Oprah for President?

The country is suffering under serial disasters from our first celebrity president.

One of the characteristics of Third World countries is the election of popular entertainers over solid politicians. Leading to even more misery as the woefully underprepared singer/actor/media type struggles not only with how the country’s government works – but the far more complex world of international relations and finance. Saw that in Haiti, and it is one of the big reasons the rebuilding effort and flow of international money into the country stopped.

There isn’t any need to go into the long term and possibly catastrophic damage of the Chumph.

To  fix that is going to take an experienced and steady hand. And it will take years if not a decade.

Yeah the Stock Market is at 25,000. What are you going to do when the inevitable “reset” comes and it drops to 12,000? A number of folks I have talked to in finance and investment think that is on the short term horizon.

So… What is Oprah bringing to the party? She is undoubtedly a very intelligent person with communications skill non pareil. But she knows absolutely nothing (just like the current POS in office) about the more complex international and strategic issues.

So, in my view – Oprah, please don’t run!

‘The Boondocks’ predicted an ‘Oprah 2020’ presidency more than a decade ago

Oprah Winfrey’s speech on Sunday night at the Golden Globes pitched the worlds of politics, entertainment and media into fits of hysterical speculation. The television host and media titan delivered fist-pumping remarks after accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award — the first African American woman honored with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s top laurel.

The comments, while straying away from outright political terrain, focused on changing the world order controlled by “brutally powerful men,” a reference to the sexual harassment scandals that have upset so many industries. “A new day is on the horizon,” she concluded to applause.

Almost immediately rallying cries spread online for a “Oprah 2020” presidential campaign. Winfrey’s longtime partner, Stedman Graham, told a Los Angeles Times reporter that “it’s up to the people,” adding “she would absolutely do it.”

But in a fictional way, an Oprah Winfrey White House has already happened. In 2006, the edgy cartoon “The Boondocks” predicted a Winfrey 2020 presidency.

“The Boondocks,” the brainchild of artist and University of Maryland graduate Aaron McGruder, began as a syndicated comic strip in 1996 before jumping onto Cartoon Network as an animated show on the network’s lineup in 2005. Following the life of a young black family in a white neighborhood, McGruder’s work constantly bucked norms and pushed sensitive buttons.

The season one episode “Return of the King” was especially controversial. The program imagined an alternative history in which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was not assassinated in 1968. Instead, he had fallen into a coma. In the episode he wakes up in 2000. King’s nonviolent views become so unpopular following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that he leaves to live in Canada.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist and political commentator, was incensed by the program. “Cartoon Network must apologize and also commit to pulling episodes that desecrate black historic figures,” he said, USA Today reported at the time.

The episode later won a 2006 Peabody Award.

In the show’s final frames, a newspaper headline from November 8, 2020, shows Oprah Winfrey has just been elected president.

McGruder’s premise was likely not intended as a complete farce. In the past, the artist has talked about Winfrey’s real power. “Oprah has the power to lay waste to entire industries with a mere utterance,” he told the New York Times in 2005. “That’s a power that you have to respect. And ultimately I respect it.”

Oddly, there is a precedent of edgy cable cartoons successfully forecasting future political events. In 2000, “The Simpsons” broadcast an episode entitled “Bart to the Future.” The plot involved a President Trump.

 

Democrats Set Up to Lose Again In Virginia

Democrats lose by pursuing “bipartisanship”…

Republicans don’t give a damn about what anyone thinks and ram through their agenda.

Until Democrats learn to shove it up Republican ass with a 4×4…Democrats will continue to lose.

Democrats have also become the “white women’s” Party – which is a losing proposition. They had better start paying attention to all of their bases.

Ralph Northam – biggest Democrat comeback in Va history, with Governorship, Lt Governorship, a majority in the House…And one vote away from a majority in the Senate…

And he is already going mamby-pamby.

Wake the fuck up!

We wouldn’t be in this Chumphshit mess if Obama had hung a few of the regnant white wing bastards from the light posts.

Obama’s Lesson for Virginia

When it comes to expanding Medicaid, Gov.-elect Ralph Northam shouldn’t bother with bipartisanship.

Ralph Northam ran on Medicaid. “We need to expand Medicaid in the commonwealth of Virginia,” the Democratic gubernatorial candidate said at a major rally in Richmond just a few weeks before the election. “Right now there are 400,000 working Virginians that don’t have access to health care. That is immoral.”

