incompetence

Ethics Quiz: Is Harold Camping Too Deluded and Untrustworthy To Be Irresponsible?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

If he tells you to jump out the window and you do it, are you responsible, or is he?

Harold Camping, who earlier this year had thousands of people convinced that the world would end on May 21 (it didn’t, in case you haven’t been reading the papers), is now really, really, really sure he has the right date, and is sending this message to the faithful:

“Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21…I do believe that we’re getting very near the very end…. If [God] had not kept us from knowing everything that we didn’t know, we would not have been able to be used of Him to bring about the tremendous event that occurred on May 21 of this year, and which probably will be finished out on October 21, that’s coming very shortly. That looks like it will be at this point, it looks like it will be the final end of everything.” Continue reading →

More S.E.C. Ethics Blindness

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

What good is a blind watchdog?

Back in February, I told the tale of David Becker, former S.E.C. General Counsel, who had inherited money from his mother that was really the fruits of the Bernie Madoff investment scandal after he had served in the post while Madoff was merrily swindling people as the S.E.C. twiddled its thumbs. Becker apparently wasn’t in the information chain that should have led the S.E.C. to stop Madoff , and the scandal was uncovered after he left the agency. In 2009, after the Madoff mess had exploded, he rejoined the agency in his old job, but when it came to light that he and his brothers had inherited $2 million Madoff-manufactured profits from their mother, he quickly stepped down. My view was that Becker was a victim of circumstance: he had the appearance of impropriety, but hadn’t done anything wrong.

I should have known better: after all, this is the Securities and Exchange Commission, where they illegally shred files and the regulators look at porn all day. Now it is revealed that… Continue reading →

Unethical (and Disgraceful) Website of the Month: Attackwatch.com

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

We've just got to find the White House staff some better role models....

In scary-looking black and red, attackwatch.com is the latest embarrassment from the amateurs  and goof-offs who are inexplicably still employed in Barack Obama’s White House. It is the creation of the campaign arm, announced in a sinister e-mail by the President’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, who wrote:

“Forming the first line of defense against a barrage of misinformation won’t be easy. Our success will depend on a team of researchers and writers to stay on the lookout for false claims about the President and his record, bring you the facts, and hold our opposition accountable.”

The website includes an online snitch form that allows good citizens to report anything that might be regarded as an “attack,” and to finger the pundits, bloggers, journalists or other sources responsible.

Many commentators on the right have called the site Stalinist and compared it to classic totalitarian practices in other nations, in which the good and loyal citizenry have been encouraged to identify enemies of the state who may be “disloyal.” Certainly a program that encourages Americans to report “misinformation” —defined, the site makes clear, as any assertion less than fawning over the President—so they can be held “accountable” encourages such a comparison. “This is a frightening effort by the White House to suppress political speech,” one caller to a Washington D.C. talk show said yesterday.

It’s frightening, all right, though not for that reason. Yes, the site’s language is spectacularly tone-deaf to First Amendment concerns: “stop attacks on the President before they start” is the language of fear, repression and censorship, not patriotism and statesmanship. Nonetheless, I have no fears that a ham-handed, paranoid website and silly volunteer snitch program by an administration that is finally beginning to get at least some of the criticism from the news media that it deserved to get three years ago will intimidate anybody. What is frightening is the naked incompetence and juvenile instincts of the people the President allows to represent and advise him, who don’t understand the culture of the nation they are supposed to govern and how deeply offensive this kind of paranoid, Big Brother-style, enemies list behavior seems to most Americans when it comes from a President.  The fact that he allows this shows that the President doesn’t understand either. This is, after all, the man is supposed to work for and respect the opinions of supporter and critic alike.

Attackwatch.com is merely the latest in the depressing succession of botched U.S. Leadership 101 tests by Barack Obama and his team.  I was searching my knowledge of the Presidents to think of any one of them, before Obama, who would have allowed himself to be heard, recorded or videotaped telling a crowd “If you love me, you gotta help me pass this bill!” as Obama did this week.  [Note: A commenter below was offended that I did not exactly quote the President in my original version here, writing “If you love me, pass this bill!” The key phrase, of course, is the “if you love me,” and to clarify for him and any other “gotcha” fans out there, I cannot imagine a President before Mr. Obama who would say anything beginning with the phrase, “If you love me…!”  because it is unseemly, pandering, narcissistic, and embraces a cult of personality that is antithetical to the political culture of the United States.] I couldn’t think of one; in fact, I couldn’t think of one who wouldn’t have been horrified at the thought of appealing to blind adoration as the justification for a major policy initiative, rather than its value to the nation.  If Attackwatch.com is frightening, that was just sad.

Actually, they are both sad.

And frightening.

Comment of the Day: Ethics Hero Alan Ehrlich Responds

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

"citation..for..making...the...police...look...bad.."

Ethics Hero Alan Ehrlich, the South Pasadena citizen ticketed for directing traffic at a busy intersection when the lights failed and no police responded, has provided some valuable insight and additional details in his comments to my post about his conduct and subsequent treatment, “When Ethics Hero Meets Ethics Dunce: Alan Ehrlich and the Spirit of Citizenship vs. South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne and Official Arrogance.” It is collected and posted below. Thanks, Alan. Continue reading →

When Ethics Hero Meets Ethics Dunce: Alan Ehrlich and the Spirit of Citizenship vs. South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne and Official Arrogance

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

"Step away from the intersection, sir! You are not permitted to make my officers look bad by doing the essential jobs they cannot."

When a traffic light in South Pasadena went out during the morning rush hour, citizen Alan Ehrlich stepped into the breach and began directing traffic at the major intersection.

