Squirrel Ethics: The P’Nut Saga [Corrected and Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

State government officials this week seized and ultimately destroyed P’Nut, a pet squirrel with a popular Instagram page, in Pine City, New York. Somehow, conservatives have decided to make this incident some kind of watershed for state abuse of personal liberties , not to mention pet squirrels. Thus P’Nut has become an election issue; Hey, why not, everything else is from McDonald’s to Liz Cheney. First pet squirrels, next guns and free enterprise. “First, they came for P’Nut, and I said nothing…”

Give me a break.

Mark Longo adopted P’Nut seven years ago in New York City as an orphaned baby squirrel that crawled up his leg after his mommy was squished by a car. The squirrel ended up with his own room, and when Longo and his wife were at home the furry friend wandered wherever he wanted in their house. Longo described P’Nut as “the most charismatic, sassy animal.”

P’Nut also was a profitable animal. The rodent became the face and name of P’Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, a nonprofit Longo and his wife started in April. The Longos contribute half of the organization’s roughly $20,000-a-month expenses to run the sanctuary and donors supply the other half, with most of those donations raised largely through cute P’Nut videos posted on Instagram. “We have rescued over 300 animals in our sanctuary already,” Longo said. “Cats, dogs, horses, goats, sheep, donkeys and pigs.”

Ah! The ends justify the means! Here is the problem: it is illegal to keep wildlife like squirrels as pets, in New York as well as many other states. The full list is here. (Pointer: jeffguinn) According to that source, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming all allow people to own pet squirrels. [Note: This is a correction from the original post, in which I assumed that all states would have prohibited P’Nut.]

None of which is relevant to the law in New York and it’s enforcement.

“Following multiple reports from the public about the potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets, D.E.C. conducted an investigation,” the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement after P’Nut was seized. “Investigation” is a bit sanitized: the operation has been described as a raid, and sure sounds like one. Before the officers left with P’Nut (and a raccoon, which nobody seems to care about), they “ransacked my entire house,” Longo said. “They made me sit outside for five hours.”

Presumably they were making sure that the house didn’t contain any other illegal residents. “We have had P’nut for seven years without a single complaint,” Longo said. “Now it’s suddenly an issue? It’s not like we were hiding him.”

Well, yes. That’s the problem. Longo and his wife were openly violating a law, and the argument for letting P’Nut keep hiding his nuts under their rugs is simple: the law is the law, there is no exception for cute law-breaking or profitable law-breaking. Regardless of the squirrel’s popularity and use in fundraising for a worthy cause, a law that isn’t enforced when it is broken for reasons some people think are justifications isn’t a law at all.

This isn’t just one slippery slope, it is several. Today it’s P’Nut the Squirrels, then it’s whenever that raccoon was, and tomorrow it’s Chewy the Wolverine.

“To the people who filed complaints, thank you for taking away the best part of me, thank you for taking away my best friend,” Longo whined online.

Conservatives have to stop flipping their values any time they see a chance for political point-scoring. This is called lacking integrity. Taking away P’Nut is based on the same principle that says “good illegal immigrants” should still be deported, Hillary Clinton shouldn’t get away with mishandling classified materials, and that if Donald Trump is prosecuted for mishandling documents, Joe Biden should be as well.

The King’s Pass is a rationalization even if the king is a squirrel.

A grace note: P’Nut had to be euthanized after he bit one of the officers as they removed him from his happy home, so they had to see if the squirrel had rabies. Good for P’Nut: he didn’t go down without a fight. We can’t blame him for not knowing the law.

Comment of the Day: “Just So There Is Accountability and We Don’t Forget, Here’s a List of The Lying Media Propagandists Who Claimed Trump Said He Wanted Liz Cheney Shot…”

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Time for a Trump Derangement report Comment of the Day. This admirable job by AM Golden fills the bill nicely, especially since I had almost the exact same conversation with my own “not unintelligent” relative who has been a raging, drooling, Trump Derangement victim getting progressively (double meaning, there) worse (Stage 1, 2, 3, 4, now 5, and I suspect Stage 6 is terminal) for almost a decade. There is a viral social media tale with video about a woman who interrupted a conversation between two black Trump supporters to start screaming about how he was a criminal who wants Liz Cheney to be put in front of a 9-person “firing squad.” This lunatic also claimed to be well-informed, though she must only frequent MSNBC and other propaganda outlets that haven’t thoroughly debunked this most recent desperate lie. (All you have to do is read what Trump said.) There may be a new one by now; I haven’t checked.

I am going to depart from the usual format with COTDs here and follow AM’s post with some supplemental analysis of my own.

In the meantime, here is AM Golden’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Just So There Is Accountability and We Don’t Forget, Here’s a List of The Lying Media Propagandists Who Claimed Trump Said He Wanted Liz Cheney Shot…,” which is a follow-up to this earlier post regarding the unforgivable “Trump threatened Cheney” AXIS hit.

***

Trying to convince people that what Trump said is being misrepresented, and deliberately so, by the Democrats and their media advocates is like pulling teeth.

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Just So There Is Accountability and We Don’t Forget, Here’s a List of The Lying Media Propagandists Who Claimed Trump Said He Wanted Liz Cheney Shot…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Federalist was kind enough to supply what it says is complete list (it’s not, but never mind). The details are here, the unethical hacks are below.

When I point this kind of thing out to my usually intelligent, Trump-Deranged relative, the responses are:

  • “You keep saying the news media is biased and untrustworthy. Not ALL the reporters claimed that Trump said that!”
  • “Besides, that’s probably what he meant anyway.”
  • “So what? You know Trump has said that he wants to punish Liz Cheney!”
  • “Fox News exaggerates what Democrats say all the time!”
  • “Why are you always defending Trump?”

Here’s the list:

Jonah Goldberg

CNN anchor Kasie Hunt

CNN’s Eric Bradner

CNN’s Jim Acosta

Politico’s Andrew Howard

Politico bureau chief Jonathan Lemire

CNN’s Kate Sullivan

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake

Reuters reporter Andy Sullivan

Reuters reporter Susan Heavey

National Review’s Jim Geraghty

Politico Senior Political Columnist Jonathan Martin

Rolling Stone reporter Nikki McCann Ramirez

I know the Federalist missed a few and maybe more than a few, like those mentioned in the Ethics Alarms post yesterday such as Joe Scarborough (The Federalist may not consider MSNBC worth counting, and that’s defensible). As far as I know, Goldberg is the only one who apologized, and a weaselly apology it was.

I’m sure the rest will say that they were just trying to save democracy, and how can you fault them for that?

BOY these people deserve to lose…

Ethics Heroes: “Diplomat” Creator Debora Chan (and the Netflix Series’ Writers)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

What would be the odds that a Netflix Hollywood streaming series would come out a week before the election and remind the audience just how unqualified for President Kamala Harris is? I’d say looooooong. Yet that’s exactly what the second season of the smart, funny, astute series “The Diplomat,” starring Keri Russell is the role of her life and the always excellent Rufus Sewell, has done.

Oh, I don’t think it was intentional. I’m sure the scripts were written and shot too far in advance of the series’ second season debut on Halloween to have anticipated Kamala Harris being installed as the Democrats’ Presidential candidate via soft coup, then babble and duck her way to likely historical infamy. But the creative team—largely from the “West Wing” brain trust—did have time to intervene, stall the debut until after November 5, cut some damning speeches, something. It didn’t. These Hollywood progressives (redundant, I know) chose artistic integrity over the current woke mania for “making it look like it makes sense to vote for Kamala.” Well, good for them.

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Ethics Dunce: The Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

If the administrators at the insanely expensive school (the parents of 1,700 students pay tuition for all grades of $65,540 a year) are not embarrassed by that headline, they should be. Morons.

The school told families this week that “students who feel too emotionally distressed” after the election can get excused from classes, and—I find this incredible—psychologists will be available during the week to provide counseling for the tender souls who have presumably been told by their teachers and parents that they will be sent off to work camps and their parents will be executed in Trump wins.

The message to parents “acknowledges that this may be a high-stakes and emotional time for our community. No matter the election outcome will create space to provide students with the support they may need.” Excused absences will be allowed on Wednesday or whatever day the election results are announced for those students who are unable to “fully engage in classes.”

Any student who doesn’t immediately recognize this as a “Get Out Of School Free” ticket is too dim-witted to be in school.

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Ethics Hero: Karoline Leavitt

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Res ipsa loquitur…

The link is here. (WordPress wouldn’t let me embed it.)

