hypocrisy

Ah, Mediaite? CREW Is NOT An “Ethics Watchdog Group,” It’s A Partisan Media Matters Hit Group

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
See, Congressman, it works this way: if you were a Democrat, CREW would ignore your junket to London, and so would Mediaite. Fox News, however, would be all over your ass...

See, Congressman, it works this way: if you were a Democrat, CREW would ignore your junket to London, and so would Mediaite. Fox News, however, would be all over your ass…

Did Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Tx)*, one of the prominent conservatives in the Republican-led Congress, misuse over $6,000 in campaign funds on a speaking trip to London? Maybe; it sounds like one of those typical gray election law controversies, and one of the lesser ones, except that Gohmert is on a lot of partisan hit lists. If he did misuse the funds, I’d want to see him fined, or whatever the violation warrants, and chastened too.

That’s not my concern right now, though. What interests me is that the alleged misuse of funds was flagged by Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and in reporting it, Mediaite said, in a story headlined, Ethics Watchdog Accuses Gohmert of Misusing Campaign Funds:

“An ethics watchdog group has filed a complaint against Rep. Louie Gohmert, accusing the Texas Republican of misusing campaign funds to foot the bill for a trip to England that included a 5-star hotel and a $200-plus taxi ride.The complaint, filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was addressed to the staff director and chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics and demands an investigation into whether Gohmert violated House rules by using campaign money for a trip that seemingly had nothing to do with his campaign.”

CREW, as I have repeatedly pointed out for years, is no “ethics watchdog.”  Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Hypocrisy: Steven Soderbergh’s Copyright Exemption

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Raiders_B and W

Few ethical concepts are as misidentified as hypocrisy, which is the opposite of integrity. The judge who secretly engages in crimes by night that he harshly sentences poor defendants for committing when he wears his black robe by day is a hypocrite; the parent who punishes his child for conduct she defiantly engaged in when she was the same age is not. The anti-hate speech zealot who uses what she would call hate speech in attacking others is a hypocrite; the closeted gay Baptist who opposes same-sex marriage is not. There is no danger of confusion where director Stephen Soderbergh’s copyright militancy is concerned, however. He’s a perfect hypocrite, one who distinguishes  right and wrong this way: if anyone other than  Soderbergh does it, it’s wrong.

Soderbergh is an outspoken copyright infringement hun who has testified  before Congress on behalf of the Director’s Guild of America, calling for tough legal penalties against online copyright infringers. He was also the lead plaintiff in the 2006 case of Soderbergh et al v. Clean Flicks of Colorado et al., seeking to shut down a company called Clean Flicks  that distributed versions of previously-released films edited by them to be more “family friendly.”

Soderbergh suit was successful, with the court ruling that the edited versions prepared by Clean Flicks violated his rights under sec 106(2) of the Copyright Act  by creating derivative versions of the films – defined as “works based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted”—and held that that Clean Flicks was responsible for “irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies.”

But what’s this? Now Soderbergh is posting his own specially-edited versions of the classics “Psycho,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” on his own website. Want to see how good Raiders looks as a black-and-white film for example? Soderbergh’s color-free edit will show you. And how is editing the color out of the Lucas-Spielberg film ethically and legally distinct from editing out the naughty words and images from Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape?”

I have no idea. Ask Soderbergh, whose answer, I suspect, will be “because I did it, not someone else.”

Hypocrisy.

______________________

Pointer: Volokh

The Sixth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2014 (Part 4 of 4)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

mamoru-samuragochi2

Outrageous Hoax Of The Year

Mamoru Samuragochi, the composer sometimes known as “The Japanese Beethoven” because he composed critically acclaimed works despite being deaf, was exposed as double fraud: he didn’t compose the works that made him Japan’s most popular classical composer, and he isn’t even really deaf!  Samuragochi hired a musical ghostwriter named Takashi Niigaki to compose more than twenty compositions for Samuragochi since 1996.

Funniest Outrageous Hoax

Fake Panda

This.

