Category: My Take

Much of my nearly 40-year career in communications involved codes of conduct, compliance, and grievance procedure development. Some observations.

• The Supreme’s Impressions of a Code of Conduct contain five Canons, and with commentary is more than 5000 words. A Canon, in the Catholic Church, is an ecclesiastical rule or law enacted by a council or other competent authority and approved by the Pope.
• In perspective, The Ten Commandments (in Exodus) is 313 words that, standing alone, have spoken more powerfully to the world for thousands of years, never really needing 50, 500, or 5000 words of explanation or interpretation. It got them anyway, but they don’t matter. Well, except for the George Carlin “Ten Commandments” version on You Tube . Funny but crude.
• The Gettysburg address was 272 words.
• The SCOTUS Toothless Code has five Canons, but no compliance, enforcement,or penalties for mistakes and intentional errors. The Catholic Church has 1752 Canons complete with penalties and punishments. Enforced by men purportedly representing God.
• Look where their Canons got them.
• Strangely missing from the SCOTUS Code are the who and how the Code is monitored rand enforced. Instead, it is explained that SCOTUS is more than just another court system, it is The Head of all courtm systems.
• The SCOTUS introduction to its Code sounds a lot like the opening of a legal defense than setting conduct standards. It contains this phrase: “For the most part these rules and principles are not new.” Indicating that the entire document is suspect, guilt averse, and “Not New.” than setting conduct standards. It contains this phrase: “For the most part these rules and principles are not new.” Indicating that the entire document is suspect, guilt averse, and “Not New.”
• Defendant statements like this one frequently contain “Not” statements where the “Not” usually precedes or succeeds a lie. “I am not a crook.”, “I did not have sex with that woman.”, “I am not a racist.”, you get the idea.
• The Justice’s avoid setting behavior standards and absolute guidance by sprinkling the five Canons with mealy mouthed equivocation and uncertainties primarily using the word “should”.
• Set Behavior Standards by replacing the words should, may, might, could, and would, everywhere in the five Canon’s document with will, must, or shall.:
• Canon ONE: A Justice Should Perform. A Justice Should Uphold The Integrity And Independence Of The Judiciary. Why not, must, will, or shall?
• Canon TWO: A Justice Should Avoid Impropriety And The Appearance Of Impropriety In All Activities. . Why not, must, will, or shall?
• Canon THREE: A Justice Should Perform The Duties Of The Office Fairly, Impartially, And Diligently. . Why not, must, will, or shall?
• Canon FOUR: Replace Should with must, will, or shall.
• Canon FIVE: Replace Should with must, will, or shall.
• To be credible, Codes set Behavior Standards by using clear language of accountability and authorize sanctions and penalties.
• The net effect of the 5000-word SCOTUS Code commentary seems to ordain justices as Demigods, sort of deified mortals. In a democracy, it is the people who have the last word. Several concepts for Code oversight have been proposed. Recent Further revelations of long-time judicial impropriety and that of with their friends, family, and political associates dramatically illustrates the immediate need for this extra level of protection for our democracy.
• The Supreme’s Troupe is operating like any large corporation in trouble. In the introduction, they advance an ex post facto explanation to demonstrate that they were in the right from the very beginning, and it is we who misunderstood. Oh, it’s our fault. This despite weeks and months of news stories where some of them are clearly in the wrong. Plus, we have suspected liars, during their confirmations, among the Supreme’s. It appears these individuals are still working for the person who appointed them and only part-time for the American people.
• Surely, there should be a scale of penalties up to and including suspension and expulsion. When the Supreme’s can whittle this 5000-word tome down to one or two 8.5” x 11” sheets of paper, on one side double-spaced, including compliance requirements, some of the credibility they seek to re-establish may yet return. Most of the collateral language in the existing commentary can be boiled down to being an exculpatory and deflective exercise meaning, “Never mind, just trust us.” Trust but verify, yes.

SCOTUS, in fact, acts as many of my large corporate clients have over the years when in trouble. They believe that producing an overwhelming amount of data (5000+ words?) demonstrates the truth of any position and the insidious falseness of the non-believers (many, many of us). They ignore the basic structure of truth, which in my experience is 15% facts and data. 85% is responding to the emotions of its audiences and victims who are responsible for the ongoing disappointedly low and declining levels of respect for SCOTUS. The court says we misunderstood. The court chooses negative condescension and condemnation as its defense against you and me.
-It is we who are too stupid to understand what these omnipotent deities should be doing and working on.

The Justices call their Code exercise a “codification.” In plain English? The translation: from the bureaucratic to self-forgiving obfuscation.

Why do the smart ones in trouble always blame the victims (you and me) and question our intelligence? The answer is this pattern of misbehavior so prevalent these days at the top of things. This Code is an exercise in invincibility. Enabled by ignoring what it considers petty misbehaviors, then uses these mundane systemic personal leadership failures to justify even authorize their previously committed bad acts and subsequent misbehavior.

Also see: “The Psychology Behind Unethical Behavior,” Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg, Harvard Business Review, 4/12/19. Her theory of omnipotence (invincibility), cultural numbness, and justified neglect is a truly original and invaluable insight into the misbehavior of powerful people.

Republican Debate #3 Was Informative (Surprise)

Trump’s absence allows a much better view of those he is about to defeat. The poling results in 2020 were a disaster (to quote someone we shall not name.) Please, remember, in American politics, nothing is certain until the votes are counted. The media still uses polls mixed together. Each poll alone is likely misleading and inaccurate.

The media’s solution is mixing polls together. But, unlike a tasty midwestern hotdish, mixing polls keeps a small, fading industry alive and produces what? False hopes, misleading information, and confusion. Look for repeat polling failure in 2024. Notice the word Truth is missing from the media’s product list. Been gone a long time.

What We Learned From The Third Debate

Mr. Scott Departed.


Mr. Ramaswamy Departed.


Mr. Christie, sometimes makes sense, states the obvious, but you just can’t see him as a president. He may be younger than Biden, but he still represents yesterday. Is that where America wants to go?


Mr. DeSanctimonious remains the self-declared better person than everyone else unless you are too stupid to see it. Hah! Even on television, his nose is so high it almost leaves the screen. His decline continues. He begs you to hate him. He wants to teach your children. That is scary.


Mrs. Haley, New leaders are often discovered during controversy. This happened during Debate a viable/peaceful resolution to the abortion conundrum plaguing American politics for the last half century, amazing. Her numbers are up and , leading Mr. DeSanctimonious in some early primaries.

Some Things Seem Certain

• The primary season already underway is going to be long, with lots of fake, non-news, and phony information and predictions sold as “breaking news.” (The biggest lie in communications.)
• CNN will reach 40 commercials per hour.
• Heavyset sick people will continue dancing happily in television commercials (fromtheir residuals) for really expensive diabetes drugs. I have diabetes, I’m in the doctor’soffice frequently. I can assure you; no one is dancing in there.
• Medicare Insurance Scams Must Be Stopped. The insurance vultures and crooks ledby formerly trustworthy movie, television and sports stars are out in force ripping offmillions of seniors selling unneeded Medicare advice, and needless extra insurance. Medicare was designed so that senior citizens could easily and conveniently get Medicarehelp and information from empathetic and helpful Government agencies. I am 82, I do know.
• The Department of Justice needs to powerfully prosecute and penalize the Licensed insurance Agents and the celebrities who benefit if fraud is occurring.