What I keep wondering is, is it necessary for us to know about the personal
lives of government officials? Does what happens in their private lives have to
be relevant to how they do their jobs? Did the fact that Elliot Spitzer
purchase sex while on business trips, make him a bad New York State attorney
General? Now if he'd murdered someone, I think that would be relevant. While
reading that excellent three book biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, I learned
that as a young, inexperienced mother, she physically and emotionally abused
her children. The author didn't use those words. She described what Eleanor did
and to me, what she did was physical and emotional abuse, and it was normal
practice, given the times, her social class, and her lack of good parenting. So
does that fact subtract from all of the good that she's done in the world? So
if Al Franken kissed some women who didn't want him to, did that make him a bad
senator who had to resign?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2018 11:34 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Keith Ellison and Domestic Violence - So What's
the Story?
Fools rush in where Reason fears to tread!
In domestic battles such as this one, every participant has their own story.
And each participant has their own reasons for telling their own version.
Unless a victim is willing to take their story before a judge or jury, I simply
find it a sad, frustrating story.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/17/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Keith Ellison and Domestic Violence - So What's the Story?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
16 August 18
I have offered him restorative justice and for him to seek some sort
of help for over a year and half. He would not take me up on it. I
told him I have not lost sight of his humanity and he deserved to take
that time for himself to heal. I told him time and time again, I
didn't want to share my story publicly, it was more important for
healing and restoration to occur with this situation. I told him not
only he deserved it, but his family and constituents deserve it as
well. For me, that alone would have been justice as far as my
situation. But no matter how many times I offered, he wouldn't take me
up on it.
- Karen Monahan, statement to Fox 9, Minneapolis, August 12, 2018
On August 11, Karen Monahan's 25-year-old son, Austin Aslam Monahan,
apparently acting on his own for unexplained motives, went public on
Facebook with a domestic violence accusation against Minnesota
Congressman Keith Ellison, a Democrat running for Minnesota Attorney
General in a five-way race. Austin Monahan's timing, three days before
the Minnesota primaries, suggests political motivation. He sent his
missive to numerous recipients, including Ellison, two of his
opponents, and several news media.
But the content of his lengthy post is fundamentally personal, not
political. And even though it immediately became a hot story, Ellison
won his primary on August 14 with 49% of the vote, 30 points ahead of
his second-place challenger. Minnesota hasn't elected a Republican
attorney general since 1955.
Keith Ellison and Karen Monahan ended their relationship in 2016, but
not without difficulty before and after. Most of the details remain unclear.
Austin Monahan's post "on behalf of me and my brother" is agonizingly
personal and apparently heartfelt, as he describes watching "our mom
come out of pure hell after getting out of her relationship with Keith
Ellison."
As to the timing of his going public, Austin Monahan offers a somewhat
disconnected explanation that implies he acted without consulting his
mother:
My mom has always tried to protect me and my brother. She doesn't have
to protect us anymore and we aren't letting her stand alone. When we
found out our mom was planning on sharing her story, that is all we
needed to hear for us to share ours and stand with our mom. You want
to smear someone, try to lie about a person who didn't do shit to
deserve the ongoing emotional, physical abuse, smear me and my
brother.
He doesn't explain why he decided to go public ahead of his mother. He
does explain why he didn't go public in 2017, because "our mom begged
us not to and she along with others convinced us is wasn't in our
mom's best interest." [emphasis added] But that raises the question:
if he was consulting with his mom and others in 2017, who (if anyone)
was he consulting with in 2018? What changed? But his own account, the
impetus to go public was much stronger more than a year earlier:
In the middle of 2017, I was using my moms computer trying to download
something and I clicked on a file, I found over 100 text and twitters
messages and video almost 2 min long that showed Keith Ellison
dragging my mama off the bed by her feet, screaming and calling her a
"fucking bitch"
and telling her to get the fuck out of his house. The messages I
found, were mixed with him consistently telling my mom he wanted her
back, he missed her, he knew he fucked up and we wished he could do
things different, he would victim shaming, bully her, and threaten her
if she went public. I text him and told him I know what you did to my
mama and a few other things.
So here's a 25-year-old man basically admitting he invaded his
mother's privacy, not just accidentally and briefly, but long enough
to, in effect, compile a dossier on her ex-lover. OK, that seems
unusual, but the facts remain the facts, whatever they are. So far,
the Monahans have released edited versions of much of the
correspondence. Those who have seen it say it shows no domestic
violence. But the videotape, which would be dispositive as described,
remains private.
