President Obama

“Progressive” Values On The Campus: Rape, Tolerated; Free Speech, Not So Much

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments
Now does it make sense to you, Juanita?

Juanita Broadrick: Now does it make sense to you, Juanita?

If one wants to puzzle through how Democrats can simultaneously trumpet a “War on Women” while generating standard bearers like San Diego mayor Bob Filner (now up to 9 identified sexual harassment victims, and counting; the latest appears to be Marilyn Monroe), Anthony Weiner, and of course, ex-President Bill Clinton (recall Juanita Broadrick?) , one need only to examine the schizophrenic values being nurtured in our great liberal arts universities, with the encouragement of the values–challenged Obama administration.

In May, universities received an ominous letter from Departments of Justice and Education announcing new guidelines regarding “sexual harassment” on college campuses. The new standards prohibit “any unwelcome conduct of sexual nature” and  include “verbal” conduct, meaning free speech is now officially suspect…and no longer free. (But if you have been following the news lately, you know that in Barack Obama’s America, free speech is just a trading chip for “higher priorities.”)

The new standards apply to every college receiving federal funding. According to Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE, the government mandates  would allow a student to be charged with harassment if he asks another student out on a date and the target of his attentions deems that request “offensive.” Telling a sex joke could support a sexual harassment charge, as would using the word “fuck” in the presence of a female who resented it. FIRE points out that many presentations, debates, and expressions on campuses can now be censored as sexual harassment, citing campus performances of “The Vagina Monologues,” debates about sexual morality, and pro-con discussions on gay marriage as potential offenses.  Lukianoff, protesting that DOJ and DOE have now established speech codes that violate the First Amendment and completely ignore decades of legal precedent,says he is appalled at the attack on “free speech on campus from our own government.”

Appalled, yes, but certainly not surprised. The grip of political correctness is grasping for the throat of Free Speech in the Obama years, as the news media sits complacent and inert. FIRE is among those with the courage and determination to fight this blatant abuse of government power, but that does not diminish the seriousness of a Federal government that pays its election IOU’s to women’s rights groups by sacrificing free speech on campus.

But it’s worse even than that, for the modus operandi of this federal government, adopting the proclivities of its leader, is to speak loudly and carry a wet noodle. Just as the President is fond of making demands, ultimatums and condemnations, drawing lines and telling us to “make no mistake” about where he stands, and then following up with no tangible or meaningful action whatsoever, thus does his government fail to protect women’s bodies while trying to control what they hear. The 2011 federal Title IX investigation into Yale’s mind-blowing tolerance of rape on campus (it is referred to there as “non-consensual sex”) concluded  with a voluntary resolution that allowed Old Eli to avoid any disciplinary action for creating a “hostile sexual environment,” and this time we don’t mean allowing dirty limericks. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Oprah Winfrey

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

 “I always think of the millions of people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree.”

–—Oprah Winfrey, in an interview with Parade Magazine, discussing race in America, the use of the word “nigger,” and how young people in the U.S. don’t know “diddly squat” about the civil rights movement.

Yes, Parade Readers, it's true, whites tried to wipe us off the face of the map.

Yes, Parade peaders, it’s true, whites tried to wipe us off the face of the map.

Now, thanks to Oprah, those young people think they know that “millions” of blacks were lynched in the United States.

Oprah Winfrey, one of the most admired, respected and trusted public figures in the nation, decided to join the recent concerted effort to magnify racial hate and fear, this time by grossly misrepresenting U.S.history. Not only that, but she did so in the context of representing herself as knowledgeable about the history of race relations in America, while others know “diddly-squat.” The recklessness, lack of responsibility, and ignorance that Winfrey’s statement represents is staggering. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Organizing For Action

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments
Guess whose Twitter account followed Samantha and her friends...

Guess whose Twitter account followed Samantha and her friends…

The Hollywood Gossip web page thinks its hilarious that the twitter feed supposedly assigned to the President of the United States was found to have, among the 650,000 odd twitter accounts it was following, at least one hard porn site listed. It’s not hilarious. It’s symptomatic.

