Ethics Train Wrecks

The Worst Case Scenario

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Haven’t seen Geena around these parts recently, but her return is appropriate. And she was just worried about her boyfriend turning into a giant fly. Compared to what the nation may be facing, that’s nothin’!

The totalitarian tilt of the Democratic Party is undeniable, and Ethics Alarms has been making the case for months that its complete rejection of fair and responsible tactics and rhetoric for fearmongering, paranoia and propaganda is dangerous—not just dangerous, but ominous. I am certain that if Trump wins narrowly, perhaps even if he wins decisively, the freak-out deliberately seeded by the Axis will result in riots coast to coast.

An essay on the blog “Chicago Boyz,” which I have never encountered before, makes a persuasive case that we are facing much worse than that. Read it, please. Some excerpts:

  • “There has been a lot of criticism from the Right regarding Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic “revealing” Trump’s affinity for Hitler. The critics says that the revelations are old and thinly sourced. The critics miss the point, which is that Goldberg’s article wasn’t so much meant to be an “October Surprise” as it was to give the Democrats the news hook they needed to launch their final argument that Trump is a fascist.The Goldberg article was merely the starter’s gun for that final argument.

  • “[T]he Democrats don’t much like the Constitution itself…It’s not just the elite either, with 49% of all Democrats thinking the document “should be mostly or completely rewritten.” The reasons vary, some Democrats believing that the document is tainted by its racist writers, other Democrats seeing it as a hindrance to the type of social change they wish to enact, and others just believing that a 240-year-old document is an archaic relic in need of a re-write. So the question I have asked those on the Right who see the 2024 Election through a normality bias is, on what basis do they believe that the Democrats will accept a Trump victory? The Democrats have spent the past eight years dismissing him as a legitimate part of the political system. They have turned that notion up to “11” over the past several years by explicitly calling him a threat to democracy and a fascist, and they have little attachment (among both elite and party identifiers) to the existing Constitutional order….”

  • “I haven’t even delved into the vast array of dirty, norm-breaking tricks that the Democrats have either engaged in or had revealed over the past four years, including lawfare, indictments, FBI raids, censorship, spying on campaigns by the security agencies, electoral chicanery, etc… All of which would lead to the understandable fear of the Democrats not relinquishing the White House to Trump. Take a step back and you see that every warning light is flashing red…”

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The 2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck Births the “Puerto Rico Is An Island of Garbage” Caboose

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

So it’s come to this.

The 2024 election is its own, massive ethics train wreck, as the tag will show you. It officially began with Democrats (and the news media, but I repeat myself) spending too long lying to the public about Joe Biden’s deteriorating mental state and deciding to select a Presidential nominee Soviet-style bypassing all democratic norms and processes. The party broke all previous campaign records for hypocrisy by taking this course while already making the dangerous claim that Republicans are the threats to democracy, and that Donald Trump as President would never allow another free election again. Amazingly, the campaign has gone downhill ethically since that point.

Just as tornadoes sometimes spin off little baby cyclones that still are deadly enough to kill people, the big Ethics Train Wrecks (or ETWs) as designated by Ethics Alarms, like the 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck, the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck and the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck (which spawned the Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck), often generate related ethics train wrecks that cause a lot of their own damage.

But I did not foresee that a Don Rickles-style “roast comic’s” jab at an ongoing news story would or could, even in the Age of the Great Stupid, turn into a controversy dominating headlines when the election is so near and serious matters should be the public’s focus.

I’ll summarize the events as efficiently as possible to get to the main point:

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When Ideology-Driven Fads Harm the Innocent…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On Twitter/”X,” the advocacy organization “Restore Childhood” documents the horrific case study of a little boy pushed into “gender affirming care” by his woke-lunatic mother, facilitated by unethical medical professionals. Below is the tweet series. You can watch the disturbing videos here.

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Further Observations on the Washington Post Declining To Endorse Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

1. The surprise move has sparked a “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias” spectacular! Editor-at-large Robert Kagan, resigned in protest. “People are shocked, furious, surprised,” said an editorial board member. Wait: why does the staff care so much that the Post isn’t officially endorsing Harris? They care because they are partisan and biased. They want their paper to do everything it can to help Harris and defeat Trump, not to to report the news objectively, and not to be officially neutral. That the staff reacted this way tells us all we need to know about the Post’s trustworthiness, if we didn’t know it already.

