate:

Whatever comes of the investigation, this moment demands a reaffirmation of basic First Amendment principles that the administration increasingly undermines by collapsing protected expression into criminal conduct.

First, Americans have a right to protest peacefully. That right doesn’t depend on the cause or politics involved. Whether you are protesting immigration enforcement, the president, abortion, or COVID-19 restrictions, you have a right to go outside and make your voice heard. But the administration has shown a pattern of hostility toward this nation’s long tradition of peaceful protest and dissent, including threatening demonstrators with “very heavy force” and targeting universities and foreign students over protest activity. In September, the administration released National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which links disfavored viewpoints to domestic terrorism, notably “extremism on migration,” a term left undefined. 

Second, Americans have a right to observe and record law enforcement officers performing their duties in public. Government officials sometimes abuse their power or make mistakes, and public observation and recording are essential tools for documenting misconduct and holding officials accountable. Nobody has a right to physically interfere with law enforcement. But officials have claimed — incorrectly — that it’s illegal to follow and videorecord federal agents or to share photos and videos of them online. Just last Friday in Maine, video revealed a masked ICE agent telling a woman recording him that he was taking pictures of her car because “we have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.” 

The administration’s invented or distorted definitions of “impeding,” “obstructing,” or “doxxing” have no basis in the law and are inconsistent with the First Amendment. 

Third, Americans don’t forfeit First Amendment rights when exercising their Second Amendment rights. That was true when demonstrators opposing pandemic restrictions openly carried guns at the Michigan statehouse. And it’s true for those protesting immigration enforcement today. In some contexts, displaying the firearm itself is part of the expressive message. Threatening others with a firearm is plainly illegal, but legal carry cannot justify suppressing protected expression or using deadly force.

All true, and also, “Yes, BUT…”

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Inside The Mind Of The Kind Of Progressive Fighting Law Enforcement In Minnesota

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

The term suggested is “pro-crime” leftist. I’d prefer pro-chaos leftist, because the Far Left has always sown chaos as the perfect compost for expended government power and totalitarianism. Somehow, the Far Left is now just the Left. How unhinged (or sinister) are these people? Behold Anna Krauthammer, for whom indoctrination, mainstreamed bias from the new media and an IQ below freezing resulted in her authorship of “Why I Didn’t Report My Rape” at the Socialist/Communist rag “The Nation.”

She’s a “prison abolitionist,” as well as a Defund the Police lunatic and a “law enforcement is racist” puppet. Here’s enough of a sample of her nonsense to send you to the nearest toilet:

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The First “The Unabomber Was Right” Post of 2026

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Jason Fried is the Co-Founder and CEO at 37signals, the maker of Basecamp and HEY. His blog usually engages in discussing business, technology, design and product development, and his post earlier this month became especially interesting to me after last week, when it seemed like technology was out to get me personally. I experienced infuriating breakdowns or glitches from Verizon, American Express, Amazon Prime, my bank (Wells Fargo), Merrick Bank, Microsoft, and, of course, WordPress. Each breakdown involved frustrating interactions with chatbots and automated “customer service” lines, the oxymorons of the century. In total, I lost about four hours of otherwise billable time, and several of the problems have yet to be fully addressed.

Apparently, however, things will soon get worse, unless I hurl myself into that woodchipper, which seems to work just fine.

Fried writes in part regarding the recent experience of his parents when they rented a house near him to spend a few months. He had just come back from a vacation in Montana and had rented a house there. “[E]verything…was old school and clear. Physical up/down light switches in the right places. Appliances without the internet. Buttons with depth and physically-conformed to state change rather than surfaces that don’t obviously register your choice…traditional round rotating Honeywell thermostats that are just clear and obvious. No tours, no instructions, no questions, no fearing you’re going to do something wrong, no wondering how something works. Useful and universally clear. That’s human,” he concluded.

But not in the new, technologically advanced, “improved” house his parents ended up in. He writes in part (and in horror):

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It’s “Unprofessional Nurse Day” on Ethics Alarms! And When You Combine Unprofessional Nurses With Trump Derangement, You Get…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

..this despicable individual, ex-nurse Alexis ‘Lexie’ Lawler.

Lexie was canned by Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital after announcing in a TikTok video, “As a labor and delivery nurse, it gives me great joy to wish Karoline Leavitt a fourth-degree tear. I hope that you fucking rip from bow to stern and never shit normally again, you cunt.” 

Leavitt, President Trump’s extremely competent paid liar, announced last month that she was expecting her second child. The injury Lawler wished on Leavitt requires immediate surgery and can cause long-term chronic pain.  The vicious and hateful post received many “likes” and “loves,” because these are really irredeemable people.

