groping

Ethics Dunce And Awful Human Being: Thomas Frieden’s #MeToo Victim…And Also, “KABOOM!”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Like “Advice Goddess” blogger  Amy Alkon, when I heard that Dr. Thomas Frieden, Obama’s former head of the CDC, had been arrested for sexual assault, I just assumed that he was one more prominent serial predator who has used his power to abuse women in the workplace, and a pretty serious one, if he ended up in cuffs. After all, nobody has arrested Matt Lauer or Charlie Rose.

Then I read the whole story, and my head exploded. But not because of what Frieden had allegedly done.

A 55-year-old woman, so far unidentified in the media (I want that woman’s name)  came forward to the police in July and said that Dr. Frieden squeezed her buttocks without her permission nine months earlier, on October 20, 2017.  She told investigators the incident occurred  as she was leaving a gathering at Dr. Frieden’s residence in Brooklyn Heights. She said Dr. Frieden groped her while their spouses weren’t looking, and he later apologized, citing personal problems.. Dr. Frieden says the woman is a long-time friend and acquaintance of more than thirty years.

Got that?  Almost a year earlier, at a party, a male friend squeezed her butt. He apologized. She waited all this time, and then humiliated him professionally and publicly by having him arrested.

How can this conduct possibly be excused, and I mean hers. His conduct was wrong—I have never groped a woman’s ass or any other part of her body without clear consent in my life, indeed I have heard complaints that I don’t grope enough— and it was technically civil battery, but far, far from criminal. Having the man arrested is nothing less than a hateful, cruel, vindictive abuse of him, his family and the justice system.

We are told that this women—I want her name!—is a New York artist who has been a vocal #MeToo activist since the Harvey Weinstein Ethics Train Wreck started rolling and squishing, and  has been creating artwork related to the movement. She also wrote an article in an online publication describing that single grope, from a friend, at a party, as the moment she was transformed from activist to victim. Ah! Then treating an old friend this way is completely justified!

No, it’s not. She’s not just an ethics dunce, she’s an asshole.  Alkon–who gets the Ethics Alarms Pointer for this one— calls the grope, which is not sexual harassment, not occurring in the workplace or between superior and inferior, and not creating a hostile work environment, Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 1/3/2018: Lists, Lust, Tweets and Twits…[UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Good Morning, Ethics Lovers!

1 Fake news or just bad journalism? These year-end lists are sometimes very valuable. The Washington Examiner has published what it calls “our catalogue of the shoddiest political reporting beginning Jan. 20, 2017,” It’s no surprise that most of the items appear to spring from anti-Trump bias, but not all. I’m certain the list is not complete; I’m very certain that Fox News is treated far too leniently. It’s still a useful list.

This example from the list is the kind of misleading spin that Ethics Alarms will continue to label fake news: anti-Trump distortions designed to further a Democratic constituency’s false narrative. This one was generated by a reporter’s confirmation bias that the White House was hostile to LGBT citizens, then not checked, and given a pass by an editor who was also influenced by confirmation bias:

March 29: The Golden Easter Egg

The Claim: In a first for the White House, the eggs used for the annual Easter Egg Roll will be gold instead of the usual rainbow and pastel colors.

The Source: A New York Times reporter.

The Facts: This was not the first time that the White House has used golden eggs for the annual hunt. The Obamas had golden eggs as did previous administrations.

Hell, I knew about the golden eggs. It would have been easy to check, but the journalists leaped to the conclusion that would support anti-Trump fearmongering.

2. Add it to the list! Ann Althouse caught this one:

I’m reading “Trump’s claim that he prevented air-traffic deaths is his most questionable yet” by Philip Bump at the Washington Post (and similar attacks on Trump elsewhere). But what Trump tweeted was:

“Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news – it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”

Those are 2 separate sentences. They do create the impression that they have something to do with each other, but he’s only claiming that he’s been “very strict on Commercial Aviation.” (Don’t get me started on the capitalization.) He never says because of my strictness there have been zero deaths. If you see a claim, you made an inference.

Bingo. And inferences should not be published in major newspapers as facts. Trump did not claim that he prevented air-traffic deaths, and even if he had, it certainly would not be “his most questionable yet.”

