Showing posts with label Esther Yang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Esther Yang. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

UFT Sticks with Stringer Despite MORE Calls to Drop him, The Intercept Casts Doubts on Accuser, Wiley Hypocrisy on Biden and Stringer

WARNING! WARNING!!  NORM ABOUT TO ENTER CANCELLATION TERRITORY

Claims by Scott Stringer Accuser Unravel as Progressives Flee New York Mayoral Candidate. New details about Jean Kim’s role on Stringer’s 2001 campaign and her relationship to the candidate paint a very different portrait of the power dynamic at play....Wiley at the time recommended “assessing the accused’s credibility and response to the allegation in comparison to the credibility of the accuser and supporting evidence.” ....  https://theintercept.com/2021/05/04/nyc-mayor-scott-stringer-jean-kim/

Video: D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept, Ryan Grim, digs into sexual harassment allegations against NYC mayoral candidates, Scott Stringer and finde major discrepancies in Jean Kim's story - Rising, The Hill https://youtu.be/qSy2d6Nq4EI
As former prosecutors and attorneys deeply concerned about respecting the survivors of sexual assault and protecting the rights of the accused, we believe that justice requires a more nuanced approach than we are seeing in the current debate. We approach this, as we would any the report of any crime, through the neutral lens of investigation.... Maya Wiley, May, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/joe-biden-tara-reade-steps-can-provide-full-accounting-metoo-ncna1203006 {MUST READ}
NY1 , a day after Stringer accused

UFT standing by Stringer in mayoral bid amid sexual abuse ...

5 days ago — Stringer denies the accusations claiming he and Kim had a consensual relationship for a brief period of time.

May 5, 2021, Report from a white privileged {old} male

Don't you love so-called "progressives?" 

I'm so glad I've never had any power - especially in my own home.

The Intercept report and great reporter Ryan Grim's appearance on Rising  yesterday might be too late to save Stringer, but I never gave him much of a chance of winning anyway. White males are not kosher this year. The way Yang is courting the Hassids, he may be the kosher one in the race.

UFT Endorsement holds

Don't get me wrong. I liked Stringer at times over the years but even he has links to Bloomberg though Micah, Lasher, his campaign manager, who many of us fighting ed deform have found to be despicable. Stringer wasn't my first choice - but actually none of them are. Much loved by the left Diane Morales once took a job in the Joel Klein anti-union pro-charter administration. But the left can conveniently forget when it needs to - except if you made a dumb tweet when you were in the womb - then cancellation for life.

The UFT endorsement with Stringer the only choice looked like another failure in UFT mayoral races. At the very least, given some high level UFT officials' support for Wiley, I figured her as second choice and viewed not doing so as a mistake.

Now with the Intercept report Mulgrew is not looking as bad - imagine if Wiley was second choice and screaming for Stringer to drop out practically before Kim got the words out of her mouth. I'm sure teachers could rely on Wiley for support for due process if they are accused of something. Anything.

Were the charges against Stringer an outcome of the UFT endorsement which gave him legs? Do I suspect the Yang camp? Maybe not him but never forget Bloomberg fave Bradley Tusk, a major POS, is Yang's handler. If Stringer had been in single figures in the poles we would have been spared this drama.

But the UFT reaffirmed its commitment to the Stringer endorsement while MORE Caucus called for the UFT to rescind. Naturally. Some people find it funny when unionists want to throw away due process, but having been denied the same when I was drummed out of MORE, I'm not surprised that the idea of due process is forgotten when politically inconvenient.

Fuck due process: 

MORE-UFT Stands with Survivors and Calls on the UFT to Rescind the Endorsement of Scott Stringer Immediately - In light of recent allegations made against Mayoral candidate and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, we call on the UFT to immediately rescind their..The UFT Endorsement process was undemocratic to begin with. Rank and file members had very little decision-making power nor understanding of the process....... LOL when MORE talks about democracy in the UFT

MORE clearly is pushing Morales but have they actually taken a democratic vote of all MORE members like they are asking of the UFT? They won't officially endorse Morales but are trying to shame the UFT into doing it. The left in the UFT is voting Morales and maybe some will be for Wiley. Stringer threatened to take some left votes.

I don't often love Mike Mulgrew but not backing down from the UFT choice of Stringer is gutsy in a way. I wonder if Stringer didn't give Mulgrew a heads up on the Intercept story. I'd put a few bob on that.

I may make Stringer one of my votes and will give no votes to amy candidate that called on him to leave the race. Actually, that condition may leave Stringer as the only candidate left for me. I stand for due process for teachers - and everyone else. I'm pretty sure Morales, whom I was considering, also asked for Stringer to drop out -- hooray for due process.

The Stringer case has bugged me from the start. Compare to the Cuomo story -  I believed all the people charging him. The use and abuse of power accumulates over time. Have we heard of much Stringer stuff over the past 20 years? And don't forget, he stopped Eva Moskowitz' political career -- believe me if there was dirt the Moskowitz machine would have thrown it -- which actually leads my conspiracy laden mind to think how bad for Eva it would be if Stringer became mayor ----- Hmmmm. Did the charter ed industrial complex have a role in the exposure of Stringer? Does the PR firm Kim works for have any connections? This stuff hit just after the UFT endorsement gave Stringer campaign legs. Put The Intercept on that case. And by the way - here is this little tidbit about her firm from their story:

Since 2015, TLM has represented the American Petroleum Institute, Bank of America, and a slew of other corporate, nonprofit, and developer clients. Stringer, as comptroller, led the largest divestment from fossil fuels in the world.

