Government & Politics

Ethics Quote of the Month: New Mexico Supreme Court Justice C. Shannon Bacon

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

“Do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what’s going on in the world? Because the problem with lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is an above-the-fold story every single day.So either you have buried your head in the sand … and that’s an intentional choice to be uninformed, or you took a gamble, and neither of those are consistent with the code of conduct.”

—-New Mexico Supreme Court Justice C. Shannon Bacon excoriating lawyer Stephen Aarons for submitting a brief riddled with ChatGPT “hallucinations.”

Good for her, but still not strong enough.

Aarons’ brief included references to imaginary witnesses and fake testimony from at least one real witness. That AI bots are likely to make up case cites and even statutory language has been recognized and publicized widely, not just in legal publications but in the general news media since early 2024. Lawyers, including those with large national law firms like Morgan & Morgan and even the Justice Department continuing to file these bogus bot-authored court documents is amazing to me. And they are too stupid, ignorant and lazy to even proof-read what the bots wrote! One judge recently railed specifically at using ChatGPT for legal work, which he compared to using Mad Magazine as a legal reference.

Bacon threw the metaphorical book at Aarons, removing him as attorney from the case of a 60-year-old man convicted last year of murdering his wife, found him in contempt of court, ordered him to pay $5,000 to a client protection fund, and referred him to the bar for potential discipline. The murder appeal will be handled now by a public defender.

It isn’t just lawyers, of course, who deserve tongue-lashings like this. Teachers, professors, newspaper editors, legislators, politicians, screenwriters, and, yes, judges to name just a few of the affected groups have an obligation to keep up-to-date on the AI revolution, and a disturbing number of them are not even close, which is inexcusable.

Two veteran members of Congress, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. James Clyburn recently indicated that they were ill-informed regarding AI. That this is, frighteningly, not unusual shouldn’t give us any comfort. Lawmakers are notorious for taking an inordinate amount of time to understand new developing technology, as when the late Senator Ted Stevens, while chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, described the internet as a “series of tubes.” Like the internet but perhaps even more so, however, artificial intelligence is a civilization-altering (and perhaps -threatening) phenomenon moving at the speed of light. Those who are too dim, indolent, unimaginative and irresponsible to keep up need to get out of the way and retire to some nice, safe, quiet pursuit like beachcombing or golf.

Oh…it’s the Rules of Professional Conduct, Your Honor, not the “code.” Judges have ethics codes. Lawyers haven’t been governed by a “code” for 40 years.

Try to keep up.

Ethics Dunce: CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Those of us who had high hopes that New York Times leftist cult exile Bari Weiss can be trusted to reform CBS News as a trailblazing journalism organization that rededicates itself to true objectivity, integrity and trustworthiness have been betrayed and disappointed again.

CBS News’s Editor-in-Chief, briefly principled in sacking some prominent “60 Minutes” hacks and propagandists, is seeking to hire that paragon of brilliance, that journalism ethics champion and conflicts-of-interest watchdog, that distinguished lawyer and Constitution scholar, Chris Cuomo.

This is signature significance. If Weiss thinks it’s responsible to hire a proven biased and incompetent dimwit like the Fredo of the Cuomo family, she’s just another ethics-free suit seeking ratings over competent journalism. Cuomo is arguably an even worse excuse for a broadcast journalist than Don Lemon, though it’s neck-and neck. Yet the Independent reports,

“In a bid to attract more big-name talent, the editor-in-chief is in talks with Cuomo to join the network, sources told Status. Oliver Darcy, a journalist at the publication, said Weiss was “enraptured” by Cuomo and had already met him in person. The pair, he reports, met for a meal and have often swapped text messages. If a deal did go ahead, Cuomo would join CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil as another high-profile Weiss appointee.”

She’s “enraptured” by that idiot? Great. Oh, why not just hire Scott Pelley back? He’s an unapologetic Axis agent and partisan hack, but at least his IQ hits three digits.

I’m beginning to fear, especially after the Washington Post was just ordered to hire back an opinion columnist who lies for her party and this revolting development, that the U.S. will never have the trustworthy journalism a democracy needs to thrive.

