Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), one of the most outspoken advocates of the #MeToo movement who has made fighting sexual misconduct a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, spent last summer pressing legislators to update Congress’ “broken” system of handling sexual harassment.

At the same time, a mid-20s female aide to Gillibrand resigned in protest over the handling of her sexual harassment complaint by Gillibrand‘s office, and criticized the senator for failing to abide by her own public standards.

In July, the female staffer alleged one of Gillibrand’s closest aides — who was a decade her senior and married — repeatedly made unwelcome advances after the senator had told him he would be promoted to a supervisory role over her. She also said the male aide regularly made crude, misogynistic remarks in the office about his female colleagues and potential female hires.

Less than three weeks after reporting the alleged harassment and subsequently claiming that the man retaliated against her for doing so, the woman told chief of staff Jess Fassler that she was resigning because of the office’s handling of the matter. She did not have another job lined up.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/11/gillibrand-sexual-harassment-1214831?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f115-dd93-ad7f-f91513e50001&nlid=630318

Between 2006 and 2011, Tucker Carlson spent approximately an hour a week calling in to Bubba the Love Sponge, a popular shock jock radio program where he spoke with the hosts about a variety of cultural and political topics in sometimes-vulgar terms. During those conversations, Carlson diminished the actions of Warren Jeffs, then on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list for his involvement in arranging illegal marriages between adults and underage girls, talked about sex and young girls, and defended statutory rape.

Carlson, who was hired by Fox News in 2009, also used sexist language to talk about women, including then-co-workers at NBC and public figures. He referred to Martha Stewart’s daughter Alexis Stewart as “cunty,” called journalist Arianna Huffington a “pig,” and labeled Britney Spears and Paris Hilton “the biggest white whores in America.” He also said that women enjoy being told to “be quiet and kind of do what you’re told” and that they are “extremely primitive.”

- Carlson said underage marriage is not “the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting that child. ... The rapist in this case has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person so it is a little different.”

- After Bubba the Love Sponge described underage girls at Carlson's daughter’s boarding school experimenting sexually with each other, Carlson said, “If it weren't my daughter I would love that scenario.”

- Carlson said criminal charges against Warren Jeffs are “bullshit” because “arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her.”

- Carlson: If I made the laws, “Michael Vick would have been executed and Warren Jeffs would be out on the street.”

- Carlson: A teacher who molested a 13-year-old took pressure off the victim’s female classmates because they wouldn’t have to sleep with him.

- Carlson: Former President Bill Clinton should get a divorce and “take up plural marriage or something with a bunch of teenagers in a foreign country.”

- Carlson: “It's harder to determine what's consensual and what's not” when you’re with a sex worker.

Mych more: https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/03/10/unearthed-audio-tucker-carlson-makes-numerous-misogynistic-and-perverted-comments/223092

Trump 2020 campaign adviser Katrina Pierson on Sunday dismissed a question about diversity within President Trump's administration by asking how many black people worked in President Abraham Lincoln's administration.

"I’m not going to participate in the attempt to make this all about race. It is ridiculous," Pierson, who is African American, said during an appearance on MSNBC. "How many black people were in Abraham Lincoln’s West Wing?”

Pierson invoked Lincoln after Rev. Al Sharpton pressed her on how many black people work inside the White House. The question led to a heated exchange, with Pierson accusing Sharpton of attempting to paint the president as a racist.

“Everything has to be made about race, reverend … I’m not going to participate if you’re going to continue to paint this president as racist," Pierson said.

Sharpton then asked how Trump can appeal to black voters without hiring African-Americans within his administration, to which Pierson said there are "plenty of black people" in the West Wing.

"There's plenty of black people working in the White House," Pierson said, before bringing up the lack of diversity inside Lincoln's White House.

"If you’ve got to go back to Abe Lincoln you’ve really need to shop it," Sharpton replied.

"Is Abraham Lincoln a racist because he didn't have a black person in his White House? This is insane. This is an insane discussion," she added.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/433410-trump-campaign-advisor-dismisses-white-house-diversity-question-how

The Cindy Yang caper takes another turn.

Li Yang, the Florida massage parlor entrepreneur who created and operated a business that sold Chinese business executives access to President Donald Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago, has yet another intriguing line of work. She is an officer of two groups with ties to China’s Communist government. And she founded a Miami-based nonprofit that promotes “economic and cultural exchange” between China and the West in coordination with “senior…Chinese leaders” in the United States, according to a profile of Yang posted on a Chinese social media platform.

After Mother Jones on Saturday revealed that Yang, who goes by Cindy, had been peddling entrée to the Trump family, the Trump White House, and assorted GOP powerbrokers, national security experts noted that this situation could pose a threat, presenting opportunities for espionage or blackmail targeting the president and his inner circle. They expressed concern the Yang’s efforts to broker interactions with Trump and his clan could be exploited by Chinese intelligence. “Guess who else has 100% known about this from the beginning?” tweeted Susan Hennessey, a Brookings Institution fellow who previously worked as a National Security Agency lawyer. “Chinese intelligence services.” Samantha Vinograd, a CNN national security analyst who worked for the National Security Council during the Obama administration, noted: “Our intel community has said China poses one of the most significant counterintelligence challenges—my money is on the Chinese Govt having at least picked up on [Yang’s] access if they didn’t direct it.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/the-massage-parlor-owner-peddling-access-to-trump-has-ties-to-chinese-government-linked-groups-cindy-yang/

A high school senior chose to sit out the Colorado state wrestling championships in order to avoid sparring with two opponents who ended up becoming the first female wrestlers to ever place in the tournament.

The Denver Post’s reporting of the incident was really something, placing Colorado teen Brendan Johnston at the center of the story as the one making history. In the article, Johnson said he didn’t want to compete against Jaslynn Gallegos and Angel Rios because of the “physical contact” wrestling entails:

“I’m not really comfortable with a couple of things with wrestling a girl,” Johnston told The Denver Post. “The physical contact, there’s a lot of it in wrestling. And I guess the physical aggression, too. I don’t want to treat a young lady like that on the mat. Or off the mat. And not to disrespect the heart or the effort that she’s put in. That’s not what I want to do, either.”

But in an interview with NPR published on March 10, Gallegos said she just wants to wrestle, a sport she’s been training for since she was five years old:

“I just want to be a wrestler, not necessarily defined as a girl wrestler, so it kind of hurt me a little bit,” she told NPR’s Scott Simon. “I just want to be this wrestler and my gender is holding me back.”

https://jezebel.com/just-wrestle-me-says-high-school-athlete-whose-male-op-1833187951?utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=socialfow_jezebel_twitter&utm_source=jezebel_twitter