Government & Politics

On the Eric Adams Prosecution and the Sassoon Letter

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I admit it: I’ve been avoiding this large, stinky elephant in the ethics room because I have nothing good to say about any side of the controversy.

It’s all very depressing. The organization I belong to consisting of just about every legal ethics teacher, lawyer and consultant in the country immediately showed (again) how Trump Deranged and biased the membership is. After the resignation letter of February 12 from then S.D.N.Y. U.S Attorney Sassoon to U.S.AG Pam Bondi refusing to carry out the DOJ’s directive that she move to dismiss the then pending corruption indictment against NYC Mayor Eric Adams (Quote: “It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment….Such an exchange…violates common sense beliefs in the equal administration of justice, the [DOJ’s] Justice Manual [for federal prosecutors], and the Rules  of Professional Conduct.”), the listserv was immediately awash with comments like this one: “Once the rule of law cease, so does democracy. A client has the right to instruct an attorney; the attorney may seek to be relieved if the client’s directive is offensive. But what do we do when a “client”, or anyone, seeks to end democracy?”

Riiiight: not continuing with what looked a lot like a politically-motivated prosecution of Adams by the Biden Administration threatens democracy.

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Jeez, Somebody Tell Him!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I subscribe to the oxymoronically-named Ethics & Journalism newsletter. After the featured piece in today’s edition, I will be reconsidering that commitment.

Here is the beginning of the essay titled “Fostering a Culture of Newsroom Independence: How to fight anticipatory compliance,” authored by the director of this NYU project, Stephen J. Adler. Hold on to your head!

Media self-censorship, anticipatory compliance, capitulation, bending the knee. Whatever you call it, it represents one of the most insidious means by which people with power can squelch news reporting that doesn’t serve their interests. You don’t have to arrest or fire reporters—you just have to make them increasingly afraid that you will.

Donald Trump’s second term—and the ascendancy of billionaire press antagonists—has already created an environment in which journalists feel more pressure than ever to self-censor or soften their coverage to ensure that they stay on legally and politically safe ground. How does a reporter, or a newsroom full of them, guard against sheltering in such truth-killing safe harbors?

To some degree, long-standing newsroom ethical guidelines can help stiffen reporters’ spines. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics has it right: journalists should “deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors, or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage.” I also like this from the Boston public media station WBUR:

“Decisions about what we cover, how we do our work, and what we report are made by our journalists. We are not influenced by those who provide WBUR with financial support.… We are not swayed in our journalistic mission by those in power or those who attempt to manipulate our journalism.’”

But even more important than adhering to ethics guidelines, I believe, is preserving the culture of journalistic independence that thrives at countless successful newsrooms and has shone at some of those now under the most pressure, such as the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and CBS News. Maintaining such a culture—and thus summoning the courage to practice independent journalism in the face of any threats—has been a hallmark of these institutions for generations….

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Ethics Hero: “Landman” Creator and Writer Taylor Sheridan

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Billy Bob Thornton star vehicle “Landman,” following the stressful life of a West Texas “landman” and operational executive for an independent oil company in West Texas, has a lot going for it, mostly Thornton, who is one of our most interesting and versatile actors. The Paramount streaming series is already better, in my view, then the last two oil dramas I watched, the over-rated “Giant” and the relentlessly unpleasant “There Will Be Blood,” in great part because as with all of his roles, Thornton brings a great deal of humor to the proceedings.

I have not finished the series’ first season (I sure hope there is a second), but I was struck by the long scene above in which Tommy Norris (that’s Billy Bob) gives a quick primer to his company’s attorney on the facile conventional wisdom of the anti-fossil fuel lobby. The rant begins (at the 57 second mark), as Tommy denies the “cleanness” of wind power, and he takes off from there. It was an instant classic that quickly went viral on social media: as soon as I heard it I knew I could find the speech on YouTube and resolved to post it today.

There are also a lot of rebuttals to the speech on line, and that’s great: the ethics point is that for once Hollywood isn’t stuffing smug 21st Century woke politics into its audience’s brains, but is presenting a dissenting analysis. More more amazing yet, this one comes from a series’ protagonist and an appealing one at that.

Taylor Sheridan, who created “Landman,” cast Thornton and wrote and directed the speech deserves thanks and credit for packaging a provocative point of view that is sure to spark debate. Debate is ethical. What isn’t ethical is cultural indoctrination, which is how Hollywood has mostly been approaching the oil issue for decades.

Not surprisingly, the Wikipedia entry linked above states that the series contains “misinformation about renewable energy… “exposed as common propaganda tropes by Big Oil.” This is why Wikipedia should be considered a member in excellent standing with the Axis of Unethical Conduct. If Democrats had won another term in the White House, we would probably see “Landman” forced to include a disclaimer on Tommy’s speech.

I Don’t Understand the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

My woke Facebook friends have been fulminating about evil President Trump causing the cancellation of a “Pride” performance at the Kennedy Center by the D.C. Gay Men’s Chorus because he fired most of the D.C. venue’s woke board and assumed the post of chairman himself. It turned out that the performance had been cancelled before the President turned his sites on the Center, which, as I noted here earlier, asked for its slap-down after its partisan and disrespectful treatment of Trump during his first term.

Never mind: some talking heads on CNN and MSNBC have been trying to blame that Toronto air crash on Trump, so this kerfuffle is just more Trump Derangement in action.

The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C, reacted to the cancellation by saying in a statement: “We believe in the power of music to educate and uplift, to foster love, understanding, and community, and we regret that this opportunity has been taken away. While we are saddened by the decision, we are committed to this work and to our mission of raising our voices for equality for all. We will continue to advocate for artistic expression that reflects the depth and diversity of our community and country. We will continue to sing and raise our voices for equality.”

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I LOVE This Unethical Quote of the Eon From LA Mayor Karen Bass!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

“No one said you shouldn’t have gone on a trip.”

—Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in a local TV interview, explaining why she  flew to Ghana as the disastrous wildfires in her city had already started.

In addition to being a spectacularly desperate excuse for irresponsible and incompetent conduct, Mayor Bass’s statement is such a poor use of the English language that it is almost undecipherable. What she was trying to say is that nobody told her not to leave the city she is supposedly in charge of running to go on a junket to Africa as a life-and-death threat loomed.

Still, isn’t that statement great? First, it’s an easy Unethical Quote of—what, the month? The year? The millennium? Second, it is the equivalent of wearing a blinking neon sign that reads, “I am an incompetent!” as if the residents of her city that have two brain cells to rub together haven’t figured that out yet. Third, it’s a rationalization so desperate, impotent and moronic that one has to be about six to try it. (And yes, I must add “Bass’s Lament” to the list.) Let’s see:

Ken Lay, asked why he oversaw the Enron scam: “Nobody told me not to!”

Lance Armstrong, asked why he used banned doping techniques to win all those races: “Nobody told me not to!”

Richard Nixon, asked why he allowed the Watergate cover-up: “Nobody told me not to!”

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, asked why he organized the attack on Pearl Harbor: “Nobody told me not to!”

Bass’s excuse works for serial killers, rapists, cheating spouses, arsonists, and playground bullies. It’s so versatile!

The context of Bass’s instant classic was a recent interview on LA’s Fox 11 in which she explained Bass explained that the Biden administration asked her to go to the Ghana to represent the U.S. “It was going to be a very short trip – over a weekend and two business days.” Now, she told the outlet, she is mounting an investigation into why she was MIA when the city needed leadership most. We need to look at everything about the preparation and all of that for the fires… I think when we evaluate that, we will find that although there were warnings – that I frankly wasn’t aware of.” “I think our preparation wasn’t what it typically is,” the mayor continued, apparently unaware of the axiom, “When you are in a hole, stop digging.”  “That level of preparation really didn’t happen. If it had, I wouldn’t even have gone to San Diego, let alone leave the country…it didn’t reach that level to me.”

If you are wondering whether there is any chance that voters in single-party California will reconsider their knee-jerk political affiliations after the horrible performance of Bass, considered a star on the Democratic Party’s representatives of-color Congressional team (she was on Biden’s short list to be Vice-President), the answer is probably not, in part because Bass’s apparent unawareness of the concept of “accountability” is barely being publicized. I had to learn of it from the British tabloid “The Daily Mail.”

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Pointer: Old Bill

Tough Call: Who Is the Greater Ethics Dunce, David Hogg or the Democrats Who Elected Him Vice-Chair of the DNC? [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

David Hogg, had he not been a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a mass shooting occurred, might have grown up to be a useful, ethical, productive and emotionally healthy human being. Unfortunately, he is likely to be a lifetime victim of the shooting, for it propelled him into the career path of being a professional single-issue fanatic, America’s Greta Thunberg but on the issue of gun control rather than climate change. In an example of the chaos PTSD can wreak on the vulnerable, Hogg has been transformed into a cynical grifter by a mass-murderer’s bullets. It’s tragic, but that doesn’t mean his unethical conduct should be tolerated, much less rewarded.

Barely two weeks after his election as a Democratic National Committee official, Hogg began using DNC contact lists to solicit donations to his own political action committee, “Leaders We Deserve.” That PAC pays his salary of more than $100,000 a year, according to Federal Election Commission records. “David Hogg here: I was just elected DNC Vice Chair! This is a huge win for our movement to make the Democratic Party more reflective of our base: youthful, energetic, and ready to win,” reads one the texts he sent out to the DNC’s vast database. The texts include a link to his PAC.

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Sen. Ernst’s Bill Is Exactly the Kind of Responsible Policy Changes Occur When a Government Stops Using “It’s Just a Drop In the Bucket!” As Its Operating Philosophy

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

And before you ask, no “It’s just a drop in the bucket!” is not currently included in the EA Rationalization List. But it will be….

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa has submitted legislation, titled the “Presidential Allowance Modernization Act.” Under its reforms, former Presidents would receive a pension of $200,000 a year and a $200,000 allowance with cost of living adjustments every year. However, unlike the system currently in place, the allowance would be reduced if the former President earned more than $400,000 a year.

One is forced to ask, what took so long to come up with this change?

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VP Vance’s Speech and the Complete Unmasking of the Totalitarian American Left: Part II [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

That’s the chest of CNN’s Jake Tapper above. He was making a little frowny-face yesterday for the idiots viewing CNN who are too dim to realize that the accusatory headline is a non-sequitur, like “I like ice cream, can you swim?” The White House suspending the AP’s White House privileges—that’s privileges, which are distinct from rights, Jake—has nothing to do with freedom of speech or even the First Amendment, so the implied hypocrisy is more fake news.

Added: On “Twitter/X” J.D. Vance responded to another journalist making the same “point”:

The remarkably negative (and ignorant, and biased) Axis media reaction to J.D. Vance’s speech in Germany proves one again that as often as President Trump exaggerates, calling the news media the “enemy of the people” was neither excessive, unfair nor untrue. That’s exactly what it is. It is now the enemy of democracy as well, and nothing illustrates that better than the rush to condemn the Vice-President for telling European leaders to stop censoring speech based on political content.

It takes special chutzpah for any media organization to accuse Trump of stifling press coverage when he has made himself more accessible to the news media in less than a month than Joe Biden was in four years. I would also venture that the Associated Press could get more useful information surfing the web that it ever got from Biden’s idiotic, stumbling, incompetent, lazy paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre. The AP has proved itself conflicted, partisan and anti-Trump as well as unreliable. Why should it be entitled to attend press briefings instead of, say, Ethics Alarms?

Also on CNN, Nick Paton Walsh attacked Vance’s speech while defending censorship to prevent “authoritarian regimes.” This was the excuse used to justify banishing Trump from social media. I suppose it was also the excuse for blocking coverage of and commentary on Hunter Biden’s laptop on news platforms, Facebook and Twitter. Those who would punish and censor speech always have “reasons,” but the real reason is maintaining their own power and crippling the functioning of democracy. Just listen to this hack…

“Vance’s complaints struck at the heart of a key difference in the role of free speech in Europe and the United States, a much fresher democracy. In Europe, free speech is paramount and enshrined in law, but so is responsibility for the safety of citizens. Some European legal systems suggest this means you cannot falsely shout there is a “fire” in a crowded theater and escape punishment if the resulting stampede causes injury simply because you had the right to shout “fire.” In the United States, the First Amendment means you can shout whatever you want. In the smartphone and post-9/11 era, Europe has prohibited some extremist activity online. It is still illegal to advocate for the Nazis in Germany, and it should not be controversial or mysterious why. The wildly rebellious press across Europe are a vibrant sign of its free speech. And the fringe parties Vance objected to being absent in Munich are growing in their popularity. Nobody is really being shut down.”

Hilarious! Enshrined in law “but”! If speakers, writers and artists can be censored and punished for words and opinions that some authority rules “unsafe,” then there is no free speech. It’s amazing that advocates for censorship still use Oliver Wendell Holmes’ thoroughly discredited “shouting fire in a crowded theater” analogy. Ken White of Popehat, perhaps the sharpest and most eloquent blogger in captivity until he was infected with the Trump Derangement virus, decisively explained in “Three generations of a hackneyed apologia for censorship are enough” how Holmes’s famous opinion has been misused to defend government censorship of speech that mentions or threatens violence without actually inciting it on the spot. This includes “hate speech,” which is what many of the European countries outlaw and what the totalitarian Left here would love to outlaw in the U.S. “Hate speech” would mean “speech that progressives hate.” (Knucklehead Tim Walz said on national TV that “hate speech” isn’t protected by the First Amendment.) Walsh, like Walz, literally doesn’t know what he’s talking about; he is quoting an opinion he hasn’t read, and he definitely hasn’t bothered to read White’s explanation of why that defense of censorship is based on legal and constitutional ignorance.

