Tag: sexual harassment

The August Workings!

“Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money,” Representative Thomas Massie tweeted last week, “to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices.”

Sounds nasty when he states it like that. He could have said Congress has valiantly kept litigation from disturbing the august workings of the world’s greatest deliberative body!

But seriously, Massie tells the truth and offers a challenge: “Don’t you think we should release the names of the Representatives? I do.”

He refers to the names of the accused in Congress. The ones bailed out of criminal and civil action, along with public obloquy, to the tune that only two-digit millions can play.

Amusingly, Representative Massie compares and contrasts congressional hanky-panky and hush-money payments with those of former and future president of the United States, Donald Trump. “The allegation is that President Trump paid $130,000 of his own money but here in Congress we have … there may be some on this dais!” The “some” are the bailed-out accused harassers whom Massie works with every day.

Imagine the love Massie must feel from his fellow brothers and sisters in Congress Assembled, with his demand for complete transparency.

Years ago I quoted CNN on the hush-money issue. “The current system in place does not require the [Office of Compliance] to make public the number of sexual harassment complaints, number of settlements reached, the dollar figure of those settlements or which offices are being complained about. Congressional aides say this is giving unintentional cover to the worst offenders in Congress.”

I questioned whether that was “unintentional.”

It’s not called “hush money” because it brings things out in the open!

Were I the twice-impeached Donald Trump, I’d bring up that $17 million every time I addressed Congress. After all, Trump paid for his own … alleged … indiscretions.

Our representatives have made us pay for theirs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption

Cuomo, Exit Stage Left

Out in a fortnight.

Yesterday, New York’s governor said he’d resign in 14 days.

Dominating the headlines has been Andrew Cuomo’s sexual misconduct scandals.

“It’s [a] shame this is what the Democrats choose to go after Cuomo for, rather than for killing tens of thousands of elderly New Yorkers through his policy of putting COVID-positive patients into nursing homes,” we read at InfoWars.

But this is the usual thing to say … at least, for those of us who live and breathe and think outside the usual right-left continuum. And in this case, it may not be applicable.

How so?

Well, on Monday, Assembly Member Charles D. Lavine (D‑13th A.D.), Judiciary Committee Chair, made it quite clear that the investigations (yes: plural) going into the impeachment of the governor are not limited to matters of sex. Allegations also considered?

Cuomo’s “improper use of government resources to write and produce a book”;
“allegations concerning [the] nursing home” fiasco; and
“that he provided preferential access to COVID-19 testing to certain friends and/or family members.”

But Cuomo himself isn’t talking up these other issues, which are critically important for the state he “runs.” In his resignation announcement, he dubbed one such indiscretion literally “thoughtless,” openly proclaiming that he “want[ed] to personally apologize” to a female state trooper who accused him of embarrassing sexual banter and unwanted touching.

Up front, however, was his proud proclamation of his support for “diversity.”

That is to mollify the current cultural left. But he quickly switched to blaming today’s loud and rash (rather than “sound” and “reasonable”) politics — on Twitter.

You don’t have to love social media to instead blame Cuomo for his own most grievous faults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability scandal

Cuomo Calling

Sunday, after two public accusations of sexual misconduct, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo apologized for anything he may have said that was “misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation,” while maintaining he “never inappropriately touched anybody,” and “never intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”

Not even plausible. Intimidating people — making them “feel uncomfortable” — is actually the governor’s modus operandi.

“The recent spate of stories about Gov. Cuomo’s penchant for bullying,” explains Karen Hinton, his former press secretary, in the New York Daily News, “isn’t about behavior that’s unusual in politics. It’s the norm.”

I believe her.

First, it’s widely practiced in politics; and, second, his method has been effective for many years. “A part of that is making sure that people very rarely speak up publicly against him,” a Fordham University political science professor informed The Post.

Bullying is Cuomo’s go-to damage control.

And damage he has aplenty. After being nominated for Time’s “Person of the Year” and winning an Emmy “in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world” — and especially in recognition of him not being Donald Trump — Cuomo has come under fire not only for some faulty judgments, but for actually covering up the data on nursing home deaths.

When news broke of Mr. Cuomo allegedly calling and threatening to “destroy” a lawmaker seeking an investigation into the nursing home scandal, it brought back memories. While working for U.S. Term Limits in the 1990s, I fielded calls from angry politicians on what I dubbed “the prima donna party line.”

In my life, not many people have called to scream like spoiled brats in full tantrum and threaten me — but nearly all have been politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly national politics & policies

Kiss Biden Goodbye?

Joe Biden, creepy Joe, Uncle Joe, sexual, inappropriate

Lucy Flores was standing in front of the twice-elected Vice President of these United States at a 2014 campaign rally when, “unexpectedly and out of nowhere,” she recounts, she felt “Joe Biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head.

“You don’t expect that kind of intimacy from someone so powerful,” she said yesterday — or to be publicly fondled by “someone who you just have no relationship whatsoever.”

Flores is not alleging sexual assault, and certainly no ongoing harassment. But the former Nevada State Assemblywoman certainly does object to Biden’s “completely inappropriate” behavior. And she believes it “should” be considered in judging a presidential candidate.

“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life,” responded Biden in a statement, “I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately.”

Not buying this at all, Flores links (in her article for The Cut) to numerous “stories that were written” of “creepy” behavior by Biden, noting she came forward in large part because that evidence had been “dismissed by the media and not taken seriously.”

“It’s apparently a Senate rite of passage,” comedian Jon Stewart explained in a 2015 Daily Show segment entitled, The Audacity of Grope, “you’re not actually sworn in until Delaware Joe has felt up one female member of your immediate family.”

As the chortling subsides, the Biden presidential bid may be over before it begins.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2020 Presidential Race, Joe Biden, sexual harassment

Accountability crime and punishment insider corruption media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Congress Bites Taxpayers

sexual harassment, Congress, House Page, Washington, DC, hypocrisy, corruption, taxes,

Is it even humanly possible to be sleazier and more disgusting than the Harvey Weinsteins of Hollywood?

Sadly, and clearly … yes. There is the U.S. Congress.

In 2011, after 175 years in operation, the House page program — whereby young people came to work and learn in the capitol — was shut down. Why? For Weinsteinian reasons, because pages were being sexually propositioned and harassed.*

Now, once again, Congress leads the way … downward … not only into a culture rife with sexual coercion, but also into one with few options for victims and plenty of protections for victimizers. Members of Congress have given more effort to keep complaints quiet and protect misbehavior than to stop misbehaving.

And there’s more …

“Between 1997 and 2014,” the Washington Post reports, “the U.S. Treasury has paid $15.2 million in 235 awards and settlements for Capitol Hill workplace violations, according to the congressional Office of Compliance.” That’s shelling out nearly $1 million a year, though the information doesn’t detail how many complaints were for sexual misconduct.

It is despicable when individuals or companies pay hush money to silence accusers, hiding the criminal sexual behavior of powerful men. But, for goodness sake, at least we don’t have to pay for it!

Conversely, Congress’s sexual abuse slush fund comes from you and me, taxpayers.

Regarding the swirling allegations against Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, Sen. Cory Gardner (R‑Colo.) argued that Moore “does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.”

Well, then, he will fit right in.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The program ended several years after the Mark Foley scandal — and there were others. The official rationale? A tight budget (stop laughing) and technology, which purportedly made the work pages were doing unnecessary. But note that the Senate continues its use of pages.

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