U.S. Society

Joe’s “It Isn’t What It Is” Farewell” Part I: Introduction

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

We long ago reached the point where anyone paying attention swallowed comforting myth that any modern President delivers a farewell address that he really composed himself, but President Joe Biden’s scripted cavalcade of lies and hypocrisy is in a whole different category.

It stretched credulity to believe that the same man who mumbled this on national TV in June during the debate that effectively put him out of office just a half-year ago—

“He had the largest national debt of any president four-year period, number one. Number two, he got $2 trillion tax cut, benefited the very wealthy.What I’m going to do is fix the taxes. For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America – I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised $500 million – billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period. We’d be able to right – wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that – all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID – excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with. Look, if – we finally beat Medicare.”

….could compose, much less think, what he repeated off a teleprompter last night after resting all day.

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Oh-Oh. We Have Descended into Some Diabolical Hellscape Where Chris Cuomo Is Making Valid Ethics Observations….

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Cuomo, aka. “Fredo” on the Hegseth hearing…

The country’s in the very best of hands….

Meanwhile, while Cuomo is spot-on, here’s a quote from alleged conservative intellectual David Brooks, who today leveled similar criticism, but discredited himself with this:

“The hearings got better as they went along and more junior senators got to speak. Senator Mazie Hirono was excellent, asking substantive questions: If the president ordered you, would you order troops to shoot protesters in the legs? Would you follow an order to use the military for mass deportations?”

I can’t even tell if Brooks was being sarcastic; he has written so many outrageous things since his brain was surgically removed by the New York Times and replaced with a bag of Cheetohs. Sarcasm is not typically his metier. If Brooks was attempting sarcasm, he’s lousy at it: no columnist who wants to be taken seriously should ever, ever utter the words “Senator Mazie Hirono was excellent” in jest, irony, or God forbid, sincerity.

Ethics Quiz: The Hegseth Hearing, Part II

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Sorry: This started out as a quiz, but changed my mind…

I was going to post another one of the despicable Democratic Senators’ grilling of Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth as a genuine quiz with the question, “Was Sen. X’s questioning of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense, competent, fair, respectful and professional?” but after viewing the disgusting performance of Hawaii’s Senator Hirono, easily the dumbest Senator in the chamber and maybe the dumbest U.S. Senator in history, I realized it would be an unethical exercise.

I only raise ethics quizzes when I have genuine doubts about the answer, even if I personally have come to a conclusion. But in the case of Hirono’s scummy excuse for legitimate vetting, there is no argument. She was unprofessional, rude, disrespectful, dishonest and hateful. She didn’t allow Hegseth a fair opportunity to respond to her varied slanders. Much of her questioning was of the “When did you stop beating your wife?” variety. It was redolent of the worst of the Kavenaugh hearings, and that’s about as bad as it gets. Unsourced anonymous allegations are technically known as “rumors,” and especially in today’s snake-pit version of Washington, D.C., they should be ignored: to Hirono—wow, she’s an idiot—they qualify as evidence.

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Ethics Alarms Will Now Be Kind To Kamala…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I always feel for the losers in Presidential elections. It has to be one of the most crushing career failures that any human being has to endure, certainly in politics.

In “Inherit the Wind,” Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee’s famous play based on the Scopes Trial, the wife of “William Harrison Brady,” the character who is a thinly veiled version of William Jennings Bryan, has a moving speech about how no one can imagine the pain her husband has suffered losing three Presidential races, as Bryan did (a record). In modern times, losing just once usually ends a candidate’s political career, no matter how young they may be or how close the election.

I think that it is highly unlikely that Kamala Harris, the DEI Vice-President who had no business running even once, will break the recent pattern. She will sign a book deal, cash in, and fade into obscurity, a bad memory for Democrats, a living joke to everyone else. Unfortunately for her, Harris is still our Vice-President, and cannot start fading away yet.

Yesterday she was again the object of derision and mirth on social media and on the conservative websites for her very Harris-like performance during an unscripted Oval Office briefing on the Palisades fire crisis. It was this section, a trademarked Harris “word salad,” that attracted the ridicule:

“It’s critically important that, to the extent you can find anything that gives you an ability to be patient in this extremely dangerous and unprecedented crisis, that you do.”

I can’t say anything nice about the idiotic content of that statement, for telling people whose houses are burning to be “patient” is about as tone-deaf as a political figure can be. However, I finally have figured out why she keeps issuing those “word salads.” It isn’t because she is a dullard, although she is. The reason for her malady should have occurred to me earlier when I considered giving her a permanent Julie Principle pass on them.

