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Misslizard
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07 Dec 2017, 7:48 pm

Lintar wrote:
Darmok wrote:
Democrat women and leftists have been covering for these men for decades. Which shows it has nothing to do with women's rights or justice, and everything to do with maintaining their own political power (at the expense of as many expendable women as may be necessary).

Anybody who thinks these people actually care about women's rights is a gullible fool.


Exactly! :salut:

If these people really, really care about women's rights, then they should actually raise issues that for some weird reason they never do. You know, like the way in which women and girls are treated as cattle in Saudi Arabia. Or how about the disturbing rise in rape cases in those parts of Western Europe (ex. Germany, Sweden) that is directly attributable to those nations willingness to accept "refugees" from parts of Africa and the Middle East? What about F.G.M. and "honour killings"? Why the deafening silence regarding the issues that actually matter?

They've called it the "Me Too" movement. Well, that says it all. Time's "person of the year" apparently. It's utterly ridiculous.

So being the victim of a pervert and speaking about it is ridiculous?
Most likely coming from someone who has never been touched or spoken to inappropriately.Its not just women who are breaking the silence.Men are also victims but rarely report it.
I've heard of the issues you mentioned.
And sure,some people lie about being a victim,a minority of people.


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Lintar
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07 Dec 2017, 8:26 pm

Misslizard wrote:
So being the victim of a pervert and speaking about it is ridiculous?


No, but making these accusations public because the person being accused happens to be famous, most certainly is. Also, expecting others to believe you simply because you say it happened, is even worse.

Misslizard wrote:
Most likely coming from someone who has never been touched or spoken to inappropriately.Its not just women who are breaking the silence.Men are also victims but rarely report it.
I've heard of the issues you mentioned.
And sure,some people lie about being a victim,a minority of people.


First you make the assumption that I have "most likely never been touched or spoken to inappropriately" (whatever that means, and it's completely irrelevant to the claims I made anyway), but then you claim that "men are also victims, but rarely report". How do you know that I am not one of these "men who rarely report"?

In any case, whether or not I myself have had to put up with something like this is utterly irrelevant. It's beside the point, the point being that the presumption of innocence seems to have been cast aside entirely, and virtually everyone is taking the presumed victims claims at face value. Why are they doing this? Why are lives being ruined even before the accused have had their day in court?



Misslizard
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07 Dec 2017, 8:43 pm

Lintar wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
So being the victim of a pervert and speaking about it is ridiculous?


No, but making these accusations public because the person being accused happens to be famous, most certainly is. Also, expecting others to believe you simply because you say it happened, is even worse.

Misslizard wrote:
Most likely coming from someone who has never been touched or spoken to inappropriately.Its not just women who are breaking the silence.Men are also victims but rarely report it.
I've heard of the issues you mentioned.
And sure,some people lie about being a victim,a minority of people.


First you make the assumption that I have "most likely never been touched or spoken to inappropriately" (whatever that means, and it's completely irrelevant to the claims I made anyway), but then you claim that "men are also victims, but rarely report". How do you know that I am not one of these "men who rarely report"?

In any case, whether or not I myself have had to put up with something like this is utterly irrelevant. It's beside the point, the point being that the presumption of innocence seems to have been cast aside entirely, and virtually everyone is taking the presumed victims claims at face value. Why are they doing this? Why are lives being ruined even before the accused have had their day in court?

I would think you would have more compassion if you were a victim of a pawing creep.Yes it is relevant.Saying it's ridiculous is mocking,and dissuades victims from coming forward.Its why many victims don't,some doubt they will be believed.
I mentioned that some could be lying.Its also just as likely the perp is lying.
It seems reasonable when you have several people who don't know each other telling the same story about the accused.Plus some of the mashers have admitted to it.
If I told someone what happend ,I would expect to be believed,(unless I was a compulsive liar)how is that worse?Famous people behave just as badly as the rest of the human race,but they think they get a pass.
People in power have always abused people beneath them.Sad truth of human history.


