I’m being pummeled by ethics annoyances left and right, and I don’t have time tonight to do them all justice, so here are some matters that deserve attention, even if I can’t give them enough…

1 A new IIPTDXTTNMIAFB! Imagine if President Trump had said something a ridiculous as Joe Biden today announcing that the price of gas was “five dollars” when he took office, claiming he had brought the price of gas down. The news media would be calling it a lie, or claim that it was proof that he needed to be replaced under the 25th Amendment. My guess is that Joe wasn’t lying, he just was confused.

2. Talk about unfit for office...New York Gov. Kathy Horchul made two jaw-dropping statments in the lat 24 hours that demonstrate that she is without a clue regarding society, civilization, and human development, as well as proving that she has the instincts of a totalitarian.

Last night, when confronted in their debate by Republican challenger Lee Zeldin over the state’s controversial bail reform law, Hochul responded to his complaint that criminals were not going to jail under the Democratic Party’s policies, including the state’s controversial bail reform law, she responded, “I don’t know why that’s so important to you.” It’s a mystery! Why would anyone want criminals off the street? Then today, announcing new mandatory health regulations, she justified masking requirements for students because “children are used to masks.”

Oh, I’m sure children can get used to all sorts of things: child abuse, shoes that don’t fit, racial indoctrination, non-heterosexual propaganda, red armbands. Masks impeded socialization and social interaction, facial signaling, speech and communication, but hey, as long as they get used to it, no problem!

I know nothing about Lee Zeldin, but Horchul cannot be trusted with a governorship. If New Yorkers elect her, with all of the evidence she’s provided of manifest incompetence, they deserve what they’ll get.

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On this date in 1994, a baby boy was born to an unmarried Russian girl, who gave him up for adoption. Six months later, my wife and I flew to a grim orphanage in Samara, Russia and engaged in a mad race to adopt the child renowned there as the healthiest infant in the place and get him out of the country before an already-passed ban on international adoptions went into effect. We made it by less than a day, but got Grant Viktor (his Russian name) Bowen Marshall home to Alexandria, Virginia. Here he has grown up to be an all-American male with little in common with his father except scorn for convention and a determination to do it, as Frank and Elvis sang, his way. I am very proud of him, and while most of my aspirations, dreams and projects have ended in disappointment or dust, getting him to these shores to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (in his case, automobiles) will be more than enough legacy for me.

Of course, the 27th of October also marks the banner day in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox, my obsession, burden and joy since I was 12 and the source of some my most strongly held ethical perspectives on character, fate, and what really matters in the losing battle called life, finally won the World Series, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals after coming back from a 0-3 deficit to shock the New York Yankees, who richly deserved it. Grant said, during our household celebration, “Now I know you’ll never forget my birthday.”

He knows me well.

1. Memoir ethics breach: Mathew Perry. The “Friends” actor who has never really soared in his career since the long-time hit sitcom ended, has reached the state where writing a book about his addictions was the best remaining option. He wrote in it, among other observations shared by Variety and the New York Post,while remembering rising young actor River Phoenix whose life was cut short by a drug overdose, “River was a beautiful man, inside and out—too beautiful for this world, it turned out. It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Pheonix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?” For some reason admirers of Reeves, and probably the actor himself, though he hasn’t spoken up yet, had a problem with this. Social media began a full on assault. Perry, sensing impending pariah-hood, now says it was just a misunderstanding: “I’m actually a big fan of Keanu. I just chose a random name, my mistake,” Perry told People. “I apologize. I should have used my own name instead.” Right. He’s either an idiot for randomly choosing a star and colleague to denigrate for no good reason, or Perry is lying that it was truly random. Well, he can just blame it all on his addictions…

2. I forgot: in the previous post about the many unethical ways the Left is rallying desperately around John Fetterman, I neglected the rampant use of the worst of all rationalizations, #22 Comparative Virtue, or “It’s not the worst thing.” Many would-be defenders of Fetterman have pointed out that Georgia Republican Herschel Walker has been more or less incoherent on many occasions, and he can’t even claim a stroke as an excuse. No doubt, Walker is an awful candidate and frequently makes no sense, but his lack of fitness for the Senate doesn’t make Fetterman any more fit. A similar flawed theory was used to discredit MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell, who broke ranks with most of her colleagues by telling viewers the truth: Fetterman was very shaky in the debate. This tweeted reaction was typical of many angry MSNBC viewers: “Andrea Mitchell has an agenda. She degraded John Fetterman when talking about last nights debate. All about his stroke. What’s her excuse? She can’t find words when trying to form a sentence.”

So far, there hasn’t been an uptick in desperate media analysts noting that President Biden and Kamala Harris frequently make as little sense as many of Fetterman’s debate responses.

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I don’t watch Tucker Carlson, but I literally landed on Fox News for three minutes last night to hear the pundit note that the mainstream media was now dedicated to making the public disbelieve what it could see with its eyes and hear with its ears. “When that succeeds, the result is slavery,’ he concluded. This is nothing but warmed-over Orwell, but it is right nonetheless. I assume what prompted Carlson’s observation was the frenzied reaction of most (though not all) of the biased news media and Democrats to John Fetterman’s horrific performance in his debate against GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz.

Yoo’s Rationalization, or “It isn’t what it is” was a late addition to the Rationalization List, but it has been the Rationalization of the Year each year at least since 2019. 2022, however, has broken all records. As I so sagely predicted months ago when it was obvious (or should have been) that Democrats would be facing an electoral backlash this November, they and their news media are engaging in more and more transparently dishonest and misleading rhetoric, and much of it is of the Yoo variety. Unable to prevail by the superiority of their policies and measurable positive results, the panicked Left is now weaponizing denial as well as one rationalization after another. Fetterman’s ugly performance, with his loss being seen as likely leading to GOP control of the Senate, has kicked this unethical strategy into a new gear.

Let’s begin with reality. Fetterman has refused to release his medical records, and has not recovered sufficiently from a May stroke to be able to speak clearly, form sentences, and understand what is being said to him without technological assistance, meaning that he wouldn’t be able to function in the corridor discussions and informal meetings that are so central to the operation of the Senate. He should have withdrawn when he had the stroke and his party should have replaced him, but in an excess of arrogance and hubris, both were certain that he could prevail against the Trump-endorsed Oz, who was seen as weak alternative. (And he is). Nobody apparently felt that the citizens of Pennsylvania deserved a fully capable representative in the Senate—all that mattered is that Fetterman would be a reliable Far Left vote. The news media scrupulously downplayed the degree of Fetterman’s problems (“Democrats Must Win” is the mission) until NBC reporter Dasha Burns, after having significant contact with Fetterman in October, concluded that Fetterman’s impairments were so significant that even assistive technology didn’t help. She noted that “it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation.”

She was immediately attacked by journalists and party loyalists for putting her assessment of the facts above ideological loyalty….you know, what used to be called “journalism.” Then the debate made it clear that Burns was correct. What should have happened after the debacle was for all journalists to report that Fetterman clearly was not fit to serve in the Senate at this point, that voters must decide if they want to gamble that he will recover sufficiently to do the job if elected, and that to that end, his release of his medical records is paramount. Voters, regardless of their political affiliations, ought to be in agreement.

But no.

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I don’t want to belabor this too much, as Ethics Alarms has been making the same point for more than a decade, but I like posting that “Casablanca” clip, and I must ask: How long will it take the majority of people to realize what a pie-in-the-sky con job and “It isn’t what it is” exercise in magical thinking the climate change emergency is?

Here’s the New York Times: Continue reading →

After last night’s disastrous debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race that may determine which party controls the U.S. Senate, John Fetterman’s campaign said that he “dominated.” Yes, it really said that.

Perhaps it was covering its own incompetence: he should not have been allowed to debate at all. Ducking the debate would have done less damage to Fetterman’s prospects than the painful display last night. Horrified audiences were subjected to Fetterman responses like…

• “We all have to make sure that everyone that works is able to. That’s—that’s the most American bargain, that if you work full time, you should be able to live in dignity as well true.”
• “And I believe they haven’t have any businusses being being. You can’t have businesses being subsidized by not paying… individuals that just simply can’t have avave [?] to pay their own way.”
• Then there was the endless dead air when Fetterman was asked about his flip-flop on fracking. Finally he said, “I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t — I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.”

Despite claiming that their candidate triumphed while his campaign was falling apart in chunks on TV, Fetterman’s spokespeople blamed malfunctions in the special closed captioning system he required. The technicians responsible responded that the system worked perfectly. Continue reading →

For your cultural literacy enlightenment of the day, the painting above is George Bellows’ “Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Firpo,” depicting the most dramatic moments in one of the most famous fights ever before professional boxing fell into corruption, disrepute, and irrelevance. The date was September 14, 1923; the place was the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fighters were National Boxing Association heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and Luis Ángel Firpo, the heavyweight champion of South America known as the “Wild Bull of the Pampas.” The match only lasted two rounds of a scheduled 15, but the fight included 11 knockdowns, notably the one portrayed in the painting (which hangs in the Whitney), when “the “Manassa Mauler” actually knocked Firpo out of the ring.

1. Stacey Abrams, who once was thought to be Joe Biden’s likely VP pick (since he was limiting himself to unqualified black women) is proving herself to be the incompetent clown the aware and non-politically correct pegged her as long ago. Now running ten points behind in the polls behind the man she claims “stole” the governorship from her in their first meeting, Abrams decided to appeare on stage at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena during the Lizzo concert with opening act Latto, holding up a sign that read “My Body My Choice.” Abrams is determined to go down pimping for abortion even though all evidence shows that the issue is not one of those primarily on voters’ minds. Her stunt was particularly ill-considered since she held up the sign in front of a sign announcing Latto’s biggest hit, “Pussy”:

Stay classy, Stacey!

2. Another effort to target a Christian baker by gay activists has failed, though not before causing a lot of expense and wasted time to the baker. Cathy Miller is owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, and was asked in 2017 to bake a special same-sex wedding cake for Eileen Del Rio and her fiancé. Miller felt that doing so would be a violation of her religious beliefs. (I disagree, but I also object to customers setting out to bend others to their wills). Miller offered to refer the job to a competing bakery, or to sell the couple a pre-made cake they could have customized elsewhere. No, the same-sex couple wanted to punish the baker. After their complaint, which was the plan all along, California’s Department of Fair Housing and Employment filed legal action against Miller’s business under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state law aimed at protecting consumers from discrimination by businesses on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion. Last week, the Superior Court of California in Kern County ruled against the militant couple. Miller’s lawyer called the ruling ironic since “a law intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination was used to discriminate against Cathy for her religious beliefs.”

I don’t know why both parties in such a controversy can’t be reasonable and compromise, but since they can’t while The Great Stupid runs amuck, this was the right, and most ethical, result.

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It is usually depressing when one digs into the sausage-making that is elections, and the recent New York Times inquiry into the pre-election reasoning of 12 young voters (20-somethings, with one 18-year-old) is especially so. Luckily, the statistics show our young voters to be the least likely to actually bother to cast votes, but still, these are the citizens we’re rearing, and attention must be paid.

Here is a summary of what they told the Times…

Jayda Priester, 25 [Atlanta]: “The most important issue for me is defunding the police. I am hugely for defunding the police and putting other resources available for crisis management, de-escalation.”

Me: Jayda says she hasn’t decided whether to vote at all. Good. Anyone who even considers defunding the police is too ignorant, naive and foolish to be a responsible citizen.

Kyle Moore, 28, [Wisconsin]: “I feel like the 20s generation does not express or voice their opinion as strongly as they should, like the older generations. They hold back more and don’t come out and voice or vote clearly enough to see the country succeeding.”

Me: Kyle should read the responses of the other 12 “young voters,” like Jayda. Opinions that misinformed don’t contribute anything positive to the national discourse. Maybe the smarter ones are holding back because they know they don’t understand matters sufficiently to have an informed opinion.

Kadie Mercier, 29, [Philadelphia]: “As an emergency-department nurse, we see people come in all the time that are in very poor health because they’re unable to afford their medications or find a primary care provider. And so it’s something that I’m really passionate about, making sure these people can avoid coming to the emergency department.”

Me: Kadie is apparently a single issue voter, and is informed to some degree on that issue. Single-issue voting is irresponsible, and thus unethical, but it has the advantage of being uncomplicated.

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