"... addressing the latest reporting on a $32 million settlement he reached with a longtime network analyst."
This morning's podcast from Michael Barbaro (NYT).
Steel and Schmidt wrote the article that went up on Saturday, "O’Reilly Settled New Harassment Claim, Then Fox Renewed His Contract In January, the Fox News host was said to have agreed to a $32 million settlement with a former network analyst, the largest of his known payouts."
What's in the podcast that's not in the article? 1. The sound of Bill O'Reilly's voice pleading victimhood, 2. The gay pornography O'Reilly allegedly sent to Lis Wiehl, the Fox News legal analyst who got $32 million, was gay male pornography, 3. O'Reilly's assertion that he'd do anything to protect his children and that he has knowledge that Eric Bolling's son is dead because of the news story that drove Eric Bolling off Fox News, 4. O'Reilly frames his victimhood in terms of harm to his children, and Steel and Schmidt observe that the Harvey Weinstein story has undercut O'Reilly's ability to characterize his problem as a liberal vendetta.
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96 comments:
It's always a problem when people start to believe and act on what elites preach only as an opiate.
I don't believe $32 million was paid. Maybe $3.2 million.
And Wiehl signed a bizarre one page affidavit that says nothing and plenty at the same time. Try parsing that.
$32 million!
That's why it sucks to be a millionaire.
When you're poor like I am, you can send porn to anybody. Nothing like poverty to keep you out of civil litigation. We've got what the lawyers refer to as empty pockets.
Just think of all the good you could have done with that money, Bill! Now you have to pay out money to millionaire crybabies. Millionaires suing millionaires, over dirty pictures. What a joke.
Sent gay pr0n - what else?
NY Mag seems to claim that the "lurid details" are:
++
"In 2006, Media Matters reported that O’Reilly routinely made inappropriate comments to and about Wiehl during their radio show, labeling her “eye candy” and calling for a “full body search” of his co-host.
Despite the lurid details — ..."
++
Holy smokes! He "labeled" a woman!
Well there is at least one, and maybe several, audio recordings of O'Reilly speaking lewdly to female co-workers; that was the $9 million Andrea Mackris case. And O'Reilly flatly denied/denies any wrongdoing in any of it.
After O'Reilly was fired, Sean Hannity invited O'Reilly as a guest on his show for a friendly, favorable, welcoming interview. Hannity naturally pressed O'Reilly on nothing with regard to the allegations that led the O'Reilly story.
I am trying to imagine the Althouse blog post if later this week, an MSNBC program host invited Harvey Weinstein for an on-air interview and the interview ignored the recent allegations and instead looked forward to the day when Harvey would be back in the film business.
Chuck, thank you for being our moral conscience.
I don't know the facts, but being eye candy is what got her a highly paid job almost anyone could do.
I hope that is not the substance of the charges, that Ole Blowhard was an entertainer. When does Stern get put in the stocks?
"Chuck, thank you for being our moral conscience."
Goodness, I was already laughing at Chuck's blind hypocrisy and then you added a heaping helping of lovely dry snark! Starting the day right.
He paid $9 million for the loofah.
I hope she didn't secretly record him in California! That's a felony, right?
Just imagine a Republican prosecutor who starts prosecuting feminists for secretly recording sex talk. It's a felony! Off to prison! And you thought you were going to be a multi-millionaire.
I think that Chuck thinks that Althouse holds some brief for Fox News Channel. She never claimed to be a conservative, Chuck.
It really depends on what O'Reilly actually did.
There's credible evidence that Bill Cosby drugged many actresses (Spanish Fly!) to have sex with them (which is rape)
There's credible evidence that Harvey Weinstein promised business meetings with actresses in his hotel room, asked for massages, then and chased them around the room demanding sex. Some acquiesced, but the ones who didn't credibly claim he groped them and, about 6, claim he raped them.
I prefer O'Reilly's politics over Weinstein's. But I certainly wouldn't defend O'Reilly if he acted like Weinstein.
We know there were settlements and a firing. If it were just lewd phone comments and pix, well, that's not enough in my book to put O'Reilly in the same class as the other two.
So, I'm supposed to feel sorry for Bill O'Reilly. EVERYONE knows the rules in Corporate America. O'Reilly thought he was above the rules.
All this crap about "the children".
You'll notice almost no conservative talk show host or pundit has rallied to Bill's defense. You know why? Because O'Reilly refused to call himself conservative and constantly tried to triangulate. And he rarely defended any conservative when under personal attack. Egoists often find themselves alone.
