California

And THIS Is How Growing Progressives Learn That Cheating Is Just Fine…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Arielle Curry, the principal of Washington Elementary School in Santa Barbara (she’s the one on the left) rigged the vote count in the student election results to elect two losers, including giving her own daughter the post of sixth-grade president. The principal was foiled by a whistleblower, put on administrative leave, and then, incredibly, allowed to resume her job.

Take that last part in slowly. This is the culture in schools. This is the culture in California.

In a letter to parents, Curry wrote that she ” led deliberations after the student votes were tallied that resulted in overriding the outcome of two positions.” She apologized “for allowing this practice to persist” while acknowledging that “our school’s process for selecting student officers lacks transparency and fairness.” She added, “I am committed to making this right moving forward.”

By resigning? Nothing else will do.That letter is all by itself justification for dismissal. What disgusting weasel rhetoric! Altering vote totals to benefit a family member is “deliberations”? She allowed a practice to persist by engaging in the practice…it wouldn’t have persisted if she didn’t engage in it. The school’s process for selecting student officers lacks transparency and fairness? No, she lacks transparency and fairness, also honesty, respect for students, shame, trustworthiness,accountability, and ethics generally.

There are tangible benefits in being elected a student officer at the gifted and talented education magnet school in Santa Barbara’s Mesa neighborhood. Student government members receive privileges like leaving class to attend meetings, while the president gets the opportunity to deliver the graduation speech at the end of the school year. The student body also helps select school activities, including themed events such as “Crazy Hat Day.” (Do they have a “Sociopath Principal Day”?

Cuury tried to steal these perks from deserving students and bestow them on her choices regardless of the election results. How can the school, the district, and the parents allow Curry to keep her job? What possible justification could they cite? (Don’t say it!)

“District officials confirmed the expected policy was for the actual vote totals to determine the winners” one news source says. Ya think? “The district expects that for student/ASB elections, the candidate with the most votes wins,” assistant superintendent for human resources John Becchio said. Really? Then why do you continue to employ a principal who doesn’t get the “most votes win” thingy?

Curry has worked in the Santa Barbara Unified School District for several years, previously serving as principal of Santa Barbara Junior High and as an assistant principal at Washington and Franklin elementary schools. This is how your young are being aculturated, America. These are the people shaping their conduct and values. Do you care? What are you going to do about it?

Me? I’m heading to the woodchipper…

Huh. Who Could Have Imagined That Uncontrolled Illegal Immigration Had Negative Consequences?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Not California!

Paving Paradise, a research analysis study of the loss of California’s agricultural and natural land due to rapid population growth found that 91% of land development since 1970 is a consequence of uncontrolled “immigration,” aka. illegal immigration.

California, a so-called sanctuary state, has the highest concentration of illegal immigrants in the United States, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Over 400,000 entered the state between 2021 and 2023 during the Biden administration. Because population of California has doubled over the past five decades, 3,740 miles of California’s farmland, forests, wetlands and open spaces have had to be paved over to accommodate the all the lonely people, and we know where they all come from. 2.4 million acres of land, an area three times larger than Yosemite National Park, have been consumed. The overpopulation contributes to water shortages, loss of wildlife, more wildfires, traffic congestion, rising housing costs in the state, researchers found.

To be fair, at least there are more murders, rapes, and other felonies. And twenty-four million former California residents have legally migrated to other states to flee the effects of the open borders, so it all evens out in the end.

Unethical Quote of the Week: Miriam Pawel

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“What has made the University of California exceptional is its commitment to increase access without sacrificing excellence. In recent years, California has proudly defied a national trend: On average, about 40 percent of its students are the first in their families to attend a four-year college. More than half qualify for free tuition. The percentages of underrepresented students have crept up, through a variety of initiatives. The California Dream Act gave undocumented students access to financial aid, as well as in-state tuition. Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates.”

—-Woke book author and writer Miriam Pawel, in a gobsmacking op-ed (gift link) in the New York Times.

You might think that I am being unfair, that the quote above is obviously taken out of context. Surely, surely, such a paragraph must be preceded by a convincing set of statistics proving that indeed the University of California system has not sacrificed excellence in its quest for “access” [Translation: “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”].

Nope. There is nothing. This woman, marinated in progressive cant her whole adult life, truly believes that DEI is excellence. Not knowing how to read, add, reason or write. The diploma is the sole benefit and the sole objective. That the diploma falsely conveys the belief that its holder actually is competent, responsible, knowledgeable, skilled and accomplished doesn’t matter to Pawel. “Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates,” she writes. “The percentages of underrepresented students have crept up, through a variety of initiatives. The California Dream Act gave undocumented students access to financial aid, as well as in-state tuition.”

Yay.

On The California-Texas Foiled Baby Murder Case, Part I: Prelude

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Yesterday, an ugly abortion controversy was resolved by the birth of “Baby Gabriel.” Here the legal/ethical gray areas involving hired surrogate mothers and the legal/ethical not-quite-so-gray areas regarding legal abortion mated to create a monster.

