Posted on 04/29/2018 6:54:09 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell
How Democrats Suppressed the #MeToo Movement in the Party Threats, blacklisting and sex scandals in the feminist party. April 27, 2018 Daniel Greenfield aniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.
A funny thing happened to the #MeToo movement in the Democrat Party.
While #MeToo burned a fiery trail through the media, leaving behind the wrecked careers of top talent, after suffering some initial losses, the Democrats built a firewall by ruthlessly targeting activists.
Their approach was eerily similar to that of Harvey Weinstein. But they understood the political problem in a way that the movie mogul hadn’t. The Democrats didn’t go after the victims. Instead they made an example out of the activist female politicians within their own party who championed the accusations.
And Harvey could only envy their track record.
Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT), once a #MeToo advocate, is retiring and won’t run again. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who had built her 2022 brand on fighting sexual harassment and who had belatedly condemned Bill Clinton, abandoned her position after pressure from donors. And California Dems are preparing to finish off Cristina Garcia, an assemblywoman who had challenged their sexual harassment.
The Democrats may have lost Senator Franken and Rep. Conyers, but they’ve stopped the bleeding. And their damage control technique cracked a problem that had bewildered Hollywood’s spinmeisters.
How do you fight accusations of sexual harassment? With more accusations of sexual harassment.
Rep. Etsy had called for Rep. Conyers to resign. Then she had to resign after accusations of sexual harassment against her chief of staff. Cristina Garcia has been accused of groping a male staffer.
The initial wave of #MeToo accusations caught Democrats by surprise and split the party. Some wanted to clean house while others threatened to purge fellow Democrats who denounced their own.
The pressure by donors and threats by insiders generally remained covert. But one top Democrat donor went public with her threats. Susie Tompkins Buell, a top Hillary donor and Democrat supporter, lashed out at Senator Gillibrand and other female Senators who had called for Senator Franken to resign.
“As for Gillibrand, unfortunately, I believe she miscalculated and has shot herself in the foot,” Buell wrote. “I have supported her for many years. Will I going forward? To be determined.”
That wasn’t the only financial hit that Gillibrand took. And it explained why she backed away.
Buell was just saying what many top Dem donors were thinking. Franken had been popular with the lefty donor class which viewed condemnations of sexual harassment as empty virtue signaling. On email lists and Facebook groups, hard core Dems traded ‘Frankentruther’ conspiracy theories claiming that Franken had been framed and that the senators who urged him to resign had sold out to the GOP.
In Franken’s home territory, even #MeToo women who had never condemned him were purged.
Lindsey Port had spoken out about sexual harassment by a Democrat Farmer-Labor state senator and her story led to the resignation of her alleged harasser. Donor pressure then ended her political career.
“Knowing now what’s happening, and feeling like I’ve been blackballed and there are these economic repercussions, those women don’t feel like they can speak out," Port said.
Port may have been undone by a whispering campaign in Minnesota, but in California, the #MeToo backlash took an uglier turn more in line with its political culture.
Cristina Garcia had been featured as one of Time Magazine’s ‘Silence Breakers’ after angrily calling for the resignations of legislators accused of sexual harassment, including Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) and Senator Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). As the chair of the Women’s Caucus and one of the original signatories of We Said Enough letter denouncing a “pervasive” culture of sexual harassment, she had become an icon. But, like Esty, the accusations of sexual harassment were turned against her.
The former #MeToo movement leader stands accused of everything from groping to homophobia, racism and playing spin-the-bottle. And the State Building & Construction Trades Council is raising money to defeat her. The union was a significant donor to Bocanegra, Mendoza and the Calderon clan.
The politics involved are complicated in the way that they usually are in a corrupt political system.
An accusation that Raul Bocanegra had groped former Senator Ron Calderon’s staffer had resurfaced. Calderon had continued to support Bocanegra. At least until Calderon was raided by the FBI in a corruption investigation. Calderon was the leading member of an eponymous political dynasty.