I had never heard Leavitt before; she was an assistant press secretary at the end of Trump’s term, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022, and is now Trump’s 2024 National Press Secretary. Compare her to the pathetic Karine Jean-Pierre. Trump should use Leavitt as an example of the different standards of competence in Democratic and Republican administrations (not that Trump didn’t employ more than his share of incompetents as well, some of whom are now telling the news media that he likes Hitler).

In a sane and ethical world, a candidate staffer showing herself to be prepared, competent, articulate and devastatingly accurate when faced with mainstream media propaganda should not warrant Ethics Hero status. Unfortunately, displays like Leavitt’s almost never happen. She reduced the ABC Axis propagandist to nearly literal “huminahumina” babbling.

If only the candidate himself could communicate this well.

(Heck, if only I could communicate this well, I might have made my final appearance on NPR, when I was ambushed and mocked for correctly explaining how sexual harassment law can be abused to target public figures like Donald Trump, a more memorable last stand.)

Today’s Desperation “Beat Trump By Any Means Necessary” Rhetoric Twist…[Extended]

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

What Trump said (in his interview with Tucker Carlson) about the odious Elizabeth Cheney:

“Look, she’s a deranged person. The reason she doesn’t like me is that she wanted to stay in Iraq, she wants to — tough, tough person, you know, people get killed all over, she’s real tough, right? … But the reason she couldn’t stand me is that she always wanted to go to war with people. I don’t want to go to war. She wanted to go — she wanted to stay in Syria. I took them out. She wanted to stay in Iraq. I took them out. I mean, if it were up to her, we’d be in 50 different countries. No. 1, it’s very dangerous, No. 2, a lot of people get killed, and No. 3, it’s very, very expensive. … She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’ But she’s a stupid person. And I used to have — I’d have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.“

How the Axis news media reported it:

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Ethics Quote of the Week: “Anonymous TV Executive”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I have some tweaks to make for this, but in general it’s spot on.

1. It is a stupid quote on its face, of course. Trump served as President for four years and the results were mostly positive despite deliberate and unethical efforts by the Axis of Unethical Conduct to undermine him. The Presidency is a unique job; by definition anyone who had been President (and not suffered a major cognitive decline subsequently, but that’s just a wild hypothetical) is more qualified than anyone who hasn’t been President.

2. What the anonymous (how courageous!) exec means is “if Trump wins despite eight years of 90% of the news media doing everything it it power to poison the public against him while covering up the vile conduct of Democrats” American journalism has no credibility any more and not enough power to manipulate our politics and public policy as its practitioners long to do.

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Ethics Dunce: The National Park Service

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Yeah, about violating “norms”….

The National Mall is supposed to contain unifying and patriotic memorials and monuments and to be a place of pride for all Americans. It is certainly not a venue for partisan grandstanding and electioneering, or, at least wasn’t designed to be. Never mind, though: as part of the Biden Administration’s effort to try to snatch victory from the maw of the most utterly deserved defeats in American Presidential election history, the National Park Service provided a permit for an ugly, satirical, attack on Donald Trump and his supporters (they are garbage, after all) on the Mall, neatly timed to coincide with the last ditch “anything goes” assault on traditional election campaign civility and fairness because, well, “saving democracy” justifies anything.

The bronze sculpture features a pile of Dairy Queen-arranged shit on the desk of ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, complete with nameplate. The elegant plaque reads,

“This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election. President Trump celebrates these heroes of January 6th as ‘unbelievable patriots’ and ‘warriors.’ This monument stands as a testament to their daring sacrifice and lasting legacy.”

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4 Ethics Takeaways From USA Today’s 5 Takeaways From Joe Rogan’s Interview With JD Vance

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The target is this USA Today story.

1. The quote everyone seems to be repeating is “It’s just strange that everyone’s accepting that this person who is the least popular vice president ever is now the solution to the problem and that the media machine in just a few days did this 180 and just sold her as the solution. And as long as they keep her from having these conversations where she’s allowed to talk, they’re able to pull this off. And the, the fact that it’s happening with no primary should be really concerning to people… because that’s never happened before…. they could have had a primary….”

It should tell voters everything they need to know to vote against Harris that even with the race so close, she refused to do an interview with Rogan for his massive audience of mostly young men unless he did it under her staff’s control and limited the interview to an hour rather than his usual three. This shows that she’s hiding her real nature, unsure of her abilities, a coward, a weenie, and a prop candidate. Why would anyone vote for someone like that to be President? There are no ethical reasons: the reasons that exist are all linked to unethical conduct and characteristics or non-ethical considerations like fear and hate.

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