Washington Produces Narcissistic, Selfish, Back Stabbing, Lying, Hypocritical Bigots
The View from the Middle
In Romans 3:10, the Bible says that, “There is no one who is good, not even one!” As if to put an exclamation point on that thought, this week Washington D.C. put on a display of the most childish, crude, disgusting, dishonest and downright despicable behavior I have ever witnessed. To be clear, our politicians proved last week that no person or party holds the moral high ground in our nation's capital. In fact, I doubt they can even see the moral high ground from the sewer system they all occupy.
First, our President continued his 3rd grade, name-calling tweets that most of the country wishes he would stop. Even for those people who agree with his policies, it makes it difficult to defend him. But for those of you who believe Washington was ever an oasis of camaraderie and harmony, wake up! Before Trump, people in Washington would smile in your face and shake your hand and then try to destroy you behind your back. Some people say Trump is the most transparent President in our history and they applaud his blunt honesty. I personally don’t like the name-calling or the backstabbing but prefer that people actually show respect for each other and work together to solve problems.
Then you have Frederica Wilson’s hit job on the President. Even when the President has the best of intentions, there are some who will try to politicize it for their own benefit. Frederica said she was invited on this call. By whom? Did Trump invite you, Frederica? I doubt it. Did Trump even know you were listening? Even if what she did were not illegal, speakerphone etiquette would suggest that you should identify yourself if you are listening. Frederica, your 15 minutes are up. Go howl at the moon.
Then you had two Republican Senators, who didn’t have a prayer of re-election, stoop even below the President’s low bar for decorum and throw public verbal tantrums as they left. They kind of reminded me of Hillary Clinton. Which brings me to Hillary. Where should I start?
After denying any connection to Fusion GPS for months, it has been proven that Hillary and her campaign and the DNC not only knew about these slime balls, but they funded their work. And let’s stop calling this “opposition research”. Every politician does research on their opponents to find out what they have supported in the past or if there is any hypocrisy with their positions today. The word “research” implies a search for actual FACTS. What Hillary and the DNC did was to create a dossier of total BS that they could peddle to the media hoping to get someone to dip so low as to publish it. Their hope, I’m sure, was that by the time the actual truth came out, the election would be over and she would have won. This was a “smear job’ not opposition research.
And now we have the Uranium One deal, where we (that is Hillary, Eric Holder and others) decided to sell 20% of America’s Uranium supply to the Russians. Go back and read that sentence again. Does that even make sense? Now let’s add to this story the fact that the Clinton Foundation received $145 million from Russian companies connected with the Uranium One deal and Bill Clinton received a half million dollars for a twenty minute speech from a Russian bank with ties to Uranium One.
Of course, Hillary will claim that there is no connection between these payments and her decision to approve the deal. The Russians were giving money to the Clinton Foundation because of all the good work they do. Yah! And Bill’s inspiring words are worth $25,000 a minute (plus expenses of course). There are a few people who will fall for that line of bull, but the fact is even President Obama asked Hillary not to accept funds from these sources because of the optics it created. I have to agree with our former President on that.
Hillary has used the “I misremembered” and “I don’t recall” defense to keep her out of jail up to now. James Comey let her off the hook for her improper server because he couldn’t prove “intent” to break the law, but at some point in time we all have to admit that some facts speak for themselves. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton should not have been taking money from foreign entities while making decisions that impacted those same countries. Would you want Trump to sell Alaska to the Russians and then build a hotel in Moscow for free the next week? No connection of course.
Yes, this week has simply validated in my mind that Washington is full of narcissistic, selfish, backstabbing, lying hypocritical bigots on both sides of the political spectrum. The only question is – do they come there with that disposition or does the atmosphere of absolute power in Washington produce them over time. I believe it is the latter, so term limits will slowly weed out the converted, while not creating new ones and allow our government to work for “we the people” as our founders intended.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Monday, October 16, 2017
The Real Disgrace in the Harvey Weinstein Case
The Real Disgrace in the Harvey Weinstein Case
The View from the Middle
The levels of disgrace in the Harvey Weinstein scandal are as numerous and disturbing as the circles in Dante’s inferno. First, there is Harvey himself. His actions, over decades, are as disgusting and disturbing and deranged as they can be. Harvey has been a serial rapist, a chronic abuser and a regular insulter of women. And when I say “insulter” I’m trying to describe how a woman might feel as Harvey masturbated in front of her. I’m insulted that I even have to write that sentence.
