Republican Party

Ethics Dunces: The Buncombe County (North Carolina) Republican Party.

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments
"Who would have guessed that he would look so bad in that interview?"

“Who would have guessed that he would look so bad in that interview?”

If a Republican affiliate has to force its chairman to resign after he proves to the nation that he is 1) so racially insensitive that he might dress up in blackface, tell the AP that Steppin Fetchit was ‘hilarious,’ and call President Obama a “jigaboo”on “Meet the Press” and he 2) doesn’t see what the fuss is, such an affiliate is not responding swiftly to newly revealed crisis. Such an affiliate has a much bigger problem. It has a surfeit of racists, incompetents and idiots. True, Don Yelton, the recently sacked two-term chair of the Buncombe County Republican Party in North Carolina, didn’t quite go that far in his jaw-dropping interview on Comedy Central, but he still spouted enough offensive comments for Match.com to pair him with Michael Richards. Watching the interview, which one can see here, the first impulse might be to ask, “What was he thinking?” Upon reflection, however, the proper question is “Is this man capable of thought?” Continue reading →

The Curse of Michael Steele Lives On

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Past-DueDuring the deplorable reign of Michael Steele as chair of the Republican National Committee, the RNC set new lows for deceptive fundraising practices, bordering on mail fraud. Replacing Steele with the superficially less ridiculous Reince Priebus has failed to dispel Steele’s lingering curse, and here is the latest example.

Yesterday, a brown envelope arrived at Chez Marshall with a block red message “Past Due” on it. We get a number of such envelopes—fewer now than a while back—but they are always a cause for alarm. This one, however, was a fake. Back in 2012 when, if you remember, there was a campaign going on, my wife, for the first time in her life, sent a small contribution to the Romney camp. As a result of that wasted gesture, we have received an average of ten phone calls a week from the RNC seeking funds, prompting my wife to tell every caller, futilely, of course, that any party that could not defeat Barack Obama wasn’t worthy for her money or anyone else’s, and to stop with the calls already. Naturally, this has had no effect, leading me to remind her, as when she imprudently ordered some kind of miracle anti-aging cream from Madagascar over the internet, “I warned you!”

It turned out that this urgent letter was also from the RNC, using the “Past Due” stamp to fool us into opening it rather than sending it directly into the trash. Nothing was past due, of course, though the enclosed donor card was falsely labelled a “statement,” and we were asked to “renew” a “membership” we never agreed to, and had no benefits, other than the pleasure of being harassed for money. Continue reading →

Orc Attack! The Unethical GOP Campaign Smear With the Built-In Punishment

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

“Citizens of Maine, I give you your next state Senator! Her campaign slogan: “Better an Orc than an idiot!”

In Maine, Republicans have attacked a state Senate candidate with an unfair and stunningly silly accusation devised by fools for consumption by the gullible, ignorant and confused. Fortunately, such an attack comes with its own punishment, for it constitutes a smoking gun that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Maine Republican Party is not only run by dolts, but dolts who never made it into the 21st Century.

Imagine: in a campaign mailing this week, Maine Republicans accused Democratic state Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz of making “crude, vicious and violent comments” and living in a fantasy world because she plays the fantasy role-playing game World of Warcraft, and comments in online forums dedicated to the popular online pastime.”We need a senator who lives in our world, not Colleen’s world,” the mailing says. Continue reading →

When Telling The Truth Is An Outrage

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments

"Imagine, Jay...the Republicans want to defeat me!"

President Obama visited the Tonight Show last night, and Jay Leno, as is traditional and proper on such occasions, sucked up to him with gusto. In one exchange, the President and Jay tut-tutted about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s infamous statement that the Republican Party’s objective would be to make Obama a one-term president. “How is that a goal?” Jay asked.

Is he serious? Well, okay, I know he’s a comedian and all, so maybe he’s not serious, but all the pundits and journalists and Democrats who have been squealing to the skies for two years about how McConnell’s remark proves that his party is unpatriotic, evil or racist are presumably serious, and it is disingenuous. Continue reading →

The Cowardly GOP Presidential Field

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Cowards. All of them.

In three consecutive Republican presidential debates, members of the partisan audience have displayed obnoxious and callous attitudes in response to questions directed to the candidates. In the first, a portion of the assembled conservatives cheered an accounting of the convicted murderers put to death by the Texas penal system. During the second, vocal members of the audience shouted “Yeah!” to Wolf Blitzer’s questioning whether uninsured Americans should just be allowed to die without medical care. Then, in this week’s debate, the crowd jeered a videotaped soldier who declared himself as gay before asking if the candidates would support the recent elimination of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” as military policy.

Pundit efforts to characterize these outburst as typical of the Republican, conservative or Tea Party constituencies are blatant stereotyping, cynical and unfair. Anyone who has any experience speaking or performing to an audience knows that a few people can dominate audience reaction without being representative of it. No, it is not the Republican constituency that was exposed by these incidents, but the contenders for that party’s and the nation’s leadership. The failure of any one of the assembled candidates, nine in the first two debates, ten this week, to clearly and emphatically condemn the offensive reactions and the “thinking” underlying them suggests that none of the candidates possess the integrity, courage, confidence and values required to be a trustworthy leader of the United States. Continue reading →

Obama’s Fractured History

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

"Don't know much about history..."

