Pelosi Defends Conyers. Still Calls for Moore to Exit Race. Irony is Embarrassed.

Nancy-Pelosi-with-John-Conyers-940x460

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. Mark Twain, “Following the Equator”, 1897

NBCNews.com reports that

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., stepped down as the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee on Sunday, following sexual harassment accusations. The 27-term congressman said he denied the allegations, but was stepping down because of the ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation.

“I deny these allegations, many of which were raised by documents reportedly paid for by a partisan alt-right blogger. I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family before the House Committee on Ethics,” Conyers said in a statement.

“To be clear, I would like very much to remain as Ranking Member,” he added. “There is still much work to be done on core concerns like securing civil rights, enacting meaningful criminal justice reform, and protecting access to the ballot box.”

Appearing on “Meet The Press” earlier in the day, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi urged “due process” before making conclusions about Rep. Conyers, saying the congressman is “an icon” who has worked to protect women.

“We are strengthened by due process. Just because someone is accused — and was it one accusation? Is it two?” Pelosi asked.

“John Conyers is an icon in our country. He has done a great deal to protect women – Violence Against Women Act, which the left — right-wing — is now quoting me as praising him for his work on that, and he did great work on that,” she added. “But the fact is, as John reviews his case, which he knows, which I don’t, I believe he will do the right thing.”

Conyers’ office recently confirmed issuing a settlement of $27,000 to a former staffer who says she was fired for resisting the congressman’s sexual advances. Conyers has acknowledged the payout, which he said amounted to a severance package, but he denied the allegations about what it was for.

The payout from Conyers’ office first became public in a report published by Buzzfeed on Monday, and came after a number of men in powerful positions in politics, entertainment and media have faced public accusations of sexual harassment. The accusations have opened up a national conversation about how women are treated in the workplace by men in positions of power.

When asked specifically whether she believes the accusations against Conyers, Pelosi said: “I do not know who they are. Do you? They have not really come forward.”

She repeatedly said that she wants to see the House Ethics Committee investigation of Conyers play out.

Conyers has held the powerful position on Capitol Hill as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee for a decade, but after Pelosi’s interview on Sunday, he announced that he would step down from the position while the Ethics Committee investigates.

Pelosi said in a statement later Sunday, “Zero tolerance means consequences. I have asked for an ethics investigation, and as that investigation continues, Congressman Conyers has agreed to step aside as Ranking Member.”

On “Meet The Press,” Pelosi was also asked whether she would accept an apology from Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who has apologized after being accused of unwanted touching from multiple women, if no other accusers surfaced. “His accusers have to accept an apology,” Pelosi said. “The victims have some say in all of this, as well. And that has happened in the past. People have accepted an apology, as is coming forth now that I see in the press.”

The reporting process on Capitol Hill for sexual harassment claims is a very long and arduous process that can take months to play out, but Pelosi said the House is expected to soon take up new action aimed at preventing such conduct when they vote this week on a resolution that would require all lawmakers and their staff members to go through anti-harassment training. The Senate passed a similar measure earlier this month.

Pelosi’s comments Sunday also came while Democrats and many Republican leaders have called for Alabama’s GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore to exit the race, since Moore is facing sexual misconduct accusations from nine women, including one who says he molested her when she was 14 and he was 32. Moore has denied all of the allegations.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman is one of the Republican lawmakers who has called for Moore to step aside, and on Sunday said that if he were a voter in Alabama, he’d “probably vote for a Republican, but it wouldn‘t be Roy Moore.”

“As the women went on the record, I thought there was a lot of credibility in what they were saying,” Portman said on “Meet The Press.” “I didn’t find the response very credible and that’s how I came up with my position.”

As the national conversation on sexual harassment has accelerated, the reaction to numerous allegations from the 1990s has also been revisited.

Anita Hill accused U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment when she worked for him at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and later testified about it during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing. Thomas denied the allegations.

