Tag: hypocrisy

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ideological culture

Party Like It’s Versailles

Met Gala, equality, hypocrisy

It was quite the party. All the big names were at the Met Gala, coughing up $30 thousand per ticket. Representative Alexandria “Woman of the People” Ocasio-​Cortez (D‑N.Y.) turned heads with her stunning dress … emblazoned with the big red words: “Tax the Rich.”

Other women at the event sported similar ideological markers: “Equal Rights for Women” and … excuse me … “Peg the Patriarchy.”

The most common comment? The sheer elitist effrontery. 

This was of and for the poshest of the posh: celebrity culture. And couture. 

The stars and politicians and multi-​millionaires presented themselves proudly, smiling, unmasked — while waited on by staff all masked up.

It takes a certain amount of gall to parade before the plebes, maskless while they are masked — though we are told the celebs masked up once the red carpet parade was over. To pretend to be “with the people” and somehow against the rich while hobnobbing with the super-​wealthy is one thing, but twirling and smiling and showing off while the lowly servants are not even allowed to show their faces … undermines that whole “tax the rich” theme.

Meanwhile, the president expressed pent-​up anger at those who resist being vaccinated (“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin”) and the vice president tweeted that one way to “end the pandemic” is by “protecting the vaccinated.”

The vaccinated are allegedly protected — by their vaccines.

All this echoes Marie Antoinette — had she ever possessed the temerity to parade about as Jean-​Paul Marat.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ideological culture national politics & policies

Believe Biden?

Joe Biden, #metoo, hypocrisy,

“Women should be believed.”

That’s what Joe Biden said when Justice Brett Kavanaugh faced allegations of sexual assault during his 2018 Supreme Court confirmation process. While former Vice President and presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Biden is still for “taking the woman’s claims seriously,” now that he’s been accused, he wants us to “vet it, look into it.”*

Biden wasn’t alone then — “believe all women” became something of a rallying cry — and now his new procedural caution also echoes across the land. 

“Allegation against Biden prompts reexamination of ‘Believe women’” The Washington Post headlined its report. “The inconvenient truth is that this story is impacting us differently,” the creator of the MeToo expression, Tarana Burke, told The Post, “because it hits at the heart of one of the most important elections of our lifetime.”

“Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do,” Linda Hirshman writes in The New York Times, “the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it.”

“I don’t want an investigation. I want a coronation of Joe Biden,” Martin Tolchin explained in a letter to the Times, where he once worked as a reporter before becoming editor-​in-​chief of The Hill. “I don’t want justice, whatever that may be. I want a win, the removal of Donald Trump from office, and Mr. Biden is our best chance.”

Thus principle loses to expedience. 

As important as fighting sexual predators is, the old principle of trusting accusers only by sex is no better than the new principle of trusting the accused by party.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* As for vetting? “We found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Biden, beyond hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them feel uncomfortable,” The New York Times tweeted, quoting from their story. Citing “imprecise language,” the tweet has been removed and that last phrase scrubbed from the online story without explanation.

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The Opposite Party Is Partisan!

When departing Senator Jeff Flake indicated, the other day, that he would vote to place President Trump’s nominee Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court — despite the ugly accusations of Kavanaugh’s youthful sexual misconduct — much re-​tweeted actress Alyssa Milano called him a “coward.”

We understand what she means. Because Flake “caved” to pressure from his party* — the GOP — he proved himself “spineless,” in another Twitterer’s terminology.

But the thing is, calling your opponent a coward because he does not do what you want is at least a bit odd. One does not approach a knight defending his castle and call him a coward for not surrendering.

Weird world, eh? Where our enemies are cowards for opposing us!

This is not new. Remember George W. Bush calling the terrorists of 9/​11 “faceless cowards”? Bill Maher lost his comedy newschat show at the time because he made the obvious point that people who give their lives to a cause, even if terrible, are anything but cowards.

Human beings are a mixed bag — of virtues and vices. This should be treated as a given … for folks on all sides.

In one sense, however, Ms. Milano and many others in the Twitter brigades are not wrong. In politics, today, our biggest challenge is often resisting the besetting sins of our respective tribes.

But the fact that she and her friends “call out” the Senator for his partisan moral failings while rigorously maintaining their partisan ranks does not exactly indicate a moral heroism transcending partisanship.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Some Republicans likely regard Flake as “caving” to pressure from the left, by calling for an FBI investigation before a Senate floor vote on the Kavanaugh nomination. Flake did this after a confrontation with two women who were victims of sexual assault.

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Accountability crime and punishment insider corruption media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Congress Bites Taxpayers

sexual harassment, Congress, House Page, Washington, DC, hypocrisy, corruption, taxes,

Is it even humanly possible to be sleazier and more disgusting than the Harvey Weinsteins of Hollywood?

