Ethics Dunce and Human Smoking Gun: The Ridiculous Stacey Abrams

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Oh, just shut up, Stacey.

Is she still around? I would have thought that Abrams had so beclowned herself that even MSNBC wouldn’t…no, never mind, that’s impossible. I was about to write that even MSNBC wouldn’t be so silly as to give her a forum, but at this point MSNBC is so desperate to keep woke (and Trump Derangement) alive that it will give any progressive hack air time.

In an interview with Chris Hayes (talk about “Oh shut up!”) the always self-promoting Georgia “voting rights activist” wanted everyone to understand that Donald Trump won the 2024 election “but it wasn’t a landslide. It was an evenly divided nation. He got more people, but this was not the seismic shift where 57, 58 percent of America said no. It was less than 50 percent of the electorate who said this is what we want.”

Abrams is a laughing stock, or if you aren’t laughing at her, then you are part of the American Left’s problem. She managed to run twice for Georgia governor without any serious qualifications, losing both times. While the Axis was condemning Donald Trump for insisting that the 2020 election had been stolen and refusing to concede, Abrams was refusing to concede that her first loss to Republican Brian Kemp for the Georgia statehouse wasn’t legitimate while her party and its press embraced a damning, “Well, in her case, it’s OK!” double standard because she’s black, female, and “gooble gobble one of us!”

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Is This the Silliest Question “The Ethicist” Has Ever Bothered To Answer?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Here’s the headline: “My Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?”

Not being an idiot, “The Ethicist” answers as any rational person might: “Nothing!” Who cares what anyone else does in their discourse, or not, with a Supreme Being? The complaint makes as much sense as “My neighbor insists on wearing his lucky hat when his favorite team is playing; what should I do?”

Apparently what bugs this ungrateful wretch is that the old lady who lives next door not only prays for her but keeps talking about it. The inquirer says that she has told the old woman that she doesn’t believe in religion. Why would she think that would make neighbor less likely to pray for her? Obviously she needs saving: as a godless heathen, the object of the prayers is putting her immortal soul at risk. I don’t understand why she isn’t grateful; after all, when the stakes are so high, it only makes sense to hedge your bets.

“I’m trying to ignore this but it’s really bothering me that she can’t respect my wishes,” Name Withheld writes. Yet the religious neighbor has no reason to respect someone else’s wishes regarding her own personal conduct. The only legitimate objection I can see to this prayer ritual is that the neighbor being prayed for takes it as an insult. If that’s her beef, then she should say to the old woman, “That’s nice that you care about me, but please, if you insist on praying for me, keep it to yourself.”

That’s what The Ethicist suggests too, but adds, “Still, instead of requiring that your octogenarian neighbor change her ways, I wonder whether you might change yours — and learn to accept this woman for who she is, hearing her prayers as a sincere expression of her loving feelings toward you.”

Or a sincere expression of moral superiority?

Ponder, Now: The Guy Who Issued This Rant Was the Top News Anchor For a Supposedly Legitimate News Organization And Made About 8 Million a Year

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here was now “independent journalist” Don Lemon last night on Lemon LIVE at 5. …

“Now, let me just say this. I said something in reference to– I was responding to the MAGA folks who were being racist in relation in regards to the gentleman that Donald Trump nominated to be the head of AI. They were on the Internet. Look it up yourself, being very racist and very vitriolic about Donald Trump appointing this person. And Vivek Ramaswamy got involved and then he insulted, according to them, the MAGA people. Okay. So, as always, everybody gets all butthurt! I’m not referring to all Trump supporters. I’m talking to the MAGA-brained people who will say and do anything to make excuses for any behavior that Donald Trump does, any bad behavior that the MAGA movement does. So yes, I stand by my words! And if you don’t like what I said, then too F-ing bad, I don’t care! And let me just let me point the hypocrisy out to you, because you guys always say “We are not electing. We are not voting for what? A pastor in chief. I. Sometimes I have an issue with some of the things that he says. It’s true. I don’t like how he says it, but it’s true.”. So you have to have the same standards for other people that you have for your guy, some of you, the cult leader. You guys have a higher– this is this is how messed up you are. You have a higher expectation of me. An independent journalist, a former cable news host, than you do for the person who sits in the Oval Office. Because he. His mouth is worse than mine. He calls everybody dumb. He calls black women dumb. He’s called me dumb. He calls people stupid. He’s called Kamala Harris stupid. He’s called her names. And he’s used profanity against athletes. He called them sons of bitches. He calls people out of their names all the time. And you love it. But when someone says the truth about you, you get all butthurt! And you get all in your feelings! So what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. What’s good for the Donald is good for the Don.”

