;)
The Commentariat -- November 21, 2017
Late Morning Update:
Say What? AP: "Longtime Michigan Rep. John Conyers on Tuesday denied settling a complaint in 2015 from a woman who alleged she was fired from his Washington staff because she rejected his sexual advances.... Conyers, who answered the door at his Detroit home, told The Associated Press that he knows nothing about any claims of inappropriate touching and learned of the story from television just hours earlier. 'I have been looking at these things in amazement,' he said, referring to allegations of sexual harassment and assault being made against politicians and others." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Um, this won't be the end of the story. BTW, Conyers didn't deny the allegations; he denied knowledge that anyone had made a claim.
Jason Szep & Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: "A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters. A confidential State Department 'dissent' memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.... Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China's influence in Southeast Asia."
Norimitsu Onishi & Jeffrey Moyo of the New York Times: "Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, resigned as president on Tuesday shortly after lawmakers began impeachment proceedings against him, according to the speaker of Parliament. The speaker of Parliament read out a letter in which Mr. Mugabe said he was stepping down 'with immediate effect' for 'the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and the need for a peaceful transfer of power.'"
Gary Cohn wants to save morons from the estate tax. Spirit of the season, Gary; you're a great guy. New York Times Editors reprise some of the lies & fake rationales Republicans are pushing to eliminate the estate tax on the top 0.02 percent of Americans. Mrs. Mc. C: BTW, the No. 1 moron Cohn is sparing is his boss (and needy little heirs).
*****
@ay back yesterday (and the day before), Trump reminded us that every day is Pick on Black People Day. Looks as if his most recent performances were preludes to this: ...
... Karen DeYoung & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has given nearly 60,000 Haitians with provisional legal residency in this country 18 months to leave, announcing Monday that it will not renew the Temporary Protected Status that has allowed them to remain here for more than seven years. The decision came after the Department of Homeland Security determined that the 'extraordinary conditions' justifying their presence in the United States following a 2010 earthquake 'no longer exist,' according to a senior administration official."
Ken Dilanian, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's charitable foundation, which last year admitted violating federal rules on 'self-dealing,' is in the process of dissolving, according to newly filed documents.... The move fulfills a promise Trump made last December, when he said he would wind down the Donald J. Trump Foundation to avoid conflicts of interest. New York's attorney general ordered the foundation to stop soliciting contributions in October 2016.... The [state] attorney general's press secretary, Amy Spitalnick, said the foundation can't close just yet, however. 'As the foundation is still under investigation by this office, it cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete,' said Spitalnick.... Trump has not donated to the foundation since 2008 but it has received tens of millions of dollars during the past 10 years." ...
... BUT His "Charity" Is Still Doing Funny Business. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "One of President Trump's golf courses paid back more than $158,000 to Trump's charitable foundation this year, reimbursing the charity for money that had been used to settle a lawsuit against the club, according to a new tax filing. The March 2017 payment came after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, launched an investigation into how the Donald J. Trump Foundation collects and disburses funds. The inquiry is ongoing.... During the probe, the foundation cannot raise money or give it away.... Along with that payment [from the Westchester golf club], the foundation received another $62,184 in reimbursements from unidentified sources.... Nonprofits are prohibited from participating in political campaigns. But the most prominent thing the Trump Foundation did in 2016 was to take part in a TV event advertised by Trump's political campaign, in which Trump held a fundraiser for veterans while skipping a Fox News-run GOP debate. Trump brought in more than $2 million to his foundation at that event, and gave some of the proceeds away during his presidential campaign rallies."
Trump Is a Moron, Ctd. Joseph Bernstein of BuzzFeed: "National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster mocked President Trump's intelligence at a private dinner with a powerful tech CEO, according to five sources with knowledge of the conversation. Over a July dinner with Oracle CEO Safra Catz -- who has been mentioned as a candidate for several potential administration jobs -- McMaster bluntly trashed his boss, said the sources, four of whom told BuzzFeed News they heard about the exchange directly from Catz. The top national security official dismissed the president variously as an 'idiot' and a 'dope' with the intelligence of a 'kindergartner,' the sources said. A sixth source who was not familiar with the details of the dinner told BuzzFeed News that McMaster had made similarly derogatory comments about Trump's intelligence to him in private, including that the president lacked the necessary brainpower to understand the matters before the National Security Council. Both Oracle and the Trump administration heatedly denied the comments that Catz later recounted.... Three of the sources said that McMaster disparaged multiple members of the administration to Catz, including [Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and ... Jared Kushner.... '[Catz] said the conversation was so inappropriate that it was jaw-dropping,' another source told BuzzFeed News." ...
