John Oliver On Online Harassment

DeMaio Concedes

No recount. And that's that. (Except that Teabagistan will forever cite the sexual harassment scandals.)

Carl DeMaio: Race Was Exhausting, So What's A Few More Days Of Counting?

Scandal-plagued homocon US House candidate Carl DeMaio held a press conference this morning where he declined to declared victory on his 752-vote lead. As about 180,000 provisional, absentee, and mail-in ballots remain to be counted statewide, DeMaio said, "It’s been a really exhausting campaign, what’s a few more days?" Despite no winner having been declared, multiple right wing sites are crowing about DeMaio's win over "liberal hate groups." In the clip below, you can see Log Cabin Republicans head Gregory Angelo standing behind DeMaio.

Still No Winner In DeMaio/Peters Race

Via NBC San Diego:

Marked by attack ads, sexual harassment allegations and a campaign headquarters break-in scandal, one of the nation’s most contentious and closely watched races comes to an end as 52nd Congressional District residents cast their ballots for Democrat incumbent Congressman Scott Peters or Republican challenger Carl DeMaio. With 100 percent of local precincts reporting, DeMaio has a 752 vote lead over Peters, though the county registrar says about 180,000 mail and provisional ballots have yet to be counted.

DeMaio has not declared victory.

Tweet Of The Day

(Via Scott Wooledge)

Headline Of The Day

The scandals never stop for homocon US House candidate Carl DeMaio:

On Thursday, July 10, Harper said, he returned to DeMaio’s Miramar campaign office in the afternoon following a day of walking neighborhoods and knocking on doors for the campaign. He said there had been a news conference at the headquarters, so DeMaio and other staffers were still in the office. According to a campaign press release, DeMaio had a news conference at noon that day to "blast sweeping Medicare cuts."

Harper said he went to the restroom and didn't know anyone was in there. "I was at the urinal, and (DeMaio) came from the stall that was closest to the urinal and was kind of just standing there hovering," Harper said. "I turned around and realized that it was Carl. He had his pants up, but his fly was undone, and he had his hand grasping his genitals." Harper said DeMaio didn't say anything to him, and he didn't say anything to DeMaio. "I just walked out. I didn't say anything to him, I just left," Harper said.

As they've done too many times to count, the DeMaio camp is denying this latest "false smear."

#DeMaioTrainWreck

San Diego CityBeat is blowing up all of homocon Carl DeMaio's lies. It really IS a train wreck.

CNN On Carl DeMaio Scandal

Last night CNN ran an extensive look into the sexual harassment scandal that is rocking the US House campaign of San Diego homocon Carl DeMaio. Talking Points Memo recaps CNN's report:

Republican Congressional Candidate Carl DeMaio, running in California's 52nd Congressional District, allegedly once asked a campaign staffer to come into his office and when the staffer did DeMaio, whose back was turned, turned around and masturbated in front of the staffer. That's according to Todd Bosnich, a former staffer for the DeMaio campaign, who detailed the allegations of alleged sexual harassment against the Republican candidate, which included making inappropriate advances, massaging and kissing his neck, and groping, in an interview with CNN that aired Friday afternoon. "I saw his hand —— his penis in his hand," Bosnich said when describing the incident. "He had a smile on his face. And as soon as I came over, he was looking at me." "So there was no mistaking what was happening?" CNN's Chris Frates asked. "There was no mistaking whatsoever," Bosnich said. DeMaio and the candidate's campaign has strongly denied Bosnich's accusations.

Watch the full report below.

Homocon Carl DeMaio Hit With Allegations Of Sexual Harassment And Bribery

The US House campaign of San Diego homocon Carl DeMaio was rocked yesterday after a former staffer accused him of sexual harassment and bribery. Via Politico:

At a news conference at his campaign headquarters, DeMaio called the allegations “absolutely untrue” and a “complete lie.” He added that authorities had questioned him and his campaign staff about the harassment claims, concluded they were unfounded and closed the case. DeMaio, 40, said the accuser concocted the story after he was identified as a “prime suspect” in a break-in at DeMaio’s campaign office last spring. “All the evidence that was collected by the police department clearly indicated this individual was the prime suspect, and, it’s unfortunate, but we will continue to allow the district attorney to proceed with her case and weighing the case to prosecute for the break-in of our office,” said DeMaio, a former San Diego city councilman trying to unseat Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) in one of the nation’s most competitive House races.

The former staffer, Todd Bosnich, denies breaking in to DeMaio's office and repeated his charges to Politico.

Bosnich, who worked as policy director on DeMaio’s congressional campaign, also said that on June 2, he taped a 27-minute interview with a conservative San Diego radio station in which he described in explicit detail how, over the course of more than six months of employment, DeMaio became increasingly aggressive in his sexual behavior toward him. The interview, which was conducted with host Mike Slater and obtained by POLITICO, never aired. When Bosnich complained about DeMaio’s alleged behavior to the candidate’s campaign manager, the response was that he shouldn’t have told DeMaio he was gay, Bosnich alleged in the radio interview. Bosnich, who was 28 at the time of the radio interview, said he approached DeMaio on May 18 and told him he needed to quit the race or stop his behavior. The next day, Bosnich said, the campaign manager called him into his office and told him that DeMaio had lost his trust in him. He also said he was offered him $50,000 to sign a nondisclosure agreement. He said he rejected the offer.

