Open Thread For October 22, 2017
Fox Paid $32 Mill To One Of O’Reilly’s Victims, Then Paid O’Reilly $25 Mill. The cost of doing business with a sexual predator. Bottom line: They knew he was a predator when they paid him $25 mill. It’s about time that all of these predators get what they deserve–including reputations in tatters. Hopefully along with jail time.
What A Mess This Prison Trial Is Gonna Be. Minner and especially Markell allowed the inevitable disaster to fester, Carney has no clue how to deal with it. The Oberly Report accurately affixed the blame, it deserves to be read.
Trump To Pay Aides’ Legal Fees? Jeez, what kind of conflicts-of-interest could that possibly lead to?
DeVos To Disabled Students: Drop Dead. Rescinds 72 (!) Obama protections for disabled students. Because…Obama.
WH Fed-Exes Condolence Letters To Gold Star Families. Dog bites man. He lied about having contacted ‘virtually’ every family. Unless ‘virtually every’ is synonymous with ‘none’.
The Real John Kelly. Or at least one of them. Hardly the sobering steady hand his PR makes him out to be. Although, when contrasted with Trump…
Can Dover’s Schwartz Center Be Saved? They’re giving it the old college try–w/o funding from the colleges.
Millennials Paying For News? Signs are encouraging.
What do you want to talk about?
You know what Bill O’Reilly is, after his dismissal by Fox News? He’s rich! Harvey Wallbanger, after being fired by the company he founded? Wealthy! Mr O’Reilly is 68 years old, not really worried about whether he has to work again, while Mr Weinstein is 65. Even Roman Polanski, a convicted felon for anally raping a 13-year-old girl, remains wealthy, and free, because the oh-so-liberal European nations won’t extradite him back to the United States.
Sexual harassment that does not rise to the level of criminality is a problem for the perpetrator only if he isn’t wealthy, only if he has to keep working for a living.
For the wealthy it’s no problem even if it does rise to the level of criminality. Polanski didn’t have the level of riches Bill Cosby or Havey Weinstein, and he didn’t have the cover of “partisan politics” like Bill Clinton or Trump, so he couldn’t hire the kind of lawyers who will sue you into oblivion for coming forward.
Europeans in general lack our Puritanical outlook on anything involving sex, but the problem here isn’t their “liberality.” It’s that money talks louder than morality. They turn the other way because Polanski is an artist, and people turn the other way here because the perpetrators are rich. The value systems are different but the result is the same.
If Brock Turner had been a black kid at Cleveland State he would have gotten a helluva lot longer sentence than he did as a white kid at Stanford.
I like this exchange.
Last Wednesday, O’Reilly twittered this:
“Sean Hannity kicking serious butt in the ratings. Tapper on CNN as low as you can go.”
11 minute later, Tapper replies:
“”Low” would be sexually harassing staffers and then getting fired for it — humiliated in front of the world. Now THAT would be low.”
Sure O’Reilly may be wealthy, but he can’t go anywhere and he can’t do anything. He’s not going to be invited to anything. He’s toast.
And this is what’s pissing me off today…
“Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/us/trump-epa-chemicals-regulations.html
Dr. Beck is a grotesque angel of death.
Jake Tapper is one of the classiest, most professional guys on TV
Unrelated to any of the above, but I’m curious: Has anyone received notice of nonpayment of NCC school and property taxes? We got a notice on Friday (with more than $100 in penalties added on) even though we paid the bill on time, as shown in our bank statement.
The house is in my mother’s name, a senior citizen. Check with your parents and if they’ve gotten a repeat bill, check that it’s not in error. This is the kind of thing older adults might not want to mention to their kids (you can use this comment as an excuse). They might have paid it but forgotten and are about to pay it again with penalties added. I’m wondering if our bill is an anomaly or if there was a glitch in the system.
Sorry for crossposting, but I’ll also be asking this on the blog of your separated-in-adolescence cohorts.
Edit: What I mean is that the blogs were separated in adolescence, not that y’all are adolescent!
@Paula-funny you should comment about NCC local school, county and other taxes and fees bill. We too got a notice last week stating we hadn’t paid our bill and additional fees had accrued. It’s true we hadn’t paid our bill. We called the County, said that we must have missed it, can they waive the fees. They emphatically said No and pay in a week or we’ll assess you more penalties. After reading your post, we went back and looked for a bill and haven’t found it. I’m thinking we never received the initial billing.
@Elaine, I guess all the notices went out last week — right and wrong. I wonder how many other wrong ones there are. I was ready to believe I had overlooked it.
“Sure O’Reilly may be wealthy, but he can’t go anywhere and he can’t do anything.”
Except write another terrible yet best-selling faux historical book.
At least I assume its dreadful, I got about 1/2 way through Killing Lincoln and couldn’t finish and haven’t bothered with any of the others.
The secret about all those “best-selling” books is that they are bought by people who don’t read them specifically to reward the authors whose names are on the cover. That’s why the NYTimes now puts a dagger next to books whose sales are raised by bulk purchases. It’s another form of wingnut welfare.
I am actually related (by marriage) to someone who sent tens of thousands of dollars to TV preachers like Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker. Conservative politics is for the conservatives who would rather be true to their nature than pretend to looooove Jesus.
That your local property taxes are due shouldn’t be a surprise that you wouldn’t have a reason to know about. They are always due on the last day of September.
I doubt that any property owner didn’t get the initial notice sent out at the start of the fiscal year (July) who then would later receive a late notice and argue the case.
But it is disturbing to imagine false claims of non-payment being issued causing the need for people to take the time to have to submit proof of payment.
One of the problems in the sexual harassment stories is that sexual harassment is not being defined. Is asking a woman out sexual harassment? Is asking her out a second or third time, if she declines the first invitation? Is complimenting a woman’s appearance sexual harassment?
We’ve seen some descriptions of Harvey Wallbanger’s behavior, but in the recent stories about Fidelity executives and the like, we don’t know what behavior is being a problem.
“Is asking a woman out sexual harassment?” No.
“Is asking her out a second or third time, if she declines the first invitation?” You’re getting warmer.
“Is complimenting a woman’s appearance sexual harassment?” Yes. Though there are ways to do it that aren’t, most men don’t know them.
Pro tip: Compliment an article of clothing, especially shoes. That will get you a lot further than complimenting her looks. Complimenting the shoes is an up-vote for her taste — a better compliment than telling her she’s beautiful, which is an accident of birth.
@Elaine, @Nancy and all: I retract my accusation of erroneous NCC tax penalty billing. I was looking at 2016 payments. I completely missed the July 2017 bill, possibly because I was out of town when it usually comes (at a certain beach house in Ocean Grove) and maybe it got lost in a pile of junk mail. Anyway, I followed the instructions of Judy at NCC accounting and flagged the date it should arrive in the 2018 calendar.