Sadly, and clearly … yes. There is the U.S. Congress.

In 2011, after 175 years in operation, the House page program — whereby young people came to work and learn in the capitol — was shut down. Why? For Weinsteinian reasons, because pages were being sexually propositioned and harassed.* 

Now, once again, Congress leads the way … downward … not only into a culture rife with sexual coercion, but also into one with few options for victims and plenty of protections for victimizers. Members of Congress have given more effort to keep complaints quiet and protect misbehavior than to stop misbehaving. 

And there’s more … 

“Between 1997 and 2014,” the Washington Post reports, “the U.S. Treasury has paid $15.2 million in 235 awards and settlements for Capitol Hill workplace violations, according to the congressional Office of Compliance.” That’s shelling out nearly $1 million a year, though the information doesn’t detail how many complaints were for sexual misconduct.

It is despicable when individuals or companies pay hush money to silence accusers, hiding the criminal sexual behavior of powerful men. But, for goodness sake, at least we don’t have to pay for it!

Conversely, Congress’s sexual abuse slush fund comes from you and me, taxpayers. 

Regarding the swirling allegations against Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, Sen. Cory Gardner (R‑Colo.) argued that Moore “does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.”

Well, then, he will fit right in.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The program ended several years after the Mark Foley scandal — and there were others. The official rationale? A tight budget (stop laughing) and technology, which purportedly made the work pages were doing unnecessary. But note that the Senate continues its use of pages.

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Accountability incumbents term limits

Calling Hatch Home

Senator Orrin Hatch, term limits, congress, Senate, hypocrisy,

Back in 2012, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch pledged that, if elected, his current six-​year term would be his last. On Election Day 2018, Hatch will be 84 years old — and have spent more than half his life in Washington.

Still, Utah’s senior senator just announced he intends to run for re-​election for an eighth term. 

Why? Our newly-​elected president, Hatch told a Salt Lake City TV station, “is all over me to run again.” And so is the leadership in the Republican Senate — and even in the House. Or so he says.

But what about the people of Utah? A poll this past January found that 78 percent of Utahans “definitely” or “probably” did not want Hatch to seek re-​election — with 58 percent in the “definitely” camp.

“Hatch’s bid for an eighth term is an endorsement of term limits,” argued Richard Davis, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, yesterday in the Deseret News.

“For many years, I opposed term limits because I felt legislators needed the time to gain knowledge and handle the long-​standing bureaucracy and the power of interest groups,” Davis wrote. “However, I have concluded that such knowledge can be gained relatively quickly and would become more effective if there were not highly senior politicians, like Hatch, who dominate a legislative body for many years.”

In 1976, Hatch challenged an incumbent with the line: “What do you call a Senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”

Today, having spent over 40 years in power, Hatch only wants more … and calls Washington home.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly ideological culture media and media people

Gender Offender

Elizabeth Warren, wage gap, gender, gap, hypocrisy, sexism

Tuesday, April 4, was Equal Pay Day. It’s the day 20 percent into the year some use to mark the supposed fact that women earn 79.6 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

This “gender pay gap” is concocted by taking the median pay for all men working 35 hours a week or more and comparing it to the median pay for all women working 35 hours or more — without regard to the actual number of hours worked* or occupation chosen.

It’s a ridiculously phony statistic. I know that; you probably do, too. But does Sen. Elizabeth Warren?

“The game is rigged against women and families, and it has to stop,” the Massachusetts Senator proclaimed on last year’s Equal Pay Day. “It is 2016, not 1916, and it’s long past time to eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace.”

Gender discrimination. That’s bad, no? Sen. Warren fervently argued that the “gap” is the result of evil, insidious sexism. 

The money-​grubbing misogynists perpetrating this crime against women certainly deserve to be called out and held accountable!

Thank goodness, the folks over at The Washington Free Beacon did just that. Using public records, the Free Beacon found a U.S. Senator exacerbating the problem with an even bigger gender pay gap — women making a mere 71 cents on every man’s dollar. This Senator has hired five men at six-​figure salaries, who make more than all the women employees, with only one woman besting the $100,000 mark.

That Senator? Elizabeth Warren.

On Tuesday, each of her 15 female Democratic colleagues took to the Senate floor to jaw about “equal pay.” But not Warren.**

Not even a tweet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Men, on average, work more. The “gap” also ignores work history, and similar factors that have more direct bearing on the choices of women than the discrimination of employers.

** It is worth noting that Snopes​.com “debunked” the Free Beacon’s charge using the same arguments economists and others have used to debunk the “gender wage gap” itself — without acknowledging the ominous parallels.

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