Disgraced CBS chief executive Les Moonves destroyed scores of evidence and lied to investigators conducting a probe into multiple allegations against him, ranging from sexual harassment to rape.

Les Moonves “engaged in multiple acts of serious nonconsensual sexual misconduct in and outside of the workplace, both before and after he came to CBS in 1995,” says a report, according to the New York Times. The 59-page report, prepared by outside lawyers hired by CBS, said Moonves was “evasive and untruthful at times and to have deliberately lied about and minimized the extent of his sexual misconduct.”

Moonves — who joined CBS in 1995 and helped make it America’s most watch network, helping to shepherd hit TV shows like Survivor, How I Met Your Mother, and Big Bang Theory — was first accused in July of sexual misconduct by six women, dating back two decades. He denied the allegations. The Los Angeles prosecutors refused to charge the longtime television titan for sex abuse crimes for alleged assaults, one in 1986 and two more from 1988. But accusers continued to come forward.

Moonves, whose $69 million annual compensation, stocks, and other benefits totaled over a $1 billion, faced a new round of accusations, this time from six more women who told The New Yorker that Moonves forced them into nonconsensual sexual situations and retaliated when they refused his advances.
By September, the CBS board of directors was planning to offer Moonves north of $100 million in an exit package.

CNBC reported at the time:

CBS‘ board of directors is near completion of a settlement that would both end its litigation with its controlling shareholder National Amusements — and sever ties with long time CEO Leslie Moonves, according to people familiar with the situation.

The prospect of Moonves walking away with millions enraged the masses, many of them emboldened by the MeToo anti-sexual harassment. CBS hired two law firms to conduct an investigation into the allegations against its network head.

“Based on the facts developed to date, we believe that the board would have multiple bases upon which to conclude that the company was entitled to terminate Moonves for cause,” the report says, indicating that Moonves could be terminated without receiving a dime in compensation.

Among the more disturbing findings from the report, in which investigators spoke with 11 of the 17 known women who’ve accused Moonves of unwanted sexual advances, is the claim that Moonves “received oral sex from at least 4 CBS employees under circumstances that sound transactional and improper to the extent that there was no hint of any relationship, romance, or reciprocity (especially given what we know about his history of more or less forced oral sex with women with whom he has no ongoing relationship).”

“A number of employees were aware of this and believed that the woman was protected from discipline or termination as a result of it,” the lawyers wrote. “Moonves admitted to receiving oral sex from the woman, his subordinate, in his office, but described it as consensual.”

Moonves’ alleged victims include actresses Bobbie Phillip and Eva LaRue.

Les Moonves married long-time CBS fixture Julie Chen in 2004. Chen is currently host of the long-running primetime CBS show Big Brother.

Moonves’s lawyer, Andrew J. Levander, said his client “denies having any nonconsensual sexual relation” and “cooperated extensively and fully with investigators.”

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has finally provided his team’s sentencing recommendation  for three-star general Michael Flynn.  He has acknowledged that Flynn has provided 19 separate interviews with the Mueller team.  The heavily redacted report provides no information concerning the testimony that Flynn provided.  Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. 

Flynn has had to sell his home to pay his legal bills during this process.  His 33-year career serving our country seems to have meant little to the prosecutors trying to get him to turn on Trump.  Although we have no direct evidence for his sudden decision last year to plead guilty and cooperate, many believe that this was done to protect his son from being prosecuted.  This is the type of prosecutorial overreach that borders on ethical violations.  It certainly makes us wonder: what is prosecutorial discretion?

Shockingly, the basis for this investigation includes citation of the Logan Act of the 19th century, limiting foreign negotiations by the general public.  Most observers believe that the transition team is not subject to this law, which has rarely been used and never successfully when challenged in court.  Unfortunately, the FBI investigators reported that they did not believe that Flynn was intentionally lying when questioned about his interaction with then-Russian ambassador Kislyak. 

The report includes recognition that he did not register when doing work for the government of Turkey.  This is usually corrected by paper changes, not prosecution.  Further, all the information that led to the inquiry was collected through government communication-gathering.  Though the government is required to minimize the mention of names of U.S. citizens, this information was leaked to damage Flynn and ultimately Trump.

