Leadership

Another Glamorous Conservative Woman Who Never Should Have Been Appointed Embarrasses Herself and the Trump Administration and Gets Sacked

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Wait, isn’t that Kristi Noem? No, too young; it has to be Pam Bondi, right? No? It can’t be Kimberly Guilfoyle, she’s a brunette. I’ve got it: that’s Katie Zacharia! No?

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sick of this pattern. The Biden administration may have put a lot of incompetent, unqualified women in various positions based on DEI bias, but hiring women because somebody thinks they are hot and have sexy hair is just as unethical, and arguably even worse.

“MAGA Barbie” is a derisive moniker these days used to describe Indiana Fever WNBA guard Sophie Cunningham, but she’s actually very good at her job (playing women’s pro basketball) as well as her avocation (calling out the racist, anti-white lesbian thugs in her league and reminding the public that biological males have no right to play women’s sports). I think it would be wise to apply expand the employment of the term to professional bimbos like former ESPN reporter and Fox News personality Britt McHenry, who was just fired as a US State Department press adviser.

How hard is it to behave in a dignified, professional fashion when you know you represent the United States and also know that everyone has a camera at the ready to record your behavior in public? Too hard, I guess, for people like McHenry—you know, morons.

McHenry, 40, was hired as the Trump State Department press adviser covering Europe and Africa. Despite the fact that she also was responsible for handling press for Kimberly Guilfoyle’s text message scandal (Heluva job, there, Britt!), she was promoted three days ago to a new job managing External Affairs & Press for Under Secretary Jacob Helberg’s team. Then she did this, according to the New York Post:

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Stay Classy, College Football!

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

As I will argue here until the metaphorical cows come home, football is a cultural embarrassment and a societal pathogen. In addition to that “giving players brain damage” thingy, both colleges and the pros allow their players to be felons and thugs if they are good enough. The King’s Pass reigns. Colleges now pay their football players, so they are truly fake students. The game (aka. business) advances the corruption of higher education. We once were told that a benefit of sports was that it conveyed the value of sportsmanship ( as in “ethics”) to rising generations. Riiiight, about that:

  • A star on the #1 team in the nation, Texas’s Colin Simmons was flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after he simulated urinating after a record-setting sack of Tennessee’s quarterback.
  • Another player, Raleek Brown celebrated a touchdown by rubbing his genitals, sniffing his hand, and pretending to pass out. The Texas running back was not flagged for that disgusting celebration, after all, that was funny!

Steve Sarkisian, the Texas coach, said about the penalty,“We took [Simmons] out. We addressed it, and put him back in. I’m not gonna give the guy the death penalty over an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. We’ve got to fix it, though. That can’t continue as we move forward.”

Why does “that” exist at all, Coach? It’s your job to manage the culture on the team. I guarantee that a Major League Baseball player who mimed urinating on the field would be suspended immediately, and for a very long time, if not released. Why did one of your players think such public vulgarity was appropriate? Yeah, yeah, upbringing, growing up with a bad crowd, Hip-Hop, yada yada. College once was where young idiots were supposed to learn how responsible adults get through life. Notice that the coach was concerned about the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, not the unsportsmanlike conduct.

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The President’s Negotiation Strategy Worked With Greenland, and the Axis Doesn’t Have The Decency and Integrity To Admit It

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

…because it is petty and disgusting….and unethical, of course.

President Trump Truth Socialed this out at the end of last week:

BREAKING NEWS: I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns.

There will be NO COST to the United States! At my direction, we worked with representatives of Denmark and Greenland to guarantee that the United States will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America.

Additionally, from now on, no U.S. adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval.

For over 100 years, Presidents have known the strategic importance of Greenland, but NONE of them were able to do anything about it. I am proud to be the President that permanently and conclusively addressed this very important situation. This is an “Infinite Life” Agreement, there is no end! We are very honored and proud of what has just taken place, and everything agreed to today will be cherished by the American People.

We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many. We will work with the people of Greenland in its development and construction. This solution is a great one for the United States of America, Denmark, Greenland, and all of our Allies. We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land. We will be very protective of it!

This is a dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

President DONALD J. TRUMP

Also last week, ancient crooner and current Fifties station disc jockey for Sirius-XM Pat Boone respectfully suggested, as a passionate Trump supporter, that President Trump should shut up more often. Of course that’s good advice, and also futility exemplified. In the President’s defense, however, he feels that he has to salute himself because the Axis news media won’t report honestly on his successes, which have been considerable. Getting what Trump wanted out Greenland proved that his meat-axe negotiating style worked to the U.S.’s advantage after all the mockery and nastiness from the Democrats and the Trump Deranged. Here’s how the news media covered it:

The New York Times said, “U.S. Has Reached Security Deal on Greenland, Trump Says — The full contours of the deal were unclear, but Denmark and Greenland both indicated they expected an agreement to be signed soon.” trump made the “contours” pretty clear, I thought: It costs us nothing, it is permanent, the U.S. can build military bases, and to all intends and purposes, the U.S. has control of that big chunk of ice.

