Open Forum: Go For the Ethics Gold!

August 2, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Ugh. I always forget that the Olympics inevitably sparks lots of ethics controversies that I have to cover here despite finding the spectacle boring, corrupt and annoying. So I’m bound to miss some juicy issues—like this one, Australian swimming coach Bret Hawke accusing the Chinese team of cheating because a swimmer’s performance in the pool was “not humanly possible.” They used to say that about the four minute mile, if I recall. Or is this just more “Don’t trust China; China is asshole” stuff?

You don’t have to write about Olympics ethics, of course. But the starting pistol is loaded…

Friday Open Forum!

July 26, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Talk it up!

Wow! I hadn’t seen that number for a while. In 2024 it’s like watching dinosaurs roam the Earth.

Friday Open Forum: Sing Out!

July 19, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Mary Milben, who sang what was perhaps the most over-produced National Anthem I’ve ever experienced last night at the GOP convention, is a freind and, I think it’s fair to say, a discovery of mine. I saw her play the title role in “Patience” with Georgetown Law Center’s Gilbert and Sullivan Society (which I founded as a first year law student), and, impressed, gave Mary her first professional theater roles at my now defunct but fondly remembered professional company in Arlington, Virginia, The American Century Theater. Since then she’s built an impressive international career; I’m thrilled for her, but not surprised. Mary tipped me off to her imminent appearance with a promotional email. That bombastic production wasn’t her choice, but to her credit, she had the pipes not to be swallowed by it.

I’m sure you can find ethics topics to discuss today….keep them on key, unlike that earlier Star-Spangled Banner rendition that was notable this week.

Friday Open Forum: OK, Write All You Want About the Worst Government Cover-Up Since Watergate

July 12, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

…or anything else, of course.

Today’s relevant story: a Milwaukee radio station admitted late yesterday that it edited a taped interview with President Biden when his campaign asked them to, because two of Biden’s responses were, in turn, embarrassing and incoherent. The station apologized and came clean, because now the mainstream media allies of the progressive and Democratic Party are dedicated to dumping Biden rather than pretending he’s a great President.

How many media outlets were working with the White House to deceive the public about Biden’s cognitive problems before his debate disaster? How much smoking gun evidence has been “scrubbed” over the past four years, including during the 2020 campaign?

It’s all truly disgusting, and Biden has the gall to claim that Trump is the threat to democracy.

Don’t get me started. Write about whatever ethics issues intrigues you.

Open Forum, Hopefully Not Entirely Dominated By Joe Biden’s Dementia, But First, THIS…[Corrected: Wrong Link Fixed]

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Once again, I am resolving to ding any commenter who comes here to argue that the news media is, as that damning headline and banner has the nerve to suggest by the “Support” button, “Independent Fact-based Journalism.”

The White House’s reliance on today’s pre-taped [!!!!], pitifully short (30 minutes? Seriously?) Biden interview with Democratic Party operative George Stephanopoulos to put everyone at ease is more flaming evidence that this administration is convinced that the public is too stupid to metaphorically come out of the rain. So what if Biden can get through a single, carefully planned interview with a friendly, indeed complicit, talking head? That interview last week was signature significance. A trustworthy, fit leaders doesn’t have a “bad night” like that, even once. Equating not having a “bad night” once with the significance of having one is so mild-meltingly stupid that it competes vigorously with the other ridiculous attempts to minimize the epic irresponsibility of Biden running for a second term in the White House. “So he babbled and froze and faded out and gaped like a grouper: He doesn’t always do that!” This is like arguing, “So he had a massive heart attack—he doesn’t always have heart attacks!” And the news media is actually running with this talking point like it isn’t the stupidest thing making making Kamala Harris Vice-President.

[UGH! I just saw this disgraceful “It isn’t what it is” piece. How can these hacks look themselves in the mirror?]

NOTICE of CORRECTION: For some reason, that link was mistakenly to the debate transcript. That wasn’t where it was supposed to go, though the transcript is also infuriating—check Biden’s worst answer, the one that ends with “we beat Medicare.” The transcript makes it seem like Biden’s answer was half-comprehensible, which it wasn’t. At all. But the linked article is to a Baltimore Sun column [“Biden’s debate performance a B-, not a bomb”] where the shameless tool of a gaslighter blames the whole disaster on Biden’s alleged “stutter.”

Incidentally, is anyone working today? I am, but it sure seem like I’m the only one….

Open Forum, Debate-Free Zone

June 28, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Let’s keep the discussion of last night’s debate in the last two posts, okay?

‘Everything Is Seemingly Spinning Out of Control!’ Open Forum

June 21, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

See if you can make any sense of things, ethically of course.

Everywhere I’m looking today, I see insanity and chaos. Conservative activist Scott Presler is being applauded for saying,”If every Christian voted, we would never lose another Presidential election ever,” noting that many evangelicals are not even registered to vote. This same statement could be made about almost any group imaginable: it’s not news, it’s not remarkable, its not perceptive, and its not useful.

Then, in a “Great Stupid” incident that shocked even me, Fani Willis toy-boy Nathan Wade appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” in its feature “Choppin’ It Up With ‘Quon,” where he was interviewed by satirist Marlon Wayans playing ‘Quon. (The character Quon has been described as a “Hip-hop Borat.”) Yeah, this will help the case that he was hired to help Willis prosecute Donald Trump on his merits as a serious, qualified lawyer! Wade apparently thought he could defend his sexual relationship with Willis in the appearance as Wayans, who is approximately 6.78 times smarter than Wade, used his improvisational talents to make Wade look like the idiot he is.

“How can you not hit that?! How can you not?!” Wayans/Quon declared, as Wade laughed. “We spending that much time together, we doing everything, we might as well!” Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University College of Law, tweeted, “This is gross. Nathan Wade should be embarrassed. And Fani Willis, whatever her mistakes, deserves better than this. As do the people of Fulton County.”

How does Willis “deserve better” if she’s the one who hired Wade, almost certainly sabotaged her own dubious prosecution of Trump by mixing her prosecution duties with nookie, and, like Wade, has continued to argue that using a high-profile case for personal benefit is no big deal? How does Fulton County “deserve better” if its voters elected someone that incompetent?

Don’t get me started. You start instead…