The liberals ignore the truth about tax cuts

My wife called me at work not long after President Trump signed the Republican tax bill into law. She asked me if we would be getting a tax cut or a tax hike. It was an interesting question, and one for which I did not have an answer. There are myriad tax calculators that have popped up since the tax bill debate began. I hadn’t used any of them.

I’m not faulting you if you have. It’s only natural to be curious about how such a massive overhaul will affect you. The question is does that determine your support or opposition to the new law? It shouldn’t.

There’s a fundamental question that needs to be asked. Does our tax system maximize our economy, or is it a drag on economic prosperity? How it affects each of us personally is inconsequential. The answer to that question is this tax law goes a long way in stimulating an economy that has been, until Trump won the presidential election, sluggish. The stimulation since the election has been running on anticipation. That anticipation only takes an economy so far until hope turns to disappointment and the economy falters again.

Now the economy has something concrete to believe in. Companies like AT&T and Comcast immediately announced rank-and-file end-of-the-year bonuses. Other companies launched plans for massive expansion and infusion of cash into the economy.

Try as they may to pit all classes against the rich, marketwatch.com posted graphs that told the true story. The people who would be paying the largest percentage of tax hikes were those making more than $1 million per year. The vast majority of taxpayers, even the rich, would get a tax cut.

Of course, it’s the rich on whom the liberals always concentrate. What these same liberals don’t tell you is the rich pay most of the taxes. They lament the fact that those making $20,000 or less get the smallest tax cut. Most of those people don’t pay taxes at all anyway. Hard to give someone a tax break when they don’t pay taxes. 

What really grinds the gears of the leftists is the corporate tax reduction. That corporate tax is cut from 35 percent to 21 percent. They drone on about the “rich corporations” like they’re some individual fat cat who’s going to skate. Taxes are simply another business expense to a corporation. Cut taxes and you cut expenses. Cut expenses and chances are you’ll see prices go down. Liberals seem to understand this concept when it comes to gasoline costs. They talk about how higher prices at the pump will translate into higher prices at the grocery store. The same principle applies to the high cost of taxes.

But let’s assume the liberals are right and these evil corporations will simply take that tax break and give it to their rich CEOs. Those CEOs will pay taxes on that money at a rate of 37 percent in addition to the corporate rate of 21 percent. Liberals should be happy, but, as we know, they seldom are. And as we’ve seen, corporations are already passing along the windfall to their employees and reinvesting in the company. That should convert even the most ardent skeptic. Only those who are purely political can witness that and remain unswayed.

How does the new GOP tax law affect you personally? Whether you get a direct tax cut or not is inconsequential. What matters is a rising tide lifts all boats. No matter what floats your boat politically this tax cut will be good for us all.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Unraveling the conspiracy at the FBI

I wrote in this space two weeks ago that what we were witnessing was nothing short of an attempted coup. Some thought that was simply hyperbole. Now we’re seeing the ugly underbelly of the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington, DC.

Peter Strzok, the now disgraced FBI agent who seemed to be trying to cook the presidential election last year, has been outed for the political hack he is. How he’s still employed with the Bureau is anyone’s guess. He sent a text message to his mistress, an FBI lawyer, regarding a comment she apparently made in Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s office claiming there was no way Trump could win the election. “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office—that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

What the “insurance policy” was is the subject of much speculation, but it seems obvious it’s the Trump dossier the FBI got from Fusion GPS, a company hired by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump. Colluding with Democrats to bring down a sitting president is nothing short of a coup.

Strzok will tell you he was only doing what’s best for the country. That’s what they all say. Watergate was all about a break-in to ensure George McGovern didn’t become president—for the good of the country. Governments are toppled in the name of what’s good for the country. What’s not good for the country is a handful of rogue FBI employees toppling the duly elected president “for the good of the country.”

This calls into question the entire Mueller investigation. It’s all predicated on work done by the FBI, an FBI we now know had a political agenda. We’ll have to see where this leads us, but it appears Mr. Strzok and possibly others at the FBI may be guilty of treason and sedition. Those are serious charges but these are serious actions. If people inside the FBI were conspiring to remove Trump from office then what else would one call it? And we know Mr. Strzok was a Hillary partisan in charge of investigating her e-mail scandal. He changed James Comey’s now-famous statement regarding Hillary’s actions from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless.” As you’ll recall, Comey let Hillary off the hook.

It was Peter Strzok who interviewed Hillary and her aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills. We know Mills and Abedin lied to the FBI, something that got Mike Flynn in a lot of hot water. Mills and Abedin skated. Why weren’t they prosecuted like Flynn?

The irony is the FBI launched an investigation to discover if the Russians colluded with Trump to influence the election when it was they who were doing the colluding and influencing. It was the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse. And what’s also ironic is the investigation that so many on the left have been cheering may very well be the investigation that brings down the Clinton machine within the FBI. It may also bring down Hillary herself.