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A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Note…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Over on last week’s Friday Open Forum, there is a discussion about “pet peeves.” Obviously one of mine is people who insist that there is no mainstream news media bias, despite the overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of news organizations, reporters, editors, broadcast news hosts and pundits are committed to “advocacy journalism” (that is, unethical journalism) and determined to advance the policies, ideology and major figures who reside on the left side of the political spectrum. I regard such people, which include a disturbing number of my friends and relatives, as one of four things: naive, dishonest, in denial, or not as bright as I thought they were due to bias, which, as we all know, makes us stupid.

I have felt this way for a long time (Hmmmm…I wonder when “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias” became a tag on Ethics Alarms?), but if 2024 didn’t make anyone who maintained that our news organizations and “journalists” were largely objective realize that they had been duped, there is no hope for them.

The New York Times, naturally, is usually Exhibit A here, not because it is the most left-biased news organization (MSNBC gets that title, easily) but because the paper is regarded, still, as the gold standard of American journalism. For the Times to be so flagrantly biased and so often in thrall to the radical Left (See: “The 1619 Project”) is a rank betrayal of the American public and our democracy as well as journalism, all of which need independent, objective news reporting from the so-called “legacy media.” If the best news source is partisan, biased, and devoted to propaganda, what course is there for the public but to be cynical, distrustful, and ultimately uninformed?

And indeed we are.

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The Worst President Ever? Part 7: The Worst of the Worst Revealed

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

If you want to review how we got here, these were the previous posts in “The Worst President Ever?”: Part I, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and a month ago, Part 6. Right now, the final field stands at eight, which is more than I wanted and a number that surprised me, especially since I disqualified one of the conventional wisdom favorites for Bad President infamy, Warren G. Harding. But poor Harding only was President for 2 and a half years, dying of a heart attack in August of 1923. He still had some good moments, and what he has always been marked down for is scandals in his cabinet that didn’t come to light until after he died. Like the other Presidents who didn’t serve a full term (W.H. Harrison, Taylor, Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Andrew Johnson and Gerald Ford), Harding never had a fair chance to distinguish himself (although Chester A. Arthur managed to do well in fewer than four years), so I felt it wasn’t ethical to include Warren in the Presidential Hall of Shame.

With that calculation, I realize that the field of eight must in fairness be reduced to seven. As I just mentioned, Andrew Johnson is one of the Presidents who didn’t get the opportunity to serve a full term. Yes, he only missed 41 days, but as the ghost of any President will tell you, a lot can happen in 41 days, good and bad. I think I may have been biased by the fact that when I first began studying the U.S. Presidency, literally everyone was taught that of course Johnson was the worst President: after all, he was the only President who was impeached! John Fitzgerald Kennedy while Senator helped the public understand that the impeachment was not as damning as widely believed by making Edmund Ross, the Republican Senator from Kansas who saved Johnson from conviction, one of his “Profiles in Courage”; still the stain of impeachment by the House hung like a black cloud over the first President Johnson. That cloud began dispersing a bit when Richard Nixon had to resign, a bit more after Bill Clinton was impeached (on stronger grounds than Johnson) and beat the rap as well as managing to remain a rock star in his party until that sexual predator thingy belatedly caught up with him. Then Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats managed to eliminate impeachment as a brand of disgrace by abusing the process with two purely partisan impeachments during Donald Trump’s first term. Johnson’s impeachment doesn’t look so damning now, and he didn’t get a full term in office. I am revoking his selection as a candidate for The Worst President.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Kamala’s Petty Picture

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

There is one last bit of ethics drama that arose from the Jimmy Carter funeral and its historic array of Presidents past, present, future, and sort-of, failed candidates, VPs and spouses. As USA Today pointed out, Kamala Harris put up a version of the event on Instagram that carefully copped out President-Elect Trump and his wife.

Stay classy, Kamala. USA Today writes, predictably attempting to cloak Harris’s back-handed slap at the man who defeated her (with her own invaluable assistance) by adding that “it was not clear if Trump’s exclusion was intentional.” Was the photo posted intentionally? Yes. Then Trump’s exclusion was intentional. The photo is cropped to make Harris the focus, and that also had the effect of leaving out the most important figure in the scene.

Well, it’s a better reaction than rioting at the Capitol, I guess.

Harris’s boilerplate words under the photo ( “President Jimmy Carter loved our country. He lived his faith, served the people, and left the world better than he found it. President Carter’s many contributions will echo for generations to come.”) has me wondering if a partisan conservative factchecker would label this “disinformation.” Did Carter really “leave the world better than he found it”? As for his “contributions” echoing for generations, that’s carefully deceitful line like fake compliments to untalented friends in bad theatrical performances (“Well, you can’t do better than that!” and “That was amazing!”).

