A Brief History
On April 30, 2018, we look back not so fondly on a new crop of jerks, people that make life harder for the rest of us or demonstrate some other highly questionable behavior, whether through stupidity or just plain evil nature.
Digging Deeper
1. President Donald Trump.
Okay, perhaps not the worst thing he could do, but they guy did not buy his wife a birthday present on April 26th! He claims he sent her a card and flowers but was too busy to shop for a present. Is that not what the Chief of Staff is for??? We suspect about half our readers will find this offense to be sufficient for inclusion on this list!
2. Alek Minassian, Toronto Van Terrorist.
This guy is apparently a total zero with the ladies and took out his sexual frustrations by driving a van onto a crowded sidewalk downtown Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring another 15. This deranged 25 year old was an anti-feminist and idolized another frustrated woman hating murderer (Eliot Rodger, who killed 6 in 2014 in California by stabbing, shooting, and striking with a car). Minassian posted information about the coming “incel rebellion,” a reference to people like him that are “involuntarily celibate.” Alek tried to force the Toronto police to kill him by pretending to point a gun at them, but showing incredible restraint, the cops arrested him without shooting him.
3. Travis Reinking, Waffle House Murderer.
Another deeply disturbed young man, Reinking, age 29, had been arrested 9 months prior to his shooting rampage at a Tennessee Waffle House restaurant when he crossed a barrier at the White House, in an attempt to speak personally with the President. A mentally disturbed person, the police were advised to confiscate his guns, which they did, but the young man’s father later returned the firearms to his unbalanced son! This time Travis went way too far, killing 4 and wounding several more on April 22nd. In fact, the crazed man clad in only a coat (otherwise naked) would have killed more people but a civilian hero, James Shaw, Jr., also 29, wrestled the shooter’s AR-15 from him when the shooter stopped either to reload or clear a jam. Reinking had previous incidents where he ran around naked yelling, “I’m a boy!” and is said to believe singer Taylor Swift was stalking him. Illinois police defended their decision to return his firearms, claiming they had no legal right to keep them. Reinking was arrested unharmed the next day. Travis described himself as a “sovereign citizen,” meaning one who subscribes to anti-government radical ideas, and he may have been a racist as well, targeting Black victims.
4. Jeffrey Reinking, Murderer’s Dad.
In the wake of the Waffle House shootings it was reported that the father of the shooter had on 3 occasions returned confiscated firearms to his homicidal/suicidal/mentally ill son. Is this guy a jerk because he is incredibly stupid, oblivious, or just does not care? We do not know why he would do such a blatantly ridiculous thing as to return guns to someone well known to be crazy, but no matter the reason, for giving his son’s guns back, Dad is a jerk and bears a portion of the responsibility for the deaths and injuries.
5. Joseph DeAngelo, Golden State Killer?
Are there any sane people left in the United States or Canada? On April 24, 2018, a serial rapist and murderer that terrorized California from 1976 to 1986 was finally arrested, identified by DNA data supplied by one of those DNA ancestry labs. That creep turned out to be Joe DeAngelo, a former police officer who was fired when he was caught shoplifting in 1979 after 6 years on the job. He may be guilty of 50 or more rapes and a dozen murders over the years! Now 72 years old and living in suburban Sacramento, DeAngelo was known to neighbors as a bit odd, but not as a murder or rape suspect. It is believed he started his crime spree while still a police officer.
6. Bill Cosby, America’s Dad and Rapist.
Comedian and actor Bill Cosby, widely recognized for inspiring young African Americans to success was convicted on 3 counts of aggravated indecent sexual assault, a second degree felony. Cosby has been accused by over 30 women to have drugged them and sexually assaulted them while they could not resist. A first trial resulted in a hung jury, but the retrial never seemed in doubt. Will the 80 year old spend the rest of his life in prison? Will he abscond to a foreign country without an extradition treaty with the US?
7. Wells Fargo Bank, Wall Street Vampires.
While common people struggle with their bills, often unable to afford proper health care or college tuition, Wells Fargo has been outed for several schemes to cheat people out of their money. Wide spread fraud was first reported in 2016, and new revelations of other crooked schemes have surfaced since, including charging people for car insurance they did not need when getting a Wells Fargo car loan. On April 24, 2018, masses of protesters thronged outside the Des Moines, Iowa annual meetings of the Board and Shareholders of the embattled company, only a week after a billion dollar fine had been levied on Wells Fargo for their latest fraud schemes. The poster child for why people hate banks and bankers, Wells Fargo fired 5300 workers in the wake of the scandal, but executives that were “ousted” left with millions of dollars in bonuses. Why these thieving bank executives are not in jail for many years is baffling to us.
