Ethics Heroes: North Carolina Democrats

gop-firebombing

Someone firebombed a Republican Party office in North Carolina over the weekend, and added some graffiti telling “Nazi Republicans” to leave town. Police are investigating; I don’t know why, since Donald Trump, responsible and fair as ever, already announced that the Clinton campaign did it.

trump-tweet-ncInspired by a tweet from University of North Carolina’s School of Information Science’s Zeynep Tufekci, David Weinberger of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Technology launched a campaign on GoFundMe to rebuild the ruined office. He wrote on the fund’s page,
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Half Ethics Hero: Wisconsin Talk Radio Host John Murphy

angry-caller

Longtime Eau Claire, Wisconsin radio talk show John Murphy walked out of of his WAYY studio midway through his morning show this week.

He had just finished telling his listeners that he would not be chased out of the industry he loves but that, “I’m through doing this show as it is.” The sports talk show scheduled to follow Murphy started early to cover for his absence after a commercial break. The frustrated talk show host had been on Eau Claire radio for 34 years, for the past 14 years as a host of the “WAYY Morning Show,” a typical local call-in program where the  callers discussed and debated local, state and national news. Murphy quit, he said, because the discourse this year gradually stopped being civil, and had degenerated into a partisan and ugly exchange of nastiness and hate.

“It started with a lot of Trump and Clinton stuff, but now that same kind of vitriol is starting to permeate our local races and local issues,” Murphy explained.  “After a while, day after day and week after week, that starts to wear on you.”  Murphy said he knows that many of the callers hurling insults “are educated, wonderful people who have become caught up in this hurricane of hate.” He says the frustration had been building up inside him for months, and that he was beginning to engage in some of the same behavior he deplored. Continue reading

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Donald Trump (Of Course!)

“Take a look. You look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so.”

Donald Trump, denying People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff’s claim that he “brought her into a room, shut the door, “and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat.”

This is Trump accuser Cassandra Searles, who, Donald Trump wants us to know, IS the kind of woman he sexually assaults...

This is Trump accuser Cassandra Searles, who, Donald Trump wants us to know, IS the kind of woman he sexually assaults…

This comes as close to being funny as a man running for President who proves his sexism and misogyny even in the act of denying them can be. It is tragic, however.

Trump can’t help himself. He can’t help himself for two reasons. The first reason is that he really does, deep down, believe that women exist on earth for purely the carnal enjoyment of men, particularly wealth and powerful men. This is part of his world view, and he is incapable of changing or learning. When Trump said, in his second pseudo-apology for his recorded 2005 comments, that he had “changed,” implying that he had changed in regard to his enthusiastic endorsement of privileged sexual assault, he was lying, straight up. This comment, which is an ad hominem attack upon and insult to his accuser, proves it, not that the claim wasn’t an obvious lie when he said it in the apology video.

The second reason is that the man literally is incapable of thinking through what he says before he says it. We already knew this, too. He has pitiful self-control, de minimus common sense, and the  judgment of  Ryan Lochte.

In this instance, Trump reminded me of Fredo’s downfall  in “Godfather II,” when mere minutes after he pretends to not know Johnny Ola, Hyman Roth’s henchman (having previously denied to his Godfather brother that he had ever had any contact with him), Fredo loudly contradicts himself by telling the group including his brother that Johnny Ola had recommended the Havana sex club Fredo had brought them to.  Fredo, being an idiot, doesn’t even realize what he has done. Continue reading

Ethics Observations On The Current State Of 2016 Presidential Campaign Before Hurling Myself Out The Window, PART 2

lost-in-the-parking-garage

[When I arrived at this morning’s destination, a law firm in Northern Virginia, I found myself in a huge nightmarish underground parking garage, with inadequate signage, that was beneath four large office buildings. Once I drove beyond my desired elevator looking for an unreserved parking space, I found myself totally lost and disoriented. Everywhere I turned signs indicated that I was beneath the wrong building, and there were no apparent arrows pointing back to where I had come from. I was in there for a half an hour, going in circles.  When I asked for help from other drivers, they just shrugged and said that it was a confusing garage, or that they were lost too. Eventually, I parked the car between two rows, called security to say that I was trapped with my hazard lights on, and needed assistance.Eventually someone arrived  to lead me back to where I wanted to be. I now realize that this is  an excellent metaphor for the plight of the ethical, responsible voter in this train wreck election. The lights keep blinking, but nobody’s coming.]

