Enough Trivia and Silly Stuff: This Is Incompetence That Can’t Be Ignored

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Ethics Alarms’ “Incompetence Monday” is concluding with a truly damning finale that should set ethics alarms ringing across the Trump Administration. We shall see.

It was revealed today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed highly classified plans for U.S. troops to attack the Houthi militia in Yemen to an encrypted private chat group. That was irregular enough, but Hegseth didn’t notice that the editor-in-chief of “The Atlantic,” Jeffrey Goldberg, had been added to the text “chat” on the commercial messaging app Signal by Michael Waltz, the national security adviser.

 Goldberg then wrote in an article published today telling readers that he had been mistakenly added into a discussion that could have led to a military disaster if the information had leaked. Great. Goldberg said he followed the conversation among senior members of President Trump’s national security team including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The attacks that were discussed in detail took place two days later. On  March 15, Hegseth posted the “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Goldberg wrote. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East.” 

Goldberg did not publish the details of the war plans in his article. I can think of a lot of journalists who would not have exercised such restraint. Hegseth, and the U.S., were lucky.

There can be no excuse for such an outrageous breach of security. Not only was a journalist inadvertently included in the group, but the conversation also took place outside of the secure government channels reserved for classified discussions and sensitive military planning.

Writing in the New York Times, David French, a former JAG officer, was apoplectic.  Hegseth, he raged, had “just blown his credibility as a military leader.”

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Ethics Dunce: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

President Trump is an important figure in American history, perhaps a transformational leader, and definitely a crucial one whose success or failure will have an enormous effect on the fate and future of the United States of America.

Thus it is all the more alarming that the man has so many Achilles heels that he could be some hind of monstrous human-arachnid hybrid.

Take that portrait above… please! Yes, it stinks. I don’t know who painted it and I don’t care, but somehow this obscure painting, hanging in the Colorado State Capitol building with portraits of the other U.S. Presidents, is the object of our President’s ire.

“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all the other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump birched on Truth Social. “In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one.”

Oh for the love of Mike, man, grow the hell up! Who cares about your portrait in Colorado? With everything else going on, with the Axis trying to foment domestic terrorism and rogue judges trying to kneecap your policies, why are you complaining about a crummy piece of art? Sure, that doesn’t look like you—it reminds me a bit of Millard Fillmore—but so what?

I have criticized Jethroe Gibbs of “NCIS,” Nathan Brittles of “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and John Wayne for promoting the false ethical standard, “Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness,” but that’s a minor misconception compared to the leader of the free world throwing a hissy fit over an oil painting. Trump’s insecurity, narcissism, obsession with meaningless symbols of popularity and personal slights constantly leads him into unforced errors, blunders and needless controversies. He doesn’t have the luxury of indulging these infantile habits. If this life-long weakness doesn’t sabotage his ability to accomplish his mission, it will just be moral luck.

The President’s vanity is one of many gifts to the foes who are determined to halt and destroy him.

“Incompetence Monday” Continues With the “Incompetent Driver of the Year” (So Far)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

But her drives from the tee have improved dramatically!

Ellen Richman of Palm Beach Florida was driving to her golf lesson a week ago when her Mercedes struck bicyclist Justin Rogers. Instead of stopping she continued to drive, dragging both the cyclist and his bicycle down the highway. Eventually both were released from the car; meanwhile Ellen continued to drive happily along to the Palm Beach Country Club where she handed her car over to valet parking.

Following cyclist’s description of the vehicle that hit him, leaving him in the road with compound fractures to his tibia and fibula as well as other lacerations and dragging abrasions on his left leg, police located the car in the country club parking lot. Officers were informed by employees that Ellen was taking her golf lesson.

The car had broken headlight glass and evidence of missing pieces that were found at the accident scene. The undercarriage of the Mercedes also showed signs of a recent accident. The club’s parking valets told police that Richmond had volunteered the information that she had “struck something” when she gave them the keys to the car.

The avid golfer was read her rights, arrested, and is being held on $10,000 bond, which is, as the saying goes, par for the course.

In What Is Shaping Up As “Incompetence Monday” on Ethics Alarms, THIS…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Yes, that is indeed a woman’s hand stuck in that Chinese gentleman’s mouth. Two morons for the price of one. (Ha! I originally typed “rice of one”!)

Doctors at a hospital in Jilin, China treated a couple that came awkwardly walking into the emergency room. The woman had her hand stuck in her boyfriend’s mouth. They were trying to shoot a funny video, see, to post online so it would go “viral.” The woman, who has a small fist (but unfortunately not quite small enough) managed to stuff her hand in the guy’s mouth but when she tried to pull it out, his mouth muscles spasmed and his jaw clamped down.