So far, most of the Mueller prosecutions have been process crimes and not ones with any connection to Russian collusion.  This includes George Papadopoulos and Michael Cohen.  This makes one wonder why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein began this inquiry in the first place.  It is hard to dismiss all the unequal justice, including the questionable FISA warrant on Carter Page, begun with a phony Russian dossier.  

So now that Flynn’s life has been ruined, the prosecutor recommends no jail time.  The report gives no information that would give any connection to Trump directly.  There is no effort to provide any bombshell against the Trump campaign.  For any objective observer, the only collusion with Russia with any evidence came from the Clinton campaign in hiring Fusion GPS to secure the dossier from British agent Christopher Steele. 

Now we have complaints by Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone of prosecutorial abuse, which, taken together with statements of other individuals, casts great doubt upon the sincerity of the Mueller team.  Perhaps the investigation is winding up, but some believe that Mueller will continue until Trump is out of office.  Unfortunately, Flynn could not fight any longer due to his finances. 

The shame of this whole affair is the sham that has become our Justice Department, which has degenerated to the level of a third-world nation.  Reports say Mueller is tying up loose ends.  Let us hope this will end soon for the benefit of this republic.  Now we await the Democrat committee chairs in the incoming House who have threatened further inquiries.  God help us!

Image: James Ledbetter via Flickr.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has finally provided his team’s sentencing recommendation  for three-star general Michael Flynn.  He has acknowledged that Flynn has provided 19 separate interviews with the Mueller team.  The heavily redacted report provides no information concerning the testimony that Flynn provided.  Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. 

Flynn has had to sell his home to pay his legal bills during this process.  His 33-year career serving our country seems to have meant little to the prosecutors trying to get him to turn on Trump.  Although we have no direct evidence for his sudden decision last year to plead guilty and cooperate, many believe that this was done to protect his son from being prosecuted.  This is the type of prosecutorial overreach that borders on ethical violations.  It certainly makes us wonder: what is prosecutorial discretion?

Shockingly, the basis for this investigation includes citation of the Logan Act of the 19th century, limiting foreign negotiations by the general public.  Most observers believe that the transition team is not subject to this law, which has rarely been used and never successfully when challenged in court.  Unfortunately, the FBI investigators reported that they did not believe that Flynn was intentionally lying when questioned about his interaction with then-Russian ambassador Kislyak. 

The report includes recognition that he did not register when doing work for the government of Turkey.  This is usually corrected by paper changes, not prosecution.  Further, all the information that led to the inquiry was collected through government communication-gathering.  Though the government is required to minimize the mention of names of U.S. citizens, this information was leaked to damage Flynn and ultimately Trump.

So far, most of the Mueller prosecutions have been process crimes and not ones with any connection to Russian collusion.  This includes George Papadopoulos and Michael Cohen.  This makes one wonder why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein began this inquiry in the first place.  It is hard to dismiss all the unequal justice, including the questionable FISA warrant on Carter Page, begun with a phony Russian dossier.  

So now that Flynn’s life has been ruined, the prosecutor recommends no jail time.  The report gives no information that would give any connection to Trump directly.  There is no effort to provide any bombshell against the Trump campaign.  For any objective observer, the only collusion with Russia with any evidence came from the Clinton campaign in hiring Fusion GPS to secure the dossier from British agent Christopher Steele. 

Now we have complaints by Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone of prosecutorial abuse, which, taken together with statements of other individuals, casts great doubt upon the sincerity of the Mueller team.  Perhaps the investigation is winding up, but some believe that Mueller will continue until Trump is out of office.  Unfortunately, Flynn could not fight any longer due to his finances. 

The shame of this whole affair is the sham that has become our Justice Department, which has degenerated to the level of a third-world nation.  Reports say Mueller is tying up loose ends.  Let us hope this will end soon for the benefit of this republic.  Now we await the Democrat committee chairs in the incoming House who have threatened further inquiries.  God help us!

Image: James Ledbetter via Flickr.

Stop partisan corpse abuse
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2018

Impolite question, but it needs to be asked: Is there a Republican dead body that left-wing partisans won’t use to bash Donald Trump?

This week’s partisan corpse abusers callously exploited the passing of George H.W. Bush, America’s 41st president, to get in their digs at the current commander in chief. Their vulgar level of incivility was inversely propositional to their sanctimonious calls for decency.

