hypocrisy

Sad Saturday Ethics Distraction, 8/24/2019: The Let Sean Spicer Make A Fool of Himself If He Wants To Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

I hope you are feeling much happier than I am today.

I just returned from a memorial gathering for a very dear friend’s wife of 37 years, who died suddenly, painfully, and based on what I have heard, unnecessarily at the end of July. One positive take-away from the event: People really aren’t so bad. My friend was stunned and touched beyond measure by the turn-out, with nearly 200 people attending just to say good-bye to her and express their love and support for him. Some traveled great distances,  interrupted vacations, or made it despite illness and handicaps.  I saw friends, former colleagues and acquaintances that had been out of this region for decades, but all it took was an email informing them that their friend, who  is one of those rare people who is always there to render help and support, now needed their support himself.

Gee, those endings of “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Easter Parade” aren’t as corny as I thought...

1. What a surprise! Only 35% of those polled support impeaching a President who has done nothing impeachable! Choose: Either the Democrats and the resistance have been lying about there being real and substantive high crimes and misdemeanors in order to sabotage the elected President, or there are such offenses, and they don’t have the guts to do their Constitutional duty and act to remove a President who is the existential threat to the nation they have claimed he is since, uh, before he was sworn in, somehow.

The same poll says that 57% would prefer someone else as President. That number is astoundingly low. The Someone Else dude is terrific! What a great President he’d be; I can’t fathom why he’s never made it! I know I sure wish he was President;  I’ve wished he were President ever since Ike left the White House.

Today’s quote from a “someone else” who I would rather set my face on fire than see have any power whatsoever: Bernie Sanders, who, while bloviating that “Climate change is an existential threat to the entire country and the entire world and we must be extraordinarily aggressive,” proposed an impossible, bankrupting, irresponsible 16 trillion dollar plan to “fix” what he doesn’t personally understand, couldn’t explain with a gun to his head, cannot say with certainty how it can be addressed effectively, and could be stumped by a cross examination by any climate change skeptic with a science degree. Bernie doesn’t even understand political science, and that was his college major. Proposing spending trillions of dollars on something you don’t understand is unethical. Isn’t that obvious? Continue reading →

Joe Biden, The Double Standard Candidate

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The fact that Joe Biden is even taken seriously as a Democratic candidate for President is an indictment of his party, as well as evidence that  progressive principles are instantly alterable, optional or ready for deep freeze any time they become inconvenient.

The ethics value issue, of course, is integrity. If the Democratic Party cared about it, Joe Biden would be looking forward to spending his Golden Years playing with his grandchildren and copping feels with their baby-sitters.

That’s the threshold hypocrisy, as we know. Joe is a serial and unapologetic sexual harasser. There are many photographs online, and probably many more to be found, of him hugging, sniffing, and fondling women of all ages while they seem approximately as comfortable as if Joe were a rabid octopus. The conduct displayed is the equivalent or worse  of behavior that has caused hundreds of executives and  many  high-profile leaders in a wide range of sectors to be removed from their jobs. The Democratic Party styles itself as the party of women and #MeToo, but has been flagrant about applying double and even triple standards: witness Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, still in office with the support of his party despite both a credible rape accusation and an allegation of sexual assault, both more serious than any of the accusations made against Senator Al Franken, a Democrat, who was forced to resign. None of the Republicans or Democrats who have been pilloried for sexual harassment carry the photographic evidence that indicts Biden, and yet there he is, topping the polls.

The Democratic Party’s hypocrisy goes far beyond harassment where Joe is concerned, however, as a recent Times article called “Joe Biden Knows He Says the Wrong Thing,” itself a naked rationalization to excuse incompetence. Hmmmmm...Is this rationalization  on the Ethics Alarms list? Give me half a minute while I check…

NO!

Incredibly, Joe’s excuse, “I know I’m doing it,” has so far escaped the definitive rationalizations list! That will be remedied shortly.

