[Bearing Arms] Senator Al Franken is latest to have his name added to ever-growing list of powerful men accused of sexual harassment in recent weeks.
Shortly after the news broke, MSNBC anchor Kasie Hunt caught up with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and used the opportunity to ask the female politician if she had ever experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
Palin’s response: "I think a whole lot of people know that I’m probably packing so I don’t think there’s a whole lot of people who would necessarily mess with me."
Not so much the New York Times, as youngish conservative columnist Ross Douthat, who has a history of this kind of thing.
I have never been a Clinton hater; indeed, I’ve always been a little mystified by the scale of Republican dislike for the most centrist of recent Democratic leaders. So I’ve generally held what I’ve considered a sensible middle-ground position on his sins ‐ that he should have stepped down when the Lewinsky affair came to light, but that the Republican effort to impeach him was a hopeless attempt to legislate against dishonor.
But a moment of reassessment is a good time to reassess things for yourself, so I spent this week reading about the lost world of the 1990s. I skimmed the Starr Report. I leafed through books by George Stephanopoulos and Joe Klein and Michael Isikoff. I dug into Troopergate and Whitewater and other first-term scandals. I reacquainted myself with Gennifer Flowers and Webb Hubbell, James Riady and Marc Rich.
After doing all this reading, I’m not sure my reasonable middle ground is actually reasonable. It may be that the conservatives of the 1990s were simply right about Clinton, that once he failed to resign he really deserved to be impeached. Wow. Read through the comments to see Times readers having an apoplectic fit at the idea that the Right might have ever been right.
The sexual misconduct was the heart of things, but everything connected to Clinton’s priapism was bad: the use of the perks of office to procure women, willing and unwilling; the frequent use of that same power to buy silence and bully victims; and yes, the brazen public lies and perjury. I knew Starr was right all along.
Something like Troopergate, for instance, in which Arkansas state troopers claimed to have served as Clinton’s panderers and been offered jobs to buy their silence, is often recalled as just a right-wing hit job. But if you read The Los Angeles Times’s reporting on the allegations (which included phone records confirming the troopers’ account of a mistress Clinton was seeing during his presidential transition) and Stephanopoulos’s portrayal of Clinton’s behavior in the White House when the story broke, the story seems like it was probably mostly true.
I have less confidence about what was real in the miasma of Whitewater. But with Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, we know what happened: A president being sued for sexual harassment tried to buy off a mistress-turned-potential-witness with White House favors, and then committed perjury serious enough to merit disbarment. Which also brought forward a compelling allegation from Juanita Broaddrick that the president had raped her.
The longer I spent with these old stories, the more I came back to a question: If exploiting a willing intern is a serious enough abuse of power to warrant resignation, why is obstructing justice in a sexual harassment case not serious enough to warrant impeachment? Especially when the behavior is part of a longstanding pattern that also may extend to rape? Would any feminist today hesitate to take a similar opportunity to remove a predatory studio head or C.E.O.?
There is a common liberal argument that our present polarization is the result of constant partisan escalations on the right ‐ the rise of Newt Gingrich, the steady Hannitization of right-wing media.
Some of this is true. But returning to the impeachment imbroglio made me think that in that case the most important escalators were the Democrats. They had an opportunity, with Al Gore waiting in the wings, to show a predator the door and establish some moral common ground for a polarizing country.
And what they did instead ‐ turning their party into an accessory to Clinton’s appetites, shamelessly abandoning feminist principle, smearing victims and blithely ignoring his most credible accuser, all because Republicans funded the investigations and they’re prudes and it’s all just Sexual McCarthyism ‐ feels in the cold clarity of hindsight like a great act of partisan deformation.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
11/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Gee, it isn't even April.
Posted by: S. Those9453 ||
11/20/2017 0:07 Comments ||
Top||
#2
if Gore had become Pres in 98, W probably would not have been elected in 2000 then Obama might not have been elected in 2008 and ditto for trump in 2016
alt history
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/20/2017 0:46 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Times readers having an apoplectic fit
Unless it results in mass Seppuku, I could care less.
#9
After Perez cleared out a lot of Bernie and Pocahontas professional staff at the DNC, a lot of dems/progs saw the groundwork for yet another hildabeest run. This is about gutting that before it gets any kind of legs, and telegraphing its ok for the stories to come out. Watching Clinton Inc, circle the wagons and shriek with coded threats about their much-feared dirty stories library, many are just laying low. But there are far too many bodies for even the Queen of Darkness to silence, and I think the crumbling of the Foundation takes away the candy store to buy off those that really know the dirt.
#10
Why did the left wing press not do due diligence back then?
The way I remember it a number of Dems sat out that year certain that Bush the Elder was going to win. By the time the economy started to stumble it was too late.
Clinton (like Obama after him) ran as a test and somehow got traction. Then once the Dems actually won an election they thought they couldn't win they just rallied around their guy no matter what was said.
[NationalInterest.org] Riyadh’s aim is to drag the United States back into the Middle East, tilting the balance back to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Many observers have connected the dots and concluded that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is seeking to drag the United States into a war with Iran and Hezbollah. But that’s only half the story. Looking at the recent events through a broader geopolitical lens, a much more sinister plan emerges: a Saudi plan to trap the United States in a permanent standoff with Tehran.
While most of the world has been aghast by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s radical actions of this past week, his conduct is only inexplicable when viewed from the wrong lens, such as the Sunni-Shia sectarian frame or the even more absurd attempt to cast this conflict as part of a greater fight against terrorism. After all, Saudi Arabia provided the seed money for Al Qaeda and openly funded and armed Al Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra), according to the U.S. government.
When seen from a geopolitical lens, however, the unlikely alliance between Zionist Israel and the Wahhabi House of Saud, their opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and their coordinated effort to ratchet up tensions in the region suddenly acquire a degree of logic.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
11/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
#1
Saudi plan to trap the United States in a permanent standoff with Tehran
#5
While most of the world has been aghast by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s radical actions of this past week, his conduct is only inexplicable when viewed from the wrong lens, such as the Sunni-Shia sectarian frame or the even more absurd attempt to cast this conflict as part of a greater fight against terrorism. After all, Saudi Arabia provided the seed money for Al Qaeda and openly funded and armed Al Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra), according to the U.S. government.
But the correct answer according to the article is to trap the U.S. in a permanent standoff with Tehran. We have been in a somewhat permanent standoff with Iran since 1979.
[Red State] Oh, bless her heart. I’m sure she really had a point to make, here.
At least, she gave it a shot.
Hillary Clinton, still reliving the campaign and desperately clinging to her talking points, stumbled her way through some twisted defenses.
The clock ain’t turning back, Lady. Just move on. Get a hobby ‐ something that will make you happy, but this isn’t it.
Speaking of turning back the clock, the former Secretary of State, while speaking at the Clinton Presidential Center (Why is there even such a thing?) on Saturday couldn’t resist taking a jab at President Trump’s obnoxious Twitter habit. Speaking of her husband, Clinton said:
"He didn’t tweet about it, he went to work about it, and he actually got things done."
And the crowd goes wild. This must have been quite painful. Running very low on material, she makes a nostalgic, positive reference to notional husband Bill.
"I have a blood clot on my brain, I fall down a lot and don't know why, my head gyrates for no reason at all, I need help climbing steps and I get dizzy with double vision. And Huma knows I get confused....Other than that I'm in good shape to be Commander in Chief".
Not to mention she's crazier than a shithouse rat.
[AmericanThinker] If you're not familiar with the term "Perfumed Prince," take a look at Air Force LTG Jay Silveria, Commander of the Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs.
Silveria achieved the national spotlight by chewing out the entire class over racial slurs posted on five cadets' quarters. Months later, it turned out that one of the targets was actually the perpetrator.
Here are some bullet points from a field manual.
Get the facts, before you act.
Solve problems at the lowest level.
Concede a mistake.
Praise in public, reprimand in private.
General "Knee-Jerk" violated all of them. When confronted with his error, he replied that this had to be said anyway. Apparently, he was conflating the Charlottesville protests with his own command, not to mention a likely disdain for his commander in chief.
But here we have an intelligence failure. Charlottesville may well have been a false flag operation. So was the "hoax" at Silveria's academy. Intelligence must be timely and adequate. Silveria was spot-on with time but dismally inadequate despite plenty of open source information, aka "news".
The general ranted himself into an ambush.
Wonder why we don't win wars?
Colonel David Hackworth coined the term "Perfumed Princes" to describe the leaders who sidestepped the Vietnam disaster and infested the senior ranks, playing the academic or business manager while they squeezed out soldiers on the soggy end.
But Silveria's rant went beyond careerism. Silveria ordered everyone to video his rant on their cell phones to make sure his spiel went prime-time. Everyone from Senator McCain to Joe Biden heaped the praise. The Washington Post opined, "Too bad Trump can't emulate the military when it comes to matters of race."
"Eau de Diversity" is the fab fragrance of the Perfumed Princes as required by the political elite.
Martin Dempsey, 18th chairman of the Army chief of staff, 2011-2015, persisted with the hyphenated American being our strength to the end of his career. Never mind that the attack at Fort Hood in 2009 was perpetrated by a Muslim-American Army psychiatrist-major. Of this, Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. chimed in at the time, "as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."
The tragedy was that Hasan's behavior had been scaring the pants off his colleagues in Army mental health, of all places, for years. But they understand. Diversity comes first.
The tragedy was that the Army maintained that firing some 140 rounds in a medical processing center while yelling "Allahu akbar" was "workplace violence" until 2015, when a funding bill forced the Perfumed Princes to reclassify the incident as "combat-related." Until then, all the dozens of victims had been denied appropriate benefits and the Purple Heart, thirteen awarded posthumously.
Marine staff sergeant Joseph Chamblin was punished for having urinated on a Taliban corpse five years ago. The conviction was overturned this November, after discovering that then-general Amos had interfered in the judicial proceeding. Amos wanted this sort of thing "crushed."
Chamblin maintains that he made the incriminating video as a propaganda ploy, "because if an infidel touches the body, they're not going to Mecca or paradise." This is right out of Brigadier General John Pershing's successful tactics in the Philippines, 1909-1913, not to mention Clausewitz's concept of "the will" and of knowing one's enemy. Of course, the opponents are "diverse," or they wouldn't be at war to begin with. Continues.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
11/20/2017 10:11 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
There is an Hebrew saying "Shit floats [to the top]".
#7
Service academy Supes now are career dead-end 3-stars. They should be career-active 2-stars fresh off a combat command and on their way to a 3-star combat command.
Only then will the electorate believe that their service chiefs take their academies seriously ... and merit funding.
[Daily Caller] The Navy announced Wednesday that new female recruits to the service are going to have to complete a one-and-a-half mile run in 18 minutes, seven seconds.
Male recruits will have to run the same distance in 16 minutes, 10 seconds, and if neither male nor female recruits can pass the initial test, they won’t graduate to further training at the Great Lakes, Ill., boot camp, Military.com reports.
"It’s an effort to raise the bar and develop tough, more qualified sailors during basic military training to increase the lethality of the fleet overall," Navy Lt. Sean Brophy, spokesman for Naval Service Training Command, told Military.com.
And yet, the standard is not very high, especially for women. With a pace of about 4.5-5 miles per hour, it’s possible to complete 1.5 miles in 18-20 minutes. This speed is slightly faster than a very brisk walk.
NEW YORK -- Shalane Flanagan pulled away from Mary Keitany on Sunday to become the first American to win the women's New York City Marathon since 1977.
Keitany had won three straight New York marathons, but Flanagan pulled away from the Kenyan great with about three miles to go. Flanagan finished with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 26 minutes, 53 seconds -- about a minute faster than Keitany.
#2
In the Navy (and Air Force) you have systems that are supported by personnel. In the Army and Marine Corps you have personnel who are supported by systems. The latter need only one PT test - that for infantry/ground pounders, cause when pooooh hits the fan, you are all infantry. See - 507th Maintenance Company
#3
But P2k, does this mean you do not support adult diapers and day light hour patrols and RTB (return to base) for FET (female engagement team) members ?
#4
'4.5-5 miles per hour' is a fast walk. Jogging (even with my advanced age and crappy hip) still would be under 15 minutes for me.
1.5 miles is about the distance to the local ice cream stand from my house and it takes me about half an hour to complete the 'journey', including purchase(s).
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
11/20/2017 9:51 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I loathe running, and am very, very slow when I must do it, which is why I used to prefer bicycling. But even so, when the new high school gymnastics coach had us run one day, I was the slowest on the team by a considerable amount when I finished the mile run at 7:25. Thank goodness the coach decided there were better ways to improve our endurance than listening to us whine about running, which she employed with a vengeance... and we enjoyed.
#8
4.5-5 miles per hour is faster than I can ever walk, no matter how hard I try or how short the distance. I was able to walk 28 miles over the last 7 days, but only at 3.3 miles per hour. 47 years ago I once ran a mile in 5:30, those were the days...
[PJ] Last week, an article on CNN reported that, at three years old, the "most premature baby" ever born is now thriving. Born at just 21 weeks and four days gestation (possibly the earliest any baby has ever been born and survived), baby girl Stensrud is now a "fun-loving, spunky" little girl who shows no ill effects from being born so early. Her premature birth and subsequent survival without any noticeable ill effects is giving doctors hope that, as Dr. Kaashif Ahmad, baby Stensrud’s doctor, says, they will be able to push the boundaries of "how premature a baby can be born and not only survive but have a positive developmental outcome."
#2
The concept of human life; does this story suggest that man does not own it after all? Could it be that, for a small speck of time, we'er all playing on St. Andrews, but do not actually own the course ?
#3
A significant number of people believe abortion, infanticide - up to about age 8 years, and euthenasia should be legal. They generally also believe they are god (whether they admit it or not.)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Red State] Oh, bless her heart. I’m sure she really had a point to make, here.
[AmericanThinker] If you're not familiar with the term "Perfumed Prince," take a look at Air Force LTG Jay Silveria, Commander of the Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs.
[PJ] Last week, an article on CNN reported that, at three years old, the "most premature baby" ever born is now thriving. Born at just 21 weeks and four days gestation (possibly the earliest any baby has ever been born and survived), baby girl Stensrud is now a "fun-loving, spunky" little girl who shows no ill effects from being born so early. Her premature birth and subsequent survival without any noticeable ill effects is giving doctors hope that, as Dr. Kaashif Ahmad, baby Stensrud’s doctor, says, they will be able to push the boundaries of "how premature a baby can be born and not only survive but have a positive developmental outcome."
