Rep. Hank Johnson

Look! The House’s Dumbest Member Filed a Smart Bill On Judicial Ethics!

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Rep. Hank Johnson, the Democratic Congressman who famously expressed the fear that “Guam might tip over” because of all the U.S. military equipment on the island, filed his ‘‘Transparency and Responsibility in Upholding Standards in the Judiciary Act’ (or the ‘‘TRUST Act’’ to its friends). The bill aims to deal with a serious ethics problem in the judiciary, one of many.

Under the Judicial Conduct & Disability Act, the law that supposedly governs judicial discipline, investigations into misconduct are terminated when a judge retires, resigns, or dies. How convenient! The mere departure of a judge from the bench is enough to halt any inquiry into alleged abuses of their office, misconduct, even crimes. This system shields bad judges from accountability

With life tenure and unchecked power, judges have lots of opportunity to engage in outrageous behavior, and many do. Berating and demeaning (or sexually harassing) law clerks, forcing them to watch pornography, firing clerks on a whim, and judged concealing serious cognitive decline are among the offenses that have resulted in zero consequences for judges in recent years: all a judge needs to do to keep his or her pension and reputation is to quit. If they are not senile, they can often nab high-paying jobs with law firms.

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Regarding Those “Adults in the Room”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Boy, THAT quote didn’t age well…

House Democratic Whip Rep. Katherine Clark (MA) joined Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA), and Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA) for a press conference in May of 2023 that began with Clark declaring, “It is Democrats who’ve been the adults in the room. It is Democrats who’ve prioritized Americans over political gamesmanship.”

Last night I rewatched “All the President’s Men.” I was struck by how similar Nixon’s attempts to cripple potential Democratic Party challengers resembled the various unethical measures taken by President Obama’s minions and President Biden’s puppeteers to bury Donald Trump, but that’s a different topic. What I was immediately impressed with was how an archival film of Nixon’s State of the Union Address in 1972 showed the entire audience consisting of both parties of both houses of Congress rising and applauding the President as he entered the chamber. They did this because Nixon, as divisive and loathed as he was by the American Left, was the goddamn President of the United States, had been elected by the American people, and it was every member of Congress’s duty to show the office due respect.

And it still is. Today’s Democrats (and, tragically, their Trump Deranged supporters), however, choose to behave like spit-ball shooting grade-schoolers, debasing the nation and its institutions in the process. Jonathan Turley said yesterday that when he was a House leadership page, every member of the House of Representatives would have voted to censure a Congressman who behaved like Al Green, because, quite simply, his disgusting conduct deserved condemnation and it was crucial for Congress to insist of standards of decorum. Today’s Democratic House members saluted Green as a martyr, and behaved like the student protesters of the Sixties. You know, adults.

Here are a few other notable examples of Democrats and their anti-Trump cult followers behaving like adults in the past few days:

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Friday Open Forum (and a Couple of Other Things)

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Thing I: The most obvious ethics issue going on is, still, the post 2024 election Axis freakout. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. When Ronald Reagan, whom the Democratic establishment in Washington regarded as a Neanderthal, washed-up actor whose most memorable film had him co-starring with a chimp (“Bedtime for Bonzo”), the reaction of liberals and Democrats wasn’t nearly this hysterical…or demeaning to them. The news media has been equally bonkers. The faces of network news anchors and hosts when a Trump administration supporter is talking are uniformly mask of pure hatred: I started noticing this yesterday. It reminded me of Katie Couric when she interviewed Ross Perot in the “Today Show” with an expression she reserved for people like David Duke…or Satan. Facial expressions and body language that tell an audience that an interviewer detests her interview subject is unprofessional, but it has now become the norm.

The same faces, restrained (and sometimes unrestrained fury) have been on display as the Democratic Senators question virtually all of Trump’s nominees. It says something that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who was derided by the Right for running for the Senate after suffering actual brain damage from a stroke,has emerged as the sole voice of reason in his party. “There isn’t a constitutional crisis, and all of these things ― it’s just a lot of noise,” Fetterman said this week. “That’s why I’m only gonna swing on the strikes. I’m still wishing him the best. I’m effectively rooting for [Elon Musk] and all the nominees because they’re working for America.” This should be the position of all Democrats and progressives, especially since, unlike 2017, the majority of American feel the same way, and it is the way Americans have usually regarded newly elected POTUSes and their emerging administrations.

