It's the new film from Miramax:
"Report: Harvey Weinstein tried to stop publication of sex allegations" by Jim Rutenberg New York Times November 07, 2017
NEW YORK — Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein used a web of private detectives, lawyers, and even undercover former Mossad agents in a failed effort to stop The New York Times and The New Yorker from publishing their October investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.
The cloak-and-dagger undertaking, detailed in a report on The New Yorker’s website Monday, included the use of an agent who posed as a women’s rights advocate to befriend and spy on one accuser, the actress Rose McGowan. The same agent posed as a woman with a possible allegation against Weinstein in an attempt to lure journalists into sharing information about other possible accusers, according to the magazine’s report, which relied heavily on internal Weinstein documents and e-mails.
A contract with one of at least three private investigation firms that Weinstein employed, Black Cube, listed its “primary objectives” as providing “intelligence which will help the client’s efforts to completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY Newspaper” and obtaining content from a book that was to include “harmful, negative information on and about the client.” The magazine identified the newspaper as The New York Times and the book author as McGowan.
The contract, which the magazine published on its website, had as its signatory a Weinstein lawyer, David Boies, a Democratic Party stalwart who argued for marriage equality at the Supreme Court and represented Al Gore in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
Boies’ firm, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, provided the Times with outside legal counsel in three libel cases over the past 10 years, including two that are in progress, and the newspaper released a stern statement about Boies’ involvement in the effort to undermine its reporting and its reporters on Monday night.
And Lord knows they don't need any more help in that department.
“We learned today that the law firm of Boies Schiller and Flexner secretly worked to stop our reporting on Harvey Weinstein at the same time as the firm’s lawyers were representing us in other matters,” the statement read. “We consider this intolerable conduct, a grave betrayal of trust, and a breach of the basic professional standards that all lawyers are required to observe. It is inexcusable and we will be pursuing appropriate remedies.”
With all due respect, it sounds hollow.
On Monday night, David McCraw, The Times’ deputy general counsel, declined to say what those remedies might be. But, he said, “I think that what they owe us is an explanation of what actually happened,” adding, “We need to know much more.”
Maybe even an apology, huh?
Boies did not respond to an e-mail inquiry on Monday. But he told The New Yorker that while he oversaw the contract, he himself did not select the firm or direct its agents. And while he said he did not believe his work for Weinstein and his firm’s representation of The Times represented a conflict, “We should not have been contracting and paying investigators that we did not select and direct.”
Black Cube promotes itself as “a select group of veterans from the Israeli elite intelligence units.”
One of its agents posed as a potential Weinstein accuser to secure two meetings with Ben Wallace, a New York magazine reporter who was pursuing a Weinstein article that never came to be. She also reached out to one of the two lead Times reporters on the Weinstein story, Jodi Kantor, The New Yorker reported, an attempt that went nowhere.
The undermining former Mossad agent was a she?
Kantor was also investigated, along with the New Yorker reporter on the Weinstein story, Ronan Farrow, by another firm Weinstein hired, PSOPS. The firm had been used, as well, to dig up dirt on accusers like McGowan, producing one long briefing that included a subheading that read, “Past Lovers,” The New Yorker reported.
PSOPS is a private investigation firm based in Los Angeles.
Weinstein’s habit of using investigators to undermine accusers and reporters dates back more than a decade, according to the New Yorker article published on Monday, which was also written by Farrow. The magazine reported that Weinstein had used Kroll “to dig up unflattering information” about the former New York Times media columnist David Carr, who died in 2015, when Carr was working on an article about Weinstein in the early 2000s for New York magazine. The article quotes from a report about Carr that Weinstein’s investigators produced, noting that he had learned of McGowan’s allegations.
And here I thought it was the CIA that killed him.
A spokeswoman for Weinstein, Sallie Hofmeister, denied Weinstein had assigned a private eye to look into Carr when The Times asked her about it last month. Hofmeister did not respond to e-mails on Monday night.
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Meanwhile, the Globe film critic is complaining about..... pffffffft!
Yeah, you guys are heroes defending the principle of a free press.