In his first interview since the election, Ralph Northam says he won’t take that step. “I have let our people know that I will work with the legislature that was elected by the people,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post. “I’m not approaching anybody … in the Senate or the House.” The Post notes that “Northam said he has no plans to try to force Republicans to accept a broad expansion of Medicaid.”

It’s true that Northam won’t enter office with Democratic majorities in the General Assembly. But he’ll be close. Democrats swept state legislative elections in a surprising wave that, after several recounts—including one race determined by a single vote—gave them 50 seats in the 100-member House of Delegates, with incoming Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax as the tie-breaking vote. Along with Republicans’ razor-thin minority in the state Senate—19 seats in a 40-member chamber—Democrats are a hair’s breadth away from the votes they need to expand Medicaid. Bringing a few Republicans into the Northam administration, or convincing one or two of the most vulnerable GOP members to switch sides, would open the floor to expanding the health care program.

Northam, who himself switched parties before entering electoral politics and was later courted to switch back by Republicans, is clearly committed to an Obama-esque vision of civility and compromise. But before heading down that road, the incoming governor should remember one of the lessons of Obama’s presidency: Voters may say they like bipartisanship, but they don’t actually vote for it.

Despite an electorate that clearly wanted Democrats to take the lead, Northam is preaching bipartisanship in Richmond. His advice to freshman Democratic lawmakers? “Learn the system, number one. And really make good relationships on both sides of the aisle. … I’ll try to lead that. We talk about the doctor being in, healing, and I’ll try to bring people together and emphasize doing what’s in the best interest of Virginia.”

We’ve seen this logic before. In the first year of his presidency, Barack Obama tried to find common ground with the GOP on issues of presumably mutual concern. He brought Republicans into his Cabinet, extending offers to Robert Gates, former Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois, and Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. A week after his inauguration, Obama met with congressional Republicans, seeking support for his stimulus plan and offering concessions on several items. And far from jamming health care through Congress, the White House deferred to a bipartisan “Gang of Six” led by Sen. Max Baucus of Montana. By the end of his first 100 days in office, most Americans—66 percent according to Gallup—believed Obama was making a sincere effort to find common ground with the Republican Party, fulfilling a key campaign promise.

But while the public likes bipartisanship, it doesn’t reward it. Obama’s overtures didn’t insulate him or his Democratic allies from a growing sense of discontent and a landslide that would obliterate the party’s majority in the House of Representatives. What voters typically reward is performance, and the administration’s zeal for compromise on stimulus and health care produced measures that weren’t large enough or generous enough to give voters a sense of security in the wake of a disastrous recession.

Compromise is part of governance, but given the yawning ideological gap between Republicans and Democrats, there is real tension between pursuing that bipartisanship and building legislation that works. During Obama’s presidency, the pressures of partisanship and ideology meant Republicans were never going to support an expansive health insurance program. Still, Democrats built their program around the possibility of bipartisan support, yielding a law with real weaknesses.

Ralph Northam clearly values compromise and bipartisanship, but he runs a risk in elevating them over his unambiguous promise to expand Medicaid. Northam won’t have to stand for re-election—the governor of Virginia can’t serve consecutive terms—but the energy that elevated state Democrats and delivered a shocking victory in the House of Delegates can dissipate as easily as it emerged. Indeed, in the wake of his interview with the Post, Northam was hit with a social media backlash, excoriating him for backing away from his Medicaid pledge.

If Obama’s experience doesn’t weigh on Northam, that backlash should. If Northam can lead Virginia to fully implement the Affordable Care Act, there’s a decent chance voters will remember in two years and vote accordingly. They won’t remember, and won’t care, if he reaches out to Republicans to craft a half-measure that doesn’t address the problem.

 

Republican Financed Fake Sexual Harassment Claims Against Democrat Congressman

Not real surprised at this.

Democrats are absolute idiots for bending over to get rid of Franken.

He said – She said gets into some ambiguous territory at times. Doesn’t mean that sexual harassment in the workplace isn’t common. Just means there is a lot of room for misinterpretation of motives.  Invited a woman on my staff some years ago to a group happy hour where I bought a round of drinks for my staff.. Either I didn’t make the invitation clear enough, or she misunderstood my meaning. She responded saying she had a boyfriend. I was a bit taken aback, and felt it was necessary to explain it was an invitation to join the group of 30 or so staff. and my meaning wasn’t to suggest some sort of private get together.

