lies

Obama’s Social Security Cover-Up, as the Media Snoozes

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

USA Today ran a sensible editorial a couple of weeks ago calling for the Obama administration to stop cravenly caving to groups like the AARP, Congressional Democrats, and increasingly, liberal/progressive commentators who claim that Social Security isn’t really a budgetary problem. The fiction: since Social Security has received more from taxpayers than it has had to pay out since 1983, the Social Security Trust Fund has built up a whopping $2.5 trillion, guaranteeing enough to meet the program’s obligations ( despite yearly deficits, now that the population is senior-heavy) until the money is scheduled to run out in 2037. The truth: the trust is empty. Congress had raided it regularly for non-Social Security spending, so now the yearly Social security deficits (37 billion dollars last year, a projected 45 to 57 billion in 2011, and a half trillion total in the decade underway) are putting a direct burden on the already reeling Federal budget.

Good for USA Today: this is responsible, public-spirited journalism. the public has heard so many lies from politicians and elected officials about Social Security that it is thoroughly misinformed and confused, and an informative, unbiased editorial from the nation’s most read newspaper is exactly what is needed. But the Obama administration couldn’t handle the truth, so it trotted out White House Budget Director Jacob Lew, who denied that there was a problem, writing in response… Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Mayor Trivial T. Spineless

He was, without question, the best mayor Fort Wayne, Indiana has ever had. When he first took office, he consolidated city departments launched construction of Fort Wayne’s massive underground sewage system and built the city sewage treatment plant, which is used to this day, seventy years later. When W.W. II came, he held war materials drives, upgraded city equipment and services, and broke ground for was is now Fort Wayne International Airport. and lowered city tax rates. In his last term, he opened up a major area of the town for development by elevating the railroad tracks. And he kept taxes low.

For 21 years beginning in 1934, this dedicated public servant was only not mayor for three years: he died at his post in 1954. And the people of Ft. Wayne haven’t forgotten him. This year, when city officials asked its citizens to vote on whose name the new government center should bear, the response was overwhelming. Ten times more people again voted for the former mayor they had always voted for while he was alive than for anyone or anything else (the runner-up choice was “Thunderdome”).

The current mayor, however, has decided not follow the results of the poll. He thinks the name would be inappropriate. You see, the famous leader that the people of Fort Wayne want to honor was named Harry Baals.

The current mayor’s name?  Trivial T. Spineless. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Dennis Kucinich

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Muslim women, in ethical garb

During last week’s hearings on the alleged radicalization of Muslim-Americans, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, protesting that the hearings were an example of prosecution and bigotry, said:

“Islam is a religion based upon peace, goodwill and the ethical treatment of all people on this planet.”

Politics involves advocacy, and zealous advocacy sometimes metastasizes into exaggerations, overstatements, and lies. Determined governors are called dictators and criminals; those questioning global warming models are compared to Holocaust deniers. Believing that an attack on an enemy nation is in the best interests of America, leaders who should be saying, “We have good reason to believe that this nation has weapons of mass destruction and is inclined to use them,” say instead, “We know where the weapons are and the threat is imminent.” Other leaders who are trying to get important health care reforms passed say, “Don’t worry—if you like your current plan, you’ll be able to keep it!”, neglecting to add the caveat that that plan you like may be forced out of existence if the bill is passed.

These excesses range from deceitful to outright lying, but they are all unethical, all disrespectful of the truth and the public that has a right to it, all aimed at manipulating public opinion with falsity.

I find Kucinich’s statement especially indefensible, because the degree of his presumably misstatement of the truth was completely unnecessary if his motives were good. Continue reading →

The Times’ New Ethicist Commits Malpractice

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The new Times "Ethicst" shows her dark side.

Randy Cohen’s replacement as “The Ethicist” in the New York Times Magazine, Ariel Kaminer, had a flawless maiden flight last week, but crashes and burns on her first question this week. As was too often true of Cohen, she messes up in the area of honesty and legal ethics.

The inquirer, an applicant for law school, had asked a former professor to write a recommendation.  The professor, an apparent creep, said she was too busy—Honestly: writing recommendations for students applying to graduate students is part of her job, and how long does it take?—but if that if the student would write it, she would gladly “edit as needed” and submit it under her own name. Ariel’s inquirer felt uncomfortable writing her own letter of recommendation, but did not “wish to jeopardize my chances of being accepted into my top-choice school by being overly conscientious.” Ariel’s question to answer: is it ethical to draft the letter? Continue reading →

Liar of the Week: Mike Huckabee, as He Fails The Integrity Test

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

A Mike Huckabee advisor?

…and also the courage test.

Speaking unpopular truths and backing down once they prove unpopular is worse than what most politicians do, which is to avoid speaking the truth at all. In Huckabee’s case, he compounded the villainy by not only backing down, but by absurdly lying about what he had said, despite the fact that his words were recorded and his meaning was clear as a bell.

