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

n 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.

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.

Companies Shouldn't Be Accountable Only to Shareholders

By Elizabeth Warren, The Wall Street Journal

16 August 18

orporate profits are booming, but average wages haven’t budged over the past year. The U.S. economy has run this way for decades, partly because of a fundamental change in business practices dating back to the 1980s. On Wednesday I’m introducing legislation to fix it.

American corporations exist only because the American people grant them charters. Those charters confer valuable privileges—such as limited legal liability for their owners—that enable businesses to turn a profit. What do Americans get in return? What are the obligations of corporate citizenship in the U.S.?

For much of U.S. history, the answers were clear. Corporations sought to succeed in the marketplace, but they also recognized their obligations to employees, customers and the community. As recently as 1981, the Business Roundtable—which represents large U.S. companies—stated that corporations “have a responsibility, first of all, to make available to the public quality goods and services at fair prices, thereby earning a profit that attracts investment to continue and enhance the enterprise, provide jobs, and build the economy.” This approach worked. American companies and workers thrived.

Late in the 20th century, the dynamic changed. Building on work by conservative economist Milton Friedman, a new theory emerged that corporate directors had only one obligation: to maximize shareholder returns. By 1997 the Business Roundtable declared that the “principal objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners.”

That shift has had a tremendous effect on the economy. In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities. But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their earnings to shareholders. Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.

In the four decades after World War II, shareholders on net contributed more than $250 billion to U.S. companies. But since 1985 they have extracted almost $7 trillion. That’s trillions of dollars in profits that might otherwise have been reinvested in the workers who helped produce them.

Before “shareholder value maximization” ideology took hold, wages and productivity grew at roughly the same rate. But since the early 1980s, real wages have stagnated even as productivity has continued to rise. Workers aren’t getting what they’ve earned.

Companies also are setting themselves up to fail. Retained earnings were once the foundation for long-term investments. But from 1990 to 2015, nonfinancial U.S. companies invested trillions less than projected, funneling earnings to shareholders instead. This underinvestment handcuffs U.S. enterprise and bestows an advantage on foreign competitors.

The problem may get worse, because executives have a strong financial incentive to prioritize shareholder returns. Before 1980, top CEOs were rarely compensated in equity. Today it accounts for 62% of their pay. Many executives receive additional company shares as a reward for producing short-term share-price increases. This feedback loop has sent CEO pay skyrocketing. The average CEO of a big company now makes 361 times what the average worker makes, up from 42 times in 1980.

Corporate charters, which define the structure and obligations of U.S. companies, are an obvious tool for addressing these skewed incentives. But companies are chartered at the state level. Most states don’t want to demand more of companies, lest they incorporate elsewhere.

That’s where my bill comes in. The Accountable Capitalism Act restores the idea that giant American corporations should look out for American interests. Corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter. The new charter requires corporate directors to consider the interests of all major corporate stakeholders—not only shareholders—in company decisions. Shareholders could sue if they believed directors weren’t fulfilling those obligations.

This approach follows the “benefit corporation” model, which gives businesses fiduciary responsibilities beyond their shareholders. Thirty-four states already authorize benefit corporations. And successful companies such as Patagonia and Kickstarter have embraced this role.

My bill also would give workers a stronger voice in corporate decision-making at large companies. Employees would elect at least 40% of directors. At least 75% of directors and shareholders would need to approve before a corporation could make any political expenditures. To address self-serving financial incentives in corporate management, directors and officers would not be allowed to sell company shares within five years of receiving them—or within three years of a company stock buyback.

For the past 30 years we have put the American stamp of approval on giant corporations, even as they have ignored the interests of all but a tiny slice of Americans. We should insist on a new deal.