No Honor Among Sleaze

Merriam Webster’s definition of the term honorable:

1. Deserving of respect or high regard

2. Entitled to honor or respect – used as a title for various government officials.

Now - an example of its use: The Honorable Robert Fisher wrote, “I’m going to say it—Rape isn’t an absolute bad, because the rapist I think probably likes it a lot.” So much honor!

By now you’ve heard about Representative Robert Fisher of Laconia, the young man who created a forum for pickup artists and men’s rights activists to share their disdain for women and discuss tactics for getting them into bed.

The governor, the speaker of the House, and the chair of the NH GOP have all asked him to resign. He has refused.  

There was a hearing of the House Legislative Administration Committee earlier this week, to hear testimony from Fisher and members of the public. The committee may opt to expel him from the House, censure him, or do nothing. My money is on nothing. Even though the House Republicans have a big scandal every year with some badly behaved individual, they show no sign of cleaning up the increasing mess their party has become. Their only interest is in ideology, and if they need to use perverts to get enough votes, then perverts they will find and run as candidates.

At the same the committee was timidly questioning Fisher, former Rep. Kyle Tasker (last year’s big scandal) was being sentenced in court for trying to lure a 14 year old to meet him for a sexual encounter.

Thanks to all this, some women who serve in the legislature have been speaking out about the way they are treated by the men in the majority party. It’s no surprise, really. Here’s a look at some men who are currently serving: Rep. Brian Stone of Northwood was arrested for violating a restraining order against his former girlfriend. Rep. James Spillane of Deerfield was arrested for assaulting his former wife.  Rep. Frank Sapareto from Derry assaulted his former girlfriend’s children in 2012. In 2017, he’s the Vice Chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Rep. Michael Brewster lost custody of his children, and harassed one of the state workers in the Child Support Unit so much that a restraining order was taken out against him. He violated it and was arrested. Senator Kevin Avard was arrested for violating a restraining order against his former wife.

Not only are these men elected, they are given leadership positions. And the House Republican women remain silent. Not a one of them has spoken out against Fisher. These women send a strong message through their silence. They’re saying that they don’t mind serving with mean who hate and fear women so much that they assault them. Fisher bemoaned the fact that because of statutory rape laws, “perfectly viable women under the age of 18” were not available to him. Kyle Tasker was on his way to rape a 14-year old girl. From their silence, one can only infer that the Republican women in the House are on board with this behavior. Silence = complicity.  

Republicans elected a president who boasted of grabbing women by their genitalia. It should come as no surprise that this has emboldened the Republican men of the NH legislature. They are so comfortable in their loathing for women and their certainty that they won’t be held accountable that they are fearless. There are no behaviors they won’t defend. There’s no honor among sleaze.

These are men fought hard to keep a law on the books that allows adult men to marry 13-year-old girls. These are men who fought hard to keep a law on the books that allows men to use the “I didn’t know she was underage” defense when caught trying to purchase sex from a minor. These same men are desperate to legislate women’s lives; from making their personal medical decisions to how their divorces are handled. In  2014 a bill was passed making domestic violence a crime. Three men voted against it: Representatives JR Hoell, Michael Sylvia, and Frank Sapareto. Why? Because abusers might lose their guns.

I’m not letting Democrats off the hook either. Robert Fisher handed them plutonium on a platter, and House leadership has failed to take advantage of it. If the parties were reversed in this situation, the Republican howls would be heard on Mars. No such howling has been heard in the hallways of the NH House coming from Democratic leadership.

In an effort to deflect attention from Fisher, Republican Rep. Victoria Sullivan launched a false equivalency witch-hunt against Democratic Rep. Sherry Frost. Minority leadership seems more inclined to sacrifice Frost than to rock the boat by defending her. It’s curious, really. Are they afraid the Republicans won’t like them?

Here’s the thing- they don’t like you already. You might as well fight back (for a change) and earn some respect from voters desperate for an opposition party.

Rinse, Lather, Repeat

A recent editorial in the Valley News quoted a state rep as describing the current state of affairs at the NH legislature in this way, “We address problems that do not exist, we misunderstand problems that do exist, and then we do the wrong thing for ideological reasons.” That pretty much sums it up.

The very first bill passed by our legislature this year – their urgent priority - was not legislation aimed at fixing our infrastructure, solving our infrastructure problems, doing something about our affordable housing problem, or the opioid crisis. The very first order of business was passing a bill to ensure that gun owners were no longer required to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun.

There have been many attempts to solve non-existent problems. A bill to solve the problem of poor people eating was retained by the House Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee. Senate bill 7 would have changed the eligibility requirements for food stamps, potentially kicking 17,000 families with children off the program. This was not going to save any money – in fact it was going to cost the state to do it. It did nothing to prevent fraud. All it was going to do was ensure that the working poor would have a harder time feeding their kids. Truly a victory for our well-to-do state senators. Only it wasn’t, because the House HHS committee had an outbreak of decency and decided to retain the bill. They’ll have to act on it, of course, but by the end of the year they may decide to quietly kill it.  

