I fear my call for assistance on Ethics Alarms this day doesn’t quite have the weight, significance, urgency or eloquence of William Barrett Travis’s immortal entreaty made on February 24, 1836, but it’s the best I’ve got…
On The Plus Side, At Least Now We Know Why The Biden Administration Has Added Trillions To The National Debt And Thinks Its No Big Deal…
Asked to justify taking her granddaughter Naomi Biden on a taxpayer funded trip to Africa, First Lady Jill Biden thought the Golden Rationalization, “Everybody Does It,” #1 on the list, was justification enough.
“It’s so great for me to be able to bring a member of the family. I think it’s a tradition, or, actually that we’ve seen other families from first families, bring members of their family to just see the rest of the world and just experience the world,” Jill gushed during a stop in Namibia.
It’s so great for Naomi Biden, I guess, who is 29, an adult, and should be expected to pay her own way or stay home. There is no such “tradition.” Presidents have brought their wives and children along on such trips, and First Ladies have brought their kids; I suppose that is a reasonable perk of the job. But bringing along adult grandchildren and charging the government for the it is no “tradition.” This reminds me of Sir Joseph Porter, the “Ruler of the Queen’s Navee” in “H.M.S. Pinafore,” whose sisters, cousins and aunts follow him wherever he goes.
“The Murders At Starved Rock”: An Argument For Professional Jurors
If the babbling of the Georgia grand jury forewoman hasn’t depressed you enough about the state of our criminal justice system, by all means watch HBO’s 2021 series “The Murders at Starved Rock.” It is streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and Apple.
In 1961, 22-year-old Chester Weger was charged with the murders of three women in Starved Rock State Park near LaSalle, Illinois. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, almost entirely on the basis of his detailed confession, which he later recanted. Decades later, David Raccuglia, the son of the fledgling prosecutor who persuaded a jury to convict Weger and now a documentary-maker, decided to re-examine the case after it was officially re-opened. Raccuglia reveals that he was terrified for years of Weger, convinced that the convicted murderer would somehow escape and seek vengeance against the family of the man who sent him to prison. In the intervening decades, LaSalle had fractured over the case, with many in the town convinced that Weger was innocent, and many others equally adamant that he was a monster and was righteously convicted. David’s efforts at examining the evidence met with a great deal of hostility, some of it from his father, whom Raccuglia interviewed extensively.
Baseball Ethics Dunce: San Diego Padres Third Baseman Manny Machado
This isn’t so much about baseball ethics as values, and how our sports “heroes” corrupt ours.
I suppose I am obligated to confess that I detest Manny Machado. I haven’t watched him much since he moved to San Diego, but when he was with the Baltimore Orioles, he was one of the dirtiest players I’ve ever seen. He also wrecked the career of Dustin Pedroia, the star Red Sox second baseman whose values are the direct opposite of Machado’s, with an illegal slide.
Machado just announced that he plans on opting out of the remainder of his contract following the 2023 season, as the terms of his current deal allows. When Machado signed his current 10-year, $300 million agreement with San Diego ahead of the 2019 season, it was among the top three player contracts in MLB history. Now, however, 30 million dollars a year isn’t enough for Manny. You see, a few high-profile free agents have signed for more this off season, so this means, according to player agents’ Bizarro World logic, that Manny is being underpaid.
On Andrea Mitchell’s Anti-DeSantis Lie And Aftermath: A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Classic
Was I dreaming, or was Andrea Mitchell once a relatively trustworthy journalist? Was it working at MSNBC that rotted her professionalism away completely, as with poor Chris Matthews?
Because this is disgusting.
Last week, on her pompously titeled show “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Mitchell asked Kamala Harris, “What does Governor Ron Desantis not know about black history and the black experience when he says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren?” Florida’s governor never said that, not has he advocated that, nor has any other Republican official or pundit not now residing in a padded cell. That’s a deliberately dishonest Democratic, anti-DeSantis, pro-Critical Race Theory talking point designed for consumption by lazy, gullible and uninformed citizens.
Harris might have won a bit of respect had she corrected Mitchell, but she’s an unethical hack too, so naturally she acted as if it was a fair question.Or she didn’t know it was nonsense: with Harris its hard to tell.
DeSantis’s press secretary was on the job, tweeting,
Indeed it does. From the state requirements, guidelines DeSantis supported and approved: Continue reading
Unethical (And Depressing) Quote Of The Month: Georgia Grand Jury Foreperson Emily Kohrs
“I wanted to hear from the former president, but honestly, I wanted to subpoena the former president because I got to swear everybody in, and so I thought it would be really cool to get 60 seconds with President Trump, of me looking at him and be like, ‘Do you solemnly swear,’ and me getting to swear him in…I just…I kinda just thought that would be an awesome moment!”
—Emily Kohrs, the foreperson of the Atlanta grand jury that investigated Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims for the past eight months.
Kohrs was asked, “What did you personally want to hear from the former President?” by her MSNBC inteviewer, as Kohrs supported subpoenaing Trump for alleged crimes. Giggling , that was her reply.
And she didn’t even realize how ludicrous the answer made her, the inquiry and our justice system appear. You can see the video here. I’ll be on the nearest bridge, pinning a note to my Red Sox warm-up jacket and preparing to leap to my death.
Thrilled with her proverbial 15 minutes of fame, this juvenile fool—who, I will repeat just to maybe get some company on that lonely bridge—personally supported subpoenaing a former President of the United States as part of an investigation into potential criminal wrongdoing because she thought it would be “really cool” to get to swear him in—has been giving babbling, borderline illegal interviews to CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, and the Associated Press, teasing reporters by almost breaching grand jury confidentiality, and maybe doing so. “Why this person is talking on TV, I do not understand,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said. “She’s clearly enjoying herself. Is this responsible?”
