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.