Archive for the ‘Government’ Category
June 6, 2011
At a circus of a press conference, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) admitted tweeting a photo of his brief-covered crotch to a 21-year old college student, then panicking and lying to cover it up. What ethics rule did Weiner break?
The Golden Rule, for one. He hurt a lot of people, starting with his wife, his loyal Congressional staff, the people who believed in him, and apparently, even Andrew Breitbart, the scurrilous right wing defamer and doctorer of videos.
The nearly universal rule against lying, for another. If we lie to each other society crumbles.
The rule that says do what’s expected of you. The voters who sent Weiner to Congress expected –reasonably—different of him.
In addition to the ethics violations Weiner violated the First Law of Washington Scandal: the cover-up is worse than the crime. In this respect he is forcing his admirers (including me, as of last week) to question his sanity: What in the world was he thinking when he made up those pathetically lame, unbelievable lies. Nobody, no matter their politics, not even Chris Mathews, believed he was telling the truth.
To Weiner’s credit, and there’s not much in this to his credit, he set the standard for apologizing. No “I’m sorry if you thought…” or “I was under the influence of a new allergy prescription,” or (more…)
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Tags:Andrew Breitbart, Anthony Weiner, Apologies, Chris Matthews, cover-up, crotch photo, ethics, Golden Rule, House Ethics Committee, lying, Nancy Pelosi, tweeting
Posted in Apologies, Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | Leave a Comment »
June 4, 2011
Americans—especially older Americans—like Israel because it’s like America: democracy, constitutional principles, independent, industrious, and tough people. But the trend on American campuses is to not like Israel so much because of the way they treat the Palestinians (and Syrians) in the territories they conquered in 1967. As Thomas Friedman told Fareed Zakaria last Sunday,
“Netanyahu…can get standing ovations in the U.S. Congress anytime [he wants], seven days a week, 24/7. How many standing ovations do you think he could get at the student government at the University of Missouri? At Stanford? At Harvard? At the University of Virginia? At the University of Texas? If you went to those student governments, they’re the future. They’re the future of voters. They’re the future people who will maintain the strategic relationship with Israel. And there, I can tell you, as anyone who goes to college campuses knows, that people don’t get Israel, what Israel is doing right now. They — some are alienated.”
The students are seeing the right-wing religious parties gaining more of a stranglehold over Israeli government policies, and seeing treatment of the conquered peoples getting worse. Fans of Israel have long defended her by saying (more…)
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Tags:Al Jazeera, conquered territories, ethics, Fareed Zakaria, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Israeli rabbis, Lod Municipality, Netanyahu, racist state. Palestinians, religious parties, segregated schools, standing ovations, student governments, Syrians, Thomas Friedman, U.S. Congress
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
May 23, 2011
Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) announced that he’d tell voters the “hard truths” as he campaigns for the Republican Presidential nomination. Ho-hum. We’ve heard that one before.
But listen up. Pawlenty opened his campaign today in Iowa by telling Iowans that he opposes federal subsidies for corn-based ethanol. In Iowa for gosh sakes! Next thing you know he’ll tell Floridians that he favors raising the retirement age for Social Security. Oh, but his campaign says that’s exactly what he’ll do next.
The great shame of democratic (and Democratic…and Republican) politics is politicians telling voters what they think the voters want to hear instead of what the politician really thinks. Pawlenty says he’ll be a different kind of candidate, and his first day is a sign that he means it.
Edmund Burke told his constituents 237 years ago that a representative owes them “his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving [them], if he sacrifices it to [their] opinion.” Following Burke’s example is one of the two highest ethical duties* of an elected official.
Pawlenty gets the mythical Edmund Burke Award for his ethanol position. Here’s hoping that politicians of both parties rush to follow his example.
*The other is the duty to heed Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
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Tags:corn-based ethanol, Edmund Burke, Edmund Burle Award, ethanol subsidies, ethical duties, ethics, hard truths, Iowa politics, Pawlenty, Reinhold Niebuhr, Republican Presidential nomination, Social Security retirement age, third rail
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
Has the President “thrown Israel under the bus,” as Mitt Romney said yesterday? Has he “once again betrayed our friend and ally, Israel,” as Michele Bachmann raged? Made a “mistaken and very dangerous demand,” as Tim Pawlenty accused? Or has he “given the Palestinians a huge break,” per Newt Gingrich?