A spokesman for DeMaio claims that Bosnich was fired in May for plagiarizing. A report issued by DeMaio's office at that time was found to have been almost entirely copied from the National Journal. The San Diego District Attorney's office has declined to comment about their investigation into the break-in at DeMaio's office. A poll released on Tuesday shows DeMaio leading Democratic incumbent Rep. Scott Peters by three points.

IL GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Sued For Sexual Harassment Of Male Staffer

Illinois state treasurer and candidate for governor Dan Rutherford has been sued by a male former staffer for sexual harassment.

The lawsuit comes five weeks before the March 18 gubernatorial primary in which Rutherford was seen as the clear runner-up to frontrunner Winnetka venture capitalist Bruce Rauner. The former employee, Ed Michalowski, accused Rutherford of making unwanted sexual advances against him, starting in 2011 and also alleged that Rutherford’s chief of staff did nothing when the incidents were reported. Michalowski, 43, served as Rutherford’s director of community affairs and marketing. He resigned last week, telling the Sun-Times he felt intimidated by a news conference Rutherford held promising to combat the allegations while flanked by former federal agents. Among Michalowski claims is that in 2011 Rutherford held an overnight office retreat at Rutherford’s Chenoa home, entered Michalowski’s bedroom and grabbed his genitals.

Rutherford has published a lengthy denial of the allegations on his campaign website. Yesterday he also held a press conference to address the lawsuit. (Video below). Rutherford has generally been supportive of most LGBT issues, including civil unions, but not same-sex marriage.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner To Resign

NBC San Diego has the story:

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has agreed to resign as part of a deal reached this week with city officials, NBC 7 News has learned. Filner, spotted leaving City Hall with packing boxes Wednesday night, will formally vacate the office following a closed session of City Council Friday, according to several sources. City officials announced just before 7 p.m. Wednesday a proposed solution had been reached in the scandal that has consumed the city of San Diego since it first broke July 10. In the last six weeks, more than a dozen women have come forward with tales of alleged sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances.

Finally.

UPDATE: Upon Filner's resignation and according to city rules, San Diego's acting mayor will be openly gay city council president Todd Gloria, who will hold office until a special election can be held.

Filner Supporters Rally In San Diego

He's still got supporters?

Today On World Net Daily

We haven't heard much from anti-gay crackpot Elaine Donnelly since the repeal of DADT, but today she appears on World Net Daily to gleefully join in on wingnut claims that gay rapists are running rampant in the military.

Among the assaults formally reported, 88 percent of reports came from women and 12 percent from men. The numbers are getting dramatically worse. “The number of reports of sexual assaults among military personnel have actually increased by 129 percent since 2004,” said Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly, who pointed out the number of formal reports of sexual assault jumped from 1,275 to 2,949 in just eight years.

She told WND when factoring in civilians working for or around the military, the increase in that time is 98 percent. Women are identified as the attacker in just two percent of all assaults, meaning most men who suffer assault are targeted by other men. “So we’ve got a male-on-male problem here. The Department of Defense doesn’t want to comment on this. They know that the numbers are there. They say that they care, but all the attention is usually given to the female members of the military who are subjected to sexual assault,” Donnelly said.

WND fails to mention that the military recently launched a campaign that encourages the victims of sexual assault to come forward, hence the rise in reported incidents.  And even their own article fails to live up to their bombastic headline.

Today On World Net Daily

Men outnumber women in the armed forces by almost 10-1, but the right wing is going nuts over a recently-released study which shows that more men than women have reported sexual assaults.  The numbers have risen because because the military has been encouraging victims to make reports. Anti-gay weirdo and Porno Pete's BFF Judith Reisman writes for World Net Daily:

Why is the best-kept military secret that most soldierly sexual assaults are now definitively homo, not heterosexual, male-on-male sexual exploitation? The corporate dictionary definition of “sexual assault” is “to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat; ‘most states have replaced the common law definition of rape with statutes defining sexual assault.’”

While men are statistically more loathe to report their sexual victimization than are women, 10,700 male soldiers, sailors and airmen in 2010 actually reported their sexual assaults. What this means is not totally clear, since men are cannot technically be raped, despite the term being regularly used in the recent hearings on the matter.

The Washington Times reported “The Defense Department estimates 19,000 sexual assaults occur each year, but only 17 percent are ever reported. In 2010 … 8,600 victims [who reported were female, an incredible 4 percent of the women in the military that year], and 10,700 victims were male, reported the Service Woman’s Action Network.”

Bolding is mine. Reisman, who acknowledges that some of the sexual assault reports are likely the result of hazing, goes on to blame (of course) the repeal of DADT and the availability of gay porn.