2. Endorsements were justifiable when newspapers maintained some semblance of objectivity. In today’s rotting journalism, however, with “advocacy journalism” holding sway and the Post being a particularly flagrant offender (I cancelled my Post subscription because the New York Time was less biased!) an endorsement doesn’t mean what it once did. That was, “We have assessed the candidates and their positions. We now can state our measured conclusion: X is the responsible choice for voters.” Now, an endorsement only means, “We have been favorably reporting on the Democratic candidate while being relentlessly negative about the Republican candidate, and all our reporters and editors are Democrats and progressives. Of course we’re endorsing X.”

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Observations on This Trump Derangement Video…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

1. Are there any videos of Trump supporters acting like this? As with the many episodes of violence against citizens wearing MAGA caps: if the Trump supporters are the Nazis, why is it that the Democrats are the only ones engaging in violence and harassment?

2. I asked this question of a Trump Deranged relative today. The “But Trump…!” answer I got was “What do you call the Capitol riot?” I call it a bunch of idiots trying to remedy what they thought was an attempt to steal a Presidential election through a protest that got out of control. It was not Americans targeting those whose political views did not align with theirs.

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Academic Ethics Villains: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It is time to call these two partisan operatives in the guise of professors what they are: hypocrites, hacks, abusers of authority and totalitarian enablers. Naturally, they are Harvard government professors, my college and my major. I already have my Harvard diploma turned face to the wall and on the floor; there’s not much else I can do is burn it. But I consider these two unethical academics—they shouldn’t be called “scholars”—and insult to me, and any readers who are capable of non-Trump-Deranged thought. The New York Times is complicit by repeatedly giving them a platform to sell books and mislead the public.

But that’s the Times: an institutional ethics villain assisting two individual ethics villains. Nice.

I’ve been flagging the indefensible dishonesty and scholarship-as-propaganda of these two since 2018, when they were lionized by the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“the resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media) for their Big Lie launching book, “How Democracies Die.” They’ve published more similar screeds since. I wrote in part (If you like, skip to the end of the long quote, but this is necessary perspective for the rest of the post):

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Comment of the Day: “’Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!’ Hilarity of the Day: The New York Times Gets It Backward Trying To Cover For Harris And Vilifying Trump”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I love this Comment of the Day. It is as perfect an example as we will ever see of a thoughtful, careful, articulate, and civil rebuttal of a post or position here. This COTD, by EA veteran Zanshin, focused on my disgust regarding the New York Times’ self-indicting and desperate attempt to cover for Kamala Harris’s claim that she worked for McDonald’s as a student (you know, part of that humble middle class upbringing) by criticizing Donald Trump for not accepting her word as Discovered Truth. Harris asserting that anything happened is not evidence, based on her well-documented proclivities. In particular, I pointed out that a Kamala Harris résumé that didn’t list her supposed stint as a burgermeister was deceitfully employed by the Times to imply that her claim is true.

I apologize for getting this up a bit late; I didn’t not expect subsequent events, like Trump’s master-trolling of Harris (and the Times) by doing a campaign stunt having him acting like a McDonald’s employee, the absurd tantrum thrown by the Axis over it, Tim Walz whining on “The View” that the stunt was “disrespectful” to Mickey D employees (How?), and still, neither the company nor the Harris campaign has produced any evidence that Kamala’s tale isn’t in the same category as Walz’s claim that he was in combat and Joe Biden’s claim (among others) that his uncle was eaten by cannibals.

The Times appears to be unfamiliar with the concept of “burden of proof.”

I love the comment and admire it, but as I stated in the thread, I don’t agree with it, though it is a “lucid, intelligent, well thought out” argument.

Here is Zanshin’s Comment of the Day on the post, “’Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!’ Hilarity of the Day: The New York Times Gets It Backward Trying To Cover For Harris And Vilifying Trump.”

***

Bite me!

That was my first thought when I read Jack’s statement (promise? warning?threat?) “I have yet to ban a commenter for doing no more than saying the mainstream media isn’t flamingly, ostentatiously, democratically and destructively biased in favor of progressives and Democrats, but the day is coming, and it’s coming fast.”

But the part in above statement regarding Jack’s judgement about the mainstream media is rather broad and at some places even vague. (note 1) And therefore very hard to prove or disprove

So, I decided to set myself a smaller task. Can I find an example in this blogpost where Jack writes negatively about mainstream media while not warranted by the facts. An example that even might suggest that Jack is a little bit biased against the mainstream media.

