responsibility

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (But At Least She Has An Excuse.)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Be sure not to miss this very special episode of "Congress: A Study in Courage That Does The Country No Good Whatsoever"

ABC’s Diane Sawyer will soon air her interview with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the first since the Arizona Congresswoman was shot in the head during Jarod Loughner’s Tuscon rampage in January. Giffords looks alert and upbeat, if understandably frail, and answers Sawyer’s questions with short, often single word responses. She has clearly made remarkable progress in her rehabilitation. She also obviously has a long way to go, and her prospects of working at a high level again, much less working on the nation’s problems, are speculative at best. Why then is she still filling a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives?

She is doing so because, of course, she is courageous. Because her recovery is inspiring, and it would be heartless and cruel to take her job away because of a madman’s bullet. She is doing so because it would be unfair and mean to rush heroic Gaby, and because Americans care. None of which has any relevance to the tiny, apparently trivial issue of governing America. Continue reading →

The Bottom of the Barrel

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

See there, right at the bottom? That's the Washington Examiner. See it? Right next to Politico?

How low can the news media go in search of more Herman Cain dirt, semi-dirt, imaginary dirt, theoretical dirt, and non-news non-dirt that someone might think is dirt if they had their brain removed by a melon-scoop?  Low enough to print a story so ridiculous that even the National Enquirer wouldn’t stoop to publish it because it would violate its code of ethics, which is written in charcoal on a brown paper bag.

This low…..

From the Washington Examiner, and, naturally, immediately picked up by The Politico, which launched the whole Cain Sexual Harassment Feeding Frenzy:

“Donna Donella, 40, of Arlington, said the USAID paid Cain to deliver a speech to businessmen and women in Egypt in 2002, during which an Egyptian businesswoman in her 30s asked Cain a question. Continue reading →

Do the right thing? Naaaa.

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

Business executives regard this as a gross and unfair exaggeration. It's time for them to prove it.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR), the world’s largest oil-drilling companies, will pay outgoing CEO Gene Isenberg $100 million in cash as a result of provisions in Isenberg’s employment agreement. Isenberg is 81, and has led Nabors since 1987.

Jeff Dietert, an analyst at Simmons & Co., an energy investment bank in Houston, wrote his clients yesterday that “We believe the compensation to Mr. Isenberg is excessive,” noting that handing over $100 million payment “for what we view as essentially retiring will be offensive to some.”

May be excessive? Offensive to some?

Here’s what I would hope would be going through Mr. Isenberg’s mind about now: Continue reading →

Occupy Wall Street: “This Is What We Want!” Finally! Oh…THAT.

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

Time to stop wasting our time.

After more than a month of demonstrations that have cost millions, deflected local governments from vital matters, inconvenienced and clogged cities across the country, invigorated anarchists, communists, fascists, free-loaders and loonies, suckered desperate Democrats into declaring common cause with a mob, and exposed the worst of Left-wing punditry as the embarrassing demagoguery society that it is…and after well-intentioned demonstrators have been robbed, arrested, and injured…the Occupy” movement finally is finally ready to declare what it wants.

It’s about time. Large-scale demonstrations to express “frustration” are the advocacy equivalent of humming, or maybe belching: speak clearly, or get off the street.  On October 9, Ethics Alarms described the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, in the context of pointing out the friendly mainstream media embrace of a left-ish, anti-capitalist mob in contrast to its open contempt for the peaceful, focused and conservative Tea Party, as “incoherently chanting anarchists, radicals and unemployed youths…advocating nothing constructive whatsoever.” Many of the site’s distinguished readers objected to that characterization, with one, blogger Jeff Field,  promising to produce an articulation of what the protest really wants to accomplish. Today he fulfilled that promise by sending me a statement by an “Occupy” supporting group, with his introduction, “This is what we want.” I am genuinely grateful to Jeff…especially since it shows that I was correct in my assessment, however harsh. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Fox News

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Hang on, Rod...that phone call is coming any minute now....

