Ethics Train Wrecks

The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck, Part 2: Villains, Victims, Heroes And Confusion

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

There has already been an addition to what is known about this horrible ethics story. That’s the main (but far from only) villain of the tale above, Lindsey Hill, who plotted to extort Major League pitching star Trevor Bauer, as described in Part 1. I had never seen a photo of her before: she looks exactly as I would have expected her to look. Hill is already hard at work trying to squeeze every last drop of celebrity out of her scheme, and, of course, the popular culture being the scummy place it is, there are plenty of disgusting people out there ready to accommodate her. Now that Howard Stern is old and woke, she moved on to Alex Stein, who had her as a guest on his show “Prime Time With Alex Stein” on Glenn Beck‘s Blaze Media network. Stein is a professional asshole whose idea of comedy is to disrupt public meetings and confront politicians in public. Having Hill on his show gave this creep a chance to get into graphic descriptions of sexual activities, a la Stern.

Hill played the cliche “I’m an alcoholic, pity me” card, then tried to stick to her lie using various strategies. She reminded her host that two more women came out as she was in the process of extorting Bauer to claim he had abused them too. Two words regarding that: Bret Kavanaugh. The me-too #MeToos provided even less convincing evidence than Hill did, and we now know she was lying. She also offered the risible explanation of the damning morning-after video revealed by Bauer that bad lighting was to blame for the apparent absence of the injuries she had claimed. Was bad lighting also responsible for her grinning like the Cheshire cat?

Since we’ve started on Hill, I might as well finish.

1. Lindsey Hill, Villain

As I said, she’s the Number #1 Ethics Villain, and she did far more harm than just derailing Trevor Bauer’s career and reputation. She kicked #MeToo in the metaphorical solar plexus when it already was reeling. “Believe all women” had already been discredited as a slogan, but thanks to Hill, “Don’t automatically believe any women” is about to take its place. And there was more damage, which I will discuss here later.

Several conservative commentators have already opined that the law needs to find some way to punish sociopathic predators like Hill. Writes Miranda Devine in the New York Post, “It will never end until there are penalties for making false allegations that ruin a man’s life. Hill needs to be charged, like Jussie Smollett was for faking a hate crime.  Without consequences, malignant behavior only proliferates.” That sounds good, but this will only happen when women’s rights activists and the eager-to-pander politicians who grovel to them reverse course after opposing any negative consequences for women who falsely claim rape, harassment or sexual abuse. The standard argument remains the same: women are already too reluctant to accuse powerful men of sexual misconduct, and if they face real penalties should their allegations not meet evidentiary standards, even fewer will brave the storm, so more evil men will have their way. This is, and has always been, a utilitarian balancing act, with no clear or ideal solution.

The best that can be done about people like Hill right now is cultural and societal shunning. We should make sure everyone knows that generically attractive blonde face and her name, and employers as well as potential friends and lovers should be well aware that she’s a grifter who cannot be trusted. Post her image and deeds widely. If she ends up alone and making a living in low rent peep shows or as a geek biting the heads off live chickens, good. That’s one kind of justice.

It is only fair to mention that there is an unintended benefit of Hill’s vile conduct. Providing an ugly, throbbing example of how the #MeToo ideology can be abused (and why the Obama/Biden directive to colleges and universities to stack sexual misconduct cases against male students) is useful to those fighting these excesses. Thanks, Lindsey! You’re a blight on society, but not a completely useless one.

2. Trevor Bauer, Ethics Hero

Bauer is the only hero in the train wreck. He did nothing wrong (how he and his consenting sex partners choose to enjoy themselves is not wrong) and consistently denied wrongdoing throughout his ordeal. He followed the system, worked through his labor union and kept his mouth shut other than to tersely insist on his innocence. He did not attack Major League Baseball, nor take to social media to tell the world about Hill. Although well-versed in that mode of pubic communications, Bauer did not seek pity, threaten, or post drawings of himself standing with Jesus. His conduct throughout has been exemplary.

