Professions

The New Fascists Among Us, Part II: The American Medical Association

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The tweet above is the smoking gun that proves the attitude toward freedom of thought, opinion and expression in the American Medical Association, a group that most Americans believe is dedicated to the area of expertise of its members: health and medicine. The tell-tale words of the fascist are right there: “harmful podcast and tweet,” because words that challenge the required orthodoxy must not be allowed, and “We are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” meaning intimidation, punishment, indoctrination, and censorship. These are the tools of those who fear free speech, and who demand compliance with mandated beliefs.

Once the damning tweet was exposed by, among others, Campus Reform, the American Medical Association took it down. There is no reason to do this unless the group realizes that it reveals too much. This tweet, however remains:

That tweet exposes the AMA for what it is: a political ally of an ambitious rights-repressive regime, and an organization that is abusing its perceived authority and the public trust. As with a similar recent proclamation by the CDC, firearms and the Second Amendment are not the proper concern of the AMA. Using the power of a collective professional organization to lobby publicly or privately for restrictions on American rights unrelated to medicine is an abuse of power and a misrepresentation. (The American Bar Association, and many, many others, engage in the same insidious mission creep. It is why I refuse to belong to the ABA.)

In past posts on this topic, I have noted that if my doctor started questioning me about whether there is a firearm in my home (there is), I would a) end the discussion, b) leave the office and c) find a new doctor, just as I would if he quizzed me about how fast I drove or what kind of dog I owned. Physicians are authoritarian by nature, and I suppose it is to be expected that they would gravitate toward totalitarian government and its methods. Expected, I say, but not tolerated or excused, at least by me.

Nobody else should tolerate or excuse it either.

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Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/23/2021: Shots

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This morning served as a perfect example of how the news is now automatically politicized and prioritized for partisan ends. On CNN, a panel was discussing the mass shooting in Boulder. Colorado, and instantly transforming the segment into gun-control mass rant. On Fox, the crisis of the day was the chaos at the border, where the virtual open-borders policies everyone—including those planning to be illegal immigrants—knew would come in along with the Biden administration is having the predictable effects. That segment was a diatribe against the wink-wink, nudge-nudge Democratic enabling of uncontrolled immigration.

CNN wins in the closely contested dubious ethics category by having “contributor” Andrew McCabe on the panel. McCabe epitomized the FBI’s corrupt and partisan efforts to injure the Trump Administration from within; he leaked information to the media and lied about it; he was fired, and deserved to be. McCabe’s high-profile anti-Trump conduct was sufficient to get him a gig on CNN, where being part of “the resistance” is all one needs to endear oneself to the Trump Deranged.

McCabe should have lost his law license, as any attorney who leaks confidential information should, and personally, I wouldn’t trust him to walk my dog.

1. You want to be paid $15 an hour for doing a job this poorly? This morning, having been forced to get up and move my car at 7 am, I decided to drive to the local McDoanld’s for my favorite guilty morning pleasure, a sausage biscuit and some hash browns. For once I could understand the heavily accented woman on the intercom, and I made a clear and distinct order. But given false security by this unusual development, for the first time in a long while I didn’t check the bag—this McDonald’s bats about .500 in getting orders right—and sure enough, when I arrived home, I found an Egg McMuffin instead of a sausage biscuit. I hate Egg McMuffins.

This isn’t brain surgery. I know it’s a crummy job, but it is what they are being paid for. Don’t tell me someone who is that inattentive deserves “a living wage.” Pay them for not working, if you foolishly want to treat them as charity cases; at least then they aren’t getting rewarded for doing a job badly.

2. Why can’t McDonald’s work this efficiently? My experience getting my first Wuhan virus vaccination (in Alexandria, Virginia) was excellent. The elaborate process, staged at a middle school about five minutes from my home, was well-planned, cheerful, and quick, even on a Saturday with long lines. I must have personally thanked ten volunteers.

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Perhaps The Strangest Unethical Prosecutor Story Yet

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

doordash

I have written about over-zealous prosecutors and incompetent prosecutors. I have written about a prosecutor who moonlighted as a dominatrix and another who moonlighted as an NFL cheerleader; a prosecutor who helped his drug-dealing prepare nickel bags, and a prosecutor who faked sleeping during trials to distract the jury from a defense attorney’s closing argument. However, I never thought I would see this.

Greg Shore, the first assistant district attorney in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, not only moonlighted as a delivery driver for the online food ordering company DoorDash, he did so during his work hours as a prosecutor. As in, “I’m sorry, I can’t work on my closing argument right now, I have to get this Chinese food order across town, stat.” Or “Hey, thanks for the barbecue delivery–wait! Aren’t you the guy prosecuting the man who raped my wife?“

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Ethics Dunce: The Florida Bar. Again.

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The reluctance of the legal profession to acknowledge that members of the public are as qualified to recognize metaphors, puffery and hyperbole in the marketing of the legal services as they are when they are buying cupcakes or hiring plumbers continues to astound. Many state bar associations still have, and enforce, ethics rules that make the kind of obvious analogies routine in TV, online and print advertising violations because they are deemed “misleading or deceptive.” Florida has long been one of the most notable laggards in applying common sense to lawyer advertising. In contrast, the District of Columbia, with the largest bar in the nation, has largely eliminated such rules. except in conduct constituting outright lies. Just a few days ago, I told a client that the other bars were slowly moving in D.C.’s direction. I did not expect Florida’s bar to again embarrass itself and its lawyers–AND MY DOG—again, after making itself the butt of jokes over a decade ago with virtually the same complaint it made against a lawyer’s ads more than a decade ago. I thought the Florida Bar had learned. I thought eleven years was more than enough time for it to accept the basic concept of advertising…and to learn about dogs.

Guess not.

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Saturday Ethics Diversions, 3/6/21…And Remember The Alamo!

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Alamo morning

On this March date in 1836, after a 13 day siege, the Battle of the Alamo ended when a pre-dawn attack by the much larger Mexican force slaughtered the 200 (or more) Texan defenders, creating many legends—the line in the sand, Jim Bowie’s desperate fight from his sickbed, Davy Crockett battling on as the Mexicans poured over the walls of the fort— and an iconic symbol of American bravery, sacrifice, and resistance of tyranny. The final minutes of the defenders were spent in desperate hand-to-hand combat with knives, swords and clubs.

Thirteen days earlier, on February 23, Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered a siege of the Alamo Mission, near present-day San Antonio. It was occupied by rebel Texas forces. They spent the next two week ducking shells during the night and repairing the fort during the day. On the night of the 5th, however, there was no shelling. The exhausted men of the Alamo finally had a chance to sleep, and the Mexicans were almost inside the walls before they awakened. The bloody battle was over in less than 30 minutes. Several Texans reportedly surrendered, but Santa Anna ordered all prisoners executed, as he had promised when William Barrett Travis refused to surrender at the outset of the seige. Historians estimate that the battle cost Santa Anna between 400 and 600 soldiers, a high price for a fort with little strategic value. On April 21, 1836, Texas and Mexico fought again at the Battle of San Jacinto. This time it was the Mexicans who were surprised, and the rout won independence from Mexico and brought the Texas Revolution to an end.

I’ll be watching the 1960 John Wayne movie tonight. It is historically inaccurate in almost every way, but if there was ever an event in our history when the legend was more important than the reality, it is the battle of the Alamo.

