You know, I hate to resort to mockery, sarcasm and “I told you so” on an ethics blog, but sometimes nothing else will do. Snopes fooled me for a while: in 2010, I described the fact-checking site as doing “a superb job tracking down and clarifying web hoaxes, rumors and other misinformation.”As late as early 2016 I was relying on Scopes, and then it began to dawn on me that, like most factchecking sites (Factcheck.com is better than the rest), Snopes miraculously only saw false stories when they either impugned conservatives, or were non-political, like the three-breasted woman. 2016 saw Snopes joining the mainstream news media in shilling for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, and the jig was up. After tracing many examples Snopes partisanship, I kissed the site off with this post, marking it as an Unethical Website Of The Month (July, 2016).
I wonder if I should contact all the furious commenters defending Snopes on that post and ask them their thoughts on today’s revelations.
A BuzzFeed News investigation found that David Mikkelson, the site’s co-founder and chief executive, authored and published dozens of articles plagiarized from other news outlets. His objective, we are told, was ” to scoop up web traffic.” Gee, you mean pandering to progressives and Democrats, doing regular hit-jobs on Republicans and issuing biased and dishonest “factchecks” with clickbait titles wasn’t enough? Fascinating.
A shocking story in the New York Times has the legal ethics world buzzing. I just added the issues to an ethics seminar I’m preparing for this month; I wrote a song parody about it, in fact. For some reason, a Times reporter finally found out about a self-published memoir by criminal defense lawyer Peter De Blasio that came out about a year ago. The book, “Let Justice Be Done,” reveals among its other tales of his legal career the truth of his most famous case, and one of his most successful. DeBlasio had convinced a jury to acquit his client, Dominic Byrne, of kidnapping in the sensational Samuel Bronfman Jr. abduction case in 1975, though the evidence pointing to his guilt was overwhelming.
What made DeBlasio’s defense strategy work was the testimony of the mastermind of the kidnapping plot, a spectacularly talented liar named Mel Patrick Lynch. He took the stand and claimed that the 21 year-old Seagrams heir had planned his own kidnapping, and that he, Lynch, was the young man’s gay lover. Lynch was unshakable under cross examination even though his elaborate story made no sense. Realizing that the jury was buying the tale, and that the prosecution was unprepared to discredit it, DeBlasio exploited the story to persuade the jurors that the dimwitted Byrne was innocent of kidnapping, though he would be convicted of extortion. In the end, both Byrne and Lynch served less than four years in prison.
1. I left “Bite me!” unsaid, but I admit, I thought it. Picking up a prescription at the pharmacy, a woman about my age wearing a big enough mask for three heads shielded her face with her hand as I passed her on the way to the counter. It really pissed me off, and after two steps, I wheeled around, raised my hands, wiggled my fingers, and wailed at her in my best Biblical leper imitation, “Unclean! Unclean!” Several customers laughed. I’m not putting up with that crap…
2. Related to this post and the one that spawned it: Broadway star Laura Osnes—never heard of her!—was fired from the cast of a one-night production of “Crazy For You” in the Hamptons. The theater required all staff and cast to be vaccinated, and Osnes refused. The two-time Tony nominee revealed that she hadn’t been vaccinated and won’t be, because she doesn’t trust the vaccine.
If you need another bit of evidence about how social media wastes our time—and why would you?—consider the uproar over the search for a replacement for Alex Trebek. The original “Jeopardy!” host, Art Fleming, was popular too, and he hung around for 11 years. That was sufficiently long to be briefly legendary; the “Jeopardy!” announcer, Don Pardo, was familiar enough that Saturday Night Live! used him and his unique voice as a running joke for decades. But when Fleming retired, there was no controversy over his replacement, because, seriously, who cares who reads the questions and answers in a quiz show, unless they have a speech impediment or sexually harass the contestants, like Richard Dawson on “Family Feud”? But in the Age of The Great Stupid, everything is a big deal.
After months of celebrity tryouts, kind of like Presidential primary debates, “Jeopardy!” has finally chosen two replacements for the late Alex Trebek. The actress formerly known as “Blossom” and later as Sheldon’s girlfriend on “Big Bang Theory,” Mayim Bialik, will host the prime time version and its spinoffs. Can’t wait for those spin-offs! Bialik is legitimately smart and knowledgeable, and not just compared to other performers: she has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. She also, like most successful TV actors, projects a likable personality. And, of course, she’s a woman. I assumed a black host would be found, but Steve Harvey’s already taken.
The kerfuffle is over Trebek’s replacement for the main, daily syndicated edition, which has been around since 1984. The show’s current executive producer, Mike Richards got the job. Richards was not one of the more popular auditioners, but he had one thing the rest didn’t have: the power to choose who got hired. He thought, and thought, and chose…himself! This suggests that the process was rigged.
During a closed meeting on this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland met with 35 state supreme court chief justicesto urge their cooperation on limiting evictions. Garland praised the Michigan Supreme Court for giving tenants more time to apply for rental assistance by directing courts to stay eviction proceedings for up to 45 days. The AG also saluted the Texas Supreme Court for helping tenants facing lawsuits by sending them notices with assistance options.
The 35 justices should not have accepted Garland’s invitation (or was it a command?) Those who did accept should have ostentatiously walked out as soon as his purpose became clear. To call the meeting inappropriate is itself inappropriate: this was a straight up violation of the separation of powers, and a breach of professional ethics for everyone involved. Garland works for the President: he’s part of the executive branch. He’s also a litigant or a potential one in the matter he was discussing. The is an ex parte communication, as he well knows.