Most admirable of all, Bauer did not pay off Hill. No weenie he. It would have been easy to do so, his career would have continued unblighted, and he would barely miss the money: even with his suspension without pay for more than a season, Bauer has made $111,654,099 so far in his career, and at 32, he may not be done yet. In this matter he is an exemplar and role model. He was determined to fight, and that’s what ethical people should do. True, because he was already rich, Bauer could afford to be principled, but so many others who also can afford it, don’t.

This is as good a place as any to note Hall of Fame Braves pitcher Tom Glavine’s comment on the Bauer fiasco. “I would not want to be playing any professional sport in today’s world,” he said. “Listen, the money’s great, it always gets better every generation, but the things that guys have to deal with today, it’s off the charts. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without somebody having a camera. You can’t go anywhere without somebody videotaping.” In short, they are marks for evil people like Lindsey Hill, and unscrupulous women empowered by society’s current groveling to feminists and #MeToo activists.

3. Ethics Villains, the sports media.

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Why The White House Dog Bite Scandal Matters

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

For the record, I don’t regard the video above, by itself, as convincing evidence that President Biden abuses dogs. It sure is suspicious, but confirmation bias is strong here: I firmly believe Biden is a bad guy who has masqueraded as otherwise his entire career, and since abusing animals is signature significance for unethical, untrustworthy people, Biden mistreating his own dogs seems consistent. That video does show me someone who doesn’t know how to interact with dogs in a kind and supportive way. I have used my foot on a dog in an adversarial manner exactly once on my life: when a stray dog broke into my yard and had my girlfriend’s cat in its mouth. In that video above, it is unclear whether Biden is actually kicking Commander, but he definitely is using his foot to keep the dog in line. It’s a bad sign.

The Bidens’ first German Shepherd, Major, was exiled to a family friend in Delaware in 2021 after biting several people at the White House. Commander was an innocent puppy when he was brought into the President’s home as a replacement, and now he has bitten more people than Major did. The most recent known incident was on September 25, when the dog bit a Secret Service officer seriously enough to require medical attention. Naturally, because this is how this White House deals with its embarrassments and mistakes, the President, his aides and the mainstream news media are spinning, denying, and minimizing the incidents. (Here’s the Times this week discussing the issue without impugning the Bidens at all.) With Major, the Bidens implied that a bitten Secret Service agent was lying about a bite that required him to seek medical treatment. This time, the White House claims that the President’s security detail has triggered the attacks with “unfriendly expressions”—you know, microaggressions. Right.

In one attack by Commander, an agent used a chair to defend himself from the dog . The latest victim was Dale Haney, 71, who is not part of Biden’s security team; so far, there’s no evidence that he was making faces at the dog. Judicial Watch, in a press release yesterday, claims to have evidence that Biden “has punched and kicked his dogs.”

What’s going on here? I think it’s mostly pretty clear.

First, the White House is a terrible place for any dog. Lots of strangers are coming in and out, and a dog’s “masters” are usually busy or missing. A herding breed like a German Shepherd is a particularly bad choice as a First Dog. Working dogs are generally strong-willed and need a job as well as lots of play, attention, training, socialization and exercise. If they don’t get it, they become nervous and stressed as well as fearful. Obviously, the Biden dogs weren’t getting it.

Donald Trump was sneered at by various pundits for being the first President within memory who didn’t have a dog or cat in the White House. You know—more proof that he’s evil. Trump said that he didn’t have time to take proper care of a dog, and that was a responsible answer. Presidents have often used dogs as props, especially after FDR’s Scottie, Fala, became popular and was referenced in Roosevelt’s less weighty speeches. (Fala bit a couple of people too.) When a POTUS has young children living at the White House, a family dog may get sufficient love and attention to be well-adjusted. (In the film of “The Pelican Brief” the corrupt and dim-witted President played by Robert Culp is better at teaching tricks to his dog than governing. You might think Biden would be an ideal real-life version of that President, but it appears not.)

