Axis of Unethical Conduct

There Is Hope…[Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Update: The graphic above came from X, and I used it for convenience. Several commenters have expressed skepticism about the report because I didn’t include a source. I should have, and I apologize. The original story came from the website Semafor, and subsequent reports were published in the NY Post, NPR, Yahoo! and others. That doesn’t mean the story is necessarily true, but the two papers haven’t denied it, which is what one would expect if they didn’t want to put a target on their own metaphorical backs and those of the leakers.

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I would like to think that the two banner-carrying newspapers in the Axis of Unethical Conduct did the right thing because it was the patriotic and ethical thing to do. I don’t believe that, unfortunately.

I believe that the mainstream media finally knows it is on metaphorical thin ice. Despite their attacks on President Trump for calling them—correctly and fairly— “enemies of the people,” they are smart enough to figure out that they have eroded the public’s trust to a perilous degree. Their competence, motives and integrity are in doubt now. Their arrogance and flagrant violations of the most basic tenets of journalism ethics are the cause of that.

In the past, leaking military plans of a controversial President would have been the natural course for these organizations, and they would have stood proudly on “the public’s right to know.” But I think they fear a tipping point after the Biden disability cover-up and the news media’s conspicuous failure to aggressively follow the bread crumbs in the Somali social services fraud scandal. The Times and the Post didn’t do the right thing because it was in the nation’s interest. It did the right thing because they are afraid.

And, ironically, that is also in the nation’s interest,

A Brief and Obvious Ethics Observation

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

If the Democrats, anti-Trump news media and Trump Deranged social media progressives had the sense and integrity to be able to grant that one of President Trump’s actions is beneficial, wise and effective when it should be clear to all that it is, they would have far more legitimacy and perceived objectivity when there is valid justifications for their criticism regarding other Presidential actions.

The removal of Maduro in a perfectly executed military operation is the best example of this yet. It removed an illegitimate dictator who lost his election overwhelmingly. He is a criminal drug lord who had been sending fentanyl into the U.S., a deadly and addictive drug. Under his rule, the nation of Venezuela, which has great natural resources and should be a wealthy and thriving state, had a disastrous economy. Maduro’s political opponent just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuelans in and out of that country are rejoicing in the dictator’s removal. The capture of Maduro also weakens Cuba, a Maduro ally and another dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.

The United States benefits from the capture of Maduro in many ways, and suffers no deficits from it at all. It projects American power. It demonstrates that U.S. leadership is not dominated by weenies (as in Joe Biden’s “Don’t!” and Barack Obama’s erased “red lines”) It puts America’s foes on notice. The action also re-establishes the Monroe Doctrine, which had been weakened for half a century.

In short, the Venezuelan operation should be an easy one for any rational, patriotic, astute American to cheer for, but the Axis of Unethical Conduct and the Trump Deranged just can’t do it, even in response to an unequivocal American triumph.

Going forward, they should have no credibility at all. They already didn’t, in my estimation, but this should settle the issue.

Thoughts About The Axis News Media Burying The Minnesota Fraud Scandals…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is the season of holiday wishes, reflections and aspirations. Do you know what my Ethics Alarms wish is? I wish that at least one reader, ideally one of our five commenters, would finally write in saying something like,

“I have to confess, I’ve been denying your regular, almost annoyingly repetitious assertions that the mainstream media is biased, that it is a member of what you call the Axis of Unethical Conduct, that the major legacy media sources now practice progressive, Democratic Party propaganda to the exclusion of balanced and fair (that is, ethical) journalism, that this results in a profound warping of the Democratic process, that the news media is in fact dedicated to promoting the power of the Democratic Party and its anti-American policy agenda, and that Donald Trump was correct when he pronounced the news media the ‘enemy of the people.’ But I can’t in good conscience deny this any more. You are right, and have been right all along.”

Actually there is one kamikaze commenter who should write this but who is banned and I still won’t let his comment stay up even if he does. With that single obnoxious exception, however, yes, that admission would make my year…not that the conclusion shouldn’t have been screamingly obvious to everyone for years.

