Is Everyone On TV a Matt Lauer?
The Matt Lauer fallout continues. In a statement released just a couple hours ago Lauer said quote:
“There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions. To the people I have hurt, I am truly sorry. As I am writing this I realize the depth of the damage and disappointment I have left behind at home and at NBC. Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”
Details are beginning to emerge on Lauer’s behavior. A Variety story published yesterday disclosed years of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. There were quote “dozens” of people that came forward to corroborate Lauer’s actions. Similar to how all of Hollywood knew about and was complicit in Weinstein's rain of terror, can we not say the same thing about the brass at NBC? NBC News chairman Andy Lack stated that Monday night was the first time they had ever heard about Lauer’s behavior. Are we seriously supposed to buy that?
According to Variety, Matt Lauer had multiple consensual relationships with women he held power over, sent a sex toy to a female colleague, exposed himself to employees, and reprimanded a subordinate for not engaging in a sexual act with him IN HIS OFFICE. Like Weinstein in Hollywood, this wasn’t a secret at NBC. It sounds like nearly all of 30 Rockefeller Plaza had heard this was going on.
There’s obviously an epidemic of perverts in our society, but it’s time we hold accountable those that have enabled this type of behavior with their silence. Evil triumphs when good people say and do nothing. If you’re an executive or manager that knew all this was going and turned a blind eye, you carry guilt right alongside Lauer.
What Would Jesus Wear?
“The Son of God Himself wouldn’t approve.”
Newsweek writer Christal Hayes apparently has talked to Jesus about his opinion of Trump’s new Christmas themed “Make America Great Again” hats.
She is convinced He wouldn’t approve of the new holiday merch.
Why? The hat costs $45 dollars, nearly double the price of a traditional Trump hat.
"What would Jesus do about President Donald Trump's overpriced Christmas hats?" Hayes asks. She then goes on to cite several verses from Scripture denouncing greed and 1 Corinthians that says you shouldn't cover your head while praying.
If this article was supposed to satire it could be funny, but unfortunately, I think this is serious.
Tell me Newsweek, would Jesus approve of you promoting your membership options immediately following that article?
Just like Trump, you use Christmas to sell your products, too! Newsweek literally has an ad that says, “Give the Perfect Christmas Gift: A magazine subscription makes a fantastic gift that lasts an entire year.”
How much for the cheapest Newsweek subscription? Only $1.90 a week…which comes out to $99 dollars a year. More than twice the price of that Christmas Trump hat!
Hayes maybe should have looked up Matthew 7:5 while she was reading Scripture and removed the beam from her own eye before writing this nonsense.
The bottom line is that selling products, whether it’s a subscription to Newsweek or a Trump hat, to consumers so they can give their loved ones a present on Christmas is a good thing. Always.
Christmas certainly shouldn’t be all about the presents, but at the root of purchasing and giving gifts is a symbolic gesture of love. It’s a gesture that I think Jesus would be ok with.
Enforce the Gun Laws On the Books
The U.S. Air Force does a lot of things well, but data entry apparently isn’t one of them.
On Tuesday, the Air Force said it has found “dozens” of cases in which it failed to enter servicemen who have been convicted of a crime into the National Criminal Information Center database.
You’ll recall that the gunman who killed 26 people in Sutherland Springs earlier this month was a former Air Force serviceman who spent one year in military prison for assaulting his wife and stepson. The day after the mass shooting, the Air Force admitted that his conviction had not been entered in the national background check database. If his name had been in the database, it should have prevented him from being able to purchase a gun. Instead, he passed background checks to buy guns over the past two years.
Now the Air Force is doing an internal review of 60,000 cases that reach back to 2002. They say they are correcting the “several dozen” records they’ve found that should have been reported to the national database. The full review will take several months.
The Air Force’s negligence here is staggering – the idea that they’ve found “dozens” more cases where they failed to register convicted servicemen, and that’s just what they’ve found so far. And that’s just one branch of the military. What about the other branches? What about all the other state and federal agencies? How much more negligence is out there?
Enforcing the laws we already have is imperative. If we can’t even depend on the Air Force for due diligence in this area, then we have a serious problem. Let’s come together on something we can agree on – redoubling our efforts, across the board, to enforce the gun laws that are in place now. We must be better than this. Every time we’re not, we chip away at our Constitutional freedoms.
