And The NYT Dutifully Feeds A Misinformation Loop About Republicans Creating Misinformation About The Paul Pelosi Attack That They Caused, Of Course, And That’s A FACT! [Updated!]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The report above was mysteriously pulled and denied by NBC last week, not generally known to be a Republican mouthpiece. But the New York Times front page today includes as its primary “news” story, an accusatory piece headlined, “How Republicans Fed a Misinformation Loop About the Pelosi Attack.”

Oddly, the story doesn’t mention the recanted NBC story at all. I guess New York Times readers don’t need to know about that when they are assessing, right before the November 8 election, whether to vote for those evil Republicans.

Nor does the story, by undoubtedly good registered Democrats Annie Karni, Malika Khurana and Stuart A. Thompson, note that all of the theories, speculation and “misinformation” has flourished because of the strange absence of crucial information that police have but so far refuse to release: Pelosi’s 911 call, and security footage of the break-in. A reader will also search in vain for any mention of the details in the original report that caused such speculation, like the statement that there was a “third person” involved. There is no explanation of why Pelosi referred to his attacker as “a friend.” I guess I don’t understand this complex, crucial profession of “journalism,” but it would seem to me, tyro that I am, that an article about the GOP pushing “misinformation” might begin by clarifying the gaping holes in the story that have made people who don’t just swallow biased media narratives whole a teeny bit suspicious.

One thing the story is clear about, however, is that it is cold, hard, irrefutable information that Pelosi’s attacker, a mentally ill, rainbow flag embracing, Black Lives Matter-admiring illegal alien, was motivated to attack Paul Pelosi because Republicans have been saying mean things about Nancy Pelosi for some unknown reason. After all, “Mr. Pelosi’s attacker is said to have believed “Mr. Trump’s lie of a stolen election,” among other falsehoods. Said by whom? Oh, that’s not important; what’s important is that Republicans are circulating misinformation about the attack.

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New Progressive Standard: Apparently It Is Now Acceptable To Describe Black Republicans Using Racial Epithets

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

At least, it’s okay if the speaker is black and a good Democrat.

Good to know, don’t you think?

Professor Sundiata Cha-Jua, a history and African-American studies professor at the University of Illinois Urban-Champaign, referred to Republican Georgia U.S. Senate candidate as “incompetent, subliterate and coonish” in a column for The News-Gazette.

Coonish! “Coon,” dictionaries tell us, is “a contemptuous term used to refer to a Black person.” It is no better than “nigger,” it’s just avoided the publicity. Calling a black individual a “coon” is as racially denigrating as one can get; it meets the legal definition of “fighting words.” Yet the professor has not received any backlash from students at his university, nor faculty, nor administration. A white professor who made similar statements about, say, Barack Obama, would have to join witness protection.

In the same column, this esteemed prof, who teaches “antiracism,” compared a black Republican named Terence Stuber to a slave because he is running to be Champaign County Clerk against a black Democrat.

“What type of Black Republican is Stuber?,” Cha Jua wrote. “He was recruited by White Republican leadership to run against Ammons, the only African American clerk in Champaign County history… Stuber reiterates “massa” Trump’s talking points. Intimating fraud, he cast aspersions on the 2020 elections….His words and deeds indicate he’s a genuine MAGA Black White supremacist.”

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Headline Ethics: Today’s Ethics Rot In A Few Well Chosen Words…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I decided on this format after being click-baited by a headline in the Times: The Dobbs Decision Revealed How Weak the Pro-Life Movement Really Is. In fact, the Dobbs decision itself revealed nothing about the pro-life movement whatsoever. The decision wasn’t a response to the anti-abortion activists; it was a down-the-line legal rebuke to an old SCOTUS decision that was as offensive to the Constitution as Dred Scott. The actual column was about how disappointing the response of pro-life legislators has been (in the author’s view) by not moving faster to ban abortion entirely. How can a decision “reveal” a reaction to it that only can occur after the decision is rendered? Moreover, it should be apparent that while many anti-abortion advocates do not believe there should be not an absolute right to end a human life in the womb, many, like, say, me, acknowledge that abortion is an ethically complex problem that cannot be resolved without careful balancing of interests. That’s not “weakness.” That’s “accepting reality.”