I was thinking about this as I observed the current unethical news media self-indicting efforts to pretend that the unfolding Minnesota fraud scandal in the Somali community and elsewhere is a footnote to the “real” news. The Times did a relatively thorough report a full month ago; it has been fairly silent since, however, as the full expanse of the fraud scandal has unfolded. Network news has largely ignored the story too. Incredibly, the Minnesota Star-Tribune did not include the scandal in its 2025 list of top news stories. Today in CNN’s list of “Five things” readers should know about, developments in the Minnesota story is nowhere to be seen.

According to Axios, the Somali 9 billion dollar scamming wasn’t one of the top search topics, unlike Bad Bunny and Stephen Colbert (See, you have to know about a topic in order to search for it…well played, “journalists”!) The Hill gives us another classic example today of the oft-mentioned phenomenon that when Democrats have been caught in scandals or misconduct, it is the Republican/MAGA reaction that is the news: “MAGA World zeroes in on Minnesota over fraud scandal.” Other examples this month: The Guardian: “The right wing has seized on fraud cases in the state” and ABC News: “Trump has seized on the ballooning controversy in recent days …”

Other diversionary framing include the panic in the Somali community as ICE cracks down on Minnesota’s large unassimilated community consisting of people whose native culture regards cheating the government as a good thing. “ICE pounces!” is that theme. This is CNN: Anxiety grips Minneapolis’s Somali community as immigration agents zero in on the Twin Cities.

It isn’t only the Somalis: Minnesota, under the watchful eye of knuckleheaded Governor Tim Walz, has a fraud problem throughout its social welfare system. Why is an amateur Youtuber, Nick Shirley, making headlines with his Boy Scout merit badge-level investigative reporting? Where are the pros? Why wasn’t “60 Minutes” on this story like bees on a honeypot? CBS news reported the Somali scandal on December 11, but it’s been crickets since. But Shirley uncovered another Minnesota fraud, a hilarious one, last week: a Somali-owned daycare center with no children and a sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The Quality Learing Center received $4,000,000 from Minnesota taxpayers.

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CNN’s Outright “It Isn’t What It Is” Propaganda To Support The Democratic Party’s “Affordablity” Scam (Or “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias”)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Hundreds of people sent it in, but nobody sent it to Ethics Alarms. Come one, you guys, I’m depending on you!

That clip above, in which CNN’s supposed stat guru Harry Enten deliberately (or impossibly incompetently) misinterprets a Fox News poll about what proportion of Americans think prices are higher than a year ago for various consumer products as showing how much prices have risen for those products. Nobody in the segment pointed the error out. Nobody screamed from off-camera. There has been no CNN correction or retraction.

Enten, in his usual hyperactive mode, said, “I mean, your costs are up vs a year ago!” and begins underlining to the products and reads the percentages aloud, implying costs are up by that much. Then he says, “The bottom line is this: Americans feel prices are rising in every single part of their lives”—implying that they “feel” it because just look at how much those prices are rising!—“rising ever higher and they just don’t feel like, Kate Balduan, that they can catch a break.” Well, how could they? Just look at those percentages!

Are Americans so clueless that they would believe this nonsense? Apparently the Democratic Party, “the resistance” and the news media (“the Axis of Unethical Conduct” ) think so, or they wouldn’t try to get away with it every day, all over the news media. The Biden administration goofs its way into a period of 9% inflation, prices soar, the rate of inflation comes down dramatically in the Trump Administration but the same party responsible for raising the prices uses the inevitable fact that they aren’t coming down (prices as a whole never come down, they just go up more slowly) as proof that the current administration is failing. Yes, Trump shares some blame for this by saying that he would bring prices down during his campaign. He was being his usual careless talk self and meant (I guess) that he would bring some prices down, but as usual his habitual hyperbole got him into trouble. That error does not excuse lies like Enten’s, however.

If CNN was a real practitioner of journalism, which it is not (I don’t think there is a single trustworthy news organization anywhere today), Enten would have used the Fox News poll the way it was explained on Fox: to show the large gap between the reality of U.S. prices and the public perception of it, in part because of Axis lies. To take one obvious example, gasoline is down from a year ago and anyone who drives a car knows it. But Enten implied that the cost of gas is up “54%”!

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Observations on the Epstein Drama. Summary: I Don’t Understand This At All.

