This is another amazing episode with the return of Lizz Winstead and Frank Conniff. We're also joined by Comic JOE DEVITO and Constitutional Law Professor COREY BRETTSCHNEIDER.
Lizz Winstead created The Daily Show and Air America, she talks about Harvey Weinstein.
And the good news about Harvey is I'm sure he's the only one in Hollywood who's ever gotten away with that kind of behavior. I mean, C'mon! It's a town that voted for Hillary and speaks up for women all the time. From the New Yorker expose on the Weinstein rape allegations:
Other employees described what was, in essence, a culture of complicity at Weinstein’s places of business, with numerous people throughout the companies fully aware of his behavior but either abetting it or looking the other way. Some employees said that they were enlisted in subterfuge to make the victims feel safe. A female executive with the company described how Weinstein assistants and others served as a “honeypot”—they would initially join a meeting, but then Weinstein would dismiss them, leaving him alone with the woman.
Then there are reports of Harvey's enablers. The silent snakes, female and male, from today's New York Times:
He had an elaborate system reliant on the cooperation of others: Assistants often booked the meetings, arranged the hotel rooms and sometimes even delivered the talent, then disappeared, the actresses and employees recounted. They described how some of Mr. Weinstein’s executives and assistants then found them agents and jobs or hushed actresses who were upset.
Lizz and I discussed Trump's new executive order allowing Christian companies to deny contraception to their employees. I mentioned that Hobby Lobby, which earned the right to deny contraception doesn't offer paid family leave to its workers. Lizz couldn't believe that. I busted Hobby Lobby three years ago on this. Here's the link. As usual, the Far Right wants women pregnant but doesn't want to help the baby. I wrote back then:
So, we wondered if Hobby Lobby’s deeply held religious beliefs also included providing paid maternity leave to its employees. After all, if you want your workers pregnant, certainly you’d be willing to join the rest of the industrialized world by paying for the mother's eight or so weeks with her newborn. Certainly Hobby Lobby CEO and founder David Green whose net worth is north of $5 billion could afford to offer paid maternity leave.
Alas, Mr. Green’s Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to pay for maternity leave either. Here’s what we found from an anonymous Hobby Lobby employee who wrote four years ago…
Here is my commentary for KPFK on the subject:
FRANK CONNIFF can be heard every day on SiriusXM’s Tell Me Everything, and he talks about Harvey Weinstein. Joe DeVito is one of the funniest comics working today and he talks about Harvey Weinstein. Constitutional Law Professor Corey Brettschneider’s book is “When The State Speaks.” He does not talk about Harvey Weinstein…Wait. Maybe he does.