Here’s what the President said:
“I believe that any peace agreement between them will require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities and to ensure that the Palestinian state is viable and contiguous.”
Oops. That wasn’t this President, it was President George W. Bush, speaking in Jerusalem on January 11, 2008.
Here’s what President Obama said yesterday:
“We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”
Get the difference? No? That’s because there isn’t any. The 1949 and 1967 lines are the same. The only difference is that Republican politicians will scream in opposition to anything that President Obama says, even if George W. Bush said the same thing without any complaint.
Politics doesn’t stop at the water’s edge any more.
_________
Thanks to Michael Smerconish and Hardball for the quotes used here.
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Tags:1949 lines, 1967 lines, ethics, George W Bush, Israel borders, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, mutually agreed swaps, Obama, Palestinian state, Palestinians . Newt Gingrich, peace agreement, Republican hypocrisy, secure borders, Tim Pawlenty, water's edge
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Politics | Leave a Comment »
April 8, 2011
In the run-up to tonight’s budget agreement that will keep the federal government from shutting down, the last remaining point of contention was about federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Republican Whip, opposed the funding because, he said, Planned Parenthood’s main business is abortions:
“Everybody goes to clinics, to hospitals, to doctors, and so on. Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.”
When a PP spokesperson responded that only three per cent of its services are abortions, Sen. Kyl’s office backtracked…sort of. Here’s the entire statement:
“His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.”
We can’t say that Sen. Kyl lied, because a lie is a deliberately false statement made with intent to deceive. Sen. Kyl only meant to “illustrate.” So whether or not he’s a liar, best not to assume anything he says is true.
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Tags:abortions, budget agreement, ethics, government shut down, Jon Kyl, Planned Parenthood
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 3 Comments »
February 24, 2011
Here’s another difference between the revolution in Wisconsin and the one in Egypt: Mubarak sent thugs into the middle of peaceful demonstrations to intimidate and maim his opponents. Gov. Scott Walker didn’t.
Oh, he thought about it, rolled it over on his tongue, but finally decided against—not because it was wrong, but because it might backfire. Walker was the victim of a prank phone caller who fooled the governor into thinking he was billionaire industrialist and big time political contributor David Koch.
Here’s the relevant part of the conversation. (Redstateupdate.com has the audio of the entire call here.)
Koch impersonator: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.
Walker: Y’know, the only problem with that, ’cause we thought about that. He then goes into a halting explanation that he’s winning, that the legislators and the public has turned against the teachers. Then:
We thought about that. My only fear would be if there were a ruckus caused is that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor has got to settle to avoid all these problems.
Impersonators brought down ACORN and damaged Planned Parenthood. Has one just mortally wounded Gov. Walker and his anti-union campaign? You don’t have to be an ethicist to be horrified that he would consider for a second sending thugs into a peaceful mass demonstration Stay tuned.
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Tags:ACORN, David Koch, Egypt revolution, ethics, impersonators, Planned Parenthood, prank caller, Redstateupdate.com, Scott Walker, teachers, troublemakers, Wisconsin governor
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 1 Comment »
February 21, 2011
Revolution in the air in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya, and…Wisconsin? The Wisconsin brouhaha, unlike the others, seems not to have any good guys: EthicsAlarms.com does its usual good job of fairly laying out the good and bad, the credit and the blame. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, the runaway Democratic senators, the public employee unions, and the teachers all have some right and some wrong about their positions. Except the teachers, whose behavior is totally reprehensible.
Thousands of Wisconsin teachers, prohibited from striking by state law, falsely claimed to be sick and took days off to demonstrate in the state capital. They scored a twofer, both neglecting their young charges and setting an example that lying to your employer in your own self interest is acceptable.
Public servants are under fire all over the US in this time of budget crises. The Wisconsin teachers by their dishonest and irresponsible behavior seem to confirm the worst stereotypes about public employees.
