Was ‘Uncle Joe’ Biden the Best Choice for a Sexual Assault PSA?

November 20, 2017

WRITER

Lady Gaga released a public service announcement last month about sexual assault, talking about her own experience as a survivor and reminding people to support and help victims in their own lives. Sounds great so far … but her decision to team up with former Vice President Joe Biden is a head-scratcher.

Biden has a well-documented history of infringing the personal space of women and girls in public with kissing, massaging and nuzzling, earning him the title of “creepy Uncle Joe.” In a time when men are being exposed left and right for assaulting, groping and harassing women, Biden is looking worse and worse.

Joe Biden is groping women again “It’s disturbing”

“Joe Biden, We Need to Talk About the Way You Touch Women,” Gawker wrote in 2015. Daily Beast writer Erin Gloria Ryan was blunt this week with an opinion piece headlined “Dear Lord Would Joe Biden Be a Terrible Candidate for These Times.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: Really? Really?

Joe Biden is doing a public service announcement against sexual harassment. Joe Biden, the former vice president is on a public service announcement talking about inappropriate behavior. No, no, no. Not promoting it. I mean, saying it's wrong. Never should you raise a hand to a woman, ever.

Joe creepy old man rubbing up on every woman he sees Biden is doing a public service announcement. Really? Really? You have lost your mind. He is doing it with Lady Gaga, because that makes a lot of sense too.

All right. Let me set the stage for you, before we play this quick public service announcement from Joe Biden. Joe Biden is seated in what looks like a hotel room with Lady Gaga. And she's rubbing his shoulder, and they're all close. And keep that in mind, that's what's actually happening, while they're saying this. Here's the public service announcement. Joe Biden and Lady Gaga.

JOE: I heard you're not only a great friend, but a fierce advocate. Lady Gaga has been the voice for people who have been forgotten, people who have been abused, until it happens to you.

Well, it happened to her. And she's shown enormous courage. And we want to make it real clear, it's on us. It's on everyone to intervene to stop abuse when they see it, and when they hear about it, to intervene. It's, no man has a right to raise a hand on a woman for any woman, other than self-defense, ever, period.

VOICE: And that's not to leave out the men as well. I am a sexual assault survivor, and I know the effects, the aftermath, the trauma, psychology, physical, mental. It can be terrifying.

DOC: Uh-huh.

VOICE: Waking up every day feeling unsafe in your own body. But we're here to remind you that it's important to reach out to someone in your life that you can trust, and to know that they will be there to help you. There will be someone to listen. Because you know what, it's on us.

(music)

DOC: Really?

What's next? Hillary launching a public service campaign about the dangers of Libya? Is that your next PSA? That's the next liberal PSA that's coming? Is Colin Kaepernick going to explain proper US flag code? Are Corrine Brown and William Jefferson teaming up for an anti-government corruption PSA? Is that what's coming tomorrow?

Joe Biden on a PSA discussing what is inappropriate behavior around women is like Harvey Weinstein in a campaign promoting carpal tunnel awareness and water conservation.

It's like Jeffrey Dahmer discussing the benefits of a vegan lifestyle. It's like Monica teaching proper techniques for laundering formal wear. Joe Biden warning against sexual harassment assault is like Al Franken warning against sexual harassment and assault.

It's like Larry Craig discussing the ills of public displays of affection. It's like Bill Cosby and George Takei promoting dating safety tips.

It's like John Boehner being against lobbying in DC. It's like Glenn Beck launching an anti-obesity campaign.

Did I take that too far? I think I took that too far. I took that too far.

VOICE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did.

DOC: I think I took it too far.

Really? I'm expected to believe Joe Biden in this? And other people are as well?

Where the hell are you progressives calling him out for this? It's not hard to find all of the inappropriate behavior.

Simply go to YouTube. Type in "creepy Joe Biden." Type in Joe Biden gropes kids. Joe Biden gropes women.

It's all over the place. He clearly has done things to make them feel uncomfortable. Touching them. Saying things that makes them feel uncomfortable. And he somehow gets a pass?

This is the problem. A lack of consistency. I don't care what you think about either side is where you fall, but if you are not being consistent from person to person, and situation to situation, and applying the same logic and beliefs in this, then you're part of the problem. But I got to disagree with crazy creepy Joe and Lady Gaga. This is not on all of us. It's not on all of us to prevent sexual assault. It's on the people who sexually assault.

You take responsibility for you. I will take responsibility for me. Don't blame everybody else. Don't blame society. Don't blame toxic masculinity or any other BS term you come up with. Blame the people responsible. Hold them accountable.

Let the punishment fit the severity and nature of the crime. And if they are punished, they're remorseful, they make amends, forgive them and move on.

These are not worse crimes. It's not worse now. This is not some liberating age, where we're finally getting beyond this. It is a witch hunt. Beyond just calling people out for doing bad.

By the way, when Lady Gaga said that, I couldn't help, but think, we're here in this hotel room to fight against sexual abuse and sexual assault. We're here, promoting the cause of women and how creepy people like Joe shouldn't be creeping up on women. In this hotel room, that's what we're doing. Join me on Twitter. It's @DocThompsonshow. Got a bunch of calls. We're stacking them deep. We're going to get to them next, on the Glenn Beck Program.

Reform Conservatism and Reaganomics: A middle road?