“The View’s” Joy Behar rudely and crudely soiled the ABC show’s tribute to the 94-year-old World War II hero and lifelong public servant. While Whoopi Goldberg and other panelists paid homage to Bush’s character and love of family, Behar wielded an old Bush quote about federal Clean Air Act amendments to attack Trump on climate change. Her narcissistic pledge to become a “one-issue voter” on “pollution and the greenhouse effect” was interrupted when co-host Meghan McCain forcefully objected to the hijacking of their short-lived unity message.

Instead of apologizing for her ill-timed lapse into Trump Derangement Syndrome, Behar ripped into McCain while Goldberg cut to a commercial break. Not-so-joyful Joy reportedly shrieked in earshot of the audience: “Get this b—- under control” and told producers “If this s— doesn’t stop, I’m quitting this damn show. I can’t take this much more.”

Neither can my ears. Can’t we just all get along?

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski displayed a similar lack of restraint, extolling the Bush’s legacy of bipartisanship not for its own sake — but to carp about how “over the last two years deviancy has continued being defined down by this current president.”

The Washington Post’s lead article on Bush’s passing bemoaned: “‘Honorable, gracious and decent’: In Death, Bush Becomes a Yardstick for President Trump.” Yes, it’s a virtue-signaling yardstick to wallop Trump with in hopes of beating him into Beltway media submission.

Over at CNN, correspondent Jamie Gangel derided Trump’s somber visit to the U.S. Capitol to pay his respects as Bush 41’s casket arrived at the rotunda to lie in state. Gangel trashed Trump’s ceremonial salute to Bush as “theatrical” and rejected veteran Beltway commentator David Gergen’s assessment that Trump deserved credit for his decorum.

“I’m concerned that we shouldn’t give credit to someone for not kicking dirt on the grave of a person who just passed away,” said Jeffery Engel, rebuking Gergen during an interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. (Yes, that’s the same Cooper who demonstrated his commitment to civil discourse by infamously mocking tea party conservatives by using a degrading slang term for an oral sex act — also in an interview with poor David Gergen.)

Let’s stop pretending and give the historical whitewash a rest. This isn’t about celebrating “civility.” It’s about weaponizing “civility.” The newfound fans of the Bush clan spent years demonizing them as bloodthirsty warmongers and dynastic oppressors. Bush the Younger was lambasted as a “chimp,” beheaded in protest posters, and assassinated in off-Broadway plays. When liberals now praise the Bushes’ “civility,” what they are actually rewarding is the GOP establishment’s capitulation to liberal principles of big government and elitist comity.

Because the Bush family refused to fight back vigorously against media smears, daily Hollywood abuse and partisan slime, they’re considered paragons of virtue from whom Trump is lectured to “learn.” According to swamp etiquette, it’s uncouth to call out profane, deranged haters who have no qualms about letting their anti-Trump freak flags fly as decent Americans mourn.

“Civility” is in the eye of the bemoaner.

***

In case you’re interested, my thoughts on the Bush legacy are here at Breitbart.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush praised President Donald Trump on Tuesday for his gracious response to the Bush family after the death of George H.W. Bush.

Jeb Bush said that Trump called him after his father died and “couldn’t have been nicer.”

Trump’s former rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 spoke about his father’s death and President Trump during a Wall Street Journal event in Washington, DC.

He said that his granddaughters joined First Lady Melania Trump and other members of the Bush family on Tuesday to visit the White House and tour the Christmas decorations.

Jeb added that both the president and the first lady were “really gracious” to the family.

He acknowledged that Trump was not delivering the eulogy for his father but said that George W. Bush had “first dibs.”

“What people want to talk about is, well, why isn’t the president giving the eulogy?’” he said. “It’s because we have a unique circumstance here: my brother was president.”

Trump will attend the state funeral for George H.W. Bush which will be held on Wednesday.

When Dick’s Sporting Goods announced earlier this year the chain would no longer sell so-called assault weapons at its Field and Stream locations, the backlash was intense.

The store made headlines and was slammed across social media and conservative news outlets for the anti-gun move. Some shoppers even abandoned the store altogether.

Now, the financial implications of the chain’s decision are becoming much clearer.

