Leadership

Emmett Burns Emulates Rahn Emanuel, or, What Does It Tell Us That Yvette Clarke Is NOT This Month’s Most Incompetent Elected Official?

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

Brooklyn, NY, circa. 1898. If you look closely, you can see the slaves working in the windmills…

In case you missed it, Rep. Clarke, the Congresswoman from Brooklyn, NY, had thousands of American banging their heads against the wall (and, tragically, many more, like those who voted this dolt into office nodding their empty heads and saying, “She speaks the truth!”) when she told Comedy Central’s wag Stephen Colbert that Brooklyn still had slavery in 1898, a full 33 years after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment. When Colbert, in mock surprise, said, “It sounds like a horrible part of the United States kept slavery going until 1898! Who would be enslaving you in 1898 in New York?”, Rep. Clarke, eager to fill the gaps in Colbert’s knowledge of New York history,  informed him that it was “the Dutch”…who lost control of New York when “New Netherland” was conquered by the British in 1664, 200 years before the end of the Civil War. Continue reading →

The Ethics Corrupter-In-Chief

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

I wanted to stay far, far away from commenting on the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, because I knew that the double standard of media scrutiny of the deceit and dishonesty there ( in contrast to the media’s adversary stance during the Republican convention) would drive me to drink if I thought about it long enough to write coherently. And so I shall stay away, except for this one infuriating topic, which is broader and more significant than the convention itself.

No political party that cares sufficiently about the ethical values of integrity and honesty, as well as responsible leadership, would feature Bill Clinton as its “rock star” speaker. That the Democrats did, and that the media and the public generally gave them a pass for doing so, confirms that Clinton’s corrupting influence on the American culture continues. Recent polls indicate that he is the most popular political figure in the country today, and Democrats will no doubt cite that as justification for inviting him to speak. To the contrary, it shows the damage that he has done to the values of the nation, and how wrong the Democratic party has been to aid and abet that damage.

Bill gave a good speech, as he usually does. There is no way to know how much of it he believes or meant, for Clinton is a recreational liar: he likes lying. He’s good at it, and he does it at every opportunity. In 2008, on The Ethics Scoreboard, the slower and more formal predecessor to this blog, I made Clinton the first (and as it turned out, sole) admittee to the David Manning Liar of the Month Hall of Fame, writing in part that… Continue reading →

Another Ethics Hero For CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and a Jumbo for Debbie Wasserman Schultz

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

“Discord? What discord?”

Anderson Cooper seems to have decided to single-handedly  stand for objective journalism in the midst of Democratic cheer-leading from most of his colleagues in the broadcast media. Of course, he chose the lowest-hanging fruit imaginable as a target: the Democratic National Committee’s ridiculous, abrasive, shamelessly dishonest chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who earned a Jumbo for persisting in a falsehood that nobody could possibly believe.

The Democrats walked into a controversy of their own making when they approved a platform that removed any mention of God (since God is not, presumably, a Democrat, I don’t know why anyone cares) and an assertion that Jerusalem is the proper capital of Israel. Both of these apparently were also approved by the candidate, President Obama, and conservative blogs and the Republican campaign had a field day with the supposed implications of both. [This was a classic “tit for tat,” because the Democrats had loudly insisted that anything appearing in the GOP platform was attributable to Mitt Romney.] Someone, maybe the President, then concluded that God and Jerusalem needed to go back into the language to stem the bleeding, and what followed was a raucous, and, depending on your orientation, embarrassing or ugly display on the convention floor, with some delegates booing the return of God and Jerusalem and with a repeated voice vote that allowed them back sounding much more like a tie than the required two-third ayes. Continue reading →

Disturbing Ethics Quote of the Week: Terri Miller

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

“It is very common for the teachers of the year, the championship coaches and the vanguards of education to be perpetrators…They will put on this mask of an exemplary teacher to look the same as a true exemplary teacher.”

—Terri Miller, president of the national organization Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation.

Erica Depalo (right): Teacher of the Year, vanguard, child-molester

Miller’s quote was prompted by the recent arrest of West Orange High School English teacher Erica DePalo, 33,  who is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old male student she taught in her honor’s English class. Prosecutors charged DePalo with first-degree aggravated sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. DePalo, who teaches Honors English to ninth and tenth-graders and is also the school’s junior varsity tennis coach, was honored as Essex County’s top teacher for 2011-2012  as part of the state Department of Education’s “New Jersey Teacher of the Year” program. Accepting her award, she said, “I am merely a representative of all the hardworking dedicated teachers, especially those with whom I work at West Orange High School … teachers who are committed to their students, who consistently advocate for their students, and who exceedingly go above and beyond their everyday duties and job descriptions.”

Yes, I’d say having sex with 15-year-old student qualifies as going above and beyond their everyday duties and job descriptions. Or perhaps below and beyond. Continue reading →

The Forgotten Meaning of Labor Day

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Do you know who this is? You should! It’s Labor Day, dammit!

Labor Day commemorates one of the great ethical victories of American society, and not one in a hundred Americans know it. Labor Day marks the end of summer, and a time for retail store sales, and the last chance to get away to Disney World, but few of us think about the real meaning of the word “labor” in the name, and how it is meant to honor brave, dedicated men and women who fought, sometimes literally, the forces of greed, political influence, wealth and privilege in this country to ensure a measure of safety, consideration, fairness and justice for the hardest working among us.