One headline you might think about, if you're the New York Post, is Gay Porn Gold-Digger
What's so irritating about women millionaires, they never think, "I should send that guy hot lesbian porn!" And if she ever did, I wouldn't think, "I can sue her for millions and retire."
This is a tort that was invented for over-sexed men and gold-digging women. You just can't flip the sexes on this one. Won't work.
Now, now -- let's no pick on Chuck. He took precious time away from running the Rachel Maddow Fan Club to make a comment here at Althouse. We should all be thankful!
I've seen some O'Reilly show segments with Lis Wiehl over the years, and it was their on-air shtick for him to flirt with her. I wasn't entertained by that, but that was the way they decided to do the show. I can see criticizing everyone involved in the show for doing it that way, but if that was the show and Wiehl participated in it, why didn't she complain and say I want to be presented in a more professional light? I wonder what went on there and how it related to the casual/harassing communication behind the scenes. Because of the settlement, we'll never know.
"Because of the settlement, we'll never know."
I mean it is possible that we could find out more, but the settlement is an effort to suppress the whole thing.
Obviously their "on the air" shtick turned into UNWANTED sexual harassment off-air. People often pretend when they go on air. For example, Dan Rather pretended to be an intelligent, objective newsman.
As someone said, you don't payout $32 million, when you're innocent.
It has never been clear to me whether O'Reilly's freakout in relation to George Will's criticism of "Killing Reagan" which seems to have led inexorably to Will's being released from Fox and later being picked up at MSNBC was a good thing or a bad thing. It is so rich; I think it a good thing.
Victor Davis Hanson describes the shorthand version of the story here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427275/did-oreilly-finally-go-too-far-victor-davis-hanson
The video of the O'Reilly-Will confrontation is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YGzXYSzzxE
I just happened to be watching Fox that day and the Will interview was taped in the early afternoon. Then, Will appeared live on Bret Baier's "Special Report" and spoke about his appearance with the "unhinged" O'Reilly:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/before-interview-aired-george-will-went-off-on-unhinged-oreilly-segment/
Ann Althouse said...
"Because of the settlement, we'll never know."
I mean it is possible that we could find out more, but the settlement is an effort to suppress the whole thing.
Right. Just like with Weinstein.
$32 million?! Bet he wishes he had Weinstein's lawyers.
Or maybe not. Weinstein found out you don't keep someone bought for $100k. $32mil though...
The Cracker Emcee Activist said...
"Chuck, thank you for being our moral conscience."
Goodness, I was already laughing at Chuck's blind hypocrisy
What exactly is my "blind hypocrisy"? Be specific.
Liz Wiehl frequently appeared on Imus’ MSNBC show before it was cancelled. She presented herself as a sexy albeit aging dumb blonde with a law degree from Harvard. That was her shtick. Wonder if she sued Imus too.
Supposedly there were multiple settlements you O’Reilly.
Fox was smart and soon as this came up they fired him.
The size of what Weinstein did was much bigger than what OReilly did.
I note the efforts the Democrats and media / Hollywood allies are trying to make them morally equivalent. Their hypocrisy stinks.
Weinstein is under criminal investigations for rape, O’Reilly is not.
Both found like creeps.
The plants Weinstein inappropriately personally fertilized were not available for comment.
Country music on the other hand, has their shift together.
“Katie Armiger says she was blacklisted from country music after sexual harassment allegations”
Saint Croix @ 8:43.
!
I think the biggest question mark that needs to be answered is: What do they mean by "non-consensual sexual relationship?" Because, uh, that's rape.
If he's being accused of rape, sorry. You don't get to settle that. We involve the police to bring down rapists.
Thanks Chuck for the link to VDH. I don’t watch TV, so that helped.
Seems OReilly had a huge ego, worked with sexy divorced lady with an on air that would be considered sexual harassment in a normal work environment. And he took the on air part off air, and is paying the price.
I wonder about the other reported settlements.
"As someone said, you don't payout $32 million, when you're innocent."
-- While I don't know if O'Reilly is innocent (all evidence at the moment points to guilty as sin), what amount DO you pay out when you're innocent? This sort of thinking is why we need to do away with the plea deal or settlements.
I wonder why he thought she'd be interested in gay male porn. What was the message there? I feel like we're missing a context, unless O'Reilly is just this super weird perv who randomly did super weird pervy stuff. Which is certainly possible.
"I mean it is possible that we could find out more, but the settlement is an effort to suppress the whole thing."
32 million starts to make sense if O'Reilly himself was in the gay porn.
God, the double standards are running so thick on this comments page.
