Everything is loused up, delayed and failing today. I don’t want to talk about it…

Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who carved out a niche by claiming that Donald Trump uniquely defied “democratic norms,” thus pointing the government toward “authoritarian” rule, had better be hiding their heads in bags now. The theme was quickly picked up by other unethical (as in partisan and biased without admitting so) academics like historian Alan Lichtman, and it became one of the more popular Big Lies weaponized by the Left-allied mainstream media, as in this Washington Post hit piece.

Ethics Alarms took the position that this was a contrived new standard  dreamed up just for Trump (and to sell books and get MSNBC gigs, of course), concocted for political warfare,and it was. Meanwhile, Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have been notably silent as the Joe Biden Presidency has shattered one “norm” after another, most spectacularly in using the Justice Department (and Congress, as well as his party generally) to harass and attempt to neutralize a former President of the United States and past and likely future adversary at the ballot box. The raid on Mar-a-Largo was the ultimate IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden”), and one that genuinely threatens democracy, unlike, say, firing a wildly incompetent and untrustworthy FBI director. Not a peep from the “norms” police though.

Gee. What a surprise.

1. Here’s another “surprise”: when a group becomes entitled and protected, “inclusion and diversity” fly out the metaphorical window. Assistant professor of community health and director of the Health Promotion Center at York College Vincent Jones II and professor and director of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Middlebury College Laurie Essig write in the Boston Globe that heterosexual bachelorette partiers are ruining the all-gay scene in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The male-loving women, it seems, have found the long-time arts, galleries and gays town on the tip of Cap Cod the perfect place to party without the inconvenience of being hit on, at least not by men. The residents claim the women are “asserting their privilege” in what should be LGBTQ+ “safe spaces.” Worse still, the straight infestation consists of “mostly white women.” How dare they? Continue reading →

From the Washington Post:

The last thing Fred Guttenberg told his 14-year-old daughter was that it was time for her to go, that she was going to be late. Hours after rushing his two children to school that Valentine’s Day morning in 2018, a shooter unleashed a barrage of gunfire inside a Parkland, Fla., high school — killing 17 people, including Jaime Guttenberg.

During Tuesday’s sentencing proceedings for the convicted shooter, Nikolas Cruz, Guttenberg’s voice broke while he talked of the imagined future he had for Jaime, one that never came to be. But his were not the only tears falling in court — members of Cruz’s defense team were also crying, videos show.

“I cannot recall if I actually ever did tell Jaime that day how much I loved her. I never knew that I would lose the chance to say it over and over and over again,” Guttenberg said as public defender Nawal Najet Bashiman dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Two others on Cruz’s team also shed tears during testimony Tuesday.

That is Assistant public defender Tamara Curtis wiping her eyes in the photo above.

Continue reading →

I actually have been lying awake with a not-quite-dismal headache, and all sorts of ethics nightmares real and imagined have been spooling through my fevered brain, so I decided to hell with it, might as well write an in-between warm-up and hope that it calms me down enough to get back to sleep.

Among other issues, I am annoyed that I didn’t get to a warm-up yesterday because August 7 is another date chock full of ethics milestones, notably the the passage of the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving President Johnson almost unrestrained powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. Not only was this the floodgates-opening moment for the U.S.’s disastrous Vietnam entanglement, but it permanently (so far, at least) accelerated Congress’s abdication of its constitutional duties to oversee the Executive’s war-making proclivities. August 7 was also the date in 1912 upon which Teddy Roosevelt completed his fateful, ego-driven move to split the Republican Party, preferring a public tantrum that would ultimately inflict Woodrow Wilson, arguably our worst President ever, on the Republic, over accepting the consequences of his own impulsiveness when he foolishly forswore running for a second full term in office. Not surprisingly, Teddy had found his hand-picked successor (and best friend) William Howard Taft not sufficiently Teddy-like, and when the GOP dutifully renominated Taft for another term that he would have won easily, Roosevelt launched his Bull Moose Party to oppose both Taft and Wilson. His own party then nominated Roosevelt 110 years ago, violently changing the course of history in ways too convoluted to guess.

1. What’s going on with Disney? The best answer appear to be “Really, really, incompetent management.” When I read complaints about Walt’s creation retiring its creator’s opening day speech from its anniversary celebration after 67-years, I assumed that it was all just “Disney has gone crazy woke!” conservative hysteria. Then I read the speech, which I had last heard when I first visited Disneyland when I was a college sophomore, on one of the most fun days of my life. Here is what Walt said:

To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. Thank you.

That’s the mission statement for the entire Disney journey, and eloquently stated too. What could anyone, especially anyone charged with continuing to make the company thrive, object to about that perfect expression of why Disney is important to American culture? An organization that becomes estranged from its founder (or Founders) is risking its soul and survival. I hope that the erasure of Walt’s words from this year’s celebration is just another in a long string of dumb management decisions. I fear that it is much more than that.

2. Apparently racial discrimination is now the official policy of New York City. The New York Post reports that  New York City Mayor Eric Adams has requested that city agencies provide photographs of potential candidates for jobs at City Hall  ranging from assistant commissioner to departmental press secretary. The ubiquitous “unnamed city officials” explained that the request is part of  an effort to hire more diverse staffers, a euphemism for “so the city can hire based on skin color.” Unethical. Of course. The officials the Post interviewed said they supported a  diverse workforce but worried that the practice is  causing the Adams administration “to make hiring decisions with a greater emphasis on race and ethnicity than merit.” The Mayor, ridiculously, swears that having the photos will merely help him recognize his employees in the sprawling city workforce. Continue reading →