2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck

Why Is Someone Who Could Make This Argument An Opinion Writer For The New York Times?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Oh, wait, now I see. M. Gessen is trans or something, refers to whatever he/she is as “they,” and the fact that “her”their” gender identity is non-traditional means that “their” opinion on political matters must have value. No, of course it makes no sense, but never mind. That’s the Times these days. It still doesn’t excuse letting someone who thinks like this have a platform in the most read newspaper in the country.

The Times provided a transcript to the podcast called “The Real Loser of the V.P. Debate.” Here are some representative quotes (in my view, the podcast isn’t worth listening to):

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So…The Second Gentleman Running For First Gentleman Impregnated His Nanny During His First Marriage and Slapped a Date In the Face: Is That a Problem?

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

By the established standards of the news media and the rest of the Axis of Unethical Conduct, it should be, don’t you think? But apparently not.

Huh.

A throbbing example of wildly varying standards in the media depending on whether they are covering Donald Trump or Kamala Harris just raised its warty head. Did you see that Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband who was largely invisible until she pushed President Biden off the Democratic ticket, admitted he had an adulterous affair with his nanny and got her pregnant, leading to his divorce? That happened in August, after the slimy Daily Mail broke the scandal and Emhoff came clean to CNN. I missed it entirely, which means that, for example, the New York Times either ignored it or soft-peddled it because, well, you know. But the story burst on the social media scene this week after ex-Obama paid liar Jen Psaki, now a full-time Axis propagandist at MSNBC, interviewed Emhoff and gushed that he had “reshaped the perception of masculinity.” “Has that been an evolution for you and do you think that’s part of the role you might play as first gentleman?” Psaki continued. Yecchh. That was nauseating enough (no Vice-President’s spouse has the power, visibility or status to “reshape” anything), but Emhoff’s answer exploded heads from coast to coast.

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About That Most Dishonest, Cynical Presidential Campaign Ever…

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

One might be tempted to add “incompetent,” but we shall see.

That ridiculous photo above of Harris supposedly on the FEMA briefing is signature significance. Witness the serious, troubled look on her face, the pen, the pad of paper, as she listens intently while flying over the hurricane destruction.

Except she isn’t listening, because the earbud dangling from her ear isn’t attached to the phone. Well, but maybe she has the phone on speaker….but what kind of inept staff allows a staged photo like this to be so messed up? And what kind of qualified national leader isn’t alert enough to know it’s going to make her look like a dufus?

“I was just briefed by @FEMA_Deanne Criswell on the latest developments about the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Helene, Harris captioned this photo. “We also discussed our Administration’s continued actions to support emergency response and recovery.   I also spoke with @NC_Governor Cooper about the ongoing rescue and recovery efforts in North Carolina.   Our Administration will continue to stay in constant contact with state and local officials to ensure communities have the support and resources they need.” Oh, I don’t doubt she had those conversations. But that’s not a photo of her doing so, and she’s telling the public that it is while the evidence that it isn’t is there for anyone alert to see.

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Unethical Quote of the Month: Democratic Party VP Nominee Tim Walz

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

“Look, he’s Yale Law guy. I’m a public school teacher.”

—Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, expressing his anxiety about this week’s debate with Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance.

I can’t bring myself to believe that this debate will have any impact on the election at all, and I have made up my mind pretty securely about both Vance and Walz, neither of whom were responsible choices to be “a heartbeat from the Presidency. ” At least Walz, unlike Vance, has some executive governing experience, and at least Vance isn’t a parody of a woke idiot. But Walz’s comment pings so many ethics alarms that attention must be paid.

Let’s see…

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Ethics Quiz: Musk Bans a “Journalist”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I quit Twitter with all my accumulated thousands of followers after it became clear to me that the platform was a progressive propaganda organ that censored users and tweets it didn’t like, notably President Trump. I returned (here) as a show of support for Elon Musk, who bought the platform and (largely) eliminated its tendency to content-based censorship. This Ethics Quiz has special interest for me.

X, as Twitter is now called ( I miss the little birdie logo) suspended left- “journalist” Ken Klippenstein when he linked to an article of his that contained a hacked document with negative, private and otherwise provocative information about Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance. Klippenstein used to write for the crypto-Communist The Nation, and was a senior investigative reporter for the far-Left online news program “The Young Turks.” Needless to say, he has an agenda.

The 271-page dossier on Vance has been traced to a hack by Iran. Most media outlets refused to publish it, but Klippenstein, who has a substack to sell, grabbed the opportunity. Musk took to his own platform to decry the document as “one of the most egregious, evil doxxing actions we’ve ever seen.” He went on, “Presidential candidates are not speculatively in danger – there have already been two attempts on @realDonaldTrump’s life. Moreover, the doxxing included detailed information on the addresses of their children.” X explained that Klippenstein violated its policy against posting “unredacted private personal information,” including Vance’s physical addresses and part of his social security number.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Journalism!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Nice. Matt Yglesias is allegedly a journalist who has had many left-wing publications give him a platform. He also co-founded the relentlessly left-biased propaganda site Vox. Here’s a signature significance moment from Yglesias that I flagged in 2016, in which he said that lying to advance a policy or position is “the right thing to do.” Yes, he really did. Yglesias has had periodic attacks of integrity since, however. Occasionally.

In that tweet above, he asserts, from the position as a prominent journalist, a pure opinion as fact. Many readers inclined to be gulled by their own confirmation bias will immediately take it as fact. It is not fact.

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The News Media Has Sunk To Its Lowest Level of Journalism Ethics Yet During This Year [Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

…which is not to say that it won’t sink even lower. The slobbering Kamala Harris coverage by MSNBC may be the nadir so far: Is the network’s openly biased MSNBC host Stephanie Rule the symbol of the pre-2024 elections news media corruption, or is it ABC’s anti-Trump hacks Lindsey Davis and David Muir, who made the Harris-Trump debate a three-against-one affair?

Before being Harris’s choice for a friendly, softball interview, Harris said on “Real Time With Bill Maher” that it didn’t matter to her if Harris evaded questions and refused to clearly delineate her policy positions. Why? “Kamala Harris is not running for perfect, she’s running against Trump.”

Ruhle further rationalized, “We have two choices, so there are some things you might not know her answer to. And in 2024 — unlike 2016, for a lot of the American people –we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy.”

That’s journalistic objectivity in 2024. She “knows” what Trump will do? What, like letting mobs of illegals cross the borders? Prosecute political opponents? Explode the national debt? Appoint people for their ethnicity, sexual orientation and skin color rather than their ability to do the job? Refuse to fire even the most flagrantly incompetent? What is she talking about?

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Assorted Ethics-Related 2024 Election Notes…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I’m cramming for a legal ethics presentation for a federal agency that must remain nameless, so posts are going to be delayed a bit. I have time, almost, to post a few quick items, as well as this one that has nothing to do with the election: We’re finally having a memorial event in Arlington, Virginia for Grace, my wife of 43 years, best friend, business partner and mots reliable ally, on October 12. A good freind is organizing it for me; I’m going to have a tough time even attending. Commenting on the laborious process of letting friends, clients and distant relatives know about it, my friend said, “You can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to come.”

Meanwhile:

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‘You Are Entering The Edith Wilson Zone…’

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I can almost hear Rod’s voice: “You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of cover-ups and lies, but of fake Presidencies. A journey into a wondrous land of manipulation and abuse of power. Next stop, the Edith Wilson Zone!“

Let’s begin with this: Did you know that President <cough> Biden hasn’t had a Cabinet meeting in almost a year? I didn’t. Isn’t this newsworthy? Nothing has happened in the last 11 months that warranted the President gathering his top deputies? Seriously? When was the last time an administration went this long without a Cabinet meeting? (I can find no record of that, but a competent journalism establishment would have told us.) We have a fake Presidency being covered up, still, by the party running the Executive Branch and its corrupt, complicit allies in the news media, while its conspirators claim to be saving democracy. The highest ranking officer responsible for the cover-up is running for President, and her role in this defiance of basic constitutional norms and the public trust has barely been mentioned.

Good question, Dana. Glad you’re engaged enough to ask: most Americans apparently don’t know and don’t care.

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The Teamsters: Saving Democracy By Being Undemocratic

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

…you know, like rest of the Establishment Left.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the US’s largest and most powerful labor unions, declined to endorse a candidate for President. This was widely seen as a rebuke of Kamala Harris, but it also revealed the hypocrisy and ethics rot at the union’s core (and, sad to say, most unions’ cores). The Teamsters, as usual, polled members on their Presidential preferences prior to making an endorsement. The September telephone poll showed 58% of Teamsters members supporting Republican candidate Donald Trump, and 31% said they support Harris. Too close to call? The union justified its decision by citing major political divides among its membership and dissatisfaction with each candidate’s stances on key union priorities; I call BS. Is there any doubt that if the numbers had been reversed, the Teamsters would have endorsed Harris and pointed to a nearly 2-1 polling result to justify their decision?

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