Mackenzie Bezos Scott Continues Giving

It’s no secret I loathe Jeff Bezos, who treats his employees horrifically—Amazon drivers are given bottles to pee into so they don’t have to stop for breaks—and makes billions during a pandemic because he forced his employees to return to work or lose their jobs. In addition, the mothef%er is spending billions building a rocket so he can go into space where no one can hear their employees scream.

Look, I get it, it’s his money, but perhaps he should take a note from his ex-wife Mackenzie Bezos Scott, and give away the majority of her money, and yet still have more than enough to live a very, very comfortable.

Just recently Mackenzie and her new husband Dan Jewett made a $2.74 billion … yes, billion with a ‘b’ … donation “to organizations that focus on the arts and combating racial discrimination.” This brings the total of her charitable donations to $8.5 billion … again, ‘b’ … in the last year while her husband tries to prove his manhood by building a rocket so he can be the first rich white billionaire asshat in space.

MacKenzie detailed her continued efforts to fulfill The Giving Pledge she signed in May of 2019—her new husband also signed that pledge—with the help of a team of “researchers and administrators and advisors” to ensure their donations make the greatest impact possible, saying:

“People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about change they are creating. This is equally—perhaps especially—true when their work is funded by wealth. Any wealth is a product of a collective effort that included them. The social structures that inflate wealth present obstacles to them. And despite those obstacles, they are providing solutions that benefit us all.”

Look, I don’t think she’s purposely trying to make her husband look like a self-entitled one-percent prick, but it is an added bonus.

Sidenote, Mackenzie Scott is worth about $59 billion.

Bobservations

One last Consuelo story … for now.

Once we got the little bitch our darling girl into the house, and into the guest room, and I was trying to get her out of the cage, Carlos said:

“Wait. Are we sure that’s her?”

Seriously. And if she ever gets out again, I now know I’ll just have to throw a dish towel on the floor by her food dish and he’ll think she’s still in the house.

Here’s a story I’d never heard …

Shortly after Rosa Parks defied segregation laws and sparked the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, she left the South for Detroit. In 1994 Rosa Parks was robbed and assaulted in her home at the age of 81. Damon Keith, a Detroit native and civil rights activist, helped Rosa Parks find a new, safer apartment in the city, and that’s when the amazingly sweet happened.

Mike Ilitch, the Little Caesars founder and Detroit Tigers owner who died last week, read the story in the newspaper and called Damon Keith and made an offer: he would pay for Rosa Parks' housing indefinitely, which he did from 1994 until the icon passed in 2005.

RIP Mr. Ilitch and say Hello to Rosa.

The nativity scene at Claremont United Methodist Church depicts Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees held in separate cages topped with barbed wire. The baby Jesus is wrapped in a silver foil blanket. Lead Pastor Karen Clark Ristine:

"We thought about the most famous refugee family in the world, the family of Jesus.  In the Claremont United Methodist Church nativity scene this Christmas, the Holy Family takes the place of the thousands of nameless families separated at our borders. Imagine Joseph and Mary separated at the border and Jesus no older than two taken from his mother and placed behind the fences of a Border Patrol detention center as more than 5,500 children have been the past three years."

Imagine that Deplorables? If Jesus, Mary and Joseph came to our borders today, you’d cheer as they were separated and jailed.

This weekend is the Kennedy Center Honors, honoring Earth, Wind & Fire, Sally Field, Linda Ronstadt, Sesame Street, and Michael Tilson Thomas. But before the show, the State Dept. held a  dinner for the honorees and Mike Pompeo, introducing Linda Ronstadt, paraphrased one of her biggest hits and asked when he would be “loved”.

When Linda Ronstadt got up to receive her award, she looked Pompeo dead in the eyes and said:

“Maybe when you stop enabling Donald _____”.

Icon. Hero. Deserves very honor.

Matt Gay, kicker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has been bullied his whole life because of his last name.

Now his nieces and nephews suffer the same, because … 2019 and people are still asshats. So, Matt has taken up the cause of anti-bullying and will wear special cleats to Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts:

“It’s so easy to hide behind a phone and say whatever you want. … I think it’s pure coward-ism for those who do it and there’s no place for it in this world. I got bullied and teased all the time for my last name and things like that. Luckily, I was stronger willed than they were and overcome it. There’s a lot of kids that get bullied in this world and have no way to stand up for themselves. Some of the messages I receive, it’s almost like people forget you’re an actual human being.”

