Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s husband was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife, and his company once victim-blamed a woman who sued for sexual misconduct, Fox News has learned.
A graphic protection order once filed by Joseph Shepard’s ex-wife even alleged he hit her, tripped her and “peed on” her.
Shepard, who married McCaskill in 2002, has come under increasing scrutiny amid media reports detailing his financial decisions and wealth-building while his wife was in office. He reportedly has received more than $131 million in federal subsidies since 2007, the year McCaskill became a U.S. senator, and also invested $1 million in a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven his wife wants to crack down on.
His Democratic senator wife is currently facing a challenge from Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley in one of the tightest races in the upcoming midterms. Multiple polls indicate the candidates are virtually tied.
The allegations against Shepard and the sexual harassment lawsuit against his company date back years, but nevertheless are a startling backdrop to the senator’s message regarding sexual harassment.
In a 2015 letter about sexual harassment, McCaskill wrote that “Victim-blaming in the context of sexual violence is as old as the crime itself” and that some “law enforcement officials sometimes unwilling to pursue justice because of the victim’s behavior prior to the crime.”
“’She was asking for it,’ is a sentence I have longed to see stripped from our cultural vocabulary,” she added. McCaskill also said multiple times that she believes women and their allegations of sexual misconduct.
In 1993, Shepard’s then-13-year-old daughter called the police to report that her mother, Suzanne Shepard, was a victim of a late-night assault, according to a police report obtained by Fox News. Shepard was listed as the only involved person. No charges were filed after the incident.
Five years later, in 1998, police were called again to the Shepard house. The police reported the wife claiming Shepard came to retrieve a carpet from the house and got involved in a dispute over marital problems. He then “proceeded to grab her right arm and push her,” the incident report read.
A 1998 police report. (Fox News)
The incident prompted the wife to file an adult abuse petition for order of protection against Shepard, where she provided additional details on what happened that night.
“Police called by friend in my home. Joseph entered my home. I told him to leave. He came up to me looking angry,” she wrote. “I put my hands up to protect my breasts as they are sore (cancer). He has hit me before in the breast. He grabbed my wrist and arm and pushed me up against the wall & I hit my head & back & he bruised my arms by pinching me.”
“I put my hands up to protect my breasts as they are sore (cancer). He has hit me before in the breast. He grabbed my wrist and arm and pushed me up against the wall & I hit my head & back & he bruised my arms by pinching me.”
— Suzanne Shepard
Shepard told the police officers at the time that his wife got physical first. “He said while he was attempting to load the [carpet] Mrs. Shepard began pushing him trying to get him out of the house,” police report states.
Fox News could not reach Suzanne Shepard, while the McCaskill campaign did not respond to multiple requests for a comment or an interview. Joseph Shepard also did not return requests for comment.
The protection order she filed against Shepard also recalled other previous incidents of alleged abuse.
“I am afraid of respondent and there is an immediate and present danger of abuse or stalking of me,” she claimed in the report. “He has tripped me, hit me before (police were called by my daughter), punched my cancer breast, peed on me, pushed me down and slapped me.”
“He now threatens that everything I have is his and I will end up in his low income housing and he wants to take my things,” she added.
“I am afraid of respondent and there is an immediate and present danger of abuse or stalking of me,” she claimed in the report. “He has tripped me, hit me before (police were called by my daughter), punched my cancer breast, peed on me, pushed me down and slapped me.”
— Suzanne Shepard
In later years, accusations of misconduct were also leveled against his businesses. Sugar Creek Realty – a company founded and owned by Shepard – was sued in 2009 in federal court for sexual harassment, prompting a campaign by the firm’s lawyers against the accuser.
Kristin Glemser accused the company and her female boss there of sexual misconduct, including allegedly asking her put on already-worn underwear, following her into a restroom, unbuttoning her pants without her consent, taking pictures of her in underwear without her consent and forcing her to watch her female boss simulate a sex act with another woman.
She said in a complaint obtained by Fox News that she “suffered mental anguish, inconvenience, embarrassment, the loss of the enjoyment of life and loss of employment” as a result of the incidents. In a deposition in court, the woman reiterated the claims she made in the complaint. Fox News couldn’t contact Glemser.
She also said Shepard’s company turned a blind eye to the rampant alleged harassment. Glemser said she “verbally” reported the incidents, but the employee responsible for dealing with such incidents “chose to do nothing about it” and tried to convince her to “go back to work” instead.
Sugar Creek initially defended against the allegations of sexual harassment, saying they weren’t aware of the accusations and the woman didn’t go through the reporting process as according to the company rules.
But in a February 2011 motion for summary judgment, Sugar Creek’s lawyers argued that her sexual misconduct claims weren’t “sufficiently severe or pervasive,” she was a “willing participant” in the “modeling” of the underwear, and she didn’t follow the company policy.
