Just before signing The Stock Act which now makes it illegal for members of Congress and their staff to profit from inside financial information, President Obama declared, “The powerful shouldn’t get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for everybody else.” In 2004, I once asked a well-connected financial guy why someone like businesswoman and billionaire Martha...

Washington and Lincoln could not have come from more different backgrounds. And yet, in spite of vast differences, both men not only attained the highest office in the land, but the admiration and respect of generations. Both consistently rank as the top two presidents by most scholars. While Lincoln was born dirt poor in Kentucky, Washington was born to a...

Last November, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft reported on a nice little perk that members of Congress have enjoyed for some time, insider trading. According to a report entitled, Insiders, Kroft interviewed “Peter Schweizer… a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University… Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators managed to accumulate significant wealth...

What, you haven’t hear about this? What if I told you that this year, football’s premier event, the Super Bowl, will be played under amended rules? That’s right, in a move that will stun New York fans and likely launch thousands of protests, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is set to announce that Giants’ running backs and receivers will be required...

That was the front page headline on the Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor, Tuesday, January 17. One day earlier, Professor Stephen Ambra and I screened the film Good Night and Good Luck about the journalistic stand news icon Edward R. Murrow took against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s “Red” scare tactics. The film was part of ourContemporary Ethical Issues class at the New Hampshire Technical...

It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one pointing out the lack of a clearly defined ethical code followed by justices on the Supreme Court. “Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.,” the NEW YORK TIMES writes in an editorial (Judicial Ethics and the Supreme Court, Jan. 5) “skirted the heart of the problem: the justices are the only American...

“Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.” – John McCarthy, British Journalist During the course of a recent talk on ethics I spoke about the need to forgive; to forgive those who have not only hurt our feelings but even those who have stolen or cheated.  During the Q&A, someone asked if that forgiveness should extend to the corporate CEOs at...

Here’s an early Christmas gift. In what has become an annual event, Politifact.com, the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-check organization, has revealed itsLie of the Year for 2011. And the winner is… “Republicans voted to end Medicare.” “Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April, that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit,”...

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., U.S. forces destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Japan with the first atomic bomb used in warfare directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. Injury and radiation increased that total to 90,000 to 140,000. Three days later, a second A-bomb was used to destroy Nagasaki directly killing another 60,000 to 80,000 men, women and children....

This is not a good year to be a member of Congress. In its annual measure of Ethics and Honesty in Professionssurvey, the Gallup organization, not surprisingly, found that 64% of Americans rate Congress at “Low” or “Very Low,” which tied a record low score with Lobbyists in 2008. Telemarketers, stockbrokers, bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers all beat out Congress...