'Senior House Republican from the Midwest caught up in sexual abuse scandal involving coaches and student wrestlers' is now a headline that can describe two entirely different politicians. https://t.co/8dm3QWc3UT
— zeddy (@Zeddary) July 3, 2018
Rep. Jim Jordan, the powerful Republican congressman from Ohio, is being accused by former wrestlers he coached more than two decades ago at Ohio State University of failing to stop the team doctor from molesting them and other students.
The university announced in April that it was investigating accusations that Dr. Richard Strauss, who died in 2005, abused team members when he was the team doctor from the mid-1970s to late 1990s.
Jordan, who was assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994, has repeatedly said he knew nothing of the abuse until former students began speaking out this spring, and continued to deny it on Tuesday. His denials, however, have been met with skepticism and anger from some former members of the wrestling team.
Three former wrestlers told NBC News that it was common knowledge that Strauss showered regularly with the students and inappropriately touched them during appointments, and said it would have been impossible for Jordan to be unaware; one wrestler said he told Jordan directly about the abuse.
DiSabato, whose allegations against Strauss prompted Ohio State to open its investigation, called Jordan a “liar.”
“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” DiSabato said. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
DiSabato said he reached out to Jordan this year, before going to the university, to tell Jordan that he planned to go public with his allegations. Jordan told him to “please leave me out of it,” DiSabato said. “He asked me not to get him involved.”…
Jordan, a founder of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative representatives, is a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and is frequently mentioned as a possible replacement for the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan…
Jordan is wrestling royalty. Born and raised in Champaign County, Ohio, he was a four-time state wrestling champion. Competing for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he won NCAA titles in 1985 and 1986.
But in the wrestling world, Jordan is best known for defeating future two-time Olympic gold medalist John Smith twice in an NCAA tournament in 1985.
Jordan returned home to Ohio and — while working as a coach — earned a master’s degree in education at Ohio State and later a law degree from Capital University in Columbus before launching his political career in 1994 when he was elected to the Ohio General Assembly…
Since the House Repubs are very fond of unfunny “jokes” (see: Ryan & McCarthy sharing a laugh over Dana Rohrabacher being on Putin’s payroll), maybe we should check for coffee mugs emblazoned YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A PERVERT ENABLER TO WORK HERE — BUT IT HELPS!
I once covered a Big Ten wrestling team. These guys eat and sleep their sport and operate almost as a family. Jim Jordan says he knew nothing about the thing lots of other people in the family say was common knowledge. That's a tough line to hold.https://t.co/o51nBCsaG4
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) July 3, 2018
Mnemosyne
Jordan was told that his players were being molested and his first instinct was to wipe the knowledge from his memory and pretend it never happened so it wouldn’t affect his chances as a politician. ?
Schlemazel
Please remember: SPORTS BUILDS CHARACTER!
Nobody has ever suggested it is good character. Seems like the perfect place for Republicans to congregate.
Schlemazel
BTW – you are wasting time fretting over yet another amoral venial gooper when the real actions is at #secondcivilwarletters
Miss Bianca
I am so sad and disgusted about this. That is all. Every accusation really is a confession – and dammit, that’s the second time I’ve found myself saying that here today.
B.B.A.
A parting shot at Splinter’s parent company’s chairman from Alex Pareene.
Saban ought to be on everyone’s shit list for Power Rangers alone.
Mary G
Love the title, AL. The creepiest thing in the NBC article that it wasn’t just the team doctor who showed up after wrestling practice was over to shower with the team.
Gross and awful. It’s always projection with these guys. That is right out of Pizzagate. Institutionalized abuse.
Waldo
Guess Jimbo forgot the real Hastert rule: It ain’t the crime, it’s the coverup.
Mai naem mobile
Now you know the kompromat the Russians were holding over Jimbo Jordan. Unless there’s something even worse. There isn’t much worse unless.you’re doing the abusing yourself.
Hawes
I’ve been a wrestling coach for 25 years. The sport has always been quietly paranoid about the creepers that congregate on its edges. If you’re running a program and there is even a whisper of deviancy in any of your staff, I would think – out of love for the reputation of the sport, if not human decency – you would act.
JPL
IOKIYR
https://twitter.com/csiemaszko/status/1014258634828722179
trollhattan
@B.B.A.:
As sad as it is to meet a new-to-me writer via their farewell piece, another Univision buyout posted hers yesterday. Her #1 troll is quite the…pistol and her tale of attending the NY Young Republicans Christmas (not holiday) party is a hoot and a half.