Ethics Alarms Challenge: Give Me A Persuasive Argument Why We Should Oppose The Deporting of “Good Illegal Immigrants”

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

The New York Times is in a tender mood over I.C.E. deporting illegal immigrants who haven’t killed, raped, robbed or otherwise turned to a life of crime—at least as far as we know— being deported by I.C.E. In the deliberately deceitfully-headlined “ICE Arrests Soar as People With No Criminal Record Are Increasingly Targeted” (Uh, no, illegal immigrants are being targeted. I, for example, qualify for the group “People With No Criminal Record,” and I am not being “targeted”), the New York Times writes today,

A majority of the immigrants arrested in July were people who were accused of violating civil immigration laws but who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime, an analysis of newly released federal data shows. The share with a past violent criminal conviction fell to less than 4 percent. Overall, immigration arrests rose to record highs with 43,000 ICE arrests in June and 49,000 in July. Two fatal shootings involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, in Texas and Maine, drew outrage but did not meaningfully slow the pace of arrests…ICE now appears closer than ever to meeting a recent goal of 2,000 daily arrests…Immigration arrests are near all-time highs in almost every state. Even sparsely populated Montana and Vermont saw spikes, with arrest rates more than doubling…

…Deportations have averaged well over 1,000 people a day since last summer, and there are signs that they are picking up speed. The number of deportation flights began rising in the spring, and in July reached a record of at least 329 flights out of the country, according to ICE Flight Monitor, a tracking effort run by Human Rights First.

My one word analysis of that report, which the New York Times presumably thinks will outrage its readers: Good. (And why would, or should, two fatal shootings involving ICE agents slow down appropriate law enforcement?)

Hey, but just for perspective and giggles, let’s see what appreciative Times readers (there are some sane comments in there too) are saying about the article:

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Today’s Trump Derangement Outburst

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

A Facebook “influencer” whom I had never heard of before somehow invaded my Facebook feed with this:

“All the news channels yesterday were full of tributes to Dolly Parton. Of course, it’s sad that she died and I was aware of many of the wonderful things other than the music and performances she gave us. What surprised me was how refreshing it was to see this in review against the against the constant chronicle of the cruel, corrupt, inane, buffoonish, disgusting lying narcissist who is usually dominating the news.”

I responded that he needs to get help, because being compelled to express hatred for the President of the United States in discussing completely unrelated topics is the definitive symptom of crippling Trump Derangement. I expect his post to attract dozens of “likes” and “loves.”

This is monomania, a mental disorder.

Unethical Quote of the Month From The Worst SCOTUS Justice Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“[T]he majority misses the Government’s actual objective: to secure our imprimatur for its effort to foment chaos ahead of the November elections.”

—-Justice Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, again putting into black-and-white her intolerable political bias and lack of judicial decorum in her dissent to the 6-3 majority SCOTUS decision, a 10-page, unsigned opinion staying an injunction by a federal judge against the implementation of President Trump’s executive order imposing restrictions on mail-in voting.

I won’t pretend to know enough about the substantive law underlying the majority decision, and after trying to read Justice Jackson’s seemingly endless dissent, my brain hurts. However, I can say with ethical certainty that a judge who is automatically inclined to ascribe sinister motives to an elected President’s actions should be disqualified from weighing in on any controversy regarding those actions.

I read Trump’s EO regarding mail-in ballots as consistent with his oath of office and the definition of his powers under the Constitution. Mail-in ballots threaten the integrity of Federal elections and therefore the Constitution itself. There are limits to state sovereignty in determining election regulations and procedures, something Justice Jackson refuses to acknowledge. Gee, I wonder why only 23 states have challenged the EO. Which states might they be?

Elsewhere in her “War and Peace”-length dissent, Jackson complains that the claim that mail-in ballots risk election integrity hasn’t been proven. In fact, some courts have taken judicial notice of the fact, and it is a fact and an obvious fact, that mail-in ballots are unacceptably vulnerable to fraud. But I digress. The ethics issue now is that a Supreme Court Justice begins her analysis of an Executive Branch controversy with the biased presumption that the President of the United States is not pursuing what he believes is in the best interests of the nation under the Constitution. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has again demonstrated that she is a dangerous blight on the Court, the Separation of Powers, and the functioning of U.S. constitutional government.