Update: “Vermont Law School’s Craven Art Censorship”
UPDATE: The Ethics Alarms post below ran in 2021. Now the revolting controversy is back in the news: the Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont still seeks to remove the artwork above and below depicting the history of slavery in the U.S. As I wrote in 2021, the school simply capitulated to irrational, power-seeking student complaints alleging a racist message being conveyed by anti-racist art. To his credit, the artist has fought back, and the school has wasted resources intended for education to support the worst kind of mindless race-hucksterism.
At the end of the post, it noted that the case was headed to an appellate court, and it finally reached the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, where the two sides presented arguments on January 27. For two years, the law school has covered the paintings with white panels suspended just above their surface so as not to damage them, pending the outcome of the court appeal.
I still think Kerson is likely to lose. I do not see how a Court can compel a school to display an artwork it doesn’t want to display. The federal law at issue says artists can prevent modification of their work if the change would harm their “honor or reputation.” The law school says that covering the murals, even permanently, is not a modification. An attorney representing the law school states simply, “If you own a painting, of course you have the right to decide whether or not to display it.”
The white artist, Sam Kerson argues that his reputation will be scarred if his work is falsely treated as “racist.” “He must suffer the indignity and humiliation of having a cover put over his art,” his lead attorney, argued to the Second Circuit.
Nothing much has changed since the 2021 post, but some of the quotes cited in the New York Times article this week are demonstrate how thoroughly race issues have become unmoored from rationality and fairness:
- “If someone is saying to you, ‘How you’re depicting me is racist,’ for you to live in your own ignorance, and further aggravate the situation — now you’re showing us who you are,” said Yanni DeCastro, a second-year student. [In other words, if someone claims your art is racist, disagreeing with that assessment is racist.]
- “We need to stop protecting white fragility,” said another student. [Another transparent tactic to ban disagreement with race hucksters! Kerson isn’t uncomfortable talking about race: his painting is an invitation to face racial history. It’s his black critics who are “fragile.”]
- The same student told the Times: “The mural is covered, but what’s really changed? What is the plan to ensure that students of color feel safe and welcome?” [Yes, students are threatened by a covered painting. What kind of lawyer can someone like this become? My guess: a poor one.]
- A second-year student told the Times: “What is real to me is a painting to you The artist was depicting history, but it’s not his history to depict.” [Only blacks can write about, make movies about, or paint pictures regarding black history. Why wouldn’t the converse also be true, then?]
Here is the original post:
CNN’s Desperate, Unethical And Insulting Don Lemon Retention Strategy
CNN Morning anchor Don Lemon returned to the show today, after CNN CEO Chris Licht told staff in a memo that the cute, black, gay incompetent has agreed to submit to “training” in exchange for his return.
To “cut to the chase,” Lemon is an ongoing and acute embarrassment to CNN, broadcast news, and journalism. His record of bad journalism and misadventures are documented on Ethics Alarms, and since I would rather have my toes transplanted to my forehead than watch the guy no matter what show he’s showboating in, I know that Ethics Alarms has only scratched the surface of Lemon’s bias, narcissism, lack of professionalism and incompetence. He should have been fired many times over, but since his worst displays have been squarely in service of progressive cant, anti-white bias and Democratic politics, it was only his most recent gaffe, openly signalling his sexism while revealing how well he performs basic research, that seriously jeopardized his continued employment.
Oh, What The Hell: I’m Designating This Pizza Shop’s Owners Ethics Heroes
I view this as similar to the “It’s OK to be white” controversy. It’s a veritable Rorschach test that provokes thought, consideration and discussion, and any business that does that without being pompous and annoying (Like, say, Starbuck’s) is making a positive contribution to public discourse.
Santino’s Pizzeria hung the banner outside its Columbus, Ohio, store a few months ago, partially in frustration over new staff not taking their jobs seriously. “A lot of the people we’ve hired just don’t want to work,” Jayden Dunigan, whose familiy owns the restaurant, told reporters.“There is no work ethic behind them, so that’s the meaning behind the ‘non-stupid.”
“I had a high school student who thought it was okay to bring a Nerf gun in with another employee here,” the shop’s manager added. The other motivation for the sign was humor. Yet some critics on social media are “offended.” Is the sign a subtle shot at DEI? Is the shop saying people are stupid?
On balance, I’ve decided it’s a constructive and courageous message, especially in the Age of The Great Stupid.
Ethics Dunce: President Biden
I suppose the theory is that if you can’t do anything else right, grandstand. From a political perspective, that’s not a stupid theory for a US President (which is why you don’t see Sidney Wang from the Ethics Alarms clip archive), but it is a desperate one, and it only is responsible leadership if there is no substantive risk of something really bad happening to the country you are leading as a result. Biden’s been grandstanding a great deal of late, such as shooting down harmless balloons like crazy to make up for the fact that he let the Chinese spy balloon travel across the U.S. For perspective, reasonable estimate is that it cost about $2 million to shoot down the Lake Huron balloon that may have cost as little as $12, but to be fair, the Biden Administration is operating under the assumption that money doesn’t matter, so this doesn’t qualify as “harm” in their eyes.
The much ballyhooed “surprise” trip to Ukraine for photo ops, however, had an undeniable potential downside: the President could have been killed. As he “stepped out into the streets of Kyiv” the New York Times reported, “an air-raid siren sounded, a dramatic moment that underscored the investment the United States has made in Ukraine’s independence.” Thanks, Times flaks, good pro-Biden spin and propaganda there! You’re doing your job, or at least what fake journalists today consider their job. Nevertheless, let me return to reality: the “dramatic moment” underscored how stupid and reckless Biden’s visit was. Continue reading
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