Garcia took office by beating Tom Calderon, Ron’s brother, who would also be jailed. She had demanded that Calderon resign. Last year, she campaigned against his early release, arguing in a press release, “It's bad enough that he walked away with a mere 42 month sentence when his crimes dictated 396 years.”
The groping accusation against Garcia came from a former staffer of Ian Calderon, Ron’s nephew, who relayed it to Ian, who then passed it along.
It’s hard to know where the truth lies. And Garcia is not the only California #MeToo member whose career was harmed because she supported the movement’s insistence on ending harassment.
The meeting between #MeToo and the Democrats is a familiar story about how abstract reforms become much less appealing when you have some skin in the game. Fighting sexual harassment had always meant combating it somewhere else. But it was never supposed to hurt the virtuous Democrats.
“’There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.' And I believe that,” Susie Tompkins Buell had trumpeted in a campaign to fight sexual abuses in the military. Buell had even allegedly been willing to fund payments to Trump accusers through Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer.
But it was very different when the sexual harassment and scandals were coming from inside the house.
Virtue signaling convinces the left of its own unimpeachable morals. When push comes to shove, it rejects guilt for any of its wrongdoing and attributes such allegations to conspiracy theories.
The same mental evasions that led Dems to ridicule the women assaulted by Bill Clinton made the Frankentruthers into a significant voice within the activist and donor circles of their movement. Sexual harassment elsewhere is an outrage. Sexual harassment in their own ranks is a right-wing conspiracy.
And any women who disagree and try to expose it are obviously traitors helping the Republicans win.
Hollywood killed #MeToo by sucking it into a cyclotron of feminist virtue signaling. #TimesUp changed the conversation from sexual harassment by industry figures to pay hikes and gender quotas. The Dems killed #MeToo with a combination of donor blacklisting and targeted attacks on #MeToo advocates.
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The Left isn’t about helping anyone but themselves.
There are still more than 200 members of congress whose taxpayer paid payouts have not been outed. Still waiting.
This is interesting.
Threats, blacklisting and sex scandals in the feminist party... after suffering some initial losses, the Democrats built a firewall by ruthlessly targeting activists. Their approach was eerily similar to that of Harvey Weinstein. But they understood the political problem in a way that the movie mogul hadn't. The Democrats didn't go after the victims. Instead they made an example out of the activist female politicians within their own party who championed the accusations... Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT), once a #MeToo advocate, is retiring and won't run again. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who had built her 2022 brand on fighting sexual harassment and who had belatedly condemned Bill Clinton, abandoned her position after pressure from donors. And California Dems are preparing to finish off Cristina Garcia, an assemblywoman who had challenged their sexual harassment. The Democrats may have lost Senator Franken and Rep. Conyers, but they've stopped the bleeding... Rep. Etsy had called for Rep. Conyers to resign. Then she had to resign after accusations of sexual harassment against her chief of staff. Cristina Garcia has been accused of groping a male staffer. The initial wave of #MeToo accusations caught Democrats by surprise and split the party. Some wanted to clean house while others threatened to purge fellow Democrats who denounced their own... Susie Tompkins Buell, a top Hillary donor and Democrat supporter, lashed out at Senator Gillibrand and other female Senators who had called for Senator Franken to resign... That wasn't the only financial hit that Gillibrand took. And it explained why she backed away... Franken had been popular with the lefty donor class which viewed condemnations of sexual harassment as empty virtue signaling... In Franken's home territory, even #MeToo women who had never condemned him were purged. Lindsey Port had spoken out about sexual harassment by a Democrat Farmer-Labor state senator and her story led to the resignation of her alleged harasser. Donor pressure then ended her political career...
This would make a good presentation during the RNC convention. Thanks Louis Foxwell.
Look how they are rallying to protect Tom Brokaw.
They are trashing Linda Vester the way Hillary trashed Bill’s victims.
“The accusations of sexual harassment were turned against her.”
Sad but true. Blamers will be blamed for something.
Looks a bit shady in the picture.
