Now THIS Is An Unthical Judge…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In fact, “unethical” doesn’t do her justice.

A courtroom security camera caught Lincoln County (Oklahoma) District Judge Traci Soderstrom during a murder trial as she paged through her iPhone, checking Facebook, surfing the web, and texting as the trial went on, supposedly under her supervision. This continued for hours. The case involved the brutal murder of Braxton Danker, 2, who was beaten to death by 32-year-old Khristian Tyler Martzall. Soderstrom ordered the jury at the outset of the trial to turn off their phones. “This will allow you to concentrate on the evidence without interruption,” intoned the judge. Then she had her own eyes glued to her phone screen during opening statements and witness testimony.

After the video was discovered, the judge dealt with the scandal by having camera moved rather than try to explain or apologize for her behavior.

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Ethics Observations On Former Rep. Mo Brooks’ Claim Re Trump’s Plans To Reverse The 2020 Election

/ Jack Marshall / 80 Comments

Brooks, a Republican who represented an Alabama district in Congress until last year, told reporters that the former President had entreated him to help overturn the 2020 election as recently (or as late) as September 2021. He asserts,

“Donald Trump wanted me to do four things: advocate rescinding the election, advocate physically removing Joe Biden from the White House, advocate reinstating Donald Trump as president of the United States and advocate a new special election for president of the United States — all of which violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law. And after I got done explaining that to him, he withdrew his endorsement and endorsed my opponent. So I’m mildly surprised none of these people have made inquiries about the details of this, but it is what it is.”

Brooks says he is surprised that he hasn’t been asked to give evidence to prosecutor Jack Smith, currently running one of the many Democratic “Get Trump!” operations.

Observations:

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So What IS The Fair And Responsible Way To Identify An “Idiot”?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I have to thank Ann Althouse for tracking down The Guardian’s feature, “Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags” by Arwa Mahdawi. Like so many other junk pieces published these days, the article shouldn’t have been allowed past the desk of a minimally competent editor, but it does raise a valid question: What does qualify as evidence of signature significance proving someone is an idiot beyond a reasonable doubt?

Let’s forget the technical definition of idiot (someone whose IQ in in the 50-70 range), as that’s not how the word is commonly used today. We say someone is an idiot when we believe that they haven’t just said or done something stupid (because everybody does ), but have done or said something nobody who isn’t stupid would never do. I place the men who injure themselves in sensitive places using vacuum cleaners as erotic aids in that category, for example. those who hang out on “Chimpmania” and are proudly racist qualify: bias at that level really does make you stupid, or, in the alternative, you have to be stupid to be that biased. I have to fight down the urge to conclude that some religious zealots of my acquaintance are idiots, though I cannot imagine anything more idiotic than to say, with absolute certainty, even with condescension, that nobody should believe in dinosaurs because they couldn’t have fit on the Ark, and all the fossils were sneaky fakes planted on Earth by God to test our faith. An executive at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually told me this.

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The DeSantis Campaign Mess: “Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game”?

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Unbelievable.

Axios broke this nauseating story, writing,

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 campaign fired an aide this week who secretly created and shared a pro-DeSantis video that featured the candidate at the center of a Sonnenrad, an ancient symbol appropriated by the Nazis and still used by some white supremacists.

… Nate Hochman, a speechwriter on the DeSantis campaign and a former writer for National Review, created the video on his own and shared it through a pro-DeSantis Twitter account, according to a person familiar with the matter. Hochman then retweeted the video, but it was deleted shortly afterward.

“Nate Hochman is no longer with the campaign. And we will not be commenting on him further,” a DeSantis campaign official told Axios….

Observations:

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From The “Stop Making Me Defend President Biden” Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

The President says so many ridiculous, garbled and alarming things that there is no justification for fabricating examples. In so doing, the conservative media simply duplicates the unethical treatment of Biden’s predecessor by the mainstream media, in which journalists and pundits attacked him for statements that they intentionally misconstrued though their intended meaning was clear and benign to anyone assessing them in good faith. That conduct by President Trump’s critics was dishonest and despicable. Yet here is the Right, doing the exact same thing.