The lawyers also went on to diminish Glemser’s credibility by pointing out to her previous career as a model, asking her whether some of her modeling “pictures show you in considerably less clothing” than during the incidents she spoke about.
The company also filed a motion to make the woman’s modeling pictures part of the evidence in the case of sexual harassment in the workplace because her previous career indicated to her colleague that she “had no reason” to not be “willing to participate in modeling the [underwear].”
The accuser ultimately lost the case for employer liability after the court ruled that her claims failed because she “never returned to work.”
This metro-sexual thinks he is a bad ass because he grew a beard.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed in an interview this week that it was a “joke” when the social network described itself as the “free-speech wing of the free-speech party.”
Former Twitter vice president Tony Wang made the statement in 2012, declaring, “Generally, we remain neutral as to the content because our general counsel and CEO like to say that we are the free speech wing of the free speech party.”
In an interview with Wired this week, however, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reversed on Wang’s old statement, claiming it had been a “joke.”
“I think Vijaya [Gadde]’s op-ed in the Washington Post captures our position—our most evolved position—the best. And that is around this balance of people feeling safe to express themselves,” expressed Dorsey. “But certainly, this quote around ‘free-speech wing of the free-speech party’ was never a mission of the company. It was never a descriptor of the company that we gave ourselves. It was a joke, because of how people found themselves in the spectrum.”
The interviewer then responded to Dorsey, declaring, “But it was a joke that people took seriously and their respect for you increased because of it at the time.”
“Well, yeah, I don’t think it takes away from our defense of freedom of expression and freedom of speech. But we were not absolute absolutists,” Dorsey replied. “A lot of people come to Twitter and they don’t actually see an app or a service, they see what kind of looks like a public square. And they have the same sort of expectations of a public square. And that is what we have to make sure that we get right. And also, make sure that everyone feels safe to participate in that public square.”
Last year, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams claimed he was “wrong” about his previous beliefs that freedom of speech would make the world a better place.
“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place… I was wrong about that,” proclaimed Williams, before apologizing for co-founding a company which allowed President Trump to speak freely during the 2016 presidential election.
In 2017, Twitter’s Vice President of Public Policy and Communications also announced it was “no longer possible to stand up for all speech.”
Bo Knows Football, and Whoopi Goldberg Knows Ugly.
Whoopi Goldberg claimed Saturday that women in Hollywood used sex with “ugly-ass” men to forward their showbiz careers, and emphasized the importance of “[teaching] young women better.” She also accused American white men of “coming after” women.
At a recent live show in Leeds, U.K., Goldberg touched upon the issues surrounding the #MeToo movement, according to RadarOnline.
“Now there’s some things my mother always said to me that I knew were true,” Goldberg explained in a profanity-laden monologue.
“It’s like, if some guy said to me we’re gonna have a meeting up in my hotel room… you don’t f***ing go — you don’t go. And if you do, cop to it. Say, ‘That’s right, I went up there and had sex with that ugly-ass man so I could get an Oscar and a Tony,’” Goldberg continued.
“Am I talking about myself?” she asked rhetorically. “No. We have to teach young women better.”
Goldberg then attacked American white men, saying, “Apparently American white men are angry … ’cause they’re top of the food chain, they can get anything they f***ing want but it’s not enough — so they’re coming after women.”
“Women are saying, ‘Are you kidding me?’ You can’t put this genie back in the bottle’. Women are not taking any bulls**t.”
Goldberg’s comments are the latest in a string of recent statements she has made on sexual topics. Last week, she admitted to the possibility of having made inappropriate sexual comments to actor Neil Patrick Harris when he was a young teenager. The week before that, she drew the ire of Donald Trump, Jr., when she implied that his young sons might have “tendencies” toward sexual assault.
A biological male who identifies as a transgender woman won a women’s world championship cycling event on Sunday.
Rachel McKinnon, a professor at the College of Charleston, won the women’s sprint 35-39 age bracket at the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles.
McKinnon, representing Canada, bested Carolien Van Herrikhuyzen of the Netherlands and American cyclist Jennifer Wagner to take home the gold.
McKinnon celebrated the victory on Twitter, writing: “First transgender woman world champion…ever.”
“We cannot have a woman legally recognized as a trans woman in society, and not be recognized that way in sports,” McKinnon told USA Today.
“Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue. We shouldn’t be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead.”
McKinnon also compared restrictions on biological males competing in women’s events to racial segregation.
“This is bigger than sports, and it’s about human rights,” McKinnon said to USA Today.
“By catering to cisgender people’s views, that furthers transgender people’s oppression. When it comes to extending rights to a minority population, why would we ask the majority? I bet a lot of white people were pissed off when we desegregated sports racially and allowed black people. But they had to deal with it.”
