Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/23/22: Those Were The Days…

On this date in 1775, Patrick Henry, during a speech before the second Virginia Convention, made what is perhaps the most definitive statement of ethical values in U.S. history: “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Those were the days. How many Americans would stand with Henry today? A recent poll found that the number was less than 60%, and that, incredibly, a majority of those who identify with one of our national parties would not choose to fight for their rights.

Moving on…I had to ban another Ethics Alarms commenter yesterday. These episodes follow a pattern, with smugness yielding to snark, then insults to other commenters, and finally to attacks on my good faith and alleged fealty to “Fox News.” In this case I offered a week’s suspension, with the caveat that a violation would produce a permanent ban. The response was another insult. I am determined to so what I can to combat the perception of an “echo chamber” here, but if the only remedy is allowing obnoxious and non substantive trolling, “I say it’s spinach, and I say to hell with it!”

Little known fact: Patrick Henry said that, too.

1. Slightly related: for some reason, a comment thread raised the question of whether supporting any or all of Putin’s rationalizations for invading Ukraine was more evidence of Republican Party evil. I don’t comprehend why any conservatives or Republicans are bothering to make the argument that Ukraine is not as pure as the driven snow—in short, so what? International law applies; the Golden Rule applies. Ethics applies.

Ukraine took no adverse action against Russia to justify an attack. Russia is in the wrong and Ukraine is blameless, and it doesn’t matter if Ukraine is as corrupt as the Corleones, or as squeaky clean as Utopia. However, it is legitimate to make the point that the sanctification of Zelinski and his nation as a reaction to Putin and Russia is an exercise in whitewashing.

However, it appears that the latest GOP-smearing operation involves accusing the party of spreading Putin/Russia disinformation and propaganda. Enter the New York Times, which prodded Candace Evans, the black, female GOP gadfly, thusly:

Candace is not one to be trifled with: no weenie she. Her response:

Here is one of those Times pieces. It is especially delicious that it is a Editorial Board proclamation. I know it’s six years old, but there is no reason to believe that the nation has suddenly reformed. Excerpts: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month (And Maybe The Year): Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

“As long as they’re dangerous, I hope they all die in jail if they’re going to go back and kill Americans. It won’t bother me one bit if 39 of them die in prison. That’s a better outcome than letting them go. And if it costs $500 million to keep them in jail, keep them in jail. Because they’re going to go back to the fight. Look at the fricken Afghan government that’s made up of former detainees at Gitmo. This whole thing by the left about this war ain’t working.”

Senator Lindsey Graham in a meltdown at the confirmation hearing for SCOTUS nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, before walking out in a tizzy.

Hmmm. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that high ranking elected officials from both political parties appear to have little regard for core Constitutional principles? I’m going out on a limb here by stating that it’s a bad thing.

In fact, it is terrible.

Graham, an alleged conservative, proudly went on record as supporting “pre-crime” punitive measures (Watch “Minority Report” for a fair assessment of how that works) along with a pure “ends justifies the means” endorsement, spiced up by some “if it saves just one life” false logic. Continue reading →

Is It Fair To Say Kamala Harris “May Be The Dumbest Person Ever Elected Vice President In American History”?

[ Forgive me for using the above clip in the jokey context in which it was presented: It was the best I could find on YouTube, meaning that I could embed it easily. ]

During remarks she made in Sunset, Louisiana this week on a stop to highlight the value of bringing high-speed broadband internet to communities, Harris got herself stuck on the phrase “the importance of the passage of time” in between her usual inappropriate giggles. Then, today, yet another Harris staffer fled the coop, moving former Speaker Newt Gingrich to say,

“You know, he [Biden] may or may not have cognitive decline problems at his age, but at her age, she’s just dumb. Let’s be clear, Kamala Harris may be the dumbest person ever elected vice president in American history and that’s why people keep resigning.If you were her national security advisor, and you were competent, and you’d worked hard, and you knew what you were doing, and you watched her in Poland break up laughing when she’s asked about Ukrainian refugees, you had to feel a sense of total humiliation. So I’m not surprised that that particular advisor resigned because it’s very clear that Kamala Harris should never, ever be allowed to leave the country.”