... digby: "I could easily see him saying it. I could just as easily see someone lying about it to cause a rift between McMaster and Trump. But it doesn't really matter. He is an idiot and a dope who has the intelligence of a kindergartener and he does not have the necessary brainpower to understand matter before the NSC. Nobody needs McMaster to say it privately. He's a fucking moron and everyone knows it." ...
... ** Adam Serwer of the Atlantic puts the fucking moron's candidacy & his presidency in its historical context: "It was not just Trump's supporters who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum, who, as had been the case with those who had backed [David] Duke, searched desperately for any alternative explanation -- outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety -- to the one staring them in the face [-- racism]. The frequent postelection media expeditions to Trump country ... are a direct outgrowth of this mistake. These supporters will not change their minds because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of." ...
... AND, Speaking of History..., Dana Milbank: "... there is something truly historic about Trump -- his histrionics. He surely has no rival in trying to assert the historic nature of everything he does. A search of the White House website finds that the president and his team have declared their actions historic nearly 400 times in their first 10 months in office. Trump has always asserted that he is the best and the greatest, but his attempts to write himself into the history books have truly been history-making." Milbank goes on to name some of the things that Trump & mike pence have labelled "historic." pence is especially ridiculous; he calls the most routine functions "historic."
Exploding Thanksgiving Turkey? Jonathan Chait: "... in the face of this mounting evidence and the warnings of some allies, Trump has remained -- by Trump's standards -- fairly calm [about the Mueller investigation]. Obviously, by the standards of a normal president, he is acting like a complete lunatic. But given Trump's patterns of spewing indiscriminate rage and abuse and lashing out at his enemies in wildly counterproductive fashion, he has conducted himself with notable restraint. Despite his barely concealed impulses, Trump has refrained from mass pardons or attempting to fire Mueller. The apparent reason for his serenity is that his lawyer, Ty Cobb, has placated Trump with promises that Mueller's probe would be over ... by Thanksgiving.... If Cobb has bought time with Trump by blowing sunshine up his ass, at some point Trump will stop believing his lawyer's absurdly copacetic analysis and start believing the people who are warning him about the Gambino-style roll-up under way.... At some point, Trump is going to blow." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is a pretty funny column. Chait equates a personal situation he & his wife endured with Trump's Cobb-induced expectation that everything will be fine. If you've ever taken off work to wait for the cable guy or sat by the phone like a teenager waiting for an important call that never came, you'll relate. ...
... Matthew Mosk of ABC News: "Travels by Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to meet with senior officials in Hungary during the 2016 presidential election are being closely examined by congressional investigators, given the increasingly close ties between Hungary and Russia and the role of the country as a hub for Russian intelligence activity. The Hungarian prime minister was the first foreign leader to endorse Donald Trump's candidacy. Though characterized as a low-level volunteer, Page held high-level foreign policy meetings with Hungarian officials before the 2016 presidential election.... The meetings included a 45-minute session in September 2016 with Jeno Megyesy, who is a close adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and focuses on relations with the United States, at his office in Budapest, where Page presented himself as a member of then-candidate Trump's foreign policy team."
Cecilia Kang & Michael de la Merced of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Monday sued to block AT&T's $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner, setting up a showdown over the first blockbuster acquisition to come before the Trump administration. By challenging the deal, the Justice Department is taking a starkly different approach to antitrust issues than the Obama administration did. In 2011, for instance, the department approved a similar deal -- Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal -- after imposing numerous conditions on the transaction." ...
... Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "The move by the Justice Department's antitrust division is unusual because it challenges a deal that would combine two different kinds of companies -- a telecom with a media and entertainment company. Antitrust officials are relatively untested in the courts on opposing such deals and have rarely tried to squash them. If successful, however, the government's case would send a strong signal across the business world that Washington is no longer looking as kindly on such mergers.... There is also political risk for the Justice Department. Some Democrats have expressed concern that antitrust officials could be seeking to block the deal because the Trump administration has been highly critical of CNN, which is owned by Time Warner -- a charge that the department and the White House have denied." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So is this JeffBo's gift to Trump? Just asking. It seems a little odd that the anti-regulation Trump administration would suddenly get all anti-trust.
Traffic Jam. Welcome to the Slow Lane of the Information Superhighway: Cecilia Kang: "The Federal Communications Commission is preparing a full repeal of net neutrality rules that require broadband providers to give consumers equal access to all content on the internet, putting more power in the hands of those companies to dictate people's online experiences. Ajit Pai, the chairman of the F.C.C., plans to reveal a sweeping proposal to scrap the net neutrality rules on Tuesday.... A rollback of net neutrality regulations would represent a significant victory for broadband and telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast and would amount to a strike against consumers."
Euan McKirdy of CNN: "A federal judge has permanently blocked ... Donald Trump's executive order to cut funding from cities that limit cooperation with US immigration authorities. US District Court Judge William Orrick issued the ruling on Monday in lawsuits brought by two California counties, San Francisco and Santa Clara. Orrick said Trump cannot set new conditions on spending approved by Congress. The ruling nullifies the executive order Trump signed in January, shortly after taking office, which was designed to crack down on so-called 'sanctuary cities,' municipalities that do not comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requests for assistance with identifying and deporting undocumented immigrants.... A Department of Justice spokesman said the court had 'exceeded its authority' in its ruling, and vowed that the department would continue to follow Trump's direction with regard to the January executive order." Mrs. McC: Orrick is an Obama appointee. It would be such a shame of AG JeffBo, Evil Elf & Number 1 fan of Trump's sanctuary cities order, ended up in prison for defying a court order.
All the Best People, Ctd. Danny Vinik & Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "The Trump administration is leaning toward naming Thomas Brunell, a Texas professor with no government experience, to the top operational job at the U.S. Census Bureau, according to two people who have been briefed on the Bureau's plans. Brunell ... has testified more than half a dozen times on behalf of Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts, and is the author of a 2008 book titled 'Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America.'... The pick would break with the long-standing precedent of choosing a nonpolitical government official as deputy director of the U.S. Census Bureau. The job has typically been held by a career civil servant with a background in statistics. It does not require Senate confirmation, so Congress would have no power to block the hire.... The fate of the Census under Trump has been closely watched by voting-rights advocates worried that the administration -- which has already made unsupported claims about voter fraud -- might nudge it in directions that over- or under-count some Americans. Subtle bureaucratic choices in the wording and administration of the Census can have huge consequences for who is counted, and how it shifts American voting districts."
** Tax "Reform." The GOP lie machine is cranked up to maximum, but it's Paul Krugman who's exploding: "... we're really looking at an unprecedented level of dishonesty here. But what happens when you try to explain what's going on? When Senator Sherrod Brown tried to point out, correctly, that the Senate G.O.P.'s tax bill heavily favors the rich, Senator Orrin Hatch exploded, calling it 'bull crap' and asserting that he grew up poor (which is relevant why, exactly?). Sorry, but this isn't the righteous anger of a man falsely accused of wrongdoing. It';s the rage con men always exhibit when caught out in their con." Mrs. McC: And here's a line for P.D. Pepe & me: "Oh, and a memo to journalists: If you play it safe by reporting this as 'Democrats say' that middle-class taxes will go up, you're misleading your readers: Those estimates come from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's own nonpartisan scorekeeper." In reading Krugman's column, one might think he wrote parts of it off Reality Chex. ...
