but I’ve got nothing and there is no escaping it.
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Feminist Impersonator, Christina Hoff Sommers
I’ve got to say that the most recent op-ed by conservative, Christina Hoff Sommers brought forth an involuntary wince from me. It’s making the rounds of the usual suspects including the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. I caught it in the St. Albans Messenger, and here, for what it is worth, Is my two cents on the subject:
In the wake of Donald Trump’s macho march to power, how anyone could deny that the U.S. is essentially a patriarchy is beyond me. It has confirmed what most women have suspected since puberty, that there is a tacit acceptance culture of catcalls, pinches and grabs governing the male-centric universe. Despite efforts to codify protections from those behaviors, they persist and go largely unchecked in the greater U.S.
I don’t know with whom Ms. Sommers is hobnobbing, but few of the feminists in my acquaintance have been “man-haters.” Those that were generally had a pretty concrete personal experience of abuse that put them in that frame of mind. If you’ve been bitten by a savage pitbull, you aren’t likely to be overly fond of the entire breed.
I can only assume that Ms. Sommers lives in some bubble of privilege and has therefore been spared the frequent reminders of women’s inferior status vis-a-vis practical power, that the majority of women now simply take for granted as the norm.
It’s funny that she criticizes the contemporary feminist, who typically is young, single, sharing a crowded apartment and carrying a ton of student debt, as “elitist,” when she herself so clearly meets the definition of a class elite:
Forty years after Roe vs. Wade enshrined a woman’s constitutional right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, we have come to a place where that right has never been in greater jeopardy, and even birth control is under attack. The very idea that women should not have the right to make choices concerning their own bodies is paternalistic.
Meanwhile, male “choice” through chemical performance enhancement is fully funded without question, and represents a booming sector of the pharmaceutical market.
Concerning the “Womens’ March On Washington” scheduled for January 21, Ms. Sommers offered this snooty suggestion:
“If I may offer some unsolicited advice. If that voice is calm and judicious rather than hyperbolic and harping, people just might listen.”
Well, thank you very much for the advice Ms. Sommers. That and a nickel won’t even get you a ride on the streetcar these days. As a matter or record, we are on the whole the calmer, more judicious gender.
It took many generations to get up enough lather to challenge the patriarchy in the last decade of the twentieth century, but no sooner had we declared a modest victory following Roe, and confidently retreated from the battlements, than the old habits of patriarchy began to reassert themselves. Now, as we near the second decade of the twenty-first century, many of us look back and see how much ground we have lost in the battle for true gender equality.
I think the election of an admitted sexual predator to the highest office in the land by significantly less than half the electorate is reason enough to raise our voices in protest.
(written in memory of GMD’s late, great pillar of feminist argument, Julie Waters.)
Norm McAllister faces another accuser in January
The New Year is quickly closing in on us. While we are all preoccupied with what national horrors January 20 will usher in, Franklin County women may want to take note that the second trial of accused sexual predator and former state senator Norm McAllister is scheduled for the week of January 9, 2017. The pretrial conference and jury selection are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of that week, and the actual trial begins on Wednesday, January 11 at 8:30 AM at the Franklin County Courthouse on Lake St. in St. Albans.
I plan to be there in symbolic support of the three alleged victims, even though only one of those victims’ complaints will be heard that week. I hope many more local women will join me there.
The first trial, which took place last fall, turned out to be no more than an exercise in humiliation for the young woman complainant. In the courtroom, men significantly outnumbered women, and the front rows of the gallery were lined with male members of the press and the defendant’s allies. It’s funny how that happens.
So the victim was confronted foremost with a throng of curious but indifferent male faces as she attempted to summon memories of the most intimate and embarrassing details of the attacks. The accused, on the other hand, sat facing front and was never required to answer a single question.
I described the experience in great detail on GMD in the hope that more women would feel compelled to fill those front seats at the next trial to give the victim a little moral support.
The third victim has since passed away in circumstances that have not been shared. She was the mother-in-law of the victim who will be testifying in January.
Like so many victims of unspeakable assaults and sex trafficking, these are women who were already challenged by poverty and a total lack of alternatives. Victims such as these do not tend to have confident and articulate friends who are likely to show up in a courtroom to demonstrate their support. An unpleasant courtroom experience is therefore made even more lonely and punishing for them.