Today labor unions are controversial, and with good reason. Many of them have been run as criminal enterprises, with deep connections to organized crime; many operate in a blatantly coercive and undemocratic fashion. Union demands and strong-arm tactics, while providing security and good wages to members, have crippled some American industries, and limited jobs as well. Today the unions  get publicity when one of them tries to protect a member who should be punished, as when the baseball players’ union fights suspensions for player insubordination or even drug use, or when school districts are afraid to fire incompetent teachers because of union power, or when the members of public unions protest cutbacks in benefits that their private sector counterparts would be grateful for. It is true that today’s unions often embody longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer’s observation that  “Every great cause begins as a movement, degenerates into a business and ends up as a racket.” *

That not what Labor Day honors, however. It is celebrating the original labor movement that began at the end of the 19th century, and that eventually rescued the United States from an industrial and manufacturing system that was cruel, exploitive, deadly and feudal. Why the elementary schools teach nothing about this inspiring and important movement, I do not know. I suspect that the story of the American labor movement was deemed politically dangerous to teach during the various Red Scares, and fell out of the curriculum, never to return. Whatever the reason, it is disgraceful, for the achievements of the labor movement are every bit as important and inspiring as those of the civil rights movement and the achievements of our armed forces in the protection of liberty abroad. Continue reading →

The Significance of Paul Ryan’s Marathon

/ Jack Marshall / 61 Comments

Interviewer : Are you still running?
Paul Ryan: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or [less].
Interviewer : But you did run marathons at some point?
Paul Ryan: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
Interviewer : I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
Paul Ryan: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
Interviewer : Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
Paul Ryan: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.

Thus did Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan describe his athletic exploits to ABC News reporter Hugh Hewett. But it was bad information: Runner’s World did some digging, and discovered that Ryan, intentionally or unintentionally, fictionally improved his best marathon time by an more than an hour. That “intentionally or unintentionally” is as important as the media and blog sleuths are making it out to be. Continue reading →

From the Head Down: Six Questions and Answers About “No Easy Day”

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

I smell fish.

1.  Question: Has “Mark Owen,” the Navy SEAL from Team 6 who has written an account of the Osama bib Laden kill mission (real name: Matt Bissonnette), engaged in unethical conduct by doing so? Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Rev. Pat Robertson

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“I’ve got a dear friend [who has]an adopted son, a little kid from an orphanage down in Columbia. Child had brain damage, grew up weird. And you just never know what’s been done to a child before you get that child. What kind of sexual abuse [there] has been, what kind of cruelty, what kind of food deprivation, etc. etc. You don’t have to take on somebody else’s problems. You really don’t.”

—-Televangelist Pat Robertson weighing in against international adoption on his syndicated TV show, “The 700 Club.” He was responding to a letter from a woman who had adopted three children from other countries, and whose social life had suffered as a result.

Worse than weird

No, of course you don’t “have” to take on anyone’s problems, especially those of helpless orphans in poor countries. You can ignore them completely. You can concentrate on helping people here, and that’s admirable, or you can just help yourself and fulfill your minimal societal obligations without hurting anyone. It is certainly strange, however, to hear a Christian minister discourage the sacrifice and courage of parents who choose to rescue international orphans, and express such callousness in the process.

A fellow minister, Russell Moore, properly put Robertson in his place: Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Political Scientist Ross Baker

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“Traditionally, there was a kind of courtesy extended to the party having the convention — the [other] party would basically stay out of the public eye.” 

—- Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker, commenting on the Obama campaign breaking with tradition to schedule the President and Vice-president Biden in high-profile campaign appearances during GOP Convention week, in which they will be “assaulting” the Romney-Ryan ticket.

No, President Nixon didn’t give campaign speeches while Democrats were nominating McGovern in 1972. On the other hand, he DID have the DNC offices burglarized…

Such traditions build and preserve comity, collegiality, civility and cooperation between the two parties, which, of course, greatly facilitates responsive and responsible government. It also creates trust. In an environment where neither party trusts the other, however (“If we don’t bash them during their convention, they’ll still bash us during ours!”…which is almost certainly true, by the way…), and where neither party–neither party—possesses leadership with the skills, integrity, courage or statesmanship to broker a mutual agreement to preserve such a useful symbolic gesture of respect and courtesy, such traditions are doomed.

Don’t think we are not the worse for the abandonment of these traditions, because we are, and will be until a commitment to cooperation and mutual respect regenerates, if it ever does. Responsible leadership would help.

Yes, Candidate Obama promised an end to “politics as usual.” Funny…I never though that would mean that politics would get even nastier.

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Facts: Commentary

Graphic: Where’s My Fucking Money?

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Total Bias At Last

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

There is only one honest way to interpret the results of the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finding that Mitt Romney has 0% support among African-American voters, and it is neither good news for the country, nor complimentary to African-American culture, nor anything Barack Obama should be proud of. This is proof of total racial bias on one side of the racial divide, the result of intentional, shameless and apparently successful race-baiting by the Obama Administration, and the rationalization of racial bias among blacks, allowing black racism to not only thrive, but to be treated as acceptable. Continue reading →