Parsing and deflecting the allegations against Bill O'Reilly, while Weinstein is the great hypocrite and monster of all time. Indeed, Weinstein is just the avatar for a whole world of monstrous hypocrisy, right?
I don't view this as ideological at all. I don't think that true ideologues who are devoted to causes care much at all. I don't think that right wing ideologues like Ted Cruz, or Paul Ryan, or George Will care much about anybody's sex scandals. I don't think that left wing ideologues like Dr. Zeke Emanuel, or Richard Cordray or Bernie Sanders care much about sex scandals. All of them, on opposing sides, care about issues.
But in TrumpWorld, where Trump himself seems to care so greatly about social media and personal allegations, and so little about issues like health care, and cannot be burdened with details but must fight back every social slight, it is different. There can be no quarter given, to any media opponent.
So it becomes a proxy war. Bill O'Reilly is the guy for the Fox/Tea Party/MAGA crowd. And they have to defend him or jettison him. And Harvey Weinstein is the guy for the MSNBC/Democratic Left crowd. And they have to defend him or jettison him.
I'll leave it up to everybody to judge -- and Althouse has sure blogged the hell out of it to help everyone reach a conclusion -- whether the left has reacted more ethically to Weinstein, than the MAGA crowd has reacted to O'Reilly.
And as always let's keep in mind that neither Weinstein nor O'Reilly have ever held public office. But Donald Trump does.
I agree with Althouse that we may never know how much of the banter between O'Reilly and Wiehl was a planned part of the show. Assuming that Wiehl's role on the radio show was to add a little sexual zest. If so, that would explain a lot of their interactions on the TV show. O'Reilly frequently teased his fellow Fox News professionals who had recurring segments, but the insults directed at Wiehl seemed a little more barbed than those directed at others.
On the other hand, O'Reilly went out his way to plug Wiehl's books. For others he might just mention their most recent book, for Wiehl he often did much more.
As for their personal interactions off air, I think it can be very difficult to turn off that kind of banter. Their time on air wasn't heavily scripted. What O'Reilly said to her and she to him was mostly ad-libbed. It may have started out as a role they were both playing, but it can be hard to change the way we communicate with someone just because the microphone's been turned off. I can understand why that would be hard on her, but I can also imagine how hard it would be for him to remember to speak to her differently when they weren't on air.
you don't payout $32 million, when you're innocent.
Here's a hypothetical.
Rich man seduces hot woman. They have passionate, wild sex. He can't get enough. It's awesome.
She becomes cold and withdrawn. Then the rich men gets a letter from a lawyer. She's alleging that he raped her. And she's suing him for sex harassment and sexual assault.
If you're a rich man, you might very well pay out millions of dollars to avoid a criminal trial.
Even if you're innocent of rape, and you know this is a shakedown.
Just because you're terrified of the bad publicity, and of the possibility that the jury will believe her, and not you. Because in a he said/she said situation, anything can happen.
From Chuck's links.
Roger Ailes, the genius behind the Fox News phenomenon, was quoted in a recent unauthorized biography as saying of his franchise’s meal ticket, “Bill O’Reilly is a book salesman with a TV show.” Left unsaid is that O’Reilly is a money machine for Fox News.
O'Reilly's over-sized ego got the best of him.
Chuck -
I don't see anyone here defending O'Reilly. We don't know what really happened. St. Croix @ 9:19 offers a plausible explanation.
It's said that a difference in quantity can become a difference in quality. The sum of 32 million indicates that something pretty bad happened. Not that many accusers have come forward against O'Reilly, but the figure involved in the settlement is not exculpatory.......Roman Polanski's latest accuser claims to have been only ten when he violated her. That doesn't look good for Roman, but only about four women have come forward. That's not too many. He was a moderate sex offender, unlike Harvey who has given all sex offenders a bad name with his excessive and over the top behavior. Perhaps at the next Academy Awards, Meryl Streep can explicate these differences. I'd like to see Lady Gaga stand behind Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, and Bill O'Reilly to demonstrate the breadth and depth of Hollywood's heart when it comes to forgiveness of moderate sex offenders.
Is that kind of money taxable? Asking for a friend.
Saint Croix - Except is wasn't rape - it was civil suit for damages. No possibility of jail.
If the case against you is so strong that you're willing to pay $32 million to make it go away, then the chances of you being innocent are very small.
And I don't think Bill O'Reilly is that rich. I dare say, he still thinks $32 million is a lot of money.
Sally327 said...
I wonder why he thought she'd be interested in gay male porn. What was the message there? I feel like we're missing a context, unless O'Reilly is just this super weird perv who randomly did super weird pervy stuff. Which is certainly possible.
