Slow News Day At PolitiFact?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

PolitiFact is arguably the most biased and the least trustworthy of the fact-checking operations—it or Snopes. Its dossier on EA is thick and nauseating: PolitiFact’s releases are progressive and Democratic Party propaganda masquerading as illumination and non-partisan reality. I’d love to know who made the decision to “fact-check” an obviously tongue-in-cheek video claiming that Hillary Clinton is really a lizard.

Did they really think this needed to be debunked? If so, the organization is run by morons. Was the fact-check also a joke? Professional organizations that want the public to trust them can’t afford to make such jokes. Alleged professional organizations with records of deceit, bias and dishonesty like PolitiFact especially can’t afford to make such jokes, because so many of their serious “fact-checks” are only slightly less absurd.

The “Hillary isn’t a lizard” piece is written with no hints of irony or humor, which is, of course, the right way to present such a thing if it is a joke. I really don’t know what to make of the article. I thought Snopes repeatedly fact-checking Babylon Bee gags was bad, but this—well, come to think of it, there is one possible justification. Anyone who trusts PolitiFact despite its long and ugly record of incompetence and bias is conceivably dumb enough to believe that Hillary Clinton is a lizard. In that case, PolitiFact is simply serving the needs of its market.

Another possibility, I suppose, is that Hillary really is a lizard, and PolitiFact is working with the Left, as usual, to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.

So Apparently It Isn’t Just Slaveholding: Being A White Male Is Sufficient Offense To Justify Tearing Down Your Statue…[Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The insanely woke National Park Service wants to renovate Philadelphia’s Welcome Park by removing its statue of William Penn as well as Penn’s home, the Slate Roof House. The proposed redesign will highlight Native American history at the expense of the memorial to Penn, who founded the colony, now state, of Pennsylvania.

Continue reading →

The Vagina Dress: What’s Going On Here?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Actress Gillian Anderson of “X Files” fame caused a stir at last night’s Golden Globe awards by wearing a dress decorated with meticulously embroidered vaginas. They were impossible to see on TV since they were the same color as the dress (thank goodness for that) but see? Look closely now…

Vaginas. Though she later said they were “peonies,” Anderson told several reporters that her dress was embroidered with vaginas. Why? “For so many reasons. It’s brand-appropriate,” Anderson explained cryptically.

What is this? A feminist statement, like the infamous “pussy hats”? A diabolical insult to the Golden Globes? If an obscene design can only be detected up close and with the aid of hints, does that make it less obscene? Would a male tux with almost invisible embroidered black penises in the fabric be considered appropriate formal wear? How about nearly invisible embroidery showing various graphic sex acts? What if the designs reveal to the sharp-of-eye acts of pederasty? What if Gillian dress had “Fuck you!” beautifully embroidered on it? Is a vulgar design at a public event not vulgar if nobody notices it? Has polite society vanished so completely that a stunt like this is considered acceptable? Social media apparently loved it.

Dana expresses my reaction perfectly…

I just don’t know, Dana. I really don’t.

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)…AGAIN

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Police were called to Miner’s Claim restaurant n Silt, Colorado two nights ago after Rep. Boebert and her ex-husband Jayson Boebert got into a physical battle at their table, police confirmed yesterday. I decided to give Marryin’ Sam and Li’l Abner an encore, because they were my first thought when I read about the latest example of Broebert’s trashy proclivities.

 The previous episode, when she got herself thrown out of a Denver theater for the kind of behavior that even a Dogpatch neighbor of Abner’s might have realized was inappropriate, was arguably worse, but together the two embarrassments are conclusive evidence that she doesn’t belong in Congress. She belongs in a trailer park.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Trump’s “Dome”

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Here is part of what Donald Trump said in Iowa:

“I didn’t like it when Ronald Reagan suggested it because we didn’t have the technology. We do have the technology now, and we’re going to build a giant dome over our country to protect us from a hostile source. And I think it’s a great thing, and it’s going to all be made in the United States, and that’s something that I consider productive. You know, when I watch, uh, our guys operate those things, it’s unbelievable. Missile coming in, missile coming in. These geniuses sit down. Most of them are, you know, they’re from MIT. But they sit down, bing! bing! bing! bing! boom! ph-sheee! It’s gone, it’s amazing! I think we could use…do you like that? I mean, isn’t that better than giving other countries billions of dollars? Billions! We’re going to get billions of dollars out of the country and so they can build a dome, but we don’t have a dome ourselves! We’re going to have the greatest dome ever!”

