I’m Curious: What Would You Call The Results of This Newsbusters Study In Addition To “Unethical”?

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Newsbusters has the results of a study it performed to examine the political orientation of Late Night TV Guests. It isn’t a surprise to me in the least, yet seeing the results still gave me a jolt. As I write this, I am trying to figure out what this obviously intentional practice of the networks and entertainment industry is, exactly. But first, the study…

It tallied the guest appearances on five daily late night comedy shows: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. The period examined was the nine months from October 2, 2023, to June 27, 2024.

In that period, progressive/Democrat guests outnumbered conservative/Republican guests 137 to 8, or 94% to 6%. If you just count partisan officials, the count was 34 Democrats to 5 Republicans.

Colbert—naturally—had the greatest cumulative discrepancy at 14-1. The Jimmy Kimmel balance count was 7-0. Seth Meyer’s was 3-0, and Jimmy Fallon, who is mostly apolitical (except in his monologues) was 1-0. Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show came in at 9-4.

In the category of journalists and celebrities, the slant was 104 progressives to 3 conservatives.

Colbert was again the most biased at 34-0. The Daily Show was second in bias at 29-1. Meyers had a 21-0 progressive imbalance, Fallon’s was 11-1, and Kimmel’s was 7-1. No journalists from conservative publications or platforms were allowed: here are the outlets represented:

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And Yet Even More Post Debate Ethics…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I hate it when I have to post repeatedly on a single ethics issue. Yesterday I heard an angry Greg Gutfield proclaim the revelation that the Axis has been actively deceiving the public about Biden’s true condition a bigger scandal than Watergate. It might be. On that basis, the extra posts are justified.

1. I heard the pathetically incompetent Karine Jean-Pierre at the White House Press briefing repeatedly explain Biden’s cognitive crash as a “bad night.” Yeah, Abe Lincoln had a bad night on April 14, 1865. She used all the other agreed-upon talking points too: it was late, he had a cold, and the President knows he isn’t as young as he used to be and isn’t as “smooth a talker” as he once was. This is simultaneously a “Just how stupid do the Democrats think the public is?” test and a “Just how stupid IS the public?” test.

2. Part of Joe’s “I am not a vegetable” tour is apparently going to include a press conference and an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Would it be too much to ask for the interviewer not to be a former Democratic Party operative? I guess so…

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Attack of the Zombie Morons!

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Again, not unexpected, just wildly depressing.

I really don’t have time this morning to do the analysis of yesterday’s latest SCOTUS decision that it deserves, or even to complete the deserved excoriation of the liars, hysterics and morons have made utter asses of themselves while making ignorant and gullible members of the public more ignorant still. I was grateful to see Prof. Turley’s essay this morning, which is exactly what I expected it to be.

But all anyone had to do was to read the damn opinion, which you can and should do here. It is a moderate opinion. It is a careful opinion, and it was an unavoidable one. It is also an opinion that would never have been necessary if the totalitarian Democrats hadn’t decided to weaponize the criminal justice system in a last ditch effort to stop Donald Trump from defeating their demented, puppet President.

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Ethics Quiz: Harvard’s Honorary Degrees

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Hmmmm.

Here are the distinguished individuals Harvard saw fit to award honorary degrees to at graduation this year. (I’m sure some of them, heck, maybe all, are very fine people) :

  • Gustavo Dudamel, music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, his home country, and music and artistic director-designate of the New York Philharmonic
  • Jennie Chin Hansen, immediate past chief executive of the American Geriatrics Society, and past president of AARP—a pioneer in care for the elderly.
  • Sylvester James Gates Jr., Clark Leadership Chair in Science and Distinguished University Professor and a University System of Maryland Regents Professor, a theoretical physicist who has worked on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory.
  • Joy Harjo, twenty-third Poet Laureate of the United States, 2019-2022, the author of 10 books of poetry (plus plays, children’s books, and two volumes of memoir), and a performing musician who played for many years with her band, Poetic Justice, and has produced seven albums.
  • Maria A. Ressa, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 (with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov) for her brave, independent news coverage of her native Philippines.

(Former Harvard president Lawrence Bacow also got an honorary degree, but ex-Harvard presidents always do if they manage not to get fired for plagiarism, so he doesn’t count.)

Interesting. Out of five honorees, not one was a white American, not even a white woman, or a white LGTBQ warrior. A Venezuelan male, a female Filipino, Harjo is Native American, Gates is black, and Hansen is Asian American.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Week is…

Is there anything wrong with this roster?

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Rueful Ethics Observations On This Biden Campaign Email…

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Per conservative blogger Jim Treacher, the Biden Campaign sent this out to supporters today…

Wow.

Observations:

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Answering Prof. Volokh’s Questions…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

On his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy (which I have loyally followed from its independent days, to the Washington Post, and now at Reason), Prof. Eugene Volokh offers a series of rhetorical questions in his post, “Sad Thoughts About American Politics.” Volokh, whom I have corresponded with occasionally over the years, is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. More importantly, he’s a rational, fair analyst with keen ethics alarms. The point of rhetorical questions is to elicit a response inherent in the question’s phrasing and context. Nonetheless, I thought I’d warm up my faculties first thing this morning by answering the questioned he poses. These are just the question, now. In the post, he had considerable context and commentary. But I assume you know the context, and you can read the commentary at the link. Here are the questions…

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Breaking: The Democrats Are Screwed

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

I know this is Nelson’s second visit in less than a week, but it’s still the most appropriate reaction.

This news just came to me from the New York Times. I have a gift link for you here, to get you past the pay wall.

