Government & Politics

As If Any More Proof Was Needed, Trump 1.0 Nemesis Jim Acosta Reveals Himself Beyond All Question To Be An Unethical Hack

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

You see, no decent, ethical journalist would even think of doing this. No intelligent journalist—or pest removal professional—would either. Yet this is the guy CNN sicced on President Trump and his press secretaries in his first term. This irredeemable partisan hack became a broadcast news star with neither the common sense, acumen, professional skills or decency to justify such status, which he is making a living off now.

This is CNN. This is Jim Acosta. This is the state of American journalism.

Former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta released the video of him interviewing an AI-generated version of Joaquin Oliver, who is dead. He’s one of the 17 victims of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the tragedy that also inflicted David Hogg on the world, as if the shooting itself wasn’t horrible enough.

The avatar was animated from a photograph of the late 17-year-old who appears wearing a beanie while speaking in a monotone digital voice. Acosta begins by asking, “What happened to you?” to which the AI version of Oliver responds, “I was taken from this world too soon due to gun violence while at school. It’s important to talk about these issues so we can create a safer future for everyone.”

Let’s pass on the conduct of the parents in creating the creepy thing, which is right out of an episode of “Black Mirror.” The topic is journalism ethics. Today’s reporters are so estranged from the concepts of honesty, respect, objectivity, responsibility and trustworthiness that no ethics alarm pings when someone says, “Hey Jim! Apparently there’s an AI version f one of those dead Parkland kids. Why don’t you interview him? Maybe he’ll say something nasty about Trump!”

True, Acosta is pretty much the bottom of the barrel in the profession that is already the bottom of the profession barrel, but still, it wasn’t that long ago that a stunt like this would be considered outrageous if attempted by a shock jock like The Greaseman or Howard Stern. I would say that this is the canary dying in the mine, except that then Chris Cuomo or Don Lemon might interview an AI version of the canary.

[Even WordPress is disgusted; it won’t let me download a photo of this asshole.]

Ethics Dunce: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

[My leg is still killing me, I hope not literally, and sitting at my desk is excruciating, but I have to post this, truncated though it may be.]

The President should not cave to the “Think of the Children!” lobby that wants the United States to send aid to a rogue, terrorist state that is also the enemy of a just combatant the U.S. is supporting. It seems that he is. That is asinine and cowardly.

If children are starving in Gaza, the Gazans, and specifically Hamas, are responsible. Not Israel. Not the United States. The mission in warfare is to win the war, and one does not win a war by making warfare less unpleasant for the enemy. Frankly, it astounds me that I, or anyone, should have to make this point.

The last time the United States won a war (I do not count Grenada) was World War II. The Pentagon did not allow the publication of photographs of dead babies and malnourished Japanese and German children for exactly the reason we are seeing now, and have seen many times since 1945. War is ugly, and winning a war requires acts that in any other context are rightly regarded as immoral and unethical. This what a professional military is for: it (theoretically) doesn’t become sentimental about the necessities of warfare.

[Footnote: This was one of my late father’s objections to “Saving Private Ryan.” He said it was an insult to George Marshall and a deliberate effort to confuse the public to claim that the General would feel obligated to reduce the sacrifice of any single family while his army’s mission was to win a war.]

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Comment of the Day: “About That Climate Change ‘Consensus’”….

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It’s about time recent EA comment auteur Holly A. was recognized with a Comment of the Day, and she actually had two strong candidates back-to-back. I chose the second. Both involved the same issue: garbage “climate change” advocacy and activism unhinged to actual facts. In the first comment, Holly impressively examined both the professors and the paper that sparked my post. I responded with gratitude, but noted that the technical details of the paper were not my concern. I wrote in part,

The ethics bottom line remains the same. There is not any “consensus.” The data is inconclusive. The hysteria is manipulated and politically motivated. Spending large amounts of treasure to alleviate a problem that is not well-understood is irresponsible. The news media has no interest in informing the public, and the people and politicians talking most loudly about climate change literally don’t know what they are talking about.

Fair?

Here  is Holly A.’s response, the Comment of the Day on the post, “About That Climate Change ‘Consensus’”….

***

I would say mostly fair.

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Sydney Sweeney Indeed Has Great Genes and Those Freaking Out Over Her Jeans Ad Do Not

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

If an attractive black model or actress had made this commercial, nobody would be complaining. But because Sweeney is white and blonde, and because the American Left has lost its mind, a classic provocative blue-jeans ad (Remember Brooke Shields saying “Nothing gets between me and my Calvins”?) is being cited as proof that America is embracing Hitler’s Master Race narrative. Sure.

This warrants an Ethics Alarms “Bite Me!” if anything does.

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About That Climate Change “Consensus”….

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

MIT’s Richard Lindzen, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus, and Princeton’s William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, have published a paper titled Physics Demonstrates That Increasing Greenhouse Gases Cannot Cause Dangerous Warming , Extreme Weather or Any Harm.

