Washington Post

Yes, It’s Bizarro World—But The Mainstream Media Anti-Trump Bias Is Still Ridiculous

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

The President’s master-trolling display before Thanksgiving plunged us squarely into Bizarro World Ethics territory. I cannot imagine any previous President of the United States pulling a public stunt even close to as juvenile and silly as tweeting the photo above out to his followers and, inevitably, the world. I can’t imagine another President even considering it. The leader of the free world, the dignified occupant of the White House, the leader and role model of millions just doesn’t do something like that. He just…just..doesn’t, that’s all!

Yet there it was , just before 11:00 am on November 27. And like so many other seemingly vulgar and impetuous acts and statements that President Trump has authored, the deranged foes of the President managed to make it look like a brilliant stratagem. First the Washington Post—surely there must be some perceptive people working there, wouldn’t you think?—sent out this hurrumphing tweet:

Oh, it’s doctored! Good sleuthing, Post! Quick, add this to your recent list of Trump mendacities: he tried to make the public think that he’s built like Rocky under those blue suits, the liar!

And “unclear why”!!! Unclear why? How bone-headedly biased does someone have to be to not understand why Trump would tweet out a photo of himself as “Rocky” (in “Rocky 3”, to be accurate)? Has anyone on the Post staff seen “Rocky,” or is so stuffed with culturally ignorant naifs whose idea of an ancient inspirational movie is the ten-year-old “The Blind Side” that “Rocky” (1976) and its descendants are buried in their “Irrelevant films my grandparents watched” files? Continue reading →

Afternoon Ethics Warm-Up, 11/26/2019: The Pooping Engineer, Fake Newspapers, And Other Things Not To Be Thankful For

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

As the Happy Holidays countdown continues…

1. More trivial ethics: Watching Season #2 (2015) of the excellent Stephen Bochco procedural “Murder One,” my wife and I were stunned to hear an expert witness in the trial of one of the teenage shooters in a school bus mass murder point out, while noting that most sociopaths don’t kill people, the Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton were examples of very successful sociopaths. It’s very unusual to see favored progressive narratives challenged in television dramas. Of course, this would have been an opportunity for Trump-bashing had the show been filmed a couple of years later.

2.  Ew. Matthew Lebsack, an 18-year employee of the Union Pacific Railroad Co., defecated on a train-car knuckle three years ago, threw feces-covered toilet paper out of the locomotive window, and informed his manager that he had left a “present” for him. Lebsack’s co-workers cleaned up his droppings using bottled water and paper towels.

At the investigation hearing, Lebsack admitted the specifics of the incident and apologized for his behavior. He claimed he  was suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, and his wife had just left him at the time of the incident.

I wonder why?

Yeah, that justifies throwing one’s poop around the workplace. Lebsack was fired, shockingly. His union, the International Association of Sheet Metal Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division, or  SMART appealed and the matter was sent to an arbitration board.

The arbitration board found that firing “was too harsh.” That’s good to know, just in case a clueless ethics class frustrates me so much I decide to take a dump on the podium.   Lebsack’s medical and psychological issues were deemed to be sufficient mitigation that board ordered Lebsack to be reinstated once he successfully completes a physical and a psychological evaluation. Union Pacific appealed to vacate the decision and SMART sought to enforce it.

U.S. District Judge Brian Buescher ruled that, under the Railway Labor Act, he was without authority to review the merits of the board’s interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement. Buescher said the arbitration board’s decision fell within its discretion, although he admitted that he didn’t understand its reasoning. Continue reading →

Observations On The Washington Post Op-Ed, “Why America Needs A Hate Speech Law”

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Richard Stengel, a frequent contributor on MSNBC, a former editor of Time magazine, and the  State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2016 wrote this embarrassing, anti-free speech screed.

Observations:

1. In the past I have criticized newspapers and other publications for publishing irresponsible opinion pieces. This time, I want to thank and praise the Washington Post. Either intentionally or inadvertently, it has performed a public service by using its op-ed pages to expose the hypocrisy, intellectual bankruptcy, ethics ignorance and relentless totalitarian rot of their own ideological compatriots.

2. I might say the same about  Stengal, but he really seems to think that he is making a persuasive case. Imagine: a man whom President Obama  and his Democratic administration trusted as a high level State Department official  can make an argument like this…

Why shouldn’t the states experiment with their own version of hate speech statutes to penalize speech that deliberately insults people based on religion, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation?