Now a professor at Brandeis University, Hill said on “Meet The Press” that “unfortunately, 26 years ago, Washington wasn’t ready to lead on this issue, and I’m afraid even today Washington cannot lead the country on this issue. There seems to be so many conflicted feelings and understandings about what needs to happen when sexual misconduct occurs.”

Pelosi, meanwhile, also said the reaction to sexual misconduct accusations against former President Bill Clinton from that era versus today represent “obviously a generational change.”

“The concern that we had then was that they were impeaching the president of the United States, and for something that had nothing to do with the performance of his duties, and trying to take him out for that reason,” Pelosi added. “But let’s go forward. Let’s go forward. I think that something wonderful is happening now, very credible. It’s 100 years, almost 100 years, since women got the right to vote. Here we are, almost 100 years later, and something very transformative is happening.”

One lies and the other swears to it.

If anyone still has any questions as to how Billionaire Entrepreneur Donald J. Trump got elected President of the United States, here’s the answer.

The duplicitous dealings, perversions, peccadilloes, self-entitlement, and downright lying of the Political Elite…on BOTH sides of the Congressional Aisle.

In the case of the recent explosive revealing of sexual harassment and abuse by Congressmen, they have all turned out to be Democrats.

The same Democrats who have been looking down their noses at us average Americans for decades, calling us “Bitter Clingers” in front of their Big Money Donors, while chases their Congressional Pages, Interns, and Office Staff around in their BVDs,

“Icon”, my hindquarters.

The word “delusional” does not even begin to cover San Fran Nan’s illogical statement.

Nancy Pelosi’s station in life defies logic.

That has to be the most tone-deaf statement made about a Philandering Congressman since Wilber Mills (D-AR), was caught fooling around with Fanne Fox, a local DC Stripper, who, when caught drunken driving with Mills, attempted to jump attempted to jump in the Tidal Basin to elude police.

For her to completely ignore the current Democratic Congressional Sexual Abuse Scandal, as pertains Conyers detailed decades of systematic abuse,does not just “strain” credulity…it stomps that sucker flat.

There are two possibilities for Pelosi’s misjudgment of the American People:

She has been so sheltered from us “rabble” during all of those years up on Capitol Hill, that she simply is clueless to the daily lives of average Americans and how we feel on the issues of the day. Or…

She is a victim of galloping dementia.

It is probably both.

For years, the hypocrisy of sanctimonious Liberals, who considered themselves to be the “Smartest People in the Room” made them the Darlings of the Hoi Polloi, the “Captains of the Country Club Crowd” and go-to sources for the Main Stream Media, who hung of their every didactic word as they told average Americans how they should live, how they should raise their children, and how they should allow them to complete run their lives from cradle to grave.

And now, it turns out that all those years that they considered themselves to be of “Royal Blood”, their personal lives had all of the class and morality of the old Redd Foxx “Party” Albums that teenagers used to “borrow” from their parents to listen to and giggle.

It is imperative that average Americans finish what they started on November 8m 2016 in the Presidential Election when the Midterm Elections arrive in 2018.

We must DRAIN THE DC SWAMP.

The stench of Swamp Gas being produced by the Congresscritters who have over-stayed their welcome is overwhelming,

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Fiscal Cliff: A Study in Crisis Management

chickenlittleThe definition of the term “Crisis Management” is just as it sounds: the ability of a leader to react appropriately to a crisis situation. Regarding America’s looming plunge over the Fiscal Cliff, however,   Political One-Upmanship is ruling the day, as the President Obama and Congress pose for the cameras, and, in less-than-good-faith, negotiate a deal regarding the biggest tax hike in U.S. History.

ABCNews.go.com has the story:

Political brinkmanship appears to have created a last minute chance for the White House and Congress to agree on a plan to avoid sending the country over the fiscal cliff.

President Obama emerged from an Oval Office meeting with Congressional leaders this evening to say “we had a constructive meeting today” and that he was “moderately optimistic” that they could devise a federal budget proposal ahead of a Jan. 1 deadline that would otherwise automatically trigger a wide range of tax increases and spending cuts. Economists fear that such a combination could throw the country back into a recession.

