Journalism & Media

Another Unethical Website of the Month, But This One Is Scary…The Democratic Socialists of America

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

Behold the official website of the Democratic Socialists of America. Unless it is a false flag effort by frightened Democrats or sneaky conservatives, this is a metaphorical smoking gun of epic proportions. Yet its content should not surprise anyone who has any historical perspective or who has been paying attention for the last, oh, two decades or so.

As for me, my inner Fredo is again saying, “I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everyone says!” I’d like to find the first time Ethics Alarms started warning that the American Left and the 21st Century Democratic Party was sliding into totalitarian goals and tactics, but I know it was quite a while ago. I also know that EA’s objective analysis of this terrible political development, which creates a genuine threat to democracy unlike the fake threats to democracy heralded by Axis propagandists, was perceived as a partisan tactic itself and attacked as such, here and elsewhere. That was and is wrong for I was and am right, and it didn’t take any Fox News script to lead me to the truth. I was paying attention. Democrats were using the playbook of Communist regimes while accusing their adversaries of doing what they were doing themselves. And it should have been obvious to everyone. I’m not that smart. Heck, Donald Trump figured it out.

Now, suddenly, after sowing these metaphorical dragons’ teeth and getting the predictable bumper crop, some progressives and Democrats are waking up to what their cynical pandering to the anti-American, radical and ignorant extremes on the Left has wrought. Bill Maher, Van Jones, James Carville, Joe Scarborough, Senator Fetterman and others are suddenly saying, “Hey, hold on a bit, these Democratic Socialists are crazy, and they are going to get us slaughtered in elections.” To which I respond with two Hollywood clips from the EA archive:

I have no sympathy for these fools, and the group includes a lot of my Trump Deranged friends and relatives. They allowed Bernie Sanders, the epitome of a communist “useful idiot,” to become the face of the Democratic party along with “the Squad” and now the mayor of New York City. They relied on the our broken education system’s indoctrination process to ensure the ignorance of much of the public, especially Gen Z and, to be blunt, stupid people. Now all those ignorant voters are threatening to expose just how irresponsible and unhinged the Left has become, making even the hated Republicans and their boorish POTUS look safe by comparison.

You really have to read the rhetoric on the website, but I’ll give you just an appetizer to get you started, as readers are told what like under a socialist (<cough!> communist <cough!>) regime will be like:

“You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities…OK, enough about bills. What do you do on your day off?…what if you were free to spend your time how you like without worrying about cost or dreading going back to work? What if you didn’t have to think about paying rent or loans at the end of the month, or saving for college, or affording groceries?”

I have to note that all of the graphics pander to “people of color,” like this sweet portrayal of the average American family:

Read it all.

_______________________

Pointer: Steve Witherspoon

Unethical Quote of the Month: The Minnesota Star Tribune

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“Vang’s actions 20 years ago were awful, but so were the violent protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan.6, 2021, and those folks received Presidential pardons.”

—–The Minnesota Star, cheering on Gov. Tim “Knucklehead” Walz’s sick decision to pardon a serial child rapist in an attempt to foil efforts to deport him.

No one can trust a news source capable of putting such illogical, unethical garbage in print. Defense by non-sequitur! “Sure, he raped a child repeatedly for years, but Jeffrey Dahmer ate people!” There is no basis for comparison between the J-6 rioters, all citizens and jailed, some for a couple of years, for a single act, and a non-citizen who never spent a day in prison despite pleading guilty to multiple child rapes. The Star’s bizarre logic doesn’t even rise to the level of the worst of all rationalizations, Rationalization #22, The Comparative Virtue Excuse, or “There are worse things.” Is the idea that Walz trying to let a child molester stay in his state is good because Trump’s pardon of the rioters wasn’t? What is the Star trying to say? Do the editors even know?

Then the Star’s grand finale is to quote with approval another one of Walz’s idiotic outbursts. “Taking them out with no due process”? Vang received a final order of removal in October 2006! There was due process to spare.

Not for the first time, I find myself wondering how the once great state of Minnesota came to such a precipitous decline in values and common sense. Once represented by the likes of Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy, it is led by a principle-free, incompetent fool, with an addled newspaper like the Star warping the news to disguise his incompetence. Minnesotans used to be smart, creative, rational. They had standards, they had pride. What happened? Now they are sitting by while their state’s #1 paper applauds their Governor for pardoning a child rapist, and one who made it clear that he doesn’t think raping children is anything to get upset about. Americans are just weirdly prudish about such things!

