Government & Politics

Saturday Morning Wake-Up (2): A Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck Update

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

1. I’ll introduce this by noting that an American Research Group poll found that public approval of President Biden’s handling of his job has fallen to just 39%.

Of the 39% of Americans saying they approve of the way Biden is handling his job, 65% say they expect the national economy will be better a year from now. (They are whistling past the graveyard.) Of the 56% saying they disapprove of the way Biden his handling his job as president, 71% believe the national economy will be worse a year from now. Why wouldn’t it be?

Of Republicans polled, just 3% approve of the way Biden is handling his job. 34% of Independents approve, but 80% of Democrats actually told another human being that they approve like the way Biden is running his Presidency because every thing is going so well. That’s incompetent citizenship. One can still be a Democrats and be able to honestly assess a disaster when a Democrat is at the helm of the Ship of State, can’t you? Talk about cult-like behavior.

2. Here’s a more encouraging poll, sort of: the latest Rasmussen Reports survey found that nearly three-quarters ,72%, of voters believe that “America is becoming a police state” under Biden. Rasmussen defined “police state” as “a tyrannical government that engages in mass surveillance, censorship, ideological indoctrination, and targeting of political opponents.” Targeting of political opponents? Why would anyone think that?

(Yes, I’m going to work that reference to Biden’s ‘anyone who opposes my party and government is a fascist and danger to democracy’ speech every chance I get. Lest we forget.…)

Republicans led the way with 76% expressing fears of totalitarian trends under Biden, but Democrats were not far behind at 67%. Combining the two polls, one can only conclude that a large number of Democrats like the fact that Biden is overseeing a developing police state. And I think that’s a correct impression.

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Saturday Morning Wake-Up (1): The Latest Menendez Indictment

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here’s an eye-opener: N.J. Senator Bob Menendez, possibly the most corrupt U.S. Senator, was indicted for the second time in his career yesterday. This time, he may really end up in jail. In 2018, Menendez beat a bribery charge for using his position to advance the interests of Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen. Melgen had showered Menendez with political donations, luxury vacations in his Dominican villa (you know, like Clarence Thomas has been getting from Republican billionaires) and private jet flights (you know, like Clarence Thomas has been getting from Republican billionaires). That time he got a hung jury by employing an “everybody does it” defense and the “he’s just a dear friend and he likes me” bit. This time, that won’t be enough. The indictment points out that “Over $480,000 in cash and gold bars — much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe — was discovered in the [Menendez] home.” There are photos.

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Unethical Quote, Column And Mind Of The Month: NYT Pundit Michelle Goldberg

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Apparently this is going to be Unethical New York Times Op-ed Columnist Day. First David Brooks proves beyond all question that he’s an asshole, and now Michelle Goldberg pulls ahead in the neck-and-neck race to be the most outrageously left-biased writer in the Times stable (“And as they round the turn, it’s Paul Krugman in front, with Charles Blow coming up fast on the inside…”) by ending her column attacking retiring Fox News creator Rupert Murdoch with this:

“The electorate that Fox helped shape, and the politicians it indulges, have made this country ungovernable. An unbound Trump may well become president again, bringing liberal democracy in America to a grotesque end. If so, it will be in large part Murdoch’s fault….”

Only a committed and ethics-free leftist propaganda agent who is confident that her readers are Marxists or morons could squeeze out such offal. Oh, I’m sure Goldberg believes this, which is scary in itself: the disgusting thing is that a publication that imagines itself as the flagship of American journalism would deem such a “bias makes you stupid” outburst as worthy of publication.

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How Can It Be Responsible To Trust America’s Teachers When Their Leader Posts This…?

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

It is ironic that serial Ethics Villain and NEA president Randi Weingarten writes that her tweet “speaks for itself” when it is indeed a wonderful example of res ipsa loquitur, but not in the way Weingarten would have us believe.

The teacher was not fired for reading the “Diary of Anne Frank” to her class, but for using “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” without proper authorization from the school and using it to launch a class discussion of sexual molestation. The graphic version, in the style of a comic book…

…is true to Frank’s original diary but contains the sexual and other content that was taken out of the original version published by Frank’s father. The graphic novel-syle version has been critically praised, but the previously redacted material it includes are of a nature that require sensitive instruction and certainly prior approval by parents.

Weingarten misidentified the book involved due to carelessness, devotion to her political agenda, or deliberate deception, none of which are qualities any responsible parent wants in their child’s teachers. Yet Weingarten is the teacher the teachers’ union chose to represent and lead it.

Her tweet speaks for itself indeed.

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring, Or Are Busted, Or Something: The Palm Springs AIDS Memorial

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Damn Palm Springs, California: I was about to quit for the day, but I had to return to the blog for this ridiculous story.

The Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force is now backtracking after revealing its preliminary choice for a memorial to the victims of AIDS. The memorial is being funded privately with an expected cost of approximately $500,000. After considerable study, the winning design, planned for erection (Stop it!) in the Downtown Park near the Marilyn Monroe statue is a nine feet tall limestone structure with concentric carved circles, symbolizing, we are told, “the diverse impact of AIDS on the community” and ” intended to evoke feelings of connection, reflection, and hope.”

It also looks a lot like an anus. Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

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Comment Of The Day (2): “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google ‘Steered 6 Million Votes’ to Biden in 2020”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For the second Comment of the Day on the controversial assertion that Google helped rig the 2020 election (a “completely baseless” claim, you understand), we turn to Curmie. “What?” you well may say. “Curmie has his own column in Ethics Alarms! What is this, the Curmie Show?” In the absence of what I consider a sufficient number rational, civil and well-articulated opinions on EA from the left side of the political and ideological spectrum, Curmie’s takes, often but not always dissenting from the main post, are not just welcome and appreciated but also treasured. I’m hoping that maybe the angry progressives, proto-trolls and one-note social justice warriors who visit here will read and learn from Curmie’s works. Then they wouldn’t have to get banned and then keep sneaking in quickly-trashed comments arguing that the mainstream media isn’t really biased, just to pick a wild hypothetical out of the air.

Besides, Curmie almost never has a typo…

You can read even more Curmie on his blog, here, where he cross-posts his EA contributions as well as thoughts on non-ethics topics. This is his Comment on the Day on “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google “Steered 6 Million Votes” to Biden in 2020”:

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I find this interesting for a variety of reasons.

First, there’s nothing new here. Epstein’s analysis came in the immediate aftermath of the ‘20 election. Reportage from then is all over (wait for it) Google. So why is it a stand-alone story now? I could understand it as background for a subsequent critique, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, at least not yet.

It’s also purely speculative. We’re not talking about changing people’s votes after the fact, or adding or subtracting votes directly. This is about changing voters’ perception of who is the better candidate prior to their voting, and there is no conceivable way of determining the extent to which Google’s alleged manipulation affected voters’ choices. We can speculate, but it starts getting really mushy when we start suggesting numbers. Of course, virtually every part of society is engulfed in a quantification fetish, so I suppose that part is understandable.

Even assuming the allegations have a foundation, we’re looking at a phenomenon that’s been played out innumerable times by media from every political perspective. The “everybody does it” excuse may be unethical, but the fact remains that yes, everybody does it, which makes this a little less newsworthy. I’ve often referenced the year I spent in England working on my MA. You knew that what you read in the Guardian was filtered through a liberal lens, and what you read in the Telegraph was through a conservative one. But you also knew that both papers maintained integrity. We can’t say the same for any outlet, left or right, in the US in the 2020s.

It’s also true that anecdotal evidence is often misleading. I have no doubt that Jack’s blog posts are “buried” by Google, but there are multiple possible reasons for that, including good old capitalistic amorality: somebody else paid them to move their site higher on the list.

I also tried a little experiment this morning. With Jack’s permission, I have also posted things I wrote for the “Curmie’s Conjectures” series here on my own blog, as well. So I copied the title of one of those essays and plugged it into Google. The post on Ethics Alarms came up #1. The one on Curmudgeon Central, with precisely the same title, didn’t appear at all. That’s hardly evidence that conservative perspectives are being silenced at the expense of liberal ones!

I wouldn’t take on faith an assertion by PJ Media that NBA centers tend to be tall, but Epstein is a far more complicated and therefore interesting individual. His training is in psychology rather than quantitative analysis or marketing. This doesn’t discredit his critique of Google, but if the right is going to grant him omniscience, I await their agreement with him in the area of his actual specialization: for example, his claims that bisexuality is the natural norm for humans and most people claim to be straight due to social pressure rather than their lived experience.

It’s perfectly possible to be really good at one thing and really awful at another. But if Epstein is brilliant, then he’s brilliant; if he’s a wackadoodle, then he’s a wackadoodle. ‘Tis a tangled web out there, whether or not anyone is practicing to deceive. (Apologies to Sir Walter Scott.)

Comment Of The Day (1): “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google ‘Steered 6 Million Votes’ to Biden in 2020”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The power of social media and Big Tech platforms to influence and even control public discourse, public opinion and the democratic process is among the unintended and unanticipated consequences of the internet revolution. It had not had anywhere near the focus on it from the government and the news media, and the public is disturbingly ignorant and apathetic regarding how their own autonomy and freedoms of thought and speech are being distorted—in part, because the beneficiaries of social media and Big Tech power want them to be ignorant and apathetic. The proverbial frog is boiling. Many frogs, in fact.

