Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, died yesterday at 92. She was undeniably an important historical and cultural figure whose impact on American society was significant and predominantly positive. I’ll leave it to others to discuss that.

However, she was also critical to my understanding of how people drift into unethical habits and conduct, as well as my epiphany regarding the rareness of integrity among public figures, activists and celebrities.

Before Bill Clinton was President, Gloria preached the doctrine of inequality of power in the workplace. A woman could not meaningfully consent to social, intimate or sexual relations with a male boss, because he had so much power over her career and welfare. Sexual relations between male superiors and women who report to them was, she said, without exception, illicit, improper, abusive, and constituted sexual misconduct by the man.

Then came Monica. Feminists considered Bill Clinton an ally: I remember the scene in the Oval office where Bill signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994, handing out pens to jubilant leaders of the feminist movement. When it was beyond denying that Bill had sexually exploited a young female intern; however, Gloria suddenly dreamed up rationalizations to let Clinton, who was and probably still is a serial sexual predator, off the sexual harassment hook.

She did so with gusto, too, in a New York Times op-ed, stunning in its denial of her previous positions. True, she said, there was an apparent imbalance of power between a young White House intern and THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, but “Whatever it was, her relationship with President Clinton has never been called unwelcome, coerced or other than something she sought. The power imbalance between them increased the index of suspicion, but there is no evidence to suggest that Ms. Lewinsky’s will was violated; quite the contrary.”

That was literally the opposite of what she had insisted was the standard before Clinton was useful to her movement. It was also the exact moment that I began thinking about how an objective ethical perspective was missing in our national discourse.

And the last time I cared what Gloria Steinem said or wrote about anything.

The New York Times alerts us (yes, the episode was supposed to be in this post, but there wasn’t space):

“The rate at which mail votes have been rejected for arriving late has ticked up in primaries this year and general elections last year in roughly a dozen states, prompting election officials to worry that the U.S. Postal Service is ill-equipped to deliver ballots in the fall midterms.”

It adds,

“State officials say they worry about the Postal Service’s ability to deliver votes this fall. They are urging voters to mail their ballots early or use drop boxes so their votes count.”

Being disturbed at this revelation, I was hurled into an abyss of worry and concern for our democracy. What could be done to forestall this seemingly unavoidable disaster?

More:

The states studied by The New York Times include some of the most critical battleground House and Senate seats where control of Congress will be determined, as well as key races for governor and secretary of state. The Times obtained data from California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington.

In Wisconsin, which hosts an open race for governor, a competitive House election plus contests for both chambers of the state legislature, lateness accounted for about 5,000 rejected mail ballots in the spring primary this year, or 78 percent of all tossed ballots. During the last spring election, in 2023, the figure was roughly 2,300, or 47 percent of all tossed votes.

The increase is particularly striking when comparing primaries in 2024 and this year. In Michigan’s primary earlier this month, more than 10,000 mail ballots were rejected for arriving after the state’s deadline of 8 p.m. on Election Day. That is nearly double the number of ballots rejected in 2024. In Washington, the number of late-arriving mail ballots increased from about 16,000 to more than 20,000 in the same period.

This terrible. I briefly considered hurling myself out of my office window, but then remembered that it was on the first floor. And then, in the depths of despond, while I pondered weak and weary, a sudden, astounding inspiration came to me like a thunderbolt out the blue!

Why not tell voters to actually go to a polling place and vote in person? It’s a perfect solution! Like so many other brilliant moments of perception, from gravity to the knock-knock joke, once someone says it, it seems so obvious and amazing that nobody came up with it long ago.

Thank you, thank you everyone. But I just happened to be the vessel. It was inevitable that someone would come up with the concept.

In person voting!

It’s so crazy, it just might work!

Gotta kick-start things here, clearly, as the weekend just past was an all-time low for reader participation: just 19 comments, not counting my own replies, spread over eight posts. This was especially disappointing after the previous week of anomalous traffic at a level hearkening back to those halcyon days when progressives hung out here and hadn’t fled to Bluesky because they couldn’t handle having their knee-jerk cant challenged. Of course, the explosion of traffic was all bot-driven: it mostly came from China and Vietnam.

For this week’s potpourri, I decided to sample New York Times stories exclusively, first, because I got no sleep last night and am uncharacteristically lazy, even for me; second, because it will remind you (I don’t need any reminding) what a perpetual Democratic, progressive, “resistance,” Trump Derangement-spreading propaganda agent the Times is, and third, because for now, anyway, any article subscribers link to gets past the paywall.

Let us commence…

The New York Times reports that when so-called “social media influencers” declare their support for political candidates, they may may be getting paid to do it.

You know, like when Kamala Harris paid Oprah, Beyonce and Al Sharpton.

The Times says the practice falls “into a legal gray area.” Welcome to at least two substantive rationalizations on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List, #4. Marion Barry’s Misdirection, or “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical,” and #5. The Compliance Dodge!

But neither rationalization that tries toweasel out of the obvious should be necessary, should they? When someone online, on video or on the web says they support a candidate, a policy or a political position, they are announcing that their support is genuine and not bought and paid for. It doesn’t matter whether it’s illegal to misrepresent the reason for the endorsement or the opinion, or to let audiences think that it is based on genuine belief or analysis without disclosing that it is really based on money. It’s dishonest. It’s misleading. It’s deceptive.

It is unethical.

And any candidate, PAC, organization or political party that pays for such fake support is cheating whether there is a law against doing so or not. This isn’t hard.

Since its favorite party is the main perp in this corrupt practice, the Times pronounces it bi-partisan. Yeah, some Republican scumbags do it too, but I mentioned the magic word “cheating,” so naturally the paid “influencer” scam is especially popular with the Cheating Party, Democrats.

Kendall Boyle is a TikToker in Michigan with over 21,000 followers. She told the Times she was contacted by a social media marketing agency called Activate HQ offering her a paid opportunity to post videos about “how rising costs are affecting Michigan residents in real life.” She was told that the source of the payments would be Majority Forward, a group linked to the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC. Activate HQ explained that “disclosure is not required and the paid partnership label will not be included in any posts.” A condition of the deal would be that Majority Forward “will not be mentioned” in her content.

Boyle declined, telling the Times that “It was one of those things where something isn’t fitting right.” Ya think? Gee, what a well-honed set of ethics alarms she has!

The only way I could embed this video was to include the X-user’s commentary. No, liberal women are not “literally” brain dead.

However, it is hard to imagine a woman hearing such unethical, nonsensical junk escaping her mouth and not exclaiming, “Wait, did I really say that?” And useful research could and should be performed to determine how a woman ends up capable of thinking this way.

“The best way to protect my baby is to kill my baby.” This makes sense only in rare, dire circumstances such as when both mother and child are about to be eaten alive by a velociraptor or a ravenous zombie. With those remote exception, its an idiotic thing to say, or even think