Joe and his defenders regularly employ other rationalizations for his groping problem (and others), among them, #1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it” variations “Everybody is used to it.,” “Everybody accepts it,”“Nobody’s complained before” and “It’s too late to change now,” #8. The Trivial Trap (“No harm no foul!”),#13A The Road To Hell, or “I meant well,” #19A The Insidious Confession, or “It wasn’t the best choice,’  #21A. The Criminal’s Redemption, or “It’s just a small part of what I am!,”#22. The Comparative Virtue Excuse: “There are worse things.,” #41 A. Popeye’s Excuse, or “I am what I am,”  #42. The Hillary Inoculation, or “If he/she doesn’t care, why should anyone else?,” 43. Vin’s Punchline, or “We’ve never had a problem with it!,” and #64A. Bluto’s Mistake or “I said I was sorry!.”

Sorry for the digression. Back to the Times article: I seriously considered posting the whole piece with Donald Trump’s name replacing Biden’s. How could the Times reporters write this, or anyone read it, without noticing that all the habits and tendencies being cited as Joe’s problems are the exact same proclivities that Democrats claim should disqualify Trump for high office, and all of the defenses on behalf of Joe echo the arguments of Trump defenders? Here are some quotes: Continue reading →

“Fredo” Ethics And Chris Cuomo

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

 

In case you too missed this enjoyable and revealing story, Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor with a former New York governor father and a current New York governor brother,  erupted into a string of fucks and fuckings (I’ll fucking ruin your shit. I’ll fucking throw you down these stairs like a fucking punk!”), other insults, and also threatened  to throw a man down some stairs after he called Cuomo “Fredo.”

One of the lessons of this incident is that you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time when everything you do in public is likely to be captured by a smartphone. The fact that Cuomo, who works in the news media,  has yet to grasp that principle is one more bit of evidence in a long, long convincing chain that the nickname “Fredo” is apt.

The incompetence, arrogance, ignorance and bias of Cris Cuomo is what finally drove me away from CNN as my early morning news source. The horrible, smirking Carol Costello couldn’t do it, as openly partisan and obnoxious about it as she was. At least Carol had some apparent intelligence and arguable qualifications for being a newsreader. Cuomo’s “qualifications” are only that he’s what passes for beefcake in the news business, had a famous father and has a powerful brother. I would say that his law degree is a qualification, except that he has proven repeatedly that something funny was going on with that, because he has tweeted out and recited many howlers that no real lawyer or D+ law student would ever think, much less broadcast.

Here’s the Ethics Alarms Chis Cuomo file. Here are representative excerpts from my commentary on Cuomo’s various adventures in idiocy:

  • May29, 2019: “We know—there is no doubt about this, and Ethics Alarms has documented the fact—that Cuomo is really, truly, a dolt. He is the poster child for affirmative action for celebrity and politician offspring. An alleged lawyer, his every other reference to the law is incorrect. …He is the perfect example of that horrible species, the stupid person who thinks he’s smart. CNN keeps him employed because 1) he’s cute, 2) he seems to be a nice guy, and 3) he’s a typical knee-jerk progressive. Reading his twitter feed is profoundly depressing. He is at once glib, earnest, and incoherent.”
  • August 18, 2018: “CNN cannot be taken seriously as a news organization as long as it continues to employ Chris Cuomo. I have concluded that Cuomo was only admitted to law school because his father was a popular governor of New York. No other explanation makes sense. Even after allegedly completing his three years, he doesn’t comprehend basic law or the Constitution. He has, for example, advanced public ignorance by stating that “hate speech” is not protested under the First Amendment. On another occasion, he said that it would be illegal for citizens to read leaked classified material available on the web, but that journalists could read it and then tell the public about it. The man is an idiot. He constantly utters legal and logical nonsense, and with the certitude that only a true idiot can muster. As a journalist he is biased and sloppy; as a pundit he is pompous and unqualified.”