Once we fully understand the lengths to which Hillary supporters inside the FBI went to get her elected, the appetite of the American people may very well change. It was Hillary who was colluding with a foreign agent to change the outcome of the election. Christopher Steele is a British citizen. Paying a foreign entity for opposition research in an election is against the law. It’s time the American people were told the truth.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Sexual harassment—To believe or not believe

Well, since my column on the shelf life of outrage we’ve seen two congressmen and a senator go down in flames. The most bizarre involved now-former Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona who had discussions with female staffers about surrogacy. At least one of the staffers took it as a proposition for sex. Franks denied that charge but resigned anyway.

We’ve had several in public broadcasting either suspended while allegations are investigated or outright fired. Hollywood is embroiled in an almost daily scandal of sexual harassment or sexual assault. The harassment plague has spilled over into TV news. Our senior research analyst joked that there was going to be no one left in Congress to pass laws but no one left on television to cover it.

But what of those who vehemently deny the accusations? Roy Moore of Alabama is forever tainted by scurrilous allegations by two women who have been discredited. Most people never heard about the checkered pasts of the accusers or the tremendous holes in their stories. I’ve often told you that media bias is not what they tell you, it’s more what they don’t.

Now that the Alabama special election is behind us, we need to have a collective discussion as a nation. The basic cornerstone of American jurisprudence is “innocent until proven guilty.” Unfortunately, there is no due process in a public lynching. 

Members of the House and Senate now want ethics investigations for members based on accusations that sometimes date back 40 years. I wonder how many lawmakers will survive that scrutiny if it’s meted out even-handedly. I can’t imagine that any of them have nothing to hide. You know what they say about people who live in glass houses.

Two people who have built a glass high-rise are Mika and Joe from MSNBC’s Morning Joe. They sit each morning in judgement of every sex scandal that comes down the pike while, according to various news reports, they carried on a years-long adulterous affair until they were outed by the National Enquirer.

Recently I had the misfortune of sitting in front of Megyn Kelly’s sinking talk show on NBC while waiting for my car to be washed. She had three Trump sexual assault accusers on. One was the infamous woman from first class who claims Trump groped her on a flight from Houston to New York. She said he never said a word to her. He just started rubbing his hands all over her and putting his hand up her skirt. She claims she jumped up in disgust and stormed to the back of the plane for the remainder of the flight. Several witnesses who remember sitting near Trump on the plane have come forward to say they saw nothing unusual.

As if to double down on the story, the woman claims an encounter with Trump years later. She says she was working a fundraiser for the Humane Society when Trump approached the table for his tickets with his first wife, Ivana. She claims Trump recognized her and said, “Hey, you’re that c@*# from the plane!” Even if we were to believe Trump groped a woman on a plane it’s highly unlikely that he would instantly recognize her after just a couple of minutes of groping. It’s also impossible to believe that he would call her out in front of his wife.

But it doesn’t matter how incredible the accusation. We’re told we must believe the woman. That is, as Mika said one morning, unless the accuser voted for Trump. In that case, they must be totally discounted. So goes justice.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The Hillary moles in the FBI

For as long as the Russia probe has been going on Donald Trump has called it a ‘witch hunt.’ Like most things the president says, it appears he’s been proven right yet again. Peter Strzok, who was benched in August for anti-Trump texts to his mistress, seems to be the Forrest Gump of the FBI. When Hillary and her top aides were being interviewed it was Strzok. When the FBI used the “Steele dossier” as a pretext to investigate a Trump/Russia connection it was at the urging of Strzok. When Bob Mueller needed a point man on his own Russia investigation it was Strzok. When Mike Flynn was trapped by the FBI once again it was Strzok.

He seemed to conveniently find himself in a position of influence each and every time he could either fan the flames of hysteria over Russia or bail out Hillary and her compatriots. Remember when James Comey changed his characterization of Hillary’s private server use from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless?” That was Peter Strzok.

When he interviewed Huma Abedin she denied any knowledge of Hillary’s private server set-up. Cheryl Mills claimed she didn’t even know what a server was. However, e-mails release by the State Department show both women referred specifically to Hillary’s server. Were they arrested? Were they forced to sell their homes like Flynn to cover their legal costs? No. They walked. Not even a hint that they had committed a crime, when they had committed a far more egregious crime than Flynn.

And then there’s the matter of Strzok’s extramarital affair with Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer. Time was when the bureau would dismiss employees for such conduct. Apparently if you’re not sacked for being a political operative then cheating has to be small potatoes.

