Why Yes, I’d Say Marking “The Meeting House” As An Unethical, Untrustworthy Church That Deserves To Be Shuttered If Not Sent Straight To Hell Is A Fair Conclusion…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This story would be funny if it wasn’t so damning of organized religion generally.

The Meeting House is a Canadian megachurch, of the largest and most influential churches in Ontario. It promoted itself as “a church for people who aren’t into church” (Good motto! Like “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!”), and the campaign worked. The church grew, as they used to say, “like Topsy.” Pastor Bruxy Cavey, who took over the leadership of The Meeting House in 1997, became Ontario’s “most influential pastor.” But in 2021, as described in detail here, Cavey resigned after being accused of sexual assault in his holy activities. He was then charged, with law enforcement adding that there were probably more than one victim.

The church announced in 2022 that “two more claims of sexual abuse and another case of sexual misconduct” against Cavey at been substantiated, with one of the alleged victims being a juvenile.

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Open Forum, Hopefully Not Entirely Dominated By Joe Biden’s Dementia, But First, THIS…[Corrected: Wrong Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Once again, I am resolving to ding any commenter who comes here to argue that the news media is, as that damning headline and banner has the nerve to suggest by the “Support” button, “Independent Fact-based Journalism.”

The White House’s reliance on today’s pre-taped [!!!!], pitifully short (30 minutes? Seriously?) Biden interview with Democratic Party operative George Stephanopoulos to put everyone at ease is more flaming evidence that this administration is convinced that the public is too stupid to metaphorically come out of the rain. So what if Biden can get through a single, carefully planned interview with a friendly, indeed complicit, talking head? That interview last week was signature significance. A trustworthy, fit leaders doesn’t have a “bad night” like that, even once. Equating not having a “bad night” once with the significance of having one is so mild-meltingly stupid that it competes vigorously with the other ridiculous attempts to minimize the epic irresponsibility of Biden running for a second term in the White House. “So he babbled and froze and faded out and gaped like a grouper: He doesn’t always do that!” This is like arguing, “So he had a massive heart attack—he doesn’t always have heart attacks!” And the news media is actually running with this talking point like it isn’t the stupidest thing making making Kamala Harris Vice-President.

[UGH! I just saw this disgraceful “It isn’t what it is” piece. How can these hacks look themselves in the mirror?]

NOTICE of CORRECTION: For some reason, that link was mistakenly to the debate transcript. That wasn’t where it was supposed to go, though the transcript is also infuriating—check Biden’s worst answer, the one that ends with “we beat Medicare.” The transcript makes it seem like Biden’s answer was half-comprehensible, which it wasn’t. At all. But the linked article is to a Baltimore Sun column [“Biden’s debate performance a B-, not a bomb”] where the shameless tool of a gaslighter blames the whole disaster on Biden’s alleged “stutter.”

Incidentally, is anyone working today? I am, but it sure seem like I’m the only one….

Seeing Someone You Respect Descend Into a Mindless Defense of Joe Biden Is Like Seeing Someone You Care About Exhibiting Signs of Dementia…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

A brilliant friend from college just posted on Facebook, “Mitch McConnell froze twice and nobody suggested that he should step down.” And got dozens of “likes” and “loves.” It’s a moronic, silly argument. He’s far too smart to think it’s valid, unless bias has literally made him stupid. Or he’s deliberately trying yo confuse people dumber than he is, which is despicable. I just commented, “(Come on.)”

To state the obvious:

  • Many did suggest that McConnell step down.
  • Mitch is too old too, and should have retired years ago. The fact that Mitch, a jerk, has hung around way past his pull date is not an argument for why other elected officials should do the same.
  • Being a Senator, however, isn’t like being President. At all.
  • How does the Senate leader displaying an alarming cognitive episode have anything to do with the copious evidence of Biden’s progressive dementia? The McConnell episode doesn’t make Biden’s performance less serious, and the response to it, adequate or not, doesn’t  justify pretending Joe’s meltdown was just a “bad night.”
  • There is literally no critical thinking path or logical process that makes my friend’s  infantile “whataboutism” response defensible or persuasive, except to fools clutching at straws.

It’s very depressing.

Observations On This Smoking Gun Evidence That Nothing Is Too Unethical For Today’s Totalitarian Democrats

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I started reading a column in the Huffington Post that Ethics Alarms commenter Cornelius Gotchberg linked to today, and got almost half-way through it before I realized it wasn’t satire. But, horrifyingly, “It’s Time For The Biden Campaign To Embrace AI” isn’t satire. And now we know what kind of ethical limitations Democrats and progressives place on their tactics as they desperately try to save Joe Biden and their own metaphorical necks.

None. No limits at all. By any means necessary. The ends justify the means. In what this dangerous party has become, it’s Machiavelli and Big Brother all the way down.