Unethical Artist Of The Year

Performance artist Maximo Caminero, who  walked into the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, entered a special exhibit of sixteen ancient Chinese vases painted over in bright colors by celebrated Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, picked up one of them, and immediately after a security guard instructed him not to touch the exhibit, allowed the vase to fall from his hands, shattering into bits. Caminero admitted that smashing the pottery, which was valued at a million dollars,  was intentional, and was his protest against in support of local artists like himself whose work is not exhibited at the museum while the art of international artists like Weiwei is.

Unethical Veterinarian Of The Year

Fort Worth, Texas veterinarian Lou Tierce lost his license for five years as a result of, among other transgressions, his telling the owners of a Leonburger (it’s a very big dog) that their pet was terminally ill and had to be euthanized, then secretly keeping the dog alive in a small cage so he could use Sid’s blood for transfusions to Dr. Tierce’s other canine patients. Eventually an assistant at the clinic blew the whistle and alerted Sid’s owners, who rescued their dog and sicced the law on the worst veterinarian since Dean Jones menaced Beethoven.

Unethical Doctor Of The Year

Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC’s medical expert, endangered the public by defying a voluntary quarantine for possible Ebola exposure,  because she just couldn’t bear to be without her favorite soup.

Scam of the Year

Jonathan-Gruber-1

The Affordable Care Act.

 Unethical Federal Agency Of The Year

The Secret Service. Lots of competition in this category: the Veterans Administration, the I.R.S., the CDC, the Justice Department, NSA…but when you essentially have one job to do and do it badly, sloppily carelessly and dangerously, there’s really not much more to say Continue reading →

Long Memory Ethics: Wait, NOW The Media Says The President HAS “Apologized”?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
See what you want to see..."Faces? What faces?"

See what you want to see…”Faces? What faces?”

The Washington Post echoed the consensus of the news media by reporting that the White House has apologized for not treating the anti-terrorism march in Paris with the respect and attention it deserved. “I think it’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

Oh, that’s an apology now?

Interesting, given that the word “apology” was notably absent from the statement. I will await, then, an admission from the horde of Obama defenders, like Paul Krugman of the New York Times and many others in the “We come to praise Obama, not to critique him” brigade that has guarded the Presidents flanks for going on seven years now, an admission that our President did indeed go on an “apology tour” around the world, regretting past U.S. policy of every sort. Over at the New York Times where Krugman reigns, the then-public editor Arthur Brisbane declared in 2012 that Mitt Romney was lying when he called Obama’s various mea culpas apologies, writing.

[P]erhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less: “The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president’s words.”

Funny: if that’s the standard for what an apology is—actually using the word “apology”—then the White House hasn’t apologized for embarrassing the nation and insulting the world.  You just can’t have it both ways. Continue reading →

Cowards and Hypocrites

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments
"All is forgiven"

“All is forgiven”

The New York Times and CNN, among others, are ducking their responsibility as news organizations to run the current cover of  “Charlie Hebdo.”  Why is it their responsibility? Because the response of the devastated satirical publication is news, and as the Times laughably says on its front page, that news is fit to print: the Times and CNN are describing the cover, but don’t have the guts or integrity to show it. The disingenuous rationale, in CNN’s terms, is that they are respecting “the sensibilities” of Muslim viewers.

In a word: CRAP. The vast majority of readers and viewers should be kept in the dark to avoid offending Muslim readers and viewers who can easily avert their tender eyeballs? When have CNN and the Times applied that standard regarding any other religious group, or any group at all? [UPDATE: Over at Popehat, Ken White extravagantly exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of  the Times’ rationalizations for not showing the cartoon with a series of well-formulated and pointed questions. This is admittedly more diagnostic than “CRAP,” but the message is the same.]

The translation of this craven self-censorship is “We are concerned about offending an anti-democratic and violent minority who are successfully using threats to constrain the free distribution of knowledge and information, because we are unworthy of the profession we presume to practice.”

