Government & Politics

No, Thomas Jefferson Did Not Plagiarize The Declaration of Independence

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, or “Meck Deck, as its friends call it, was a document allegedly signed on May 20, 1775, in Charlotte, North Carolina by a committee of citizens of Mecklenburg County. The document declared local residents “free and independent” from British rule in response to news of the battle of Concord. Some North Carolina historians argue that Thomas Jefferson cribbed from the Meck Deck to draft his Declaration of Independence, and that’s because they are North Carolina historians.

The evidence that Jefferson plagiarized the earlier document is weak to say the least. To begin with, there is no authentic copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in existence For me, that should end the controversy.

The story is that twenty-seven of Mecklenburg County’s civic leaders led by Col. Thomas Polk, who was the great-uncle of President James K. Polk, received news the colonial battles against the British in Massachusetts culminating in the British defeat an Concord a month earlier. They signed of the document “in a rustic backwoods courthouse which stood nearby in the center of the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets,” according to a plaque that now stands in Charlotte’s Independence Square. The declaration was read to a large crowd that had gathered at the courthouse steps, according to eyewitness accounts. Tavern owner James Jack volunteered to deliver the document to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, but the North Carolina delegation never brought it before the full Congress.

Like so many disputed documents, the Meck Deck was destroyed in a fire in1800 fire at the home of Meck Dec secretary John Alexander. In 1819, however, Alexander’s son, William, delivered what he claimed to be an accurate copy that had been reconstructed from memory by his father.

From memory. That makes the thing hearsay and ineligible to serve as admissible evidence in any court or even a credible investigation. Nevertheless, The Raleigh Register published it, and the text bore sufficient resemblance to THE Declaration that it set the day’s conspiracy theorist’s tongues a wagging. John Adams, then corresponding routinely with his old friend and rival, mentioned the Meck Deck in a letter to Jefferson dated June 22, 1819. Jefferson wrote that he had never heard of it, much less read it, and in a letter responding to Adams on July 9, 1819, said the document was probably a hoax. That letter was published after Jefferson’s death (on the 50th anniversary of THE Declaration’s signing in 1826, when Adams died as well) in 1829. Jefferson’s hoax accusation prompted the North Carolina legislature to establish a committee to investigate the matter.

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Chris Cuomo Generously Reminds Everyone That It Is Possible To Be Even Less Coherent and Legally Astute Than Justice Jackson

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Every time I think about the fact that Chris Cuomo, once the golden boy of CNN, is a lawyer I want to burn my law school diploma. Every time I think of all the money “Fredo” was paid to make Americans dumber and more ignorant (as when he announced that “hate speech” was not protected by the First Amendment), I begin questioning the choices I have made in life that brought me to my current lowly position in life. And every time he opens his mouth on his podcast, I want to hold his empty head up to my ear so I can hear the ocean.

Here, in full, is Chis’s most recent foray into Dunning-Kruger chaos:

“In the eyes of the law, Dobbs was the right decision. Why? Roe created a legal rationale that did not exist! And if you do not create it constitutionally or legislatively, it should not exist. And legislation is where you fill in the hole between implicit and explicit, and that wasn’t done with Roe. The Congress should have codified Roe v. Wade. But they were never going to. Why? Because it’s such a useful device to divide us, so helpful to the parties. Dobbs was therefore the right decision. Well, then why didn’t the liberal justices [vote with the Dobbs majority]—because it’s political. Because they feel it’s political. They don’t want to say it, but they’re all female. I mean, now they’re all female on the left. And it’s political. Now, do I like their political position? Yes, I do. I believe that reproductive rights are a thing. And I think that they are obviously invested in women, and they should be. And that taking it from them was taking a right from women. And that’s the first time I’ve seen that done, except for prohibition. And I think it was wrong. But legally, I think it was the right decision.”

Well thank-you, Chris, for that anala…wait, WHAT?

That dog’s breakfast of Authentic Frontier Gibberish makes one of Jackson’s dissents seem like Oliver Wendell Holmes at his best. Reproductive rights “are a thing”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? The reason Roe made no sense is that there is no such thing as a foggy “reproductive right” that includes killing unborn children. Prohibition took away a real right as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, as getting drunk is clearly, for some, “the pursuit of happiness.”