Dog lovers whose brains and values have not been complete overcome by fealty to the Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck are beginning to be alarmed. Prof Turley wrote this week that the Bidens are breaking the law:

[T]he Bidens…are subject to strict liability. However, it is difficult for Secret Service agents to sue a protected family and the Bidens know it. They are the ultimate captive audience. That is not the case for civilians in the White House compound.They are not required to assume the role of chew toys for presidential pets. The Bidens are well beyond their one free bite. They are now clearly in possession of a vicious animal under the common law and can be held strictly liable as a result.

In other words, we are in familiar cover-up territory. Conservative pundit Stephen Green is more emotional, and wrote after noting the Judicial Watch allegation;

I must pause and collect myself before writing any further.I’m a dog person. My wife is so much of a dog person that the first big test of our budding relationship was when she looked me square in the eye and asked if I was a dog person….So it’s with outrage and trembling hands that I’m writing this report. Biden has now had two different German Shepherds, Commander and Major, who have repeatedly bitten Secret Service agents and other White House staff. That much is an established fact. There’s a pattern here, and that almost always reflects on the owner, not on the dogs.

I know this is true. Our rescue dog, Spuds, was neglected and abused before we adopted him. He is the sweetest dog we have ever had, but he is still suspicious of strangers when he is on a leash. (If I let him off the leash, he takes it as a sign that the individual is a friend to be trusted, and immediately sits on his or her foot and offers his magnificent head for an ear rub…) Spuds did bite a neighbor, and it was completely my fault: I had given him too much leash and let him go around a corner without my knowing that the area was clear. A man was on his hands and knees, working on some plants, and Spuds was startled—I don’t think he had ever seen a human in that position before. My fault, 100%. I also believe Spuds was kicked by his previous owner. I have often rubbed the backs of our other dogs (and cat) with my foot: Spuds growled and leaped up when I tried that with him initially, obviously regarding my foot as a threat. Now he trusts me, and enjoys the occasional foot-pat.

Green continues:

I’m inclined to believe that a guy who humiliates his constituents in public, as Biden has done his entire career, is likely to abuse his dogs in private. That he’s had at least two dogs with behavior problems is yet more evidence of possible abuse.Or, and this is the most generous interpretation, maybe Biden merely neglects his dogs….If there’s yet no direct evidence of abuse, there’s also zero direct evidence that Biden cares for his German Shepherds with the love and playtime they require. Abused or neglected, dogs treated either way will act out. Biden’s surviving adult children both show evidence of emotional abuse or neglect, and one of them even wrote about it extensively in her now-public diary…At this moment, all I can care about is the shallowness and callowness of a two-bit schemer who has abused or neglected his public trophy dogs to the point where two sweet animals are dangerous to those around them.

That’s a bit too far for me, but not too too far. It’s clear the Democrat Woke will tolerate constant lies, totalitarian tactics, the use of the justice system against political enemies, the presence of a mentally declining mediocrity in one of the most difficult jobs in the world and more, and also that the mainstream media lacks the integrity, courage and dedication to its role in a democracy to be critics and whistleblowers rather than accessories. I wonder, however, if the “dog people” among them will support a President whom they conclude is cruel to his dogs.

Do Progressive Voters Comprehend The Significance Of Their Elected Officials’ Hypocrisy And Flip-Flops?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Rhetorical question. Based on the evidence, the clear answer is “No.”

Exhibit A for today is that part of the 16th St. “street mural” that Black Lives Matter protesters painted next to the official “Black Lives Matter” lettering ordered up by Democratic Mayor Murial Bowser in 2020, when she pandered disgracefully to the Marxist, racist, scamster movement by re-naming the area running directly to the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” At the time this stunt was intended by Bowser and teh D.C. City Council as a rebuke to then-President trump, but its syill there, even though Bowser has, weasel-like insisted that the “Defund the Police” message isn’t part of the official D.C. mural. Typical Bowser: the protesters are correct; that’s an equal sign to the left, making the full message “Black Lives Matter = Defund the Police.” BLM does stand for defunding the police, among other things (riots, unpunished crime, thugs resisting arrest…). Three years ago, Bowser dodged the a question on ABC’s “This Week” as to whether she would remove the unauthorized message. “It’s not a part of the mural,” mewled, adding that she hadn’t “had the opportunity to review it.” It’s still there, of course.