O'Reilly defends that issue by saying that he was getting a lot of hate mail, and the gay porn was part of the hate mail, and he was forwarding all of it to a team of his lawyers, and that he had asked Wiehl to be part of his team of personal lawyers.
That seems like a highly plausible explanation, as far as it goes. The reason that I have a lot more questions for O'Reilly, is his past history of sexual harassment, some of it caught on tape, and all of it being denied, falsely I expect, by O'Reilly. Along with O'Reilly's other record(s) of dishonest and bullying behaviors outside of the realm of sexual harassment.
This ain't the first rodeo for Bill O'Reilly.
I never watched or listened to O'Reilly if I could help it. Not because of anything he said or did, just that his voice bothered me. He sounded exactly like someone I knew many years ago and wish I had never met, so it was completely personal on my part.
Given that, I have no clue about his on-air personae or what may have happened off air.
All I can say is sauce, goose, gander.
The NYT story reported that Lis Wiehl's allegations included, "a nonconsensual sexual relationship". Relationship?
Saint Croix - Except is wasn't rape - it was civil suit for damages.
Are you having trouble reading the hypothetical? Causes of action in civil litigation can also be crimes. That's how O.J. Simpson was sued for killing his ex-wife.
In my hypo--and I emphasis, it's a hypo, no commentary on the actual case, which I know almost zero about--a young woman threatens to go to the police and charge a rich man with rape. And they had an actual sexual relationship. And she's saying, "I did not consent, this was rape." And the attorneys say, "she won't go to the police if you pay her off."
In that hypothetical, it's entirely possible that an innocent man would pay a lot of money to avoid the scary prospect of prison.
Because rape is a serious crime and rapists spend many years in prison. And if you can afford it, you might very well pay off your accuser, even if you're innocent. And you might do this because your lawyers are warning you that it's possible that you will lose the criminal trial.
Consider too that alleged rape victims who do not go to the police, but instead try civil litigation, might be interested in money more than justice.
I am surprised and heartened at how women in general remain so innocent and blameless when it comes to anything regarding sex and scandal.
rcocean said...
Saint Croix - Except is wasn't rape - it was civil suit for damages. No possibility of jail.
If the case against you is so strong that you're willing to pay $32 million to make it go away, then the chances of you being innocent are very small.
It doesn't have to be a particularly "strong" case of damages; it may just be terribly embarrassing for the defendant if it were litigated. I think that Gretchen Carlson's claim against Roger Ailes was such a claim. I have a hard time that Roger Ailes was up to doing anything to crazy with Gretchen. Gretchen doesn't strike me as any sort of latex/trapeze/vegetable oil sort of gal either. But I have the distinct impression that she had a few encounters with Ailes where a tape recorder was running.
And I don't think Bill O'Reilly is that rich. I dare say, he still thinks $32 million is a lot of money.
He's rich. When Roger Ailes was paying O'Reilly $25m a year, and yet still said that O'Reilly was a book seller who happened to have a tv show, that tells you something.
And yet I totally agree with you; $32 million is a lot of money. Especially for an old guy with a fresh divorce to pay for. One thing that gets done in a case like that is payments over time. Payments over time make it easier to control the beneficiary; she gets cut off if she blows the NDA. And it might make it easier for her, tax-wise, if she gets periodic payments although mostly personal injury settlements are not taxable. (Income from proceeds are taxable.)
As someone who has settled some big personal injury cases with structured settlements, you can buy an annuity that pays out $32 million over time, with a deposited amount of just a fraction of that total amount.
Seems like this could be a money grab to me by the hotties on Fox who were hired, in part, for their looks.....Wiehl, Tantaros, Julie Rogovich.
The only one that Fox has decided is lying is the one who accused Charles Payne, a black man, and Payne has been returned to his job after a brief suspension.
The world has changed I guess...now when it comes to sexual harassment, they say the white guy did it.
Chuck -- I'm not seeing the hypocrisy you're seeing. There is a difference between reserving judgment and not caring about sexual misbehavior. In the case of Weinstein, several of Althouse's frequent commentators 'defended' Weinstein -- if by defending we mean pointed out that the charges had yet to be substantiated.
The same is true of O'Reilly. We don't have much clarity about what O'Reilly supposedly did. Nor do we know for sure whether O'Reilly is guilty of anything more than being a cad. If people are withholding judgment on O'Reilly's behavior until more is substantiated, and if those same people acted the same way to the initial reports about Weinstein, how is that hypocrisy?
