media bias

Bad News For Hillary: Someone At CNN Told Carol Costello To Stop Helping Her, And Clinton’s Talking Points Are Wearing Thin…OK, THINNER

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

This was fascinating. I was trying to decide whether to post today about the latest spin tactics by Hillary’s minions and her dwindling but still formidable media allies  in light of Clinton’s awkward press conference where she insisted that she didn’t do anything “wrong” regarding the mishandled State e-mails. Earlier in the day the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, a usually decent journalist whom it is sad to see succumbing to the  Clinton Corruption Virus (you would think there would be a vaccine by now!), had used this same talking point—and it is a campaign talking point. In a column that could be used in a public service announcement, Cillizza seriously wondered why Hillary was in trouble. Gee, he mused, maybe Hillary just isn’t very good at campaigning! What else could possibly explain why she isn’t cruising to the nomination?

In other words, the fact that she has lied constantly, used her foundation to profit from influence-seeking foreign powers, was a flop as a Secretary of State, put U.S. security at risk and destroyed potential evidence so she could avoid getting caught in her complex political/financial machinations—Allegedly! Allegedly!—wouldn’t matter at all to Democrats, voters or Chris if she was just better at fooling the public. Darn!

“This is Chris, and this is the tragedy of Clinton Corruption Syndrome. Won’t you help?”

Then he wrote, “The appearance here — even if Clinton did nothing wrong (and there is no proof she did at this point) — is terrible.”

What? WHAT? Of course she did things that were wrong. Isn’t lying like crazy wrong, Chris? Isn’t paying people to throw the media off the track and confuse the public using deceit and misrepresentations wrong, Chris?  Isn’t the tactic of smearing the messengers wrong, and sending out statements like the infamous “nonsense” letter wrong? Is intentionally breaking your own Department’s policies wrong? Is sending and receiving sensitive information in a manner that makes it vulnerable to hacking by foriegn governments wrong, Chris? Do you even know what wrong means any more, Chris?

That’s when it hit me, and that’s why I decided I had to post, again, on the Hillary Clinton E-mail Ethics Train Wreck, which is really just part of the The Hillary Clinton Presidential Candidacy Ethics Train Wreck. The Clinton campaign’s current strategy is now to make the public understand right and wrong the way the Clintons do. If it isn’t illegal, it isn’t wrong. (This is on the Ethics Alarms Rationalization list, incidentally: #4. Marion Barry’s Misdirection, or “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical.” Marion Berry went to jail.)

Talk about waving a red flag in front of an ethicist! Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Impending “Little Ice Age” And Climate Change

/ Jack Marshall / 87 Comments

snowpiercer

From Alphr:

Between the years 1645 and 1715, there was a period of bitterly cold winters in the northern hemisphere. The winters were so cold that the Thames completely froze.This was caused by low solar activity, known as the Maunder Minimum, and when it will happen again has been a source of debate among scientists. Well, according to a new model that promises 97% accuracy, we’re due another “little ice age” in 15 to 25 years time. The prediction is the work of mathematics professor Valentina Zharkova from Northumbria University, examining the sun’s so-called “11-year heartbeat”. This is the period at which the sun’s activity remains steady before fluctuating every 10-12 years. Zharkova’s new model forecasts solar cycles based on two layers of moving fluid within the sun, one near the surface and another in the convection zone. By using this model, Zharkova’s team found their predictions “showed an accuracy of 97%”.

At this moment, I’m not concerned about whether the prediction is right or wrong; there’s plenty of time for me to buy ear muffs. I do think it is fascinating, however, and I offer these observations:

1. Question: Why has this story been virtually ignored by the mainstream news media?  Answer: Because progressive journalists haven’t figured out how to reconcile their climate change, environmentalist, pro-EPA dictatorship, “all climate change skeptics are idiots and the equivalent of Holocaust deniers” narrative with its implications, that’s why. This is news, don’t you think? “Fit to print,” correct? Any time some semi-respectable scientist predicts that we have 20 years left to knee-cap American industry or the seas will boil, that’s headlines at MSNBC and the Times, isn’t it? I can’t think of a more blatant example of unprofessional and biased news manipulation for purely ideological reasons than the fact that this story has thus far been isolated to European and Australian news sources.

