1. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the decision overturning Bill Cosby’s rape conviction in Pennsylvania. Good. The appeal was on the verge of being frivolous. Cosby was and is guilty as sin and a monster, but even monsters have constitutional rights, and prosecutors violated his. The public has been badly informed regarding this case and the due process rights involved, and the prosecutors who appealed the results of their own botch don’t help with statements like this one from Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, who said in a statement regarding the case, “All crime victims deserve to be heard, treated with respect and be supported through their day in court.”

That’s deliberate obfuscation and #MeToo pandering. Cosby’s argument for being released had nothing to do with his victims at all.

2. There is hope! One ethical trend that has reversed centuries of Western apathy and arrogance over looted treasures from less affluent countries is the grudging acknowledgement that these artifacts were stolen, and that there is an ethical imperative to return them. The latest example of late justice is the 55 antiquities returned to Greece by the Manhattan district attorney’s office last month. The Elgin Marbles still are trapped in the British Museum, but there is real progress. Greece may get them back yet. Continue reading →

I’ve been considering this feature for a long time, and it seems like as good a time as any to try it out..

There are nearly 30 Ethics Alarms posts in an average week, and when one throws in the four or five issues covered in the warm-ups and their equivalents, that adds another 30 or so topics to the mix. I even get complaints from readers that there is too much content here, particularly if a reader, having a life, skips a day or two. In this feature, I will make my selections of what I consider to be the five most valuable posts of the previous seven days, with the comment threads taken into consideration.

Here are my top five picks from last week:

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Former Attorney General Bill Barr did an admirable and courageous job navigating the metaphorical shoals of holding the position in the Trump Administration. Because his boss was so roundly maligned and hated by the “resistance”/Democratic Party/ mainstream media alliance, he was accused of being everything from a toady to a criminal accomplice, though Barr was one of the least partisan AG’s in recent memory, especially when compared to Barack Obama’s two full-fledged consigliares, Holder and Lynch.

Of course Barr didn’t care for Trump; virtually no one who ever worked with or for Trump got along with him. Nevertheless, I did not expect Bill Barr to join the venal opportunists who rushed to cash in with books betraying a President’s confidences with back-stabbing tales “out of school.” Once such books were understood to be unethical (if not illegal), at least until the President in question was dead. But once David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s disgraced budget director, broke the taboo, many similarly flawed former White House employees and appointees followed. Trump’s subordinates, however, have been the worst by far.

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Before we get to today’s ethics, we mustn’t let remembering the Alamo cause us to forget other ethically significant events in U.S. history. Yesterday marked the date in 1770 when a mob of American colonists gathered at the Customs House in Boston and began taunting and throwing objects at were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who had arrived in Boston two years before to enforce unpopular taxes passed by a British parliament. Young British private Hugh Montgomery was hit by a rock or an icy snowball, and he discharged his musket at the crowd. Other soldiers began firing, and the result was five “Patriots” were dead or fatally wounded. In a landmark moment for the American legal profession, John Adams and Josiah Quincy defended the hated soldiers and got all of them off except two who were found guilty of manslaughter. Their thumbs were branded with an “M” as their punishment.

Protesters and rioters have always prospered by provoking authorities into excessive force (or what the protesters were able to convince the public was excessive) ; the cause doesn’t matter. Incidentally, none of the Boston mob were prosecuted for “insurrection,” nor was the primary protest instigator, Samuel Adams.

1. Well waddya know! Hollywood celebrities who broadcast their political views are often incompetent and ignorant! Consider this tweet by actress Patricia Arquette:

Lessons: 

• If Twitter doesn’t make you stupid, it will show everyone how stupid you are.
• This tweet got 1,156 “likes.” Twitter also makes tweet readers stupid. 
• Celebrities like Arquette really think their opinions on issues not connected to the reason for their fame should be taken more seriously than anyone else with two-digit IQs and a 7th grade-levl education.
• These irresponsible celebrities include  the “internet influencers.” They drive the opinions of those who don’t have the attention spans to read more than a dozen words or so at a time. This is a substantial, even decisive portion of the American public.
• Arquette has had minimal education, so it was the news media’s duty to make sure she and people like her were informed about what this “NATO” thingy was that everyone was always talking about.