I hate to think that the FBI as an organization has sunk to such a level, but it sure appears they have a serious managerial problem. I long gave James Comey the benefit of the doubt. No more. Not only did he take it upon himself to let Hillary off the hook, he appears to have been part of a conspiracy to get Bob Mueller named as the special counsel.

Comey has admitted that he leaked private conversations with President Trump in hopes that a special counsel would be named. With AG Jeff Sessions having already given notice that he would recuse himself from any investigation into either Trump or Hillary, Comey knew the decision would fall to Rod Rosenstein. As it turns out, Rosenstein and Mueller have a history.

When Mueller ran the FBI he knew of the Uranium One scandal. Russian officials were engaged in bribery and we now know that Mueller’s FBI had uncovered it. They investigated for more than four years without notifying the public or even Congress. Still, the Uranium One deal was allowed to go forward unfettered. The U.S. attorney who supervised that investigation was Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee.

Isn’t it ironic that two of the men involved with investigating Trump for collusion with the Russians also knew about Russian bribery during the Obama administration? Irony or careful planning? 

This is like an episode of the TV drama ’24.’ There was always a mole inside the machinery. In this case, there appear to be several. Rosenstein and Mueller have every reason to recuse themselves from the Russia investigation yet the only one to actually do it was Jeff Sessions. And he was the only man who would’ve actually gotten to the truth. What we’re now witnessing is nothing short of an attempted coup.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

They're running out of letters to describe sex

Seems like every time we turn around they’re adding a new letter to LGBTQ. PJMedia recently ran a story about “Inclusiveness Training” for teachers at a Canadian school district. The aim was to teach teachers to be more tolerant of “LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP” students. I’m not kidding.

It’s an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Genderqueer, Bisexual, Demisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Twospirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual, and Polyamorous. Many of these are self-explanatory. Others need explanation.

Genderqueer, PJMedia notes, is “a person who does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders.” OK. I guess in their quest to always be different they don’t want to be pigeonholed. 

Demisexual. I love this one. It’s “a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone.” That’s the old-fashioned monogamous relationship. You know the one, where you actually meet then fall in love with someone before you jump in the sack with them.

Twospirit. PJ says this “appears to be a third gender not yet discovered by science and only found in the Native American community.” Other than that, we have no idea what this is.

Intersex is what used to be known as a hermaphrodite. That’s someone born with both male and female sex organs. It’s an unfortunate birth defect that is usually corrected. Now, I guess, it’s celebrated.

Questioning is someone who hasn’t made up their mind where they fall. No wonder. There are so many swell choices.

Asexual is someone who has no interest in sex. You’d think that would not even be allowed on this list since the people (or person) who compiled it seem obsessed with sex.

Allies. These are you sensitive ones out there who are constantly showing support for the LGBTOMG people. It’s also the parents of normal kids who are a bit embarrassed that they don’t have one of those trendy LGBTOMG kids. They’re all the rage in LA these days. Come on, Junior. Why couldn’t you grow up to be like Kevin Spacey?

Pansexual is a hip way to describe someone who is bisexual. I had a listener who said it was actually someone who has sex with panhandlers. I had to correct him. That’s a hobosexual.

Then there’s polyamorous. These are the wife-swapping swingers who have been shunned by the rest of us for years as sickos. They’ve found a home in the LGBTOMG community. After all, what could possibly be sick about wanting to see your wife in bed with another man? You people are SO square.

If you wonder why much of the liberal world is now being rocked by sex scandals wonder no more. When you create a world in which anything goes then anything will go. Monogamous relationships may be boring to the hipsters out there but we boring monogamous types will never see our pictures on the Internet alongside the word “groping.”

Nancy Pelosi and others are now trying to say this behavior goes on in every office across the country. Misery loves company. I’ve been in radio for nearly 40 years, one of those dreaded “entertainment” businesses. I’ve never seen a bunch of groping going on. Sorry, Nancy. Nice try at normalizing immoral behavior but most of us aren’t participating. Oh, yeah, there have been office romances and the occasional affair, but most people aren’t grabbing women just because they think they’re can.

I actually saw some woman in the porn industry tweet #MeToo. Seriously? The free-love hippie chickens of the 1960s are coming home to roost. 

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

What is the shelf life of outrage?

It’s now an almost daily occurrence. Someone comes forward saying they were groped, grabbed, or otherwise wronged by somebody famous. How long should we credibly be asked to believe that someone was wronged? In other words, what is the shelf life of outrage?

Take, for example, the woman who claims Sen. Al Franken grabbed her fanny during a photo op at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010 while her husband took the picture. I’m not defending Franken if he actually did grab her butt, but the shelf life on that outrage is about 30 minutes or until you leave the fair, whichever comes first. If I’m the wife, I turn around and slap the hell out of Franken. If I’m the husband, I punch the SOB in the nose.

