I count this as a good day for Ethics Alarms. Mrs. Q even made an appearance, and any day in which she weigh in is a good one. There were excellent comments, and even the loss of two “echo chamber” counter-echoes of recent weeks couldn’t spoil the day. One broke the stated rules here, was given a chance to apologize and resume her often dubious commentary, and she refused: her 7 pm. deadline came and went. Too bad. The other thought he was so intrinsically indispensable to the proceedings here that he actually tried to force me to reinstate said rule-breaker lest he take his leave. For “A Friend,” he sure doesn’t know me very well.

There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of ethics related news regarding the Will Smith-Chris Rock slap, or as various members of our spinning rather than reporting news organizations called it, a “confrontation” or an “apparent” slap. I’m going to deal with as many of those as I can stand tomorrow, and leave this collection to other issues.

1. Jon Stewart, non-Ethics Hero. The former “clown nose on/clown nose off” star of “The Daily Show” made a play for integrity by using his Apple TV show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” to attack the coverage of the frame-up Mueller investigation as the orgy of dishonest and biased journalism that it was. News Busters reports, “On March 17’s edition…the comedian set his sights on the media as he spelled out how their outdated use of ratings coupled with perverse incentives were driving them into oblivion. And to make this point, Stewart focused on how the media was addicted to the largest story of the Trump presidency: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election, aka the Russia collusion hoax.”

Conservative gad-fly blogger Don Surber called this one nicely, sneering,

I checked that posting’s date 3 times. Each time it came up 2022, not 2018 when the Mueller investigation was relevant.Had Stewart spoken up then, why Republicans might have done better in the midterm election and Nancy Pelosi would never have been speaker again. Of course, Stewart would have ticked a lot of people in the media off, and he never would have gotten his Apple gig. But now that Mueller and Trump are off the stage, Stewart knows it is safe to say what he should have said back then…

A real man of virtue who tells it like it is would take on the media’s refusal to call Will Thomas out as he broke women’s swimming records. A real man of virtue who tells it like it is would take on the media’s labeling the protest at the National Mall on January 6, 2021, an insurrection….

Now, 40 bucks short and 4 years too late, Jon Stewart dares to mock the media’s coverage of Mueller…I look forward to his mocking Judge Ketanji Jackson’s inability to define a woman in 2030.

That’s about right.

2. Speaking of “the insurrection”...The Washington Post, as I mentioned once today already, called the stupid and pointless riot on Jan. 6 an “insurrection,” keeping it in Big Lie territory, in the process of explaining why Chris Wallace jumped from Fox News to CNN. Wallace says he quit, the Post’s Greg Sargent writes, “in part because of Fox host Tucker Carlson’s depiction of the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt as a “false flag” operation….” Wallace quit because Tucker Carlson was making stuff up? This was a shock to him? Sargent’s piece uses the Times’ interview with Wallace that has this telling quote: “I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion. But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.” The TRUTH to Chris Wallace that must not denied is that Jan.6, 2021 was an insurrection: “an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence.” “Organized?” “Attempt?” “Defeat?” “Take control?” The Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 came a lot closer to that definition, and still didn’t make it. Chris Wallace thinks calling the riot by 300 drunks with sticks and bear spray an “insurrection” is unquestionable fact. No wonder he ended up at CNN.

3. Today’s IIPTDXTTNMIAFB, (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”) This exchange with Peter Doocy, who almost makes Fox News’ nepotism look good. (Almost.):

Doocy: “Are you worried that other leaders in the world are going to start to doubt that America is back if some of these big things that you say on the world stage keep getting walked back?”

Biden: “What getting walked back?”

Doocy: “It sounded like you told U.S. troops they were going Ukraine. It sounded like you said it was possible the U.S. would use a chemical weapon. And it sounded like you were calling for regime change in Russia and we know—”

Biden: “None of the three occurred.”

Doocy: “None of the three occurred?”

Biden: “None of the three.”

(All three occurred.) Continue reading →

Under normal circumstances—but what is normal any more?—my conclusion regarding whether Clarence Thomas should or should not recuse himself in any cases involving the January 6 riot (which the Washington Post again calls “an insurrection” today)because of his conservative activist wife’s vocal support of vigorous responses by the Trump White House in response to what she felt was a fraudulent 2020 election would follow the same reasoning that my analysis of Justice Scalia’s recusal controversy trod almost exactly 18 years ago. The question then was whether Scalia’s participation in a duck hunt with Vice-president Cheney and his pals created a sufficient conflict of interest to trigger the “appearance of impropriety” standard that is supposed to govern judicial decisions whether to recuse, since Cheney was technically—but only technically—a party to lawsuit that had ended up in the Supreme Court.