So, it is possible to say something or do something which is misinterpreted. Sure there are jackasses out there…But firing of people without some sort of due process is getting way out of hand,

In this case the “accuser” turns out to be a paid Republican troll, with a history of false allegations…

 

Democrats Losing The Base

Black folks have been the most reliable voters for the Democrat Party the last 50 years. But the Party has delivered very little in return for that loyalty. That lack of delivery has led to voter apathy, and is the leading culprit in Hillary losing to the Chumph.

We, as a people are now under existential threat from Trump and his white wing followers – but the Party and it’s policies are being driven by the interests of white women.

Black voters just delivered two major victories for the Democrats in Virginia and Alabama. That vote wasn’t as much for Democrat candidates, as against the Chumph white supremacists.

If elected Democrats don’t find a way to head off the Chumph…They are going to lose again in 2018 and 2020.

I’m A Brown Woman Who’s Breaking Up With The Democratic Party

I realize now that the love has been one-sided.

Dear Democratic Party:

You were the love of my life. I fell in love early and hard. I have been the kind of party loyalist ― the kind of sappy, soapbox-y, clichéd devotee ― that makes Fox News moonwalk with glee.

The first vote I ever cast, at 18, was for Bill Clinton. The last vote I cast was for his wife, Hillary. My adoration for Hillary bordered on mania. In college, I named my ficus plant after her. Twenty years later, I canvassed, held fundraisers, dragged my 8-year-old daughter door to door, proudly wore HRC’s face on T-shirts and housed campaign volunteers in my home.

I loved you so much that I cried each time I voted. Thinking about the women who died fighting for my right to vote did it every time. I cried when I voted for Bill. For Barack Obama. I wept when I voted for Hillary. You’ve been that kind of mad love to me.

And now I want to break up.

I realize now that the love has been one-sided, unrequited. You’ve never recognized me, as a brown woman. You’ve taken my love, my money, my tokenism, with nary anything in return. You married the white woman and hooked up with me on the side.

Black Lives Matter is a second ― or third ― thought. Where is your outrage over the national epidemic of police brutality against black people? You continue to call angry white men who commit mass murder “lone wolves.” But if someone who looks like me screams “Allah” and fires a gun, it’s “terrorism.” And you wonder why angry white men are gunning down innocent brown men at bars, in their yards, on the street.

For all your talk about Dreamers, there’s been little action. You don’t seem to give a crap about kids of color who will be kicked out of this country, the only country they know. What if all those Dreamers were white? I suspect there’d be a very different outcome.

You spend a lot of time and energy wooing white voters, while giving short shrift to voters of colors and assuming we’ll always show up for you.

To be fair, there’s no reason for you to assume otherwise. We always show up for you. Take, for example, the special election in Alabama on Tuesday. Had black people not shown up, an accused child molester would be our newest senator.

What will Doug Jones do for the black folks who put him in the Senate? If history is any indication, very little.

This past year, I held and attended numerous fundraisers for your candidates. I donated money every time I was asked. I marched: for women, for children, for reproductive rights, for science. I traveled across the country for the March for Women in Washington, D.C. It was there that I got the first hint that you weren’t that into me. The giveaway? The sea of white women in pink hats with brown and black women dotting the waves like debris. I let it slide but I kept my eyes and ears open.

My fellow brown and black sisters started to notice, too — and the chatter began, in whispered hushes at first, then loud and clear. You are a party of white feminists. Of white feminism, the kind of feminism that focuses on the struggles of white women. It was the first time I’d heard the term, most likely because self-awareness is hard and I was a brown woman trapped in a white feminist’s world.

But then I woke up. I saw you with clear eyes for the first time.

For every Kamala Harris and Pramila Jayapal sticking their brown and black necks out for me, there are dozens of white female Democrats who want me to shut my trap.

Your advocacy for reproductive rights zeros in on wealthy white women. Women of color and other marginalized women get sidelined. The gender pay gap is worse for black and Latina women than it is for white women. Women of color make up 64 percent of women in U.S. jails. Why isn’t the Democratic Party talking about this and trying to fix it?