Good on Matt because not only is the bullying ridiculous and must stop, the idea that calling someone gay is an insult has also got to go.

A new holiday ad for the H&M clothing chain features gay and lesbian love alongside straight couples in an ad entitled “Moments in Between”—that is the moments during the holiday season that come between the big events like Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Set to Judy Garland’s performance of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” many of the scenes shown aren’t romantic, and most aren’t LGBTQ. But there are two queer moments where two women are kissing under the mistletoe, and two young men kiss on a stairway.

Cute, right? Well, H&M is being forced to delete hateful comments about LGBTQ people under the post:

“We have a strong belief in love being for all and would like everyone to keep a friendly tone. Therefore comments that are extremely hurtful and not in line with our well-rooted values about equality have been removed.”

The comments are removed, but not the scenes of two same-sex couples sharing a kiss.

Take that!

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, has been selected as TIME’s 2019 ‘Person of the Year’, making her the youngest person ever bestowed with their honor.

Before 2019, the previous individual to hold the record for youngest Person of the Year was the first Person of the Year in TIME’s history: 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh, back in 1927.

Congratulations to a most deserving honoree.

Adrien France.

Yes; he’s French; I’m dreaming of that accent now. And then there’s that whole loves-to-model-in-his-underwear thing. He works the curly hair, works the sleek hair, works the 70s porn star look.

Just sayin’.

Bobservations

When we lived in Miami, I created a special whistle for our outside cats so they would come when dinner was ready. Over the years, as those cats left us, and our cats have all been indoor cats, that special whistle is one I now use on Carlos—and, to be fair, he uses it on me, too.

I use it in stores when he wanders off, so that he can find me; I use it at home when I’m too lazy to go to him with a question or comment.

Like the other day, while on the computer, and I came across a high-larious cat-and-dog video and wanted to show him; so, I puckered up and blew … he didn’t come right away. So, I did it again, and kept doing it until he appeared at the office door, snarling:

“No need to the whistle. I am not the dog, you know.”

I replied:

“And yet, here you are.”

I won that round.

Show of hands …who saw this coming? Gay conversion therapist, David Matheson, has quit the “ex-gay” torture movement because he wants to date men.

Seriously. The asshat who believed you could torture away the gay is now flamboyantly out and proud and swiping right with all his might. Yet he still claims he was straight after therapy, until he became bisexual, and then all the way gay … again.

We all know _____;likes his ties long … possibly to use as a red road map over that extended belly to find his zipper when he has to pee. But Chris Christie says there’s an altogether different reason for the look … _____ says a long tie makes him look thinner.

Sure, if we’re looking at him from space.

In a week where we saw smug little MAGA hat wearing racists face down a Native American veteran, I prefer this story …

Fifty students from Hingham Middle School in Massachusetts spent a month rehearsing a song, and then traveled 30 miles by bus to perform it for their favorite teacher, choir director Christopher Landis, at his wedding rehearsal brunch. Christopher’s fiancé, Joe Michienzie, was in on the surprise which was planned by two parents of the students.

One parent, Joy Foraste, said:

“It was so wonderful for the kids to see him with his family and his close friends, and they saw him as a person, not just their teacher. They saw how much it meant to him. He immediately started crying and the kids started crying. It’s something they’ll never forget.”

And I’m crying … again.

The government shut down is entering its fifth week of federal employees going without pay. And, while some in Congress are donating their salaries to food bank and charities set up to help those workers, the Fat Bastard responsible sits in his Barca lounger eating Big Macs and offering nothing.

Fortunately, there are people who care … like Jon Bon Jovi and wife Dorthea who run the JBJ Soul Kitchen, a restaurant that allows people to pay what they can for their food or volunteer for the meal instead.

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, Bon Jovi, in partnership with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and his Murphy Family Foundation, fed all federal workers and their families for free at JBJ Soul Kitchen.

And they are not the only ones. Chef José Andrés has organized #ChefsForFeds who are partnering with restaurants, kitchens and food trucks across the nation to try and keep federal employees fed.

I focused on JBJ because I think he’s adorable, and compassionate, and that’s a winning combination.

Spike Lee has been making movies for over thirty years now … She’s Gotta Have It, Do The Right Thing, Malcom X, School Daze Jungle Fever, Crooklyn, Mo’ Better Blues and BlacKkKlansman.

This year he was finally nominated for his first Oscar as Best Director for BlacKkKlansman.

It’s about damned time … and if you haven’t seen BlacKkKlansman, please do so, and if you can get through the last several minutes without crying, there’s something wrong with you.

