Snow Day Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Another snow storm in Virginia, and thus I have another opportunity to make up for my meager use of seasonal songs in December as I tried to avoid reminding myself of what a lousy time my family was going through. I don’t really like Babs’s version of “Jingle Bells” —-I don’t really like Streisand (or her voice, as astounding as it was…or her style, of the song, for that matter), but you can’t say her rendition isn’t unique.

One housekeeping note: Sarah B. was kind enough to send me a friendly email asking me to stop posting Fani Willis’s name as “Wallis.”Among the myriad things I resent Willis for is that her last name is one of the letter combinations that I instinctively type wrong every damn time, along with “their,” “Michael,” and a few others. I will now do a search for “Wallis” any time a post concerns her, as will my next one, if all goes as planned. I just corrected 12 more “Wallis” typos in the December post about this creep, and the single “Wallis” in the last post yesterday, which I thought I had checked but missed the headline.

I’m sorry.

[WordPress’s AI bot told me to tag this one : “book review”….]

The Fani Willis Clown Show Continues: Oh Yeah, This Case Is Going REALLY Well…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

From the New York Sun just now:

The accusation from the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis, that the estranged wife of the special prosecutor in her employ with whom she is accused of having an affair is “interfering” in her prosecution of President Trump — and conspiring with one of his co-defendants — promises further chaos for a case that appears to be going off the rails.

Ms. Willis’s accusation comes in an emergency motion for a protective order in the superior court of Cobb County that attempts to quash a subpoena for her testimony in Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade’s divorce proceedings from his wife of 26 years, Joycelyn. Ms. Willis accuses Mrs. Wade of working in concert with one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants, Michael Roman…Now comes Ms. Willis to argue that on January 8, three things happened “contemporaneously” — Mrs. Wade issued her subpoena, Mr. Roman petitioned for the divorce proceeding to be unsealed, and Mr. Roman filed for Ms. Willis to be disqualified. Ms. Willis alleges that all of this suggests coordination between Mrs. Wade and Mr. Roman to undermine Ms. Willis as she prepares for one of the most anticipated trials in American history…Ms. Willis does not deny — or admit — that she and Mr. Wade conducted an affair. Instead, she reasons that “because the parties agree that the marriage is irretrievably broken and the concept of fault is not at issue, there is no information” that she could provide that “might prove relevant to granting or denying the divorce.” She calls her role in the split “irrelevant.” …the district attorney claims Mrs. Wade is motivated by a desire to “harass and damage” Ms. Willis’s professional reputation and is acting in order to “annoy, embarrass, and oppress” her. The district attorney goes further, though, accusing Mrs. Wade of having “conspired” with Mr. Roman by coordinating that the subpoena and the request that the divorce docket be unsealed landed on the docket simultaneously. The implication is that the contents of the docket could be embarrassing to Ms. Willis, as could the testimony that she will be required to deliver should the subpoena stand…

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Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Oklahoma State Senator: Nathan Dahm, (R-Broken Arrow)

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Senator Dahm has introduced Senate Bill 1837, the “Common Sense Freedom of Press Control Act.” Here are its main provisions:

“Each individual reporter, producer, writer, editor, or any other employee involved in the production of content distributed by a media outlet is hereby required to:

a. complete a criminal background check conducted by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation,
b. receive a license as prescribed by the Corporation Commission as provided in subsection C of this section,
c. complete a propaganda-free safety training course of no less than eight (8) hours as prescribed by the State Department of Education, which shall be developed in coordination with PragerU,
d. provide proof of liability insurance no less than One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00), and
e. submit to quarterly drug testing for illicit substances to be administered by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation”

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Oops! A Chief Diversity Officer Reveals The Real Biases Corrupting Her Field

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Attention should be paid.

In the latest issue of the “Monthly Diversity Digest,”  Dr. Sherita Hill Golden defined as her “Diversity Word of the Month” privilege as “a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group.” “Given”? She went on to write that

“Privilege is characteristically invisible to people who have it. People in dominant groups often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if only they worked to earn them. In fact, privileges are unearned and are granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent.”

Golden then named these unfairly and unethically favored groups: “White people,” “Able-bodied people,” “Heterosexuals,” “Cisgender people,” “Males,” “Christians,” “Middle or owning class people,” “Middle-aged people,” and “English-speaking people.”

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Why Nikki Haley Can’t Be Trusted, Continued [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Haley posted this support for mass rioting (what else could it mean?) about a month after the bad cop Derek Chauvin helped an overdosing career crook to his demise (or not) while George Floyd was over-dosing on a cocktail of drugs, including fentanyl. Three days earlier, the mass Black Lives Matter protests had begun under the unjustified assumption that Floyd’s death was a racial crime. In Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, the “mostly peaceful” protests turned to vandalism and arson. Her tweets were also among the many statements from public officials that predetermined Chauvin’s guilt, making certain that he would not get a fair trial (and he didn’t.)

To Haley’s credit, she hasn’t take down either pandering tweet (yet), but I regard it as further evidence that she is a weasel, and will say and “believe” whatever seems beneficial to her career calculations at the time.

So: The Dire Predictions By Anti-Gun Hysterics Turned Out To Be Wrong in Florida. Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The Federalist recounts some of the furious reactions when Florida became the 26th state to adopt constitutional carry in July 1, 2023:

“Following mass shootings, DeSantis signs permitless carry bill,” one NBC News headline complained. In the article, the producer of “The Rachel Maddow Show” sneered at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for trading what he dubbed “modest gun safeguards” for an “extreme” and “controversial” law. Forbes [quoted] gun control groups including Giffords claiming the pro-Second Amendment law is “dangerous” and “will drive gun violence up and further jeopardize the safety of our families and communities”…“It is shameful that so soon after another tragic school shooting, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a permitless concealed carry bill behind closed doors, which eliminates the need to get a license to carry a concealed weapon,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote. “This is the opposite of common sense gun safety. The people of Florida — who have paid a steep price for state and Congressional inaction on guns from Parkland to Pulse Nightclub to Pine Hills — deserve better.”