The post yesterday about a revival of the 2020 claim by a researcher that Google had “steered” 6 million votes to Joe Biden in the 2020 election generated several provocative comments. Here’s one of them (#2 is on the way): a Comment of the Day by Ryan Harkins on the post, “Observations On The Revived Claim That Google “Steered 6 Million Votes” to Biden in 2020”:

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All the way back in 2016, I was looking for some good white sheets on Alarm Rationalization, the methodology in accordance with ISA 18.2 by which process automation alarms are given priority and justification in control systems. The only words I used in the Google search were those two: “alarm” and “rationalization”. Ethics Alarms was the #2 hit on that search. That is how I found Ethics Alarms in the very first place.

I personally have seen the effects of Google favoring websites and search results that favor the narratives Google favors. This has occurred even on Google’s search engine for scholarly papers. Unless you are absolutely specific on the name of the paper, if it doesn’t fit Google’s preferences, the paper is buried pages down, if you can find it at all. And that is hugely problematic because I believe most people will not go more than a couple pages into a Google search. I know if I have to go that far, I need to stop and redo my query terms.

This is one more piece in the realm of fears and concerns that the conservatives in the nation possess. As a reminder, that list is as follows:

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Ethics Hero: Blogger Ann Althouse, Anti-Trump Derangement And Media Bias Warrior

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I doubt that Ann Althouse would ever vote for Donald Trump; I’m pretty sure she hasn’t yet. But the longtime liberal law prof-blogger from Madison has distinguished herself and enhanced her respect in my eyes by consistently debunking anti-Trump bias from the news media while pronouncing her disgust with its hypocrisy and unfairness. Her reward has been to end up with a commentariat that is much more conservative than she is, but Althouse continues to be a Trump Truthteller (try to say that three times fast). She had a particularly impressive day yesterday.

First, Ann threw a flag on Washington Post pundit Aaron Rupar’s “How not to interview Trump/Kristen Welker’s tenure as ‘Meet the Press’ moderator got off to an inauspicious start. I only maintain a Post subscription to read articles others send me too: essentially I’ve boycotted the rag as too biased and obviously partisan to trust. His thesis is emboied in the excerpt Ann selected:

“The first thing to understand about Trump is that he’s not a normal politician. He doesn’t give a rip about policy. What he cares about is saying and doing whatever it takes to fulfill his desires and thirst for power, including destroying democracy if necessary. Treating him as anything other than a depraved authoritarian is not only wrongheaded, but helps his cause by legitimizing him as a reasonable choice for voters. And that’s exactly what Welker did.”

Boy, do I hate that attitude toward anyone. I’ve detested it regarding Trump since he was elected, and I resented other people treated that same way my entire life. It is bigotry and bias plain and unvarnished: someone chooses to decide, without genuine evidence, that an individual is just bad to the bone, with evil motives, and anything he or she does is thereafter interpreted in that context. This is how Trump was judged guilty until proven innocent in the Russian collusion hoax. It is the exact mindset that led people to back his first impeachment for doing exactly what many Presidents had doubtlessly done before him; it was the reasoning behind the second impeachment as well: Yeah, nothing he said indicating he was telling his wacko followers to state a violent “insurrection,” but you know that’s what he wanted them to do, because that’s the kind of person he is.

Althouse strikes back,

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2024’s Voters: This Goes Right Into The “Res Ipsa Loquitur” File…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

But I bet they know all about systemic racism and the impending climate change apocalypse….

Once Again, Our Leaders Inflict “The King’s Pass” On Our Culture…Well, A Variation: “The Slob’s Pass”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has directed the chamber’s sergeant at arms to end the centuries-old rule requiring male U.S. Senators to wear a suit and tie on the Senate floor, with members of the upper house to wear modest business attire. This move was clearly made by Schumer to relieve pressure on Frankensteinian Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa), who has been violating the Senate Dress code and appearing in shorts, T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts since he returned from a hospitalization for depression. He had been criticized and mocked as a result—as he should be.

The King’s Pass, Rationalization #11 on the List, is a corrosively backwards reaction by organizations to unethical conduct that violates organization norms and values, the value in this case being “respect”—respect for the institution, respect for the public, respect for the United States of America. If the organization’s (company’s, institution’s, industry’s, government’s, sports team’s…etc.) member who is breaching norms, rules, laws and values is deemed sufficiently powerful, important or popular, the rules and norms are not enforced when the King’s Pass strikes. When the most prominent member of a hierarchy is allowed to violate standards of conduct, the conduct of those of lower status will deteriorate in response: this is what “the fish rots from the head down” means, with the head in this case being a brain-damaged one.

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