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07 Dec 2017, 10:53 pm

Here we go again: Powerful, aggressive men trying to force women to comply with their will

Worried about sexual harassment? Don't force nuns to buy other people's birth control

Mansplain it.

That is what Xavier Becerra and Josh Shapiro, attorneys general for California and Pennsylvania will do until they are blue in the face when they drag the Little Sisters of the Poor back into court and wax on about why the beliefs of these women are invalid.

In what these men no doubt fancied some sort of bold move that would rev up a sagging base, Becerra and Shapiro filed lawsuits in their states (with other male attorneys general from the states of New York, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware signing on) to take away the conscience protections granted to the Sisters by the department of Health and Human Services.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 922863001/


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08 Dec 2017, 2:54 am

Arizona GOP Rep. Trent Franks to resign following sexual harassment claim

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Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks announced in a statement Thursday night he will resign from Congress at the end of January, after the House Ethics Committee said it would investigate allegations against him of sexual harassment.

The House Ethics Committee announced earlier Thursday that it will investigate Franks to determine if he engaged in "conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment."
In his statement, Franks acknowledged he made staffers "uncomfortable" and that he discussed fertility issues and surrogacy with two female staffers, but denied having ever "physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff."

"But in the midst of this current cultural and media climate, I am deeply convinced I would be unable to complete a fair House Ethics investigation before distorted and sensationalized versions of this story would put me, my family, my staff, and my noble colleagues in the House of Representatives through hyperbolized public excoriation," Franks said in his statement. "Rather than allow a sensationalized trial by media damage those things I love most, this morning I notified House leadership that I will be leaving Congress as of January 31st, 2018."

House Speaker Paul Ryan's office released a statement saying that Ryan was briefed on "credible claims of misconduct" last week and that Franks did not deny the allegations when he was confronted with them. The Wisconsin Republican said he accepted the letter of resignation Thursday.

On Thursday evening, a group of conservative House Republicans gathered around Franks on the floor and prayed with him.


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08 Dec 2017, 4:55 pm

Archdiocese Of New York Pays $40 Million To Sexual Abuse Victims

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In a press release posted on the archdiocese’s website Thursday, media liaisons Joseph Zwilling and Mercedes Lopez Blanco said the payments were made to 189 abuse survivors.

The payments mark the end of a reconciliation program to evaluate claims by alleged abuse victims. In 2016, the New York Catholic Church launched its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program to assess abuse claims by more than 200 people who said they’d been victimized by members of the archdiocese’s clergy.

The cases involved roughly 40 priests, The New York Times reported last year. Zwilling told HuffPost the archdiocese will not be releasing the names of the clergy members involved in the claims.

New York has one of the strictest statutes of limitations for child molestation victims in the country. And the New York archdiocese has lobbied against a bill, called the Child Victims Act, that would make it easier for victims of long-past abuse to come forward.

Some victims’ rights advocates criticized the church’s reconciliation program, claiming the archdiocese was establishing it to avoid litigation and appease victims. Anne Barrett Doyle, who co-directs a watchdog group that documents Catholic Church abuse cases, called the program “a shrewd strategy” on the part of the archdiocese.

Like many of the nation’s dioceses, the New York Catholic Church has grappled with the clergy sexual abuse crisis for over a decade, though many of the cases date back much longer than that. In some instances, priests who were accused of abusing children in the 1970s and ’80s continued working in the archdiocese well into the 2000s.


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09 Dec 2017, 2:25 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Arizona GOP Rep. Trent Franks to resign following sexual harassment claim
Quote:
Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks announced in a statement Thursday night he will resign from Congress at the end of January, after the House Ethics Committee said it would investigate allegations against him of sexual harassment.

The House Ethics Committee announced earlier Thursday that it will investigate Franks to determine if he engaged in "conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment."
In his statement, Franks acknowledged he made staffers "uncomfortable" and that he discussed fertility issues and surrogacy with two female staffers, but denied having ever "physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff."

