open forums

It’s Friday Open Forum Time!

/ Jack Marshall / 81 Comments

The Supreme Court made three unremarkable, straight-forward rulings yesterday, and the Axis predictably acted as if the Court has banned kissing and ice cream:

A. Hawaii passed a law that a lawful gun owner would have to ask permission to carry a gun on privately owned property that is open to the public. The ruling was condemned by the Brady anti-gun groups, whose president wrote, “I will not mince words: This deeply dangerous majority opinion privileges guns over everything and all people in society.” That’s an interesting way to describe a civil right. The majority simply confirmed that the presumption on private property is that citizens have all their rights until the owner declares otherwise. An owner who doesn’t want guns on his property can prohibit them. Gavin Newsom’s tweet demonstrates his dishonesty: “Gun laws keep people safe. This ruling by Trump’s Supreme Court will only endanger people. If Justice Alito really thinks people need guns to go to the grocery store “for self-defense,” this country is truly broken.” All gun laws are good, so there! And once again, the government doesn’t get to decide when a citizen “needs” a gun.

B. The Court ruled that Temporary Protection Status is temporary. Seems reasonable to me! 350,000 Haitians have come here and stayed based on an earthquake that took place in 2010. The idea of TPR is to allow endangered foreign nationals to come here until a particular peril has passed, and then return home. If Congress wants a different system, it can change it. The Left’s whole case against Trump deciding not to permit TRP squatters to stay forever is to claim that the policy is based on racism. No, it’s based on the principle that a nation should control who it allows to come here, and letting the gate swing open for large numbers of people from cultures antithetical to ours is suicidal.

C. The third case held that non-US. citizens coming in from Mexico need to apply for asylum or start the legal immigration process before showing up at the border or crossing into the U.S. The way the system was administered by the Biden Administration let everyone in who claimed to be a refugee, whereupon they were able to scatter before any determination had been made. “Today Trump’s loyalists in the Supreme Court have joined forces with him to deny immigrants internationally recognized human rights and advance an authoritarian white supremacist agenda,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said. The United States of America is not bound by the “internationally recognized” right to ignore borders.

As always, those condemning the SCOTUS rulings won’t read the opinions, and the Axis media won’t explain them without spinning for the Left. Gee: the right to bear arms is a right, temporary doesn’t mean forever, and you have to get permission to get into the country before you get into the country. Stunning. Tyrannical.

But here you do have a recognized right to write about whatever you want…as long as it involves ethics.

Friday Open Forum, As Obama Gives His Most Unethical Quote Yet

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

Barack Obama may not be the Worst President Ever, but I am slowly reaching the conclusion that he is the Worst Former President Ever, though Bill Clinton and John Tyler are tough competition.

Incredibly, Obama said, during the opening of his library, “The founders fell terribly short of the Declaration’s promise.” His case, which requires ignoring history and documentation, is the old leftist lie that they should have banned slavery and foreseen the women’s movement. So days before the United States marks its 250th anniversary, an ex-President, whose contribution to the United States, its politics and culture, were overwhelmingly negative, has the hindsight chutzpah to insult men who were wiser, smarter, and braver than he.

Does Obama know how wrong that Unethical Quote of the Month is? I’m guessing that he does. Obama thinks the public and especially the Democratic Part’s base are stupid and frames his rhetoric accordingly. Everyone who has studied the issue knows that insisting on banning slavery would have meant no Constitution at all, just as Jefferson had to strike an anti-slavery section from the Declaration for there to be a revolution. Most of the people O was addressing probably still think the Founders’ three-fifths compromise was an expression of racism, when it was designed to set the stage for slavery’s eventual elimination. As the late Gordon Wood explained here, the Founders had reason to believe that slavery was on the way out, and that it was not the metaphorical hill let democracy die on.

But enough of one of the three most over-rated U.S. Presidents and the only one who is still yapping (JFK and Woodrow Wilson are playing Trivial Pursuit in Hell).

It’s open forum time!

Friday Open Forum, or “Help Me Find More Bananas Ethics Stories!”

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

On my birthday (also known as “Finding Jack’s father dead in his chair day”) in 2025, I began a post thusly…

“I missed this pre-Great Stupid story in 2019, when it was a harbinger of stupid things to come, and missed it again this year, when it was back in the news a few days ago. It wasn’t too long ago that Fred and Pennagain reliably alerted me to ethics stories around the web that I otherwise might have missed. A few of you do send me story ideas regularly, but something like this shouldn’t slip through the cracks.”