So the citizens of Minnesota just nod their heads as their governor first pardons the man who rapes little girls and pays them to keep quiet, because Kamala choice’s to be VP wants to foil efforts to remove criminal non-citizens. They keep nodding as that governor describes years of multiple rapes as the rapist’s “worst day” [Vang didn’t think they were bad days at all], and nod some more as the Star calls Walz a hero for trying to inflict a sexual predator on their state permanently.

What is that? Brain damage? Hypnosis? Insanity?

I just don’t understand.

Ethics Quiz: The “Protected Species”

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

For a sports league that few care about and fewer watch, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) sure gets into a lot of ethics controversies. Take this one, for example:

The WNBA suspended Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello without pay for one game after she referred to black Atlanta Dream star Angel Reese as a “protected species” in a remark that was picked up by a hot mic during a game.

In the Dream’s 111-92 win over the Tempo last week a Toronto player had a foul called on her after an offensive rebound tussle involving Reese. As the foul call was being reviewed, Brondello yelled at the referees, “Angel…she’s a protected species!” The WNBA announced the next day that Brondello must sit out the Tempo’s next game, and won’t be paid for it, adding,”The WNBA expects all coaches and team personnel to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and respect that are fundamental to our league.”

Brondello, who is white, had issued a written apology earlier, reflexively groveling so she wouldn’t be cancelled as a racist in a league where 81% of the players are “of color.” She wrote,

“Angel, I’m sorry. Last night, in the emotion of the moment after Nyara’s injury, I used a phrase that I shouldn’t have used, and I take full responsibility for that. My frustration was with the officiating, but my words unfairly put the focus on you. I also understand that my words carried an impact beyond what I intended, particularly for Black women in our league, and I’m deeply sorry for that. I’ve spent my career competing with, coaching and learning from incredible Black women. I regret that my words caused hurt to a community I respect so deeply. I have a lot of respect for you as both a player and a person, and I sincerely apologize to you, your teammates, and the Dream organization for my comment.”

Reese, meanwhile, couldn’t resist the urge to play victim and to imply that either everyone knows that Brondello is a bigot or that white people in general think of blacks as a separate species. She piled on thusly on “X”:

Nice. What Brondello should have said about Reese was “She’s an asshole.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was it fair and responsible for the WNBA to suspend Brondello for calling a black star a “protected species”?

Zach Dean, a pan-sports commentator for Outkick, the conservative sports commentary website absorbed by Fox New, pronounced the suspension wrongful and even dangerous. He wrote in part,

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Dear NPR: I Guess Your Listeners Like Being Lied To But I Don’t, So Stay The Hell Out Of My In-Box…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

One way you can tell with 100% certainly brainwashed (or dishonest) progressives is if they complain about NPR and PBS losing their government funding. It is the watermark of “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” gaslighting. This morning I received an unsolicited and unwelcome exhortation in my email inbox from the propagandist above, insulting my intelligence by seeking my money by telling me…

A billion-dollar hit to our industry is enough to make any Chief Financial Officer sweat. And that’s exactly what happened to public media one year ago today, when Congress voted to eliminate federal funding.  My job as NPR’s CFO isn’t just to balance the books; it’s to protect a vital public asset. Today, I’m asking you to take action with me.

The NPR Network cannot back down on our mission because we know that millions of people rely on this trusted journalism and programming. And, I am so grateful that we don’t need to back down because supporters like you stand with us. Our strength – and our independence – has always come from you, the public. The NPR Network continues because the public decides it will. 

I can tell you firsthand: you can’t run a world-class, independent newsroom on hope. A free press doesn’t just happen.  Public media needs growing, reliable financial support to fuel essential reporting and build what’s next.  Now is the time to give. Not just for yourself, but for our collective right to know the facts. Your donation of any amount is needed. Every dollar makes a difference.

Power to the public,

Daphne Kwon

P.S. When you make a donation to support this essential public service, you declare that you value access to the facts, for all.

“Access to all the facts”!

By pure coincidence, shortly after reading that garbage I saw that Newsbusters had posted some of the transcript of NPR’s anchor A Martinez (he humbly doesn’t claim to be THE Martinez) interview Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn) regarding President Trump’s recent televised speech. Highlights, as the Axis hack repeatedly invited the Democrat to attack the President and provided no balance or skepticism whatsoever:

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Ten Ethics Points On Trump’s “Prime Time Address”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

1. The President has gotten much better at delivering speeches from a teleprompter which means that he’s worked on it, something neither George W. Bush or John McCain had the commitment and diligence to do. Trump was always better when riffing, but that led into interminable, unfocused rants, like his infamous 2024 nomination acceptance speech. Last night’s speech was, for Trump, remarkably crisp, succinct, and well-delivered.

