Dallas, Texas – I’m sure by now you have read or at least have ‘heard’ the response to an opinion piece by WSJ contributor, Joseph Epstein entitled, “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.”. If you haven’t had the chance, go read it. I’m not going to re-hash that piece here.

What I am going to write about however is the equally tone deaf response from WSJ’s chief ‘opinionist’ himself, Paul. A. Gigot.

Mr. Gigot wrote the response piece, “The Biden Team Strikes Back”. For reading of that piece, you can click here.

In Gigot’s piece, he tries to lambast the Biden team for making this a ‘minor’ issue and he even says so at the beginning of the eighth graph with: “Why go to such lengths to highlight a single op-ed on a relatively minor issue? My guess is that the Biden team concluded it was a chance to use the big gun of identity politics to send a message to critics as it prepares to take power. There’s nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism. It’s the left’s version of Donald Trump’s “enemy of the people” tweets.”.

At the ninth graph, Gigot tries to tie back to how President Trump rails against the press.

Here’s the problem with both Gigot’s ‘explanation’ and Epstein’s original ‘crime’: they both sound misogynistic and unrelenting in diminishing the accomplishment of a woman.

Let me point this out in plain English: The old, AP style of proper titles for individuals is as passe as calling a person “kiddo” and you’re in your 80s.

If that last paragraph seems like there is some ageism in it, it does and that’s on purpose.

To combat the nonsense that the likes of Gigot and Epstein push requires a brashness to remind them that the English language, as we know it today, has evolved. To hold onto the AP Stylebook like it is the journalist’s ‘bible’ shows why many in the media industry look for new leadership to begin with; because the ‘old’ guard is set in their way and they will not budge one iota.

Am I looking to offend both of these gentlemen? No. They just happen to be the sacrificial offering of why opinion columnists need to have more breadth in their writings and why compassion and flexibility is needed to maintain readership. The problem with the WSJ opinion pieces and the fact that paper stands behind the pieces is that when you look at the demographic profile, you would think it is more ‘forgiving’ than what these two contributors portray. According to the Dow Jones, the paper has demographics where the average reader is 43 years of age, the average household net worth is about $1.5m with an average household income of $242,000 annually. But HERE is where I can see why the two pieces strike the nerve of many. Average readership breakdown between the sexes, according to the Dow Jones profile is a men/women percentage ratio of 62/38.

I can see why Gigot thinks Epstein’s piece was okay to publish but I think Mr. Gigot might want to re-evaluate his audience because there are men who are just as ‘peeved’ by the slight as there are women; if not more.

What Mr. Epstein and Mr. Gigot ceremoniously fail to realize is that many men who are married to very successful women saw the slight and they have a right to be angry.

Forget about the Biden camp gentlemen. Your problem is actually those 62% of your readership who probably have spouses who have post graduate degrees in the Ph.D realm. That means, at least by my simple math, the probability that you offended 19% of your female readership. And if you offended 19% of that demographic, you better believe you have just offended 100% of that 62% of the male population.

Maybe Mr. Epstein and Mr. Gigot do not understand why so many people are upset about this slight. I get it.

As the son of a woman who, like Dr. Biden, spent the time to raise two children, she put her own educational pursuits on the back burner. And like many women before and after her, she went and got her post graduate letters after her kids were gone. And I know many women outside of my mother who have pursued and achieved the Ph.D letters; not for just self fulfillment but to ensure they are counted as an equal in their career fields.

And THAT is why this is a big deal.

Unlike a man, a woman does have to work twice as hard to prove something in this society and to this day they are not treated equally. We live in a society that still thinks its okay to pay women at the 60 – 70% salary threshold while their male counterparts are getting 100%; many with less experience and educational credentials mind you.

Is that fair?

No.

Did either of these gentlemen bring that to light?

Hell no.

One mocked the fact that a successful woman went out and has made a career in a tough field where money is not always there and the other, his boss, decided to not only double down on said mockery and call it identity politics.

I’m sorry but that’s so far from anything truthful in this reality.

But again, many are not surprised by this action.

After all, we’re talking about nitpicking modern day grammaticism as a substantive diatribe about a First Lady’s title; not her policy or future policy but her “informal” title when a person addresses her either verbally or in written prose.

And the two opinion writers think the Biden camp was coming down harsh?