“This” was a recurring story about various reactions to absurdist artist Maurizio Cattelan taping a banana to a wall at an art show in 2019 and calling it “Comedian.” In 2019, performance artist David Datuna ripped the banana off the wall and ate it, so Cattalan just taped another banana to another wall. I missed that one and in 2024 was urging readers to keep my EA runway full. I am doing so again. I can’t find every rich ethics story out there all by myself. I still welcome guest post submissions too.

The story in 2024 was that a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur named Justin Sun bought the silly artwork for $6.2 million at auction and, in front of cameras, ate the banana as a gesture of conspicuous consumption to show how rich he was. Well, “Comedians” sparked another stupid incident last month: The Pompidou-Metz museum in Paris announced that it had filed a criminal complaint for theft against the unknown art-lover (or banana-lover) who took down the most recent banana to be featured in “Comedians” and ate it.

The museum also announced that it had replaced the banana.

Now it’s your turn again to write about more trenchant ethics events like that one, or more sophisticated issue that may lack appeal.

Open Forum on a Crazy, Rainy Friday…

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Thanks to my observant sister, who told me my head should be exploding due to the IRS settlement scandal when many sources, blogs and pundits hadn’t even covered it yet, I was able to get some commentary out even ahead of my legal ethicists listserv, which, predictably since they pounce on Trump whatever he does, REALLY pounced yesterday.

On the bad side, my head hasn’t stopped exploding yet, and the whole house is a mess. And I haven’t even been able to seriously consider the gravamen of the New York Times joining Margery Taylor Greene in condemning Trump’s helping to jettison a GOP Congressman who couldn’t bring himself to condemn anti-Semitism.

On my Facebook page, a smart, Trump Deranged Jewish lawyer friend who called for everyone to vote for the illegal and dishonest “restore fairness” Virginia gerrymandering referendum, bemoaned the end of CBS radio and called it smoking gun proof that CBS was now working for MAGA. Yes, CBS radio’s demise is Trump’s fault. He even included a weepy reference to Edward R. Murrow. News radio is, like the US Postal Service, bow ties, landlines and the Sears catalogue, outdated, anachronistic and disposable, having once served a great purpose. You know, like the Model T.

Yes, it’s crazy out there. Use the Open Forum to start fixing it,

Friday Open Forum, Confused Edition…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Dana expresses my state of disorientation on several fronts, such as…

  • The Strait of Hormuz. The President says the U.S. doesn’t need an open Strait of Hormuz, but the rest of the world does. (For example, we have this headline: “Strait of Hormuz closure causes Diet Coke shortage in India.”) So why is the useless-as-usual United Nations sitting this out? I guess to ask the question is to answer it. The same applies to NATO, as far as I’m concerned. I’m increasingly drawn to Trump’s position that the U.S. funds most of NATO and it is not too much to ask for members to back up the U.S. in an international matter of national importance, like the war against Iran. I guess they have too many Muslims to pander to and they hate Jews too much. Good to know, and to Hell with the ingrates.
  • The Federalist claims that as with the abortion decision, the SCOTUS pro-progressive distaff bloc intentionally “slow-walked” another Alito-written opinion, Louisiana v. Callais, which threw a metaphorical monkey wrench into Democrats’ race-based gerrymandering.  I wrote posted on the Dobbs stunt here. But the logic in “After The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway’s new book exposed the dangerous delay of Dobbs, the liberal justices appear to have stalled again” makes no sense. Even though the article praises Justice Kagan, the Slow-Walking Justice, for her political chops, the delay of Callais has hurt the Democrats, leaving them little time come up with ways to maneuver around the decision. The reason Virginia’s high court striking down the dishonest referendum seeking to “restore fairness” by virtually ending the Congressional representation of conservative Virginians was so devastating is that the clock has almost run out.

I also don’t understand the last three posts attracting readers but almost no comments: Update on “Dog-Rapegate”: Israel Is Suing the Times , Ethics Dunce: D.C. Bar Senior Assistant Disciplinary Counsel Jack Metzler and Comment of the Day: “What Exactly Are California’s ‘Values’? Can Anybody Explain?, especially the one about the D.C. Bar.

Anyway, moving on: it’s Friday, and I need your contributions. Contribute!

Friday Open Forum, God Save The King Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

As usual, a tour of the U.S. by a major head of state is causing a news stir and ethics issues. Perhaps nothing will ever top the uproar over Nikita Khrushchev’s visit during the Kennedy administration, when Nikita wanted to go to Disneyland and Walt wouldn’t let him in. President Trump has been on good behavior with King Charles and didn’t even slam the monarch on Truth Social after Charles delivered a number of subtle shots at Trump during his speech before Congress.

What is it about the royal family that makes so many Americans go all weak in the knees? My father strenuously objected to it, saying more than 50 years ago that the U.S. public should treat Great Britain’s kings, queens, princes and princes as what they are: embarrassing relics of a feudal system that we rejected and that should have died out in the 18th Century. He said he wouldn’t cross the road we lived on (Brunswick Road, Arlington—it had a “dead end” sign on each end) to greet any of them.

Dad would have probably approved of Mayor Mamdani’s brush off regarding King Charles, as when asked what he would say to the king if the two spoke, answered, “I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond.” That’s one of the crowns jewels.

Meanwhile, there is much to talk about in the Wide, Wide World of Ethics. So talk, already…

Friday Open Forum, “Hail, Hail, the Morons Are All Here!” Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Question: How does anyone who purports to support the Democratic Party not feel like an idiot these days? Observe:

Now, what Ramses witnessed in “The Ten Commandments”—burning hail…THAT might have been evidence of global warming…

This woman, arguably made stupid by progressive indoctrination and propaganda though she might have been born that way, is still arguably more astute than “The View’s” resident lawyer, Sunny Hostin, who claimed that earthquakes and eclipses were also evidence of climate change.

There’s a lot of crazy ethics stuff going on this week. Analyze it for us. Me, I’m going to bang my head against a wall for a while…

Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Facts don’t matter, history doesn’t matter, logic doesn’t matter. All that matters to “these people”—I say “these people” because I don’t want to be associated with them in any way—is to mislead and confuse dimwits and know-nothings into not trusting the President and his administration regardless of the policy or decision.

Lincoln fired five generals leading the Army of the Potomac, one of them twice (McClellan), before finding the one he needed to win the Civil War. As a Marine veteran of of combat said succinctly when I told him about the Atlantic’s nonsense, “During a war is when firing generals is most important.”

But I digress. Write about any of the gazillions of ethics issues out there.

I have to watch Opening Day at Fenway Park now…

Friday the 13th Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

Here’s how my day started: I had one thing that I just absolutely had to accomplish, just one—get my inspection sticker updated. That means, for me, since I now have no one to help with such annoying tasks, getting to the service station I have used for 40 years before they open at 8 am and making sure my car is first in line. Then I have to kill 45 minutes at a coffee shop while they do the inspection, get a call when they are done, walk over to the place, pay, pick up my car and drive home, a less than ten minute drive. To make sure I was first in line, I set the alarm clock that has served me well for 20 years to ring at 7:10 am. That would give me time to wake up, ablute, and get to the station by 7:45.

The alarm rang at 5:35 am. I had set the clock correctly: it just malfunctioned. It’s old, and picked today to break down. Half asleep, I got my super-duper, newest model Apple smart-phone, which I have never once used as an alarm clock, unlike its predecessor. To my horror, the alarm-setting controls were completely different from the earlier model, and absurdly complicated. (This made them better, see.) Half- awake, I tried to puzzle out the device’s twists and turns, which involved two screens, a dial-a-time, a pick-a-sound, volume, a damn check mark, and shifting little buttons to indicate a 7: 10 am wake up alarm. The thing had said “no alarm” and now it didn’t say “no alarm,” which I, fool that I am, assumed meant “alarm.” It didn’t, though I have yet to figure out why. I woke up in a panic at 7:55 am.

I threw on some pants, grabbed my wallet and keys and ran out the door, only to see Spuds looking needy standing behind me. So I hooked him up to his leash to let him relieve himself, which he took his own sweet time doing. Deposited my dog, who promptly went upstairs to take over my bed, ran to the car, sped to the station, and arriving at 8:05 am, found two cars ahead of me, meaning instead of 45 minutes stuck in a shopping and restaurant area, I would be stuck for over two hours, which I can’t afford.

So my inspection sticker is still expired, I got only about 5 hours sleep, I still don’t know how to use my smartphone, and I’m considering either beating my face in with a brick or getting a Jason Voorhees hockey mask and a machete as a prelude to a murder spree.

Amaze me with your ethics eloquence, on the off chance I’m still around to read it.