Why, Richard? Oh, gee, I don’t know…maybe because “insult” is a completely subjective standard? Perhaps because Massachusetts, Vermont,California, and Oregon might decide that arguments against climate change cant is hate speech, like Holocaust denial? Maybe  because the 14th Amendment prohibits states from abridging the Bill of Rights? Continue reading →

And Yet Another Evening Ethics Watch, 10/29/2019, Because Everything Has Been Upside Down At ProEthics Lately…

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Good evening again.

We’ll have to stop meeting like this.

1. Can’t make up my mind if I want there to be disastrous botched ball/strike call in Game 6 of the World Series or not. It will take one of those—a bad call that turns the game and eventually the World Series around to get MLB off its metaphorical butt and force it to establish an electronic pitch-calling system. Of course, it is worth noting that one of the most devastating wrong umpire calls in history stole a World Series away from the St. Louis Cardinals in 1985, and it took another 30 years for baseball to adopt an instant replay system that would have reversed it.

Don Denkinger was the first base umpire in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series in Kansas City.  The St. Louis Cardinals led the home team Royals by 3 games to 2, and tooka 1–0 lead in the 8th inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Jorge Orta, the leadoff batter for the Royals, hit a slow roller to Cards first baseman Jack Clark. Clark tossed the ball to his pitcher, Todd Worrell, who was covered first base. Orta was out by half a step, but Denkinger called Orta safe, even though television replays and photographs clearly showed that he was out by half a step. Orta eventually scored, allowing the Royals to go  on to win Game 6 by the score of 2–1.

Denkinger was the home plate umpire in the Series-deciding Game 7, apparently driving the angry Cardinals mad. Denkinger ultimately ejected both Herzog and pitcher Joaquín Andújar in the fifth inning, as the game deteriorated into Royals rout,  11–0 . Denkinger accepted that he had made a terrible call, but as was the ethics in baseball at the time, took the position that such mistakes were an unavoidable part of the game. In  aftermath of the 1985 World Series, Denkinger death threats, from Cardinals fans. Two St. Louis disc jockeys doxxed him, giving out the umpire’s telephone number and home address. He was a well-regarded umpire, who at 83 years of age will still sign photographs of “the Call” when asked.

I guess I don’t want to see another umpire suffer Denkinger’s  fate tonight. It is inevitable that there will be a bad call of a strike or ball that makes an umpire a lifelong pariah, unless baseball locks that barn door as soon as possible. Continue reading →

From The “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Files: The Washington Post Plays Partisan Politics With A Headline, And Can’t Even Do It Competently

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Once again I will begin by saying that those who deny the partisan bias in the mainstream media against President Trump (among other topics) deserve contempt, either for their lack of perception of the obvious, or for their atrocious citizenship. The last metaphorical rotten journalism gun choking the public with smoke was September’s effort by the New York Times and two of its reporters to continue the smearing of Justice Kavanaugh, a story quickly buried by the Ukraine phone call impeachment plot. (I know, I know, I never got my promised post up on Kavanaugh II. But I will, if it takes until December…) The latest, this time by the Washington Post, is pure res ipsa loquitur. Let me break it down:

I. From the New York Post:

A “high value” target believed to be ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has died in a US raid in Syria Saturday, according to multiple news reports. Baghdadi was targeted in a strike by US Special Operations forces, three US officials told ABC News. One of those officials told ABC that it is believed the ISIS leader detonated a suicide vest as the ground raid was carried out in the northwestern city of Idlib. Defense Department officials told the White House Saturday it had “great confidence” that Baghdadi was killed in the raid, Newsweek reported, citing Army sources.

This is an undeniable achievement by U.S. forces of the type that the previous President claimed great credit for, and received from the news media without hesitation.

II. Reporting on the terrorist leader’s death, some headline writer at the Washington Post naively played it straight, as if the Post was a real, trustworthy news source. Referring to Al-Baghdadi as “Islamic State’s terrorist-in-Chief” in the obituary heading. Oooh, can’t have that! It will make casual readers assume that the Trump Administration did something praiseworthy!  So the foolishly objective headline writer was dispatched to the Kids Post section, and new headline was appended:

That means President Trump just killed a religious scholar! Oh, he may have been austere, but that’s no reason to kill him! Trump’s a monster!

This was so misleading and blatantly absurd that it didn’t remain for more than a couple of hours. Ultimately the Post settled on…

That’s better, but it omits the little detail that the man was a terrorist, like, for example, Osama Bin Laden. The first headline was the right one; unfortunately, it might have benefited President Trump.

III.  The Post was caught red-handed. Tweeted muck-raking journalist Glenn Greenwald, no friend he either to the mainstream media or President Trump…

Democrats, Washington Post, mainstream media…Greenwald properly lumps them all together. Charles Glasser wrote, Continue reading →

Afternoon Ethics Jolt, 10/8/2019: Gaslighting, And Other Lousy Things To Do…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

HI!

1. Impeachment junk! There is so, so much of this. I am trying to decide if my launching an impeachment information and commentary website is feasible (for me, and any volunteers who step up), but it certainly is necessary.

  • Deja vu…I am again hearing and reading the opinion that the President’s various maneuvers to block testimony and subpoenas are indications of guilt. This is why the Democratic Party’s creeping totalitarianism is ominous—people slip so easily into totalitarian mindsets. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!’ is an anti-civil rights position, and yet here are alleged progressives chanting that Orwellian motto again.

The President has every reason to regard the Democratic fishing expeditions and non-inquiry inquiry into impeachment as an attack on the Separation of Powers and Constitutional government itself. Thus he has every right to make Congress’s abuse of process as difficult as possible, whether he has anything to hide, or not.

Circulating claims of Trump-Russian collusion prior to the 2016 election didn’t work. Using foreign-supplied fake intelligence, from a British spy who utilized Russian sources, to obtain surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition team didn’t work.Intimidating Electoral College Electors to change their votes after the election didn’t work. Having the Director of the FBI lie to, set up and try to entrap the president didn’t work. Having that same FBI Director leak memos to the media to manufacture grounds for a Special Counsel didn’t work.Trying to invoke the 25th Amendment to declare the president unable to perform the job didn’t work.Two years of the Mueller Investigation didn’t work.Three years of a permanent crisis news cycle meant to paralyze the administration didn’t work.

After all these failures to unwind the 2016 election, Democrats and the mainstream media are trying a new tactic: Create a Star Chamber “impeachment” process fueled by anonymous whistleblowers and selective leaks that is not so much designed to remove the president, though they would if they could, but to manipulate the 2020 election…By cloaking witnesses with the protection of whistleblowers, the whistleblower protections are being abused. In response to the announcement of Whistleblower No. 2, we remarked: “Abuse of whistleblower protections. This person is simply a witness to someone else’s complaint who already has been interviewed. Weaponization of whistleblower laws is yet another breach of norms in effort to unwind 2016 election.”…With Whistleblower No. 1 failing to fulfill the mission, there was a leak to the NY Times of a potential Whistleblower No. 2. That’s how this is going to work, there will be leaks to the media to frame the public narrative just like regarding supposed Russian-collusion.”

I think this is probably right.

  • Don’t confuse them with facts, their minds are made up. Ann Althouse passed along Sheryl Attkisson’s tweet:

  • Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Also from Althouse, we learn that the following headline is on the Washington Post’s front page:

“The GOP’s bootlicking cowardice knows no bounds.”

  • Polls, for whatever they’re worth…According to one poll, President Trump is gaining among independent voters in head-to-head matchups with the Democratic presidential front-runners, according to a new IBD-TIPP poll. This would be expected by anyone other than deranged, impeachment obsessed Democrats, since the non-biased could be anticipated to object to a party attempting to circumvent an election through abuse of the system. but who knows. Conservative pundit Matt Margolis writes, “Many on the right have warned Democrats that impeachment fever will only benefit Trump in the long run—and they appear to be proven right by this poll.”

Wrong. How can a poll “prove ” anything? Yet polls are always being offered as “proof.” It isn’t even honest to describe them as evidence. Continue reading →

Late-Starting Week Ethics Warm-Up, 9/3/2019: Why We Have Fake News

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

A post-Labor Day mess in San Francisco…

Good morning!

1. Why we have fake news, Part A: “Journalists just make stuff up.” From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

A survey of American Jews showed continued disapproval of President Donald Trump, with anti-Semitism high and Israel low on the priority list for Jewish voters. The survey, conducted for a liberal-leaning Jewish organization, the Jewish Electorate Institute, by Greenberg Research, which does polling for Democratic candidates, showed 71 percent of likely Jewish-American voters disapprove of Trump and 29 percent approve, commensurate with polling since Trump’s election…The survey released Wednesday of 1,000 Jewish voters nationally was taken between May 6 and 12, and is consistent with past polling of a constituency that leans strongly Democratic…The poll showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favorable/unfavorable score as 45/38. Netanyahu used to score high approval among American Jews, but his sustained clashes with Obama on Palestinian and Iran policy, and his closeness to Trump appear to have eroded American Jewish support.

Gallup:

….Our aggregate from January through August of this year shows a 29% Trump job approval rating among Jews, with 69% disapproval….

Now here’s ABC News Chief Political Analyst Matthew Dowd on Twitter:

Dowd is just citing statistic pulled out of the air, apparently. How can anyone trust these people? Continue reading →