Well said, Cicero! One bit of clarification: when Donald Trump, or anyone, calls you dumb, it isn’t because you are black, it’s because you are dumb, and that attack of high school drop-out-caliber logorrhea that you apparently think is worth broadcasting in public proves it.

As for the fact that a news organization would pay millions to a news reporter whose level of thought and analysis results in emotional belches like that—Is this a great country or what?

Initial 2025 Ethics Musings…[Broken Link Fixed!]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

1. It will be in interesting to see if Scott Jennings, the articulate, gutsy token conservative who distinguished himself during the Presidential campaign by cutting through CNN propaganda and spin like a hot knife through Crisco, can make any progress in rehabilitating the corrupt and rotting shell of Ted Turner’s creating. Above is his timely take-down of the Jimmy Carter eulogists. The argument made by an opposing panel member that Carter’s work building houses and helping to end diseases in Africa out-balance his borderline treasonous efforts to undermine U.S. foreign policy and dissuade foreign nations from supporting the second Iraq war is truly head-exploding, and Jennings makes short work of it.

2. I wonder if the horrific truck slaughter on Bourban Street last night will prompt President Biden’s puppeteers to call for “commonsense” truck safety legislation. Probably not…

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I Don’t Understand This Story AT ALL, I Don’t Understand the Biden Administration At All, I Just Don’t Understand…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

From Israel news sources: “Despite heavy pressure from the United States, Israel refuses to allow the transfer of weapons to the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA)…According to a report from Army Radio, the U.S. requested that Israel approve the transfer of AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition and armored vehicles. After discussions among security officials, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi decided to recommend the political leadership not approve the transfers….Under the terms of the [Oslo] Accords, Israel must approve the transfer of heavy weaponry to PA security forces, which occasionally confront terror group members that are armed with superior weapons smuggled with Iranian assistance…

“Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council and the chairman of the Yesha Council, praised the ‘correct decision’….’Transferring ammunition and weapons to the enemy, especially during wartime, is complete madness and a breach of security for the citizens of the State of Israel….The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist organization – and a terrorist organization should be defeated,’ Ganz declared.”

Ya think?

My favorite quote is “Transferring ammunition and weapons to the enemy, especially during wartime, is complete madness.” Whether or not the Palestinian Authority is fairly described as a terrorist organization, the official position of all the various Palestinian organizations, convoluted and unstable though they are, is that Israel has no right to exist.

I will admit to the possibility that I am missing something, but it seems to me that pressuring Israel at this time to hand over weapons to any Palestinian group is as responsible as pressuring them to make the official language of their nation Swedish and have Israelis wear their underwear on the outside.

Just because the President is demented doesn’t mean we should try to make other countries behave irrationally too.

Comment of the Day: “Presuming Bias Also Makes You Stupid…and a Failure”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I think it is fitting to end 2024 with one of Steve-O-in NJ’s historical epics, this one in response my challenge at the end of the post to name a figure who would rebut the statement on the Victory Girls blog regarding Kamala Harris, “Never has so much been handed to one person who didn’t deserve it.” My mind immediately went to the Kim Kardashian’s sisters Khloe and Kourtney, who attained fame, celebrity and riches because their oldest sister had a viral sex tape. But moving from government and politics into pop culture is cheating.

Steve-O takes up that challenge with gusto in this Comment of the Day to the post, “Presuming Bias Also Makes You Stupid…and a Failure”. Here is it is….

***

It really depends on how far back in history you are willing to go. I could name you at least 10 monarchs who were handed a whole lot they didn’t deserve for no reason other than accident of birth without even putting on my thinking cap:

  1. Edward VIII of the UK – a child who never quite grew up and just wanted everything his own way, also TERRIBLE judge of character.
  2. Louis XVI of France – clueless and careless, led him to the guillotine
  3. Alfonso XIII of Spain – not up to the job and paved the way for fascist Franco.
  4. Selim II of the Ottoman Empire – called the Drunkard or the Sot for a reason, led to the huge defeat at Lepanto and Turkey’s long slide down into the Third World.
  5. Henry VIII of England – initially might even be considered heroic but ultimately destroyed by his excessive appetites and dictatorial nature.
  6. Mary I of England – Henry’s eldest daughter, called Bloody Mary for a reason.
  7. Charles II of Spain – the misshapen result of generations of Hapsburg inbreeding.
  8. Hirohito of Japan [above, with Khloe and Kourtney] – allowed himself to be a puppet for overambitious generals and admirals, didn’t stand up to them until defeat was certain.
  9. Cixi Yukian of China – waited till it was too late, then foolishly threw in with the Boxers, resulting ultimately in the Chinese Empire collapsing.
  10. Oh yes, lest we forget William II of Germany, who pushed wise old Bismarck aside and led the German Empire into WWI and its destruction.