At some point we have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Who is to be believed. Beverly Young Nelson, the woman who says Roy Moore of Alabama sexually assaulted her in his car back in 1977 gave a very convincing performance with Gloria Allred before the cameras. It wasn’t until Moore’s attorney revealed that she had her divorce petition thrown out by Moore’s court in 1999 that she was exposed as a fraud. Even now, many in the press discount that little factoid. It’s impossible to now believe she wasn’t acting out of vengeance.

In a Vox article on suspended New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, he’s accused of leveraging his position of power in journalism to accost women. Let’s examine that for a moment, this “leveraging of power.” It’s one thing if Thrush is your boss. That kind of leverage for sex is older than the water cooler. What we’re talking about here are women who worked alongside him as reporters. Apparently it was impossible to say no to Thrush. 

One reporter recounts that after a Politico going-away party, where they both worked, Thrush somehow ended up at her place. Hmmm. “I remember stopping him at one point and saying, ‘Wait, you’re married,’” she told the New York Times. “I remember that by the time he left, I didn’t have much clothes on.” Really? I wonder how that happened. Thrush’s super power must be the ability to melt clothes off women.

I should remind you that Glenn Thrush is the “journalist” caught in the Wikileaks e-mails from John Podesta sending a draft article that dealt with Podesta to Podesta to edit. He admitted in the e-mail that “I have become a hack.” Yeah, Glenn, you have. And apparently a drunk, groping, creep of a hack.

So, now the Vox folks are revisiting Bill Clinton’s predatory ways. They’ve wrongfully come to the conclusion that Monica Lewinsky was a victim via the same Thrushian logic of leveraging power. Monica Lewinsky was a stalking opportunist trying her best to “do” the president the first chance she got. That doesn’t let Bill off the hook for his rogue behavior but she’s not a #MeToo.

Whether it’s PBS’s Charlie Rose walking around naked (a revolting thought) or Harvey Weinstein’s casting couch, there seems to be a theme. Too many people for way too long believed that type of conduct passed for appropriate behavior. Here in the real world, the world of relative morality that these liberals ridiculed for generations, we all knew better.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not doubting a lot of what happened to these women happened. What I’m questioning is how outraged they actually were when it took them years, sometimes decades, to come forward. Apparently some of their outrage has the shelf life of a can of beets.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Roy Moore case proves scandals are all politics

The Roy Moore controversy should be time for all of us to do a little soul searching. Whether it’s Bill Clinton or Roy Moore, guilt seems to be related to political affiliation. Remember all of those Democrats rallying at the White House during Clinton’s impeachment? Al Gore claimed his boss would go down in history as one of our greatest presidents.

The impeachment wasn’t directly about sexual misconduct. It was about lying under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Remember? Clinton was being accused of sexual harassment against Paula Jones. Later Juanita Broaddrick came forward to say she was raped by Clinton. Still didn’t matter to the die-hard Clintonistas. Ultimately, he was never removed from office, and the accusations against him were certainly much more serious than those against Roy Moore.

Now the shoe’s on the other foot. Republicans find themselves in the unenviable position of defending a man who by all accounts was downright creepy. Dating 16 and 17-year-olds when you’re 32 might not be illegal in Alabama (the age of consent is 16) but it’s certainly worrisome. Reports from Gadsden suggest Moore may have been banned from the local mall during that period for trying to pick up teenage girls.

There are two more serious allegations, one involving heavy petting with a 14-year-old and sexual assault of a 16-year-old. Were these able to proven there would be no doubt that Moore should be disqualified from serving in the U.S. Senate. Even though the statute of limitations has run on those two incidents, the Senate would have cause not to seat.

But there is no proof, at least not at this writing. We all have our feelings about what may have happened. Our feelings are not relevant when it comes to the upcoming special senate election in Alabama. In fact, nobody’s opinion matters outside of those in the state who will have to choose.

I would hope we would all learn a lesson from this incident and develop some consistent standards when it comes to public officials, but I doubt that’s going to happen. My position has been to evaluate the evidence and make a determination based on facts. The Clinton impeachment was pretty straight forward. There’s no doubt that the president lied under oath, a clearly impeachable offense. The Constitution calls for impeachment in cases of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Bribery is a level 8 crime, according to the Department of Justice sentencing guidelines. Perjury, what Clinton was accused of, is a level 14 crime. I tried to explain all this to Lindsey Graham and the other House managers prosecuting the impeachment trial back in 1999 but that’s another story. Clinton subsequently lost his law license for essentially lying under oath.

Even to this day Democrats stand behind Bill Clinton, an indication that politics matters more than the truth.

When evaluating Roy Moore’s guilt or innocence one cannot ignore the timing. These accusations were from 40 years ago. Where have these women been? I’ve heard the excuse that they didn’t feel compelled until he was running for the Senate. Then where were they back in September when he was battling Luther Strange for the nomination? It seems rather curious that all of these accusations come a month before the special election when it’s too late to change the ballots. And hiring celebrity ambulance chaser Gloria Allred also sends up red flares. 