Just sayin’.

And since we are talking awards, and awards shows, Grammy nominee Bebe Rexha—that’s her up there and over there—has come out to say that many fashion designers that she has reached out to for a dress to wear to the Grammys have told her they don’t dress ‘big girls’.

First thing … Bebe is a size 8; and even if she was a so-called big girl—fashion designer code for fat, I guess—who cares?

Not Bebe; she  took to Instagram to make it known that she’s got a few extra pounds on her and there’s nothing wrong with that at all:

“A lot of times artists will go and talk to designers, and they’ll make them custom dresses to walk the red carpet, right? You go to any big designer. I had my team hit out a lot of designers, and a lot of them do not want to dress me because I’m ‘too big.’ Literally, I’m ‘too big.'”

I say too bad to those designers with minds too narrow to see that Bebe’s a beautiful girl, and they could have gotten some free press by dressing her.

And maybe win the hearts of women everywhere who are a size 8 and above … which is most women in the world.

Finally … Hot Men!

Chris My-Husband-In-My-Head Pine is coming to TV next week in I Am The Night. Inspired by true events, it tells the story of Fauna Hodel, given away by her teenage birth mother, who begins to investigate the secrets to her past, and finds out she’s related to George Hodel, a Hollywood gynecologist connected to the legendary Black Dahlia murder.

But first there’s Chris … and then Justin Cornwell, and finally, Arlen Escarpeta, who probably won’t have his shirt off, but, hey, I can dream.

Also included in the cast is George Hodel’s actual home, the Sowden House, a Frank Lloyd Wright design … a kind of ancient Aztec temple in Hollywood.  

Gosh, hot men and an FLW home?

I’m in.

Bobservations

We have a client who comes in regularly, and one day, while chatting with me, she told me she wanted to friend me on Facebook. Being a little chickensh*t, I stammered something about not really being on there much and, yeah, that would be nice, and oh okay, and then I changed the subject. A few weeks later, I saw her in town and she told me she’d sent me a Friend Request; I wondered how she had gotten my last name, unless she beat it out of a co-worker, and she told me that one of my friends is her ex-daughter-in-law; needless to say, I wanted to club that ex-DIL.

Still, I ignored the request—again, chickensh*t—and played coy whenever she asked about it, until the day Carlos and I bumped into her with her husband-partner-co-worker-friend, and she told Carlos I hadn’t accepted her friend request. Carlos, who always has my back, said … to me:

“Friend her already.”

I was doomed; I Friended her, after shrieking like a banshee at Carlos, who kept saying:

"What does it hurt?”

What does it hurt? The women comments on every single thing I post or share, and then gets annoyed if I don’t respond. One day I put some political comment on Facebook and she asked what I meant by it; I did not respond. Then a second friend asked what I meant, and so I explained myself, causing Facebook Stalker, that’s what I call her, to private message me to ask why I responded to Heather and not to her.

“I responded to the same question from the both of you.”

“Yes, but you didn’t respond to me.”

And she was blocked on Facebook. Cut to this weekend, Carlos and I were doing the groceries and I met up with him in the deli.

“Your stalker is here.”

I panicked.

“Where?”

“Her husband, friend, co-worker, whatever just came up and said Hello.”

Now, since Carlos has a terrible memory, I asked him to describe the person…

“My height, beard, maybe kinda bald.”

“Nope. Not him.”

“Well, I thought it was him.”

A few aisles over, I run into a friend, Mike, ironically he's Heather's husband, and he says …

“I just saw Carlos, stopped to say Hello.”

“Ooooooh. He thought you were my stalker.”

Mike looks nothing like my stalker’s husband, friend, partner, co-worker, but, hey, at least Carlos tried, and gave me the heads up and didn’t try to sell me down the river ………. Again!

His name was Felipe Alonzo-Gomez.

He was just 8 years-old when he died Christmas Eve in the custody of the US Border Patrol on Christmas Day.

Remember his name. Our government won't even say it.

Remember when Parkland School Massacre survivor, and gun control advocate, David Hogg talked about the rejection letters he had received from four California colleges: Cal State at Long Beach, UCLA, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of California at San Diego?

And remember how that prompted Fox news hag, and general miserable human being and liar, Laura Ingraham who called Hogg a “crisis actor” to Tweet … “David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.)” … a little over a month after surviving the shooting at his school?

Hogg has been accepted into Harvard.

Take that, Laura Ingraham, you bitter ragged Klan wife.