It didn’t. Continue reading →

The New York Times is the main focus of my ongoing lament about the unethical journalism in a nation that desperately needs better. This is in part a function of the fact that it is the paper I subscribe to (at great personal expense despite being in the ambit of the Times’ rival, the Washington Post, which I could have on my lawn for the proverbial song), but mainly because it is, by far, the best of mainstream journalism, so its bias and consistent dishonesty is particularly telling (and frightening.) Ethics Alarms does under-examine the Post, though, and I have to work on that.

I considered this while reading a post by John Schroeder at conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s website triggered by a Post “news story.” The WaPo piece said in part,

A father’s runaway political rage and his son’s revulsion at lawlessness enthralled a federal jury Thursday as the first criminal trial stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack revealed a nation and a family plunged into ruinous conflict by former president Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

That’s not news reporting (though the Post surely considers it “the best version of the truth,” in the damning words of the Times’ editor); I would call it fake news. Schroeder writes in part,

Really? It’s Trump’s fault? You sure about that? So, The Beatles really did make Charles Manson do it? Jodie Foster is the actual reason John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan?…[P]eople are responsible their own actions and their own responses to events. We have a will and just because somebody or something pushes our buttons, it does not mean we are not responsible for what we do when the buttons are pushed….This is not reporting on the trial, this is Beltway bubble obsession with Trump hatred. Unlike the Congressional hearings on Jan. 6 which are pure political theater and completely devoid of any actual meaning, the criminal trials are where justice is to be served, and yet the press is reporting on them as if they were just more political theater.

Well, I think the trials are also political theater, as they have made clear that only conservative rioters get prosecuted in the current version of American “justice.” But I digress. The Post publishes more of these kinds of reports, and that is why I subscribe to the Times.

1. A measure to protect women’s sports, and progressives are attacking it. Integrity is one of the hardest of all ethical values, as the supporters of allowing trans athletes to make female sports competitions unfair and futile continue to prove. Prodded by the news of a biological male transgender member of the UPenn women’s swim team crushing all competitors with his male-puberty-generated physique, Iowa became the 11ths state to ban biological males from competing inwomen’s sports when Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law last week.  “This is a victory for girls’ sports in Iowa. No amount of talent, training or effort can make up for the natural physical advantages males have over females. It’s simply a reality of human biology,” Reynolds said in a statement. “Forcing females to compete against males is the opposite of inclusivity and it’s absolutely unfair.” Continue reading →

The 21st Century is just not turning out the way I expected at all.

The details of the underlying controversy can be read here, if you dare. What interests me is this part:

The suit was filed by former Chicago Park District deputy general counsel George Smyrniotis against the city and Lightfoot….The lawsuit alleges that when Lightfoot heard of the plan, she said she would cancel the parade’s permit, and she ordered an immediate Zoom call.

On that call, Smyrniotis says that Lightfoot “proceeded to berate and defame” the lawyers and questioned their credentials.

Lightfoot told them “not to do a [fucking] thing with that statue without my approval.”

“Get that [fucking] statue back before noon tomorrow or I am going to have you fired,” Lightfoot also said, according to the suit.

She is also accused of making obscene comments to Smyrniotis and King.

“You make some kind of secret agreement with Italians. … You are out there stroking your dicks over the Columbus statue, I am trying to keep Chicago police officers from being shot and you are trying to get them shot,” Lightfoot allegedly said. “My dick is bigger than yours and the Italians, I have the biggest dick in Chicago.”

Smyrniotis says the comments defamed him by claiming he couldn’t do his job.