I have been, some say, too hard on Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain, for their various gaffes related to our American heritage. The reason I believe that these politicians are especially blame-worthy for their fractured history is that they are all constantly evoking America’s historical past, especially its founding. If you are going to take on the responsibility of educating Americans about the Constitution (which Cain mixed up with the Declaration), Paul Revere (whose ride Palin mangled) and the Founders (to whose number Bachmann added John Quincy Adams), you better get your facts straight, because the public trusts what you say.

What then, is the proper and fair reaction when a President the media has anointed as brilliant states in a nationally televised speech before Congress that Abraham Lincoln was the “founder of the Republican Party”? Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Earlier this year, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had come under fire from  conservative bloggers for appointing Sohail Mohammed, an American attorney who also happens to be a Muslim, to a seat on the Passaic County Superior Court.

Mohammed was confirmed by the state legislature and sworn into office last week. The Newark Star-Ledger noted in an editorial that Mohammed came to the US— legally— as a teenager in 1980, and became a lawyer for all the right reasons. It was, for him, a calling. He built a reputation as a zealous, honest and dedicated lawyer.  Yesterday, Gov. Christie defended his choice, especially against criticism for representing Muslims detained under suspicion of terrorist links in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. His most quoted passage:

“It’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. It’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background. I’m happy that he’s willing to serve after all this baloney.”

In sharp contrast to many in the Republican Party and on the political right, Christie is courageously displaying his full-throated support of religious freedom, opposition to bigotry, the right to zealous representation, and respect for professionals who do their jobs well, whatever their names or ethnic origin.

He is an easy call as an Ethics Hero.

No Winners, Only Losers in the Debt Ceiling Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I object to “a pox on all their houses” assessments on principle, because it encourages the lack of accountability. If everyone is at fault, nobody is at fault, or at least nobody will be willing to accept responsibility as long as he or she or they can point fingers at someone else. Reading all of the clichéd “Winners and Losers” columns in the media this morning as the debt ceiling crisis winds down, however, convinces me that there were no winners, only losers, in this sorry spectacle. In the latter group I include the writers of the “Winners and Losers” pieces, which are all just spin, obvious and biased attempts to extract a writer’s favorites from the train wreck using the rhetorical Jaws of Life.

They are all losers, all of them, together with the United States of America. The perfect storm of cowardly, irresponsible, reckless, stupid and arrogant leadership weakened the recovery, weakened the economy, weakened foreign faith in American investments, weakened American prestige, split the Republican Party, revealed the Democratic Party as hell-bent on chasing the European-style nanny state even as their model is crumbling abroad, exposed the Tea Party as a unmannerly mess of deluded doctrinaire ideologues with no grasp of political or economic realities, and most disastrously of all, showed the American President to be hopelessly, pathetically, frighteningly weak, devoid of leadership skills and leaderly instincts. Continue reading →

Herman Cain Flunks The Presidential Candidate Competency Test

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Herman Cain's Consitution

The legal ethics standards do not require that a lawyer be fully knowledgeable and competent to handle a particular representation when he or she accepts the assignment, but does require that the lawyer be sufficiently up-to-speed in the legal area at issue when the work commences. That standard is reasonable for the law,  but the American public should expect more when an individual has the audacity to pronounce himself fit to be President of the United States. One area I would hope a candidate wouldn’t need to bone up on after the fact: the nation’s founding documents.

Former pizza CEO and conservative radio host Herman Cain officially entered the contest for the GOP nomination over the weekend with this statement, following his exhortation to America’s public to read the Constitution:

“Keep reading! Don’t stop at life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

Meet me at the bridge; I’ll be jumping at noon. Continue reading →

Ensign Scandal Revelations: Sen. Coburn’s Betrayal

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Oh dear, Sen. Coburn...didn't anyone tell you that corruption is contagious?

The bipartisan Senate committee, investigating the sexual harassment/ extortion/ lobbying scandals that led Sen John Ensign (R-Nev.) to resign his seat issued its report this week. It found “substantial credible evidence that provides substantial cause to conclude that Senator Ensign violated Senate Rules and federal civil and criminal laws, and engaged in improper conduct reflecting upon the Senate, thus betraying the public trust and bringing discredit to the Senate.” The committee referred the matter to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission.

The report also found, however, that another Republican Senator, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, was hip-deep in the  mess, serving as an intermediary between Ensign and his top aide, Doug Hampton, who was in the process of extorting  Ensign  for having an affair with Hampton’s wife. Sen. Coburn also played a central role in arranging for Ensign’s parents to cough up the hush money to satisfy Hampton’s demands.  Whether Coburn knew about the more serious offenses that Ensign seems to have committed, such as lying to investigators and using his influence to create business for Hampton’s lobbying firm as part of the pay-off for Ensign sleeping with Hampton’s wife, is unknown, but never mind: helping with the cover-up is bad enough. Continue reading →