Note: I'm not saying some on both the left and right aren't hypocrites on this issue. Plenty of Democrats defended Bill Clinton while still condemning Justice Thomas on far less evidence of far lesser charges. Several Republicans seemed willing to overlook sexual misdeeds by Republicans when they'd condemned Clinton. All I'm saying is that the apparent willingness of some to give O'Reilly a pass is NOT proof of hypocrisy. It can be explained by the salient fact that much less is known about what O'Reilly did than is known about Weinstein's behavior.
"As someone who has settled some big personal injury cases with structured settlements, you can buy an annuity that pays out $32 million over time, with a deposited amount of just a fraction of that total amount."
Please give me an idea of what you call a fraction Chuck.
O'Reilly sends gay porn and gets bent over by the recipient.
Is that kind of money taxable? Asking for a friend.
Yes, it is taxable as ordinary income. Worse, it's taxed on the gross. Any attorney fees, court costs, and related expenses are deductible as a misc. itemized deduction (which not deductible at all for alternative minimum tax purposes).
O’Reilly allegedly became irate, threatening her career, and even insulting her black leather purse.
Poor purse!
AJ Lynch said...
"As someone who has settled some big personal injury cases with structured settlements, you can buy an annuity that pays out $32 million over time, with a deposited amount of just a fraction of that total amount."
Please give me an idea of what you call a fraction Chuck.
It depends. Depends on the age of the recipient, and the "rating" of the recipient. It also depends on a predicted rate of return.
If money is going to be paid out over 50 years or more, and if the recipient is someone like a badly-damaged infant with cerebral palsy (who may not live a full life expectancy), then the cost of a $32m annuity may be only $4 or $5 or $6 million. Reverse those parameters and the cost might be double or triple that amount.
I wrote "a fraction" because there are too many variables to say anything more exact.
Ah the revenge of the loofah mitts continue in a never ending stub down.
I think the biggest question mark that needs to be answered is: What do they mean by "non-consensual sexual relationship?" Because, uh, that's rape.
If he's being accused of rape, sorry. You don't get to settle that.
I agree.
If you're charging a man with rape, that's a crime. Criminal charges should either come first or take precedence over the civil litigation. It's like suing somebody for murder instead of calling the cops.
"I don't think that right wing ideologues like...Paul Ryan, or George Will..."
That's some funny shit, Chuckie!
"Ah the revenge of the loofah mitts continue in a never ending stub down."
Yup, the whole thing's falafel, just falafel.
Aren't these settlements supposed to be confidential? if so, then how do we know these settlement figures are real? As for O'Reilly, no doubt he is a rich man but wasn't earning the amount of money needed to pay those settlement figures if they are real. Therefore who paid? FNC? The employment practices insurance that FNC carries? O'Reilley's insurance (presuming he has some form of coverage)? Some combination of the carriers? If third parties paid, then those party's probably made the settlement with O'Reilly having to go along with them or risk having the carriers drop him.
Still, O'Reilly is a fool. He should have known he is a target, that he had no real friends and that he shouldn't have set himself up. That said, he isn't a Bill Clinton or a Harvey Weinstein but he sure is a hypocrite.
Note: I'm not saying some on both the left and right aren't hypocrites on this issue. Plenty of Democrats defended Bill Clinton while still condemning Justice Thomas on far less evidence of far lesser charges. Several Republicans seemed willing to overlook sexual misdeeds by Republicans when they'd condemned Clinton. All I'm saying is that the apparent willingness of some to give O'Reilly a pass is NOT proof of hypocrisy. It can be explained by the salient fact that much less is known about what O'Reilly did than is known about Weinstein's behavior.
For the record, I am and have been a Justice Thomas defender. I look beyond the one publicized matter, which I regard as dubious, and consider what people like Laura Ingraham -- a former Thomas clerk -- have said about working in his chambers. No one apart from one or two or three people orchestrated by the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have ever raised so much as a credible question about Thomas. Thomas has worked very closely with many dozens of people, including lots of young women, for many years, and there is nothing untoward in any of it.
In the case of O'Reilly, there are multiple large-money settlements. Audio recordings. Court records. And video, of a guy who has been unhinged on multiple occasions. Oh, and his dismissal from a company where he was a massively valuable commodity. It hurt the company badly, to let him go.
I am not trying to convict O'Reilly of any crimes. I am only explaining my personal judgment of him.
Chuck said...I am trying to imagine the Althouse blog post if later this week, an MSNBC program host invited Harvey Weinstein for an on-air interview and the interview ignored the recent allegations and instead looked forward to the day when Harvey would be back in the film business.
Why rely on your imagination, guy? Take any major Media interview with Weinstein over the last decade or so and check it out. After all "everybody knew" and Weinstein himself paid out a number of settlements, right?