Well all righty then! Continue reading →

Bias makes you stupid, and lets everyone know you are biased and stupid, except those who are also biased and stupid. It also destroys your credibility, and signals that you are untrustworthy. That simple meme above was briefly tweeted out by The Daily Show, which appears on Comedy Central, once a cable option that was devoted to making people of all backgrounds and orientations laugh…you know, like comedians used to try to do. But eventually progressives took over the media and entertainment, and as with the once bi-partisan late night talk shows and Saturday Night Live, decided that the only people who deserved to be made fun of were conservatives, religious Americans, Republicans and, most of all, Donald Trump, and the only people they cared about making laugh were the hard-biased woke, like these shows’ hosts, performers and writers.

Thus when the meme of the dying battery was issued during “Sleepy Joe’s” wreck of a State of the Union speech, fans of the show erupted in anger. “… how very republican rhetoric from you,” protested one user. What the fuck?!?! Who hacked this account?!? This is bullshit!!! @Trevornoah did you approve this?!?” read another  tweet, which referred to the show’s reliably progressive messaging host. 

So the meme was taken down. Bias also makes you a weenie, apparently.

I read about this after being thoroughly disheartened reading an exchange a very, very intelligent and informed college friend had on Facebook about Biden’s SOTU. One development that has been fascinating to observe is that after four years inwhich insulting and complaining about President Trump were my Facebook Friends’ daily pastime (and in which Facts Didn’t Matter, just raw hate and virtue-signaling), since Biden’s election there have been virtually no political posts at all regarding this President, favorable or unfavorable. No jokes, no memes, no observations.Thus this exchange really stood out, as my old friend expressed admiration for the speech and snidely offered that it was a big upgrade from “Drumpf.”

The verdict essentially echoed the mainstream media reviews in places like MSNBC and CNN, but they are paid to issue Democratic propaganda. How can anyone with two brain cells to rub together call that speech anything but dishonest, frightening and infuriating?

What–the hell-–does “go get ‘im” mean? How can anyone believe that the state of the union is “strong”? How can a nation spend its way out of crazy inflation? What sense does it make to lob verbal insults at Putin when you are still funding his invasion by buying his oil and making it clear that no military force will be used to stop him? Who but an idiot would find any of that impressive or reassuring?

Yes, Biden promised that the next time, Putin will really be in trouble. The next time. Sure. “And as I’ve made crystal clear, the United States and our Allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power — every single inch,” the President said. Like Obama defended the “line” he drew in Syria. Like Joe stuck by our commitment in Afghanistan.

And, of course,we saw and heard the usual signs of Biden’s mental decline, like when he tried to ad-lib and said, “We’ve sent 475 Million vaccine doses to 112 countries, more than any other nation. And we won’t stop, because you can’t build a wall high enough to keep out… a vaccine…the vaccine can stop the spread of these diseases.” Joe also called the Ukrainians “Iranians.”

To be fair, he did this kind of thing even before his mind started turning to oatmeal. Still, how much biased-fueled denial does one have to embrace to watch that speech and think, “Wow, that was GREAT!!! I am so confident in the three years lying ahead!” ?

1. Yet another unethical and incompetent Republican House Member…Van Taylor, a Republican U.S. Congressman from Texas,  dropped out of his re-election race after it was revealed that he had been in an extra-marital relationship with a woman whose previous marriage was to an ISIS commander. Taylor has a wife and three daughters. He paid his paramour  $5,000 to keep quiet about the affair.

All you have to do, once you are elected to Congress, is resolve not to get involved in sex scandals, adultery, child porn or sexual harassment for two short years. How hard can that be? If a politician can’t control himself or herself to that minimal extent, then they should be in another line of work.

In his apology, Taylor admitted to a “mistake.” This means that at some point he must have thought having an adulterous affair with a women connected to a terrorist organization while he was serving in Congress was a good idea. He has dead ethics alarms. He shouldn’t be trusted to sell hot pretzels on the street.

2. Where are those Democratic District Attorneys when you need them? While DAs in various Democratic run cities are declining to prosecute shoplifting, drug possession and defecating in public, two Cape Coral, Florida children are facing battery charges because they shot two other kids….with Silly String.

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