New York City

This Program Is So Stupid and Unethical, I Thought It Was Right-Wing Disinformation

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Tragically, I was wrong.

Perpetually confused New York Mayor Eric Adams has championed a potentially $53 million pilot program with Mobility Capital Finance to distribute debit cards to illegal immigrants (but it sounds so much better if you call them “migrants”) who are in his “sanctuary city.” The program, yet another zenith for The Great Stupid, kicked off yesterday with 10 families getting the cards; the program will soon expand to 115 families. Families of four will have $350 each week to spend using on their cards on groceries, diapers, drugs, baby formula and other essentials at local businesses. That comes out to roughly $1,440 per month. The cards will go to the families who have received a 28-day voucher to stay at a designated group of hotels. If the program is successful, it will expand to 500 families, with the program’s costs rising to as much as $53 million.

“There is no free money. These are not ATM cards. You can’t take cash out,” Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy said at the news conference.

Oh. Then the program makes perfect sense then.

Politico writes, “They’ve invited the condemnation by right-wing news media as simply another benefit for people who entered the country illegally.” Conservatives pounce. Tell me, PLEASE, what else would you call this but a benefit for people who entered the country illegally?

Someone? Anyone? “Buhler?“

Today the mayor was asked if the debit cards send a “mixed message” to illegals (the questioner said “migrants,” of course). What a stupid question! It’s the clearest of messages: come here illegally and you’ll get free stuff. Oh, though you better not kill or rape anyone…the Gringos don’t like that, for some reason.

The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have barely covered this story—three guesses why. The last Times mention was in this hilariously headlined piece: Why New York’s Plan to Give Migrants Debit Cards Came Under Fire.

Hmmm, I wonder why? It’s a mystery. Those crazy, cruel conservatives don’t like anything.

Friday Forum Open For Business…

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Things are getting ugly out there. My favorite story that I haven’t written about yet is the New York City school that has kicked out the students so it can house illegal immigrants. The kids will he schooling over Zoom—and we all know how well that works. Guess how the MSM is reporting it, if it is reporting it at all? Media Matters called the play: “Right-wing media melt down over NYC using a public high school to shelter migrants overnight ” during a winter storm. “Republicans pounce!”

Oh…that’s lovely “Emily Pellegrini” above, the sensational digital model created with the assistance on an AI program. After just four months on Instagram, she has nearly 150,000 fans and is well on her way to being a web influencer. I think Natalie Portman should sue, especially since Emily may be a better actress than she is.

But I digress. See if you can find some of the beauty in ethics today.

Is It Unethical To Laugh, Mock And Applaud As “Sanctuary Cities” Define The Bard’s Phrase “Hoist With His Own Petard”?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

No, of course not. In fact, it’s mandatory, necessary, and appropriate. Everyone knew, or should have know, that the progressive, woke, Democratic grandstanders who undermined U.S. sovereignty and the rule of law by announcing that their cities would not cooperate in the enforcement of immigration laws were irresponsible fool, indeed (sorry) destructive assholes all along. (Anyone who voted for such officials are also irresponsible assholes, just to get the accountability aligned,) Now, however, we know that they know they are assholes, and have to behave in a manner that exposes to all what assholes they are. This is great.

The utter hypocrisy of mayors and governors declaring their love for illegal immigrants as long as most of them arrived and stayed in cities along the Southern borders was exposed when governors of states overrun by what the news media calls “migrants” to hide their problematic and illegal features have sent busloads and plane-loads of the them to cities like New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Suddenly, the “sanctuaries,” which were so compassionate and welcoming as long as there were few negative consequences of their facile lip-service were not so understanding.

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A “Great Stupid” Mash-Up! Ethics Hero And Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa…And Some Related Comments Of The Day [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I never expected to see those two categories in the same post, did you?

But it has come to this: San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa told reporters this week that he regretted his vocal support of California’s Prop 47, which voters passed in 2014, which reduced certain thefts and drug possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors if the value of the stolen goods was less than $950. This, amazingly, led to an explosion in retail crime and other social pathologies, with videos on social media showing looters casually walking out of stores with merchandise. Some prominent retail locations in San Francisco, LA and other cities have closed in response.

This was all part of the progressive-Democratic response to “over-incarceration,” with politicians like Joe Biden, California Governor Gavin Gavin Newsom, and mercifully retired NYC mayor Bill De Blasio, among others. The Retail Federation reported retail shrink across the U.S. reached nearly $100 billion in losses in 2022.

Gee, what a brilliant idea Prop 47 was !

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Ethics Alarms Challenge! Provide A Sincere, Persuasive Ethical Argument Why This Isn’t An Epic Example Of ‘The Great Stupid’

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

(Yes, it made my head explode.)

Hot on the heels of the news this week that owners of the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square, San Francisco’s largest hotel, occupying an entire city block, is being abandoned by its owners because that woke city has become such a hopeless hell-hole that they can’t see the convention and tourism business rebounding comes New York City’s health officials installing the city’s first free drug paraphernalia vending machine in Brooklyn. It features all sorts of goodies for users and addicts, like crack pipes, “Safer Sniffing” kits, drug testing kits and the anti-overdose medication Naloxone. The vending machine also has hygiene kits for the special problems addicts face (like cracked lips) and safe sex kits. Anyone with a New York City ZIP code can claim any of the contents for no charge. The Brooklyn vending machine is the first of four machines that will be installed in neighborhoods that were hit hardest by the opioid crisis.

Wow, what a great idea. I think it’s a great idea. Don’t you think it’s a great idea?