The fury being directed at Elon Musk, a brilliant man who is giving his time to his nation as it tries to solve the problems of government bloat, waste, corruption and abuse that everyone at least claims they want to solve is an embarrassment for the Democrats and their Axis allies. Infamous dim-bulb Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson (he’s the one who worried that Guam would flip over because too much U.S. military material was on the island) raged yesterday, “What does that mean when an unelected billionaire can waltz into our agencies and slash and burn the whole thing to the ground like a Taliban terrorist, This level of corruption is shocking. President Trump and the Republicans in Congress, all of whom have abrogated their legislative power to the King, have handed the keys to the nation’s treasury to unelected co-president Elon Musk. Their actions are taking what we know as corruption to a whole new level. This is Banana Republic style corruption at its ugliest.” I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that this idiot doesn’t know how the Executive Branch works, but the frightening thing is that so many lawyers are behaving similarly based on their social media rants. Is it possible that they are really this stupid.

Thing 2: The guest post submissions I solicited a week ago are finally coming in: another will go up today. I thank you all: what I have seen so far is of excellent quality. This effort to try to keep up with an unprecedented wave of ethics stories while freeing me from a permanent government and politics beat is important; I also want to emphasize that it does not eliminate the Comment of the Day feature here. (I think I have at least one of those languishing).

I’m sorry: that was a longer intro than I anticipated.

The stage is yours.

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 1/4/18: The Good And The Bad, And If Janus Had A Third Face, It Would be Ugly

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Good morning!

1. Looking for biased but reliable progressive news aggregators! I have a long secret list of story sources, but my online leftist news aggregator supply is drying up. That’s where I can find the stories that reflect badly on the Right but that the conservative news sources choose to ignore. The key problem is “reliable.” Sites like Raw Story, ThinkProgress, the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos have all violated Ethics Alarms standards of basic honesty, fairness and trustworthiness—much like Breitbart, Red State and the Gateway Pundit, none of which I will  read or cite unless directed to a particular post, from the other side of the spectrum. The Daily Beast was long my favorite online leftist source, but now it requires a subscription, and I’m certainly not going to pay for biased analysis—beyond what I already get from the Washington Post and New York Times.

Memeorandum remains the most balanced and non-partisan online news aggregator, by far.

2. Retire, Pat. It isn’t just Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein who try to hold on to power long after their advancing age makes it unethical to do so. The GOP has its irresponsible geezers too. Today Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Ks) will announce whether he plans to end his political career or run for another term in 2020, which would take him to his 90th year if he survived it. The man is 82: he should not have run for his current term.

Of course, it doesn’t help that 85-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is providing an unethical role model for all elected officials and judges by ostentatiously refusing to retire and obviously resolving to leave the Supreme Court feet first.

3. Slapping down Big Brother in Oregon.U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman issued a permanent injunction against the Oregon Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying that tried to fine Mats Järlström, who has a degree in engineering and years of experience in the field, $500 for describing himself as “an engineer.”

The judge ruled that this was a violation of the First Amendment, which it clearly was. This wasn’t a case where the First Amendment right to lie came into play, because Järlström wasn’t lying. He was fined for going on television to talk about public policy issues while describing himself as an “electronics engineer” and writing the phrase “I am an engineer” in a letter. The Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying claimed he was practicing engineering without a license.

As government regulations proliferate without end,  they inevitably strangle individual liberty, expression and enterprise. Continue reading →

Is It Unethical To Ban Stupid People From Congress?

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

In 1978, this last image from “Animal House” was hilarious. In 2012, it’s tragic…because it came true.

