New story on Russell Simmons, this is a must read
I think there’s also a difference in what elected officials do in office and before they got into office. If what they did before they got into office is known by the voters and they were voted in anyway, then we have to live with it. The voters decided.
However, what they do while serving in office should be subject to a strong effort to force them to resign or expel them from office.
What to do about what someone, like Franken, did before he was elected, but wasn’t known by the public is a thornier matter.
So many grey areas to this. It is definitely not black and white with clear lines.
Nancy Pelosi has called for Conyers to resign, @TomSrOfBoston . https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/us/politics/conyers-accuser-today-show-hospital.html?_r=0
[quote] “The allegations against Mr. Conyers, as we have learned more since Sunday, are serious, disappointing and very credible,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters
“Congressman Conyers should resign.”
[/quote]
@OHMomof2 Belatedly, after major blowback about her “due process” statement on Sunday.
I think there is more to the Keillor story, too. Not sure if it will come out or not.
I think there’s more to the Keillor story because I can’t imagine why MPR would fire a popular host for such a trivial offense. There is nobody who thinks that a guy should be fired because he once touched a woman on her back. Well, maybe not nobody, but the people who believe that are in a teeny tiny minority.
There is now a bi-partisan bill in the House seeking to release the names of the Congress people who have used taxpayer money to settle harassment claims. Bipartisanship yea! Sponsored by Blackburn (R-TN) and Gubbard (D-HI).
Keillor’s initial statement said something like that it was more “interesting and more complicated” than it seemed. Now his story is “I was just patting her on the back and my hand slipped up.”. That doesn’t match “more interesting and more complicated” – now he is trying to make it sound very simple. He says he has still been “friends” with this person – but I wonder if they were an employee on the show or a person appearing (and there aren’t that many venues for the people on his shows, so they don’t have as many other choices of where else to perform). So maybe this woman let it ride (whatever “it” is). He also said that plenty of women have let their hands slip “below the beltline” when having photos taken with him – the guy is 6’4", and the average US woman is 5’4" – I’m guessing it is a reach UP for plenty of women to reach his waist. It just all seems kind of fishy to me.
Thank you for posting the link to Jenny Lumet’s story.
I think it’s so important that men & women read accounts of “how these things happen”.
Lumet does an excellent job describing how she got in that situation, how she felt trapped and her fear of doing anything that would escalate the situation re: increased violence.
I’m grateful she came forward with her story.
@Midwest67 I thought she did a superb job of relating that nights events and how easily she felt trapped without help. I hope he is charged. Some folks you aren’t shocked about like Matt Lauer as he seems like an ass, but Simmons comes off as such a kind, zen character.
@intparent “Keillor’s initial statement said something like that it was more “interesting and more complicated” than it seemed. Now his story is “I was just patting her on the back and my hand slipped up.”. That doesn’t match “more interesting and more complicated” – now he is trying to make it sound very simple”
So his hand started on her back and went up? Not down to her Butt? So did he touch her bra strap? Is that the cause of the uproar? He touched her intimate wear through the clothing? oh boy. This is getting dangerous.
Well, it is confusing. He says he touched her “bare back”, and she recoiled. He also says he has to respect the privacy of “the two employees who made the allegations”. But it is unclear whether the second employee was just corroborating what happened to the first one, or there is a second incident. I can say that some MPR listeners in MN are very unhappy and are pressing for more details. It also says it was someone he “worked with”. That isn’t very clarifying, either.
There are a lot of complex intellectual property right tied up in the MPR/Keillor relationship.
And breaking news from the Massachusetts State House
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/11/30/four-men-allege-sexual-misconduct-senate-president-husband/40ABgRdciNITE1kAYrWsUN/story.html
“Four men allege sexual misconduct by Senate president’s husband”
“But Bryon Hefner, then the fiance of Senate President Stan Rosenberg, appeared in his doorway. As the advocate recently described it, Hefner took a step forward, grabbed the man’s genitals, and didn’t let go. He recalled Hefner asking him to have some fun with him, telling him Rosenberg wouldn’t mind, that Hefner and the Senate president were a team on Beacon Hill, and that they would take care of him.
The advocate froze. He felt violated, powerless.”
Mr. Hefner is lucky he did not get clocked.
There have been a lot of articles recently about the sexual cesspool in Sacramento as well. It’s an epidemic.
And the cesspool in Florida. The sewer is bipartisan. It’s about men (and a few women, but really, men) with power abusing power.
The whole Garrison Keillor thing is difficult. I agree completely with @“Cardinal Fang” that no one committed MPR to trash completely the considerable value of its right to use the “Prairie Home Companion” brand and of its relationship with Keillor because he touched someone’s bare back once. Or even because one woman claimed he did something that would be the worst thing you could imagine that was something like touching her bare back. I really want to know what MPR thought there was credible evidence he did that justified what amounts to a commercial murder-suicide.
But, of course, I have no right to know that. Keillor – having briefly made a mistake by talking about it even a little – has shut up about the whole thing, and seems perfectly prepared to go into quiet (and well provided-for) retirement at 75. The station isn’t saying anything. The woman, whoever she is, isn’t saying anything. None of the parties directly involved has a real incentive to say anything, so none has.
I’d say MPR has the most incentive to speak up IF they didn’t know about allegations before this. There are people cancelling memberships over it. And MPR will lose a lot financially due to licensing issues (no more Powdermilk Biscuit t-shirts, etc).
Fang’s Law applies here. Minnesota Public Radio is not composed of idiots. They’re not going to fire Keillor because he touched someone’s bare back one time, because they’re not idiots.