Journalism & Media

Ethics Notes on the Reagan National Airport Collision Aftermath

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I live less than 15 minutes from Reagan National Airport, so last night’s deadly collision between an American Airlines commuter jet and an Army helicopter from Fort Belvoir was just about the only news available on satellite or network after 9 pm. yesterday. Why, after all this time, is this still the practice in news reporting? All four local networks, plus the PBS outlet, and CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, reported exactly the same lack of developments for the rest of the evening. This used to puzzle me when there was a major news story when I was a kid. The practice makes no sense, wastes money, and leads to not-so-bright people, which is to say most talking heads and reporters on the scene, to resort to saying silly things to fill dead air. What is this, virtue-signaling? To show they care? Why don’t all of broadcast news sources have an advance, rotating agreement for one of them to cover these things after the others put up a screen that states, “We at [station or network] care about X, and you will find complete coverage at [the designated pool broadcast location]. We will let you know about any substantive developments”?

Literally nothing happened last night after the crash itself and the rescue teams arrived. Reagan quickly announced that it was suspending flights at least until morning. Meanwhile, we were hearing dumb statements. A couple of far away videos of the accident showed a tiny light, the aircraft, being met by another tiny light, the copter, followed by brief flash and a hint of something falling into the Potomac. These videos would have had to be explained if one saw them out of context, yet one of the newscasters introducing one felt required to issue a trigger warning: “We must warn you, these images are extremely disturbing.” No, they weren’t. Anyone who is extremely disturbed by little flashes of light needs to be in a home for the bewildered.

At around 11 pm, someone on CNN felt the need to ask some guest in the airline industry who had nothing substantive to say, “What would you tell anyone watching who fears for her life and those of her loved ones in future flights as a result of this tragedy?” The guest blathered something innocuous, but should have said, “I would recommend that anyone who reacts like that brush up on their understanding of statistics and critical thinking. This event has literally no significance as far as calculating the safety of air travel.” The exchange reminded me of the argument I had just had with my occasionally woke-addled sister, who said that she was fearful of going to a movie theater because of the risks posed by legal semi-automatic rifles being legal. (She isn’t really, but was desperate for an anti-Second Amendment argument.) Even asking a question like that makes the vulnerable, the hysterical and the stupid (Hey, wasn’t that the title of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western?) dumber still. It’s irresponsible and incompetent.

Continue reading →

Sanctuary! Well, Not So Much…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

It is mordantly amusing to listen to progressives on MSNBC bemoan the incursion of ICE into the “sanctuary” of churches attempting to extend their invisible force field around illegal immigrants. These are the same people who have shown no respect or reverence for Americans who assert their religious beliefs regarding, to take one infamous example, compelled speech.

In the case of church sanctuary, they are oh, a couple centuries behind the times. Allowing a church to harbor criminals and others sought by the state is a tradition that goes back to Roman times, and here and there it has been bolstered by the law. Not here and now however. The tradition makes no sense in modern times, and if churches have no legal grounds to protect lawbreakers, the claims of so-called sanctuary cities and states are weaker still.

The political and ideological Left has dashed itself on the rocks of illegal immigration, and based on some of the talking head nonsense I saw on MSNBC and CNN today, they are still dashing. When they are not crying “Think of the children!” (Note: law-breaking parents who put their children in untenable positions by their parents’ conduct are 100% accountable for those children’s plight) the apologists for illegal border-crossers are asserting that they are “human beings” and deserve to “have their humanity respected and recognized.” That’s fine: nobody denies that they are human beings. They are also human beings who do not belong in the United States.

This, for some strange reason, seems difficult for some progressives and Axis hacks to grasp. One of the two women I saw rending their garments over the Trump deportation policy, stuttered, babbled, shrugged, sighed and finally said, “I just can’t believe that this is happening! It’s so cruel!” Her partner in absurd “Good Illegal Immigrant” rhetoric nodded and agreed that deporting illegal immigrants who weren’t violent criminals is a violation of human rights.

There is apparently, according to these revolutionaries, a human right to live anywhere you want to. This is pure “Imagine-ism,” probably caused by hearing John Lennon’s fatuous paean to brainless utopianism one time too many. Both women also bemoaned the “collateral damage” of deportations. All law enforcement has “collateral damage” to families and others who depend on the law-breakers. That is a reason not to break laws, not to stop enforcing them.

