Posted on 11/29/2017 6:00:29 PM PST by markomalley
In the end this may have been the only compromise available to Pelosi. She couldn’t force him to resign and his allies in the House may have resented any attempt to make him do so, knowing that it would have appeared as though he was stepping down in disgrace. Which, ah, he would have been.
So Conyers gets to finish out his two years, leaving on “his own terms” replete with plenty of pomp and circumstance in the House about his glorious legacy, and then he’s gone. And in the meantime Democrats get to cross their fingers and hope that there isn’t a drumbeat of new accusations against Conyers in the media over the next year that dilutes their “the GOP elected a predator in Roy Moore!” message for the midterms.
The funniest part of this? Conyers apparently plans to wait until just a few weeks after the Alabama election to make his move. If he announced his retirement beforehand, Dems might get a little credit from Alabama voters for trying to clear the bad guys out of Congress. In a very tight race, who knows how that might affect Moore’s support. As it is, no dice.
Sources told Local 4 that Conyers will not seek re-election for a new term in the wake of the scandal, which continues to grow.
Two sources close to the Conyers situation told Local 4’s Rod Meloni that the congressman won’t resign. It’s his intent to announce in January that he won’t run for re-election in 2018.
His lawyer insisted today that he won’t be forced out of office, although really he meant to say he won’t be forced out right now. Meanwhile, here’s a charming tidbit from this morning’s Democratic caucus meeting on sexual harassment via NYT reporter Robert Draper. It’s rare that a congressman says something so offensive that it makes you gasp. Even rarer is him doing it twice in one day:
Susan Smith is the South Carolina woman who locked her two young sons in her car in 1994, rolled it into a lake to drown them so that she’d be “free” to be with her lover, then told police that a black man had carjacked her and driven away with the boys in the backseat. She’s one of the most notorious child murderers in modern American history. This is the moral yardstick for which Clyburn reaches to measure the multiple allegations against Conyers, never mind that many, many more prominent white men in various fields have been accused of harassment by white women over the past two months than black men have. Clyburn is a race-baiter of longstanding, though, and he’s served in Congress alongside Conyers long enough — almost 25 years — that he’s surely heard whispers about his behavior before. This is how he reacts to a few women finally speaking up. He’s a disgrace. No wonder Kathleen Rice walked out of that caucus meeting this morning.
In lieu of an exit question, here’s a real political ad that’s currently running in Conyers’s home state of Michigan. There’ll be plenty of spots that reference the “Pervnado” next year but few quite like this.
The draining the swamp is happening but also in the media.
He is way past his past due date.
One heck of a fight for the Dem primary for his seat.
It is a virtual writ of nobility. Will never be voted out, and can get away with just about anything, while living far better than most kings.
He’s waiting to line up a lobbyist gig first is my guess.
I foresee an avalanche of retirements in 2018.
Swamp draining is underway.
Yeah, by all means let’s be decent to the abuser of women. /s
Coward!!
L&L, if you have seen my post I have been saying the House and Senate will look completely different, but I didn't think it would be like this.
I heard something tonight that the whole press thing, when it is done something like 300 people are gonna be fired. What if the House and Senate is 1/2 that? a 1/4? those are still huge numbers. At 1/4 that is 75, 75/535 is 14%, that is big...
It needs to be clarified—Conyers is going NOWHERE in January.
The report was that he is supposed to announce in January 2018 that he would not seek re-election in 2018.
This means he would finish out his present term, which ends in January, 2019.
That cannot be allowed to happen—he needs to go now, and he can take Franken with him.
So he has 5 weeks left to blame whitey.
Yep!
“...So Conyers gets to finish out his two years”
Sounds like he’ll be around until Jan 2019.
Given that his wife was incarcerated for corruption (IIRC), that'd be an ironic way of putting things.
Walk away?
Nope, kicking and screaming, with the seeming strength of a man half his age.
Typical. Demo politicians do something terrible and get caught first they try to stonewall and ride it out. If that doesn’t work they resign and the loss of power is considered punishment enough. No further investigations or legal issues needed, please move along. and here we see it playing out one more time.
That is the big one! 1. Who sponsored the legislation creating the fund. 2. Who used money from the fund to pay off complainants. Out them all and let the chips fall where they may.
So, if Conyers is playing the Bill Clinton role, I guess Nancy Pelosi is playing the Hillary role. Stand By Your Man.
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