“I grabbed a bright orange shirt that I have and a couple of orange safety flags. I took it upon myself to help get motorists through that intersection faster,” said Ehrlich. Before he took action, traffic was backed up for more than a mile, as vehicles took more than a half hour to maneuver through the intersection.

“It was just kind of chaos of cars . . . there were stop signs up. But people were challenging each other to get through the intersection,” said a witness  who works at an office nearby. He reported that Ehrlich’s stint as volunteer traffic cop had traffic flowing within ten minutes.

South Pasadena police then responded to the scene, ordered Ehrlich to stop, and issued him a ticket, but refused to direct traffic at the intersection themselves. South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne explained that he did not have the man power needed to staff officers when lights fail, and that Ehrlich should have just allowed traffic to back up. Continue reading →

Incompetent Sunday Morning Talk Show Host Performance of the Week: David Gregory on “Meet the Press”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"Here's a tough question for you, Rep. Waters, but feel free to answer with any damn thing you feel like talking about."

For reasons known only to the producers, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal.), target of an ongoing House ethics investigation, inveterate race-baiter and general embarrassment to representative democracy, was included in the “Meet the Press” panel on the jobs crisis. Waters was, appropriately, asked by host David Gregory about her inflammatory and uncivil rhetoric during the policy debate, specifically her infamous  comment last week that the “Tea Party can go straight to Hell.”  Is this kind of comment appropriate and helpful, he asked?

Rep. Waters responded that her constituency was frustrated and needed help, but instead the nation was bailing out banks. That was it. No justification from Maxine of her incendiary rhetoric, no explanation, in fact nothing with any relevance to the Tea Party or the comment in question at all. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.)

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Worse than Joe "You Lie!" Wilson; worse than Allan "The Republicans want you to die!" Grayson. Will anyone say so?

Many Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have specifically stated in the past that they have no interest in budget-balancing issues, and that their primary and over-riding objective is to keep government money flowing to their neediest constituents. That’s a narrow and irresponsible position, but defensible if your view of the duty of elected representatives is that they are only advocates for the voters who elect them, and not bound by any obligation to national welfare  as a whole. Even if one accepts this approach (shared by many in the Tea Party), it does not excuse executing that advocacy by stirring up race hatred with diatribes attributing monstrous and unjustified motivations to political adversaries.

In other words, it doesn’t excuse slanderous comments like these about the Tea Party and its adherents, issuing like flaming vomit from the uncivil mouth of Rep. Andre Carson:

“This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me… hanging on a tree. Some of them right now in Congress right now are comfortable with where we were fifty or sixty years ago. But it’s a new day with a black president and a Congressional Black Caucus.”

Continue reading →

Memorial Ethics, Part Two: The Betrayal of 9-11 Donors

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Where's the money going? Sometimes the charity has no idea.

A decade later after the attack on the Twin Towers, an Associated Press investigation has revealed wide-spread incompetence, dishonesty and waste among the many 9-11 memorial charities set up in the wake of the tragedy.

“There are those that spent huge sums on themselves, those that cannot account for the money they received, those that have few results to show for their spending and those that have yet to file required income tax returns. Yet many of the charities continue to raise money in the name of Sept. 11,” reports the AP. Among the fiascos recounted in the report:

  •   An Arizona-based charity raised $713,000 for a 9/11 memorial quilt that was supposed to be big enough to cover 25 football fields. Instead, there are only several hundred decorated sheets packed in boxes at a storage unit. One-third of the money raised went to the charity’s founder and relatives, according to tax records and interviews. Charity founder Kevin Held spent more than $170,000 of the donated money on travel since 2004, seldom traveling without his two Alaskan malamute dogs. Continue reading →

The Disgrace of the Health Care Reform Debacle, Brought Into Focus

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Nice image. Unfortunately, the open book is "Catch 22"

“Some prominent academics have argued that the individual mandate is a clearly constitutional exercise of the federal government’s taxing power. Some of these same academics have argued that opponents of the individual mandate’s constitutionality are well outside the legal mainstream. Yet as of today, there has not been a single federal court — indeed, perhaps not even a single federal judge — who has accepted the taxing power argument. Not a one. And yet a half-dozen federal judges have found the mandate to be unconstitutional. So which arguments are outside of the mainstream again?”

Thus did Jonathan Adler, Case Western law professor and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation, chide the arrogant supporters of the health care reform act who dismissed as wackos and radicals critics who were alarmed at its intrusions onto personal freedom. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of the individual mandate, the provision requiring all adult citizens to buy private health insurance, is the most striking proof yet of the arrogant, unethical, dishonest, corrupt and incompetent manner in which the Democratic majority passed its version of health care reform. Continue reading →

American Lessons from the English Riots

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I am going to refrain from joining the ranks of amateur psychologists trying to identify the “root cause” of the English riots. People of any age or economic status who riot are, it is fair to say, assholes, like lesser social miscreants such as vandals, computer virus inventors, Leroy Fick and Pastor Terry Jones. If I were convinced that these riots were in response to necessary government cutbacks in social programs, I would have something arguably useful to say, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

There is no question, however, that in allowing the riots to go on so long and harm so many citizens, businesses and homes, the British government has failed one of its most basic duties. Great Britain has been the anti-gun zealot’s Nirvana for a long time: not only can’t citizens own guns for their personal protection, neither can the police. That can work, if the culture is reliably non-violent, and if social and community institutions do a good job making sure that the culture of non-violence is strong, self-reenforced, and deep.

Well, it isn’t, is it?

Continue reading →