2. As he was starting off, making the speech feel like a State of the Union message, I could see in my mind’s eye all the “lies” that the Axis fact-checkers would complain about this morning. I wish the President didn’t have to describe everything he views as an accomplishment in hyperbolic terms, as a superlative: “the best,” “the greatest,” “the biggest.” Surely he must know that the habit automatically invites skepticism: if some achievement really was the best, Trump would have a difficult time getting anyone to believe it. Isn’t there an advisor, a friend, a supporter, someone who could tell him this is a self-defeating approach?

3. My vote for the most unethical hyperbole last night: “This country was dead.”

4. The President was pointed as he brought out into the open the Deep State sabotage and the mainstream media propaganda that has hindered both of his terms. Good.

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A “Kaufman” For People Magazine

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

As it doesn’t come up that often, once again I must review what the Ethics Alarms “Kaufman” designation signifies. I hand out the award for alleged ethics violation or other news stories so unremarkable and trivial that they are literally not worth talking about or thinking about, except to note how foolish it was to raise the matter in the first place. From the EA glossary:

“George S. Kaufman  was a celebrated wit and playwright (“The Man Who Came To Dinner”, “You Can’t Take It With You”, and many more, usually in tandem with Moss Hart),  and he moonlighted as a panelist on the  early TV  show, “This is Show Business,” which often featured a celebrity who would consult the panel members about a personal problem. On one show, singer Eddie Fisher ( father of Carrie and Isla, husband of Debbie Reynolds and, scandalously, adulterous lover and eventual pre-Richard Burton spouse of Elizabeth Taylor) wanted advice from the panel because desirable women refused to go out with him because of his youth. Kaufman ‘s unsympathetic reply:

“Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope.  The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope. Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”

A “Kaufman” is awarded when someone, usually in the news media, makes a big deal about something so trivial and unremarkable that it demands apathy. We are all familiar with fake news, and one of its more annoying sub-categories are stories that are presented and framed as news that aren’t news at all. People Magazine just came out with a doozy, as “Hazel” used to say on the long-running sitcom that nobody but me remembers: “Mom Defends Decision to Give Her Daughter an Unconventional Name: ‘It Just Felt Perfect’ (Exclusive)”

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Ethics Hero: Reporter Rachel Menitoff

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This is a companion piece to yesterday’s celebratory post honoring the DoorDash driver who completed her delivery after being hit by a car. With her “the show must go on!” exemplary professionalism, Menitoff’s composure under extreme “EW!” has to be cheered, and, arguably, was even more impressive than Miracle’s performance under duress.

Menitoff was reporting live for KTLA in Los Angeles on the lingering effects of Southern California’s heat wave when a huge flying cockroach landed on her shoulder and crawled across her chest.

“And it’s a lot more comfortable at this hour, but we’re still in the 80s here in the Valley,” Menitoff was saying, “So overnight temperatures aren’t necessarily dropping, and this leads to less recovery time from the daytime heat…” Meanwhile, the ugly thing was visible as it scurried across her stomach, chest and neck before jumping onto her microphone, presumably to make a statement.

Only after the live shot ended did Menitoff exclaim, “Oh gosh! Oh, I feel something,” and try to deal with the bug. “I knew it was on me,” she said later. “But I knew if I took notice of it, I wouldn’t be able to continue on with the report. So I said to myself, just get through this moment and then kind of shake it off.”

Brava. Unfortunately, since everything is political now, even this incident was quickly exploited for partisan effect. In a classic of over-reach, Vigilante ex-mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt shared the clip on X to criticize Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is challenging incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the 2026 mayoral race. Pratt said the insect symbolized conditions in Raman’s council district, where the Rachel’s report took place.

Ben Franklin’s Curse

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

The House this week passed a measure, the Sunshine Protection Act, that would set America’s clocks to daylight saving time permanently once it clears the Senate and is signed into law by the President. The bill itself raises no ethics issues at all: it is the reactions to it and the reasons, real and alleged, for those reactions that ping ethics alarms.