It is no wonder that the young woman who testified at the last trial crumbled under pressure from a relentless attorney skilled at targeting her weaknesses. We owe these women our gratitude for their courage and sacrifice in bringing these crimes to trial. It may seems a thankless job, but for every woman who does step forward to charge her attacker, there are dozens who simply bottle up the nightmare inside them, so that their tormenter remains free to attack again.
Was justice served in the first McAllister trial? I don’t think so, and many others agree; but that is faint comfort for the young woman who was returned to the blunt world from which she had emerged, far worse for the wear and without the benefit of closure.
So, if you, like me, feel that sexual assault against one woman is a crime against all women; and sexual assault committed by a man of stature and responsibility against a weak and vulnerable woman is particularly repugnant; perhaps you will think about showing up and wearing a teal-colored ribbon to show your support for victims of sexual violence.
Trump’s Business Pick’s History With Steroids
Donald Trump revealed several more administration picks today; and while there will undoubtedly be plenty of discussion of the others, one might just slip through the cracks without any discussions of the skeleton in her closet.
The president-elect named WWE bigwig, Linda McMahon to head the Small Business Administration, citing her experience together with husband Vince McMahon in turning the WWE into a billion-dollar business.
What no one has so far mentioned about Mrs. McMahon is that in 2010, following the lurid murder/ suicide scandal of Canadian WWE star Claude Benoit, she was called to testify before Congress on the topic of rampant steroid abuse within that enterprise. Benoit had taken his life after murdering his wife and children.
Steroid distribution was not even illegal until 1988. In 1991 steroids were officially classified as “controlled substances.” Nevertheless, use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs continued to be rampant in the WWE, and all roads seemed to lead to Vince McMahon who was caught in the snare set by the feds for one Dr. Zahorian who supplied McMahon’s stable of ‘athletes’ with their drugs.
Due to “sloppy procedural errors,” the case against McMahon was dismissed.
Then, in 2010, following an unsuccessful Senate run by Linda McMahon, a 1991 memo from Linda to the other execs at Titan Sports (parent of WWE) turned up, which suggested a tip-off may have occurred when her husband was under investigation:
The story is lengthy and baroque, but well worth a read. The long and the short of it is that the feds have never been able to hold either McMahon accountable, thanks in part to the long reach of their gold-plated associations.
My interest in the McMahons dates to a single year in my own amateur body-building competitive “career” back in 1991(?) Vince McMahon was the chairman of the amateur division of the IFBB. Having won the regional title in Burlington, I came under the wing of the regional chair (who will remain nameless) and had the opportunity to compete in nationals down in Orlando. As I was truly a natural I knew I didn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell of even placing, but went just for the experience…which did not disappoint, let me tell you.
It was very WWF, complete with “trophy girls” in spike heels, big hair and spangled bikinis. The audience looked like it had descended from a region of outer space somewhere near Vegas. It was as much of a spectacle as anything that took place on stage. No one smiled or spoke backstage and there was none of the camaraderie one encountered at regional events.
I remember going to breakfast in the dining room of the motel where we were all staying and seeing Vince McMahon and what looked like a bodyguard of bouncer/mobsters wolfing down waffles and eggs with a steely, unwelcoming look on their faces.
Of course, by then my regional chair had regaled me extensively on the steroid story, even subtly hinting that I might want to try it myself. It was well known back then that ‘everyone’ in the IFBB, was using and that it was actually encouraged in order to exploit the entertainment value of freakishly overdeveloped bodies.
Even the amateur women were doing it, as I discovered when I walked into the waiting room at sign-in. These gals bore no resemblance to the amateurs I had competed against at home.
“Scary,” I thought, soon after abandoning any thought of continuing with bodybuilding.
Steroid use in the IFBB was simply a given, and McMahon and his goons were the very picture of an underworld vibe. As little as I ever cared for wrestling, I was certainly intrigued when the WWF took off and the McMahons became a freak show for the whole world to observe.
I guess the point of this stroll down memory lane is just to say that Linds McMahon’s chops as a “small business” entrepreneur were built on exploitation of illegal drug use and a generally very shady past.