8. Scott Pruitt, Swamp Monster.
When Donald Trump promised to hire only the finest people in a Trump Administration and would “drain the swam” of corrupt Washington officials, he must have overlooked the hiring of Scott Pruitt as the Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency. Aside from making a mockery of protecting the environment, revelations about one Pruitt scandal after another accelerated in April of 2018, culminating in the creep being brought before Congress to testify about his miserable performance. Ludicrous spending on a sound proof cube (he already had one, but he wanted one closer to his office), using lights and sirens to navigate city traffic (no emergency, not on official business, either), bizarre spending on lavish security details, traveling only by first class on airlines at taxpayer expense (he always travels coach when he pays for it), and denying that he knew about massive pay raises for some of his cronies that were authorized outside of normal channels, only to have to recant and admit he knew about them. Pruitt is the embodiment of The Swamp we would like to see drained. He needs to resign NOW.
9. Dr. Ronny Jackson, aka “The Candy Man.”
Rear Admiral and US Navy physician Dr. Ronny Jackson has served 3 presidents as the White House doctor for the last 12 years, apparently to the satisfaction of President G.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Jackson’s weird and glowing report about Trump’s health was broadcast on television to a skeptical population (especially main stream media), which in Donald Trump’s world is the highest qualification any person could have. Thus, President Trump nominated Jackson for the position of Director of the Veterans Administration, the largest US Government division after the military. Jackson has no experience being an administrator to any entity of any size greater than a dozen or so people and is immensely unqualified for the job to which nominated. Of course, that lack of qualifications is not why he is a jerk! Once nominated, numerous reports of misconduct by Jackson surfaced, including wrecking a government car while driving drunk, drinking and being intoxicated on duty, handing out prescription pills (especially pain killers and sleeping pills) without proper examination and prescription, and fomenting a “toxic” work environment. Wow, do these accusations (which he denies) make him sound like a jerk. While it is possible the accusations are false or exaggerated, the amount of reports about lack of leadership and professional responsibility provide overwhelming preponderance of the evidence that Dr. Jackson is a jerk.
10. Jeff Zeigler, Possible Racist.
We really do not know if Zeigler, a 53 year old retired Michigan firefighter, is actually a racist, but it seems he is at least paranoid about the presence of an African American teen at his front door. The teen in question, a 14 year old student that missed his school bus that morning, was walking the 4 mile hike to his school when he became lost. The teen knocked on several neighborhood doors to ask directions, and when he knocked on Zeigler’s door he was greeted by a woman that yelled at him to go away. The youngster tried to explain he was lost, when Zeigler came out of the house with a shotgun, firing the gun at the fleeing, terrified teen. Luckily, the teen was not wounded, but Zeigler was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Americans have a right to self-defense, but certainly not to shoot at someone that is not trying to cause death or serious injury to an innocent person.
Bonus Jerk- Nasim Aghdam, YouTube Shooter.
Upset over some sort of change in the YouTube funding model that apparently has cost this YouTube video producer a ton of income, Nasim took her displeasure to the source on April 3, 2018, wounding 3 people with her 9mm pistol before taking her own life. This Iranian-American video maker had been making a living from proceeds of her YouTube videos. Although her complaint may well be legitimate, her response to the perceived slight is ridiculous. The 38 year old has been described as a “vegan body builder” and an advocate for animal rights.
Question for students (and subscribers): As always, you are welcome to defend anyone we list, and are likewise welcome to nominate any of your “favorite” jerks for mention. Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Carson, Scott. The Bill Cosby Scandal. Amazon Digital, 2015.
Lo, Rebecca and Jack Rosewood. The Big Book of Serial Killers: 150 Serial Killer Files of the World’s Worst Murderers (An Encyclopedia of Serial Killers). Amazon Digital, 2017.
Penn, Anne. Murder On His Mind The Case of The Original Night Stalker aka East Area Rapist – A Family Member Speaks. Amazon Digital, 2017.
The featured image in this article, a vector graphic by GDJ, is licensed under the Pixabay License.