“Common sense gun safety.” That’s another one of those BS tell-tale deceitful phrases—like “gender-affirming care” and “reproductive freedom” that should start your ethics alarms ringing. But I digress..

Well waddya know! Florida’s biggest cities saw a significant decrease in violent crimes, including shootings, in 2023. Murders and homicides fell 6 percent in 2023 from the previous 2022 in Jacksonville. Miami. had 49 homicides in 2022, nut last year only 31, the least ever on record. Miami also experienced a 34% in non-fatal shootings 124 fewer “non-contact” shootings than in 2022.

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Ethics Dunce, Life Competence and Workplace Division: Brittany Pietsch

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

My first reaction was to have sympathy for Brittany Pietsch, the Cloudfare account executive who somehow thought recording her Zoomed firing and posting it on social media would be a good idea. Then I learned she was 27. That’s much too old to behave like she did, much less to be self-righteous about it. Her experience ended up on every social media platform and was covered by media outlets from the New York Post to the The Wall Street Journal, and now she is the official “poster girl” for deluded and entitled young workers who don’t get the capitalist system and the competitive workplace.

You can see her nine-minute clip here. If you don’t wince through it, you may need a refresher course in workplace ethics yourself. An at-will employee, Brittany argues with the HR staff who were assigned to dismiss her. Here’s a typical exchange:

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Comment of the Day: “Fani Willis Is Toast and Those Arguing That She Isn’t Are Revealing Their Own Ethics Problems”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The second Comment of the Day of the day emerges from the fertile mind of Humble Talent, who discusses the still popular use of the race card by diversity hires who have been in reality the beneficiary of racial bias, not victims of it. Here is his COTD on the post, “Fani Willis Is Toast and Those Arguing That She Isn’t Are Revealing Their Own Ethics Problems”:

***

There’s a Gordian knot here, and it’s one we’re going to continue fighting with for a very long time.

Fani Willis said in her statement: “First thing they say. Oh, she going to play the race card now? But no. God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one?”

There are competent black people in existence. This is so obvious that it shouldn’t need typing, but Democrats have been so interested in getting in representation regardless of the mediocrity of the candidates that it feels like every time a scandal like this asserts itself, we’re almost invariably criticizing a black person. More, because of the attention of the media, a disproportionate amount of attention gets placed on these cases.

It’s almost impossible not to label these people DEI hires. They tend to have light resumes, their conduct speaks for itself, and the moment they catch whiff of criticism, they reference their melanin and/or their sexual organs.

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Comment of the Day: “Regarding the ‘Substack Supports Nazis’ Controversy”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Joel Mundt makes an interesting comparison (that never occurred to me) regarding the movement by Substack writers to force the platform to ban its small contingent of white supremacists and Nazis. His Comment of the Day also shows that COTD does not have to approach “War and Peace” length to be worthy. Here’s Joel, on the post,“Regarding the ‘Substack Supports Nazis’ Controversy” :

***

This year, a Satanist group put an occult display – I believe it was Baphomet – in our state capitol building, which caused no small amount of consternation among the solid conservative majority in the state. There were calls to tear it down, remove it…all kinds of stuff.

Our governor, a Republican, gave what I thought was a pretty good response: “Like many Iowans, I find the Satanic Temple’s display in the Capitol absolutely objectionable. In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the nativity scene that will be on display – the true reason for the season.”

Substack has some objectionable content on it…its own version of Baphomet? Don’t eliminate it. Don’t censor it. Don’t force it elsewhere. Objectionable speech should be countered with more speech. Logical arguments and cogent thinking are what give people the chance to understand why some ideas are bad when compared to other ideas. Forcing silence just makes the banished ideas more enticing. Want your children to be white supremacists?…just do what the Left does and attempt to kill the point of view without debate. That will make it super-attractive to juvenile minds that don’t know better. People who simply want to eliminate talk of white supremacy and Hitler and Nazis are those that are probably too stupid to rationally counter it.

Maybe that’s why the Left wants to silence so many different topics.

***

[For the rest of the story regarding that Satanist display, it’s here. JM]

From the “Sentences I Never Thought I’d Read In An Ethics Opinion” File…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“Own up to the fact that, to the best of your knowledge, no significant part of you is Norwegian.”

That was the ultimate advice of Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Times’ ethics advice columnist, to an inquirer who discovered from taking one of those genealogy tests that a Norwegian family he had visited abroad on the assumption that they were relatives weren’t really related to him at all. There was some chicanery around his father’s real progenitor, or something. Prof. Appiah’s questioner wanted to know if he was obligated to tell those nice Norwegians who he enjoyed so much and who were so kind and loving to him that he was mistaken: he had no Viking blood in him at all.

Of course you do, quoth The Ethicist. That was an easy call. How could one reach any other conclusion? Meanwhile, I see no reason to ever take a 23andMe, Ancestry or one of the other tests. I’m perfectly happy with what I know, or think I know, about my genetic history, and it’s not important to me in any event. I’m the same whether I’m related to Agamemnon, Red Cloud, or Jack the Ripper. These tests are a bi-product of the sick and divisive tribal obsession inflicted on the culture by the political Left.

Still, I guess I have to own up to the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no part of me is Norwegian either.

It sure feels good to finally get that off my chest.