A fresh new sex abuse scandal and a fired up judge drops the hammer on Larry Nassar – but did she take it too far? Plus, President Trump embraces protectionism over the free-market yet again with tariffs on Chinese made solar panel parts, fully assembled solar panels and washing machines made by LG and Samsung. And it’s only Friday (as of when I started writing this).

The WWE Universe (the name WWE uses for its fan base) was shaken when it was revealed that then-current WWE Cruiserweight Champion Enzo Amore (legal name Eric Arndt) had been under investigation for rape since October when his accuser revealed the investigation in a tweet on Monday, January 22nd, a little after 12:30PM and only hours before WWE’s flagship show Raw was scheduled to go on air.

The accuser is Philomena Sheahan, reportedly an aspiring actor and singer who (based on observation of her Twitter) seems to roll with the party crowd of her section of Arizona (Tempe, I believe). She also claims that fashion gurus Tyler Grosso (no idea who this is) and someone who goes by the handle “Too Poor” (same) aided in getting her intoxicated (meth, coke, and weed allegedly) and then leaving her vulnerable as Amore bragged he was going to rape her.

Amore has since released a statement through his attorney proclaiming his innocence. He has been fired by WWE, and his title has been vacated.

Now in this day and age (in case you haven’t heard) you are supposed to believe the woman/victim. Ask anyone who advocates this stance, and they will tell you.

If the victim is lying, the investigation will sort that out.

It is statistically very rare that someone lies about rape or sexual assault.

That might be true (all of it) and we will analyze that in a second but first I wish to bring up a point that everyone should have thought of the first time they heard one of these yah-hoo’s bring up one of these talking points – it is too easy to use the law to ruin someone’s life!

Now to be fair, Amore was obligated to notify WWE management of the investigation the very second he became aware of it. It is literally in his contract. He fucked up, and that alone was grounds for termination (which happened). But to my point, if he had notified management of the investigation back in October, would the result have been any different?

He was in the infancy of a sizeable push by the creative team, in his first reign as champion, and could have been much more easily written out of the storyline. Now they have to write him out after weeks of build up during the beginning of WrestleMania season (the time period between the build-up for Royal Rumble and WrestleMania in late March/early April). But in the age of the “Me Too” movement, I don’t see how they had any other option. I would have fired him as well. It’s smart (from a PR point of view).

He had obvious reasons for keeping it to himself. Assuming he is guilty, for the said, obvious reasons; if he is innocent, because he was hoping it would blow over and no one would be any the wiser. But it is not every day that the WWE gives a decent amount of airtime to a 200lb guy under 6 feet tall. While I am certainly not condoning his deceit, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same thing if in a similar situation.

But aside from the fact that Amore was stupid for withholding information from his employer (and for putting himself in such a situation to begin with) I have a few problems with this ladies story and credibility.

Shortly after her accusatory tweet, an alleged friend (or boyfriend) posted screenshots of a text conversation (that she later verified was her) where she seemed to be bragging about having just slept with a “famous wrestler.” She later went on to explain that the text was being “taken out of context” and that the friend was “off of his meds,” indicating mental illness.

Allegedly, the investigation is waiting for lab work. So until then, this story is at a standstill; so now that I’ve covered the basics for all of you, let me give you my assessment.

As someone who has been wrongly accused of assault (with a deadly weapon, not sexual) against a woman, and has experienced the Farris wheel of our judicial system on these matters, I am naturally skeptical of every headline-grabbing story that used to ignite my emotionalist side. But I looked at this fairly, acknowledging that Enzo Amore is rumored to be less than sociable and more than hard to get along with, read the tweets and I’m sorry, but I just do not believe this woman.

She claims to be sober since the spring of 2017, but mere days before she ruined someone’s career with no presentable evidence she is talking about doing cocaine. Her story is contradictory (describing moments vividly after she had supposedly been knocked out), she has presented no medical evidence from her alleged stay in the hospital, and the friends story about her braggy-sounding texts have all lead me to believe this is a money grab – but not what we should take away from this.

During my own experience in this area, all an ex-girlfriend had to do was say I hit her with an ash baseball bat in the wrist, show a bruise on her wrist and write a statement. For that little amount of effort, I spent the next 9 and a half months trying to prove my innocence and having to do so with no income as no one wanted to hire me (not even McDonald’s). That ladies and gentleman is how easy it is to ruin someone’s life and while I may be wrong, I doubt this would have played out the same if the man came in with the same story as my ex-girlfriend.