____________________

Pointer: SCOTUS blog

The Ethical Significance of the Post-Dolly Response

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

As you must know by now unless you have been in a submerged submarine with a broken communications system like the one in “Crimson Tide,” Dolly Parton died yesterday at 80. Why her death is being described as a shock is a mystery: as my father said when he hit 80, “It’s the Red Zone, son. I can kick off any second from here on!” Nonetheless, the public and official outpouring of grief, love and admiration is unlike anything we’ve seen at least since Princess Diana’s demise in 1997.

The tectonic reaction is certainly not based on Dolly’s singing, acting or song-writing. Personally, I was never a fan; Dolly’s singing voice always sounded to me like someone who has inhaled helium. Her songs were pleasant but unremarkable to my ear. As an actress, I place Dolly Parton in the large category of experienced public performers who can project their own personalities effectively into roles and stories where their personalities seem appropriate, a diverse group that ranges from the late Fred Thompson to the late Bob Newhart to the not-quite-late Ringo Starr.

Clearly, the reason Dolly is being mourned so vigorously is that her public persona was entirely benign, virtuous and lovable, even aggressively so. She literally gave nobody any reason not to like her. In 2020, as the Great Stupid was grabbing American society by the throat, Hollywood producer Rob Long wrote an appreciation of Dolly in “Commentary” exploring her universal popularity. He wrote in part,

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Another Unethical Jury, Another Dead Canary In The Mine of Democracy

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

In Allegheny County Pennsylvania, the murder trial of Safon Gump ( I swear that’s his real name) ended in a mistrial last week because a juror smoked or vaped marijuana in the jury room during a lunch break and the judge was unable to determine who.

Here I must interject my obligatory “I told you so!” note regarding my long-time insistence that legalizing pot after indoctrinating the public with the false message that it was harmless would prove to be a cultural and societal disaster undermining health, children’s socialization, the family, the economy, the workplace and more. All is unfolding as I foresaw, and it wasn’t all that difficult a prediction to reach either.

The selection of 12 jurors and two alternates had been completed and the jury empaneled as the prosecution called its first two witnesses. The judge adjourned the trial for lunch, but when court staff arrived at the jury room to release the jurors, the smell of marijuana was unmistakable. Smoking and vaping are not allowed in the Allegheny County Courthouse, and worse, all of the jurors had answered the question on their questionnaires about whether they were taking any medications that could impact your ability to sit on the jury had checked “no.”

The judge called each juror into his chambers and asked if he or she had been toking. He even summoned an additional criminal defense attorney to sit in to ensure that the jurors’ Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination would be protected. That was unnecessary, because it had been agreed that no charges would be filed against the pot-puffing juror: everybody just wanted to ensure the integrity of the trial. The defense attorney, however, sounds like a woke, drug-loving jerk. “You have all of these privacy issues you have to worry about,” he told reporters.“The last thing we want to do is embarrass someone.”

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No, “Stars and Stripes” Is Not Supposed To Be “Independent and Objective”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I will grant this to some of my more Trump Deranged friends: they do give me some excellent ethics blog fodder.

One of them erupted in typical Trump deranged outrage because, as explained in this WaPo story, the Pentagon fired the publisher and the editor-in-chief of “Stars and Stripes,” the military news publication funded by the Department of Defense. This was, you see, another example of Trump “censorship.” In interviews with CBS, the fired editor insisted, “I am working for Stars and Stripes. Not for the Pentagon. Not for any administration. Not for any policymaker. I am here to cover the military community.” Another argued, “These firings are a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press.”

My Trump Deranged friend seems to believe that the Pentagon is obligated to employ “advocacy journalists” who are free to undermine the military command, including the Commander in Chief. If the Pentagon can fire editors of “Stars and Stripes,” and it can, then the publication can’t call itself independent. The military has no reason to tolerate or fund a publication that is critical of military command or the Commander in Chief, undermining military morale and general order.

In past eras, Stars and Stripes has always had an pro- military bias; of course it has. But now we have veterans in uniform disrupting Congressional hearings, and there is a war on. If “Stars and Stripes “wants the option of criticizing military command rather than reporting military news and promoting the Armed Services, great: let it find a funding source other than the Pentagon. Otherwise, it is beholden to the best interests of the military as the military command defines them.

The military is not a democracy. The Pentagon didn’t permit a “free and independent press” during World War II. It is disingenuous for a “Stars and Stripes” editor or reporter to say on CBS that she doesn’t work for the Pentagon when the Pentagon’s funds pay her salary.

My friend, a lawyer, defaulted to this:

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Comment of the Day: “Another Trump Derangement Update!”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Humble Talent’s Comment of the Day on the post “Another Trump Derangement Update!” is clear, perceptive, and helpful. It needs no more introduction from me, so here it is…

***

I remember during Trump’s first term, I made a Facebook post that tried to explain to lefties the concept of “resistance burnout”…. Basically, if you approach everything Trump does with the exact same amount of action and outrage, then you lose the ability to signal what is actually important, and everything just ends up sounding like an adult from Charlie Brown. I used how Trump muzzled the EPA’s Twitter account and how he appointed a man actively being sued by the EPA as head of the EPA as examples of something very low stakes and something legitimately bad.

Because there is some there there, and a sane resistance has a place. I’ll put it out there: I was absolutely more than willing to talk about how awful Biden was, and how the 25th was probably more appropriate for him than any other President in living memory. See: “Weekend at Biden’s” and “President Autopen”… That wasn’t normal either.

Because Trump isn’t normal, but just saying that is insufficient. “Normal” isn’t a moral state of being. What he does is important, and while I could be annoyed at all the capital projects, particularly during a cost of living crisis (I am), or his instinct to rhetorically pee on everything he can in an attempt to get his name on things (ditto), or his desire to add acreage to the American empire by floating ideas that are just… Never going to happen, as some kind of legacy project (also yes), these things are relatively unimportant. We need to be able to walk and chew gum, and separate the annoying things Trump does from the things that are actually problems.

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Ethics Dunce: Dan Koh (& Head-Exploding Campaign Video Of The Year So Far)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Wow.

Dan Koh is delusional. The frightening thing is that the there are a lot of brain-washed progressives in Massachusetts who are so far gone that they won’t realize how crazy and hypocritical that ad is.

First of all, to lead with dead-eyed Joe Biden saying Koh’s name because two syllables is probably all they could get him to utter after 34 takes and maybe some AI dubbing, isn’t what I would call a boffo opening. Then to follow with Kamala Harris—why would anyone vote for someone Harris endorses? She picked Knucklehead Tim Walz as her running mate! Next Koh boasts about being a senior White House advisor who was either so dim that he didn’t realize the President was a rutabaga, or so corrupt that he was part of the cover-up of Biden’s dementia. There is no third option. Biden’s term was the most disastrous in American Presidential history: what did Biden fix, with Koh’s expert counsel?

Then he ends by saying “Democrats you trust” endorse him, and there are Biden and Kamala again. I can’t think of many Democrats less trustworthy than those two. Oh, maybe Adam Schiff, Jamaal Bowman, Rep. Omar and a few other scumbags, but it’s close. Harris endorsed Black Lives Matter, and said she wanted redirect public resources away from the police but didn’t support defunding the police, a typical muddled Harris policy position. As a Presidential candidate Harris said she wouldn’t change anything Joe Biden did…you know, like opening the borders and appointing a DEI Cabinet of incompetents, lackeys and dolts. Kamal;a also swore she worked at a mysterious McDonalds that apparently appears for day and then vanishes into the mist, like Brigadoon.

Joe let his addict son use him as an influence peddling prop. He promised to be a moderate and to bring the nation together, then allowed the far Left to run his crippled Presidency. He insisted that he was sharp as a tack while refusing to have his cognition tested after his brain had retired to Boca Raton. True, he “beat Medicare.”

That ad is like something out of an alternate universe.

(And Dan Koh looks like Adam Sandler.)