Minnesota celebrated the Ides of March with this
article in the STrib about the peccadilloes at the Capital building, encompassed in
THIS DOCUMENT.
Not only were the Republicans taking our money for not getting any important legislation done, causing the government stoppage last summer - and taking paychecks while they did nothing during it - now they want to ......oh, now what was it that Rush Limbaugh called it so very recently that conservatives did NOT criticize him for except with the mildest reproofs for the words slut and prostitute?
Oh, yes. I remember now. Limbaugh made a very large, ugly noise about a female law student wanting to be paid to have sex, lots and lots and lots of sex. Rush suggested a lack of ability to walk as a result, and he also called for on-line videos of it.
He was insisting that Sandra Fluke was trying to get paid with tax payers money for having sex.
Now, of course she wasn't. She was trying to get urgent and serious health care that involved hormone replacement therapy in the form of birth control pills for a friend who had a problem with cystic tumors on her ovaries, her GAY friend who was not likely to be at risk for conception in her romantic relationship, her gay friend who lost her ovary because of a lack of pharmaceutical coverage.
But isn't that
exactly what Michael Brodkorb is doing, after actually having staffer sex - making a grab for taxpayer money?
Someone alert the media over at Clear Channel and Premier Radio!!!! Dittoheads! Alert! Alert! By all means call your fearless leader, Viagra swilling Rush Limbaugh IMMEDIATELY! I'm sure that the Rushjob and all of you dittohead conservatives are TERRIBLY CONCERNED about the abuse of the taxpayers when it is a conservative trying to get paid for his private sex life, right?
Oh, my! what a resounding
NO that appears to be, when it is a conservative, a Republican. Oh, my! What a resounding lack of the same treatment from conservatives for a man instead of a woman, a man WHO ACTUALLY HAD LOTS AND LOTS OF ILLICIT,
ADULTEROUS SEX,
compared to the abuse given to a woman who hadn't done what Limbaugh accused her of doing. Give males preferential treatment much, conservatives? Double-standard much, ditto-heads?
I'd like to believe that you simply agree that what Limbaugh did was so wrong that Republicans don't care to repeat it, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Republicans are still waging culture war on women, while giving men a free pass, regardless of men being the superior or the subordinate.
So, according to the
STrib, Brodkorb is admitting what he did, which is wrong, and which actually WAS reasonable and legitimate grounds for firing him.
The Republicans are claiming that wasn't why he was fired, he was fired because his position was eliminated - I'll skip the easy ugly word play - but they don't seem to deny that his position was eliminated precisely because he had an adulterous affair with Amy Koch, who then resigned her position, but continued to take money after.....what was that phrase that Limbaugh kept going back to over and over -
after getting paid by taxpayers while apparently having wild adulterous sex with her subordinate co-worker for a period of time.
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Having sex with your boss is wrong, and it does not appear that Brodkorb is alleging it was non-consensual, which would of course be a hard claim to sell. So this is NOT sexual harassment being alleged for the payout and the payoff to Brodkorb.
Amy Koch is not admitting who her partner was, but she's been outed. I'd like to know why she's still on the job after that kind of misconduct. Presumably sleeping with your staffer violates the Human Resources rules in the legislature the same way it usually does in the private sector or union jobs in the public sector. She should be removed from office through the ethics violation procedure, not simply self-demoted.
It is wrong for superiors to have sex with their subordinate employees because there is a conflict of interest in the supervision of that employee, there are questions about raises and job evaluations being compromised by a physical sexual relationship. There are issues of favoritism, to the subordinate, that differ from the treatment of other employees, and there are issues of unequal power in the relationship. There is the inappropriateness of sex in a workplace relationship.
And now there is the risk of a payout of $500,000 plus legal fees, plus the costs to the taxpayer for the legislature lawyering.
Michael Brodkorb, in a rare display of exactly how sleazy he is, is claiming that he was treated differently from ALL THE OTHER staffers and elected politicos who were going at it like minks on the desks and behind every marble column lining the hallways.
