Asked to justify taking her granddaughter Naomi Biden on a taxpayer funded trip to Africa, First Lady Jill Biden thought the Golden Rationalization, “Everybody Does It,” #1 on the list, was justification enough.

“It’s so great for me to be able to bring a member of the family. I think it’s a tradition, or, actually that we’ve seen other families from first families, bring members of their family to just see the rest of the world and just experience the world,” Jill gushed during a stop in Namibia.

It’s so great for Naomi Biden, I guess, who is 29, an adult, and should be expected to pay her own way or stay home. There is no such “tradition.” Presidents have brought their wives and children along on such trips, and First Ladies have brought their kids; I suppose that is a reasonable perk of the job. But bringing along adult grandchildren and charging the government for the it is no “tradition.” This reminds me of Sir Joseph Porter, the “Ruler of the Queen’s Navee” in “H.M.S. Pinafore,” whose sisters, cousins and aunts follow him wherever he goes.

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If the babbling of the Georgia grand jury forewoman hasn’t depressed you enough about the state of our criminal justice system, by all means watch HBO’s 2021 series “The Murders at Starved Rock.” It is streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and Apple.

In 1961, 22-year-old Chester Weger was charged with the murders of three women in Starved Rock State Park near LaSalle, Illinois. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, almost entirely on the basis of his detailed confession, which he later recanted. Decades later, David Raccuglia, the son of the fledgling prosecutor who persuaded a jury to convict Weger and now a documentary-maker, decided to re-examine the case after it was officially re-opened. Raccuglia reveals that he was terrified for years of Weger, convinced that the convicted murderer would somehow escape and seek vengeance against the family of the man who sent him to prison. In the intervening decades, LaSalle had fractured over the case, with many in the town convinced that Weger was innocent, and many others equally adamant that he was a monster and was righteously convicted. David’s efforts at examining the evidence met with a great deal of hostility, some of it from his father, whom Raccuglia interviewed extensively.

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Yesterday was a mess, as I was running back and forth to the hospital, trying to keep Spuds calm (he didn’t understand why I kept leaving the house and why Grace was missing), and because when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, detecting ethics dilemmas and issues at every turn. Here are some that stick out…

I was asked to buy two of the Juul vaping delivery sticks, which are sold at 7-11, and which cost about 10 bucks. The vaping system has been a godsend for my wife, who smoked two packs a day for most of her adult life: her lungs, the doctor says, are completely clear, pink and healthy. Nonetheless, the government is trying to send her back to cigarettes, which it refuses to ban ( it certainly could), and threatening to eliminate Juul. When I tried to purchase the sticks, I was informed that 7-11 is prevented by law from selling more than one to a single customer. The law is simply harassment and an abuse of government power. I could come back 20 minutes later and with a different clerk, buy a second one easily.

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The emergency room admitting staff consisted of two grossly obese women wearing baggy sweatshirts and slacks. One was chewing gum. Both mumbled and were barely audible. What a confidence- and trust-building introduction to a hospital! How can any business allow employees to present such an unprofessional image to the public? Quizzing my sister, a health care expert (she wrote some of Obamacare), about what’s going on here, I was informed that health care facilities, including doctors’ offices, are experiencing such a staffing emergency that they have to accept sub-par employees. No, they really don’t. Health care facilities can’t allow unprofessional staff, and they need to pay enough to ensure that employees meet acceptable standards.

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It’s been a while between warm-ups, I know. They are a necessary feature to cover the myriad ethics issues that arise daily, even though even with them the task is impossible. Unfortunately, the format also requires almost twice as much time as a normal, single issue post, and the warm-ups usually prompt fewer comments and clicks, I’m not sure why. Fortunately, I don’t write Ethics Alarms for clicks. But it’s been chaotic around here lately, and I haven’t had many uninterrupted hours to prepare on of these multi-matter posts. This certainly isn’t one. Well, let’s just see what happens…

1. Of all people….Sarah Palin has advised Ron DeSantis to “stay Governor.” “DeSantis doesn’t need to [run],” Palin said in an interview with Newsmax. “I envision him as our president someday but not right now. He should stay governor for a bit longer,” she added. “He’s young, you know. He has decades ahead of him where he can be our president.” Someone needs to explain to Sarah the principle of ethics estoppel. Palin abandoned the job the citizens of Alaska elected her to do based in the belief that she would fulfill her commitment to do it, resigning as governor in 2009 after just three years on the job. If there is one person in the U.S. who has no standing to advise anyone to “stay governor,” it’s her.

Palin was horrible and unethically mistreated by the news media when she ran for VP with John McCain. Savaging her was part of the MSM’s push to elect Barack Obama; meanwhile, it ignored the obvious deficits of Obama’s running mate, a guy named Joe Biden. I defended Palin then, ethically so, but virtually everything she has said or done since has almost—almost-–made me regret it.

2. Oh for heaven’s sake….The Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering “eco-grief” training to employees who are anxious and depressed about the impending planetary doom from climate change, among other things. The training is supposed to define their eco-grief and allow employees an opportunity to “examine their emotions” while giving them “and “tools to cope.” The HBO series “Big Little Lies” had an episode where second-grader had a crippling panic attack while her teacher was explaining that global warming was going to end life on Earth if we didn’t act quickly. But then she was six. Any U.S. government employee who suffers from “eco-grief” is too juvenile, emotionally stunted and unstable to be a public employee. The remedy for “eco-grief” is to grow the hell up.

An employee of Fish and Wildlife said, “The FWS is in absolute crisis when it comes to funding and staffing. Most refuges I know have lost 50 to 60% of their staff over the last 12 years. And yet consider how much time, money, energy and staff time is being spent on spreading the woke message. Would the FWS support its employees having a booth and being dressed in uniform and while on the clock supporting a pro-life festival?”

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