I mean if one is going to be old fashioned and unwilling to change with the times, then I guess these two gentlemen are the modern day version of the muppets up in the peanut gallery.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gregory Moore is a former syndicated columnist and managing editor of a weekly newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. Now residing in the DFW area, he occasionally dusts off the typewriter and espouses his views of just society at large.

“Since the dawn of the republic, the president and Congress have resisted attempts from each other to encroach upon their constitutional powers. Many presidents have asserted, and have abused, executive authority. No one is arguing that President Obama is the first to make this mistake. As Sen. Cruz has detailed in three reports, a Wall Street Journal op-ed, and a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, no president until President Obama has ever claimed the authority to ignore the explicit text of statutes passed by Congress and unilaterally replace that text with whatever the president wishes. From Obamacare to immigration, to same sex marriage, to marijuana laws, President Obama’s willingness to ignore or alter law is unquestionably outside the scope of executive power. It amounts to legislating, pure and simple.” – statement from the office of Sen. Ted Cruz in response to a Politifact article written on March 10, 2014.

It was not a matter of why President Donald J. Trump would call a national emergency declaration for more border wall funding; it was just a matter of when.

And sure enough, like clockwork, he did just that on February 15, 2019.

And the moment he did, as predicted, the Democratic Party faithful decried that President Trump has once again chosen which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore.

What is ironic is how, in predictable fashion, the two parties we have in this country have flipped their positions on the very action they were fighting over in 2014; presidential overreach.

As S.E. Cupp said on her Twitter page: “Knock, knock, Republicans… anyone home?… Remember conservatism? Limited government? You know, your principles?”

You see, that right there is a damn good question to ask your so-called conservative friends.

And when I mean so-called conservatives, I’m talking about the ones who defend the actions of this president like none other and fail to look at themselves in the mirror and say, “Who the hell am I?”

DRINKING THE KOOL-AID GAVE YOU AMNESIA

If you, as one of the people who defend this administration to no end, think you’re not having a case of amnesia, ask yourself this question: should a president, no matter what party affiliation, be able to circumvent the constitution because he wants to keep a campaign promise?

I want you to ask yourself that question because if you think that building a wall is a national emergency…you’ve officially drank Trumpade and there is no cure.

National emergencies are things that come up all of a sudden; like hurricanes or natural disasters. Building the wall, to stop illegal trafficking, is not a national emergency.

You don’t have to believe me; let’s let another conservative talk show host tell you.

Fox’s Chris Wallace has Stephen Miller on his show Sunday morning and began pushing for answers.
“One point six million people were stopped crossing the border illegally in back in 2000,” Wallace explained, “less than a quarter that many were caught last year.”

“Eighty to 90 percent of the cocaine, heroin and fentanyl seized at the border is seized at ports of entry, not along unfenced areas,” Wallace said. “And in 2017, twice as many of the new people in the country illegally were from visa overstays as were from crossing the border,” he also pointed out, asking: “Again, where’s the emergency?”

What Wallace was using was the facts from this administration’s own data; not a previous administration or some weak website of liberal constraints.

And Miller, like all the Trump lackeys, couldn’t give a straight answer because the facts simply did not hold up to their reality. But that doesn’t stop him and others.

Let me move to another supporter who seems to forget what he said about the previous president and his use of executive orders.

Wallace had Rush Limbaugh on the show and started pressing him as well.

As taken from the broadcast and from The Hill:

WALLACE: “I understand that you like what President Trump is doing and you didn’t like what President Obama was doing. And that’s the concern here, is that to the degree you give the president more and more powers, yes you’re going to get things from one president you like, but you’re going to get executive powers from another president that you don’t like.”

LIMBAUGH: “You may look at it that way. I don’t. “I look at what Trump is doing as something he has to do because he’s not getting any cooperation whatsoever.”

And there folks is the Conservative Hypocrisy…in a nutshell.

WHAT’S GOOD FOR THAT DAMN GOOSE….

You know the old saying, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”? If you don’t think that an emergency declaration to get funding for a wall is not the busting open of Pandora’s box and the watching the Constitution be set on fire like a cheap dish towel, then you have no understanding of politics or constitutionality.

That is where the current GOP is at: they don’t know who and what they are.

There was once a time when Republicans would not only trounce the move Trump made, they would be blasting him on every level.

Today?

It’s all about the capitulation and adoration to finally having someone wear the red jersey; even if he’s the worst representative of conservative values walking the planet.