The woman told the puzzled medical staff that her boyfriend’s face turned red as her efforts to yank her hand free proved futile. He was drooling and his throat made a gurgling sound, while his teeth dug into her wrist. “Saliva ran down my wrist to my elbow,” the woman said, but in Chinese. “It felt like my hand was stuck in a meat grinder.”

Doctor Zhang Mingyuan, who finally got the woman’s fist free, explained that the couple had triggered a dangerous cycle in which the increasing pain in the boyfriend’s jaw caused his jaw muscles to contract more. The medical staff tried to prevent the man from choking or vomiting by playing soothing music—you know, like “Feelings,” though I would think that would increase the vomiting risk—then used a mouth opening device to pry open his jaws sufficiently to inject a muscle relaxant. It took 20 minutes, but Doctor Zhang eventually was able to rotate the woman’s wrist enough to carefully slip it free.

Well, they got their viral video!

‘Chesapeake Bay, We Have a Marketing Competence Problem….’

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Remember that little problem with the new Texas Rangers “double logo” cap? The Chesapeake Baysox say “Hold my beer!”

The Double-A minor league affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles in the Eastern League unveiled a new “alternate identity”: the team is also calling itself the Chesapeake Oyster Catchers as “a tribute to the Chesapeake Bay’s rich heritage and thriving ecosystem.” Let me interject here that I don’t understand why a baseball team wants or needs an “alternate identity,” unless it’s the Chicago White Sox, who last season broke the modern record for lousiness with 121 losses (out of 164 games).  How does a baseball team turn into Batman? Well, never mind…

The team unveiled two new logos centers inspired by the oyster catcher, a distinctive black-and-white shorebird with an orange beak that flocks in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. The bird hunts shellfish, and thus “is a symbol of strength and ingenuity—qualities that define both the Chesapeake region and its passionate baseball fans.”

Yyyyyyeah….

So here are the new logos…

And here is a close-up of the one that no one connected with the team seemed to be paying enough attention to…

“Wait,” some social media wags noted on social media, “Isn’t that thing in the glove a…?”

Yikes and holy female anatomical parts, Batman! The Baysox/Oystercatchers quickly removed that onscene logo from its social media posts, website, and online stories. That’s a good first step: now fire everyone in the marketing department who didn’t see what that “oyster” looked like and say something before the team embarrassed itself and everyone else.

Your Baseball Ethics Lesson of the Week…The Buck Weaver Story

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Baseball season starts next week, bringing me memories of my happy childhood in Arlington, Mass. and how I would pass the golden summers there metaphorically glued to my transistor radio for all 162 Red Sox games except for the very few that I attended or saw on TV. My team’s games were broadcast on WHDH 850 AM in those days, with Curt Gowdy doing the play-by-play. Right before each game was a favorite feature on that station: “Warm-up Time,” a 5 minute story from baseball’s rich and often strange history. “It’s Warm-up Time!” each segment began, “Your baseball story before every Red Sox game! Don Gillis reporting for Atlantic Refineries!” Don had a great voice and a rich delivery, and taught me a lot over the years.

Don introduced me to the strange and tragic saga of the 1919 Black Sox, the fixed World Series, the bizarre aftermath, and how baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned for life all eight of the players alleged to have participated in the plot to make the American League champion White Sox to throw the Series to the vastly inferior Cincinnati Reds.

Among the banned: superstar “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, whose supporters argue that he should be allowed into the Hall of Fame to this day. Joe was glamorized in the movie and novel “Field of Dreams.” His defense was that he accepted money from gamblers to throw the Series but still played his best—hardly an ennobling theory, but plausible, since by all accounts “Shoeless” was an illiterate dolt. His familiar story was featured on “Warm-Up Time,” but I was always interested in another one of the banned eight, third baseman George “Buck” Weaver, sympathetically played by John Cusack in the movie “Eight Men Out.”

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The Associated Press Generously Demonstates Why It Should Be Kicked Out of White House Briefings

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard saying President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are very good friends.” Gabbard was talking about Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The AP will publish a corrected version of the story.”

Oh. WHAT???

How in the world does a news organization get the Prime Minister of India mixed up with Putin?

Why, it does this when that news organization is so eager to publish negative stories, rumors and gossip about President Trump to undermine his Presidency and the will of the electorate that it doesn’t bother to check and verify such a tale that they view as just what they are looking for— an item that will be quickly gobbled up, regurgitated and spread all over social media by the Trump Deranged to show that, as Stephen Colbert so eloquently (and, to the intended audience, humorously) put it, President Trump is Putin’s “cock-holster.”