I wonder how long it will take the media to unwrap this pungent package of poo?
Tayt Brooks finds a job
Guess who’s getting his hands on the cookie jar?
Governor Elect Phil Scott announced a number of appointments today, but the one that really piqued my interest was that of St. Albans’ own Tayt Brooks who will serve as “director of affordability and and economic initiatives.”
As you may recall, Brooks occupied space in the Douglas administration as “economic development commissioner.” It sounds pretty much like his old job has simply been rebranded to protect the innocent.
It’s an interesting position for Brooks who formed his own superPAC, Vermonters First, and famously coaxed Leonore Broughton into parting with north of $100,000. in 2012, laboring and bringing forth a goose egg for Republicans in statewide elections…other than that of incumbent Lt. Gov., Phil Scott.
As director of that superPAC, Brooks got himself into hot water over having dinner with gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock during the 2012 campaign. That’s strictly a no-no, as it has the optics of coordination between the campaign and the supposedly “independent” superPAC. Of course we believed that the topic of the election campaign was never even mentioned!
In that same election cycle, Vermonters First sent Franklin County voters an absentee ballot request to complete that resembled an actual ballot and apparently confused many voters.
As I recall, the activities of the superPAC belied the notion of anything that could remotely be considered“coordinated”…or even competent!
One ham handed-flyer distributed by VF-PAC was so garish and badly designed that we at GMD speculated that Brooks had amateurishly designed it himself on his own computer, so that less of Ms. Broughton’s dough went out the door. Would that was all! The flyer also featured the Seal of the State of Vermont. On campaign literature, that is also a big “no-no,” and even caught national attention.
Leonore was at it again in the 2016 cycle, even though Vermonters First appears to have evaporated. The entire superPAC depended upon one donor, and I suspect she figured she could do just as well (or poorly) without Brooks ministrations. At least she bagged herself a governor this go-round.
Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I plan to put the office of “affordability and economic iniitatives” on speed-dial at my house.
There are a whole lot of affordability challenges that Mr. Brooks ought to be tackling, like telephone, cable and internet service; prescription drugs, textbooks…and fresh fruits and vegetables! The list goes on and on.
Somehow I suspect Mr. Brooks attention will not be devoted to making ordinary Vermonters’ lives more affordable; the ones who are just struggling to get by. It’s pretty easy to guess that this office will have its laser focus on making business (and I don’t mean Mom & Pop operations) more “affordable.” That’s where the “incentives” come in. We’re not talking free in-state tuition for students who commit to living and working here after college graduation. We’re talking tax cuts, custom infrastructure and other goodies for the likes of IBM.
I suppose Brooks was bound to get office space from Scott. Hopefully, the governor won’t allow him to play with scissors.
Obama serves Thanksgiving meals
U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama served traditional Thanksgiving food at the Armed Forces Retirement Home. The Home is an independent agency in the Executive branch and provides residences and related services to retired members of the Armed Forces. This is the final Thanksgiving that Obama will mark as President of the United States.
Sure, it’s a photo-op, a darned good one by the way, and all things considered I’m going to miss him and his family.
Also yesterday,President-elect Trump and family spent Thanksgiving at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Their six option main course menu reportedly included “Mr. Trump’s Wedge Salad,” and a three layer “Trump chocolate cake,” dessert.
Trump, they say, will be hard at work today and for the coming weeks is planning to hold a series of large ‘victory rallies’ as some supporters have already been doing. Okay, there’s the circuses — where’s the bread?
Ending Presidential Carte Blanche
The practice of gerrymandering, which played a crucial role in bringing Donald Trump to the White House, seems about to be tested in the Supreme Court. It certainly would not be the first time the Supreme Court has been tasked with adjudicating the fairness of redistricting, but the Wisconsin case has resulted in the development of practical metrics for determining fairness that were not available in the past.
With that glimmer of hope on the distant horizon, I thought we could use this time before the other presidential shoe drops to reflect on the deficiencies in legal restrictions on the conduct of a President that have been exposed by Donald Trump’s first weeks as President Elect.