The people of Alabama will decide. And that should be the final word.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

GOP tax plan designed to stimulate voters more than economy

The press is having a field day with something called the Paradise Papers. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a pile of documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). They detail the business dealings of celebrities like Bono and the Queen of England, and companies like Apple and Nike. Even U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. They show nothing illegal, really, just how the rich and famous move their money around to avoid paying too much in taxes.

The media are treating this like a scandal when it’s actually a wake-up call. This is why tax reform is so badly needed here in the United States. I’ve regaled you with the stats from the IRS, like the top five percent of wage-earners paying nearly 60 percent of the income tax. The House Republican tax legislation takes some steps in the right direction but it still leaves the basic problem unresolved. They won’t tell you what that is so I will. The rich pay way too much in taxes. They’re the ones who need a tax break, not the middle class.

The middle class now pays somewhere around eight percent of their income in taxes. That’s set to go to around five percent if the House Republicans and President Trump get their way. They always target the middle class for tax cuts because there’s more of them. They just don’t need another tax cut.

If the objective is really to stimulate the economy then you’re going to have to allow the filthy rich to keep more of their money and spend it in the economy. That means the dreaded one-percenters. I know, people don’t like to hear that, but it’s true. The rich are overtaxed and the middle class are under-taxed. The poor and working poor aren’t taxed at all. In fact, most of them get money from the government through the Earned Income Tax Credit that they never paid in.

Why aren’t the folks in Washington telling you this? Because they’re cowards. Cowards and panderers. They don’t really see this as a vehicle to stimulate the economy. They see it as a way to buy votes, not dissimilar from the way the Democrats operate. So, why aren’t the Democrats going for it? Simply because they didn’t think of it first. If this were their idea they’d be all over it.

The only thing that remotely comes close to doing what we need done is lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Mark my words, that’s the one thing that will probably not survive intact when the dust settles. It’s too tempting, even for the Republicans, to punish the very corporations that create the jobs.

And then there’s the SALT issue. That stands for state and local taxes. The current GOP plan would severely limit how much high-tax states can deduct those taxes. That’s raised the ire of Republicans and Democrats in high-tax states. Rep. Diane Black, chairman of the House Budget Committee and member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee pointed out to me that it’s wrong for the rest of us to subsidize high-tax states. She has a great point. Why is it fair for anyone to claw back some of the taxes they pay their own states through deductions to their federal income tax? The fact that some states tax their people to death is not the fault of the rest of us.

Getting rid of many of the deductions is the right move. Continuing to soak the rich is the wrong move.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The Halloween Nazis struck again

Cultural appropriation. That’s the big buzz phrase of the politically correct these days. You especially hear that around Halloween. This past Halloween many college campuses across the nation issued warnings against offensive costumes that appropriate culture.

According to CampusReform.org, the University of Michigan published a statement admonishing cultural appropriation “often adopted by those who hold power and privilege in society.” Does any college student hold power? This is typical leftists claptrap intended to make victims out of anyone who doesn’t happen to be white and male. They profess to fight racism when thinking that anyone who isn’t white needs their protection is the most condescending form of racism.

I was recently listening to a pitiful story on NPR of a woman whose mother is Chinese and whose father is Italian. She wore some native Chinese garb to school and got shamed by another Chinese girl for culture appropriation. She tried to explain that even though she didn’t look Chinese she really was. The girl told her that if she didn’t look Chinese she had no right to dress like one.

Now, you would think she’d get back up in this girl’s face. Instead she went home and hung the dress in the closet never to wear it again. She says to this day she’s embarrassed to express her Chinese heritage. In other words, she’s playing the victim.

Here’s the deal. If I want to dress up as an Indian or a Mexican or a German I will. You know why? Because this is America. I’m free to do whatever I want. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it. It doesn’t matter if you’re offended. I’m free to express myself as I please and if I’m feeling a little bit Arab today then get over it.

But here’s the flip side. You don’t have to like it either. However, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean I can’t do it.

I don’t think many of these PC people understand where they’re going with this cultural appropriation stuff. If that’s the way they want to play it then the Canadians called and they want their basketball back. Try telling LeBron that he’s appropriating somebody else’s culture. 

If we’re to follow their ludicrous edict then only Germans can drive cars since Karl Benz invented the automobile. And although the Germans lay claim to the printing press, it was actually invented in China about 600 years before Gutenberg was born. I guess only Chinese folks can read printed books. Only white Americans can fly since the Wright brothers invented the airplane. Writing was invented by ancient Sumerians in what is modern-day Iraq, so I guess if you write anything you’re stealing from the Iraqi culture.