The Todd Akin debacle has me wondering why we don’t take measures to block the ignorant and dim-witted from gaining high elected office. I know what you are going to say: that’s what elections are for. But we can’t bar ignorant and stupid people from voting: that’s been settled in court. It shouldn’t surprise us that they frequently tip elections toward candidates that the pollsters describe as “people like them”, and voilà! Todd Akin.

Akin is far (well, maybe not very far) from the  most intellectually suspect member of Congress. For example, Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson once expressed concern that the island of Guam might tip over, like a raft. There are too many other telling anecdotes relating to other members of Congress, in both parties. For those who shrug cynically and argue that it’s always been that way, there is solid evidence that indeed, Congress is getting dumber over time. A study of every word spoken in Congress concluded that the grade level at which members of the legislative branch speak has fallen a full grade since 2005, to just half-way through the junior year of high school. Democrats are slightly more articulate (.4 of a grade) than Republicans as a group, but that just could be because Joe Biden left to be Vice-President. Continue reading →

Ethics Train Wreck Update: Martin-Zimmerman Reflections

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Is it only fair to show one version of the victim?

As the NAACP joined with Al Sharpton today to lead a protest of thousands in Sanford Florida, some notes on recent ethics carnage and confusion in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s shooting death:

  • Roslyn Brock, who chairs the national board of directors for the NAACP, perfectly illustrated  ignorance of the justice system and short-sightedness that has characterized this whole, sorry incident. “We come to make sense of this great tragedy and the entire world grieves with us,” she said . “When the Sanford police did not arrest George Zimmerman, they essentially placed the burden of proof on a dead young man who cannot speak for himself.” But of course, as every American should know, that is where the burden of proof lies. The alleged victim in a death is represented by the state, and it is the state that has the burden of proof of guilt as well as having the burden to justify an arrest. It is not Zimmerman’s responsibility to prove his innocence, though that is what the un-American process engineered by race-activists and the media has come to. Does the NAACP really want to take the position that there should be a presumption of guilt in criminal matters? Or just in circumstances where the victim is an African-American and the suspect is not?
  • While CNN has taken the lead in trying to present a balanced picture of the controversy, NBC, mostly through MSNBC, has thoroughly disgraced itself by essentially taking an advocacy position on Zimmerman’s guilt, even to the point of doctoring his 911 call to make it seem clear that this was a case of racial profiling. “This guy looks like he’s up to no good…He looks black.” is how Zimmerman’s 911 call was played on the  “Today Show” and relayed on MSNBC’s website. The actual conversation was this: Continue reading →

John Avlon’s “Ten Congressmen Who Should Be Fired”: Too Short, By Far

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

John Avlon, a senior political correspondent at The Daily Beast and author of  the book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, has posted his list of “Ten Congressmen Who Should Be Fired.” Though Avlon’s definition of “wingnut” is too often “conservative,” and picking the ten most embarrassing members of Congress is like choosing the ten most offensive reality TV stars, it’s a reasonably good list, if far too short and only the beginning. The members on it seem to split into four main categories: outrageously uncivil, clearly incompetent, corrupt, and too outspokenly conservative for Avlon, who regards all Tea Party sympathizers, for example, as dangerous “wingnuts.”

Here’s the list, with highlights of Avlon’s reasons: Continue reading →

Roman’s Rule, Guam’s Peril and Rep. Johnson: No Minimum Standards of Competence For Congress

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Ever since I saw the video of Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) declaring his anxiety over the possibility that the island of Guam will “tip over” and “capsize,” I’ve been wrestling with the question: Shouldn’t there be some minimum level of intelligence and competence for members of Congress? I’m not considering anything lofty here, but a man whose vote helped pass a health care bill of unprecedented complexity that will affect every American just revealed that he thinks islands are like icebergs or floating trash can covers. This suggests that he may be subject to many other misconceptions, since he has apparently never read a newspaper, much less watched a National Geographic special. Not to be unkind about it, but such a statement, uttered on television for all the world to see, is prima facie evidence that he is an ignorant dim-wit. Whatever a safe and responsible cut-off point would be for admission to Congress, can we agree that fearing the capsizing of Guam would put one well below it? I don’t know about you, but I’m a little frightened. Continue reading →