This isn’t even the first time this has happened. Last year, the same site that purports to put out tweets from Potus (and occasionally does, which are marked with the notation “bo”) was outed as following the descriptively-named “Celebrity Side-Boob.” This year’s funky fave (it has since been removed) of  @BarackObama is Wicked Pictures, and it sells a lot more than “side-boobs.”

barack-obama-porn-company-twitter_2

The President’s tweets are managed by Organizing for Action, the supposedly private, non-profit, non-governmental, non-political organization morphed out of Obama’s campaign apparatus (and if you think I have major ethics problems with a sitting President fronting a non-profit political advocacy group, you’re correct). Continue reading →

No “President Asterisk”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

asteriskThe IRS scandal has spawned a new round of partisan “what ifs?” from Republicans and conservative commentators, the gist of them being that President Obama’s election in the 2012 contest was the result of cheating, and the IRS’s successful efforts to stifle Tea Party organization efforts. Surely the less than 2% difference between Mitt Romney and the President might have been bridged had the kind of conservative enthusiasm that marked the 2010 Congressional election not been unethically and illegally stifled! Wall Street Journal blogger James Taranto has dubbed Obama “President Asterisk.” A research paper from the American Enterprise Institute suggests that the post 2010 targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status may have cost Mitt Romney the Presidency. Continue reading →

CNN, Making Us Trivial and Ignorant

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
You got shortchanged, Edward G.!

You got shortchanged, Edward G.!

I suppose I should give “New Day,” CNN’s revamped morning news show hosted by Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan a honeymoon before I start complaining about it, considering how I negligently blamed them for the conduct of their colleagues before their show as even on the air. Nonetheless, if CNN has decided to trade Soledad O’Brien’s biased coverage of real news for this pair’s avoiding it, I’d (I cannot believe I am writing this ) rather have Soledad back.

You may have noticed that there is a lot going on in this country and around the world. The conflict in Syria is at a critical point, and the U.S. may be preparing to play a greater role. Iran has a new president, Iraq is descending into violence, and the Middle East could still blow up at any moment.There are so many scandals to investigate emanating from D.C (and, uh, Cincinnati…) that the news media isn’t even bothering to keep us abreast on half of them. The stock market took a dive yesterday; illegal immigration is being fought over on Capitol Hill, where there was a big Tea Party rally against the I.R.S. yesterday.

Trust in the government is at low tide, which is more important than the usual polling nonsense, and President Obama’s poll numbers are beginning to look like Bush’s, but according to CNN’s Gloria Borger (WHY do I keep watching CNN?), it’s for a surprising reason. I watched with my jaw falling open as I heard Borger tell her CNN panel a couple of days ago that apparently citizens who had been thus far willing to “give the President the benefit of the doubt” were now—imagine this now!—beginning to associate him with the government they don’t like. That’s right—five years into his Presidency, and Obama is finally beginning to be held accountable for the government he heads and is supposed to be leading. Normally—sanely, reasonably—this calling to account would typically happen during an election, but hey, better late than never. (I believe I could hear Mitt Romney banging his head against the wall now, if the sound of my own head wasn’t so loud.)

Borger elaborated on her theory in her CNN column:

“Now, I know this president doesn’t like some parts of his job. He doesn’t much like schmoozing members of Congress, despite his recent share-a-meal plan with assorted Capitol Hill types. He doesn’t like the LBJ-style strong-arming, either. He doesn’t much like the messy lawmaking process in which personal relationships can often mean the difference between getting what you want and getting nothing at all. And he doesn’t ever like to be pushed. Ever. No-drama Obama, remember? But he does like speeches. He likes writing them, redrafting them, pondering them. He likes giving them, too — because he’s good at it.”

Gloria left out plenty of other things the President doesn’t like doing—managing, oversight, appointing non-cronies, firing incompetents, being straight with the public, making decisions, his job-–but she cut though it all to identify what he needs to do to address all the chaos around him: give a speech. And Borger is a big President Obama booster. She wasn’t trying to be cynical or funny.

BANG…BANG…BANG….

All of this is prelude to my objection to what the new kids on the CNN block decided was the top news of the day, worthy of more than ten minutes of exclusive coverage, remote oversees updates, two special live reports, a studio interview, and even a phone interview with Larry King himself. And what was this riveting news story that Americans just had to know about while they were having their coffee and chewing their Pop Tarts into pistols?

