Regarding That “Seditious” Democrat Video…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Who’s kidding whom?

You know that six former members of the military who by chance happened to be Democrats didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to “remind” members of the military that they are not supposed to obey “illegal orders.” They know that: every member of the military is taught the principle, though few have the fortitude to actually defy a superior officer on that basis. (My father did it at least three times during World War II while in the infantry.) This fake public service message or whatever you’d like to call it was a cheap, deceitful, underhanded way of advancing the Democratic Party’s “autocrat”/”threat to democracy”/”end elections” narrative to smear President Trump while exacerbating the brain fever of Trump Derangement Victims. Oh, it’s clever in the same diabolical way the “It’s OK to be white!” signs were, or the whole Black Lives Matter scam, or “Let’s Go Brandon!” Wink-wink. nudge-nudge, you get what we really mean, don’t you?

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University Presidents Say That Higher Ed Has “Lost The Trust” of the Public—Gee, Ya THINK?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

When it takes universities and colleges this long to figure out what was already obvious for years, no wonder the public has lost trust in them.

“We Lost Our Mission’: Three University Leaders on the Future of Higher Ed” is the latest “Breaking: Water is Wet!” media headline, this one at the New York Times[gift link]. Sian Beilock, president of Dartmouth College, Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, and Jennifer Mnookin, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, spoke with Times’ opinion editor Ariel Kaminer. Despite the headline, it is not an encouraging discussion.

The gist of the three presidents’ “confession” is the same as that of the Biden Administration’s response to the public’s gradual realization that its policies were a disaster. “We need better messaging!” Translation: “We need to get better at fooling people into thinking we are doing what we are not.”

The three university presidents criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to reform higher education’s conversion from educating to indoctrinating while saying they must work to regain the trust of the American people and emphasize viewpoint diversity. “I don’t believe a compact with a Republican or Democratic-led White House is the right way to effect change in higher ed,” Beilock said. Funny though: the three wouldn’t be making having this discussion if the Trump administration wasn’t throwing a spotlight on their bias and failure. “The Trump administration is cracking down, artificial intelligence is ramping up, varsity athletes are getting paid and a college education is losing its status as the presumptive choice of ambitious high school seniors,” the article begins. Yes, that’s a fair summary of where higher education is right now, with no improvement in sight.

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This Is Unusual: The Jeffrey Epstein Ethics Train Wreck Is Actually Funny!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

You expected to see one of the train wreck graphics didn’t you? Well, this is a train wreck graphic…

Usually humor is not something Ethics Alarms associates with ethics train wrecks, but the ridiculous bi-partisan Jeffrey Epstein Ethics Train Wreck is already producing a large number of metaphorical appearances by Nelson Muntz…you know, the mocking “Simpsons” character?…

…with more certain to come.  The lesson here, it appears , is “Don’t play Cognitive Dissonance Scale games if you don’t understand the rules!”

First, the Republicans made releasing the “secret files” about long-dead and even longer-disgraced sex-trafficker and pervert Jeffrey Epstein a 2024 campaign issue for idiots. (The national welfare will be neither enhanced nor harmed by anything regarding Epstein at this point, but the matter was a campaign squirrel. The news media, however, as it has an Epstein addiction that began once Bill Clinton seemed out of harm’s way, couldn’t resist. )

Then Trump was elected and appointed a none-too-bright Attorney General (Pam Bondi) and an incendiary FBI chief (Kash Patel) who soon said “Surprise! There are no Epstein files or nothing is in them or something!” This (predictably) inflamed the idiots, particularly Democrat idiots, who decided, “AHA! There must be something that will allow us to smear Trump and derail his second term like we did the first one with the fake Russia collusion investigation!” The idiot voting bloc is, one must admit, unusually large, so the Democratic Party has been using Epstein with some success—aided by their unethical news media, aka. “the news media,” which elevated Epstein files rumor-mongering and “Trump must have something terrible to hide, because he’s terrible” stories ahead of substantive news that the public genuinely needed to know.