Neither Roe v. Wade nor Dobbs were designed to “divide us,” and the reason Congress didn’t codify it under Carter, or Clinton, or Obama, Chris, you moron, is because they didn’t think it was necessary. They thought (as did I) that the issue was settled by Roe, at least legally. Abortion was still always going to be divisive; no law was going to change that. Remember the Defense of Marriage Act? Abortion is squarely in the category of an ethics conflict, and ethics conflicts are always divisive by nature. Roe was shoehorned into the law by the Supreme Court to settle the issue and end division, just as Chief Justice Taney foolishly thought the Dred Scott ruling would end the controversy over slavery.

Oh, and would someone point out to Chris that there weren’t three women dissenting in Dobbs, because Justice Breyer hadn’t retired yet?

ProPublica Really Thinks Revealing That Florida Actually Executes Convicted Murderers Will Turn Americans Against DeSantis, Trump and Republicans

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

(That’s a famous photo of the execution of the John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirators)

Ah, the ethical delusions of the woke and biased!

ProPublica is another one of those supposedly “non-partisan” watchdogs that somehow only finds the conduct of Republicans and conservatives worth criticizing, with enough rare exceptions to let them say, “But what about…?” to rebut that verdict sufficiently for those who aren’t paying attention.

Being reflexively progressive, ProPublica has long been an opponent of capital punishment, though the position is misplaced absolutism. Now it announces, “Early last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis began signing death warrants at a faster rate than ever before. What followed was the most intense period of executions the state has carried out in more than eight decades.”

This supposedly horrific “period of executions” meant that a grand total of 19 murderers who had forfeited their rights to live in a civilized society were dispatched instead of being kept alive at taxpayer expense. Let’s look at the killer ProPublica picked to have us weep for in the first half of the long article: Frank Walls, whom Florida executed last year.

Walls committed his first murder on March 26, 1985, at the age of 17. He noticed 19-year-old junior college student Tommie Lou Whiddon sunbathing at the beach, went over to her and slashed her throat. Walls then stole her car. Whiddon’s body was discoveredthe next day lying in a pool of blood on the beach. On September 16, 1986, he killed 24-year-old Cynthia Sue Condra by stabbing her 21 times. He left her body on the side of a road.[4] On May 20, 1987, Walls broke into the mobile home of 47-year-old Audrey Gygi. Walls raped her, left, but later decided to come back and murder her.He stabbed her to death, stole a fan and a radio, and left her nude body to be found after she failed to show up for work. On July 22 that same year, Walls committed a double murder. He broke into another mobile home inhabited by 22-year-old airman Edward Alger and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Anne Louise Peterson. Walls forced Peterson to tie up her boyfriend, then tied her up as well. Alger managed to get partially free and attacked Walls. In the fight, Walls cut his throat with a knife, but Alger bit Walls on the hand, causing him to drop the knife. Walls then shot Alger three times in the head. After sexually assaulting Peterson, he shot her in the head too, and when the first shot didn’t kill her, Walls put a pillow over her face and shot her again, killing her. The couple’s bodies were found the next day.

The story, as is de rigueur in such sobfests, is told from the perspective of death penalty activist Father Dustin Feddon, who has nothing better to do than “administer” to condemned prisoners like Walls. ProPublica never informs its readers of the details of why Walls was on Death Row. It just arrays the usual anti-death penalty rationalizations:

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Remember The Battle of Gettysburg

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Today is July 1, which is always treated across the United States as the gateway to a long weekend and the Fourth of July, and little more. This year, it is the run up to the 250th Anniversary of out nation’s founding. July 1 is also, however, the anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the most important and most deadly battle of the many important and deadly conflicts in the American Civil War. The two American armies that clashed in the Pennsylvania town sustained more than 50,000 casualties on the Gettysburg battlefield, which may be the saddest and noblest place in America. It is also reputed to be the most haunted, which considering the number of souls lost between July 1 and 3 in 1863, shouldn’t surprise anyone.

