Alternate Realities in the Manhattan Trump Trial, Except Only One of Them Is Real…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump for 34 felonies that are exactly one misdemeanor on which the statute of limitations has run is not just an unethical case, it’s a revealing one. It should let the objective members of the public know, if they have the opportunity and inclination to pay attention, just how undemocratic and trustworthy the 21st Century mutation of the Democratic Party has become.

“Dangerous” is also an adjective that belongs in that sentence.

I’ve been beginning mornings lately jumping back and forth between the coverage of the trial on CNN and MSNBC—you know, the Pravda channels—and Fox News, which would be claiming that Trump was as innocent as the driven snow even if he were as guilty as O.J. It is astounding how completely divergent the impressions one is given from the Left and Right sources are—that, and horrifying. The public has no reliable way to get the information it needs to figure out “What’s going on here?” because all of the coverage is agenda-driven. Very few members of the public have the time (or education) to puzzle it out either.

Interestingly, Abe’s observation—the one that begins, “You can fool some of the people…“—again seems to be holding true, and God Bless America for that. A recent poll suggests that a majority of the the public regard Democrats and the Biden administration as the true existential peril to American liberties and freedom, and not Donald Trump. Might it be that the spectacle of four dubious prosecutions in Democratic Party strongholds by Democratic prosecutors all taking place in an election year and aimed at putting the likely GOP nominee and former President behind bars before an election the Democratic resident of the White House looks poised to lose suggests a slight totalitarian bent, mayhap? Perhaps? Ya think?

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Companies Deliberately Alienating “Undesirable” Consumers: What’s Going On Here?”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I don’t think we’ve ever seen this before the 21st Century emergence of The Great supid, with those entrusted with the management of for-profit companies deliberately choosing virtue -signaling over profitability. What does it all mean?

Today’s example is Sports Illustrated, which, I must confess, I thought was defunct. The once indispensable sports photography and commentary magazine almost went under last year and was apparently bought by a last-minute rescuer.  So how does the magazine launch its comeback? Why, by prominently including the above model in its annual swimsuit issue due out this month, displaying other comely and not so comely models in gowns rather than bikinis (Who, other than Oprah, wants to see Gail King in the S.I. swimsuit issue?) and highlighting Angry Lesbian Megan Rapinoe to promote the issue. That should really draw the guys!

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Observations on a Scenario in Which Everyone and Everything Involved Looks Bad Including the Schools and American Society in General

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Zoey (above), a high school senior at Ayala High School in Chino Hills, California —we don’t yet know her whole name—was expelled for cyberbullying, intimidation, harassment and attempting to cause physical injury to another person after she used her cell phone to live-stream a classroom brawl between fellow students. There seems to be some suspicion that she was in on the plot to attack one of the combatants, though Zooey denies it. The incident and the report covering it raise all sorts of ethics questions and conclusions.

Such as…

1. Why are students allowed to have cell phones in class at all, specifically cameras? The school has a rule against filming and posting occurrences in the school involving students, potentially embarrassing them, humiliating them and harassing them—why not just confiscate all of the phones before class so this kind of thing is impossible?

2. Zoey’s explanation: “In our generation, you go live to do makeup, to do everything, so it was just going live just to go live. It wasn’t my intent to purposely or try to cause harm to anyone.” I see Zoey has virtually reached adulthood without anyone teaching her that rationalizations aren’t valid reasons for unethical conduct, and “Everybody does it” is particularly wrong.

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The Strange Saga of “Father Justin”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

The nonprofit website Catholic Answers launched an interactive AI chatbot christened “Father Justin” on April 23 “to provide users with faithful and educational answers to questions about Catholicism.”

Father Justin appeared as a pleasant white male in clerical attire, sitting with the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy’s Perugia province in the background. Catholic Answers said he was named for St. Justin Martyr, a second-century convert and Catholic apologist. The bot “honors real-life priests and the role they play in people’s lives,” conveying an “authoritative yet approachable” demeanor that befits “the spirit and nature of the responses users can expect,” visitors were told.

Almost immediately the thing was attacked, and not just on the basis that other chatbots have been criticized, which is—did Catholic Answers not know this?—that the damn things aren’t trustworthy and have a tendency to go rogue. The National Catholic Reporter noted that Father Justin was an apt “metaphor for sexism in the church.” “Some Roman Catholics are apparently more comfortable with the idea of ordaining a robot than they are with the possibility of a woman taking on a position of ministerial leadership,” wrote Rebecca Weiss.

What really did in the good Father, however, were his often wacky responses to questions. Again: how could Catholic Answers not see this coming? Michael Cohen used an AI assistant to prepare a legal memo for his lawyer, and nearly got his lawyer disciplined when the document turned out to be stuffed with imaginary case cites. [Thoughts: 1) Maybe the bot knew what a slime ball the disbarred lawyer and convicted perjurer is, and deliberately sabotaged him. You never know with SkyNet… 2) Which is more unethical, trusting a chatbot with legal reserach, or trusting Cohen?].

