Minnesota

Thanksgiving Eve Ethics Appetizers

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I’m not celebrating Thanksgiving this year because I can’t stop things I’m not thankful for imposing on my consciousness and making me miserable. “Get these memories out of this room!” says one of three collegial madwomen in a memorable scene from “The Madwoman of Chaillot.” “I won’t have them sitting around staring at me!”

Exactly.

But enough about me. My friends continue to be frightening in their mental deterioration: that cartoon above was just posted by one of them…with a wave of “likes” of course. How much has one’s critical thinking skills been corrupted to think that perspective is anything but woke garbage? The mind boggles.

Meanwhile,

1. Here’s Biden’s paid liar, (the competent one) Jen Psaki, sounding idiotic on a podcast (Who has the time and tolerance to listen to junk like this? I’d rather watch re-runs of “Three’s Company”) attacking current press secretary Karoline Leavitt:

JEN PSAKI: It’s a very good question. Here’s the challenge of that. If I would say Peter Doocy, bless his heart, is not as bad as Benny Johnson.This is the group we’re living in, we’ve got the rank order of options. Is that if the Associated Press and the Washington Post and the New York Times and ABC News say, you know what, we’re walking out of this White House briefing room. That’s the best thing that could ever happen to Donald Trump and Karoline Leavitt. Because that’s what they’re trying to reshape without saying they’re doing it. And in that room, and this is what I find to be so challenging, is the things that are happening behind the scenes that you can’t always see or know unless you’ve lived it. And I think this is true in law firms, in the Department of Justice and places too, is that in that briefing room, the Benny Johnsons of the world are slowly but surely taking over more and more of the questions in the briefing, right?And having a greater and greater presence in these press pools where you have a smaller group of reporters in the Oval Office. And sometimes Trump and a foreign leader will take 45 minutes of questions. And it’s Benny Johnson and little Benny Johnson, whoever that may be.And yes, maybe there’s one or two other real reporters, but the problem is they’re taking up so much real estate. So if all of these other reporters leave, that’s all the real estate. And then you know what we have?We have what the Kremlin press corps is. And that’s the challenge. So if you’re these reporters, I don’t know what the answer is and what you do. There’s still very smart people in there. They’re just getting overtaken in terms of space and real estate by people the White House selects to say things like, Donald Trump looks so good in his workout. What is his workout?That was literally a question one day.

ANGIE “PUMPS” SULLIVAN, CO-HOST: It’s crazy. Yeah. Okay. And one thing. Okay. So I’m going to tell you what a big nerd I am.

PSAKI: We’re all nerds. It’s a safe place.

WELCH: So I get on social media. And then when I would get home after work, I would watch your press conferences when you worked for Biden.

PSAKI: Oh my God. God bless you. Thank you.

SULLIVAN: It’s just to see like, okay, what’s the real story before I got into the meat of it? Because I was like, okay, what’s the White House saying? Because I’m getting all this disruption. And I think that it’s a, you know, it’s precious for the United States to have a representative of the president to come out and talk about policy. You had a stack of books this tall. I couldn’t even believe all the crap you went through. Now I am enraged every time I see Karoline Leavitt who prays before she goes out there and lies her fat ass off. So she goes out there and lies and it’s propaganda after propaganda. Is there no check on that? Like, is there no, like, I guess there’s no law that the press secretary has to be honest, but like when she acts like, I can’t even believe you would insinuate Donald Trump would make money off of the presidency as the Trump watches are going. So is there no like rules or anything? I guess they don’t care about rules, but does that break your heart to see what it’s been turned into?

PSAKI: It does. And I say this as obviously I worked in Democratic politics for 20 something years. I’m not shy about my views, but even for people who like Dana Perino or dare I say even Sean Spicer, I don’t know if I should use him as an example.It’s a very different briefing room now than it was then. Dana Perino is probably a better example of this, right? I disagree with Bush on a bazillion things, right? But you had to go in there and answer questions from the same type of reporters and often the same reporters I had to answer questions from. And this is a part of how the United States is unique as a democracy is that you do have a person who goes out there at the White House and answers questions even on days and believe me, there are some days where before you walk out into the room, you’re like, “oh shit.” There’s no information. That’s not the reporter’s fault. It’s like, there’s nothing I can offer and they’re going to just yell at me for 45 minutes. It’s sad because there aren’t so many people who’ve ever done that job and what it feels like it is diminishing the job. It is diminishing the role of the press secretary, the honor of being in that job, which is speaking on behalf of the United States of America, which sometimes it’s edgy. A lot of times it’s not. Sometimes people think it’s boring, but it’s important and this is really changing what it is and what the expectations are around it. And that is sad for the White House. It’s sad for the institution. It’s sad for anyone who’s had that job. And it really takes it away as something that the American people can rely on as at least a source of information.