You get the idea. Apparently Rush Limbaugh has adopted the habit of referring to Chris Cuomo as “Fredo” as if that were really his name. That sounds like Rush. The man who was the target of Cuomo’s tirade swears that he really thought that was Cuomo’s name—he is a loyal Limbaugh listener—and tells Chris that on the video. I believe him; there are people named Alfredo who go by the nickname “Fredo”; I worked with one a long time ago. Obviously the “Godfather” movies have made the name less popular.  The claim still isn’t so farfetched,  and if Cuomo was the nice guy he’s supposed to be—I retract that statement, incidentally—he would have given the stranger the benefit of the doubt.

Even while blowing his top, Cuomo couldn’t avoid spreading disinformation—it’s what CNN journalists do, after all— claiming that “Fredo” was an ethnic slur, like calling an African-American a “nigger.” Right. When did THAT happen? I think Chris may believe this  so he doesn’t have to process the real reason he’s called “Fredo”—like the pathetic John Cazale character, he’s weak and stupid, doesn’t know it, and demands respect.

Poor Fredo. Poor Chris.

The outburst tells me that Chris is beset with feelings of inferiority from a lifetime of being compared to his father and brother, and “Fredo” strikes a nerve. Would any self-confident, genuinely competent and intelligent professional react so violently to being called “Fredo”? In my family, evoking Fredo and his “I’m smart!” lament is a running joke, and it’s funny because there are no Fredos among the Marshalls. (My mother’s family was another story…)

Some random points: Continue reading →

The Complete El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto, With Ethics Commentary, PART II [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

[Before continuing with the Ethics Alarms commentary to follow, readers should take the time to read the entire El Paso shooter’s manifesto here, in Part I.]

Observations (cont.):

4. To be clear, the man is mad as a hatter. He is surprisingly articulate and thoughtful, however—more than many of the pundits that have tried to exploit his screed for their own purposes.

5. The basic inspiration for both the manifesto itself and the attack it preceded was the “Great Replacement,” a fevered  conspiracy theory posited by Renaud Camus, a French writer. The idea is neither novel nor complicated. It is like the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” although it is more like the invasion of the culture snatchers. Unrestrained immigration by an alien culture allows the majority, predominant culture to be replaced before it knows what has happened.

In the introduction to his manifesto, the shooter says, “My motives for this attack are not at all personal. Actually the Hispanic community was not my target before I read “The Great Replacement.” For the record, President Trump has never said or written anything that echoes or references the  “Great Replacement” paranoia. Pat Buchanan, when he was the champion of the GOP far right in the 80s and 90s, espoused similar theories, but never Trump. The President has never attacked the concept of immigration, only illegal immigration. Tying the manifesto to the President is another despicable example of representing opposition to illegal immigration as a variety of xenophobia or racism.

6. The manifesto is not partisan. “The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades,” it states early on. This is true, incidentally, regarding illegal immigration. Like most conspiracy theories, there are elements of truth in the shooter’s arguments; the problem is the extreme and unwarranted conclusions they lead him to adopt.

The shooter does finger the Democratic Party as the greater culprit, because they “intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters.” Again, there’s nothing crazy about that theory, which has been posited by many for decades by non-crazy people, and it still seems more likely than not. Again, it contains elements of truth, and there is nothing about objecting to such strategy or finding it cynical and unethical that makes the argument racist. Still, “the Republican Party is also terrible,” the shooter writes.

7.  Most of the shooter’s ideological positions could hardly be more contrary to Trumpism (whatever it is) or conservatism: Continue reading →

The Complete El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto, With Ethics Commentary, PART I

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The “manifesto” follows; some of my my observations precede it, the bulk of them, after, in Part II.