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Now Washington, D.C. Wants To Cheapen Citizenship

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Of course it does.

this week, a D.C. Council committee unanimously approved a bill to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, and just to make sure the intent was clear, an amendment was added including illegal immigrants to the voting rolls as well. Oh, the term used is “undocumented’ or some other cover-word to avoid the sorry truth, but you know what’s going on.

Several towns in Maryland and Vermont already give non-citizens municipal voting rights. Non-citizens vote in school board elections in San Francisco, and cities in California, Maine, Illinois and Massachusetts have similar legislation on the drawing board. The inclusion of illegal aliens is more unusual, but D.C.’s elected officials apparently felt the need to virtue-signal after reacting like stuck Swamp Creatures when a few hundred illegals were bused to their metaphorical shores. Like Martha’s Vineyard, the “sanctuary city”-preening District loves illegals as long as the vast number of them have to be cared for and paid for by Texas, Florida, Arizona…you know, the where Little People dwell.

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Ethics Quiz: Public Art Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Ancestor,” a new sculpture by Bharti Kher,  has been chosen to reside at the Fifth Avenue and 60th Street entrance to Central Park in New York City for the next year. It’s 18 feet tall, has 24 heads (detail below)….

…and is made to look old and weathered, though it was cast in bronze and is fresh out of the oven, or whatever. The Times says,

“Ancestor” is, at its core, an Indian goddess form, the kind found in Hindu popular iconography, with hair that rises in a bun yet somehow also hangs in a braid. But protruding in clumps pell-mell from her upper body are 23 extra heads, each with its own expression, peering this way and that.

You can read about what the artist thinks this mess means here. I don’t even have a coherent quiz question to pose, just a group of puzzled queries that follow my immediate, “What the hell?” Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: Madeline Brame

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Take that restorative justice bullshit and shove it up your asses! Not for murder!”

—-Madeline Bram, mother of murder victim Hason Correa, 35, a vet and married father of three who was beaten and stabbed to death by a gang in 2018, when the Manhattan Supreme Court handed down a seven year prison sentence to one of the killers.

Well said.

Bram erupted after hearing that the absurdly light sentence had been agreed to by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (above). Bragg is one of several big city DA’s elected with the assistance of George Soros contributions (not that there’s anything wrong with that) who stand for leniency in the justice system as a solution to “over-incarceration.”

The solution to “over-incarceration” is for African Americans to commit crimes in rough proportion to their numbers in U.S. society. Minimizing the consequences of committing these crimes will not achieve that end.

Duh. Continue reading →

There Is Hope: In NYC, Again The Courts To The Rescue!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The day before last Thanksgiving, in the day’s “warm-up,” I closed out with this item:

Leaping down a slippery slope. The New York City Council is about to approve a bill allowing more than 800,000 non-citizens to vote in municipal elections if they have green cards or are otherwise residing in the United States legally The measure is expected to be approved in December by a veto-proof margin. It would not allow non-citizens to vote in federal or state elections. This is such a bad idea that Mayor de Blasio, who loves most terrible ideas if they are sufficiently progressive, opposes it. But several towns in Maryland and Vermont already give non-citizens municipal voting rights. Non-citizens vote in school board elections in San Francisco, and cities in California, Maine, Illinois and Massachusetts have similar legislation on the drawing board.

Why wasn’t this a full post? Oh, lot’s of reasons….mostly the fact that the locale was New York City, and like edicts by the mayors of Washington, D.C. and Chicago, and the wacko measures approved in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and the states those cities are in, New York City’s progressives advocating policies that undercut our democracy and cheapen citizenship (and the Rule of Law, equal treatment under law…don’t get me started!) is hardly news. It’s like the old “dog bites man/man bites dog” definition of news. If New York City bucks progressive mania for a change, that’s news.

Nobody commented even on the item.

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More Scary Tales Of The Great Stupid: New York’s “Restorative Justice”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Indeed, Major Clifton. You can’t get much crazier (or stupid) than this.

As I have related here before, in my fortuitous accidental opportunity to chat privately with genius Herman Kahn many years ago, he observed that societies periodically suffer mass amnesia and forget why traditions, rules and policies that had existed for centuries exist. They then try something new that seems like a good idea at the time, only to be reminded it is, in fact, a terrible idea, and one that everyone once knew was a terrible idea, which is why it had been wisely dismissed centuries or even eons ago. This cycle is needlessly destructive, and those who trigger it are incompetent and irresponsible, usually choosing to adopt magical thinking over cold, hard reality because it supports their ideology. For some reason, or because of a cosmic practical joke, the United States is being tortured by such misbegotten inspirations. “Hey! Let’s just let anyone into the country who wants to come!” “Let’s defund the police!” “Let’s give up on stopping people from getting addicted to drugs!” “Let’s wear masks over the lower parts of our faces all the time, just to be safe! And make our kids do it too!” “Hey, why not spend as much money as we want even when we’re already deep in debt?” (I had to stop myself mid-list because the examples popping into my head were obviously going to keep coming.)

New York City has embraced one of the more ridiculous of the ideas arising out of magical thinking, societal amnesia and The Great Stupid: “restorative justice.” Part of an ambitious reform package created by former NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio (“Hey! Let’s take advice from one of New York City’s most disastrous failures ever!”), restorative justice is, like so many recent terrible ideas, a response to the uncomfortable results of cultural pathologies in the black community. In 2019, De Blasio announced the criminal justice revolution, which was, he explained, necessary because ““For far too long, this city’s answer to every societal problem was to throw people in jail. We lost generations to mass incarceration, mostly young men of color.” Yes, it was “disparate impact” again! Punishing criminals and enforcing laws had a disparate impact on black Americans, because they are still committing a disproportional number of serious and violent crimes. Solution: Stop punishing criminals and enforcing laws!

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