Wait! How can that be?! We are told by climate change hysterics in government, universities, news organizations and international organizations—and Robert Kennedy, Jr,!—that there is no question that we are doomed if we don’t immediately curtail carbon-based fuels, stop flying, stop using gas-powered cars, stop fighting world government, stop having babies, stop using plastic ARRRRGH! AND we have been assured that this is the consensus of the scientific community, and not to grovel to these apocalyptic prognostications is to “reject science.”

Now, all of this has always been a pack of lies, speculation and hyperbole, but our betters (that is, progressives, artists, academics and Hollywood) have been allowed to pound this junk into the heads of the logically challenged and scientifically ignorant for decades, often harvesting votes and lucre all the while. I don’t know whether the latest paper is wrong just as you don’t know that the scientific opinions behind the “We’re all going to die!” papers are right. However, enacting draconian measures on faith, guesswork and speculation is irresponsible, or in technical terms, really, really stupid.

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Trump Derangement Monday Begins With a “Nelson” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The New York Post reports that a Manhattan rally in support of “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert drew about 20 protesters yesterday. The NYPD police who were there to prevent violence (I can’t believe I am writing this!) quickly left when the indignant Trump-haters dispersed after just a few minutes. The leaders of the stupid “We’re With Colbert” rally outside the CBS Broadcast Center on Manhattan’s West Side had said that the protest was part of a nationwide call for “integrity.”

As we all know, late night network talk shows go with integrity like sushi goes with Turkish taffy and ketchup.

“Our country is not perfect, never has been,” said the event’s organizer, whose name isn’t worth mentioning since he is clearly, you know, a moron. “But we’ve always had the First Amendment, and now Mango Mussolini is trying to take that from us.” Right. The party this guy obviously supported actually set up a federal agency to restrict speech, conspired with the news media to embargo facts, statistics and news that it found inconvenient to its aspirations, conspired with that news media to feed partisan propaganda to the public, employed a White House spokesperson who routinely spewed disinformation, and pressured social media platforms to censor critics. Then it ran a ticket that openly promoted censorship of “hate speech,” which means, as always, “whatever the Axis of Unethical Conduct doesn’t like.” “Mango Mussolini” (Nice!) is anti-First Amendment because he correctly sought to hold CBS accountable for a brazen act of election interference as it surreptitiously tried to make Kamala Harris seem less like the babbling fool that she is and was caught red-handed.

Meanwhile, another clear example of how the President’s weaponizing of tariffs is defying the doomsayers cannot attract any positive coverage from most of the “enemies of the people”, nor, of course, the “my mind’s made up don’t confuse me with facts” Trump Deranged like whatever his name is above. The EU trade deal announced yesterday “will likely not do much for economic growth on either side,” sayeth the Times, despite confessing elsewhere that the European Union had agreed to purchase $750 billion of American energy over three years and to increase its investment in the United States by more than $600 billion above current levels. How could that possibly be a bad thing? How could critics not give the President some credit for the deal? That’s easy: whatever President Trump does or says is by definition bad.

Seems fair…

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July Send-Off Ethics Round-Up, 7/27/2025

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The fact that my leg appears to be rotting off seriously impeded my Ethics Alarms activity this entire week, so a round-up of lingering ethics tales is desperately needed. The stupid wound, complete with a giant blood-blister the size and color of an eggplant, isn’t going to hurt any worse if I sit at my desk a bit longer, so here we go…

1. That painting above, “American Progress” by John Gast in 1872, was posted on the Homeland Security Facebook page with the message, “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” Right, and right. Some Americans weak in citizenship are apparently offended by the statement and the painting. What’s wrong with them, and how did they get this way? The U.S.’s saga is objectively an inspiring one. I do not blame Native Americans for being bitter about how things worked out for them, but a Stone Age civilization was going to fail eventually one way or another, and the resulting culture, society, government and civilization has been a blessing to humanity. My only cavil with the painting is that it might be deliberate trolling. I think government departments and agencies shouldn’t troll. Neither should Presidents.

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Ethics Hero: Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Perez, a 37-year-old auto shop owner, second-term congresswoman and co-chair of the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, horrified colleagues on both sides of the aisle by offering an amendment to the “Legislative Appropriations Act”, H.R. 4249. Her addition would have required Congress to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to serve the public “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.” The amendment was unanimously rejected, but she is not giving up. In a poll of the 230,000 people who subscribe to her newsletter, more than 90% supported the proposal. Perez says her constituents raise the issue frequently, and their belief that elected officials are frequently too impaired by age to be effective is causing spreading distrust of our government.

Gee, I can’t imagine why they would feel that way…

…but I digress.

Rep. Perez noted that she found it disturbing that among the oil paintings of the past chairs of the powerful Appropriations Committee is a large portrait of Kay Granger, the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who suffered from mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet found her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she still held office.

