Ronan Farrow is famous for his role as Captain Obvious.
They haven’t been released. Bloomberg has offered to release three unidentified women if they contact the company and ask to be released. We have no way of knowing whether those three specific women have contacted the company, nor do we know whether any requested release was granted or denied. And rather more obviously, he has not offered to release any of the other dozens of women who entered into settlement agreements with him or his companies based on their allegations of sexual harassment. It seems fairly obvious to me that Bloomberg is, at the very least, continuing to cover up his company’s hostile work environment – for which he, as its CEO and owner, should rightly be held accountable while he’s asking the public to make him our next President of the United States.
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No, it’s a he-said/she-and-her-eyewitness-said. Having a credible witness to the incident means Mayor Mike is calling both of them liars. That’s a much harder position to sustain.
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We watch NewsHour - and except for its science section, it is balanced. Their in-depth economic reporting is good too.
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Is Biden good at “slick talking”? Is Bernie? Women just can’t win. You smile more. They say you smile too much. They say don’t condescend to people. You show empathy and explain your plans and talk to people like equals, and they say you’re not slick enough.
Nice catch that catch 22.
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It was just last month that the reporting of “Bernie told me a woman couldn’t win” came out. Warren confirmed the story and Bernie was angry enough to say after the Iowa debate - “I think you called me a liar on national TV.” Narrator - she did.
Last night her message was if you like Bernie’s policies, vote for me because Bernie doesn’t have a clue of how to get anything passed or implemented.
I like her, voted for her this morning and I’d be OK if she hit Bernie harder, but it feels more like a standard political strategy choice. Bloomberg is extremely vulnerable on the sexual harassment front while Bernie doesn’t appear to be as vulnerable for a variety of reasons. She goes after Bernie for something else where there is a contrast.
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Named. Eye witness.
None of Bloomberg’s anonymous crap.
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I get that. I’m not sure I agree, but I get it. I mean, my mom’s a Baby Boomer. I’m GenX, so it’s kind of impossible she wouldn’t be. But she doesn’t still live in the world of 1960s Long Island, where she worked on aircraft at Fairchild-Republic, or built chemical lasers at Quantronix. She’s adapted and stayed current, and I’d never use that kind of response with her, even flippantly. You’re right, it’s divisive and age-ist. But so is Chris Matthews.
I kinda feel like the ‘ok boomer’ is appropriate for him because of his particular flavor of asshole. He’s mired in the past, in the ‘that window in time is how things should always be and I will scold you for not being mired in my particular epoch’ mindset. Or rather, he’s not mired in it. Mired in it would imply that he just can’t get himself out. He wraps himself in it. He grabs onto it and pulls it tighter every year, and every year he gets more and more shrill about how the bravado must be embraced, the illusion of the macho leader must be fellated… and if you don’t, you’re not just wrong, you’re bad. You’re dangerous.
He hasn’t just become the geezer, he’s there to belittle you if you don’t whole-heartedly pledge allegiance to geezerdom.
If you go on his show, and you’re a white man over the age of 30? Softballs and admiration, no matter what you say, as long as you project confidence. If you’re a younger white guy, there’s this kind of indulgent ‘you’ll learn better’ attitude. People of color, meanwhile, get condescended to, and women get it even worse. And if you’re a woman of color under 50? Well, you aren’t on Hardball.
I don’t know if you saw his interview w/Nina Turner of the Sanders campaign during the Nevada caucuses, but he was… god, it was cringe. And I can’t stand Nina Turner. I feel like during the 2016 cycle, she was 1 step short of being Susan Sarandon and ‘fuck it, vote Trump so shit gets so bad it forces people to react’. But holy shit, if that man lectured me like he was lecturing her, I would have punched him in the mouth on live TV.
His criticism of Warren on this particular issue isn’t because he’s shocked at the idea that Bloomberg, a plutocrat politician, might be lying. Of course he lies, he’s a politician! What’s got Matthews outraged is someone saying it, especially doing it in such an open, public forum. It offends his sense of propriety, where such things just aren’t said, and they’re especially not said by a couple of women about a wealthy and influential man.
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I disagree. By not fighting the guy who is in her lane, she almost guarantees that she will not make the 15% threshold in most of the next 17 contests.
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Yep. If this wasn’t so, Harris might still be in the race and I’d have someone I wanted to vote for.
sigh
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And Chris Matthews continued insights make me think of this.
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It’s interesting you call this a pejorative and suggest it may alienate people.
On these boards, and in this very thread, are several people saying that sexual harassment is no big and we need to let it go.
I just want to point out who we care about alienating, and who we expect to suck it up and deal with it.
There are more women in America than boomers. And “ok boomer” is a meme joke. So I want to point out the difference in the severity of these offenses. How careful we are with some people’s feelings, while for others the offense has to be pretty darn serious before anyone takes it seriously.
I’m not calling you out or anything. You have supported the victim. I just wanted to point out to the board that some people here have some ingrained biases.
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You nailed it, and I say that as a late period Boomer.
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Bernie “surrogate.”
Ha.
Do you hear yourself? Do you have no ability to see how belittling this sounds to women?
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It’s hypocritical for Warren to go after Bloomberg while she hugs Bernie with ‘he’s my friend’ when the dude has a long history of misogyny: from creepy rape fantasy essays, to a culture of misogyny among his bros, to telling Warren that a woman couldn’t be POTUS. If you want to know why Warren’s attacks on Bloomberg don’t work for her, it’s because of this. She’s not a fighter…except for Bernie.
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Hm. Right. I’m no Bernie fan, but you really think his offenses are equivalent to Bloomberg? Really?
The truth is you’re being disingenuous. I don’t believe for a second that you care deeply about Bernie’s misogyny based on your commenting history. You want her to attack Bernie, because none of the “moderates” are effective. And you need her to come save your preferred candidates.
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She’s a politician, vying for a political job. She’s allowed to do politics. Bernie’s people have come after her and it’s hurt her. Yeah, she’s probably assessed that going after him hard will hurt her chances.
It’s awful tho. She should read the room. Every single other candidate only says things that are totally pure and authentic, and singularly focused on what is best for America, rather than their own standing in the race.
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This is probably the best explanation for her methods:
When you get down to it, there’s really no point in hitting Bernie considering how much their platforms overlap. She doesn’t attack him because she believes in the same things he does. Not everything is motivated by the drive to win. Heck, she gave the biggest truth bomb last night by saying the reason she and Bernie got so far was because their platforms are popular.
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It’s ridiculous, of course.
Do you know of any women in politics who are (allowed to be) just themselves?
I’ve known a few over the years – not that I always agreed with them.
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