I think I have found such an example. Bear with me. The example I want to discuss is the one where Jack discusses the text in the Times regarding Ms. Harris having worked at McDonalds or not.

He uses a Times quote that begins with:

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Any Harris Voter Who Tolerates Her Escalating Contempt For Democracy is a Totalitarian Stooge-In-Waiting

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The headline is a bit harsh, you think? It is, but to hell with it.

I find this behavior by Kamala Harris and her cabal incredible, though less so after watching Harris make gaffe after blunder after botch in recent days.

Has-been news anchor but still-kicking Kennedy Maria Shriver  hosted a town hall event promoting Kamala Harris in Royal Oak, Michigan. When a woman in the audience rose to ask, “Are we going to be able to ask a question?,” Shriver replied, “You’re not, unfortunately! We have some predetermined questions. And hopefully I’ll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head, I hope so.”

What? At this point, any audience member with any self-respect and respect for the democratic process should have walked out, with some bold soul—I would have done it—announcing “That’s a disgrace. All of you are a disgrace, especially you, Vice-President Harris. Come on, everyone, let’s let these people ask each other scripted questions. We’re out of here.”

This was a Confederacy of Ethics Dunces, beginning with the audience of weenies who don’t have the guts or gumption to reject an obvious insult. Then we have…

….Shriver, who said she agreed to moderate the event as a “concerned citizen” but also as a journalist. If she were really a concerned citizen, she’d be concerned that the Democratic Presidential candidate has refused to explain her policy positions or even to specify how she would be different from President Biden. As a journalist, she had an obligation not to be complicit in yet another Harris incompetence cover-up operation. Shriver proved that she is neither a concerned citizen nor a journalist. She is just a partisan hack, and fully complicit in her party’s efforts to bypass democratic norms to stay in power.

I’m almost glad Arnold cheated on her.

…Liz Cheney, who was backing Harris at the phony town meeting (I’ve been to real town meetings in the real town, the largest in the U.S., of Arlington, Massachusetts. They let you ask your own questions in real town meetings. Presumably I don’t have to explain how unethical Cheney is.

…and, of course, Kamala Harris, coward, liar, phony.

Today I saw another Harris-Walz sign, this one particularly obnoxious as it read, “Harris Walz. Obviously.” Really? Obviously? How can anyone with self-respect leave that thing on their lawn after…

  • ….”60 Minutes” had to fake an interview answer for Harris to save her from her own gibberish?
  • …she stiffed Catholics by ducking out of the Al Smith dinner?
  • …she insulted Christians at a rally by telling them they were in the wrong place?
  • …and now this, still hiding from tough questions and refusing to respect voters’ right to know what the hell they are voting for?

I don’t understand these people. The very least we should demand of our elected officials is that they respect us.

More on the Kamala Harris Book Plagiarism Episode

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

In a post three days ago, Ethics Alarms examined Christopher Rufo’s claim that Kamala Harris engaged in plagiarism in her first book, and concluded, based on the New York Times reportage, that unlike, for example, the substantial plagiarism indulged in by ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay, prompting her exit, Harris’s uncredited lifting and copying (in a book written with a co-writer, or maybe not written by Harris at all) was careless and accidental rather than deliberate.

Now another metaphorical shoe has dropped.

The Times claimed to show plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey the passages Rufo cited as plagiarized. It reported that he ruled that the material taken without attribution “were not serious, given the size of the document.” Now Bailey writes that he was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations.” That means that the Times gave readers the impression that he had seen all of the questionable sections when he had not.

Now that he has reviewed everything, Bailey’s conclusion is a bit different. He writes that he now believes that the “case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times.” And with that, we are thrust into a sick version of Johnny Carson’s launching pad quiz show, “Who Do You Trust?” I will not leave you in any unnecessary suspense : the answer is “Nobody.”

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“Holy Fuck” Indeed. Stereotyping? What’s That? [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Update: This video may be a parody, which raises further ethical issues that I discuss in the follow-up post. For now, I will leave this as written.]

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The most incompetent Presidential campaign in modern history hits a new low, raising the question, “How low can it go?” In addition to the hilarious selection of actors (these are all actors, you know, although that guy talking about how much weight he can lifts is terrible) to represent manly men, the ad is predicated on the theory that men are morons and won’t be turned off by the demeaning stereotypical assumptions it represents.

The equivalent ad aimed at women would have Vegas showgirls, strippers and Sydney Sweeney talking about the rights of the unborn.

What an insult. And what an indictment of Harris’s advisors and staff.