Short Version of Ethics Verdict on Pentagon’s Elimination of Race, Gender and Ethicity As Legitimate Considerations For Admission to the Service Academies: “Good!”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The Washington Post’s snotty headline is “Hegseth escalates targeting of race, gender in military’s academic settings.” That’s because he’s a racist and sexist, see, like all of the Trump allies, appointees, voters and supporters.

Oh, dear. “[T]he nation’s prestigious military academies” have been ordered “to end consideration of race, gender and ethnicity in their admissions processes” and ‘begin a purge….of educational materials focused on those “divisive concepts,” gasps the Post, as if this isn’t a completely practical and fair policy. The military’s job is to protect the nation and, when necessary, to fight and fight effectively. Race, gender and ethnicity are completely irrelevant to the capability of performing those tasks, so it should be beyond debate that such considerations have no place in the determination of who should gain admission to the military academies.

There is a much stronger case to be made that “diversity” is deleterious to military morale, cohesiveness and performance, but okay, discrimination is contrary to the culture and national values, so we won’t say that women categorically don’t belong in male battle units. But they better be as capable as any of the men.

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Joe Biden Takes the Lead In The Ethics Alarms “2025 Asshole of the Year” Competition

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Ethics Alarms assessment of Joe Biden as the Worst U.S. President Ever looks better and better as more information regarding his disastrous Presidency comes out (after either his corrupt government tried to hide it or the corrupt news media refused to report it).

For example, remember that idiotic pier Biden ordered to be built in Gaza? You know, the plan to send “humanitarian aid” to the people in the region that the U.S. was handing over dollars and weapons to help Israel devastate so it would get rid of its Jew-hating terrorists? The brilliant maneuver that was akin to the U.S. sending humanitarian aide to Berlin during World War II if FDR had been insane or Sherman handing out CARE packages to Atlanta residents during his army’s “March to the Sea”? That stunt? As stupid, wasteful and cynical as it seemed at the time, the reality was even worse. One American soldier assigned to the job, Sgt. Quandarius Stanley, was injured in the process of Biden’s virtue signaling (to his anti-Semitic base) and died five months later for the injuries: that was reported. Now it has been reported that 62 more soldiers were injured during the construction of a floating pier that cost U.S. Taxpayers $230 million to build, that was operational for barely twenty days, that damaged millions of dollars worth of equipment, that was supposed to help the murderous enemy of a U.S. ally that we were supporting while it tried to defeat that enemy, and that literally accomplished nothing.

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Twin Ethics…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

When I read this story in the New York Times, I checked to see what I had posted in the past regarding twin ethics and was shocked that I could find only two essays on the topic. After all, twins deliberately impersonating each other for their own benefit has been a theme from ancient Greek comedies and Shakespeare right through to “The Jackson Twins” comic strip, “The Parent Trap,” and “The Patty Duke Show.”

There was a “Columbo” episode where twins used their ability to impersonate each other to pull off the “perfect murder,” which naturally Columbo solved anyway. But just because twins switching identities can be clever, funny, effective, or cute doesn’t make it ethical.

The first of my twin ethics posts involved a twins who impersonated his brother to win $50,000 in a contest. The other one came from Brazil, where twin brothers had used their resemblance to impersonate each other and date as many women as possible, and then defend themselves from allegations they were cheating on girlfriends. These twins were ducking child support one of them owed by refusing to say which one of them had fathered a child (DNA tests proving inconclusive because they their were identical twins)  assuming they would escape having to pay. It didn’t work: a judge ordered that they both had to pay child support and that the names of both men ended up on the girl’s birth certificate.

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So….the Cardinals Couldn’t Find a Pope Who WASN’T Part of the Predator Priest Scandal? [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Good to know, don’t you think?

I’m stunned that Robert Prevost, who just became became the American pontiff, had been accused by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) of failing to act upon allegations of abuse in the U.S. and Peru. The group says that Prevost ignored allegations of sexual abuse by predator priests in Chicago after Augustinian priest Father James Ray was allowed to live at the St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park despite being removed from ministering to the public over credible evidence that he had sexually abusing children. SNAP says Provost didn’t notify the heads of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic school, an elementary school half a block from the friary on the grounds that Ray was being “closely monitored.”

You know, like the Church closely monitored all of its priests to make sure they weren’t molesting altar boys.

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Open Forum (With a Pope Note…)

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Funny, after watching “Conclave,” I found myself wondering when the Roman Catholic Church would select an American pope, not that I really cared. The New York Times saw yesterday’s surprising decision as justification for more Trump-bashing and an appeal to authority (a logical fallacy) that the Times’ acolytes—Democrats—overwhelmingly don’t acknowledge as an authority. Thus we got “The Pope Appears Uneasy With Trump Immigration Policies: Before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became pope, a social media account under his name shared criticisms of the Trump administration’s positions on immigration. “I…Don’t…Care,” and no one should care even if the social media posts in question came from the guy, which is unlikely. Sharing any opinions or positions without one’s own commentary is lazy, ambiguous social media conduct. But apart from that, becoming Pope creates a hard, black border around whatever the individual elected may have thought, said or done before becoming Pope, making all of that “non-operative,” as the used to say in the Nixon Administration. Furthermore, if this Pope tries to interfere with U.S. law, policy and values like the last one did, the proper response of Americans ought to be the same as I expressed here. The short version: “Mind your own business.”