James Gandolfini died. Continue reading →

Flat, Flat, Flat…and Infuriating

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

This was bound to happen.

A graph of President Obama's leadership learning curve since January, 2009. This is actually a new graph, including data since the last one of these I posted, though I recognize that the difference is hard to see...

A graph of President Obama’s leadership learning curve since January, 2009. This is actually a new graph, including data since the last one of these I posted, though I recognize that the difference is hard to see…

Waaay back in 2009, when the new President improvidently and recklessly commented on a local dispute between a Harvard professor and a Cambridge policeman, I pointed out that Obama needed to learnthe ethical limits on his power and influence. Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully pulpit” is not license for the highest office-holder in the land to try to mold public opinion on every conceivable matter, local or national, and to influence decisions solely within the authority of others. For the President to state his personal verdict on anything he wakes up concerned about risks putting a weighty thumb on the scales of justice. It is an abuse of power—a President behaving like an emperor.

This is not a difficult concept; indeed, with occasional lapses, every other President has grasped it instinctively. Not Barack Obama. Brilliant Barack Obama. “Constitutional scholar” Barack Obama. For while the Gates episode may have been a rookie mistake, he has engaged in exactly the same unethical, arrogant conduct repeatedly, here, and here, and here and here, and here, and especially here—and I’m sure I may have missed a few.

Each time I pointed out this inexcusable habit, I was barraged by glossy-eyed readers who made excuses for Obama  and rationalized his grandstanding remarks, accusing me of being biased and hypercritical. But with each new instance, it should have been progressively clearer that I correctly diagnosed this malady in 2009. Now, after Obama has done it yet again, commenting inappropriately about the military sexual harassment scandal, this proclivity has finally had tangible legal consequences. You can’t say I didn’t warn him. Continue reading →

Anti-Terror Surveillance Flip-Flops, Fools, Converts and Heroes

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Flag peek

There has been much ink and pixels spilled about the supposed hypocrisy of Republicans and Democrats in their disparate reactions to the revaluation of far more extensive phone and internet data-gathering by the government than those of us not wearing tin-foil on out heads ever suspected. For example, a recent Pew survey shows this...

Pew survey

Naturally, Republicans and Democrats are calling each other hypocrites, suggesting dishonesty and lack of integrity. There are surely some hypocrites in there, but for the most part, the flip-flopping is neither dishonest nor theoretically unreasonable. Even if we assume that the level of NSA intrusion under Bush and Obama administrations are the same (and to be fair, it appears that the current gathering of all domestic phone records goes well beyond what we understood to be the limited surveillance permitted under the Patriot Act), they are materially different in one key aspect, from the perspective of partisan citizens.

Think about it this way: Let’s say on successive days you discover your best friend and your business rival, both of whom visited your home for various reasons, looking through bills and financial papers on your desk. They did the same thing, but while you might be peeved at your friend, if he had a credible explanation like “I think I can save you some taxes,” you would not view his actions as sinister, and might even be grateful for it. When you found your rival looking over the same private papers, however, you would be furious, suspicious, and justly so. The difference is a matter of trust. You trust your friend, his motives and loyalty; you don’t trust your rival. Continue reading →

Eric Holder Has President Obama’s “Confidence”—What Does That MEAN?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
Uh, Mr. President? When "mediocre" is puffery, something's wrong.

Uh, Mr. President? When “mediocre” is puffery, something’s wrong.

Two weeks ago, the various pundits on multiple current events talk shows agreed that the hopeless, untrustworthy, bunging and double-talking Attorney General, Eric Holder, would remain in office despite evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he is a liability in the job, as long as “he retains the President’s confidence.” Sure enough, after another week in which Holder’s Justice Department came under even more bipartisan fire, White House political hatchet-woman Valerie Jarrett told the press that Holder  “will be in his position for quite a while” and “continues to have the president’s full confidence and respect.”

Not to be unkind, but this tells us that… Continue reading →

Indoctrination Ethics: Boy, Do I Ever Hate Thinking Like This, And Curse The Irresponsible Leaders Who Made Me.