Your analogy would be better if it was something like an MSNBC host who paid some settlement and then went on Rachel Maddow's show.
Better analogies, please.
It seems like a no win exercise to contrast and compare the various largely alleged sins O'Rielly and Weinstein. Although getting to label people as hypocrites for appearing to go easy on one and not the other does offer that sweet burst of self satisfaction you get from being right I guess. But it's a dangerous battlefield. You have to be careful to remember that something alleged is not absolute evidence of wrongdoing, so you're left with things like numbers of accusations (where there's smoke there must be fire), the amounts of payouts, and the general public credibility of the various accusers.
A $32.0M annuity which yields 4.0% over a ten year period requires starting capital of $26.9M, Chuck! That a big fucking fraction, dumbass.
"What exactly is my "blind hypocrisy"? Be specific." - Chuck
It's funnier if we don't tell you.
Chuck is hammering BOR, and hammering some of us for insufficiently hammering BOR, after we hammered the crap out of Weinstein.
Does he have a point?
Kinda sorta, but ultimately not.
I am much more concerned about Harvey's assaults/rapes, than his casting couch shenanigans, or his potted plant adventures.
But BOR's settlement sounds like sexual harassment in the workplace, awkward "come ons", perhaps some porn, perhaps something much worse.
Is the victim of BOR's malfeasance talking, or is she happy with the settlement? Obviously, Rose MacGowan was not happy with her measly 100K settlement from fat Harvey.
Back in the Great Depression, Busby Berkeley was making awesome musicals about greedy people who wanted to soak millionaires for cash. From my book...
Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) Insanely cool Busby Berkeley musical. It starts off cynical and funny, all these people who want money so bad. They're willing to marry for money, love for money, scam for money, steal for money. The whole world's a prostitute in 1935. But what makes Busby Berkeley so damn cool are the musical numbers. It's not a dance featuring an amazing dancer like Astaire or Kelly. But it's amazing nonetheless. It involves scores of beautiful women, all dressed in costume, creating fantastic images of precision. You might see 100 women playing 100 pianos, for instance. His two Gold Diggers are the sum of his art, check 'em out.
Gold Diggers of 1933 is my other favorite.
It should be noted that while we might think of "gold digger" as a misogynist term for women, it actually applies across both sexes. Prostitutes and gigolos are both gold diggers. People who marry for money are gold diggers. I think it's a good term and we should bring it back. Prostitutes do one-night stands for money. But gold diggers marry for money, or get into sexual relationships for money.
(Also these movies have good people who marry for love, so it's not hopelessly cynical).
What's interesting about Berkeley is that the Nazi filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, totally ripped him off when she made her Nazi propaganda film, Olympia. That's why, when you watch Mel Brooks do a Nazi musical number in The Producers, he's riffing on both Berkeley and Riefenstahl.
A lot of it sounds like dumbfuck O'Rielly thought he was getting women excited with his sexy talk and heavy breathing. What a blow to his ego to find out they were not exactly enthralled. You would think in this day and age a guy in his position would have enough common sense to record the calls if he is ever going to say "she participated and enjoyed it" as a defense. In fact, a guy like him should be smart enough to talk in such a way as to lead her into the suggestive conversations.
Only thing in his favor is that apparently he never expressed a desire to do physical harm to anyone, unlike our own bloviator who threatened Greta van Sustern with violence in order to "show her how it feels".
Chuck said...I'll leave it up to everybody to judge -- and Althouse has sure blogged the hell out of it to help everyone reach a conclusion -- whether the left has reacted more ethically to Weinstein, than the MAGA crowd has reacted to O'Reilly.
Sudden coyness--you shy flower you!
I, for one, am intrigued. Golly I want to know what you think now--that sly withholding has driven me into an absolute frenzy of desire to know your own hidden opinion!
I find $32 million to be hard to believe on a sexual harassment claim, especially one that doesn't involve forcible gang rape. I mean, you could murder someone and you wouldn't have to pay that much in a civil judgment.
Fabi said...
A $32.0M annuity which yields 4.0% over a ten year period requires starting capital of $26.9M, Chuck! That a big fucking fraction, dumbass.
Read, you dumbass. I started with a hypothetical for an infant, with a term of 50 or more years. Not ten years. And I said that a shorter-term annuity with no "rating" could be triple (and I should have added, "or more") the cost.
That is why I started out with only "a fraction" as my description. And added more only to try to be helpful.
Because I know that with the attention I draw here, every word of mine will be fly-specked by 100 Trump fans. And I figure that me against 100 Trump fans is a fair fight.