The Sixth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2014 (Part 3)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

ellen-selfie

2014 Conflicts of Interest of the Year

  • Conflicted Elected Official: Philadelphia State Senator LeAnna Washington. This is always an entertaining category. Washington was convicted of using her tax-payer financed staff to organize a yearly campaign fundraiser around her birthday party. When one staffer complained that this was illegal, she reportedly replied, according to his grand jury testimony:

“I am the fucking senator, I do what the fuck I want, and ain’t nobody going to change me. I have been doing it like this for 17 years. So stop trying to change me.”

  • Conflicted Journalist: CNN sent Jay Carney, fresh off his assignment as President Obama’s official spokesman, defender and spinmeister, to cover his ex-boss’s speech.
  • Conflicted  “Non-partisan” Watchdog: CREW. The Center For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and its chief, Melanie Sloan, finally came clean (after falsely claiming non-profit status as a non-partisan organization for years) by making David Brock, head of the openly partisan, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Republican media watchdog Media Matters its Chairman of the Board, essentially merging the two groups.
  • Appearance of Impropriety Award: Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La), Republican Whip. It is not certain yet whether Scalise knowingly spoke to a group of white supremacists in 20o2, inadvertently spoke to the group, or just spoke to another group meeting in the same venue before the David Duke-affiliated group of racists started comparing sheets. It isn’t even clear that Scalise knows, but everyone should agree that it looks awful no matter how you categorize it, making the fiasco a classic appearance of impropriety situation. If the Republicans were smart, they would dump him.

Unethical Attire of the Year

Offensive shirt

This.

Unethical Political Candidate of the Year

Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, whose campaign materials were largely plagiarized from the materials other candidates.

Ethically Clueless Voters of the Year

New York’s 11th Congressional District, which contains Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. These alert and ethical citizens sent back to Washington thuggish and crooked Rep. Michael Grimm (R), then facing a 20-count indictment by federal authorities for fraud, federal tax evasion, and perjury, having earlier distinguished himself by threatening to kill a reporter and being recorded doing so.

  Unethical Advertising of the Year

Lawyer Division:

Public Service Announcement Division:

TV Program Division:

The Discovery Channel’s campaign for “Eaten Alive!” which did not, in fact, feature anyone being “eaten alive,” or at all.

Private Sector Product Division:

Halos. Or perhaps this is the Child Abuse Division:

Political Campaign Division:

Wendy Davis, Democratic candidate for Texas Governor, offered an ad attacking her wheelchair- bound opponent that 1) appealed to bias against the disabled 2) misrepresented the duties of a state attorney general 3) misrepresented the facts of the cases the ad referred to and  4)  deceived the public regarding the ethical duties of lawyers, which Davis, a lawyer, presumably understands. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Of The Good Muslim, Paris, “1984”, And The Compulsion To Deny The Truth”

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments
This was Jeff's submission for "Everyone Draw Muhammad" Day. He's a dead man.

This was Jeff’s submission for “Everyone Draw Muhammad” Day. He’s a dead man.

Long, LONG-time commenter Jeff H., himself a cartoonist, weighs in in the controversy discussed in the previous post, regarding efforts to exonerate radical Islam from any responsibility for the terrorist attack against a French satire publication.

In answer to his final question, I would respond: “It’s true, that’s all.” And yes, I think it’s clear that Muslims are more likely to engage in violent terrorism than other faiths, at least at this time.

Here is Jeff’s Comment of the Day on the post “Of The Good Muslim, Paris, “1984”, And The Compulsion To Deny The Truth”:

Here are my thoughts on it: if you think it would avail you any to talk to one of the men who perpetrated this act and say, “It’s OK! You’re not really Muslim!”, then you can go ahead and say they’re not Muslims.

If you ARE a Muslim who notices the hypocrisy in someone claiming to be a Muslim carrying out an act of terror in defiance of parts of the Koran, I wouldn’t have a problem with them saying he’s not a Muslim.

