hypocrisy

Introducing The Ethics Stooges: Bristol, Geraldo, And Dan

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

three-stooges

They are the perfect  2015 replacements for Larry, Moe and Curly. So diverse! Bristol Palin, a conservative woman; Geraldo Rivera,a Hispanic liberal who works for a conservative news network, and Dan Savage, a progressive gay scold!

Too bad they aren’t funny.

In fact, they are pathetic, and, of course, ethically inert. They also make “Porcupine” and the Howard Boys look classy by comparison, and they showered in their clothes.

First, yecch, Bristol Palin. She is the epitome of a worthless celebrity. Arguably, she is worse that a Kardashian. Her claim to fame is embarrassing her mother by turning up pregnant and unmarried in the middle of the 2008 Presidential campaign. That’s it. That got her a slot on “Dancing With The Stars” and a reality show where she became the poster girl for unmarried motherhood as a clever career move. Then, mind-blowingly, she became a paid advocate for teenage abstinence before marriage, that is, unlike her. In 2011, Palin was paid more than a typical Hillary Clinton college speaking fee—over a quarter million dollars—to be the abstinence spokesperson for the Candies Foundation.

Naturally, she got pregnant sans wedding ring again.

Soon after her engagement to former Marine and Medal of Honor awardee Dakota Meyer ended, Palin announced on her blog this week that she was once more with child, but without husband. “I wanted you guys to be the first to know that I am pregnant. Honestly, I’ve been trying my hardest to keep my chin up on this one,” wrote Palin. “I know this has been, and will be, a huge disappointment to my family, to my close friends, and to many of you,” she wrote. “But please respect Tripp’s and my privacy during this time. I do not want any lectures and I do not want any sympathy.”

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!

No sympathy? Deal. But here’s the lecture: you owe the Candies Foundation—which, frankly, deserves this embarrassment for hiring a feckless reality star as a role model for impressionable teens–every cent you accepted as part of your con. But then your life is a con. You have no talent, no integrity, and no excuse for your conduct. Get an education, grow up, and go away. You degrade the culture and America’s values by your very existence. Continue reading →

KABOOM! The Fascist School Superintendent Who Is Training Children To Think Like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
Bad one. Been building for a while.

Bad one. Been building for a while.

Explain to me why this story isn’t national news, while a principal pulling a valedictorian off the graduation program when he insisted on making graduation a vehicle for his coming out as gay—to his parents—is. Never mind. We both know know. Journalists see discrimination and homophobia even where it isn’t, but fascism increasingly bothers them less and less.

That’s because, I fear, they are Democrats. I will return to this surprising and alarming theme in a moment.

At Northwest Mississippi Community College, where the graduation ceremony for Senatobia High was held,  the superintendent asked the crowd not to scream or cheer and to hold their applause until the end. As always happens—always, always,always––a few relatives couldn’t contain themselves. Four guests shouted various felicities and exhortation to their graduates out of turn

They are strict in Mississippi: all four were kicked out of the event.

But that’s not all. They are really strict in Mississippi: Senatobia Municipal School District Superintendent Jay Foster filed ‘disturbing the peace’ charges against the people who yelled at graduation, and police  issued warrants for their arrests with a possible $500 bond.

KABOOM!

Well, my head’s been threatening to explode for quite a while now*, and this finally did it, big time. Congratulations Jay Foster, you foolish, unethical, unkind, tin-god fascist. You did it.

Foster refused to be interviewed on camera, but told the media that he’s determined to have order at graduation ceremonies. I recommend snipers, Jay. Or maybe duct tape. This fascist idiot is responsible for educating children! Does he realize he’s educating them to be…Democratic Senators? Continue reading →

We Have A Winner In The “False Hastert-Clinton Equivalency Sweepstakes”! Congratulate Slate’s William Salatan!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I don’t know when William Salatan jumped the ethics shark at Slate; I used to find him fair, reasonable and perceptive. Now he has apparently gone over the Dark Side, the shadowy, ethics-free realm where the Clintons are victims of a vast right wing conspiracy. Too bad.

There is some compensation for Salatan, though. He just penned the perfect example of the Shameless Left’s attempt to exploit the fall of  former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert to exonerate Bill Clinton, and by extension, his Lady MacBeth, Hillary, as she tries to complete her rise to power fueled by the public’s acceptance of her husband’s corrupt ways.

You can read it here, and I would hope that most of you would be able to spot, and quickly, the multiple blatant ethics bait-and-switches that Salatan employs. But for those deceived, let me provide some guidance.

