How do you fix a Justice who’s a moron?
How can you help a judge who cannot judge?
Is there a phrase describing Justice Jackson?
“A DEI curse,” “a Justice whose brain is fudge”?

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how can you justify
A Justice who will defy
All logic and law to follow a woke demand?

Oh, how do you fix a Justice who’s a moron?
Can law survive this fool who can’t be canned?

The recent horrified response to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s assorted gibberish and idiotic comments during the oral argument regarding the birthright citizenship issue only amplified the dawning realization that President Biden inflicted on the Supreme Court and the nation the most unqualified Justice in its history, and that’s saying something.

Richard Nixon almost got Harold Carswell on the Court, and he was so mediocre that a GOP supporter in the Senate argued that he should be confirmed because less-than-stellar people should be represented on the Court too. Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the abysmal Roe v. Wade opinion and the even more head-exploding decision “explaining” why Major League Baseball should be exempted from the antitrust laws (“Baseball is cool” would adequately describe his logic), looks like Oliver Wendell Holmes compared to Ketanji Brown Jackson. Heck, Justice Sotomayor is a veritable Scalia compared to her fellow DEI Justice.

This is incredible a depressing. What can be done about it?

Presumable nothing. If one could impeach a Justice for manifest incompetence, Jackon’s dissent in the recent case of Chiles v. Salazar would surely justify it. Colorado had banned “conversion therapy,” so licensed counselors could not engage in “any practice or treatment” that “attempts or purports to change” a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The law imposed penalties for those violating the law, including a $5,000 fine and the potential loss of their licenses, even if the therapy was exclusively talking.

Ring any bells? Here’s a hint: “Freedom of speech.”

These bans on such “talk therapy” that endangers LGBTQ orthodoxy are scattered through the statutes of “blue states” across the nation. As I find the arguments for conversion therapy denigrating to gays and others, I had to check the blog archives to make sure that I have been consistent in opposing efforts to make such treatment illegal. Whew! I have.

During the oral argument on this case in October, I wrote,

“One more thing: if this dispute doesn’t prove for all time that progressives are remarkably skilled at holding opposing beliefs in their heads without feeling any discomfort, nothing will. The Left is fighting like honey badgers to allow school personnel to talk kids into thinking they are girls trapped in boys’ bodies or vice-versa, resulting in life-wrenching hormone treatments and surgery, but insist that conversion therapy for gays must be banned as harmful.”

This ad has been around for a while and running frequently on Fox News. I never paid attention to it until this morning, because I was watching a debate among some legitimate legal experts about the birth-right citizenship issue.

KABOOM! Basically the ad directs donors who identify with the ethnic group behind the plea to be concerned about the victims of the Ukraine war with Russia who belong to one specific group (tribe, race, religion, whatever—pick your word) as if nobody else’s lives count. I know there are many, far too many, Americans who think like this, and the more Americans who do think like this, the weaker, more divided and more imperiled our nation, society, culture and democracy is.

The message is literally “Jews are suffering in the Ukraine, so please send money to help them. Let other groups take care of their own. They aren’t our problem.”

I am not picking on Jewish groups here, for a TV commercial calling for donations to poor black people or poor whites to the exclusion of everyone else equally in distress would be similarly unethical…and disgusting. So far, I’ve never seen such an ad. This thing compounds the offense by making the invalid appeal to emotion represented by playing the Holocaust card. The suffering of elderly Ukrainian Jews at the hands of Russia is particularly cruel today because of what Germany did 80 years ago?

Don’t insult my intelligence. I was a fundraiser for many years: I know the drill. This ad, however, is indefensible. Shame on The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews for creating it. Shame on Fox News for running it. Shame on anyone who gives the group a dime in response to it.

Yecchh.

I keep posting these because I regard them as snap-shots of how the combination of irresponsible biased journalism, bubble-bases ignorance, and peer reinforcement is warping our social discourse and pushing the public into foolish and dangerous misconceptions. Is it an ethical problem? Sure it is. Posts like the one below make readers upset and irrational. They create false framings that warp perceptions of reality. The activate cognitive dissonance, in which the people who like, admire and respect the writer are moved to feel postively about the absolute garbage that he has published.

The author of the screed below that arrived on my Facebook feed yesterday is a wonderful human being. He is kind and effusive in his positive rhetoric; he sends me a birthday card every year, and I have only spent time with him face to face twice in 30 years. He never posts political rants: he is a lifetime showbiz writer, scholar and producer.

I assume this was triggered by the latest “No Kings” lunacy. My friend is also virtue-signaling to his showbiz connections, including me; since he likes and respects me, he assumes that I must agree with his sentiments. My friend is way, way out of his lane.

