Allegations, accusations and the passage of time
As the number of women accusing the beloved Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting them grows, I am reminded of a similar situation from a couple of years ago. Remember Herman Cain and the allegations of sexual misconduct on his part, as he tried to build himself up as a possible Republican nominee to run against President Obama in 2012? I remember them well.
The media seemed to have little interest in the claims of the Cain campaign that the allegations of the first two accusers had been investigated by the National Restaurant Association and found to be baseless. Now it's two years later, and the statements from Cosby's attorney that these are old allegations that were debunked years ago is included in the first or second paragraph of any story on the subject.
There isn't a lot to write about the claims of these women because there is no forensic evidence to support their accusations and Mr. Cosby refuses to discuss them in any meaningful way. However the contrast between how the media handled the Cain accusations versus the Cosby accusations lends credence to the often-repeated claim of conservatives that the mainstream media possesses an extreme liberal bias.
CNN and MSNBC are clearly on the far left, with MSNBC to the left of CNN. However, Fox News is much further to the right than any of its competitors are to the left. There is bias in the media on both sides. It is tough to divorce your own beliefs from your obligation to objectivity in reporting the news.
In any event, it would seem that any future career plans Mr. Cosby had are probably nothing more than shattered dreams now.
* * *
On a related note, let's discuss a basic principle of our system of justice. The presumption of innocence. When anyone stands accused of a crime in the United States, they enter the courtroom with that presumption in their favor. The prosecution must prove them to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in order for them to be convicted of the accusations against them.
However, in both the court of public opinion, and in the world of corporate sponsorships and the like, this presumption is not a guaranteed right. NBC has no legal or moral obligation to go on developing whatever they were working on with Mr. Cosby. There is no right to have a TV show.
When there's a contract between two parties in the entertainment industry (and in professional sports as well), in most cases there is a morals clause. Morals clauses give one party the right to terminate the deal. So even a contract is not a guarantee if it appears that Mr. Cosby or anyone else has violated that clause.
I don't know if he is or isn't guilty. I don't think the fact that more and more women are coming out and accusing him lends enough credence to the allegations of sexual abuse for him to be prosecuted. In all probability the statute of limitations has long since passed.
Once again, remember that anything you say or do where social media is involved can come back to haunt you. If you berate your boss on Twitter, he or she can go right ahead and fire you; assuming you live in an at-will employment state like California.
* * *
For all of you who are defending President Obama's decision to undertake immigration reform by Executive Order (or if you prefer, to stop enforcing the immigration laws as is his obligation), I have a question.
Suppose that in 2016, Mitt Romney (or any other Republican you want to use as the example) wins the Presidency. Then after the inauguration, the new president writes an executive order that instructs the IRS to stop enforcement of any tax rate higher than 25% on anyone.
How would that order be any different in legality than what President Obama just did?
Either the President has the power to selectively enforce the laws passed by Congress and signed by a president, or he doesn't. Which is it?
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Are there days when someone manages to sneak a sign onto my car saying "go ahead and just cut Brian off, he won't mind?" If so, today was one of those days. Three times in less than 30 minutes.
Soon to be former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford needs to find time to attend the funeral of the late Marion Barry. He can take part in the honor guard of crack users with pipes raised in salute. On a less jocular note, it is important to recognize that Mayor Barry accomplished a lot of positive works in his time. Sadly, they won't be the primary legacy he leaves.
Can there be an awards show without someone tripping or having a wardrobe malfunction?
The orange tips put on toy guns are there to keep kids from getting shot by cops. So why do the parents allow the kids to remove them? Not to mention the first reports from the scene in Cleveland indicate that when police told the 12 year old to raise his hands, he instead reached for the gun.
Journalists meeting with Darren Wilson in hopes of landing an on-the-record interview isn't proof of bias or a conspiracy. It's just how the news-biz rolls.
If a child has stopped playing a varsity sport in high school, and gone on to college, why would a parent keep firing off nasty emails about a coach; if it isn't a vendetta? Just asking.
If you don't want to deal with the media as a professional athlete, stop taking the millions of dollars and find a different line of work.
* * *
November 24th in History:
380 – Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.
1227 – Polish Prince Leszek I the White is assassinated at an assembly of Piast dukes at Gąsawa.
1248 – In the middle of the night a mass on the north side of Mont Granier suddenly collapsed, in one of the largest historical rockslope failures known in Europe.
1429 – Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc unsuccessfully besieges La Charité.
1542 – Battle of Solway Moss: An English army defeats a much larger Scottish force near the River Esk in Dumfries and Galloway.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).