Now it became the old Cognitive Dissonance Game…you must know the drill by now. Here’s Dr. Festinger’s invaluable scale showing how we form and maintain our attitudes toward, well, everything:

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Encore! “From The ‘I Don’t Understand This At All’ Files: Why Should ‘Historically Black Colleges’ Be Getting A Surge In Donations?”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I was about to write almost the exact same essay I wrote in 2019, but fortunately something deep within what I jokingly called “my brain” prompted me to check the Ethics Alarms archives and now I have an extra 45 minutes or so to spend organizing my sock drawer. Sure enough, I had published the lament before, and prompted by the same stimulus”: a New York Times news item.

Yesterday’s article (gift link!) was was déjà vu too: “MacKenzie Scott Gives $700 Million to Historically Black Colleges.” In 2019, I wrote “The philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has given more than $500 million to more than 20 historically Black colleges in the past year.” That was bonkers, her current gift is bonkers, but this item in the latest Times article is really  nuts: 

“President Trump has also shown support for historically Black institutions. In his first term, he distributed $250 million in annual funding and cut more than $300 million in federal loans for the schools. In April, through an executive order, he unveiled a new White House job to oversee H.B.C.U.s. But the position currently remains vacant.

“Dr. Gasman, the Rutgers professor, said the Trump administration has sent mixed signals. The president has sought to crack down on diversity programs in education and has complained about the teaching of Black history. The funds for H.B.C.U.s and tribal colleges were announced as the federal government cut programs that support minority students in science and engineering programs and schools with significant Hispanic enrollment.

“They are willing to support Black people in Black institutions, but they are not very comfortable with Black people in white institutions,” Dr. Gasman said.”

That’s deliberately negative spin, but it’s not completely unjust. What the hell? Historically black colleges are the epitome of “good discrimination” in the hypocritical style of DEI. Howard, Harris’s alma mater (Be proud,Howard—you graduated a babbling fool!), got the largest donation from Scott, 80 million bucks. Do you know what the white enrollment at Howard is? Less than 1%! Talk about disparate impact—you know, the EEOC trick that finds invidious discrimination based on statistics alone?

Across all of the HBUCs, there are about 10% white students  and 2% Asians. I thought Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the way to ensure no discrimination based on race, was to not engage in discrimination based on race. This is undeniably discrimination based on race.

The Trump Administration should not be supporting black colleges and universities. If most of our elite colleges are a sham, spending more time on ideological indoctrination than on teaching, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities are worse. By an “in isn’t what it is” PR haze endorsed by the news media (‘Oh! They are historic! That means they are good schools, right?’ Right, just as the historic Biden press secretary Karine Saint-Pierre was “good.” They aren’t good: they have inferior standards for admission, inferior faculties, and their graduates come out with misleading diplomas) the public is led to believe that these are elite institutions too.

Ten years ago, Ethics Alarms played a minor role in saving Virginia’s Sweet Briar college from being closed by a board that decided that an all-women’s college was an anachronism and no longer needed. I argued that there were many good reasons to have all female colleges as an option for women, but none of those good reasons apply to racially segregated schools.

OK, now I am getting into the substance of the essay from six years ago, and I have frittered away some of that saved sock drawer time. Heeere’s Jack!— from 2019….in “From The ‘I Don’t Understand This At All’ Files: Why Should ‘Historically Black Colleges’ Be Getting A Surge In Donations?”

***

Make no mistake: I know why they are getting a surge in donations: cynical virtue-signalling and mindless George Floyd Freakout tribute. However, like the historically black colleges themselves, the phenomenon of picking now to celebrate segregated education, and mostly inferior education, is self-contradictory. It also highlights the hypocrisy of the “antiracism” movement itself, and the incoherence of the “diversity” chants coming from the Left.

For these colleges are the opposite of diverse. They are, in fact, discriminatory in concept and execution, and to see them “thrive” while activists are demanding literal quotas in other institutions in order to create numerical demographic parity—at least—is a blazing example of how the George Floyd Ethics Train wreck is less a cultural awakening than it is an opportunistic and unethical power play fueled by white guilt and cowardice.

