What Do President Trump, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly Have in Common?

... And accused or convicted of sexual predation, harrasment, or jaw-dropping bigotry.. In my 70 years on this earth, on too frequent a basis, I have seen men of power, fame, and wealth make the headlines because they have been accused of sexual predation in one form or another, including harrassment, and public sexual bigotry. While they have been of all political stripes, it finally dawned on me they were heavily weighted toward the more conservative side. I want to explore who these people are.

DURING DONALD TRUMP'S RUN to be President in 2017, many sex scandals dogged his heals throughout the campaign. He has been accused of sexual assault, being a sexual predator (to which he told Howard Stern in 2006 that he was), sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct. This didn't start with his presidential aspirations but much earlier in his life; at least 35 years ago, if not earlier.

Most of the allegations came out over the course of the campaign, including eight women who came forward to accuse Donald Trump of, at a minimum, harassing them to actual sexual assault and battery. One of the earliest was a 1997 lawsuit by Jill Harth Houraney for sexual assault in 1993, The most recent being a defamation suit against Trump, on January 17, 2017, by Summer Zervos, for claiming that she had lied in her public sexual assault allegations against him.

The most infamous evidence of his sexual predilections is the hot-mic tape of Donald Trump expressing his vulgar opinions about women on Access Hollywood in 2005. The transcript of his words is here. Adjacent are YouTube clips of both the Access Hollywood episode as well as his comments with Howard Stern.

The most surprising finding out of all of this is not that Trump has serious issues regarding sex and women, but that so many of the far-Right simply didn't care; they were not offended by-and-large and took the attitude "boys will be boys". SAD!!

BILL O'REILLY, the star of Fox's most popular political show The O'Reilly Factor, stands in the center of a sex scandal of the type that got the CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes, fired. As of this writing, O'Reilly has not been fired but at least 60 ad sponsors have pulled their ads from his show (albeit, placed them with other Fox shows). What finally came to light is that O'Reilly and/or Fox settled at least five sexual harassment lawsuits which were settled out of court over the years for a cool $13 million.

These women allege O'Reilly is guilty of soliciting sex against their wishes. The modus operandi has been around ever since men started having women as employees. In O'Reilly's case, so the story goes (and which he denies, of course), is he would see a new female hire he likes and mentor her. Then he begins asking for sexual favors and if she agrees, he moves her up the Fox hierarchy. But, if she doesn't, he retaliates and hurts her chances for advancement.

At this point in time, the story is still emerging.

ROGER AILES made Fox News what it is today, but after stories of sexual harassment came to light, Fox reluctantly fired him. His malfeasance is similar to Bill O'Reilly's ... attempting to have sex with female employees using the threat of their career as leverage.

This story gained prominence when superstar from Fox and Friends, Gretchen Carlson, filed a lawsuit in 2016 accusing her boss Roger Ailes of retaliation for her refusing his sexual advances. During the course of this affair, several more women came forward saying the same thing; the most notable among them was super-super star Megan Kelly.

Since Ailes was sort of on the outs with Fox owners, the Murdochs, the rest his history and Fox cut its ties with him. For a complete story, read this.

DENNIS HASTERT, a very conservative evangelical Christian, was a career politician who made his way up the ranks to become a conservative Speaker of the House. He replaced Speaker Newt Gingrich¹, who resigned due to serious ethics violations, in 1999. It was after leaving the House in 2007, that his troubles began.

In 2006, Hastert was accused of molesting boys when he was a high school teacher. He denied it and it never went anywhere ... until 2015. It was then when he was indicted for lying to the FBI and for illicitly "structuring" financial transactions. Hastert's transactions were an attempt to hide the fact that he promised one of those he abused $3.5 million to keep quiet. He managed to pay out $1.7 million before being caught. Other boys, now men, have come forward as well.

The FBI reopened the sexual abuse case against conservative Representative Mark Foley congressional page scandal and the facts surrounding Hastert's lack of action to do anything about his sexual relations with the pages.

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1. About the time of his resignation it came out that he had a couple affairs. These will be discussed later.

HERMAN CAIN is a CEO of Godfather's Pizza, conservative radio host and syndicated columnist, Tea Party, head of the National Restaurant Association (NRA), and presidential candidate in the 2012 Republican primaries (he led the field for a short while). It was accusations of sexual harassment and a long-term affair that brought him low.

In late October 2011, Cain was accused by two women of sexual harassment and misconduct during his time as CEO of the NRA in the late 1990s. A short time later, two additional women made similar accusations. The accusations went away when they were settled out of court by the association. What finally did Cain in was a November 28, 2011 assertion by Ginger White that she has had a 13 year affair with the married Republican contender. Herman Cain denied all of the accusations but nevertheless dropped out of the race.

1. The following examples are from Ranker