Ethics Quiz: Slapping Down the Daughters of the Confederacy

On the heels of the previous post about intolerant progressives came my awareness of the news that both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, passed bills that would eliminate long-standing tax exemptions for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group that was founded in 1894 for female descendants of Confederate soldiers. The group’s mission was and is to honor Confederate ancestors through memorial preservation—an increasingly difficult job—and charity work. It is currently exempt from paying property taxes and recordation taxes, which are charged when property sales are registered.

This week the State House of Delegates passed a bill revoking the group’s exemptions as well as the property tax exemptions for two other Confederate heritage groups, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Inc. and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.

To state the obvious, the three non-profit groups have been targeted because many legislators don’t like their beliefs and activities. Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said it was important to revoke the exemptions from “organizations that continue to promote the myth of the romantic version of the Confederacy.”

How dare they?

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Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Oklahoma State Senator: Nathan Dahm, (R-Broken Arrow)

Senator Dahm has introduced Senate Bill 1837, the “Common Sense Freedom of Press Control Act.” Here are its main provisions:

“Each individual reporter, producer, writer, editor, or any other employee involved in the production of content distributed by a media outlet is hereby required to:

a. complete a criminal background check conducted by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation,
b. receive a license as prescribed by the Corporation Commission as provided in subsection C of this section,
c. complete a propaganda-free safety training course of no less than eight (8) hours as prescribed by the State Department of Education, which shall be developed in coordination with PragerU,
d. provide proof of liability insurance no less than One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00), and
e. submit to quarterly drug testing for illicit substances to be administered by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation”

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Fairfax County Public Schools Join The Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck In Damning Fashion

Fairfax County, just a short trip from my home in Alexandria, Virginia, is supposed to be one of the elite public school systems in America. Consider that, as you ponder this story.

Above is a photo taken of two Fairfax High School students during a meeting of the county’s Langley High School Muslim Students Association, in which they hold up a crude drawing in which the stars on the American flag are replaced with swastikas, and the message “Free Palestine!” is written in between the squiggly stripes. This took place on school property, in a sanctioned extra-curricular activity. [Supplementary questions I’d like to see answered: 1) Why are there religion-segregated activities in a high school? Isn’t allowing that inherently divisive? 2) Where is the faculty advisor?] An Asian American student leaked the photo to the public on social media, thus allowing the community to see what a bang-up job Langley was doing educating its young charges. The inflammatory image inspired pro-Palestine ( that is, pro-Hamas) students to stage a “walkout” on November 10, as students chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Rep. Tlaib’s lie to the contrary, that slogan is a call for Israel to be wiped off the map.

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Ethics Quiz: Is A Candidate Who Records Herself Urinating In The Snow And Posts The Video To Social Media Fit To Serve In The Virginia Legislature?

I’m kidding. This isn’t really an ethics quiz post. It’s a “When did the Democratic Party completely lose its collective mind?” post.

In Old Virginny, where I live, where multiple communities feel it necessary to criminalize over-age trick-or-treating, where the state Democratic Party felt that Clinton bag man Terry McAuliffe was a fine choice to be governor, and where the same party was until recently running a candidate who performed sex-acts for cash with her husband on a porn site, Jessica Anderson (shown proudly peeing in the snow above) is a nominated and widely endorsed candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Her professionally-designed website describes her as “not a politician; she is an everyday person who advocates for her community.” When did people who piss in the snow and publicize the process start qualifying as “everyday people”? I’ve known a lot of normal and abnormal people in my epic life, and I’m fairly certain that none of them have done this or would consider doing this. In truth, I was considering an ethics quiz involving another TikTok post by Jessica; this one:

The question would have been, “Is it fair to judge a grown woman who dresses as an eggplant and flaunts herself doing so online as not sufficiently trustworthy to be an elected official?”