The front page article in the New York Times today is so full of head-banging-on-the-wall moments I ran out of head before I ran out of wall. Here are some…

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BREAKING: Ethics Alarms Galore in New Lawsuit: Is The NFL Colluding Against Its Most Passionate Fans?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

It sure looks like it.

The mainstream media is terrible at covering lawsuits, and this one is no exception. Attention should be paid, however. The allegations are serious, and particularly ominous for professional sports, which are all in a perilous state right now thanks to their greedy negligence allowing gambling to taint their credibility. The law suit, which has mountains of evidence to support it, alleges a conspiracy among Fanatics Inc., the National Football League and TikTok “to monopolize the sports memorabilia market, suppress competition, and destroy small business sellers.” The specific allegations are:

  1. Violation of Sherman Act §1 (Conspiracy in Restraint of Trade) 
  2. Violation of Sherman Act §2 (Monopolization / Attempted Monopolization) 
  3. Violation of Clayton Act §3 (Exclusive Dealing) 
  4. Violation of California Cartwright Act 
  5. Violation of California Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code §17200) 
  6. Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations 
  7. Tortious Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage 
  8. False Advertising and Unfair Competition (Lanham Act §43(a)) 
  9. Common Law Unfair Competition 
  10. Breach of Covenant of Good Faith & Fair Dealing 

The victims of the conspiracy are passionate NFL fans, collectors, and families who began lucrative businesss selling NFL souvenir items only to be threatened and blocked, costing them dearly.

If you aren’t a sports memorabilia collector, you may be unaware of the extent to which a company called Fanatics dominates the business. One reason for this is that the part of the memorabilia business at issue exploded in activity and profits fairly recently. During the stupid pandemic lockdown, small business entrepreneurs calling themselves “breakers” devised a new approach to sports memorabilia and collectables marketing by livestreaming so-called “box breaks” on TikTok, eBay and other platforms. The result was billions in secondary-market sales and thousands of everyday Americans profiting while retired professional athletes had income from participating in autograph signings and memorabilia events. 

All was well, and everyone profited, until 2021, when Fanatics, backed by equity funding from Silver Lake Technology Management and with the cooperation of the NFL and other sports leagues, decided to monopolize the collectibles and memorabilia industry. Fanatics acquired exclusive licensing rights from the major sports leagues and players’ associations, purchased the iconic trading card manufacturer Topps, and launched new brands such as Under Wraps. The scheme was to take the autograph and memorabilia markets away from independent dealers and breakers, fixing the profits while freezing the small business memorabilia traders out.

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Elon Musk: “Delusional,” Huckster, or Credible Dreamer?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A twitter user I have never heard of (but who somehow has amassed over half a million followers posted that tweet above with the comment, “I don’t understand why people continue investing in a company whose CEO is self-evidently delusional and whose plans for the business have no basis in reality.” Another user quickly pointed out that the eccentric billionaire entrepreneur “reduced the cost of launch to orbit by ~90%, mainstreamed electric cars, and gave a paralyzed man the ability to control a computer with his mind.” Yes, that’s a complete rebuttal to the “influencer’s” snark. Why do investors trust Musk? Because he’s an out-of-the-box thinker with the resources to make impossible-seeming ideas reality, and has a track record that says, “Don’t bet against him.”

Regular readers here know that I detest John Lennon’s anthem for idiots, “Imagine.” John identifies himself as a “dreamer,” which he rationalizes “Everybody does it” style: He’s not the only one who thinks we can achieve his juvenile version of utopia (“Nothing to live or die for…”). But John was a minimally educated lifetime musician and poet: like the Everly Brothers, all he could do was dream (and they were silly dreams anyway). Elon Musk has shown that he is capable of making some previously impossible dreams possible. That deserves awe and respect.

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Unethical (And Ignorant) Quote of the Month: NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“I believe this is a city of international law.”

