Oh yeah, she’s secretly brilliant…
And the morons applaud.
Looking for that wood-chipper….
Unethical Business Practice: Experian….And It’s Time It Was Exposed.
There is a necessary class action law suit that needs to be filed against Experian, the multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company. Its scam, and it is a scam, is diabolically simple: once you enroll in its lowest level paid subscription (just $3.99 a month!), it is virtually impossible to cancel it. I say “virtually” because I would not be surprised if there was some magic, hidden,absurdly complicated way to cancel that one can only access by luck, genius or accident. Thus Experian could argue, “Oh no! It’s easy to cancel: see?”
Experian isn’t the only company to play this profitable, unethical game; since my wife’s death, I have spent an astounding number of hours dealing with dozens of companies’ “customer service” (Ha!) systems that have to have been set up to foil genuine customer service, frustrate efforts by consumers to get out of traps, and to prompt the understandable reaction, “Oh, to hell with it, it’s only a few bucks and I don’t have time for this.”
“As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With ‘Think of the Children!’ Porn”: The Sequel
Today the Times published another in its continuing reporting efforts to demonize Israel, encourage anti-Semitism, support the unconscionable Biden -Harris pressure on Israel to agree to a ruinous cease-fire, and to validate Palestinian terrorism. The Ethics Alarms commentary on this piece is essentially identical to what appeared in its predecessor, As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With “Think of the Children!” Porn…which stated in that the Times report…
“…can evoke no possible response from typical semi-attentive and easily manipulated readers than “Think of the children! The Jews are monsters! Cease fire now! The Gazans have suffered enough! Justice for Palestine!”
And this is exactly the end result that Hamas sought when it launched its cease-fire shattering surprise terror attack on Israeli civilians, including infants, on October 7.”
The Message, Not The Messenger…Ethics Quote of the Week: RFK, Jr.
Just because I would vote for a Muppet before I would vote for Kennedy, he accurately described not only why he has abandoned the corrupt and undemocratic Democratic Party, but why any Democrat with integrity should.
Ann Althouse chose basically the same excerpt from the speech that I would have, so I’ll give her the pointer on the official Ethics Quote of the Week:
A Brief Note On Insurance Agent Incompetence…
Yesterday, as the entry into a credit company debacle that I plan to write about later today (which, as you know, doesn’t mean that I will), about an hour of my workday was taken up listening to a pitch from a representative of Mutual of Omaha trying to sell me on taking out an home equity loan with the company.
I finally answered the phone call with company’s caller ID because I had not answered about 20 earlier calls, and also because I wasn’t sure why the company was calling me. I explained that yes, I do need cash for many things and yes, I have a lot of equity in the home I’ve been paying the mortgage on for 43 years. I also explained that I have no skills in finance or money generally, am swamped in the wake of my wife’s sudden death, and literally don’t know who to trust or listen to.
He said, “Well, we’re a large, well-respected company with an impressive track record in our field.” I had to wrestle my tongue to the ground to avoid saying, “Yeah, my business involves analyzing all the clever and not-so-clever ways companies like yours lie, cheat and steal.” “You’ve heard of Mutual of Omaha, I assume?” he continued.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I was aware of Mutual of Omaha even before Henry Fonda started doing commercials for you.” I’m pretty sure he had no idea who Henry Fonda was.
Then he said, “Believe me, with Mutual of Omaha, you’re in good hands.”
I couldn’t wrestle my tongue to the ground after that gaffe.
“Wait,” I said. You just gave me the Allstate slogan. Now I’m completely confused. Next you’ll be telling me that Mutual of Omaha will be there for me “like a good neighbor.”
This is a special category of incompetence that you just don’t see very often. It’s like a Democrat saying that their party wants to make America great again. But the laugh was almost worth the time I wasted listening to the guy.
Almost.
Bad Celebrity Ethics: David Copperfield’s Penthouse Trick
Trust me on this: almost all magicians are weird. I strongly suspect that they tend to be on the “neurodivergent” spectrum (that’s the new politically correct term for autistic: you know my views on linguisitic rebranding), but they have other problems as well, including the tendency to slide into more destructive unethical behavior after building their lives around deceiving people for fun.
Alakazam! Here’s David Copperfield to demonstrate how it’s done!