... Kevin Drum: For some reason Republicans were all upset that their own Joint Committee on Taxation had calculated the effects of their tax "reform" bill on what-all was in the Senate version -- including repeal of the ObamaCare mandate. So the Tax Policy Center obliged their concern, & analyzed the bill minus the effects of repealing the mandate. "Among middle-class families, 50-70 percent will see a tax increase by 2027. Among the rich, that number is only 15-30 percent. And among the super-duper rich, almost no one sees a tax increase.... These charts ... come out every few days, and they're from reputable sources. And they all show a massive preference toward the rich. But Republicans like Orrin Hatch pretend to be outraged when anyone points this out. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan stay scarce so they don't have to answer questions. Other Republicans insist that these analyses are totally bogus because they don't account for supercharged growth, and Fox News eagerly joins in. Donald Trump, who would reap tens of millions of dollars from this tax bill, routinely lies in public about how he'd 'get killed' -- and then tosses in a real thigh slapper: 'The deal is so bad for rich people, I had to throw in the estate tax just to give them something.'"
Derek Hawkins, et al., of the Washington Post: "A U.S. Border Patrol agent who was killed while on patrol in southwest Texas may have been beaten to death by attackers wielding rocks, according to the president of the National Border Patrol Council. Brandon Judd, president of the labor union, said Agent Rogelio Martinez died Sunday of blunt force trauma to the head.... Authorities have been searching for witnesses and potential suspects after Martinez was killed and a fellow agent was seriously injured.... By Monday afternoon, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction for what he called the ;murder; of a Border Patrol agent." Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday night, "Border Patrol Officer killed at Southern Border, another badly hurt. We will seek out and bring to justice those responsible. We will, and must, build the Wall!"
** Today in Sexual Harassment News:
M.J. Lee of CNN: "A woman says Sen. Al Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010, telling CNN that he grabbed her buttocks while taking a photo at the Minnesota State Fair. It is the first allegation of improper touching by Franken, who is a Democrat, while he was in office.... Lindsay Menz, a 33-year-old woman..., reached out to CNN on Thursday hours after [Leeann] Tweeden made her story public. Menz said she wanted to share an 'uncomfortable' interaction that left her feeling 'gross.'... As her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken 'pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear,' Menz said. 'It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek.'" Menz told her husband & other family members at the time about the incident & wrote about it on Facebook as well. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Menz's account seems completely credible to me. I'm afraid Al is toast. If he did this once, he likely did it many times. Ask professional ass-grabber & retired President George H.W. Bush. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "What makes this allegation different from the earlier accusation by TV personality Leeann Tweeden (other than the lack of photo evidence) is that it occurred after Franken was elected to the Senate. That makes it squarely within the jurisdiction of the Senate Ethics Committee, which was already expected to investigate the Minnesotan, at his own request. The fate of Al Franken's political career, if it has not already been sealed, may depend on whether other women now come forward in response to fresh evidence that the senator had a problem that led to inappropriate if not criminal conduct." ...
... Brandon Carter of the Hill: "Two prominent progressive groups are calling on Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to resign in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against him. Credo Action and Indivisible called for Franken's resignation Monday after a second woman accused Franken of groping her without her consent. 'Sen. Al Franken had the chance last week to take full responsibility for past sexual harassment, sexual assault and any other behavior that demeaned women. He failed to do so,' Credo said in a statement. 'We believe that Sen. Franken should immediately resign from the U.S.Senate and that Gov. Mark Dayton should appoint a progressive woman to replace him.'" ...
... Nicole LaFond of TPM: "Sen. Al Franken's (D-MN) tribute to David Letterman will be [was] cut from Monday night's PBS special honoring the longtime comedian, according to a PBS spokesperson, who said including Franken would be a distraction in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against the senator."
... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times is troubled by her call last week for Franken to resign, even in light of the new accusation by Lindsay Menz.
** Paul McLeod & Lissandra Villa of BuzzFeed: "Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not 'succumb to [his] sexual advances.' Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits ... from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sexual favors, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.... And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.... The Conyers documents ... give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures." ...
... Margaret Hartmann has a good summary of the Conyers story, with additional commentary. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: There is no doubt that the allegations against Conyers are true. He really must resign now, & if he will not do so, the House must oust him, with full Democratic support. And, no, I don't care that BuzzFeed got its story from a right-wing nut.