What these crazy leftists don’t seem to comprehend is nobody owns a culture. We all use language that grew out of different races and ethnicities. Many of the pop culture expressions of today come from black Americans. That wasn’t always the case. To “butter someone up” came from ancient India. “Turn a blind eye” is a British expression. “White elephant” is a Siamese expression, which is modern-day Thailand. Get the picture?

There is no copyright on culture. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of India. His garb sparked a fashion sensation in the ‘60s called the Nehru jacket. The Beatles sported Nehru jackets as did several Bond villains. They didn’t have to ask Nehru for permission.

Sure, there is a line of good taste regarding costumes. We don’t need the politically correct drawing that line because they obviously don’t know where it is.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

NFL has championed the wrong cause

The NFL anthem protests continue without an end in sight. It’s time somebody says what needs to be said so this country can heal and move on. If you’re ready for it, this is it.

In order to understand the protests we must understand what’s being protested. Too many owners, too many Americans are willing to blindly go along under the banner of free speech. Free speech is not the issue. What’s at issue is a perception that America is fundamentally a racist society. Colin Kaepernick said as much when he started all of this. He said he didn’t want to stand for an anthem that represented a country that oppressed black people. To understand where he’s coming from is to get at the root of the problem.

We’ve been over the statistics. Kaepernick believes black people are being indiscriminately gunned down by police. The fact is white people are twice as likely to be killed by police as black people. The liberal media would have you believe that’s proof of racism just because there are more than four times as many white folks as there are black folks in this country. As I’ve explained in a prior column, the racial makeup of the country has nothing to do with it. Were that the case, one could argue that the NFL itself is racist since it’s 80 percent black.

The sad fact is black people commit crimes at far above their representation in the population. For example, 52 percent of the murders are committed by black people. It’s not racist to point that out. It’s just a sad reality. Instead of looking at the number of blacks in prison or those killed by police and assuming racism, we should dig down and try to figure out why those crime stats are so out of kilter. 

That’s what leads us to the crux of the problem. Roughly 72 percent of black children born today will be born out of wedlock. That means, in all likelihood, there’s not a father in their day-to-day lives. Ninety percent of all homeless children are from fatherless homes. Same for runaway children. Eighty-five percent of children with behavior disorders come from fatherless homes. Seventy-one percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. Of the kids in rehab centers, 75 percent come from fatherless homes. And the statistic that should hit us all between the eyes, 85 percent of all youths who end up in prison come from fatherless homes. This all according to research by The Fatherless Generation.

That, my friends, is the problem. Not that America is a racist country. Not that America is oppressing black people. Fatherlessness. That is the problem. And this is something the NFL is in the perfect position to help solve. These men are role models for millions of American boys, especially black boys.

The irony is Colin Kaepernick’s father left his mother before he was born. He ended up being adopted by white parents. Some kinda racist society he grew up in, huh? Many in the NFL who kneel know exactly what the problem is. Marshawn Lynch’s father has been convicted six times and is serving a 24-year prison sentence for burglary. He could be a shining example of how to overcome such odds. Michael Bennett of the Seahawks is raising three girls. Why not highlight that instead of protesting the anthem?

Instead of taking a knee, how about take a stand. Use your influence to end fatherless households. That’s how you can help heal this country instead of tearing it apart.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Hollywood has no moral high ground

I was in Europe last week for a river cruise. I highly recommend it, by the way. My wife and I would wind down from the day’s excursions with BBC news. I don’t know what everyone was talking about back here in the States but it was wall to wall Harvey Weinstein. This is not purely a political issue, but I find it so ironic that this pig was hailed far and wide by liberals all across Hollywood as a wonderful guy who gave selflessly to liberal candidates and causes. The irony is that all the while Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment was legendary.

And now starlet after starlet is coming forward to reveal that they too were sexually harassed by Weinstein. They kept their silence because they were afraid it would hurt their careers. What does that say about them?

Everyone’s focused on Harvey, as well they should be, but we have to have a conversation about culpability. You can’t at once say you kept silent to advance your own greedy desires to succeed in Hollywood and call yourself a victim.

I don’t want anyone to misunderstand my point here. There are plenty of women who have been sexually harassed by pigs like Weinstein. They keep quiet for a variety of reasons. Some know they’ll lose in a he said/she said situation. Others actually like the guy and don’t want to ruin his career over what they hope is a temporary lack of judgement or an isolated indiscretion.

What I’m talking is the Hollywood community that knew full well that Harvey Weinstein was a monster. Still, they dealt with him because he could help them. And I’m talking men and women. What they should’ve done was lived by the principles they preach to everyone else and stop dealing with people like him. Instead, they fed on Weinstein for decades when it served their own purposes.

