# Al Franken



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

I've always liked and respected Franken - his "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look at the Right" was a pretty eye opening read for me when a high school buddy of mine gave me a copy, helped ignite my interest in politics, and in particular the chapter where he rips apart Ann Coulter's use of footnotes in the first chapter of one of her books, going back to the original source she's citing and demonstrating how without exception she's taking things totally out of context, was, I thought, a tour de force. Later as a young adult, I met a friend of one of my roommate's who was actually a research intern working with Franken on that book while he was in college, and said nothing but good things about the guy. And he's been a champion of women's rights and sexual assault prevention in the senate, providing no-cost access to rape kits for his constituents, and hiring feminists to prominent positions in his campaign and staff. 

And, I find myself wanting to excuse his behavior - while the picture is in awful taste, it looks like he's not actually touching his accuser, only pretending to, and I want to believe she's misremembering or mischaracterizing the rehearsal she describes. 

But, I can't really argue with this: 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...draw-a-line-in-the-sand-on-sexual-misconduct/

The right thing for him to do here is, absent any strong evidence to the contrary (say, video of the rehearsal disproving this woman's story, coupled with a confirmation from the photographer that he didn't touch her or that she was only pretending to sleep as a joke for a picture she knew was being takken, or something like that), is to step down, fight the allegations from outside the Senate, run for his seat when it's next open if his name is cleared if he so chooses, but ultimately to signal that this behavior shouldn't be tolerated from anyone, Republican or Democrat. As Democrats, this is a missed opportunity to differentiate the party.


----------



## marcwormjim (Nov 17, 2017)

And that’s...okay.


----------



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

ok?


----------



## thraxil (Nov 17, 2017)

Yep. Sexual assault isn't a Republican or Democrat thing. He should face the consequences like anyone else.

* Bill Clinton
* Clarence Thomas
* Donald Trump
* George H.W. Bush
* Roy Moore
* Al Franken

(many more I'm sure; those are just the ones that come immediately to mind). All credibly accused or admitted to various degrees of sexual assault or harassment. All should face consequences. If you find that your views on which of those men should or shouldn't be held accountable matches up with your political affiliation, you need to take a good look at yourself.


----------



## narad (Nov 17, 2017)

Drew said:


> ok?



SNL reference.


----------



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

narad said:


> SNL reference.


Ahh. I actually don't really watch TV. 

thraxil - I think the very notable omission in that list is Donald Trump.


----------



## thraxil (Nov 17, 2017)

Drew said:


> Ahh. I actually don't really watch TV.
> 
> thraxil - I think the very notable omission in that list is Donald Trump.



No, he's in there. Trump tweeting condemnation of Franken last night (I think he still hasn't said anything about Moore) basically broke my hypocrisy meter.


----------



## will_shred (Nov 17, 2017)

thraxil said:


> * Bill Clinton



Did Clinton ever actually sexually assault anyone? 

And hey, at least he took responsibility for it, unlike some others.


----------



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

thraxil said:


> No, he's in there. Trump tweeting condemnation of Franken last night (I think he still hasn't said anything about Moore) basically broke my hypocrisy meter.


Why so he is! 


will_shred said:


> Did Clinton ever actually sexually assault anyone?
> 
> And hey, at least he took responsibility for it, unlike some others.


Clinton was alleged to have sexually assaulted someone, I believe, during the campaign. Lewinsky, however, the one the GOP tried to impeach him over, was 100% consensual.


----------



## thraxil (Nov 17, 2017)

will_shred said:


> Did Clinton ever actually sexually assault anyone?
> 
> And hey, at least he took responsibility for it, unlike some others.



No, there are rape accusations against him as well:

https://www.theatlantic.com/enterta...ckoning-with-bill-clintons-sex-crimes/545729/

"Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said that she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied. At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones said, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch."


----------



## Scordare (Nov 17, 2017)

Just another f'n politician that thinks running the country is a frat party.. Then the taxpayers will get the privilege to pay her off.. Congressional Shush Fund


----------



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

Scordare said:


> Just another f'n politician that thinks running the country is a frat party.. Then the taxpayers will get the privilege to pay her off.. Congressional Shush Fund


Nitpicking a little, but at the time of the incident, Franken was a comedian with a knack for pointed political satire. He didn't become a Senator until 2009. 

If you're going to write him off like that, I think it has to be a more general "just another fuckin' white man inn a position of power that thinks running the country is a frat party."


----------



## narad (Nov 17, 2017)

Drew said:


> Ahh. I actually don't really watch TV.



Well I think it definitely dates me and @marcwormjim -- better to ask if you watched TV 25 years ago or something!


----------



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

narad said:


> Well I think it definitely dates me and @marcwormjim -- better to ask if you watched TV 25 years ago or something!


 Nah, I';m 36, I'm not THAT old, though maybe in comparison to the average age here. I usually get together with friends for dinner to watch Game of Thrones, and I'll catch major sports games at a bar or with friends, but I don't own a TV and don't really watch anything on my own.


----------



## Randy (Nov 17, 2017)

It was a mistake for the Democrats to overplay their hand against "grab em by the pussy" and Moore by acting like they're the absolute authority on morality. 

Id have objectively considered the Franken thing a big nothing were it not for the hypocrisy that it invokes based on their virtue signaling over the last year. Hilarious that the party of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards and Bill Clinton decided to bill themselves as the party of sexual purity.