Huckabee, in case you don’t follow the remarks of former state governors under the delusion that he can they can be  elected President, had criticized Oscar winner Natalie Portman’s proud single mother-to-be act, saying, Continue reading →

The Compassion Thieves

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

From The Guardian:

“Anyone following her updates online could see that Mandy Wilson had been having a terrible few years. She was diagnosed with leukaemia at 37, shortly after her husband abandoned her to bring up their five-year-old daughter and baby son on her own. Chemotherapy damaged her immune system, liver and heart so badly she eventually had a stroke and went into a coma. She spent weeks recovering in intensive care where nurses treated her roughly, leaving her covered in bruises.

“Mandy was frightened and vulnerable, but she wasn’t alone. As she suffered at home in Australia, women offered their support throughout America, Britain, New Zealand and Canada. She’d been posting on a website called Connected Moms, a paid online community for mothers, and its members were following every detail of her progress – through updates posted by Mandy herself, and also by Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet, Mandy’s real-life friends, who’d pass on news whenever she was too weak. The virtual community rallied round through three painful years of surgeries, seizures and life-threatening infections. Until March this year, when one of them discovered Mandy wasn’t sick at all. Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet had never existed. Mandy had made up the whole story.”

Apparently Mandy is a strange, but not so uncommon, variety of internet scam artist, one who uses the anonymity of the online community to steal, not money, not identities, but sympathy, compassion, and time from the most generous and trusting of people across the globe by pretending to be sick. Continue reading →

Rep. Paul Broun: Failing the Duty to Confront and Failing America

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

"Who's going to shoot Obama?"

Conservative Rep. Paul Broun,  one of President Obama’s toughest critics, was holding a town hall meeting this week and received this question from an elderly supporter: “Who’s going to shoot Obama?”

The audience laughed (With embarrassment? With enjoyment at the thought?) and Broun chuckled. (Nervousness? Amusement?)  Then he said:

“The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

Wrong answer. Continue reading →

Ethics Carnage in Wisconsin: The Ethics Grades So Far

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The battleground

The story to date: Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker announced a budget-repair measure to address  looming budget deficits (in a state with a balanced budget mandate in its constitution) by requiring state employees to contribute a larger proportion of their pensions and health care plans, and  restricting their long-standing  collective bargaining rights. Wisconsin’s deficit is projected at $30 million for the remainder of the 2011, with a shortfall of $1.5 billion projected for next year. In response to Walker’s announcement and the near certainty of his plan being passed by the Republican dominated state legislature, 14 Democratic legislators fled the state to prevent a quorum and block a vote, teachers left their classes to protest in Madison, where they were joined by thousands of pro-union protesters, many of whom were organized and bused in by Organizing for America, a White House operated political group.

Let’s try to separate the ethics wheat from the chaff—amazingly, there is actually some wheat–and get an early line on the heroes, dunces, villains, and the rest as the Wisconsin budget battle threatens to become a full-fledged Ethics Train Wreck. Continue reading →

Lindsay’s Sad Lie

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Lindsay Lohan, when the future was bright

I’m still rooting for Lindsay Lohan to turn things around, so I didn’t want to make too big a deal over her recent tweet in connection with the 24-year-old’s latest drama, a felony charge for walking out of a jewelry store wearing an unpurchased necklace priced at $2,500. Being still on probation as she is, the downward-spiraling former child star is facing the possibility of serious prison time. The tweet said, in part,

“…I was not raised to lie, cheat or steal…!”

This is either self-delusion on an epic scale or one of the most brazen lies since Lindsay told police, when they found cocaine in the pocket of her jeans, that she wasn’t wearing her own pants…or perhaps since she told a judge that she couldn’t make her court appearance on a drunk driving charge, after flying off to the Cannes Film Festival shortly before she was due in court, because “her passport was stolen.” Continue reading →

The Main Ethics Lesson of the Congressman Lee Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

By now, you probably have heard the saga of ex-Congressman Christopher Lee (R-NY), a married man who was trolling Craig’s list for girlfriends and e-mailed a candidate shirtless photo of himself to prove to her that he was fit..and also, incidentally, as dumb as an unusually dumb brick. The young woman sent the photo to Gawker, which broke the story, resulting in the humiliated Congressman, supposedly a rising GOP star, resigning.

What is the most significant lesson of this rapid fall from political grace?

It isn’t that middle-aged men who don’t comprehend how the internet works should avoid e-mailing photos of themselves that recall George Costanza’s effort to flirt with the Fotomat girl, although that’s true.

It isn’t that horny and untrustworthy individuals who can’t control their libidos should avoid committing themselves to high-profile leadership positions in our government, since the public looks to them to exemplify the best in ethical values and the entire nation is embarrassed when they disgrace themselves. This is true too, but it is painfully clear that such individuals will never learn this, and we are stuck with them, at least until they reveal their true nature. Continue reading →