You Know Those Horrible Statements Trump Made About Jews Who Will Vote Democratic? He Was Right
Philip Bump, arguably the worst of the Washington Post’s unethical reporters (but it’s a large and closely bunched field), went into full-Trump hate mode when the ex-President said, during the Democratic National Convention, “Why would somebody who’s Jewish be voting for these people? If Jewish people vote for her [Harris] and I use this expression, they ought to go out, because Kamala is a person that is very anti-Israel, and very anti-Jewish. But she solves that problem by saying her husband’s Jewish, okay? But that doesn’t…her actions are the worst that we’ve ever had.” In April, Trump made a similar statement about Jews voting for Joe Biden. “Any Jewish person that votes for Biden does not love Israel and frankly, should be spoken to,” Trump said. Ethics Alarms covered that “horrible” statement here. The ethics Alarms verdict: rhetorically sloppy and undiplomatic (as usual), but essentially correct.
So was the most recent statement. That this is true was nicely illustrated by none other than Professor Turley, who noted, as the Washington Post and most of the mainstream media did not, that while pro-Palestinian/Hamas/terrorism protesters were given a permit to demonstrate outside the convention hall, pro-Israel, anti-Hamas groups were not. The Democratic Party’s fingerprints are all over this: Chicago’s mayor is a Democrat just like it was in 1968, when Democratic Boss Mayor Daley denied anti-war demonstrators permits, and they protested anyway.
Aw, Isn’t That Cute…The Axis Media Is Pretending To Be Shocked—Shocked!— About Lies That Support Harris’s Candidacy, Even Their Own!
1. Item: PBS. During a Monday night segment of her PBS News program, long time progressive hack Judy Woodruff said, “The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the Prime Minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign.” It was a total fabrication. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office immediately denounced Woodruff’s reporting, and Netanyahu’s office released a statement denying an Axios’ report about a phone call between the prime minister and Trump about the Gaza hostage and cease-fire deal that the outlet claimed happened on August 14. Trump also denied both reports.
Woodruff subsequently issued an apology and retraction on Twitter/X, explaining that her false statement was “was not based on” her “original reporting,” and that she was only “referring to reports” she had read in Axios and Reuters. She was apparently lying about that, too. Nobody can locate any items either in Axios or by Reuters that Trump urged Netanyahu not to “cut a deal.” And, as several have pointed out, the Woodruff retraction was on Twitter to the fools who follow Woodruff, a far smaller group than the millions who inexplicably watch PBS news.
Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” are “baseless, you know. The people who are trying to rig this one say so.
I Don’t Know What To Call This Story, Except “Depressing”
The instant ethics train wreck, courtesy of The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck, The Ferguson Ethics Train Wreck, The George Floyd Freakout, the Obama Administration Ethics Train Wreck, the DEI Ethics Train Wreck and The Great Stupid, is described by Campus Reform, thusly:
A primarily black student group at the University of Missouri was recently forced to change the name of that it is planning on hosting. The Legion of Black Collegians reportedly intended to name [a back-to-school barbecue event] the “Welcome Black BBQ,” but was forced to change the name by the university administration. The event, which is scheduled to be hosted on Friday, will now be called the “Welcome Black and Gold BBQ,” a reference to the school’s colors. The group wrote in an Instagram post on Aug. 16 that it is “heartbroken” at the name change.
Ugh.
Ethics Quiz: The Cheating Democrats’ Beyoncé Rumor
Having gagged on the last Ethics Quiz completely, I have to clear my palate with a second try.
Those canny Democrats tried to trick young voters into watching Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech last night by feeding their propaganda agents (that is, the U.S. news media) a fake rumor that pop super-star Beyoncé was going to show up in Chicago, perform at the convention’s finale, and thus endorse KAmala Harris.
“Beyoncé to perform at Democratic convention: Sources,” stated the headline at The Hill. “Did White House political director just drop major hint about Beyoncé DNC appearance?” coyly insinuated NBC Chicago. “BEYONCÉ PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” claimed TMZ. “🚨🚨SHE’S THERE!!!!!!”announced the Twitter/X account @beyoncepress at 7:16 p.m. Central time, alongside a video of a black SUV driving through Chicago’s River North neighborhood escorted by a motorcade.
All false. Harris finished her speech, balloons came down from the ceiling, and no Beyoncé. Figures aren’t in, but I assume that the planted rumor “worked,” making it “good” as the late Harry Reid will confirm if you track him down in the Lake of Fire.
“It’s a bad move to trick people into staying tuned and then denying them what they thought they’d get,” opines Ann Althouse today as she disagrees with Harry, though I don’t know what she means exactly by “bad.” Unethical? Unfair? Likely to backfire (meaning it didn’t “work”)? Columnist Laura Bassett tweeted that “teasing a huge surprise guest and leaking that it’s both Beyonce and Taylor swift just to get people to tune in is actually kind of funny.” Not unethical. Funny. Bassett is a former HuffPo pundit who now hangs out at MSNBC and CNN, so you can guess what her ethics alarms are like.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this…
Ethics Alarms 