Ethics Dunce: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

He still just doesn’t get that “President of the United States” thingy.

So the President had dinner with Bill Maher, Professional Asshole. 1) So what? and 2) Why in the world would Trump elevate Maher to this level?

See—duh!—a President elevates Maher’s status by deeming him worthy of a meeting, which he is not. This is Cognitive Dissonance Scale 101. Maher is nothing. Every bit of status and credibility he gains makes him more powerful and the public dumber. This weasel has been tacking to the Right lately because he senses his Leftist-young-ignorant-kneejerk-socialist audience is shrinking, and he gets cheap publicity by criticizing Democrats now and then. But he is neither smart enough nor astute enough to be an enlightening pundit. For Trump to treat him otherwise is foolish. It’s irresponsible, and inept leadership.

Oh, I know Trump has done this with other useless public “influencers,” like Kim Kardashian. It diminishes him and the office. Trump doesn’t seem to understand that he’s no longer part of the weird world of dubious celebrities. The President is above all that, far above, unless he cuts himself down to size. He just doesn’t get it. Presumably he never will. Next he’ll be having dinner with Joy Reid…

Ethics Zugzwang Exemplified: The “Friend in a Lousy Show” Conflict

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I’d be surprised if I haven’t posted on this before, but a recent advice column article about the issue made me realize that the common conflict almost all of us with friends in the performing arts face routinely is as perfect example of the phenomenon I have termed “ethics zugzwang” as there is.

A theater reporter in the New York Times wrote a column titled, “My Friend’s Show Was Kind of Terrible. What Do I Say When I See Them? (You can always consider telling the truth, but it may not be advisable in this case.) [Gift link!] He breaks down the options as,

  • “Tell the truth, as a form of tough love.
  • Find something to say that is appreciative but also incomplete.
  • Lie.”

After reporting on interviews with performers and others in show biz, the reporter concludes that the most ethical option is “Lie.” He concludes, “So what to do? The consensus among those I spoke with is that the best way to be a friend is to be supportive. Leave the critical feedback to other people and other settings. ‘I think the move is always to lie,’ said the musical theater composer Joe Iconis . ‘Whether you enjoyed the show or not, if you’re actually a friend to the person who is part of the production, your job is to say ‘great job, fantastic show.’ I have never once appreciated a friend who came to a show of mine and offered unsolicited negative comments.’”

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Historic! And Stupid…

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Sen. Cory Booker just finished talking for 25 hours and 5 minutes in the Senate. His theme was “I hate President Trump.” I confess, I heard 10 seconds of the speech and decided it was too stupid to listen to any more of it. The part I heard: “The President doesn’t seem to care about people who are shackled to debt!” What an astounding statement in a 25 hour rant that mostly focused on how heartless the DOGE effort to cut government waste and fraud is! Every single American is “shackled” to a $36 trillion (and growing) national debt that exploded under the last Democratic administration, and it can never be addressed as long as the attitude is “well, what’s the point of cutting just a few million (or billion) dollars?” The US pays $2.6 billion per day on interest payments for that debt and receives nothing for it

Booker began his filibuster—not to stop a bill, mind you, just to show how much his party hates Trump—by saying, “These are not normal times in our nation.” “Not normal” is one of the consultant-scripted talking points the Democrats have been using against Trump since the 2024 campaign. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.” Ah! The “threat to democracy” mantra from the party that inflicted a fake President and a selected-by-fiat Presidential candidate on the nation! Later, Booker used the “Constitutional crisis” cliché, without explaining exactly what it was in the Constitution his party is concerned about.

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Jack’s Facebook Friends’ Trump Deranged Post of the Day

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This poster is a Harvard grad, a smart, sensitive, rational man, and a theater professional.

But look at that thing. France’s ruling party just used lawfare to ban the conservative politician polls say would be likely to win the next election. Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far right, was barred from running for public office for five years following a court ruling that she “played a central role” in allowing her party to embezzle millions of euros of European Union funds. The court found that the party used European Parliament money to pay assistants to National Front members of the body for work that was unrelated to E.U. business.