Irin Carmon & Amy Brittain of the Washington Post: "Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas. The women were employees or aspired to work for Rose at the 'Charlie Rose' show from the late 1990s to as recently as 2011. They ranged in age from 21 to 37 at the time of the alleged encounters. Rose, 75, whose show airs on PBS and Bloomberg TV, also co-hosts 'CBS This Morning' and is a contributing correspondent for '60 Minutes.'... Within hours of the publication of this story, PBS and Bloomberg LP immediately suspended distribution of the 'Charlie Rose' show. CBS announced that it was suspending Rose as it looked into the matter.... Rumors about Rose's behavior have circulated for years." "That's just Charlie being Charlie." his long-time producer Yvette Vega allegedly told one of Rose's victims when the victim told Vega of Rose's behavior toward her. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The stories the women tell are awful -- and credible. If you're curious about how "respectable" men get away with this crap, the article is a short course.
Laura McGann of Vox reports on an incident in which New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush "caught me off guard, put his hand on my thigh, and suddenly started kissing me. Thrush says that he recalls the incident differently.... Three young women I interviewed ... described to me a range of similar experiences, from unwanted groping and kissing to wet kisses out of nowhere to hazy sexual encounters that played out under the influence of alcohol.... I was -- and am -- angry. Details of their stories suggest a pattern. All of the women were in their 20s at the time. They were relatively early in their careers compared to Thrush, who was the kind of seasoned journalist who would be good to know. At an event with alcohol, he made advances. Afterward, they (as I did) thought it best to stay on good terms with Thrush, whatever their feelings." Thrush presents himself as an advocate for female journalists. "Eileen Murphy, the senior vice president of communications for the New York Times..., [wrote], 'We intend to fully investigate and while we do, Glenn will be suspended. We support his decision to enter a substance abuse program....'" ...
... The New York Times story, by Sydney Ember, is here.
** Kyle Whitmire of AL.com: Many Alabama voters say they believe Roy Moore but not his accusers. Then these voters should believe what Roy has said about how he first scoped out his wife -- it was at a junior college dance recital in which she performed a "special dance." Kayla would have been 15 years old at the time, by Whitmire's calculation. Years later, when he met her again, he said he remembered her from that "special dance." Kayla Moore is 14 years younger than Roy. ...
Jonathan Stempel of Reuters: "Twenty-First Century Fox Inc has reached a $90 million settlement of shareholder claims arising from the sexual harassment scandal at its Fox News Channel, which cost the jobs of longtime news chief Roger Ailes and anchor Bill O'Reilly. The settlement, which requires a judge's approval, resolves what are known as 'derivative' claims against Fox officers and directors, including: Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, who are Fox's executive chairmen; James Murdoch, another son and its chief executive, and Ailes' estate. The defendants did not admit wrongdoing.... Monday's settlement calls for insurers of Fox officers, Fox directors and Ailes' estate to pay the $90 million to the New York-based company for the benefit of shareholders.... In a typical derivative case, shareholders sue in the name of a company to remedy wrongs inflicted by an alleged lack of oversight by a company's officers and directors."
Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Jeanine F. Pirro, the high-octane host of a Fox News Channel show, was given a summons on Sunday for driving 119 miles per hour in upstate New York, according to the State Police. Ms. Pirro ... said in a statement that she was unaware that she was going nearly double the speed limit of 65 miles an hour." Mrs. McC: She should get her good friend & promoter Donald Trump to pardon her.
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Reader Comments (19)
Given our current news of outing sexual harassers, the Russia probe, and all the rest of the "top news of the day", on the other side of the world 10,000 children are likely to die in Taiz district (Yemen) and another 10,000 in the Hodeideb district this year. And I'm appalled at why Trump on his visit with the Saudi's didn't address their war with the Houthis. Here is a segment from Juan Cole which explains in part why food is not forthcoming:
"“Save the Children currently has five shipping containers full of life-saving food for sick and malnourished children stuck in Aden because of road closures. Our staff cannot reach communities to provide life-saving care and much-needed supplies and relief workers cannot enter the country. Essential medicines, fuel and food stocks could start running out in a matter of weeks. It’s utterly unacceptable to let children die of neglect and a lack of political will. Without urgent action the future looks bleak.”
Why isn't this country doing anything about this?
Re: the latest Franken butt grab: I put myself in the shoes of Menz and the feel of Al's hand around my behind would have immediately caused my ire and resulted in stopping the photo taking right then and there–––"What the hell, Al?' I'd say. Her husband was the one taking the picture, for Pete's sake. Were these people so intimidated by the fact that he was a senator they were willing to let this go? Then coming out now and accusing him of sexual harassment? All this for Franken must be mortifying because I think HE didn't think this was anything close to sexual harassment. I hate to think he'd have to leave–-we need him now more than ever.