Our Governor’s first big appointment was Frank Edelblut, the Commissioner of Education who has no background in education, homeschooled his 7 children and had never been inside a NH public school. His confirmation was along party lines, despite all those constituent calls to Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, who does the wrong thing for ideological reasons at every opportunity. Sununu chose to drop his nominee to head the Dept. of Environmental Services, when most of the Executive Councilors thought businessman Frank Kujawski’s past as a Boy Scout wasn’t enough of a qualification for the position. Joe Kenney, however, was quoted in the press as saying he would have voted for him. He voted for one unqualified guy – why stop now?

Frank “I’ll be an implementer” Edelblut has decided to go for a big power grab. He got Senator Reagan to add an amendment to a bill that had already had a public hearing in the House, giving Edelblut unchecked power to reconfigure the Dept. of Education, an undefined plan he apparently developed without speaking to any of his alleged colleagues. There was something of an uproar over that bit of jiggery-pokery, so a public hearing was held, in a room that was too small for it, with Senator Reagan allowing all the lobbyists to speak before constituents, then berating those who questioned Edelblut’s fitness for the job. Nothing says, “I’m a duly elected representative of the people” like lecturing them for expressing their concerns. Even the Union Leader (the official state mouthpiece for the NH GOP) thought Frank’s power grab was a bad idea. Despite the best efforts of Senator Reagan, the Senate Education Committee voted thumbs down on the amendment. It still has to go before the full Senate. 

To his credit, Edelblut has been out visiting, so at least now he knows what the inside of a NH public school looks like. He asked the state board of education to reconsider the standards for teaching science, something they’d just spent two years doing. Edelblut’s criticisms of the science standards were based on a report by conservative education think tank, the Fordham Institute. Fordham uses cutting edge 1950’s science teaching as their criteria for evaluation.

The bill to solve the non-existent problem of voter fraud, SB3, is still languishing in committee. Meanwhile, HB 238, a bill to create yet another study committee to study the actual problem of broadband access to the internet is likely to pass. I predict the study will reveal we need better access, especially in the northern part of the state, and that nothing will come of it. I hope I’m not the only one amused by Senator Bradley’s attempts to cloak his opposition to legalizing marijuana in the objections of the police chiefs – the same police chiefs he blithely ignored when it came to concealed carry.

At the NH House, the bickering between the self-styled Freedom Caucus and the leadership continues, after their failure to pass their own budget.

None of this will be helped by the recent revelation that GOP State Representative Robert Fisher from Laconia seems to have had some reprehensible things to say about women in a number of online forums, including one he created. He used a variety of personas to put forth his views, including the astounding statement that rape isn’t all bad, because the rapist enjoys it. Fisher is refusing to resign.

Problems, misunderstanding, and ideology. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

Disappointing Girls

We start disappointing girls before they are born. The baby shower filled with little pink items is where it all begins. The pink faucet continues to flow after the girl child is born. It’s challenging to buy baby clothes or little girl clothes that aren’t pink, don’t mention princesses, and don’t sport any glitter. Also: boys AND girls wear blue. Boys do not wear pink.

Girls get girl toys. They get dolls. They get kitchens. They get all things Disney princess. They get pink bicycles. They may be referred to as “Daddy’s little princess.” Their brother will be called, “the little man.” The focus is always on appearance. Boys are Big or Strong. Girls are Petite, Cute, and Beautiful. They learn to be sweet. They learn to sit down and act like a little lady. Pink is the color of lowered expectations.

The way to judge the importance of a thing is by who engages in it. Girls and women do not play football, though women’s tax dollars go toward building huge arenas that persons of their gender will never be allowed to use.  Women are not allowed to participate in military combat. Boys and men do not participate in beauty contests.

Girls are judged, harshly, on their looks for their whole lives. As women, they will be told by strangers to smile. When men are not smiling, it’s obviously because they are thinking important thoughts. When women are not smiling, it’s because they are bitches.

Our little pinkettes go forward into a world where women are not equal. All of the major religions teach that women are lesser beings. Ole Adam laid the blame on Eve the moment he had the opportunity. These teachings have had a definite trickle down effect. As a result, women are still oppressed in most countries in the world. In some countries crude surgeries are done on women’s genitals. In others, men determine the rights of women, including their right to bodily autonomy.

We may bemoan the dearth of women in the fields of science and math, but in a world where boys are Smart and girls are Pretty it’s really no surprise that girls are pushed toward traditional girl/woman fields. Women who enter fields that have been dominated by men do not get a warm welcome. If they are lucky, they are bullied and demeaned. If they are not, they are beaten, raped, and sometimes murdered, as we see in the US military.

In the 1970’s, feminists began to push back against the traditional attitudes about the crime of rape. They began the first rape crisis centers. They pushed back against the routine legal and societal blaming of women for their own rapes. Things got a little better. Like everything else, that improvement is starting to recede. Constant vigilance is the price of any gains made by women. 

Historically, women have been regarded as chattel or as plunder. This really hasn’t changed, as we saw in the recent trial of a young man accused of rape at St. Paul’s School in Concord. This elite private school has a tradition known as the “Senior Salute” where boys compete to “score” with as many girls as they can before graduation. Tradition is defined as an established pattern of behavior, a social custom, or cultural continuity. When the administrators at St. Paul’s tell us that they knew nothing of this, they are almost certainly lying through their expensively maintained teeth. The boys kept lists, shared them, and named names. It was all about keeping score.

The young man was accused and the girl was put on trial. The jury found that she didn’t resist enough. Even though 4 of his friends testified against him, even though there was physical evidence, she was found questionable because she didn’t march immediately to the police station to demand justice. Like many rape victims, she was confused and emotional after being raped by someone she knew. The media coverage of the case was abhorrent – particularly the live tweeting by reporters from inside the courtroom. I seldom praise the Union Leader newspaper, but they refused to publish the victim’s name. Other publications were not so principled. The behavior of the media is something that should concern us locally, given that Nate Kibby goes on trial early next year

There’s a lot of lip service about how seriously we take the crime of rape. The fact that there are thousands of rape kits languishing untested in police stations around the country gives lie to any pretense of seriousness. The libertea crowd tells us that women need to carry guns to protect themselves. They are using women to justify their desire to eliminate all restrictions on gun ownership. In NH the libertea legislators routinely vote against domestic violence bills, because a domestic violence conviction means that a guy would lose his guns. If women started shooting men on a regular basis, they’d change their tune about female gun ownership in a big hurry.

We aren’t interested in teaching boys and men not to rape. Rape is part and parcel of male privilege in our society. It’s up to girls and women not to be provocatively dressed, not to be in any situation that might be construed as “asking for it,” and above all, in the event of a rape to behave in a textbook manner. 

Saint Paul’s School turned a blind eye to the rape culture on their campus. As a result, the future captains of industry have learned that girls/women are disposable plunder. The girls of St. Paul’s have learned that they are - at best - a fungible commodity. The rest of us have learned, once again, why girls and women do not report their rapes. We start disappointing girls before they are born.

This was published as an op-ed in the 9-4-2015 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper 

George Will, Rape Apologist

George Will is a conservative newspaper columnist. He's been writing a twice-weekly column for the Washington Post since 1974. His syndicated column runs in 475 newspapers. To put it another way, one in four daily newspapers in the United States features George Will. He has a huge platform. He's abused it repeatedly over the years, writing occasional racist, sexist, and homophobic commentary. Early this month, he took abusing his platform to a whole new level. 

On June 6, 2014, George Will's syndicated column was titled: Colleges Become the Victims of Progressivism.  It was a look at rape on college campuses. Will announced that "when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate." 

Where, oh where was George Will to tell my 16 year old self after being gang raped by Hell's Angels prospects, how coveted and privileged my new status was? If only I'd known - I might not have spent a big chunk of my life  trying to recover from the experience. If I'd only understood the PRIVILEGE  that had been conferred upon me, I might not have experienced so much fear, anger, and mistrust in intimate relationships. I would have been filled with pride at having been gifted with a lifetime of PTSD. 

He said this, too: Consider the supposed epidemic of campus rape, aka "sexual assault." 

Because the bitches are lying, amirite George Will? Because after all, it's such a privilege to be raped by one of you men. Every girl dreams of it. 

The Washington Post has said that Will's column was "well within the bounds of legitimate debate." Because rape,  dear readers, is apparently up for debate. Conservatives have been pretending for some time that the bitches are all lying. After all, we have ways of shutting that whole thing down, don't we? If you slutty McSlatterns weren't out at morning/noon/evening/night wearing whore clothes you wouldn't be getting raped, now would you? Well, except for when you're at home alone in bed, and an intruder comes in and beats and rapes you anyway - when you're 75 years old. I'm glad Florence Holway didn't have to hear about how privileged she was to have that experience. 

Whenever it happens, (and that's a big if, because we know you're all lying!) it's your own fault for being dressed slutty, going to his place, going out, going outside...breathing. 

It's also worth nothing that the editors on duty the day George Will turned in this masterpiece were all men. And that, friends, is a big fucking part of the problem.  It's men who think rape is up for debate. 

Two more things. The Union Leader - right here in NH - served up  George Will's column. One can only assume they share George Will's sentiments. I hope you will call them up and ask them. 

Here's the contact information for the managing editor:  John Toole  jtoole@unionleader.com. The phone # for the newsroom: (603) 668-4321 ext. 805  . The phone number for the publisher: Joe McQuaid, publisher, (603) 668-4321 ext. 559

Tell them to stop running Will's columns. 

That's what Tony Messenger did. Tony Messenger is the editor of the St. Louis Dispatch, a newspaper that USED to run George Will's column. On June 19, he announced that the paper was replacing George Will with conservative writer Michael Gerson:

The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it.

 Erik Wemple of WaPo interviewed Tony Messenger:

“Seeing the reaction and intensity of the hurt in some of social media and the reaction of women I know and talking to people who really were offended by the thought that sexual assault victims would seek some special victimhood — it helped seeing that response and it informed my opinion.”


Just like that, he fired George Will. Unlike rape, it wasn't up for debate.