Ethics Shmethics; Substack, December 25, 2025

Robert Reich, Substack; Ethics Shmethics

"Why haven’t the American Bar Association or the American Medical Association stood up against the unethical behavior of professionals in the Trump regime? 

I was always told that professional associations existed to maintain professional standards, not merely to restrict the number of licensed professionals to maintain professional prices...

If legal ethics mean anything, Halligan should be disbarred. 

If medical ethics mean anything, Dr. Vinay Prasad should no longer be a doctor...

If professional associations have any legitimate purpose in our system, it is to enforce ethical standards and hold professionals accountable to them...

Where are the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association during Trump’s unscrupulous reign?"

State commission moves to strike standard for library directors; Montana Free Press, October 11, 2023

 Alex Sakariassen, Montana Free Press; State commission moves to strike standard for library directors

"The Montana State Library Commission voted Wednesday to strike a longstanding professional requirement applied to the directors of Montana’s eight largest libraries, one that dictates whether those libraries qualify for state funding.

Currently, public libraries that serve more than 25,000 people must employ a director with a graduate degree in library or information science in order to qualify for state certification and, by extension, state revenue. A task force earlier this year recommended that the library commission maintain that requirement. However, several commissioners Wednesday argued that professional standards should be left to local library trustees to set...

Gregory added that Montanans expect their accountants, physicians and attorneys to meet certain educational benchmarks and that removing a similar standard for library directors sends the message that “librarianship is not a profession that needs a professional course of study or license.”"

Ethics? Hah!; Letter to the Editor, The Pueblo Chieftain, June 9, 2017

Tom Carpenter, Letter to the Editor, The Pueblo Chieftain; Ethics? Hah!

"When President Trump waived the ethics rules for his White House staff, I had to reexamine my own thoughts on what I think ethics are.

In my past as a business person, I served on an ethics committee and a professional standards committee. As a Republican, I chaired a political action committee for the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce (before Rod Slyhoff was director). And again as a businessman, I was the Southern Colorado coordinator for the Better Business Bureau. Could my understanding of ethics be so wrong?

To clear up any confusion on my part, I sought an answer from Merriam Webster, to wit: "The discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation".

Nope, it is just what I thought it was. Evidently, we don't need no stinkin' ethics in the White House.

Tom Carpenter

Pueblo"