My own “liberal” white congresswoman in Colorado has given me a hint as to why.

At the congresswoman’s town hall in February, Neeti Pawar, the brown female founder of the South Asian Bar Association of Colorado, was one of the only people of color in a room of nearly a thousand. She asked about immigration and DACA protections. The congresswoman scoffed. When Pawar pressed on, she was told to remain silent or she’d be asked to leave. During a follow-up, staffers told Pawar that civil rights weren’t the representative’s “issue.” Brown and black people don’t have the luxury of sidelining civil rights. It’s life and death for us.

And it didn’t stop there.

I was organizing a fundraiser for a U.S. senator earlier this month, and had planned to use the opportunity to highlight women of color by having black women introduce him. The congresswoman’s staff caught wind of the event and asked if she could introduce the senator. I explained my position but invited her to come as a guest. No response. When pressed on her stance on racial inclusion, her staff didn’t respond to me directly but tattled on me to the white women co-hosting the event.

I know there are some good ones among you. But for every Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters and Pramila Jayapal sticking their brown and black necks out for me, there are dozens of white female Democrats who want me to shut my trap, and say please and thank you. I should be grateful for scraps while white women enjoy a proper marriage with you.

I’m done with all that. And if you don’t want to lose more women like me, there are a few basic things you can do.

Pay attention to the reproductive health of women of color and other marginalized women. Do something, anything, to protect Dreamers. Or, if you’re really feeling bold, move forward on some form of reparations for black people.

Finally, mentor young people of color to run for office. Campaign for brown and black folks. Raise money for them. Show up for them. I’d come running back to you with open arms if you did even a few of these things.

In the meantime, I’ll be on the sidelines waiting, watching, hoping, praying. You broke my heart.

 

Sen. Al Franken Resigns

Not sure while Democrats are resigning while Republicans committing child rape get to keep their offices.

Yet another Yellowback Dumbocrat Donkey move. Jefferson Davis Sessions is dancing in his office, because he knows the Democrat women who forced him out ain’t gonna do Jack Shit to prosecute him.

The same cowardly crowd afraid to ge after the serial molester Chumph, Uncle Tommy Clarence, or the child rapists on the right.

Al Franken announces he will resign from the Senate

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) announced on the Senate floor Thursday that he is resigning in the coming weeks following multiple allegations that he sexually harassed women.

Franken’s decision comes a day after a majority of Senate Democrats called for his resignation after determining that they could no longer tolerate his presence.

They turned on one of their party’s most popular figures with stunning swiftness, led by the Senate’s Democratic women, who were joined in short order by more than half of the Democratic caucus.

Franken struck a defiant tone during his remarks on the Senate floor.

“Some of the allegations against me simply are not true, others I remember very differently,” he said.

But Franken said the situation had become too much of a distraction and would prevent him from fully fulfilling his duties as a senator if he stayed in office.

“But this decision is not about me. It’s about the people of Minnesota,” he said. “It’s become clear that I can’t both pursue the Ethics Committee process and at the same time, remain an effective senator for them.”

He added: “I may be resigning my seat, but I am not giving up my voice.”

The Democrat Donkey – All Dressed Out With a Cowardly Yellow Stripe

 

Conyers Exits…Stage Left

Conyers got away with this for a long, long, time…

Now it has caught up with him.

As for Congress…Conyers biting the dust is only the beginning.

Rep. John Conyers Jr., who faces allegations of sexual harassment, says he is retiring today, endorses son as his replacement

An attorney for Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) cast doubt Tuesday morning on reports the congressman won’t seek reelection following a slew of sexual harassment allegations.

Arnold Reed, a Detroit-area attorney, suggested on Twitter that a younger Conyers relative was not aware of his great-uncle’s plans when he told reporters he planned to run for his Michigan congressional seat next year.

The younger relative, Ian Conyers, told the Times his great-uncle would not seek reelection due to health concerns.

“The congressman will make his decision this morning consistent with my previous statements,” Reed tweeted. “I’m not responding to rumor and innuendo regarding Ian Conyers. I have not spoken to Ian Conyers and no one is aware of the congressman’s plans except he and I and his wife.”

Conyers, the longest-serving member of Congress, has been under pressure from Democratic leaders to resign since several former staffers alleged he made inappropriate advances toward them over the past two decades. He has denied wrongdoing.