Al Gore Should Be Arrested For Making Millions Off The Fake Man Mad Global Warming.
A $240 PER GALLON GAS TAX TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING? NEW UN REPORT SUGGESTS CARBON PRICING
A new U.N. report suggests a $240 per gallon gas tax equivalent is needed to fight global warming.
The U.N. says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton in the year 2100.
If you think that’s unlikely to ever happen, you’re probably right.
A United Nations special climate report suggests a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton at the end of the century to effectively limit global warming.
Tree Hugging Idiot.
For Americans, that’s the same as a $240 per gallon tax on gasoline in the year 2100, should such a recommendation be adopted. In 2030, the report says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $5,500 — that’s equivalent to a $49 per gallon gas tax.
Political Correctness Gone Amuck.
If you think that’s an unlikely scenario, you’re probably not wrong. However, it’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, released Sunday night, sees as a policy option for reducing emissions enough to keep projected warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Nuff Said!
The IPCC’s report is meant to galvanize political support for doubling down on the Paris climate accord ahead of a U.N. climate summit scheduled for December. The report calls for societal changes that are “unprecedented in terms of scale” in order to limit future global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the stretch goal of the Paris accord.
In order to effectively keep future warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the IPCC says carbon taxes would need to range from $135 to $5,500 per ton in 2030, $245 to $13,000 per ton in 2050, $420 to $17,000 per ton in 2070 and $690 to $27,000 per ton in 2100.
To meet the goals of the Paris accord, which seeks to limit future warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, the IPCC says carbon taxes would have range between $10 and $200 in 2030 and $160 and $2,125 in 2100.
That’s equivalent to a gas tax as high as $1.70 per gallon in 2030 to nearly $19 per gallon at the end of the century. That’s less onerous than limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but still no walk in the park.
California and many European countries have policies to price carbon dioxide emissions and mandate green energy, including cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes. But carbon prices under those systems are nowhere near where the IPCC says they need to be.
The IPCC said the “price of carbon would need to increase significantly when a higher level of stringency is pursued.” However, the group’s report tacitly acknowledges the unlikelihood that governments will enact astronomical taxes on energy.
“While the price of carbon is central to prompt mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5 [degree Celsius]-consistent pathways, a complementary mix of stringent policies is required,” reads the IPCC’s report.
In the U.S., Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposed to carbon taxes in July. Democrats called for a price on carbon dioxide in their 2016 party platform, but they haven’t made much effort on that front since the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in 2010.
Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida introduced carbon tax legislation shortly after all but five of his GOP colleagues in the House voted to oppose such a bill. Curbelo’s bill would tax carbon dioxide at $23 a ton — nowhere near what the IPCC calls for.
However, the IPCC suggested a lower carbon tax could be used in conjunction with command and control policies, like regulations and bans on coal plants, could achieve “generate a 1.5˚C pathway for the U.S. electric sector.”
But that point only serves to undermine Curbelo’s bill, which would put a moratorium on some environmental regulations and possibly eliminate some if emissions goals are reached.
The IPCC noted the “literature indicates that the pricing of emissions is relevant but needs to be complemented with other policies to drive the required changes in line with 1.5°C-consistent cost-effective pathways.”
Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said President Donald Trump was a “poster boy for what a mob protester looks like.”
Discussing conservative media calling protests a “mob,” Waters said, “Well, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s not believable. As a matter of fact, this country was built on peaceful protests. And those of us who were part of the Civil Rights movement, who understood the power of protest taught by Dr. Martin Luther King and others know that we cannot allow Donald Trump and anybody else to take protests away from us and to deem it to be violent and to try and make us look like a mob. It is because of peaceful protests, not only in the Civil Rights movement, but the labor movement was able to get better wages, able to get better working conditions, able to get better pay, everything because they learned to march and protest. And they still do it today. We know that protest is guaranteed to a democratic society. We know that this is guaranteed to us by the Constitution.”
What A Damn Joke
She continued, “They’re trying to change the description of protest and call it a mob. Well, this president is the poster boy for what a mob protester looks like. He is—matter of fact, he’s the one who has been violent in his speech. He’s the one in his rallies has said things like ‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’ Trump said that at one of his rallies, he said ‘knock the crap out of them, would you, and seriously, okay, just knock the hell out of them, I mean, I promise I will pay the legal fees.’ That’s the kind of talk that he has done. That’s violent talk. With don’t have that kind of talk that has come from the women who are protesting. As a matter of fact, this country is past due for the kind of protests that we have seen women do in the last few days as we have gone through this confirmation process of Kavanaugh. It is time for women to say that we’re tired of being disrespected.”
Claire McCaskill