To continue where I left off in Part I.:

9. The fact that all of the accusations against Trump might be true does not mean that Trump’s counter-accusation that this is a coordinated assault by the Democrats and the Clinton Campaign isn’t also true. The timing is suspicious. Democrats have apparently decided that they can’t win Presidential elections by running fair and transparent campaigns; there have to be sudden revelations of mysterious origins or impetus: Bush’s DWI arrest in 2000, Dan Rather’s faked National Guard letter in 2004, the Romney “47% ” tape in 2012, and now this. Not only are elections no longer decided on the issues and the positions, skills and demonstrated abilities of the candidates, the party that has denied that character matters is the main purveyor of character-based “October surprises.”

10. I have been waiting for the “Hillary Clinton Same-Sex Lover” October surprise from Trump and the Republicans. I’m pretty sure she’s out there. If she doesn’t surface now, it will mean one of these are true:

…The GOP and Trump are  too inept to find her.

…They found her or them, but are afraid of “backlash,’ which makes no sense at all. If you are willing to run Donald Trump for President, backlash is no longer an issue.

…Hillary treats her lovers well, and none are willing to betray her.

….They hate Trump more than they love money or notoriety

…They are afraid for their lives.

I suppose that it is possible that she doesn’t exist, but I  doubt it. This is one of a variety of long-term Washington whispers that are almost always based on fact. No, of course it shouldn’t make a difference at the polls; it would just be one more piece of evidence of what we know already: Hillary is a self-fueled fabrication whose public persona and positions are more lies than fact. However, if you supporter her, you are already at peace with that…..in other words, corrupted. Continue reading

Ethics Observations On The Current State Of 2016 Presidential Campaign Before Hurling Myself Out The Window, PART 1 [ UPDATED ]

jumping-through-a-window

Yesterday marked the official beginning of the Bill Cosby Effect attaching itself to Donald Trump. Apparently (supposedly, allegedly…) spontaneously  spurred by Trump’s incredible-the-moment-he-said-it  statement to Anderson Cooper during Sunday’s debate that he never did any of the things he boasted about to Billy Bush, numerous women suddenly stepped out of obscurity to claim trump sexual assaulted them. We now have…

Jessica Leeds, 74, who claims the Trump groped her “like an octopus” when they were seated next to each other in first -class on a flight thirty years ago.

Rachel Crooks, who didn’t know Trump as  a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan when he  kissed her without warning, consent or invitation  in 2005.

People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, who wrote a piece yesterday claiming that while on assignment  to interview Donald and Melania Trump, Donald forcibly pushed her against a wall and “stuck his tongue down her throat.”

Mindy McGillivray, 36, another reporter, who told the photographer accompanying her on assignment 13 years ago that “Donald Trump just grabbed my ass!”

Cassandra Searles, Miss Washington 2013, who wrote on Facebook yesterday that Trump “continually grabbed [her] ass and invited [her] to his hotel room.”

Five in one day! I’ll have to check to see if that beats Cosby’s single day record. I think it’s close. I am certain that more accusations will have surfaced before today is over, and maybe before I post this. How many more of these victims—real ones; there may be some false accusations mixed in there—are there? As with Cosby, the sky’s the limit. I’d bet hundreds as a conservative estimate. An entitled, arrogant sexual predator like Trump starts early, and doesn’t reform.

UPDATE  (10/14/16 ): Three more accusers came forward today.

Observations: Continue reading

Unethical Quote Of The Week (Or At Least It Would Be In A Serious Campaign Where The News Media Was Interested In Covering Both Candidates Fairly): Hillary Clinton

2faced-hillary

“You just have to sort of figure out how to — getting back to that word, “balance” — how to balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and that’s not just a comment about today…. I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

—-Hillary Clinton, in a quote from one of those speeches she got $225,000 to make, for the National Multi-Housing Council, 4/24/13

We all knew we would eventually learn what she said in those speeches, didn’t we? It was just a matter of time. Luckily for Hillary, this leak arrived the same day as Trump’s Billy Bush piggery, giving the news media a chance to bury it for a while.

Hillary’s foe Julian Assange  released a hacked e-mail from Clinton minion John Podesta. Podesty was flagging sections of various Clinton speeches that might cause trouble for Hillary if they ever became public, so she could have an instant response, that is, spin, ready. (I have to admit, these guys are good.) The heading on this one was, Continue reading

Republicans Leaders Are Shocked…Shocked!…That Donald Trump Is Donald Trump

Cynical, principle-free morons, every single one.

