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Sex Vigilantes Trash Due Process
Townhall.com ^ | Dec 13, 2017 | Betsy McCaughey

Posted on 12/13/2017 4:23:59 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom

New York's Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is spearheading a McCarthyite purge of sexual harassers from Congress, throwing the nation's capital into turmoil. What counts as sexual harassment? Good question. Men accused of boorish gestures or vulgar remarks face the same disgrace as outright rapists. And never mind if the accusations lack proof and the accusers remain anonymous.

Consider the charges dredged up again this week against President Trump. You heard them last year when he was campaigning for president. One accuser, Jessica Leeds, said that more than 30 years ago Trump groped her on a plane. But reporters were not able to confirm the flight, date or even year the incident was supposed to have occurred and couldn't track down one witness to support her story.

The same was true with the other accusers. No facts.

No wonder the public dismissed the claims and elected Trump.

Monday, Leeds and two other accusers reiterated their old, unsubstantiated charges at a press conference. In response, six Democratic senators, including Gillibrand, are calling for Trump to step down from the presidency. It's as if the #MeToo movement lessens the standard of proof and makes due process unnecessary.

That's what's happening in Congress. Take the anonymous former campaign worker who's accusing Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., of touching her thigh twice, making her feel uncomfortable. Kihuen denies it, but House minority leader Nancy Pelosi commends the woman for coming forward (anonymously?) and demands that he resign.

What about Kihuen's right to a fair hearing and the presumption of innocence? Pelosi and the sex vigilantes are all too ready to toss due process in the wastebasket.

Gillibrand conceded Senator Al Franken, D-Minn., was entitled to a Senate Ethics Committee investigation, but last week, she was out front bullying him into resigning. That's like saying the accused is entitled to a fair trial, but let's execute him first.

Same thing happened to John Conyers, D-Mich., who insisted on his own innocence and at first rejected calls to resign. Ultimately, he was forced out on Dec. 5.

Franken's alleged to have forcibly kissed a fellow actor, and touched several women inappropriately during photo-ops. One accuser says when "we posed for the shot he immediately put his hand on my waist, grabbing a handful of flesh. I froze. Then he squeezed. At least twice." That's it?

Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, is accused of bantering that he had "wet dreams" about a female staff member, who says she was fired for complaining about it. Farentholdt denies it. Yet Republican Mia Love, R-Utah, striving to keep up with sex bully Gillibrand, is calling on Farenthold to step down immediately, without a House Ethics Committee hearing.

Then there's Rep. Trent Franks, R-Texas. Distressed that he and his wife can't conceive, he asked two office aides to bear his child as a surrogate, offering one of them $5 million. Last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan, not to be outdone by the sex vigilantes on the left, demanded Franks resign for his blundering behavior.

A fair penalty? Since the Civil War, only two members of Congress have been expelled, both for multiple felonies like bribery and tax evasion. Even New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, found guilty of 11 counts of violating congressional ethics rules in 2010, was only censured, not asked to resign.

Only once did Congress threaten a member with expulsion for sexual misconduct. In 1995, the Senate ethics committee voted to expel Senator Bob Packwood, R-Ore., after reviewing 10,145 pages of evidence, of "habitual pattern of aggressive, blatantly sexual advances" and destruction of evidence. They had the goods on him.

Sexual harassment holds women back. Good riddance to it. But in the zeal to right that wrong and to preen as defenders of women, politicians are trampling American values -- due process, the presumption of innocence and enacting penalties that fit the crimes. These are too precious to lose.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
If guilty until proven innocent is good enough for Duke Lacrosse players why not members of Congress? Let them feel the sting of the policies they championed.
1 posted on 12/13/2017 4:23:59 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

For decades we couldn’t get rid of genuine communist traitors and spies without the most conclusive “hard” evidence (even then it often was discounted by the left), but now people are supposed to have careers and lives ruined over mere accusation.

Some of these guys definitely must go (Swinestein, obviously), but we should not lose all respect for fairness, evidence, due process, etc.


