#MeToo Caught Up With Itself Today... In Kansas

Pelosi's closeted DCCC chair demands purity, but not due process

Yesterday, repulsive Texas sex predator, Blake Farenthold, finally felt enough pressure-- both from his district and from his congressional colleagues-- to raise the white flag and announce his retirement from Congress. Obviously, he should resign at once, the way Trent Franks was forced to do last week. Ryan and NRCC chair Steve Stivers repeatedly told Farenthold to resign. Pig man still insists he's not guilty; his excuse: "I'd never served in office before. I had no idea how to run a congressional office. And as a result, I allowed a workplace culture to take root in my office that was too permissive and decidedly unprofessional. I understand fully that this issue has become a political distraction and I would be forced to engage in a monthlong campaign for personal vindication. Quite simply, my constituents deserve better... Therefore I'm announcing my decision not to run for re-election... It accommodated destructive gossip, offhand comments, off-color jokes and behavior that in general was less than professional. And I allowed the personal stress of the job to manifest itself in angry outbursts and too often a failure to treat people with the respect they deserved. That was wrong." Too bad he didn't wear his ducky pjs when he made this pathetic video, a classic case of denial and typical patriarchal, conservative misleading:



Next up: Wyoming's Secretary of State-- and, until today, a probably candidate for governor-- Republican Ed Murray, sexually assaulted a young female intern, Tatiana Maxwell, in his law office.

Maxwell said in a Facebook post Monday that she was working at Dray, Madison and Thomson during the summer after she graduated from high school in Cheyenne. She said Murray was five years older than her and had taken a job at the firm after recently graduating from law school.

“He was older, handsome and from an old Cheyenne family but I didn’t really know him,” she wrote.

According to Maxwell, Murray invited her to meet him at the office after working hours and said she sat with him in the reception area of the law office. She recalled there being Domino’s pizza and beer.

She said that Murray put his hands on her and attempted to kiss her but that she resisted, told him she was a virgin and stopped him from taking off her pants.

“Ed wrestled me down to the carpet in front of the receptionist desk, opened his pants, lifted up my blouse and ejaculated on my stomach,” Maxwell wrote. “I was disgusted and horrified.”

Murray (R-Denial): "This baseless claim about an encounter from thirty-five years ago is unequivocally false. There is no basis to this falsehood whatsoever and it is deeply hurtful to me and to my family, as well as to everyone I serve." (Maybe we'll find his body on a bridge tomorrow after he blows out his brains.)

And that brings us to one of the worst stories of Thermidorian Reaction yet-- the DCCC's conservative corporate recruit to run against Republican Kevin Yoder, Andrea Ramsey. KS-03 (all of the Kansas part of Kansas City plus all of suburban Johnson and Wyandotte counties and part of rural Miami County) is a swingy district that Trump lost to Hillary 47.2% to 46.0%. The DCCC ran one of their terrible GOP-lite candidates, Jay Sidie, and he lost in a rout. He's running again, but the DCCC found another Republican-lite corporate shill instead, Andrea Ramsey. Maybe-- just maybe-- the DCCC should have been paying attention when Bernie won every district in Kansas, including KS-03, where he beat Hillary 62.1% to 37.9%. Maybe that indicates what Kansans what in their candidates. Maybe? And EMILY's List candidate Andrea Ramsey isn't that. No worries, though. She withdrew from the race today after a Kansas City Star reporter asked her about accusations in a 2005 lawsuit that she sexually harassed and retaliated against a male subordinate who said he had rejected her advances. Her statement sounds uncomfortably like Farenthold's: "In its rush to claim the high ground in our roiling national conversation about harassment, the Democratic Party has implemented a zero tolerance standard. For me, that means a vindictive, terminated employee’s false allegations are enough for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to decide not to support our promising campaign. We are in a national moment where rough justice stands in place of careful analysis, nuance and due process."

Multiple sources with knowledge of the case told The Star that the man reached a settlement with LabOne, the company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources. Court documents show that the man, Gary Funkhouser, and LabOne agreed to dismiss the case permanently after mediation in 2006. 
...The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has not endorsed anyone in the race, said in a statement that members and candidates must all be held to the highest standard.

“If anyone is guilty of sexual harassment or sexual assault, that person should not hold public office,” said committee spokeswoman Meredith Kelly.

Emily’s List said in a statement on Friday that the group supported Ramsey’s decision to drop out of the race and wished her well.

Happy to see her out of the race-- but not over these probably bullshit accusations. I don't care that the DCCC is driving Ruben Kihuen out of Congress-- because he disappointed me politically... but this lynch mob mentality is the completely wrong way to go about this. And now there are widespread rumors inside the Beltway that the Washington Post is about to drop a story about accusations against between 30 and 40 members of Congress-- of both parties-- and that there was a prostitution ring being run out of the Capitol Grille. Sounds more plausible than a child prostitution ring run out of the basement of a pizzeria. No one gains from any of this but the Koch brothers and Bannon, who want to destroy everyone's faith in government and democracy. Great job, Kirsten Gillibrand; you will never be president.