The New York Times first reported Tuesday that Ian Conyers, the grandson of Conyers’s brother, plans to run for the seat.

“He is not resigning. He is going to retire,” the younger Conyers told the paper. “His doctor advised him that the rigor of another campaign would be too much for him just in terms of his health.”

Messages left with the younger Conyers were not immediately returned Tuesday morning.

The elder Conyers is expected to announce his plans at 10 a.m. Tuesday on a Detroit-area radio program.

 

Rep Meeks on Conyers

Even the CBC is abandoning Conyers

 

John Conyers and How Congress Covers Up Sexual Exploitation

If you saw my conversation with my board curmudgeon,  you would have seen I worked in the Halls of Congress for some years as part of my work for a computer manufacturer in my early career. So I am aware of the extent to which Congress excludes themselves from compliance with certain laws (like EEO) and covers up malfeasance.

If they are digging up Conyer’s dirt…

There is going to be hell on the Hill shortly – Because beside some of these guys, Conyers is a relative saint.

And Conyers ain’t no saint.

She Said A Powerful Congressman Harassed Her. Here’s Why You Didn’t Hear Her Story.

“When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”

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 sex acts, 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.

Conyers confirmed he made the settlement in a statement Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was published, but said that he “vehemently denied” the claims of sexual harassment at the time and continues to do so.

And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.

“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution.

Last week the Washington Post reported that Congress’s Office of Compliance paid out $17 million for 264 settlements with federal employees over 20 years for various violations, including sexual harassment. The Conyers documents, however, give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures.

The woman who settled with Conyers launched the complaint with the Office of Compliance in 2014, alleging she was fired for refusing his sexual advances, and ended up facing a daunting process that ended with a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a settlement of more than $27,000. Her settlement, however, came from Conyers’ office budget rather than the designated fund for settlements.

Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process that involves counseling and mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.

After this an employee can choose to take the matter to federal district court, but another avenue is available: an administrative hearing, after which a negotiation and settlement may follow.

Some members of Congress have raised major concerns with the current system over the years, but the calls for an overhaul have grown louder in the post-Weinstein era. Members have argued that 90 days is too long to make a person continue working in the same environment with their harasser; that interns and fellows should be eligible to pursue complaints through this process; and that it is unfair for a victim to have to pay for legal representation while the office of the harasser is represented for free by the House’s counsel.

In this case, one of Conyers’ former employees was offered a settlement, in exchange for her silence, that would be paid out of Conyers’ taxpayer-funded office budget. His office would “rehire” the woman as a “temporary employee” despite her being directed not to come into the office or do any actual work, according to the document. The complainant would receive a total payment of $27,111.75 over the three months, after which point she would be removed from the payroll, according to the document.

Via documentcloud.org

The draft agreement viewed by BuzzFeed News was unsigned, but congressional employment records match the timing and amounts outlined in the document. The woman left the office and never went public with her story.

The process was “disgusting,” said Matthew Peterson, who worked as a law clerk representing the complainant, and who listed as a signatory to some of the documents.

“It is a designed cover-up,” said Peterson, who declined to discuss details of the case but agreed to characterize it in general terms. “You feel like they were betrayed by their government just for coming forward. It’s like being abused twice.”

Other lawyers named as representing the accuser could not be reached for comment. The Office of Compliance did not confirm or deny that it had dealt with the case.

“Pursuant to the Congressional Accountability Act, the OOC cannot comment on whether matters have or have not been filed with the office,” Laura Cech, publications and outreach manager of the Office of Compliance, told BuzzFeed News in an email when asked to comment on this case.

Two staffers alleged in their signed affidavits that Conyers used congressional resources to fly in women they believed he was having affairs with. Another said she was tasked with driving women to and from Conyers’ apartment and hotel rooms.

Rep. Conyers did not admit fault as part of the settlement. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday, but released a public statement on the matter Tuesday afternoon.

The documents were first provided to BuzzFeed News by Mike Cernovich, the men’s rights figure turned pro-Trump media activist who propagated a number of false conspiracy theories including the “Pizzagate” conspiracy. Cernovich said he gave the documents to BuzzFeed News for vetting and further reporting, and because he said if he published them himself, Democrats and congressional leaders would “try to discredit the story by attacking the messenger.” He provided them without conditions. BuzzFeed News independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents with four people directly involved with the case, including the accuser.