On August 12, in mid-afternoon, Keith Ellison responded to the Monahan
post with a brief statement issued by his campaign:
Karen and I were in a long-term relationship which ended in 2016, and
I still care deeply for her well-being.
This video does not exist because I never behaved this way, and any
characterization otherwise is false.
A little more than an hour later, KarenMonahan01 posted on Twitter:
What my son said is true. Every statement he made was true.
@keithellison, you know you did that to me. I have given every
opportunity to get help and heal. Even now, u r willing to say my son
is lying and have me continue to leak more text and info just so
others will believe him
Someone called ChattyEmu later responded on Twitter, going to the
heart of the matter:
Karen, your son says there's a video. You say your son is telling the
truth.
There's no evidence of abuse in the text messages you showed MPR
[Minnesota Public Radio], according to MPR. If you have video evidence
- or *any
evidence* - of abuse, please release it now.
That evening, Karen Monahan released her own, very long statement that
Fox
9
in Minneapolis posted on its website. In setting the context for her
own story, Karen Monahan referred to Anita Hill, adding: "There are
countless stories throughout history and currently where women who
break their silence are smeared, minimized, punished, bullied and cast
out of communities." She also cited another Minnesota woman, Lindsey
Port, whose promising political career took a hit after she blew the
whistle on sexual harassers in the Democratic patriarchy, her own
party (at least one state senator resigned).
Instead of supporting her, "the progressive community, who was
pointing fingers at the other party about the same atrocities,
crucified her. They bullied her, isolated her, withheld promised
donations to her organization, which helped build individuals capacity
to be part of the social change, and much more," Monahan wrote. She
has now challenged the same "progressive"
community.
Monahan's account of her relationship with Ellison is credible as
presented, but without a great deal of specificity. An exception is
her very specific account of what supposedly appears on the video her
son came across:
One night I confronted him [Keith Ellison] very calm about a lie he
had just told me straight to my face. What happened next was a rage
that I had never witnessed to that magnitude. He was becoming a person
I had never seen before. The next morning, he came into the room I was
sleeping in. I was laying across the bed with my headphones on,
listening to podcast on my phone. He said he was about to leave town
for the weekend and told me to take the trash out. Given the explosive
outrage that occurred the night before, I just should shook my head
yes. I didn't look up at him or saying anything. That is when he tried
to drag me off the bed by my legs and feet, screaming "bitch you
answer when I am talking to you. I said take out the trash, your a bad
guest (even though we were living in the same place). He kept trying
to drag me off the bed, telling me to get the fuck out of his house,
over and over. I froze.
He had to leave and get on the plane. He knocked the shoe off my foot
and told me I better be gone when he gets back (which was in two
days). This happened in 2016. The gaslighting, manipulation, name
calling and cheating started in 2014. By time the physical abuse
occurred, I was dealing with the PTSD full blown. I secured an
apartment within those two days. I borrowed the money I needed and
spent that whole weekend searching for an apartment until I found one.
I couldn't move in until a couple months. During the waiting period he
asked me several times to please not move out, he would reimburse me
for the deposit. In my gut, I knew it was the right thing to do and
said "no".
After describing additional abusive behavior that she says Ellison
participated in, Monahan refers to her offer of "restorative justice"
(quoted above). Is that where she wants this process to go? In the
middle of an election? She does not articulate any way out of this
quandary created by her son. She doesn't offer an opinion as to
whether Ellison should be the next attorney general of Minnesota, but
her allegations, left unresolved, could determine the outcome. The
electorate needs to know whether the video exists. And who shot it.
How can there be a video without a videographer?
As
a victim, Karen Monahan deserves a fair hearing, but she also has an
obligation to full and precise disclosure, as does Ellison. But as a
presumed victim, she still has no right to victimize the people of
Minnesota.
After his primary victory August 14, Ellison again denied the Monahans'
claims, calling them "other stuff," while adding: "We'll be talking
about this other stuff in the next few days. We're not trying to avoid the
topic.
We will handle it head-on."
Depending on how all this plays out, Minnesota voters face the
possibility that their next attorney general may be either someone who
indulges in personal domestic violence or a Republican, whose domestic
violence is national policy.
[NOTE: here endeth the story, a gratuitous photo follows]
Karen Monahan & Keith Ellison circa 2015 (Twitter: @keithellison)
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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