They’re wrecking the joint…too bad.
geg6
@Mary G:
Jesus. WTF is wrong with these people? Makes me glad my dreams of being an Olympic level swimmer never worked out. I participated until halfway through college, realized I’d never be better than mid-level and got out. Was lucky I made it that far without being raped by coaches/trainers/medical staff, I’m thinking.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Mai naem mobile:
Devin Nunes must be in a cold sweat wondering if he’s next.
Mnemosyne
@Hawes:
You would have thought that with women’s and girls’ gymnastics, too, but nope. The institution protecting itself is more powerful than any cultural messages about sexual abuse being bad.
randy khan
In case anyone is interested, the Ohio primaries were on May 8, so he’s the nominee. A kind of slow burn on this scandal with a kicker at the end would be kind of convenient. You know, something like an email coming out in the 2nd week of October.
dexwood
@Mary G:
That stood out for me, too. Love to see them identified. Hope they have sleepless nights.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Will note in passing Kenneth by gawd Starr’s utter contempt for the Baylor female rape victims across many years. Yes, he eventually lost his jerb but he’s back on my teevee constantly, on several news channels, to intone soothing assurances that Trump will be Just Fine. And the many rapists live their lives unmolested, so to speak.
There’s an underlying sickness.
Mary G
@dexwood: Strauss ended up committing suicide; hopefully the Ohio State legal team and the press are looking for these others, and they deserve to suffer.
JPL
@randy khan: But he’ll always have Benghazi.
Omnes Omnibus
I’ve met him. He is an asshole.
oatler.
Why isn’t this confederate cocksucker on a gibbet right now?
Mai naem mobile
Part of the story maybe that Jordan was thinking about running for Speaker and was asking for support last week. I wonder rif the stuff is oppo research being used by Kevin McCarthy.
Mary G
@Schlemazel: I agree, they are on fire on that hashtag:
efgoldman
@randy khan:
Isn’t Jordan the Republiklown who screamed at and browbeat Rosenstein in recent hearings?
TenguPhule
@Hawes:
You would, they don’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mai naem mobile: Kevin McCarthy’s not that smart.
sukabi
@Schlemazel: agree, the 2nd civil war is good, but the letters are hilarious.
debbie
No one deserves public humiliation like this more than Jim Jordan. Except maybe Bill Sykes, the Ohio Speaker who’s apparently said some very offensive things about women over the years.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: Yes.
NotMax
OT and only FYI.
On Amazon Prime is the 1961 TV interview conducted by David Susskind with Harry Truman, under the title Give ’em Hell Harry.
Mostly softball (as well as a reminder to me of why was always lukewarm about Susskind – his penchant for asking the same question 5 different ways and avoiding follow-ups). But when was the last time TV gave up almost 3 hours of airtime for such a program? As an artifact of that era, thought it worth a mention.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Yes.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
And what distinguished him from the rest of them?
sukabi
@Mai naem mobile: if the Russians have something on him, it will be ALL the details and pictures too.
Was he one of the assholes that’s spending the 4th in Russia?
Eljai
@randy khan: I wonder if the Democrat running in that district, Janet Garrett, will have a chance now. I read that the district is ridiculously gerrymandered, but I would not mind sending her a few bucks to help her defeat that odious excuse for a human being.
01Jack
What is it that makes this nexus between conservative politics and hypocritical acceptance of sexual abuse?
JPL
@Mai naem mobile: They eat their own.
rikyrah
Of course, he knew.?
Those poor young men. Lives damaged forever ??
Lyrebird
@dexwood: Yep. At least bleepity bleeping Graham Spanier lost his bleeping appeal!
Click on over to ESPN if you need more reasons to feel disgusted by so-called leaders.
rikyrah
@Schlemazel:
Fabulous hashtag ?
NotMax
Humongous brush fire happening part way down the mountainside in former sugar cane fields. Expect the main highway down to sea level is closed. Brisk winds as well (they are blowing away from where I am).
Yarrow
dexwood
@Lyrebird:
Thanks, but I’ve been disgusted enough since Nixon to the present, especially the present. Monsters, ghouls, and Nazis.
raven
@NotMax: There were fires there when were we on Maui right about this time of year 6 years ago,
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: We were both in legal/political circles in Columbus in the late ’90s/early ’00s. On different sides, of course. Many of the GOP folks I knew then could be decent in person. He was one of the first complete asshole GOPers I ever met.
Ninedragonspot
@JPL: Subpoena his phone calls!
Schlemazel
@Eljai:
If it looks like the shitheel might not survive they will replace him. There is always someone whose evil is not yet exposed in the GOP & suckers to vote for it
NotMax
@raven
Cane was still being grown then, so those were most likely planned burns. Those fields nowadays lie fallow.
