Recent Ethics Commentaries

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Memo to: Alabama Voters
One week from tomorrow, December 12, Alabama voters go to the polls to vote for a replacement for Senator Jeff Sessions who was appointed U.S. attorney general. According to a CBS News poll, Republican Roy Moore is leading Democrat Doug Jones by 6 percentage points — 49 percent to Jones’s 43 among likely voters.  In the same poll, 71 percent...
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December 4, 2017
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Truth, Trust and Trump
“If Jesus Christ [got] down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him,  ‘Hold on a second. I need to check with the President if it’s true.’ ” – Trump voter, CNN New Day, November 20 This is how low truth and trust have plummeted in the eyes of some voters. Writing about the...
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December 1, 2017
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Of Hypocrites and Predators
Last night, 60 Minutes offered a powerful story by Aly Raisman about how the U.S. Olympic gymnast was sexually abused years ago by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. One question that continually comes up during stories like this is, why now? Why didn’t you report this earlier? Raisman’s answer, “Why are we looking at why didn’t the girls speak...
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November 13, 2017
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An Unheeded Warning
“Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide, and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership in either the legislative branch or the executive...
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October 27, 2017
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A Better America
Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz is my kind of leader. He’s responsible to the bottom line, sure, but he’s also cognizant of the many issues facing the country. In 2013, at the company’s annual meeting, a shareholder stood up to criticize Starbucks support of marriage equality, declaring, “In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our...
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October 18, 2017
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Trump v. Ethics
“The law’s totally on my side, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” – President-Elect Trump,  New York Times interview, November, 2016 During the 2016 campaign, Trump spoke dozens of times on Twitter and at rallies that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be prosecuted for having used a private e-mail server as secretary of state. “…nothing Hillary has said...
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September 29, 2017
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Et Tu, Peggy, Et Tu?
There is no nice way to say it: I am tired of political leadership in Washington using words like “inappropriate,” “inconsistent,” a “distraction,” and “un-presidential” to describe what my parents, grandparents, teachers, religious leaders, and most anyone with common sense would otherwise call, WRONG! To state the obvious: we have a 71-year-old president whose Twitter rants demonstrate that he is...
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July 5, 2017
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What We Stand For
Have you ever tried handwriting the entire text of the U.S. Constitution? “On Inauguration Day, [artist Morgan O’Hara] went to the [New York Public] library with a small suitcase of pens, a few Sharpies, papers and copies of the Constitution. I brought old notebooks, half-used drawing pads and loose sheets to share with anyone who might show up. I began...
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July 3, 2017
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Really, Sarah, Really?
Last Friday, CNN retracted a story that had appeared on its website incorrectly linking Trump confident and hedge-fund manager Anthony Scaramucci to a Russian investment fund supposedly under investigation by the Senate. On Tuesday, (June 27), White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wasted no time in calling this to the attention of all media at the (sometimes) daily...
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June 30, 2017
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Keeping CNN Honest
CNN’s Anderson Cooper has a semi-regular segment on his evening show called, Keeping Them Honest, where he reports about absurd or just plain wrong information. Now, the cable news channel is on the hook for posting on its website (not broadcasting) an inaccurate story of their own. On Monday, three CNN reporters resigned after the network retracted a story about...
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June 28, 2017

Read Some of the Most Recent Articles
The Latest... And Often Greatest
It Was Important Then. It is Important Today
Freedom of speech in America is under attack, not only when people are denied the right to speak, but when lies, intimidation and the deliberate...
When Political Identity Replaces Ethical Judgment
The political and cultural landscape has become a minefield of conflicting beliefs, many now rooted less in public policy than in personal identity. One of...
Principles Matter.
A few nights ago, I was watching The Way We Were, a film I’ve seen more times than I can count. This time, a single...
All the President’s Men 2.0
“Politics had infiltrated every corner of government—a strong-arm takeover of the agencies by the Nixon White House.” —Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s...
The Threat to November Is Already Here
“Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”—George Washington’s...
Jon Ossoff and the Conscience of Atticus Finch
I’ve written about Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff before, but after watching his questioning of Jay Clayton, President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence (DNI),...