Hillary Clinton is one of them. She’s now going to give the money Weinstein gave to her campaign to charity. Or so she says. She’s using the Weinstein story to bash Trump. “After all, we have someone admitting to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office,” she told Andrew Marr on BBC. I’m sitting there screaming at the TV, “What about your frickin’ husband?” Of course, Marr never brought that up.

And another piece of irony is Weinstein helped pay Bill Clinton’s legal bills during the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

Again, Hollywood knew full well about Hillary’s husband and not only never said anything, they continued and continue to give to the Clinton machine. Hillary once said on the campaign trail that any woman who accuses a man of rape should be believed. Unless that woman happens to have been raped by her husband. Then she needs to be destroyed.

This whole Weinstein thing isn’t just a Harvey Weinstein scandal. It’s a Hollywood scandal. It’s about people like Ashley Judd who put up with Weinstein asking her to watch him take a shower and never say anything, then publicly complain about an airport employee who says she’s pretty. It’s about the countless actresses who came to town very willing to take their turn on the casting couch if it got them that big part and now cry that they’re victims.

And, yes, there are plenty of victims. I just don’t think a whole community who knew of the monster in their midst and tolerated him because he was powerful are among them. Let’s stand against not only the monsters like Weinstein but the many enablers who keep a predator like that in business.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

What really caused the Vegas shooting

The shooting in Las Vegas was on a scale of unspeakable horror. Dozens killed. Hundreds wounded. Predictably, the left immediately launched into an issue they keep in their hip pocket. Gun control. It’s an understandably emotional response, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the problem.

Before I get to that I need to point out a fallacy of the gun control argument. The most obvious flaw is the number of weapons this monster possessed. If news reports are accurate, he had 23 guns in the hotel room and another 19 at home. One has to wonder how he got so many guns into a hotel room undetected, however the left misses one simple point. More guns doesn’t make one more dangerous. You can only shoot one gun at a time. In fact, if he were putting down one gun and picking up another it would stand to reason that he would do less damage, not more. What matters is the capacity of the gun he used to kill.

We won’t know for sure until the investigation is complete, but it appears he managed to convert a semi-automatic rifle to automatic. In other words, he was able to turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. There is such a thing as a “full auto kit.” However, these kits are restricted by the 1986 law that bans civilian purchase of automatic weapons. The gun control that would’ve stopped this killer from obtaining a fully automatic weapon already exists. Yes, he had dozens of guns, but it appears the killing machine he used was obtained illegally. Passing more laws is not going to change that.

Now let’s get on to the real problem. The guy was nuts. We seem to have a mental illness crisis in this country. One in six of us is on some sort of psychiatric drug. This includes antidepressants and sedatives. That doesn’t mean that if you’re taking an antidepressant you’re psychotic, but it does mean that roughly 42 million adults are on some sort of psychiatric medication.

If you’ve ever known anyone who’s bipolar you know the difficulty is in knowing where the person ends and the disease begins. We should have the same compassion for mental illness that we do for physical illness but we don’t. It’s easy to dismiss people with mental illness. They’re odd or they’re crazy. Stay away from that guy, he’s nuts. We’ve all heard it. We’ve all said it. It’s part of what causes people with mental illness to go through life undiagnosed.

I can’t imagine that was the case with the Las Vegas shooter. You don’t get that mentally ill without someone noticing. Unfortunately with mental illness too many of us notice, too few of us help.

But what can we do? I don’t for a second think we need the guys in white jackets with nets prowling the streets in a padded van. However, there are far too many people who are dangerously mentally ill roaming free. Loved ones are oftentimes reluctant to report the danger signs out of compassion for the sick person, but you wouldn’t allow a person you knew had cancer to remain untreated,

The compassionate course of action is to help people you suspect are unstable get well. You don’t do that by ignoring the illness. If you suspect someone is mentally ill take action. Talk to one of their family members. If it’s your family member, talk with a mental health professional. 

Mental illness is bad enough. A mentally disturbed individual with an automatic weapon is a horribly lethal combination.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Hey, NFL, the customer's always right

When I first decided to write about the NFL/National Anthem issue it was before President Trump got involved with his opinion. Now, according to the left-wing media, it’s all his fault. He’s also been accused of making this a racial issue. It was Colin Kaepernick who made this a racial issue. Remember, he first sat for the National Anthem because he refused to stand “to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” 

It’s instructive to examine why he was protesting, other than trying to bring attention to himself as his career waned. He believes black people are being indiscriminately gunned down in the streets because of racist cops. The fact is twice as many white folks are killed by police than blacks. Now, the Washington Post and other liberally biased institutions say you have to adjust for population. That’s intellectually dishonest. If we used the same logic for the NFL we would have to determine that it’s a racist institution since blacks only make up 13 percent of the population but 70 percent of the NFL is black.

