Ethics Jump Ball…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

A Facebook friend posted the above dishonest, fallacy and false-fact riddled meme as if it was discovered truth. I broke my recent rule of not responding to such garbage by saying, as nicely as I could, “You know, re-posting illogical appeals to emotion like this doesn’t help.” I almost wrote, “I know you’re smarter than this. Why did you post it?” I then listed a few of the logical and factual disconnects in the screed, but didn’t have the energy to be thorough.

I’m hoping one of you does. I think I count 14 factual and logical fallacies, but there may be more. This is how social media makes the public dumber and makes productive discourse impossible.

Another challenge: which is the most ludicrous of those statements? My vote, I think, goes to “If people being executed in the street is fine, it was never about pro-life.” It’s hard to make dumber statement than that.

Most Inexcusably Incoherent Statement In A Report: The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The sentence:

“The correct ask in this report is not the ask of an institution being condemned. It is the ask of an institution being held to its own standard by people who still believe it can meet it.”

That authentic frontier gibberish—I’m still not sure what it means, and I’ve read it a dozen times—is in “A Narrowing Gate, Jewish Enrollment at Harvard and its Peers | 1967-2025,” a report by the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance. The report found that that Jewish undergraduate enrollment at Harvard University has dropped to about 7% in 2025, its lowest level since before World War II and the lowest among Ivy League schools with reliable data.

I was going to write about the report itself, but if Jewish alumni of Harvard end up writing like that, maybe its a good thing not as many Jewish students are attending Harvard.

This is the Executive Summary. The report seems to be implying that anti-Semitism at Harvard has to be the reason for the unexplained drop, because none of the other possible factors it identifies explain it. Apparently Jewish applications to the school haven’t fallen off sufficiently to cause a 50% reduction, though I don’t know why. On national television Harvard’s then-president Claudine Gay told a Congressional committee that she considered anti-Jewish demonstrations in Harvard Yard to be acceptable free speech, and was unable to articulate a basic truth, which is that anti-Semitic demonstrations on a college campus constitute unethical and intolerable conduct that creates a hostile environment for Jewish students. Gay’s eventually firing for scholarly misconduct (not mealy-mouthed acceptance of campus enmity toward a minority) could not have provided aspiring Jewish applicants much confidence.

We also learn from the report that Jewish alumni had to gather the data for the report because Harvard no longer compiles data on Jewish students.

All of that is interesting, but when I read that statement, I lost interest in examining the report further, and lost any confidence in the people who prepared it. Maybe it’s a hangover from listening to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for four years and Donald Trump for a decade, but if someone can’t communicate clearly, I can’t have confidence that they are thinking clearly either.

The Women’s History Museum Mess

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Ugh. I won’t call it an ethics train wreck, because this is really another subset of the nation’s victim-mongering/tribal/white male vilification problem as well as the already running “DEI Ethics Train Wreck” and the “Trans Activism Ethics Train Wreck.”

Of course we have to have a Women’s History Museum. There are four historically “marginalized” groups, and women are the largest and longest suffering of them all. D.C. already has huge museum dedicated to African Americans, and there is a Smithsonian museum called the National Museum of the American Indian. Women have every right to feel snubbed in the current obsession with group identification. You know an LGBTQ+ museum on the Mall will be next: how could it not be?

Conservatives who argue, as one did in the comments to a recent online item about the museum, “[The museum] continues to foment the balkanization of America. The accomplishments of women are just that: accomplishments. Their fruits are enjoyed by all, not just by those of the gender/race/religion, etc of the person who made the accomplishment” are trying to lock the barn door after the horse has escaped and won the Kentucky Derby. This is “National Women’s Month.” The Democrats had a national convention celebrating “The Year of the Woman” (with Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker, but never mind…). Half of the arguments for voting for Hillary and Kamala was their lady-parts. We’re stuck with U.S. women seeing themselves as a special, separate, aggrieved and superior group for the foreseeable future, probably forever.

But there is a problem: the party that at least pretends to be the “party of women” can’t figure out what a woman is. This week House Democrats blocked legislation to establish the “Women’s History Museum” because of an amendment attached by Republicans stating, “The Museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States.”

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California Apparently Doesn’t Believe in Following the Constitution

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is unethical. I wonder how the state got that way, and if anything can be done about it?

ITEM: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pointed out to the state that its obviously First Amendment-violating ban on firearms advertising was illegal, and now California must pay more than $1.3 million in legal fees to the plaintiffs. The law was virtue-signalling to California’s gun-phobics; I doubt any honest Constitutional law expert anywhere thought it could pass judicial scrutiny.