The Washington Post reported, “Trump hails Greenland security deal that falls short of takeover.” The U.S. doesn’t want or need ownership, but the Post has to frame Trump’s success as a failure. Nice.

The Economist sniffed: “Donald Trump drops demands to own Greenland, but the harm has been done.”

Bloomberg reported, “U.S. Strikes Greenland Deal to End Row That Threatened NATO.” That’s certainly misleading framing. Here’s The Atlantic: “The Greenland Fiasco Stumbles to an End.” How exactly is it a fiasco if the U.S. gets what it wanted? “President Trump announced an agreement that appeared to satisfy all parties but came at a great cost,” the magazine continued. Not monetary cost: what is the rag talking about? Oh: the episode got Denmark annoyed at us? The Horror.

The President may have scored a victory with major implications for U.S. security, but we shouldn’t be distracted from the more serious problem: the Kennedy Center is closing down for repairs.

<Sigh!> The White House Axis Press Ban Is Unconstitutional, Which Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Justified

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Can’t do that!

“Journalists” from MSNOW, CNN and Politico had their access to the White House grounds denied today, after President Donald Trump said on social media that he had banned the news outlets over what he called their “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS.”

He’s not wrong. And MSNOW, CNN and Politico are not by any stretch of the imagination the “independent” news organizations they say they are, or even genuine journalists, since it is remarkably obvious that they are really “Democratic Party surrogates with press credentials,” as one wag accurately describes them. And they are, as the President stated in one of his most audacious, bold and correct assessments, “enemies of the people.”

It is also true that as pivotal mid-terms approach, those three outlets and many others are throwing a major portion of the weight of the news media into spinning, concealing, misrepresenting and and prioritizing news stories in the manner most likely to push votes to Democrats and Socialist/Communists, not based on facts, law, common sense, logic or the best interests of the nation, but based on an ideological agenda.

Never mind. Trump’s actions here are futile, and I assume he knows it; if he doesn’t, then he has a bunch of lawyers to fire. He’s doing this to focus attention on the Axis news media’s unethical and corrosive efforts to manipulate elections, as it did in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Yes, it’s unethical for a President to deliberately violate the Constitution knowing that his actions will be struck down. It’s also unethical for journalists to use First Amendment protections to abuse their power and undermine democracy, but there is nothing in the Constitution that stops them from doing it

“The White House belongs to the American people and the decisions made inside are funded by our tax dollars,” MS NOW said in a statement posted on X. “MS NOW intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalists in our democracy,” it added. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press.

Yada yada. That’s all the right rhetoric. Too bad it’s such a scumbag organization using it.

“We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do our reporting without hinderance or interference from the government and this ban is an illegal assault on this fundamental right,” CNN said in a statement posted on X. “We will not be deflected from our duty to hold the government and other public bodies to account, and we will continue to report on the actions and processes of this administration without fear or favor,” the statement added.

Of course, CNN made virtually no effort to hold the Obama and Biden administrations “to account,” but were, instead, complicit in their unconstitutional behavior. The Constitution, however, doesn’t say what biased and unethical news organizations can’t do, just what the government can’t do to them.

Politico Press, the publication’s communications team, said that “POLITICO will continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.”

The funny word in that statement is “continue.”

Nevertheless, President Trump doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on, making the metaphorical ethical leg mighty weak as well.

Too bad.

Confronting My Biases #31: Giggling Girls and Women

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This is one of my biases that I am certain is completely justified, and I’m not giving it up. It also is linked to the recent posts about why the U.S. hasn’t yet had a female President.

I am involved in a project right now anchored by two qualified, smart women. However, much of the time when they make a suggestion or a decision, they giggle afterwards, often looking to each other for affirmation and getting a return giggle in response. This habit does not enhance their status, respect within the group, or perceived effectiveness, indeed quite the opposite. I have been observing this behavior, with alarm and disdain, for most of my life.

In my family, the women did not giggle, cackle, or feel it necessary to defuse their opinions with inappropriate laughter. As a result, I was puzzled when I started noticing the practice, which must be ancient: in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “The Mikado,” the “Three Little Maids from School” giggle to punctuate their famous song. For heaven’s sake, why?

One online forum on the question concluded that women giggle as “a natural physical and emotional response to nervousness, polite social easing, shared humor, or romantic attraction.” Giggling is a gender-based coping mechanism for anxiety, stress, or embarrassment; in short, it signals insecurity. I know that is my reaction to it: when a woman follows a statement with a giggle that isn’t a response to humor, I think that she isn’t confident and is girding herself for rejection.