Lis has been around more times than a clothes dryer drum, Imus routinely said.
There's no sexual harassment on air. It's taken to be all acting. You just can't say cunt. For some reason that's not taken to be acting.
Women apparently make allowences for clumsy seduction by the rich and powerful, but remember it for later too. The more times it happens, the bigger the eventual settlement.
Larvell said...
I find $32 million to be hard to believe on a sexual harassment claim, especially one that doesn't involve forcible gang rape. I mean, you could murder someone and you wouldn't have to pay that much in a civil judgment.
As I stated above, the figure might not be purely compensatory for damages. It may have been in part to prevent disclosure. It may have been worth it to O'Reilly to buy silence irrespective of how badly Lis Wiehl may have been "damaged."
And again, as already discussed, it is possible (I don't know) that the $32 million settlement didn't cost $32 million in an upfront lump-sum payment. In fact, payments over time (all the while enforcing silence) do more to insure compliance with the NDA in the settlement agreement.
There's a danger the fad may pass and harassment won't be worth anything in the future. So a lot is coming out now while it's still worth money.
The mob will tire.
Chuck bloviated
Because I know that with the attention I draw here, every word of mine will be fly-specked by 100 Trump fans. And I figure that me against 100 Trump fans is a fair fight.
Chuck has assumed his detractors are Trump fans, while in reality he has earned their scorn with bloviation and pomposity, as well as threats of violence against men, women and children.
Not to mention the frequent use of bad words and poor logic.
I assumed O'Reilly wanted to avoid disclosure investigations. Of course he could investigate Lis too and probably find a lot.
Harvey is ground zero, but there are the blast waves and radiation to be considered. I think the careers and reputation of Woody Allen, Bill O'Reilly, and Bill Clinton are now irreparably damaged...... Harvey's many enablers and flatterers can perhaps come back, but they're damaged goods. The standing ovation that Harrison Ford and Meryl Streep gave Roman Polanski are now a part of who they are. You just don't look at them the same way. All that gushing that Meryl Streep did about Harvey subverts the regal persona she likes to project......I think Harvey p, like the Titanic, will suck a lot of people after him as he goes under, perhaps including Kate Winslet.
Lis's new book, Killing O'Reilly
somebody else's joke from a few weeks ago
Harvey supporters will be okay. The mob will dissipate and in a year everybody will wonder what was that about.
Remember when women used to set boundaries with men with a slap? Why did we ever get away from that?
I was referencing the actual topic of the post, Chuck, and laughing at your ignorance of the net present value of an annuity. You may now return to sucking Rachel Maddow's toes.
Harvey is ground zero, but there are the blast waves and radiation to be considered. I think the careers and reputation of Woody Allen, Bill O'Reilly, and Bill Clinton are now irreparably damaged...... Harvey's many enablers and flatterers can perhaps come back, but they're damaged goods. The standing ovation that Harrison Ford and Meryl Streep gave Roman Polanski are now a part of who they are. You just don't look at them the same way. All that gushing that Meryl Streep did about Harvey subverts the regal persona she likes to project......I think Harvey p, like the Titanic, will suck a lot of people after him as he goes under, perhaps including Kate Winslet.
Bombs away!
The $32 million number, if true, is preposterous. O'Reilly must have really been out there where the trains don't run.
I used to hear their schtick on the radio once in a while, and I thought O'Reilly had a sort of avuncular, blustery affect and that she verbally slapped him down fairly effectively. Same thing on TV. I am surprised at this news.
Fabi -- You're being unfair to Chuck. His point about the fact the $32 million could be the total of scheduled installment payments is valid. We don't know how such an annuity might have been structured. Will all the scheduled payments be made, or will they stop if Ms. Wiehl dies? If the payments stop upon Wiehl's death, what is her life expectancy (based on a medical exam, not just her age)? Do the payment stop at a future date even if Wiehl is still alive?
What earnings assumption was used? Who bears the investment risk? (O'Rielly could be on the hook if earnings fall below x%, or Wiehl could simply be out of luck.) Etc.
There are lots of questions the answer to which might reduce the present value cost of any settlement below the gross $32 million. We don't know the answers to those questions so the actual out-of-pocket cost to O'Reilly is unknowable. Chuck's point is valid: The out-of-pocket cost of settling may be substantially less than $32 million. Whether that number is $20 million or $25 million, it is accurately described as 'a fraction' of the total.
$32 million should cover every female in her family line from the beginning of time to the end.
The breakdown was $31,999,999 for the ugly purse comment and $1 for everything else.
DKWalser said...
