From The “Res Ipsa Loquitur” (“The Thing Speaks For Itself”) Files

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In addition, this is also signature significance.

What kind of political party in America over its long history, other than the American Communist Party, would think it would be appropriate to post such a thing, even once? What kind of political party would have such Bizarro World American values that it would think, even for a second, that its members and potential recruits would appreciate such a sentiment? What kind of political party would hire someone, even one employee—I don’t care if he or she is a teenager—who would lack the ethics alarms to know such an announcement would be a national insult?

As I’ve mentioned before, one supplementary benefit of the Dobbs decision is that it has caused a lot of activists, politicians, celebrities and organizations to show the world just how ruthless, corrupted and vicious they are.

The tweet was deleted.

Too late!

More Evidence (As If More Were Needed) Of Dead Ethics Alarms In California

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Five years ago, California passed a law blocking most taxpayer-funded travel to states “deemed” to have passed laws that discriminate against LGBTQ people. The key word is “deemed.” Assembly Bill 1887 was a response to a North Carolina law that required people to use public bathrooms based on the sex shown on their birth certificate. That’s not discrimination. That’s “a legitimate approach to a difficult issue that a powerful voting bloc in California has strong feelings about.” Twelve states landed on California’s first boycott list, and then, on June 28th, the 52nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, gay Attorney General Rob Bonta (above) announced that he was adding Florida and four other states to its official travel ban list, claiming that they passed “anti-LGBTQ” laws that are “directly targeting transgender youth.”

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Oh Yeah, This Should Be Worth A BLM Riot…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Eight police officers in Akron, Ohio, fired nearly 100 bullets into Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old black man after they attempted to pull the car he was driving over shortly after midnight. Walker hit the accelerator resulting in a high-speed chase. Then Walker attempted  to flee on foot and, according to police, fired a gun.   weapon.

According to the Akron Police Department Facebook page, “actions by the suspect caused the officers to perceive he posed a deadly threat to them. In response to this threat, officers discharged their firearms, striking the suspect.”

He died shortly thereafter. Continue reading →

End Of Week Ethics Wrap-Up, July 1, 2022: Freakouts, Freakouts Everywhere….[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Prelude: Why is the President of the United States attacking the Supreme Court in Madrid? His comments about a judicial body deliberating on the Constitution is not only wildly inappropriate for a President speaking abroad, his words were either calculated to make ignorant Americans even more ignorant about what the Court is, or show that he doesn’t understand himself (or no longer does). Biden called the Dobbs decision “outrageous behavior.” A SCOTUS ruling isn’t “behavior”; even Dred Scott wasn’t “behavior.” These are scholarly judicial analyses. Then he accused the Court of being “the one thing that has been destabilizing” to the nation. The Supreme Court? Upholding the Constitution is maintaining the foundation of the democracy: how is that destabilizing? Holding political show trials to try to find something that the previous President can be jailed for is destabilizing. Threatening parents who challenge indoctrinating school boards is destabilizing. Not enforcing U.S. laws at the border is destabilizing. Attacking the Supreme Court is destabilizing.

Then Biden said that Dobbs was “essentially challenging the right to privacy.” No it wasn’t, but let’s reflect back on an earlier incoherent and dim-witted statement Biden made about abortion after the Alito opinion leaked:

“I mean, so the idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say no one can make a judgment to choose to abort a child based upon a decision by the Supreme Courts, I think goes way overboard.

Of course, the decision didn’t say, in May or now, that “no one can make a judgement to have an abortion.” I think Biden was and is shooting off his mouth without reading the opinion. But never mind that: he said “abort a child.” Not only does he approve of abortion, but regards it as killing a child, and must think that “privacy” includes virtual infanticide. Oh, I know, he doesn’t know what he thinks: he used to claim that there was no right to abortion. But if he’s that muddled on the issue, and he is, what business does he have impugning the decision of SCOTUS justices wrestling with difficult topic—in Spain—at all?

1. Oh, why not? Here are some more Dobbs freakouts:

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Ethics Quote Of The Month: Madeline Brame

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Take that restorative justice bullshit and shove it up your asses! Not for murder!”

—-Madeline Bram, mother of murder victim Hason Correa, 35, a vet and married father of three who was beaten and stabbed to death by a gang in 2018, when the Manhattan Supreme Court handed down a seven year prison sentence to one of the killers.

Well said.

Bram erupted after hearing that the absurdly light sentence had been agreed to by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (above). Bragg is one of several big city DA’s elected with the assistance of George Soros contributions (not that there’s anything wrong with that) who stand for leniency in the justice system as a solution to “over-incarceration.”

The solution to “over-incarceration” is for African Americans to commit crimes in rough proportion to their numbers in U.S. society. Minimizing the consequences of committing these crimes will not achieve that end.

Duh. Continue reading →

Well, There Goes My Head! Slavery Was “Involuntary Relocation”…

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should referred to “involuntary relocation” in second grade social studies sessions.