2. The theme of environmentalists and the progressive establishment, as well as elected officials who are just as certain about climate change despite not remotely understanding the science, is that the science is settled, that disastrous, man-caused global warming is certain, and that no argument to the contrary will be accepted or respected. Yet scientists just figured out, using a new model, that a massive global cooling will occur just 15 years from now.  Quite simply, according to the angry, insulting rhetoric from the Gores, Pelosis, Obamas and their pundit cheerinbg section, this is impossible. Science has settled, and cannot be wrong, what the temperature will be a hundred years or more from now, and that’s that—no skepticism allowed. The models are undeniable! And yet, a new model, just developed, shows that a decidedly non-warming trend  not predicted by those perfect models is now certain. Continue reading →

Observations On The George W. Bush Speaking Fee Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments
Paying George to speak is a little like paying Hillary to tell the truth...

Paying George to speak is a little like paying Hillary to tell the truth…

Former President George W. Bush was paid a speakers fee of $100,000 to address a charity fundraiser for U.S. military veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The  Texas-based Helping a Hero charity also confirmed  that W. was also provided with a private jet to travel to Houston at a cost of $20,000.

Observations:

  • Neither the former President, nor anyone, is obligated to donate his time and effort any time a charity whistles, regardless of its worthy mission. He is also within his rights to charge whatever he chooses: nobody has to pay it.Would it be an ethical act to donate that fee back to the charity, or waive it entirely? Sure. Is it unethical not to do so? Of course not.
  • Why is this story suddenly all over the news and internet? Why, to protect Hillary Clinton, of course. This is another res ipsa loquitur example of the news media acting like Democratic Party operatives. They are trying an “everybody does it” excuse for Hillary’s greed; in turn, the former President’s defnders counter with #22, “It’s not the worst thing.”
  • “For him to be paid to raise money for veterans that were wounded in combat under his orders, I don’t think that’s right,” former Marine Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket attack in Iraq in 2004, complained to ABC News “You sent me to war. I was doing what you told me to do, gladly for you and our country and I have no regrets. But it’s kind of a slap in the face.” I’m sympathetic, but the argument is absurd. Wright was soldier, and had his duty; Bush was Commander-in-Chief, and had his. Wright wasn’t doing Bush a favor, and Bush owes him no more and no less than any other American. Wright’s argument would obligate Bush to appear, on demand, free of charge to every military and veterans group, or be accused, variously, of playing favorites, not properly respecting non-wounded veterans, and dozens of other equally unavoidable complaints.
  • Is $100,000 an unreasonable speaker’s fee for a former President? Well, if his presence on the dais raises a lot more than that, and the charity seems to think it does, then from a strictly economic standpoint, it is not unreasonable, nor unethical for him to charge it, nor unethical for a charity to pay it.

Continue reading →

Media Cheap Shots For Hillary

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
NPR's Diane Rehm: she has a list, and Bernie's on it.

NPR’s Diane Rehm: she has a list, and Bernie’s on it.

In retrospect, we should have known that the mainstream news media would be actively campaigning for the Democrats  in 2008 when the New York Times, often referred to as the “flagship” of the MSM, ran a bizarre, inexcusable hit piece on John McCain as a front page story, alleging, via anonymous sources, not that McCain was involved in a Bill Clinton-style inappropriate relationship with a comely female lobbyist eight years earlier, but that unnamed staffers at the time were “concerned” that they were too friendly to each other. What followed was the most openly biased coverage in U.S. presidential campaign history, with candidate Obama repeatedly featured in messianic poses on magazine covers, virtually no media vetting of his background and a full-out, often sexist assault on the GOP Vice-Presidential candidate for being unqualified (though she had far more relevant experience than the Democratic presidential candidate),and for being a dummy, while the hilariously addled Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate was treated like a beloved eccentric uncle.

