Etiquette and manners

Stay Classy, Megyn! Unethical Quote Of The Week: Megyn Kelly

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I hearby withdraw my sympathy for Megyn Kelly when Trump, after she ambushed him in the first GOP candidates debate in 2015 by calling him a misogynist, implied that she was addled because she was having her period. That was vulgar and literally below the belt, but Megyn just burrowed under Trump by calling pundit Mark Levin, a smarter, more credentialed lawyer than Kelly, a “micropenis.”

Nice.

Kelly’s excuse was that Levin has savaged her for her obnoxious, ignorant, borderline anti-Semitic claim that the U.S. is fighting for Jews rather than Americans by attacking Iran. “He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible,” Kelly tweeted. “Literally more than some stalkers I’ve had arrested. He doesn’t like it when women like me fight back. Bc of his micropenis.” Kelly went to law school and that is the best she can do in a policy debate? “Oh yeah? Well you have a little dick!”

To her probable horror, Megyn was quickly defended by certifiable Dunning-Krueger victim and vulgarian Margery Taylor Greene, who wrote, “I wholeheartedly support Megyn Kelly telling the world that Mark Levin has a micropenis. It’s the most deserved insult, and I don’t care if it’s vulgar,” Greene wrote in her own post on X. “And Trump’s gigantic defense of Levin only enraged the base more. People are DONE. MAGA destroyed by micropenis Mark Levin.”

I stopped listening to Levin because of his habit of using sophomoric insults and name-calling to appeal to his lower IQ listeners (How many times can anyone find “New York Slimes” funny?), but his expressed contempt for Greene has been, if anything, understated.

After getting support from the likes of Greene, Megyn must be looking back on her life to assess where she took the wrong turn that brought her to such a desperate state.

Unethical Quote Of The Day: MSNOW Talking-Head Antonia Hylton

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“The other piece of this that I found really disturbing in the messaging around the war recently…is some of the language in the description of their opponent. “Sort of the way they seem to create this image of the Iranians and all of their sort of proxies or allies, the sort of imagery that they conjure up,. And I think that it takes a certain amount of arrogance and I’m also going to say it, a bit of racism, to constantly talk about people like they are savages. That is a word that we have heard Hegseth use.” 

—MSNOW hostess Antonia Hylton, during Saturday’s broadcast of “The Weekend: Primetime.”

Apparently all you have to do to justify being made a co-host of a show on MSNOW is to demonstrate enmity to one’s own country’s leaders and support for its enemies. Oh, before I forget, “enemy” is the proper term for a nation your country is currently at war with, not “opponent.”

Furthermore, calling Iran’s leaders “savages” is not racism but a fair and accurate diagnosis. Savage as a noun means one who is vicious and uncivilized. Iran is currently a brutal, murderous and ruthless regime that murdered many thousands of its own citizens for daring to protest their harsh treatment from their government. Since the Islamic takeover in 1979, 258 Americans were killed in a suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, and a truck bombing in the same city in 1983. The Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah killed 19 U.S. Airmen in Saudi Arabia at the Khobar Towers in 1996. It is estimated that Iranian proxies have killed nearly 700 Americans between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 50 Americans were killed by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists during the attack on Israel that took place October 7, 2023, and that attack was as savage as one could be even if one ignores American casualties and only focuses on the Israeli civilians killed, raped and taken as hostages

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Jesse Jackson Jr. Properly Slams Obama and Biden for Trying To Turning His Father’s Funeral Into An Anti-Trump Campaign Rally

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Well good for him.

Jackson said, during a private memorial service at Rainbow Push Coalition headquarters in Chicago, that “[Y]esterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson.”

He continued,

“He maintained a tense relationship with the political order, not because the presidents were white or black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these — those who are disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected — demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as people. And it speaks volumes about who the Rev. Jesse Jackson was.”

Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Joe Biden all used their eulogies to attack the President and his policies, though, as you might have guessed, Harris was the most obnoxious and made the least sense. “Let me just say I predicted a lot about what’s happening right now,” Harris smirked. “I’m not into saying I told you so but we did see it coming.” I’d love to ask her what it was exactly that she “saw coming.” The forceful repudiation of the weak, zombie administration she was part of? The voters’ rejection of her embarrassing DEI candidacy? Her running mate’s utter disgrace and exposure as a corrupt hack?

Jackson’s was a subtle and measured rebuke, so subtle and measured that most of the Axis media felt it necessary to ignore it. Many, realizing how inappropriate it was for Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to turn attention away from Jackson’s father and onto their hatred of Donald Trump at Jesse Jackson Sr.’s funeral, also worked to hide the Democrats’ nauseating conduct from the public…after all, there’s an election coming!

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Ethics Quiz: The Movie Star’s Daughter

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I have no idea what’s right or wrong in this scenario, so it makes an appropriate topic for an ethics quiz. The realm is high fashion and modeling. There are few things I know less about than those subjects. I’m kinda weak on metallurgy and thoracic surgery too.

That’s Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s daughter, Sunday Rose, above. The teen recently became the object of vicious social media scorn following her appearance at New York Fashion Week on February 13, 2026.

The 17-year-old’s big time modeling debut at a Calvin Klein show put her under a harsh spotlight. Many mocked her runway demeanor and declared that her qualifications for high-profile modeling opportunities consisted of famous parents and a movie-star mother, and nothing else. The central ethics issue is nepotism. One social media critic wrote, “Remember when models were stunning, unique and natural? Not just some celeb’s child.”

To be honest, no, I don’t remember when models were natural. Were they ever? Most of them look like freaks, with odd proportions that resemble newspaper drawings of women wearing dresses, and too many of them have looked like recent concentration camp escapees in make-up. But again, I don’t get the whole fashion thing, why it exists, or why anyone pays attention to it.

To my untrained eye, I see nothing about Sunday Rose (what an awful name!) that explains why she is a model except her Hollywood pedigree. Do you? She’s not particularly pretty, seems sullen, and resembles the original “Young Sherlock” in drag. See?

Some models resemble whomever that is with Young Sherlock…

But the real question is how to treat the children of the rich, famous and powerful fairly. Surely the fact that she is Nicole Kidman’s daughter shouldn’t prevent a young, talented, aspiring model from pursuing her dream, but how can unfair advantages be avoided? Nepotism is even more advantageous in Hollywood. Acting success is normally based more on luck and opportunity than stand-out talent, but the children of already established stars are born lucky.

Should they be blamed for accepting what their lineage hands them? Horror writer Joe Hill deliberately used a fake name on his first attempts to follow in his father’s footsteps (Dad is Stephen King) so he could be sure that his work was judged on its own merits. He’s an ethics hero for that, but the list of the offsprings of movie stars who used their names to get on screen and went on to respectable careers, sometimes even surpassing their parents, is too long to publish.

Still, if the the daughter of a movie star puts herself out in range of public judgment, is it unfair for critics to take aim? Does it change the question if she is only 17, like Sunday Rose?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

What is ethical treatment for the beneficiaries of nepotism in modeling or any other competitive field?

 

There Is Hope: Jasmine Crockett Gets a “Nelson”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Wow, that was a short tenure as a Democratic Party “rising star”!

Representative Jasmine Crockett issued a statement last night conceding the Democratic Senate nomination in Texas to James Talarico, a state lawmaker and seminarian, but not before claiming earlier that she had been defeated by Republican election tampering and that voters had been “disenfranchised.”

“Texas is primed to turn blue, and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person,” she said in her statement. “This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track.” At least Crockett is smart enough to know that bitterly complaining after getting beaten is no way to continue her political career. What is a way will prove elusive in her case. At best, she may try to be Texas’s Stacy Abrams. Talk about low aspirations…

Talarico said in a speech early today that “The people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope.” He didn’t mean it quite the way I do, but he’s right anyway. In a little detail that few news sources (including the New York Times) are bothering to mention, Crockett’s expanded ego led her to believe her own press clippings and run for the Senate rather than try to keep her current seat in the House. She didn’t run in the primary to represent her current district, so at least until 2009, the loud-mouthed, vulgar, jive-talking, in-your-face parody of a black politician is out of national politics. That means both Crockett and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who took turns insulting each other like mean girls during a House session last year, will be out of Congress come January. Greene is already gone. Calloo Callay!