Many commentators have made the point that Hastert’s prosecution looks politically motivated and unfair. He is not being prosecuted for the alleged sexual misconduct with a student believed to be the source of an extortion attempt, and paying a blackmailer is no crime. He is being prosecuted for lying to the F.B.I about the reason for his large cash withdrawals. Says Salatan:

“The critics have a point. Lying under oath and evading transaction surveillance are derivative crimes. Usually, they’re prosecuted only if the underlying offense is serious and demonstrably true. You can argue that if the core allegation hasn’t been proved, or if the core issue isn’t grave enough, it’s cheap and abusive to proceed with prosecution based purely on derivative charges. But Hastert can’t make that argument, because he made the opposite argument 17 years ago. He threw the book at President Clinton for lying about sex.”

Thus Slate’s misleading and ignorance-seeding headline, “Hastert’s Hypocrisy.” There is no hypocrisy. Moreover, like Professor Kerr, Salatan mistakenly says that Clinton was impeached for “lying about sex.”  That was a Lanny Davis/Clinton spin talking point, and it is false.. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Law Professor Orin Kerr

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

“If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy. Yikes.”

—Prof. Orin Kerr on The Volokh Conspiracy.

Hatert as coachI thought more highly of Prof. Kerr, who belongs to the left end of the group of provocative libertarian legal scholars who make up the commentariat on the erudite blog, recently annexed by the Washington Post, than to believe him capable of abusing his authority with this kind of hackery. He is endorsing  the deceitful “logic” of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.

Well no, Professor, I guess you don’t understand history properly, or government, or ethics for that matter. Clinton was not impeached for lying about a sexual affair, though that was the tactical spin placed on the impeachment by Clinton’s defenders.

Bill Clinton  was impeached for lying about a sexual affair under oath, before a judge, in court, an act that would get you, as well as any other lawyer, disbarred. If you don’t obey the law enough to be a lawyer, you don’t respect the law enough to be trusted to defend the laws of the land as President of the United States. He was also impeached for lying to a grand jury, another crime, and using his high office, his appointees and his staff to cover up his lies, which is obstruction of justice.

He was also impeached because he was President of the United States, the role model and exemplar for good citizenship, lawfulness and good behavior for the entire nation, and because the relationship in question occurred during his tenure in office, during the working day, and  with a low-level employee in violation of the principles under lying the sexual harassment law he had signed into law himself.

None of this was true of Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, and Dennis Hastert, the three GOP Speakers Kerr is referring to. Continue reading →

The Progressive Corruption Of And Betrayal By The Democratic Party, PART 1: The Return Of Paula Jones

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments
"Psst...remember not to smirk when you lie..."

“Psst…remember not to smirk when you lie…”

Paula Jones is speaking out again after almost 16 years. Good.

I can’t say she is an ethics  hero, for she has vengeance on her mind, and maybe even some desire to cash in…or who knows? Maybe she can get a stipend from the Clinton Foundation to keep quiet. Nonetheless, her reemergence is a good thing.  Too many have forgotten, or indeed never learned, about how she was sexually harassed by Bill Clinton when he was a governor and she worked for Arkansas, and systematically vilified and denigrated by Hillary, the Clinton team, and soulless Clinton enablers in the media before her lawsuit exposed the Monica Mess. I had even forgotten how outrageously she was treated, and I had followed the cases carefully.

I had not forgotten, however, the disgusting Democratic and feminist hypocrisy where she was concerned. Back in 1997, I remember confronting a prominent female trial lawyer, outspoken feminist, and then president of The Association of Trial Lawyers (before they changed their name to the stealth “American Association for Justice” to hide the fact that they were lawyers) whom I overheard trashing Jones as a lying, politically-motivated gold-digger. Recalling that during the Clarence Thomas hearings she had sported an “I believe Anita Hill” button, I asked her, in a room full of people, “Why don’t you believe Paula Jones, if you believed Anita Hill?” She just walked out of the room. She believed Anita Hill, whose accusation of  ClarenceThomas was entirely politically motivated and unprovable, because she wanted to. She didn’t believe Paula Jones, who had a much stronger case, because Jones was a big-haired, working-class woman who dared to try to hold accountable a powerful, liberal, serial sexual predator that her association had contributed millions to elect. She was ashamed of the answer to my question. She should have been.