Jesus! Franken, Conyers, Charlie Rose, Trump, Poppy Bush, Moore, everyone on the creep list, it’s a tsunami of assholes.
I have to admit, I’m a little taken aback. Likely there’s not a single woman out here who is the least bit surprised. But I’m a guy. I know (or rather, have known) guys who were creeps and grabbers. But I had no idea it was this prevalent. And I’m not the least bit unhappy about it. If this tsunami helps to wash away a few layers of that sense of douchebag entitlement in which guys like Trump think women are theirs for the grabbing, then let ‘er rip.
But what can these guys be thinking? Parading around naked? Grabbing women, suggestive phone calls, masturbating in public? WTF, guys! Do they think this shit is attractive? It’s like monkeys in the jungle showing their asses and scratching their privates. Makes me embarrassed to be of the same gender group.
@PD Pepe: In 2010, if anyone grabbed my ass (and yeah, it's happened to me before), U.S. senator or not, I'd have told him to stick that wandering hand up his own ass. Menz had her husband & other family members there to support her & she was in a very public place. In that circumstance, calling out Franken for grabbing her ass would have presented absolutely no downside for her. None. So I don't get why she's smiling in the picture instead of telling off the SOB, as I think most adult women would have done. Al Franken was not some intimidating guy like former Prez Bush I, who was so old & maybe senile that a woman might not want to speak out or might be so startled that she couldn't quite "grasp" what was happening.
On the other hand, so to speak, if this is something Franken often does for fun & games, he should give up his current job & go back to humiliating women on the comedy circuit.
Welcome to the United States of Sex Abuse.
Al Franken - 2 told to quit
Glenn Thrush - 4 suspended
Charlie Rose -8 dumped
Donald Trump - 16
Can anyone explain why there are no consequences for the POTUSOSA?
What was the intent? Was it purposeful or simply accidental?
In the past, I've noticed a photo or two where someone's hand seems to be in an inappropriate place. Puzzling over, was that meant to be a grab especially when everyone in the photo apparently knew a photographer was there.
Ya know, sometimes in the spur of the moment, someone says 'let's take a picture' and everyone swings into action for the 'say cheese' moment. Perhaps they were facing elsewhere prior to those few seconds...and when they all turned for the lovely group shot, the arms around the shoulder/waist...we're all just friends, yada yada..and a hand ended up in the 'wrong' place. I remember looking hard at some of those photos when a hand was too near a breast...and, have to say it occurred to me that it wasn't necessarily where that hand had meant to land. Maybe someone in front moved quickly. I could see giving the benefit of the doubt.
Yet the rush of the immediate mea culpas almost seem to be saying, "oh yeah, I guess, I must have done it, I wanna/let's move on." Guilty? of wanting to cut the losses from bad publicity?
Like Bea, if someone had grabbed my backside, believe me, it would not have gone quietly into the night.
On the other hand, guess what I am also trying to say here is that cameras do lie. And people do
lieembellish!BTW the Conyers stuff is creepy and Charlie Rose stinks!
@MAG: What Menz describes is a serious ass-grab, not something a reasonable person could at least charitably brush off as accidental contact. It's possible Menz is a nut case & claiming a U.S. senator grabbed her butt made her feel "special," but if so, she's been a nut case since at least 2010. She told family & friends about it right away, and they told CNN they believed her.
@AK: I'm as puzzled as you are that we seem to have a tsunami of males in high places presented as males whose hands have been in the wrong places and/or get off at advertising their wares. I put Moore and Cosby in separate categories but the others so far are so full of themselves that they somehow feel as though they are entitled to take advantage of any female that's in their sight. I'm actually shocked at the Rose outing–-never would have thought he would be that sexually demented.
You said it makes you embarrassed to be of the same gender but keep in mind for all the men who behave badly there are many more men who don't. And we women who are fortunate to have men like you know in our bones the difference.