"But in the midst of this current cultural and media climate, I am deeply convinced I would be unable to complete a fair House Ethics investigation before distorted and sensationalized versions of this story would put me, my family, my staff, and my noble colleagues in the House of Representatives through hyperbolized public excoriation," Franks said in his statement. "Rather than allow a sensationalized trial by media damage those things I love most, this morning I notified House leadership that I will be leaving Congress as of January 31st, 2018."

House Speaker Paul Ryan's office released a statement saying that Ryan was briefed on "credible claims of misconduct" last week and that Franks did not deny the allegations when he was confronted with them. The Wisconsin Republican said he accepted the letter of resignation Thursday.

On Thursday evening, a group of conservative House Republicans gathered around Franks on the floor and prayed with him.

Freedom Caucus congressman resigns immediately amid reports that he offered a staffer $5 million to bear his child
Quote:
Politico's report says Franks announced his resignation hours after the publication reached out for comment about an allegation that he retaliated against a staffer who rebuffed his advances.

"Last night, my wife was admitted to the hospital in Washington, D.C., due to an ongoing ailment," Franks said in a statement. "After discussing options with my family, we came to the conclusion that the best thing for our family now would be for me to tender my previous resignation effective today, December 8th, 2017."

Franks said in an earlier statement that his wife had "long struggled with infertility" and had three miscarriages.

Politico's report on Friday described a former staffer as saying Franks had tried to convince a female aide that they were in love by having her read an article that discussed how to identify the emotion. And one woman told Republican leaders that after she rebuffed Franks' advances her access to him was revoked, the report said.

Franks has denied those the allegations, Politico said.


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09 Dec 2017, 6:35 pm

Misslizard wrote:
I would think you would have more compassion if you were a victim of a pawing creep.Yes it is relevant.Saying it's ridiculous is mocking,and dissuades victims from coming forward.Its why many victims don't,some doubt they will be believed.
I mentioned that some could be lying.Its also just as likely the perp is lying.
It seems reasonable when you have several people who don't know each other telling the same story about the accused.Plus some of the mashers have admitted to it.
If I told someone what happend ,I would expect to be believed,(unless I was a compulsive liar)how is that worse?Famous people behave just as badly as the rest of the human race,but they think they get a pass.
People in power have always abused people beneath them.Sad truth of human history.


This is a purely emotional response, you do not even hint at the reason why I responded to this story in the manner I did. Yes, the "creep" (as you refer to the accused) could be lying, but of course there is only one way to determine this, isn't there. You are right that some have actually confessed, but for those who are denying the charges (like Geoffrey Rush) the presumption of innocence must stand! Where is the impartiality in your response that "aspies" are reputedly renowned for? Missing in action it seems.



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09 Dec 2017, 7:12 pm

Lintar wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
I would think you would have more compassion if you were a victim of a pawing creep.Yes it is relevant.Saying it's ridiculous is mocking,and dissuades victims from coming forward.Its why many victims don't,some doubt they will be believed.
I mentioned that some could be lying.Its also just as likely the perp is lying.
It seems reasonable when you have several people who don't know each other telling the same story about the accused.Plus some of the mashers have admitted to it.
If I told someone what happend ,I would expect to be believed,(unless I was a compulsive liar)how is that worse?Famous people behave just as badly as the rest of the human race,but they think they get a pass.
People in power have always abused people beneath them.Sad truth of human history.


This is a purely emotional response, you do not even hint at the reason why I responded to this story in the manner I did. Yes, the "creep" (as you refer to the accused) could be lying, but of course there is only one way to determine this, isn't there. You are right that some have actually confessed, but for those who are denying the charges (like Geoffrey Rush) the presumption of innocence must stand! Where is the impartiality in your response that "aspies" are reputedly renowned for? Missing in action it seems.