He said Senate Majority Leader Harry, a Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, were trying to quickly fashion a deal.

“Sens. Reid and McConnell are discussing a potential agreement where we can get a bipartisan bill out of the Senate and over to the House in a timely fashion so that we meet the Dec. 31 deadline,” Obama said in a hastily-arranged statement. “But given how things have been working in this town we always have to wait and see to see whether it actually happens.”

Admitting the weekend could ultimately prove fruitless, the president said as a backup plan he had instructed Reid to deliver the Democratic proposal to the Senate floor for a straight up-or-down vote. That would boost taxes for couples making more than $250,000.

“I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities as long as those leaders allow it to actually come to a vote,” Obama said. “If members of the House or the Senate want to vote no, they can, but we should let everybody vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work. If you can get a majority in the House and you can get a majority in the Senate, then we should be able to pass a bill.”

The president lamented that a deal is coming down to the final hours.

“The American people are watching what we do… (their) patience is already thin,” the president said. “It’s deja vu all over again.”

He added later that for Americans the repeated last second efforts to dodge economic crises “is mind boggling to them. It has to stop.”

Translation: You Redneck Congresscritters representing the Bitter Clingers better do it my way or I’ll throw a Hissy Fit!

And, as Grover Norquist reminds us: that ain’t exactly the best solution.

As the “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending cuts draws closer, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist repeated his call on CNBC’s “Closing Bell”for spending cuts instead of tax increases to deal with the country’s fiscal problems.

“If you put tax increases on the table, there’s never any spending restraint,” Norquist said, citing examples where taxes went up under previous administrations but spending continued unfettered.

“All Obama has done for the last four years is clamor for higher taxes to spend more money,” the president of Americans for Tax Reform told CNBC. “The only time we’ve beat him back on spending at all was during the debt-ceiling crisis.”

Norquist said Obama was “willing to save $1 trillion by not occupying Iraq for the next decade. He wanted to count that like not continuing the War of 1812 was his budget cut.”

He added that raising taxes isn’t a compromise because the problem is spending.

He also called on the Senate to pass a budget, which it has failed to do for years. “Then we could compare it to the Republican budget and perhaps we could compromise on how much spending we need to bring down,” Norquist said.

When we get past the cliff, any hike in the debt ceiling should be accompanied by similar cuts in spending, Norquist said.

“[Speaker John] Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell have made clear if the president wants a dollar of debt-ceiling increase, we need to cut spending a dollar. That goes for $1 trillion,” Norquist said. “That kind of spending restraint is exactly the kind of thing we need to do in the future for any debt-ceiling increase —period.”

Just as there are different general Management styles, there are different styles of Crisis Management: altruistic and self-serving.

What Obama and our Congresscritters are attempting to do, is come up with some sort of last-minute whoop-te-do stop-gap measure, in a feverish attempt to stave off the consequences of being bad stewards of our money.

With President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) leading the way.

The whole situation reminds me of a Director, whom I reported to, when I was working as a Media Specialist at one of the country’s largest and most prestigious hospitals. This lady, (an Ed.D.) would wait until the Ninth Hour, as the deadline for a major project for her superiors approached, and then she would turn the office upside-down, in a scene reminiscent of the pie fight scene in the Tony Curtis/Peter Falk Classic, “The Great Race”.

The conference room table would be stacked with all her paperwork, while our two Admins flew wildly around, attempting to organize her mess,  like their hair was on fire and their rear ends were catching.  Meanwhile, my manager would be conspicuously gone from the general vicinity all day, leaving the rest of us at the mercy of the dear lady.

The president, like my former director, seems to be relishing the power he holds during the chaos of these Ninth-Hour Negotiations.

Which just proves the old chestnut:

If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs…then you obviously don’t have a clue as to what is going on.

Until He Comes,

KJ