The Daily Mail says that it “led supporters of President Donald Trump to call for her firing.” Wait: wouldn’t all decent people call for the firing of a “labor and delivery nurse” who made such a statement? This is one of those stories I want to shake in the faces of my Trump Deranged Facebook friends. much like Dickens, my late, great Jack Russell Terrier, killing a rat.

What monsters they consort with! What monsters they have become….

A spokesperson for Baptist Health confirmed to that this unprofessional ethics villain is no longer employed at the Boca Raton hospital.

But she does have a professional hairdo!

“The comments made in a social media video by a nurse at one of our facilities do not reflect our values or the standards we expect of healthcare professionals,” the hospital’s spokesperson said. “Following a prompt review, the individual is no longer employed by our health system.”

Please note: these are the kinds of people who polls say will prevail in this year’s elections. Gina?

But there needs to be a a strong, competent, effective response beyond just being afraid.

[Note: I want to apologize to Gina Davis, whose clip from “The Fly” is one of the most frequently used on Ethics Alarms, yet I somehow hadn’t included it in the Hollywood Ethics Clip archive until just now. The number of clips is up to 45. Check it out here.]

Should It Matter If a Children’s TV Hostess Is a Virulent, Lying Anti-Semite?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

It is remarkable the things you learn while searching for ethics topics that have nothing to do with President Trump.

For example, I had never heard of Ms. Rachel, perhaps because my ‘kid’ is 31. Ms. Rachel is the professional moniker of educator, YouTuber, and singer-songwriter Rachel Accurso. She created the YouTube series “Ms. Rachel” (originally known as “Songs for Littles”), a children’s music series that focuses on language development for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

That’s nice! Unfortunately, she can’t resist exposing the fact on social media that she hates Jews . Last week, she “liked” a post by one of her followers on Instagram that said “Free America from the Jews.” Oh-oh. Then she posted a video in which she wept pitifully and claimed that she had meant to delete the thing but inadvertently “loved” it.

Oh. Well, anyone can make a mistake, though I don’t see how someone could make that one. The problem is that this kiddie educator has been ranting on social media about Israel “genocide” in Gaza for quite a while now. Earlier, she posted on Instagram, ‘”Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Iran.” Last year she filmed a ‘Letter of the Day’ video with Palestinian journalist, Motaz Azaiza. Azaiza has praised Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, in which infants and children were massacred among other victims. He once posted online, “May God curse the Jews themselves.”

Call me judgmental, but hosting an anti-Semite like this guy seems like an ominous sign for a child educator. Yet Ms. Rachel appears to be uncancellable. Over at “Unspiked,” Brendan O’Neill speculates why. He writes in part,

“The Damocles sword of cancellation dangles precariously over all of us for such trifling speechcrimes as wondering if the Koran is bollocks (Islamophobia) or thinking immigration should be curtailed (racism). And yet you can openly rub shoulders with anti-Semitic people or anti-Semitic posts and the cancellers will look the other way.

“Be honest: what fate would befall a kids’ entertainer if they hosted on their show a man who had once said ‘Fuck all black people’? And if they then liked a post on Instagram that said ‘Get all blacks out of America’? We know exactly what would happen. They would be savagely cancelled. The only time we’d ever see them again would be in a Netflix documentary 20 years hence about the much-loved kids’ clown who lost it all by chumming about with racist scum.

“…The exact opposite has happened with Ms Rachel. She may have exposed the kids who follow her to a man who once said ‘Curse the Jews’, and she may have liked a post calling for the mass expulsion of Jews from the US, but she will survive. And thrive. Cancel culture will lay not one finger on her. And we all know why: because Jews enjoy none of the protections of ‘political correctness’. Jews have not been granted access to the kingdom of liberal concern. Offending Jews is seen as a lesser crime than offending any other group. Ms Rachel will suffer no consequences so long as her blunders only touch on the lives and feelings of Jews.

“The real problem is not Ms Rachel, who’s fundamentally just another celeb building a virtuous self-image from the rubble of Gaza. It’s the politics of identity. It’s that ideology’s ruthless demotion of Jews to the bottom of the league of identities. Scuff a page of the Koran and you’ll be had up for Islamophobia. Film a kids’ video with a man who said ‘Curse the Jews’ and you’re grand. There it is: the merciless neo-racialism of the woke era….”

This is another Cognitive Dissonance Scale issue at heart. Maybe a competent online children’s educator can still be regarded as effective and trustworthy as long as she keeps her vile political and social views out of her videos, songs and books. On the other hand, as Captain Hook would say, I’d rather have someone who isn’t a lying anti-Semite entertaining my children if I have a choice.

You?