From an ethics standpoint, it didn’t matter that McCain was an awful candidate, that the chance to elect a black President was irresistible and that once the economy collapsed, the Democrats could have nominated a deaf pangolin and still won with ease. What mattered was that the media proved itself biased, unprofessional and untrustworthy as never before. I was nauseated by the debacle, but always optimistic, thought there was a chance that U.S. journalists would eventually wake up from their Obama fever, admit that they betrayed their professional duty and reform. Sadly, the problem has only worsened.

We are now seeing, even earlier than before, that the news media is prepared to throw cheap shot blocks on anyone, Democrat or Republican, who threatens the Presidential path of Hillary Clinton. Everyone—yes even Clinton supporters, as soul-dead and corrupt as they must by definition be—should be alarmed by this. It means that the United States has no objective news media, but one that is in league with, rather than exposing and challenging, entrenched power. Democracy won’t work thus encumbered. This should be a bipartisan issue.

The New York Times has equalled its John McCain fiasco with a pair of embarrassing attacks on Marco Rubio, first exposing the disqualifying scandal of his wife’s poor driving record (Hillary hasn’t driven in decades—chauffeurs, you know) and then the damning fact that he isn’t rich as Croesus and thus has no business purchasing, for example, a new home. This, like the McCain gossip, was deemed front page worthy. Even Jon Stewart, who comes to the defense of Republicans as often as he makes a joke about Obama, was appalled, devoting a five minute rant to mocking the Times.

Stewart noted the Times’ reporting of the Rubios’ purchase in 2005 of a larger home for $550,000 in 2005 that included, according to the paper, “an in-ground pool, a handsome brick driveway, meticulously manicured shrubs and oversize windows.” Calling the story “inconsequential gossip,” and asking, “How is this front-page news?,” he said,

“What’s The New York Times going to do? Exercise editorial control? No. … It’s like their motto says: ‘Don’t hate the paper, hate the game.’”

“The game” is called “Rig Democracy for Democrats.” The Times editorial staff indignantly demands the reversal of Citizens United because its editors deplore the law (and the Firts Amendment)  allowing “big corporations” to influence elections by funding obvious political advocacy, while The Times, owned and operated by a large corporation, uses its resources to engage in daily political advocacy under the guise of objective journalism.The media is just getting started, it seems. Yesterday,  NPR public affairs talk show host Diane Rehm began an interview with Hillary challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders with an accusation:

“Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel.” 

Sanders interrupted, “Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I’m an American. I don’t know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. No, I’m an American citizen, period.”

“I understand from a list we have gotten that you were on that list, forgive me if that is [untrue.]” Rehm said. She later apologized. Sure she did! Mission accomplished! As Jewish Journal noted,  Rehm’s “list” was  probably the one that has circulated on the Internet for several years concerning U.S. government officials and members of Congress who allegedly hold dual citizenship with Israel, making them, the theory goes, agents of a successful Israeli effort to manipulate U.S. policy. Why wouldn’t veteran journalist Rehm, as fair and ethical journalism demands, check her facts before asserting a falsehood?

Ann Althouse’s explanation seems astute:

“It was only last weekend that Bernie Sanders shocked the Clinton campaign in the Wisconsin straw poll by getting 41% to Hillary’s 49%. He’s not an amusing sideline anymore. What can be done to keep Democrats from drifting his way? An outright lie about him doesn’t work, does it? Well, yes it does! It made everyone take notice that Bernie Sanders is Jewish. He’s not an Israeli citizen. That’s cleared up, but the impression remains: He’s Jewish. That stirs up any free-floating anti-Jewishness that may be useful to his opponent. It stirs up suspicion that Sanders feels affiliated with Israel in a way that is inconsistent with the American presidency. I’m sure many people hadn’t even noticed that Sanders is Jewish, and now we all know that, and we know additional facts. From the first link above, which goes to Politico: “Sanders, who is Jewish, has visited Israel several times and spent several months working on a communal farm called a Kibbutz in the 1960s.” That’s all powerfully useful to Hillary. Am I supposed to believe this was a mere oopsie by a nice old lady?”

