I watched “Bananas” for the first time in decades. It was influential on better comedies to come, notably the Zucker-Abrahams films, and Mel Brooks stole some of the gags (as have I, in some stage shows). I had forgotten that Marvin Hamlisch did the (annoying) score and that Sylvester Stallone appeared as a subway thug in an uncredited role. But it’s no use: I just can’t enjoy watching Woody Allen now that I know what a toxic creep he is. Cognitive dissonance strikes again!

I also watched an ethically provocative 2020 revenge drama called “Becky,” in which a bullied and depressed thirteen-year-old girl methodically and diabolically foils four escaped convicts who invade her father’s home and murder him. “Foils” is an understatement: she stalks, traps and kills all four in progressively more cruel and vicious attacks. I was about half-way through when I realized the story was basically “Home Alone” without the gags.

1. What hacks these people are...Ann Althouse flagged a ridiculously strained piece by Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine “explaining” why Joe Biden (as VP) keeping classified documents he wasn’t authorized to have is so much more innocent and forgivable than Donald Trump (as President). I have read so many of these, and they are useful reminders of just how partisan and foolish the mainstream media is. Chait is such a reliable Democratic spinmeister and rationalizer that this article was highly predictable: he was one of those who attributed Hillary’s loss to Trump to the fake historical “fact” that the same party seldom wins the White House for three straight terms—you know,except for 1920, ’24, and ’28, then 1932, ’36, ’40, ’44 and ’48, then 1980, ’84 and ’88, with only the Electoral College stopping a 1992, ’96, 2000 run, just like it stopped a 2008, ’12, ’16 string. (I know I’m unreasonably triggered by that false factoid, but I can’t help it.)

2. On ABC’s brain-rotting public events show “The View, meanwhile, co-host Joy Behar exclaimed, “Just as we’re this close to getting [Trump], somehow these documents appear.” Then slightly less stupid (but equally biased) co-host Sunny Hostin added, “Does it feel like the Republicans are behind it?”

Barbara Walters, who died this month to many accolades, really stained her legacy by inflicting “The View” on America

Continue reading →

Some follow-up items before we get to the real stuff:

• I have two more parking lots to report on as I seek evidence on why parking head-first is the most ethical procedure. In my Harris Teeter’s underground garage, notorious for its narrow spaces, the count yesterday was 73 straight in and just 8 back first. Yet the only space available for me involved getting into a tight spaces with a “Backie” on my left and a “Frontie” on my right. For some reason, debaters on this post didn’t seem to see why this is a problem. My answer: try it. If you get close enough to the properly parking car on the right to have room to get out on the left it is impossible to allow the obnoxious “Backie” driver on the left to have a shot at getting into his car if he weighs 280 pounds while not beating MY door full of dings—and I have to squeeze through a barely opened door to get out myself without dinging his car. In my wife’s doctor’s medical building parking lot this morning, it was much closer 22 back-ins to 42 straight ins. But 1) the lot was only half full and 2) it has much wider spaces.
• I swear I’ll finish the count-down to determining Joe Biden’s competition for Worst President Ever. The last segment was issued in August. I think I can do it a single post; I’m sorry this has dragged out. Yesterday I heard an old stand-up routine by David Cross (who can be clever, but he’s a dick) arguing that George W. Bush was the worst President, and he began by saying that GII was even worse than “Millard Fillmore and James K. Polk.” That statement is a tell: he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Millard wasn’t bad at all, especially for  Vice-President who had to take over, and Polk was arguably a great President, and the best one term POTUS ever. If you think Polk was bad, I don’t really care what your Presidential ranking is. You’re ignorant, and so is anyone who laughs at your critiques. I bet 90% of his crowd couldn’t pick Polk out of a line-up.
• My Trump-Deranged, Wuhanphobic but otherwise reasonable Democrat sister, expressing disgust with the Biden classified document scandal, said that she hoped somehow both Trump and Biden could be convicted of crimes sufficiently serious to make them ineligible to run in 2024. I told her that there is no such crime, but that I would gladly take that trade, and so would a lot of people in both parties.

1. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. The interim superintendent of Loudoun County schools announced that at least three high schools, Potomac Falls, Freedom, and Loudoun County, did not tell students they had received the National Merit Scholarship awards.That is now a total of six Virginia high schools that prevented deserving students from notifying colleges of their honors in early-admission applications. The official line is that it was a one-time mistake….that just happened to occur in six Northern Virginia high schools at the same time, all overseen by an “equity consultant” whose stated objective is “equal outcomes” for all students regardless of performance. Glenn Reynolds’ rueful comment ends with a quote from “War Games:

You want to live in an area with the “best” public schools, but nowadays those schools are so woke that they sabotage your kids’ college chances in the name of “equity.” And then, even if those schools get your kid into a prestigious college, employers won’t want to know about it, also in the name of equity? And diversity consultants say to hire people without degrees anyway to promote diversity. What a strange game. The only way to win is not to play.

2. Speaker McCarthy fails an integrity check. (Of course he does.) There are calls for Rep. George Santos–you know, the fake Congressman— to resign coming from the New York delegation of Republican members of Congress and state party officials. But at a news conference yesterday, McCarthy said that he had no intention of barring Santos from congressional committees or penalizing him for winning election under false pretenses. “The voters of his district have elected him,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He is seated. He is part of the Republican conference.”

That’s unethical and disgusting.

Continue reading →

Dilemma: the warm-ups and their equivalents take more time to prepare and post than regular, single topic posts, and usually generate less traffic. Yet without them, EA would fall hopelessly short of covering as many interesting and relevant ethics topics as they arise. The suggestions from readers (that’s jamproethics@verizon.net, folks!) help a lot. Dribs and drabs to get ME warmed up…

• Once again, a kamakazi jogger charged silently out of the darkness right at Spuds and me, requiring me to yank my dog back with all my weight to protect the fool from a lunge by a 70-pound pit bull mix. I initially said, “Sorry, didn’t see you,” thought better of it, and called after him, “LIGHTS, asshole!” It’s amazing how frank one can be with a large dog at the ready…
• Speaking of pit bulls, Sadie Davila, 7, died after she was attacked by a neighbor’s pit bull in Baton Rouge last week. The articles have been, as usual, filled with the false stats about the “breed” (actually at least four distinct breeds) spread by the despicable and destructive Dogsbite.com. This time, at least, the dog really was an American Pit Bull Terrier based on the photo: I check these things, and often the alleged “pit bull” is something else, accounting for the inflated statistics. The owner is under arrest, because he let the dog roam free. I’m just guessing what kind of treatment, care and training this dog got from an owner that irresponsible: this is another factor in the large number of pit bull attacks. It’s the dog of choice for irresponsible people who should never be trusted with a Yorkie, never mind a larger breed,
• Neil Dorr was kind enough to pass along this funny piece in the Hill. Now Biden and Co. are swearing that nobody ever, ever considered banning gas stoves. This is because to outpouring of anger from more than one side of the political spectrum was so vociferous after CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.  said that a forthcoming information request from the committee might be “the first step in what could be a long journey toward regulating gas stoves,” as The Hill reported at the time and that said that an outright ban was “a real possibility.” An honest, trustworthy government would just say after the public reaction to this (lead) trial balloon, “Well, the public has spoken, so we will cease any efforts to limit the use of gas ovens.” But no. Instead, this administration acts as if the news media made the whole thing up.

1. See the Washington Post spin. Spin spin, Post! Ace of Spades has a rueful and deft take-down of the Washington Post’s Dervish-like coverage of a new study that concludes that  “Russian influence operations on Twitter in the 2016 presidential election reached relatively few users, most of whom were highly partisan Republicans, and the Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior.”  “But the study doesn’t go so far as to say that Russia had no influence on people who voted for President Donald Trump” writes the Post. Ace: “Oh, it doesn’t say there was zero influence, so let’s assume we’re still Basically Right.” The Post, as we all know, was one of the leaders of the “Trump had Russia steal the election from Hillary” narrative. The Post: “It doesn’t examine other social media, like the much-larger Facebook….” Ace: “Where Russian-affiliated companies spent a staggering One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars on ads.” The Post: “Nor does it address Russian hack-and-leak operations….” Ace: “Like the Hunter Biden laptop…The article keeps bringing up “hack-and-leak operations.” Let’s be clear about what happened there: Hillary Clinton and the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders, and leakers exposed this fact. That wasn’t a lie. That wasn’t “Russian Disinformation.” That really happened. The leakers just revealed the truth which Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her Media Mafia wished to conceal.” Continue reading →

(Let’s see if I can get WordPress to behave this time, unlike in the previous post...)