The headline is tongue-in-cheek, incidentally. Most of my life I heard that Daylight Savings Time was Ben Franklin’s idea. Ben was an amazingly prolific innovator and out-of-the-box thinker, but he was not the originator of the practice, so we can neither blame him nor praise him. Another myth is that DST was implemented for the benefit of farmers. Actually, farmers have been one of the strongest opponents of DST because the factors that influence farming schedules, like dairy cattle’s readiness to be milked, are dictated by the sun, so clocks going back and forth just complicates things. In general, Retailers, sports, and tourism interests like daylight saving, while agricultural and evening-entertainment interests do not.

Personally, I just want one time in place all year, because the changeover is traumatic for me whenever it happens. I have a long list of screw-ups, missed deadlines and meetings on my record. I bet no year has ever passed without one.

Like so many policies, the Daylight Savings Time tradition has had and continues to have all manner of unintended consequences, and those are controversial too. There is some data that shows that crime and accidents are reduced by DST, but precise causation issues make such data inherently dubious. A 2017 analysis of 44 studies concluded that DST leads to electricity savings of 0.3%, but we now know, or should, we can’t trust studies because we can’t trust the reseachers who perform them. Ditto for a 2017 study in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics that estimated that “the transition into DST caused over 30 deaths at a social cost of $275 million annually,” primarily by increasing sleep deprivation. Another study claimed that hospitals see a 24% increase in heart attacks and a 6% increase in fatal crashes each year when the time changes.

President Trump has advocated permanent Daylight Savings Time, so that’s enough for the Axis of Unethical Conduct to oppose it. Predictably, the Washington Post rushed to publish “Why standard time is better for your health than daylight saving time: A proposed bill would make daylight saving time permanent. But standard time is actually better for your body, according to science.”

According to science! Even the Post’s readers tended to agree that this take was hooey. A typical reaction:

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Today’s “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Note [ADDED: A Special Rebuke To A Banned Commenter]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The story is sad but not exactly one that should inspire much sympathy. From the AP report:

“A man running from an encounter with immigration and other federal agents in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor trailer on Tuesday, authorities said….The 28-year-old was among four occupants of a vehicle that stopped in the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store in the St. Augustine area before 7 a.m. During an encounter with agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations, the four fled on foot, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi…”

Let’s be clear, now: a man was eluding law enforcement officials when he ran across a “busy road” and was hit by a truck. There are exactly two possible parties responsible for that death: the man running across the road, and the truck driver. There is nobody else to blame, and finding the truck driver responsible requires a quite stretch. Here is how the Associated Press characterizes the fatality, however:

“It was the third death in a week involving encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, following shootings in Texas and Maine…It was at least the 10th death involving encounters with immigration agents since President Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign last year.”

That is pure deceit and indecent false framing. In cases where an individual dies at the hands of ICE agents, justifiably or not, the conduct of the agents can be fairly considered factors in the deaths. However, an individual who resists arrest and recklessly flees into the grill of a truck has not been killed by ICE, nor is ICE responsible for the death. The dead man would be alive if he obeyed law enforcement, as anyone in this country is obligated to do. He chose to run into traffic; ICE didn’t make him do that.

Never mind, though. You know we’ll be reading diatribes from the open borders fanatics that the dead man had a family, and was a respected member of the community, and he is dead because of Trump’s Gestapo. The Associated Press (and others) enable these advocates for illegal immigration with their deliberate anti-ICE and Trump Deranged spin. Naturally, other agents of pro-illegal immigration propaganda will add this death to the total that we will see repeatedly cited to show how “brutal” the enforcement of our immigration laws are.

Rep. Gill’s Question To Rep. Pressley: More Than a “Gotcha!”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

An exchange yesterday between Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) and Republican Representative Brandon Gill during a House hearing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives is rapidly going “viral” this morning, no thanks to any left-leaning news aggregators and the Axis media, which are trying to ignore it.

During the hearing, Representative Pressley criticized Republican anti-DEI policies as harmful to women (translation: not discriminating against men is harmful to women) and in her usual obnoxious “I wish I didn’t have to deal with these racist idiots” air asked Representative Gill to support her legislation to support the justly dead-in-the-water Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Gill immediately responded, “Does it define what a woman is?” and was met with crickets by Pressley, who pretended he hadn’t said that and muttered weakly, “I look forward to your signing on.” Gill, triumphant, replied, “I just was hoping for some analytical clarity, but thank you.”

Gil’s question was deft and significant. It instantly drew attention to the intellectual dishonesty, internal contradictions and the procrustean nature of so many progressive obsessions, including affirmative action (violating laws against discrimination in order to remedy discrimination), trans-female sports competition (harming biological women by warping Title IX) and, of course, DEI.

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