You also missed the part where I agreed that some could be lying about being groped.
Stating that people in power have always exploited those beneath them is not an emotional response,it's the truth.
Sure presume they are innocent,a few may very well be.If so the facts will come out.I never said they were all guilty.
There should be a swift response to people who lie about these events to benefit themselves,their 15 seconds of fame or whatever.It makes it harder for those who truly are victims to be taken seriously.
People have been silent about this for to long,allowing predators to think that they won't be held accountable.
So I think it's a great thing people are speaking out and this behavior won't be swept under the rug.
As for aspies and emotions,we do have them on occasion you know.
What I wonder,is why you think it's ridiculous for victims to speak out?It was brave of them.They deserve to be on the cover of Time.


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09 Dec 2017, 7:44 pm

Misslizard wrote:
You also missed the part where I agreed that some could be lying about being groped.


Okay, acknowledged.

Misslizard wrote:
Stating that people in power have always exploited those beneath them is not an emotional response,it's the truth.


Yes, it's true, but just because others in the past have done this does not therefore mean that those who have now been accused have as well. Maybe they have, maybe they have not. We just do not know at this early point in time (apart from those who have readily confessed).

Misslizard wrote:
Sure presume they are innocent,a few may very well be.If so the facts will come out.I never said they were all guilty.


Good!

Misslizard wrote:
There should be a swift response to people who lie about these events to benefit themselves,their 15 seconds of fame or whatever.It makes it harder for those who truly are victims to be taken seriously.


Yes, but it does occur, more often than many people realise.

Misslizard wrote:
People have been silent about this for to long,allowing predators to think that they won't be held accountable. So I think it's a great thing people are speaking out and this behavior won't be swept under the rug.


Things like this shouldn't be swept under the rug. We at least agree on that.

Misslizard wrote:
As for aspies and emotions,we do have them on occasion you know.


I said your argument was emotional, but that you yourself were not being impartial. The point I made there was that we tend to be better at judging things objectively.

Misslizard wrote:
What I wonder,is why you think it's ridiculous for victims to speak out?It was brave of them.They deserve to be on the cover of Time.


I didn't make this claim. I said it was ridiculous for them to head straight for press when the person involved happened to be famous, and I said that expecting others to believe you simply because you made the claim that something happened was even worse. As for Time magazine... well, for years now I've had an extremely low opinion of this propaganda rag, and now that opinion has just dropped through the floor. It is utter garbage. It's a Leftist, neo-con, pro-Israeli, P.N.A.C.-funded, agenda-driven piling steam of s!@#.



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09 Dec 2017, 9:05 pm

Garrison Keillor gets the Robert E. Lee treatment:

Opinion: Erasing Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion is a ‘1984’-like excess

Garrison Keillor has been disappeared into the Memory Hole. If you look for his biography or the archived shows from a half century of “A Prairie Home Companion” on the website of Minnesota Public Radio since his fall from grace, you’ll now find only this: “Sorry, but there’s no page here.”

Keillor and his entire body of work from “A Prairie Home Companion” and “Writer’s Almanac” have been effectively erased from the archives of MPR, along with the work of all the other storytellers, singers, poets and production staff who made the shows successful.

In these tumultuous days of unceasing revelations of sexual scandals in media, politics and business, media enterprises especially face a new ethical challenge with their fallen stars: What do you do with history and art?


http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/04/o ... ke-excess/


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09 Dec 2017, 9:24 pm

Darmok wrote:
In these tumultuous days of unceasing revelations of sexual scandals in media, politics and business, media enterprises especially face a new ethical challenge with their fallen stars: What do you do with history and art?[/i]

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/04/o ... ke-excess/

I thought you might find this funny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfONDxS_o00



Misslizard
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10 Dec 2017, 10:04 am

Lintar wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
You also missed the part where I agreed that some could be lying about being groped.


Okay, acknowledged.

Misslizard wrote:
Stating that people in power have always exploited those beneath them is not an emotional response,it's the truth.