Nonetheless, just a few days before the embarrassing episode where a Democratic Congressman had his car hijacked at gunpoint, Bowser, whose city is in a crime wave like so many other Democrat-run cities in the thrall of the George Floyd Freakout and The Great Stupid, announced that her city needed more police. “We don’t have the officers that we need, and sadly we’ve lost three to four hundred officers in the last four years,” she said. “We haven’t had officers in our schools, and we have policies that make it difficult to recruit new officers.”

The obvious rejoinder should be, “And whose fault is that, you dummy?” But it isn’t. Joe Biden’s intellect-challenged mouthpiece blamed Rep. Cuellar’s hijacking on Republicans, though the party virtually doesn’t exist in the nation’s Capitol. Moreover, who voted for Bowser, not to mention that long trail of incompetent and/or corrupt Democratic mayors before her stretch back to convicted felon and crack-head Marion Barry (who has a statue honoring him downtown)?

When elected officials act like Bowser, it is convincing evidence that they can’t be trusted. Changing one’s position in the wake of facts that show you were wrong is simply competent leadership, but arguing two positions that are mutually exclusive is the mark of a politician who lack integrity, accountability, and sufficient brain cells to rub together to make small fire. We are seeing this self-indicting conduct coast to coast, from New York—where New York City’s major and the state’s governor still insist that they govern “sancuaries” for illegal immigrants but who are complaining that they don’t have the space or funds to actually be what they say they are—to California, where Gavin Newsom, hoping to fool an entire country into giving him power when he has presided over the ethics and societal rot that is now California, is brazenly taking contradictory positions on a slew of issues. President Biden, much to Donald Trump’s amusement, is now trying to build Trump’s “wonderful wall.”

Hypocrisy and a flagrant flip-flopping apparently means nothing to voters, perhaps because they have been raised to lack integrity themselves.

Meanwhile, back in D.C., the CVS in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. regularly looks like this:

You see, black lives matter, and black teens, gang members and thieves regularly loot the store, leaving almost all the shelves empty. “A big group of kids, like 45 or more, walk in before school, after school and late at night to steal chips and drinks,” local station Fox 5 reported this week. “They even throw the food and beverages on the ground and stomp on them, leaving behind a big mess. Staff at CVS have been alerted that thieves are aware of when new shipments come in and that’s when they target the store.” Street vendors are allegedly paying people to go in and steal the merchandise so they can resell it.

The neighborhood is almost exclusively black, so the majority of law abiding citizens in the area are the ones being most harmed by the collapse of the rule of law in the District (Black Lives Matter = Collapse of the Rule of Law), but you watch: they’ll still vote for Bowser next time around, or if not, someone as bad or worse. This was the result in Chicago, when voters got rid of one incompetent, lying, leftist mayor only to replace him with someone more radical and inept than even she was.

As Pete Seeger, himself a reality-challenged Marxist, sang in his best composition, “When will they ever learn?” It’s beginning to look like the answer may be “Never!”

The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck: It Has Everything: #MeToo, Kinky Sex, Ethics Zugzwang, Predatory Women, ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent,’ “The Asshole’s Handicap,” Legal Ethics And Baseball! [Part I: The Story] (Updated And Corrected)

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

This story broke a couple of days ago, and readers have been chiding me for not posting on it. I must admit, I was stalling, because it is a total mess that will take two major posts to unravel, and to cap it all off, my baseball posts don’t attract enough interest to meet the time/reward minimum. Nevertheless, this disaster raises major ethical issues. Ignore at your peril.