Assembly Bill 2571 (AB 2571) prohibited “firearms industry members” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) from advertising, marketing or promoting any firearms or “firearms-related products,” in a manner that is “designed, intended, or reasonably appears to be attractive to minors.” Wow, how about that statutory drafting?

Safari Club International and the other plaintiffs filed suit arguing that the statute violated the First Amendment by restricting commercial speech. They also argued that the law was unconstitutionally vague (Ya think?), a Due Process violation, and that it discriminated against a legal industry and makers of legal products. The rulings agreeing with them are here and here.

ITEM: Voters in California, according to a poll conducted by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research, support a proposed “wealth tax” on billionaires with 50% of California voters in favor of the measure and only 28% objecting to it. The concept comes from the Marxist brain of Bernie Sanders, who insists that people who resent other American having more money than they do should be able to just take it.

This scheme probably violates state and federal laws as well as the Constitution. The 5th and 14th Amendments block uncompensated “takings.” California’s 0.4% cap on personal property tax would seem to be a problem. The law also looks like an illegal bill of attainder, targeting specific individuals.

The California Communists who are pushing this bill seem to believe that the state’s billionaires will just be good little proles and hand the cash over. Gavin Newsom, who has no discernible principles, thinks the proposed law will make him look bad when he runs for President, so he says he’s against it.

Maybe all the billionaires, millionaires, entrepreneurs, companies and American citizens will abandon the Golden State to the illegal immigrants, shop-lifters, assorted criminals and censors, leaving California to emulate the dystopian Manhattan of John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York.” Surely there must be a less draconian remedy, but I have no idea what it is.

“Going Out Like A Lamb” Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

It was time for EA to do its annual March posting of my favorite Saturday Night Live performance. Hearkening back to this week’s contentious debate about the ethics of wasting one’s life, which began here, I give you John Belushi. I’m still furious with the troubled comic for robbing the world of all the laughter and entertainment his gifts would have provided had he managed to survive his 30s.

In case you’re interested, my March came in like a Woolly Rhinoceros and is going out like a sea slug.

And on the topic of comedians, how did you like President Trump joking about Pearl Harbor to the Japanese Prime Minister? If you are minimally culturally literate, this classic comic performance should have come to mind…

But I digress. Please proceed to the ethics aisle…and you can certainly talk about the war.

From the EA Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yeah, I think the ethical values of this popular reality show star are…wanting. I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that.

Taylor Frankie Paul, the TV reality star who had been tapped by…Disney! You know, that paragon of virtues that parents want their children to be inspired by?— to lead the new season of “The Bachelorette” slated to premiere this weekend, was featured in a viral video sent to social media showing her attacking the father of one of her children. She is facing a domestic violence investigation; Paul had previously pleaded guilty to aggravated assault years ago.

Annette Funicello she isn’t.

Disney made the decision to pull the premiere. Good call.

It amazes me that popular culture has reached such depths that a women capable of behaving like this could be a star of a television show, even one as stupefyingly cretinous as “The Bachelorette.”

In 1958, Edward R. Murrow gave an eloquent and angry speech about how the TV networks were failing the American public, society and the culture, and how a great opportunity was being squandered. Near the end, Murrow said,

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.”

The hilarious part, and also the tragic part, is that the television fare that Murrow was deriding in 1958 looks like “King Lear” compared to the “Three Stooges” level of culture being offered today, and the 1958 schedule was loaded with crap like insipid panel shows, too many Westerns and lame sitcoms with names like “Love That Jill.” (Disney also offered a series called “Annette.”) TV news, naturally the main focus of Murrow’s aspirations and lament, today has sunk to the Disney sponsored muck of “The View.”

NASCAR Goes Full Woke On Daniel Dye

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

NASCAR announced this week that Truck Series driver Daniel Dye has been suspended indefinitely in response to “homophobic comments” made by Dye on that cretinous live stream above. Dye has also been suspended by his team, Ram Trucks factory partner Kaulig Racing.

Both suspensions are wildly excessive reactions to dumb banter that was not “homophobic” but rather simple, juvenile foolishness. Race car drivers tend not to be deft wits. “He plays for the the team” is at worst Seinfeld-speak for “he’s gay,” and if there’s nothing wrong with being gay, then saying someone is gay isn’t homophobic. As for Dye’s pathetic attempt at a “gay voice,” his version isn’t within a mile of a gay voice, and I know gay voices.

