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Sexual Assault Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 27, 2017 29 Comments
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) held a short press conference outside of his office to address the sexual misconduct allegations against him. He apologized profusely and promised to cooperate with the ethics committee. From Politico:
“It’s been clear that there are some women — and one is too many — who feel that I have done something disrespectful and it’s hurt them and for that, I am tremendously sorry,” Franken told reporters outside his Senate office. “I know that I am going to have to be much more conscious when in these circumstances, much more careful, much more sensitive, and that this will not happen again going forward.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 27, 2017 21 Comments
Minnesota Democrat Senator Al Franken. Michigan Democrat Representative John Conyers. Who is next? It could be anyone! A Washington Post report from a few weeks ago showed that the "Office of Compliance has paid more than $17 million for 264 settlements and awards to federal employees for violations of various employment rules" since 1997. This includes sexual harassment. Congress returns to work after the Thanksgiving holiday to immense pressure not only to reveal the causes and people involved in these settlements, but to make the process more transparent.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 26, 2017 27 Comments
Mary posted earlier on Representative John Conyers (D-MI) stepping down from his position as ranking member on the House Judiciary committee.  His language is hazy, and it sounds like he's not leaving the committee and intends to resume his position as ranking member when the "investigation" concludes. Clearly, the move is intended to serve as his "punishment" for allegations of sexual harassment that include his attending a meeting with a female committee employee in his underwear and numerous allegations of demanding sexual favors and punishing women by firing them when they rejected his unwanted sexual advances.  He's also alleged to have used, in 2015, taxpayer dollars to settle sexual harassment claims.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 26, 2017 9 Comments
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has decided to step down as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee as the ethics committee begins an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him. He said:
After careful consideration and In light of the attention drawn by recent allegations made against me, I have notified the Democratic Leader of my request to step aside as Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee during the investigation of these matters.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 24, 2017 13 Comments
Lawyer Melanie Sloan has come forward with inappropriate behavior that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) used towards her, which included verbal abuse and comments about her appearance. This happened when she worked as a Democratic counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, which Conyers still serves on as ranking member. From The Detroit Free Press:
She said he criticized her for not wearing stockings on at least one occasion. On another, she said he ordered her backstage from a committee field hearing on crime she had organized in New York City to babysit one of his children. Sloan made clear that she did not feel she had ever been sexually harassed, but that she felt “mistreated by this guy.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 23, 2017 22 Comments
From a purely partisan standpoint, it's better for Republicans if Al Franken stays in the Senate. Franken is a living, breathing monument to liberal hypocrisy, an accused serial groper and tongue-shover-in-mouther who reminds us daily that whatever else it is, the Democratic Party is the party that promoted and covered for the lustful Kennedy brothers and their more modern progeny, Bill Clinton. If only Teddy had a Hillary to go to bat for him when he needed it most; just think what she would have done to the reputation and memory of poor Mary Jo Kopechne.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 22, 2017 9 Comments
Last February, I blogged about the sexual abuse allegations against former U.S. Olympic Gymnastics and Michigan State University physician Larry Nassar. The allegations came up in September 2016 and by November the number of women grew to 50. The number is now over 140. The number kept growing, with members of the latest U.S. Gymnastics team claiming Nassar abused them. An attorney representing one victim said the case is "Penn State all over again" due to "the same kind of institutional failures, involving multiple victims violated by a trusted staffer." On Wednesday, Nassar pled guilty to numerous charges of sexual abuse. His agreement with the prosecutors contained a prison sentence of 25 to 40 years.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 21, 2017 14 Comments
BuzzFeed has reported that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the longest serving member in the House and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint with a former female employee after she alleged he fired her for dismissing his sexual advances in 2015. She's not the only one he sexually harassed:
Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, 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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2017 16 Comments
Elizabeth Warren is hardly a profile in courage as a politician. Warren loves to portray herself as brave for bashing Republicans, but when it is a matter of internal Democrat politics, she's cowardly. She sat out the Democratic primary without an endorsement until it was clear that Hillary had won. While she originally admitted the Democratic primaries were rigged after Donna Brazile's revelations as to how Hillary co-opted the DNC, Warren walked that back. Now, when it comes to Al Franken's groping photo and alleged non-consensual sexual advances, Warren once again avoids being brave.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 21, 2017 8 Comments
Yesterday, Professor Jacobson noted that the long-overdue purge of sex predators from the progressive body politic, following the defeat of enabler supreme Hillary Clinton, has begun. As I noted in a previous post, the Democrats in Sacramento are scrambling to address allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. The West Coast purge has now claimed an Assemblyman.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2017 37 Comments
I can hardly keep up with the daily revelations of yet another liberal entertainment/media/political figure being exposed as an *alleged* sexual harasser and/or abuser. Not all the revelations have been about liberals (see, Roy Moore), but it seems that there is a liberal self-cleansing mechanism in progress when WaPo, the NY Times, and even Vox are turning on their own after years of looking the other way (or in the case of NBC, spiking the story).
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