Where to start? Of course Jen thinks the Times, the Post and the rest are journalism gold, since they abdicated all journalistic integrity to cover for her White House and her party. Funny that she thinks Leavitt has debased the Paid Liar job when Psaki never criticized her pathetic successor, Karine Jean-Pierre. And needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, for any former Paid Liar to criticize another one for lying isn’t just hypocrisy, it is lying in a position where lying is unethical.

Then there’s the barely coherent Mean Girls banter. How does that illuminate or entertain?

Continue reading →

Riddle Me This: “Why Is The Guthrie Theater Like Stephen Colbert?”

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Louis Carroll’s Mad Hatter asks Alice the riddle, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” One would think that the question in the headline above is equally obscure (the Guthrie, in Minneapolis, is one of the most respected and celebrated regional theaters in the country) but it has an answer. Like the Colbert late night show, which has since its inception sought to exclude anyone who isn’t woke, obsessed with progressive politics or, since 2015, Trump Deranged, the Guthrie now aims at entertaining only that same audience, except in its case only the wealthy, white, upper-middle class demographic within that audience, or others willing to sit still for relentless leftist propaganda and cant.

A recent audience member for The Guthrie’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Dolls House” wrote about his experience. “A Doll’s House” is about as moldy a feminist tract as there is (I once called the play the drama equivalent of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” but much longer, and even more over-exposed (it was written in 1879, so its analogies with the real state of womanhood, especially in the U.S., have been increasingly forced as time goes by. (No, her husband did not stop Nora from having an abortion: she would never have dreamed of killing an unborn child.)

Continue reading →

Open Forum, “I Wasn’t Going To Have One But Then My Head Exploded” Edition….

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

We just had an open forum a few days ago, so I was going to skip the Friday Forum. Then I read this, my head exploded, I already was struggling because I didn’t sleep at all last night, so I need some time to mop up and repack my head:

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Wednesday for its laws that provide free and reduced tuition rates to illegal aliens. The laws, a DOJ press release contends, unconstitutionally discriminate against out-of-state U.S. citizens, who are not afforded the same privileges at Minnesota’s public colleges and universities….According to the lawsuit [“…which names Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education as defendants”], federal law prohibits states from providing illegal aliens with any post secondary education benefit that is denied to U.S. citizens….The lawsuit explains how a 2013 state law allows illegal aliens who establish residency in Minnesota to benefit from reduced, in-state tuition rates….Additionally, the DFL-controlled Minnesota Legislature established in 2023 a free tuition program for students whose families make less than $80,000 annually. Illegal aliens are eligible for the program. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court to declare the laws unconstitutional and prohibit their enforcement.

“We are reviewing the lawsuit and will vigorously defend the state’s prerogative to offer affordable tuition to both citizen and non-citizen state residents,” a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said.”

KABOOM!

A few rueful points, and then you write about whatever you want…

  • Why are we just hearing about this now, when the knuckleheaded governor of Minnesota was running from August 2024 to November to be a heartbeat from the Presidency? Why didn’t Trump confront Harris with that insanity? Why did no one in the news media, Axis or not, report on it?
  • These laws are the equivalents of “Welcome, illegal immigrants!” invitations to break the law, with Minnesota being a “sanctuary state.” Minnesota citizens are that stupid, or in the alternative, that clown car crazy? How did they get that way? Can they be treated? 
  • What logic can possibly justify this?
  • Note that the Minnesota AG is still obfuscating, not having the honesty of integrity to call a metaphorical spade a spade. “Non-citizen state residents”! The state lies, cheats and steals under Walz, but this is what the Democratic Party now stands for. No wonder he thinks he has a shot at the Presidential nomination in 2028.

Back to brain clean-up…

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Minnesota State Rep. Kaohly Her

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

And, may I add, what an idiot!

It’s bad enough that she has a name that automatically thrusts us into an Abbott and Costello routine [“Who?” “Her!” “Who’s Her?” “She’s Her!” “Of course she’s a her, but who is she?” “Her!”], but the fact that she also appears to have no compunction about lying, rationalizing law-breaking and making a fool out of herself along anyone silly enough to support her makes Her one more example of what’s wrong with Minnesota, the Democratic Party, and the advocates for illegal immigration.

