U.S. Society

If I Were Ann Althouse, I’d Issue a “Bite Me!” Post and Switch to WordPress

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Is Ann Althouse a secret weenie?

My favorite Wisconsin-based female retired law professor blogger revealed today that her blogging platform, Blogger, had taken down one of her posts as a violation of its “Hate Speech” policy. She was informed,

“Your post titled ‘Is the news of Biden’s advanced cancer news of a terrible scandal?’ was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously [here] Why was your blog post deleted? Your content has been evaluated according to our Hate Speech policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page… to learn more…. We encourage you to review the full content of your blog posts to make sure they are in line with our standards as additional violations could result in termination of your blog.”

Ann says that she is going through the appeal process and expects to be exonerated with the post being restored. But she writes, “[W]hat jackassery! Was I “inciting hatred against” Joe Biden “on the basis of” his “disability”?!I’d linked to something titled “This is the Most Dangerous Cover-up in the History of the Presidency….” Ann then asks in bold, “Is “the most dangerous cover-up” something that must be… covered up?“

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A Reminder: James O’Keefe and His Ilk Are Unethical Regardless of What Their Methods Uncover

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I just answered a reasonable question from a commenter on this post, who asked, “I have some questions about the unethical nature of James O’Keefe’s “journalism.”I would say his methods are ugly, but sometimes ugly things are discovered in ugly ways. Anybody who happily uses the results of his “journalism” enables this type of journalism; condemning this type of journalism sounds hypocritical to me after using his results.”

The comment continued, “Personally I have fewer inhibitions than you on his style; perhaps that is because of a different appreciation of Machiavelli. Sometimes the end does justify the means; it all depends on the end and on the means. Also James O’Keefe (above, before he was fired by his own organization) is not an official journalist, and may therefore not feel bound by any ethics code for journalist he has not signed, and therefore feels free to act as a free agent.”

After I posted my reply, I realized that I had just written a post, and one that was necessary despite the fact that I have written on this topic (and related ones) often here. This is what I wrote, lightly edited:

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Revisiting “The Worst President Ever” Final Verdict

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The recent revelations in Ethics Villain Jake Tapper’s “Original Sin” exposé of how Joe Biden’s Presidency was a deceptive charade, with a POTUS how frequently and increasingly “had moments of incoherence, of a stark inability to communicate or recognize people or recall important facts.” I found myself wondering if the final installment of the long Ethics Alarms series “The Worst President Ever” needed an major update. After all, the last chapter, #7, declared Joe Biden the upset winner over Woodrow Wilson on January 12, 2025, before Donald Trump took office, before “Biden’s” series of last minute attempts to throw obstacles in the new President’s path, the prospective pardons, and the revelation that Biden was not only keeping his dementia secret (well, as secret as possible…) but was also deceiving the public regarding his physical health, having been diagnosed at some point—a year before he left office? Two years?—with prostate cancer.

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End of May Ethics Inventory, 5/31/25

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Nice. A pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine student who was the chosen MIT Commencement speaker this week changed her approved speech to condemn Israel for “genocide,” the current code-word favored by anti-Semites to mean “Jews aren’t allowed to defend themselves.” All the Jewish families as well as the Israeli students walked out of the ceremony in protest. Megha M. Vemuri, the speaker and president of the Class of 2025, was banned by the school from attending the later undergraduate ceremony, an MIT spokesperson told Fox. “MIT supports free expression but stands by its decision, which was in response to the individual deliberately and repeatedly misleading Commencement organizers and leading a protest from the stage, disrupting an important Institute ceremony,” the university said in a statement. 

MIT has no one to blame but itself. It has encouraged anti-Semitism on campus (like Harvard and other schools) and teaches its more suggestible students to embrace “intersectionality,” in which Palestinians are equated with “oppressed” minorities, and Jews with “racist whites.”

Meanwhile:

1. Loretta Swit died. She was a minor star who made her name and fame playing the character in “M*A*S*H” that Sally Kellerman had created in the hit Robert Altman movie in the long-running TV adaptation. (The TV show got Swit a lifetime sinecure guest starring on shows like “The Love Boat” and “Murder She Wrote” for the remainder of her career.). The character’s name was “Hot-Lips Houlihan, and because the New York Times cannot stop injecting leftist sentiments and propaganda into every corner of the paper, it wrote in Swit’s obituary,

This is garbage, and it makes me wonder if the writer saw the film. The character was nicknamed “Hot Lips” because a supposedly secret sexual adventure she enjoyed with her obnoxious lover (and ranking superior) Major Burns, had been inadvertently broadcast over the outpost public address system. Margaret Houlihan had been caught saying, “Kiss my hot lips!” and the name stuck. Since “Hot Lips” nicknamed herself, the moniker could hardly be called sexist, but political correctness still reigns at the Times. The movie “M*A*S*H” was about sexual hi-jinks among the doctors and nurses far more extreme than in the moralistic and sometimes oppressively liberal TV version. Writes Ed Driscoll on Instapundit regarding the 1967 hit, “The Times in 2025 looks back at the collective writing, directing and producing efforts of Richard Hooker, Ring Lardner Jr., Robert Altman and Larry Gelbart and concludes “That’s not funny.”

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Let Us Call the George Floyd Freakout What It Was

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

…a cynical, dishonest, politically-motivated exploitation of an otherwise meaningless arrest gone wrong, fueled by a Machiavellian party, irresponsible journalism, and a biased justice system. The ethics train wreck was a disaster for race relations, law enforcement, and the nation as a whole.

I would typically say “Good job, everybody!” at this juncture, except I refuse to take any blame for this one. I saw Black Lives Matter for what it was from the beginning, and identified the phoniness of the George Floyd riots immediately. Too bad so few people read Ethics Alarms.

There should be accountability, but there won’t be.

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Observations On Jake Tapper’s Epiphany and Related Matters…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

1. Greenwald is right. This sudden “realization” by Tapper is massively dishonest and part of the ridiculous “We were duped!” narrative by the Axis media. I knew that the White House, Karine, and Tapper himself were all lying. For this Ethics Villain to now declare, “Eureka! I’ve got it! We can’t trust Democrats OR Republicans!” is a) pathetic, b) desperate, c) insulting.

2. Rep. Jasmine Crocket—oh please, please PLEASE nominate her to run for President, Democrats!—decided to try the now-familiar Axis device of accusing Trump and the Republicans of what her party is guilty of. She’s saying that Republicans are ignoring Trump’s cognitive decline. My Trump Deranged sister actually believes that, in part because the Left thinks not supporting socialism, open borders, anti-white discrimination in hiring, trans athletes clobbering women in sporting competitions and Politburo-style executive branch government is crazy.

3. In a similar example of pretzel Axis”logic,” now White House aides and others are arguing that the vegetable President cover-up was justified to try to stop Trump from “destroying democracy.” This is akin to the infamous Nixon-era line regarding the Vietnam war: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” How dumb does someone have to be to accept this rationalization?

4. This…

Scott Pelley has long been the most openly biased and partisan of the “60 Minutes” team (well, he and Leslie Stahl), and his speech is an instant “It isn’t what it is” classic. His arrogance and fury reveals a destructive, untrustworthy profession beginning to realize that the jig is truly up: they have betrayed their nation and its ideals, and nearly everyone knows it, or as President Trump so wisely observed, our journalists are indeed “enemies of the people.” It is rumored that Pelley is likely to be dumped at CBS: Good.

5. Why does the media keep using “alleged” and “allegedly” to modify descriptions of events that occurred right in front of us? CBS “allegedly” edited the Harris interview so she would seem like less of an idiot to voters? We know they did: the transcript proves it. The White House, Democrats and journalists “allegedly” lied about Biden’s cognitive crash? It is “alleged” that others were making Presidential decisions during Biden’s wreck of a Presidency?

Miss Vito?

- This is your opinion? - It's a fact.

Ethics Quiz: Harvard’s International Students

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

I know I’m revealing my own reaction, contrary to EA quiz protocol, but this story calls for Major Tipton:

Accompanying the hand-wringing and progressive head explosions over the Trump Administration’s various demands on Harvard University and its threatened sanctions (including blocking Harvard’s ability to enroll—and get money from—international students), was the stunning information that 6,800 international students attended Harvard College in the 2024-25 school year, which is about 27% of the student body! This, according to university enrollment data. That figure is an increase from 19.7 percent in 2010-11.

Wait: almost 30% of the slots at the U.S’s most prestigious and (supposedly) best college, with resulting diplomas that are virtual golden tickets to success, riches and happiness (or so the legend goes) don’t go to Americans?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day this Memorial Day is…

How the Hell is this fair, civically responsible, prudent, reasonable or justifiable?

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Still More Evidence of the Biden Dementia Cover-up

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Jon Stewart’s podcast “The Weekly Show” podcast featured former Obama speechwriter and current “Pod Save America” co-host Jon Lovett, who used the show to admit what should cause the Democratic Party and its supporters to apologize, throw themselves on the mercy of voters and engage in a sweeping ethics reform since, you know, the party betrayed America. (It won’t, though, so it’s futile even to hope for that appropriate response.)

During a discussion of Biden’s fitness for office, Lovett spat out too many inarticulate “Unethical Quotes of the Week” to clean up, collect and enumerate, but the meaning was damning anyway. He recalled how Biden appeared in April 2024: “He was rambling, and he was hard to follow, and he repeated a story.”

“And, you know, I— I think people inside maybe weren’t being honest with themselves about what they were seeing,” he said. This is the “group think” excuse that the party’s consultants apparently worked out in a bunker somewhere and circulated around the Axis. I’m guessing it beat out the “Dr. Jill hypnotized everyone with her laser eyes” narrative. Lovett continued, “But I know if, like, from my own point of view, part of what was a challenge was because Joe Biden seemed so hellbent on staying in, right? I never wanted to be dishonest about what I felt we were seeing.” 

He didn’t want to be dishonest; he just was, poor guy. The Democrats simply cannot be allowed to escape accountability for this.

At the now infamous George Clooney fundraiser, Lovett says, it was clear to all that Biden had no business being President. “I remember feeling, ‘I wanna talk about this as a huge liability, I wanna talk about this as something Joe Biden can overcome.’ But I’m not gonna go so far as to say, ‘I think Joe Biden must drop out—He is too old to be president.’” Lovett explained. “If Joe Biden is the candidate, I want him to fucking win because I care about the country.”

He cares so much about the country that he’s willing to re-elect a disabled President who can’t do the job. That’s not “caring about the country.” That’s caring about keeping power in defiance of the Constitution and democracy.

I suppose I’m obsessing about this lately, but everybody should be obsessing about it. Democrats did this for four years, the news media let them do it, and there have to be consequences.

Memorial Day Weekend Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Thanks to my still resonating Verizon services disaster last weekend, this is the second Open Forum in a week. I deem it important to at least try to get back to normal, however, and so here we are.

As a bit of inspiration, I present the tale of a most unethical public servant, former L.A. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Brian K. Williams, shown above. Democrats have become this crazy: on Oct. 3, 2024, while he was in an online meeting involving his official duties, Williams picked up an incoming call on his city-issued phone, excused himself, and called the L.A. Police Department’s Chief of Staff. Williams reported he had just received a call from an unknown man who was threatening to bomb L.A. City Hall. Ten minutes later, Williams texted Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials, writing,

“Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning. The male caller stated that ‘he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.’ I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat.”

But there was no threat. The call Williams had received, an investigation revealed, was from Williams himself, who had used the Google Voice application on his personal phone to place a call to his work phone. The threatened bomb threat was his own.

The Department of Justice announced that Williams, 61, has been charged with the felony of reporting a false bomb threat, and has pleaded guilty. The crime carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

Nice.

Your turn!

Integrity Test For Climate Change Hysterics

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Well waddya know! The U.S. is on the verge of setting records for all-time low temperatures in May. That’s funny. I thought humanity was doomed because the world is burning up.

Of course, I don’t think one unseasonally cold month has any more significance than one unseasonably cold day, but that’s not how the climate change cabal has been playing their game. No, every time the temperature seems especially high anywhere in the USA, the activists, most of whom know as much about climate science as I know about fixing a carburetor, start screaming, pointing, and crying out, “See? SEE?” They do the same thing with seasonal wildfires, hurricanes, floods and, at least on The View, earthquakes and eclipses. They get away with it too, because the unscrupulous politicians they elect and the dim-bulb progressive pundits and reporters who work for those politicians always endorse and rationalize the climate change hysterics’ propaganda, even after every prediction, every projection, every deadline to save humanity proves to be hooey.

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