***

Bonus cultural literacy quiz: Who is that lovely young actress playing Esmeralda in that clip from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”? No cheating, now: this is an ethics blog…

Pundit Malpractice, Part II: A Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Masterpiece From “The Hill”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is truly a “Hold my beer!” moment to savor from “The Hill.” David Brooks’ fake history lesson, draped in his usual smarty-pants rhetoric, was unforgivable, but The Hill’s opinion piece with the click-bait title, “Blue Alert: Why Democrats are poised to win in 2028 and 2032” is so silly, lazy and idiotic that even Brooks gets leave to make fun of it.

Authored by GOP operatives Gary D. Alexander and Rick Cunningham, the thing makes it crystal clear how the Republican Party got the moniker “The Stupid Party” if it pays for advice from people capable of writing such junk. To state the obvious, Democrats aren’t “poised” to do anything at this point. The party has no leader; its President just exited the White House with one of the worst six months in Presidential annals; its Senators made asses of themselves in the hearings on Trump’s nominees so far, and its House members have declared themselves fans of biological men spiking volleyballs that crush women’s faces and illegal aliens who rape and kill. Its DEI Presidential candidate ran an embarrassing campaign while the party’s platform became “Abort more babies” and “Having a rally in Madison Square Garden proves Trump is Hitler.” Poised? Poisoned is more like it.

The article flags itself as bonkers by the third sentence, asserting that Democrats were already in an advantageous position to win in 2032. That’s eight years from now: I’m going to forgo the amusing but needless exercise of pointing out how unpredictable American political fortunes have been even two years in the future for most of our history. In eight years, the little fifth grade girl next door will be on the pill and registered to vote. Ah, but these two swamis write that their entrails readings “are deeply rooted in history and strategic realities.” You know, like Brooks’ one-term Presidents proving that populism doesn’t work.

Let’s examine these “realities”:

Continue reading →

Pundit Malpractice, Part I: David Brooks, Making The Public More Ignorant About History Than They Already Are

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What excuse does David Brooks have for publishing manifestly false Presidential history as part of the usual New York Times anti-Trump propaganda? None that I can see. He styles himself as a thoughtful public intellectual. He majored in history at Columbia. Okay, he is Canadian but he lives here and is presented by the New York Times as an authority.

I have to presume that if he writes a column with flat-out false information about U.S. political history, he is misleading the public intentionally or, just as unethically, he didn’t check his facts. Of course the New York Times editors don’t hold him to being factual, responsible or ethical. They let Charles M. Blow, Michelle Goldberg and their other biased hacks get away with worse most days. But I expect them to lie. I expect Brooks to be wrong, but at least to get his facts right.

Nope.

In the obnoxiously headlined “How Trump Will Fail,” Brooks tells us that “Trump has gone all 19th century on us. He seems to find in this period everything he likes: tariffs, Manifest Destiny, seizing land from weaker nations, mercantilism, railroads, manufacturing and populism.” At least he hasn’t embraced the version of America pushed by the Biden Administration: open borders, government censorship, racial discrimination, political prosecutions, puppet Presidencies and government cover-up journalism. The main thrust of Brooks’ analysis is that “populism” doesn’t work and has never worked in the U.S.. Brooks’ sneer at the American values of individualism, personal responsibility, exploration, confidence, exceptionalism and capitalism is palpable.

Continue reading →

The Hegseth Confirmation, and Great Moments in Ethics Estoppel: The Concern That New DOD Sec. Hegseth Won’t Be Ready “24-7”

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I probably wouldn’t have voted for Pete Hegseth to be Trump’s DOD Secretary; certainly not until he answered a lot of crucial questions he never was asked. He should have been grilled about the extent of his management, oversight and negotiation experience, but the Democrats, because they have no principles, decided to use the Kavanaugh strategy to slime him (because that worked so well the first time).

Hegseth is easily the worst of Trump’s major appointments, and the fact that he was confirmed last night (by the narrowest margin possible) demonstrates that the terror expressed by the Trump Deranged that unlike last time around, the Republicans in Congress are inclined to help their party’s President achieve his goals rather than obstruct them is justified. (To that, my reaction is “Tough. You have nobody but your own party to blame, along with people like you who enabled and supported an arrogant, incompetent, corrupt, untrustworthy, and increasingly totalitarianism-embracing government.”)