Here are some other headlines that signal ethical confusion:

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An Ethics Alarms Quote Verification Special Report: “Jacques Brel And ‘The Color Of Goose Shit’”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Guest post by Thomas D. Fuller

[Some background is in order before getting to Tom’s essay. Twice in recent days Ethics Alarms has cited the quote, attributed to the late Belgian singer, song-writer, actor and philos0pher Jacques Brel,  “If you leave it to them they will crochet the world the color of goose shit.” I had referenced the quote before, and Ethics Alarms has a category called “The Jacques Brel” reserved for those officious, censorious, miserable people who seem determined to leech all of the joy out of life. After the latest reference, esteemed commenter Arthur in Maine wrote me off-site to ask for the source of the quote, since he couldn’t find it. Indeed, when I Googled the quote, the only source listed was…me. Ethics Alarms. Now I feared that I was passing along “misinformation.” Can’t have that! 

I have the good fortune to have friend of over 50 years, Tom Fuller, who is a dedicated, one might even say “fanatic,” quotation investigator. He was a credited researcher for the superb “Yale Book of Quotations,” and has commented on Ethics Alarms regarding other quotes mentioned here occasionally. I asked him to do that voodoo that he do so well on the alleged Brel quote, which he remembered from the same source where I first heard it, the Sixties revue “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.” Tom generously agreed.

As an aside, I’ve been trying to persuade Tom to launch a blog on the fascinating topic of quotes, and if you enjoy his essay as much as I do, please encourage him.

I’ll have some additional observations after the post.]

***

Introduction

One of the most memorable lines in the 1968 musical revue Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris – indeed, it is often the only line that sticks in viewers’ minds – is:

“Jacques Brel says, ‘If you leave it to them they will crochet the world the color of goose shit.’”

Jacques Brel (Belgian songwriter and actor, 1929-1978) wrote the music and lyrics to all the songs in this piece, but the “book” (and therefore, apparently, this line) was written by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman.  The line in question appears in the script between the songs “Bachelor’s Dance” and “Timid Frieda”, but does not seem to relate directly to the lyrics or sense of either song.  (See here.)

The question is:  Did Jacques Brel really say this, and if so, where?

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Ethics Sarcasm Of The Month: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“I wonder which “national party” is expressing this anxiety to The Washington Post — which party relied on Twitter moderation to protect its interests in the run-up to the elections….” 

—-“Fiercely neutral” but increasingly annoyed blogger Ann Althouse, commenting on the Washington Post’s report that “Devastating cuts to Twitter’s workforce on Friday, four days before the midterm elections, are fueling anxieties among political campaigns and election offices that have counted on the social network’s staff to help them combat violent threats and viral lies…”

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! The Post’s spin is brazenly self-indicting: I wonder how many readers are so insulated and brain-washed that they don’t notice…or can’t.

Recently the official Democrat campaign desperation talking point that “democracy is on the ballot” has been repeated over and over again from President Biden down the line, and tweeted and retweeted as well. That’s a viral lie, or course: democracy is the ballot, and “democracy is on the ballot” is Democratic aspiring totalitarian code for the head-spinning assertion, “if you vote for any party other than ours, you’re destroying the Republic.”

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Stop Making Me Defend Tiffany Cross!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Let me be clear: Tiffany Cross, recently fired as a show host by MSNBC, had and has no business being an on-air political pundit. She should never have been hired, and any legitimate journalism organization would have fired Cross years ago.

Let’s see: Cross has said that a “civil war” in the U.S. requires progressives to “pick up a weapon” in the fight for democracy. She called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “Justice Pubic Hair on My Coke Can,” referring to one of Anita Hill’s unsubstantiated accusations regarding Thomas creating a hostile work environment with sexually provocative jokes. She warned viewers about “White replacement” and called Republican members of Congress “White supremacists.” She openly rooted for Kyle Rittenhouse to be convicted, primarily because he is white, and said that those applauding his acquittal—since he wasn’t proven guilty—were disgusting. More recently, Cross sat by smiling as racist Ellie Mystal called Herschel Walker a “negro” because he’s a Republican.