The second layer of disgrace comes compliments of the slime ball, scumbag politicians that took Mr. Weinstein’s money in the name of social justice and women’s rights. This would be the equivalent of B’nai B’rith taking money from Hitler. It would be like the NAACP taking money from David Duke. It would be like the International Union of Chickens taking money from Colonel Sanders.
And the people who took millions of dollars from Harvey Weinstein read like a “who’s who” from the Democrat party. Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Cory Booker, Chuck Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are just a few of the hypocrites that gladly took Harvey’s contributions while knowing FULL WELL what he was doing. And if there is a Republican who took money from this jerk, I condemn you too!!
Most of these politically correct narcissists are now saying that they will give his money back. Might I just suggest that the press should keep an eye on these people and make sure that they actually return these funds. I think that these people are no more likely to return Harvey’s money than those Hollywood stars who promised to leave the country if Trump got elected made good on those vows.
But I have to give it to Hillary Clinton who basically said that she’s going to keep the money. Now, we all have to read between her muddy and murky lines to get to that truth, but that’s what she said. When asked what she was going to do with his money, her actually words were, “There’s nowhere to give it back to!” Besides being a very poor example of the English language, that is factually incorrect. She CAN give it back to Harvey himself, or she could give it to his company. There are no laws that prevent her from doing that. So basically she is either lying or terribly misinformed.
Then, when reporters suggested that she could give it to charity, she said, “I give 10% of my income every year, so this will be part of that.” In other words, she is going to deduct Mr. Weinstein’s contributions from her normal giving and thus reduce the amount of her own money that she gives to charity. Wow, how cheap can she be?
The acceptance of Mr. Weinstein’s money also serves as a soft endorsement of his activities. This gives a green light to his minions, like Ben Affleck, that his kind of behavior will be tolerated, as long as they support the right people financially.
But the final and deepest and darkest disgrace in this whole story is that these people knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing for decades. He has been publicly outed multiple times by the likes of Seth MacFarlane. He even had a clause in his contract with his company that allowed this behavior as long as Harvey paid off litigants to keep the stench down to an acceptable level.
Yes, they all knew what Harvey was doing for decades, but here’s the big sin. They did nothing about it. This allowed him to rape and abuse women for years and blackmail women with threats to their careers to gain their silence. How many of these women could have been saved the humiliation if Mr. Weinstein’s practices had been exposed at the very beginning. At least Jane Fonda (and believe me, I’m not a fan) had the decency to admit that she was “ashamed” of her silence.
The saddest note of all is that this simply exposes the absolute depth of hypocrisy that exists in Washington and Hollywood. When will we learn that these people do not serve the public that pays their salaries through their taxes and box office support? They serve only themselves and their unquenchable thirst for power, money and an unlimited need for self-adulation.
There are two small things we can do. We can create a constitutional amendment that will limit the terms of our congressmen and women and we can stay home and play charades instead of going to the movies. We might actually get to know each other better.
The View from the Middle
The levels of disgrace in the Harvey Weinstein scandal are as numerous and disturbing as the circles in Dante’s inferno. First, there is Harvey himself. His actions, over decades, are as disgusting and disturbing and deranged as they can be. Harvey has been a serial rapist, a chronic abuser and a regular insulter of women. And when I say “insulter” I’m trying to describe how a woman might feel as Harvey masturbated in front of her. I’m insulted that I even have to write that sentence.
The second layer of disgrace comes compliments of the slime ball, scumbag politicians that took Mr. Weinstein’s money in the name of social justice and women’s rights. This would be the equivalent of B’nai B’rith taking money from Hitler. It would be like the NAACP taking money from David Duke. It would be like the International Union of Chickens taking money from Colonel Sanders.