Double Standards Alert! Classified documents were found in a locked closet in an office used by Joe Biden at the Penn Biden Think Tank, formally known as Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.

The fact that there is something akin to a “think tank” named after Joe Biden is itself hilarious, as it would be hard to imagine a public figure in US history whose intellectual abilities have been so frequently exposed as lacking over such a long career, even before he began slipping into dementia. This is like having an Orson Welles Fitness Institute. Baseball fans would find the Mario Mendoza Center for Batting Science similarly risible. The George Santos Integrity Academy. It’s another parlor game! I’d include Hillary Clinton endorsing #MeToo, but that’s real.

But let’s move on to the classified documents themselves. You know this is going to be reported as a “Republicans pounce!” story, but they should pounce. President Biden was recently asked on “Sixty Minutes” about the classified documents the FBI found in former President Trump’s home and he said he thought to himself, “How anyone could be that irresponsible?” In truth, a President has a much better defense to having classified documents in his possession after he leaves office than a Vice-President, because a President can declassify them. Here was a good pounce:

The stench of double standards pervades the entire Biden Presidency and the media’s coverage of it.  Meanwhile, it is fun to watch the mainstream media hustle to minimize the damage. In this case, it perfectly explicates the rueful Ethics Alarms category,  IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”)

Over at “Victory Girls,” Toni Williams was in rare form. She reacted to this report by NBC News…

…by writing,

“This was only a small number and we need to prop up Joe Biden and rules don’t apply to Democrats, they’re on our side. And the fact that we hid it until after the mid-terms means nothing, you smelly Walmart shopper.” That’s their story and they are sticking to it…You know what will happen, my fellow Deplorables. Abso-freaking-lutely nothing. Biden cooperated. It was a small number. It’s old news. Move on.

And you know she’s right.

You learn something every day. Despite years of studying Clarence Darrow’s career, cases, life and courtroom oratory (and despite co-authoring “The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow” which you can purchase for a pittance here), I only learned today that the great defense lawyer is credited with inventing the tactic of arguing for a lesser sentence because of what a guilty criminal had suffered in his childhood. Before Darrow’s defense of Nathan Leopold and Dickie Loeb in 1924, such an argument was unprecedented. It didn’t really work in that case, since the judge based his refusal to condemn the two teenage “thrill killers” on their youth alone, but the strategy caught on.

1. Thanks, “Federalist”! Saved me a post! I have considered writing ethics comments about the inconvenience caused by people who insist on backing their cars into parking spaces several times, most recently last week,and rejected the impulse as too trivial even for Ethics Alarms. Then “The Federalist” publishes this: “For The Love Of All That Is Holy, Stop Backing Into Parking Spaces.” It concludes,

“….the people backing into spaces are so selfish they haven’t even tried to imagine the levels upon levels of “just because you could doesn’t mean you should” that we decent citizens are dealing with every day on the mean streets of our local strip mall. If you’re still backing into spaces, just cut it out and pull straight into the space the way basic geometry demands.”

I heartily concur.

