Sickness Ethics:  The Worker’s (and the Tourist’s) Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Guest Post

by AM Golden

About a month ago, I got my hair cut at a salon that is part of a nationwide chain.  It was a couple of days before my vacation.  During the cut, the stylist coughed several times into her arm.

Correction: she held her arm out and coughed in its general direction.  You know what I mean, right?  The arm is extended out front, allowing the cough to have plenty of space to spew germs out into the air with nothing to buffer them.

She complained about sinuses.  I sympathized.  Sinuses are tough.  It didn’t pass my notice, however, that one cough seemed a little congested.

At checkout, I told her I hoped her sinuses got better.  It was then that she disclosed that it was harder because she was also recovering from bronchitis.

Cue internal Homer Simpson-esque scream and flight.

I am highly susceptible to bronchial infections, especially this time of year.  It was 35 years ago that I caught pneumonia while in college which caused me to miss two weeks of classes and three weeks of work at McDonald’s.  I returned to classes the day mid-terms began.  The day I returned to work, they put me in the drive-thru and assured my mother they would take me out as soon as it got dark and too cold.  They didn’t.  Fast food work sucks. 

Probably for that reason, I am sympathetic to people in customer-facing positions because they are paid by the hour, generally don’t have sick time or much sick time and often have to make the choice of earning money to pay their bills or staying home unpaid when sick.

I get it.

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Show This To Your Friends (and Chuck Schumer) Fuming Over The Suspension of Jimmy Kimmel….

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Do remind them that Democrats forced Al Franken to leave the Senate over a far less disgusting stunt he engaged in while Franken was still a (sort of) comedian. That Jimmy Kimmel displayed above is exactly who the creep really is and has always been. That ABC thought he was worthy of a nightly show tells you all you need to know about ABC.

Again: What a ridiculous metaphorical hill for progressives and Democrats to take a supposedly principled stand on! But a revealing one…

Amazing Stories of the Trump Deranged: The Protest

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

A nice, generally reasonable, D.C. actor and Facebook friend posted this today in response to the Jimmy Kimmel uproar, followed by the usual likes, loves and “care” emojis:

Brilliant.

Let’s see: he’s cancelling the streaming service Hulu, owned by Disney, to protest another entity owned by Disney suspending an epic asshole from a money-losing TV show because the actor thinks bashing Donald Trump and Republicans night after night should insulate a marginal talent from the consequences of his words and actions.

Or my friend thinks Disney/ABC is violating the First Amendment because the under-welcome educated bubble he exists in gets all its news from MSNBC and social media. Or he thinks this is some kind of virtue-signalling to his friends who think Donald Trump is a Nazi.

No, the least you could do, my friend, is to do nothing at all, and it would be just as effective as cancelling Hulu and boasting about it on Facebook, with the added benefit that you would not look ridiculous. I say this recognizing that the side of the ideological divide you hang out with fervently believes that “Do something!” is a rational response to all perceived problems.

Have we ever seen a period in American history where so many people were eager to put out public statements that could be fairly translated as “I have become a moron”?

Friday Open Forum, Recovering Edition [Extended]

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

My major theatrical project, in the works for three years, the revue honoring the 50th anniversary of the musical theater organization I inadvertently founded at Georgetown University Law Center, was completed last weekend and judged a success. It is the only student operated theatrical organization at an American graduate school, and alums of the school and the group traveled to D.C. from all over the country to be part of the celebration. If they wanted to be in the show itself, I promised that I would find a way to let them do it, meaning that the production never had a single rehearsal with the entire cast available, a handicap that extended to the individual numbers, some of them quite challenging. Naturally I’m still exhausted, desperately trying to catch up, and now I’m sick. (But the infected leg is much better, thanks.)

At the end of the gala after the final performance, an alumnus of the group who was in several numbers, a lawyer in his 30s whom I had not met before the show, pulled me aside. He pointed out two two young children playing outside in an enclosed area outside the party space, and said, “Those are my kids. My wife and I met during one of the shows here, and it changed every aspect of my life. If you hadn’t started this wonderful organization that kept me sane during law school, my children wouldn’t exist, and I just wanted to say thank you.” Then he shook my hand, gave me a hug, and walked away.