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One Day’s Ethics Snapshots For The Democrat Pre-Election Desperation Album

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It is hard to imagine what kind of deranged arguments, claims, accusations and theories Democrats and the news media will resort to over the next few days. The exhibition could be mordantly amusing, and it could be scary. I can say, however, that based on what I saw channel-surfing while suffering from insomnia at the Boar’s Head Inn and Resort in Charlottesville last night and this morning, no political party has ever sunk so low, or so vividly revealed to anyone capable of paying attention that it regards ethics as a disposable commodity. The main rationalization, after “It isn’t what it is,” of course (Crime? What crime? Inflation? What’s that?) is # 31. The Troublesome Luxury, or “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now.”

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Pre-End Of Democracy Election Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Late start today; just got back home after a 2.5 hour drive from Charlottesville (where there a lot of fine people) after an early morning ethics CLE presentation for the Virginia Bar.

I’ll catch up…meanwhile, it’s up to you.

Gee, Am I An “Election Denier”?

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

That hilarious screen shot from the same MSNBC session that gave historian Michael Beschloss a platform to claim that Republicans are planning on arresting and killing children is too rich to pas up. What a great sanctimonious, “I’ve been warning” you scowl from Rachel Maddow’s protege, Chris Hayes. I wonder if that deadline to save America is as reliable as Al Gore’s and Greta Thunberg’s deadlines to save the world? How did people this ludicrous get in a position of influence?

But I digress. The simple matter of questioning the eminently questionable Joe Biden won the 2020 election has been somehow blown into some kind of apocalyptic phobia by the Axis of Unethical Conduct, and “election denier” has become almost as ubiquitous and versatile smear as “racist.” Here’s CBS’s “criteria” for labeling someone currently running as an “election denier.”

Democrats questioned the legitimacy of Bush’s two elections and Trump’s, and in Trump’s case, many of them never conceded that Trump was elected at all (they don’t think the Electoral College is legitimate). But you can question the legitimacy of an election and still accept the fact that the candidate was elected, just as one can question the legitimacy of a baseball game decided by an umpire’s bad call (Game 3 of the 1975 World series comes to mind, for some reason), but accept the fact that the game is over and the luckier team won. Continue reading →

Ethics Immersion, 11/3/2022: ‘Already Sick Of The 2022 Election’ Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Is it racist to expect people who provide communications-related services in the US. to speak competent and understandable English? We have been harassed in recent weeks by one unsolicited phone call after another offering guidance on health insurance matters during the current enrollment period. A particularly incomprehensible barely English-speaking agent called my wife today, who had to keep asking her to repeat what the woman was trying to say. She finally said that she was “a socialist.” We presume she meant a “social worker.” Grace replied, tartly, that she might want to look up “socialist” before she told any other people that’s what she was. Then she said, “good-bye.”

1. Desperation Journal: On MSNBC, historian Michael Beschloss once again hopelessly beclowned himself and his thoroughly corrupted field by saying, after Joe Biden’s absurd speech last night,

“[A] historian 50 years from now – if historians are allowed to write in this country and if they are still free publishing houses and a free press – which I’m not certain of – but if that is true, a historian will say what was at stake tonight and this week was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed.”

What happened to this guy? He really used to be a respectable Presidential historian; I’ve read, and enjoyed, some of his books, like “Eisenhower: A Centennial Life” (1990) and “The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963” (1991). Then somewhere before 2016 he snapped like Larry Tribe, or bias made him stupid, or something. He was the “expert” who said Hillary lost to Trump because parties almost never hold the White House three terms in a row, which is non-historical offal more worthy of an uneducated dolt like Bette Midler. His statement from last night is even worse, and an abuse of his reputation and position. No one can trust the analysis of a historian who defaults to partisan hysteria. As Thomas More might say, “But Michael, it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world if he should lose his soul… but for MSNBC?”

Here’s proof on how far Beschloss has sunk: He essentially channeled Rob Reiner:

To that, Federalist editor Molly Hemingway replied, “This type of rhetoric seems more like an IQ test than political persuasion. Like, how stupid does a grown adult have to be to find this type of argument compelling?” Well, as stupid as an acclaimed Presidential scholar, I guess… [Pointer: Chris Marschner] Continue reading →