And the people who took millions of dollars from Harvey Weinstein read like a “who’s who” from the Democrat party. Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Cory Booker, Chuck Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are just a few of the hypocrites that gladly took Harvey’s contributions while knowing FULL WELL what he was doing. And if there is a Republican who took money from this jerk, I condemn you too!!
Most of these politically correct narcissists are now saying that they will give his money back. Might I just suggest that the press should keep an eye on these people and make sure that they actually return these funds. I think that these people are no more likely to return Harvey’s money than those Hollywood stars who promised to leave the country if Trump got elected made good on those vows.
But I have to give it to Hillary Clinton who basically said that she’s going to keep the money. Now, we all have to read between her muddy and murky lines to get to that truth, but that’s what she said. When asked what she was going to do with his money, her actually words were, “There’s nowhere to give it back to!” Besides being a very poor example of the English language, that is factually incorrect. She CAN give it back to Harvey himself, or she could give it to his company. There are no laws that prevent her from doing that. So basically she is either lying or terribly misinformed.
Then, when reporters suggested that she could give it to charity, she said, “I give 10% of my income every year, so this will be part of that.” In other words, she is going to deduct Mr. Weinstein’s contributions from her normal giving and thus reduce the amount of her own money that she gives to charity. Wow, how cheap can she be?
The acceptance of Mr. Weinstein’s money also serves as a soft endorsement of his activities. This gives a green light to his minions, like Ben Affleck, that his kind of behavior will be tolerated, as long as they support the right people financially.
But the final and deepest and darkest disgrace in this whole story is that these people knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing for decades. He has been publicly outed multiple times by the likes of Seth MacFarlane. He even had a clause in his contract with his company that allowed this behavior as long as Harvey paid off litigants to keep the stench down to an acceptable level.
Yes, they all knew what Harvey was doing for decades, but here’s the big sin. They did nothing about it. This allowed him to rape and abuse women for years and blackmail women with threats to their careers to gain their silence. How many of these women could have been saved the humiliation if Mr. Weinstein’s practices had been exposed at the very beginning. At least Jane Fonda (and believe me, I’m not a fan) had the decency to admit that she was “ashamed” of her silence.
The saddest note of all is that this simply exposes the absolute depth of hypocrisy that exists in Washington and Hollywood. When will we learn that these people do not serve the public that pays their salaries through their taxes and box office support? They serve only themselves and their unquenchable thirst for power, money and an unlimited need for self-adulation.
There are two small things we can do. We can create a constitutional amendment that will limit the terms of our congressmen and women and we can stay home and play charades instead of going to the movies. We might actually get to know each other better.
Monday, October 2, 2017
NFL - Look to Vegas
NFL – Look to Vegas for Answers
The View from the Middle
Yesterday, I didn’t watch any NFL games, but I did hear some news reports about what was happening around the league. At the New Orleans Saints vs. Miami Dolphins game, the players knelt before the national anthem and stood with looked arms during it, taking a hint from the Dallas Cowboys. They announced that the players were standing because they love our country and had respect for out veterans and current armed forces personnel. While that was a step in the right direction, they left off a couple of other groups that they should honor - our police and first responders.
This morning, I woke up to the horror that occurred in Las Vegas last night. A mad man took an elevated position and sprayed bullets on an audience of over 20,000 people attending a country music festival, killing 58 and wounding over 500 innocents. It was chaos. People were running for their lives, but one concert attendee pointed out that there was one group that was running towards the gunfire, shielding civilians and giving badly needed direction to those who were fleeing. Who was that group – The POLICE, on and off duty.
It is easy to forget (at least for the NFL) the millions of heroic, compassionate and unselfish actions our police take for us all when we close our eyes to all of the good and focus only on the sliver of bad. Let me quote Abraham Lincoln again who said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.” The NFL can kneel in protest of the police, protected by whom? The Police! Black Lives Matter can march and chant, “What do we need? Dead cops! When do we need them? Now” protect by, guess who? The Police. Colin Kaepernick can wear socks with policemen depicted as pigs, and who protects him? The police. Marshawn Lynch can even wear an anti-Trump t-shirt (which totally misses the point of this protest) and he is protected by the police.