Everyone knew that Donald Trump was a low-life, belonging in the political genus containing human leaches and anthropomorphic pond scum, long before he even announced his candidacy. They knew or should have known, to apply a common legal standard. I’m no genius, but the millisecond his joke candidacy for President began smelling viable back in August 0f 2015, I wrote here what GOP leaders with any sense or integrity should have known without me having to write a word. They needed to tell Trump to go haunt a casino somewhere, because he wasn’t fit to represent the Republican party as a candidate—not as President, not as dogcatcher, not as a gag on a Saturday Night Live skit.

Nahh! GOP Chair Reince Priebus —Fun Fact: Did you know that “Reince” means “spineless tool”? Well, it does now!-–apparently thought Trump would bring a little pizzazz, publicity and new voters to the GOP primary campaign. Well, it sure did that, didn’t it, Reince, you pathetic failure as a leader, manager, Republican and an American? Continue reading

Observations On The Obscene Trump Audio Scandal

4217128-caveman

A leaked audio  obtained and released by the Washington Post has Donald Trump commenting to media personality Billy Bush about his attempts to bed a married woman, a few months months after he married Melania Trump, his third wife. When he sees a beautiful woman, the GOP standard-bearer said, he  kisses her without consent.  “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” he explains. He describes a married woman who wouldn’t sleep with him by making fun of her as having“phony tits.” Then he advises Bush, “Grab them by the pussy.”

Nice.

But not surprising. Not even a little bit.

Observations:

1. CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta believes this may finish Trump’s presidential campaign. Utter incompetence and confirmation bias: why does anyone listen to “experts” this dense? Acosta, and I’m sure he has lots of company, apparently has learned nothing over the past year. What kind of person who currently supports Trump despite his constant vulgarity, misogyny, meanness, dishonesty, irresponsible statements and foolishness would regard this unremarkable male jerkishness as a last straw? Of course he talks like that. I never had any doubt that he talked like that, just as I never doubted that Hillary Clinton regarded Bernie’s supporters as gullible children, as a recent leak of her candid comments revealed. Did you think Trump talked about women differently than this when he was with other guys? Continue reading

Look! A Good Ethics Result From The 2016 Campaign!

ant-and-grasshopper

Donald Trump is  making it clear that he isn’t going to study, prepare, prep or train seriously for Sunday’s presidential debate. Well, why not?  After all, without substantive or appropriately focused preparation for the first debate, he was…oh, right, he was lousy. Donald doesn’t think so, however, and that’s what matters. He is now mocking Hillary Clinton for doing what anyone would do who understands the crucial mission at hand, and the importance of hard work. She is preparing, just as she would if she wasn’t going to be debating an ignorant buffoon.

One thing the Clintons cannot be criticized for is their determination and diligence. They both always work hard, and are thoroughly prepared for whatever they do. Trump, in contrast, has prospered his whole life by bluffing, bullying, posturing and faking. He had his career and a fortune handed to him by his father, and really is the embodiment of Ann Richards’  famous jibe at George H.W. Bush that he was someone who woke up on third base and thought he had hit a triple. Continue reading

Ethics Dunce: Libertarian VP Nominee William Weld

And by the way, nice hair color, very natural, Bill. I believe it like I believe you're a libertarian.

And by the way, nice hair color…very natural, Bill. I believe it like I believe you’re a libertarian.

The Boston Globe reported that former GOP Massachusetts governor turned Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee William Weld told its reporters that he would be focusing his campaigning against Donald Trump because  he did not want his Libertarian ticket to undermine efforts by Clinton to defeat Trump.  This follows Weld’s earlier statement that  “I’m not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States.”

Has anyone told Bill that the objective of a presidential ticket is to win the Presidency, and that when a party nominates candidates for the two top leadership jobs in the nation, it is supposed to represent an assertion that they are the best people for those jobs? Apparently not.

How about loyalty? Has anyone explained the ethical value of loyalty to Weld? See, that means that when a Presidential nominee asks you to run with him, by accepting his invitation you agree to assert that he should be President, not a candidate he’s running against. If a candidate’s running mate doesn’t unequivocally support him as the best candidate, why should anyone else? If Weld thinks Hillary is the most qualified individual to be President (Nonsense: WELD is more qualified), then he should endorse her and drop off the ticket.  Indeed, many reporters, including Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, have reported that Weld has considered doing just that. Continue reading