This morning I decided to surf between MSNBC and CNN to hear the screams of the Axis propagandists who hang out there [Oh NOOO! ICE is really arresting illegals! Oh NOOO! Trump is making villains like Anthony Fauci pay for their own security details! Oh NOOO! Trump is killing DEI!] When they weren’t screaming about all of that, they were indignant that someone was now leading the Pentagon who could not be trusted to be ready for a crisis phone call every hour of the day, 365 days a year. These assorted partisan hacks and the Democratic party “contributors” who joined in their self-righteous lament are ethically estopped from making that complaint about Hegseth.

Continue reading →

Awww, Some Law School Seniors Just Had Their Job Offers Revoked By That Mean President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The New York Times and other sources are weeping with the dozens of recent law school graduates whose job offers were rescinded by the Justice Department after the students thought they were about to begin entry-level positions in its antitrust, criminal, civil rights, immigration and national security divisions, and at the F.B.I. This is another good example of how the Times cannot help itself from spinning and editorializing in a partisan manner even the most straightforward story. “The offers were made through the Attorney General’s Honors Program,” sayeth the Times, “which has functioned without controversy,” for decades, it says. See? This is so unfair! Except the fact that something has avoided controversy doesn’t mean it should be free from change, reform, or even elimination. “The program appears to be the latest target of Trump political appointees intent on reversing even the most workaday decisions made by their predecessors,” sniffs the paper. Oooh, these were political appointees who obviously don’t understand a good program when they see one. And those MAGA Nazis want to mess with harmless, innocent, inconsequential “workaday” decisions! (Pssst! Hiring lawyers is never a “workaday” decision, or shouldn’t be, even in the Justice Department.)

Continue reading →

Two Executive Orders, One Extra-Constitutional, the Other Unconstitutional (and Unethical Too)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Let’s talk about the “un”-EO first. Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order to end automatic citizenship for babies born on American soil, the so called “anchor baby” phenomenon. Three days after Trump issued his executive order, the judge sided with the first four states that sued, saying, “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.” 22 states, along with activist groups and expectant mothers, have now filed lawsuits to halt order on the grounds that it violates the 14th Amendment. Courts have always interpreted the amendment’s section stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” as applying to (almost) every baby born in the United States.

“Frankly,” Judge Coughenour added, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” Well, lawyers don’t usually state propositions, even Hail Mary theories like this one equivocally. I think Trump’s lawyers told him that the order would almost certainly be found unconstitutional, and maybe they told him that it is unconstitutional. I am pretty certain it is, and that nothing short of a Constitutional amendment can change the law.

Continue reading →

Again, Hall of Fame Ethics, and Again, Ethically Inert Sportswriters Want To Elect Steroid Cheats

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I know I’ve written a ridiculous number of posts about the logical, institutional and ethical absurdity of electing baseballs’s steroid cheats to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but I have sworn to slap this down every time it rears its metaphorical ugly head until my dying day.

The 2025 Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted Ichiro Suzuki (one vote shy of being a unanimous selection), CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner into the Hall. Three quick ethics notes on this. First, whoever it was who left Suzuki off his ballot should be kicked out of the association using the equivilent of the Ethics Alarms “Stupidity Rule.” He is not only a qualified Hall of Famer, but belongs among the upper echelon of Hall of Famers with the likes of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Rogers Hornsby.

Second, I have no problem with CC Sabathia making the Hall, but that he was elected just a couple of months after Red Sox star Luis Tiant was rejected by a veteran’s committee, probably ending his Hall of Fame chances for good, shows just how arbitrarily the standards for Hall admission are applied. Tiant was objectively better than Sabathia, a bigger star, and while CC was a flashy presence on the mound, Tiant was more so. Luis (or “Loooooie!” as he was known in Fenway Park) died last year, and had said that if they weren’t going to let him into the Hall while he was alive, they shouldn’t bother after he was dead. Maybe the voters were just honoring his wishes…

Continue reading →

“Superman II” Plot: After Trump-Deranged Sen. Murphy Makes An Ass of Himself, Vogue Says “Hold My Beer”…