This always happens when their usefulness comes to an end.
Bill Clinton is Exhibit 1 of the #MeToo movement. Hillary is Exhibit 1A of women who go after women who go after liberal creeps.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has vehemently denied a rumor started by "Fire and Fury" author Michael Wolff that she is having an extramarital affair with President Trump, calling the allegations that she slept her way to the top "disgusting" and "highly offensive" to women in power.
It was super fun until they realized it was costing thier side more than our side. All political theater, designed to destroy Repubs or conservatives. It was getting too close to their top dogs. Time to wind it down.
bump
They took their cue from the Nazis and “The Night Of The Long Knives’’.
<><> how did they list the donations on their tax returns?
<><> How did publicly-traded companies list their donations on shareholder reports?
<><>How did the "DreamWorks" trio, Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, list their 60,000 dollars to Clinton's sex defense fund?
<><> How did BET list its contribution to Clinton on its corporate statements?
<><> Did Harvey's company list these payments as "business expenses?"
The biggie, of course, is the tax element.
<><> Did donors deduct it as a “business expense”,
<><> was it included in assets, payments listed on organization balance sheets as a "liability?"
<><> Did Clinton document it as "income"?
<><> Were the donors given a tax-free certificate from the Clinton Foundation?
===========================================
REFERENCE---Hollyweirdos rallied around Clinton to fund his lewinsky sex mess defense. Herewith are the Certified Democrat Degenerates......the scum that vilify and destroy America's Judeo-Christian ethics and values in movies promoted as being "diverse, politically correct, and socially relevant."
HOLLYWOOD'S CERTIFIED DEMOCRAT DEGENERATES
FINANCED BILL CLINTON'S LEWINSKY SEX MESS
According to FEC Info, an Internet Web site (www.tray.com) that tracks federal political contributions, 176 individual donors actually contributed $10,000 or more to the lewinsky-era Clinton Legal Expense Trust fund through Dec 1999. Another 21 donors gave $10,000 in the first six months of 2000.
Thanks to Hollywood's generosity, a total of more than $2.2 million was raised in six months, which was notably more than was collected in funding during the previous four years of his presidency—combined. Hollywood producers and stars made up the bulk of the most generous givers. They included:
<><> Universal Studios tycoon Lew Wasserman and his wife, Edith, who have given $60,000;
<><>DreamWorks trio Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, $20,000 each;
<><> producer Ron Burkle and his wife, Janet, $40,000;
<><> producers Peg and Bud Yorkin, $30,000;
<><> TV producer Norman Lear, $20,000.
Entertainment celebrities and executives giving $10,000 included:
<><> singers Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand;
<><> actors Michael Douglas and Tom Hanks;
<><> director Ron Howard; producer Gail Zappa;
<><>Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson.
======================================
When Bill Clinton was at the height of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, Hollywood was by his side, offering donations for his legal fees, and one significant donor was a man who is now going through his own sex scandal—Harvey Weinstein.
Billionaire Harvey Weinstein raised $1,422,683 for federal candidates and political entities between 1990-2016. That’s small potatoes for his 27 years of rank Democratism, sucking up to feminism and upholding so-called abortion rights as he rampaged and assaulted young women. Adds up to about $5300 a year. Something tells me there are a lot of cash payments off-the-record being paid. (hat tip outpostinmass2) Crunching the numbers as outpost did does give us a sharper look at the political money game as played by the conniving Clintons.
Harvey also gave a bundle to the nefarious tax-exempt Clinton Foundation and perhaps to offshoots of the Clintons tax-free entities.
Did Harvey's donations to the C/F go to "do-good projects"? Or did they make a circuitous route?
Maybe landing back into the Clintons eternal political scams?
I wondered what happened to the talk of taxpayer funded payoffs for harassment by members of Congress. ... just another example of protection collusion by members of the swamp.... both parties and big donors. Discouraging.
After observing the way that Hillary managed the bimbo eruptions, can anybody really be surprised?
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