[Digression: The Gettysburg Hotel is allegedly haunted, and the proprietors designate specific rooms as haunted. The rent for those rooms is less than the other rooms because, I was told when I called to inquire regarding reservations, “guests tend not to stay the whole night in those rooms.]

Our 250th celebration is an appropriate time to remember Gettysburg, because it is one of those landmark events in American history that could have so easily turned out differently, and if it had, we would never have made to the Centennial, never mind the 250th. The fact that the North prevailed was due to a confluence of random events, the essence of moral luck.

If you have not made at least one pilgrimage to the battlefield, you owe it to yourself, to your family, and to the memory of the combatants, to go. You need not swelter in July. Gettysburg is just as inspiring in the Spring or Fall.

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And Speaking of Fake News: NPR!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

See? “I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everybody says! I’m smart, and I want respect!“

Excuse me while I gleefully gloat over pointing out once again what a rotten, biased, disgrace of a news organization NPR is (and has been for a long while) right before it beclowned itself spectacularly yesterday by breaking the imaginary story that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring from the Supreme Court.

No, you can’t excuse this putrid example of the variety of fake news I call “Wishin’ and Hopin’ News” (in honor of the late, great Dusty Springfield) with the rationalization (#19 on the list) “Anyone can make a mistake!” For a professional news organization that has any scruples or legitimate editorial procedures literally never makes a mistake like this. NPR didn’t check its “facts” with the subject of the story. It didn’t get confirmation from the Supreme Court. It literally broke a story that didn’t exist because the Axis and the Axis propaganda network and the Trump Deranged and so, so many fans of NPR wanted this to be true so badly that NPR decided that Ethics Don’t Matter….though, to be fair, NPR decided this long, long ago, as when, oh, just to pick a random example out of the air, they blacklisted me as the network’s go-to ethics expert after a woke hostess deemed my 100% accurate explanation of how celebrities are vulnerable to late-hit sexual harassment accusations intolerable because, she told me, “I thought you were trying to defend Donald Trump.”

I may use the Alito episode from now on as my routine example of confirmation bias. The fiasco is so wonderful for Ethics Alarms in so many ways!

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Ethics Quiz: The Weenie King

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I read about King Charles renouncing his traditional title and, I must confess, shrugged. Then a couple of well-regarded commenters suggested an EA post on the matter, so I rethought the issue.

In an annual review published for 2025-2026 reported by the U.K.’s Telegraph last week, the King who was previously been both “Head of Nation” and “Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith” was revealed to now be “Head of Nation” and “Supreme Governor of the Church of England who protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.”

“What is the king trying to say with this shift?” asks the conservative Western Journal. Its answer: “That the United Kingdom is not Christian, and that her monarch represents a non-Christian people — Muslims.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is it ethical for the King to do this, cowardly, just pragmatic or does it really matter at all?

In considering this, and I am strongly pulled to the last alternative, one must remember that Charles has always been drawn to progressive positions, and that, unfortunately, he is not very bright. The King is also hanging on with his metaphorical fingernails to a position that his own people increasingly see as anachronistic and superfluous, undercut by a royal family that has enmeshed itself with increasing acceleration in one scandal and embarrassment after another, some of which he participated in.

SCOTUS Reaches The Only Fair, Factual, Logical, Ethical, and Legal Decision Regarding Biological Males in Women’s Sports

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Late yesterday, while everyone was concentrating on the Supreme Court’s rejection of the President’s Executive Order on birthright citizenship, the Court upheld two state laws barring the participation of biological males “identifying” as female (a.k.a. “transgender females”) in girls’ and women’s sports teams. Although the 6-to-3 ruling involved upholding laws in West Virginia and Idaho, 25 states also restrict biological males from cheating in women’s sports, and the decision represents a decisive splash of ice water in the faces of those who support one of the silliest and most unpopular of the Woke Left’s delusions.