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How Low Will The Mainstream Media Stoop In Its Desperation To Somehow Save Joe Biden? Oh, Even Lower Than This…Just Give It Time…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Journalism! Yes, it’s true: trying to smear Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to pick up a couple straying percentage points as a whole point herd seems to be abandoning President Gabby Johnson (“Rarit!”) after his debate debacle, Vanity Fair actually published an “exposé” claiming that the third party candidate was photographed eating a barbecued dog in Korea:

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Or stupidity…I read about that story and decided it was obviously nonsense. Then I saw the photo, and knew it was nonsense: As Lloyd Bentsen would say, “I’ve kept goats. I’ve seen barbecued goats, and dogs have been friends of mine: that was no dog.”

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July 4th Post-Debate Ethics, As the Founders Spin in Their Graves…

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Again, it is important to emphasize the very valuable silver lining in this horrible episode for America. It has ripped the masks off so many metaphorical Phantoms of the Opera. We now know, unless we are determined not to know, that the Democratic Party and the White house has deliberately defied core democratic principles by deceiving the public regarding the capabilities of the President of the United States, probably from the very beginnings of his term. We now know that the corrupt news media made no effort to let the public know about this information crucial to their ability to self-govern, either hiding the fact of President Biden’s deterioration or employing contrived ignorance.

And, as that disgusting rant above from a Democratic delegate above to black sports pundit Stephen A. Smith shows, we now know how warped and cynical the values of the progressive cult are.

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Ethics Quiz: Fake Celebrity Voices [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I decided to write about this insidious (but ethical?) phenomenon when I realized that the Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages TV ads are now using an AI-faked Jimmy Dean voice. For decades they only had one brief catch-line from the old ads when Jimmy was still alive (he died in 2010); we would hear the real Jimmy say, “Wake up to the goodness of Jimmy Dean sausages!” in various combinations. Now, AI Jimmy won’t shut up. (The new Jimmy doesn’t even sound quite right, in my opinion.)

NBC announced last week that veteran sportscaster Al Michaels will be doing recaps during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Well, not really Al; a fake Michaels generated by artificial intelligence will re-create the familiar sportscaster’s voice to provide customized Olympic recaps for Peacock subscribers. “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock” will give users a customized highlight playlist, narrated by AI Al.

Al, who is well past his pull-date at 79 (though still younger than Joe Biden), apparently was happy to have AI Al take over for him, and especially happy to receive the check.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for July Fourth is…

Is this unethical or just “Ick”?

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Jill Biden: An Ethics Villain’s Route to Power

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

This explains a lot…

Since there is some reason to suspect that Jill Biden has been doing an Edith Wilson impression for at least some of her husband’s ill-starred term as President, a substacker decided to do a deep dive into Dr. Jill Biden’s dissertation to assess exactly how intellectually qualified she is to be shadow-President. What she found was, to understate it, horrifying….and yet, all in all, not surprising.

To summarize, the doctorate of education Jill received from the University of Delaware in January 2007 was based on a “scholarly” dissertation that was objectively crap. It is riddled with typos, mathematical errors, and horrible writing. Holly Mathnerd (not her real name, presumably) writes in part (this is a huge essay),

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“The Ethicist’s” Streak of Really Dumb Questions Continues…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Are there really so few genuine ethics dilemmas to discuss that Prof. Appiah, aka.”The Ethicist,” has to resort to answering dumb questions like this? An inquirer asks,

I’m in my 30s and have multiple motor and vocal tics that started in my early teens and have never gone away. As far as I can tell, I fit the diagnostic criteria for Tourette’s syndrome… Can I say I have Tourette’s without being formally diagnosed? I’m wary of doing so, given that self-diagnosis is looked down upon for medical issues generally and specifically in the case of Tourette’s; there has been a recent rash of people on social media falsely claiming to have it. But I feel that telling people that I have Tourette’s, which is a label many people recognize, would allow me to talk about my tics more freely and in so doing help counter the mild shame I have around them. It might even educate others on the range of severity with which Tourette’s can present, i.e., that it’s not always so noticeable. But I’m very concerned about seeming to co-opt a group’s struggles, and I don’t know if I need a formal diagnosis to be welcomed into groups for people with Tourette’s, either. What is your view?

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Apparently Whom A Presidential Candidate Chooses As VP Hardly Matters To Voters. Should It?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Is the Pop Catholic? Is Joe Biden demented? Of course the VP choice should matter. In fact, it is irresponsible and incompetent for voters not to regard the second slot on national tickets as potential deal-breakers. However, who is running for VP is firmly in shrug territory for the vast majority of Americans, and always has been.

Rasmussen Reports found in a recent survey of both Democrats and Republicans that Trump’s VP, soon to be announced, won’t make “much of a difference” on Election Day. 82% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats said that they didn’t care. Just 12% of Republican and Democratic likely voters told pollsters that Trump’s VP might tip the scales for them on Election Day.

I’m surprised it was that high. Not only voters, but parties and Presidents have been insanely unconcerned with the qualifications and leadership ability of Vice-Presidential candidates from the very first one, John Adams, who had no governing experience when he was named George’s back-up and was temperamentally ill-suited for leadership—as he quickly proved when he was elected President to succeed Washington. [Note: for some reason I gave Adams a pass when I posted the first installment of the “Worst President Ever” series, and have revised that post. He wasn’t the worst President, but he was definitely one of the worst.]

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