Really? I don't approve of this rampant illicit tax-payer funded, tax-payer-$-risking illicit sex, no matter what partisan affiliation the participants espoused, and no matter if they had a spouse or not. Because hopefully, those who are doing so will stop, if they have not already ceased their misconduct.
But NONE OF THEM were fired because their bosses were the leader of the Senate who voluntarily stepped down. Those nameless, faceless, oversexed others MAY very well be guilty of misconduct, but apparently they are more discreet, they did not make it the same problem. Wrong is wrong. But someone else being wrong, someone else DOING wrong, doesn't excuse Michael Brodkorb.
He was an at-will hire, he can be fired for cause, or not for cause. He was fired because his assignment was ended, in part through his own damned fault, for behaving badly.
We should all be extremely grateful that the legislature presumably provides health care coverage that includes contraception and STD testing, unlike college students, unlike so very many ordinary citizens, unlike at least some of the women victimized by Rush Limbaugh.
I suppose we should be grateful he had fewer involvements than Herman Cain; that was expensive, but not that I recall $500,000 worth.
Brodkorb is trying to do through legal means what would under other circumstances amounts to extortion.
I say bring it. If he wants to play that game, do it. I hope very much that the Republicans will not shield any more of their own from the consequences of their misconduct, and I wouldn't expect them to shield any Democrats. Rather, I'd be expecting them to exploit any Democratic misconduct.
Some people feel that the Republican Party was really who hired and employed Michael Brodkorb. I suppose we could expect them to pay for a settlement with the legal extortioner Brodkorb, except that the party of fiscal responsibility wasn't responsible, and is in the hole a few million dollars, not to mention the stiffing of the counties for those recount expenditures back in 2010, courtesy of power puppeteer Tony Sutton, who should depart into well deserved disgrace and oblivion.
That terrible raging concern you have to PRESERVE marriage by restricting legal relationships to one man and one woman, denying anyone who is same-sex oriented the same loving committed LEGAL relationship? That would better be served in our legislature by married people not committing adulter, and costing us up the sweet wazoo.
Botched and irresponsible fiscal dealings; family values boasting adulterers and fornicators; and of course the party of good government proving that they can't keep government running after the shut-down last summer, and that they cannot manage their employees, their Human Resources tasks either. The Republicans are NOT the party of family values, they are the party of bigotry, hatred, and hypocrisy. The Republicans are NOT the party of fiscal responsibility, they are the party of financial disaster and spending money they do not have. The Republicans are NOT the party of good government; they've botched one thing after another. They have failed to address the issues for which they were elected, notably jobs; and they have waged an unpopular culture war that parallels the one on the national scene that has earned the right such high disapproval ratings (except for the extremist fringies).
Michael Brodkorb is a sleazy, grasping, greedy gigolo who is trying to rip off the tax payers, the citizens, the residents of Minnesota. Amy Koch is best left to Rush Limbaugh to characterize. Tony Sutton is incompetent, and the GOP should get their outrageous salary back from him for his failures, and use it to pay the GOP debt. The Republicans in the legislature should straighten up and start doing a better job than they have treated us all to - on our own nickel - since 2010 for the remaining time they have in office before they are kicked out in the November election. At that time I expect them to take their ALEC-legislating corrupt selves off our public stage, get off their backs on their desks and sofas in their Capital office and meeting spaces, and take themselves
OUT of our government. YOU HAVE FAILED.
Unless they have the decency to do so sooner, but there isn't much indication of that happening; only more of the same old same old.
WE should not be out of pocket one nickel. We should not be spending tax payer dollars that could better be spent to serve the citizens of Minnesota. It is not the politicians and staffers who are screwing each other; WE are the ones being screwed, and that is what has to stop. Or at the very least, they should provide us contraceptives and other reproductive care the way they do themselves, that allow the legislators and the staffers to have lots of wild sex on the taxpayer $, services that should be available as a public health concern, to benefit us, with our own money.
And the hypocrite windbag Limbaugh is silent on the topic. Such sweet silence, and all the quieter without the noise from those advertisers marketing those goods and services.