Meanwhile, in the “I’m smart!” Fredo category, I was amused to see that Pajamas Media columnist Stephen Kruiser this morning virtually duplicated my post from last night about Kamala’s book excerpt, not that my analysis took much thought since its conclusions should be obvious. But I was reminded once again about how often the rebuttals from the Trump Deranged when I’m debating with them consist of saying “Oh, you’re just reciting [Fox News/ some other conservative news or opinion source/Trump’s] talking points” when as far as I know they are just echoing my analysis. Kruiser’s Morning Briefing column is often an amusing read, and his link farm is, if single-minded, informative. Here’s a head-exploding story I might have missed: Hizzoner: ‘Law Enforcement Is a Sickness’ In Chicago I Will ‘Eradicate’

ADDED: On the other hand, Ann Althouse beat me to the punch regarding Harris’s fatuous musings on the VP choice that never was, and was spot on.

Enough from me: I have to take some DayQuill and go back to bed….It’s all up to you what this space is covers now, as long as the topic is ethics.

Once Again, Harris Reminds Us of How Narrowly the US Avoided Disaster in 2024

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

The disaster we narrowly avoided was having such an incompetent elected President of the United States. The Atlantic posted a new excerpt from former Vice President Kamala Harris’s book, “107 Days,” and like so many other emissions from what Kamala calls “her mind,” the selection prompts the thought, “Wow, what an idiot!”

Kamala Harris writes that her “first choice” to be her running mate was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be “too big of a risk” for a black woman to run with a gay man. Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man,” Harris writes. “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, “Screw it, let’s just do it.”But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” She adds that Buttigieg originally topped her list because “he is a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them…I love Pete. I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.”

Well.

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On That Fake “Ron Howard” Facebook Post….

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“Appeal to Authority” is one of the hoariest logical fallacies of all as well as one of the most common; it is a favorite of those who cannot make their own cases for their fervently held beliefs. So it is not surprising that a supposed post by nice guy—he was Opie, after all!—and mostly apolitical Hollywood director Ron Howard has resurfaced on social media as desperate progressives try to avoid the consequences of the Charley Kirk murder that was the inevitable result of the fearmongering and demonizing their party flooded the culture with for years.

The Ron Howard manifesto of what liberals believe and why was circulating earlier this year and even Snopes, a reliable Axis ally, pronounced it fake. Never mind, though. What a brilliant ideology the Left has that its adherents can’t even be honest about who is making arguments in its support!

If you read “Ron’s” screed, you will conclude as I have that the director needs to track down the forger and sue him for defamation, or perhaps force the miscreant to watch Howard’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and Jim Carey’s unrestrained mugging for days on end. The recitation of beliefs is so full of “Imagine”-esque fantasy and logical inconsistencies that a relatively alert 8th grader should be able to poke the thing with enough holes to fill Prince Albert’s Hall.

Here’s a challenge to Ethics Alarms readers: debunk this virtue-signaling orgy my Facebook friends are so fond of, and I’ll publish your vivisections in one grand post to express my gratitude for saving me the trouble. I’ll get you started: Only idiots make statements that they conclude with “PERIOD.”

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s “Ron”…

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Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Update…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

The newly Christened “Charie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck” is barrelling along at breakneck pace. I need this post just to catch up:

  • Attorney General Pam Bondi idiotically stated that “hate speech” was not protected by the First Amendment. Ethics Alarms negligently didn’t flag this immediately as Ethics Duncery, and I am abashed. I just am not surprised when Bondi shows us what she is: a legal hack, an unqualified and incompetent AG, and in the running for the worst Trump Cabinet appointment. Should she be fired for directly undermining the Trump/MAGA/conservative position on freedom of speech? Of course; she should never have been appointed in the first place. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the U.S. Attorney General understand the Bill of Rights and all the SCOTUS cases establishing that “hate speech” is just speech, and completely covered by the First Amendment. What a disgrace Bondi is. Ugh.
  • Then there is Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democratic Party leader in the Senate, lawyer (once upon a time) and utter hypocrite. Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is unfair and cowardly, but there is nothing preventing an employer from firing or suspending an employee who makes a statement in public that the organization decides is detrimental to business, But Schumer wrote on “X”:

“America is meant to be a bastion of free speech. Everybody across the political spectrum should be speaking out to stop what’s happening to Jimmy Kimmel. This is about protecting democracy. This must go to court.”