Get this…

Alyssa Izatt and Kimberley Brownlee wrote in the paper titled “Justice for Girls: On the Provision of Abortion as Adequate Care” that abortions should be forced on young women—legal minors— even if it requires “sedation or physical restraint.” This in a journal recently published by the University of Chicago Press.

The adults responsible for an underage girl’s care “should never pressure or compel her to continue a pregnancy,” they opined. “Nor should they confront her with the three ‘options’ of abortion, adoption, or mothering, as medical professionals are currently advised to do. Instead, her adult caregivers should view her impregnation as a malady and take steps to terminate it.”

They recommend sedation or restraint if necessary. Forced abortions. Not to save the mothers’ lives, but to eliminate the human lives that pro abortion activists believe are mere obstacles that need removal in the best interests of the mothers.

My opinion as an ethics expert: HOLY CATS! This is the reverse of “The Handmaiden’s Tale”!

But write about whatever you feel is ethically urgent.

…which is terrifying.

At the beginning of this week, Chicago prosecutors charged an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, Jose Medina-Medina, with the murder-murder of Loyola freshman Sheridan Gorman. Medina-Median allegedly killed Gorman at a nearby beach early on the morning of March 19.

Loyola’s campus newspaper, “The Phoenix” first reported the charges in an Instagram post titled: “Immigrant Man Charged in Murder of Sheridan Gorman, DHS Involved,” and referred to Medina as an “illegal immigrant.”

There was student indignation, however, that the paper called an illegal immigrant an illegal immigrant. The paper, being staffed by students that Loyola’s campus indoctrination and The Great Stupid have rendered incapable of coherent thought, quickly rewrote the report to refer to the accused killer as a “Rogers Park Resident.” Then, to guarantee their place in The Great Stupid Museum, which I am hoping to fund, with this head-exploding apology:

“On March 23, a post on The Phoenix’s Instagram page carried the following headline: “Immigrant Man Charged in Murder of Sheridan Gorman, DHS Involved.”

That headline didn’t reflect the most important elements in the story, and it was taken down minutes later to prevent any further harm to affected community members.

Additionally, in the body of the original post, we described the man who was charged as an “illegal immigrant,” using language provided by the Department of Homeland Security. That language does not align with Associated Press style, nor does it align with the values of this newspaper.  No human’s existence is illegal, and we quickly changed our wording to reflect that.”

Wow.

Last night a client visiting D.C. took me to dinner at a local upscale restaurant. It was a nostalgic and bittersweet evening in addition to being, you know, yummy. (Stone crabs!) My late wife Grace loved going out to eat at a great restaurant, dressing up, feeling like this was an event and not just a meal. Since she died, my business crashed and my finances went to hell, I haven’t had a single meal at such an establishment. Oh, I’ve had some meals at decent places with excellent food, but the staffs are casual and a lot of diners—even me— are in jeans. That’s fine; it doesn’t interfere with the social experience or my enjoyment of the meal. And yet…

The Ruth’s Chris restaurant chain recently posted about the steakhouse’s dress code, reminding patrons that the desired atmosphere is “business casual” and “proper attire” is mandatory. Guests are to remove hats when entering, and if you have a baseball cap on, you will be stuck at the bar or the lounge.The main dining room will be off-limits. Dining rooms will not allow “gym wear, pool attire, tank tops, clothing with offensive graphics or language, revealing clothing, or exposed undergarments.”

Well, good. Civility, etiquette and respect for others are always victims of entropy, as air travel and theater-going have proven. Ruth’s Chris wants to hold the line, and that takes courage and a sense of responsibility. Being with other diners who care how they present to everyone around them is part of the positive experience of dining out at an excellent restaurant.

The slobs, as well the progressives, socialists, working class heroes and aspiring termites in the foundation of society, of course, do not agree. One critic on social media wrote, “Ruth’s Chris isn’t fine dining, it’s like one step up from Outback. This is going to make a lot of people not go.” I agree the restaurant is not The Prime Rib, but it’s about five steps up from Outback or Applebee’s. What’s the matter with classing up the joint a bit? The whole idea of maintaining levels of personal deportment is that it makes everyone feel better and behave better.

Thne some marketing whiz at Chili’s (which I would place a notch below Applebees’, but it’s close) saw an opportunity to virtue-signal man-on-the-street virtues. “The only dress code at Chili’s is that you have to be dressed,” it tweeted, setting off a tweet war.

Victory Girls, the right-ish blog, notes that “a general disdain about dressing for the occasion is a bit more indicative of an illness our culture cannot afford to ignore” and quoted writer Robert Heinlein, who once observed,

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

Bingo.