NBC Fires Today Show Anchor Matt Lauer for inappropriate sexual behavior

Adding Franken to Ana Navarro's list...

 

Why should the rules for elected officials be the same as for employees of a company? Who decides to "fire" a democratically elected official?

 

The House & Senate majority and minority ranking members of each party with a report done by the Senate & House Ethics committee.

There is an easy way to do this. Problem is the way the complaints are handled is in place to protect the elected official, NOT the victim of harassment. They need simple rules changes like the one Jackie Spears is trying to implement. That way these complaints can be resolved, and we wont have to worry about a process that allows the private sector to have higher standards of ethics than the public sector.

 

There is a downside to making it too easy to fire an elected official on ethics charges. This can be easily abused to subvert our democratic process. I just think we should be cautious of this.

 

Jackie Speier. Met her after she wrote my dad a letter of recognition for volunteer work he did in his local senior citizen community (which was within her district). Extraordinarily kind and smart woman, perhaps best know for being Congressman Leo Ryan's aid during his fatal trip to Guyana and Jim Jones People's Temple in Jonestown (Speier was wounded in the shooting).

 

Interesting that in Hollywood when the allegations come out, the accused harassers are out, almost immediately. Yet in politics, not so much.

 

Less "tribalism" in Hollywood and more of a concern over decency perhaps, but I do recognize Durvasa's point about less mechanisms to fix the problem in politics and also Durvasa's concern over fixing fairly wen appropriate.

 

The "Tribalism" is just falling a part. I wouldnt say there is less. The tribe was strong for many of the accused for years and years.

 

I mentioned majority and minority leaders. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Meaning their own party leader would have to ultimately make the call. It would be dangerous for our Democracy if leaders of one party could just start firing members of congress of the other party for whatever reason.

At the end of the day from the President to City Council, removing officials is always political given it is we the people who elected them. Take Conyers situation for instance. Nancy Pelosi will receive a report and recommendation from the Ethic Committee after a week or two. In those few weeks she will have the ability to make a calculated political decision by any local poling done in Conyer's district, and will be able to get the votes from other House members on her side (informal or formal if they decide to make it that).

So yes there should be a process in place that takes into account the "elected official" political approach to removing someone, but it has to be in place especially when people from their own side don't want them representing their party or their local district anymore.

 

Following on Durvasa and NewRoxFan's point there are less mechanisms. You also consider that it is the voters who have hired the elected officials. While there are means for their peers to remove them they are rightly loathe to go against the will of the people.

 

Hey Commodore, why do you hold news anchors to a higher standard than a candidate for US Senate?

In the pedophile thread:

 

It's constituents that elected their representatives and constitutents are the only people that electe representatives have a constitutional duty too. Party is obviously very important but removing someone from an elected office I don't think should be the ultimate decision of their party leader. It should be the decision of either their voters through recall, or through the action of the whole House or Senate. My understanding is that under Congressional rules that is the case.

I'm not against political pressure being applied by parties to encourage members to resign through losing committee positions, withholding fundraising and etc..

 

I have zero standards for either

Viewers can punish Lauer's bad behavior by turning him off, he's not necessary and there are alternatives.

Voters don't have that luxury in the case of AL Senate, they just have two bad choices.

 

So you're okay with pedophiles in the Senate, if there are only two bad choices?

 

Good riddance Matt. i hope you enjoy your early retirement. Your soon to be ex-wife will help simplify your life in retirement.

 

I think we need better mechanisms for replacing such people.

Dropping stuff in the interval between primary and general election is a nice trick to get a candidate elected who supports unpopular policies, but I wouldn't tell voters to cut off their nose to spite their face.

Don't defend Moore's behavior and get rid of him as soon as you can, but avoid replacing him with someone who supports and can advance immoral policies (like the murder of unborn children).

 

The Supreme Court of the USA disagrees with your legal opinion ... for the last 45 years.

 

The whole house voting, or just their party leader doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, its their party that will decide either way. The facts seem to be that Democrats want sexual assaulters out, and Republicans just want to politically chastise Democrats, but no, no no... dont remove them because then we have to remove our own, and are trying to stand behind cases that you are making above.

If you want the formality of the whole house voting to expel in the way they would do it now, fine. However it won't change anything about their party ultimately deciding. It just moves the process along quicker if those rules are changed.

Its looking like Roy Moore might be our first test case to see if the old rules still work with this new era unless Pelosi tries to remove Conyers first if he doesn't step down on his own. My guess is they try to keep Roy Moore in the senate after he wins but keep him buried and quiet, but that's going to be hard since he's so incredibly politically damaging for the party enough for this to be an easy case if Mitch McConnell & the GOP have any decency left.

My point all along though is that I've been saying for weeks now that Republicans walk a slippery slope trying to play the moral high ground with these cases. Because in the end, myself and many other liberals I see here and elsewhere say "get rid of them" (force them out, expel them... whatever), and Republicans want to take the bate to criticize, but they don't realize the vulnerability they have in this area on their end.... which is why they will make cases like the one you just made to try and say "well... the PEOPLE elected them....etc. etc" as an excuse to try and walk a political moral high ground, but take ZERO responsibility for their own tribes behavior.

I don't know if you are personally trying to go this route to play politics here or not, but either way your case here you are trying to make seems to be the rights approach to having their cake (chastise the left), and eat it too (not having to hold their own accountable).