—Zohran Mamdani, on ABC News, saying that he would do everything in his power to enforce warrants from the International Criminal Court….which have no authority in the United States, just like the Court itself. He added,  “and being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law.”

Gee, do you think this guy is a globalist? The problem is, as usual, Mamdani doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Everything within his power is nothing. An international warrant has as much legal force in the U.S. as Confederate money or a Bazooka Joe comic.

New York City is not a city of international law, and the Communist mayor saying that he “thinks” it is means about as much as him saying, “I am the Lizard King!” or “I believe in the Tooth Fairy.” Cities cannot individually decide to enforce ICC warrants or international law; these are national policy decisions, and New York City as well as the states are bound by U.S. policy.

Oh yeah, this is going to work out real well.

Some Answers To Gail Collins’ Question: “Where, oh Where, Will the First Female President Come From?”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Gail Collins is one of the New York Times’ chatty and less extreme progressive columnists, which is not to say that her bias doesn’t leap from the page at regular intervals. Her latest effort is “Where, oh Where, Will the First Female President Come From?” (gift link). The sudden interest in this on-its-face sexist query comes from two likely sources: Michelle Obama’s offensive accusation (but she just doesn’t like the United States very much and has been saying so in various ways since she was in college) that the public isn’t “ready” for a female President, and the moronic DNC cant that the only reason Kamala Harris lost (after the worst Presidential campaign ever!) was that she was sort-of black and/or female, take your pick.

The United States doesn’t need a female President, or a male President, or a black President, or a white President, or a gay President, or a short President. The United States needs a competent, ethical courageous and effective President, and what EEOC category or categories that leader fits into should be irrelevant. Now, I have spent decades studying where Presidents come from, and it is true that a lot of the features and backgrounds that seem to create the weird types that tend to become POTUS do not help the chances of aspiring female Presidents, and it will take a remarkable, unusual woman to overcome the template. (But Presidents should be remarkable, shouldn’t they?)

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Observations on the Epstein Drama. Summary: I Don’t Understand This At All.

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Right now, a sniffling groups of women including past victims of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking operations are standing in front of the Capitol before Congress’s vote on releasing “the Epstein files,” whatever that means at this point. One speaker—they are all saying not just kind-of the same thing, but exactly the same thing but in different words (sometimes) said that their lament isn’t about politics. It’s obviously about politics. Both CNN and MSNBC, the most aggressive Democratic propaganda agents broadcasting, are showing the demonstration live, as if it’s important news. Fox News is barely mentioning it.

The issue is political and partisan. The proof is irrefutable. Why didn’t the victims, or whoever organized them, or the mainstream media, insist that the Biden Administration release the files when the power to do so was entirely within its grasp? Nobody thought of it? The Democrats were fabricating ways to “Get Trump” and had been since 2015; everyone knew he had once been pals with Epstein; and the scandal was 20 years old. The Epstein revival only became a thing when the Axis of Unethical Conduct became desperate in its efforts to slow down Trump 2.0 as his administration began dismantling the Obama-Biden nascent totalitarian state. Naturally, Axis media was all in. Naturally, publicity hound Marjorie Taylor Greene, who comprehends neither law nor logic, decided to use it to get cheap clicks. Maybe she really thinks a rehash of the evil deeds of a man who has been dead for six years is a good use of her time; who knows? She’s an idiot.

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President Trump Morphs into George McGovern! Didn’t See THAT Coming!

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

In 1972, on the way to an epic trouncing by Richard Nixon in that year’s Presidential race, nice, clueless, ultra-liberal Sen. George McGovern’s flower child-fueled campaign was roundly mocked for a proposal to give a thousand dollars to every man, woman and child. This was called the ultimate nanny state hand-out plan, among the more polite criticisms of it. Now President Donald Trump, hardly one for tie-dyed shirts, says he wants to give most Americans a $2,000 handout funded from tariffs.

“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” the President wrote last week in a Truth Social post. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that the rebates would likely be given to families making “less than, say, $100,000.”  They might get a puppy and candy too.

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