2. More on the six-year-old school shooter...Today’s Times article at least mentions the mystery of the child’s parents’ involvement, and reminds us that “Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to children under the age of 14.” The article also examines school shootings generally and the usual gun availability concerns, none of which are very relevant to what is a freak incident. The fact that a first-grader somehow got control of a loaded gun and brought it to school reveals little about the strengths or weaknesses of gun policies or school security. It is irresponsible to base policy proposals on incidents that virtually never occur. “When will the shock of gunshots in school be enough to inspire the action necessary to prevent guns in schools and the shattering of lives it causes?” said reliable demagogue Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Laws won’t make dumb, irresponsible and reckless parents smart, responsible and careful. All you can do is hold them responsible for the damage they do, and then try to protect the children. Continue reading →

Rep. Kevin McCarthy didn’t take the Ethics Alarms ethics advice to withdraw from the race to become the next Speaker of the House. Instead, he hung on to barely squeak by on a 15th ballot, the most required to anoint a new Speaker since before the Civil War. To accomplish this, he made so many concessions to his GOP opposition that he evoked memories of the 1968 Presidential race, when it was said of Hubert Humphrey that he so wanted to be President that he showed himself unworthy of the office by the manner of his pursuit of it. McCarthy, it must be said, is no Humphrey: he is now a small, undistinguished and petty politician in a big job, the very epitome of the Peter Principle in action.

Observation 1: It tells you all you need to know about the state of the slim GOP House majority that Matt Gaetz, one of the truly creepy members of Congress, was a power broker in this mess. Just look at this guy. And in order to get the job he so covets, McCarthy gave him more power than he already had, and he already had too much because his brain dead district sent him to D.C. One of the concessions McCarthy made to flip the party members voting against him was to alter House rules so a single member could trigger a challenge to his leadership. This not only gives tremendous leverage to Gaetz, but other incompetent and untrustworthy Republican members, like Margorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, and even the unimaginably dishonest George Santos. Yes, McCarthy has to ask “How high?” when Lying George tells him to jump too, or risk another 15 ballot siege.

Observation 2: Democrats and the news media (but I repeat myself) enjoyed blathering about how the McCarthy floor fight showed the lack of leadership in the Republican Party. I submit that this is an accusation Democrats have a lot of gall making against anyone, with a half-conscious Democratic President, an embarrassingly inept Vice-President, and the just-exiting antediluvian Speaker Nancy Pelosi as their party’s most prominent leaders. This is more than the pot calling the kettle black: this is the kettle calling the kettle black. The leadership of both parties and the nation as a whole is weak and corrupt, arguably as weak and corrupt as it has ever been. In hindsight, Lyndon Johnson looks like a giant, and Ronald Reagan a colossus. Who can Democrats point to today as respectable, credible party leaders? Elizabeth Warren? Pete Buttigieg? Old School hack Chuck Schumer?

Continue reading →

Some years from now, when “This Day in History” expounds on January 6, will the foolish rioting of 2021 be number one on the list of notable anniversaries, or will it have fallen to where it belongs, which is somewhere between FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech ( 1941) and the the admission of New Mexico as the 47th state (1912)? Unfortunately, the ugly incident is probably destined to always be regarded with inflated importance if for no other reason than it became the focus of one of the most protracted and cynical partisan political propaganda efforts by any party since the United States was founded.

Like the Kardashians who are famous for being famous, the January 6 Capitol rioting will be important because so many people have said it was important for so long. It was destructive and it was embarrassing, but the rioting was not an insurrection, nor was it part of a plot by Donald Trump to somehow hold on to the White House. The hacks and demagogues in the media and elected offices who have claimed otherwise are only better than the rioters in that they have been less violent. Both disgraced themselves and their country.

1. Now THIS is a frivolous lawsuit…The estate of Brian Sicknick is suing Donald Trump and two rioters, Julian Elie Khater and George Pierre Tanios, for $10 million in damages from each of the defendants based on the theory that the Capitol Police officer’s death was “a direct and foreseeable consequence” of Trump’s words and action on January 6, while the two rioters are accused of assaulting Sicknick with bear spray during the conflict. Sicknick died of a stroke the next day, and it is literally impossible to trace the stroke to the riot. Sicknick’s death was attributed to “natural causes.” If Rudy Giuliani is facing discipline by the D.C. Bar for not having sufficient evidence to justify his lawsuit claiming voter fraud in Pennsylvania, sanctioning the lawyer who brought this “Hail Mary” lawsuit should be automatic. If the lawyer isn’t sanctioned, we will have even more evidence that the posse chasing Rudy is motivated by politics, not a sincere desire to police the legal profession’s ethics.

Continue reading →