I supposed it’s nice that conservatives are back to mastering the “it isn’t what it is” trick, this one the variation known as “it wasn’t what it was.” Lately it’s the Left’s cover words that have been most in evidence, like “choice” for abortion, and “gun safety,” when what they mean is “gun ownership restrictions.” Then there is “equity, diversity and inclusion” for “racial preferences” and “restorative justice” which really means “letting criminals get away with slaps on the wrist for serious crimes so they can prey on their communities again but at least there won’t be ‘over-incarceration.'”

All of these (and so many more) used by the Left and Right—never forget “enhanced interrogation” “rendition,” and “detainees” (you know: prisoners without trials forever)— are base deceit designed to deceive—-in other words, lies.

Lying to kids, however, is especially despicable. Slavery was not “involuntary relocation” any more than it was “free room and board” or “Community singing.” Those “educators”( a working group of nine, including a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) have revealed their absolute lack of fitness for their jobs, for mis-education is the opposite of education. They should apply to be White House press secretaries. Or New York Times op-ed writers. Fire them. Parents? Are you paying attention?

“The board — with unanimous consent — directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement. Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat, said that the proposed wording is not a “fair representation” of the slave trade.

Ya think?

Does this look like “relocation” to you?

__________________

Pointer: Curmie

New Improved Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The “new improved” trope was an amusing Madison Ave. tradition when I was a kid. I always wondered if it worked: I suppose it worked on idiots. I remember an “Ice Blue Secret” TV commercial in which “Katy Winters,” the fictional women’s deodorant shill stunned her friends by saying, “Yes, it’s true: I’m through with Ice Blue Secret!” as she tossed a jar of the stuff into a waste basket. After the staged gasps, she then whipped out a newly designed jar and said, “I’ve switched to new improved Ice Blue Secret!”

When Richard Nixon had his big political comeback in 1967 as prelude to winning the Presidency in 1968, wags called him the “new improved Nixon.”

But I digress.

Let’s see if the New Improved Open Forum lives up to its name….

Comment Of The Day (on) “Comment Of The Day: ‘Sunday Morning Ethics Warm-Up… Dobbs Freakout Edition”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Mrs. Q has gifted Ethics Alarms with another trenchant post. I almost framed it in her currently dormant (but still open!) column for Ethics Alarms, but I know Q is a perfectionist, and even though the comments she dashes off put most of us to shame, she would want a column entry to be carefully massaged.

Here is Mrs. Q’s Comment of the Day, in response to this post, and the Roe demise generally:

***

“We seek power and equality in society, and then we continually play the victim”.

Agreed. I saw a meme the other day (yes memes are reductionist) that captured a part of this whole debacle. It said something about being able to wear a mask for two years but not being able to wear a condom for 48 seconds. Continue reading →

“The Cassidy Hutchinson Fiasco”…Addendum

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Lest I be accused of minimizing the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony before the House January 6 Star Chamber this week, I direct EA readers to to this National Review article by the usually fair and perceptive Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor. He calls the testimony “devastating” and inveighs, “Things will not be the same after this.“

I don’t know what he thinks isn’t going to be the same; maybe you can enlighten me. Are there really people out there who will be surprised that Trump threw tantrums, objects and ketchup bottles, or that when he was angry and excited, he was irrational? Does McCarthy really not know that many Presidents, in private, with staff, in meetings, and similarly dealing with the most stressful jobs imaginable, have behaved outrageously, except that in their case did not have dozens of leakers, disloyal aides and other staff and others determined to undermine them as well as an almost unanimously hostile press to publicize rumors, gossip, suspicions and facts indiscriminately? Really? Presidents, as a group, are not normal or emotionally healthy: if they were, they wouldn’t have sought the Presidency or achieved it. Is Trump worse than most, or even all in this regard? Maybe, probably; why do you think Ethics Alarms kept repeating for over a year that he must never be elected? Does McCarthy not know the history of the Type A CEO personality in this country? About Henry Ford employing a guy whose sole job was to chop the desks of fired Ford Executive into kindling so they would know they had been fired? Nevertheless, the fact that Trump acted and talked like anyone paying attention knew he would act and talk doesn’t mean he committed crimes.

Furthermore, once again we are getting “Trump wanted to do X” and “Trump said Y” while his staff and the Secret Service obstructed him when his stated desires were extreme, rash, an abuse of power, or just plain nuts. The staff did their jobs, in other words, just like dozens of Presidential staffs have done in other administrations. I’m impressed, in fact: Trump, thanks to the most competent old hands in the Washington swamp being bullied away or scared off for fear of becoming pariahs and not getting invited to swank Capital Hill wine parties, had a distinctly sub-par batch of advisors. They came through when they had to. Good for them. They were far from the first to stop a POTUS from doing stupid or reckless things.

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