Quotes

Hump Day Ethics Jumps, Bumps And Lumps, 2/2/2022

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Nothing like dancing camels to end a perfect day. If only this had been a perfect day…

Meanwhile, I’m so proud! Having told my undergraduate institution that it had so embarrassed me that I would not be attending my BIG reunion this Fall, which I once was looking forward to greatly, it was thrilling to see my law school alma mater, which I also worked for over the next four years after graduation (It liked me! It really liked me!), receive a major honor. Yes, The FIRE named Georgetown University Law Center one of the 10 Worst on its yearly list of educational institutions that do not adequately respect and bolster freedom of speech.

Congratulations, GULC! You’ve worked hard for this the last few years, and the honor is richly deserved.

1. Quit, Whoopi, but let me write your resignation letter. It is being reported that Whoopi Goldberg is furious that she was suspended by ABC for her dumb, ill-considered, offensive but provocative comments about the Holocaust on the dumb, ill-considered, offensive but provocative show “The View.” Her worst statement? I vote for “Well, this is white people doing it to white people. So, this is y’all go fight amongst yourselves.” That was part of her explanation of why the “Final Solution,” in which Hitler’s crazies decided to see the purification of the white race by exterminating “lesser races” like the Semites—just guess what would have happened to the Whoop’s people when Germany took over the U.S. by getting the A-Bomb first!—wasn’t about race. She feels, we are told,“humiliated” at being disciplined  after she followed their advice to apologize. No, no, that’s not what Whoopi should quit over. Charles C.W. Cooke explains it well in “Whoopi Goldberg’s Suspension from The View Is Illiberal and Irrational” at the National Review. Meanwhile, many are asking the unanswerable question, how come Disney, who owns ABC, fired actress Gina Carano when she said on social media—not on TV, not under Disney’s banner, that the repressive political speech climate reminded her of Nazi Germany. The “Mandalorian” star was also dropped by talent agency UTA and Lucasfilms, leading some writers to compare her treatment to the Fifties blacklist. Whoopi got a relatively minor two-week suspension. Double standard there, obviously: Whoopi is a black progressive, Carano is a white conservative. Neither should be punished for an opinion unrelated to their competence at their job. If Whoopi quits, she could do some good by making it clear that it’s in defense of free speech and people being unafraid to speak freely. Continue reading →

Welcome February Ethics Warm-Up, 2/1/22: Yes, Whoopi Is Officially An Idiot

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

A Janet Jackson movie is playing on cable, so of course we’re going to hear, again, how poor Janet was unfairly and cruelly blamed for “Nipplegate,” when the supposedly family-friendly Super Bowl half-time show featured an uncleared rapey bit of choreography in which Justin Timberlake “tore” Jackson’s costume, revealing her breast. It all happened on this date in 2004. CBS got fined and the NFL got in trouble. Timberlake lied, wink-wink, calling it a “wardrobe malfunction,” which everybody thought was cute. Historical revisionism has Janet as a victim of a sexist culture because she was the focus of most of the criticism and not the man in the plot. But it was her breast, after all. She also lied, and has been lying for almost 20 years.

Here is what I wrote about it in part on the Ethics Scoreboard the year it happened. I had forgotten: Janey Jackson got the very first Jumbo!

Janet Jackson has now appeared on the David Letterman Show to deny that her infamous Super Bowl breast-baring was anything but an accident. Before we discuss what a ridiculously transparent lie this is, let us also ask, “Why bother?” The damage, whatever it is, is done. Nobody is going to believe her. This was a fine opportunity for Jackson to stand up, admit an error in judgment, and use her celebrity to endorse some ethical values, like honesty, taking responsibility for one’s actions, and contrition.

But nooooooo.

Janet wants us to believe the incident was an accident, completely unchoreographed or planned. Never mind that:

  • Justin Timberlake’s move uncovering Ms. Jackson’s breast occurred on a musical beat, corresponding to song lyrics referring to his “having her naked by the end of this song.”
  • Her costume conveniently had a detachable flap that would expose the breast without doing any damage to the rest of her outfit.
  • Her breast had a large, uncomfortable-looking decoration of some kind stuck to it, raising the obvious question of what it was doing there if it wasn’t intended to be seen.
  • Timberlake’s comments immediately after the show confirmed that the moment was choreographed…

Oh, just never mind. If this were a crime, any jury would find Jackson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Even the most dishonest people, when confronted with undeniable proof of their misdeeds, will usually confess. Not Janet Jackson.

Here’s your elephant, kid. This Jumbo’s for you!

1. Who can you trust? Justice Breyer was reportedly angry that his plans to retire at the end of the current SCOTUS term was leaked. Only close staff, family, his Supreme Court colleagues and the President had been made aware of his decision. He did not want to be a lame duck justice, and had asked his confidantes for confidentiality. Now the mystery of who betrayed Breyer’s trust is solved. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters yesterday that President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, spilled the metaphorical beans.