That’s embezzlement in France? I wonder what they would call all of the misdirected funds DOGE has been finding. Anyway, Le Pen denies wrongdoing and says this is a politically motivated prosecution. I haven’t see the evidence, but the timing sure is suspicious. “Ms. Le Pen and the National Rally could also paint the verdict as a threat against a popular politician and party, and French democracy itself,” the Times observes. Why yes, I’d say that’s a significant possibility.

Note how the Facebook poster approves of using courts to remove political opposition, and how “rule of law’ is rapidly joining “racism,” “fascism,” “autocracy” and “white supremacy” as formerly meaningful terms that the Left has rendered meaningless by overuse. The “rule of law” was distorted beyond recognition in every one of the cases brought against Trump last year, including the non-rape conviction and the redundant “felonies” Trump was found guilty of committing in New York despite no harm being proved to any of the “victims.” Then there was the classified documents case where Trump was being prosecuted while Joe Biden wasn’t (because he was too senile to be convicted, according to the special counsel), the contrived sort-of-insurrection case, and best of all, Fani Willis using the prosecution of Trump in Fulton County to support her fling with an adulterous lawyer. Rule of law!

As the cherry on top, my friend is certain that Trump really is plotting a third term, impossible though it is. Why does my previously sane, rational friend think this way? It is because he is now the equivalent of the hysterical woman who confronts Tippi Hedren in the worst moment of “The Birds”:

Not Only Are “Sex Neutral” Physical Fitness Standards For Combat Ethical, They Shouldn’t Be Controversial

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The Pentagon has eliminated lower physical fitness standards for women in combat units via an order by Defense Secretary Hegseth announced yesterday. All physical fitness requirements for combat arms positions will now be be “sex-neutral.” Well, a) GOOD!, and b) Why did anyone ever think it made sense to have it any other way?

The New York Times, being pathetic, spins like crazy to make the order sound mean and discriminatory as well as harmful. The order “is likely to significantly reduce the number of women who meet the requirements,” the paper sniffles, and is “likely to hinder the recruitment and retention of women in particularly dangerous military jobs.” So what? The military sets standards for being qualified for combat, and having different standards for different groups is the epitome of DEI idiocy. Hegseth “argued that women should not be allowed in combat units if they could not meet the same fitness standards as men,” sayeth the Times. Why would he have to argue that at all? What’s the counter-argument? I don’t see one.

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Baseball Ethics: Now THIS Is Cheating…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yesterday I discussed the silly controversy over “torpedo bats,” which are completely legal despite some commentators who should know better calling the use of them by some players “cheating.” Lo and Behold, no sooner had I posted that essay than news of a player being caught really cheating shook the baseball world.

Major League Baseball announced that Braves outfielder Jurickson Profar has been suspended for 80 games after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug Chorionic Gonadotrophin (hCG). Profar will be able to return during the season but won’t be eligible for the playoffs this year: that’s the restriction and part of the pentalty for all players in the year they serve a PED suspension.

The Braves released a statement that began, “We were surprised and extremely disappointed to learn that Jurickson Profar tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance in violation of Major League Baseball’s Joint Prevention and Treatment Program.”

Why were they surprised?

I wasn’t.

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President Trump’s Third Term Fantasy

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

We’re back in Julie Principle territory again, unfortunately: “Fish gotta swim, bird’s gotta fly, Trump’s gong to keep saying crazy stuff to make progressives cry…” This is a particularly annoying example. Just as the position of Ethics Alarms is that trusted professionals do not have the luxury of pulling April Fool’s Day hoaxes on the public, it is also unethical for Presidents of the United States to deliberately raise phony issues for public consumption.

The President began raising the possibility of a third term almost from the moment he was elected to his second. It is, of course, impossible. The Constitution forbids it quite unambiguously thanks to the 22nd Amendment, the eventual Congressional reaction to Franklin Roosevelt shattering the unwritten rule, set by our first President, that two elected terms is enough. Over the weekend, Trump said he was “not joking” about there being “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit. No, there really aren’t and never mind that: Trump is 78 years old, not exactly in peak physical condition, and would be 86 at the end of a third term. The real question is whether he can complete this one.

