Wisconsin Democrats have filed an ethics complaint against Governor Scott Walker.
The complaint, and the filing of it, are unethical. Really, really, really unethical. Here’s why. Continue reading
corruption
Announcing: The Incompetent Elected Official of the Month
"What, me legislate?"
With this post, Ethics Alarms announces a new continuing category for ethics infamy: Incompetent Elected Officials.
We tend to focus on corruption, dishonesty, conflicts of interest and lies when identifying unethical public officials, but it is the wildly incompetent of the breed who might carry the most ethics baggage of all. An incompetent elected official not only is irresponsible for taking on leadership that he or she is unable to deliver due to a lack of brains, skill, experience or judgment, but also keeps a more deserving and able individual from a distinguished position that needs him, jeopardizes the public, and undermines trust in the government generally. The public’s ethics are also implicated by the incompetent official’s ascension to power, as the truly inept can usually be identified with a modicum of diligence and care. Incompetent and irresponsible officials require the assistance of incompetent and irresponsible voters.
Thus incompetent elected officials warrant special attention. And the first incompetent elected official to be honored as the Ethics Alarms Incompetent Elected Official of the Month is….Alabama Republican State Senator Gerald Allen! Continue reading
United Nations Ethics
After the U.N., Plan B
Ah, the United Nations—can’t live with it, can’t live without it!
But I think it may be time for the U.S., having tried to live with a corrupt, hypocritical, impotent monument to how disastrous a one-world government would be—while supplying the lion’s share of its funding— to try living without it.
The U.N. Human Rights Council has issued a 23-page report praising the Gaddafi regime’s human-rights record. Continue reading
Mike Haridopolos’s Book: Whatever Was Going On, It Had To be Unethical
Four years and $152,000 for THIS??
What was going on here?
It has been revealed that new Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos was paid $152,000 in taxpayer money to write a book on politics for Brevard Community College four years ago.
All 175 pages of the resulting tome, “Florida Legislative History and Processes,” were published exactly once. The only copy of the 175-page, double-spaced manuscript can only be found, and read, at the school. The book Haridopolos produced didn’t satisfy the original contract’s requirement for a publishable, textbook-quality look at the development of the Florida Legislature, state constitution, the governor’s office and judiciary from pre-statehood until present. But heck..what do you expect? He was only paid a lousy $152,000! What do you want, “Doctor Zhivago?” Continue reading
The Conflict of Interest That Isn’t, But Looks Terrible Anyway
David Becker, the top lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission, is suddenly an embarrassment to his employers. He and his two brothers inherited more than $1.5 million in phony profits from their mother’s investment in $65 billion Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Since the S.E.C. was famously asleep at its post regarding Madoff, its negligence and incompetence allowing him to destroy individual lives, charities and more, having a key lawyer at the regulatory agency profit from Madoff’s scheme, even by inheritance, looks corrupt and unconscionable. Continue reading
Presidents Day Ethics: The Presidents of the United States on Ethics and Leadership
In commemoration of President’s Day, Ethics Alarms presents the ethics wisdom of the remarkable men who have served their country in the most challenging, difficult, and ethically complicated of all jobs, the U.S. Presidency.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Presidents of the United States:
George Washington: “I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” Continue reading
Ethics Hero: New York Courts
Bravo!
New York’s court officials have decided to bar New York’s elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make major financial contributions to their campaigns. The New York Times reports that the new rule of the state court system will be announced this week by Jonathan Lippman, the state’s chief judge. “It is believed to be the most restrictive in the country, bluntly tackling an issue — money in judicial politics — that has drawn widespread attention,” said the paper.
The new rule decrees that “no case shall be assigned” by court administrators to a judge when the lawyers or any of the participants involved donated $2,500 or more in the preceding two years. Continue reading
If Teachers Cheat, What Will Students To Do?
In Worcester, Mass, test scores at the Goddard School of Science and Technology have been tossed out because school staff “reviewed student work on the assessment, coached students to add to their responses, scribed answers or portions of answers that were not worded by students, and provided scrap paper for students to use during tests,” according to the state commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education.
School Superintendent Melissa Dillon wanted to make sure these findings weren’t misunderstood, and wanted to make certain nobody got the idea that her teachers were cheating. “The state did not use the term cheating, so I’m not using the term cheating,” she said. School Committee members agreed. “Calling it cheating I think is a little harsh,” committee member Jack L. Foley said. He described the problem as “probably too much coaching.” Continue reading
“He’s Suffered Enough”: Ethical Lawyering, Dubious Ethics
Attorney Barry Wilson is undoubtedly doing his job, and it is a tough one: arguing for the justice system to do less than throw the book at Boston’s disgraced former Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, who richly deserves it. This is the lawyer’s sacred duty to a client that makes the profession the butt of jokes and the object of contempt, but it is an ethical and systemic necessity. It also can be stomach-turning in cases like Turner’s. All Wilson has in his defense arsenal is the hoary “he’s suffered enough” argument. It is always ethically dubious, and this time it boarders on ridiculous. Continue reading
Pole-Dancing for Kids: Icky or Unethical?
The latest issue of “Pole Spin,” the “international pole dance and lifestyle magazine,” features “the world’s youngest pole dancer” and a proud family with four pole-dancing teenagers.
Is this wrong? Child porn? Bad parenting? What the heck is it when something with sexual connotations is used by children in a non-sexual way? Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 