It's All In How You Take It

Earlier this week, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres spoke with the Tennessee couple that won a share of the record Powerball jackpot earlier this month.  They told her of the "tubs of mail" they now get on a daily basis from people asking them for money--to which Ellen responded:

"It's really a shame and I hope people stop doing that because it's really unfair--they played just like everybody else played"

That response would usually get a "thumbs up" from me--but I have to call out Mrs. DeGeneres because just a few weeks before this interview she had Senator Bernie Sanders on her show and he went on his usual diatribe about how the rich need to pay more taxes for the government to give to the poor, to which Ellen replied:

“I agree with you that it’s a crazy divide between the extreme wealth and the poverty, and the fact that there are children going to sleep at night without eating.”

So for Ellen DeGeneres and the other Hollywood types like her that are "Feeling the Bern"--having somebody who wants someone else's money directly ask for it is "shameful"--but for the Government to come in and just take the money from the same rich people to give to the same people "with problems that are no fault of their own" is "the right thing to do".

How is that any different?  And don't say the people sending tubs of mail to the Tennessee Powerball winners are hucksters and frauds--because those same folks are at every government assistance office telling a tale of woe and trying to get every penny they can from every entitlement program under the sun.  The only difference is the Powerball winners don't need the political support of the beggars to keep their jobs.

So why didn't Ellen tell the "1%-ers" right there on her stage and looking her in the face that they should be giving the vast majority of their wealth to everyone who asks for it, instead of playing the "passive-aggressive" game and letting Bernie Sanders yell at them through the TV screen?