Trump was even sparking speculation about a fantasy race between him and Barack Obama in 2028 for an unconstitutional third term, and a depressing number of morons on social media are taking it seriously. Yes, Dana, that’s your cue…

Here’s what’s happening. I was pondering Trump’s nonsense, and concluded that there are three things going on here, only one of which is substantive:

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Baseball Ethics: The Magic Bats!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The New York Yankees opened their season by crushing the Milwaukee Brewers with a record number of home runs. Some of the homers were hit by players using a new bat design imagined by a one-time MIT physicist. The bat is shaped at teh end like a bowling pin, or a torpedo. The Yankees hit a franchise-record nine home runs in the first game—-notably the player who hit the most was Aaron Judge with three, and he used an old-fashioned bat. The series sweep served “as a live infomercial.”

The Yankees aren’t the only team with players using the new bats. The Cubs, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays have some players who are trying them out. “It’s legal,” says one enthusiastic player. “It’s under MLB rules and everything. Just basically moving the sweet spot down. Those balls that you’re getting jammed on are finding some barrels.”

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Gee, I Wonder Why Americans Are Losing Trust In Their Nation’s Institutions? It’s a Mystery!

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Science, Academia, Journalism, Government.

On June 3, 2022, the young protestor above tied her neck to the net during a tennis match at the French Open, with her shirt reading “We Have 1028 Days Left” sending the critical message to the world that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had decreed that if massive de-carbonization was not implemented before that (literal!) deadline, it would be too late to save the planet from a climate change apocalypse.

The 1,028th day was last week, Thursday March 27, 2025. Does that young woman feel ridiculous? She should. Now, she probably is one of those fanatics who won’t procreate because children are bad for the environment, but if she does, her kids will have a ball with that photo. I know I would have, just as if there was a photo of my mother as a teen dressed as a banana, or my father with dicks on his face after having them drawn on while he was asleep.

The Totalitarian Left in the U.S. has been citing “science” to justify irresponsible policies for years, indeed decades, and accountability is at hand. If the science of climate change is so “settled,” why are all the predictions and deadlines proven ridiculously false? Even our currently under-educated, critical thinking deprived rising generations are smart enough to figure out a con when they see, well, when they see the same con over and over again. Here’s an article about how the Great Barrier Reef that we were told was being destroyed by global warming (Science!) has more than doubled in a decade and its size and health is the highest ever recorded.

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Ethics Hero: Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

I admit it: this post is putting the cart before the horse. I need to complete a post about the leftist lawyer freak-out over Trump targeting ostentatiously anti-Trump, anti-Republican, pro-Axis law firms by handing them the just desserts for their abandonment of legal ethics and core professional principles to pander to the Democratic Party’s cabal over the past 15 years or more. But I am a bit short of time and energy right now, and Professor Vermeule, that rarity of rarities, a conservative Harvard professor, has done some of my work for me.

Last week, more than ninety members of the Harvard Law School faculty issued a joint letter supposedly concerning the “rule of law,” but actually embracing the same double standards and anti-Trump bias I have been witnessing from my lawyer friends on Facebook and especially in the online discussions among members of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. It said in part,

“The rule of law is imperiled when government leaders:

  • single out lawyers and law firms for retribution based on their lawful and ethical representation of clients disfavored by the government, undermining the Sixth Amendment;
  • threaten law firms and legal clinics for their lawyers’ pro bono work or prior government service;
  • relent on those arbitrary threats based on public acts of submission and outlays of funds for favored causes; and
  • punish people for lawfully speaking out on matters of public concern.

While reasonable people can disagree about the characterization of particular incidents, we are all acutely concerned that severe challenges to the rule of law are taking place, and we strongly condemn any effort to undermine the basic norms we have described….”

This is disingenuous posturing by partisan academics pretending to be neutral patriots. Professor Vermeule called them out on their pretense, writing in part in an open letter to his own to students and the public,

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