Close reading of Jessica’s website reveals other red flags, one being that she favors unconstitutional “red flag laws” inflicting pre-crime breaches of due process and individual rights based on vague standards applied by the government. Her aspiring totalitarian explanation: “The idea that someone is seen as a substantial threat and could face little legal ramifications and endanger members of our community, should warrant stricter criminal consequences.” Being “seen” as a threat warrants criminal consequences! That the mark of a 2023 progressive Democrat, even one who doesn’t revel in peeing in the snow…

The peeing eggplant candidate also proves herself to be deliberately misleading, describing abortion (one must assume that’s what she’s talking about) on her site’s homepage as “reproductive rights,” the current cover-term now that “choice” has been outed as the disinformation it is. If one clicks through, abortion is finally extolled by the candidate, but the page presents another red flag regarding Jessica’s fitness: professionally designed as it is, her campaign site reveals her as careless, ungrammatical and inarticulate or, in the alternative, someone who delegates to incompetents. Here’s the text on the abortion issue, highlights mine:

Youngkin and VA-GOP have advocate for abortion bans, recently pushing for a 15 week ban specifically, Yet, they fail to discuss that a 15 week ban does NOT stop elective abortions and instead causes doctors to hesitate, putting patients at risk of sepsis, blood loss, organ failure, reproductive organ loss, coma and even death. These types of laws also eliminate families ability to make a personal decision when they are presented with the horrible reality that their wanted child is not viable and will not survive childbirth. We also know that 93% of all abortions nationwide, occur by or before 13 weeks, with only 6% occurring between 13 and 20 weeks. So we need to ask ourselves why politicians are trying to legislate a 15 week ban, that only impacts 2.5% of all abortions, which are medically necessary due to fetal abnormalities and/or maternal mortality. Legislators have no business in our doctor’s offices, making our personal and life-altering medical decisions, and putting our healthcare providers at legal risk simply for providing us care. I believe the long-standing law in Virginia, which allows for abortion access through the 2nd trimester and that in the rare instance of a 3rd trimester abortion, healthcare providers must respond quickly and ethically. It outlines that if a pregnancy is terminated in the 3rd trimester, it requires a physician along with 2 consulting physicians, to deem the procedure medically necessary. The further arbitrary laws being discussed and introduced are nothing more than political grandstanding and serve no purpose than to control this deeply personal decision.

This section and others on the site do explain why the candidate believes that education is important, I suppose. I also concede that this is how most “everyday” people think and write. Elected officials and representatives responsible for our laws and policies, however, should be better and smarter than the average American, a rather low bar to clear. The 2023 version of the Democratic Party and their progressive allies clearly don’t accept this rather obvious principle (See: Rep. Jamaal Bowman). Anderson’s endorsement page shows that she’s the darling of all the usual suspects, and enthusiastically supported by the leaders of her party in Virginia, who, by extension, apparently also applaud public peeing.

The Democrat Porn Star Virginia Legislature Candidate Renders The “Ethics Dunce” Designation Obsolete: “The Naked Porn-Performing Political Candidate Principle” Perhaps?

I don’t know what you call this, but whatever it is, “ethics dunce” just isn’t enough.

That’s Susanna Gibson above with her husband (I don’t know where those annoying stars came from) performing on a porn website while she was already running as a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. The 40-year-old Democrat, along with her lawyer husband, have been appearing in flagrante delicto on an X-rated website, and offering to perform sundry sex acts in front of the camera, including those involving violence and bodily excretions, in exchange for money—not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But after the conservative Washington Free Beacon was tipped off to this rare proclivity on the part of a political candidate and wrote about it, Gibson announced that she was shocked—shocked!—that anyone would feel that a candidate for the legislature soliciting money for sex acts was something the public had a right to know about. She found a lawyer willing to try to use Maryland’s “revenge porn” law to punish such people. Daniel P. Watkins of the Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch firm, argues that “it’s illegal and it’s disgusting to disseminate this kind of material”and says that he is “working closely with the F.B.I. and local prosecutors to bring the wrongdoers to justice.”

Sure, Danny, good luck with that! It’s a ridiculous idea for a law suit, but ya never know, so it slips under the wire as “ethical,” though any lawyer bringing such a suit should have to wear a bag on his head.

Ugh. Where to begin?

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Ethics Villains: Fairfax Virginia High Schools, And Why Isn’t The News Media Treating This As The Major Scandal It Is? [Corrected]

Let’s start with a memorable quote from that eloquent villain, Auric Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

This is enemy action against motivated and talented students, responsible and trusting parents, and core American values. It should be reported as such and responded to with the vigor and relentlessness the attack warrants, but the news media is burying the story, because they are enemies as well.

Happenstance: My fault. I reported this story as the last item in the Ethics Alarms Christmas Eve ethics outrage collection, here, pretty much guaranteeing that even fewer people would see it than usual. It should have been a full post. I wrote,

City-Journal reports that at Thomas Jefferson High in Fairfax, Virginia, two administrators have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s students awarded them, most of them Asian. This denied those students the chance to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. The author believes that this was intentional, a part of “the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.”The school’s leadership is acting as if it was just an oversight—for at least three years. Read the article. [Pointer: Mark Metcalf]

Well, hey, that’s just one DEI-obsessed principal, and she’s apologized and maybe will get fired, so all is well, right? Wrong:

Coincidence? The Fairfax Times reports that while Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid claimed the principal at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology withheld National Merit awards from students in a “one-time human error,” Langley High School Principal Kim Greer sent an email to parents apologizing for doing the same thing:

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Ethics Alarm! The Public School Political Indoctrination In Fairfax, Virginia Rates Two “Geenas”

I know Geena has already appeared here recently, but Americans really should be afraid of this story out of Fairfax, Virginia, and be especially afraid as they consider how long such sinister brain-washing of our young has been going on. The incident has a lot more relevance to the elections next week than an isolated attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, which has none. If we had a responsible journalistic establishment in the country any more, there would be an uproar over such strategies aimed at public school students. As it is, only Fox News has bothered to cover the story at all, and not very well at that.

Fifth graders were assigned the task of critiquing an anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment, anti-NRA essay as part of a persuasive writing fifth-grade unit from the teachers’ aide, “Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing.” The screed is a fake child’s essay, obviously written by an adult. The clear purpose of the exercise is not to develop critical thinking skills but rather to embed anti-gun beliefs in children too young to evaluate and resist them. Here is the essay:

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‘Fairfax County Paging Kimberly Reicks!’ As Schools Stealth-Install “Equity Grading”

In the previous post, Ethics Alarms extolled appropriately-involved Iowa parent Kimberly Riecks as an Ethics Hero for getting in the faces of an irresponsible school board. Let’s hope there are some Kimberly Klones in Fairfax County, Virginia, my back yard, because internal Fairfax County Public Schools communications, obtained by local parents through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that officials have secretly implemented “equitable grading” at schools across the district.

[In the “Animal House” clip above, Otter represents public school administrators and Flounder stands for Fairfax County parents.]

“Equitable grading” is exactly what it sounds like. It is a progressive, social justice, crack-brained approach to education in pursuit of “antiracism” and to battle “institutional bias” despite there being no substantive research that supports such measures as anything but destructive to learning. The district’s officials denied the initiative when a suspicious parent inquired, but it has been proceeding in the shadows.

The Fairfax County District used federal coronavirus relief funds (hmmmmm..) to purchase a book for teachers titled “Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms,” though “equitable grading” has been creeping into classrooms since 2015. It picked up speed while the schools were shuttered due to Wuhan virus panic. “Equitable grading” removes grade penalties for late assignments and in class misconduct, and also allows students to retake tests and redo assignments, often on an unlimited basis. This is all a reaction to the continuing lag of minority students (except Asian-Americans—it’s a mystery!), especially blacks, in school achievement.

Since educators can’t figure out how to bring that group’s grades into the range of white students the old fashioned way–teach good study habits, hold them to high standards, recruit parents into providing a home culture conducive to learning and the love of it—the new approach, aka woke desperation, is to stop penalizing students for the counter-productive and toxic habits and behavior that have kept them failing.

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“Privilege Bingo”

Teachers at Oakton High School in he Fairfax County school district, Virginia’s largest, had students participating in a political indoctrination exercise dubbed “Privilege Bingo.” The idea was to convince students of the innate unfairness of an American society which bestows unearned advantages on white, middle class males, among others. The students were told to self-identify their “privilege” as, school administrators huminahumina-ed when caught CRT-handed, “an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences while building their critical thinking skills.”

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Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: Republican Virginia House Of Delegates Member Wren Williams

Williams is concerned about what Virginia children are taught in schools, so he introduced House Bill No 781, “relating to public elementary and secondary schools; student citizenship skills; certain instructional policies prohibited, parental rights; disclosures; penalties; other remedies.”

Among the provisions offered by the patriotic Virginian is approval of public schools teaching “the founding documents,” including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, excerpts from the Federalist Papers, the writings of the Founding Fathers and Alexis de Tocqueville’s“Democracy in America” and “the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.”

You know, the guy standing next to Abe here:

Wait: are you sure you have the right Douglass/ Douglas, Wren? Might it be this Douglas…

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