- daytime drowsiness, dizziness, weakness, feeling "drugged" or light-headed;
- tired feeling, loss of coordination;
- stuffy nose, dry mouth, nose or throat irritation;
- nausea, constipation, diarrhea, upset stomach; or.
- headache, muscle pain.
On Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi created a mess for herself by insisting on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Rep. John Conyers deserves "due process" in the face of a series of accusations of improper conduct.
Politically, Pelosi's performance was a gift to her many critics. For liberals who think she's passed her sell-by date as a Democratic leader, her hapless effort will now be Exhibit A in the brief against her, despite her subsequent efforts to clean up the mess.
For populists on the left and right who think the political establishment is rigged to protect members of the club, Pelosi's effort to protect Conyers — and Sen. Al Franken, who has also been accused of several sexual transgressions — while at the same time insisting that we know all we need to know about President Trump and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is simply a naked partisan double standard.
"We are strengthened by due process," Pelosi insists when the topic is Conyers. But Moore is "a child molester."
This raises the most dismaying gift that Pelosi lobbed to the mob. By circling the wagons around Conyers and Franken (and Bill Clinton to some extent), Pelosi is all but guaranteeing the election of Moore.
It is difficult to exaggerate the anger among many Republicans who believe that liberals use the rules selectively, shamelessly invoking standards of conduct to delegitimize and destroy their enemies while exempting their own. "Zero tolerance" for thee, "it's complicated" for me.
It was this belief — hardly unfounded — that let millions of Republicans dismiss allegations of sexual abuse against Trump and now Moore. Every day, conservatives angry at my opposition to Moore tell me "we" can't "unilaterally disarm." If they won't play by the rules, why should we?
This isn't simply a Beltway game. Pelosi is a passionate supporter of Title IX regulations, which have been used to dismantle due process for sexual assault allegations on college campuses. When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos introduced reforms to Title IX, Pelosi denounced them as "outrageous, immoral attacks on Title IX protections" and a "shocking attack on women." Perhaps college students deserve at least as much due process as congressmen?
But as someone who believes pretty much all the accusers so far, I'm not interested in pecking out another column on partisan hypocrisy. These days, that's the easiest column in the world to write.
The philosopher John Rawls famously offered a thought experiment he called the "original position." Imagine you are in some kind of limbo waiting to be born into our world. Hidden behind what he called a "veil of ignorance," you have no idea what "kind" of person you will be — female, male, gay, straight, sickly, healthy, smart, dumb, rich, poor, black, white, etc. What rules would you want for society?
The point of this exercise is to make you think about what fairness looks like. If there's a good chance you're going to be born poor, you might see the point of having certain protections for the poor. If there's a 50 percent chance you'll be born a woman, you'll probably reject the model of society found in "The Handmaid's Tale." In short, the veil of ignorance allows us see justice through the lens of self-interest.
I don't like or agree with everything Rawls and his fans have done with this thought experiment, but the original position is nonetheless a useful way of thinking about society.
We live in a moment beset by tribalisms, from partisanship to myriad forms of identity politics. All of them work on the assumption that neutral rules are unfair or unjust because my tribe is somehow especially noble or your tribe is especially evil.
The original position is not as original to Rawls as some believe. In fact, it's embedded in the very idea of classical liberalism, because it presupposes that we should all be equal in the eyes of God and the government, and that therefore the rules of the society should be fair for everybody — and applied to everybody equally. It's a simple principle, but everyone wants to make it complicated these days.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi characterized the multiple accusations against the 88-year-old Conyers, which included repeated propositions for sex, and retaliation against one former aide who rebuffed his advances, as “serious, disappointing and very credible.”
In no uncertain terms, the top Democrat in the House said, “Congressman Conyers should resign,” a call echoed by other Democratic leaders.
Conyers' lawyer, Arnold Reed, swiftly rejected the request as the lawmaker professes his innocence.
“Nancy Pelosi did not elect the congressman, and she sure as hell won't be the one to tell the congressman to leave. That decision will be completely up to the congressman,” Reed said.
Reed raised the specter of a double standard as House Democrats pressed for Conyers, the longest-serving member of the House and a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, to step aside, while few have called for Franken to relinquish his seat.
“At the end of the day, I would suspect that Nancy Pelosi is going to have to explain what is the ... difference between Al Franken and congressman Conyers,” Reed said.
Punishment has been swift for titans of entertainment, media and sports, accusations of sexually inappropriate behavior and harassment leading to immediate firings. Not so in Congress, where lawmakers have said ethics panels should have time to investigate and have been reluctant to reverse the will of the voters.
Yet the clamor was growing, with some House Democrats arguing that if Conyers goes, so should Franken. That demand was made hours after Franken faced a new allegation: An Army veteran accused him of groping her during a USO Christmas tour in the Middle East more than a decade ago.
Stephanie Kemplin, 41, of Maineville, Ohio, told CNN that Franken had cupped her right breast when she stood next to him for a photo in December 2003. Kemplin, who was deployed to Kuwait at the time, became the fifth woman in two weeks to accuse Franken of sexual misconduct.
The Senate Ethics Committee announced on Thursday that it had opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations against Franken, who has apologized and said he welcomes the probe.
Pelosi's comments came after she faced harsh criticism for calling Conyers an “icon” who has “done a great deal to protect women” during an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
By Thursday, the highest-ranking members of the party had upped the ante, from simply backing an ethics investigation and emphasizing the importance of due process for those accused, to calling for Conyers' resignation.
“Zero tolerance means consequences – for everyone, no matter how great the legacy, it's not license to harass or discriminate,” Pelosi said.
In a different case of sex and a House member, Rep. Joe Barton, a 17-term Republican from Texas who announced this month he was seeking re-election, decided Thursday that he wouldn't, just a week after a nude photo of him leaked on social media.
Although his House colleagues didn't call for his resignation or suggest he not run again, Barton faced increasing political pressure in his home state to step aside.
This week, a Republican announced he would run against Barton in next year's primary.