For the White House’s agents to strong-arm, or attempt to, members of the judiciary to allow the President’s party to pursue an unconstitutional policy is one more step to undo the structure of American democracy. This is a pure IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”). Creeping autocracy! Democrats and their puppet media would scream. Defying democratic traditions and weakening institutions! Except, you see, Donald Trump never did anything like this, and if he did, I assume all those good Democrats and progressives among the justices would have used the opportunity to call for impeachment, and the Republican chief justices, having respect for the Constitution, would refuse to attend.
1. Related to my comment yesterday (I expected to get flack, but it never arrived) about how female commenters on Ethics Alarms tend to raise objections to the occasional pitched battles and harsh argument styles here, while the male participants largely take it in stride: I just saw an old interview with famed film director John Huston, in which he said, “One of the best ways to become friends with a man is to fight him.”
I don’t think a woman’s ever said that…or thought it. To be fair, neither have I.
2. Speaking of things women don’t do: Taunting, mocking, gloating and generally being what used to known as a bad winner is obnoxious, mean, bad sportsmanship (or course), a Golden Rule violation and wrong. Fans think its entertaining, however, so the various pro sports leagues tend to permit such antics. Football has, as with most matters, encouraged the most unethical conduct of the sort, but now the NFL’s officials have decided that on-field taunting is “out of hand.”
The new NFL rule: You can be an asshole, just not too much of an asshole. The league told officials to strictly enforce taunting rules, with automatic ejections of players who get two taunting penalties in a game. The player may also be fined or suspended, or both, depending on the severity of his transgression.
The renewed effort to enforce taunting rules will target “baiting or taunting acts or words” and “abusive, threatening or insulting language or gestures” toward players, coaches and game officials, as defined by the N.F.L.’s unsportsmanlike conduct rules.
I owe Ann Althouse for finding this; I never would have, especially since I’m disgusted with YouTube.
Above is a montage of all of the TV series offered to the public by ABC in the Fall of 1961. It’s worth noting that in 1961 the Fifties culture was still going strong, though JFK had replaced Ike as President. What we think of as the cultural Sixties didn’t really start until after Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963. Also worth noting: ABC was the perennial least watched network on 1961. That meant they took the most risks, but ’61 was not a good year for ABC.
What can we learn from the montage? Culture is ethics and ethics is culture; this is a snapshot that shows what a large percentage of Americans watched at night, and what contributed to their worldview. It is fair to say, I think, that nothing in popular culture today influences an many people as even ABC’s prime time schedule did. The snap shot reveals where the nation has progressed, and what it has lost. In 60 years, there is a lot to consider.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), the U.S. Senate’s most passionate libertarian, was suspended from YouTube for expressing his strong opposition to Wuhan virus mandates and calling for widespread citizen resistance. This is res ipsa loquitur: Big Tech is using its corporate power to support government policies and prevent dissent. The argument that YouTube (that is, Google) is a private entity and not bound by the First Amendment is disingenuous, just as similar arguments defending Facebook, Twitter and other social media banning President Trump as well as posts that offer opinions and positions they don’t want the public to see. When corporations use their massive power and influence to suppress speech and control the flow of information, they pose an existential threat to democracy. When they exercise this power to advance the political agenda of a specific group, individual or party, that threat is worse. When they are censoring and distorting on behalf of the government, the threat is dire.
Paul released a rebuttal and condemnation of YouTube’s indefensible action, and it was also taken down by Our Video Masters. You can view it here, on Rumble. If I could embed it, I would.
Let me turn the floor over to Professor Turley, not as an appeal to authority, but because there is no reason for me to write in different words what he has said persuasively already:
Here’s the third of a run of three impressive Comments of the Day from two days ago: a dissenting take on the pandemic-linked Oregon law allowing students to receive a high school diploma despite not possessing documented proof of basic academic skills at the high school level. Since the author, the much esteemed Curmie, is a professional educator (and not in Oregon) his analysis carries due weight, and is worth pondering.
I’ll stipulate that the argumentation is stupid. That said, the actual change in policy is at the very least far less laughable than you suggest; indeed, I’d argue it’s a net positive.
What has actually happened is that Oregon has decided not to put all its faith in a standardized test run by a for-profit corporation. I don’t think that’s a bad call. Even the most professionally run of these exams have histories of major problems. Numerous math questions aren’t age-appropriate. (The people who write the exams aren’t educators–they’re often education majors who couldn’t get a job as a teacher.) There was a case few years ago where a reading comprehension problem was leaked, and a poet got two out of five questions “wrong” about his own work!
But the writing sections are the worst. Even the testing companies aren’t brash enough to argue that computers can score writing (although some are experimenting with the idea). So they hire graders. These jobs generally pay less than $12 an hour and require only a college degree… in anything! For that kind of money, you’re not going to get someone who can tell the difference between a sonnet and a laundry list.
So the company makes it easy for them: there’s a formula. Five paragraphs. First one says what you’re going to say. Next three, you say it (actually saying anything is more or less optional). Last paragraph: say what you just said. Follow this, without any enormous grammatical errors, and you’ll be fine. But woe betide the student who writes a coherent and persuasive essay… but wraps it up in four paragraphs. (The sonnet/laundry list line is an exaggeration; the five paragraphs or you fail part is not.)
The serious decline in writing skills I see in today’s students relative to their peers of even two decades ago (in the same courses at the same university) has occurred not despite the Great God Accountability (worshiped by both political parties, albeit in different ways), but because of it. I’ve seldom had students question their grades on essays, but when they do, I almost always have to control my urge to scream at them, “you got a bad grade because you didn’t freaking say anything.” But… but… it was five paragraphs, and…