1. It’s great to see that the news media and others have adopted a more fair and forgiving sta… Oh. Oh, right. “It’s amazing. Indian-descent Americans are taking over the country: you, my vice president, my speechwriter,” President Biden told Swati Mohan, NASA’s guidance and controls operations lead for the Mars Perseverance rover landing. Imagine the reaction from Democrats and pundits had the previous President said that. It would have been a story for weeks. The episode would have been cited any time one of the Trump Deranged was asked to defend the hardy Big Lie that Trump was a racist. Now that Joe Biden is President, the office is back to having the benefit of a presumption of good will, which is necessary for any President to do his job. About the only people mentioning Joe’s latest—read his quote with Jews or “blacks” in place of “Indian-descent Americans”—are bitter conservative pundits, and people like me, who foolishly believe that the same standards should be applied regardless of race, creed, gender or political affiliation.

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Ethics Dunce: Plastic Surgeon Dr. Costanza, I Mean Scott Green

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Dr. Scott Green, a plastic surgeon, tried to appear before a judge during a remote video-conferenced traffic trial last week from his operating room, while he was working on a patient. This was not a reality show stunt: Green really attempted to do this. Saved time, you know. Busy, busy, busy. Sacramento Superior Court Commissioner Gary Link, presiding over a virtual courtroom at the Carol Miller Justice Center, couldn’t believe what he was seeing: a defendant in surgical scrubs, with his patient just out of view.

“Hello, Mr. Green? Are you available for trial?” asked a courtroom clerk. “It kind of looks like you’re in an operating room right now?” “I am, sir,” Green replied. “Yes, I’m in an operating room right now. I’m available for trial. Go right ahead.” The doctor had his head down, talking as he replaced a nose, pumped up some breasts, or something. Link was dumbstruck.

“So unless I’m mistaken, I’m seeing a defendant that’s in the middle of an operating room appearing to be actively engaged in providing services to a patient. Is that correct, Mr. Green? Or should I say Dr. Green?” Link asked. The video is on YouTube, and one can hear the sounds of medical devices at work, pumping and beeping.

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Ethics Warm-Up, 2/20/2021, Because Everyone Needs To Warm Up: CNN And An Unethical Historian Smear Nikki Haley, Who Had Already Kneecapped Herself

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

suspended-animation

Well, I went ahead and gently set the trap by asking my deranged Facebook friends if they knew that the narrative that Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick had not been killed by beating by the January 6 rioters, had not been “hit with a fire extinguisher,” and had not “died of his wounds” in the riot as reported by the news media long after that story had been debunked, and used as evidence of the “deadly insurrection” by Democrats during the impeachment trial. The response, from a really smart audience including many lawyers, was disappointing if not unexpected. So far, all of the responses tried to avoid the issue. “Are you saying that his stroke (the current cause of death theory) was not brought on by the riot?” No, and since nobody knows what brought on the stroke, one can’t say, and shouldn’t write as news, that it was. I asked about the “killed by the mob” and “died in the line of duty” story. “The park police website says he was killed in the riot!” That’s a novel approach: using an already false report in a biased source to insist that the false report must be true. “But..but…but…but,” “humina humina humina”…”well, what about…”…they just couldn’t admit it. It was a deliberately used false narrative, first without verification and then after the story was proven false, for the purpose of hyping the riot and inflaming public opinion against the President. Nothing about being a Democrat, progressive or a Trump-hater should prevent someone from acknowledging that. Yet they just couldn’t do it. Even the lawyers. Heck, especially the lawyers!

1. No zombie lawyers allowed in Florida. If you think trying to convict Trump after he was no longer President was bad, how about this: Sabrina Starr Spradley, a 41-year-old attorney in private practice in Delray Beach, Florida, was disbarred in December, 2020 though an official death certificate from the Florida Department of Health stated that she died in October of 2019. Nobody told the bar association or the Florida courts.

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A Line That Will Echo Through The Annals Of Legal Ethics And Technological Incompetence: “I’m Not A Cat”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Lawyer cat

I apologize for missing this wonderful story from last week.

In a civil forfeiture case hearing held via Zoom in Texas’ 394th Judicial District Court, Rod Ponton, a county attorney in Presidio County, Texas, couldn’t figure out how to turn off a filter he had somehow turned on. That filter made him appear to be a talking kitten.

“Mr. Ponton, I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings,” Judge Roy Ferguson, presiding over the case, says with admirable restraint. “Augggh,” says. Ponton. “Can you hear me, Judge? I don’t know how to remove it. I’ve got my assistant here and she’s trying to.”

Then he adds, “I’m prepared to go forward with it. I’m here live” and “I’m not a cat.” “I can see that, ”Judge Ferguson replies.

Here’s the video:

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Sunday Ethics Reinforcements, 2/7/21: The “Don’t Watch The Concussion Bowl” Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Brain Damage football

Ethics Alarms has been chronicling the mounting evidence that pro football condemns a large percentage of its players to future dementia and premature death for a long time, often in conjunction with what a Georgetown professor friend calls “The Concussion Bowl.” Many of those posts are here, under the CTE tag. Incredibly, the NFL has done little to stop the carnage, perhaps because seriously addressing the inherent damage to brains caused by a necessarily violent sport would end football as we know it, and that would cost owners, TV networks, colleges and merchandisers billions. Can’t have that.

Equally amazing, the public and the news media have allowed the NFL to get away with distracting from its unethical priorities with the flagrant and cynical virtue-signalling of pandering to Black Lives Matter. I’m pretty sure that when it is all tallied, the NFL will have killed more innocent black men by far than all the brutal police officers over the same period. But most people just don’t care. If they cared one hundredth as much about athletes getting permanent brain damage for their Sunday (Monday, Thursday) TV viewing as they do about a single ugly incident where an overdosing lifetime petty crook died under the knee of a Minneapolis cop, there would be action. Not riots and take-overs of public property, but serious, effective action, including safety regulations.. Football would have to change, evolve, or vanish. The public and the media (and government officials) don’t care, and neither do the NFL executives. If Colin Kaepernick had performed his on-field protests against CTE, he would have been suspended and eliminated from the sport faster than Deion Sanders running for the goal line.

Talk about conspiracies….

1. False Narrative Dept. Now dishonest anti-Trump propaganda is showing up on Turner Classic Movies, which has been generally exemplary in avoiding partisan pandering over the last four years. Today, Eddie Muller, TCM’s film noir maven, pointedly showed the 1950 move “The Killer Who Slaked New York,” about a potential smallpox outbreak that was shut down by New York City health officials in 1947. Ultimately only 12 people were infected, and the threat was a single contagious smallpox victim who had to be found and contained. As you can see, this is a perfect analogy for the Wuhan virus outbreak in 2020. Noting that New York City quickly launched a mass vaccination effort (because there was already a smallpox vaccine, another close parallel), Eddie raised an accusing eyebrow and said,voice dripping with contempt, “That’s how we did things then.”

It’s Eddie’s show. I don’t think he should be fired or suspended. He’s welcome to his ignorant and obnoxious opinion. But he’s part of a disinformation campaign and an effort to distort reality, He’s also annoying TCM’s generally mature audience members who have been paying attention, and who presumably watch old movies to get a break from political BS, not to be subjected to more of it by movie nerds driving out of their lane.

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Update: The SECOND Trump Impeachment Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

trainwreck

When we last looked in on the destructive, divisive, unconstitutional and unethical fiasco known here as the Trump Impeachment Ethics Train Wreck II, Senator Rand Paul had delivered an excoriating speech about the unconstitutional nature of it all, every Democratic Senator had voted to continue with a trial that is, as Paul stated, unconstitutional on its face, Democrats openly discussed passing a Bill of Attainder (which is what any action barring a single private citizen, Donald Trump, from running for office would be), the Chief Justice refused to sully his name by any involvement with such an embarrassment, and President Biden, while vowing out of one side of his mouth to be a unifying presence, lifted nary a finger to stop his party from engaging in a trial that was based on hate, vengeance, and the craven need to satisfy the worst of its supporters. Meanwhile, the mainstream news media refuses to inform the American public why the whole thing is bad partisan political theater and little else.

Now we have the following fun developments:

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