Republicans

The Akin Affair: A Brief Note on Being Fair To Idiots

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

A Baby Fairy (from the Todd Akin collection)

Todd Akin, as I discussed in the recent post, is too dumb to serve in high elected office, and his refusal (at least so far) to give up his nomination for the U.S. Senate after proving it marks him as unethical as well.

Nonetheless, an astounding number of pundits, Democrats and social media users are making fools of themselves and missing the fish in the barrel by concentrating their fire on Akin’s use of the phrase “legitimate rape.” Many of them apparently never read his quote, and really think the poor, silly man said that rape could be “legitimate”, as in “legal, just, valid or proper,” which is what the word really means. He didn’t say that, and he didn’t mean that. He obviously didn’t mean that, and it is unfair and misleading to condemn him on the basis of what he didn’t say.

Here is his quote again, speaking of women getting pregnant after being raped: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)…Plus Some Clarifications

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Apparently Prissy told Todd Akin’s family all about the Baby Faries…

To clarify, Rep. Todd Akin, the GOP’s candidate for the U.S. Senate in opposition to Sen. Claire McCaskill, is not an Ethics Dunce because he said, in a recent TV interview, this, in response to whether it should be illegal for a woman impregnated by a rapist to get an abortion:

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

No, that statement just proves that he’s an idiot. Continue reading →

The Economic Meltdown: Accountability Check

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The shoe fits both Parties.

The ethics story of week was the dropping of the missing shoe in the “Friends of Angelo” scandal that helped drive Democratic Senator and party leader Chris Dodd into retirement. (More here.) It fell like this:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The former Countrywide Financial Corp., whose subprime loans helped start the nation’s foreclosure crisis, made hundreds of discount loans to buy influence with members of Congress, congressional staff, top government officials and executives of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, according to a House report.

What the report indicates is that the bribery of regulators and members of Congress to allow the sub-prime mortgage con-game to continue was far worse and for more widespread than anyone realized. Countrywide offered special loan deals to dozens of influential government officials to stave off regulations that might have avoided or greatly lessened the mortgage collapse that triggered the current long-term economic crisis: 

“Documents and testimony obtained by the committee show the VIP loan program was a tool used by Countrywide to build goodwill with lawmakers and other individuals positioned to benefit the company,” the report said. “In the years that led up to the 2007 housing market decline, Countrywide VIPs were positioned to affect dozens of pieces of legislation that would have reformed Fannie” and its rival Freddie Mac, the committee said.“

More: Continue reading →

The Congressional Black Caucus Walkout: Racial Bias, and Nothing But

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Of course, they would also be staging a walk-out if a white AG was being held in contempt.

The Congressional Black Caucus  plotted to walk out of Thursday’s contempt of Congress vote regarding Attorney General Eric Holder’s stonewalling regarding legitimate oversight of the deadly Fast and Furious fiasco, and did, taking most of the other Democrats along. In so doing, the CBC, as if there was any doubt, unequivocally demonstrated its virulent racial bias, which interferes with its ability to discharge its duties in a fair, honest and legitimate matter.

The CBC had circulated a letter explaining its supposed rationale, which oddly manages never to mention that Eric Holder is African American. Yet it is unimaginable that the Congressional Black Caucus would stage a walk-out if Holder was the white Attorney General appointed by a white President. This is politics, but it is also dishonesty and naked tribalism. It should not be, pardon the expression, whitewashed, or allowed to proceed without calling it what it is—racial bias in the halls of Congress, where none belongs.

Here is the offensive and disingenuous letter being circulated by the CBC—with some commentary by me in brackets: Continue reading →

The Supreme Court Upholds The Individual Mandate and Obamacare: The Ethics Opinion

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

This morning the Supreme Court announced its decision upholding the key provision in the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare. It is apparently a huge and complex decision, and is now available in text form online here.

The political and legal analysis will be coming soon from others far more qualified than I [UPDATE: The legal dissections have begun, and you can’t do better than to start here] , and while I am deeply interested in them, that’s not my job. I won’t be able to read the opinions and the various concurring opinions and dissents, not to mention digest them, for quite a while, but some ethical verdicts are already evident from what I do know: Continue reading →

Fast and Furious: AG Holder’s Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Let’s get a few things settled.

If you look closely, you can see Eric Holder in his engineer cap.

Fast and Furious is a true scandal, not a trumped-up distraction, just as Watergate wasn’t a “third-rate burglary.” When the U.S. government intentionally allows laws to be broken, secretly seeds violent crime in a neighboring country and gets both foreigners and Americans killed as a result, that’s a scandal any way you cut it. The U.S. Congress has an oversight role to play after such a fiasco, and getting to the bottom of what went sour is its duty, regardless of how much enjoyment partisan Congressmen appear to have making Administration officials sweat. Any politician or member of the media who suggests otherwise is trying to manufacture a cover-up and intentionally misleading the public. The mantra that “this is a waste of time when Congress should be doing the nation’s business” was used by Republicans during Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Valerie Plame affair, and by Democrats during Whitewater, Lewinsky, and now, as Fast and Furious is finally bursting out of the hole of obscurity where the biased media tried to stuff it. A badly managed, law-breaking Justice Department isn’t trivial, and when utterly stupid, reckless operations like Fast and Furious come to light, it is essential that there be full disclosure and accountability. The voices trying to bury this scandal do not have the best interests of the United States or the public at heart. Let’s start with that.

Fast and Furious was so jaw-droppingly dumb that its very stupidity is almost a boon to defenders of Attorney General Holder’s department, since the normal reaction to such facts is that some crazy Republican must have made up the whole thing. Unfortunately, this really happened.  In 2009, the US government allowed Arizona gun sellers to illegally sell automatic weapons to suspected criminals. Then ATF agents (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives)  were directed to  allow the guns to “walk” across the border and be delivered to the Mexican drug cartels. The House Oversight Committee’s report explains, “The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case…. [The ATF] initially began using the new gun-walking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy.”