Women have also been socialized from girlhood to think that the male of the species finds the rote light laughter appealing, in part because it sends a message of submissiveness and determination not to offend.

Boy, did the women in the Marshall family not share that theory.

In a Medium essay from 2023, Emma Radmilovic wrote of giggling in part,

I noticed myself doing it when I spoke to colleagues, friends, acquaintances…it was incessant.Then, I started noticing it in the women around me.

I have one friend who laughs loudly at the end of her sentences, but only when she’s trying to be assertive or make a point. The giggling obviously has the opposite effect, and leaves her listeners (me included) a bit confused. Is it supposed to be funny? Is she upset, or nervous, or confused, or all those things at once? It makes her sound more friendly, sure, but it robs her sentences of the intended effect…Somewhere along the line, my brain said — if you giggle at the end of sentences you will seem more likable! It will stop the end of your sentences from sounding harsh! It will cover any awkwardness or nervousness you feel! Oh, and you’ll sound like a complete weirdo, but that’s a small price to pay to come across as amiable surely?

…It reminds me of how many women feel the need to say sorry so often, or use too many exclamation points in communications to maintain a positive tone. Chalk it up to years of being told to be mindful about “how you come across.”

How giggling women “come across” to me is as lacking confidence and character, people trying to force themselves into roles where, deep down, they don’t believe they belong.

If you want your daughter to grow up to be President, teach her not to giggle. It won’t be enough all by itself, but its a start.

On Trump’s “Gifts” To His Staff

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The latest hyperventilating outrage for the Trump Deranged to get furious over is this:

“President Donald Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to his executive assistant Natalie Harp and two of his other young, loyal White House employees, according to financial disclosures released by the administration. On their disclosure forms, which were released publicly late last week, the three women described the payments as “Cash Gift for Holidays.” The gifts amount to about one-third of the $150,000 salaries they each earn from their White House positions, according to an annual report to Congress.”

The Washington Post predictably runs to NeverTrump Bush White House legal ethicist Richard Painter, who wanted to impeach Trump in 2016 before he took office. “Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush and a critic of Trump,” the Post tells us, “said the payments appear to violate a federal statute that prohibits the supplementation of federal employees’ salaries from outside sources.” “He’s clearly trying to make it easier for them financially to work in government service at the White House,” Painter said. “You can’t do that.”

Wouldn’t you think a responsible and objective news source would begin by highlighting the opinion of a lawyer and ethicist who hadn’t already made it clear that one of his main goals in life is to “Get Trump”? If the gifts were the slam-dunk offense Painter says it is, shouldn’t it be easy to find other “experts” to weigh in on the matter? Eventually, the Post does bring another “expert” into the mix, but only after quoting Painter extensively. [Full Disclosure: the best legal ethics website that I have ever had the pleasure to visit was John Steele’s Legal Ethics Forum. It managed to stay non-partisan and therefore useful until Painter ruined it with his routine anti-Trump rants. Steele eventually gave up and let the website slide into misuse. The partisan ethics rot that killed that site has also seeped into the listserv of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. I can’t blame Painter for the whole phenomenon, but he was one of its architects, and yes, I resent it.]

That second voice does not echo Painter’s predictable condemnation. Don Fox, the former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) in the Obama administration, tells the Post:

“…it was not clear from the available facts that the payments violate the prohibition on supplementation. He said that would be the case if Trump made the gifts after one of the employees said they were leaving for the private sector because they couldn’t live on what they were making, and he gave them a supplement to level the disparity in salaries. There are rules that restrict employees from giving gifts to their superiors over concerns they could be abused to curry favor. But a large payment to a subordinate is “not a circumstance that OGE ever really envisioned,” Fox said. “This just doesn’t happen.”…Even in the absence of any violation, however, Fox said he still found the payments “troublesome” because they could leave the aides indebted to Trump. “I would feel somewhere between really uncomfortable and then beholden to the person who gave me such a large gift,” he said.

Oh-oh! There’s another one of those “democratic norms” that Trump keeps breaching!

The Post reveals,

Harp, Martin, Harris and Nauta all have ties to Trump dating from his first term, and they were all among a small inner circle of aides who worked for Trump in Florida in between his presidencies. Harp, Martin and Harris have limited work experience that isn’t tied to Trump…Harp gained national attention in 2019 for a LinkedIn post in which she credited a law Trump signed in 2018 expanding access to experimental treatments with saving her life following a Stage 2 bone cancer diagnosis. Medical experts have cast doubt on those claims. Harp spoke about the experience at the 2020 Republican National Convention. As an anchor with One America News, she frequently promoted Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. She began working for Trump in 2022 after leaving the network.