Apparently to remind us that it too, like CNN and MSNBC, applies cynical and insulting standards when deciding what its audience will regard as trustworthy commentary, Fox News has announced that it is hiring former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford as a contributor during the 2012 election cycle. Sanford was forced to resign after he shamelessly used his office as a means to conduct a long-distance adulterous romance with his South American fire-cracker soul-mate, going AWOL while supposedly doing his state’s business and lying about it in the process. Is this as bad as what Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced New York governor whom CNN deemed an appropriate hire as a the star of one of its prime time programs, did to end his political career? No. Is it still irresponsible?

Oh yes: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“I hope the President continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past. He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional. President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so  — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function…On several occasions now, we’ve seen … the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe … in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states … for another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities.”

—– Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), telling the Daily Caller how he thinks unemployment should be addressed. Jackson inexplicably left out the part where Superman gives President Obama a magic lamp, and the President uses his three wishes to turn all his political opponents into beef jerky, banish the national debt, and make money grow from beans that get delivered to every American daily by a suddenly solvent postal service, transported around the country in Santa’s sleigh. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The American Cancer Society

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

According to the Foundation Beyond Belief, a secular charity “funded by atheists, freethinkers, and humanists,” the American Cancer Society has rejected its offer to raise up to a half million dollars for cancer research through the American Cancer Society‘s Relay for Life program. The ACS declined to allow the Foundation to field a national relay team, though every other non-profit that has applied has been allowed to participate.

Talk about “beyond belief”: I have a hard time accepting this story as true, though it is being reported by respectable sources. Why wouldn’t the Society, whose mission is to help those with cancer, including helping them by finding a cure, turn down any group’s generosity, as long as its donation wasn’t going to be raised through illegal means? Bank of America, CitiBank, Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart and other companies whose reputation is hardly without tarnish are among the ACS’s listed donors…and as we know, a lot of the people who run these companies worship Mammon, not God. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day:”Catawba Valley Community College vs. FIRE, Free Speech and Fairness”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

"Being courageous, challenging authority and exercising your right to free speech is no way to go through life, son."

Michael supplies an answer to my question, “What is going on with colleges and universities?” to begin the recent post about yet another example of a college trying to strangle inconvenient free expression on campus. Here is his Comment of the Day on Catawba Valley Community College vs. FIRE, Free Speech and Fairness:

“Colleges used to be run by faculty. Senior faculty members would be promoted to department heads, then deans, then provosts, and finally presidents. Their whole career, they would teach and be in contact with students. The faculty used to have a strong voice, including the ability to remove a sitting president if they felt it was necessary. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Unethical…”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Buck, a professional firefighter, has some wry observations on the Camden County, Georgia plan, discussed in a recent post here, to save money by letting prison inmates fight fires. Here is his Comment of the Day on When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Unethical, Chapter I: Camden County, Georgia has a Terrible Idea to Save Money:

“Oh! This is a wonderful idea, for a variety of reasons:

“1. This puts obviously unemployed workers back to work.

“2. Since public safety personnel are our best and brightest in our community, we would put fewer of them in harm’s way. We have to save their lives to be available for the next parade to represent how trustworthy and respectable they are. If we replace them with convicted felons. and one of them loses their life, there is no loss, truly. True firefighters are much too valuable to risk doing such a dangerous job. On a truly dangerous emergency, the convicts could be sent in to do the dirty work. This would work! Continue reading →

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Unethical, Chapter I: Camden County, Georgia has a Terrible Idea to Save Money

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Fortunately, ax-murders aren't eligible for firefighting duties....YET!

Camden County officials are considering putting prison inmates to work as firefighters as a cost-cutting measure.

The program would put two inmates in each of three county firehouses. The prisoners (will they wear striped fire-fighter uniforms?)  would respond to all emergencies, including residential fires, alongside the trained firefighters. The special program would be open to convicts charged with non-violent crimes, including drug offenses and robbery.

According to the details of the plan, the inmates would have no guards, but would be monitored by a surveillance system and by the non-criminal firefighters, who will undergo training to guard the inmates. It is estimated that the inmate firefighter program could save the county more than $500,000 a year.

Oh. Well, I guess that makes this irresponsible, reckless, offensive program all right, then! Continue reading →