The company’s share price dipped more than 4 percent after a devaluation by J.P. Morgan, reports CNBC.

Stock in the company was downgraded by an analyst after failing to inspire confidence. The downgrade saw the stock slapped with a “neutral” label, meaning investors don’t see it as a rapid earner anytime soon.

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And it’s not just a stock downgrade signaling rough seas ahead for the sporting goods store.

Same-store sales growth for the company took a staggering hit, projected to grow at less than half the rate as the previous years’ average. This may eventually slow to a standstill if customers continue to abandon the chain.

And why wouldn’t any gun-loving American ditch this store?

Dick’s made its infamous decision to heavily restrict its firearms sales days after the Parkland shooting in Florida. The company even planned to destroy the weapons instead of sending them back to the manufacturer, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Destroying money making inventory may have been done to send a message, but it could have also worked to scare away potential investors worried about the future of a company more concerned with catering to liberals than turning a profit.

Despite the less-than-stellar financial outlook, Dick’s now seems to be doubling down on bad business decisions.

Since gun buyers have decided to stay away from Dick’s, CEO Edward Stack is now considering removing all hunting equipment from the stores.

Ten stores have already removed hunting items, reports WTVD. Those items were replaced with outerwear, baseball gear and other things likely found cheaper on Amazon.

While a sporting goods store excluding certain sportsman may seem like a bad business idea, Stack is hopeful about the test.

RELATED: Landlord Tells Female Student To Leave When Liberal Snowflakes Find Legal Guns

It seems as though Dick’s is intent on whittling down its “dangerous” merchandise, at any cost.

And although the company has survived nearly a year after its anti-gun decision, restructuring the stores to exclude certain sportsmen and outdoorsmen is sure to hurt the retailer even more down the line.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

And today in “no, we’re really not joking” news regarding political correctness, did you know your privilege is showing if you use the phrase “bringing home the bacon”?

Yes, it’s true — simple phrases like that now ought to be considered passé, according to one academic, because they involve animal products.

Writing in The Conversation — whose motto “Academic rigour, journalistic flair” has always struck me as one of the more ridiculously hopeful taglines on the internet — Professor Shareena Z. Hamzah of Swansea University in Wales argues that meat itself is tainted by the whiff of privilege.

Now that more and more people are cutting out animal products from their diets, she writes, phrases that use them might be considered offensive.

“For countless generations, meat has been considered the single most important component of any meal. But meat is more than just a form of sustenance, it is the very king of all foods. It’s a source of societal power,” she writes in a piece headlined “How the rise of veganism may tenderize fictional language.”

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“Historically, the resources required to obtain meat meant it was mainly the preserve of the upper classes, while the peasantry subsisted on a mostly vegetarian diet. As a result, the consumption of meat was associated with dominant power structures in society, its absence from the plate indicating disadvantaged groups, such as women and the poor. To control the supply of meat was to control the people.”

This would be a great lark, but I’m under the impression this poor woman is being serious.

“In today’s reality, meat is repeatedly the subject of much socially and politically charged discussion, including about how the demand for meat is contributing to climate change and environmental degradation,” she continues.

“Given that fiction often reflects on real world events and societal issues, it may very well be that down the line powerful meat metaphors are eschewed.

“The increased awareness of vegan issues will filter through consciousness to produce new modes of expression.”

And that new consciousness, of course, will take out certain phrases.

“It is not surprising that food metaphors, often meat-based, infuse our daily speech,” she writes.

“There is invariably a gastronomically themed way of expressing almost any situation. Having money troubles? Then your goose is cooked if you don’t bring home the bacon.”

I’m curious where the academic rigo(u)r and/or journalistic flair is here. This is pretty much less rigorous or academic than my personal favorite study in this vein, “When ‘Angelino’ squirrels don’t eat nuts: a feminist posthumanist politics of consumption across southern California.”

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As for journalistic flair? Well, read it for yourself. If it weren’t unintentionally funny, you’d fall asleep.

Take, for instance, her alternatives.

“The increased awareness of vegan issues will filter through our consciousness to produce new modes of expression – after all, there’s more than one way to peel a potato.  At the same time, metaphors involving meat could gain an increased intensity if the killing of animals for food becomes less socially acceptable,” she writes.

