Have you been following the story of FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg? Probably not, since he’s a Democrat. This isn’t a story most of the media wants to bring attention to, because removing Gruenberg from power due to the culture of sexual harassment that has flourished under him would put a Republican in charge of the FDIC. The Wall Street Journal deserves much credit for engaging in actual journalism in covering this story, even though it exposed a Democrat who has been an obedient officer working to advance the Obama/Biden banking agenda.
I’ll first do a quick overview of the scandal, and then I want to highlight how this is another example of Democrats keeping the slimiest and most unethical people in office as needed to retain power, subordinating any principles regarding ethical behavior to the greater cause of advancing their agenda and preventing Republicans from gaining power. It’s another reminder that only unethical Republicans are expected to surrender office.
In November 2023 the Wall Street Journal published an expose of the shenanigans going on at the FDIC.
A male Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. supervisor in San Francisco invited employees to a strip club. A supervisor in Denver had sex with his employee, told other employees about it and pressed her to drink whiskey during work. Senior bank examiners texted female employees photos of their [genitals]. All of the men remained employed at the agency.
“It was just an accepted part of the culture,” said Lauren Lemmer, a former examiner-in-training. She quit her job in 2013 after three years in which she said she was denied opportunities to advance, followed back to her Dallas hotel room by a male colleague during training, invited to a strip club in Seattle by other bank examiners and sent an unsolicited naked photo by a colleague.
There is much, much more in the story. I’ve been working in the private sector since the late 1980s, and any of these acts would have gotten me fired 30 years ago. Gruenberg was aware that his subordinates were engaging in predatory sexual behavior, yet he protected his people. Records of misbehavior were helpfully “lost.” Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio is the Chairman of the Senate’s Banking Committee. He is running for re-election, and Republicans have put him in the difficult position of either defending and perpetuating the FDIC’s culture of sexual harassment by allowing Gruenberg to remain in office, or demanding that Gruenberg step down.
Senator Brown has decided to split the baby in half. He is calling for Gruenberg to step down, but only after President Biden names a replacement.
“Embattled FDIC chair to step down when a successor is confirmed” [Politico – 5/20/2024]
FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg on Monday announced he is willing to step down from the agency he has served for nearly two decades once a successor is confirmed, after damning reports of a toxic workplace culture at the bank regulator led lawmakers to call for him to leave.
“In light of recent events, I am prepared to step down from my responsibilities once a successor is confirmed,” he added. “Until that time, I will continue to fulfill my responsibilities as Chairman of the FDIC, including the transformation of the FDIC’s workplace culture.”
The flurry of news comes after Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown called on Biden to replace Gruenberg.
“To anyone who has experienced sexual harassment or other misconduct at the FDIC, I again want to apologize and express how deeply sorry I am,” Gruenberg told lawmakers last week.
“I also acknowledge my own failures as Chairman, both in failing to recognize how my temperament in meetings impacted others and for not having identified deeper cultural issues at the FDIC sooner,” he said.
The good news for the women at the FDIC is that the days of male co-workers stalking them at their hotel rooms and sending them naked selfies will soon be over. The bad news is that Senator Sherrod Brown and the rest of the Democrat establishment feel it’s more important to maintain the abusive, sexist culture at the FDIC for the time being, because if Gruenberg were to immediately depart, a Republican might take his place.
Gruenberg plans to stay until a successor is confirmed, avoiding a scenario that would leave a Republican as acting chairman.
Can you imagine what an awful “scenario” it might be if a Republican took control of the FDIC? Clearly, it’s preferable for women to be subject to on-the-job, Democrat-sanctioned sexual harassment than to allow the “scenario” of a Republican running the FDIC. The women of Ohio need to know that Democrat Sherrod Brown still prefers for the women of the FDIC to be sexually harassed than to allow a Republican to replace Gruenberg.
With the Democrats’ core constituency now being the women of Whole Foods, one might rationally think that a straight, white man turning a government agency into a sexual playpen for his fellow straight men would offend the Democrat base. But it doesn’t, because even feminist Democrats care much more about raw power than about any actual principle. No other Democrat Senator is calling for Gruensberg’s resignation. Senator Elizabet Warren (D – MA) is still defending Gruensberg!
“Elizabeth Warren Defends Embattled FDIC Chairman” [WSJ – 5/16/2024]
“Your resignation would do nothing to improve the culture of the FDIC but it would give Republicans a veto over bank policy,” Warren said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing featuring Gruenberg.
Yet, when the political/media hyenas organize to take out a vulnerable Republican, all the “polite” Republicans feel compelled to join in the political lynch mob, lest they be thought of as supporting the target. George Santos may have been a fabulist and a clown – just like the man in the White House right now – but he was also harmless and a reliable conservative vote. Polite Republicans enthusiastically sought to remove him from Congress, reducing Republican power and inching the Democrats back toward control of the House.
Compare and contrast the two parties’ principles. The Democrat principle is to hold on to power, no matter what, and no matter who it victimizes. The Republican principle is to surrender power to Democrats to signal their virtuousness.
Finally, although you may not have heard about the toxic FDIC leader until today, you have certainly heard about a pro football kicker, Harrison Butker, who is a practicing Christian. At a Catholic university’s commencement speech, Butker extolled traditional Catholic virtues. He was not at his work place, nor in his uniform, nor speaking on behalf of his employer, yet the media has gone wall to wall in outrage coverage, demanding that the NFL respond and punish Butker.
Here is a typical legacy media headline about Butker: “Backlash over NFL player Harrison Butker’s commencement speech has reached a new level” [CNN – 5/17/2024]
The New York Times is running a near-daily piece stoking the flames of outrage about Harrison Butker, and trying to get him fired.
To understand the culture and agenda of our ruling class, it is revealing to understand that they are uniting en masse to harm a faithful family man because he and his wife honor their church’s teachings, while at the same time these elites are fighting to keep a despicable government employee in office, under who’s leadership predatory male subordinates were permitted to sexually torment female employees.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]