If I were Breyer, my reaction would be to do what Donald Trump has done several times with leaks: make the leaker and the news media look foolish by changing course. I would not retire, after a betrayal like that, and make Democrats wait another term. Justice Breyer, however, doesn’t think this way Too bad. Continue reading →

The Biden Supreme Court Pick Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Wow, that was fast. This episode has turned into an ethics train wreck with record speed. Some ethics train wrecks slow down and stop after a few months; other roll on seemingly forever. The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck, which has included directly-related wrecks like the Ferguson Ethics Train Wreck and the George Floyd Ethics Train Wreck, is almost nine years old, and won’t stop until Black Lives Matter lies a-moldering in the grave. The 2016 Presidential Election Ethics Train Wreck is still going strong, with the Jan. 6 riot and the subsequent kangaroo court investigation in the House the latest cars to be hooked up. The Biden Supreme Court Ethics Train Wreck? At this point, where it stops, nobody knows.

It began before it was even certain Biden would get a SCOTUS nomination, when he first promised to name a black woman to the Court. That promise, which he quickly confirmed once Justice Breyer announced his retirement, was unethical “on its face,” as the Court might say. The statement means, and can only mean, that group identification is the primary priority for the President of the United Sates in nominating a crucial individual who will help determine the course of the nation’s laws, justice system, constitutional integrity and culture for decades to come. That function has nothing whatsoever to do with race or gender. Nothing. Being black, white, Native American or Asian does not make an individual more or less qualified for the job, and neither does gender. Biden’s statement literally means that he is placing tribalism and group identification biases above the substantive needs of the nation. That’s unethical. Other Presidents have done this, notably Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. That’s no mitigation.

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Council Rock Elementary School, “Jingle Bells,”And When Something Trivial Demands A Strong Response (Part Two)

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Part I described the cowardly and pandering rationale for a New York elementary school to banish “Jingle Bells” from its curriculum, and why the cultural and political issue underlying the move is more important than the song itself.

Here is the response of the Brighton Central School District Superintendent, Kevin McGowan, in response to media inquiries about the decision. In the interests of efficiency, I will interweave my commentary with his statement, in bold.

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Yet Another IIPTDXTTNMIAFB Whopper!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I am getting sick of all the unethical political junk that has been rearing its yuletide head of late, so I’m sure you must be even more sick of it. But stuff like this, which doubles as rotten journalism too, just has to be noted. After all, what the mainstream media wants is for it to just slip away. All the better to help it lie to you later.

This is yet another IIPTDXTTNMIAFB example, short for “Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.” These drive me crazy, because they demonstrate just how much what was once our journalism has transformed into partisan propaganda. The public was hammered daily with media accounts, fact-checks and accusations about how often Donald Trump “lied,” even to the extent of a phony “data base” that called even obvious cases where Trump was joking “lies.” All lie-counting stopped when Joe Biden was elected, however. That was remarkable, especially because Biden has uttered some of the most infamous lies in political history, notably when he gave an entire speech that he stole from another politician—and it was supposed to be an autobiographical speech!

Well, Joe Biden was making up events in his life once again, this time in an address to historically black college graduates in South Carolina, where, not for the first time, he said that he “desegregated restaurants and movie theaters” during the Civil Rights movement.

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Ethics Quiz: Fat-Shaming Or Legitimate Criticism?

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Belgian health

That’s Maggie De Block, the Belgian Minister of Health from October 2014 to October 2020. She is currently serving as a member of the World Health Organization’s Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development.

For some reason her photograph came to the attention of social media over the weekend, and she is being made the target of considerable mockery (though she is being incorrectly labeled as Belgium’s current Minister of Health). At 59, she is estimated to weigh between 350 and 400 pounds.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz to begin a busy week is…

Is it fair to criticize her for her weight when she is in a position involved with health promotion and policy?

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Unethical Tweet Of The Month, And Company Most Deserving A Boycott: Ben & Jerry’s

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Ben Jerry smear

I personally decided that Ben &Jerry’s outrageously expensive ice cream for the Woke and Wonderful would never cross through Marshall doors when it created a flavor honoring partisan hate-monger Stephen Colbert. The company’s cynical political pandering has only gotten worse since. Perhaps the most nauseating aspect of the company’s pose is that it’s obviously a marketing plan to appeal to ice-cream loving progressives. The real Ben and Jerry sold off the brand years ago, like any good socialists, accepting millions to allow a multi-national corporation to pretend it’s the founder as it spouts simple-minded leftist talking points. This tweet, however, charged into Ethics Alarms Popeye territory…

See?

