Rep. Matt Gaetz

Gaetz Withdraws His Name: Good

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This story is “breaking,” but I have to comment. Gaetz can’t be called an Ethics Hero here: if he were one, he would have declined the nomination immediately, as this controversy was, or should have been, a forgone conclusion. He said all the right things today,

“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1. I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that  President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.”

…but he could have said them a week ago.

Whatever: As a lawyer, I would have joined any petitions or organized professional protests against Gaetz being confirmed for the job of the nation’s top attorney. I don’t blame Trump for wishing the plague on the Justice Department and hating my profession, but Gaetz was too far over the line. Several of his other appointments are uncomfortably close to the line if not over it as well, but Gaetz’s selection was so indefensible that it risked undermining Trump’s credibility before his administration got underway.

Is one of Gaetz’s motivations for “doing the right thing” the fear that if he didn’t withdraw, matters would come to the public’s attention that would sink the rest of his political career? Oh, probably. I don’t care. What matters is that an unqualified nominee took himself out of the running before too much damage was done..

Confronting My Biases, Episode 15: Pete Hegseth’s Tats (Corrected and Revised)

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I just saw the photo above on the web.

I’m sorry, I know its a generational thing, I know, I know.

But I cannot stop myself from believing that anyone who gets themselves tattooed like that is an idiot. I always will.

The idea of the United States having the Secretary of Defense with those tattoos is almost too jarring for me to bear. Some are writing that the chest tattoo is a white supremacy symbol. Is it?

This is a big correction: I was hit with two equivalent photos claiming that was Matt Gaetz, and I posted this originally about the ex-Congressman. Gaetz and Hegseth do look a little alike.

For some reason, the idea of an Attorney General being self-branded like that bothers me a lot more than having a Secretary of Defense with them underneath his suit. Hegseth fought “infidels” in the Middle East. Heck, maybe those tattoos will endear him to the military. You know, like if he had a tattoo reading, “Indiannapolis.”

Ethics Alarms regrets the error (kudos to Jg in SF for flagging it.

But the bias remains.

And I’m afraid to think about what Gaetz’s tats look like...

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month (And Unethical Quote Of The Month Too!): Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Really…what an idiot. There is no excuse for a political party allowing someone this obnoxious and stupid to run under its banner for Congress. After all, stupid people have a strong majority in many districts, and parties have an obligation to mitigate this democracy-mocking problem by at least trying not to nominate candidates like Matt Gaetz. Ethics Alarms didn’t need his latest embarrassment to make this observation about Gaetz: he already earned it several times over. Just peruse his EA dossier. Gaetz’s most recent mention here for being like he is was in April, and a year earlier I expounded on his creepiness at length, concluding in part,

I have seen enough to conclude that Rep. Gaetz is a creep. I don’t like creeps, and as a general proposition I don’t think creeps should be in positions of influence and power, because you can’t trust creeps. They are ethically “bent”….I know that Gaetz is a creep because he screams creepiness, like his stunt of wearing a gas mask on the floor of the House of Representatives during debate over the first pandemic aid bill, and joining a group of Republicans who forced their way into a closed congressional witness deposition during the run-up to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. ...Then there’s his revelation last year that he has been living with a 19-year-old non-biological male, un-adopted “son”, Cuban immigrant Nestor Galban, whom he met when Galban was 12 and Gaetz was dating his older sister.

Or just listen to the guy.

As in so many other cases, the fact that someone like him could be elected speaks horribly about the voters in his district, the party that nominated him, and the state of democracy generally. His various statements show him to have a scarlet “C” on his forehead.

All of which is a prelude to his most recent episode: saying this to a crowd of Turning Point conservatives yesterday:

“Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.”

But that’s Matt!

Observations:

Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Rep. Matt Gaetz Story, Which So Far Consists Of Allegations That He’s A Creep Being Pressed By The Same People Who Supported Joe Biden For President When They KNEW Joe Was A Creep

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

So far, the only allegations of illegal activity by Gaetz, the Florida Congressman who appears to be a prominent target because he was an aggressive supporter of President Trump, involve an investigation by the Justice Department regarding possible sex crimes involving underage women. Investigations are not evidence of anything, as the despicable Russian collusion tactic against Trump illustrated. If we are to presume innocence after charges are filed against an American, we must certainly presume innocence before any evidence of a crime has been found.

Sadly, progressives and Democrats have increasingly drifted away from the concept of presumed innocence as they flirt with totalitarianism. Men are presumed sex criminals: all that’s required is an accusation by a woman. Whites are presumed racists. Well, let me clarify that: these things are presumed true if they involve conservatives, Republicans, police officers, celebrities and teachers. If they arise in reference to leaders of the Democratic Party, the rules are different. In fact, the news media makes them up as the situation demands.

I have seen enough to conclude that Rep. Gaetz is a creep. I don’t like creeps, and as a general proposition I don’t think creeps should be in positions of influence and power, because you can’t trust creeps. They are ethically “bent.” Still, we have had a lot of creeps in our history who have, despite themselves, been, at least arguably,net positives to the nation. Thomas Jefferson was a creep, for example. Jack Kennedy. Bill Clinton. Donald Trump.

Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

To be fair, he’s not quite as unethical a lawyer as Michael Cohen, but then Cohen isn’t in Congress…

Hey @MichaelCohen212 – Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot…

Nice.

Gaetz sent this tweet before Cohen testified before Congress. It is witness intimidation. It is also stupid witness intimidation. Among other things, it gave Speaker Pelosi an opportunity to appear fair and responsible, by stating,

Goetz doubled down on his ham-handed “nice little family you got there; too bad if something were to happen to it…” threat by denying that he was witness tampering, telling a reporter that he was “witness testing.“

This jerk is a Florida lawyer, and his bar is now investigating whether he breached the ethics rules by threatening a witness. Of course he did, and he did it on Twitter, which makes it the dumbest example of witness tampering in history.