/ Jack Marshall / 69 Comments

constitution-burning1

In Huntingtown, Maryland, a school bus driver heard an 11-year-old boy talking about how he wished he had a gun to protect everyone from bad guys. You know—like a normal American kid, or at least like how a normal American kid used to be able to think of himself, until silly, freedom-fearing, anti-violence fanatics and ideologues were allowed to get their hands on the controls of the culture. But this is 2013, and we have an irresponsible President who speaks about justifying any measure “if it will save the life of just one child.” So the bus driver reported this innocent conversation to the principal, who suspended the sixth grader for ten days, telling him that “with what happened at Sandy Hook if you say the word ‘gun’ in my school you are going to get suspended.”

Fact: This is blatant indoctrination, state-sponsored bullying and attempted mind-control. Continue reading →

A Handy Review of Dishonest Scandal-Obscuring Talking Points

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
Ah, yes, such pretty "talking points"!

Ah, yes, such pretty “talking points”!

Let me begin by noting that I would not prefer to keep writing posts about Benghazi, the I.R.S., Attorney General Holder, and his inept and politicized Justice Department. All of the related scandals involve outrageous misconduct by the Democratic administration, together with the resulting attempt by Republicans to both uncover what occurred in the face of concerted Administration stonewalling and obfuscation, and to score political points while embarrassing President Obama and Democrats in the process. Since in this matter the offenders are either Democrats or those under a Democratic administration, it is impossible to comment on the matter fairly with out appearing partisan to some otherwise reasonable readers.

I should not have to write repeatedly about these collective failures, fiascoes and abuses of power, and would not if the leaders responsible would just tell the truth, stop spinning and using smoke screens, apply appropriate sanctions and consequences to the individuals involved. This Administration refuses to do that, and too many major media outlets refuse to do their jobs and pressure them to do that. Instead, a massive disinformation campaign has been mounted, presumably coordinated by the White House and the highest levels of the Democratic party, to minimize the situations involved, confuse the public about what occurred, misrepresent the seriousness of the implications of the events, and allow them all to fade away, ideally while performing political jiujitsu on Republicans and promoting a public backlash that might even benefit Democrats, as the impeachment of President Clinton did in 1998.

This must not be allowed to happen. I am under no delusions that I have any influence over whether it does happen or not: this blog has a good sized audience for an ethics blog, but that is like a restaurant saying that the pickled lizard-brains seem to be popular tonight.  I do believe that publishing my best objective ethical analysis during this disturbing  period might, might, somehow bolster the efforts of those who do have such influence.

Yesterday at the Congressional hearings on the I.R.S. targeting of conservative groups, a couple of misleading arguments by administration defenders officially reached dishonest talking point status, joining many others we have heard for the past two months (or more) and continue to hear. “Talking points,” used in this context, are arguments, statements and phrases devised by political strategists,  usually field-tested in focus groups and polls, and then emailed out to officials, party members, operatives, talking heads, friendly journalists and columnists and others to repeat in public statements in the media, over and over again, to influence public opinion. They are designed to shift blame, confuse the issues, inject false facts, and to appeal to rationalizations and bad logic.

It’s a cynical exercise, and infuriatingly obvious to the relative  few Americans who watch a lot of TV, listen to a lot of interviews and check multiple sources, have open minds and IQ’s above freezing.  It’s ridiculous, in fact: suddenly Democrat after Democrat after progressive talk show host (or, at other times, Republicans and conservative talking heads—this is not restricted to Democrats)  “independently” make the same dubious points using almost the same words.  But I’m not the target audience; they know anyone paying close attention is on to the technique. It’s aimed at those less involved citizens who pick up on the new excuses and circulate them to their friends and colleagues, who may not be paying attention to the media at all. It’s aimed at partisans controlled by confirmation bias: you will instantly see the talking points repeated in blog comment threads. These kinds of talking points are designed to make coherent debate and analysis impossible.

Before addressing yesterday’s  additions to the current talking point garbage pail, let’s review the haul so far. Now take your Pepto Bismol…

Benghazi Continue reading →