Of course it is unfair, dangerous and absurd to allow individuals who have gone through puberty as males to compete with girls and women in sports involving strength and speed, and where size and weight are an advantage. That the radical Left insists otherwise (because life ought to be different than it really is, a prime driver of so much progressive cant) should be one of the most damning tells on the whole ideology as well as strong evidence that the Democratic Party has jumped Fonzi’s metaphorical shark. The Democrat-stuffed U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 9th and 4th Circuits struck down sensible “no biological males in female sports” laws, but it was inconceivable that their biased and partisan reasoning would prevail at the U.S. Supreme Court. Sure enough, it didn’t.

West Virginia v. B.P.J. should have been a unanimous, 9-0 decision, but the Left’s fealty to the LGBTQLMNOP++ wing of the Democratic party is so strong that the three knee-jerk progressives on the Court just couldn’t manage it. Before noting Justice Kavanaugh’s majority opinion which didn’t need a judge, a legal scholar or a lawyer to write, just, you know, someone reasonablyintelligent with functioning eyes and brain cells, I have to begin with the Authentic Frontier Gibberish of Justice Jackson. Again. She wrote a remarkable dissent which, perhaps in a SCOTUS first, makes a persuasive argument for the opinion she’s railing against in its incoherence and “Don’t confuse me with facts my mind’s made up!” obtuseness. Seriously: what the hell is she babbling about?

“But there is reason to doubt the soundness of the concession that Title IX’s reference to “sex” means only sex assigned at birth….A transgender woman penalized for being perceived as aggressive has experienced discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ just as much as a cis-gender woman has, no matter that the transgender woman’s behavior matches expectations of her sex assigned at birth. Either way, the institution has imposed its gender-based expectations upon her. And either way, the institution may have violated Title IX. In short, the majority is wrong to suggest that the term ‘sex’ in Title IX ‘ cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.’ Title IX makes room for individuals to live in the gender they choose; it cares not just about sex assigned at birth but also about individuals’ ability to match (or not) their gender presentation to their gender identity…”

No wonder Jackson infamously said in her confirmation hearing that she could not define what a woman is. After reading that mess, neither can I. I’m not sure I can understand English any more, either.

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Today’s “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Note, NPR Division

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This is hack, bottom-of-the-barrel journalism at its worst.

The statistics show that the “The United States almost certainly had the lowest murder rate ever recorded in 2025” according to crime data analyst Jeff Asher. “And the available evidence suggests that we’re going to go even lower this year,” he predicts based on the numbers and trend so far.

Here is how NPR starts its story:

“As the U.S. nears its 250th birthday, it’s doing pretty well by at least one measure: the national murder rate.”

That’s not news reporting. That’s partisan damnation with faint praise, while also engaging in deliberate misrepresentation. The story states that President Trump has achieved the best result in reducing the murder rate since at least 1960. That’s not, by any reasonable use of the English language, doing “pretty well.” It is an extraordinary success, and should be reported as such.

Then there is “at least one measure,” because, you see, everything else is terrible, but NPR’s Trump Deranged listeners assume that, so a major Trump accomplishment has to be minimized in the reporting. The technique is called “poisoning the well” and it isn’t journalism, it is pure bias. NPR, like the rest of the Axis, can’t tell a straight news story fairly, directly or honestly without applying a negative spin if President Trump is involved. You can almost hear the sneers: the outlet might as well had written,

“Well, how about that, the asshole did something right!”

“Look! Trump lucked out this time!”

“Hey, I guess everything the President does can’t blow up in his face!”

“Even a blind squirrel will find a nut now and then!”

As Clarence Darrow memorably said at the end of his closing argument in the Sweet case,

“I am the last one to come here to stir up race hatred, or any other hatred. I do not believe in the law of hate… I believe in the law of love, and I believe you can do nothing with hatred.”

So I am wrestling my brain to the ground to fight hating these awful, arrogant, unprofessional, smug and destructive people. They refuse to extend even moderate respect and decency to the President of the United States. They do everything in their power to distort facts, data, reality and analysis to confuse the public and turn it against their own leader. They will not give credit when it is due, and they will not assign responsibility where it belongs, if there is any way to twist the facts to impugn President Trump.