Stumping for Obama was unethical, but the mainstream media’s journalists, being human and none too bright, could be cut a little slack (though not by me) for their enthusiasm for a fresh, eloquent young black man who spoke persuasively of bringing us together, restoring peace and making America respected again abroad. Doing the same for a corrupt, cynical, dishonest candidate like Clinton, however, is the journalism equivalent of treason.

______________________________

Sources: Politico 1,2, NYT, Althouse

Continue reading →

The Gay Valedictorian’s Vetoed Speech

/ Jack Marshall / 103 Comments
I...never mind. Maybe you can guess what I was going to say.

I…never mind. Maybe you can guess what I was going to say.

Contrary to the impression one would get reading Ethics Alarms, school administrators don’t always make the wrong decisions, and don’t always behave like pusillanimous, politically correct fools. In Colorado, for instance, the Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School administration made exactly the right call in this year’s inevitable valedictorian controversy. Naturally, the mainstream news media is roundly condemning it.

This is why most school administrators behave like pusillanimous, politically correct fools. It’s easier.

Evan Young, an 18-year-old graduating senior at  Twin Peaks Charter Academy High School in Longmont, Colorado was selected as his graduating class’s valedictorian. (Here all the other accounts you read will point out that he has a 4.5 GPA and a scholarship awaiting him at Rutgers University. How smart he is and deserving of the honor is 100% irrelevant to the ethics issue in the story, but that information is being included as part of the effort to make Young an attractive and sympathetic “victim.”) He  agreed to make edits to his speech required by school Principal B. J. Buchmann, but refused to eliminate the passage in which he disclosed that he was gay.  As a result, Young was not allowed to give his speech at all, and thus was not recognized as valedictorian at the May 16 graduation.

Young says that part of his speech’s design was to tell everyone his secrets. “Most of the things were stupid stuff — books I never read that I was supposed to, or homework I didn’t like. But then I gradually worked up to serious secrets. My main theme is that you’re supposed to be respectful of people, even if you don’t agree with them. I figured my gayness would be a very good way to address that.”

He figured incorrectly. It was one way to address that, but not an appropriate way considering the forum, and the school had every right to tell him to keep his sexual orientation out of the proceedings. Continue reading →

The Brelo Acquittal: Once Again, No Just Cause For Protest

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Brelo car

Nobody should doubt that there are too many instances of excessive police force, that racism must playsa factor in many of these episodes, and that prosecutors and juries give police special, and perhaps excessively generous,  consideration when cases of alleged abuse come to trial. The sheer numbers compel that concludion. However, the now routine presumption on the part of civil rights activists, much of the news media and Obama racially-biased Justice Department that every instance where an unarmed African American is killed by a police officer warrants indictment and conviction is as pernicious as racism itself, and threatens the rule of law as well as any semblance of peaceful race relations.

Every incident is not like the Walter Scott shooting in South Carolina, where the police officer’s actions were unequivocally homicidal, but the news media seems to blur the lines as much as it can. In the current controversy out of Cleveland, police officer Michael Brelo’s acquittal of murder charges was announced with headlines resembling  Slate’s “Cleveland Police Officer Acquitted for Firing 15 Shots That Killed Unarmed Black Couple,” which makes it sound as if Brelo personally executed the Huxtables while they were taking a Sunday drive. “Cleveland Police Officer Acquitted for Firing 15 Shots out of 137 That Killed Two Mentally-Ill, Homeless Addicts Under The Influence of Drugs Who Fled A Lawful Police Stop And Were Credibly Believed to Have Discharged A Firearm” would have been lengthy, but also would have been fair rather than deceitful.