When someone has affected an ostentatiously stereotypically gay manner of communicating, they should be no more immune from impressions or parody than Jack Nicholson (whom Tom Cruise imitates in “A Few Good Men”), James Cagney (Frank Gorshin’s specialty) John Wayne or Johnny Carson (both mastered by Rich Little). For that matter, those political correctness warriors who are offended by various riffs on foreign accents, the realm of Sasha Baron Cohen and Danny Kaye, among others, can bite me.

I have no clue how David Malukas really sounds, but if you want to know what a “gay voice” is like, here’s Sirius/XM’s Seth Rudetsky talking the way he does on his various shows, doing his best to make sure no “cis” males come within ten miles of a musical theater production. Seth is a (talented) performer, and he can “butch up” when he chooses, but here is how he normally talks—his insufferable interviewer finally lets him get a word in edgewise about two and half minutes into the video:

Seth makes Nathan Lane in “The Bird Cage” seem like Hulk Hogan.

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I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!…That Mayor Mamdani’s Wife Is A Flaming Anti-Semite!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I have a very good friend, an actor, a lawyer, a Jew and a “useful idiot” for progressives, who recently wrote a passionate and articulate Facebook post about however one felt about Israel, there was no excuse, justification or salvation for people who hated Jews. And I recalled that he had been among my misguided and ethically-crippled Facebook friends who actually celebrated the election of Communist Zohran Mamdani, as had others of my friends as well as Democratic Party Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and this august crew (from Mamdani’s website):

But it’s even worse. With the exception of the disgraced ex-Governor of New York who was running against Mamdani, not a single national Democratic leader would say publicly, “What???? Are you all out of your minds? This guy hates Jews! What has our party become?”

What indeed.

Of course there was plenty of evidence that the Mayor-to-be’s wife was a Jew Hater, but the Axis media went to its usual great lengths to bury that fact like a cat buries its turds in a cat box. Today the Washington Free Beacon did the public a favor with a metaphorical bucket full of ice water to the faces of all of Mamdani’s enablers, deniers and useful idiots. The post is headlined, “Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Celebrated Palestinian Terrorists, Including Plane Hijacker, In Social Media Posts From Early Adulthood…Rama Duwaji also boosted a post that said Tel Aviv ‘Shouldn’t exist in the first place.’” There’s no paywall: read it. Send it to your Trump Deranged friends, and all your blind Facebook friends who thought this Marxian demagogue was so charming and passionate.

Better yet, shake the Free Beacon story in front of their smug, stupid faces like a Jack Russell Terrier shakes a rat—you know I love that image—or even better YET, do this..

Now, they will huminahumina that just because someone marries the love of his life who happens to want Jews wiped from the face of the earth doesn’t mean Mayor Mamdani feels the same way. Right. Heck, we don’t know that Eva Braun was bad, do we? Riiiight. Mayor Mamdani just used St. Paddy’s Day to compare the Irish Republican Army to Palestinians, who want Jews wiped from the face of the earth. This isn’t hard.

As for the Mamdani-chering Jews, like my friend, a smart and compassionate man, who celebrated Mamdani because he opposes Donald Trump, there are no excuses. They should be ashamed of themselves. He should be ashamed of himself. I am ashamed of him. People should turn their backs on these ethically corrupted fools like the jurors in “Twelve Angry Men” turn their backs on Juror 10 (Ed Begley) when he erupts into his final bigoted rant..

The irony? I cast that pro-Mamdani actor-friend in one of my productions of “Twelve Angry Men.”

“A representative for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment,” notes the Free Beacon. Of course not. What would he say?

Cesar Chavez, the Imperfect Icon Dilemma, and the Duty to Founders

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

I feel kind of bad for using Nelson on this story, but my self-restraint failed me, the sooner everyone recognizes Gavin Newsom as the creep he is, the better off everyone will be.

A lot of good people are hurt, disillusioned and confused by the revelations, published by Axis stalwart the New York Times, that United Farm Workers and Mexican-American icon Cesar Chavez raped women and girls. All of the headlines will say “allegedly,” but the evidence is very strong, and you know the Times, which happily covered up not-quite so convincing evidence that Joe Biden sexually assaulted a staffer when he was in the Senate and never fully investigated the darkest accusations against Bill Clinton, would have done the same with the Chavez revelations if they could find the slightest justification. Read the Times story here, on my gift link. I won’t waste time repeating it, as this post will be long enough.

Ethics Issues:

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Wouldn’t It Be Nice If Your Trump-Deranged Friends and Associates Were Capable of Listening To This Analyst With An Open Mind?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

…specially regarding so-called “Islamophobia” and the Iran War?

But they aren’t, are they?

Here is Melanie Phillips on Sky News: