The Daily Commercial, a local paper serving Leesburg, Florida, issued a striking editorial apology for its biased coverage of the Presidential race.
In an open letter titled “The media, the election and bias,” the editors apologized to its readers and observed that the paper “hasn’t done enough to mitigate the anti-Trump wave in the pages of this paper….You deserve a more balanced approach to the coverage of elections and other weighty issues.”
The editorial says in part… Continue reading
The major reasons for the increase in National Park visitors breaking rules by getting too close to the wildlife and disturbing the integrity of the parks in other ways appear to be…selfies, selfies, selfies, and too many morons.
I may be over-simplifying, but not much. From a CBS report:
Record visitor numbers at the nation’s first national park have transformed its annual summer rush into a sometimes dangerous frenzy, with selfie-taking tourists routinely breaking park rules and getting too close to Yellowstone’s storied elk herds, grizzly bears, wolves and bison.
Law enforcement records obtained by The Associated Press suggest such problems are on the rise at the park, offering a stark illustration of the pressures facing some of America’s most treasured lands as the National Park Service marks its 100th anniversary.From Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains to the Grand Canyon of Arizona, major parks are grappling with illegal camping, vandalism, theft of resources, wildlife harassment and other visitor misbehavior, according to the records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
—-Dan Bongino, Florida Republican running in a Congressional primary, in a phone interview with Politico reporter Marc Caputo. Yes, he knew it was being recorded.
Stay classy, Republicans.
If you care about the context for this asinine performance, be my guest: read about it here. I don’t care if someone said that his mother slept with alpacas. His string of obscenities demonstrates a lack of respect for the public, miserable judgment, poor self-control, and the powers of expression of an under-educated pimp. Just what we need more of in Congress.
What kind of semi-civilized fool would vote for someone like this? I know, I know…the same kind of fool who would vote for Donald Trump.
Florida’s attorney general Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump while she considered joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates, AP reports
Trump’s $25,000 donation to Bondi came from a Trump family foundation in a likely violation of rules surrounding legitimate activities by 501 C (3) charities, which are not allowed to engage in political grant-making. And Justice for All, a political group backing Bondi’s re-election, reported receiving the check on Sept. 17, 2013 — four days after Bondi’s office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University’s activities.
What a coincidence!
ANOTHER coincidence!
This was a bribe, ladies and gentlemen, and an unusually obvious one.
Bondi’s a crook, and an unethical lawyer. Trump, meanwhile, is Trump.
Do you wonder that he said that “it is a rigged system”? No wonder he thinks that: he’s helped rig it.
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Private investigator Dominic Casey submitted a court affidavit in Casey Anthony’s bankruptcy case (he wants to get paid), that stated that Casey’s attorney Jose Baez (above, left) “ told me that Casey (above, right) had murdered Caylee and dumped the body somewhere. He also alleges that Baez had sexual relations with Anthony.
Here’s what you need to know about the ethics issues involved:
1. Most important of all: USA Today’s website headlined the story, P.I. says Casey Anthony lawyer acted unethically. I’d guess 95% or more of readers assume that what was unethical was Baez defending Anthony when she was guilty. Maybe USA Today even thinks that. That is pure, inexcusable ignorance. All criminal defendants have a Constitutional right to a zealous defense, and the defense lawyer’s duty is the same whether his client is guilty or not, Jack the Ripper or a jay-walker. The duty is to make the State prove its case with admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Almost everyone who has followed the case believes that Anthony is guilty of facilitating the murder of her daughter Kaylee, but the evidence was ambiguous and circumstantial, and the prosecution didn’t prove its case.
Having sex with a client is unethical, specifically under the rules of most states, and arguably under the rules of all states under general ethics and professionalism principles. Continue reading
Malik Leigh is an attorney who teaches in Palm Beach Lakes High School’s pre-law academy. He submitted an exam for review, as the school requires of all tests, that included this question:
“If Donald Trump becomes president of the United states, we are:
A.) Screwed
B.) Screwed
C.) Screwed
D.) Screwed behind a really YUGE wall that Mexico pays for.”
In another question on the same test, this lawyer—and I’m still trying to get my mind around that embarrassing fact— asked
“When performing an opening statement, it is best to:
A. Wink at the Judge
B. find the hottest person on the Jury and focus your words on them
C. Speak to them as if they are cordial friends.
D. Treat them like the MORONS they are.”
Leigh was suspended. The letter he received from Principal Cheryl McKeever announcing the suspension stated that the questions contained “inaccurate content, irrelevant material, unprofessional use of language, inappropriate use of language.” Continue reading
A political activist ambushed Florida Rick Scott when he stopped by a Gainesville Starbucks to get a cup of coffee, calling him an “asshole” and arranging to have the whole encounter videoed, so it could be placed on YouTube, where it promptly went viral. I wrote about it here.
In a sad and petty example of tit for tat, Scott has unveiled an attack video against his tormenter, Cara Jennings, a former Lake Worth city commissioner. Beginning with Jennings asking, “A million jobs? Great, who here has a great job?” a male voice answers, “Well, almost everybody – except those that are sitting around coffee shops, demanding public assistance, surfing the Internet, and cursing at customers who come in.”
Scott’s video was called “Latte Liberal Gets an Earful,” appeared Friday on Scott’s official YouTube channel and features the words “Sponsored by Let’s Get to Work,” which is the governor’s political action committee.
It is hard to imagine a more petty, needless, demeaning example of “punching down.” Jennings isn’t running against Scott; she is just a citizen critic, if an especially rude and nasty one. For a governor to focus an attack ad on a mere citizen is an abuse of power and position. It is ethically indefensible.
It is exactly what Donald Trump would do, though.
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Facts: Sun-Sentinal
Florida Governor Rick Scott just wanted to get a cup of coffee during a visit to a Starbucks in downtown Gainesville, but instead was ambushed by former Lake Worth City Commissioner Cara Jennings, who was already at a table, just by coincidence, of course.
“You cut Medicaid so I couldn’t get Obamacare,” she yelled at Scott, as a man who, also by coincidence, happened to have a political YouTube channel and just happened to be ready with his camera recorded everything to post online. “You’re an asshole. You don’t care about working people. You should be ashamed to show your face around here.”
The surprised Governor retorted that he had created a million jobs, and his tormenter mocked,“A million jobs? Great, who here has a great job? I was looking forward to finishing school. You really feel you have a job coming up?”
“Shame on you Rick Scott,” she added. “We depend on those services. Rich people like you don’t know what to do.”
Scott left without his coffee.
Now quick, in three seconds: what was the most unethical conduct on display here?
I have checked the comment threads in conservative and left-leaning blogs and news sources, and no commenter has mentioned it. Continue reading
—Nautika Harris (above, right), the cousin of a 17-year-old teen shot dead by a 54-year-old Miami woman as he tried to exit her home, which he had entered to burglarize.
Miami-Dade police say that Trevon Johnson, 17, burglarized the home of a 54-year-old old woman last week.
She was not in the house when the break-in occurred, but after being alerted by her surveillance system, she rushed home and found Johnson climbing out of a window. She shot him dead, and his relatives are outraged.
“I don’t care if she have her gun license or any of that. That is way beyond the law … way beyond,” Johnson’s cousin Nautika Harris told local radio station WFOR. “He was not supposed to die like this. He had a future ahead of him. Trevon had goals … he was a funny guy, very big on education, loved learning.”
And loved burglary, apparently. Continue reading
I’m proposing a new gun control law that would be named after Jamie Gilt, who this week was accidentally shot in the back by her 4-year-old son, who was seated in the back seat of her truck at the time. The child had picked up a .45 handgun that she had left on the floor of the vehicle. “Jamie’s Law” would ban gun ownership for life if an adult leaves a firearm, loaded, within the reach of a child below a certain age. Personally, I’d be fine if the cut-off was 18, but just to keep the law as close to Jamie’s situation as possible, let’s say 10 or under. Would that be unreasonable?
We could make the law really specific to Jamie, who is an idiot, by banning gun ownership by anyone who leaves guns lying around for kids to play with AND maintains a Facebook page called “Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense,“…well, with their name, not Jamie’s. Yes, Jamie—did I mention that she is an idiot?—did this while promoting responsible gun ownership. I wonder what she would consider irresponsible gun ownership. Maybe giving a child a loaded gun to suck on, instead of a pacifier.
I’m not too fond of the million or so anti-gun types who went on the page to insult and berate Jamie, who is in the hospital. (I see that the page has been taken down since last night.) I’m sure she feels bad enough already, in part because she was shot and also because she will be the face of foolish gun owners for the foreseeable future. What she should feel is lucky. The only difference between Jamie and Veronica Jean Rutledge, shot dead in a Walmart by her two-year-old in 2014, is moral luck. Actually, what Gilt did was more reckless that the conduct that killed Rutledge: Gilt was driving, and Rutledge at least had her gun in her purse, not in plain view. Both Rutledge and Gilt were lucky their children weren’t killed.
What do you think about Jamie’s Law?
Maybe gun owners who do this should be banned from having custody of children, too.
(Of course, it goes without saying that they would be presumed innocent until proven Gilty….)*
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*I’m sorry, I really am, but there’s a place in Hell for people who pass up set-ups like this.
Ethics Alarms 