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The Fifth Circuit Says The Biden Administration Abused Its Power And The Constitution. Better Impeach Him, Then!

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Vaccine mandate

Just kidding! Presidents often try to stretch the already rubber boundaries of what the Constitution and even the law requires, only to get slapped down by the courts. This kind of thing was only grounds for impeachment (according to the Trump Deranged, the mainstream media pundits and Democrats) when Donald Trump did it.

But President Trump never tried anything as egregiously dictatorial as the vaccine mandate.

Tell us again who is “a threat to democracy.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, issued a ruling at the end of this week upholding a stay of the mandate after temporarily halting the mandate last weekend in response to lawsuits filed by and legal groups. The Washington Post, telegraphing its bias as usual, calls them “Republican-aligned businesses and legal groups.” Since the mandate was wildly excessive and pretty clearly illegal, the question is why “Democratic–aligned” organizations don’t also oppose it. I guess that’s nor really much of a question.

The Post also emphasizes that the panel consisted of judges appointed by Reagan or Trump, because in Progressivese, that means the ruling is partisan. No, it really isn’t. It’s just right, as any fair reading of the opinion by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt and joined by Judges Edith H. Jones and Stuart Kyle Duncan will reveal. Of course, none of your metaphorically screaming Facebook friends will read it.

You will, though, right? It’s pretty thorough and damning, as well as bit nasty, which any administration trying something like this deserves. (It’s better than an impeachment!)

Highlights:

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Unethical Joe Biden Quote Of The Week: Time For “The Julie Principle”?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The President is rapidly getting into Trump territory, saying so many outrageous things so frequently that it feels churlish to call him on it. Is it time to invoke the Julie Principle? I wonder. Ethics Alarms actually called for Joe to have the benefit of it in 2020, but that was before he became President, which clears the slate.

This past week alone, Biden has made one obnoxious, dishonest, absurd statement after another. Notably, he pronounced himself blameless for the Democratic Party wipeout in Virginia and elsewhere: nice accountability there, Joe! I wouldn’t expect your history-censoring party to know this, but after Pickett’s Charge that guy whose statues Democrats got pulled down did NOT say to his returning, bloodied troops, “This wasn’t my fault!”

But that exchange with the reporter reasonably asking Biden about his administration’s reversal regarding his categorical denial that his administration might be paying up to $450,000 to illegal immigrants claiming that the Trump policies separated them from their children was even worse. First of all, his claim that the reporter whose assertion he called “garbage” had suggested that all illegal immigrants were going to be paid $450,000 was a lie. It was explicitly about settling a lawsuit, and when the President said “That’s not going to happen,” he was referring to the settlement—or he was confused because he doesn’t know what’s going on his own administration. The ACLU and his own Justice Department quickly corrected him, so Joe cannot say that he was making a correct response to the ridiculous question he falsely said was asked by Fox’s Peter Doocy. I knew what Doocy meant: it was clear to me.

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More On The Obama-Springsteen Exchange, Since Apparently Its Significance Isn’t Sinking In…

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Obama Boss

I don’t understand why the recent televised comments by Barack Obama about white citizens haven’t been a major news story. I don’t understand why it isn’t the topic of dozens of columns and commentary pieces in newspapers, on broadcast news outlets, and on the web. There have been few comments about the episode here, and most of those have consisted of virtual shrugs: ‘Oh, as usual, the Obama worshipers and the news media will just look the other way, because he can do no wrong in their eyes.’ End of issue, apparently.

On the site that first publicized the exchange during CBS Sunday Morning, RealClearPolitics,there are no comments at all as I write this. None. A post called “Pét-Nats Are Champagne’s Funkier Cousin. Are They Here to Stay?.” also posted yesterday, has 29, and I have no idea what the hell its about. I know what the Ethics Alarms post is about, though. The former President of the United States looked upon as the most respected leader of the Democratic Party and who received about 98% of the black vote when he ran for President revealed himself as an anti-white bigot.

What he said on CBS to his new pal, Bruce Springsteen, was signature significance: nobody who isn’t an anti-while bigot says it or thinks it. Let me refresh your memory: Obama said to “The Boss,” speaking about a black E Street Band musician that Springsteen admired, “But most of your audiences were primarily white. And they can love Clarence when he’s onstage, but if they ran into him in a bar, suddenly…the n-word comes out.”

Do you know what Obama’s statement reminded me of? It recalled a line from “12 Angry Men,” when Juror 10 says, asserting that it only stands to reason the the young defendant, who is a member of an unstated minority group, killed his father, the victim in the murder trial,

“Look, these people are lushing it up and fighting all the time, and if somebody gets killed, so somebody
gets killed…they don’t care. Oh, there are some good things about ’em too. Look, I’m the first
one to say that!”

Juror 10 is the repulsive, stereotypical bigot on the jury.

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