1. Background: Trevor Bauer: I have written a great deal about Trevor Bower, a talented Major League starting pitcher who, somewhat like Curt Schilling (recently discussed here), had a well-earned reputation for being an eccentric, and kind of a jerk. Bauer was also Donald Trump-like on social media, with similar, if more narrowly focused, results.

He once knocked himself out of a crucial post-season start by cutting a pitching hand finger playing with a drone (he loves drones). In 2018, while pitching for the Cleveland Indians, Bauer appeared to carve “BD 911” into the pitching mound during a game. That has been Truther short-hand for “Bush Did” the 9-11 bombings, and Bauer was widely criticized for the stunt. He then angrily denied that the message meant anything political, but never explained what it did mean. This also did not make him popular in a sport that is branded as patriotic and embodying core American values. In 2019, a sportswriter started claiming that Bauer’s tweets made him a “problem” because he had a contentious exchange with a female Twitter user. He was accused of harassment. It wasn’t harassment, but a pattern was set that eventually bit Bauer, hard.

In 2019, after allowing seven runs, Bauer threw a baseball over the centerfield wall after seeing his manager Terry Francona come out of the dugout to remove him from the game. Bauer apologized profusely, but it was the final straw for Francona, and the Indians traded him. Bauer was among the most vocal critics (and one of the few player critics) of the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal (see here), and cheating in baseball generally. This is also not the way to be popular in the clubhouse. In 2021, MLB announced that umpires would be checking the balls more carefully and regularly to ensure that the rule against doctoring pitches wasn’t being violated. The first pitcher to have his thrown baseballs collected for inspection based on suspicion of doctoring was…Trevor Bauer, Anti-Cheating Crusader. Bauer reacted sarcastically to the report on his Twitter account, and noted that many baseballs were being collected from games across baseball, not only from him. I wrote that this was an ethics red flag for me, as was his reaction when baseball announced the new policy, saying that there would be no way to determine who doctored the balls.

Luckily for Bauer, the SOB can really pitch. In the shortened season of 2020, Bauer won the National League Cy Young Award as one of the two best pitchers the Major Leagues. The King’s Pass reigns supreme in baseball (as in other sports): if a player is good enough, he can get away with almost anything. Almost. The Dodger signed Bauer to a rich, three year contract.

2. The Scandal. Bauer had a much larger scandal coming. A restraining order was taken out against him in late June of 2021 by a former sex partner. The woman claimed she had what started as a consensual relationship involving rough sex with the pitcher, but in a 67-page document, alleged that Bauer assaulted her on two different occasions, punching her in the face, vagina, and buttocks, sticking his fingers down her throat, and strangling her to the point where she lost consciousness twice, an experience she said she did not consent to. After the second choking episode, the woman claimed she awoke to find Bauer punching her in the head and face, inflicting serious injuries. She contacted police, and an investigation of Bauer by the Pasadena, California police department began.

Baseball, which had made the NFL and the NBA look bad (they are bad) by cracking down on domestic abuse by players, placed Bauer on indefinite “administrative leave” although her allegations were unsubstantiated. At the time, I wrote,

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More Ethics Estoppel: President Biden Is The Last One I Want To Hear Call “To Change The Poisonous Atmosphere In Washington”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This is head-exploding hypocrisy, and I’m not going to let it pass.

Yesterday, announcing yet another give-away of money the U.S. doesn’t have to people who don’t deserve it—a student loan forgiveness stunt—Biden said,

“More than anything, we need to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. You know, we have strong disagreements, but we need to stop seeing each other as enemies, need to talk to one another, listen to one another, work with one another.”

How dare he? It was just about a year ago when Biden called Republicans fascists and dangers to democracy. Has he forgotten? Oh, heck, its poor addled Joe: maybe he has. I don’t care. This is ethics estoppel in its purest form: even though addressing the culture of hate, revenge and demonizing in politics is desperately needed, Joe Biden is among those who mock a legitimate ethical objective by endorsing it. Maybe there is a Democrat somewhere who isn’t in that position, but I can’t think of any.