"Labor leaders confront sexual harassment in their top ranks" by Josh Eidelson Bloomberg News November 07, 2017
Richard Trumka, the head of America’s biggest labor organization, opened its October national convention in an unusual way: the AFL-CIO president read a passage from the code-of-conduct and gave out the contact information of two people designated to field any complaints about sexual harassment or other discriminatory or inappropriate behavior.
“It’s a zero-tolerance policy,” Trumka told reporters that day. “We think we’re on the cutting edge of that. And if we aren’t, we want to be there.”
Less senior activists say the country’s biggest union federation — and the broader labor movement — still have a ways to go. The AFL-CIO’s chief budget officer and assistant to Trumka, Terry Stapleton, resigned Monday following allegations of sexual harassment. The Service Employees International Union, the second-biggest union in the United States, is reeling from its own harassment scandal that has seen the departure of four senior staff.
No, no, no!
It is a high-stakes reckoning for the weakened labor movement, which champions workplace dignity and the power of unions to protect against exploitation and harassment. Dozens of current and former movement employees say the groups’ leaders too often fail to protect their own staff from abuse or to take sufficient action in response, creating toxic cultures that have turned off promising young organizers.
“Sexual harassment is a reason women organize,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a former organizer and now a lecturer at Cornell University’s labor relations school. “But it can be a reason women don’t organize.”
“The recent news regarding sexual harassment in numerous industries has shown that no organization, including our own, is immune to a culture that has allowed both women and men to feel unsafe and threatened on the job,’’ the AFL-CIO said in a joint statement from Trumka, secretary treasurer Liz Shuler, and executive vice president Tefere Gebre. “As the premier organization for working people, we recognize that we bear a special responsibility to lead by our actions and example.”
Some characteristics of union organizing may make it easier for bad actors to get away with abuse, said Rutgers professor and former organizer Janice Fine. Macho norms still prevail in many unions. Staff work long hours doing emotionally draining work, often far from home. Organizers are loyal to the workers the union represents and loathe to do anything that could be perceived as damaging to a campaign.
As opposed to corporate government, which is right out front with it all.
“There’s still this idea that in order to do it, you have to work 24 hours a day, you have to be willing to move, you have to put work above all other things,” said Fine. That’s included trying to overcome sexism by excelling at work rather than by confronting it directly. Recently, she said, that’s begun to change.
Scott Courtney, an executive vice president at SEIU and a key architect of the high-profile “Fight for 15” campaign, resigned in October amid an investigation into alleged “sexual misconduct and abusive behavior.” During a career that spanned decades, people who worked for Courtney say he was known for dating his subordinates. Women warned each other and raised concerns about his behavior with higher-ups over the years, former employees said. Seventeen years ago, dozens of employees presented their concerns about Courtney in writing to national leaders, according to people who participated.
Courtney did not respond to a request for comment. An SEIU spokeswoman declined to comment on specific personnel matters because the internal investigation is ongoing.
That investigation also led the union to terminate two members of the senior staff, SEIU said. Another top Fight For 15 leader, Kendall Fells, resigned on Nov. 2. Without commenting individually on the departures, the union said that day that the investigation had “brought to light the serious problems related to abusive behavior towards staff, predominantly female staff.” Fells declined to comment.
“We are incredibly grateful to the people who have come forward,” said SEIU executive vice president Leslie Frane, who described the organization’s response as swift and decisive. “Our mission is about making sure that working people are treated with respect and dignity, have good wages and a voice on the job. We are committed to making sure that the work environment for our staff lives up to those values.”
Now get on your hands and knees.
To scrub the floor.
What do you think I meant?
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It is interesting to note where is the press emphasis regarding sexual harassment. It's been Hollywood, the newsrooms, a few articles regarding the statehouse, one about Congre$$, and other than Fidelity (ironic) not in the corporate boardrooms of banks, pharmaceuticals (a drug is a terrible thing to wa$te), defense contractors, sports conglomerates, etc, etc.
Let's not kid ourselves. The behavior is pervasive across any industry you want to name.
My advise to you ladies is to watch what you eat, keep an eye on your weight, cut down on portions, and in no time you will be skinny.
Then you can get paid and get phat!
