Predator de Jour
Matt Seinberg

Allegations of sexual misconduct rock NBC News and CBS News

Every day a new sexual predator is in the news, outed by some woman, child or man for doing something they shouldn't be doing. There are so many of these outings, it seems a daily occurrence. Until recently, Bill Cosby was the poster boy for being the most despicable predator of recent times.

How Camille stays with Bill is beyond me.

How Camille Cosby, wife of Bill, has stayed with him, given everything he has admitting to doing, boggles my mind. How could this long-suffering wife live with a man that drugged and sexually assaulted numerous women over the course of thirty years? It’s a good question.

Lucky for Cosby, Kevin Spacey came along. He faces allegations of abusing teen-age boys when he was in his twenties. Spacey used that moment to actually come out and admit he's gay, while, at the same time, saying he had been with women as well.

Then the avalanche crushed down the mountain. People crawled out from under all that snow and made more allegations against Spacey, including the cast and crew of his hit Netflix show, House of Cards, on Netflix.

Netflix immediately suspended Spacey and fired from the show a week later. The show was shooting its final season; firing Spacey and stopping filming, at least for a while, was not a big deal. The question now is how do they write his character out of the show? Does he die; go to prison, or retire to his hometown?

Will Spacey face charges for any of the allegations leveled against him? One fact is almost certain, his acting career, at least in the USA and Canada, is over. Perhaps Spacey will join Roman Polanski in Switzerland.

On 30 October 2017, NBC and MSNBC terminated contracts with political analyst, Mark Halperin. Earlier, CNN reported five women came forward with allegations against Halperin; that number grew to twelve.  Halperin denied some the more lurid allegations, in a public statement, and apologised from his actions.

Allegations against Charlie Rose were shocking.

The next big name to hit the spotlight was heptgenerarian Charlie Rose, of CBS and PBS. The Washington Post reported that eight women, three of them going on the record, accused Rose of making crude sexual advances. CBS and PBS fired Rose immediately; Bloomberg television announced it terminated its rebroadcast agreement with his production company.

Then the big bomb dropped when NBC senior management became aware that "Today Show" host, Matt Lauer, made numerous unwanted sexual advances and, ostensibly, worse to co-workers. The first official complaint against Lauer began during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and, ostensibly, continued until recently. The victim and here lawyer presented the details of this complaint to NBC senior management, including HR representatives, at a meeting that lasted for several hours.

Several more complaints, involving Lauer, followed. He ostensibly had a remote control button, under his desk, which would lock his office door. This effectively kept anyone prisoner, in his office, unless they did as he asked. Supposedly, he would drop his pants and expose himself, asking for sex from a female co-worker.

NBC terminated Mr. Lauer for "cause," stating that it would not pay out the remaining amount of money on his contract, due to the nature of his termination.

The latest bombshell hit on Saturday, when the New York Times reported that 78-year-old James Levine, of the Metropolitan Opera, started molesting a 15-year-old boy in Illinois thirty-three years ago. Levine ostensibly paid the complainant $50,000 over the years. Was that hush or guilt money?

The now 48-year-old complainant reported the abuse to Lake Forest, IL, police in October 2016 and to a board member of the Met Opera, as well. Yet, Levine, who closely guards his private life, continued to work. Rumours of his improper sexual conduct followed Levine for years. According to Michael Cooper, of the Times, “the inquiry by the Met, one of the world’s most prestigious opera houses, showed that the national reckoning over claims of sexual misconduct had entered the world of classical music at its very highest echelons.”

Journalist and Fox host, Geraldo Rivera, has not escaped his past. He wrote a book in 1991 that had stories about his many sexual conquests over the years and just this week he apologized for those stories. Is he trying to get ahead of those stories that will come out shortly?

Bette Midler, again, accused Rivera and his producer of molesting her in her dressing room, a few years ago. She reported the story, at the time, but nothing happened. After similar problems with its News president, Roger Ailes, and top-rated host, Bill O’Reilly, Fox may well drop Rivera.

Let's remember the bombshell that started this entire mess, film producer, Harvey Weinstein. He wielded his penis as a power weapon to abuse, nay attack, numerous women, over the years, in Hollywood, New York and elsewhere. The New York City Police Department is even looking into allegations against Weinstein, with possibly bringing criminal charges against him.

What to do with sexual predators?

Here's my opinion on all these sleaze balls. Chop off their junk. Throw them in jail, into the general population. Let the inmates teach them a real lesson in abuse. Then they'll cry like the little boys they really are and wish that instead of being in jail, they were dead.