During a debate on the Minnesota House floor that touched on illegal immigration, Her announced that she entered the United States as a child illegally. “I am illegal in this country. My parents are illegal here in this country,” she said.

Oh! That’s interesting: that means that she can’t hold elected office legally, that she shouldn’t be on a ballot, and that she can’t even vote in elections, much less on bills. The fourth-term lawmaker’s confession “ignited a firestorm in right-wing media,” The Minnesota Informer writes. I guess Democrats and progressives don’t care if an elected official isn’t holding office legally as long as she votes their way, just those racist conservatives who are sticklers for details like citizenship. One of her Republican colleagues in the House, Rep. Walter Hudson, called for Her to be investigated. What a meanie! A state rep admits that she’s in the state illegally, and this Fascist wants to have her kicked out of the legislature. Xenophobe!

Continue reading →

Oh Yeah, THIS Will Work Out Well: Minnesota Rules That Women Going Bare-Breasted in Public Isn’t Illegal

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

You know: Minnesota.

Leaping down a particularly slippery slope, the The Minnesota Supreme Court last week overturned the conviction of Eloisa R. Plancarte for indecent exposure after she bared her breasts in a parking lot in 2021. Olmsted County prosecutors charged her with a misdemeanor after police responded to a complaint about a woman walking around topless. Judge Joseph Chase found Plancarte, 28, guilty of indecent exposure and the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld Plancarte’s conviction in 2024. Now the woke Supreme Court in the Land of Lakes has reversed the conviction.

Writing for the majority, Justice Karl Procaccini wrote that Plancarte had not engaged “in any type of overt public sexual activity….the State has not met its burden of proving that Plancarte’s exposure was lewd, because none of the evidence in the record suggests that her conduct was of a sexual nature.” In her concurring opinion, Justice Sarah Hennesy wrote that criminalizing the exposure of female, but not male breasts “fails to recognize the more nuanced physical realities of human bodies.”

Whatever that means…

“Would a transgender man be prohibited from exposing his chest?” Hennesy continued. “What about a transgender woman who has had top surgery? Where do the chests of intersex and nonbinary persons fit within this dichotomy? And how do we treat the exposed chest of a breast cancer survivor who has had a mastectomy? Interpreting this statutory scheme as differentiating between male and female breasts is not sufficiently clear and definite to warn Minnesotans of what conduct is punishable.”

Great. Clearly, in Minnesota the conduct of a man walking around with his naughty bits hanging out would also be deemed non-sexual. There is nothing improper about reasonable laws upholding and enforcing societal standards of decency, decorum, respect, civility and modesty. Would the result have been different if a male motorist had been distracted by the bare-breasted pedestrian and run down a child in a crosswalk? That this didn’t occur is only moral luck.

Using the Ethics Incompleteness Principle examples of transgender conduct to eviscerate the law involved is intellectually dishonest: those cases would be difficult, but would also be recognized as narrowly applicable. If Sydney Sweeney’s conduct in walking bare-breasted in a parking lot would be legitimately seen as sexual—and it would—then a law prohibiting such conduct by women generally is reasonable. The pursuit of happiness is not without borders in a civilized society that wants to stay that way.

_______________

Pointer: Jutgory

“Lying, Losing and Cheating Is No Way To Go Through Democracy, Democrats!”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Do Democrats really cheat more often than Republicans? It sure seems like it over the last year at least, when the party faked out the nation as long as possible pretending that Joe Biden was really President, then made Kamala Harris their substitute nominee without her winning a single primary vote. In addition, its plan for winning the Presidential election was t put Donald Trump in jail, or at least set him up to be labeled a “convicted felon.”

From Minnesota comes a particularly ugly example of ethics rot on the struggling left. There are 134 Minnesota House districts. When the votes were counted after the last election, Republicans had gained enough seats to deadlock the state’s House, 67-67. Ah, but one of the Democrats’ candidates had cheated! In House District 40B, Democrat Curtis Johnson falsely claimed to reside in the district and he didn’t, making him ineligible to run or serve under the Minnesota Constitution. The GOP filed an election challenge and it was successful, so a district court issued an injunction barring Johnson from taking that seat. A special election will be held to fill the seat at some time in the future—don’t ask me why Johnson’s cheated opponent didn’t automatically get declared the winner: I don’t understand Minnesota (Al Franken, Jesse Ventura, Tim Walz…) at all, and less with each passing year.