“The image of ‘killing two birds with one stone’ is, if anything, made more powerful by the animal-friendly alternative of ‘feeding two birds with one scone.’ If veganism forces us to confront the realities of food’s origins, then this increased awareness will undoubtedly be reflected in our language and our literature.”

I’ll pause while you clean the coffee you just spat out while laughing off of your phone. Ready now? Great.

Sadly, Hamzah isn’t the only one who thinks this should be a thing. Look at those brilliant folks at PETA, who also suggested teachers substitute new idioms for anything involving animals.

“Unfortunately, many of us grew up hearing common phrases that perpetuate violence toward animals, such as ‘kill two birds with one stone,’ ‘beat a dead horse,’ and ‘bring home the bacon.’ These old sayings are often passed down in classrooms during lessons on literary devices,” the group wrote in a blog post for teachers headlined “Animal-Friendly Idioms That Your Students Will Love.”

“While these phrases may seem harmless, they carry meaning and can send mixed signals to students about the relationship between humans and animals and can normalize abuse.”

Instead, PETA suggests that you should say “spill the beans” instead of “letting the cat out of the bag” and “taking the rose by the thorns” instead of “taking the bull by the horns.”

That’s perhaps the most galling thing about Hamzah’s piece, which was published late last month. She’s not the only one thinking this.

She’s not the only person bringing home some bacon by saying “bringing home the bacon” is offensive. God help us, each and every one.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

I don’t expect much sense to be spoken at a “climate town hall” event hosted by Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders in partnership with publications like The Nation and NowThis. Even though it was live-streamed on the internet free, I literally had anything better to do.

However, I probably ought to have perused the list of speakers at Monday’s “Solving Our Climate Crisis, a National Town Hall” a bit closer. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on the bill. There was at least a fighting chance that she was going to give us a profoundly stupid soundbite.

The Notorious AOC certainly didn’t disappoint, saying that renewable energy would finally bring “racial justice” to America.

“The idea that we’re going to somehow lose economic activity — as a matter of fact, it’s not just possible that we will create jobs and economic activity by transitioning to renewable energy,” she told the audience.

“But it’s inevitable that we’re going to create jobs. It’s inevitable that we’re going to create industry.

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“And it’s inevitable that we can use the transition to 100 percent renewable energy as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America.”

When it comes to the environment, much like geopolitics, Rep.-elect Ocasio-Cortez is not the expert on this issue. For instance, she believes climate change can be fought like it were a Nazi.

“So when we talk about existential threats, the last time we had a really major existential threat to this country was around World War II,” Ocasio-Cortez told an audience in October.

“And so we’ve been here before and we have a blueprint of doing this before.”

“None of these things are new ideas. What we had was an existential threat in the context of a war. We had a direct existential threat with another nation, this time it was Nazi Germany and the Axis, who explicitly made the United States as an enemy, as an enemy.

“And what we did was that we chose to mobilize our entire economy and industrialized our entire economy and we put hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to work in defending our shores and defending this country. We have to do the same thing in order to get us to 100 percent renewable energy, and that’s just the truth of it.”

Of course, the blueprint we have of doing this before involves building a lot of fighter planes, submarines and tanks and powering them with fossil fuels. And then killing a lot of people on the other side — by the millions.

But shh.

At least that had the sort-of-kind-of connection to reality by envisioning total mobilization of an economy to a cause, even if it was a ridiculous cause for which total mobilization would be impossible. In what world is this going to create “racial justice?”

RELATED: Here’s Why Ocasio-Cortez’s Math on Pentagon, Medicare Costs Is So Embarrassingly Wrong

Are windmills going to end racism? Are we going to get tidal power up and running and suddenly the alt-right and the New Black Panthers are going to hold hands and sing “I’d like to buy the world a carbon credit?”

And on economic and social justice — are solar panels going to make income inequality go away and convince every Republican to ask new friends what their preferred gender pronouns are? I’m kind of drawing a blank on how the particulars of this are going to work.

That’s all right, though — I get the feeling Rep.-elect Ocasio-Cortez was drawing a bit of a blank herself when she said it. This is just a jumble of words that was supposed to signal how capital-P Progressive she is. It worked, but at the expense of her own already-tattered reputation

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