If I put on my thinking cap, I could probably triple that list. The fact is that when you hand someone power based on something other than merit, you throw the dice and risk ending up with someone who’s either useless or a puppet for the unscrupulous.

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Ethics Hero: Me, Dammit!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I’m not happy about this, but there it is.

Back in October I wrote this post about how the boobs at Safeway managed to give me over $300 in food for my wife’s memorial event without charging me for it. I ruefully observed that as an ethicist I was obligated to go to the store and pay what I owed them despite the fact that the Safewayers were none the wiser: it was a classic example of “ethics is what you do when nobody’s watching.”

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Ethics Quiz: Discrimination As a IA Right

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Seriously? Will this ruling stand? Can it? Should it?

The Superior Court of New Jersey’s Appellate Division ruled Dec. 20 against Rajeh A. Saadeh in his lawsuit alleging that the New Jersey State Bar Association had violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. The NJSB has a diversity policy that reserves 13 out of 94 leadership positions for members of specified underrepresented groups. Saadeh is a Palestinian Muslim American attorney, and his group didn’t make the cut. He argued that this was discriminatory, while the bar association argued that it had a First Amendment right to select leaders “consistent with its values regarding diversity in the legal profession.”

The Appellate Court overruled a trial judge who had held that the diversity program was an illegal quota system under New Jersey law. “[T]he undisputed facts in this record establishes beyond peradventure that the bar association qualifies as an expressive association, and that compelling it to end its practice of ensuring the presence of designated underrepresented groups in its leadership would unconstitutionally infringe its ability to advocate the value of diversity and inclusivity in the association and more broadly in the legal profession,” the appeals court said. Since the ruling was that the discriminatory policy was protected speech, it did not even address the question of discrimination.

[Two side points: 1) I have an automatic prejudice against any judge, or anyone, who uses the term “peradventure” and 2) I will not forgive the NJSBA for firing me after years of providing it with (acclaimed, profitable and discounted!) musical ethics CLE programs because I exclaimed “Fuck!” a single time to no one in particular in a moment of frustation during a tech check on Zoom when the bar association’s technical staff proved that it had no idea what it was doing.]

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day…

Is that an ethically defensible decision?

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Before We Close the Book On Jimmy Carter…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“Cynical Publius,” a practicing lawyer and retired Army colonel who writes under that name at The Federalist, couldn’t stand the Carter record airbrushing flooding in the media yesterday and was moved to post this on his lively Twitter/”X” account:

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‘Nah, Those Prosecutions of Trump Weren’t Political!’

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

One inconvenient aspect of creeping senility is that the sufferers often say out loud what is normally filed in the brain file labeled “Never Speak of This, Ever.” And so it is that, as the Washington Post reports,

“In private, Biden has also said he should have picked someone other than Merrick Garland as attorney general, complaining about the Justice Department’s slowness under Garland in prosecuting Trump, and its aggressiveness in prosecuting Biden’s son Hunter, according to multiple people familiar with his comments. [….] Had the Justice Department moved faster to prosecute Trump for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents, they say, the former president might have faced a politically damaging trial before the election.’

Of course, we all knew that the plan was to burden Trump with dubious and politically motivated prosecutions in the year leading up to the election, and with a normal human being, it would have worked, or at least caused him to have a stroke or a breakdown. Instead, the Democratic Party’s “democratic norms”-wrecking strategy alienated Americans who don’t like to see their government acting like the Stasi. It showed a strength of character and fighting spirit that Americans still seek in their leaders. It proved how desperate and hypocritical Trumps foes and adversaries were. But the Axis denied it all—and now the intended beneficiary of the plot to make Donald Trump run for President as a “convicted felon” and “adjudicated rapist” has admitted that a better Attorney General would have nailed Trump before he could get elected.

And Donald Trump was the existential threat to the republic, this same man told us.

Has there ever been a time in our history when an entire political party and all of its voters and supporters so deserved to wear paper bags over their heads in disgrace?