Have any Democrats criticized the endless Jan. 6 kangaroo hearings? How about Rep. Bowman’s “poisonous” “talking points” blaming Republicans because he broke the law and lied about it—remember them?

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The Best Summary Of The Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck And Its Many Villains Yet, From City Journal

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

And, as a bonus, a satisfying validation of Ethics Alarms’ decision to always refer to the “Wuhan virus” rather than “Covid.”

James Meigs, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the former editor of Popular Mechanics has written a thorough, fair and objective account of the entire pandemic fiasco, which the Axis of Unethical Conduct still is trying to deny. Here’s his final paragraph:

When scientists craft their scientific conclusions to political ends, they are no longer practicing science. They have entered the political fray. They shouldn’t be surprised when the public begins suspecting political motives behind their other claims, as well. Public health officials let political concerns and institutional biases influence their statements and policies throughout the pandemic. And the media eagerly served as handmaiden to these efforts. Americans started the Covid-19 pandemic ready to make enormous sacrifices to protect their own health and that of others. But our political leaders, health officials, and media squandered that trust through years of capricious policies and calculated dishonesty. It could take a generation or more to win it back.

The essay is long, but essential reading for any informed American. I recommend sending it to all of your smug progressive friends, especially any of the mug-using persuasion, and even more-so to the idiots still wearing masks while alone in their cars.

Literally none of the information included in the article is new to me, nor should it be news to anyone who has read Ethics Alarms over the past three years. (The tag “Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck” will take you to almost all of the posts on the subject.) However, relatively few members of the public read City Journal, (which is routinely superb), much less Ethics Alarms. As I read this piece I was infuriated all over again, not just at being reminded of how the nation came to cripple itself economically, financially, educationally and socially ( never mind how it came to wreck my personal business and financial security), but because this wasn’t written by the “investigative journalists” of the New York Times or Washington Post and featured as a front page story.

Here is another memorable selection from the article, also a depressing one:

The Covid-era collapse in ethical standards in science, government, and journalism might have brought a period of re-examination and reflection. For example, Watergate, 9/11, and the 2008 financial crisis all led to major investigations and reforms. So far, however, the pandemic’s polarized battle lines remain intact. Rather than re-examine their mistakes, in fact, some elite institutions seem eager to institutionalize the excesses of the period. In August, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study titled “Communication of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media by Physicians in the US.” The JAMA study examined various Covid claims made by several dozen doctors with large social media followings and bemoaned “the absence of federal laws regulating medical misinformation on social media platforms.” It suggested that doctors who propagate misinformation should be subject to “legal and professional recourse.”

What were the types of misinformation that might require such a heavy-handed response? The study quoted some extreme anti-vaccination theories and other far-out claims. But many of the topics it flagged as “misinformation” fell well within the range of normal scientific or political discourse. The authors wrote, for example: “Many physicians focused on negative consequences related to children and mask mandates in schools, claiming that masks interfered with social development.” The JAMA authors also objected to the assertion that health officials “censored information that challenged government messaging.” Of course, as the Facebook and Twitter documents showed—and the U.S. 5th Circuit recently concluded—that’s exactly what the government did. Finally, the JAMA study flagged as misinformation the claim that Covid-19 originated from a Chinese laboratory, which, it limply objects, “contradicted scientific evidence at the time.” Imagine if the JAMA authors had their way and medical experts were professionally and legally enjoined from contradicting the scientific consensus on major health questions. Without the ability to challenge popular viewpoints, scientists can’t advance our state of knowledge. In such a world, the germ theory of disease might still be dismissed as misinformation; doctors might still be relying on leeches and neglecting to wash their hands.

Read it all. Circulate widely.

Meatball’s Lawyer’s Infuriating Excuse For Her Client’s Role In Philly’s Looting Spree: Yes, It’s Unethical, But Not For The Reason You Might Think

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

[Unlike the previous post, I remembered to attach the statement I’m writing about in this one. The Bowman update now has the missing information, thanks to Old Bill who reminded me this morning that I’m a moron ]

Following close on the metaphorical heels of Rep. Bowman’s ridiculous excuse for setting off a fire alarms to delay a vote in Congress yesterday (‘Oh THAT’S what a fire alarm looks like! Who knew?’) comes the equally ludicrous statement of Jessica Mann, the criminal defense attorney for Dayjia Blackwell who represents the 21-year-old Philadelphia “influencer” known as “Meatball.”