Fabi -- You're being unfair to Chuck. His point about the fact the $32 million could be the total of scheduled installment payments is valid. We don't know how such an annuity might have been structured. Will all the scheduled payments be made, or will they stop if Ms. Wiehl dies? If the payments stop upon Wiehl's death, what is her life expectancy (based on a medical exam, not just her age)? Do the payment stop at a future date even if Wiehl is still alive?
What earnings assumption was used? Who bears the investment risk? (O'Rielly could be on the hook if earnings fall below x%, or Wiehl could simply be out of luck.) Etc.
There are lots of questions the answer to which might reduce the present value cost of any settlement below the gross $32 million. We don't know the answers to those questions so the actual out-of-pocket cost to O'Reilly is unknowable. Chuck's point is valid: The out-of-pocket cost of settling may be substantially less than $32 million. Whether that number is $20 million or $25 million, it is accurately described as 'a fraction' of the total.
Thank you. When I first brought up the notion of an annuity, I thought that I should invite the expert input of a financial guy. I regret that I didn't do that from the outset and I'm glad you posted.
And again, I don't even know if this was a structured settlement. I won't again go over the advantages to both the plaintiff and the defendant in using a structure. But they are a frequent occurrence in civil litigation.
But I have the distinct impression that she had a few encounters with Ailes where a tape recorder was running.
This struck me funny because a doctor I used to know was screwing around with a patient.
She was young and pretty (he said. I never saw her) and she came on to him which was flattering. He was about 50.
He had her come to the office after hours and they had sex a couple of times.
One time she came and he thought she was acting weird, like she was drugged up. He turned on a tape recorder without letting her notice. After the encounter was over, she went back to her room mate and said she'd been raped.
The tape recording saved him at trial.
What was really weird was that he told me he got busier in his general practice after the news broke. The new patients were too weird and he closed the office and began working in Emergency Rooms.
That was 30 years ago. Maybe the tape recording would not get him off today.
Male transgender/homosexual photography.
The next shoe to drop in the social liberal culture is transgender conversion therapy targeting prepubescent and adolescent children.
Michael K;
I'm not sure if you know it or not (it doesn't detract from your story, and in fact I have another similar one from an OB-GYN client I defended many years ago), but when the Carlson v Ailes story broke, there were parts of her written complaints that telegraphed that she had recorded Ailes in private encounters. And then New York magazine broke the story that she did it, by simply using her iPhone to do it. And that she had been secretly recording Ailes for a year or so.
It never became evidence, of course, given the speed with which the case was settled. No doubt a condition of the settlement would have been that Ailes' attorneys be given the recordings to review. And maybe, every copy ever made, to destroy them.
Who leaked these documents? If Wiehl or her lawyers did, then usually have to pay back the money. Usually a small group in the know.
I never liked O'Reilly or Wiehl. Both creepy in different ways. My perceived creepiness of Wiehl had to do with my sense that she seemed way too aware of her appearance. Every movement/expression seemed so contrived. Not uncommon for beautiful women on TV, but she was especially annoying to me for some reason.
Bleh. I think O'Reilly probably went too far, but I also think Wiehl had a responsibility to set boundaries instead of play the game for a while.
A good assumption is assume your being recorded in public or when with other people. It's so easy to do now days with a smart phone, that most people have. Some states do require two party permission. And there are so many surveillance cameras around.
I also like the Pence Rule, of never being alone with a non Family Female. I heard a Dr. had a staff member that accompanied him in the room for all interactions with a female patient, to avoid any potential issues.
chickelit said...
I am surprised and heartened at how women in general remain so innocent and blameless when it comes to anything regarding sex and scandal
*blinks innocently*
Me too.
Something not mentioned in this thread, was O'Reilly cheated on his wife.
Why do so many powerful people feel they can cheat on their wives?
It's a huge issue in the Chinese American community with those going to China for business. I have heard so many stories of Men with a 2nd family in China. Or where the China girl friend causes a divorce, and marries the man. That happened to a friend of my wife. A White Engineer I know, mentioned when he went to China he would be getting calls through out the night at his hotel. And the women were very forward / pushy.
Sexual harassment is a real issue, but regret sex false accusations happen. And some Women use sex to get ahead. I wonder how many Women have said nothing about Weinstein, since they profited career wise from a sexual relationship. I imagine nobody, Marilyn Monroe was an exception, will come out and say I got this role because I slept with X person.
>I am surprised and heartened at how women in general remain so innocent and blameless
>when it comes to anything regarding sex and scandal
Even at Pussycat Dolls $5k a night, prostitutes who are straight up about it are so much cheaper.
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