In her complaint, the former employee said Conyers repeatedly asked her for sexual favors and often asked her to join him in a hotel room. On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to “touch it,” in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands.

She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.

In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to “just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go.”

“Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” the former employee said in the documents.

Three other staff members provided affidavits submitted to the Office Of Compliance that outlined a pattern of behavior from Conyers that included touching the woman in a sexual manner and growing angry when she brought her husband around.

One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. “One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)

The employee said in her affidavit that Conyers also made sexual advances toward her: “I was driving the Congressman in my personal car and was resting my hand on the stick shift. Rep. Conyers reached over and began to caress my hand in a sexual manner.”

The woman said she told Conyers she was married and not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship, according to the affidavit. She said she was told many times by constituents that it was well-known that Conyers had sexual relationships with his staff, and said she and other female staffers felt this undermined their credibility.

“I am personally aware of several women who have experienced the same or similar sexual advances made towards them by Rep[.] John Conyers,” she said in her affidavit.

A male employee wrote that he witnessed Rep. Conyers rub the legs and other body parts of the complainant “in what appeared to be a sexual manner” and saw the congressman rub and touch other women “in an inappropriate manner.” The employee said he confronted Conyers about this behavior.

“Rep. Conyers said he needed to be ‘more careful’ because bad publicity would not be helpful as he runs for re-election. He ended the conversation with me by saying he would ‘work on’ his behavior,” the male staffer said in his affidavit.

The male employee said that in 2011 Conyers complained a female staffer was “too old” and said he wanted to let her go. The employee said he set up a meeting in December 2011 to discuss “mistreatment of staff and his misuse of federal resources.” The affidavit says that Conyers “agreed that he would work on making improvements as long as I worked directly with him and stopped writing memos and emails about concerns.”

Another female employee also attested that she witnessed Conyer’s advances, and said she was asked to transport women to him. “I was asked on multiple occasions to pick up women and bring them to Mr. Conyers[‘] apartment, hotel rooms, etc.”

BuzzFeed News reached out to several former Conyers staffers, all of whom did not want to speak on the record. One former staffer, who did not want to be named, said she was frustrated by the secretive complaint process.

“I don’t think any allegations should be buried…and that’s for anyone, not just for this particular office, because it doesn’t really allow other people to see who these individuals are,” said the former staffer. “When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”

Another staffer said Conyers’ reputation made people fearful to speak out against him. Aside from being the longest-serving House member and the ranking member of a powerful committee, Conyers is a civil rights icon. He was lauded by Martin Luther King Jr. and is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“Your story won’t do shit to him,” said the staffer. “He’s untouchable.”

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she was not aware of the settlement.

“The current process includes the signing of non-disclosure agreements by the parties involved. Congresswoman Jackie Speier has introduced legislation that will provide much-needed transparency on these agreements and make other critical reforms,” Pelosi said in the statement. “I strongly support her efforts.”…

 

Clinton Goes There – Questions About Trump’s Legitimacy

Yook long enough. Many of us see the Chumph’s election as illegitimate, not just because of voter suppression and Russian meddling.

About time someone comes out and says it.

It is also true the election never should have been that close. And that failure sits squarely on Hillary and her campaign staff’s lap.

Hillary Clinton on Trump’s Election: “There Are Lots of Questions About Its Legitimacy”

In an exclusive interview with Mother Jones, Clinton says Russian interference and GOP voter suppression efforts may have cost her the presidency.

A year after her defeat by Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton says “there are lots of questions about its legitimacy” due to Russian interference and widespread voter suppression efforts.

In an interview with Mother Jones in downtown Manhattan, Clinton said Russian meddling in the election “was one of the major contributors to the outcome.” The Russians used “weaponized false information,” she said, in “a very successful disinformation campaign” that “wasn’t just influencing voters—it was determining the outcome.”

Republican efforts to make it harder to vote—through measures such as voter ID laws, shortened early voting periods, and new obstacles to registration—likewise “contributed to the outcome,” Clinton said. These moves received far less attention than Russian interference but arguably had a more demonstrable impact on the election result. According to an MIT study, more than 1 million people did not vote in 2016 because they encountered problems registering or at the polls. Clinton lost the election by a total of 78,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

“In a couple of places, most notably Wisconsin, I think it had a dramatic impact on the outcome,” Clinton said of voter suppression.