Blackwell was arrested and charged with burglary, conspiracy, criminal trespassing, rioting, criminal mischief, criminal use of communication facility, receipt of stolen property and disorderly conduct. This seems fair, as she not only livestreamed the destructive rioting and looting that took place for two days in Philadelphia last week, but encouraged her fans to participate, and took part in the crime spree herself, announcing what she had stolen in the video feed. Then, after her arrest, she begged her fans to donate money for her bond (she told her 196,000 followers, “All I want to do is go treat myself” and plugged her Cash App handle) then quickly had T-shirts, hoodies and other items made using her mugshot above— and thanks, Donald Trump, for creating this obnoxious new trend. Those are selling briskly. “Remorse” does not seem to be part of her defense—-nor innocence, since she’s on video doing everything she’s charged with.

Despite all this, lawyer Mann posted on Instagram…

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I’m Curious About How Progressives In The Media And Democratic Party Will Try To Duck Responsibility For This Phenomenon. Are You?

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

News item: As of this morning, at least 61 people had been arrested in connection to widespread looting over two days in Philadelphia. The looting began Tuesday night with at least 30 people arrested for crimes including burglary, theft and participating in rioting. Those arrested included Dayjia Blackwell, aka. “Meatball,” a Philadelphia social media influencer who helped organize and then live-treamed the looting barrage. The viral lawlessness continued for two more days, with shoe stores, pharmacies, beauty parlors and liquor stores being attacked, among other businesses. At least 25 people were arrested for the looting that took place the nextt evening, Wednesday.. Thursday night businesses across the city hired private security. Police officers were stationed outside several establishments, including drug stores and liquor stores. Claudia Silmeas, the owner of the beauty supply shop that was targeted, told reporters, in tears, “I just want them to stop. Stop. Just stop. We are innocent of all of this. I just want them to stop.”

Someone ask Claudia if she voted for a city government that has emphasized the de-criminalization of non-violent crimes and has enabled hostility to law enforcement to flourish in the wake of the demonizing of police following the Black Lives Matter pathogen. If the answer is yes, she is assuredly not innocent.

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Ethics Quiz: Is This An Ethical Teacher Training Film? Just Kidding: Of Course It Isn’t…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Imagine a culture that could permit something this biased, divisive, reductive and vile to get funded, green-lighted, produced and used.

Never mind: you don’t need to imagine it. That culture’s here.

Now what?

More Cause For Hope! NYT Readers Call BS On Ibram X. Kendi And Michelle Goldberg

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The reliably woke, intellectually dishonest and frequently ridiculous New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg issued another one of her propaganda pieces, this time trying to excuse and rationalize the implosion of Boston University’s Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, which is laying off most of its staff and looks headed for the dustbin of history. As for that, good. Kendi is one of the worst race-hustlers extant, and BU giving him such a platform for his divisive and destructive ranting was academic malpractice.

Goldberg’s dutiful excuse-making in “Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-Raising,”meanwhile, would be an embarrassment to the Times if it were a legitimate paper any more. She absolves Kendi of blame because he had no management experience and it was irresponsible of woke donors to give him so much money in their rush to signal their virtue. (I guess all those corporations should have just stuck with discriminating against white applicants in their hiring…) What she is admitting without having the integrity to do so openly is that Kendi was and is a blowhard phony who talked big but was untrustworthy. Ann Althouse sharply observes the hypocrisy here:

If we’re going to do critical race theory, let’s not hold back when the insights are inconvenient. Lavishing money on an unprepared — but charismatic — black person and then treating him like a naif when he fails to perform according to existing conventions — that too is racism… under the theory. 

Bingo.

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