By Gregory Moore

ARLINGTON, Texas — “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”

Those were the words that President Donald John Trump said today during negotiations about immigration.

That’s not Steve Bannon.

Not Rush Limbaugh.

Hell not even from a Bill O’Reilley or Tucker Carlson.

The Whitehouse didn’t deny the words. As a matter of fact they tried to spin this into just colorful language.

“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” White House spokesperson Raj Shah said in a statement, adding a list of parameters the president believes should be part of any immigration agreement.

So here’s what is making this interesting. Did you notice that Sarah Huckabee didn’t put out this ridiculous statement?

No, her deputy press secretary did.

Shah’s parents immigrated to this country from Mumbai, India in the late 1970s and he was born in Connecticut.

He is a benefactor of his parents’ immigrating to this country to have a chance at a better life. But I am quite sure he didn’t have a great childhood as he make it out to seem. He is of brown skin…a minority and if it weren’t for his name and his well groomed appearance, he could easily be casted as someone from another country.

A shithole.

And that doesn’t seem to faze him one bit.

But it should.

It should be as offensive to him as it is definitely to me and so many others who read those comments.

It should be highly offensive to even the staunchest of a Trump supporter but I seriously doubt that those people give two shits of a hole about how those words are perceived outside of their world.

But those individuals should be pissed because undoubtedly some may not be living in the best conditions themselves.

And there is the rub for such a staunch Trumponian in Trumpland.

If you are not of good financial means and you are living in what we call trailer parks because you HAVE to because of your financial situation or you are in less than stellar housing, do you know how easy it is for somebody else of higher financial means to call your castle a…SHITHOLE?

And if you don’t think this dude who wants to try and be the President doesn’t know that, you’re living a pipe dream for sure.

Today it’s Rwanda or Zambia or Senegal.

Tomorrow it’s that Podunk shithole over in West Virginia or Kentucky.

Yeah, it’s that easy for this President or anyone who is racist to make that switch on a dime.

What’s even more puzzling to me at 2102 hrs on January 11, 2018, I haven’t seen MAJOR GOP members push back and denounce Shah or this man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Utah Congresswoman, Mia Love said this: “The President must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”

Sen. Orin Hatch said , “I look forward to getting a more detailed explanation regarding the President’s comments. Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin.”

Sen. James Lankford was quoted as saying, “If these comments are accurate, they are disappointing. I would not talk about nations like this, because I believe the people of those countries are made in the image of God and have worth and human dignity.”

Sen. Tim Scott responded with the following: “If these comments are the President’s words they are disappointing to say the least. The American family was born from immigrants fleeing persecution and poverty and searching for a better future,” he added. “Our strength lies in our diversity, including those who came here from Africa, the Caribbean and every other corner of the world. To deny these facts would be to ignore the brightest part of our history.”

But that’s about it for the most part. I haven’t seen any of the big wigs of the GOP to come out and denounce these words.

And I don’t expect that to happen tonight.

I don’t expect anyone from the GOP to call homeboy from Queens, NY out on his vulgarity.

I don’t expect anyone to take Shah to task.

Hell I seriously doubt Trumponia citizens to have the balls to realize that this was an embarrassment to this country.

The bottom line is this: this was an embarrassment. Even for this dweeb.

We expect the person at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to have decorum and human decency. We expect that person to be able to show the best of our great country to the world. We expect that person to not embarrass the shit out of us with dumbass tweets or vulgar statements in mixed company.

And we expect our government leaders to have the balls to denounce such actions soundly; IRREGARDLESS OF THE JERSEY!!

That’s not happening people.

And while so many of us are highly pissed off and embarrassed for the actions of our supposed executive of our government, we keep seeing excuses being made for boorish behavior at home and abroad.

We are stuck with a system where many in this country are turning a blind eye and ear to such actions by our CEO.

And the world is watching.

Boy is it watching.

By Gregory Moore

ARLINGTON, Texas – The senate has released their tax bill and the Joint Committee on Taxation has crunched the numbers.

OUCH.

Yeah folks, this is gonna hurt big time.

We are about to be bamboozled into thinking this tax reform and this is a welfare slumber party for the rich and richer while the rest of us are going to be poorer and poorer.

So let me explain real quick.

If you’re the middle class…your BLEEPED.