Right now gigantic smoke plume stretching laterally for maybe a mile and a half and upward several thousand feet.
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: I think we may need a separate post just for #secondcivilwarletters.
raven
@NotMax: So the plume was similar, right?
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman: Man, am I hoping that Instant Karma is going to get that mofo.
Kay
I love that photograph. Hard charging ambitious conservative leader on the move! Get out of his way!
It’s the lying. The lying is a real problem with these people. It would have gone better for him if he had admitted it.
NotMax
@raven
Yes, except this one today is much darker and more foreboding in color. Blowing pretty much right towards Kihei.
donnah
Jim Jordan is one of those obsessive assholes who talks loud and fast and is obnoxious on multiple levels. His holier-than-thou rants are disgusting. I’m sure he felt the scandal would never touch him and he’s such a Republican that he feels because he denies it that it never happened.
It would thrill me no end to see this drag him down like an anchor around his neck. And it’s a shame that the students suffered while he pretended it wasn’t happening.
Mary G
@Miss Bianca: I’ve tried to refrain from posting them, because I’m sure AL will do an evening or late night thread, but it’s hard to resist.
Kay
@donnah:
They’re pissed and they should be. They want him to back them up, to verify it happened. He refused, to save his own hide. He betrayed them twice, once by not doing anything to stop it and then again in April when he told them to “leave me out of it”
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel:
They tried that in 2004 when Jack Ryan flamed out against Obama in the US Senate election in IL. It did not go well for the Republicans. ?
A Ghost To Most
@Miss Bianca: Cooked from scratch karma would taste better.
raven
@NotMax: That’s the Trades?
Mai naem mobile
@sukabi: I think those are all Senators.
There’s a lot of GOPrs who I find really really annoying and Jim Jordan is in my top ten. Keep in mind he’s competing with Orrin Hatch,McConnell, Grassley,Trumpov, Sessions, Kris Kobach,Marsha Blackburn,Ted Cruz etc.
NotMax
@raven
More or less. Seem to blowing from a slightly more easterly direction.
raven
@NotMax: I guess we were there right at the tail end of the cane production and burn because they did it and people was pissed.
Schlemazel
@Mnemosyne:
The IL state-wide is a bit different than a CD in Oho that was built by a GOP run ledg. We can hope & continue to fight but It will be a miracle.
donnah
@Kay:
Kay, I’m an Ohioan and I’ve had to listen to Jordan since his Tea Party introduction. I just cannot stand him. He’s so pushy and rude; he’s a bully like Trump.
I hope they drag him around and beat him up so that his reputation is forever ruined. He deserves the worst because he IS the worst.
NotMax
@raven
Expect it began with kids and firecrackers. That time of year.
NotMax
@raven
Looking down on the fields when the overnight cane burns were being done was quite the view. Mini Mordor.
Often had to sweep ash off cars and walkways the next day.
Frank Wilhoit
Beautiful! Message to Members of Congress: fcck with Rod Rosenstein and your monogrammed dirty laundry will be draped across the front porchH^H^H^Hage, literally within days. A glory to behold.
randy khan
@Eljai:
At a minimum, it might be worth a few bucks to help even things out and make the Rs commit some national cash there.
NotMax
Note for Amir –
Rachel Maddow is airing a segment on Najib.
Zinsky
Did you see the way this walking pile of dog vomit (Jordan) grilled Rod Rosenstein last week? I have never seen such a shameful, disgusting abuse of power. If this repulsive, cauliflower-eared, retard knew about this sexual abuse, he should be sent to the nearest federal penitentiary to be on the receiving end of a little of his own!
Gin & Tonic
@A Ghost To Most: Yeah, I don’t like the instant stuff. The slow-cooked, creamy kind is just much more satisfying, when it simmers and simmers and fills the house with its aroma.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost To Most: Ha! Well-played!
@Gin & Tonic: When I first glanced at the post I thought Ghostie had written “cooked to scotch karma.” Is it wrong?
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@NotMax:
So basicaly a nostalgic 4th of July in Kihei….
*rimshot*
Adam L Silverman
@B.B.A.: He aught to be on everyone’s list because he’s a Mossad operative who was staked by them to come over here to set up his entertainment company, then get access to the American Jewish community, and attempt to influence it.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: @Hawes: I wrestled for four years in high school. A Jesuit high school. The coaches and faculty had their own locker room and their own showers. No one other than students ever showered with the students.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Is it on MSNBC’s YouTube channel yet?