On Christmas Eve, we took Ozzo to Rectory Square, so he could run around like the little mad dog he is; and then, we went down to our local book store and coffee shop for a warm beverage.

Inside the store we chatted with the woman behind the counter, placed our order, then Carlos excused himself to wander through the bookstore and the woman said to me:

“He’s so sweet. He was in the other day and he’s just a sweetheart.”

I begrudgingly agreed; and the she asked:

“How are you two related?”

“By marriage.”

“Oh, are you married to his sister or is he—”

“No, by marriage because he’s my husband.”

“Oh! You never hear people say that in Camden.”

“Still, there are quite a few same-sex couples in town.”

“Yes, but they don’t usually say ‘married’.”

“Well, I say it because we are and that’s who he is … my husband.”

“As it should be.”

And that was a sweet little Christmas gift.

Apparently _____ never read the resignation letter Defense Secretary James Mattis sent him. And so that explains why, after hearing about Mattis leaving, _____ at first praised him …

“General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense ... During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. ... I greatly thank Jim for his service!”

…  but then when the letter went public and he actually heard what Mattis said, well, _____ flipped his shiz …

“When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn’t, I thought I should. Interesting relationship-but I also gave all of the resources that he never really had. Allies are very important-but not when they take advantage of U.S.”

Perhaps he should have read the letter first and then he wouldn’t have looked like a whiny little bitch; of course, that’s assuming _____ could understand what he was reading.

Tyler Stallings, just seven-years-old, is a superhero who has spent the last three years helping thousands of Maryland veterans after his mother taught him about veteran homelessness in 2015, when he was four. And when he learned that many veterans don’t have homes, Tyler began making “Hero Bags” filled with clothes, shoes, snacks, toiletries, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotion, shaving gel, and hand sanitizer, and started handing them out to veterans at the Maryland Center for Veteran Education and Training.

Since then, Tyler has given away over 2,000 Hero Bags and gift cards to homeless vets. Then, with the help of his mother, he partnered with local mattress manufacturers to provide 250 mattresses for the vets living at MCVET. He has also raised over $17,200 in GoFundMe donations for his mission.

Big hero in a little package!

Rumor has it that Russia’s parliament is thinking about changing their constitution to allow Putin to remain in power beyond the end of his current term, when current law requires him to step down.

Right. The “parliament” is thinking about it. By “parliament” they mean Vlad is changing the constitution to keep the power. I mean, the man interfered in our elections, so do you really think he’d do things by the book in his own country?

If so, I have a bridge you might like to buy …

I’m not saying there’s anything to this story but … in 1968, _____ was diagnosed as having bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

The doctor who diagnosed ____ was Dr. Larry Braunstein, a Queens podiatrist, who rented his office from _____’s father, Fred _____.

Kind of a coinky-dink, no?

Now, for the best Christmas gift ever!

A University of California-Irvine study has revealed that drinking alcohol and coffee, in moderate amounts, is linked to living a longer life. Sure, the key word is “moderate” but one man’s “moderate” is another man’s, okay, this man’s, “sure, I’ll have another.”

And live longer, to boot.

Over the long holiday weekend, I watched a documentary on New York’s Carlyle Hotel. A fascinating history of the building, the staff, and the guests; everyone from Princess Diana to Jackie O, Bobby Short to Elaine Stritch …and Loston Harris.

Harris often performs at the hotel’s Bemelmans Bar, where he is quite the treat, not just because of his musicality but also, for me, at least, because he’s dapper, sophisticated and, yes, darn cute.

And man can he play and, sometimes, sing.

Name Two Things That Don't Go Together? _____ and Charity.

I forget ... is Houston still waiting for that $1 million dollar check from the Grifter-In-Chief? I mean, they must still be waiting, right, because one thing _____ does not do is charity.

Shortly after that Russian Election, _____’s inaugural committee raised an unprecedented $107 million for a ceremony that his team said would be “workmanlike”—meaning _____ would work like a dog to pocket, or hide, most of that money, I’m guessing.

And, they promised, I laugh a little because a _____ promise isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, to donate any of the leftover funds to charity and yet now, some eight months later, the only charity receiving any money was the “charity” to redecorate the White House and the vice president’s residence.

In other words: nothing has yet gone to charity. So, what happened, besides the fact that The Deplorables and the Electoral College elected a thief as president?

Well, the Associated –the source for this post—“spoke with eight people—vendors, donors and Trump associates—involved in planning and political fundraising for the celebration” and they claim the whole shebang became a clusterfuck of “last-minute decisions, staffing turnover and little financial oversight.”

Yup, no one was watching the coins, or where the coins went.

There was the pre-inaugural Lincoln Memorial concert, which ALLEGEDLY cost $25 million. The concert was set to feature Toby Keith and Three Doors Down and was quite similar to concerts put on for Obama in 2009 and Bush in 2005 ... except in the cost and size.

Bush’s inaugural committee spent $2.5 million on its concert on the National Mall—one-tenth of _____’s costs—while Obama’s concert had 10,000 ticketed seats—twice the size of _____’s—and cost less than $5 million.

Huh, twice as big, for one-fifth the cost? I thought _____ said he was a good businessman?

Tom Barrack, chairman of the private Presidential Inaugural Committee, claims the inauguration was a great success—I guess he forgot that we all saw those pictures—but has declined to answer any  questions from AP about how money was spent. He says that keeping the books closed, and never divulging where the $107 million went is no different from any past inauguration. And he also claims that the committee’s charitable donations “surely will exceed any previous inauguration” though he offers no information of how much went where; we’ll have to wait until late November when, Barrack claims, the committee will publicly disclose details about its finances. But, two _____ associates familiar with efforts to sort out the financing say they know nothing of any third-party audit.

Grifters and Thieves; the lot of them. But they learned from the boss, because, as we know, _____ has a history of making bold charitable promises and then not following through until he’s shamed into doing so.

Remember back in January 2016, when _____ held a fundraiser for veterans’ causes—something he said he was passionate about—but it took him over four months to follow through on his promise to donate $1 million of his own money.

And then we learned that most of _____’s to any charity doesn’t come from his pocket, but comes from the pockets of other people who donate to his foundations.

Again, grifters, thieves, con artists, who took in a whole bunch of money, promised to donate the remainder to charity, and yet failed to do so, and refuse to account for the money they did spend.

Color me not surprised.

AP

Photo Credit

There's A Special Place In Hell For People Like Steven Nardizzi and Al Giordano

The Wounded Warriors Project is a good charity, right?

I mean, we send our men and women overseas to fight — sometimes in wars for oil and profit — and when they return to America they are often forgotten, shunned, treated as less than. So, the Wounded Warriors Project is a good charity … right?

All the politicians swear by; even _____ says he gives to the group. In fact, the Wounded Warrior Project [WWP] has raised more than $1 billion dollars in donations since 2003, and more than $300 million in 2014 alone.

They must have helped thousands of veterans … right?

Well the WWP spends 40-50 percent of all its donated funds on “overhead” which works out to over a half billion dollars since they began.

Where does that money go? What’s the overhead? Most veterans’ charities typically spend 10-15 percent of their money on overhead, which includes everything from normal administration to fronting the cash for charity events to get more donations. But, in 2014 alone, when they had raised $300 million for veterans, the WWP spent $26 million dollars on lavish employee “conferences” at pricey resorts.

Helping veterans. But karma is a bitch and sometimes she’s a real bitch; as a result of this extreme misuse of funds, not to mention the exploitation of veterans and the generosity of the American people for their own hard-partying ways, WWP’s former CEO Steven Nardizzi, and its former COO, Al Giordano, have been fired.

Eric Millette, a retired army staff sergeant, worked with the WWP as a motivational speaker until he quit after two years, saying:

“I’ll be damned if you’re gonna take hard-working Americans’ money and drink it and waste it, instead of helping those brave men and women who gave you the freedom to walk the face of this earth.”

In addition, over 40 former employees have reported that spending, by Nardizzi and Giordano, was out of control; some were so afraid of the organization that they only spoke on condition of anonymity for fears of retaliation, but one had this to say about a “meeting” at a luxurious Colorado Springs:

“He [Nardizzi] rappelled down the side of a building. He’s come in on a Segway. He’s come in on a horse.”

Another employee described the same scene:

“It was extremely extravagant. Dinners and alcohol and, just total excess. I mean, it’s what the military calls fraud waste and abuse.”

After being fired, Steven Nardizzi said this:

“If your only fixation is spending the most on programs, that’s feeling good, but not necessarily doing good.”

Huh? What? Shouldn’t the money go toward programs to help veterans and not into bar tabs and luxury hotel room for those at the top? Nardizzi and Giordano spent $500 million dollars on every but veterans programs in 13 years … roughly $105,000 a day.

And for that they should have been fired, and they should be prosecuted … or, maybe they should be sent to a war zone to fight for their very freedoms, and then brought back home and ignored.

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