The quick version is that the party was counting on the Biden family to sit old Joe down this weekend, tell him they love him, and convince him to drop out of the Presidential race. Instead, sayeth the Times (which itself had issued a panicked call for Joe to leave)…

“…President Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how he was prepared for the event by his staff, people close to the situation said on Sunday. Mr. Biden huddled with his wife, children and grandchildren at Camp David while he tried to figure out how to tamp down Democratic anxiety. While his relatives were acutely aware of how poorly he did against former President Donald J. Trump, they argued that he could still show the country that he remains capable of serving for another four years.”

Amusingly, Hunter is reported to be the most adamant that Biden stay in the White House until they carry him out. Of course! Joe is his meal-ticket. Without him, Biden’s black sheep son is just another junkie.

Again, I feel nothing but pity and embarrassment for our President (and contempt for his selfish, irresponsible family), but as for the chaos this development inflicts on the Democrats, good. They deserve every bit of it and more. The party’s self-made crisis is what George Will used to call “condign justice.”

Momentous Week Ethics Countdown…6/30/24: Only 3 Out Of 5 Are Debate-Related!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I wasn’t going to do one of these today because I really don’t have time, but this comment from Althouse today isn’t worth a whole post but can’t be allowed to pass. She wrote,

“By the way, is it “entirely possible that Biden could have a much stronger debate in September”? Not only is it entirely possible for Biden to have a much stronger debate in September, it’s entirely possible that if you calm yourself, clear your head of preconceptions, and cue up last Thursday’s debate and watch it again, you will perceive it as a much stronger debate than it seemed on first watch.”
 

Oh, Ann, Ann. What the hell is the matter with her? She’s still flogging her initial reaction that Biden was “bad” but not “that bad.” Sure it was “that bad.” Even if there had been just a single attack of confused gibberish like the one that prompted Trump’s killer line about Joe not even knowing what he meant, it would have made the debate a historic political disaster. What part of “All Biden had to do was show he wasn’t too addled and feeble to be trusted to lead the nation, and he couldn’t do it” escapes her? That quote makes me wonder if she’s losing it.

And there is no chance, absolutely none, that Biden is going to improve in three months. How would that happen? I had an older friend a few years ago who showed symptoms similar to Biden’s in a da- long meeting we had about his play that I was preparing to direct. It was one of the longest, most depressing three hours of my life. Less than three months later, he could barely speak and was completely disoriented.

That was dementia, but what is Ann’s excuse? Excessive hope? A massive blind spot? Denial? Contrarianism? Her not-so-secret Democrat taking over, like Pazuzu?

It’s unethical for opinion writers who people trust to offer recklessly absurd opinions.

Meanwhile, counting down…

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Ethics Villain: “Morning Joe” Scarborough, But You Should Have Known That Already

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

If Joe Scarborough had a scrap of decency, an atom of responsibility, or a wisp of the capacity for shame, he would voluntarily end his “Morning Joe” show, retire to private life, and ideally wear a paper bag over his head ’til the end of his days. Of course, if MSNBC was a professional news operation and not a den of hacks, it wouldn’t allow Scarborough back on the air next week.

I nearly posted about Scarborough two days ago, before I saw this clip today. He was featured in the Times piece titled “One by One, Biden’s Closest Media Allies Defect After the Debate.” The main three close Biden “media allies” mentioned were Morning Joe, Van Jones and NYT columnist Thomas Friedman. I was going to write something along the lines of, “Scarborough, Jones and Friedman! Would it be possible to gather an array of less credible, more ethically-revolting weasels? Having allies like them mean nothing, and having allies like them abandon you means nothing. Has the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog ever been more applicable?” Here’s the last addition to Van Jones’ Ethics Alarms dossier: he’s a proven anti-white race-huckster and face-man who cleans up nice for cameras and usually keeps his inner racist at bay so he can keep his lucrative CNN gig. The last time Friedman made the blog was in 2019, when he wrote that President Trump was “protected by big media outlets”! He really wrote that.

Now here’s how the sad Times story begins, talking about Scarborough:

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And Still More Post-Debate Ethics! [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The <gasp!> apocalyptic news was the New York Times posting an editorial board statement telling Biden he has to go “for the good of the country.” Of course, the Times can’t be expected to accept a share of responsibility for saddling the U.S. with Biden by burying the credible account of a staffer who claimed he raped her, hiding the Hunter laptop story until the success of Joe’s basement campaign was cinched, and generally serving as an uncritical Democratic Party cheering section when it counts. The Times also let the completely discredited Lincoln Project take a typical shot at Trump in its op-ed pages. And a silly one: the Project’s mouthpiece said that Trump botched the debate because he didn’t “lay out a positive economic plan to appeal to middle-class voters feeling economic pressure” (Sure he did: get Joe Biden out of the White House! Works for me!) and reverse himself on abortion, saving “young girls” from having to “endure extremist politicians eager to criminalize what was a constitutional right for two generations.” No woman is in danger of ever being imprisoned in the U.S. for having an abortion. Dumb prosecutors will do dumb things, but that’s no reason to ignore the critical issue at the core of the abortion problem: the delicate human lives abortion enthusiasts want to ignore. In the debate, Trump focused on that. It wasn’t a mistake.

As for the Times board, it dutifully parroted the official DNC talking points about Trump’s lies and “lies,” as if Biden wasn’t spitting out whoppers himself when it was possible to figure out what he was saying. The Times also used the latest trope from the Axis: Republicans should consider replacing Trump. Sure, that makes sense. If Biden was a complete vegetable and still beating Trump in the polls, is there any chance that Democrats would replace him as their nominee? Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

More:

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