Scalia adamantly insisted that there was no conflict and no impropriety, and authored an impressive memorandum to support his position. He indeed judged that case. I wrote in part,

Those who have criticized Scalia for his stance on this controversy have an obligation to read the Justice’s memorandum. They are sure to learn some things, such as why it is unwise to trust media accounts regarding anything more complicated than your typical Sponge Bob Square Pants episode; what constitutes a legally persuasive argument and why even Scalia’s ideological foes admire his sharp intellect and lively writing….

[I make] no pretense of being able to match Justice Scalia’s intellect or knowledge of the law. And he makes one especially chilling point: is appearance of impropriety sufficient to force recusal when that appearance is a false illusion created by inaccurate reporting, sloppy analysis, and misinformed reading of the law? It looked like an easy call based on what appeared in the papers; Scalia’s memorandum is a clarification that shows that his position is not just a product of stubbornness, but of careful scholarship. He wins the debate, hands down.

He should still recuse himself….

Scalia is right: there is the potential here for more than one bad precedent, and justices should not permit themselves to be run out of deliberating on politically sensitive cases by partisan misinformation campaigns. But the damage is done. To most of the public, the raw circumstances of the Scalia-Cheney outing will call Scalia’s impartiality into question, and because it is a high profile case, this will damage the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. It isn’t worth it. Americans, even Americans that don’t comprehend the legal requirements of recusal, need to believe in the integrity of the Supreme Court.

Next, the Court should recognize the new political realities of its role, and devise a review system that would make the whole court the arbiter of whether one of the brethren has a conflict, or an unacceptable appearance of one. Such a system would have made Scalia’s current dilemma less of a lightning rod for criticism.

For now, though, Justice Scalia needs to face facts: he may be right on the law, but he’s a dead man walking.

I like that post a great deal; I think I was right. (I also look wistfully back at the time when I could spend up to a week a week polishing a single post.) The parallels between Justice Thomas’s Left-and-news media contrived conflict is similar to Scalia’s. But if you think that means that I now must side with those who are pushing for Thomas’s recusal, you are wrong. Continue reading →

I guess I should mark this weeks selection “BWSC”: Before Will Slapped Chris.”

Here are my top five picks from last week:

• The New York Times Scandal Regarding The Mainstream Media’s Cover-Up Of The Hunter Biden Laptop Story Is Bigger Than The Laptop Story Itself

I’m cheating a bit here; this one was 8 days ago, but I didn’t do a Monday Retrospective last week (I forgot) and this is an important topic. Come for the post, stay for the comments.

• Bias Makes You Stupid, And Only Bias Can Explain Why A Prosecutor Would Argue That It Is Unethical To Ask a Juror About His Biases

From 3/21, and too astounding to miss.

• So Many Unethical Laws Are Being Passed, They Get Shut Down Before We Can Get Properly Outraged By Them: D.C.’s Sinister “Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020”

On 3/22, we discussed how the District government, among others, are trying to over-ride parental rights.

• Ethics Observations On The Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Senate Hearings, Part 1 and Part 2

From 3/24…, and,

• “Now That Judge Jackson Has Settled One SCOTUS Recusal Issue, Another, Much Tougher One, Looms, Part I: The Issues.”

From 2/26, just in time for Part 2 today.

I’m squeezing today’s potpourri in while I labor to finish a client’s opinion letter on a weird type of lawyer conflict of interest where an attorney represents multiple clients seeking damages from the same defendant who doesn’t have the assets to satisfy everyone. Yes, compared to technical legal ethics, thinking about the rest is recreation.

Tonight is the Oscars broadcast, which I will assiduously miss despite having seen at least some of more Best Picture nominees than in recent years. From an ethics point of view, I must note that on this date in 1973, Marlon Brando confirmed his status as one of the biggest jerks in Hollywood by declines his Academy Award for Best Actor in “The Godfather.” Instead, he inflicted Native American activist Sasheen Littlefeather (that’s her, today and then) on the attendees and the TV audience. She appeared in Brando’s place and said that the actor “very regretfully” would not accept the award, in protest of the portrayals of Native Americans in film. This abuse of the ceremony for narcissistic political grandstanding helped start the Oscars on their long decline from being a celebration of popular entertainment to becoming an obnoxious platform for ill-educated and ill-informed celebrities to presume to lecture the American public.

