Wait, I’m Sorry, I’m Getting All Confused: WHICH Is the Party That Is An Existential Threat To Democracy?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Yesterday, Ethics Alarms noted [Item #6] that Democrats in Pennsylvania had voted in favor of counting mail-in ballots that were ruled invalid by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and will be counting those disqualified ballots to try to overturn the apparent victory of GOP Senator-elect Dave McCormick over incumbent Sen. Bob Casey in the upcoming recount. The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on November 7, and he is now leading Casey by over 17,000 votes.

This fondness for counting void votes is, of course, passing strange conduct from the party whose captive journalists keep saying that President-Elect Trump’s four years of claims that the 2020 Presidential election was “stolen” from him are “completely groundless.” Pennsylvania’s electoral college votes are among those the incoming President felt were stolen. Call me crazy and paint me puce, but I’d say deliberately and openly counting votes the state Supreme Court says are invalid is prima facie evidence that this a party not above cheating to hold onto power.

Now, after the Republican National Committee sued last week after several counties decided to openly cheat by counting ballots with incorrect dates, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court today reiterated its decision from November 5. Justice David Wecht wrote in his concurring statement that it is “critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court.” Justice Kevin Brobson likewise wrote that local election officials do not “have the authority to ignore Election Code provisions that they believe are unconstitutional.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed on November 1 that requiring mail-in ballots to have handwritten dates is constitutional.

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It’s Time To Accept Reality: We Can’t Trust Science Writers, So We Can’t Trust What We Read About Science

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The ethics rot of “Scientific American” came to a climax last week with the firing of longtime editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth after she went on a social media tirade against Trump voters and tried to blame it on the demon Pazuzu (well, not explicitly, but that was what her “apology” amounted to). During her tenure she had politicized the once respected science magazine, using it to advance her own social justice agenda which dovetailed nicely with that of the extreme progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Weaponizing science for political advantage is more totalitarianism on the hoof, and one might think that Helmuth’s demise might slow down or even begin to terminate this dangerous trend, once rampant on the Reactionary Right, now characteristic of the Doctrinaire Left. Nope.

Based on the latest from esteemed (not by me, but still…) science writer John Horgan, who modestly calls himself “The Science Writer”—he’s a science writer—the political roots of the field’s ethics rot is already embedded too deeply to extract. Horgan has strong credentials, as he’d be the first to tell you. He’s been writing for Scientific American since 1986 with an eight year break in the middle, and also authors pieces on science issues for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Washington Post, Time and Newsweek. He has written several books; he’s has been interviewed on PBS, MSNBC, NPR, AP, BBC, and other broadcast media. He’s  lectured at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, McGill and the London School of Economics, among other institutions.

Yet Horgan still thinks that scientists are correct to be driven by political bias and to let it affect their work. His recent essay in the wake of Hormuth’s oh-so-well-deserved demise is a flashing neon warning that science, as an objective, fact-driven, intellectual pursuit for the good of mankind (aka “a profession”) is as dead as Darwin, or mighty close to it. Horgan’s website piece is titled, “Scientific American Loses Its Bold Leader.” “Bold” is a terrific ambiguous cover word. In the case of Hormuth, it means courageous and reckless to the point of subverting her duties. From there, The Science Writer argues,

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Rita Moreno Thought She Was Justifying Hollywood and Broadway’s Woke Casting, But Instead Proved Its Hypocrisy

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Last December, right before New Year’s Eve, there was a blow-out Broadway celebration of the 80th anniversary of the memorable Rodgers and Hammerstein musical partnership that produced the acclaimed musicals “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I,” “The Sound of Music,” and a couple of clunkers. It was a manufactured event to say the least. Why the 80th anniversary, for example? The team’s first successful collaboration was “Oklahoma!” in 1943, but it opened on March 31 of that year, so they were celebrating the so-called anniversary a full nine months late. (Try THAT with your wife!) But the real anniversary of the team’s formation was when Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborated on the 1920 Varsity Show, Fly With Me when the two were at Columbia University together. Nobody remembers that show, however, but Broadway could have celebrated the 100th Anniversary of R&H in 2020 right before the stupid pandemic lockdown almost killed live theater.