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Right now, a sniffling groups of women including past victims of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking operations are standing in front of the Capitol before Congress’s vote on releasing “the Epstein files,” whatever that means at this point. One speaker—they are all saying not just kind-of the same thing, but exactly the same thing but in different words (sometimes) said that their lament isn’t about politics. It’s obviously about politics. Both CNN and MSNBC, the most aggressive Democratic propaganda agents broadcasting, are showing the demonstration live, as if it’s important news. Fox News is barely mentioning it.

The issue is political and partisan. The proof is irrefutable. Why didn’t the victims, or whoever organized them, or the mainstream media, insist that the Biden Administration release the files when the power to do so was entirely within its grasp? Nobody thought of it? The Democrats were fabricating ways to “Get Trump” and had been since 2015; everyone knew he had once been pals with Epstein; and the scandal was 20 years old. The Epstein revival only became a thing when the Axis of Unethical Conduct became desperate in its efforts to slow down Trump 2.0 as his administration began dismantling the Obama-Biden nascent totalitarian state. Naturally, Axis media was all in. Naturally, publicity hound Marjorie Taylor Greene, who comprehends neither law nor logic, decided to use it to get cheap clicks. Maybe she really thinks a rehash of the evil deeds of a man who has been dead for six years is a good use of her time; who knows? She’s an idiot.

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Unethical Axis Headline of the Week: The Washington Post

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

This, of course, comes with the “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” label.

The Post headline truly is despicable. Despite the entire world clamoring for an end, however temporary, to the Gaza war and the abject failure of the U.N. or anyone else to achieve the release of the Israeli hostages, the Post spins the looming success of President Trump’s diplomatic efforts as merely another example of his narcissistic quest for personal acclaim. This is Big Lie of the Resistance #8: Big Lie #8: “Trump Only Cares About Himself, Not the Country.“

It is one of the most persistent of the Big Lies that emerged during his first term: two friends repeated it just yesterday. The smear is a great default excuse to refuse ever giving this President credit for anything, even achievements that are impressive, important and remarkable. It is an especially ethically obtuse smear: motives don’t make an action ethical, the conduct does, and the right thing done for the wrong reasons is still the right thing. In this case, the motive used to minimize Trump’s diplomatic triumph is a weak one, for I can’t imagine why Trump would want a Nobel Peace Prize, so thoroughly has that honor been debased by the flagrant politicizing of the award process.

[Aside: Of the 10 Big Lies I compiled through 2023, only #1 (“Trump is just a reality TV star”) and #9 (“Trump’s Mishandling Of The Pandemic Killed People”) have largely been retired from the Axis of Unethical Conduct and the Trump Deranged mob list of justifications for reviling the President of the United States.]

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One More Time: If People Tell You the Mainstream Media Isn’t A Democratic Party, Progressive Propaganda Mouthpiece They Are Liars or Morons…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Yesterday we had one more flagrant example of how completely useless our news sources have become in letting the public know what is happening in the nation and the world so they can be responsible citizens. Well, I guess they are not useless to progressives, Democrats and leftist totalitarians, because the biased and distorted stories, reports and interviews they spew out daily does keep citizens in the dark (where “democracy dies,” sayeth the Washington Post. Silly me, I once thought the Post meant that was a bad thing.) On the August 31, 2025 “Face the Nation,” host Ed O’Keefe interviewed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the American Left’s latest martyr, “Maryland Dad” Kilmar Abrego García. What the audience heard was this:

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Unethical Quote of the Week: Jeffrey (Ew!) Toobin

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“This criminal crusade against political adversaries is completely unprecedented in all of American history.”

–—CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin (and why is he still allowed on the air by an allegedly respectable news network?) regarding the so-called Trump revenge plot against Democrats.

It is amazing that any journalist, pundit, progressive or Democrat would have the gall to say that. It is true that weaponizing the justice system to attack, hobble, and eliminate political foes is a totalitarian tactic that the United States had been wise to avoid, but if there was ever a valuable “democratic norm” the Left must take full responsibility for shattering, it is this one. “Unprecedented!” Incredible.

