thuggery

Ethical Quote Of The Week: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“Hey, journalist — you call yourself a “journalist” — how about not being on any side? Have you completely forgotten that idea? Sad about your camera, but what about your ethics? Did somebody grab them too and smash them on the pavement? Or is it still possible to scrounge back somewhere in your head and find them?”

—-Bloggress and retired law prof Ann Althouse, commenting on a New Republic story in which a photographer complains about an antifa thug breaking his camera despite his assurances that they were on the “same side.”

Yes, Ann, journalists have completely forgotten that idea, and that idea was little more than a faint memory by 2008, when total ethics amnesia set in.

The journalist in question, Mike Kessler, signals his assumed virtue by writing…

To be clear, there’s no equivalence between white supremacists and antifas. One has a message of hate, and one seeks to stop that hate…. Conflating the two groups is a way for whataboutist conservatives to play down the racist rot that is spreading on the right….

To be clear, Mike, that’s utter bullshit, though it is the basis upon which the news media, Democrats and Never-Trump Republicans mugged the President for condemning  equally—as he should have–the violent white nationalists in Charlottesville who were protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, and the violent antifa felons who attacked them to stifle their exercise of their Constitution-guaranteed rights. The far-left’s  hooded antifa assholes who claim to oppose hate while wielding it, and whose objective is to destroy the freedom of speech through intimidation, are exactly as dangerous, repulsive and wrong as the far-right bigots who want to deny equal rights and opportunities to non-white minorities. Continue reading →

If I Say Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) Behaved Like A Thug, Does That Mean I’m Claiming He’s Black?

/ Jack Marshall / 133 Comments

To be clear from the start: Rep. Michael Grimm threatened a reporter last night for doing his job. He behaved like a thug, which is to say that he behaved as a “ruffian, hooligan, vandal, hoodlum, gangster, villain, or criminal” might behave, which is unacceptable for any law-abiding citizen, and outrageous for an elected representative. NY1 political reporter Michael Scotto had the audacity to ask the Congressman a direct question at the State of the Union address relating not to the speech, but to the Congressman’s fundraising, which is the object of an FBI probe. Grimm refused to answer the question, then cornered the reporter (on camera, though he did not know it, and said ominously , in an excellent soto voce imitation of Michael Corleone telling Fredo that he knows he betrayed him…

“Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I’ll throw you off this f***ing balcony.'”

As the shocked reporter tried to sputter out a defense, Michael…that’s Grimm, not Corleone…continued,

“No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.” Continue reading →

What Gawker Calls Unethical: Poor Ex-Rep. Etheridge Was “Tricked” Into Assault

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The ethics-free web zone known as Gawker is indignant that it now appears that the young men roughed up by now-defeated North Carolina Democrat Rep. Bob Etheridge were G.O.P operatives stalking him in the hopes of catching him in a gaffe. Etheridge lost, in part because the video of him grabbing one of the young men in a bear hug was turned into an effective campaign ad by his adversary. He deserved to lose, as much as any candidate running in any race in the country.

Gawker apparently believes that under some circumstances it is no big deal for members of the U.S. Congress to commit assault and battery on the citizens they are supposed to serve, a view that Etheridge shares, but that Ethics Alarms does not.

Neither does Ken, over at Pope Hat, who makes a definitive argument that Etheridge has no excuse whatsoever. I can’t improve on it. You can read it here.