Is that a fair thing to say?

Continue reading →

Bias Makes You Stupid, And If You Are Already Ignorant To Begin With…Wow: The Gay Dog Saga

I showed this story to Spuds, and now he’s so depressed he won’t go out for his walk.

Fezco, a four or five year old Rottweiler mix, is desperately in search of a home before he is euthanized. The Stanly County Animal Shelter in North Carolina wrote in a Facebook post that the it seeks a new owner for the dog after its owners had surrendered him to the shelter.

He was, they explained, gay. After all, he humped another male dog, not that there’s anything wrong…no, I take that back. Fezco’s previously loving owners were convinced that there is enough wrong with that to justify killing him.

Continue reading →

So Many Unethical Laws Are Being Passed, They Get Shut Down Before We Can Get Properly Outraged By Them: D.C.’s Sinister “Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020”

At least that was my initial reaction to the news that in the District of Columbia, Federal Judge Trevor McFadden temporarily halted the Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020, which I had never heard of before. The law would have allowed children as young as 11 years old to get vaccinated without the knowledge of their parents if a provider deemed them capable of informed consent. 

What?

Continue reading →

Ethics Irritations And Escalations, 3/21/2022: This Stuff Isn’t Helping Me Feel Better…

This is a banner date in the Civil Rights movement, when. on 1965, 3,200 civil rights demonstrators led by Martin Luther King Jr. began a historic march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama’s capital. Federalized Alabama National Guardsmen and FBI agents accompanied them on the march. Alabama’s pugnacious governor, George Wallace, opposed civil rights for blacks, bolstering local authorities in Selma in their efforts to foil  the Dallas County Voters League and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as the worked to register local blacks to vote.

On March 7, 600 demonstrators, led by SCLC leader Hosea Williams and SNCC leader John Lewis, began the 54-mile march to the state capital, where they were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips. The incident was seen on national television and helped to catalyze sympathy for the civil rights movement. Rev. King, who was in Atlanta at the time, promised to return to Selma  and lead another attempt. After another failed attempt, U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National Guardsmen finally escorted the marchers safely into Montgomery on March 25, where on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol, King addressed a crowd of 25,000 and the nation on live TV.

1. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! In its effort to ally itself with trans activists and women’s swimming cheativists, NBC altered its photo of a victorious Lia Thomas (on the left) to the more feminine version on the right.

And yet there are still people who insist that the news media is trustworthy on national news and affairs. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Senior Judge Laurence Silberman

“The latest events at Yale Law School in which students attempted to shout down speakers participating in a panel discussion on free speech prompts me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified for potential clerkships.”

—Judge Silberman in a letter to his fellow judges, in reference to the disruption of a March 10 panel at Yale Law School that was intended as a debate over civil liberties  hosted by the Yale Federalist Society. About a hundred students attempted to prevent the panel and Federalist Society members in attendance from speaking.

Well, you know: Yale. Equally disturbing, perhaps, was that Ellen Cosgrove, the law school’s associate dean, attended the panel, was present the entire time, and did nothing to restrain the protesters nor remind them of their ethical duties.

The school has a policy that specifically condemns such speech-chilling conduct, but more than 10 days after the event, no consequences appear to be forthcoming for the privileged and arrogant thugs who are going to be entrusted with the task of protecting future attacks on Constitutional liberties.

In an editorial endorsing the judge’s suggestion, the Wall Street Journal wrote in part,

Some readers may think these students should be forgiven the excesses of youth. But these are adults, not college sophomores. They are law students who will soon be responsible for protecting the rule of law. The right to free speech is a bedrock principle of the U.S. Constitution. If these students are so blinkered by ideology that they can’t tolerate a debate over civil liberties on campus, the future of the American legal system is in jeopardy.

Continue reading →

Bias Makes You Stupid, And Only Bias Can Explain Why A Prosecutor Would Argue That It Is Unethical To Ask a Juror About His Biases

Perhaps you have heard that a juror who joined in the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s henchwoman when he was luring young women into his sex-trafficking hobby had thrown her trial into limbo after admitting that he made a teeny, weenie, innocent “mistake” during the crucial jury selection process. The man identified as “Juror 50” told a federal judge in Manhattan that he had read too quickly through a pretrial screening questionnaire that asked potential jurors whether they had ever been sexually abused. This would seem to be a rather important question for jurors about to fairly judge, bias-free, a woman accused of helping to turn young women into virtual sex slaves for a sick billionaire and his pals, wouldn’t you think? Juror 50—his friends call him “Fif”—-checked a box indicating “no.” Here he is in a high profile trial in which justice for dozens of Epstein’s young victims as well as the freedom of the defendant is at stake, and the guy picks this as a good time to start practicing his speed-reading.

“This was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made in my life,” Fifty told Judge Alison Nathan, during an hour-long hearing. “I didn’t lie in order to get on this jury.” That’s funny: it sure looks like he did. Thanks to 50’s ridiculous breach of responsibility, duty and competence, Maxwell, who was convicted on December 29 last year of sex-trafficking more, might walk free despite helping Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls for at least a decade. In deliberations.

Juror 50 revealed that during deliberations he told other jurors that he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse himself, and after the trial told the news media that he had helped other jurors understand things “from a victim’s point of view.” Now he claims that he made “an honest mistake.” It may have been honest, but it was neither ethical nor excusable. He’s tap-dancing as fast as he can because he falsely signed a document made under oath, and faces fines and imprisonment.

He should get both, just as Epstein’s co-monster deserves a new trial that doesn’t include a hidden sexual abuse activist on the jury.

Continue reading →

The New York Times Scandal Regarding The Mainstream Media’s Cover-Up Of The Hunter Biden Laptop Story Is Bigger Than The Laptop Story Itself

And, dammit, I don’t have the energy or clarity of mind to cover it properly right now.

I hate using clips and cuts from other sources to examine ethics stories, though it is a common technique around the web, perhaps the most common technique. I can do better, but as I have noted here several times of late, I’m shot full of pain-killers and antibiotics, and have approximately the mental acuity of Joe Biden along with the energy deficits of the United States, so I’m reduced to something less than my preferred methodology. Still, attention must be paid. As recently as last week, several counter-“echo chamber warriors were still making the absurd claim that the New York Times was not the outrageously biased Democratic Party propaganda organ it so clearly is, an assertion that literally requires that one stick fingers in both ears and hum like mic having a feedback crisis.

On March 17, the New York Times admitted that the Hunter Biden laptop report was accurate and genuine, more than a year after it allowed the Biden disinformation machine to falsely claim it was all “Russian disinformation.” This prompted a rare (but delicious editorial by the New York Post, which broke the story on October 14, 2020, while the 2020 Presidential election was up for grabs and got itself banned from social media for printing the truth. The Post’s victory lap said in part,

Forgive the profanity, but you have got to be s–tting us.

First, the New York Times decides more than a year later that Hunter Biden’s business woes are worthy of a story. Then, deep in the piece, in passing, it notes that Hunter’s laptop is legitimate.

“People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity,” the Times writes. “Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.”

Authenticated!!! You don’t say. You mean, when a newspaper actually does reporting on a topic and doesn’t just try to whitewash coverage for Joe Biden, it discovers it’s actually true?

But wait, it doesn’t end there. In October 2020, the Times cast doubt that there was a meeting between Joe Biden and an official from Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company for which Hunter was a board member.  “A Biden campaign spokesman said Mr. Biden’s official schedules did not show a meeting between the two men,” the Times wrote, acting as a perfect stenographer. Yet in the latest report, published Wednesday night, the Times said the meeting likely did happen. Biden had attended the dinner in question. Funny how this works when you don’t just take someone’s word for it.

In the heat of the presidential race of 2020, the Times never missed a chance to cast doubt on the laptop, saying the information was “purported” and quoting a letter from former Democratic officials who claimed — with no evidence — that it was Russian disinformation. As recently as September 2021, the Times called the laptop “unsubstantiated” in a news story.

Why was it unsubstantiated? Because of willful ignorance and the Times’ curious lack of curiosity. Hunter’s business partner Tony Bobulinski came forward immediately after The Post’s reports and confirmed that the emails bearing his name were legitimate. The Bidens didn’t even deny it was true! They just deflected, with the media’s help, saying it was a dirty trick or not a story. Mostly, the press just ignored it.Now we’re 16 months away from the 2020 election, Joe Biden’s safely in the White House, and the Times finally decides to report on the news rather than carry the Biden campaign’s water. And they find that hey, Hunter Biden’s business interests benefited from Joe Biden’s political status to a suspicious degree. Perhaps this is a topic worthy of examination.

How did the Times “authenticate” the laptop? It doesn’t say. Unlike The Post’s reporting, which detailed exactly how we got the files and where they came from, the Times does a hand wave to anonymous sources. No facts have changed since fall 2020. They knew the laptop was real from the start. They just didn’t want to say so….

Twitter banned us for supposedly publishing “hacked materials” that weren’t hacked. The company’s CEO apologized, but by that point, they had accomplished what they wanted. Like the Times, they cast enough doubt to avoid making their preferred candidate look bad.

Readers of the Times have discovered in March 2022 that Hunter Biden pursued business deals in Europe and Asia, and may have leveraged his father’s position as vice president to do it. Hunter also may not have properly registered with the government or declared all his income. All legitimate topics of discussion about a presidential candidate’s family, no?

The NY Post’s obvious bitterness should be matched by that of fair, civically competent, objective citizens who don’t like the idea of elections being stolen and the public having the metaphorical wool pulled over its eyes. Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Reformation, 3/20/22: The Brits Still Don’t Get That Freedom Of Thought Thingy…

Almost a lost week, but not quite. Starting today, I’m just going to “bugger on” in Churchill’s phrase; falling behind in all of these ethics issues and developments and debates has me feeling worse than my the effects of the various drugs and maladies I’ve been coping with the past 10 days or so.

I owe much gratitude to those of you who have been sending along encouragement, good wishes and suggested topics. Thanks.

1. I don’t understand this at all, but I know it’s ominous…

Sent to EA’s attention by a puzzled Curmie, esteemed blogger and Ethics Alarms commenter, the job announcement above tells potential applicants that The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA seeks to hire an Assistant Adjunct Professor on a “without salary basis.” While guaranteeing consideration for employment “without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or protected veteran status,” the announcement does make it clear that viewpoint discrimination will be applied, as all applicants must include

a “Statement on Contributions to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion – An EDI Statement describes a faculty candidate’s past, present, and future (planned) contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion. To learn more about how UCLA thinks about contributions to equity, diversity, and inclusion, please review our Sample Guidance for Candidates and related EDI Statement FAQ document.

This is for an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry, remember. Clearly diversity of viewpoints is not encouraged at UCLA; it is being actively discouraged.

2. Now THAT is an unethical protest. The Ethics Alarms Protest Ethics Checklist would score this silly ass’s conduct protesting for more and better anti-climate change mitigation as a worthless failure. Louis McKechnie, a mechanical engineering student, ran out onto the field during a soccer game between Newcastle United F.C. and Everton F.C. last week and tied himself to a goalusing a zip-tie. This brave and pointless act halted the game for all of eight minutes, after which he was hauled off by police and arrested.

Grandstanding is not protesting. Now, if the game of soccer was an existential threat to human survival, the eight minutes might have arguably meant something more than “I am a moron.”

Continue reading →