There’s so much news about Democrats acting like complete pervs that I decided a separate roundup was in order:
Disgraced ex-New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer is in the news again. Might not want to read this one right before eating…
Disgraced “Luv Gov” Eliot Spitzer likes to take long romantic walks — at the end of a leash, new court papers claim.
The hooker-happy former governor’s fetishes include a penchant for paying “young girls” to lead him around “on all fours” like a dog — and use kinky sex toys on him, former escort Svetlana Travis Zakharova alleged.
Zhakharova, who last month struck a misdemeanor plea bargain after being charged with extorting $400,000 from Spitzer, filed the stunningly revealing papers in Manhattan Supreme Court, seeking to lift a gag order imposed as part of her prosecution.
The 27-year-old Russian native says she has a First Amendment right to “discuss any and all actions or events that she participated in with Spitzer.”
“Moreover, the fact that Spitzer was paying young girls to insert sex toys into his anal cavity and walk him around the floor on all fours with a leash is conduct that he made a conscious choice to engage in,” wrote her lawyer, Joseph Murray.
Zakharova also accused Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark — who served as special prosecutor in her case — of seeking the Feb. 15 gag order as part of a “desperate” bid to protect Spitzer because he’s a “rich, powerful man.”
This court appearance follows police being sent to the hotel room because Spitzer allegedly attacked and choked Zhakharova.
Did New York police arrest Democratic bigwig Spitzer over his alleged assault? Yeah, right:
Spitzer’s then-wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, grimly stood by her cheating hubby during that scandal.
But she finally gave him the heave-ho in 2013 after The Post exclusively revealed his since-ended affair with Democratic political consultant Lis Smith, who at the time was a spokeswoman for Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.
In addition to lifting the gag order, Zakharova’s post-conviction motion seeks to disqualify Clark, with her lawyer noting that he believes “there is evidence of corruption we want to make public.”
Clark was special prosecutor in Zakharova’s case after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance bowed out over his close ties to Spitzer.
Both men are Democrats and former political allies, and some of Vance’s top aides formerly worked for Spitzer, who was New York attorney general before being elected governor.
Zakharova claims that Spitzer “was required, under New York law, to be arrested” following the Plaza Hotel incident, and notes that Spitzer’s lawyer, Adam Kaufmann, is a former high-ranking Manhattan prosecutor.
She also alleges that “for some unknown reasons,” the case was transferred from Manhattan’s Midtown North Precinct — where detectives “were postured to arrest Spitzer” — and transferred to the Bronx Homicide Squad.
The Bronx DA’s Office now “has no intention [of] arresting or prosecuting Spitzer,” her filing says.
I’m a live-and-let-live sort of guy, and my libertarian self says that if one old dude wants to pay a young woman to consensually shove a dildo up his ass and walk him around on a leash in the privacy of his expensive New York hotel room, the state shouldn’t get involved. But in addition to the (alleged) assault, remember that this is a guy who not only broke the law by hiring prostitutes while he was attorney general and governor, but also chastised Americans for not having being willing to sacrifice for the common good, so yeah, I have no problem further exposing this hypocrite’s freak fetish.
Al Franken (D-MN) currently stands accused of groping multiple women before and after becoming a US senator. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has stepped down as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee after reports surfaced that he’d paid a former staffer $27,000 to settle a 2014 sexual misconduct complaint.
The problem is not, obviously, unique to Democrats.
Over the past six weeks, it’s become clear that many of America’s most powerful and most respected institutions have housed and protected repeat sexual harassers and predators, while shutting up or shutting out their victims.
“Has a sexual harassment problem” is a dubious distinction that the Democratic Party shares with Hollywood, Fox News, prestige television shows and networks, the restaurant industry, America’s most successful massage chain — and, of course, the Republican Party, which is currently running a Senate candidate who stands accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
But the ubiquity of the problem doesn’t make it any less real. The Democratic Party — which has for years positioned itself as the defender of gender equality and women’s rights against Republican attacks — hasn’t taken a stand by pushing out the alleged offenders. There are open ethics committee investigations in both houses, but there’s no expectation that the allegations already voiced against Franken and Conyers should be firing offenses.
There are, as many reporters have pointed out, institutional imperatives at play here. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was reportedly wary of pushing out Conyers because she feared blowback from the Congressional Black Caucus. Democrats in both chambers are reportedly deferring to the ethics committees in part because they want to set an established pattern for how these allegations are addressed — because they know that such allegations, against Democrats and Republicans alike, are going to keep coming.
But if the Democratic Party chooses to continue to protect its members against harassment allegations, it needs to be honest about the choice it’s not making: the choice to be an institution that actually reflects the better world it says it wants to create.
For months, Democrats have identified themselves with the diffuse cultural energy known as “the resistance.” Now that public outrage is actually beginning to create change, by pushing serial predators out of positions of power, the Democrats — and other progressive political institutions — are facing a moment of reckoning. It can be an ally of the emergent social movement against a culture of serial harassment and “open secrets,” or it can be a partner of convenience.
Actually, I expect the Democratic Party to do what it’s always done: Claim to be the party of reform while actually being the party of sleaze and corruption.
Democratic Rep. John Conyers allegedly sexually harassed a woman when she was 57.
Marion Brown, a former staffer under Rep. John Conyers, detailed the Michigan congressman’s alleged sexual misconduct in an exclusive interview with TODAY Thursday, saying the longtime civil rights icon “violated my body” and frequently propositioned her for sex.
Brown is one of multiple women who have alleged of sexual harassment by Conyers, which she said occurred regularly during her 11 years working on his staff.
It was sexual harassment, violating my body, propositioning me, inviting me to hotels with the guise of discussing business and propositioning for sex,” Brown told Savannah Guthrie. “He just violated my body, he’s touched me in different ways. It was very uncomfortable and very unprofessional.”
She described a specific disturbing encounter with Conyers, 88, who has denied any wrongdoing, in a Chicago hotel room in 2005.
“He was undressed down to his underwear,” she said. “He asked me to satisfy to him sexually. He pointed to genital areas of his body and asked me to touch him.
“I was frozen shocked. I didn’t want to lose my job, I didn’t want to upset him. Also, he asked me to find other people that would satisfy him,” she said. “I just tried to escape. I did tell him that I was not going to do that and I did not feel comfortable.”
So now Conyers is hospitalized and, several days too late and several dollars short, Nancy Pelosi and other congressional Democrats call on him to resign.
Conyers’ attorney, however, defiantly rejected Pelosi’s calls for his client to resign.
“It is not up to Nancy Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi did not elect Mr. Conyers,” the attorney, Arnold Reed, said at a press conference Thursday in Detroit. “And she sure as hell won’t be the one to tell the congressman to leave.”
Reed also criticized Pelosi for demanding the lawmaker quit while not doing the same for Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who is facing a growing number of accusations of sexual misconduct. The Senate Ethics Committee announced on Thursday it had opened an investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Franken.
Reed held another press conference Friday, saying that Conyers would “continue to defend himself until the cows come home” and added that he and the lawmaker would “discuss in the next day or so” what Conyers “plans to do.”
“Nancy Pelosi — Roy Moore’s Accidental Wingman.” “Nancy Pelosi’s defense of John Conyers framed the race exactly the way Moore wants it. Her belated change of heart will not erase the memory: The issue is party, not principle. ”
More than 100 sex trafficking victims and advocacy groups are asking Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) to stop trying to block a bipartisan bill that would give families of victims and states the ability to sue websites that allow advertisements selling sex with minors on their platforms.
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has joined the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign committee in calling on a first-term Democratic Nevada congressman to resign, following a report that he sexually harassed an aide during his 2016 congressional campaign.
In an article published by BuzzFeed Friday afternoon, Rep. Ruben Kihuen was accused of making repeated sexual advances toward his then-campaign finance director by a woman identified as “Samantha.” BuzzFeed said it is withholding her surname at her request. Samantha alleges that Kihuen propositioned her for dates and sex, and twice touched her thighs without consent.
Rep. Raul M. Grijalva quietly arranged a “severance package” in 2015 for one of his top staffers who threatened a lawsuit claiming the Arizona Democrat was frequently drunk and created a hostile workplace environment, revealing yet another way that lawmakers can use taxpayer dollars to hide their misbehavior on Capitol Hill.
While the Office of Compliance has been the focus of outrage on Capitol Hill for hush-money payouts in sexual harassment cases, the Grijalva payout points to another office that lawmakers can use to sweep accusations under the rug with taxpayer-funded settlements negotiated by the House Employment Counsel, which acts as the attorney for all House offices.
The employment counsel negotiated a deal for taxpayers to give $48,395 — five additional months’ salary — to the female aide, who left her job after three months. She didn’t pursue the hostile workplace complaint further.
The torrent of Endless Media Pervbag revelations that started with Harvey Weinsetin has zoomed past water-hose, torn through fire hydrant, and is now at raging river conditions.
The latest skeaves caught? Today show host Matt Lauer and Prairie Home Companion windbag Garrison Keillor.
As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Matt Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.
On another day, he summoned a different female employee to his office, and then dropped his pants, showing her his penis. After the employee declined to do anything, visibly shaken, he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.
You may wonder what genius at NBC approved that expense, but look on the bright side: They probably turned down his request to build a secret bondage dungeon as “too expensive.”
"Hey, boss, you need to sign this requisition." "What's it for?" "A button on Matt's desk allowing him to lock the door." "Why does he need that?" "Do you really want to know?" "Good point. Here." https://t.co/ypbJ20FfVu
By contrast, the details about PBS canning Keillor seem considerably vaguer:
Garrison Keillor, creator of A Prairie Home Companion, has been evicted from his longtime radio home at Minnesota Public Radio after reported “inappropriate behavior” by the 75-year-old host.
MPR communications director Angie Andresen confirmed his dismissal in a statement posted to the broadcaster’s website Wednesday that did not detail the nature of the allegations. The organization announced it would “end its business relationship with Keillor’s media companies effective immediately.”
The broadcaster will erase Keillor, one of public radio’s most famous voices, from its air and website, including renaming Companion, the variety show he created in 1974 and hosted until 2016, when he retired and handed over creative control to his handpicked replacement, musician Chris Thile. In addition, MPR will no longer air rebroadcasts of Keillor’s old shows, nor will it produce or distribute his remaining syndicated series, The Writer’s Almanac.
I’m not a fan of Keillor, but it almost seems like someone at MPR had a long-standing grudge against him and used a single complaint to make him an unperson.
Said Keillor: “If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift down below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars.”
And who can doubt that women are irresistibly drawn to his smoking hot, sensual body?
And as long as we’re talking about Keillor, here’s The Simpsons on his special brand of humor:
Some final tweets:
Area Woman Quietly Satisfied To Have Concrete Evidence Backing Up Years-Long Hatred Of Matt Lauer https://t.co/2AOkQUwJsz
Termination of US news reporter Matt Lauer is devastating blow to enthusiasts of vapid morning banter with mindless celebrities. pic.twitter.com/Ppdc0Y70sw
Could Fenves have reversed the ruling after receiving a large donation from the accuser’s father, as “John Doe’s” lawsuit attests? Whatever the case, UT seemed willing to settle rather than risk having their President testify on the record in court.
This is probably a good time to remind people that just because Wallace Hall is no longer on the UT Board of Regents does not mean that the numerous problems of cronyism and favoritism in admissions (and very possibly elsewhere) he uncovered were solved just because Hall is no longer there to expose them.
If you’re tired of all this Arab-on-Arab fighting, Israel is indicating it may have to do some direct clobbering itself:
Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida revealed on Sunday that an Israeli source disclosed a promise from Jerusalem to destroy all Iranian facilities within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of Israel’s Golan Heights.
The source, who remains unnamed, said that during Syrian President Bashar Assad’s surprise visit to Russia last week, Assad gave Russian Premier Vladimir Putin a message for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Damascus will agree to a demilitarized zone of up to 40 kilometers from the border in the Golan Heights as part of a comprehensive agreement between the two countries, but only if Israel does not work to remove Assad’s regime from power.
The report also claims that Putin then called Netanyahu to relay the message, and that the Israeli prime minister said he would be willing to accept the deal, but that Israel’s goal of eradicating Iran and Hezbollah from the country would remain.
According to the source, Jerusalem sees Assad as the last president of the Alawite community, indicating that a change of regime in Syria – at least towards a government less-linked to Iran – would be favorable for Israel. The Alawites are a minority Shi’ite community in Syria, and have long been supported by Iran, which seeks to extend its influence from the Gulf across the region to the Mediterranean.
Here’s your regular reminder that Alawites are Shiite in the same sense that Mormons are Jews.
The source also commented that after the defeat of the Islamic State, the conflict in Syria would become ”more difficult,” likely pointing towards a vacuum that would be left without the group. Russian, Syrian and Iranian-backed forces have been fighting against ISIS, while also seeking to knock out rebel groups that oppose the current regime. Russia’s stated interests have been in line with Iran’s in wanting to keep Assad in power.
Israel has participated mostly on the periphery of the war in Syria, responding to fire on the northern border and occasionally bombing positions, including a weapons depot and scientific research center that allegedly produces chemical weapons. Damascus and Jerusalem have exchanged heated remarks as well, with Netanyahu threatening to bomb Assad’s palace, and Syrian officials warning of ”dangerous repercussions” to Israeli strikes on Syrian targets.
Naturally Hezbollah says it’s perfectly willing to fight if its Iranian masters snap their fingers:
The head of a large Iranian-backed Iraqi militia that has been fighting in Syria said his group was “fully prepared” to fight Israel if Damascus asked it to.
Sheikh Akram al-Ka’abi, the leader of Iraq’s Hezbollah al-Nujaba, told the Lebanese news network Al Mayadeen Friday night his group would participate in a Damascus-led attack on Israel’s Golan Heights.
“We are fully prepared to participate in any war with the Syrian Arab Army to liberate the Golan if the Syrian state agrees or requests so,” Ka’abi said.
He said this would be done through the militia’s newest branch, the Golan Liberation Brigade, which was formed in March of this year.
Hezbollah al-Nujaba is reportedly controlled by Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite foreign operations unit, the Qods Force.
Ka’abi, who controls a reported 10,000 men in Syria, also said his group was prepared to defend the Lebanese terror group and fellow Iranian proxy Hezbollah from any Israeli attack.
I doubt either Assad or Russia wants to tangle with Israel right now, especially with the Saudi’s making threats and President Donald Trump being both far more pro-Israel (and unpredictable) than the previous occupant of the White House.
Meanwhile, Israel’s leadership is openly talking of war with Hezbollah and bumping off its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
With the retirements of Joe Straus and Byron Cook, Jason Villalba might be the least popular Republican in the Texas House. Which explains why Santa (in this case Texas conservatives) delivered a primary challenge as an early Christmas present.
With a disastrous record in the Texas House and recent calls for gun control, Texans won’t be surprised to learn that State Rep. Jason Villalba (R—Dallas) could face a tough reelection.
On Monday, Dallas business owner Lisa Luby Ryan, who operates an interior design firm and the antique home furnishings store Vintage Living in Dallas, validated earlier rumors she was considering a run and announced her campaign against Villalba in the Republican primary.
“I’m simply overwhelmed at the initial support we have already earned and grateful for the caliber of individuals joining this campaign,” said Ryan in a news release. “Today’s announcement sends a loud and clear message that this district believes that we can do better than our current representation. I am running to provide voters a clear choice, and with this great support I intend to win.”
In her campaign announcement, Ryan also released an impressive list of supporters who are already endorsing her campaign. The list includes a bevy of conservative mainstays and a substantial number of prominent community business owners including Brint Ryan (no relation), a prominent tax consultant and chairman of the University of North Texas Board of Regents, who will serve as Lisa Luby Ryan’s campaign treasurer.
While Ryan’s background certainly plays into the amount of support she’s receiving in the district, and it’s also true that Villalba’s record has declined even further this session compared to his last, it’s likely that the donor community is supporting his opponent because Villalba has exhausted his usefulness.
While Villalba was, admittedly, a clownish and useless member of House Speaker Joe Straus’ team, he was a part of the team. But now, that team won’t be taking the field.
Given Straus’ announcement that he will not seek re-election and conservative efforts to amend the Republican caucus bylaws to ensure a more conservative Speaker is elected, Villalba is likely to be left on the outside looking in regardless of who is elected to be the next Speaker of the Texas House.
And it’s not just Dallas donors who have made that observation.
Indeed, at a recent lobby meeting hosted by Straus’ chief strategist, Gordon Johnson, Villalba didn’t even make the list of lawmakers that the group would try to “protect” in the upcoming Republican primary elections.
Given that Straus’ allies in the lobby were forced to spend more than $500,000 to protect Villalba in the 2016 primary, Villalba will be in serious trouble if the Austin political establishment hangs him out to dry.
Whenever #FeministTwitter freaks out over some pathetically trivial bullshit (read: all the time), Shoe0nHead is there to make fun of them:
TLDW: Feminists freak out over an app that guesses what women look like without makeup, wish death on its creator. Turns out it’s just the test of a concept that will used to combat human trafficking…
Via Prager University comes ex-Google engineer James Damore explaining how when he used science and logic in an internal memo to explain that not all differences in hiring patterns between men and women was the result of sexism. When the internal memo was leaked, Google fired him for his heresy.
Militants have launched a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai province, killing 235 people, state media say.
Witnesses say the al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, near al-Arish, was targeted during Friday prayers.
It is the deadliest attack of its kind since an Islamist insurgency in the peninsula was stepped up in 2013.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has held emergency talks with security officials to decide how to respond.
Local police said gunmen arrived in four off-road vehicles and bombed the packed mosque before opening fire on worshippers, the Associated Press reported.
Pictures from the scene show rows of bloodied victims inside the mosque. At least 100 people were wounded, reports say.
“They were shooting at people as they left the mosque,” a local resident who had relatives there told Reuters news agency. “They were shooting at the ambulances too.”
No group has yet claimed responsibility for what is one of the deadliest militant attacks in modern Egyptian history.
Who was targeted?
Locals are quoted as saying that followers of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, regularly gathered at the mosque.
Sufis are among the least likely of Muslims to take up terrorism. The Islamic State certainly targets them as heretics, but the Muslim Brotherhood is not too keen on them either, so both are natural suspects as being behind the bombing.
Fusion GPS, the DNC and Hillary Clinton sampaign-funded organization behind the fake Trump dossier, has been paying journalists.
In this week’s MSM scumbag sexual harasser sweepstakes, both CBS and PBS fire Charlie Rose after sexual harassment accusations from eight different women.
You know the Arab-Egyptian Peace Treaty signed after the Camp David Accords in 1979? Jimmy Carter did his best to derail it.
Carter wanted his Geneva talks. He didn’t care that the peace process already begun by Sadat and Begin might lead to peace, Carter wanted his plan or nothing. You see Carter’s vision of a Geneva conference would be run by the U.S. and the USSR, and Israel would be facing the terrorist PLO, and Israel’s neighbors including, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, and Jordan. It would not be a negotiation because when one considers that the Arab countries were Soviet satellites, and the Carter administration’s ideological orientation was anti-Israel it seemed to ensure the conference would be all the participants vs. the Jewish State.
Thankfully Carter couldn’t stop the approaching peace train. Within days Israeli journalists were allowed into Cairo, breaking a symbolic barrier, and from there the peace process quickly gained momentum.
Can a Ketogeneic (low-carb) diet cure diabetes? Evidence suggests a firm maybe.
Environmental activist convicted. “A Montana jury found Leonard Higgins of Portland, Oregon, guilty of criminal mischief and trespassing. Higgins could face up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine on the felony criminal mischief charge.” (Hat tip: Steve Malloy’s Twitter feed.)
Larry Correia spells out exactly what writers “owe” their fans on unfinished series installments: namely “Jack” and “Squat.”
“As A Male Feminist, I Really Think I’d Absolutely Crush It If I Ever Had To Publicly Apologize For Sexual Misconduct.” Heh: “I’d use the word ‘apologize’ and say ‘I’m sorry.’ I’d check off all the boxes that feminist Twitter looks for in an airtight apology, and I’d continue expressing remorse in the ensuing weeks to wow the world with the magnitude of my self-reproach.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