1. The fact that the news media went to such lengths to avoid making the manifesto easily accessible to the public is as alarming as the manifesto itself. This is elite and powerful institutions accountable to no one deliberately manipulating information for their own agenda and political motives. It doesn’t matter if they,”mean well,” and are emulating New Zealand’s measure, unconstitutional and thus unacceptable here, to censor the Christ Chruch shooter’s manifesto as a means of not spreading hate, or hare speech, or bad thoughts, or “giving the shooter what he wants.” It’s wrong, it’s un-American, it’s an abuse of power, and like so much else wafting over from the Left, reeks of totalitarianism. I know I mentioned this before, but, frankly, I’m angry: How dare the Washington Post wrap its reporting in “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and then turn off the lights when it suits their purposes?

2. The link turned up on the Drudge Report, which I suppose is why Powerline thought it could say that it was easily found online. Drudge is a muckraking, untrustworthy link-farm mostly followed by conservatives: I don’t consider it any more of a news site than Fark.com. Upon reflection, yes, I should have thought of it, but I shouldn’t have had to. Every published report that purported to interpret or analyze the El Paso manifesto had an ethiacl obligation to link to it or publish the whole thing.

Google was complicit in making it difficult to find. I googled “text of El Paso shooter manifesto,” “pdf of shooter manifesto,” and every conceivable combination, searched and scanned the results, and still found nothing. That would not happen if Google were not deliberately helping to hide it—if you want to use the term “conspiring,” be my guest.

Jerry Goedken (thanks, Jerry) revealed that the magic Google term is “drudgereport link to el paso manifesto.” Ah! So you have to know where it is to search for it! Seems logical.

Are we scared yet?

3. No, I’m not using the crazy’s name. That IS easily accessible, and his name is irrelevant. What matters is that what he wrote, which is essential for anyone who wants to try to understand what happened in El Paso, and why, and not to be at the mercy of contrived propaganda from the Left, the “resistance” and the news media,  must be available. The rationalizations for burying it are disingenuous and absurd, particularly the idiocy that it might inspire others or inflame hatred. There are equally inflammatory screeds and posts on social media every day. There are blog posts and columns in major newspapers and websites that are more inflammatory; there are screaming talking heads on CNN and MSNBC and Fox every day who are as hateful and incendiary.

4. Why is this rant being hidden? I think it is so the President of the United States can be falsely implicated in a slaughter for partisan political gain—that is, to foment hate, but the good kind–you know, against our elected leader. Those, like Beto O’Rourke, who are shouting to the skies that the shooter was virtually doing Trump’s bidding would not dare to make such a claim if they thought their audience read the manifesto.

5. Here’s the bottom line: There is no way a reasonable, objective, fair analyst could conclude that the El Paso shooter was in any way motivated by the President, his rhetoric, or his policy positions. Any pundit or journalist that claims otherwise is biased to the point of delusion, or lying. As I will explicate later, the rhetoric of Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and other hard Left progressives are arguably more directly consistent with the shooter’s beliefs than anything Donald Trump has ever advocated. I assume that the shooter’s own direct rejection of the thesis being throttled into the public by the mews media will be denied as some kind of loyal attempt to protect his white nationalist hero, or similar garbage. It’s classic conspiracy thinking: when the manifesto can be twisted to support a grand narrative, the writer is lucid and convincing; when it contradicts the narrative, well, what do you expect? He’s nuts, and why would you trust a murderer?

He writes below:

In general, I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto…My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest  predate Trump and his campaign for President. I [am] putting this here because some people will blame the  President or certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case. I know that the media  will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump’s rhetoric. The media is infamous for fake news. Their reaction to this attack will likely just confirm that.

The last two sentences are 100% accurate, and the sanest thing in his statement.

Here is the manifesto, which I formatted to allow for easier reading, another task journalists were obligated to do: Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Needs A Link To Or Copy Of The El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto, Since The News Media Is Unethical [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Please put either into the comments to this post, and I’ll follow this with both the document itself and an analysis.

[UPDATE: the link is on Drudge. See below.]

The ethics issue is obvious: reporters, pundits and journalists are telling us what the thing says, and, for the most part, how it shows that the President somehow inspired the shooter. I don’t trust these people; I trust myself. This isn’t the Unabomber’s screed, it is reportedly just four pages long. We should be allowed to make our own analysis.