I had some issues with Tara Reade's Biden story due to no other women coming forth -- I assume if Biden did what he did to Reade a man with power would do it to more women. So that counts. But there is still an element of truth in her story. In some ways her story holds up better than Jean Kim's.

But the same conditions apply to Stringer. I don't see women coming out of the woodwork making charges like we hear about Cuomo. Maybe more women will emerge but they better have their ducks in a row given the holes in Kim's story. The Intercept story in full below catches her in lie after lie - I mean real lies with written records.

It's still going to be touch and go. If no one else emerges to say he groped or propositioned them, even if Stringer loses, Mulgrew looks good for standing by him. On the process they used for mayoral endorsement - not so much. Unity claims they sent out 10 billion emails and millions of UFT members, including the ghosts of dead members, took part in the process.

I smelled a rat with Jean Kim's account from the moment I heard it based on the exquisite timing. Wait 20 years until weeks before the election, when there would be little time to vet her. It looked like a hit. And it looked like it worked. I see Stringer as dead in the water and would bet on Adams being next mayor, based on rise in crime. A black ex-cop will have leeway to do certain things that will rile the left. A black Giuliani?

Stringer has been attacked for jumping on the story that Kim had petitioned for her friend Esther Yang using a petition with Andrew Yang on the same page and when the Stringer camp brought it up they were attacked. The Stringer campaign went too far in accusing Kim of working for Andrew Yang but her claims ring false about having no connection to Andrew Yang and she was just petitioning for her friend Esther and Andrew "just happened" to be on the same petition. Not that her friend Esther had anything to do with Andrew Yang, especially when his campaign put out this call for volunteers:

Join us in Door to Door knocking for Andrew Yang and Esther Yang! Canvassing is the best way to spread the word about Andrew, Esther and their policies and ...

I guess Jean Kim had no idea her good friend Esther was aligned with Andrew.  Note to Esther - Jean Kim was once Scott Stringer's friend. Watch your back.

One of my favorite reporters is Ryan Grim at the left-leaning Intercept and he appears often on Rising. Yesterday he was on the Jean Kim case as he explained to Krystal and Saagar in some detail about his investigation. (See video below).

Intern is the magic word

Stringer and Kim were part of the same social circle and they all volunteered for his campaign. She was 30 and had a job but initially claimed she was an intern - a bald-faced lie - and her explanation he told her it was an intern-like environment was bullshit as they actually had real interns. The Intercept talked to people who knew them and reported their relationship fell into the "friends with benefits" category.

In today's climate we're automatically expected to believe a female accuser, and often they are proven right. But sometimes with vetting, there are doubts. Witness the Biden accuser, Tara Reade, whose credibility was doubted over months of vetting her past. Some people still believe her and in some ways her story is much worse than that of Stringer's accuser.

Wiley Hypocrisy on Biden and Stringer: Fuck Due Process II
 
Note how Wiley gave Stringer less than 24 hours before calling for him to resign from the race. Progressives. People calling for Stringer to quit should also demand Biden resign. That's a joke - but hypocrisy, rear thy ugly head. I had considered listing Wiley on my ballot but she now joins Andrew Yang in Norm's "ballot hell." I give Wiley the Norm Scott POS seal for standing up for her principles of "protecting the rights of the accused.

But Maya Wiley was quick to hold off judgement on Biden in an essay she co-wrote in May 2020.

That means that step one after accepting Reade’s allegation is to investigate it. Because her allegations occurred long enough ago that the statute of limitations bars any possibility of prosecution, law enforcement agencies don't have jurisdiction to investigate, and investigation funded by either Reade or Biden would likely be viewed as lacking objectivity. But there is a vehicle for investigation — the independent press, where investigative journalists are highly motivated to seek out details and witnesses and where competing views will be aired.

Now watch how Wiley and crew cast shade on Reade for showing support for Biden many years after the incident:

Reade has praised Biden for protecting women from sexual assault. As recently as 2016 or 2017, Reade, under the name Tara McCabe, tweeted praise for Biden’s efforts to address sexual assault and retweeted the accolades of others for his efforts. In one tweet, Reade said, “My old boss speaks truth. Listen."Reade has also changed her story about the reason she left her job at Biden’s office,

Scott Stringer was on Brian Lehrer and he was really grilled by Bryan, and not in a totally fair way. Like even if they were dating, what about the power relationship - holy fuck, we must assess our power relationships before dating. Maybe we need an online form to fill out before getting permission or else expect 30 years later to be charged with something. Or male teachers -- Did you ever tell a female student she looked pretty?

Here's the Rising video

D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept, Ryan Grim, digs into sexual harassment allegations against NYC mayoral candidates, Scott Stringer.

https://youtu.be/qSy2d6Nq4EI

 

 

The full Intercept report below the fold - a must read