News Roundup Special: Hollywood Has a Scumbag Problem

Harvey Weinstein is a scumbag. Weinstein held himself up as a champion of women and liberal causes but it turns out he was no better than other men who abused their power.

The past 1-2 years, we heard of stories involving Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly, and the late Roger Ailes. Cosby was accused of assaulting over 30 women. O’Reilly settled with women for sexually harassing them and he was accused of physically abusing his ex-wife. Ailes, who himself had sexually harassed female, employees, was partly responsible for creating the type of environment at Fox News that allowed O’Reilly to flourish as a harasser.

But Weinstein’s story sounds worse than all three.

The scandal involving Weinstein, the co-founder of Weinstein Company and the part owner of Miramax, once again reminds us of how prevalent sexual harassment and sexual assault are in our society. We are also reminded that both these problems are allowed to persist in Hollywood, the film industry at large, related media industries, and beyond.

This leads to a greater discussion about abuse of power and the amount of shame held by those who are subject to this abuse. The victims include women and men.

In addition:

The news about Weinstein came on the heels of news that Joss Wheden was a serial philanderer. The former’s story is thus made even worse in part because he used feminism as cover.

Roger Stone: That Escalated Quickly

Former (and current?) Trump adviser Roger Stone has been bannedededed from the Twitters. Image taken via screenshot.

Um … It looks like Roger Stone has been permanently suspended from Twitter after having a meltdown following a crucial announcement in the Russia probe. Apparently, Stone went on the war path against Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, Ana Navarro, Charles Blow, and Bill Kristol. These guys all work for CNN in some capacity.

Famous Sayings: #85 — ‘Scaredy-Cat’

October 27, 2017

Aw, you’re just a scaredy-cat.

Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Image was cropped from the original by dat’ via Flickr. Some rights reserved.

In less than four days, it will be Halloween, so I thought I’d used a term that deals with frights while sticking to this cat theme I have going.

As it turns out, this might be another two-for-one post.

What Contributed to That Wild Finish on Thursday Night Football?

These guys figured in too many games this season.

On October 19, the Kansas City Chiefs visited the Oakland Raiders for a Thursday Night Football game.¹ The Raiders were essentially handed a one-point victory after numerous calls at the goal line (although I wonder why a touchdown by their tight end was taken away in the first place). The result left many people scratching their heads and questioning how the officiating could be this bad.

This past week (October 15-21) saw some of the worst officiating I have ever seen for NFL games. And Last Sunday, the most-talked about game was the Patriots vs. the Jets — for all the wrong reasons.

In that game, There were two very bad calls and at least on non-call that went the Patriots’ way. The first bad call and non-call helped to get the Patriots in the game. They were previously down 14-0 early on. Then last questionable call took a touchdown away from the Jets when they could have pulled within three points of the Patriots.

The final score was Patriots, 24-17. The Jets might have been able to take that game to overtime at the very least without those questionable calls.

That Sunday game left many people questioning if the fix was in. That might have also led to them to website about sports scandals and speculation of the same name run by the author of the book of the same name.²

What do I think about the accusations of vote-rigging? Well, since I have been hearing this for a while, I wanted to put down my thoughts on the subject. I’m not particularly bothered by the accusations (yet), but I am by the debate itself.

OMG, Republicans Are Disgusted by Trump!

Sen. Jeff Flake (pictured at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s Annual Legislative Luncheon in Phoenix, AZ in 2014), announced his retirement on Tuesday, October 24, 2017. Picture by Gage Skidmore via Flickr. Some rights reserved.

This afternoon, I caught the tail end of a news report concerning the pending departures of two Republican Senators, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. The news comes days after George W. Bush made statements that were understood to be against President Donald Trump. After the news segment, I knew I had to blog about my reaction to these Republicans’ reactions.

Currently, I am looking at the problems within the Democratic Party. But I would also like to look at the problems of the other major party in American politics. These developments provided a prime opportunity.

What do I have to say? There are three things, actually. But first, let’s discuss what transpired over the past few days.

Famous Sayings: #84 — ‘Cat Got Your Tongue?’

October 21, 2017

Why aren’t you saying anything? What, has the cat got your tongue?

This cat might not have your tongue, but he has your attention. Image by Bonbon via Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Sorry for the lateness, but here is this week’s famous saying. It’s something familiar to me and I believe it was something one of my father’s friends said to me when I was a child.

Whenever I would go somewhere new, I tended to be quiet. It would take my a while to talk to new people and even then, they’d have to tell me to speak up. I was so shy, that I would check to see if any other kids (likely me sister) wanted a snack, too, if the adults asked if wanted some.

With that said, I guess it’s pretty obvious what the meaning is.

The Rift on the Left: The Internal Politics of the Democratic Party

This was not a good look.

Now it is time to address the internal politics of the Democratic Party.  If you manage to get through this post, it might make you mad. You might be mad at me for dredging all this up again. Or you will be mad because you’re being reminded of things that got you hot in the first place. Or I might make you mad because I’m telling you about things you didn’t know and wish you hadn’t.

Overall, there are some truly worrying things happening in the Democratic National Committee and within the party on a national level. Unfortunately, I will have to look at the last presidential election because it exposed the party’s current problems. However, there are more problems that have been developing for decades. I do not trace the latter in this post, but they are apparent.

This post is big because in it is a complex topic and I will be looking at six areas that pertain to the DNC and Democratic Party at large. I will start with the unity tour.

Computer & Blog Update (October 17, 2017)

Here’s another impromptu blog update.

Right now, I am doing a sort of backup for my computer. Since the thing is dying, there’s not point in doing a normal one anymore. What I’m doing is copying my most important files unto my backup hard drive so I can move those copies to my new computer (once I’m able to purchase it).

This process is taking so long, though, so I’m behind schedule this week. I just don’t want to overheat this computer while working on multiple things at once, but we’ll see.

Famous Sayings: #83 — ‘The Buck Stops Here’

October 14, 2017

When a decision has to be made, the buck stops here.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman made the phrase “The buck stops here” famous. However, the phrase didn’t originate with him. It was also derived from another famous saying.

I thought of this phrase because a variation of it was used nearly five years ago during a presidential debate in the United States. But as it turned out, this famous saying was derived from another, which also gave rise to a slang term. That means this post is kind of a 3-for-1.

The Rift on the Left: Some Hard Truths About Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is also a lightning rod of emotion, both good and bad. How fair is that and how much can be attributed to her?

Hillary Clinton is also a lightning rod of emotion, both good and bad. How fair is that and how much can be attributed to her?

In the previous post in this series, I talked about Bernie Sanders, what I thought of his candidacy, and why the Democratic Party establishment (and a portion of the voting public) detests him. That is part of the puzzle of what ails the left. Another part of the puzzle is the mixed reaction to Hillary Clinton.

If you are still a supporter of Hillary Clinton this post will be tough for you to read (but please read this post in full before commenting). And to be honest, this isn’t an easy post for me to write. It has not been easy to criticize Barack Obama, either, but there are valid criticisms of him, too.

If any part of those post angers those who read it and I lose followers because of what I have to say, so be it. That can’t be helped, because we all need to be honest about HRC’s candidacy regardless. And we need to do an honest evaluation before we can even begin to talk about unity on the left.

If you manage to read everything I have laid out here, you might think I am being mean-spirited or that this post is one-sided, but that’s not what I want to do. If anything, this is tough love. Because Clinton was the Democratic nominee, we need to get to the heart of her campaign’s flaws and understand the anger surrounding her loss.