Yecchh.

“HE’S FINE, HONEST: Biden claims ‘we ended cancer as we know it’ and says there’s ‘no difference’ between a broken arm and a mental breakdown.” was the entry by conservative pundit Stephen Greene in Instapundit. The link was to the Daily Mail, whose headline was similarly misleading: “We ended cancer as we know it’: Biden raises eyebrows with stunning claim during speech on mental health treatment where he said there’s ‘no difference’ between a broken arm and a mental breakdown.”

Biden was speaking during an event on Tuesday at the White House to promote insurers expanding access to mental health coverage. He did not say that there was “no difference” between a broken arm and a mental breakdown. He said that both maladies were serious health problems that should be be equally covered by health insurance. The President was not asserting that clinical depression or a psychotic break were the same as breaking a bone, but that mental and emotional illness have not been covered by insurance to the extent that physical injuries have, and there is no good reason for it.

He’s right. I worked on an NIH task force examining the inadequate treatment of depression, caused in part by the lack of sufficient medical insurance. Joe’s statement, as quoted by the Mail—-“And folks, you know, I don’t know what the difference between breaking your arm and having a mental breakdown is. It’s health – there’s no distinction ‘We must fulfill the promise of true mental health parity for all Americans now….”— is typically inarticulate, but one can only misinterpret his message if one is determined to, fairness and logic be damned.

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Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: Fox News’ Charitable Gifts”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

As an old fundraiser, I hold the ethics of charitable giving near and dear to my heart. Null Pointer knocked the Ethics Quiz about the outrage surrounding the revelation that Fox News matches donations to some of the same organizations and causes it purports to abhor on the air out of the metaphorical ballpark with this Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Fox News’ Charitable Gifts”:

***

People have the right to donate to whatever charitable cause they want. When it comes to corporations, they have an ethical obligation to not undermine the value of the company for the shareholders.

Charitable causes have become vectors for weaponized discrimination against certain groups in the United States. Look at the statement “The Fox’s donation policy states: “FOX will not match or provide volunteering rewards to : Donations to organizations that discriminate on the basis of a personal characteristic or attribute, including, but not limited to, age, disability, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity characteristics or expression, marital status, … pregnancy or medical condition either in its selection of recipients of the organization’s services, funds, or other support; in delivery of services; or in its employment practices.”

That statement sounds innocuous if you take it at face value. In practice, however, the statement actually implies a variety of discriminatory values. When they say they don’t discriminate against ethnicity, they could mean they support illegal immigration. When they say they don’t discriminate against gender or gender identity characteristics, they could mean they support transgender ideology. When they say they don’t discriminate against sexual orientation, they could mean they discriminate against fundamentalist Christians. When they say they don’t discriminate against religion, then, they are lying. When they say they don’t discriminate against pregnancy, they could mean they support abortion.

So, this anti-discrimination boilerplate is potentially chock full of discriminatory ideological positions against particular groups, many of whom are stereotypically conservative. They hold themselves out as providing balance to the leftist networks, while simultaneously taking positions that undermine conservative policy and ideological positions. This will harm their business and lower the value of the company. It is, therefore, unethical.

Fox News has a duty to at least be neutral in its political matching. By agreeing to support left wing causes and discriminating against right wing causes, they have failed in that duty.

***

I’m back for a brief observation. Fox News’ journalism ethics watchdog Howard Kurtz has somehow missed this story so far. How odd! Ah, but how his now-departed successor at CNN, Brian Stelter, would have been all over it, though to Stelter his own network was the epitome of trustworthiness and ethical purity.

An Ethics Puzzle From “The Affair”…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This would normally be an item in a Warm-Up or the equivalent, but I haven’t had time for them lately, so I’m going to let the issue fly solo.

In “The Affair,” the protagonist’s best friend assesses the problems that have befallen him as the result of said affair, and offers him $50,000. The adulterous husband (his wife and the friend has been an inseparable threesome in college) protests, but the friend, who is rich and just became richer (he’s a hedge fund whiz), insists. He has the money, and he won’t miss it, and what are friends for?

