15.6 - Clown Award: TIME magazine

Clown Award: TIME magazine

Our third runner-up is Steve Fitzgerald, a state senator in Kansas. A woman was dissatisfied with the response he gave to her concerns about recent anti-abortion-rights legislation in the state - so she donated money to the regional chapter of Planned Parenthood in his name.

The organization sent him a thank you and he responded with a letter calling Planned Parenthood "heinous," saying this was worse than having his name associated with Dachau, and shame on everybody for attempting to "blacken [his] name."

I think you're doing a pretty good job of that on your own, Stevie-boy.

Our second runner-up is Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill.

On March 5, he spoke in support of Alabama's voter ID law. Now it's bad enough that voter ID laws address a non-existent problem - voter impersonation at the polls - with the actual intent of suppressing the minority vote, but he made this statement at the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Alabama, during a service to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march when police attacked nonviolent civil rights marchers on the city's Edmund Pettus Bridge.

On the other hand, in 2016, Merrill claimed that automatic voter registration would "cheapen" the work of civil rights leaders - because, apparently, respecting them means making it as hard as possible for minorities to register - and he called Confederate symbols on government buildings a monument to "a way of life that makes us special and unique." So this is par for the course for him.

Our first runner-up takes us from one dark part of the universe to another: Wall Street. You likely know of the iconic statue of the charging bull there. As you may have heard, there is a new statue there, that of a young girl defiantly facing off against the bull. It was placed there just before International Women’s Day by State Street Global Advisors, the world's third-largest asset manager, as a call for companies to include more women on their boards.

A laudable goal and the statue has already become a favorite of visitors to the street.

So the day after International Women's Day, this happens: Some wall street lacky-type who an onlooker described as right out of central casting, proceeds to hump the statue while his friends cheer him on.

Crude, boorish, simulated sexual violence. Always good for a laugh.

Quick Footnote: Apparently some people were disturbed about the photo being posted on social media. According to eyewitnesses, he did this not only in front of his friends but about 15 to 20 onlookers. He's got no business complaining.

Footnote to the Footnote: When "Inside Edition" covered this story, they blurred the creep's face. I didn't.

What, who, would be worse, more clownish that that? The answer is our winner: "Time" Magazine.

Amal Clooney is an accomplished, international human rights lawyer who made a powerful speech to the UN General Assembly on March 10 calling on the world body to investigate human rights crimes by ISIS in Iraq, especially against the Yazidis, a religious minority who ISIS regards as devil worshippers to be wiped out. She specifically called on Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send a letter to the Security Council so it can vote to begin investigating those crimes.

And how did Time decide to tweet about this story? Just look to the left. Yup. That way.

They weren't the only ones, but while we might - emphasize might - expect it from outfits like "Entertainment Tonight" or "E! News" or tabloids like The Mirror in the UK, to see it from as establishment and mainstream a publication as Time just serves to emphasize how deep-rooted and pervasive sexism in our media really is.

"Time" Magazine: You have really proven yourselves to be a complete miniature car full of clowns.