3. He just can’t help himself.  I wonder how many extra approval points President Trump would have if he just had a smart, savvy, responsible tweet editor with veto power. Stupid tweets like yesterday’s retort to “Rocket Man”…

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

…are nothing but destructive. a) This kind of flippant talk involving nuclear war is per se irresponsible. b) It reinforces fears that the President is reckless and untrustworthy. c) It is childish, and reduces international diplomacy to playground taunts. d) It shows a flat learning curve and a frightening lack of discipline and judgement. e) It’s crude, and unpresidential.

But you knew that without me having to explain it, right? So why didn’t he?

Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 12/7/17: Al Franken’s Day That Will Live In Infamy [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

Battleship USS West Virginia sunk and burning at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. In background is the battleship USS Tennessee.

Good Morning, Bad Memories…

1 The duty to remember…The most amazing thing about Pearl Harbor was perhaps how lucky the United States was that the sneak attack by Japan, as devastating as it was, didn’t permanently cripple our ability to defend ourselves. Two links lead to explanations why. Here is a letter written by Admiral Nimitz, then in his eightieth year. to Admiral David L. McDonald, the present Chief of Naval Operations. The National Review provides the tale of how a forgotten Georgia Congressman, Democrat Carl Vinson saved the country and probably the world.  An excerpt:

For nearly a decade before Pearl Harbor, Vinson had schemed and politicked in brilliant fashion to ensure that America was building a two-ocean navy larger than all the major navies of the world combined. Vinson had assumed in the mid-1930s that fascist Japan and Germany posed existential threats to the United States. For America to survive, he saw that America would need mastery of the seas to transport its armies across the Pacific and Atlantic.

This is Thank You Carl Day. Read it all.

2. ‘I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough, and doggone it, nobody likes me!’ This appears to be the end for Senator Al Franken. If it’s not, the end is near and inevitable. His seventh new accuser was the tipping point, for some reason, though her story Franken denies—especially the part where the anonymous woman claims that after she ducked his attempt at a spontaneous kiss in 2006, he  protested, “It’s my right as an entertainer! ” The soon-to-be-former Senator told Politico,

“This allegation is categorically not true and the idea that I would claim this as my right as an entertainer is preposterous. I look forward to fully cooperating with the ongoing ethics committee investigation.”

That “It’s my right” comment sounds to me like a desperate attempt to save face by making a joke out of an awkward situation, not a serious claim. If I’m right, then Franken’s statement is deceit: he’s saying that he would never claim such a right, but he isn’t saying that those words never came out of his mouth. Al’s slippery, mealy-mouthed, not-quite apologies are a large part of why he’s in this mess, as I wrote here. 

Still, no one should be presumed guilty or face negative consequences for a public accusation by an accuser who refuses to go on the record. This is basic fairness and due process. Never mind: the Democratic women in the U.S. Senate are less interested in due process and fairness than grandstanding and standing for the proposition that women must be believed in cases of sexual assault, unless they were assaulted by Bill Clinton. I think that’s the rule, right?

They led a coordinated attack on Franken yesterday by 16 U.S. Senators, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York—you know, the one who championed “Mattress Girl”?–who  wrote in a 650-word statement,”While Senator Franken is entitled to have the Ethics Committee conclude its review, I believe it would be better for our country if he sent a clear message that any kind of mistreatment of women in our society isn’t acceptable by stepping aside to let someone else serve.”

That’s right, Senator, it’s better to send the message that due process is just a sham to make doing what you want to do look fair.

For example, how do you like this (from Politico):

Two former colleagues of the woman independently corroborated her version of events, including Franken telling her he had the right to try to kiss her because he was “an entertainer.” The first former colleague interviewed by POLITICO said she was told of the incident in 2006, shortly after it happened. The second former co-worker said she was made aware of the encounter sometime in 2009 or 2010.

What? Those women didn’t corroborate the the accuser’s “version of events”! How can any journalist write such junk? How could an editor let it pass? All they can do is corroborate that the woman said this happened, not that her account is accurate or true.

But again, never mind. This is The Terror. Al’s a man, Democrats have been caught in the web of hypocrisy they started spinning when Clinton was President, and his metaphorical blood must cleanse them. Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Round-Up, 11/14/2017: Welcome To The I Hate The President Hotel! Appearing In Our Lounge, George H.W. Bush’s Favorite Magician!

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments

Good morning!

(I miss you. Jimmy!)