The final straw was this post on the conservative PowerLine blog, in which John Mirengoff quotes from reporter Byron York’s assessment that it’s

“hard to make that case looking at the manifesto in its entirety…Crusius [the killer] worried about many things, if the manifesto is any indication. He certainly worried about immigration, but also about automation. About job losses. About a universal basic income. Oil drilling. Urban sprawl. Watersheds. Plastic waste. Paper waste. A blue Texas. College debt. Recycling. Healthcare. Sustainability. And more. Large portions of the manifesto simply could not be more un-Trumpian.”

Both the Powerline post and York’s article have the same headline: “Has anyone actually read the El Paso killer’s manifesto?”, and, incredibly, neither includes a link to the manifesto or the text itself! York is a hypocrite, taking other reporters to task for, he says, distorting the screed to impugn the President, yet he gives his readers no way to check his assertions. Mirengoff is even worse. He preens by writing that he has not read the manifesto—after questioning the integrity and honesty of those who have!–and says, “I don’t do evil mass murderers the honor of reading their deranged writings.”

Then don’t write posts about it, you ass.

He concludes, “Most news outlets have declined to link to the manifesto. I will decline, as well. However, it can be found without difficulty on the internet.” Oh, bite me. I just spent 30 minutes searching without success, and I’m trying to do my job.

The Washington Post, meanwhile–you know, the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” paper?–also won’t provide a link.

UPDATE: Got it!

Terrifying Tales Of The Double Standard: Lena Dunham’s Unwanted Kiss

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I suggest listening to this as background as you gaze at the picture…

Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances in a workplace setting. Sexual assault is an uninvited or consented to touching of a sexual nature.

Outspoken feminist/writer/actress Lena Dunham decided to spontaneously kiss walk over toher “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” costar Brad Pitt and kiss him, at the Quentin Tarantino film’s London premiere.  I’m enjoying the media accounts—more on this below— that say she “appeared” to kiss him: what else could she be trying to do? Whisper in his mouth? Eat his lips?)

The photographic evidence makes it clear that the advance was unwelcome, indeed evoking  an exchange in “Singing in the Rain”: Continue reading →

Meet The New APSA Editorial Team, George Orwell!

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

[For the second time in a week, reading a near-head-exploding ethics item right before bed has caused insomnia, necessitating this late-night post. My brain was already churning as I try to solve a work-related conundrum: this, I didn’t need. But this kind of stunning hypocrisy, dishonesty and lack of integrity the nation and the world don’t need, either.]

Behold a recent announcement from The American Political Science Association. Read carefully, now:

APSA Announces the New Editorial Team for the American Political Science Review for 2020

The American Political Science Association is delighted to announce a new editorial team to lead the American Political Science Review (APSR).  The APSA Council selected a team co-led by twelve political scientists from many institutions across North America. The new team’s term begins on June 1, 2020 and runs through May 31, 2024.

  • Sharon Wright Austin, Professor of Political Science, University of Florida
  • Michelle L. Dion, Associate Professor of Political Science, McMaster University
  • Lisa García Bedolla, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division and a Professor in the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley
  • Clarissa Rile Hayward, Professor of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis
  • Kelly M. Kadera, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Iowa
  • Julie Novkov, Professor of Political Science and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University at Albany, SUNY
  • Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Purdue University
  • Dara Strolovitch, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies and Politics, Princeton University
  • Aili Mari Tripp, Wangari Maathai Professor of Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Denise M. Walsh, Associate Professor of Politics and Women, Gender, and Sexuality, University of Virginia
  • S. Laurel Weldon, Professor of Political Science, Simon Fraser University 
  • Elisabeth Jean Wood, Crosby Professor of the Human Environment and Professor of Political Science, Yale University

Vision Statement by the Editors

We are honored to have been selected as the American Political Science Review’s new editorial team. We thank the APSA Council and the selection committee for their confidence in our team and for their support for our vision. In entrusting the editorship of the association’s flagship journal to our diverse and all-woman team, the Council is demonstrating its commitment to promoting a wider range of voices and scholarship in the journal and the discipline.