2 posted on 12/13/2017 4:43:15 AM PST by Enchante (FusionGPS "dirty dossier" scandal links Hillary, FBI, CIA, Dept of Justice... "Deep State" is real)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I predict there will be a lot of unemployed women in the near future.

This all is just another ploy by Soros and company to destroy America. Racist cries only went so far. Now Rape is being called for anyone who even told a woman that she looks nice.


3 posted on 12/13/2017 4:45:55 AM PST by oldasrocks (rump)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

This is probably the most sensible commentary I have yet read about these fact-free allegations.

Things are heating up to a Salem 1691 boil here. Or perhaps more like the wave of denunciations that turned an already violent French Revolution into a Reign of Terror.

No one should have his life ruined on the unsupported accusation of another.

This “it’s not the facts but the seriousness of the charge” mentality has gotten innocent people killed, tortured, and imprisoned. We seem to have learned nothing from history — but the facts are there for anyone who wishes to find them.


4 posted on 12/13/2017 4:49:18 AM PST by Nothingburger
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Flattery to one woman is sexual harassment to another. What are the standards, and where are the boundaries? There are none. Ergo, it’s open season on all men. If I were still in business, I’d never hire a female in any capacity. It’s too risky, and women are always given the privilege of mis-remembering events decades later - without consequence.


5 posted on 12/13/2017 4:52:09 AM PST by Ancient Man
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To: Ancient Man

On the flip side maybe men now are going to accept the Muzzie way of treating women soon. Keep them covered in Burkas and blame everything that happens as a womans fault.

Stone any woman who dares cry Rape. Keep them in the house. Do not allow them to drive. Divorce made easy, just cut their heads off. Do not allow them to be educated.

Is this what women want? I doubt it so why is the mainstream excepting all this crap?


6 posted on 12/13/2017 5:01:32 AM PST by oldasrocks (rump)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I agree with the author.

I have been wondering the same thing now, for quite a while in fact.

We either have a nation of law or we do not. The fact, yes fact, that an accuser can destroy a person’s life and livelihood, without ever needing to take them to court is one of the very reasons we have the United States Judicial system. Flawed and not perfect, but better than this vigilante court of public opinion.

We might as well be assigning people Scarlet Letters and putting them in stocks on the public square!

But what is really going on here? It isn’t about sexual harassment, we know it is political. It is more than that though and good people need to step forward and put the brakes on these vigilantes. Our very way of legally handling matters is at serious risk.

They destroyed the schools and created indoctrination centers.

They took Christ out of the public square and continue to destroy Christian business owners without the rule of law protecting the business owners human rights. How many have been put out of business, ruled in lower courts to pay fines etc. Just for practicing their faith. And of course, the mob rule that grinds them under their boot-heels.

Now, all these sex scandals. Some real, some fake, some exaggerated, some playing into the snowflakes mindset of ...it made me uncomfortable, made me feel unsafe, etc.

Catch your breath on that connection for one moment. They are playing into the indoctrination propaganda to dismantle the idea we have ‘the rule of law.’

Some of these women waited 40 years to come forward. This is something I don’t understand. The first case under Title VII wasn’t until 1976, forty-one years ago. These women coming forward, now, it is literally from a dramatically different time. Trying to force today’s attitudes onto that past doesn’t seem right, unless there was sexual assault. And frankly, having your butt squeezed, pinched or even your breasts groped was part of the culture for women in the emerging workforce. It was part of the learning curve of the culture and we took action through law to curtail the behavior. And then there were still the other women who, ‘did what they did to get ahead.’ Those women, frankly in my mind, have no horse in this race. They chose, they didn’t have too, but they did. They let their own greed get to them. Satan’s insidious temptation.

I cannot support some of these claims that are ancient history against the backdrop of the women’s movement. Today’s attitude against the backdrop of the early changing culture...no, it isn’t right. Title VII was still in its infancy, companies didn’t even have policies at the time to deal with it.

But by the mid-1980’s we were being put through corporate training regarding sexual harassment and discrimination. And for the most part, corporate America was finally catching up with the law. The penalties to companies can be very substantial and any woman who is being abused can bring it down on the company’s head these days. Many do and life goes on.

Within the context of time and history, I just don’t believe in this vigilante action today. It is wrong. And I am tired of this idea of statute of limitation for this stuff, because women are too embarrassed to come forward. The ability to wait decades and then destroy an individual outside the rule of law is wrong.

#metoo


7 posted on 12/13/2017 5:20:15 AM PST by EBH ( May God Save the Republic)
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To: Nothingburger

“Things are heating up to a Salem 1691 boil here.”

That is EXACTLY what I told my wife last night.


8 posted on 12/13/2017 5:24:35 AM PST by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Precisely.


9 posted on 12/13/2017 5:25:28 AM PST by sauropod (I am His and He is mine.)
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To: ought-six
"“Things are heating up to a Salem 1691 boil here.” That is EXACTLY what I told my wife last night."

Someone is going to make a fortune selling an insurance policy similar to "Errors and Omissions" and Liability Insurance ( let's call it 1-800-Save-Man ) that unleash attorneys working on your behalf that will go after HR and those making the charges at you if they are false to protect your name, and hit them in the wallet.

It has gotten that crazy...

10 posted on 12/13/2017 5:28:17 AM PST by taildragger (Do you hear the people singing? The Song of Angry of Men!....)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

The funniest think is Democrats wailing about sexual misconduct. When have they ever cared? A large portion of their base is obsessed with doing all sorts of unnatural things with their genetials, and the trail of dead interns is telling.


11 posted on 12/13/2017 6:14:31 AM PST by bk1000 (I stand with Trump.)
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To: EBH

Good analysis. I would add that history keeps repeating itself. Think back to the McMartin day care trial where it was almost universally believed that children didn’t have the capacity to lie about abuse. By the time a degree of sanity returned, this family, along with many othersy, was completely destroyed. We are likely in for another round of insanity and the victims will not just be men.

When a mob mentality takes over, bad things are often done under the guise of good intentions. We have a history of this type behavior going back to the Salem Witch Trials. The “Me To” movement reminds me of the number of confessions law enforcement receive whenever there is a major crime. We deceive ourselves when we believe that people will not lie about some subjects.


12 posted on 12/13/2017 6:33:09 AM PST by etcb
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I think Kirsten Gillibrand should have to prove that she was NOT willing to do anything to get a Trump campaign donation.


13 posted on 12/13/2017 6:46:43 AM PST by super7man (Madam Defarge, knitting, knitting, always knitting)
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To: oldasrocks

Women will have a harder time gaining employment, now that the Crotch Culture is in charge of our nation. The business world is not going to want the Crotchety Crotches around.


14 posted on 12/13/2017 6:46:43 AM PST by abclily
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To: etcb

This is really, really bothering me this morning.

A lot of people are saying there’s not statute of limitations.

But there is ...sort of. Doing a google search for sexual harassment statute of limitations one finds that through the EEOC it is about 300 days from the last incident.

This supports the premise that vigilante women decades later may very well be ... breaking the law. These women had a year to come forward from the time of the incident.

It also seems to me, the media may very well be twisting the meaning of sexual assault and rape. But even these have limitations in many states of 3-30 years. Some states have exceptions if it involves children.


15 posted on 12/13/2017 7:41:13 AM PST by EBH ( May God Save the Republic)
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To: EBH
This supports the premise that vigilante women decades later may very well be ... breaking the law. These women had a year to come forward from the time of the incident.

I believe the statute of limitations only precludes prosecution of an accused person after a given time. It does not impose any legal prohibition on anyone from making an allegation after that time. The women are not violating any law by making an untimely report. If their assertions are false, they may be committing the civil offense of liable or slander, but it would be up to the person aggrieved to seek redress in civil court.

16 posted on 12/13/2017 9:02:24 AM PST by etcb
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