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Eventually they’ll just send a subpoena. But not for his phone calls.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: In my experience of high school and college (Div.III) sports, only athletes showered with athletes.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Dunno how fast they put stuff up. Her show ended 15 minutes ago.
It was mostly a cursory report, but a report on the American MSM nonetheless.
Adam L Silverman
@The Ancient Randonneur:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/24/rep-devin-nunes-linked-to-napa-winery-that-allegedly-held-prostitutes-and-cocaine-cruise/
Much more at the link.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: No, those are all senators. And as Putin will do with the President after their private, no cameras, no recording devices, no one else in the room meeting, the Russians are, of course, acting as predicted:
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: You never knew about Bohemian Grove?
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Is Senator Burr the only Republican with no dirty laundry required to perform like a trained seal for Putin?
Adam L Silverman
@01Jack: A lot of gay and bisexual men who have pushed themselves deeply into the closet in pursuit of power is one. This is how you got Hastert and Larry Craig and Foley. And if the rumors are true a pair of currently serving, senior GOP senators.
Another driver has to do with the social and religious subculture. When you come from groups that publicly fetishize hyper Victorian sexual mores, you wind up with a lot of really deviant sexual activity and behavior going on. It creates both mundane dysfunction. If you can’t have sex out before marriage, then people get married too young and for the wrong reasons. This then, if you’re lucky, just leads to high rates of divorce. If unlucky it can be a driver of domestic abuse. Similarly, if being LGBTQ isn’t just wrong, but is a sin, then you either bury your true self/identity, desires, and preferences or you indulge in ways that are exceedingly unhealthy. And when the former stops being effective or the latter can’t be obscured, things get ugly.
B.B.A.
@Mary G:
There’s no such thing.
NotMax
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
Yup yup. Just poked head outside and it is still ongoing and spreading. Gaggle of people parked on the street in front of the house taking photos.
Mai naem mobile
@Frank Wilhoit: that was my first thought when I saw the story. Deep state really hitting back. Also saw the clip of Rosenstein leaving the WH today and he was grinning from ear to ear. Just to think he knows what Mueller knows.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
I just checked the MSNBC YouTube channel and their site. Not at either place yet.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: This is risk management 101: adults don’t use the same facilities as kids. When that can’t be totally avoided, they shower at separate times. “Keep my name out of it” — for that alone he deserves to be driven from office.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: No one ever sees Amir and Najib together. Coincidence???//
NotMax
Way OT.
Ad just shown on the TV for a local upscale plumbing supplier/installer. Freestanding bathtub being filled from a spigot all the way up in the ceiling.
Who da hell would want such a set-up? No matter what, splashing on the floor inevitable.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Probably tastes good breaded and fried.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: That was always my experience.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I am well aware of them. They actually slipped me an envelope of cash to keep them out of last night’s post about the softball game and picnic.//
efgoldman
@NotMax:
I see a lot of commercials for upscale bath/shower/kitchen setups that look impractical at best, stupid at worst.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: I have no idea.
Amir Khalid
Speaking of Najib, my old newspaper The Star reports he was arrested yesterday afternoon. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has confirmed the arrest, and says to wait for its official statement.
Just One More Canuck
@Schlemazel: I know you were being sarcastic but the truth is that sports doesn’t build character, it reveals character
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I was at his house for Eid Al-fitri in 1979. (We were neighbours then.) Haven’t met him since.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: Yep. And while the “keep my name out of it” isn’t an admission, it sure seems to be implying that he knew what was going on and didn’t do anything.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
my nominee for the best of the Second Civil War Letters, A Series Not By Ken Burns
Mary G
@Amir Khalid:
Birds of a feather flock together:
Twitler really is a cheap bastard.
Ella in New Mexico
@rikyrah: Maybe not. Maybe they are stepping up now because they’ve hit that sweet spot in their development where things finally make sense and you start kicking ass by telling the truth. And it lasts for the rest of your life.
Stay positive. :-)
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Hmmm….//
Chetan Murthy
@Ella in New Mexico: Uh, want to be gentle about this, but: there’s no way we’d say this sort of thing about girls of that age being creeped-on. No, there’s a lotta scarring. I fear we’ll find out a lot of stuff like what that piece of shit Hastert was up to ……
Ella in New Mexico
@Schlemazel:
Ok, c’mon.
@Just One More Canuck:
That’s more like it. :-)
Platonailedit
Just read about traitorous thug’s choice for the SC seat (fuck you, kennedy). She is a christofascist with more than half a dozen kids who subscribes to women are just vessels old world beliefs. Chilling.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I vote for how I won the battle of Martha’s Vineyard without firing a shot.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s funny, except for the clown dude who’s terrifying.
efgoldman
@Barbara:
Did you get your training at the Battle of Bowling Green?
oldgold
I want to believe Mueller is going to end this madness.