Yes, it's true, but just because others in the past have done this does not therefore mean that those who have now been accused have as well. Maybe they have, maybe they have not. We just do not know at this early point in time (apart from those who have readily confessed).

Misslizard wrote:
Sure presume they are innocent,a few may very well be.If so the facts will come out.I never said they were all guilty.


Good!

Misslizard wrote:
There should be a swift response to people who lie about these events to benefit themselves,their 15 seconds of fame or whatever.It makes it harder for those who truly are victims to be taken seriously.


Yes, but it does occur, more often than many people realise.

Misslizard wrote:
People have been silent about this for to long,allowing predators to think that they won't be held accountable. So I think it's a great thing people are speaking out and this behavior won't be swept under the rug.


Things like this shouldn't be swept under the rug. We at least agree on that.

Misslizard wrote:
As for aspies and emotions,we do have them on occasion you know.


I said your argument was emotional, but that you yourself were not being impartial. The point I made there was that we tend to be better at judging things objectively.

Misslizard wrote:
What I wonder,is why you think it's ridiculous for victims to speak out?It was brave of them.They deserve to be on the cover of Time.


I didn't make this claim. I said it was ridiculous for them to head straight for press when the person involved happened to be famous, and I said that expecting others to believe you simply because you made the claim that something happened was even worse. As for Time magazine... well, for years now I've had an extremely low opinion of this propaganda rag, and now that opinion has just dropped through the floor. It is utter garbage. It's a Leftist, neo-con, pro-Israeli, P.N.A.C.-funded, agenda-driven piling steam of s!@#.

I don't subscribe to Time,so I won't defend their contents.
True that famous people behaving badly sells more copies.No body wants to read about Joe Blow the manager at the corner grocery store pinching the bag boys butt.Even though it's a big problem for the bag boy who may need the job desperately and can't afford to quit.
It's hard for me to be impartial,so much of what's going on is so disgusting.From the child sex trade to workplace sexual harassment.Plus my own life experiences make me cynical.
I would hope that the cover would encourage people to start speaking out,it's the only way to get change.


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12 Dec 2017, 5:41 pm

Mario Batali steps away from business, TV show amid sexual misconduct allegations

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Celebrity chef Mario Batali is stepping away from his restaurant business and ABC television show amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

Batali said in a statement to CNNMoney that he is "deeply sorry" for any pain or humiliation he has caused.

"I apologize to the people I have mistreated and hurt," Batali said. "That behavior was wrong and there are no excuses. I take full responsibility and am deeply sorry for any pain, humiliation or discomfort I have caused to my peers, employees, customers, friends and family."

That statement was first made public early Monday in an investigation on Eater, the restaurant news website. Eater's report included four accounts of women who claimed that Batali "touched them inappropriately in a pattern of behavior that appears to span at least two decades."

The women, some of whom worked for Batali, claimed he had groped them, according to Eater. The story did not name them.


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14 Dec 2017, 10:43 am

Suspended PBS host Tavis Smiley plans

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Talk show host Tavis Smiley pushed back against allegations of sexual misconduct after PBS suspended the distribution of his namesake show on Wednesday, citing "multiple, credible allegations of conduct" that it said were inconsistent with its values.

“I have the utmost respect for women and celebrate the courage of those who have come forth to tell their truth,” Smiley said in a statement released on Facebook after the suspension was announced. “To be clear, I have never groped, coerced or exposed myself inappropriately to any workplace colleague in my entire broadcast career, covering six networks over 30 years.

“This has gone too far. And I, for one, intend to fight back,” he added.

Smiley, named one of TIME's 100 “Most Influential People in the World” in 2009, said he was "shocked" by the suspension and accused the network of "trampling" his reputation.

“If having a consensual relationship with a colleague years ago is the stuff that leads to this kind of public humiliation and personal destruction, heaven help us,” he said.