A couple years later, the protagonist, who has a best selling second novel and is suddenly rolling in money, fame and opportunities, has an argument with his old friend and benefactor at a party. The freind, insulted at his treatment, says, “You seem to forget you that I gave you $50,000!” He adds, “And you never paid me back!” The author protests, “That was a gift!” His friend responds, “Yeah, well you have the money to pay me back now!”

Thoughts:

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From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: “The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Here is yet another Comment of the Day regarding climate science, junk science, propaganda…you know: “Climate change.” It is also yet another excellent entry by Sarah B. Here is her Comment of the Day on the post, “From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis” but it applies equally well to this one (from today), this one, and this one too:

Many people who question anthropogenic global climate change have good reason to do so. Here are a few of the facts that make believing the anthropogenicity of climate change difficult for me.

This “hottest days ever” claim has been shown to be mostly false. For example, the Rome data point was from a model, not actual data. Indeed, while the temperature measured was almost two degrees Celsius below what the high was claimed to be, that high was under previous highs from the last few decades recorded in Rome. The actual temperature of the day in question was 40C, measured at the Urbe airport, not 41.8. Rome’s highest temperature ever recorded is not 40.8C as claimed, but instead 42C. This high temperature was recorded at the Ponte di Nona bus station in 2005.

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“The Affair”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I’m recommending the Showtime series “The Affair,” now streaming its five seasons (the show ran in 53 episodes from 2014-2019), as a challenging and perceptive ethics show. Covering, as you might guess, a sexual and romantic affair involving two couples and their extended family, and the chaotic consequences the illicit relationship triggers, the “The Affair” reaches into relationship ethics, friendship ethics, marital ethics, parenting ethics, community ethics, legal ethics, academic ethics and artistic ethics, and probably more: I’m finally watching the whole thing after seeing the third and fourth seasons a few years ago. Wrapped up in those larger categories are questions involving honesty, loyalty, conflicts of interest, empathy, and abuse of power.

The one irritant in “The Affair” is the scarcity of genuinely ethical or admirable characters. The closest is probably the primary victim of the affair, the adulterous writer’s wife, played by Maura Tierney (of “ER” fame). One aspect of the show that will benefit many is how awful so many of the parents portrayed in the show are: if you question your parenting abilities, “The Affair” will restore your confidence. (So far, my favorite moment was when a grown daughter finally orders her incredibly over-bearing, toxic and manipulative mother out of her home, saying, curtly, “I hate you.”

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Rep. Omar’s Dumb Tweet (Continued…)

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I was so tempted to headline this post with the res ipsa loquitur tag, but didn’t at the last minute. The reason: I was convinced that as obvious as the scientific and logical nonsense her tweet represented should be, a lot of usually intelligent people wouldn’t allow themselves to see it, because, as Ethics Alarms notes repeatedly, “bias makes you stupid.” The post’s comments turned out to be a marvelous example of that.

One persistent defender of Omar insisted that it was crucial that I had checked the alleged authority for her gaffe before criticizing her. It happens that I did, but I didn’t need to. Nobody did: that’s the whole point. If the woman had the requisite number of brain cells to rub together to start a bonfire, she would have known what emerged from her keyboard when she typed that was hilariously silly with the application of basic critical thinking skills.

Recently, Major League Baseball teams broke the record for the most runs scored in all games on a single day. It was remarkable, because the record was more than a century old: the day occurred in the 19th century. All of the articles about this event specified the day. If, as Omar’s ignorant tweet claimed, the Earth had broken its previous record for “hottest day in 120,000 years,” there would be a day from 120,000 years ago that held the broken record. No source mentioned such a day, however, because there are no daily records of the Earth’s weather—daily temperature is weather, not climate—from 120,000 years ago or even a thousand years ago (though we know Pompeii got pretty damn hot when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.) Estimates of global climate in the periods before records were kept depend on “proxy data.” Here is a chart explaining what proxy data can tell scientist about distant climates:

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