The Associated Press is suing the White House, you may recall, arguing that stopping this persistently partisan hack news organization from being guaranteed one of the limited numbers of seats in the White House press room constitutes a First Amendment violation. After this latest fiasco, AP’s victory in the case would justify The Babylon Bee, The National Enquirer and the Weekly World News—you know, these guys…

…being guaranteed places as well.

Wow, the Trump Deranged Are Out in Force on Facebook Today!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I decided to post this after seeing one of the most moronic anti-Trump memes yet, again posted by another Facebook friend who once had a functioning cerebrum even as you or I. This one listed various sinister and negative meanings of “maga” in various languages, the approximate equivalent of arguing that Coca-Cola contains wax tadpoles because those sounds mean “bite the wax tadpole” in some Chinese dialects, or that Chevy Novas didn’t work because “No va” means “no go” in Spanish. This moronic display was greeted by dozens of laughing emojis and “likes.” No push back at all, certainly not from me. When you hear growls, screams, head-banging, objects being thrown and breaking glass coming from inside a locked room full of friends, do you open the door, walk in, let the door slam behind you and say, “Hey, guys! This is nuts!”? You might, but I sure won’t. But it sure is terrifying to hear.

That idiotic meme above is just one of the new ones that debuted this moring, and the Facebook mob really seem to think it’s profound. Then there is this, for a really nice, smart guy, an actor…

How separated from reality does someone who just went through four years with a fake President while their favorite news sources covered up the scandal have to be to post that publicly?

A musician and lawyer who posts nothing but political rants and memes is really excited about… Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “On Musk Derangement Syndrome”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Chris Marschner filed this epic Comment of the Day yesterday. Thoughtful commentary with the intensity and outrage behind it of a rant, it its is personal, analytical, passionate and direct while touching on hypocrisy, layoffs, media misinformation, human nature, nationalism and Musk Derangement. Bracing and enlightening!

Here is Chris Marschner‘s Comment of the Day on the post, “On Musk Derangement Syndrome”…

***

“I also have sympathy for those who are reacting emotionally because friends and loved ones—or they themselves—are losing jobs, grants or other benefits because of the DOGE cuts. D.C. is full of such “victims.”

Actually, the entire nation has faced cuts because of government decisions. I for one lost a job running an academic program in a correctional institution when Clinton, with Biden heading the Judiciary Committee decided that it would save money by denying financial aid to inmate students in state correctional facilities. The only people who criticized the decision were those who were financially affected. I spoke out against the decision because we could prove reductions in recidivism and overall costs of incarceration. Emotion ruled the day. It was get tough on crime time as Clinton tacked to the center. No politician gave a damn about anyone involved in that program.

I took a big financial hit because my layoff happened less than a month after my stepson was involved in a nearly fatal car crash and laid in a coma through September. Dealing with that and my dad who was in hospice care put me deep in debt. That’s my story. You have to work through these setbacks because they happen to many others.

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EA Ends Ann Althouse’s Suspension With An Ethics Quote of the Week!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

A little more than a month ago, Ethics Alarms put Ann Althouse’s quirky but frequently provocative blog on suspension as a source here for engaging excessively in her trademark “fiercely” detached commentary (‘Yes, what X did was insidious and undermines national comity but what really interests me in the word he misused…’)to an obnoxious degree. I now return her to good standing by recognizing the last sentence in a post about how Democrats are blaming the Bidens’ for their current ill fortunes as an Ethics Alarms Ethics Quote of the Week, to wit:

“The Democratic Party has itself to blame for forcing Biden on the country in 2020 and for everything that happened down the line.”

Bingo!

Truer words could not be spoken. Since its November defeat, the party has attempted to blame everyone and everything but its own series of atrocious policies, totalitarian tactics, undemocratic cover-ups, spectacular dishonesty and incompetent decisions. Biden, as has become increasingly apparent as the truth is slowly uncovered regarding just how far from being in charge during his White House tenure Joe really was, is one of the least blameworthy. He didn’t nominate himself, after all, nor was he likely fully aware of how disabled he really was becoming as his four years dragged on. Biden was never seriously regarded as Presidential material when he had all of his marbles, but his Machiavellian party nominated him to run in 2020 anyway, not because there was a chance in the world that he would be an effective President, but because he was the most likely candidate to beat Trump, especially when a pandemic made it possible for Joe’s diminishing abilities to be hidden.

True, Biden chose the ridiculous Kamala Harris as his DEI VP, but again, Democrats didn’t have to nominate her as their 2024 Presidential candidate, just as the party didn’t have to become shills for open borders, out-of-control debt, race-based hiring, crippled law enforcement, social media censorship, politicized law enforcement, transmania and climate change hysteria.

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