1835 – The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety).
1850 – Danish troops defeat a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein.
1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, the anniversary of which is sometimes called "Evolution Day".
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain: Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.
1906 – A 13–6 victory by the Massillon Tigers over their rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, for the "Ohio League" Championship, leads to accusations that the championship series was fixed and results in the first major scandal in professional American football.
1917 – In Milwaukee, nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history until the September 11 attacks in 2001.
1922 – Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Robert Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver.
1932 – In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
1935 – The Senegalese Socialist Party holds its second congress.
1940 – World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
1941 – World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces.
1943 – World War II: The USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men.
1944 – World War II: Bombing of Tokyo: The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital from the east and by land is carried out by 88 American aircraft.
1950 – The "Storm of the Century", a violent snowstorm, takes shape on this date before paralyzing the northeastern United States and the Appalachians the next day, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, records 57 inches of snow. Three hundred fifty-three people would die as a result of the storm.
1962 – The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.
1962 – The influential British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was is first broadcast.
1963 – In the first live, televised murder, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is murdered two days after the assassination, by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters.
1965 – Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seizes power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and becomes President; he rules the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997.
1966 – Bulgarian TABSO Flight 101 crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board.
1969 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to land on the Moon.
1971 – During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.
1973 – A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasts only four months.
1974 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" (after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
1976 – The Çaldıran-Muradiye earthquake in eastern Turkey kills between 4,000 and 5,000 people.
2012 – A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 112 people.
2013 – Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions.
Famous Folk Born on November 24th:
Baruch Spinoza
Junipero Serra
Zachary Taylor
Scott Joplin
Alben W. Barkley
Lucky Luciano
Barbara Sheldon
Forrest J Ackerman (he preferred his middle initial not to be followed by a .)
John Lindsay (inspiration for "Mayor Linseed" from the TV series "Batman")
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Ron Dellums
Paul Tagliabue
Donald "Duck" Dunn (an amazing bass player)
Dave Bing
Dwight Schultz
Dale Carnegie
Kirby Grant
Oscar Robertson (only NBA player to ever average a triple-double for an entire season)
Pete Best
Steve Yeager
Jim Sheridan (the politician)
Denise Crosby
Brad Sherwood
Katharine Heigl (a pain in the ass but she has talent)
Beth Phoenix
Sarah Hyland
The media seemed to have little interest in the claims of the Cain campaign that the allegations of the first two accusers had been investigated by the National Restaurant Association and found to be baseless. Now it's two years later, and the statements from Cosby's attorney that these are old allegations that were debunked years ago is included in the first or second paragraph of any story on the subject.
There isn't a lot to write about the claims of these women because there is no forensic evidence to support their accusations and Mr. Cosby refuses to discuss them in any meaningful way. However the contrast between how the media handled the Cain accusations versus the Cosby accusations lends credence to the often-repeated claim of conservatives that the mainstream media possesses an extreme liberal bias.
CNN and MSNBC are clearly on the far left, with MSNBC to the left of CNN. However, Fox News is much further to the right than any of its competitors are to the left. There is bias in the media on both sides. It is tough to divorce your own beliefs from your obligation to objectivity in reporting the news.
In any event, it would seem that any future career plans Mr. Cosby had are probably nothing more than shattered dreams now.
* * *
On a related note, let's discuss a basic principle of our system of justice. The presumption of innocence. When anyone stands accused of a crime in the United States, they enter the courtroom with that presumption in their favor. The prosecution must prove them to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in order for them to be convicted of the accusations against them.
However, in both the court of public opinion, and in the world of corporate sponsorships and the like, this presumption is not a guaranteed right. NBC has no legal or moral obligation to go on developing whatever they were working on with Mr. Cosby. There is no right to have a TV show.
When there's a contract between two parties in the entertainment industry (and in professional sports as well), in most cases there is a morals clause. Morals clauses give one party the right to terminate the deal. So even a contract is not a guarantee if it appears that Mr. Cosby or anyone else has violated that clause.
I don't know if he is or isn't guilty. I don't think the fact that more and more women are coming out and accusing him lends enough credence to the allegations of sexual abuse for him to be prosecuted. In all probability the statute of limitations has long since passed.
Once again, remember that anything you say or do where social media is involved can come back to haunt you. If you berate your boss on Twitter, he or she can go right ahead and fire you; assuming you live in an at-will employment state like California.
* * *
For all of you who are defending President Obama's decision to undertake immigration reform by Executive Order (or if you prefer, to stop enforcing the immigration laws as is his obligation), I have a question.