Wisconsin’s new voter ID law required a Wisconsin driver’s license or one of several other types of ID to cast a ballot. It blocked or deterred up to 23,000 people from voting in reliably Democratic Milwaukee and Madison, and potentially 45,000 people statewide, according to a University of Wisconsin study. Clinton lost the state by fewer than 23,000 votes. African Americans, who overwhelmingly supported Clinton, were more than three times as likely as whites not to vote because of the law.

“It seems likely that it cost me the election [in Wisconsin] because of the tens of thousands of people who were turned away and the margin being so small,” Clinton said.

Clinton says of voter suppression that in at least one state, “It seems likely that it cost me the election.”

She noted that this was the first presidential election in more than 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court gutted the law in a 2013 ruling, and 14 states had new voting restrictions in effect for the first time. “So many places have really tried to make it as difficult as they possibly could for young people, for African Americans, the elderly, to vote,” she said.

For Clinton and others who question the legitimacy of the election results, particularly due to Russian interference, there’s not an obvious next step. “We don’t have a method for contesting that in our system,” she said. “That’s why I’ve long advocated for an independent commission to get to the bottom of what happened.” On Wednesday, Democrats in Congress introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, but Clinton thinks that’s the wrong approach. “I think we need the investigations to continue,” she said, “and I think that it’s premature.”

But Clinton stood by a claim she made during a presidential debate last year, that if Trump were elected president, he would be Putin’s “puppet.” Asked if she still felt that way, Clinton said, “I do.”

“I don’t know how the president of the United States, with all of the concerns about the integrity of our elections, could meet with Putin just recently and basically say, ‘Well, you know, he told me again he didn’t do it,’” she said. “I can’t believe that he’s so naïve. I think that he hopes or expects the rest of us to be naïve, or at least the people who support him to be naïve. But this is a serious cyberattack on America.”…More Here…

 

 

Secret Sauce In Va Election? Black Anti-Trump Voters

While white non-Hispanics make up 68% of Virginia’s population, black folks make up 20%.

Turnout for the 2016 race was low for black voters, With Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate supporting Trump and being against the removal of confederate statues and memorabilia, and the recent events in Charlottesville – it is looking like black turnout this election will be the highest since the Obama years.

Northam’s campaign has pursued the normal mamby-pamby Democrat losing attempt to appeal to white voters who aren’t going to vote Democrat in the first place. The threat of having a white supremacist like the Chumph as Governor has electrified the Minority vote for him this round, but his strategy may have costs should he win and pursue higher office.

Winchester Mayor David Smith (right) leads Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam ( second from right) and Lt. Gov. candidate Justin Fairfax (second from left) on a tour of downtown Winchester’s pedestrian mall during a campaign stop by Northam and Fairfax on Oct. 25.

Activists eye post-Charlottesville surge in black voting in Virginia

Democratic activists expect a surge in black political engagement fueled by backlash to this summer’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville could tip the scales in Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial race.

Black voter turnout rates have been down around the country in the post-Obama era, from the 2016 presidential election through a string of special elections in 2017. It has been a long-standing source of concern for Democrats in Virginia, where up to one in five voters in recent elections has been black and where some have criticized Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam’s outreach to black voters.

But amid a toxic political environment, activists going door-to-door say they have seen African-American interest in voting spike since the summer, when low engagement alarmed Democratic pollsters hoping to elect Northam over Republican Ed Gillespie. Turnout already shot upward in heavily black areas during the Democratic primary, compared with the last contested primary in 2009, and Northam won big in those regions in June. Since then, black political groups have run a steady stream of radio and digital ads invoking Charlottesville and inequality in the criminal justice system, including NFL players’ protests of the issue. And they are talking with voters one-on-one in Norfolk and other African-American population centers to make a personal case about voting this year.

“They feel that it’s not politics as usual,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, which has been working with the Northam campaign to turn out African-American voters in Hampton Roads. “They know that something else is going on here.”

When BlackPAC first polled voters of color in the state in August, what it found concerned it. The percentage who said they were extremely likely to vote was in the high 60s, and Northam was trailing Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 performance among voters of color.

