Naturally the New York Times did its best to make the case that the 6-3 majority decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which I wrote about last week here, was an example of the political Right denying the reality that the United States remains a racist society requiring special protection (and privileges) for African American citizens. Its “best” was pathetic; indeed I’m amazed an editor didn’t 86 the piece because it was so self-refuting.

The headline is “Behind Voting Rights Case, a Clash Over the Reality of Racism” (Gift link!) The subhead reads, “The Supreme Court ruling said there must be proof that a racial group was “intentionally” disadvantaged. The dissent called it ‘well-nigh impossible.’” How anyone could objectively think the wan, confirmation bias argument Times reporter Richard Fausset puts forth could be persuasive to a reader who hadn’t already made up his or her mind that the decision was, as one of my Trump Deranged Facebook friends wrote, a disastrous blow to “legal provisions that for 60 years have helped ensure that you could not be denied political representation because of your race” is beyond me.

The mordantly amusing question Fausset poses to frame his analysis is “Has anti-Black racism eased, or has discrimination against African Americans simply become more subtle, disguised as a web of rules embedded in regular partisan politics?” It’s risible because he correctly describes the Southern racism that the 1965 Voting Rights laws thusly: “Senator James Eastland, a Democrat from Mississippi who wanted to kill the landmark legislation, once openly stated that Black people were an “an inferior race.” During his 1963 inauguration speech, Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama, a Democrat, infamously declared, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In the early Sixties, black churches were burned and the KKK was still active in parts of the South. Three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi in 1964.

A very good friend whom I respect tremendously (but who lives in a bubble: he is a theater artist) just posted on Facebook:

“I’m heartsick that the Supreme Court–in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines–has now thoroughly gutted the Voting Rights Act. The right-wing majority has just upended legal provisions that for 60 years have helped ensure that you could not be denied political representation because of your race. Republicans will now be free to gerrymander districts with the intent of minimizing Black representation. It’s a disgraceful decision, undoing one of the major accomplishments of the Civil Rights Era.”

Naturally this standard issue progressive lament received immediate hosannas and replies about evil Republicans and racist SCOTUS Justices. Neither my friend, who is not a lawyer, nor any of the angry commenters had read the opinions in the decisions, and it was obvious from their content. I have read the decision and the opinions in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down a clearly racially motivated Louisiana gerrymander. I also discern that only the dissenters, the Wise Latina, the DEI black female, and the smart lesbian who apparently feels obligated to back her progressive sisters even when they are dead wrong, decided on their position based on ideology and partisan loyalty. The six Justices in the majority decided the case based on the law and reality.

The ignorance and bias of the non-lawyers attacking the decision is depressing. Yes, the Voting Rights Act was one of the major accomplishments of the Civil Rights Era, based on the conditions that prevailed during that era. 1965 was 62 years ago. The civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi ( the core of the film “Mississippi Burning”) died in 1964, the year before. To understate the case, Southern states are different now, but Democrats have been using the outdated formulas prescribed in a 1965 law to justify anti-white racial discrimination to this day.

In the majority opinion, Justice Alito correctly wrote,

“The question before us now is whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short list of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimination. To answer that question, we must understand exactly what §2 of the Voting Rights Act demands with respect to the drawing of legislative districts…. §2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race…. In [Rucho], we held that claims of partisan gerrymandering are not justiciable in federal court. The upshot of Rucho was that, as far as federal law is concerned, a state legislature may use partisan advantage as a factor in redistricting. And litigants cannot circumvent that rule by dressing their political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb…. [T]he Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, [so] no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8….”

The whole opinion is worth reading. If one is going to opine publicly about how terrible the decision is, it has to be read: one is ethically obligated to know what the decision was and what the law is supporting it before offering criticism. None of those fuming over the case had read the decision, and neither had my friend. They just listened to MSNOW and read indignant protests by race-hustlers like Barack Obama. They are exactly like George Costanza in a memorable “Seinfeld” episode where he is too lazy to read “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” for his book club so he watches the movie instead. That George! What a lazy idiot. How could he think the movie would be an accurate version of the book?

I asked everyone on the thread whether they had bothered to read what they were condemning and being “heartsick” about. Crickets.

I was hoping that Ethics Alarms history buff and house deep-diver would weigh in on the latest Presidential assassination attempt, and he didn’t disappoint.

Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Predictable Aftermath To Assassination Attempt #3 That Still Must Be Aggressively Addressed…Somehow”:

* * *

What makes me wonder is that the Secret Service didn’t appear to have run everyone staying in the hotel at the time of the event through whatever databases they had. The would-be assassin didn’t have a criminal record, but recent firearms purchases might have popped, which might have made them look again, see that he hadn’t gone through airport-level security, and made them at least check him out. Be that as it may, there is pretty clear evidence of intent here, between the manifesto, the carefully managed trip, and the hotel stay.

This actually makes four tries for Trump, if you count the one before he was elected the first time where the guy tried to grab a security guard’s gun but got grabbed before he could do much. We still know probably the least about Crooks, the guy who came the closest in Butler, PA, because he was shot and killed at the scene and he didn’t leave a clear paper trail.