PBS has been showing the event on its “Great Performances” series, and it’s not that great. I was tipped off that the thing would drive me crazy when for some perverse reason the opening number, after the 40 piece symphony orchestra performed an overture that was a medley of well-known R&H tunes, featured a group of gay young men singing “There Is Nothing Like a Dame” from “South Pacific.” There might have been one straight guy among them, but my Gaydar meter almost blew up. Whose idea was that? If you’re going to have gays singing that lament supposedly belted out by horny, sex-deprived sailors in WWII, at least tell them to butch up, or better yet, pick a different song.

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In New York, Dishonest Progressive Math: Not Charging Commuters As Much As Was Originally Proposed Saves Them Money

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What is this? Gaslighting? Misdirection? Whatever it is, it’s unethical.

But typical.

“I always have and I always will fight to put more money in the pockets of everyday New Yorkers,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, as she imposed a new 9 dollar commuter toll on New Yorkers who drive into the Manhattan business district. How is a new toll that will go into effect in January 2025 for the first tine saving New Yorkers money by putting more money in their pockets? It isn’t.

Follow closely, now. The original “NYC congestion plan” was supposed to cost $15 when it was proposed, but the plan was suspended by Hochul until after the election, because she was afraid it would cost her party votes. Now that the election is safely over in the state, she’s reinstating the plan, but at a lower cost. Nonetheless, lowering the cost of a new state expense being imposed on commuters isn’t putting more money in anyone’s pocket but the state’s. The new toll takes money away from commuters, just not as much money as was originally announced.

I’m not evaluating whether the toll is a responsible and fair policy; I don’t care. I do care about the apparently never-ending “It isn’t what it is” addiction of elected officials who try their damnedest to confuse and mislead the public. Hochul is literally saying to the public, “Be grateful that I’m not taking more of your money than I might. Why, it’s almost like I am giving you money!”

No, charging commuters more than nothing, which is what they had been paying to come into Manhattan, is taking money, not giving it. War is Peace, and the state taking your money is putting money in your pocket, because it could be taking even more.

Got it.

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Sources: NYT 1, 2, and 3.

An Arizona Judge Does The Right Thing And Recuses, But Not Until He Shows That Bias Has Made Him Stupid…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What does it say about a judge’s competence and judicial temperament when he can’t restrain himself from posting attacks on conservatives while presiding over a politically-charged trial? It says, I think, “Time to retire!” In the case at hand, it also said; “Your recusal light is flashing.”

Maricopa County Judge Bruce Cohen, the judge overseeing Arizona’s case against allies of Once and Future President Donald Trump based on their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, recused himself last week after it was revealed that he had emailed colleagues urging them to speak out against conservative attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign.

In an email sent to fellow judicial officers on August 29, Cohen criticized those who labeled Harris a “DEI hire” and said he was “sickened” when Fox News host Jesse Watters said on air that if she were elected, she would “get paralyzed in the Situation Room while the generals have their way with her.”

“White men…must speak out,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by state Rep. Travis Grantham (R) and reported by local news media. Based on the email, one of the defendants’ lawyers called for his dismissal. Based on that email I conclude that the call for the judge’s recusal was a proper response. Even if the message didn’t prove that he would be biased against the pro-Trump defendants, it definitely proves he is incapable of processing information, either because bias has made him stupid, age has crippled his faculties, or because he was dumb to begin with.

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Sunday Morning Ethics Reflections, 11/17/24: ‘Dreading  the Next Seven Weeks’ Edition, Part II, The Usual Stuff

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

[Having whined sufficiently for several months in the introduction, I finally present the ethics items…]

1. Is this really an appropriate column for the Opinion Section of the New York Times? Even by her own standards, the latest column by Maureen Dowd is particularly nasty, catty, and offensive. It is just slightly more fair and civil than Keith Olbermann tweeting out “Fuck Trump!” 50 times. Like so much we are hearing from the humiliated and exposed Axis these day, this is just a tantrum by Dowd (other tantrums from the Times opinion page: this, by Roxanne Gay: “Donald Trump Is Already Starting to Fail,” by NeverTrumper David French) who writes in part,

“Melania wondered if the notion of “respect” had become obsolete. Good question to ponder as we watch people with no respect for Washington tearing it apart from the inside — starting with her husband’s bizarre nominations of people with contempt for the institutions they would run, a quartet of scandalous foxes in the hen houses: R.F.K. Jr., Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz. (If the odious, barely-a-lawyer Gaetz is confirmed, which is a long shot, even with obedient Senate Republicans, will he heed MAGA calls to reinvestigate 2020 with an eye toward proving Trump won?)”