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Senator Marco Rubio broke Republican ranks recently when he criticized the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act by stating that “there's no evidence whatsoever that the money's been massively poured back into the American worker." Rubio is wrong on this point, as millions of workers have received major raises, while the corporate tax cuts have led to a spike in capital expenditure (investment on new projects) of 39 percent. However, the Florida senator is revisiting an idea that was front and center in the conservative movement before Donald Trump rode down an escalator in June of 2015: reform conservatism.

The "reformicons," like Rubio, supported moving away from conservative or supply-side orthodoxy and toward policies such as the expansion of the child and earned income tax credits. On the other hand, longstanding conservative economic theory indicates that corporate tax cuts, by lowering disincentives on investment, will lead to long-run economic growth that will end up being much more beneficial to the middle class than tax credits.

But asking people to choose between free market economic orthodoxy and policies guided towards addressing inequality and the concerns of the middle class is a false dichotomy.

Instead of advocating policies that many conservatives might dismiss as redistributionist, reformicons should look at the ways government action hinders economic opportunity and exacerbates income inequality. Changing policies that worsen inequality satisfies limited government conservatives' desire for free markets and reformicons' quest for a more egalitarian America. Furthermore, pushing for market policies that reduce the unequal distribution of wealth would help attract left-leaning people and millennials to small government principles.

Criminal justice reform is an area that reformicons and free marketers should come together around. The drug war has been a disaster, and the burden of this misguided government approach have fallen on impoverished minority communities disproportionately, in the form of mass incarceration and lower social mobility. Not only has the drug war been terrible for these communities, it's proved costly to the taxpayer––well over a trillion dollars has gone into the drug war since its inception, and $80 billion dollars a year goes into mass incarceration.

Prioritizing retraining and rehabilitation instead of overcriminalization would help address inequality, fitting reformicons' goals, and promote a better-trained workforce and lower government spending, appealing to basic conservative preferences.

Government regulations tend to disproportionately hurt small businesses and new or would-be entrepreneurs. In no area is this more egregious than occupational licensing––the practice of requiring a government-issued license to perform a job. The percentage of jobs that require licenses has risen from five percent to 30 percent since 1950. Ostensibly justified by public health concerns, occupational licensing laws have, broadly, been shown to neither promote public health nor improve the quality of service. Instead, they serve to provide a 15 percent wage boost to licensed barbers and florists, while, thanks to the hundreds of hours and expensive fees required to attain the licenses, suppressing low-income entrepreneurship, and costing the economy $200 billion dollars annually.

Those economic losses tend to primarily hurt low-income people who both can't start businesses and have to pay more for essential services. Rolling back occupational licenses will satisfy the business wing's desire for deregulation and a more free market and the reformicons' support for addressing income inequality and increasing opportunity.

The favoritism at play in the complex tax code perpetuates inequality.

Tax expenditures form another opportunity for common ground between the Rubio types and the mainstream. Tax deductions and exclusions, both on the individual and corporate sides of the tax code, remain in place after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Itemized deductions on the individual side disproportionately benefit the wealthy, while corporate tax expenditures help well-connected corporations and sectors, such as the fossil fuel industry.

The favoritism at play in the complex tax code perpetuates inequality. Additionally, a more complicated tax code is less conducive to economic growth than one with lower tax rates and fewer exemptions. Therefore, a simpler tax code with fewer deductions and exclusions would not only create a more level playing field, as the reformicons desire, but also additional economic growth.

A forward-thinking economic program for the Republican Party should marry the best ideas put forward by both supply-siders and reform conservatives. It's possible to take the issues of income inequality and lack of social mobility seriously, while also keeping mainstay conservative economic ideas about the importance of less cumbersome regulations and lower taxes.

Alex Muresianu is a Young Voices Advocate studying economics at Tufts University. He is a contributor for Lone Conservative, and his writing has appeared in Townhall and The Daily Caller. He can be found on Twitter @ahardtospell.

LIBERAL ‘TOLERANCE’? Brunchgoer harasses, throws drink on Fox News host Tomi Lahren

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Is this what inclusivity and tolerance look like? Fox News host Tomi Lahren was at a weekend brunch with her mom in Minnesota when other patrons started yelling obscenities and harassing her. After a confrontation, someone threw a drink at her, the moment captured on video for social media.

On today's show, Pat and Jeffy talked about this uncomfortable moment and why it shows that supposedly “tolerant" liberals have to resort to physical violence in response to ideas they don't like.

Remarkable: President Trump has followed through on almost all his campaign promises

Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images

President Donald Trump has done a remarkable job of keeping his campaign promises so far. From pulling the US from the Iran Deal and Paris Climate Accord to moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the president has followed through on his campaign trail vows.

“It's quite remarkable. I don't know if anybody remembers, but I was the guy who was saying he's not gonna do any of those things," joked Glenn on “The News and Why it Matters," adding, “He has taken massive steps, massive movement or completed each of those promises … I am blown away."

Watch the video above to hear Glenn Beck, Sara Gonzales, Doc Thompson, Stu Burguiere and Pat Gray discuss the story.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar brings white fan onstage to sing with him, but here’s the catch

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Rapper Kendrick Lamar asked a fan to come onstage and sing with him, only to condemn her when she failed to censor all of the song's frequent mentions of the “n-word" while singing along.

“I am so sorry," she apologized when Lamar pointed out that she needed to “bleep" that word. “I'm used to singing it like you wrote it." She was booed at by the crowd of people, many screaming “f*** you" after her mistake.

On Tuesday's show, Pat and Jeffy watched the clip and talked about some of the Twitter reactions.

“This is ridiculous," Pat said. “The situation with this word has become so ludicrous."

Glenn's Show Prep