Gee. What a great plan! What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, only everything.

1,608 weapons ended up in the bloody hands of Mexican criminals. The ATF lost track of them, until they turned up at shootings and crime scenes. Many Mexicans, though we don’t know how many, died from being shot by the planted guns, and when a US federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by one of them in battle with drug-runners, the fiasco became public. (ATF whistle-blower also helped.) In a sensible, fair, ethical system, the next steps would follow like Summer follows Spring:

  • The news media would give the story major coverage  and do its own, unbiased, competent investigation.
  • The Administration would express horror and regret, and set about its own internal investigation.
  • Both parties of Congress would aggressively seek answers, and make certain that systemic failures were exposed and responsible individuals were identified.
  • Those responsible would resign or would be fired.

But we do not have a sensible, fair, ethical system, at least as it is currently functioning. As a result, the Fact and Furious mess has become an ethics train wreck that appears to be gathering steam. The evidence so far: Continue reading →

Don’t Blame Nixon

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

They can’t lay this one off on you, Dick.

I know it is much the vogue in Washington these days for leaders to blame previous leaders for persistent problems rather than to accept accountability and responsibility for not successfully solving them. Trendy though this attitude may be, however, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker’s column assigning fault for the U.S. public’s growing and frightening distrust of government institutions to Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal shows its folly. It flies in the face of history and fairness, and lets literally thousands of subsequent leaders, elected officials, journalists, pundits and assorted knaves and hypocrites off scot-free.

Parker writes,

“Beyond the obvious, Nixon and the Watergate episode did great, perhaps irreparable, harm to the American spirit. A generation already traumatized by a war that ended up killing 58,000 of its brothers, boyfriends, husbands and fathers lost any remaining innocence, as well as trust in authority and faith in governmental institutions. The flag our forefathers raised on the moral high ground looked suddenly shabby and soiled. When even the president of the United States was willing to burglarize the American people, there was no one left to trust”

Oh, nonsense. The Watergate scandal, by the end, was one of the American system’s finest hours. The system worked, and worked on live television for all to see. A brave judge, John Sirica, showed integrity and grit in refusing to cave in to Presidential intimidation, ordering Nixon to turn over the tapes that ultimately proved his guilt. Senators and House members of both parties handled a complex inquiry diligently and well, with ethics heroes emerging on the Republican side, in individuals like Sen. Howard Baker, and the Democratic side, with the inspiring Senator Sam Irwin and others. When Nixon decided to fire the Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who was getting too close to the truth, his own Cabinet member, Attorney General Eliot Richardson, resigned rather than do Nixon’s dirty work. Ultimately, Republicans and Democrats alike on the House Judiciary Committee voted for impeachment, forcing Nixon to resign. Yes, Tricky Dick was unethical and untrustworthy, but Americans had known that—and called him Tricky Dick— for decades. Then as now, too many Americans decided that “policies” trumped character, so they elected a man whose flawed values and integrity was a matter of public record—twice. Nonetheless, when he and his minions violated the law and threatened the principles of democracy, the vital institutions of the House, the Senate, the judiciary and the press showed their strength and virtue. Nixon was corrupt, not the Presidency, not the government. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Florida Governor Rick Scott

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

Less worthy of integrity than cashing a check or renting a car, according to the Justice Department.

I should add to the heroes list the governors of the states that are challenging the Justice Department over blocking their voter ID requirements as well, but Scott is a worthy representative. His law suit is a little different than theirs, but the principle is the same, the target—Eric Holder’s politicized and incompetent Justice Department—is the same, and the objective, ensuring the integrity of elections, is also the same.

The Department of Justice, of all institutions, shouldn’t be adopting the sadly popular phisosophy, growing like mold on a large segment of progressive America, that it is wrong to enforce legitimate laws if doing so risks having disparate impact on particular groups. It certainly shouldn’t be using its power to join in the desperate race-baiting that seems to be part of the desperate Democratic game plan for President Obama’s re-election. Attorney General Holder has been making the rounds of African-American groups, rattling the civil rights sabers and proclaiming that requiring voters to show proof of identity and citizenship is a racist plot. This is either cynical politics or proof of intellectual deficiency, and since it is Holder, telling which is difficult. Holder, after all, requires identification to get into his building, his office, and his public appearances, but presumably nobody would accuse the first black and most race-conscious Attorney General in the nation’s history of being anti-black. Yet I  submit that the importance of ensuring the integrity of  elections in a democracy is rather more important than ensuring that only citizens get to hear Holder make speeches accusing states of racism and voter-suppression for attempting to enforce the law. Continue reading →

Ethics Round-Up in Race, Religion and Sex: GOP Bigotry, Georgetown’s Integrity, and Warren’s Absurdity

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Help! I’m buried in great ethics stories!

This is one of those periods in which there are so many juicy ethics stories that I am falling far behind. Here are three that are worthy of longer treatment that I can’t allow to get lost in the crowd: Continue reading →

Joke Ethics: The Obama Dog Jokes Dilemma and The Gut Test

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

The question: how should fair and ethical people regard the viral “the President eats dogs” jokes? This depends on the standards we choose to apply—and remember, double standards are banned.

  • Is it a humor standard? Political jokes don’t have to be fair; most of them aren’t. They have to be funny. If they are funny, they don’t have to be especially tasteful, either.
  • Is it a motive standard? If the real motive for the flood of jokes is to undermine the President in an election year by using absurd images to make him look ridiculous, should that be condemned? Continue reading →