Suppose that in 2016, Mitt Romney (or any other Republican you want to use as the example) wins the Presidency. Then after the inauguration, the new president writes an executive order that instructs the IRS to stop enforcement of any tax rate higher than 25% on anyone.
How would that order be any different in legality than what President Obama just did?
Either the President has the power to selectively enforce the laws passed by Congress and signed by a president, or he doesn't. Which is it?
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Are there days when someone manages to sneak a sign onto my car saying "go ahead and just cut Brian off, he won't mind?" If so, today was one of those days. Three times in less than 30 minutes.
Soon to be former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford needs to find time to attend the funeral of the late Marion Barry. He can take part in the honor guard of crack users with pipes raised in salute. On a less jocular note, it is important to recognize that Mayor Barry accomplished a lot of positive works in his time. Sadly, they won't be the primary legacy he leaves.
Can there be an awards show without someone tripping or having a wardrobe malfunction?
The orange tips put on toy guns are there to keep kids from getting shot by cops. So why do the parents allow the kids to remove them? Not to mention the first reports from the scene in Cleveland indicate that when police told the 12 year old to raise his hands, he instead reached for the gun.
Journalists meeting with Darren Wilson in hopes of landing an on-the-record interview isn't proof of bias or a conspiracy. It's just how the news-biz rolls.
If a child has stopped playing a varsity sport in high school, and gone on to college, why would a parent keep firing off nasty emails about a coach; if it isn't a vendetta? Just asking.
If you don't want to deal with the media as a professional athlete, stop taking the millions of dollars and find a different line of work.
* * *
November 24th in History:
380 – Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.
1227 – Polish Prince Leszek I the White is assassinated at an assembly of Piast dukes at Gąsawa.
1248 – In the middle of the night a mass on the north side of Mont Granier suddenly collapsed, in one of the largest historical rockslope failures known in Europe.
1429 – Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc unsuccessfully besieges La Charité.
1542 – Battle of Solway Moss: An English army defeats a much larger Scottish force near the River Esk in Dumfries and Galloway.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).
1835 – The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety).
1850 – Danish troops defeat a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein.
1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, the anniversary of which is sometimes called "Evolution Day".
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain: Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.
1906 – A 13–6 victory by the Massillon Tigers over their rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, for the "Ohio League" Championship, leads to accusations that the championship series was fixed and results in the first major scandal in professional American football.
1917 – In Milwaukee, nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history until the September 11 attacks in 2001.
1922 – Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Robert Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver.
1932 – In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
1935 – The Senegalese Socialist Party holds its second congress.
1940 – World War II: The First Slovak Republic becomes a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
1941 – World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces.
1943 – World War II: The USS Liscome Bay is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men.
1944 – World War II: Bombing of Tokyo: The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital from the east and by land is carried out by 88 American aircraft.
1950 – The "Storm of the Century", a violent snowstorm, takes shape on this date before paralyzing the northeastern United States and the Appalachians the next day, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, records 57 inches of snow. Three hundred fifty-three people would die as a result of the storm.
1962 – The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.
1962 – The influential British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was is first broadcast.
1963 – In the first live, televised murder, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is murdered two days after the assassination, by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters.
1965 – Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seizes power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and becomes President; he rules the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997.
1966 – Bulgarian TABSO Flight 101 crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board.
1969 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to land on the Moon.
1971 – During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.
1973 – A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasts only four months.
1974 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" (after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
1976 – The Çaldıran-Muradiye earthquake in eastern Turkey kills between 4,000 and 5,000 people.
2012 – A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 112 people.
2013 – Iran signs an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear program in exchange for reduced sanctions.
Famous Folk Born on November 24th:
Baruch Spinoza
Junipero Serra
Zachary Taylor
Scott Joplin
Alben W. Barkley
Lucky Luciano
Barbara Sheldon
Forrest J Ackerman (he preferred his middle initial not to be followed by a .)
John Lindsay (inspiration for "Mayor Linseed" from the TV series "Batman")
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Ron Dellums
Paul Tagliabue
Donald "Duck" Dunn (an amazing bass player)
Dave Bing
Dwight Schultz
Dale Carnegie
Kirby Grant
Oscar Robertson (only NBA player to ever average a triple-double for an entire season)
Pete Best
Steve Yeager
Jim Sheridan (the politician)
Denise Crosby
Brad Sherwood
Katharine Heigl (a pain in the ass but she has talent)
Beth Phoenix
Sarah Hyland
posted by me at 8:08 PM
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