#metoo

The Andrew Cuomo groping scandal has finally claimed some scalps. Just not, at the time of writing, Andrew Cuomo’s. Instead, it is #MeToo’s enforcers who are being struck down. On Monday, Roberta Kaplan, chairwoman of Time’s Up and founder of the group’s legal defense fund, submitted her resignation. Kaplan had worked closely with Cuomo’s staff during the investigation, and reviewed a draft op-ed that was intended to disparage the character of Cuomo’s first accuser Lindsey Boylan. On Monday, she was denounced in an online open letter (as people are these days), and her painful public penance came mere hours later. Kaplan’s client, senior Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa, resigned as well.

Most people told me it would never happen. And so I prepared myself that after almost a year and a half of shouting for answers and accountability from New York’s 56th governor, I would probably never see the day Andrew Mark Cuomo would step down, or be forced to leave office. But, now, it is finally happening. The headlines speak of Andrew Cuomo’s career coming to an end. On Tuesday, Attorney General Letitia James’s office released the results of an extensive investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The results were devastating and disgusting.

What would you be prepared to do in pursuit of political power? Two women are accusing senior members of the College Republican national leadership of asking them to fabricate sexual assault allegations against a male member to sink his candidacy for a leadership position with the organization. The College Republican National Committee (CRNC) is the 129-year-old organization for Republican college and university students. Its significant past members include President Calvin Coolidge, Karl Rove, Paul Ryan and Roger Stone. Courtney Britt, the recently-elected chair of the CRNC, ran against Clay Smith for south regional vice chair in 2019. At the time, Britt was serving as chair of the Virginia Federation while Clay ran the Arkansas Federation.

Chris Matthews, the former MSNBC host who was unceremoniously canceled a little over a year ago thanks to a GQ article accusing him of sexual harassment, made his return to cable television this week. During an appearance on his old network, Matthews asserted that he takes 'ownership' of his behavior: 'I took ownership of it — using a nice modern phase — I have took complete ownership. I did not deny it. I lost my show over it. That’s it — so that’s the truth.' Matthews's not-so-triumphant comeback follows in the footsteps of other once-canceled personalities like former NBC News contributor Mark Halperin, who has been appearing as a guest on Newsmax, and comedian Louis CK, who is selling out live shows around the country.

Andrew Cuomo is the most shamelessly transparent governor in America. And why shouldn’t he be? The man has never been subtle about who he is — and up until now, it has always worked for him. For the duration of his career in politics, the scion of former New York governor Mario Cuomo was the media’s darling. But times change faster than Dr Fauci’s views on mask wearing. Now Gov. Cuomo finds himself frequently described in the press as a man with ‘mushrooming scandals’. Going from ‘America’s Boyfriend’, as Marie Claire’s Michelle Collins dubbed him, to ‘America’s Delusional and Unstable Ex’ can’t be an easy transition. This has become abundantly clear from Cuomo’s unhinged press conferences.

Andrew Cuomo could murder thousands of senior citizens in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a single supporter. Earlier this week the New York governor got up in front of local TV cameras for the first time in several months since his non-apology apology to respond to more allegations of sexual harassment. (The national media has apparently checked out.) Instead of feigning regret or acting contrite, Cuomo did a complete 180, saying his accusers were ‘jealous’ and digging in by defiantly declaring ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ In one sense, it’s all been going wrong for Andrew. There was another damaging report from the New York Times that Cuomo’s top aides concealed more nursing home deaths than previously thought.

A woman called Jenny Jones, now elevated to Baroness Moonbeam, or something, in the House of Lords has proposed a 6 p.m. curfew for all men everywhere. This would prevent men from killing women on the streets. Mrs Moonbeam is a member of the Green party and presumably agrees with their manifesto which insists that men who identify as women are women and there’s an end to it. In which case all I would need to do is don a wig and take to the streets — and upon being apprehended by a policeman simply explain that my name was Loretta and I’d just popped out to do a spot of murdering, I mean shopping, officer. Technically speaking, I wouldn’t even need to bother with the wig. That’s one flaw in the mad woman’s argument, then.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is finally getting his comeuppance. Oddly, however, it’s not for killing thousands of nursing home residents. Instead, the press has decided that the real story is Cuomo being slightly creepy toward to young women. Cuomo's comments to two former aides are icky, no doubt. However, the media has also piled on with other spurious accusations that they insist are proof of a pattern of abusive behavior. In one, a young woman says Cuomo touched the small of her back at a wedding and then grabbed her face and asked if he could kiss her. She is visibly uncomfortable in a photo of the incident, but what attractive woman hasn't had a weird old dude make a poorly strategized advance at an event with alcohol?

Since the beginning of this month, the online political conversation has been abuzz over the incipient #MeTooing of yet another powerful man. It began when Lindsey Boylan, a millennial politician who recently launched a campaign for Manhattan borough president after failing to unseat Rep. Jerrold Nadler in November, began sending pointed tweets about her time as an employee in the New York governor’s office.‘Most toxic team environment?’ Boylan wrote, retweeting a prompt asking users to describe the worst job they’d ever had. ‘Working for @NYGovCuomo.

It’s no fun to see Bill Clinton in a virtual vacuum. He’s a people person, a glad-hander, a back-rubber, a donor-stroker, a bottom-fondler. But on Tuesday night, Clinton was a prisoner of Zoom. The big dawg had no legs to rub against.Clinton probably felt as bad about it as his audience. No extended ovation and whooping. No chance to mingle in the green room and offer a White House internship to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Not even an over-long embrace of Rosalynn Carter or a back massage from Jeffrey Epstein’s 22-year-old masseuse after an arduous journey on a private jet to Africa.Tuesday Night was Legacy Night at the Democratic convention, which is not in Milwaukee even though it claims it is.

The new lawsuit filed by two women against Fox News and several of its personalities is riddled with inaccuracies. This raises questions about the veracity of its claims. Jennifer Eckhart and Cathy Areu, a former Fox Business producer and frequent network guest, respectively, claim that they suffered sexual misconduct, harassment, and even rape at the hands of Ed Henry, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Howard Kurtz. The lawsuit immediately made waves in the mainstream media, where it was picked up by the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, CBS News, and other major outlets. It has been a top trending topic on Twitter since its filing. However, a review of several claims made in the suit reveals many basic inaccuracies.

It is a strange habit, the American one of making talk-show hosts into preachers. There is no good reason, after all, why a comedian should be any kind of arbiter of morality or anything much else. Yet in America the court of public opinion accepts the right of the jester to preach the homily too. So it was that, in a period not short on ‘personal takes’ and celebrity messaging, one night in early June on his Late Late Show, James Corden delivered a teary monologue about race relations in America. Lots of people thought he did well, and praised Corden’s talk of ‘white guilt’ and all manner of other sins. But one phrase stood out for being especially bogus. It was a phrase that was widely quoted.