UPDATE: State Senator Tony Mendoza

Tony's an old friend who has been a stalwart progressive in Sacramento, one of the best. Now he stands accused of inappropriate behavior towards 3 women and the Senate president, Kevin De León, once Mendoza's roommate, has asked him to take a leave of absence while the allegations are being investigated. Mendoza has demurred. My instinct is to believe the accusers, especially because there are 3 of them and because I know the culture in Sacramento has been fast and loose. But I detest the lynch mob mentality that is sweeping the country and I agree with Mendoza that he is entitled to due process. Eventually every straight male politician-- as well as gays and even some women!-- will be accused. People should start standing up for due process. Below is a letter I got from Tony Mendoza yesterday; I haven't discussed the accusations with him but his letter sounds reasonable:

I am very disappointed that certain Senate Rules Committee members are apparently asking me to take a leave of absence or resign before any investigation has even begun and without giving me an opportunity to defend myself. This is contrary to the very concept of due process which is a pillar of our American system of fairness and judicial prudence. These actions bypass any process in a rush to judgment.

The Senate Rules Committee made a public commitment to a new, open, transparent and fair process which would be independent of the Senate. I have welcomed the Committee's decision. However, I am disappointed with the statements and it leaves me concerned about the independence, transparency and fairness of the new process.

I have been diligent in adhering to the rules of the Senate and in following direction from the Senate Rules Committee in refraining from making any comments on the allegations against me.

I have noted that my adherence to Senate rules and the Senate Rules Committee's directive has put me in an untenable situation where I am unable to respond to various media reports without any opportunity to defend myself. This has been very unfair and unjust to me and my constituents.

I was not appointed to the position I hold but was elected by the voters in my District. I am grateful to the voters in my District and thank them for their trust and their continued support. The Senate owes them an opportunity to hear the truth. I assure them that I will vigorously defend myself to clear my name.

The USA Isn't Exporting Much Anymore But The American Obesity & Gun Worship Lifestyles Are Making Impacts Worldwide

One of the candidates Blue America has endorsed this cycle is Rep. Tony Mendoza of Los Angeles, currently running for state senator. Tony believes in the ability of mankind to band together-- government being one of those "bands"-- to accomplish tasks to better the community in ways that individuals might not be able to do alone. Maybe you've seen the Rachel Maddow promos where she shows the Hoover Damn and talks about how only concerted government action could accomplish something like that. One of Tony's most impressive accomplishments was passage of his very first bill, A.B 97 in 2007 which ended the use of trans-fats in California restaurants. With the special interests-- particularly the California Restaurant Association and the Chamber of Commerce-- lined up solidly against him, it literally looked impossible. It took two years and he didn't get a single Republican vote, but he managed to get it passed and signed into law. "We're the first state to require restaurants to cook without artery-clogging trans-fats, which have been linked to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Banning their use helped to reduce the number of cases of cardiovascular disease-- the No. 1 killer in the nation-- by an estimated 6 to 19 percent, reducing health care costs and most importantly, saving lives.”

In the video above you meet Jon Basso who started the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona in 2007, something we first looked at in 2009, pointing out how the only thing they leave off their burgers is lettuce. On March 1 of this year, a spokesperson for the restaurant, 575-pound Blair River died; he was 29 years old.


The obesity lifestyle is a uniquely American export-- and it's catching on worldwide. Gee, and I was upset because Newt Gingrich was revving up Obama-hatred at the NRA convention by complaining that Obama isn't pushing America's gun lifetstyle on other nations! I'm sure what guns won't do, obesity will. I ran across it big time in Guadalajara a couple months ago. As I pointed out at the time, the U.S. may be the fattest country in the world, but Mexico is now number 2, a problem that is now a rival to the deadly arsenal that's flowing south. Remember, there was a time-- and not so very long ago-- when virtually all non-right-wing Democrats and many mainstream conservative Republicans took responsible gun control seriously. That's gone now as gun control policy has been ceded to the NRA. It's destroying Mexican civil society. Gingrich and the rest of the gun nut panderers want to see that spread everywhere in the world... just like McDonald's.

As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.

...Drug cartels have aggressively turned to the United States because Mexico severely restricts gun ownership. Following gunrunning paths that have been in place for 50 years, firearms cross the border and end up in the hands of criminals as well as ordinary citizens seeking protection.

...What is different now, authorities say, is the number of high-powered rifles heading south-- AR-15s, AK-47s, armor-piercing .50-caliber weapons-- and the savagery of the violence.

Federal authorities say more than 60,000 U.S. guns of all types have been recovered in Mexico in the past four years, helping fuel the violence that has contributed to 30,000 deaths. Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to Washington in May and urged Congress and President Obama to stop the flow of guns south.

U.S. law enforcement has ramped up its focus on gun trafficking along the southwestern border. Arrests of individual gunrunners have surged. But investigators rarely bring regulatory actions or criminal cases against U.S. gun dealers, in part because of laws backed by the gun lobby that make it difficult to prove cases.

Gun lobby propaganda insists that the Mexican gun problem all comes from Central America, a complete and shameless fabrication. Guns from the United States "have been feeding the violence and overwhelming firepower being unleashed by drug traffickers," said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States. "We need to defang drug trafficking organizations of these high-caliber and semiautomatic and automatic weapons, and we need to do it now.

Blue America Welcomes Tony Mendoza (D-CA)

Tuesday night Wisconsin's extreme right Governor, hard core ideologue Scott Walker, suffered a major rebuke when one of his most craven minions, Jeff Stone, was soundly defeated in the race for his old job, Milwaukee County Executive, by a little-known Democrat, Chris Abele. It was a stunning 60-40% loss for the Republicans. Meanwhile, after a running at 25% in the February nonpartisan open primary for a Supreme Court seat, Democrat JoAnn Kloppenburg has fought rabid right sociopath David Prosser, another Walkerite, to a dead 50/50 tie. (He had scored 55% in February and was considered completely safe.) And all this even before Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan announced his plan to end Medicare and John Boehner signaled he didn't have the strength to hold back the teabagger mob inside his own cause that so badly wants a government shutdown!

Sometimes it seems that warm, sunny, prosperous, blue California is in a world apart from this insanity. But not to those who watch Sacramento politics closely. True enough, California has a Democratic governor, state Senate and state Assembly. But that's hardly the end of the story. All of the Republicans and nearly all of the Democrats are in the pockets of the big money lobbyists, who practically run the state legislature. You can count the number of dyed-in-the-wool progressives in the legislature on the fingers of one hand. Last month Digby, John and I spent some time with one of the most outstanding and courageous of them, Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, who has had a spectacular career in the Assembly and is campaigning for the state Senate seat opening up in his East L.A. area-- Bellflower, Artesia, Paramount, South Gate, Long Beach, Lynwood, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens. Today Tony will be joining us a Crooks and Liars for a live chat at 2pm (PT).

Tony, the son of immigrant parents, farm workers, is a former school teacher and the first in his family to go to college. Public education is close to his heart and he has been one of California's most outspoken champions for teachers and students. "I have benefited," he told us, "from a system that is free, open and non-discriminatory. The greatest strength of the U.S. educational system is universal access to public education. This belief is what keeps our country competitive. It is what fuels the American dream. More than 90 percent of students in the United States attend public schools. And if they try hard, almost all of them have the opportunity to go to college-- the opportunity to make whatever they wish of their lives. I fight for public education not only because I am a former public school teacher of 10 years, but because I am one of those kids you read about who has defied the odds and graduated from college. I know I couldn’t have done it without a strong public education system and I am committed to preserving, protecting and strengthening it for the benefit of future generations.”

When Tony got to the Assembly, instead of resigning himself to settling into the widely accepted go-along-to-get-along mode, he moved right into action, never fearing controversy. His very first bill, A.B. 97 in 2007 was all about ending the use of trans-fats in California restaurants. With the special interests-- particularly the California Restaurant Association and the Chamber of Commerce-- lined up solidly against him, it literally looked impossible. It took two years and he didn't get a single Republican vote, but he managed to get it passed and signed into law. "We're the first state to require restaurants to cook without artery-clogging trans-fats, which have been linked to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Banning their use helped to reduce the number of cases of cardiovascular disease-- the No. 1 killer in the nation-- by an estimated 6 to 19 percent, reducing health care costs and most importantly, saving lives.”

That's why Tony is in government service-- to make a real difference in people's lives. It's why Digby, John and I have decided to try to help keep him in government service and why we're recommending him today. Right now we're working with him on a bill he's shepherding through the legislative process again, A.B. 22, a model for what progressives in Washington would like to do. Tony's bill would prevent employers from using credit reports to discriminate against workers. It's already passed both houses twice... and was vetoed twice by Schwarzenegger. “A credit report," Tony told us, "is not a good indicator of a person’s trustworthiness or work ethic. Many Californians are still experiencing financial hardships from the economic downturn including layoffs, high unemployment rates, and the ongoing foreclosure crisis. All of these things make it harder for people to pay their bills. Consider the condition of the economy and the negative effect these circumstances can have on a person’s credit-- a credit report is an unfair lens through which to view job applicants. Using credit checks in the hiring process decreases employment opportunities. Many people have blemishes on their credit reports, especially at this time in our economy. Preventing someone from becoming employed due to a poor credit history is shameful. This bill will simply remove an unnecessary barrier to employment for those seeking jobs.”

It's essential to keep the few men and women with Tony's perspective and instincts in government and not just leave it to the special interests and their shills, whether in Washington or in Sacramento. If you can, please join us in contributing to Tony's senate election campaign.