domestic abuse – Moe Lane

Too clever by half: Kansas Democrats may be stuck with Chad Taylor on the Kansas-SEN ticket.

Let me summarize the Hill article: as of this moment, hastily-withdrawn Chad Taylor is back on the ballot for Kansas’s Senate race. Turns out that state law has very specific criteria for withdrawing from the ballot after the primary – like being dead, or being incapable to do the job. And if it’s the latter, you have to say so. Chad Taylor, in his withdrawal letter, did not. Better and better, even if Taylor is allowed to withdraw then the state Democratic party is obliged to put up a replacement.

This puts Democrats in a definite bind. It would seem that Chad Taylor has a bad reputation for not prosecuting domestic abuse cases for the sake of a headline or two; after it blew up in his face in 2011 the man’s been damaged goods*. So, basically, even if the Kansas Secretary of State – Republican; and, a reminder, these elections matter – decides to let Taylor off of the hook then the Democrats have to decide whether to put up another Democrat, or just admit that Greg Orman is really a Democrat who will caucus with Democrats if he was elected. Fairly clearly, either scenario makes yesterday’s ploy absolutely blipping useless. If a Democrat has to stay on the ticket, then they’re back to losing the election. If Greg Orman is tagged as a Democrat once and for all, then they’re back to losing the election.
Continue reading Too clever by half: Kansas Democrats may be stuck with Chad Taylor on the Kansas-SEN ticket.

Why Jim Moran’s son Patrick will get away with domestic abuse.

Spoiler warning: it’s because the Democrats use the concept of “acceptable losses.”

Consider the story of Jim and Patrick Moran… and let us not make this a Democratic/Republican thing. Instead, let us go foreign: imagine that a report had come out that the son of an Australian* politician had been caught viciously beating his girlfriend in a drunken rage. The incident was witnessed by police, who made an arrest (getting assaulted themselves in the process); the victim went to the hospital, and allegedly treated for a skull fracture and a broken nose. Now also imagine that the politician HAPPENED to be a senior figure in his political party, and who HAPPENED to belong to a federal-level legislative body that HAPPENS to have direct oversight over the municipality where the attack took place; and that the politician’s son just HAPPENED to be able to plead down from felony assault to regular assault and probation. And, to cap it all off… the victim is in classic fashion sent out to claim that it was all an accident – and then the politician declares the whole thing to be an ‘embarrassing situation.’

If all of this happened on the other side of the world, do you think that there would be anybody credible – on either side of the American political spectrum – who would not agree that the politician needed to be investigated?

Anybody? Continue reading Why Jim Moran’s son Patrick will get away with domestic abuse.

Will VAWA sponsor Joe Biden campaign with wife-beater Charlie Wilson in OH-06?

Yes. Yes, there really is no good answer to that question…

…which is why, of course, I am asking it. The background… comes in three parts:

Vice President Joe Biden, when he was Senator Joe Biden, happened to be a sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act. We’ll pass to one side for a moment the current (as in, this week) controversy over the latest iteration of the law – it’s up for reauthorization – to specifically note, again, that this was Biden’s baby, as it were.
Charlie Wilson is known mostly for three things (four, if you count the fact that he’s often confused with the infinitely better Democratic Charlie Wilson from Texas); he was the former Congressman from OH-06; Charlie Wilson of Ohio is an admitted wife-beater; and Charlie Wilson of Ohio is unaccountably running for Congress again.
Guess where Joe Biden will be stumping for the President, this week? That’s right! OH-06! Also OH-17 (Youngstown), but Thursday Biden will be making a speech Thursday at an auto dealership in Martin’s Ferry.

Continue reading Will VAWA sponsor Joe Biden campaign with wife-beater Charlie Wilson in OH-06?

Is Charlie Wilson (D, OH-06) aiming for a NOW endorsement*?

Not the patriotic Charlie Wilson from Texas.

Judging from what that group has been tolerating in its endorsees lately, surely a little wife-beating won’t be a disqualification. Or not so little, at that. From Charlie Wilson’s (D, OH-06) 1990 divorce proceedings:

Charles admits that early in the marriage he kicked and struck Plaintiff and accused her of adultery (Defendant’s Desposition, pp. 190, 192, 194). Clara shall confirm the beatings, slappings, and kicking at the early stage of her marriage to the point where she was afraid to anger the Defendant and instead yielded to his demands. She also lied to third parties as to the causes of her injuries. Mrs. Wilson was the typical battered wife.

…And Mrs. Wilson eventually ended up in the emergency room as a direct result of her attempts to finally assert herself (all of this is admitted to by Charlie Wilson, by the way). Her attacker went on to have a ten-year career in the state legislature, prior to being elected to Congress in 2006. No word of whether he regretted anything; the campaign clammed up the second this document came to life. Still, if the female members of Wilson’s staff were in the habit of wearing sunglasses indoors and long sleeved shirts all the time surely we would have heard by now; so that’s something at least, right? Continue reading Is Charlie Wilson (D, OH-06) aiming for a NOW endorsement*?