I was amused yesterday when three waggish baseball pundits were discussing which Chicago baseball team Pope Leo followed, as he hails from the Windy City. The White Sox, one of them claimed. “No, his team is the Cubs!” another insisted. “I’m pretty certain he roots for the Angels,” said the third, ending the debate.

They forgot about the Padres!

Enough from me: This is your post…get opining.

Yes, Actors Who Refuse to Perform With Trump In The Audience Should Be Blacklisted

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Grennell is absolutely, 100% correct. For actors to withhold their talents and services from an entire audience because they may have ideological differences with a member of that audience (or many) is unforgivably unprofessional and a breach of ethics deserving punishment, condemantion and shunning.

Howard Sherman, an author and critic whose existence I had been blissfully unaware of before this day, issued an insufferable essay on Facebook that naturally my many show biz friends, Trump Deranged all, rushed to share and applaud. The post is as nauseating as it is overlong and unethical: I read it so you don’t have to, but here are some lowlights to “How the Blacklisting Starts.”

See, he’s saying that an industry deciding that members who are unethical and refuse to do their jobs is the same as an industry putting members on a blacklist for their political beliefs, as Hollywood did to Communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era, and asd Hollywood does now to conservatives (like, say, James Woods). That’s bonkers, and exactly backwards. It is the misguided artists linking their art to political views who are emulating those blacklisters of yore. I’ll pick out some of the more pernicious misrepresentations in Sherman’s post… Continue reading →

Today’s Unethical Political Cartoon Posted By A Trump Deranged Facebook Friend…

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Come on. Really?

There is no excuse for drawing this, paying someone to do it, publishing it, or treating the opinion it represents with anything but contempt. It is the epitome of the simple-minded, reductive, dishonesty that typifies the political cartooning genre, which deserved to die decades ago, as I’ve stated here for years. As for the once thoughtful, fair, analytical friend who posted it to get cheers from his fellow Trump Deranged, his loved ones have reason to worry.

So do those of another FBF, a retired lawyer of note, who posted today a question: “Can anyone recall Trump ever saying anything that was true?” In a sane world, I would have rocketed back, “Sure: ‘Journalists are the enemies of the people.'” Now I just shake my head in the privacy of my office.

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Bleeding Heart Test: Who Feels Sorry For These “Good Illegal Immigrants”? (I Don’t.)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

The New York Post has a tale that is guaranteed to make “Think of the Children!” fans and “They just want a better life!” defenders of illegal immigration swim in a lake of tears like shrunken Alice in “Alice in Wonderland.”

Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was a Dalton State Community College ( in Dalton, Georgia) student driving without a driver’s license when she failed to obey to a “no turn on red” sign. After police pulled her vehicle over, she claimed to have an “international driver’s license” (Nice try, kid!). One thing led to another, and eventually it was determined that she was not a citizen, having been brought here illegally by her Mexican parents when she was four, that they were here illegally too and had been for 15 years.

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Ethics Observations On the Allied Injury Group’s “Your Favorite Attorney” TV Ad

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Ethics Observations:

1. Yecchh! It is both icky and unethical, indeed technically (under the Rules of Professional Conduct) so, and generally.

2. In case you couldn’t figure it out (I had to check myself), the spokesperson calling himself “Your Favorite Attorney” is an actor, indeed a stand-up comic named Shaun Jones. All of the jurisdictions prohibit lawyer advertising in any form that is misleading or that includes false information. A sole practitioner can’t call her firm “X & Associates,” for example, if she’s the only lawyer in the firm. Putting a non-lawyer in front of a camera and calling having him call himself an attorney is an undeniable violation, and an intentional one.

3. Another technical point: although I suppose it is (slightly) possible that the stand-up comic has a law license, he can’t call himself an attorney unless he has clients. Jones also says that if the client doesn’t make money, “I” don’t make money. That is deceit. The firm will argue that the actor is only saying that if the firm doesn’t win its cases, the actor won’t get paid. But his statement is intended to refer to contingent fees for attorneys, and he isn’t one.

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The Unethical Attack On SNAP Expenditures On Coca-Cola Products and Junk Food

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Back in my first year of law school we studied a case involving poor D.C. residents spending financial assistance checks on non-essentials like furniture thanks to a special deal offered by a local store. My contracts professor, the legendary Richard Alan Gordon, gave an impassioned speech decrying the court’s conclusion that the store’s promotion was wrong and the money was misused. “Why is sustenance for the soul less essential than sustenance for the body?” he asked in his famous stentorian tones.

Okay, food stamp recipients spending them on Coca-Cola products is not quite in the same exalted territory as the life enhancements at the center of that case (I can’t recall it the case cite), but to me, the principle is the same. Conservatives are on the wrong side of this ethics debate. I don’t care if Coca-Cola makes a lot of money off of food stamps. People enjoy their products. They make people happy. Poor people deserve to be happy too now and then in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services Secretary, and Brooke Rollins, the Agriculture Secretary, both advocate stripping soft drinks and junk food from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. RFKJ has called for the government to stop allowing the nearly $113 billion program that serves about 42 million Americans to be spent on “ soda or processed foods.” “The one place that I would say that we need to really change policy is the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches,” Kennedy told Fox News. “There, the federal government in many cases is paying for it. And we shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison.”

Well, one man’s poison is another man’s pudding. Rollins has said, “When a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are they OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children who perhaps need something more nutritious?” No, the correct question is whether Americans think that the poor and low of income should have taxpayers lightening their burden and allowing them to make the same choices regarding the pursuit of happiness that anyone else has, within practical limits.

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