That’s people who are making between $75k – $500k per year.

Folks that is the NEW middle class.

So let me also just do this and I promise there will be a more in depth blog on the topic.

Go to The Hill’s story at http://thehill.com/policy/finance/360660-tax-cuts-in-senate-bill-would-evaporate-in-a-decade-analysis. You’ll want to click on the analysis link in the story to pull up the JCT tables.

Like I said, I’ll be back, probably over the weekend, after doing some serious crunching of my own numbers.

But from just my cursory glance….OUCHY OUCHY OUCHY….

And nobody in Washington has taken me out to diner??

By Gregory Moore

ARLINGTON, Texas – So news finally came out Sunday night.

Colin Kaepernick was filing a grievance against the NFL for collusion.

For many it was, “it’s about time!!” but for the majority it was, “what?”

But if you really weren’t paying attention to the details, you were caught up in the anthem, police brutality and them damn socks.

But a few started to get whiff of something far greater; a labor issue.

It shouldn’t be hard to fathom here as to why Kaep filed the grievance; it’s week six people and have you looked at these quarterbacks out there?

I’m not going to even go with the top ten or fifteen guys. Let me just give you the guys ranked from #21 – #30 and their qbr ratings from ESPN Stats:
Jacoby Brissett – 48.6
Philip Rivers – 43.6
Derek Carr – 38.6
Jameis Winston – 43.2
Trevor Siemian – 43.8
Blake Bortles – 36.9
Andy Dalton – 39.3
Jay Cutler – 29.1
Brian Hoyer – 26.8
Joe Flacco – 30.6

What was Kaep’s in 2016? 49.5.

Okay seriously, are you trying to tell me that an owner would rather have a dude like Cutler or Bortles?

It’s rhetorical…don’t answer.

THE COLLUSION CASE ISN’T WINNEABLE BUT IT’S A FLASHLIGHT

Look this isn’t rocket science here folks. We all know that there is no way that Kaep could win a collusion case. BUT, what he is doing is shining this bright ass spotlight on an issue that will force the NFL to seriously come to grips with: social pressure.

See, what this case is doing is forcing the NFL to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask itself one question: why is this protest fine and that on isn’t?

What do I mean by protest?

Simple. It’s all about what causes the league deems “worthy”.

Those worthy causes have a monetary value to them.

Breast Cancer Awareness? Check the money.

Domestic Violence Awareness? Yup there’s money.

Salvation Army? Come on you know the deal.

Military recognition? Oh yeah there’s big money with this one.

These and so many other causes get the royal treatment because they are what society loves.

But a non-violent protest against something “sacred” to the league and its fans is a no go.

That’s why there are kneels to this day.

It’s why this whole anthem issue is a hot potato.

Now there is a solution to that issue on the national anthem: give the money back and have the players stay in the locker room.

But the league isn’t about to do that one. They love money far too much.

And it has an identity issue here because this protest isn’t going anywhere.

And neither is this “stench” that maybe some owners have decided to freeze out a decent QB because he decided to make a silent protest.

Eric Reid, his former teammate, said it best in an op/ed he pinned: “It baffles me that our protest is still being misconstrued as disrespectful to the country, flag and military personnel. We chose it because it’s exactly the opposite. It has always been my understanding that the brave men and women who fought and died for our country did so to ensure that we could live in a fair and free society, which includes the right to speak out in protest.”

Look I get it.

A lot of people are saying that these guys shouldn’t be doing it during their “work hours”.

But let me ask you this?

If the owner of the 49ers was okay with this, and all he did was take knee for a few minutes, you can’t tell me that other clubs saw that and said, “oh hell naw. I don’t want that crap in this organization.”

Mind you now, some of these organizations have taken in drug offenders, domestic violence perpetrators and a few “rougher” dudes; if I may use the current POTUS’ lexicon.

And those dudes had jobs or got second, third, twelfth chances.

They say that it takes courage to live in your convictions.

I’m not gonna lie; I don’t know if I could have done what Kaep has done the past several months.

But I definitely admire his stance because in order to affect change, you sometimes have to be that scapegoat.

Can he prove collusion?

Hell I don’t know.

But I do know this…a spotlight is about to be shown in the NFL’s kitchen.

Ya’ll ever see what happens when the light comes out and roaches scatter?

Yeah it’s going to be one of those moments.

And change, in some form, is going to happen.