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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (334246)	4/21/2017 9:08:04 AM
From: Sam	Respond to of 541602

Bill O’Reilly Sacked, Fox News Gets Off Free By JACK SHAFER April 20, 2017 No matter where you stand on Bill O’Reilly—he’s a serial abuser who deserved his canning or he's the subject of “a brutal campaign of character assassination that is unprecedented in post-McCarthyist America,” as his lawyer just put it—the underplayed story of the week is the easy ride being given to his bosses at Fox News Channel. The network has known since at least 2002 of O’Reilly's—what shall we call them?—appalling ways around the newsroom. According to the New York Times, which threw a saddle on O’Reilly in January and rode him down hard to his demise, Fox paid a small settlement to a junior producer whom he verbally berated at high volume. (She signed a confidentiality agreement and left the channel.) In 2004, an O’Reilly producer sued him and Fox for sexual harassment. He countersued and promised to fight the suit but settled, paying $9 million out of his own pocket. In 2011, he likewise settled with a Fox Business Network host who accused him of sexual harassment. In 2016, Fox News settled sexual harassment claims directed at O'Reilly by two additional former Fox News employees. Later that year, another Fox personality filed sexual harassment charges against the network, naming O’Reilly as one of her harassers. That’s a lot of money, and a lot of allegations. Yet the network waited until the Times assembled the full docket against O'Reilly before it finally took any measures against its popular prime-time host. Surely somebody at Fox, which was O’Reilly's employer for 20 years, bears some culpability for his alleged conduct. The first somebody, of course, would be Roger Ailes, founder of the Murdoch-owned network, and the man who hired O’Reilly. But he’s not around anymore. Ailes was part of the executive suite that approved sexual harassment settlements in cases filed against him and O’Reilly, and last summer the network dumped him against a similar backdrop of harassment charges and settlements. If Ailes and O'Reilly had to walk the plank, why not current Fox co-presidents Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy? Shine figures in a sexual harassment suit filed against Ailes by current on-air personality Julie Roginsky, who claims the executive did not investigate her harassment complaint and then retaliated against her. Last year, Fox settled a sexual harassment complaint leveled against Abernethy and O’Reilly, Law Newz reported in January. Even if you assume their innocence—and I do—they had to know about the years-long pattern of accusations against O’Reilly and the settlements paid. And given the amount of money paid to protect O’Reilly against the charges, some drawn from the Fox treasury, surely uber-boss Rupert Murdoch knew what was going on. What’s his responsibility for waiting so long to take action? Moreover, what did Rupert’s son James Murdoch know? As Michael Wolff writes today, the network belongs to him now. continues at politico.com

To: epicure who wrote (334246)	4/21/2017 10:33:22 AM
From: zax	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541602

Trump just cut budget for food for 2.4 million poor Americans. He spends that much per week when he goes to Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump could reverse cuts to arts, poor and elderly if he stopped staying at Mar-a-Lago, figures show Four services facing elimination under proposed cuts could be maintained at the cost of President's visits to private Florida resort over four years, figures show independent.co.uk Donald Trump could reverse his recently announced cuts to arts, poor and elderly services if he cut his trips to Mar-a-Lago and lived permanently in White House instead, figures indicate. Calculations show four programmes that face elimination - which tackle homelessness, unemployment among over-55s, participation in the arts and helping the poor access higher education - could be maintained at the cost of the President’s trips to his private Florida resort over the course of four years. The services amount to a total of $597 million — just less than the $600 million security arrangements for the Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago visits are estimated to cost the taxpayer over the course of his term. The National Endowment for the Arts, which encourages participation in the arts ($152 million), the US Interagency Council on Homelessness ($4 million), an independent agency coordinating the federal government's efforts to reduce homelessness, the Senior Community Service Employment Program ($434 million), which has helped more than one million people 55 and older find jobs and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ($11 million), providing scholarships and fellowships in social sciences and humanities, are all facing the axe in Mr Trump's budget. This amounts to a total of $597 million (£483 million). According to CBS News, the President spent every weekend of his first 33 days in office at the Palm Beach estate - for which security is estimated to have cost $10 million (£8.1 million). American taxpayers must foot a bill of more than $3 million (£2.4 million) each time he travels there, rather than staying at the official presidential residence of the White House — amounting to $600 million over the four years. The services are among hundreds of programmes and agencies the budget proposed would be eliminated to pave the way for a $54 billion (£44 billion) increase in defence spending. The $1.15 trillion (£1 trillion) budget – titled 'America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again' — which covered only discretionary, not mandatory, spending — also stated plans to slash funding for Meals on Wheels, a program that provides meals for the poor, elderly and veterans, as well as health care and nutrition for low-income women, infants and children.