Martin began working for the Trump White House as a press assistant in 2019 and continued to work as a press secretary for Trump after the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Harris began her career at the White House and was known as the “receptionist of the United States” during Trump’s first term.

Nauta is a Guam native who enlisted in the Navy in 2001. By 2021, he was promoted to the rank of senior chief culinary specialist, according to military records. Nauta was working in the White House at that time, and Trump promoted him to be his valet, according to court records. Valets are often known as “body men,” following politicians closely so that they can provide them with everything from snacks to schedules.

Here is the Federal law that Painter references, 18 U.S. Code § 209 – Salary of Government officials and employees payable only by United States, which states in relevant part,

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Ethics Observations on the GOP Mid-Term Convention

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I could write full posts about many of these, and if I had time, I would. The networks and the Axis want to ignore it and are trying to bury it in negatives, but the event is obviously news, and attention should be paid….

Observations:

1. Competence! If this was the President’s idea, it was a great one. The GOP has to get voters to the polls (or to mailboxes, if he can’t stem mail-in balloting). If the event picks up just one or two percentage points in Republican voter participation, it will have been a success. If Republicans hold Congress, I guarantee both parties will make this tactic a tradition.

Incidentally, adding a mid-term convention is another so-called “democratic norm” that Trump is violating. The Horror.

2. Fetterman! One of the two biggest stories to come out of last night’s opening of the convention was Senator John Fetterman’s surprise video appearance, shot in front of a steel mill. Fetterman praised and endorsed his fellow Pennsylvania Senator David McCormick, a Republican, and said that they would work together “and work with President Trump and defend the steel way of life.” This makes Fetterman the Ethics Hero of the convention thus far. It also tells Democrats that if they are going to try convict Trump after a House impeachment and try to pack the Supreme Court, they will need to flip an extra Senate seat to their side.

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“Gee, I Wonder Why We Haven’t Had a Female President Yet” [ A Continuing Series ]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I was tempted to make this another Res Ipsa Loquitur post.

Jeez, will somebody tell her? Nobody wants to hear anyone shouting and screaming like that into a microphone, but it is especially unappealing when a woman does it. It’s shrill, its undignified, and it’s ugly. Her voice cracks, and she’s acting unhinged.

I posted about the impediments to women getting elected President in November of 2025 after the New York Times Gail Collin’s wrote a column titled, “Where, oh Where, Will the First Female President Come From?” The lament would have been more plaintive if she hadn’t been reacting to Kamala Harris’s defeat, which was less due to the candidate being female than it was due to her being a cackling, incoherent idiot.

I wrote in part,

“The first female President is likely to come from a new template of female leadership that does not require that a credible female leader seem as unfeminine as possible and fit the male stereotypes of what a President looks like. That process will take time. Women have not been drawn to politics long enough or in substantial numbers until relatively recently. The talent pool still isn’t very large or deep. Men have a lead of a couple of centuries. Of course, it will only take one break-through female leader to change the template quickly and permanently. It’s too bad that Sigourney Weaver wasn’t interested in politics.”

In the first installment of what I fear will be a long-running series, I focused on all the high-ranking women in government who had disgraced themselves recently, including three female members of Trump’s Cabinet. I ended that post by writing, “I have theories about why our system and culture doesn’t produce competent and trustworthy female leaders in sufficient numbers, as well as why those it does produce tend to be corrupt and incompetent power-abusers. I will leave those theories for another day.”

Those theories are still for another day, but the fact that so many female politicians are wretched public speakers who don’t know how to modulate their voices, where to place it in their heads (think chest, ladies), and the basics of presentation, is a major impediment.

Ethics Hero: Tuskegee University President Dr. Mark Brown

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Now and then there are moments when I feel that indeed I have not lived in vain.

Tuskegee University president Dr. Mark Brown (above), a retired Air Force major general, issued a memo to all students of the “traditional black institution” this academic year declaring that all students will be required to follow a dress code right out of 1962.

“The university has developed a new policy for student attire on campus, classroom attendance, and cell phone use in classrooms,” Brown wrote in a message to students. “Tuskegee students now have a dress code for public and professional places. The Student Handbook requires students to arrive on campus with a business suit and proper shoes for a business meeting. Students are prohibited from wearing revealing clothing in class, to the cafeteria or in official settings like Convocation. They are also not able to wear bedroom shoes, bonnets, or du-rags to class or the cafeteria. The goal here is not meant to restrict you from enjoying the Tuskegee Experience, but to prepare you with a solid foundation for the workforce you will enter once you leave Tuskegee. Employers are less forgiving and too often presentation may overrule stellar preparation.”

“Tuskegee University continues to prepare the best and brightest for a lifetime of success,” Brown added. “With these changes, we want to ensure every student is as prepared as they can be. I look forward to seeing you in August.”

To which I say,

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

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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.