A Brief History
On January 8, 2018, we look back to only one day ago, yesterday, when we listed 10 of the Jerks of the Year for 2017. We quickly realized that our list was not long enough! So today, we list 10 MORE Jerks of the Year for 2017.
Digging Deeper
1. Madonna, singer/revolutionary.
While women across the US were getting all upset over Donald Trump becoming President, Madonna made a rash remark about blowing up the White House, a terribly poor choice of remarks. (Dishonorable mention: Meryl Streep who foolishly dissed fans of MMA and football.)
2. Hillary Clinton, epic fail personified.
All year long Hillary complained about losing the 2016 Presidential election because of the Russians, because of Jim Comey, because Black people did not get up and vote, and never once took responsibility for her own failure to secure what seemed like an easy victory. Virtually a “sure thing.” Who could possibly lost to Trump? You could, Hill-Dog. Blame yourself.
3. Vladimir and the Russians.
Putin and friends continued to mess with the United States in 2017, not taking a rest from their enormous success in interfering with the 2016 Presidential election and stirring up White vs. Black sentiments in America. Their use of social media and hacking has become quite apparent, and their irresponsible actions in Syria make it hard for the US to work with them to fight terrorism. Meanwhile, Putin continues to pull Donald Trump’s strings like a puppet master controlling a puppet through the use of blatant phony compliments.
4. China, dictatorship of the elites.
China has continued to manipulate currency, destabilize the area off their shores by building artificial islands and militarizing them, and failing to rein in their client state, North Korea. In fact, as we found out early in 2018, the Chinese have been circumventing sanctions against North Korea by secretly supplying them with embargoed commodities such as oil.
5. Apple, seller of Chinese built tech gadgets.
It turns out these creeps have been purposely degrading their previous editions of cell phones in order to make customers crave the newer, more expensive models even more. That is pretty damn low. In December of 2017 this information became public with a public apology from Apple and an offer to sell new batteries for their older phones at a discount rate. How about sending the executives that approved this underhanded practice to jail?
6. Volkswagen, car flim-flam scammers.
In 2015 reports of Volkswagen using special cheating software to scam government emissions tests for their diesel powered vehicles surfaced. In January of 2017, the giant car company agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines to the United States and 6 of its executives were indicted on felony fraud charges. Many other countries have gotten on the band wagon to penalize VW and/or its executives. The damage caused by the scam is filthier air for all of us to breath, possibly adversely affecting our health.
7. Wells Fargo, corrupt bankers.
In 2016 the giant bank was shaken by the public outing of their vast scheme to defraud customers of their money by creating false accounts and false charges. In 2017, it seems not all the scams had been caught or voluntarily corrected, and at least 12 more investigations were reported underway into other corrupt practices. Wells Fargo was fined $185 million in 2016, and ordered to pay another $110 million in a civil settlement in 2017. Still, they seem to have kept the door open for even more fraud related money grubbing. What’s in your wallet?
8. Neo-Nazis and ANTIFA, political nuts.
Carrying torches at a march is generally what we call a ‘clue’ that your organization may be a little on the fringe. As jerky as White Supremacists and their hate filled rhetoric may be, physically attacking them does not make any more sense. Ever hear of “Two wrongs don’t make a right?” Although Donald Trump was not very articulate when he said he condemned the violence on “both sides” or “all sides” of the Charlottesville violence at protests, he was actually right. The left wing counter-protesters actually precipitated the violence by attacking the White Supremacists/Neo-Nazis, including with bottles of urine and rocks, and showed up with clubs, not to mention defying police attempts to keep the groups separate. Both sides were jerks in 2017.
9. Cleveland Browns, wannabe football players.
The Browns continued their march into the record books by going 0-16 in 2017, after going a much better 1-15 in 2016. All the optimistic fans that thought, “It can’t get worse than this.” in 2016 were wrong! Wow, how bad is it going to get?
10. LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jaden Hill, UCLA shoplifters.
These jerks traveled to China as part of the UCLA basketball team, getting a wonderful, free, opportunity to play ball overseas in an exotic country. Instead of appreciating the opportunity and acting as good-will ambassadors of the United States, these three jerks instead got themselves arrested for shoplifting. The miscreants were looking at a 20 day confinement to their hotel room for the minor crime, but were released to return to the US. President Trump took credit for their release and whined about deserving a “thank you” from the thieves as they were facing “ten years behind bars.”
Question for students (and subscribers): Please add your own nominees to the list in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Schad, Tom. “President Trump tweets arrested UCLA players ‘were headed for 10 years in jail’.” USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/pac12/2017/11/15/president-donald-trump-ucla-arrested-liangelo-ball-jalen-hill-cody-riley-jail/865977001/ (accessed 7 January 2018).