I saw someone call them “pretend Muslims,” and I sort of like that term, but that sort of implies that they don’t believe in the faith itself, and that’s not really for anyone to say. But if we’re calling them pretend Muslims because they don’t adhere to the parts of the Koran that would mitigate violence, they could call everyone else pretend Muslims for not participating in violence. Or, those who have intercourse before they’re married and trim the edges of their beards could be called “pretend Christians.” Let’s see how far that goes.

I really hate to hand it right to the jerks who will use this against the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, but trying to deny it just kicks the can down the street. Pretending not only that it has nothing to do with it, but that it doesn’t even exist, ends up having the equal and opposite reaction on the other side that insists all Muslims secretly crave violent revolution.

What is especially bothersome is when people are like, “well, they’re Muslims, what do you expect?” I hate to cry ‘racist,’ but… that is totally racist. It is racist to assume that Muslims are not expected to control their anger, or that they cannot help themselves because of their ethnic background. This is why I was furious when I heard people hoping the perpetrators of the Boston bombing would turn out to be white.

Congratulations, you wretched tin-eared pinheads. You got your wish. The Tsarnaevs were white. They were Caucasian MUSLIMS from Chechnya. I hope that makes some kind of difference to you.

But just because jerks will use this to blame all Muslims (which is deeply regrettable), that doesn’t mean the response is to pretend Muslims are incapable of violence. That’s just carrying water for the next person of any belief who wants to do something unspeakable to their next critic.

What I want to see is a statistical analysis of acts of violence like this, the alleged beliefs of the perpetrator, and see if any group of beliefs makes someone more likely to do something like this. The goal is not to attempt to smother any belief except the belief that your opinion gives you the right to hurt someone else.

Yes, those who perpetrated this attack identified themselves as Muslim. Now the question is: “So what?”

Ethics Observations On The Dartmouth Cheating Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

DartmouthSixty four Dartmouth students have been charged with cheating in a special religion and ethics class that was designed for student athletes. The details can be found here.

1. The reports quote the professor as saying,

“Part of the reason I designed this course was that I had the sense that some athletes coming here to Dartmouth might have felt just a little bit overwhelmed or intimidated academically. I wanted to design a course that would appeal to their interests and allow them to have an early success in the classroom, and I’d hoped that they would be able to build on that success throughout their time at Dartmouth.”

Translation: The students were accepted for their athletic prowess, and this was a baby-steps course just for them.

Why is Dartmouth admitting students who need such phony courses?

2. An admittedly non-challenging course to allow athletes an easier route to graduation sends the clear message that integrity isn’t valued at the institution. The professor’s expressions of disappointment and sadness are either naive or disingenuous. The university was cheating to keep them in school: why should he be shocked that they would cheat in return? Continue reading →

The Sixth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2014 (Part 2)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Rice and Janay

Ethics Corrupter of the Year

(Awarded to the unethical public figure whose prominence, popularity and success most corrupts the public’s ethical values)

Janay Palmer Rice, beloved punching bag of NFL star Ray Rice, who was caught on camera smooching with her man shortly after being cold-cocked by him in a hotel elevator, married him, and has repeatedly defended her husband, prompting confused female pundits to defend her. She is not only the embodiment of Rationalization #42. The Hillary Inoculation, or “If he/she doesn’t care, why should anyone else?”, she is also a good bet to get some young women killed by giving them a role model who stands for standing by your abusive man with the hard right hook.

Double Standard Of The Year

In a year of double standards, the treatment of soccer star (and accused child abuser) Hope Solo by her sport, feminists, the media and the public takes the prize. The standard, as I understand it, is that big, strong female athletes can beat up smaller, weaker family members with impunity, and it’s no big deal, but when a male athlete does the same, he is scum. Got it.

Uncivil U.S. Official of the Year

Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and the top American diplomat in Europe, was caught saying in a viral Youtube video saying “Fuck the EU.”  Now that’s diplomatic. Of course, she wasn’t fired, because she works for the Obama Administration

The Jesse Jackson Award 

(For the Year’s Worst Amateur Diplomat)

mo_selfie_lg

First Lady Michelle Obama, who helped her husband make the U.S. look weak and ineffectual (he needs no help), by engaging in this ridiculous effort at hashtag diplomacy. Those kidnapped girls were never found, and Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorist group that took them, I learned today, just killed a reported 2000 more victims. Time for another sad picture, Michelle!