Upon learning that the baby gestating in their surrogate’s womb was not perfect (the unborn boy had a congenital heart defect), a California couple decided to exercise a provision in the surrogacy contract and force the mother-by-proxy to undergo an abortion. Instead, the surrogate fled to Texas, where abortion is illegal. Thanks in part to the intervention of Texas AG Ken Paxton (who is running for governor), the baby in question was born. Now there is a dispute over who gets custody. The birth mother has decided she wants the child anti-abortion activists have named “Gabriel.” The couple that wanted to have him killed wants him too.

Guess which I would choose, were I the infant.

I’ll examine that mess in Part II, but ahead, from the EA archives, is the last post Ethics Alarms had regarding the generally messy ethics issue of surrogate motherhood, from 2016, Pre-Unethical Conditions: Surrogate Mother Contracts And Making Babies With Jerks…

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What Exactly Are California’s “Values”? Can Anybody Explain?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

ProPublica, an almost entirely pro-progressive, anti-conservative “independent public interest watchdog” organization, shockingly goes after our most progressive state (it’s a close competition), revealing that California allows teachers who have been caught sexually harassing students to keep teaching anyway.

What?? Indeed this seems to be the case. The investigative reporting website states in part, after relating the tale of a teacher named Agan who after an independent panel convened by the state to hear his case deemed him “unfit to teach” based on multiple complaints by students, hired by two other schools prompting sexual harassment accusation by students a

“A broad look at California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing by KQED and ProPublica shows a pattern of delays and inaction, combined with a lack of transparency, that have allowed educators to continue teaching after school districts reported them to the state for sexual harassment or other misconduct of a sexual nature. Agan’s case is one of at least 67 in which the state has not revoked the professional licenses of educators after school districts determined they had sexually harassed students or committed other types of sexual misconduct, according to a review of available records from 2019 through 2025 obtained by the news outlets. At least 14 of those educators were rehired by other schools, and of those, at least 12, including Agan, still work in education, according to a review of school websites and employment records provided by schools.” Anita Fitzhugh, a spokesperson for the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said the state automatically revokes teachers’ credentials when they are convicted of sexual criminal offenses, but not necessarily when a district determines they have committed sexual misconduct. She said the state Legislature — not the licensing agency — determines the type of misconduct that results in automatic revocation. The agency appoints a committee to assess noncriminal cases of misconduct, she said. Agan has not been accused of a crime.  “The Commission’s authority balances protecting students as well as the legal rights of educators who have been accused but not convicted of specific crimes,” Fitzhugh said in a written statement.” 

Yikes. What’s going on here? That key question in ethics inquiries seems to be this: California’s kinder, gentler, incompetent approach to enforcing even minimal personal responsibility appears to have resulted in a bizarre calculation that puts children at risk. See, Agan, and many other teachers, haven’t criminally assaulted students or at at least can’t be proved to have done so beyond a reasonable doubt. So as long as the unprofessional, emotionally damaging, conflict-ridden sexual harassing conduct doesn’t rise to the level of a felony, California appears to be satisfied to let bygones be bygones, and a male teacher who leers and drools over and even touches female students get second and third chances to change their ways.

I assume that the teachers unions have a great deal to do with this disconnect that and the fact that the now fairly dead-in-the-water #MeToo movement disgraced itself by turning into a willing DEI weapon. Like so much that goes on in California while alleged adults stand mute and passively by, I don’t get this at all. What does California care about, besides catering to illegal immigrants and environmental virtue-signaling? What value system does a state embrace when it shrugs off sexual misconduct by its teachers?

Unethical (But Informative!) Quote of the Month: Katie Porter

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“It’s the job of the California governor to protect every single Californian,” Porter said. “The sanctuary state policy is designed to make sure that our state resources, the taxpayer dollars, the public servants that we have, are focusing on doing their jobs, which is not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities. These are Californians. They contribute to our economy, they pay taxes, and they’re one of the only ways our state has been growing in recent years.”

  —Former California Congresswoman Katie Porter in this week’s gubernatorial debate  explaining why “sanctuary” states  are crucial to Democrats.      

I have chosen to write as little as possible about California Governor candidate Katie Porter, I think because her very existence embarrasses me and the fact that such an awful human being could be elected to Congress by California voters shows just how beyond redemption that rotting state is. Here was my only entry regarding Porter, from last October:

“In California, the leading candidate to replace Gavin Newsom as governor, Rep. Katie Porter, has been bedeviled by emerging videos of her abusing staffers, refusing to tolerate probing questions from interviewers, and generally acting like a witch on wheels (It’s Halloween!) Porter and her political allies insist that these clips don’t show “the real Katie,’ which is comforting, since that demon impersonating Porter just stops short of spewing green vomit.”

The good news is that Porter isn’t leading in the polls any more, and in fact has the same chances of being governor of the tarnished Golden State as Frosty the Snowman has of being elected Mayor of Hell. The other good news is that her statement above was a public admission of why Democrats are so keen on open borders. It’s not quite a confirmation of “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, but it is close enough for horseshoes.

Axis-dwellers are so engulfed by their bubble that they can’t imagine anyone being bothered by a statement like that in their own party. This means, as night follows day, that they can’t imagine any progressives or Democrats possessing an understanding of law, national security, fairness, honesty…oh, lots of things.