I’m aware that few of the presidents were universally popular, and that a lot were divisive and had strong opposition. Andrew Jackson was disliked enough (especially in the Carolinas) that three people tried to kill him, although only one while he was president. Lincoln of course was killed by a Confederate bitter-ender (there were supposedly four other attempts to kill him, including one to kill him as he took the train to his inauguration). Garfield was killed by someone clearly crackers. McKinley was shot dead by an anarchist. Taft, Hoover, FDR, and Truman were all targeted for one reason or another. The two PR independence activists who tried for Truman killed a White House policeman. The anarchist who tried for FDR failed but did get the mayor of Chicago. Then of course there is the murder of JFK, the shooting of Reagan, and failed attempts on the next four presidents. As far as I know, Biden was never targeted.

Most of the presidential assassins and would-be assassins were either insane (Guiteau, Hinckley) or extremists of a lost cause or a cause that never was (Booth, Czolgocz, others). There’s nothing insane about this guy. Either that or most of the Democratic Party has gone over the edge. I don’t think that’s the case, though. A lot of it is just cold hate and arrogance. It’s easy to hate someone in the heat of anger. If you still hate someone when the heat of anger has cooled down, or if you were never all that angry when you decided to hate that person, that’s really a problem.

It’s completely normal to dislike Trump. It’s completely normal to believe that his policies are the wrong ones. It’s completely normal to think he is leading the country in the wrong direction. All of that is at least reasonably debatable and there is room for disagreement. It’s not normal to believe Trump is a pedophile, there is no evidence of that, and in fact there’s more evidence that Biden is (getting too close to young girls, showering with his daughter). It’s not normal to believe Trump is a rapist, there are no findings of any court convicting him of that. It’s not normal to believe Trump is a traitor, because if he could have been charged with treason they had four years to do it in.

Wow. Great job, New York Times!

That’s a gift link to this head-exploding piece: “‘The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?’ ” That states pretty clearly an example of Rationalizations #1, #2, and #2a on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List: 1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it,” 2Whataboutism, or “They’re Just as Bad“and 2 A. Sicilian Ethics, or “They had it coming.” These rationalizations aren’t so high on the list by random chance. They are near the top because they are ancient, popular, invalid and obvious rationalizations that have been rotting society for thousands of years. Yet the New York Times thinks its worth pondering whether such anti-ethical reasoning is justified.

I hate to repeat myself, but this exemplifies how today’s Left thinks.

Left-wing “influencer” Hasan Piker and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino did a video interview with culture editor Nadja Spiegelman on “the ethics of theft.”

[Pssst! There is no “ethics of theft.” Theft is both unethical and immoral, as well as illegal (you know, that Ten Commandments thingy).] This is a podcast that should have lasted,oh, ten seconds or less. Nadja begins with this fatuous intro: “I’m proposing a new term: Microlooting. People are taking small things from big corporations and they’re feeling justified. But is it a slippery slope? What’s going on with our moral code?”

Of course it’s a slippery slope, and if you even have to ask that question, you’re too clueless to moderate the topic!

Then we get quotes like these:

Because, you know, it was flamingly obvious.

From the Department of Justice’s indictment:

“Starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of informants who were either associated with violent extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction. These informants were referred to by some individuals within the SPLC as the “field sources” or the “Fs.” Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in SPLC funds to Fs who were associated with various violent extremist groups.

• F-37 was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia and attended the event at the direction of the SPLC. F-37 made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees. Between 2015 and 2023, the SPLC secretly paid F-37 more than $270,000.00.
• F-9 was affiliated with the neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance and C. served as an F for the SPLC for more than 20 years. F-9’s activities included fundraising for the National Alliance. Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly paid F-9 more than $1,000,000.00. In 2014, F-9 entered the headquarters of a violent extremist group and stole 25 boxes of their documents. F-9 coordinated payment for the copying of the materials with a high-level SPLC employee who had knowledge the documents had been stolen. The original stolen materials were returned to the violent extremist group in a second illegal entry by F-9. Thereafter, the high-level SPLC employee utilized the documents, in part, as the basis for a story published on the SPLC’s Hatewatch website and authored by the employee. Another F, F-39, was blamed for the theft and was paid approximately $6,000.00 by the SPLC to falsely take responsibility for the theft.
• F-27 was reported as an officer in the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club. Between 2014 and 2020, the SPLC secretly paid F-27 more than $300,000.00.
• F-42 was the former chairman of the National Alliance. The SPLC website contained an “Extremist File” webpage about F-42 from which the SPLC solicited donations. Between 2016 and 2023, the SPLC secretly paid F-42 more than $140,000.00. This overlapped the time period in which F-42 was featured on the SPLC’s “Extremist File” webpage.
• F-30 led the National Socialist Party of America, was the former director of a faction of the Aryan Nations, and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC website contained an “Extremist File” webpage for F-30 from which the SPLC solicited donations. Between 2014 and 2016, the SPLC secretly paid F30 more than $70,000.00. This overlapped the time period in which F-30 was featured on the SPLC’s “Extremist File” webpage.