As was explained to me, the policy is called “remove and separate.” In this policy, whenever there is a domestic assault reported, someone HAS TO go to jail. Has to! I wasn’t even living with her any longer. I literally lived an hour away and didn’t possess a car. Didn’t matter. Even though we were already separated, I spent a night in jail with the knowledge that if I didn’t have bail posted, I was going to a state penitentiary until this was resolved. All that from a bruised wrist (which she got by hammer fisting the coffee table…or possibly throwing the dogs crate, hard to say and not important). The important takeaway from this is that in an effort to prevent terrible things from happening, we have put in place a system where terrible things are happening anyway. We have made setting someone up as easy as pie.

I understand that we need to protect our women and children, but we can not afford to just believe someone without an investigation. We should definitely make sure we protect someone who has made an allegation from any type of threats or harassment, but we can NOT just start believing someone right off the bat – that means we assume guilt right off the bat and that is guilty until proven innocent…not how we roll in America ladies and jerks.

So in closing on Enzo, I believe he is innocent but it is all for nothing since it is doubtful that WWE will ever hire him back or allow him to use the gimmick outside of WWE. Sorry, man.

Former Olympic and Michigan State gymnastics physician Larry Nassar was given a sentence of 40-175 years in prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of young girls over a decades-long career. Obviously justified if he is actually guilty (which I believe him to be), there was a side note that I did not expect to spring up from this – the words of the judge who sentenced Nassar.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told Nassar that she was “signing his death warrant” (although, she really wasn’t) upon handing down his sentence in a way most would say was less than objective. And I get why Nassar’s crimes are of a nature so vile that even someone as foul-mouthed as I have a hard time talking about them. But several people (all lawyers) have told me that this might open up an appeal from Nassar and his attorney’s… not the kind of thing that his victims are going to like hearing, all because of one emotional judges own rash statement.

But it is, unfortunately, an epidemic in this country… I call it vigilante emotionalism.

We have all seen it. The headline that comes across the news. Some person is accused of hurting someone who is (generally) looked at as more vulnerable than most and we – as a society – freak the fuck out! I used to do this all the time (especially when it involved animals). But as I grew within the libertarian movement and came to understand rights in a different light, I realized that blind emotionalism simply leads to blind rage (in these cases) and never results in progress.

Let us hope for the sake of those poor girls that Nassar victimized, that they don’t have to relive this nightmare because of such emotionalism on behalf of the judge.

President Trump’s new tariffs on solar panel equipment and washing machines proves once again that if you really do believe that Trump is “the closest thing to a libertarian President we have ever had,” you need only to wait a minute before you are brought back to earth. Not that I think many of his followers even live on the pretty little blue planet, but it still amazes me (it shouldn’t) how every time he does something that flies in the face of what we consider “conservative”, the apologist wing of his base come out in full force to conservasplain it to us. (Because us libertarians just don’t get it.)

But the truth is, YOU PEOPLE (Trump supporters) don’t get it: we want REAL fiscal conservatism… not Reaganomics. Tax cuts are great, but WILL fail without spending cuts (which MUST include cuts to military spending). Having the back of American workers is also great, but making it more expensive to buy a LG or Samsung washing machine only hurts those of us who never would have bought a Whirlpool to begin with (sorry, LG and Samsung make better products).

And I am sorry, but let’s just call it like it is… Trump is trying to kill solar. He can say it is because he wants people to buy American solar panels but here is the reality… they suck! And what is worse, since the parts to make the panels also face the same tariff, it clearly will NOT make them cheaper.

Which brings me to my final point of the week. We have got to start making people realize that President Trump is NOT a fiscal conservative. Whether or not he was this great businessman may be true, but is irrelevant when discussing his presidency and his promises to improve the market. And yes, stocks continue to climb. That is great. But when we prop up a company or service with tax dollars, it will inevitably come crashing down once those tax dollars disappear (which will happen right about the time our deficit starts to skyrocket).

And that is it for this week folks. Check out the column next week; I am sure a new pervert will come out of the woodwork or our President will go tweet happy because Melania let him have sugar after 6PM.

Until then … Live Free!