The politically correct Naval report ignores the Big Porn Elephant in the room as normalizing the rapes of women and the homosexist assaults on fellow servicemen. While “heterosexual” pornography has commonly been used to arouse and then seduce “straights” into homosexual sex, “gay” pornography is widely available in mainstream homosexist publications like The Advocate Classified. And, buff, “straight” military men are regularly depicted there as preferred, sexual targets.

RELATED: Among Reisman's more outrageous statements include comparing GLSEN to Hitler Youth and gay activists to Nazis.

Former Staffer Sued Family Research Council For Sexual Harassment

According to just-revealed court documents, the Family Research Council fired its abstinence program director after she filed a sexual harassment complaint with Washington DC's Human Rights Commission. DC Gadfly has the scoop:

Moira Gaul had a stellar career at the Family Research Council and amassed a perfect employment record until her run-in with her supervisor, a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement.  She was hired in March 2005 as an abstinence coordinator and later promoted to Director of Women’s and Reproductive Health, where she focused on abstinence education but was also quoted widely in the media on the controversy over the HPV vaccination for young girls and abortion.

According to Gaul, the harassment started in February 2007. With the behavior ongoing, she finally filed a gender discrimination complaint--you can’t file for sexual harassment--with the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission in January 2009.  In that complaint Gaul says that the Family Research Council’s Director of the Center for Human Life and Bioethics “pressured me to attend parties” sent mails addressed “hi cutie” and “referred to the use of birth control pills by young women as ‘whoring around.’” In general, “his attitude towards me and other women was rude, belittling and at times angry.”

Gaul's sexual harassment claimed was dismissed in 2009 and now she is suing for their alleged retaliation by firing her. It's a complicated case and I recommend reading the linked item.

Famed NYC Eatery Settles Sexual Harassment Suit Brought By 22 Waiters

Manhattan's Sparks Steak House has agreed to pay $600K to male employees who complained that they were sexually harassed by the posh eatery's male manager. Via press release from the EEOC:

According to the EEOC's lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, 22 male waiters were subjected to harassment based on their sex, chiefly by one male manager, over a nearly eight-year period. The misconduct included the manager groping the buttocks of the male waiters, making lewd sexual comments and attempting to touch their genitals. Many of the waiters complained to other managers and Sparks’ owners, but the harassment did not stop. Some victims of harassment suffered retaliation for complaining by being given more difficult work assignments and/or ultimately being suspended. Sexual harassment and retaliation for complaining about it violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.

The EEOC adds that it is "very serious" about protecting employees from same-sex harassment.

AUSTRALIA: Speaker Of Parliament Resigns In Gay Harassment Scandal

Australian Parliament Speaker Peter Slipper, who is married to a woman, has resigned after being sued for sexual harassment by a gay male former staffer to whom Slipper sent obscene text messages. 

The offending text messages, revealed as part of court proceedings against Slipper, described female genitalia as looking like "a mussel removed from its shell". "Look at a bottle of mussel meat! Salty Cunts in brine!" he continued in his text message to former staffer James Ashby. "Been to thw (sic) fish shop yet to buy the bottle of shell less mussells (sic)?" At question time Abbott, leader of the Liberal party, called for Slipper to be sacked. The Speaker stood aside earlier this year, pending the outcome of the legal proceedings, but retained many of the perks of the office.

Pink News adds that other text messages reportedly requested massages from the employee and asked for "graphic details" about his sex life.

TORONTO: Male Cop Sued For Trying To "Convert" Lesbian Subordinate

Toronto Police Inspector Steve Izzett is being sued for sexual harassment by a lesbian subordinate who claims that Izzett tried to "convert her" with a long personal note attached to religious propaganda about the origins of homosexuality.

Staff Insp. Steve Izzett, formerly head of the Intelligence Unit, and currently on suspension, was grilled Wednesday during his disciplinary hearing by prosecutor Brian Gover over an article entitled “The Great Nature-Nurture Debate,’’ a religious-themed piece exploring the “causes’’ of homosexuality. Izzett, who told the hearing he researched the article in April 2007 on a day he was supposed to be prepping for his promotion interview, looked up the piece after being told by the woman — who can’t be named due to a publication ban — that she was in a same-sex relationship. In a lengthy note at the end of the article, which Izzett also gave to the woman, he wrote that he felt “energized, fulfilled, inspired” by her, and that she had “awakened the giant within.”

Izzett reportedly told his employee to end her "same-sex experiment" so they could be together. (Tipped by JMG reader Karen)

Ron Paul On Sexual Harassment

"Employee rights are said to be valid when employers pressure employees into sexual activity. Why don’t they quit once the so-called harassment starts? Obviously the morals of the harasser cannot be defended, but how can the harassee escape some responsibility for the problem? Seeking protection under civil rights legislation is hardly acceptable." - Ron Paul, from his 1987 book, Freedom Under Siege.

Bishop Eddie Long Quits

Atlanta's Bishop Eddie Long and his hilarious wig are "taking a little time off" from the 25,000-member prosperity gospel megachurch he founded. With his wife's recent divorce filing, Long will have to console himself with his enormous mansion, his Bentley, and his private jet. Well, that and all those hot boys.