A fair analysis of the issue is to look at the percentage of whites and blacks who commit crimes. Whites make up about 61 percent of the population. Blacks make up about 13 percent. According to the FBI, blacks commit 52.2 percent of the murders. That’s a disturbing statistic. Well over 90 percent of the victims of those murders are black, so if Black Lives Matter had its way and we made the prison population look like America those murderers would be turned loose on the black community.

In every major category, blacks are way above their population percentage. Blacks commit 28 percent of total crimes, over double their representation in the population. That is the problem. Not racist cops. Not because of “a country that oppresses black people” as Kaepernick claims. Whites commit crimes at about their population percentage. That means twice as many crimes are committed by whites. And, ironically, we find that whites are twice as likely to be shot by cops. Makes sense now, doesn’t it? 

Don’t get me wrong. There are some trigger-happy cops and cops with anger management problems. Those bad seeds need to be weeded out. But obviously that affects both races equally.

My contention about the kneeling during the National Anthem is it’s bad for business. Know your customer. The NFL is dropping in the ratings all the while multi-million-dollar athletes claim it’s their right to express themselves. They do have that right, but not on the bosses dime. They’re harming the NFL brand and pretty soon the owners won’t be able to afford those multi-million-dollar salaries. When they get their pay cut I’m sure it’ll be racism.

I heard a commentator on CNN say that sports has enjoyed “social justice” protests dating back to Jackie Robinson. Robinson didn’t protest. He simply became the first black man to play Major League Baseball. You didn’t see Robinson taking a knee for the anthem, and if anyone had an excuse to it would be him. Jackie didn’t play the victim, and because of it he became the hero.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones took a knee with the team prior to the National Anthem on Monday Night Football. I’m sure he’s trying to make the players and the fans happy. I get that. The question is has the damage already been done. The customer doesn’t care if your colors are gray or orange or purple, theirs are red, white, and blue.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Cotton is no longer king, it's racist

It was only a couple of weeks ago, amidst the hue and cry over anything Confederate, that we were joking on the radio about how long it would be before cotton was considered racist. My producer, Johnny B, joked that aspirin would be regarded as racist since you have to pick cotton out of the top before you can relieve your headache. Absurdity is now reality.

The president of Lipscomb University in Nashville had some black students over to his house for dinner. It was ostensibly to give them a chance to discuss their experiences at school. That was a mistake. Instead of discussing their scholastic experiences they fixated on a centerpiece that featured stalks of cotton. My wife tells me cotton in arrangements is all the rage. Somehow I’m glad I didn’t know that beforehand. Anyway, apparently cotton is racist. The students complained loudly and angrily about this ‘microaggression’ and the university president offered a written apology.

Now, the apology wasn’t along the lines of “I’m sorry if these students took the cotton centerpiece the wrong way.” No, President Randy Lowry wrote in his apology, “The content of the centerpieces was offensive.” This is exactly why this political correctness has gotten way out of hand. First rule when you’re dealing with crazy people is you don’t recognize crazy as legitimate.

But this is how we’ve been dragged so far down this road. Students at universities all across the country go searching for things that offend them. When they go searching they always find something. Like the students at Ole Miss who saw a banana peel in a tree. They had to shut down a Greek Life retreat. “To be clear, many members of our community were hurt, frightened, and upset by what occurred at IMPACT,” wrote Ole Miss’ Interim Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Alex Lee Arndt to Greek leaders. I do hope this idiot is just interim and is terminated for kowtowing to these whiny babies. Oh, by the way, a student confessed to throwing the banana peel onto the tree because he says he couldn’t find a trash can. Didn’t matter. The ‘microaggression’ had been committed. Bring in the therapy dogs and the coloring books.

These so-called adults who choose to pander to these overgrown babies are doing them a huge disservice. They’re not always going to be there to shield these snowflakes from that mean ole world. Instead of powdering their backsides they need to be girding them for real life. Good Lord, can you imagine if these creampuffs had to storm Normandy? If we keep this up we’ll be ripe for the picking from any aggressor that wants its way with us.

So, how should the university president at Lipscomb have handled “Cottongate?” He should’ve pointed out the absurdity of cotton being racist. If it really is then we’re going to have to ban the Cotton Bowl, cotton candy, and cotton mouth. He should’ve pointed out that not only is the majority of our clothing made from cotton but so is our money, which features those white supremacists on the front. He should’ve pointed out that children are being used as slave labor in China, there’s ethnic cleansing in Darfur, there’s mass starvation in North Korea. In other words, there are far bigger problems in this world than some pandered cry baby college students getting their feelings hurt over a centerpiece.

This will never stop until sane people stop normalizing crazy. Stop acting like normal behavior is somehow racist. If you truly are not a racist then you have nothing to apologize for.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.