Roseanne Barr tweeted back derisive laughter, as well she might. She was fired from her hit sitcom for an offensive, arguably racist tweet, though what she said was, again, protected speech. I don’t care enough about Schumer to check and see if he expressed outrage at Roseanne’s tweet, but he certainly didn’t say that she had a case in court, which she definitely did not, just like Kimmel. Continue reading →

Now THIS Lying MSNBC “Journalist” Really Needs To Be Fired…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Wikipedia tells us that Brandy Zadrozny “is an American investigative journalist and reporter with NBC News and MSNBC who specializes in radicalization, extremism and disinformation on the Internet.” Interesting! But apparently since she works for “MS,” she uses that supposed expertise to lie directly to the public in order to advance the Axis media’s propaganda. Zadrozny also, as evidenced by that head-exploding clip above, feels free to abuse her credentials and authority to literally deny reality that she, her fellow travelers, her employers and her whole profession find inconvenient.

Western Lensman (whoever he, she or it is) could not be more accurate, however. The lying by the Left, here and generally, knows no bounds. President Biden was sharp as a tack! If MSNBC doesn’t fire and permanently blackball this lying hack from ever practicing “journalism” again—and you know it won’t—we have a tacit admission regarding what their real purpose is: deception, confusion and distortion of reality for political gain. And it isn’t only MSNBC.

Heavens to Betsy: this woman’s specialty is the internet, and she doesn’t know about Bluesky, the Twitter/X alternative where cowardly progressives go to revel in their fantasies? Wait—she has an account on it: https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/brandyzadrozny.bsky.social! And still Brandy hasn’t noticed everyone around her cheering for Kirk’s death?

This is worse than mere lying. This is gaslighting, abuse of credentials (Brandy is a Pratt Institute grad), abuse of trust, abuse of journalism ethics, ack! ack! araghhyhayyrewqaunngemg!!!!!

(I just hurled myself to the floor like John Belushi used to do on Saturday Night Live.)

And poor Jimmy Kimmel sits at home, wondering what he said that was so bad….

Stop Making Me Defend (Ugh) Jimmy Kimmel!

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I have used that headline. I also used it in 2017 in a post I began thusly: “I detest Jimmy Kimmel. I loathe him. He is the most revolting of all the Left-Licking late night and cable progressive comics, worse than Colbert, Maher, Samantha Bee, all of them. All of them combined. He is an ongoing blight on the ethics of American society, and yet he is self-righteous in the process.” My opinion of Kimmel has, if anything, deteriorated since I wrote that.

Nonetheless, fair is fair and ethics are ethics, and Kimmel’s suspension by ABC for a comment that was so much less objectionable than his biased, unfunny, obnoxious blather nightly is cowardly and indefensible.

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Ethics Quiz: Congress’s D.C. “Bananas” Law

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

In Woody Allen’s “Bananas,” one of those comedies that struck me as hilarious when it came out and now seems obvious and juvenile (though the courtroom scene is still inspired), the new dictator of the banana republic of “San Marcos” decrees that all citizens under the age of 16 are 16. I thought of that moment when I read that the GOP House voted Tuesday to allow 14-year-olds to be tried as adults for serious crimes in the District of Columbia.

This is one of several bills to follow-up on President Donald Trump’s (overdue) crime crackdown in D.C., in which he declared an emergency and asserted control over D.C. police while sending in armed National Guard troops to make the message beyond ignoring.

Th emergency expired last week as House Republicans advanced the 14 bills, since Congress can pass or overturn D.C. laws because it has constitutional authority over the city. The bill treating 14-year-old as adults resonates because D.C. teens have accounted for more than half of robberies and carjackings so far in 2025.

The legislation passed by the House yesterday would allow 14-year-olds to be charged as adults for murder and armed robbery without a judicial hearing. Currently that authority only applies for offenders for ages 16 and up.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is prosecuting young teens as adults ethical?

In other words, is it fair? Does it address the real problems involved, or is it just a “Do something!” measure? Given the wide variation in maturity levels among teens, does the bill even make sense? There are 14-year-olds who are shaving and are bigger than their fathers, and other who appear to be 10. Does one size fit all?