A New York Thing?

I've tried off an on all day to try and wrap my arms around the Schneiderman debacle, and I've not been very successful. I guess that's not a bad thing, because I don't know how successful many others are being, either.

For example, do you think New York is a breeding ground for sex offending Democratic politicians? Eliot Spitzer. Anthony Weiner. And now Eric Schneiderman. I heard that several times today, the punditry getting all giddy trying to fill time waiting until the president's announcement about the Iran nuclear deal. There was a lot of time and a lot of chances for stupid to occur.

So, are there similarities between Spitzer, Weiner and Schneiderman? Well, sure, I guess.

• All three were Democrats.
• All three were politicians representing some group of New Yorkers.
• All three were driven out of office for reasons related to sexual misbehavior.

However, the similarities seem to end there. 

• Weiner sexted young women; the other two did not. He probably thought, at one point, that he wouldn't be caught - or, maybe, he wanted to be caught. Mostly, though, he sexted young women while he was married to one of Hillary Clinton's closest aides. Had he not been married to Huma Abedin, he would have been much less notorious, don't you think? He'd still be a slime ball, but he'd be much more of a footnote than a headline outside of New York.

• Spitzer patronized prostitutes, while he was married. And, not only while he was governor, but while he was the Attorney General, too. He probably thought he wouldn't get caught; men cheat on their wives all the time, some with prostitutes, some with coworkers or underlings or people they meet in bars. Paying for it just seems all that much more icky (as does keeping on his socks), but it's not a New York thing. 

• And Schneiderman? What he described - role-playing, consensual sex - is not what the women he dated described. His was not a 50 Shades kind of thing. His was a drunken, abusive while not having sex type of thing, as well as a drunken, abusive while having sex kind of thing. His was a power thing, a control thing, a threatening thing. It was not a Weiner thing, nor a Spitzer thing, not a Democrat thing, not even a New York thing.

What's worse, of course, is Schneiderman's history of being a strong supporter of women, of the #MeToo movement. His office was involved in trying to make sure that victims were compensated when Harvey Weinstein's company was sold. His office was investigating the Manhattan District Attorney for failing to do anything about Weinstein back in 2015 when victims first filed reports.

And now, that District Attorney's office will be investigating the assault allegations against Schneiderman.

Now, that seems like a New York thing right there.

Meanwhile Back in Albany (v13)

Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times photo

It's everywhere, the insidious scourge of sexual harassment.

Hollywood. The media. The House and Senate. State governments. Doctors' offices and hospitals. Schools. Athletic institutions, including the Olympics. The music industry. The boardroom. Restaurant kitchens.

It's everywhere - including, allegedly, in the administration of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York City, Lisa Marie Cater alleges that William (call me Sam) Hoyt, who worked as head of the Empire State Development Corporation, repeatedly made unwanted advances, and further that the harassment was reported to and ignored by Cuomo's office, which is why Cuomo is a named defendant in the suit. The governor's office  denies ignoring the complaints.

Meanwhile, back in Albany, the governor had the opportunity to respond to a question from Karen Dewitt, a reporter for New York Public Radio, on this issue, and it's safe to say that it didn't go well for the Sonofa Gov.

Dewitt noted the Hoyt allegations and asked Cuomo what he could do differently, and here's how he responded.

You have it going on in journalism. What are you going to do differently?

OK - sure, that's true, but this is a reporter talking to a governor who is a defendant in a sexual harassment case involving an appointee of the governor. There was some exchange after that comment, including a different reporter pointing out that the question was about state government. That didn't sit well.

No, it's about you and journalism (pointing his finger at the other reporter). And it's about you and journalism (turning to Dewitt and pointing again). And it's about state government. And it's about carpentry and it's about training forces... (Note: that last one may not be accurate, it was hard to understand what he said.)

Again, Dewitt asked if there was something that Cuomo could do differently. Apparently, his only option on that was to lecture Dewitt, using his best professorial intonation, especially at the end of this exchange.

We will have policies in state government, obviously, that affect state government, but I think you miss the point. When you "it's state government" you do a disservice to women, with all due respect, even though you're a woman.

Um... what the hell is that?

Asking the gov about what his administration will do about sexual harassment is doing a disservice to women, "with all due respect?" I don't know about you, but most of the time when someone drops those four words, 'all due respect' is the furthest thing from the speaker's mind.

It's about as condescending a thing he could have said, other than maybe pointing out that the reporter was a woman. Oh wait -- he did that too.

He went on with the lecture, with a heavy emphasis added on journalists and the journalism profession.

It's not government. It's society. It was Harvey Weinstein in the arts industry. It's comedians. It's politicians. It's chefs, right? It's systemic. It's societal. It's not one person in one area. It's not just Charlie Rose, right? It's not just Matt Lauer. It's not just journalists. It's societal.

Finally, slowing down the pace of his answer to something slower than a school closing chyron, he finished his lecture.

Understand. The. Breadth. Of. The. Problem.

Which, frankly, is exactly what Dewitt and the other reporters were hoping Cuomo would do, specifically as it relates to him, not as it relates to anyone else. To her credit, Dewitt tried one last time to get him to name one thing he'd do to make things different in his administration. In a classic deflection, he changed the subject.

No! It's called the State of the State. Come and cover it... 

I swear, you could almost hear his feet stamping.

Boy, I miss his father.

Wondering on Wednesday (v108)

Below is a copy of the post from tonight on the veritable pastiche Facebook page. I'm not wondering at all, tonight. There is no question, no doubt, in my mind.

From the column by John Pavlovitz:

"Revelations about Donald Trump surfaced well before the Presidential election, and 62 million Americans armed with this information—summarily responded by elevating him to the highest position of leadership in this country. They chose the “grab them by the p*ssy—move on her like a b*itch” dude. Their vote then nullifies their outrage now."

While Pavlovitz does not name anyone who both supports Trump and condemns Weinstein, we really have to look no further than Fox News - the network of Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, of whom Trump said "he's a good man" and "I don't think he did anything wrong" - they've been pretty vocal about Weinstein, less so about their own predators.

The bottom line is this behavior has to stop. It has to stop. We kid ourselves if we think it's just Hollywood, or that it's just billionaires behaving badly.

It's small business owners and doctors and pastors and accountants and sports stars and tech people and insurance agents and restaurant owners and teachers and school administrators and musicians and agents and lawyers and judges and scientists and politicians and newspeople. And yes, it's Bill Clinton - of course it includes him. But the fact that it includes him does not relieve Trump of accountability for *his* actions or his words.

Bill O'Reilly didn't do anything wrong in Trump's eyes ($13,000,000 in settlements notwithstanding) and Trump dismissed his own actions as "locker room talk." Harvey Weinstein is allegedly receiving treatment for sex addiction - what a crock. He is addicted to power, not sex.

They are not the same thing, and we do everyone - adult men and women,and teenagers, and children, a disservice if we pretend they are, just as we do everyone a disservice if we pretend that this is 'just talk' or that it's OK, or that it's part of doing business, or somehow, that it's the victim's fault.

It has to stop.

You Don't Get to Support Donald Trump and Be Outraged at Harvey Weinstein

… Continue Reading You Don’t Get to Support Donald Trump and Be Outraged at Harvey Weinstein

JOHNPAVLOVITZ.COM

TGIF 10/13/17

Boy, I'm glad it's Friday - and I bet I'm not the only one.

For example, how'd you like to be the folks in charge at NBC, the network that gave us the Donald Trump is a bleeping moron story and the Trump talked about a ten-fold increase in nukes story, but didn't give us the Harvey Weinstein story?

At least the Peacock network wasn't alone in that last part.

While Meryl Streep made it clear that not every single body knew about Weinstein and his decades of alleged predatory behavior, it seems to have been a incredibly poorly kept secret. A joke at the Oscars; a joke on 30 Rock; an undercover investigation in which the NYC District Attorney did nothing... Opportunity lost, over and over and over.  How, or why did that happen? That will have to come out in the post mortem.

Meanwhile, reports are that Weinstein is seeking treatment for a problem he doesn't have: sex addiction. That we have to remind people in this day and age that predatory behavior such as that alleged against Weinstein is about power, not about sex, is almost as sad as the apparent willingness of all those everybodies to cover up his behavior for all these years.

Meanwhile, did you hear that Trump has pulled us out of UNESCO?  This United Nations organization, which now seems to focus on designating heritage sites, was once more focused on battling extremists and promoting peace. The US is leaving, we've been told, because of the anti-Israel biases exhibited by UNESCO, particularly in naming part of the West Bank city of Hebron a Palestinian world heritage site.

What was less publicized in reports I heard today is that we have a checkered history with UNESCO, going back decades.  After leaving in 1984 during the Reagan Administration, we  rejoined in 2002; stopped paying our annual dues in 2011 over the admission of Palestine as a member; and lost voting rights in 2013.  I point this out so that people know this isn't just another case of Trump undoing what Obama did. Had that been the case, he would go all in, pay twice what we owe and welcome Palestine to one of the Trump White Houses for a spin on a golf cart.

He did, however, strike two blows against the Affordable Care Act. One will make it easier for 'association' plans to form, across multiple states in some cases; these plans may offer fewer benefits than required for other products under the ACA, along with some other changes. The other was to end the cost-sharing reduction payments to health insurers. Under the ACA, insurers are required to provide subsidies to many subscribers for out of pocket expenses; those costs have been  reimbursed to insurers by the federal government - until now. Barring action by Congress o formally appropriate the money at least in the short term, the CSRs are done.

Trump noted that these were merely subsidies to boost insurance company profits and hey, look at their stock prices! Darn -- he's been tweeting like mad about how the stock market is up and our retirement plans are doing great as a result -- which I thought was a good thing in his worldview, but I guess not when it comes to something that has 'Obama' in its name.

TGIF, indeed.