Most Unethical Sports League

The NFL, last year’s winner, was even more unethical this year, with the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson fiascos, Commissioner Roger Goodell showing no innate instinct for right and wrong and both the league and its teams making up rules and policies according to talk show calls, polls and wet fingers in the air. Meanwhile, it’s still making billions paying young men to lobotomize themselves. What a great sport.

Sports Cheat of the Year

Alex Rodriguez, suspended Yankee star, had denied, denied, denied, threatened to sue Major League Baseball and the union, and insisted that he had not, as an investigation had determined, used performance enhancing drugs supplied by Biogenesis. Then, just as his season-long suspension was lifted, it was revealed that A-Rod had, under oath, admitted using steroids from 2010 to 2012.

Annual Sports Ethics Controversy That Gets Worse Every Year

Steroid cheats (like Rodriquez) and their fitness for admission to Baseball’s Hall of Fame

Unethical Lawyer of the Year

Michael Fine, the Ohio lawyer who allegedly hypnotized female clients in order to sexually molest them.  Runner Up:  Alexa Van Brunt. She didn’t do anything unethical; she just advocates ethics rules that would eliminate the core of legal ethics, proving that she doesn’t understand her own profession.

Unethical Judge of the Year

judge_mccree

Wade McCree, the handsome devil pictured above (he circulated this selfie), who, presiding over a felony child-support case, conducted a secret sexual relationship with the woman seeking support from the defendant. This was just the latest of his embarrassments.  Runner up: Texas District Judge Jeanine Howard, who handed down a stunningly lenient sentence of probation and 250 hours of community service at a rape crisis center for a man who confessed raping a 14-year old girl at her school.

 

Unethical National Broadcast Journalist Of The Year

CNN’s Carol Costello. She was biased, smug and incompetent all year long, but reached her nadir when she gleefully played a recording of Bristol Palin explaining to police how she had been assaulted, saying to her viewers, “You can thank me later.” She refused to apologize on the air, or to Palin. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Phylicia Rashad

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

COSBY-AND-RASHAD

Phylicia Rashad, the African American actress best known for playing “Claire Huxtable,” Bill Cosby’s wife on his legendary sitcom, was resolute about not be dragged into the crisis facing her on-screen hubby, as woman after women has come out with allegations that she was raped, sexually assaulted or drugged by funny, ol’ Bill. She should have stayed that way. Unfortunately, she allowed a Hollywood celebrity reporter to pull some quotes out of her, and now she has a crisis of her own. Now we know she values loyalty, group identification, show business protocol and her own financial interests over decency, fairness, honesty, justice, compassion, respect for women, and truth.

Or, I suppose, she might be an idiot.

Rashad’s take on Cosby’s problems was also odd, as it focused very little on the man being accused of such heinous acts. She didn’t say, or at least such remarks weren’t reported, that he was a wonderful human being, or that she could not imagine the man she worked so closely with all these years doing what so many alleged victims claim. She said that she “loves” him. In show business, this is like the host of a TV talk show saying a guest is a close personal friend: it is routine, and means nothing.  Rashad’s defense of Cosby consisted of dismissing his victims’ stories as baseless, and this:

“What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it’s orchestrated. I don’t know why or who’s doing it, but it’s the legacy. And it’s a legacy that is so important to the culture….Someone is determined to keep Bill Cosby off TV. And it’s worked. All his contracts have been cancelled…This show represented America to the outside world. This was the American family. And now you’re seeing it being destroyed. Why?”

Why. Huh. That’s a head scratcher isn’t it? Yes, why would the entertainment value of family situation comedy about a wise, loving father , the wife whom he adores and his brood of adorable, normal, kids, including three, and ultimately four, teenage girls be diminished in the least by overwhelming evidence that the actor playing said father is a sick, ruthless, sexual predator and the King of Hypocrites? Continue reading →