Notice anything strange? Ridiculous, mayhap? Babylon Bee-worthy, you might say?

It’s this: “our diverse and all-woman team.” Continue reading →

Elizabeth Warren’s Brazen Breast Implant Lie

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

This story, which was just breaking through the Mueller fiasco yesterday, literally woke me up. If I’m ever going to get any sleep, I have to write this post now, because it simultaneously disgusts me and brings me great satisfaction.

I  decided long ago that Elizabeth Warren was a principle-free demagogue and a liar. The first clue was her tap-dancing around the uncomfortable fact that she had been practicing law without a valid license in Massachusetts. Then there was her cynical use of a Cherokee heritage she didn’t have to gain diversity benefits when she was seeking positions on law school faculties, and her long, long, stubborn resistance to coming clean about the fact that she was not, in her words, a “woman of color” despite posing as one for decades.

This last should have permanently made a run for the Democratic Party 2020 nomination futile, but Warren threw her war bonnet into the ring anyway, counting on her considerable talent for demagoguery  and her willingness to say anything and espouse any extreme position  to make her candidacy viable in a shockingly weak field.  She is, when you think of it, the closest equivalent to Hillary Clinton that the Democrats have, and as this story demonstrates, in all the worst ways.

Warren has been claiming for years that as a lawyer she fought for the women who were victims of dangerous silicon breast implants. Not only is that not accurate, it’s an audacious  and calculated lie.

The truth was initially exposed by Professor William Jacobson, the proprietor of the conservative blog,  Le*gal In*sur*rec*tion when Warren was running for the Massachusetts Senate in 2012, though it was largely ignored then: the news media was too invested in getting Democrats control of the U.S. Senate. Then she brazenly continued the false narrative in 2019, prompting Jacobson to tell Tucker Carlson about it this week on Fox news, but more importantly, inspiring the Washington Post to resort to actual journalism even though it harms a sweetheart of the “resistance” and a relentless critic of President Trump. [Why would it do this? I suspect because the Post favors Kamala Harris.] From the Post on July 15: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 7/24/2019: More Wild Animal Ethics, And Wild Al Franken Follies

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Good Morning!

That’s called “morning rush hour” in Yellowstone…

1. Child services, please! Recalling the scofflaw fool who was kicked in the cajones by a wild horse he was supposed to avoid touching, we have this story in the Washington Post, about a bunch of tourists who defied Yellowstone National Park rules until this happened…

Wow! That’s the gold medal in the Bison Olympics “Little Girl Toss” for sure. She was treated and released, but her parents should be prosecuted. In the category of Rationalization #22, “There are worse things,” here’s a comment on the Post story, flagged by Ann Althouse:

I grew up about an hour outside of Yellowstone and have spent many happy years in the park. I now live on the east coast, but try to go back every few years. Every single time I’m in the park, I see people doing the stupidest, most dangerous things. The last time, I was leaving the Old Faithful Inn after supper and noticed a small herd of bison hanging around. (A very common sight) Not being a complete idiot, I decided to take a different path back to our campground, a path and would not take me near the bison. Then I noticed a man with his small child heading toward the herd. I stopped him and warned that he might want to stay away, particularly with his child. He told me to f-off and kept walking. I watched as he got very close to the first bison and then saw him pick up his child and start to try to put the kid on the back of the bison. A bunch of other people started shouting and I ran for a ranger. Thankfully, the ranger managed to stop the idiot before tragedy. Unusual? Not really!

2.  Can #MeToo survive progressive hypocrisy? Personally, I hope so. Sexual harassment is a massive problem; I keep telling my legal ethics audienbces that the legal profession’s Harvey Weinstein will be exposed any time now, and probably will lead to many Harveys-at-Law. However, the more the movement is weaponized for political expediency, the less credibility it has. Continue reading →