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day goes like this…

Is it responsible to vote for someone who talks like this the power of the American Presidency?

…because, to be brutally frank, I’d have hesitated to vote for a student candidate for president of the 8th grade in junior high who gave a speech like that. Wouldn’t you? It bothers me that Trump would say all that, it bothers me that he thinks it’s going to win votes by saying it, it bothers me that he obviously doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and it bothers me that he has such a low opinion of the American public.

Observations on Media Research Center’s 2023 Political Joke Survey

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Media Research Center, a conservative “media watchdog” roughly the Right’s equivalent of Media Matters but with a much bigger job, analyzed six of the daily late night comedy shows: Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” until its April exit, from January 3, 2023 through December 22, 2023. The results are here. The researchers counted 9,518 jokes they judged political in nature, and broke them down into categories. 1,601 targeted progressive, Democrats and figures on the left of the political spectrum. 186 aimed at people, groups, or institutions not associated with either side. 7,729 or 81% of the jokes were considered barbs at were directed at individual, organization or positions considered to be conservative. 493 targets were the objects of a single joke, with 285 of these on the right, 167 on the left, and the remaining 41 on non-partisan topics.

The unbalanced percentages are only a surprise in that they are less lopsided than I would have guessed, but still obviously showan absurdly unfair partisan bias. If, as was once the norm in all political comedy, all sides and parties were mocked relatively equally with the President in the White House taking most of the fire, political humor can be fairly categorized as entertainment with the primary objective being to make as many people laugh as possible. Distorted to this extent, however, late night comedy becomes a self-evident propaganda weapon that plays a significant part in the mainstream media mission to sway elections and manipulate public opinion.

Some telling findings:

Continue reading →

Incompetent? Irresponsible? Dishonest? Whatever This Was, It’s Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Look! Another example of IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”)!

From the New York Times:

It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday.

The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon.

Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House.

The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said.

Meanwhile, conservatives “pounced”: “What possible motive could there be for doing this? Who knows? It didn’t make a lot of sense, but the Biden administration has an extensive record of covering up scandals, so it wasn’t exactly out of character for the Biden administration to cover something up,” wrote PJ media’s Matt Margolis. Other wags noted that hiding such health-related information about important government officials is the kind of thing China does.

Continue reading →

From the “The Trouble With Protesters” Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The trouble with protesters, to cut to the chase, is that a large percentage of them in virtually every protest and demonstration don’t know what they are chanting about and are just happy mob participants. I remember when my college was shut down by a student strike my freshman year, several of my friends were happily raising their fists and carrying signs despite the fact that they weren’t interested or informed on the matter being protested. They all reassured me that they were involved to meet girls. Later, in my first job after law school, the PR director I worked with in D.C. seemed to be attending a protest or rally every weekend. When I remarked that she was unusually politically active for someone who never discussed politics at all, she assured me that she just enjoyed the energy of crowds…and found it a good way to meet guys.

Since yesterday was “Capitol Insurrection Day,” which I predict will be made a national holiday as soon as Democrats get control of Congress, it seems a propitious opportunity to ponder an equally stupid protest in Clifton, Bristol (Great Britain). A resident reported that his Tesla’s tires were deflated, and on the windshield was this message:

Other automobiles on his street were also victims of tire-deflating. The group behind the mass flattening calls itself “the Tyre Extinguishers.” ( The play on words would work better if the Brits spelled “fire” as “fyre.”)

The annoyed Tesla owner told reporters, “It’s ironic, because I was trying to do the right thing by buying an electric car. It’s ridiculous and inconvenient. I get why [climate activism] is happening, but I’m not seeing the point of this.”

The point he ought to derive from the incident is that most climate change protesters know almost nothing about climate science and related matters, like the full environmental effects of electric vehicles. They are passionately protesting what they don’t understand sufficiently to have an informed opinion about, and therefore shouldn’t influence anyone beyond persuading observers that they are passionate, unethical dolts and blights on society.