“The PBS investigators refused to review any of my personal documentation, refused to provide me the names of any accusers, refused to speak to my current staff, and refused to provide me any semblance of due process to defend myself against allegations from unknown sources,” he added. “Their mind was made up.”

Smiley said he first heard about PBS’s investigation from staffers who said they were contacted as a part of the public broadcaster’s probe, which he referred to as “biased and sloppy.”

Citing unnamed sources, Variety said investigators took reports from 10 witnesses as part of the probe. It described the witnessess as a “mix of men and women of different races and employment levels in Smiley’s organization, most of them former staffers.”

"PBS engaged an outside law firm to conduct an investigation immediately after learning of troubling allegations regarding Mr. Smiley,” a PBS spokesperson said. “This investigation included interviews with witnesses as well as with Mr. Smiley.

“The inquiry uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS, and the totality of this information led to today’s decision,” the statement added.


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15 Dec 2017, 4:58 pm

A lawmaker accused of molesting a teen killed himself. His widow calls it a ‘high-tech lynching.’

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Dan Johnson posted a final message to his friends and family Wednesday afternoon on Facebook. It appeared to be a goodbye.

In it, Johnson denied the accusations that had tormented him and his family for the past 48 hours — that he, a Kentucky state representative and the self-proclaimed “Pope” of his Louisville church, had gotten drunk and molested a 17-year-old girl during a sleepover years ago.

“GOD knows the truth, nothing is the way they make it out to be,” Johnson wrote in the since-deleted post. “I cannot handle it any longer . . . BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.”

Dan Johnson speaks at Louisville’s Heart of Fire Church on Tuesday. (Timothy D. Easley/AP)

The Republican lawmaker then drove to a graffiti-covered bridge outside Mount Washington, Ky., a quiet and isolated spot called the River Bottoms. He parked, stepped out of his car and shot himself with a .40-caliber handgun, according to Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell.

His wife, Rebecca, announced Thursday that she plans to replace him in the state legislature. She spent the day at a funeral home arranging her husband’s service, consoling her relatives and continuing to fight for her family, said David Adams, a family friend and spokesman.

“Dan is gone but the story of his life is far from over,” Rebecca Johnson said through Adams. “These high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths can’t be allowed to win the day. I’ve been fighting behind my husband for 30 years and his fight will go on.”

Another Kentucky Republican, state Rep. C. Wesley Morgan, lashed out at the media and his own party. “Republicans,” he wrote on Twitter, “you turned your back on an ally and forced a good man who was trying to do right by the people of Kentucky to suicide.”

The tumult began Monday, when the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published allegations that Johnson sexually assaulted his daughter’s friend during a sleepover in 2013.

The young woman, now 21, was quoted as saying that for years she had considered Johnson to be a “second dad.” She became close with his daughter and familiar with the boozy weekend parties Johnson would throw at the “Pope’s House” — the fellowship hall next to the Heart of Fire Church. Those parties, the Center reported, featured scantily clad women, body shots and costumes.

In the first hours of 2013, as a New Year’s Eve party came to an end, the woman said, she was spending the night with Johnson’s daughter in the apartment under the fellowship hall, according to the report. The Washington Post generally does not identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.

The woman said Johnson entered the apartment, drunk and stumbling, so the then-teenager helped him navigate the stairs. She thought he was putting his arm around her for balance, until his hand allegedly slipped up the girl’s shirt, the Center reported.

Later that night, she awoke on a sofa as Johnson knelt above her. She told the Center that Johnson kissed her forehead and then slipped his hands up her shirt and into her pants. She begged him to stop and tried to force the man, who weighed twice as much as she did, off her without waking Johnson’s daughter.

“He told her she’d like it. She said no, she didn’t. She pleaded with him: go away, go away,” the report said. He eventually did.

“What you did was beyond mean; it was evil,” the woman said she wrote in a Facebook message to Johnson shortly after the alleged assault, according to the account.