In addition to directly paying leaders and others associated with the same violent extremist groups that the SPLC sought donations ostensibly to “dismantle,” the SPLC also used Fs to indirectly funnel money to other violent extremist group leaders. This included the SPLC 5 funneling more than $160,000.00 from a fictitious entity to F-11 who then sent funds to various violent extremist group leaders including the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”

The SPLC was giving millions to leaders and member of what it termed “hate groups” because the organization needed active hate groups to justify its existence and to feed its ravenous fundraising machine, which, in turn supported a progressive Democrat hit group weaponized to discredit conservative organizations. I knew the SPLC was unethical and a scam, but I didn’t see this coming. What I saw was bad enough, though…

In 2017, I wrote in part,

D. James Kennedy Ministries of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, an evangelical Christian ministry, is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for calling the ministry a hate group because of its stance against LGBT rights. The SPLC is an Alabama-based, self-styled  watchdog group that tracks tracks what it considers extremist organizations, and it publicly names organizations it considers hate groups. It considers hate groups to be any group that is sufficiently aggressive in opposing certain core progressive positions. The entire operation is a masterpiece of self-validating virtue. The name was carefully chosen to signal unimpeachable virtue: it’s “Southern,” so its stance against discrimination is obviously defient and in opposition to its surrounding culture and biases. Though little of its activity involves poverty, the name also signals charity and virtuous motives.  What’s a law center? Well. I grdauted from one, and that was a law school. The Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t a law school, but doesn’t the name sound impressive? Originally, the SPLC acted as a public interest law firm (I would call its use of “law center” misleading, and a breach of several states’ legal ethics rules if it were still a law firm), but now it is a progressive activist and propaganda organization. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but part of its schtick is to designate organizations as hate groups because, well, they say so. Then the left-leaning news media accepts their verdict as fact. You will read articles saying that there are 917 hate groups in the U.S. No, there are 917 groups the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “hate groups.” .Many of the organizations on the SPLC’s list are undeniably racist and violent. Many are not, or may not be. Lumping them all together as “hate groups” is an effective way to demonize dissent. “Hate group” has no accepted definition, but SPLC defines a ‘general hate group” thusly: “These groups espouse a variety of rather unique hateful doctrines and beliefs that are not easily categorized.”

Got it. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate group by its own definition. To be a reliable arbiter of whether a group is promoting hate rather than a just a controversial policy position, a group would have to be non-partisan, objective and politically neutral. all things that the SPLC is not. This is an organization that designates groups that espouse views that it hates as hate groups….

From the Washington Free Beacon:

“The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a liberal, Alabama-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization that has gained prominence on the left for its “hate group” designations, pushes millions of dollars to offshore entities as part of its business dealings, records show.

“Additionally, the nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to its top directors and key employees while spending little on legal services despite its stated intent of “fighting hate and bigotry” using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy….

“The SPLC has turned into a fundraising powerhouse, recording more than $50 million in contributions and $328 million in net assets on its 2015 Form 990, the most recently available tax form from the nonprofit. SPLC’s Form 990-T, its business income tax return, from the same year shows that they have “financial interests” in the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Bermuda. No information is available beyond the acknowledgment of the interests at the bottom of the form.

“However, the Washington Free Beacon discovered forms from 2014 that shed light on some of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s transfers to foreign entities.

“The SPLC’s Form 8865, a Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Partnerships, from 2014 shows that the nonprofit transferred hundreds of thousands to an account located in the Cayman Islands.

“SPLC lists Tiger Global Management LLC, a New York-based private equity financial firm, as an agent on its form. The form shows a foreign partnership between the SPLC and Tiger Global Private Investment Partners IX, L.P., a pooled investment fund in the Cayman Islands. SPLC transferred $960,000 in cash on Nov. 24, 2014 to Tiger Global Private Investment Partners IX, L.P, its records show.

“The SPLC’s Form 926, a Return by a U.S. Transferor of Property to a Foreign Corporation, from 2014 shows additional cash transactions that the nonprofit had sent to offshore funds.

“The SPLC reported a $102,007 cash transfer on Dec. 24, 2014 to BPV-III Cayman X Limited, a foreign entity located in the Cayman Islands. The group then sent $157,574 in cash to BPV-III Cayman XI Limited on Dec. 31, 2014, an entity that lists the same PO Box address in Grand Cayman as the previous transfer.

“The nonprofit pushed millions more into offshore funds at the beginning of 2015.

“On March 1, 2015, SPLC sent $2,200,000 in cash to AQR Managed Futures Offshore Fund Ltd., which the SPLC marked to an address in Greenwich, Ct., on its form. However, the entity is located in Canana Bay, Cayman Islands, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records. Individuals at AQR Capital Management, a global investment management firm, act as executive directors of the fund and are located in Connecticut.”