But voters also said the political environment scared them. Fifty-four percent of black voters said they felt minorities were under attack, and 73 percent agreed with a statement that voting would “send a resounding message to [President Donald] Trump.”

Framing a vote as a way to stand up to racism increased willingness to turn out. Now, nearly 90 percent of those contacted by BlackPAC during door-to-door canvassing are willing to sign a pledge card to vote, and organizers said Gillespie’s ads accusing Northam of trying to “erase history” and take down “our statues” are part of the reason why.

As a BlackPAC canvasser went door-to-door in a majority-black Norfolk neighborhood on Halloween, voters mentioned crime, support for public housing, voting rights and the unfair criminal justice system as reasons they would be voting this year. But one issue loomed above all. Sharon Williams, a disabled middle-aged woman, mentioned how her mother used to talk about the Ku Klux Klan when she was growing up. Williams thought the stories were just to scare her, until one day she saw some hooded men drive down her street.

“They’re trying to start that all over again,” Williams said.

Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Keith Ellison, who recently campaigned with Northam in Prince William County, said he had a visceral reaction to Gillespie’s advertising promising to keep Confederate monuments up in Virginia.

“The people who erected them wanted to make a point about who mattered and who didn’t,” Ellison told reporters, noting many of the statues were built as African-Americans pushed for civil rights during the 20th century. “And so, my opinion? When somebody says they’re for keeping a Confederate monument in the middle of downtown, to me, that says ‘You are subhuman, you don’t have any right to do anything except serve others.’”

Ellison also said Gillespie’s campaign tactics, and Trump’s rhetoric, were alerting voters.

“When Trump makes false equivalencies about neo-Nazis and the KKK and when Gillespie stands up for the monuments, we all know what that means,” Ellison said.

BlackPAC’s ads in Virginia have also addressed Charlottesville directly, both on the radio and online. Another group, CollectivePAC, has run digital ads invoking former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is alleging NFL owners colluded not to sign him following his protests of police brutality last year.

“The first time I saw those people in Charlottesville trying to intimidate people of color, it made me angry,” a female narrator says in one of BlackPAC’s radio ads. “Trying to take away our voice. Then when they came back, it made me determined. No one is going to take away my voice.”

BlackPAC’s closing-argument ad uses images of the violent protests in Charlottesville and the civil rights movement.

“White supremacy stormed into Charlottesville and is being used for political gain,” a female narrator says in the 30-second ad. “We’ve fought too hard for progress to watch it pushed back in the name of Making America Great Again.”

 

Impeaching Pelosi

When the senior Democrat can’t get behind impeaching the penultimate danger to Democracy and public safety in America…Maybe it is time for a change of leadership.

 

Donna Brazile Exposes DNC

The DNC operated as a financial arm of the Hillary Campaign. And rigged the Primary against Bernie.

 

“A Better Deal”… For Whom?

Centrist Democrats keep cutting off the Progressive side of their Party, and then whimpering when they lose. As if becoming white-right lite is going to make them competitive in a race where they have lost their key majorities.

 

Stuck on Stupid – Democrats Roll Out Same Old Failed Plan

The Democrats are well on their way to losing the 2018 election, chasing the wrong voters – for the wrong reason.

They want to win, the program is real simple.

• The first step being to execute complete and total war on conservatives.
• First platform statement – Should the Chumph still be in office, the first bill passed  – will be his impeachment, and removal from office any of his appointees
• Bring the progressives back into the party – cut the mamby-pamby shit and stand for something.
• Tie Republicans to grandma losing her Social Security check.
• Tie Republicans to those sick relatives dying with no medical care.
• Pass a law, criminalizing “Fake News” and bring back the “Fairness Doctrine”
• Tie Republicans to jobs loss.
• Use the fear factor that the POS and the Republicans will get us into nuclear war.
• Tie Putin’s Bitch to the loss of America’s standing in the world.
• Talk about efforts to develop jobs in Middle America – the billions going into small business incubators and investment.
• Get back to talking about Green Jobs in transforming the country
• Put the DOJ back together and working for the people instead of the KKK
• Restore all decisions made by the POS’s appointed in the various government agencies to the state they were when the POS had the Russians steal office for him.

And that is just a start.

 

 

Nina Turner Show – Third Party Debate

On the formation of a Third Party of progressives…