The acquittal came because there was no way to determine for certain that Brelo’s shots were the ones that killed the couple.  Nor were the Cleveland officers’ presumption that deadly force was necessary unreasonable. Police had been informed that shots had been fired from the car (they turned out to be backfires from the auto), and the driver  had certainly exhibited reckless conduct. Was it necessary for Brelo to jump up on the hood of the car after multiple shots had been fired into it by other officers (the chase involved over 60 police cars)?  Were more shots fired by all concerned than necessary? Maybe and almost certainly, but neither of those facts add up to guilt for the officer, or justification for another “Hand up, Don’t shoot!” protest. Officers didn’t know the occupants of the fleeing car were unarmed, and had reason to think they were armed. They didn’t know they were a “couple,” or African American, or mentally ill.

Never mind; African American protesters are demonstrating, protesting and getting arrested in Cleveland anyway. Continue reading →

Cover-up: Successful

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Somebody tell Rep. Gowdy that his committee's investigation is futile. The news media and the public just don't mind being lied to any more.

Somebody tell Rep. Gowdy that his committee’s investigation is futile. The news media and the public just don’t mind being lied to any more.

From USA Today:

One day after the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded the assault had been planned 10 days earlier by an al-Qaeda affiliate, according to documents released Monday by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. “The attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman,” said a preliminary intelligence report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained through a lawsuit following a Freedom of Information Act request.

Wait…I thought that Hillary Clinton, State, President Obama and Susan Rice were all laboring under the misconception that the attack was spontaneous and prompted by a YouTube video, and the claims that the Obama Administration was stalling the revelations of what they already knew so Mitt Romney couldn’t challenge Obama’s carefully manufactured narrative that he had terrorism on the run were just partisan sour grapes. That’s been the spin the liberal press has been accepting from the White House for over two years.

What’s going on here? Well, the “narrative” carefully shifted away from the most transparent administration in history lying to the American public to excessive Republican claims that the outpost wasn’t given proper security, wasn’t rescued when it could have been, was the product of criminal incompetence. As soon as those accusations failed, Democrats and the news media promptly adopted the official Obama line: Benghazi was a “nothingburger,” in the contemptuous words of Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. It was a manufactured scandal of no substance designed to discredit Hillary Clinton.

But no evidence proved that Obama, Clinton and Rice weren’t lying about the attacks being spontaneous and not organized terrorism, and all the evidence has demonstrated the contrary, with this latest piece of the puzzle simply filling in some of the blanks. Of course, the latest story wasn’t even covered by most of the mainstream media; I was shocked to see it in USA Today. Judicial Watch is a conservative organization, you see. To be fair, it’s a whack job conservative organization. That means it could legitimately discover cold fusion and the news media wouldn’t pay attention.

Maybe it isn’t news. After all, the Obama cover-up worked. As Harry Reid said, after admitting his part in the organized effort to make sure that the 2012 Presidential elections was based as much on smears, lies and slight of hand as real issues, “Romney lost, didn’t he?” Hillary’s famous dismissal of the issue in the Benghazi hearings was on the mark: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Continue reading →

The Protesters, The Veteran And The Flag—An Instant Ethics Train Wreck In Georgia

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments
Mission accomplished... But what exactly was the mission?

Mission accomplished… But what exactly was the mission?