There is indeed hope: Crockett’s ad hominem, “fuck”-filled, ugly style of political discourse lowered the bar to gutter level, and yet the Trump Deranged cheered her on. But even her solid “blue” district had the sense to see that she was a fraud, talking down to black voters with a fake ebonics accent, and generally assuming that Abe was wrong when he said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

As usual, Abe was right. Pssst! Abe! Now do Gavin Newsom…

Today’s Lesson In The Ethical Deterioration Of Congress: Rep. Mace and Omar’s Insult-Fest…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I would put up “The Country’s in the Very Best of Hands” again (from the excellent musical “Li’l Abner,” which probably will never be produced anywhere ever again), but even I’m getting sick of it, it’s been appropriate so often lately. Thus this time I’m only posting images of the two latest examples of what terrible role models and representatives we have in Congress, Rep. Omar and Rep. Mace.

After President Donald Trump announced the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei following U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country, Mace posted a Fox News graphic of Khamenei with the legend, “Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Confirmed Dead.” She added “My heart goes out to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib tonight. Sending them thoughts and prayers.”

Omar, whose instincts for dignified comportment were on vivid display last week at the State of the Union affair, responded, “I hope you aren’t drunk and took your staff’s advice. Rashida and I don’t know this man and feel confident he didn’t care about us. Please restrain from drinking too much as you have been warned from your staff and stay off social media when you are drunk. I pray in his holy month you find peace and respect for your self.”

Mace, who denies accusations that she has a drinking problem, tweeted back, “So tell me, what was it like being married to your brother?” Later Mace wrote, “Ilhan Omar didn’t care that over 1,000 Jews were slaughtered on a Jewish holiday. Maybe sit this one out terrorist lover.”

To her credit, Omar did not respond, “OK, Nazi bitch! You want a piece of me? Bring it on! After I whip your flabby ass, you’ll be the one wearing a burka!”

Well.

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Ethics Quiz: No Applause, No Applause, No Applause!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hmmmm…

In Tacoma Park, one of the most woke and wonderful communities in already insufferably progressive Maryland, Mayor Talisha Searcy ordered the crowd at a recent city council meeting not to applaud the various statements made by citizens as the council sought comments on a study regarding the city’s rent stabilization laws.

“I just want to make sure I’m learning about how to facilitate civility within a community,” the mayor said as she ordered the audience to “refrain from cheering, booing, signs, all that good stuff” as well as applauding. Many in the crowd were not pleased. When a spectator shouted that prohibiting clapping is “undemocratic,” the mayor delivered the stunning theory that “clapping for some and not all is not democratic” and that “we have to allow for people to feel safe to say what they feel.”

Okay, she’s an idiot, an ethics dunce, an expired hippie, and the most obnoxious species of progressive squish. These are the kinds of people,who demand that nobody at a meeting ever condemn even the most brain-dead idea because it might hurt the feelings of the dim bulb who offered it. Searcy is the kind of person who loves the passive-aggressive “I hear you” that usually means, “but I’m going to forget you ever said anything so stupid.”

There is no defending her claim that “clapping for some and not all” is undemocratic. However, I am interested in whether it is ever ethical to ban positive reactions, politely expressed.

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Unethical Image Of The Year

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

And signature significance.

Was the image manipulated? Of course: I don’t really care. The image perfectly illustrates the ugliness and un-American essence of Trump Derangement. These two representatives of foreign values and foreign entitlement embody the sickness that our inattention to maintaining core prioritizes in our domestic policies and democratic institutions has wrought.