1. From New York City, a “laws are for the little people” classic. NYC Mayor Eric Adams formally announced last week that he was lifting the vaccine mandate in for professional athletes and performers. He can spin all he wants, and the news media will spin for him, but there is no ethical way out of the hypocrisy. Adams claimed that his decision was driven by concern for the economic recovery of the city from the pandemic, noting that sports and entertainment played vital roles in generating jobs and tax dollars. Yes, and they also poured thousands of dollars into lobbying for this exemption. Adams said he had always believed it to be unfair that New York City-based athletes had to be vaccinated to play but visiting players did not, under an earlier Mayor De Blasio executive order dating to the prior administration. The disparate treatment of highly paid, celebrity workers and less starry, influential and powerful ones looks bad, and is bad.

Continue reading →

Massey University (New Zealand) Fat studies scholar Cat Pause ( I cannot determine if this was her real name) has died suddenly and unexpectedly. The PhD specialized in “Fat studies” and lectured on “fat positivity,” how to fight “fat stigma,” and achieving well-being for overweight people.

She was just 42 years old. [Notice of Correction: My original source said she was 50. That was wrong.]

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day—it’s more of a query than a quiz, really—is

What is the most ethical reaction to this news?

I ask because I’m puzzled, frankly. Obviously, it’s a tragedy for a woman to die so young. On the other hand, as Capt. Hook used to say, this doesn’t exactly validate her life’s work, does it? If you devote your research to showing how being obese is nothing to hide from, worry about or accept criticism for, I’m inclined to say that you better make damned sure you don’t drop dead suddenly at the tender age of 42. Isn’t this like defiant smokers getting lung cancer before retirement age, or Timothy Treadwell, aka “Grizzly Man,” getting mauled to death by a bear at 46?

Stipulated: It is mean and heartless to find such outrageously predictable demises funny, or to think, “They asked for it, they got it.” So what should we think that is constructive as well as compassionate?

Upon reflection, I don’t see how there could be a more annoying song than “Surfin’ Bird” by the appropriately named band, The Trashmen,” in 1963. It covers all the requirements: 1) It is repetitious 2) It has an ugly melody that is still an earworm. 3) It is sung by a soloist with an annoying voice. 4) The lyrics make no sense 5) it goes on and on forever. I think it was intended to be annoying. Incredibly, the song has been covered by other bands many times, and included in the soundtracks of several films, including Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.” It is also a running gag on the deliberately tasteless animated show “The Family Guy,” ever since there was an episode in which Peter wouldn’t stop singing it and drove his family nuts.

1. Abandoned scooters: The birth of an unethical slippery slope. The number of those E-scooters that users just leave wherever they feel like leaving them has multiplied vastly: I can see four from my office window. Some riders leave them blocking sidewalks, driveways and roads. I’d like to see an ordinance making the E-scooter distributors liable for tickets when the damn things are left on private property or city property where they are a hazard or an obstruction. But I digress; here is the slippery slope: children in my neighborhood now think that this is the proper way to care for all scooters. They are leaving their own, non-electric scooters wherever they lose interest in riding them. I saw four while walking Spuds this morning.

2. The Kings Pass/Star Syndrome in action. Wow, what an ethics swamp the NFL is—but you knew that. The NFL’s Cleveland Browns traded for quarterback Deshaun Watson, giving up of six draft picks and paying him $230 million, despite the fact that 22 women, all massage therapists, accused him of sexually harassing them as he used their massage services. He denied any wrongdoing, they were just massage ladies, he was a big football star, they were nobodies, so in the classic battle of “he said/she said,” the grand jury believed the celebrity, as they usually do. As for Watson, his explanation of his obsession with massage therapists was less than edifying. Asked the question, “Deshaun, as details have come out, some people have wondered why you’ve used the number of massage therapists that you’ve used? Can you kind of explain that number?”

The Browns’ latest superstar replied,

“Uh yeah. I can’t get too far into the detail because there’s an ongoing investigation still, but I can say with this day and age, especially with my age group, social media is a big business part that goes into it. So that’s a factor into it, but as far as the details, I can’t get too far into it because there’s an investigation going on . Hopefully, once everything is resolved, I can speak freely on it.”

Continue reading →

 

As tracked here at Ethics Alarms, presumptive Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson faced a serious conflict of interest problem in her position as a member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers because her first case on the Court was likely to involve Harvard’s constitutionally questionable affirmative action admission policies. She properly ended speculation by announcing at her confirmation hearing that she would recuse herself from the case. It was clearly the ethical move, but, as an almost certain member of the land’s highest court, she was not required to make it by law or binding regulation.

Now, not for the first time, progressives, activists, Democrats and Clarence Thomas haters are calling for the arch-conservative Justice to recuse himself, this time from all cases involving the January 6 Capitol riot (or as the mainstream media and Democrats will falsely tell you daily, the “deadly insurrection.”) Should he? The ethical considerations are more complicated and uncertain than in Jackson’s situation.

Continue reading →