It’s pretty audacious for a member of the cabal that refused to extend to Donald Trump any respect or the traditional deference due to any President to complain that he is not being properly “respectful” to the corrupt and incompetently run “institutions” he now controls. Why should anyone respect the politically weaponized Justice Department of the Biden Administration? The DEI obsessed Defense Department? The incompetent State Department, still chasing the impossible “two state solution” and validating terrorism in the process? Education? Transportation? Homeland Security, run by a DEI toady who laughably declared the Southern border “secure”? Respecting incompetence and lack of responsibility is a dangerous habit.

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Sunday Morning Ethics Reflections, 11/17/24: ‘Dreading  the Next Seven Weeks’ Edition, Part I, “The Horror”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I always dread the period coming up as the equivalent of whitewater rapids my metaphorical raft has floated into while I am missing a paddle. This year’s rapids promise to be especially emotionally perilous. It will be my first Thanksgiving since my wife died on Leap Year, my son has his own concerns and is unlikely to be available, and joining an “orphan’s Thanksgiving” at the home of some pitying friend is less attractive to me than spending the day alone with my dog. Even before that terrible date come two other bad ones.

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Creative! Funny! But Unethical [Video Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A video submitted as part of an insurance claim in January appeared to show a brown bear tearing up the interior of a Rolls-Royce.Similar videos involving other cars were turned in to two additional insurers. All together, the three insurance companies collectively paid out over $140,000.

But an investigation called Operation Bear Claw revealed that the attacks were really insurance scams.“Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the department said in a news release. This bear suit…

Those things at the bottom were used to imitate bear claw marks.

The California Department of Insurance has arrested Ruben Tamrazian, 26; Ararat Chirkinian, 39; and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, Calif.; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Los Angeles. They face charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy.

Ethics Dunce: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

[And with this, Frank Drebbin becomes the first star of an Ethics Alarms film clip to be featured in consecutive posts!]

Speaker Mike Johnson is saying he does not think the House Ethics report into the conduct of Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz should be released, even though Gaetz must face a Senate confirmation hearing. “I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson said. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”

“The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee,” Johnson said, when asked if the public has a right to see the report. “And so I don’t think that’s relevant.”

Of course the report is relevant. In fact, what the report contains is essential to determining whether President Trump has nominated a pedophile, criminal drug users and general slimeball as the nation’s top lawyer or not. “That is not the way we do things in the House” is no argument at all. How many times as a member of Congress been nominated for Attorney General with an ethics investigation pending? “Never”is the answer, so “how they do thing in the House” in this situation will be decided by the House. The House has a duty to the American people first, not to its members, or in Gaetz’s case, non-members. It wouldn’t be a terrible precedent—why does Johnson think that? For the House to willfully withhold relevant information from a Senate confirmation hearing for a key position in a President’s Cabinet would be the terrible precedent. Johnson’s position looks like part of a cover-up operation.

Now, if Gaetz were really a trustworthy and admirable nominee, he would publicly request that the Hose Ethics Committee release the results of their inquiry, since there wouldn’t be anything damning in it.

But he isn’t, so he won’t, because there is.

Why Doesn’t The New York Times Think Kamala Harris Paying For Al Sharpton and Oprah To Give Her Suck-Up Interviews Is “Fit To Print”?

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Apparently the lessons of the past election are not sinking in for many as quickly as some thought.

Since the election, it has been confirmed that the Harris campaign paid Oprah Winfrey’s production company Harpo a million dollars for the elaborate event including Winfrey’s fawning interview of Harris on stage, and that it paid Al Sharpton’s National Action Network a half-million dollars before Sharpton did his Harrs interview. This is unethical. It is cheating. To the extent that the interviews were  journalism ( Winfrey used to be a journalist and is still accorded the credibility and status of one, Sharpton pretends to be a journalist rather than what he is, a race-hustler, on MNBC) accepting such payments create a conflict of interest and a breach of journalism ethics. Even if they are not technically unethical journalism, the lack of transparency is.

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