There are now more members of Congress age 70 and above than ever before, while the second oldest President ever to serve is in the White House. Perez insists that there should be standards that prevent members from serving past the point where they no longer have the capacity to cast votes and do business on behalf of their constituents.“It’s a question of whether the elected member is making the decisions,” Rep. Perez said. “It’s really not about a single member; it’s about a systemic failure.”

Bingo.

Nah, The Democratic Party Hasn’t Become Openly Anti-Semitic! It’s Just That One of Its Biggest Allies Wants To Erase Jews From the Holocaust…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

When I read about this, I was certain that some NEA-hating conservative news source was exaggerating. Nope. It is right there in black and white, as you can see above in the entry from the National Education Association’s newly released 2025 handbook. My brain found this so shocking that it refused to explode as it should have, and just went into a safety shutdown. I can’t account for the last three hours…

The nation’s largest teacher’s union is a massive contributor to the Democratic Party, a major reason why public education has deteriorated into ideological indoctrination, and a force for ill in American culture and society. It was, for instance, substantially responsible for the disastrous decision to close the schools in the midst of the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck. Now it has openly proclaimed its hostility toward not just Israel, but the Jewish people.

The handbook, the NEA’s guide for the union’s nearly 3 million members, describes the Holocaust as having “12 million victims… from different faiths.” As unquestioned historical sources make undeniable, “The Final Solution” was at the core of Hitler’s extermination project. The NEA says the union will “promote the celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day” by “recognizing more than 12 million victims of the Holocaust from different faiths, ethnicities, races, political beliefs, genders, and gender identification, abilities/disabilities, and other targeted characteristics.” This section is on the page before the one shown above:

The NEA then promotes “Nakba” education, which describes Israel’s founding in 1948 as the “forced, violent displacement” of 750,000 Palestinians. The document further pledges to teach that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” and defends educators’ and students’ “free speech in defense of Palestine.” In case the graphic above is too hard to read, here are the key sections:

States one news source, “Critics argue the NEA is promoting a one-sided, revisionist history while ignoring the central role of Jews in the Holocaust.” This would warrant a “Ya think?” except that I have used my quote for today in the previous post. Where’s the “argument”? That is exactly what the NEA does in the handbook, and the position goes beyond unethical into evil. The group is obviously proud of its position and confident that the Democratic Party and the public supports it.

Did you know that the Republicans and Donald Trump are Nazis?

Now what? Here is what…

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The State Dept. Strikes a Blow Against Utopianism and Unethical Virtue-Signaling

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The U.S. State Department announced that we will not participate in next week’s conference regarding the imaginary “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians. Good.

France and Saudi Arabia are the hosts, and France has already announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state. The U.S. called the meeting “counterproductive to ongoing efforts to end the Gaza war and release hostages” Ya think? Permitting Hamas and the Palestinian to benefit in any way from its 2023 terrorist attack on Israel only ensures more of the same.

This is another throbbing example of the Ethics Alarms nostrum that proposing impossible “solutions” to persistent problems is unethical, no matter how “Imagine”-ish they seem on paper. No, we are not going to engage in a trillion dollar transfer of wealth from white Americans who had nothing to do with slavery to black Americans who were never slaves. No, there will be no unilateral disarmament by any nation that has enough firepower to matter. No, the United States will never accept an Australian-style gun ban. No, the dangerous National Debt will never get smaller.

The two-state solution is arguably more impossible than any of these other impossible dreams. The Palestinians have been rejecting various two-states solution since 1948; their favored solution—wiping out Israel and slaughtering as many Jews as possible, “from the river to the sea” and all that—is far more likely. The Biden administration, being incompetent and addicted to wrong-headed policies, had the useless John Kerry flying around as some kind of ambassador for two-state peace: gee, that worked out well, don’t you think?

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The U.S. State Department announced that we will not participate in next week’s conference regarding the imaginary “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians. Good.

France and Saudi Arabia are the hosts, and France has already announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state. The U.S. called the meeting “counterproductive to ongoing efforts to end the Gaza war and release hostages” Ya think? Permitting Hamas and the Palestinian to benefit in any way from its 2023 terrorist attack on Israel only ensures more of the same.

This is another throbbing example of the Ethics Alarms nostrum that proposing impossible “solutions” to persistent problems is unethical, no matter how “Imagine”-ish they seem on paper. No, we are not going to engage in a trillion dollar transfer of wealth from white Americans who had nothing to do with slavery to black Americans who were never slaves. No, there will be no unilateral disarmament by any nation that has enough firepower to matter. No, the United States will never accept an Australian-style gun ban. No, the dangerous National Debt will never get smaller.

The two-state solution is arguably more impossible than any of these other impossible dreams. The Palestinians have been rejecting various two-states solution since 1948; their favored solution—wiping out Israel and slaughtering as many Jews as possible, “from the river to the sea” and all that—is far more likely. The Biden administration, being incompetent and addicted to wrong-headed policies, had the useless John Kerry flying around as some kind of ambassador for two-state peace: gee, that worked out well, don’t you think?

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