“The allegations against Ranking Member Conyers are extremely serious and deeply troubling,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the second most senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “There can be no tolerance for behavior that subjects women to the kind of conduct alleged.”
A group of Democrats from across the caucus had pushed for such a move at the start of the year, but were beaten back by Mr. Conyers and allied lawmakers, according to House Democrats familiar with the matter. Since then, they said, it has been commonly understood that this term would be Mr. Conyers’s last atop the committee.
Mr. Nadler and Representative Zoe Lofgren of California have made clear to fellow Democrats that they intend to run to succeed Mr. Conyers should he step aside. After Mr. Conyers, they are the two most senior Democratic members of the committee.
.. Mr. Conyers also pointed to the amount of money paid to his accuser — $27,111.75, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed — in defending himself.
.. “The resolution was not for millions of dollars, but rather for an amount that equated to a reasonable severance payment,” Mr. Conyers said in the statement.
Debra Katz, a Washington lawyer who often works on sexual harassment cases, however, said the “outrageously low” amount illustrated deep flaws in the process.
“Even with these very serious allegations, the victim of harassment received a very paltry settlement, which is typical of what happens when people even with the strongest claims come forward,” Ms. Katz said.
What if Ken Starr Was Right?
Kenneth Starr and the Republicans are still dismissed as partisan witch hunters. But liberals might be willing to concede that the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal morally, a clear abuse of sexual power, for which Clinton probably should have been pressured to resign.
.. I’ve always been a little mystified by the scale of Republican dislike for the most centrist of recent Democratic leaders.
.. After doing all this reading, I’m not sure my reasonable middle ground is actually reasonable. It may be that the conservatives of the 1990s were simply right about Clinton, that once he failed to resign he really deserved to be impeached.
.. Yes, the Republicans were too partisan, the Starr Report was too prurient and Clinton’s haters generated various absurd conspiracy theories.
But the Clinton operation was also extraordinarily sordid, in ways that should be thrown into particular relief by the absence of similar scandals in the Obama administration, which had perfervid enemies and circling investigators as well.
.. Something like Troopergate .. seems like it was probably mostly true.
.. If exploiting a willing intern is a serious enough abuse of power to warrant resignation, why is obstructing justice in a sexual harassment case not serious enough to warrant impeachment? Especially when the behavior is part of a longstanding pattern that also may extend to rape?
.. Would any feminist today hesitate to take a similar opportunity to remove a predatory studio head or C.E.O.?
.. There is a common liberal argument that our present polarization is the result of constant partisan escalations on the right — the rise of Newt Gingrich, the steady Hannitization of right-wing media.
.. But returning to the impeachment imbroglio made me think that in that case the most important escalators were the Democrats. They had an opportunity, with Al Gore waiting in the wings, to show a predator the door
What Donna Brazile’s New Book Really Reveals
The former DNC chair’s sometimes-confused book illuminates the fundamental difference in approach between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns.
.. Brazile seems to have harbored unrealistic expectations about the DNC’s independence. By the time Brazile was named interim chair in July 2016, Clinton was already the de facto nominee, days away from formal nomination. It’s customary for the nominee to effectively control the party apparatus from that point, but Brazile repeatedly bridled at directives from Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn... Brazile: She is a boisterous, vivacious presence, and Clinton’s campaign was cool and clinical to a fault. Conflict between the two was practically inevitable. And while Brazile’s critique of the Clinton team as overly dispassionate is widely held now, her own instincts were also questionable, as in her demand that money be spent in major cities to drive up turnout due to a fear that Clinton would win the electoral vote but lose the popular vote... the differences between Clinton and Sanders neatly:one the unshakeable party woman, fiercely devoted to institutions and willing to bend the rules a little to get what she felt needed to be done done; the otheran outsider, with no strong attachment to the party but a fierce sense of principle and propriety... Clinton campaign officials have said the agreement was only about general-election details, and did not prejudice the primary. Mark Longabaugh, a top Sanders aide who was that campaign’s liaison to the DNC, dismissed the story for a different reason: “All Donna has done here is she’s put a little bit more detail on what we all knew,” he told me. “Hillary Clinton had a heavy hand at the DNC, if not outright control... What does seem to be unusual are the terms laid out in an addendum.. “If you go back and listen to his speeches, the core message of his campaign was he was battling a rigged economic system that was propped up by a corrupt campaign-finance system,”.. Sanders could have signed states up, but he didn’t do so, for the same practical and ideological reasons he didn’t like the JFA in the first place... the Clinton team should have used that occasion to oust Wasserman Schultz, rather than to demand control of parts of the DNC while leaving her in place... Many Democrats view her airing of dirty laundry now as similarly self-defeating
Will Virginia Teach Trump Fans a Lesson?
68% of voters under 45 voted Democratic, and Republicans lost nonwhite voters 80% to 20%.
.. Voters, more women than men, were literally walking in and saying ‘I’m here to vote against Trump.’ The name of the victim on the ballot didn’t matter.”
.. Trump in 2016 lost in the growing areas—suburban, diverse—and won big in the shrinking areas—rural, white,” the official observed. “The suburban educated women problem will grow in states that are getting bigger and more diverse. We have hitched our wagon to the shrinking team.”
.. “The female backlash about Trump is in part a response to the resurgence of male chest-thumping following Hillary’s demise and Trump’s victory. Trump has unleashed men to be more oblivious to real sexism at a time when women are feeling liberated by the demise of Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, etc. They can’t vote against Harvey or Bill, but they can vote against Trump and anyone remotely near him.”
.. Mr. Northam was “nonthreatening—a doctor, former military,” and “as long as Democrats sound moderate, they’ll do OK.”
.. Tuesday was also a verdict on Trump’s equivocations after Charlottesville: “Trump and Steve Bannon treated Charlottesville as a nonevent. Virginia voters thought otherwise.” The administration’s “marriage to the alt-right comes with a cost.”
.. Democrats are split between moderates and a rising progressive left, which has all the energy, enthusiasm and intellectual action. Mr. Trump united the Democrats in Virginia. That won’t last forever.
.. The threat for Democrats is that they’ll overplay their hand—that heady with their first big win since Barack Obama’s re-election, they’ll go crazy-left.
.. If they are clever they will see their strong space as anti-Trump, socially moderate and economically liberal.
.. Trump enthusiasts. They imagine the number and strength of his supporters as bigger than it is. They imagine his opponents as unappreciative sellouts: Trump has won and will continue to win, you just don’t get it. After Virginia, they must surely see trouble. Donald Trump has not built support in the middle, he’s alienated it.
.. The parties are each in an existential crisis. The Democrats, split between the Sanders/Warren progressive vision and the old Clinton vision, will fight more passionately among themselves as 2020 approaches. The Republicans are left knowing that day by day, Mr. Trump is crashing.