Her state has welcomed illegal aliens in the hundreds of thousands while an estimated 10 million California residents have fled the state in the last decade. Illegal immigrants are not Californians by definition. They cannot be, because they aren’t citizens, and California cannot make them so. California’s elected officials, she admits, are not cooperating with federal law enforcement to allow millions of law-breakers to continue breaking the law, in order to provide illicit political support to Democrats, and to artificially inflate census numbers so Democrats can cement their power in Congress.

Nice.

To her credit, Porter’s explanation was frank, honest and except for her misunderstanding of that citizenship thingy, ethical. It reminds me of bank robber Willie Sutton’s legendary response when he was asked why he kept bobbing banks.

He said, “Because that’s where the money is.”

On California’s Lawyer Civility Pledge

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

California lawyers in Marin County will soon be required to take a civility pledge as part of their annual renewal oath. The pledge, approved by the State Bar’s Board of Trustees, applies to all 286,000 licensed attorneys and will become mandatory on April 1.

Incredibly, California lawyers, a significant number of them, are objecting. The pledge is “vague,” they say, and could violate First Amendment rights. They also claim that it’s unfiar to change the entrenched courtroom habits of veteran lawyers; in other words, “How dare the bar hinder lawyers who have been successful being assholes?”

The frightening pledge reads simply, “As an officer of the court, I will strive to conduct myself at all times with dignity, courtesy and integrity.”

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California Apparently Doesn’t Believe in Following the Constitution

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is unethical. I wonder how the state got that way, and if anything can be done about it?

ITEM: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pointed out to the state that its obviously First Amendment-violating ban on firearms advertising was illegal, and now California must pay more than $1.3 million in legal fees to the plaintiffs. The law was virtue-signalling to California’s gun-phobics; I doubt any honest Constitutional law expert anywhere thought it could pass judicial scrutiny.

Assembly Bill 2571 (AB 2571) prohibited “firearms industry members” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) from advertising, marketing or promoting any firearms or “firearms-related products,” in a manner that is “designed, intended, or reasonably appears to be attractive to minors.” Wow, how about that statutory drafting?

Safari Club International and the other plaintiffs filed suit arguing that the statute violated the First Amendment by restricting commercial speech. They also argued that the law was unconstitutionally vague (Ya think?), a Due Process violation, and that it discriminated against a legal industry and makers of legal products. The rulings agreeing with them are here and here.

ITEM: Voters in California, according to a poll conducted by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research, support a proposed “wealth tax” on billionaires with 50% of California voters in favor of the measure and only 28% objecting to it. The concept comes from the Marxist brain of Bernie Sanders, who insists that people who resent other American having more money than they do should be able to just take it.

This scheme probably violates state and federal laws as well as the Constitution. The 5th and 14th Amendments block uncompensated “takings.” California’s 0.4% cap on personal property tax would seem to be a problem. The law also looks like an illegal bill of attainder, targeting specific individuals.

The California Communists who are pushing this bill seem to believe that the state’s billionaires will just be good little proles and hand the cash over. Gavin Newsom, who has no discernible principles, thinks the proposed law will make him look bad when he runs for President, so he says he’s against it.

Maybe all the billionaires, millionaires, entrepreneurs, companies and American citizens will abandon the Golden State to the illegal immigrants, shop-lifters, assorted criminals and censors, leaving California to emulate the dystopian Manhattan of John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York.” Surely there must be a less draconian remedy, but I have no idea what it is.

Supreme Court Partisan Hacks Unmasked!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Supreme Court today refused to strike down California’s new gerrymandered congressional map designed to give Democrats five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and turned down a request from a group of California Republicans that would have required the state to continue to use the map in place while their judicial challenge to the map proceeded. If anyone dissented on the Court, he, she or they kept it to themselves.

This is called “following precedent.”

Two months ago the conservative bloc on the Court, over dissents from the Three Little Maids of Kneejerk Progressivism, granted a request from Texas to allow it to use its new map intended to allow Republicans to pick up five additional House seats in that state. In Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, a lower court had sided with Democratic challengers that the “legislature’s motive was predominantly racial,” making the redistricting unconstitutional. (Once again, crying racism was the Left’s default claim.)The majority reversed that ruling in its December 4 order. Justice Alito issued an opinion (joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorusch) explaining that “it is indisputable … that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map…was partisan advantage pure and simple.”

The Republicans who challenged the California map were counting on a lack of integrity from the conservative majority although the issue was exactly the same as in the Texas case. But the six conservative, Republican-appointed Justices declined the bait. They ruled for the Democrats just as they had ruled for the Texas Republicans, which was the legal, ethical, fair and objective result. Even those conservative devils Thomas and Alito!

Another false partisan narrative bites the dust.

If the three Democratic women possessed similar integrity, they would have dissented in this case too, as they had in Abbott. But they didn’t, did they?With their votes, they showed that their principles only hold when their favorite party benefits from them.

They are the hacks.

Unmasked at last.

I Wonder How Often This Happens and In How Many Places…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments