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Sexual Abuse Will Continue in DC. The Voters Don’t Care.
Senator Al Franken has been accused of groping another woman. But Democrats need his votes in the Senate, so he will likely survive. This same logic is motivating Alabama Republicans to continue their support for Roy Moore. Political power matters more than anything else.
In short, nothing has changed from the Clinton years. Like the current Woke Era, the 1990s were supposed to be a feminist decade. It began with feminists praising Anita Hill; it ended with feminists praising Bill Clinton.
In 1992, Clinton’s staff trashed his many female accusers, trying to prevent them from derailing his walk to the White House. The ugliest claim came from Juanita Broaddrick who alleged Clinton had violently raped her in his hotel room. Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey accused him of other predations which his campaign derided as “bimbo eruptions.”
The liberal establishment responded to Clinton’s pattern of abuse with rage. Not at their skeevy president, but at his female accusers. “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park,” Clinton strategist James Carville said, “you never know what you’ll find.” Even then-Clinton fan Donald Trump called Jones “a loser” trying to take down a president.
What Clinton was accused of was worse than most of the sexual predators being targeted today. Far worse. Yet the Democratic Party and many feminists fiercely defended him.
Gloria Steinem penned an op-ed for The New York Times claiming, “Even if the allegations are true, the President is not guilty of sexual harassment.” Betty Friedan said that Clinton’s “enemies are attempting to bring him down through allegations about some dalliance with an intern … Whether it’s a fantasy, a set-up, or true, I simply don’t care.”
The reason Democrats sided with Clinton in the 1990s was simple. He had a D after his name. Clinton supported their issues, and they’d be damned before letting those Republicans get a win.
As much as conservatives condemned Bill Clinton, here we are 20 years later and many in the GOP are doing the same thing. Roy Moore has an R after his name, therefore he’s innocent (and even if he isn’t innocent, he’ll vote the right way). Political power is all that matters; if there are a trail of broken women in his wake, they should just “put some ice on it,” as Clinton said.
Within a day of Democrats feigning disgust at Franken’s groping, they too are doing the same thing. The Minnesota senator refuses to resign and the usual suspects are denouncing Leeann Tweeden and his new accuser as either frauds or women who were “asking for it.”
Our priapic political class knows that they can sexually abuse interns, pages, or anyone else. Because when the victims come forward, the party base — R or D — will call them sluts, liars, or anything else it takes to keep their precious, pampered political elite in power.
Hollywood might reform itself, but Washington never will. At least not until voters drop their amoral tribalism.
Published in Culture, Politics
If the voters don’t care, then why is Congress hiding the names of the Congress critters. A large amount of hush money was paid out ($15M though not all of it may have resulted from sexual harassment). Obviously, having their names revealed will not be good for their careers. If we didn’t care, they wouldn’t be hiding the names.
I think I got your feeling, but I don’t get your meaning, dear Annefy. Are you talking about changing the Constitution?
I totally agree.
A million and a half during Paul Ryan’s speakership. Prior to that, John Conyers’s behavior was the occasion of a big payout. Buzzfeed broke the story on a tip from Mike Cernovich (speaking of strange bedfellows!)
Instapundit alerts us to the tweet of the day:
The Voting Rights Act led to heavily concentrated minority districts where people like Conyers are Congress critters for life. They are practically immune to negative consequences from personal behavior.
No. More like adhering to it. Too much concentrated power in DC
Just to clarify, Moore has one woman accusing of real bad behavior. One accuser represented by Gloria Allred, from 40 years ago, who has been before him in court without mentioning anything, discovered by the WaPo, revealed after the primary, with a troubled history.
And eight women accusing him of looking for dates from 18 or 19 year olds (who were not, presumably displaying their birth certificates.)
The “Office of Compliance”. Deliberately clunky, humiliating process for the victims. The taxpayer pays the “settlement”. If the abuser looses his job, K-Street is waiting. You keep your pension.
Centralized government power is unaccountable and unworkable. It will never work. Woodrow Wilson started this process that will never stop until the government runs out of money. I am dead serious.
Mises.org is right about everything.
Mike Cernovich broke this. Guess who he is associated with? You can’t make it up.
Trump is a symptom of a sick system that is devolving. Honest productivity and virtue doesn’t pay anymore. Graft, rent seeking, and naked power rules. So we will keep regressing. Don’t ask people to behave better; fix the system first. It a joke.
Discuss
Leigh Corfman – the original accuser (who said she was 14 at the time of her interactions with Moore) -was recently interviewed on the Today show.
She is also not the one represented by Gloria Allred (speaking to a later comment; you did not imply she was).
Jon has a way with words. That’s why he’s the top dog editor!
Aside from Pizzagate and calling folks “pedo” whether they are or not, who/what else is Cernovich associated with, @rufusrjones?
Because we voters like delusions, deniability, and deflection. Congress types practice those things because they work. We don’t like our noses rubbed in anything–so don’t do anything that forces We the People to confront issues we’d rather let lie.
Anyone else feel like we’re being blamed because Washington behaves like a bunch of drunken frat boys with unlimited credit?
I reject that, and I’m tired of the holier-than-thou attitude coming from some quarters. Not only do we have to deal with Washington burdening us with taxes and regulations, now we’re told that it’s our fault they’re sexed-up morons with no sense of propriety?
Several words come to mind in response to that. All of them would be nixed by Redactobot.
Drew,
Yep, this reminds me of the Obama era loan industry. The Fed, the Bankers, Congress, all dropped the ball. They approved loans for people speculatively buying multiple houses who had falsified their loan applications. You know, real thieves. So what did they do? They made it almost impossible for an ordinary person with good credit buying one ordinary house to get a mortgage.
Did you know that getting a job inside the beltway automatically assures us of your good intentions? No one who was just a self-serving parasite ever got a job in DC. Remember that deplorables!
Regards,
Jim
Alex Jones. This is not helpful if you dislike chaos.
I keep trying to tell this to people. This is all very predictable in the Austrian economics paradigm.
Save yourself, get on Mises.org.
Keynesianism makes everyone behave badly in the long run. You look stupid if you don’t speculate or live off the government somehow. Honest productivity and virtue: forget about it.
#MAGA
Unsubscribing now.