Also depressing, of course. I believe it is fair to conclude that the U.S. Congress has never had so many unqualified, intellectually inferior, obnoxious, ethics-free jackasses staining its halls and reputation at the same time. True, it is difficult to assess the quality of our elected officials prior to, say, World War II, but my conclusion is based on the belief that if the U.S. ever had a government more dominated by knaves, villains and fools, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.
Even with such daunting competition (Marjory Taylor Green, “The Squad,” Rep. Raskin, Rep. Boebert, Senator Senator Hirono, et al.) Khanna managed to stand out yesterday. No only did he state on the floor of the House and on public media that four men were sex criminals when they were not, he followed up his indefensible gaffe by refusing to apologize and instead stooping to “Whataboutism,” Rationalization #2, the Democratic Party’s favorite after #22, “It’s not the worst thing.” Here is #2, if you haven’t reviewed the Rationalization List lately:
I will stipulate here that Bondi is unethical, unprofessional, incompetent, and a hack attorney who was arguably the worst of Trump’s Cabinet appointments once Matt Gaetz withdrew. Nothing that occurred at today’s embarrassing (to everyone, including me) hearing altered any of that. Furthermore:
1. Being rude and confrontational to members of Congress is demeaning to our government, however much our terrible elected representatives deserve it. Bondi’s boss might enjoy a “fiery” hearing, but it is disgraceful and unnecessary. Being cool under fire is what Americans should expect from their top lawyer. If Democrats like Rep. Jayapal and Rep. Raskin want to act like hyper-partisan assholes as they so frequently do, the best way to expose them is by contrast.
2. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! CNN actually had the gall to write, “It seemed Bondi was playing to the “audience of one” — Trump. But that came potentially at the expense of appealing to an American public that really does want answers.” If the public “wants answers,” it is incumbent on Congress to run hearings that are substantive and involve genuine matters of concern, rather than throttle a contrived scandal that was supposed to embarrass President Trump but that has behaved more like a boomerang. The Democrats on the committee seemed to only be interested in “gotcha!” questions, attacking the President, and deflecting from their own President’s absolute inertia on the same matter they were criticizing Bondi for her lack of zeal regarding. Had the committee members delivered a fair and professional inquiry, or even attempted to hold one, CNN blaming Bondi for failing to sufficiently enlighten the public would be valid. But they didn’t, and it isn’t. The CNN commentary once again just proved again that the news media is interested in partisan advocacy above all else.
I confess: there was a time when I considered supporting John Kasich to be the 2016 GOP nominee for President (anyone but Trump…well, okay, and Dr. Ben Carson). Then I started listening to him. After he wiped out in the primaries, Kasich became a committed NeverTrump fanatic like the revolting Lincoln Project scamsters, left politics after being a wishy-washy Governor of Ohio, and then began being an anti-Trump “contributor” on Fox News, then CNN, NBC and MSNBC (the tell: he’s a liar) during the first Trump administration.
Kasich enthusiasticly supported Joe Biden in 2020, saying, in an endorsement that has aged as well as Walter Donovan in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”..
….“I’m sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn’t imagine crossing over to support a Democrat. They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don’t believe that because I know the measure of the man. It’s reasonable, faithful, respectful.”
The tell: Kasich is an idiot.
This diagnosis was proven spectacularly correct when Kasich tweeted, following the NFL’s cynical Bad Bunny halftime show:
“Love the halftime show which celebrates the wonderful Latino culture. Great pick and great show. Bad Bunny hit a grand slam home run!”
Apparently the ” wonderful Latino culture” is celebrated with lyrics like these…
…which Kasich either sat there getting aroused by because he’s a dirty old man, or had no freaking idea what Latinos were hearing. I tend to think that he didn’t even watch the half-time show but defended it anyway because Kasich hates Trump to pieces, so he has done so often in the past decade, Kasich proceeded to make a fool of himself.
There are some admirable aspects to Hispanic culture indeed, like devotion to family, entrepreneurism,a strong work ethics and religious faith, but twerking and a crotch obsession arenot among them. Kasich praised Bud Bunny because Trump Derangement has eaten his brain, such as it was.
Oh…and the tweet also proves Kasich is a dork. Who but a dork uses a baseball term to describe a Super Bowl half-time show?
REPORTER: “Mr. President, you frequently criticize Joe Biden for not knowing what is going on in his name. This racist video that was posted is on your social media.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I know what’s going on a hell of a lot better than you do! You don’t know what’s going on! I know what’s going on. No, Joe Biden didn’t have a clue, but we know everything. And when you look at what’s happening with our economy, think of it, we’re way years ahead of schedule. We have thousands and thousands of businesses being built right now, so Joe Biden had no clue. If Joe Biden were elected or if Kamala were elected, we wouldn’t have country right now. We won the election because of minority voters.”
REPORTER: “Does this post maybe hurt Republicans with, you know, Black voters after the…”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “You know, I was, look, we did criminal justice reform. I did the historically Black colleges and universities. I got them funded. Nobody has been, and that’s why I got a tremendous, the highest vote with male Black voters that they’ve seen in many, many decades. I’ve done great with them. Black voters have been great to me. I’ve been great them. Black voters has been great me. I’ve been great to them. And I am, by the way, the least racist president you’ve had in a long time, as far as I’m concerned. We have — I’ve had a great relationship. Think of what I’ve done. Criminal justice reform. Nobody else could do it. Obama couldn’t do it, nobody could do. Clinton couldn’t. They actually went the other way. They went into a very bad thing for African American people, Black people. They went to a — they did very bad things. I did very good things. But criminal justice reform, and then I funded the universities, which nobody else was willing to do. They were going every year, they’d come back to Washington and they’d be begging for money, begging. I got to be friendly with some of the heads of the schools and they would come back and they would literally tell me they’re forcing us to beg. I’m the one that got them long-term financing and more than they were looking for. So there’s nobody that’s done more. And I think maybe more than anything else was criminal justice reform. They’ve been trying to get it for years. And I’m the one that got it done, so nobody can tell me about that.”
“That somebody posts, the staffer posts, you know, posts. And I knew it was all about, if you take a look at that, and see the whole thing, it was a small section at the very end. But that was about fraudulent elections, which we have, a lot of them. We’re gonna get it stopped. And I liked the beginning, I saw it, and just passed it on.”
After the Chicago White Sox posted the above graphic to honor “momentous firsts for the White Sox organization related to Black History Month,” White Sox slugger and Hall of Fame member Frank Thomas, “The Big Hurt,” posted bitterly on “X”: “I guess the black player who made you rich over there and holds all your records is forgettable!”
Petty? Childish? I don’t think so. If you look at the graphic, Frank Thomas appears only a virtual footnote, an afterthought following the recognition of Dick Allen, nowhere near as great a player as Thomas and certainly not the credit to the game that Frank was, as the Chisox’s first black MVP. Yet if the purpose is to honor standout African -American members of the team over its long history, Thomas’s record should have earned him top billing.
Thomas played for the White Sox from 1990–2005, winning back-to-back American League MVP awards (1993–1994) and now holds franchise records for home runs (448), RBIs (1,465), and walks. He tied Ted Williams on the lifetime homer list with 521, and ended his career with a .301 lifetime batting average in an era when .300 averages have become rarer every year. Thomas has the highest on-base percentage of any modern player who wasn’t Barry Bonds, as in “a freak steroid mutation that pitchers were afraid to pitch to.”
Thomas isn’t just the greatest black player in White Sox history, he is the greatest player in White Sox history of any color or ethnicity. But Thomas’s snub by his team is even more outrageous than those facts suggest.
Chicago is one of the eight original teams in the American League, meaning that the franchise has been operating as a major league team since 1901. Of the eight, only the White Sox can boast that a black man was unquestionably its greatest player.
The greatest Boston Red Sox player was Ted Williams. The New York Yankees: Babe Ruth; the Cleveland Indians: Bob Feller or Nap Lajoie; the Detroit Tigers: Ty Cobb; Washington (now Minnesota): Walter Johnson ; St. Louis (now Baltimore): Cal Ripken; Philadelphia (now Las Vegas, previously Kansas City and Oakland): Jimmy Foxx. All white. Frank Thomas stands alone as the sole black star to dominate an American League franchise over 125 years. If the idea is to honor “firsts,” he is the first black star in the league to achieve the status of all-time franchise great.
So the Chicago White Sox, seeking to celebrate Black History Month, minimized the impact, contributions, achievements and reputation of its greatest player, even though he is black.
Frank Thomas regards that as a slap in the face, and I don’t blame him.
Why not start off the day with a humiliating confession? Nothing else has been working lately…
Back in May, I wrote about that ad above in which a goofy pitchman for the Allied Injury Group nicked or squashed a couple of legal ethics rules in the course of exactly the kind of lawyer advertising the profession was afraid would result when it had to eliminate the unconstitutional ban on the practice. It was a harsh post and should have been. I wrote in part,
“…the spokesperson calling himself “Your Favorite Attorney” is an actor, indeed a stand-up comic named Shaun Jones. All of the jurisdictions prohibit lawyer advertising in any form that is misleading or that includes false information. A sole practitioner can’t call her firm “X & Associates,” for example, if she’s the only lawyer in the firm. Putting a non-lawyer in front of a camera and calling having him call himself an attorney is an undeniable violation, and an intentional one… Jones also says that if the client doesn’t make money, “I” don’t make money. That is deceit. The firm will argue that the actor is only saying that if the firm doesn’t win its cases, the actor won’t get paid. But his statement is intended to refer to contingent fees for attorneys, and he isn’t one. “
Having done my duty to flag these hacks, I then proceeded to put the wrong law firm name in the headline! I have a typo and proofreading problem, as even casual visitors here know; I’ve gotten better, but the fact that these posts are usually written in fits and starts while I try to complete actual income-relating work [Thank you, by the way, to those of you who sent me generous contributions or gifts over the holidays, or kind words of encouragement that I appreciated just as much.] means that I sometimes miss glaring errors. That’s not an excuse. But it’s true.
This one was a doozy, made worse by my obstinate habit of proofing everything but the headlines. And so it was that The Allied Law Group, a distinguished and, based on my research, an impeccably professional and trustworthy firm that specializes in civil appellate law, media and First Amendment law, open government laws, regulatory litigation, legislation and general litigation, but not personal injury law, was unjustly and wrongly impugned.
That firm’s clients include lawyers, public interest groups, trade associations and media organizations. Their website is impressive and professional; I would even say, as one who is often asked to review the content of lawyer websites for ethics violations, exemplary.
So this was a really bad mistake on my part, and I could not be more sorry, embarrassed, contrite and remorseful. I apologize to the firm, its lawyers, its staff and clients. The post has been corrected, and let us never speak of it again.
I want to note that the firm attorney I spoke with was thoroughly civil, respectful, and, frankly, nicer than I might have been in a similar situation. She did not threaten me, as many lawyers are wont to do. She did inform me of the undeserved abuse that her firm has been getting—even death threats!—from people who have confused the firm with Allied Injury Group. People want to kill unethical lawyers now? I did not see that coming. I do have a hard time believing that anyone inclined to send death threats reads an ethics blog, but never mind: I accept responsibility for contributing to the confusion.
The Allied Law Group’s representative also didn’t make any demands during our conversation, because before she finished her second sentence I said: “I’ll fix that post immediately.” Nor did not instruct me to post this: I told her that I would compose an apology and get it up as soon as possible, because that’s my policy when I screw up.
Finally, I want to thank commenter Ric, who sent in a comment flagging the error last November. As Herman Kahn said, unlikely disasters occur when there’s a 1% confluence of bad management and bad luck. I try to read all reader comments. I missed that one.
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.
That’s the full page ad that “Ye,” aka. Kanye West, paid to have placed in, of all papers, the Wall Street Journal. I wonder what percentage of WSJ readers even know who the hell he is? Never mind; he did it. Here’s what the ad says (I hesitate to put down “he wrote’):
“Twenty-five years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the frontal lobe of my brain. At the time, the focus was on the visible damage – the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed….”
It wasn’t properly diagnosed until 2023. That medical oversight caused serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type-1 diagnosis. Bipolar disorder comes with its own defense system. Denial. When you’re manic, you don’t think you’re sick. You think everyone else is overreacting. You feel like you’re seeing the world more clearly than ever, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely.
Once people label you as crazy, you feel as if you cannot contribute anything meaningful to the world. It’s easy for people to joke and laugh it off when in fact this is a very serious debilitating disease you live from….
The scariest thing about this disorder is how persuasive it is when it tells you: You don’t need help. It makes you blind, but convinced you have insight. You feel powerful, certain, and unstoppable.
I lost touch with reality. Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem. I said and did things I deeply regret. Some of the people I love the most, I treated the worst. You endured fear, confusion, humiliation, and the exhaustion of trying to love someone who was, at times, unrecognizable. Looking back, I became detached from my true self.
In that fractured state, I gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find: the swastika, and even sold t-shirts bearing it. One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type 1 are the disconnected moments – many of which I still cannot recall that lead to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body experience. I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did, though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.
To the black community – which held me down through all of the highs and lows and some of my darkest times. The black community is, unquestionably, the foundation of who I am. I am so sorry to have let you down. I love us.
In early 2025, I fell into a four-month long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life. As the situation became increasingly unsustainable, there were times I didn’t want to be here anymore.
Having bipolar disorder is not a state of constant mental illness. When you go into the manic episode, you are ill at that point. When you are not in an episode, you are completely “normal.” And that’s when the wreckage from the illness hits the hardest. Hitting rock bottom a few months ago, my wife encouraged me to finally get help.
I have found comfort in Reddit forums of all places. Different people speak of being in manic or depressive episodes of a similar nature. I read their stories and realized that I was not alone. It’s not just me who run [sic] their entire life once a year despite taking meds every day and being told by the so-called best doctors in the world that I am not bipolar, but merely experiencing “symptoms of autism.”
My words as a leader in my community have real global impact and influence. In my mania, I lost complete sight of that.
As I find my new baseline and new center through an effective regime of medication, therapy, exercise and clean living, I have newfound, much-needed clarity. I am pouring my energy into positive, meaningful art: music, clothing, design, and other new ideas to help the world.
I’m not asking for sympathy, or a free pass, though I aspire to earn your forgiveness. I write today simply to ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”
It’s time to check the old, Ethics Alarms Apology Scale to see where this whatever it is fits.
According to the scale, this is the hierarchy of apologies, their function and their motivation, from most admirable to the least credible:
I recently re-watched “Runaway Jury,” the ethically and legally repugnant film adaptation of a John Grisham legal thriller. It’s one of the most unethical movies extant, and before the last couple of years I would have said such egregious lawyer conduct as depicted in the film was unlikely to the point of impossible (as in most of Grisham’s books). The novel and movie involved a high-profile civil suit: the widow of a man murdered when a fired employee “goes postal” seeks to hold the manufacturer of the gun used by the killer liable for millions in damages. A pair of anti-gun zealots conspire to both rig the jury verdict and ruin the evil jury consultant (Gene Hackman) who helped defeat their home town in a similar case years before. In the end the “good guys” win (that is, Hollywood’s idea of “good”); I have mentioned the film before in the context irresponsible films and TV shows that actively misinform the public about a lawyer’s ethical responsibilities. Now comes a jury verdict from Maryland where a jury delivered a multi-million dollar verdict against Walmart for allowing an employee to buy a shotgun before he used it to blow his head off.
I have mentioned before that I find it remarkable that if you can string three sentences together and appear relatively affluent and educated, people assume that you hate the President and believe that “everything is terrible.”
Today I was waiting in an inexcusably long line because Harris Teeter’s had only one check-out station open even though it had to know that the snow-phobic Northern Virginians would be stocking up for the weekend snow storm. I found myself behind a chatty and pleasant woman close to my age. She struck up a conversation, and, as usual, I was not at a loss for words. We talked about movies and history, National Parks, the Tunnel Tree, and Theodore Roosevelt.
She said she wished it were a longer line because she enjoyed the conversation so much, and out of the blue said that if we weren’t going to be so snow-bound, she would join a protest somewhere, because there is so much to protest. She said it as if she didn’t think there was a chance in a million that I wasn’t in complete agreement. After all, I was friendly, polite and articulate: surely I must be terrified by the threat to democracy that all decent people—all her friends and social media pals and those smart pundits on MSNBC—see.
I saw no point in challenging her. In my experience, when I ask, “What exactly do you think is so terrible?” the answers that come back are vague, evasive, non-substantive or factually wrong. She seemed happy and was enjoying my company. Why break the mood? I’ll probably never see the old bat again. I did not want to prompt an imitation of that woman in “The Birds.”
I was dying to point out, I must confess, that her disdain for Donald trump was at odds with her stated admiration of Teddy Roosevelt, since Trump’s view of his office is more Rooseveltian than any POTUS since TR, with the exception of his cousin Franklin. I’m pretty sure Trump had Teddy in mind when he reacted with defiance after being shot: Roosevelt pulled the same stunt in 1912.
It is remarkable that everyone around here just assumes you are a member of their progressive club, or cult, or delusion. Never have I had anyone make the opposite assumption, that I am one of them, the evil people who think this President is doing many things that desperately need to be done, and that he deserves more support and respect for having the guts to do them.
Ethics Alarms 