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Supreme Court Ethics 1: Birthright Citizenship Is Here To Stay

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

I didn’t venture an opinion on whether President Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship would fly with the Supreme Court (I did post about Justice Jackson making a fool of herself during oral argument), but I would have been surprise if today’s decision had turned out differently than it did.

The Supreme Court ruled today that President Donald Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional. The ruling was announced just as I was preparing commentary on earlier decisions this week: that post will arrive later today.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the 6-3 ruling. “If Congress intended to limit American citizenship to the children of those domiciled in the United States, nothing in the succinct language of the Citizenship Clause conveyed that design,” Roberts wrote. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred in the result but dissented on the reasoning. Such concurring opinions are for professors and geeks, to be cited in law review articles and wild-hair judicial opinion dicta.

Justice Samuel Alito made some interesting points in his dissent about how birthright citizenship has very different, and potentially perilous implications today that never occurred to the Founders, writing,

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It’s Time To Play That Exciting Game Show, “How Stupid Do They Think We Are?”!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Hello everybody! I’m your host, Wink Smarmy! [APPLAUSE] Welcome to “How Stupid Do They Think We Are?,” the popular ethics game show where our panelists try to puzzle out just how stupid the usual suspects—we all know who they are, don’t we?—-think we are based on their lies, poses, flagrant misrepresentations and embarrassing efforts to deceive! [APPLAUSE] 

Welcome panel! And here’s today’s challenge…

UC at Berkeley has announced that it is launching a nonpartisan academic institute in the political science department will become a hub for research, teaching and civic engagement.

The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy, or NPI, will be a hub for research, teaching and civic engagement rooted in a shared commitment to advancing the public good. Through faculty research initiatives, undergraduate courses and a visiting fellows program, the institute will explore what impedes progress and how best to solve political problems, from polarization to the future of artificial intelligence.

Chancellor Rich Lyons said the institute aligns with Berkeley’s commitment to fostering civil discourse, advancing democracy and preparing students to lead with integrity. 

“The purpose and impact of the NPI will be defined and strengthened by Berkeley’s ability to bring together world-class faculty and extraordinary students and by our commitment, as the country’s preeminent public university, to advancing the greater good,” Lyons said. “We intend to do more than simply study democracy; we are building this institute to strengthen it.”

Before I throw the challenge over to you, panel, let me ask our resident ethicist, Jack Marshall, just how stupid does UC at Berkeley think we are?

“Thank-you, Wink. I have to say,  to answer your question, so stupid I’m having trouble processing it. To begin with, Berkeley is one of the most left-leaning institutions in the country, as well as one of the most egregiously partisan. One landmark study by “Econ Journal Watch” found that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans at UC Berkeley by a ratio of roughly 9.9 to 1. 

“But putting that beside, Nancy Pelosi was one of the most partisan Speakers of the House in U.S. political history. She green-lighted two impeachments against a Republican President purely because she had Democratic votes to do it, though the intent of the Constitution’s provision envisioned non-partisan consensus regarding actual “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  Later, she violated both House rules and Congressional norms by rejecting Republican nominations to participate in the so-called “J-6” Committee, ensuring a purely partisan witch hunt constructed as a political weapon. Pelosi is the only House Speaker to deliberately show disrespect to a President, ostentatiously ripping up his State of the Union speech on camera.

“Calling an institution “non-partisan” that is named after Nancy Pelosi is head-explodingly cynical. Who could possibly believe that, except someone who is completely ignorant of recent political history, or someone who would lose Scrabble game to a mollusk?”

Thank you Jack. I see your point. In light of that, panel, let me re-frame the question a bit. Fill in the rest of this sentence: “Claiming The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy is non-partisan insults the public’s intelligence as much as….

Jack, do you have an example to get us started?

“Hmmm. Okay, Wink, how about this: Claiming  The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy is non-partisan insults the public’s intelligence as much as The Kristi Noem Institute for the Ethical Treatment of Pets?

Perfect! OK, panel, now its up to you! how stupid does UC at Berkeley think we are? Answer by finishing this sentence: 

“Claiming The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy is non-partisan insults the public’s intelligence as much as….???

Good Luck! You have 30 second to come up with the best answer! The clock starts…NOW