1 What a revolting development THIS is!

Liberals traveling to Washington, D.C., may soon have a place to stay that’s catered to them – an anti-Trump hotel scheduled to open in spring 2018. The Eaton Workshop hotel is billed as “the world’s first politically motivated hotel,” according to Bloomberg.  Its founder, Katherine Lo, told the news outlet that the 209-room hotel will open near the National Mall, mere blocks from the Trump International Hotel.

Lo said the hotel isn’t meant “to bring together left and right,” but to attract liberal guests and those who consider themselves “woke.” “Self-selection is definitely one of our strategies,” she said. “We wanted to emphasize that it’s a place for people who are thinking outside the box and want to effect a change in the world.”

The hotel will prioritize community outreach, Bloomberg reported, hosting a series of progressive lectures and fireside chats and partnering with local artists and museums to provide art installations and exhibitions. An anti-Trump video installation in the lobby will also show footage of the 2012 and 2016 elections…Locations are also planned in Hong Kong, Seattle and San Francisco in the coming years that would have spaces for radio stations, multimedia studios and venues for musicians and artists to express their activism.

“We plan to have new ideas in the minibar — an activist toolkit, for example, that includes sheets with information to help you call your congresspeople,” Lo told Bloomberg. “And if we’d been open during this year’s Women’s March, I could have seen us putting poster boards and markers in the rooms.”

I have been reading essays from various quarters concluding that Trump-Hate is fast becoming a clinical condition. This would support that; the question is how many travelers are this far gone into hyper-partisan madness. That aside, we have yet another example of the irresponsible and unAmerican push to shatter American society, make everything political, and to encourage partisan isolation, apartheid, and warfare.

The hotel is cultural poison.

2. Ah, this couple was made for each other! Kayla Moore, wife of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore,posted a letter on Facebook over the weekend indicating that more than 50 Alabama pastors still supporter her husband. The letter with their endorsement originated before the GOP primary, however. Mrs. Moore deceptively made these pastors appear to endorse Moore despite the subsequent llegations of his molesting one young teen, assaulting a second, plying another with liquor, and generally being too creepy for normal people to think about without getting ill. Already some of the pastors listed have asked to be removed from the list.

The pastors did endorse Moore in the first place, though, so I wouldn’t want to speculate on how many of them would echo the brain-exploding excuse by Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, who said,

“Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”

[Warm-Up Open Book Quiz! Name the rationalizations!]

When I see wives standing up for politicians like Moore, I often wonder, “How can they do that? ” Here’s how: they are sleazy and unethical too.

3. Ugh. Now another woman has accused Bush 41 of groping her during a photo shoot, this one in 2003, and when she was only 16. I believe her, in part because of the ex-President’s spokesperson describing the “joke” he liked to tell female admirers about how his—I still can’t believe I have to write this—favorite magician was “David Cop-A-Feel.”

There is strong evidence that the federal government is Sexual Harassment And Assault East, perhaps not as bad as Hollywood, but just as hypocritical and inexcusable. George H. W. Bush was part of that privileged and abusive old boys culture. The Harvey Weinstein Ethics Train Wreck is just now arriving at the Capitol, which is ironic, since Bill Clinton and his unprincipled defenders started it rolling way back in 1998. Continue reading →

Integrity Test For Democratic “War On Women” Warriors

/ Jack Marshall / 89 Comments

This photo…

Biden Harassment

…is evidence of sexual harassment, and, to be blunt, it infuriates me.

Even after decades of laws, lawsuits, lectures, trainings, cultural messages…”Tootsie,” for God sake…too many men in the workplace believe that having a young, attractive woman working in a subordinate position gives them leave to treat her as a convenient source of cheap sexual thrills, open to hugs, kisses, pats, pinches and worse. Doing this to women places them in an impossibly uncomfortable position, forcing them to choose to “be a good sport” and ignore the disrespect, degradation, and invasion of privacy—as in endorse it, ratify it, and encourage more of it—or to risk career, workplace relationships and enmity from the powerful by saying, “Pardon me? Please keep your hands to yourself, sir. That is inappropriate.”

And it is inappropriate—worse than that, it is part of male workplace conduct that keeps glass ceilings impenetrable. It is a prime tool of male dominance and sexual discrimination. Such conduct speaks loudly to the woman under assault, saying, in essence, “you’re here by my leave, for my pleasure, at my pleasure, sweetie,” and saying to every woman who sees the resulting photograph, “See? This is the role you are expected to play, and if you don’t, well, better find a husband and start having those kids, honey, because you are going nowhere.” Continue reading →