Patterico's Pontifications

6/19/2015

Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. Saw Sexual Harassment Complaints Soar

Filed under: General — Dana @ 12:36 pm



[guest post by Dana]

As we all know, Hillary Clinton is the recognized patron saint of women. Her current campaign strategy, for all intents and purposes, is one of identity politics as she unabashedly uses her gender to the fullest extent in her run for the presidency. Her speeches on the campaign trail reflect this tactic. As such, Hillary is working hard to convince voters that because *no other candidate cares about women’s issues like she does, no other candidate could possibly make women’s issues a priority like she would if she were elected president.

Further, she has even gone so far in this campaign to ask that voters judge her on her merits… while at the same time making it clear that those “merits” include being a woman.

This makes it all the more ironic that under the watch of the Patron Saint of Women (along with John Kerry), the State Dept. saw a dramatic uptick in complaints of sexual harrassment:

Harassment complaints nearly tripled at the State Department under the watch of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, according to a State Department watchdog report released Thursday.

The Washington Times reports that harassment complaints hit 88 formal claims during Clinton’s third year at State in 2011. This number jumped to 248 formal claims just three years later in 2014 with Kerry serving as secretary. Hundreds more informal harassment complaints were also filed during this time.

Last year, more than one-third, or 38 percent of complaints filed by employees, dealt with sex discrimination or reprisals. An additional 43 percent of complaints were made up of alleged harassment dealing with unfair hiring or promotions.

Despite the spike in harassment claims at the State Department, there is no mandatory training program in place dealing with the issue.

At some point, one might be inclined to actually wonder if Hillary, Patron Saint of Women, has really been the great supporter and champion of women she claims…

*Note: Fiorina refuses to play identity politics and run as a “woman”, therefore I did not mention her in this post.

–Dana

Like Rachel Dolezal, Brian Williams Addresses The Complexity Of His Own, Uh, *Truth*

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:29 am



[guest post by Dana]

In light of the announcement this week by NBC that Brian Williams will not be returning to “NBC Nightly News”, but will instead be relegated reassigned to the “network’s little-watched cable channel, and will serve in a vaguely defined role as a breaking-news anchor,” Williams is making the talk show rounds in a quasi-apology tour.

Following a recent appearance by that other pillar of integrity, Rachel Dolezal, Williams appeared on the Today Show yesterday and was interviewed by Matt Lauer:

In his first public comments since being suspended by NBC in February, Williams told co-host Matt Lauer that “what has happened in the past has been identified and torn apart by me and has been examined to death by me. I’m responsible for this and I’m sorry.”

But under prodding by Lauer, Williams would not admit that his serial exaggerations constituted lying. Instead, he said, it was “my ego getting the better of me” and “came from a bad place inside me” when he told stories about himself that were “wrong.”

Further:

In the “Today” interview, Williams came closest to conceding he lied when he told Lauer, “I said things that were not true.” He blamed “a sloppy choice of words” and said some events “got turned around” in his mind.

He added, “I got it wrong. I own this and I own up to this.”

The Washington Post described “a visibly sweating Williams” as saying his story should be described as: “A chastened and grateful man, mindful of his blessings [and] mindful of his mistakes, returns, hoping for forgiveness and acceptance.”

No comment from MSNBC’s on-air talent about Williams becoming a part of the line-up and what that says about MSNBC, given that he is no longer worthy of the high standards of NBC Nightly News – where integrity matters.

Williams wants everyone to be reassured about his seriousness:

“What has happened in the past has been identified and torn apart by me and has been fixed, has been dealt with. And going forward, there are going to be different rules of the road,” he said. “I get this. I’m responsible for this. I am sorry for what happened here. I am different as a result, and I expect to be held to a different standard.”

–Dana


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