Every man becomes President of the United States loves this country: you can’t get to the White House if you don’t and are unlikely to try. In that picture, the individual who demonstrated that he loved the U.S. in its present state least is Barack Obama. If that was a veiled shot at Trump by Harris, it was a particularly stupid one. A standard talking point from the Trump-Deranged is that “he only cares about himself.” Becoming President requires courage and sacrifice, and nobody runs for the position who isn’t determined to do a good job for all Americans.

Some have been more capable of achieving that goal than others.

The Vatican Insults The World’s Intelligence for Some Cheap Virtue Signaling

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

I suppose that anyone who remains a devout Catholic after the Church’s child predator scandal will swallow anything…sorry, poor choice of words.

The Vatican approved new guidelines for Italy holding that an applicant for the seminary cannot be rejected simply because he is gay, as long as he remains celibate.

How can this cynical, openly obtuse “liberalizing” of standards for the priesthood be received with anything but mockery? The Church already has gay priests, lots of them, and has since Peter was hearing cocks crow. I can name three in my limited experience with the Church. When I worked at Georgetown, the priest who was then President had a young male companion who followed him around like a puppy.

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Snow Day Ethics Warm-Up, 1/11/25

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

It’s another snow day in Northern Virginia, but that isn’t stopping climate change hysterics and progressive public policy incompetence apologists from blaming California’s latest wildfire catastrophe on global warming—not L.A.’s incompetent mayor, not the inadequate fire department budget, not the arsonists who may have started the fires, and not LA’s DEI water head, who left a crucial reservoir disconnected, resulting in fire hydrants not functioning.

Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones was hired at a $750,000 salary in May, double that of her predecessor. To be fair, she had a background in California fires: she was previously a top executive at electricity company PG&E, a senior vice president at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from 2021 to 2023. That’s the company with the power lines that sparked responsible for the second-largest wildfire in California history, Dixie, in 2021. Before that, the company’s involvement in the 2018 Camp Fire resulted in PG&E paying a $13.5 billion legal settlement, although its liability for causing fires was estimated at $30 billion when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2018. It exited bankruptcy in 2020, just in time to hire Quiñones. Hey, but it’s all climate change!….Meanwhile, the discussion over at the Friday Forum (again, sorry for posting it late) about pet peeves and my late wife’s particular objection to using “that” when “who” is correct reminded me of a brilliant limerick that I had almost forgotten.

My strange friends back in Arlington, Mass. used to play a limerick game in which one of us would come up with a first line, the next would add the second line, the third would complete the third and fourth lines that have to rhyme, and my dear, brilliant, witty friend Jay Sylva would always come up with the final line, because he was so good at it. I specialized in first lines, and this time offered, “The man who had eaten my face…” (it wouldn’t have scanned with “that’). The subsequent additions left us with…

The man who had eaten my face…”
Had the nerve to come back to my place.
I said, “Stay a while!
If you’ll cough up my smile…

To which Jay immediately added, to applause and his eternal glory,

I’ll forgive you for not saying grace!”

On to today’s early list…

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Late Friday Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Here’s a pet peeve: when I forget what day it is. Since I work every day of the week and most evenings and no longer have anyone living with me in this huge house, I frequently lose track. Today was an example.

Steven Mintz, “the Ethics Sage,” has a post on his blog listing his “pet peeves.” Boy, he isn’t annoyed by nearly as many things as I am, and all most none of them are particularly momentous. Here’s his list:

10. Leaving the toilet seat up [a shout out to women].

9. Turning without signaling. [what’s the turn signal for?].

8. Walking up a flight of stairs while using one’s cell phones; being oblivious to others [this can cause them to run into us].

7. Talking during movies or using one’s cell phones. [even though there is a message from the theater not to do so].

6. Looking at one’s cell phone while someone is talking [inconsiderate].

5. Cutting people off while driving [stupid; you can cause a serious accident],

4.  Failing to share the arm rest on an airplane [thoughtless]. Taking one’s shoes (and socks!) off in an airplane [yuck].

3. Taking one’s shoe’s (and socks!) off in an airplane.

2. Being interrupted by another person while talking [rude! rude! behavior].

1. Using the catchphrase “with all due respect” [a subtle disrespect].

He writes in part, “I’ve been thinking a lot about them lately because I have experienced that increasingly people are inconsiderate; they don’t seem to be cognizant that even the little things can annoy others. I decided to write a blog on this subject because of my commitment to ethical behavior in our personal as well as professional lives. Being considerate of others is an ethical value because it shows caring and concern for the well-being of others. It moves us away from the constant pursuit of self-interest regardless of how it affects others.”

I can top that list with ease, including his #1: My least favorite catch phrase is a tie between “Everything happens for a reason” and “There are no coincidences.”

Another pet peeve is not getting many contribution to the open forums, but I can hardly complain when I open one 8 hours late.