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

The previous post discussed the level of hysteria now being attained by the Trump Deranged, with a U.S. Senator yesterday joining in the bonkers conspiracy theory that the Trump administration is a cabal of actual Nazis . Chris Murphy’s echoing the ridiculous Big Lie that Elon Musk gave a deliberate Nazi salute—you know, like Superman when he’s flying—

….managed to surpass even the late campaign claims by the dumbest sub-species among the Axis of Unethical Conduct that Trump was emulating the American Nazi Party when he held a campaign rally in Madison Square Garden. Yes, the Nazi salute smear on Musk is even worse than that, though redolent of the “OK” secret white supremacy hand signal insanity that the Mad Left used to slime everyone from lawyers to baseball fans during Trump’s first term.

Here is Vogue, writing about the cool necklace Ketanji Brown Jackson (above) wore to the inauguration:

Continue reading →

The Prospective Pardons Are Legal But Unethical and Dangerous [Updated Twice]

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

When Ethics Alarms decided what had been a close competition between Woodrow Wilson and Joe Biden for “Worst President Ever,” I honestly thought all of the evidence was in. There were only eight days to go, after all; it had finally been made sufficiently clear that our so-called President was on his way to becoming a zucchini, and worse, had been transitioning for years under the protection of an Axis cover-up. But then came Biden’s endorsement of censorship and the most unethical exit speech in U.S. Presidential history, followed by Biden’s embarrassing announcement that he was ruling the 28th Amendment ratified when it was not. Today, I woke up to the news that Biden had issued prospective pardons to Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who betrayed his country with unauthorized contact with China; Dr. Fauci, the perjuring, lying, Deep State hack who was significantly responsible for the disastrous response to the Wuhan virus, Trump Deranged former Representative Liz Cheney and all the other members of the Pelosi-rigged House committee that dragged out and manipulated a partisan investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.

The close call now is whether this last official act by Biden is the worst of the batch. It may well be.

To chase the metaphorical elephant out of the room, prospective pardons are legal, constitutional, and probably irreversible. Presidents have issued general pardons applying to groups of people involving many offenses yet to be proven, and many times. There have been at least thirty amnesties before puppet Joe entered the White House: Presidents Lincoln and Andrew Johnson issued them during and after the Civil War to benefit Confederates, and Jimmy Carter issued a mass pardon for Vietnam war draft dodgers. My favorite was President Madison’s 1815 pardon of pirate Jean Lafitte and his crew, who joined Andy Jackson’s American forces at the Battle of New Orleans. Madison’s grateful proclamation covered all who assisted in the defense of Louisiana in the battle (that occurred after the War of 1812 had ended), granting “a full and free pardon of all offenses committed in violation of any act or acts of the Congress of the said United States touching the revenue, trade, and navigation thereof or touching the intercourse and commerce of the United States with foreign nations at any time before the 8th day of January, in the present year 1815, by any person or persons whomsoever being inhabitants of New Orleans and adjacent country, or being inhabitants of the said island of Barrataria and the places adjacent . . .”

The fact that this vague and general sweeping Presidential pardon was issued by James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, makes it about as irrefutable a precedent as one could ask for. And thus the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the pardon power “extends to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency or after conviction and judgment.”

Nonetheless, just because one can do something (or get away with it) doesn’t mean it is ethical, prudent, responsible or right. Biden’s pardons for alleged crimes never investigated or proven to individuals holding his favor stretches the existing precedents to the breaking point, or perhaps gagging point is a more apt description. After all, Jean Lafitte was a pirate; the Confederate soldiers fought against their country, and the draft-dodgers were, you know, draft dodgers. Even Richard Nixon, pardoned by President Ford in what may be the nearest thing to a precedent for Biden’s pardons today, was a President of the United States whose potential indictable crimes had only been uncovered in the course of a House impeachment inquiry. At that point, the precedent could have been limited by those not insignificant details. Then came Biden’s Once and Future pardon of his black sheep son for crimes he had been convicted of committing and anything else he might have done yet undiscovered, just in case darling Hunter has been a serial killer when he wasn’t high. Today’s pardons take us to the end of the slippery slope.

Continue reading →