This the kind of story that makes Americans cynical. I’m more cynical from just reading it. Air Force veteran Michelle Manhart saw protesters  stomping on a flag in a demonstration at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia, and took action. She briefly snatched the flag away, but police officers intervened, arrested her, handcuffed Manhart, returned the flag to the protesters so they could continue abusing it, and escorted the comely counter-protester away. The protestors, all African-Americans, proceeded to say some silly and offensive things (Can we stipulate that “You killed off our people. You enslaved our people…You put us in this white supremacist place” is silly and offensive? I think that’s fair… and a lot fairer than accusing Manhart of “killing off” African-Americans.) Neither the demonstrators nor the police pressed charges against Manhart, but she did receive a campus trespass warning that bars her from campus activities. Let us pause for a brief ethics audit, shall we?

1. The flag desecrating protest, as the Supreme Court has clearly ruled, was legal and protected, except to the extent that it incites others to violence, like a burning cross. In some settings, it might be so judged. Not on a college campus, unless the college is West Point.

2. Legal or not, it’s a disrespectful and irresponsible protest, not to mention dumber than a Justin Bieber Fan Club.

3. I think many veterans would react as Manhart did. My father would have. I might have on his behalf. A lot of non-veterans would as well, and I salute them. Remember Rick Monday?

4. The police were correct to intervene and arrest Manhart.

5. The protesters were correct not to press charges.

6. The university correctly ordered her to stay away.

Unfortunately, the story began to rot soon after it was first reported. Continue reading →

CNN: “How Is The North Charleston Shooting Different From Ferguson?” KABOOM!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

HeadExplode3

My answer:

“In North Charleston the officer executed a fleeing man, while in Ferguson an officer used appropriate force to defend himself, but CNN represented the story as an officer executing a fleeing man anyway.”

I literally just saw this minutes ago, so I can’t provide a link, and because smug, biased, despicable-beyond-words CNN morning anchor Carol Costello caused my head to explode with her commentary, the accuracy of my quotes may be a little off.

My brains hit the ceiling the second Costello said, “Unlike the shooting of Mike Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer, the shooting of Walter Scott in North Charleston was captured on video. Witnesses in the Ferguson case disagreed about key facts in the shooting, and about whether Brown’s hands were up or not.”

Disgusting journalism, and close to pure evil. How long did Carol labor over that deceitful phrasing? Though Mike Brown’s shooting has been decisively shown by the credible eye-witness testimony and forensic evidence to have been consistent with the police officer’s account, and though the witnesses claiming that Brown was surrendering have been shown to be following the lead of CNN guest Dorian Johnson, who lied about what happened and set off the nationwide “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” protest theme, Costello and CNN are deliberately linked the two incidents, suggesting in tone and context that had there been a video, Darren Wilson might have been shown to be an executioner too. Continue reading →

Fire NYT “Public Editor” Margaret Sullivan

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

new_york_times_logo

In some professions, an apology isn’t enough.

One such profession is accounting. Arthur Andersen couldn’t fix its reputation by apologizing. Its knee-deep involvement and likely complicity in the Enron debacle rendered its claim to trustworthiness permanently and irredeemable damaged. Its conduct made the company useless as a certifier of transparency and truth. For an accountant or auditor, if there is any doubt that he or she might not be telling the truth, the jig is up. One cannot trust a truth-teller who only is accurate and reliable most of the time.

I think the same applies to newspaper ombudspersons, if that’s the proper term now, and this is what Margaret Sullivan’s job as New York Times “public editor is,” euphemisms aside. She is supposed to bolster public trust by serving as an objective critic of Times reporters, columnists and editors, and ensuring that they hew to the high standards of professionalism and journalism ethics readers should be able to expect from the nation’s most respected newspaper.

Like the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, Sullivan has published a mea culpa for her joining on the “Darren Lewis is a white cop and Mike Brown was an unarmed black kid, so obviously the white cop gunned down the black kid in cold blood because that’s what white cops do and whites want to do” lynch mob last summer as it was being led by Eric Holder, the media, Al Sharpton and others.  But unlike Capehart, who is an opinion columnist and can be forgiven a bit for being led by his biases, Sullivan job is to protect her colleagues from their biases and ensure that the Times at least tries to be objective and fair. Continue reading →