One more point: deflating the tires of Teslas is a brilliant climate change protest compared to gluing oneself to a famous painting.

___________

Pointer: Curmie

Curmie’s Conjectures: The Belfry Theatre’s Crisis of Nerve

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

by Curmie

[ JM here: I want to let Curmie’s Conjectures stand on their own, so I apologize at the outset by intruding with a brief introduction. Lest anyone be dissuaded from reading the whole post because the author’s scholarly tone and apparent focus at the start suggests that this will be a narrow discourse on topics rather more relished by Curmie and me than by the majority of EA readers—theater and the performing arts—fear not. The tags on the article will be “Canada, censorship, the Hamas-Israel War Ethics Train Wreck, and political theater.” The post also involves some of the same considerations as one of mine two days ago. ]

There is a theory, one to which I subscribe, which suggests that the Dionysian Festival of classical Athens began not really as a religious observance in honor of a demi-god but rather as a means of consolidating the political power of the tyrant Peisistratus.  Whether or not this is true, there is no doubt that by 458 BCE Aeschylus’ Oresteia, widely acclaimed as “the world’s first dramatic masterpiece,” offers commentary on the reforms of the Areopagus enacted by the strategos Ephialtes some three years earlier.

There is no question that since that time the theatre has often—not always, but often—been political.  The 20th century offered more than a few examples of playwrights and production companies who, often at personal risk, critiqued the power structures around them: Jean-Paul Sartre took on the Nazis; Lorraine Hansberry, racism in the US; Athol Fugard, apartheid; Václav Havel, communism in Eastern Europe.

Not all such efforts were for causes most of us would endorse, of course.  Socialist Realism was a Stalinist policy under which all art had to support The Revolution: not just avoid criticism of the regime, but actively and explicitly endorse it.  More recently, the Freedom Theatre of Jenin (on the occupied West Bank) has been in the news.  A few weeks ago, one of the student organizations at my university posted an encomium to the company, which they described as “an example of creating liberating theatre and serving communities through theatrical pedagogy and profound performance.”  I remembered having written about that theatre a dozen or so years ago.  If I might quote myself for a moment: “Turns out that the Freedom Theatre was pretty damned proud of having turned out alumni who engaged in armed insurrection, and at least one of whom, a suicide bomber, richly merited description as a terrorist.” 

So no, propagandistic theatre isn’t always a good thing… but engaging with the world is.  Even subtle messages matter.  Under normal circumstances, Aunt Eller’s wish that “the farmer and the cowman can be friends” doesn’t amount to much.  But Oklahoma! hit Broadway after the declaration of war against the Axis powers and before D-Day.  “Territory folks” need to put aside their petty grievances when there’s a guy with a funny mustache who’s far worse than any of your neighbors will ever be.

Continue reading →

January 6 Ethics Outgrowths and Upheavals

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I’ll be damned if I’ll call them “insurrections.”

1. Free the Peshawar tree! Here is a flagrant example of unethical treatment of vegetation. 125 years ago, an inebriated British officer, James Squid, was staggering toward a tree in Landi Kotal, a town near the Torkhan border of Pakistan. Convinced that it was the tree that was moving rather than him as he tried to lean on it for support, Squid declared the tree under arrest. It was then duly chained to the ground, and the chains remain to this day. This plaque tells the tragic tale:

2. Moving on to humans, Greta Thunberg, who just turned 21 and no longer can claim the credulity of extreme youth to excuse her demagoguery, quietly took down her tweet from 2018 quoting a distinguished scientist’s conclusion that the human race was doomed if global warming wasn’t shut down in five years.

3. Is THIS a frivolous law suit? Jonathan Turley thinks so, but I have my doubts. Frustrated New York City Major Eric Adams, beside himself over his charge actually having to live up to its proud status as a “sanctuary city,” announced this week that he is suing bus companies, seeking $700 million in damages for their carrying illegal immigrants into the Big Apple. Turley reminds us that the Biden Administration is flying the same scofflaws to New York.

Continue reading →