Following yesterday's news that Michael Brodkorb's long-threatened lawsuit was filed, a line of thunderstorms moved across Central Minnesota. It's still raining here on the prairies, and friends on Facebook report that they're now able to pull weeds.
The air is sweet; the weeds, not so much to look at. Better to observe Ken Avidor's cartoons.
In Brodkorb set to spill Senate secrets, Star Tribune staff writer Rachel Stassen-Berger reports:
Michael Brodkorb says he's ready to air the Minnesota Senate's dirty secrets.
The former top Senate staffer and key GOP strategist, who was fired after having an affair with Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, filed a wrongful termination suit Monday against his former employer that could bring allegations of discrimination, sexual affairs and backroom politics into open court.
The suit threatens to keep the affair -- and the leadership turmoil that followed -- in the public eye for months, just as Republicans are working to put their troubles behind them and make the case that voters should keep them in the legislative majority.
No wonder their Tea Party allies draw our attention to nincompoops like Curtis Bowers.The report continues:
Even if the Senate has a firm legal case, defending it "could be tremendously embarrassing and costly in terms of reputation," said Hamline School of Law Prof. David Larson, an expert in employment discrimination law. Larson said Brodkorb's claim that he was treated differently from female employees may rest on the details of those employees and the legislators with whom they had relations. Were those employees, like Brodkorb, in a leadership position? Were the legislators, like Koch, at the top of the command chain? If the other affairs do not share those characteristics, he may have a tougher case to make, Larson said.
While Bluestem's sources have indicated that some leading legislators may have had affairs with powerful lobbyists, we haven't heard of high-level internal affairs like that of soulmates Koch and Brodkorb.
The City Pages Blotter notes in Michael Brodkorb files lawsuit against Minnesota Senate:
Minnesota Republicans' worst nightmare has arrived.
. . .Brodkorb's claim of gender discrimination has been controversial. This spring, a Republican state senator told us Brodkorb created a hostile work environment before he was fired according to and should've been let go long before he was fired. (Brodkorb denied the senator's claim.)
Details of the loves of the legislators may be a form of third-party gender harassment for the rest of us.
Cartoon: Ken Avidor imagines a scene from the love lives of the Minnesota Republicans, so we don't have to. Okay, so it's not the legislature, but it's pretty funny.
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