State leaders from both parties called for Johnson’s immediate resignation after the Center’s story was published. Johnson refused, and said at a news conference at his church on Tuesday that “these are unfounded accusations, totally.”



Morgan Spurlock steps down from his production company after confessing sexual misdeeds in a blog post

Quote:
“Super Size Me” director Morgan Spurlock has stepped down from Warrior Poets, the New York-based production company he founded in 2004. The announcement came on Thursday, a day after he shared a confessional blog post admitting to his long history of sexual harassment.

Spurlock, who wrote that he “built a career on finding the truth,” shared the detailed account of his misconduct stretching back to his college days in a post that he tweeted on Wednesday night with the note, “I am Part of the Problem.”

"As I sit around watching hero after hero, man after man, fall at the realization of their past indiscretions, I don’t sit by and wonder ‘who will be next?’ ” he began. “I wonder, ‘when will they come for me?’ ”

In the blog post, he chronicled his multiple infidelities, verbal sexual harassment in the workplace, battle with depression and decades-long struggle with alcohol abuse.

“I can’t blindly act as though I didn’t somehow play a part in this,” Spurlock wrote about the sexual harassment epidemic in Hollywood. “Over my life, there have been many instances that parallel what we see every day in the news.”

To support this statement, he offered several examples of his sexual misconduct throughout the post, always punctuating the harrowing stories with a variation on the phrase “I am part of the problem.”

The first instance he divulged took place in college, when he had a one-night sexual encounter with a girl that he thought was consensual but she later referred to as “rape.”

After a night of drinking, the two went back to his room and “began fooling around,” but she pushed him off her. Still clothed, the two laid in bed for a while laughing and joking. Before long they were “fooling around” again, though this time they took off their clothes.

The girl, whom Spurlock didn’t name, said she didn’t want to have sex, but they eventually did anyway. During intercourse, the girl began crying. The two stopped having sex, and Spurlock tried comforting her.

“I thought I was doing ok, I believed she was feeling better. She believed she was raped,” Spurlock wrote, adding, “That’s why I’m part of the problem.”

Spurlock next recounted the behavior that led to him settling a sexual harassment allegation with a former female assistant.

He would often yell at her from across the office, using diminutive nicknames like “hot pants” and “sex pants,” which he thought were funny but later realized had “completely demeaned and belittled her to a place of non-existence.”

When his assistant quit, she told Spurlock that he had to pay her to remain silent about his consistent verbal sexual harassment, the director wrote.

“I paid for peace of mind. I paid for her silence and cooperation. Most of all, I paid so I could remain who I was,” Spurlock wrote.

Spurlock then wrote that he has “been unfaithful to every wife and girlfriend” he’s ever had, adding that his hatred of this behavior “didn’t make me stop.”

Musing on what spurred this pattern of infidelity, Spurlock wrote that he was sexually abused “as a boy and as a young man in my teens.” He told only his first wife about the abuse, “for fear of being seen as weak or less than a man.” He also wrote that he suffered from depression and has used alcohol to cope with the mental illness since he was 13 years old and that he hasn’t been “sober for more than a week in 30 years.”

Calling himself “someone who consistently hurts those closest to me,” he wrote that “I have helped create a world of disrespect through my own actions.”

The post received mixed reactions, because, as Andrea Mandell wrote in USA Today, “His motive remains unclear: Is Spurlock purely trying to take responsibility for his actions? Get ahead of new allegations? Preserve his reputation as a documentarian? Reassure investors, like those at CBS and A&E?”

One Twitter user said it is “brave to come forward.” Another thanked him for his “honestly and bravery.”

Many didn’t feel like he deserved any praise, however.

“Morgan Spurlock is not brave, he’s trying to get ahead of the story and give you a reason so when you hear about how garbage he is, you think of the reason,” comedian Peter Coffin wrote on Twitter.

One user called him “opportunistic.” Another said that despite his post, “he’s still bad and I want him to go away.”


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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman