legislation

Unethical Quote Of The Week: President Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Safe Airlane

“Today, I want to update you on some important progress we’ve made to protect our communities from gun violence. As I said in January, these commonsense steps are not going to prevent every tragedy, but what if they prevented even one? We should be doing everything we can to save lives and spare families the pain and unimaginable loss too many Americans have endured.”

—- President Barack Obama, announcing new measures that his administration will pursue to help curb gun violence.

This is at least the second time, related to gun deaths, that President Obama has invoked the logically, practically, philosophically and ethically absurd “if only one life is saved” argument. President Obama isn’t as smart as his blindly loyal supporters think he is, and definitely not as smart as he thinks he is, but he must be smarter than that.

Yet he uses this ridiculous logic anyway. In Obama’s defense, his entire, nauseatingly inept administration has been rationalized on this basis, so it is a mindset that may be set in cement. Obamacare has allowed some Americans to get insurance that they desperately needed, so, the flawed logic goes, the fact that the legislation has also divided the country, caused millions to lose health care plans that they were satisfied with in favor of new plans they can’t afford, caused rates to skyrocket, suppressed hiring and done nothing to lower health care costs doesn’t alter the official conclusion that the policy is a success.

It isn’t just that the ends justify the means; the theory is that a single designated positive result justifies not only the means but other negative results too. True, prematurely withdrawing from Iraq caused the country to collapse and Isis to run amuck, but the United States withdrew, and that’s enough. Yes, the Education Department’s “Dear Colleague Letter” has caused male students to be unjustly tarred with unproved rape accusations, been the target of false charges and have had their educations disrupted without sufficient evidence or due process, but as long as some female sexual assault victims receive fair attention to their complaints that would not have occurred before, this gender-based persecution is acceptable collateral damage. Sure, Obama’s refusal to acknowledge that radical Islam is a terrorist threat have allowed irresponsible immigration and migrant policies to continue despite their existential risks, but what matters is that some, many–just one!—peaceful, law-abiding Muslims not be the victims of bigotry, fear and hate.

Obama’s latest “just one is enough” assertion is a direct call to the most naive, least aware and most cognitively impaired among us. If saving just one life were enough, then automobiles should be made of soft plastic and travel no more than a few miles an hour. Requiring airlines to use only airplanes that don’t fly, like the one pictured above, would surely save at least one life. Ships and boats never launched on water are very safe. Continue reading →

SPECTACULARLY Unethical Quote Of The Week: President Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

“Don’t blame us for all the mistakes in the law—look at how long it is!”

…on the Affordable Care Act and King v.Burwell, at his news conference. When President Obama was asked about the soon to be announced Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell, he launched in an epic of unethical assertions and rhetorical games. I’ll highlight the unethical—not merely dishonest in some cases—statements and elaborate afterwards.

THE PRESIDENT: What I can tell state leaders is, is that under well-established precedent, there is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case. (1) It has been well documented that those who passed this legislation never intended for folks who were going through the federal exchange not to have their citizens get subsidies. (2)That’s not just the opinion of me; that’s not just the opinion of Democrats; that’s the opinion of the Republicans who worked on the legislation. The record makes it clear. (3)

And under well-established statutory interpretation, approaches that have been repeatedly employed — not just by liberal, Democratic judges, but by conservative judges like some on the current Supreme Court — you interpret a statute based on what the intent and meaning and the overall structure of the statute provides for. (4)

And so this should be an easy case. Frankly, it probably shouldn’t even have been taken up. (5)And since we’re going to get a ruling pretty quick, I think it’s important for us to go ahead and assume that the Supreme Court is going to do what most legal scholars who’ve looked at this would expect them to do. (6)

But, look, I’ve said before and I will repeat again: If, in fact, you have a contorted reading of the statute that says federal-run exchanges don’t provide subsidies for folks who are participating in those exchanges, then that throws off how that exchange operates. (7)It means that millions of people who are obtaining insurance currently with subsidies suddenly aren’t getting those subsidies; many of them can’t afford it; they pull out; and the assumptions that the insurance companies made when they priced their insurance suddenly gets thrown out the window. And it would be disruptive — not just, by the way, for folks in the exchanges, but for those insurance markets in those states, generally.

So it’s a bad idea. (8)It’s not something that should be done based on a twisted interpretation of four words in — as we were reminded repeatedly — a couple-thousand-page piece of legislation. (9)

What’s more, the thing is working. (10)I mean, part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them come to pass. (11)You got 16 million people who’ve gotten health insurance. The overwhelming majority of them are satisfied with the health insurance. It hasn’t had an adverse effect on people who already had health insurance. (12)The only effect it’s had on people who already had health insurance is they now have an assurance that they won’t be prevented from getting health insurance if they’ve got a preexisting condition, (13)and they get additional protections with the health insurance that they do have.

The costs have come in substantially lower than even our estimates about how much it would cost. Health care inflation overall has continued to be at some of the lowest levels in 50 years. (14)None of the predictions about how this wouldn’t work have come to pass.(15)

And so I’m — A, I’m optimistic that the Supreme Court will play it straight when it comes to the interpretation. (16)And, B, I should mention that if it didn’t, Congress could fix this whole thing with a one-sentence provision. (17)

Wow, that’s even worse that I thought. Have there been more dishonest, deceptive, irresponsible statements by a President of the United States? Maybe. I don’t see how there could have been one that was much worse, though.

I’ll try to be brief, or else this will be a book. The numbers correspond to the bolded sections above… Continue reading →

Rape, Consent, and the Unconscious Lover

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

unconscious

Maybe Republicans should just keep their mouths shut whenever rape is being discussed. You know, just to be on the safe side.

Utah is considering legislation designed to protect the incapacitated from having to prove they did not consent to sex. The bill, an amended version of current law, was introduced after a 2013 case in which a man was charged with raping an unconscious neighbor on her porch. Republican state Representative Brian Greene prominently stepped into the Todd (“Legitimate Rape”) Akin Zone when he questioned the measure as too broad, saying,

“If an individual has sex with their wife while she is unconscious … a prosecutor could then charge that spouse with rape, theoretically. That makes sense in a first date scenario, but to me, not where people have a history of years of sexual activity.”

This, as you might imagine, ignited quite a bit of criticism. Greene appeared to be saying that it was okay to have sex with your spouse if he or she were unconscious. (He later issued a classic non-apology apology. I rate it a #7 on the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale) Continue reading →

Why The Gun Bill Deserved To Lose, and Why We Should All Be Glad It Did

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments
A bad day for Machiavelli is a good day for America.

A bad day for Machiavelli is a good day for America.

Consequentialism rules supreme in Washington, D.C.; that is the tragedy of our political system. If unethical conduct is perceived as having a positive outcome, few in D.C. will continue to condemn the means whereby those beneficial and lauded were achieved. Worse, the results will be seen as validating the tactics, moving them from the category of ethically objectionable into standard practice, and for both political parties

Thus we should all reluctantly cheer the likely demise of the Senate’s gun control bill yesterday. The compromise background check provision that failed wasn’t perfect, but it would have been an improvement over the current system. Nevertheless, the post-Sandy Hook tactics of gun control advocates, including the President and most of the media, have been so misleading, cynical, manipulative and offensive that their tactics needed to be discouraged by the only thing that has real influence in the nation’s Capital: embarrassing failure.

The tainted enterprise begins with the fact that it should not have been a priority at this time at all. Newtown did not signal a crisis; it was one event, and that particular bloody horse had left the barn. The supposedly urgent need to “prevent more Sandy Hooks” was imaginary, but it apparently served the President’s purpose of distracting attention from more genuinely pressing matters, notably the stalled employment situation and the need to find common ground with Republican on deficit and debt reduction. Meanwhile, the conditions in Syria have been deteriorating and North Korea is threatening nuclear war: why, at this time, was the President of the United states acting as if gun control was at the top of his agenda? It was irresponsible, placing political grandstanding above governing. In this context, Obama’s angry words yesterday about the bill’s defeat being caused by “politics” were stunningly hypocritical. The whole effort by his party was about nothing other than politics. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
"MMM! Guns bad! Congresswoman lazy!

“MMM! Guns bad! Congresswoman lazy!

Asked how a ban on magazines holding more than 15 rounds would be effective in reducing gun violence, Rep. Diana DeGette, the sponsor of Federal legislation to prohibit the sale or transfer of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds, replied with ignorant semi-gibberish worthy of recent Miss Universe competitors. She said, and I’m not making this up:

“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”

Uh, no, Congresswoman, that’s not how it works, or the theoretical reason for your own legislation. Magazines can be refilled, like Pez dispensers. It’s not as if they have to be thrown away once they are empty. Your reason for the legislation—now read your talking points  from the anti-gun lobby!—is that shooters in the process of massacring school children will have to stop to reload after only ten bullets.

Is it too much to expect that elected officials actually understand the things they set out to regulate and prohibit? That they—OK, their staffs, then, assuming the elected representative involved can read—do a modicum of research before sponsoring legislation? That they actually know what they are talking about and answer the most basic of questions—-why will this legislation help?—-accurately and articulately?