Ethics (and Blogging) Hero: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

My late wife might say of this post, “If you like Ann Althouse so much, why don’t you marry her?” (Ann-like tangent: my favorite use of that line was when Homer Simpson was in a TV debate with Rev. Lovejoy over gay marriage, and after the Springfield cleric cited the Bible, Homer retorted, “If you like the Bible so much, why don’t you marry it? Here, I’ll do it for you…”)

Ann is the all-time Ethics Alarms leader in “Ethics Quotes” of the month and week; she’s also been an Ethics Dunce here several times. I even suspended her from any mention in my posts after a particularly miserable performance. Her fascinating EA dosser is here.

I know I just posted about Ann’s recent four slam-bang post run, but her defenestration of Anti-Trump New Yorker hack Susan B. Glasser was masterful, and I bow down in awe and wonder. When the ex-University of Wisconsin law professor is on her game, nobody is better, and attention must be paid.

Glasser issued “It’s Time to Talk About Donald Trump’s Logorrhea/How many polite ways are there to ask whether the President of the United States is losing it?” , jumping on the “Let’s try the 25th Amendment!” Trump removal plan a Golden Oldie among the many that the Axis was pushing in his first term. That any journalist who sat idly by refusing to point out that Joe Biden’s brain was falling out of his ears in chunks has the gall now to make such a claim about Trump (literally all of my Trump-Deranged Facebook Friends keep returning to it) is disqualifying, but Ann doesn’t even need that low-hanging fruit to show us how Glasser cheated to please the Atlantic’s biased readers.

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Ethics Quiz: The Despicable Representative From The Great State of South Carolina

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This is a bit of departure from the usual Ethics Alarms quiz. I’m not going to ask whether conduct is ethical or not, or what the ethical response is to a particular conflict or dilemma. No, I’m going to ask what a fair and proportionate description would be of the latest vile, racist crap emitted by this serial hate-mongering demagogue.

That’s Rep. James Clyburn—recognize him? He took credit for getting Joe Biden nominated in 2020, and thus has blood on his hands from the carnage out country has suffered from four years of governance by faceless, unelected woke bureaucrats pulling the strings of a senile President. Gee, thanks, Jim!

Check out Clyburn’s EA dossier, easily one of the most damning short of Nancy Pelosi or the late Rep. Barbara Lee. Clyburn’s 85 now, and an “icon,” because he marched with Martin Luther King (but then so did Marion Barry). But he’s always been an flagrant anti-white racist and hyper-partisan liar. Nonetheless, Clyburn topped himse;f while appearing in “The View,” which itself is showing symptoms of dementia. He told the ignorant ladies, and the even more ignorant viewers who watch their daily idiocy, that the modern GOP is trying to bring back slavery. “Anything that’s happened before can happen again,” Clyburn said, as the Trump Deranged of “The View” sat rapt, as if at the feet of the Buddha. “They were trying to set up a process that will allow this country to return to what it was in 1876 when the election got thrown into the House of Representatives and they were able to overturn what Abraham Lincoln and the Congress had done successfully getting rid of slavery. That is what they’re attempting to do today. I get sick and tired of hearing people say this ‘it’s never been like this before,’ Yes, it has!”

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Unethical Quote of the Week: Lawyer Kimberley Hamm, Spinning For The Clintons

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“There’s an accommodation process when you’re talking about a President or a former President.Contempt is punitive; it’s not about enforcement. If you want to get the information, agreeing to accommodations is one way of getting it.”

—Kimberly Hamm, a partner at Morrison Foerster, after being cherry-picked by the New York Times to excuse Bill and Hillary Clinton for trying to defy a Congressional subpoena.

For some strange reason (I’m being facetious) Bill and Hillary Clinton seem to think that they are excused, unlike any other Americans (or, say, Michael Corleone) from obeying a subpoena to appear before a Congressional committee. Hamm, as we know how these things work, was tracked down as a putative objective “expert” by the Times to excuse the Clintons and impugn Republicans who are not inclined to accept their offensive and arrogant defiance, as Ethics Alarms highlighted last week.

There should be a “heightened standard” when it comes to a subpoena of a former President, Hamm said. Oh really? Show me your authority for that assertion, Counselor. But first show me where you made a similar statement about armed raids on former Presidents’ homes over disputes regarding classified documents.

What utter balderdash: “contempt is punitive and not about enforcement.” How dumb does this lawyer (and the Times) think we are? Punishment is always about enforcement. A law that has no penalty for its violations isn’t a law at all. You know, like immigration laws during the Biden Administration.

The Times reports that negotiations between Representative James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and the slippery Clintons over their refusal to testify before his Committee in its Jeffrey Epstein investigation broke down today, “hours before a scheduled vote to hold the couple in contempt of Congress.” Read the whole thing if you like (gift link), but the basic facts are clear: the Clintons feel they have a special right to avoid being grilled in public, and they don’t.

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