Asked if it could forgive sins, for example, the AI priest replied, “As a Catholic priest, I do have the authority to administer the sacrament of reconciliation, also known as confession,” adding that “this power to forgive sins, given to the Apostles by Christ himself, has been passed down through the centuries to all ordained priests.” “He” was not an ordained priest, however. Other questions really tripped Justin up, like this one:

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So It’s Come To This, Has It? “Media Watchdogs” Now Watch Out For Political Correctness Non-Conformity…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Can you spot what’s troubling, alarming, ominous, about the photo above?

Feathers!

That’s Washington Commanders (Shhhhh: they used to be called “the Redskins”) coach Dan Quinn above wearing a T-shirt depicting two feathers hanging off the Commanders’ “W” logo. The New York Times instantly did its best Donald Sutherland (in the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” finale, when the protagonist of the movie has been revealed as completely pod-ified) imitation….

…with a story headlined, “Dan Quinn dons unsanctioned Commanders shirt as future of team’s stadium discussed on Capitol Hill.” Playing the part of co-opted Donald was Times sportswriter Ben Standig, who blew the metaphorical whistle on Twtter/”X” writing, “So, the shirt. This is not a team-sanctioned item. Not sure if Quinn got this at an Etsy shop or elsewhere. Do your thing, Twitter.”

You know: cancel him, shun him, brand him a racist, get him fired.

Oooh, “unsanctioned”! How long before all of us will need permission from our enlightened, woke and empowered censors before our shirts can be safely purchased and worn without dire social consequences?

Standig got right on the scandal of the Commanders’s coach daring to wear a shirt that evoked his team’s previous nickname, which was finally changed when—you should be able to recite this by now—-“a lifetime black petty criminal overdosing on fentanyl and resisting a lawful arrest died under the knee of a bad white cop in Minnesota.” This incident obviously mandated that an NFL team in Washington D.C. capitulate to long-standing contrived protests over a team name (that was never intended as a slur nor taken as one by the vast majority of Native Americans) and a now-banned team logo designed by a prominent leader of Montana’s Blackfeet tribe.

I live in the Washington, D.C. area. Literally nobody likes the politically correct, “inoffensive” name “Commanders” except the non-football fan activists who demonstrated their power by forcing the team to change it. It’s like a scalp hanging from their belts.

In related news, Rhode Island has announced that it will join 11 other states and require all lawyers must submit to DEI indoctrination—sorry, training—in order to maintain their law licenses.

Resistance is futile.

And, may I note with pride, where else on the World Wide Web will an NFL coach’s choice of attire evoke pop culture references to “Apocalypse Now,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation”?

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

We just have to stop electing narrow, single-minded, critical thinking-challenged people to Congress. A basic understanding of the law and rudimentary knowledge of American history would also be nice, but that might be asking too much.

Falling neatly into the net the Biden administration and its prosecutor lackeys have set up for the gullible and easily misled, Sen. Lankford told The Hill that the trial of former President Donald Trump for falsifying business records (you could be excused for thinking it was a sex crime based on the accounts being broadcast on cable news channels like CNN and MSNBC) has been “painful and salacious.” Lankford said, “It reminds me of the Clinton administration and all the conversations that were happening around that time period with Ken Starr and all the things that came out.”

Why would that be? Because both Clinton and Trump are men? Politicians? They both have arms, legs and a head? There is no substantive parallel between the two situations or cases. Trump is being tried under a criminal statute that has nothing to do with sex. Clinton wasn’t tried at all, he was President when the conduct at issue in his impeachment occured, and the Lewinsky scandal proved that he engaged in perjury, lying under oath in a court room proceeding while he was President. Clinton also violated the sexual harassment law he had previously signed while being fawned over by feminists. Bagging female interns when you are President of the United States is an extreme example of abusing a power disparity for sex. Then Clinton, also while President, lied about his conduct and used subordinates to cover up his mess.

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Unethical—But Revealing!—Quote of the Month: Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College, London

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Remember: Trust the scientists! They know best…

“If I am brutally honest, the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate.”

—British vulcanologist and climate scientist William J. McGuire, “Bill” to his friends, cheering on human death in a tweet he quickly removed after colleagues advised him “Uh, Bill? We’re not supposed to say things like this out loud…”

Of course, the professor might have been saying that the economically disastrous measures being proposed and in some cases adopted by foolish governments like the Biden administration won’t affect the climate sufficiently to make a difference, so the whole movement is futile, irresponsible, based on speculation, and, to be blunt, stupid, but of course he wasn’t. No, this scientist, who is among those we are supposed to trust and obey—you know, like the health “experts” who crippled the economy, our society and the educational development of our children based on guesses about the Wuhan virus that were represented as fact?—believes that the only way to avoid a climate catastrophe (and we all want to do that, right?) is to have millions of people die as soon as possible, one way or another. A plague is a good way! Or we could just execute them, like Mao did. Of course, he shouldn’t be one of those sacrificed for the greater good, because his life is too valuable.