Yes, in this case apparently it is. Like  gun control or oppose gun control, all Americans have an equal stake in competent legislators who pass laws based on knowledge, not ideological cant at the lizard-brain level of “Guns bad!!! Ban bad guns and you know, gun things!” Too much of gun regulation reform advocacy has been carried on at this level in the public and the media; for a U.S. Congresswoman to do likewise is a disgrace.

______________________________

Pointer: Tim Levier

Facts: Denver Post

Unethical Quote of the Week: Rep. Barney Frank

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Anything we’re doing that’s unconstitutional will be thrown out in court.”

—-Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), expressing his disdain for a new House rule that will come in with the new Republican majority, requiring  every bill to cite specific constitutional authority.

Similar sentiments expressed by others: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Slate Editor Dahlia Lithwick

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“[The G.O.P. nominee for the U.S. Senate, Christine] O’Donnell explained that “when I go to Washington, D.C., the litmus test by which I cast my vote for every piece of legislation that comes across my desk will be whether or not it is constitutional.” How weird is that, I thought. Isn’t it a court’s job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional? And isn’t that sort of provided for in, well, the Constitution?”

Dahlia Lithwick, current Supreme Court commentator for Slate, during a three-way published exchange about what an unstable, unqualified kook Christine O’Donnell is.

I hope it is at least a little disturbing to Slate that their Supreme Court expert is apparently ignorant of where the basic responsibilities of obeying the Constitution lie. Continue reading →

Guest Commentary: “When Children Work; A Dialogue”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

By Paul Petersen

[Paul Petersen is the founder and president of A Minor Consideration, a non-profit advocacy group that seeks to protect the welfare of juvenile performers. Mr. Petersen was a prominent child star himself, most famously as “Jeff Stone” on the long-running TV comedy, “The Donna Reed Show.” The following commentary, also posted on his website, is inspired by the hearings this week on proposed child labor legislation in Pennsylvania, where “Jon & Kate Plus 8” was filmed. The legislation proposed  by State Representative Tom Murt defines reality television and would require all minors to have work permits issued by the state Department of Labor and Industry to ensure all adequate provisions have been made for the minor’s educational instruction, supervision, health and welfare. The bill also provides that minors can only work between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., and sets guidelines for the amount of hours, work, recreation, school and activities per day. A certified teacher would be required on the set of any production to monitor working conditions, and the bill would require 15 % of a child actor’s gross earning be set aside by the employer in a trust.]

Imagine if your boss unilaterally declared that your time spent in a commercial workplace wasn’t work at all but merely “participation.” That might be said of the drug store cat, or a barnyard animal, but to say that about a living, breathing, conscious human being passes all understanding. Yet that is precisely the position taken by reality show Producers and the Networks that broadcast commercial products called “reality shows” that feature children. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Sen. Max Baucus

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who, along with Majority Leader Harry Reid, was the prime mover of Obamacare through to passage by the U.S. Senate, attended a citizens forum in Libby, Montana regarding health care reform and other issues, along with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius.

One attendee, Judy Matott, asked Baucus  and Sebelius, “if either of you read the health care bill before it was passed and if not, that is the most despicable, irresponsible thing.”

Baucus replied that he “essentially” wrote the Senate health care bill, but didn’t actually read it. Continue reading →

South Carolina’s Brilliant/Ridiculous Law

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I haven’t decided if it is unethical for a state legislature to pass laws that are so ridiculous that they undermine the legitimacy of democratic government, but if it is, then South Carolina meets the standard.

A new law is now on the books there, called the “Subversive Activities Registration Act.” It requires terrorists in South Carolina to register with the S.C. Secretary of State’s office before they start plotting to violently overthrow the government, or risk a $25,000 fine:

“Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means, who resides, transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State, shall register with the Secretary of State on the forms and at the times prescribed by him.”

But never fear, you terrorists: all you have to do is fill out this form, and send in your $5.00 processing fee.

On reflection, I think the statute is unethical, because its description of subversive organizations is so broad and confusing that it would be prudent for any member of a political party or employee of a foreign corporation to pay the $5.00 just to avoid the hassle of having to prove that the law is unconstitutional. Thus South Carolina can pick up millions of dollars thanks to a badly (but perhaps intentionally badly?) written law of dubious legality.

[The theory behind the registration requirement might be a slightly inflated version of the classic Depression-era vaudeville sketch, “Pay the Two Dollars!”written by Billy K. Wells. A man is unjustly fined $2.00 for spitting on the subway, but his lawyer insists that he plead innocent. As the court battle keeps incurring increasing penalties and greater expense, the man keeps begging his lawyer, “Pay the two dollars!” ]

(Ethics Alarms thanks  Popehat for finding this.)