I would say “You’ve gotta hand it to Toobin,” but that would lead me into a joke that I would hate myself for making…

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A Little Compassion, Please, for Jill Ciminillo…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

A young woman and Chicago resident named Jill Ciminillo has become the target of coast-to-coast mockery and ridicule after she reacted to President Trump’s stated intention of making Chicago next on his list of urban hellscapes to make safe with federal intervention.

The conservative media (including Fox News) and blogosphere gleefully pounced, digging up her old social media posts…

and pronouncing Jill the poster girl for irrational Trump Derangement. “Dear leader trying to protect me,” one social media wag wrote in a tart “translation,” “I admit there is a serious problem here with crime and violence, but because of my hatred of you, we would rather suffer in our own self inflicted suffering. Signed – A Liberal white woman.” Ciminillo quickly deleted all of her social media accounts, surely hoping against hope that her 15 minutes of infamy won’t last any longer than that.

I feel sorry for Jill, and while it is appropriate for the absurdity of her post to be discussed and debunked, she is a victim, not a villain. She is infected with the Trump Derangement Virus because she has been the target of relentless, irresponsible, dishonest fear-mongering by the Axis of Unethical Conduct, including some once-admirable Americans who have allowed themselves to be pulled into the conspiracy.

Here, for example, was Ralph Nader, in many ways an American hero (who, like so many narrow-focus activists, got way out in front of his metaphorical skis), in March of this year. This is long, but it is the kind of unhinged hysteria from a once respectable liberal voice that convinces people like Jill (and my once astute Facebook Friend who just posted it) that “resistance” is the only moral, ethical and patriotic course. Here’s Ralph… Continue reading →

Psst! Progressives! It’s What You Mean That’s The Problem, Not How You Say It…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This is pretty funny, as Ethics Duncery goes. Third Way calls itself “a national think tank and advocacy organization that champions moderate policy and political ideas,” acting as “a critical bulwark against political extremism.” Right. It’s latest project is an attempt to train their fellow travelers not to “use an awful lot of words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.” The feature “Was it Something I Said” continues, “The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many—especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.”

Smoking guns abound in this thing, beginning with the use of “we” in that sentence above. “Was it Something I Said” begins, “To: All Who Wish to Stop Donald Trump and MAGA.” Not stop a particular policy or project, mind you, just the elected President of the United States and all those who support him, “The Third Way” is in fact the same old way: the Axis has a dearth of rational policy ideas and principles, so hating Trump, treating Republicans as plotting Nazis, and adopting “It Isn’t What It Is” as their primary operating principle (also known as “Sure. we can fool all the people all the time” remains the plan.

The objective here is to employ more soothing, vague and seductive language to accomplish it. Amazing: every time the Left encounters the perils of imposing reality, its reflex solution is to hide the problem by cooking the rhetoric. The public doesn’t like racial and gender discrimination? Hey, let’s call it “diversity, equity and inclusion!” Normal people think amputating the penises of boys who have been confused about their gender by pro-trans indoctrination? No problem! Call it “gender-affirming care”! Most citizens find the idea of open borders repugnant, not to mention stupid? Ah, but if we all call illegal immigrants immigrants or migrants, then we can confuse them completely! I assume you can continue this theme without my assistance.

“In reality, most Democrats do not run or govern on wildly out-of-touch social positions,” claims Third Way. “But voters would be excused to believe we do because of the words that come out of our mouths—words which sound like we are hiding behind unfamiliar phrases to mask extreme intent.”

Yes, this moderate, centrist, Democrat “think tank” doesn’t think promoting illegal immigration, using radical surgery and hormone blockers on children and institutionalizing anti-male, anti-white discrimination qualify as “wildly out of touch.” “[I]f we don’t think more carefully about our language, many in America will be banking on help from Donald Trump and Republicans, because Democratic levers of power will be few and far between,” the introduction to the NewSpeak guide says. Oh, no! Americans might end up trusting a President who has clearly opposed the Axis’s ridiculous, divisive damaging obsessions, which is, after all, why he was elected over the Democrats’ DEI candidate. Translation: “Let’s be smart about this, and hide what we really mean and what we really want to do. You know, like saying Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack,” and calling videos of him wandering vacantly like a zombie “deep fakes.”

You may want to wade into the whole thing, but here are some examples of what you’re facing:

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