And while our police are getting verbally abused and literally spit on, they continue to protect us from ourselves. Last year 135 policemen and women were killed in the line of duty. 21 of those officers were ambushed or assassinated, which demonstrates planning and intent. These were no accidents. Note that this is five more than the number of unarmed black men who were killed by police in the same year.
The NFL is condemning an entire group of people for the sins and or mistakes of a tiny few. What do you call that? Oh yah, PREJUDICE! So the NFL is crying prejudice as they perform prejudice against all of our men and women in blue. Is that ironic, paradoxical or just plain stupid? You tell me.
The players in the NFL have driven the league down a dead end alley and now it is trying to scratch and claw its way out. Until they figure out how to express their love for this country and support for our soldiers and veterans and law enforcement officers and first responders, the players and the league will not win over the country to support their cause.
Let me give the NFL a solution. The players can kneel, lie down or stand on their heads before the national anthem, but they must tell the crowds that they are doing it to unite the country in the support of equal justice for all. Then they must stand for the anthem and announce that they are doing that to show love for our country and appreciation for our soldiers, veterans, policemen and women and first responders. THIS will shine a light on the issue and win the hearts of the fans, supporters and ticketholders.
The View from the Middle
Yesterday, I didn’t watch any NFL games, but I did hear some news reports about what was happening around the league. At the New Orleans Saints vs. Miami Dolphins game, the players knelt before the national anthem and stood with looked arms during it, taking a hint from the Dallas Cowboys. They announced that the players were standing because they love our country and had respect for out veterans and current armed forces personnel. While that was a step in the right direction, they left off a couple of other groups that they should honor - our police and first responders.
This morning, I woke up to the horror that occurred in Las Vegas last night. A mad man took an elevated position and sprayed bullets on an audience of over 20,000 people attending a country music festival, killing 58 and wounding over 500 innocents. It was chaos. People were running for their lives, but one concert attendee pointed out that there was one group that was running towards the gunfire, shielding civilians and giving badly needed direction to those who were fleeing. Who was that group – The POLICE, on and off duty.
It is easy to forget (at least for the NFL) the millions of heroic, compassionate and unselfish actions our police take for us all when we close our eyes to all of the good and focus only on the sliver of bad. Let me quote Abraham Lincoln again who said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.” The NFL can kneel in protest of the police, protected by whom? The Police! Black Lives Matter can march and chant, “What do we need? Dead cops! When do we need them? Now” protect by, guess who? The Police. Colin Kaepernick can wear socks with policemen depicted as pigs, and who protects him? The police. Marshawn Lynch can even wear an anti-Trump t-shirt (which totally misses the point of this protest) and he is protected by the police.
And while our police are getting verbally abused and literally spit on, they continue to protect us from ourselves. Last year 135 policemen and women were killed in the line of duty. 21 of those officers were ambushed or assassinated, which demonstrates planning and intent. These were no accidents. Note that this is five more than the number of unarmed black men who were killed by police in the same year.
The NFL is condemning an entire group of people for the sins and or mistakes of a tiny few. What do you call that? Oh yah, PREJUDICE! So the NFL is crying prejudice as they perform prejudice against all of our men and women in blue. Is that ironic, paradoxical or just plain stupid? You tell me.
The players in the NFL have driven the league down a dead end alley and now it is trying to scratch and claw its way out. Until they figure out how to express their love for this country and support for our soldiers and veterans and law enforcement officers and first responders, the players and the league will not win over the country to support their cause.
Let me give the NFL a solution. The players can kneel, lie down or stand on their heads before the national anthem, but they must tell the crowds that they are doing it to unite the country in the support of equal justice for all. Then they must stand for the anthem and announce that they are doing that to show love for our country and appreciation for our soldiers, veterans, policemen and women and first responders. THIS will shine a light on the issue and win the hearts of the fans, supporters and ticketholders.
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