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Biden Stabs Israel in the Back to Keep His Anti-Semitic Vote and Gets Justly Hammered For His Betrayal? Mainstream Media To The Rescue!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” To be fair, it’s past time to rephrase the oft-used Ethics Alarm catch phase as, “Nah, the mainstream media doesn’t just take marching orders from the Democratic National Committee to cover for Biden’s indefensible leadership!”

Too long, I know. OK, it needs some work.

Suddenly, all through the news media over the weekend, the tale of how President Ronald Reagan intervened with a threat to withhold arms that had already been approved for delivery to Israel to force the nation to change its military strategy was being thrown in the faces of Biden critics and Israel supporters. Huh. Where did that come from?

Surprise! It came from the New York Times, the flagship of the corrupt, partisan media, just in time to fuel the “advocacy journalists'” efforts over the weekend to help block Israel’s right to defend its existence and its citizens from terrorism.

Interviewing GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, and by “interviewing” I mean debating as she took the side of Democrats, the Biden Administration, the anti-Semitic students roiling campuses and Hamas, NBC News anchor Kristen Welker said, “As you know, former President Ronald Reagan, on multiple occasions, withheld weapons to impact Israel’s military actions,” Welker said. “Did President Reagan show that using U.S. military aid, as leverage, can actually be an effective way to rein in and impact Israel’s policy?”

What a perfect factoid to weaponize for an appeal to authority and Rationalization #32. The Unethical Role Model: “He/She would have done the same thing”! The timely Times revelation: in August of 1982, Israel was shelling Palestinian terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, then a failing state in the throes of a civil war, with Palestinian forces controlling territory on its southern border. President Reagan saw films of a Lebanese child horribly wounded in the attack, and called up then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to threaten a withdrawal of U.S. aid if the shelling didn’t stop. Begin gave in. The Times also informed its readers that President Eisenhower threatened economic sanctions and to cut off aid to force Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula after it invaded Egypt in 1956. So, the Times concluded, “If it was reasonable for the Republican presidential icon to limit arms to impose his will on Israel…it should be acceptable for the current Democratic president to do the same.” Well, the Times wrote “they argued,” meaning defenders of all-things Democrat, but we know, or should, that by “they” in such situations, the mainstream media means “we.”

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Amazing Tales of “The Great Stupid”: the DEI Graduation Announcer

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Res ipsa loquitur. There is no excuse for this. Of course some of the names would give anyone trouble. But Thomas (at Thomas Jefferson University)? Elizabeth?

This was so bad the school issued an apology, though its explanation doesn’t pass the giggle test:

At a certain point, the DEI farce will reach an inevitable tipping point. Too many people are lazy, dumb, timid and gullible, but not enough are THAT lazy, dumb, timid and gullible to put up with clownish displays like the one Thomas Jefferson University inflicted on its nursing school graduates.

Wine For Winos In San Francisco

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

San Francisco spends $5 million a year on a so-called “managed alcohol program,” giving homeless alcoholics beer,wine and shots of vodka to “manage” their addiction. This deranged program has been running for four years without getting much media attention. I suppose so many other things are being mishandled in this rotting city that this one slipped under the radar. The theory underlying program is designed to minimize the amount of alcohol homeless people drink to control their addiction. It would be starnge indeed if this were a legitimate approach, since medical professionals make it very clear that drinking any alcoholic beverage (or mouthwash) makes recovery from alcoholism impossible, and “maintenance drinking” is ultimately a failed and often fatal strategy. Alcoholism is a progressive disease as well, so the longer a drunk is drinking, the more damage alcohol does to his or her body.

In the most woke-ravaged city in North America, nurses typically serve the homeless drunks the the equivalent of of one or two drinks three to four times a day, either a shot of vodka or other liquor, a glass of wine, or 12 nearly a pint of beer. The taxpayers of San Francisco must truly be brainwashed to tolerate seeing their hard-earned dollars going to pay for drinks for winos, killing them slowly at the city’s expense.

The only responsible way to get alcohol addicted street people out of the metaphorical gutter and on the way to recovery and a productive, happy life is to put them in a rehabilitation program, monitor their recovery, and take satisfaction from the relative few who will go on to live addiction-free lives. Giving them just enough alcohol to keep them dependent as their liver fail isn’t merely futile and misguided, it’s cruel.