@Bea: In my long life I too have had a few encounters and like you stopped them immediately. One such situation was with a guy who wouldn't take no for an answer, had me pinned down––-I bit him and with my left knee kneed him in his crotch. I was 17 at the time.
From the Where in the Hell Do These People Come From Dept.
I see that Sarah Liarby Sanders was trying to force reporters to say what they're thankful for before getting to ask a question, like kindergarten tykes being reminded of "the important things" by teacher, whose after-school hobby is sticking needles into the eyes of Raggedy Ann dolls.
Okay. I'll play, Sarah. First, I'm thankful that your ignorant, racist boss hasn't outlawed the First Amendment yet, and that your party hasn't completely destroyed democracy in America. That way, your pig of a boss can get his fat ass voted out of office and take you along with him. Then you can get a job truly befitting your talents: selling peanuts outside a carnival tent. You can order Lupe the Knife Thrower to tell you what she's thankful for some night.
Sound good? Oh, and by the way, these peanuts are stale. I want my money back.
PD,
That smackdown isn't on YouTube somewhere, is it? It'd get a pile of views.
The Historification of Trumpy
So what with everything being so historic and historical and very historical and wicked historic, has Trump considered that the only truly historic aspect of his sad and sorry excuse for an administration is the collection of so many inept, bumbling clowns around the single most mentally and morally challenged president* in the annals of American governance?
Unique. No...VERY unique. And historically historic too. In a history sort of way. (Historicitous?)
Ladies and gentlemen, Clio has left the building. She's at Sammy's Bar downing a boilermaker. Or six.
Re the handsy males: my daughter was ass-grabbed on the street in Mumbai, and she was so mad she turned around and went after the guy; he was a country person in town for a good time, semi-drunk; the gathering crowd beat him up and they went to the police station and the cops beat him up. Luckily, she had male friends to come "rescue" her, but she also slugged the guy, who ended up in tears on the ground. It appears that a woman's backside is fair game/open season the world over...
Soooo disappointed in Al--
Little Paulie is VERY troubled...
Paul Ryan (yeah, that one) is troubled about the John Conyers allegations. VERY troubled.
He's not troubled about the little king's pussy grabbing, and he's definitely not troubled about his plan to deprive millions of Americans of healthcare so that a handful of Richie Riches can add to their already gigantic piles of filthy lucre.
That's not troubling, Paulie?
Never mind. It's not like I'd expect a response. At lest not one that didn't include lying.
Being made aware of all the grabby jerks in the environment would ordinarily make me depressed, but 2 things I have recently observed make me optimistic that his process of #metoo will improve things:
1. years ago, I took a "model mugging" course. One of the beginning exercises we had to do was to stop while walking on a busy street and observe how many men simply walked into you. It was amazing how many men would simply walk into you if, instead of moving aside, you stopped and didn't move out of their way.
This hardly ever happens now.
2. In the NYC subway system, there are images everywhere telling men not to "manspread," because it's thoughtless and takes up too much space. I remember being angry at the sight of manspreading, because if any woman fell asleep with her legs spread apart, she was sure to be sexually assaulted.
So in the last few decades we can see some improvement in men's behavior.
The spate of sexual assault/inappropriate behavior reports provokes more questions for me than it provide answers.
It's hard for me to disentangle what we know from what we don't. In many of these cases I can't. So much of our sexual behavior occurs in private, conflicting reports naturally befuddle.
Some reports are surely accurate and truthful, but in some instances their tardy appearance raises an eyebrow.
First, why now and not then? As PD says, a weak, or in her case strong, "knock it off" would have seemed most appropriate, followed in cases where the offense was serious by reports and condemnation of the behavior at the time.
So, why now? Does the barrage indicate a dam breaking, giving the long-aggrieved permission say what they didn't think they could say before?
Is there an element of immediate emotional rewards of me-too-ism in the rush to hop on the bandwagon? If there is, does that alone make the reports less credible?
Some reports do seem politically motivated, which is not to say they are untruthful, but that would explain their timing.
As I mentioned the other day, could we be witnessing a long-overdue sign that women have simply had enough? If so, I'm all for it, but hope both sexes make the rules clear for all to see, because the line between inappropriate/appropriate touching or behavior seems a little hazy. I think most would agree the standards are not absolute; they can and do differ from time to place to person.