Continue reading →

A Teachers’ Union Reveals What It Is, Suddenly Decides To Take It All Back And Pretend It Didn’t Mean It

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

…thus raising the immediate question of whether parents and particularly Jews are as dumb as the teachers apparently think they are. We shall see.

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers passed a resolution on Oct. 25th to “condemn the role our [America] government plays in supporting the system of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which lies at the root of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” In addition, the resolution demanded that Minnesota lawmakers repeal the state’s anti-BDS legislation. 

Not surprisingly, there was a massive negative reaction to the October resolution because it revealed that a majority of the teachers in the union were..

  • Anti-Semitic.
  • Ignorant
  • Completely in thrall to anti-white, anti-democratic ideology
  • Excessively concerned with woke politics than with education, and
  • Not sufficiently trustworthy to be teaching children.
  • Missing basic ethics alarms.

Oopsie! The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas sent a letter signed by over 800 citizens to interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox and the MPS school board protesting in part,

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Is This An Ethical Teacher Training Film? Just Kidding: Of Course It Isn’t…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Imagine a culture that could permit something this biased, divisive, reductive and vile to get funded, green-lighted, produced and used.

Never mind: you don’t need to imagine it. That culture’s here.

Now what?

Minnesota’s Religious Freedom Pharmacist Case

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

In  2019, Andrea Anderson’s primary birth control method had failed, so she called her health care provider to ask for a prescription to Ella, an emergency contraceptive tablet. But when she went to  the local McGregor Thrifty White pharmacy in Aitkin County, Minnesota, pharmacist and local pastor George Badeaux refused to fill the prescription, citing his religious beliefs. He told her that a pharmacist working the following day could fill her needs if a snowstorm didn’t prevent the pharmacist from getting to work.The desperate woman ended up driving three hours round trip to Brainerd during a snowstorm to get her pregnancy-terminating pills.

Anderson sued under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, alleging sexual discrimination. The jury ruled against her.

Ethics Alarms verdict: the jury was right on the law, but the pharmacist was unethical. Continue reading →

Ethics Test: The Corey Pujols Sentence vs. The Derek Chauvin Sentence

/ Jack Marshall / 64 Comments

I am having a hard time reconciling these two criminal trial sentences with basic ethical principles like fairness, equity, and consistency. Maybe you can help.

I suspect you never heard of the Corey Pujols manslaughter case in Florida, where a black Dunkin’ Donut manager was sentenced for killing a 73-year-old white man. There were no national headlines or special network reports after the May 4, 2021 incident at a shop in Tampa, Florida. There were no protests or angry demonstrations or riots; no organization called “Old White Guys’ Lives Matter” took up his victim’s cause.

Vonelle Cook was a  regular customer at the doughnut store, and not a welcome one: he was often cranky and abusive. On this visit he began berating staff members for the service he received at the store’s drive-through window. Asked repeatedly to leave, Cook parked and entered the shop while store manager Corey Pujols told another store employee to call the police. Cook began arguing with Pujols across the counter, and then Cook called Pujols a “nigger.”  Pujols came out from behind the counter to confront Cook.  Pujols, 27, warned the old man “not to say that again,” and true to his character and mood, Cook repeated the slur. Pujols punched him in the jaw; Vonelle Cook fell backwards onto the floor, hitting his head and sustaining fatal injuries. He died in a hospital three days later. Cook never touched or tried to strike his attacker Pujols.

Pujols was charged with manslaughter, but agreed to a plea deal in which he accepted  the lesser charge of felony battery. Under the sentence imposed this week by Judge Christine Marlewski of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court, Cook’s killer will be on probation for three years after he completes two years of  house arrest, and must perform 200 hours of community service as well as attending anger management courses.

Fair? Proportional? Consistent?

Andrew Warren, the state attorney for Hillsborough County, was satisfied, saying that the result “holds the defendant accountable while considering the totality of the circumstances — the aggressive approach and despicable racial slur used by the victim, along with the defendant’s age, lack of criminal record, and lack of intent to cause the victim’s death.”

From the news accounts, it appears that that the fact that Cook was not an admirable citizen and that he will not be greatly mourned by the community was also taken into consideration. He was a registered sex offender who had served time in prison after being convicted of  crimes including child abuse, possession of child pornography and sexual activity with minors.

Now let’s consider and contrast the sentence imposed on former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin—22 years and six months—and the relevant factors the two cases share and do not share.

Continue reading →