I wonder, if there was no investigation, would I be resisting more proactively? Would others?
If Mueller turns out to be McClellan along the Potomac, DAMN! I will only have myself to blame.
Barbara
@Chetan Murthy: One of these guys said he was inspired to act by the Nasser trial.
Mr Stagger Lee
Jesus!!!! What is up with the B1G Ten? First Penn State then Michigan State now Ohio State, whos next????
efgoldman
@Platonailedit:
Suzy Q Collins will get over her “concerns” and vote to confirm. Maybe she’ll be the vote that puts the christofascist over the top.
Amir Khalid
@Barbara:
All I really know about Martha’s Vineyard is that Fox Mulder was born and raised there.
Barbara
@efgoldman: No, I was self taught by reading Miss Manners.
efgoldman
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Too big for their britches. Have been since Bo and Woody.
Mnemosyne
@Chetan Murthy:
Barbara beat me to the reference, but I think that Ella was thinking of Aly Raisman and the other women who had no fucks left to give when they testified against the doctor who assaulted them.
Brickley Paiste
@NotMax: Make the whole bathroom floor the drainpan with one or two in-floor drains.
So much easier to clean. Just take the spray wands down and spray down everything in the bathroom.
Barbara
@Mr Stagger Lee: Hey, don’t forget the Pac 12. UCLA has a student health and a dope fiend scandal involving at least two professors, although I don’t know whether student athletes were harmed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: It’s the conference that can’t count(there are more than 10 teams).
Brickley Paiste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That is one of the best I’ve seen.
Ella in New Mexico
Whenever we combine talented kids/young people with a dream with situations in which they must put up with whatever abuse heads their way to succeed, we’re asking for this kind of shit.
I had some outstanding athletes in my hoard, but they learned early on that they didn’t have to tolerate abuse or eat shit to accomplish their dreams. If it became a requirement, they chose different dreams. Truth is, it wasn’t easy and on a couple of occasions, it was sad to watch them have to let something go that they clearly were born to exceed in. But they knew deep inside it wasn’t worth sacrificing their self esteem, their self respect. And they moved on and things were fine.
That’s the key–talented children and young people cannot be hostages to someone else just to fulfill a talent or a dream. They must be free to walk away. It’s parent’s and mentors jobs to support their healthy choices.
efgoldman
@Barbara:
There are scandals and crimes to be found everywhere. But the B1G particularly keeps to the hagiography of their best known coaches.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Barbara: …and the U$C Student Health OB/GYN who was accused of inappropriate touching(he was fondling his patients) which caused the resignation of the university president.
ETA: There was also the U$C Dean of Medicine that was smoking meth with hookers.
Amir Khalid
@Mary G:
One sad thing about Najib is that his dad Tun Abdul Razak, who was Malaysia’s second PM, was famous for not having expensive tastes. And his first wife, a princess from Terengganu state, has neither Rosmah’s very expensive tastes nor the ill-gotten means to indulge any such thing.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
You can add to that the info that at the time it received that name it was neither Martha’s nor a vineyard.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It was for research purposes only! He had IRB approval.//
B.B.A.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: A close relative of mine works for the USC medical school. When I asked him if he knew about the dean’s… ahem… interests, or if anything seemed off about him, he said no, the dean seemed like a typical med school dean – i.e., an asshole.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m still trying to figure out if the creepy doctor was the same health center doctor I had a weird run-in with when I was a student 25 years ago. He didn’t act inappropriately (he apparently had a weird Asian fetish so I was the wrong race to attract that behavior) but he wanted to do a procedure that seemed a little extreme given that I was complaining about menstrual cramps. I doubt there’s any way to find out at this point. They didn’t always employ the best and brightest at the SHC.
Yarrow
@Mary G:
Why would you think Sen. Burr has no dirty laundry?
Haroldo
@efgoldman: Mr. Goldman, you seem to have forgotten the SEC.
Dev Null
@Adam L Silverman: I forwarded this around when it came out, but:
As you no doubt know, there’ve been allegations that Nunes has a Russia connection via the same winery, but the allegators are not particularly credible:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/devin-nunes-wine-russia/
I’d love to see Nunes nailed, but unless&until evidence directly implicating Nunes in Alpha Omega shenanigans turns up …
Gelfling 545
@Mary G: OMG, the letters are a hoot. I haven’t laughed like than in…nearly 2 years.