Incompetent, Unethical Elected Official of the Month Who Wasn’t Behaving Like An Ass At The SOTU: Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Co)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

What an unprofessional, lowlife disgrace Bobert (above, being classy) is. She should be censored and kicked off of every committee, and with luck she’ll quit in a huff to team up with only slightly less objectionable ex-colleague Marjorie Taylor Green to participate in tag-team mud-wrestling competitions.

Hillary Clinton’s Jeffrey Epstein deposition was suspended after Rep. Boebert surreptitiously snapped a picture of Clinton and her attorneys as she addressed lawmakers about her relationship with Epstein. Boebert then leaked the photo to slimeball MAGA influencer Benny Johnson, who posted it on social media.

Hillary’s lawyers demanded that the proceedings be halted after the photograph began circulating on social media. It is strictly prohibited for legislators or witnesses to take pictures inside a closed-door congressional testimony. But Boebert, who has the maturity of a 14-year-old, the judgment of a brain-damaged puppy, and the professionalism of carnival geek did it anyway.

Be proud, Republicans.

Maybe 14 is giving her too much credit. She is a real, live, honest-to-goodness bimbo Congresswoman, and her presence in the Capitol is an insult to the nation, the public, and the Constitution. Also her sex, her species, family, order, phylum, and the galaxy. Her district’s voters should have their citizenship suspended and their district made an official territory of Haiti. They and lazy, ignorant Americans like them in both parties are the reason our political process is looking more an more like an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show.” A bad episode.

If public approval of Congress is anything but zero after this week, it will be more proof that Ben Franklin’s challenge to us to see if we could keep our republic is proving too difficult, not because of adversaries abroad, but because of cranial vacuums within.

On The State of the Union Message

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I haven’t done this before and may never do it again, but I found conservative podcaster Vice Dao’s assessment of Trump’s State of the Union Addresses pretty much spot-on, so I’m posting a lengthy section from his podcast.

Was last night a tipping point, a moment that history will show suddenly made the previous victims of the Axis of Unethical Conduct’s Big Lies, propaganda and acceptance of Trump Derangement as a justifiable attitude toward the elected President of the United States of America slap their collective foreheads at last exclaiming, “Wait, what have I been thinking? The Democratic Party is nuts! How can anyone in their right mind support such anti-American crackpots?” Time will tell. As Dao says, Democrats and the Axis media seem to be whistling past the graveyard now, giving the agreed-upon line that ‘yeah, Trump pleased his racist base because that’s who was watching, but State of the Unions never have any lasting impact, and that means this one won’t.‘

They hope. I wouldn’t be so sure of that, and they probably aren’t so sure themselves. Sure, Trump loaded up his speech with his usual hyperbole, fudged statistics and claims that this or that was the best, the greatest, the most wonderful ever, giving the New York Times and the rest plenty of opportunity to “factcheck” the speech and call Trump a liar. (The Times really and truly published a “factcheck” of Trump’s speech before he made it, apparently oblivious to how biased and unfair that looked.) Nobody is going to remember any of the usual drivel, which is indeed standard SOTU blather. What they will remember, because unless Republicans are even more incompetent than I already think they are, the GOP won’t let anyone forget it, is the two anti-American “Squad” members, Representatives Omar (who has said that she cares about Somalians more than Americans) and Tlaib (who is a Palestinian, anti-Semitic mole) screaming at the President from the sidelines, wearing “Fuck ICE” pins. The public will remember that not one Democrat had the sense to avoid falling into Trump’s well-laid trap, refusing to stand when he asked for an impromptu vote on whether they agreed that the duty of the government was to protect citizens rather than illegal immigrants.

“One of the great things about the State of the Union,” he said, “is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe. Tonight, I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

No Democrats among those who chose not to boycott the event—how unifying of them!–stood. The entire Republican contingent stood and cheered. “With one maneuver,” conceded the Times today, “Mr. Trump divided the room, asking viewers to see the two camps as he saw them: There were the Good Americans and there were those willing to jeopardize the country’s security.”

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