Around this time last year, I was bitterly coming to grips with the reality that, for all of its progressive values, Vermont did not have a code of ethics, under which violations of the public trust (like those of which Norm McAllister stands accused)would have immediate and meaningful consequences. How many times did we hear the lame excuse that “we never needed one before”?
Here we are, a year later, discovering that the office of the presidency of the United States suffers from a similar lack of mandated ethical rules. That back door has been left wide-open, apparently with no thought given to the possibility that someone as arrogant and shameless as Donald Trump might one day use it to walk off with the nation’s silverware.
While we breathlessly await the President Elect’s next breech of traditional presidential ethics, it might be wise to note a wishlist of rules that now need to be imposed on any elected president by law rather than merely by custom. Candidate Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he cares little for truth, respect and conventional decency. We are therefore obliged to codify even the most rudimentary obligations of the presidency.
Here are a few suggestions, should Democrats regain the ability to initiate in 2018:
1) All presidents should be required by law to place any and all holdings in a true blind trust. We thought that was the case, but apparently the devil is in the details.
2) The definition of a “blind trust” must be clearly and rigidly defined by law, and arranging for that transfer to a blind trust should be the first obligation of the President Elect before he/she even begins to consider appointments. That blind trust shall not be administered by anyone having a familial relationship to the President, and the President must not have any access to particular information about his holdings while in office.
3) Husbands, wives, children and siblings of the President should be barred by law from any official position in his/her administration. No matter how brilliant one’s relatives may seem to be, the idea of presidential advisors is to serve the people’s best interests by permitting the “decider in chief” to entertain ideas beyond his own echo chamber.
4) As those family members should be barred by law from occupying official positions, they should as well not receive security clearance beyond the necessary scope of their own personal security vis-a-vis the president. They should not be privy to security briefings ofany kind beyond the security of their own person; and, by extension, should not be allowed in the room when sensitive foreign or domestic business is discussed.
5) The fact that family members are ethically barred from profiting from the presidency appears an insufficient deterrent even in these earliest days of the Trump administration. It is therefore necessary to establish specific and far-reaching definitions for the concept of “profit” because we can no longer trust that the President’s own judgment will not be ethically compromised.
6) A President who deliberately misleads the public should be subject to stiff penalties. With a President who famously lied 73% of the time during his campaign for office, it is unfortunately necessary to establish consequences for lying when one is the ‘leader of the free world.’ A President who doubles down on lies when challenged, and never admits that he is wrong,is extremely dangerous and requires additional legal constraints to keep him truthful.
7) The President should be required by law to allow a rotating pool of journalists from
a representative cross-section of established national news sources to accompany him throughout his schedule, being excluded only when it is a matter of national security. What exactly comprises a “matter of national security” must be clearly defined.
8) Press conferences allowing an opportunity for question and answer exchanges with the President should be established by law, to occur on a regular schedule…biweekly or monthly at the very least.
9) The Presidentand his/her immediate family should be required to make the White House their primary residence. Secret Service details should be limited to those members of the President’s immediate family who make the White House their primary residence. The costs and inconvenience accrued to the general public by any more whimsical arrangement in these security challenging times make it imperative that this simple rule be firmly enforced.
10) Anyone who has engaged in lobbying in the previous five years should be banned from appointments by the President. Anyone leaving elected or appointed service in the U.S. Government should be banned from lobbying activities for at least five years.
11) In order to ensure transparency and undetected avoid conflict of interest, the President Elect should be required by law to disclose his income tax returns for the past five years before election, and every year thereafter until he leaves office.
Why should the occupant of the highest office in the land be held to a lesser standard than any other elected official? It is completely indefensible.
One must now accept that someone completely lacking in a moral/ethical compass will occasionally ascend to the White House. The only way to protect our democracy under those circumstances is to established clearly defined laws, with meaningful consequences, specifically governing the president.
Of course, its time for a constitutional overhaul to replace the Electoral College with direct democracy; to overturn Citizen’s United; and to reintroduce the expired Voting Rights Act.
So, as P.E.D.J.Trump builds his historic legacy as the worst president ever, we have a to-do list that stretches far beyond his (hopefully) brief regime.
It begins with an urgent call for Democratic voters to turn out in record numbers to reverse the GOP majority in 2018.
No Thanks This Year
We’re not celebrating Thanksgiving at our house this year.
It just doesn’t feel right to us when so many of our minority neighbors are feeling frightened and uncertain as Donald Trump mans his fortress of power.
I know that many people are working very hard at looking for ‘normal’ amid the new world order, but that just reminds me of the many books I’ve read about Germany in the earliest days of Hitler’s rise, when denial was still the favorite defense. I highly recommend “Inside the Third Reich” by Albert Speer for a primer on rationalization.
I won’t belabor the parallels here, beyond a reminder that Hitler didn’t steal into power but was carried in on a populist sweep that exploited weaknesses in what was ostensibly a democratic system; and although accompanied by a heavy handed dose of demonizing the ‘other,’ his early policies seemed benign enough, including national health, full employment and support for the family.
Perhaps I will return to an interest in delving into political intrigues and policy issues on the local and state level, but until we see whether any rule of law can be enforced to check the ambitions of Donald Trump and his Cabinet of Horrors, I can think of little else.
It was gratifying at least to read the joint statement by outgoing Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin and incoming Republican Governor Phil Scott, promising to hold the line against the most hateful prospects of a Trump presidency. I sincerely hope that the new Governor is as good as his word.
Nevertheless, all one has to do is look at the remarks of Trump accolade Darcie Johnson and comments in the blogosphere to see that there are plenty of Trump’s cohorts ready for their marching orders, even here in the benevolent state of Bernie Sanders.
It’s as if a poisonous vapor has been released to waft through the countryside, reviving prejudice and suspicion wherever it lay dormant, inviting the spiteful to feed on the weak and vulnerable.
True evil walks the land.
No, we’re not giving thanks this year.
Round-up the usual Trump storylines
It will take a while – weeks, but more likely years – to sort out exactly how and why Trump won on Election Day. Unreliable first drafts of “conclusions” are already forming. Speaker Paul Ryan is claiming Trump “just earned a mandate.” Well, I got to say it “mandate my ass.”
Once certain storylines – true or false – take root, it is hard to dig them back out. Steve Waldman writes in Washington Monthly about four storyline “conclusions” that “don’t comport with what the exit polls show.” Here are two recent “conclusions” about Trump’s win that seem prominent now and could be with us for while.
- This was a revolution of the economically downtrodden.
Many pundits were saying Donald Trump’s victory was fueled by people who are economically dispossessed and struggling. Here’s what the exit polls actually showed:
Voters with incomes under $50,000 went for Clinton 52%-41%. Over $50,000 went for Trump 49% to 47%
That’s not to say economic anxiety wasn’t a factor in eroding support for Clinton. She did lose among those without college degrees. Relative to 2012, [Trump] did better with the less affluent than Romney. But the bulk of his winning coalition was wealthier.
The alienation seems more complex – having more to do with racial standing and a sense of whether their futures seem bleak or hopeful more than whether they can actually put bread on the table at that moment.
- This was a Trump landslide
It was shocking. It was disruptive. It was unambiguous. But by recent historical standards, it was not a landslide. For one thing, Hillary may end up winning the popular vote. That would mean Democrats will have won the popular vote 6 of the last 7 times.
Beyond that, in the last ten elections, the winning candidate got more than 300 electoral college votes seven times. If you look at both the popular and electoral college, this would count as the second or third closest election of the last ten.
While sifting through the wreckage I’m going to keep in mind this dictum: eye witnesses are the least reliable at recalling details. Meanwhile popular pundits and politicians struggle to find storylines to explain how and why they all got it so wrong about President-elect Trump. A hint to help them find a major piece of the puzzle: try looking in the mirror.
Election Day results links
Posting links for local and national up-to-date voting results is probably a quaint retro-bloggy thing to do in 2016 (anyone still have dial-up?) and most people probably follow on twitter & Facebook – but just in case here are three good links.
All politics are local so here thanks to SoS Jim Condos is the Vermont Secretary of State’s Election Day results map. It is updated by county as result come in.
Talking Points Memo has a good results map and editor’s live blog. And if you want to go deep Five Thirty Eight’s hour to hour state by state How to Watch Election Guide that can’t be beat.