When the Boston police went out on strike in 1919, Gov. Calvin Coolidge stood by his commissioner who fired the strikers, famously announcing, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” When America’s air traffic controllers broke the law prohibiting strikes by federal workers in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 who had refused to return to work.
Coolidge and Reagan showed backbone and the public embraced their actions. Time for the Wisconsin school boards to show their backbone and fire the teachers who lie to their employers and harm the children they are supposed to teach.
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Tags:air traffic controllers strike, Boston police strike, budget crises, Calvin Coolidge, Egypt, ethics, EthicsAlarms.com, Gov. Scott Walker, public employee unions, Public servants, Reagan, Revolution, runaway Democratic senators, schoolteachers, Wisconsin
Posted in Education, Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
February 17, 2011
Everybody in politics knows that federal spending is unsustainable: ending earmarks, eliminating waste, cutting non-defense discretionary spending won’t make more difference than baling out a sinking ship with a teacup. Drastic action is called for. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security have to be cut back or they’ll bankrupt the nation.
But our political leaders run from the problem. In the debate last year over health care reform, Republicans accused proponents of wanting to ration health care, and the Democrats, instead of saying, “Yes, it’s rationed now and we’ll have to ration it a lot more,” denied and denied. “Not us!”
Now come three prominent Republicans to speak truth to power—to the voting public.
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) grabbed the third rail of American politics when he told an American Enterprise Institute audience, “You’re going to have to raise the retirement age for Social Security. Oh, I just said it. And I’m still standing here. I did not vaporize into the carpeting, and I said it.”
Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) was even bolder—and more comprehensive—in a thoughtful speech to CPAC ( the Conservative Political Action Conference) in Washington. He told the right wing audience that his own party hasn’t tackled the problem, dealing instead with trifles: “Talking much more about [earmarks], or ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ trivializes what needs to be done and misleads our fellow citizens to believe that easy answers are available.” Instead Daniels proposed cutting defense, and radically changing Social Security and Medicare (more…)
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Tags:American Enterprise Institute, and abuse, Chris Christie, Conservative Political Action Conference, earmarks, ethics, federal entitlements, federal spending, fraud, health care rationing, health care reform, House Budget Committee, Medicaid, Medicare, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Politico, Republicans, retirement age, Sam Goldwyn Awards, Social Security, third rail, truth to power, waste
Posted in Ethics-general, Finance, Government, Health care, Politics | Leave a Comment »
February 13, 2011
We’re responsible for what we tolerate. If I stand next to a friend who slanders you and say nothing, then I’ve accepted that slander and am responsible for it. John Boehner Told David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press that he believes Obama’s a Christian, born in Hawaii, but if a third of Republicans believe different, that’s apparently OK with Boehner: “It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think.”
Why not, Mr. Speaker? You’re complicit in the lies if you don’t challenge them.
And Glenn Beck says that a giant conspiracy comprising Obama, the Egyptian demonstrators, the Muslim Brotherhood, the communists, and the AFL-CIO is dedicated to creating a new caliphate that will govern all of Europe and the Middle East under Sharia law. And Americans, he beseeches, wake up before it’s too late.
We haven’t seen the polls or focus groups yet, but you can bet that a third of Republicans will swallow it, hook, line, and sinker.
The Republican Party has one adult, Bill Kristol, who publicly rejects Beck’s conspiracy rant:
Hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. (more…)
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Tags:AFL-CIO, Bill Kristol, Bill O’Reilly, birthers, caliphate, communists, conspiracy, David Gregory, Egyptian demonstrators, ethics, Fox News, Glenn Beck, John Birch Society, John Boehner, Meet the Press, Muslim Brotherhood, National Review, Obama, Republican Party, Rich Lowry, Robert Welch, Sharia, slander
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Media, Politics, Religion | 4 Comments »
At a circus of a press conference, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) admitted tweeting a photo of his brief-covered crotch to a 21-year old college student, then panicking and lying to cover it up. What ethics rule did Weiner break?
Ethics Bob 