Here’s Paula on the “most admired living President” and the presumptive standard bearer for the Democratic Party in 2016, who will be running on a pro-women platform and accusing Republicans of waging a “war on women”:

‘There is no way that she did not know what was going on, that women were being abused and accosted by her husband. They have both lied…She should not be running with the terrible history they have.  Who would want Bill Clinton back a second time, doing the same stuff he was doing before, philandering with women?…He does not have a right to be in the White House to serve the people the way he treated women, sexually harassing women. There were many women that came out and spoke out about what he did to them. He does not have a place in the White House to serve the American people.”

Have you forgotten? Here was the key section of Jones’s deposition that the Clinton team, guided by Hillary, claimed was all fabricated: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: William Spencer Reilly, Executive Director of the Sheen Center

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
This was Bishopr Sheen, after whom the Sheen Center is named. Having spent a lot of time watching and listening to Sheen, I am fairly certain that he would not concur with the Sheen Center's decision. Why? Because, among other reasons, he was a lot smarter than that.

This was Bishop Sheen, after whom the Sheen Center is named. Having spent a lot of time watching and listening to Sheen, I am fairly certain that he would not concur with the Sheen Center’s decision. Why? Because, among other reasons, he was a lot smarter than that.

“When an artistic project maligns any faith group, that project clearly falls outside of our mission to highlight the good, the true, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages.”

—William Spencer Reilly, the executive director of Manhattan’s Sheen Center,  in an email announcing that it was cancelling an anti-censorship benefit event at its theater because the organizers refused to allow the Center to change a play’s title and redact the content of some speakers’ remarks.

Yes, a theater found an anti-censorship event unacceptable because it refused to submit to censorship.

Ethics Dunce is too kind for Mr. Reilly, though I suspect he is more likely a traitor to his art and profession because he wants to keep his job. He is, however, a strong candidate for Hypocrite of the Decade. He rents out the Center for a theatrical project to condemn censorship, and then attempts to censor the event.

Cowabunga.

There were two ethical courses open to him: either refuse to rent the space to the event, or rent the space, knowing its purpose, and leave the event alone. What he did instead was ludicrous, and indefensible.”The management of The Sheen Center actually suggested that we alter the title of Neil LaBute’s play, and alter the content of some of our panelist’s speeches,” said the artistic curator of “Playwrights for a Cause.” “Which we find completely out of line with the anti-censorship mission of the benefit.”

Ya think? Yes, I’d say that is res ipsa loquitur. Also indefensible was Reilly’s tortured interpretation of the Sheen Center Mission Statement, which is, admittedly, a pompous mess:

“The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture is a forum to highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages. Cognizant of our creation in the image and likeness of God, the Sheen Center aspires to present the heights and depths of human expression in thought and culture, featuring humankind as fully alive. At the Sheen Center, we proclaim that life is worth living, especially when we seek to deepen, explore, challenge, and stimulate ourselves, Catholic* and non-Catholic alike, intellectually, artistically, and spiritually.”

Continue reading →

If You Are Going To Make Citizens United A Campaign Issue, You Are Ethically Obligated To Know What The Decision Actually Says

/ Jack Marshall / 59 Comments

straw man

Here: read the damn thing.

There may have been other Supreme Court decisions that have been more shamefully misrepresented by pundits, activists and demagogues, but I can’t think of one.

The case is back in the news because Hillary Clinton, who  will try for a world record in cynical pandering to the least informed voters if she gets the Democratic nomination, told a group of her top fundraisers this week that if she is elected president, her nominees to the Supreme Court must share her belief that the Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision should be overturned, according to people who heard her remarks. In this she is echoing socialist candidate Bernie Sanders, who has said…

“If elected president, I will have a litmus test in terms of my nominee to be a Supreme Court justice. And that nominee will say that we are all going to overturn this disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United because that decision is undermining American democracy. I do not believe that billionaires should be able to buy politicians.”*

The decision does not say that, or hold that, nor are the implications of the decision intended to allow that. Never mind. Bernie’s ideological leftist supporters don’t care what the decision really is about any more than Clinton does. It’s just a rallying cry against “the rich” and “big corporations.” The slogan is a positive litmus test result for ignorance, or, in Bernie’s case, the willingness to deceive. In Hillary’s case, it is just Hillary being Hillary, trying to keep Sanders from flanking her on the left. Do any of those who cheered her fatuous remarks about the decision know what the decision says? I’m dubious. I don’t even think that’s what they were cheering. They were cheering the symbolic use of the case as class warfare rather than the case itself. In fact, Hillary must be banking on nobody paying attention to the case for a very simple reason. Citizens United was about whether that government could ban a documentary that was critical of…Hillary Clinton!