CNN’s censorship rationalizing pales before CBS’s efforts, however. Incredibly, “Face the Nation’s” Margaret Brennan really and truly asserted to Marco Rubio that Hitler’s Germany used “freedom of speech” to spark the Holocaust. Kudos to the Secretary of State for not channeling Dan Ackroyd from the old Saturday Night Live “Point/Counterpoint” skit and responding, “Margaret you ignorant slut!” She deserved it.

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In the Rear-View Mirror: “Reflections On President’s Day, 2012: A United States Diminished in Power, Influence and Ideals”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On President’s Day in 2012, I wrote a dispirited assessment of where the United States stood regarding spreading American ideals and values to other nations. This was in the context of Barack Obama’s feckless foreign policy, which, as with his puppet stand-in later, Joe Biden, consisted of threats and warnings (remember Obama’s “red line” in Syria?) without credibility of resolve. I thought about the post as I was contemplating how J.D. Vance was getting mockery and criticism from the Axis because he exhorted our allies in Europe to begin a new commitment to freedom of speech.

The main thrust of the essay was the question of whether the United States should be “the world’s policeman,” a situation that now has fallen into ethics zugzwang: it is irresponsible for the U.S. not to accept the role of world policeman, and irresponsible for us to accept it either.

“Quite simply, we can’t afford it,” I wrote. “Not with a Congress and an Administration that appear unwilling and unable to confront rising budget deficits and crushing debt with sensible tax reform and unavoidable entitlement reductions.” I found the 13-year old post useful and thought provoking for perspective purposes. It raised many questions. Is the U.S. better off today than in 2012, when I was so depressed about its prospects and integrity? What does it mean to “make Amerca great again” in 2025?

I’ll have some more 2025 thoughts at the end. Here is the rest of that post:

***

Yesterday Congress and the President passed yet another government hand-out of money it doesn’t have and refuses to raise elsewhere, among other things continuing to turn unemployment insurance, once a short-term cushion for job-seekers, into long-term government compensation for the unemployed. Part of the reckless debt escalation was caused by the last President [George W. Bush] unconscionably engaging in overseas combat in multiple theaters without having the courage or sense  to insist that the public pay for it. The current administration [the Obama Administration] is incapable of grasping that real money, not just borrowed funds, needs to pay for anything. The needle is well into the red zone on debt; we don’t have the resources for any discretionary military action.

Ron Paul thinks that’s a good thing, as do his libertarian supporters. President Obama, it seems, thinks similarly. They are tragically wrong. Though it is a popular position likely to be supported by the fantasists who think war can just be wished away, the narrowly selfish who think the U.S. should be an island fortress, and those to whom any expenditure that isn’t used to expand  cradle-to-grave government care is a betrayal of human rights, the abandonment of America’s long-standing world leadership in fighting totalitarianism, oppression, murder and genocide is a catastrophe for both the world and us. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Christian Toto

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“‘SNL’ became hyper-partisan and abandoned bipartisan satire. ‘SNL,’ like the legacy media, mostly ignored President Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline, the most stark example of its liberal bias. Show founder Lorne Michaels pretends the show remains nonpartisan. Reality says otherwise. Screams it, to be precise.”

—“Hollywood in Toto” blogger Christian Toto as tonight’s much hyped “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” looms.

My sock drawer organization is in true crisis, so I had programmed my schedule to handle that task tonight long before I knew of the special. Otherwise, I would have certainly wa…oh, who am I kidding? No I wouldn’t have watched the show if my Roku was malfunctioning and the only alternatives were re-runs of “Rosanne” and “Hart to Hart.” As Toto correctly explains, the show betrayed its mission, its origins, its original fans (like me), the culture, and the tradition of political humor, satire and comedy itself.

Toto points out that “Saturday Night Live” had the power, influence and ability to be at the forefront of a counter-culture revolution. In doing so, it would have been a national unifying force, holding the excesses—and it has been almost all excesses—of the extreme progressive capture of the Democratic Party to the public ridicule and derisive finger-pointing it deserved and needed. James Carville recently ranted that “It’s like, there’s a plant somewhere in quote–progressive—unquote America, that just to seize how many jackass, stupid things that they can embrace. It’s stunningly stupid.”

But apparently not stupid enough to be funny.

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