I say this in part because I once had an employee file a bogus harassment complaint (based on something I hadn't exactly said, and certainly not the way she said I said it) against me. I had criticized her work, which might have had something to do with why she did it, and maybe the fact that I had replaced the manager she was sleeping with had enlivened her animus. I never knew; it all disappeared; she left to live with her lover, but...
The point? I felt put upon, quite helpless (it's very difficult to prove anything absolutely without audio and video recordings) and tho' it occurred years ago I haven't forgotten the feeling that in my case the accuser had the upper hand from the get go.
Bottom line to it all : Is this just a news cycle that will run its course and go away after the Moore election, or will such reports continue long enough for us to admit, define, confront and deal with something that has long been a significant human relations issue most would prefer to ignore?
I have my hopes...and my doubts.
This is a weirdly positive/destructive moment in our cultural history, when moral guidance from traditional institutions seems to be waning. It will be interesting to see how a different cultural check for that deep-seated lizard-brain drive in men that connects status and physical power with sexual domination evolves. The coupling of power and sexual domination is as old as history: from old testament patriarchs and their concubines, Genghis Kahn copulating with practically every woman in Asia, to invading soldiers always raping the captives, including American soldiers on Okinawa, air force academy cadets at hotels...on and on ad infinitum. It may be that 'Me too' on social media may become an important influence on the male super-ego, especially in those not receiving good parenting. It might also devolve into a permanent registry of offenders who made bad choices, and will be used to exclude talented men who learned from their mistakes.
OTOH, these events might be the bellwether for the rise of western matriarchal power. And why not!
I do not watch morning TV shows, but on the rare occasion that I ever watched "CBS This Morning" with Charlie Rose, Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King, I was always put off by the constant flirting between Rose and his women co-hosts. I kept wondering why the producers or the co-hosts felt this was a necessary part of a morning show, but my guess was that their viewers and the hosts enjoyed the consensual sexual banter. The problem arises when boundaries are crossed and it is no longer consensual, when one side uses it to control the other. Sexual harassment is nothing new and it is obvious that much of the workplace sexual harassment training has not been effective. The fact that so many cases have been secretly settled with money just shows how little willingness there has been to really change behaviors. Huge paradigm shifts like this are not easy to achieve. Many powerful men are quite happy with the status quo where locker room talk is acceptable behavior everywhere. Most women resent it, but many women are happy to play along because they are flattered by the attention. The solution must allow women to succeed in the workplace and in society without having to "play along" and without the requirement to be sexually attractive to men in order to succeed (just compare what is an acceptable appearance for women and men newscasters and hosts). Young girls need to be taught that their worth is not dependent on their attractiveness to men, and young men need to be taught how to respect women and to respect boundaries, even when women aren't around. The solution is not for men to avoid women or to cover them up, as has been suggested by some, because this is just an excuse to keep women out of positions of power, out of what they perceive as a "man's world."
I hope that as we come to grips with the flood of sexual harassment revelations, that our media and politicians aren't allowed to control the narrative and to use this only as a tool to punish a select few. There is no way to punish every man guilty of sexual harassment. Instead, we should be having a serious discussion about how to fix this problem. The solution should empower women, not hold them back, but I don't see that kind of solution coming out of the current administration. And, by the way, how can we be sure that the replacements for all fallen men will not have similar skeletons in their closets now that we realize how pervasive this problem really is?
@Lisa: The replacements for all the fallen men should be women.
Lisa says she doesn't see a solution for the rampant sexual abuse coming from the current administration.
That's an understatement.
The Glorious Leader of that administration has come out in support of Roy Moore.
Trump declared that Alabama voters simply cannot accept a Democrat in the Senate so they must vote for a child molester. But, oops....forget about all those women who have come forward about Moore's predatory nature. He denies it all. 'Nuff said. We have to believe him.
Well, it's off to Marred a Lago for Thanksgiving. He did manage to mention that women are "special" Thanks for that Donnie. Left hanging in the air was "special" for what? Grabbing? He also left open the possibility that he will go down and stump for Moore.
So, no. No solution from this particular abuser. He must see a kindred spirit in ol' Roy.
@ Mrs. BMC, I agree.