That’s right, a presidential candidate is going to be on record that the films, books and other communications that criticize her should be illegal. Continue reading →

Integrity Fail: Republicans Pass An Anti-Abortion Bill, Thus Undermining Their Argument Against Unconstitutional Overreach By Democrats

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
I bet this guy is a Republican.

I bet this guy is a Republican.

The bill the Republicans in the House just passed to ban abortions after 20 weeks undermines every argument the party has made against the abuse of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to allow the federal government to meddle in state matters. One’s position on abortion isn’t relevant to the ethics and law here: I agree whole-heartedly with the ban in principle.

Abortion isn’t commerce, however. For decades, the Commerce Clause’s provision giving Congress the power to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states” has been stretched beyond all reason and the limits of language by Democratic majorities.  It has been conservative legislators, scholars and pundits who have screamed about it. Indeed, this was the primary basis for the attack on Obamacare in the Supreme Court case NFIB v. Sebelius, and the majority did find that the so-called “individual mandate” exceeded Congress’s Commerce Clause limitations.

The abuse of the Commerce Clause has been the primary means by which the Founders’ intentional restraints on federal  government power over the states and individuals have been circumvented by big government advocates. Some of the measures that were ingeniously slipped by the Commerce Clause using dubious justifications have been necessary and beneficial, like Federal laws against discrimination. Those measures, however, greased an ever-slipperier slope that has made the Clause a virtual nullity.

Supposedly, Republicans believed that it was important to start taking the Constitutional limits on Congressional power seriously again, because the alternative would be a Congressional dictatorship over the states. Now we know that the Republicans are just as willing to trample the Commerce Clause as Democrats are, as long as their pet social issues are being served. Continue reading →

Atrocious People, Part IV: The New BU Professor’s Racist, Not Racist, “Indelicate” Tweets

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments
She's thinking about how much she hate's you guts, White Boy. Good luck with that paper.

The Professor’s  thinking about how much she hates your guts, White Boy. Good luck with that paper!

Saida Grundy, a newly hired assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies who is scheduled to begin her tenure at Boston University on July 1, tweeted  this query: “Why is white America so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?” In another tweet, she announced that “Every MLK week I commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses. And every year I find it nearly impossible.” She’s a racist, sexist, anti-white bigot, and Boston University should fire her immediately, just as it would fire a professor who announced that black females were a problem population and that he would like to avoid patronizing black-owned businesses. If it doesn’t, alumni should withhold their contributions until the college is reduced to the status of a roadside stand. If it doesn’t responsible parents should pull their white, male children out of the place and send them somewhere that isn’t actively recruiting professors who hate them Even if BU does fire her, the school’s recruitment and hiring practices need to be thoroughly investigated and over-hauled. Saida Grundy is also a fool who thinks her future students are fools. Her “explanation” for the social media outbursts was this:

“I regret that my personal passion about issues surrounding these events led me to speak about them indelicately. I deprived them of the nuance and complexity that such subjects always deserve.”

Huh? What is the nuanced way to write that a gender and race are a blight on academia, and that one discriminates against white business owners? her statement simply means “I’m sorry that I wrote what I really think.” Continue reading →

California Government Ethics: Water Sprinklers During A Drought…In The Rain

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

The catastrophic shortage of water in California has prompted rationing and the looming prospect of permanent changes to the state’s economy and lifestyle. Yet this week a citizen with a cellphone captured video of California Department of Transportation sprinklers sewing the precious fluid along a freeway…as a light rain fell following a night of showers. Meanwhile, along the freeways, message boards are warning motorists of the importance of responsible water use in the drought, stating “Severe Drought. Limit Outdoor Watering.”

In my business and corporate ethics programs, I often use a hypothetical based on a true incident at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in which the staff was told that there would have to be a freeze on raises and new hiring because of financial challenges facing the association. They were told that everyone would have to sacrifice for the vital mission of the Chamber. That same week, the General Counsel’s office received a long-delayed remodeling, with expensive new furniture, artwork and carpeting. Morale plummeted, and the absence of trust in management was palpable. I use the incident to demonstrate the consequences of leadership hypocrisy and absence of integrity, when those in power hold themselves to different, and lower, standards than they claim to champion.

What California did was far, far worse. Continue reading →