----------



## narad (Nov 17, 2017)

Randy said:


> It was a mistake for the Democrats to overplay their hand against "grab em by the pussy" and Moore by acting like they're the absolute authority on morality.
> 
> Id have objectively considered the Franken thing a big nothing were it not for the hypocrisy that it invokes based on their virtue signaling over the last year. Hilarious that the party of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards and Bill Clinton decided to bill themselves as the party of sexual purity.



I don't find it to have ever been about sexual purity as it has been about consent. 

Isn't it supposed to be conservatives that look down at any sexual activity apart from missionary position in an established and religiously sanctioned union, to justify the disgust against Clinton and Weiner, etc. But I think many liberals and myself personally don't care in any way about oval office blowjobs and sexting from hilarious pseudonyms -- I just care that the other party was on board with it. This doesn't hold in many of these others: Moore, Trump, and now Franken, because the lack of consent has moved these behaviors into the realm of sexual assault.


----------



## Drew (Nov 17, 2017)

Randy said:


> It was a mistake for the Democrats to overplay their hand against "grab em by the pussy" and Moore by acting like they're the absolute authority on morality.
> 
> Id have objectively considered the Franken thing a big nothing were it not for the hypocrisy that it invokes based on their virtue signaling over the last year. Hilarious that the party of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards and Bill Clinton decided to bill themselves as the party of sexual purity.


Clinton is something of an enigma, because while he was impeached for a consensual affair, some of the earlier allegations were of assault. I think the Democratic party needs to come to terms with Clinton's history, and to their credit they seem to be trying (see Gillimbrand's comments today). 

Weiner, though, got kicked to the curb asap once allegations broke, and unless Edwards did something I'm forgetting of, he was kind of a scumbag, but he wasn't a sexual predator. 

Meanwhile, this cycle alone, we have Trump and Moore, both accused of sexual assault with a fair amount of substantiating evidence (the former bragging about it on tape, the latter was confirmed to have been barred from a mall), and the latter accused of assaulting girls under the age of consent. Both deny it, both attacked their accusers, and the first is now the President and the second may soon be a Senator. Franken, to his credit, quickly admitted wrongdoing - I'd rather see him step down, but he's at least owning up to what he did, rather than doubling down. 

I don't think the Democrats are the party of sexual purity, and neither party has a lock on dirtbags or bastards... But, so far, we've done a better job owning up to our mistakes, and disowning party members who have committed sex crimes. Bill Clinton complicates this, but Weiner and Edwards don't, I think.


----------



## thraxil (Nov 17, 2017)

Randy said:


> It was a mistake for the Democrats to overplay their hand against "grab em by the pussy" and Moore by acting like they're the absolute authority on morality.
> 
> Id have objectively considered the Franken thing a big nothing were it not for the hypocrisy that it invokes based on their virtue signaling over the last year. Hilarious that the party of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards and Bill Clinton decided to bill themselves as the party of sexual purity.



An important distinction is that none of those men are currently in office or running for office. Plus, Weiner is actually in jail.


----------



## Randy (Nov 17, 2017)

That's a matter of opinion. 

I was listening to the Franken radio show regularly at the time the picture was taken, and I got the distinct impression the kind of activity in the picture was within the dynamic the two had going between them. The part I find inappropriate is, speaking as a guy, I can relate to being in a situation that's high in testosterone (like a bunch of guys on a military base) with women around and leaning on sex as humor. And I'm entirely sure she knew that was the dynamic going in, and "hover hand boob grab" is probably within the realm of behavior that she knew was going on. 

I don't say any of that as an excuse for Franken, I say it because it draws a common thread. Like Weinstein, Clinton, Weiner and Edwards, this illustrates men using both their office and stature as leverage into getting women into compromising positions that aren't explicit enough to be rape, but puts them in a position to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. 

And it's sleazy and culturally, its something that I personally believe is the most important thing to come to the forefront in the #MeToo campaign. Rape and sexual assault are the obvious transgressions but those cross the threshold for being criminal, which makes it easy to draw a moral line there. Taking advantage of women in a harassing way has been chuckled off for a long time, but I think now we're having a real discussion about it not being okay.

That said, there's still good reason why there's a legal line between rape/assault and harassment; severity matters. Being annoyingly jockish and overly sexual in a creepy way with a woman around is shameful but it's a different kettle of fish than literal rape or statutory rape or literally grabbing a woman's genitals (keep in mind, Franken "hovered").

But to my original point, the Democrats have been being overly broadbrush in their handling of the recent history's cases because they could low-key equate sketchy behavior by Republicans with outright rape or similar.


----------



## bostjan (Nov 18, 2017)

This is 100% political.

Come on, the timing of this, and the fact that two actors were acting and kissed pursuant to that... the boob grab photo is obviously inappropriate, but to place that on the same level as forcible sexual assault (Moore) on a child is just a classic Fox News tactic.

For the love of God, trying to distract from a serial child rapist by bringing up this sort of behaviour is worse, morally, than the latter behaviour.

Frankin was in the wrong here, and he needs to do the right thing, but the much bigger story here is how the media outlets are handling this.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (Nov 18, 2017)

The photo of franken/tweeden is pretty pathetic as actual evidence of groping (she wouldn't feel shit through that IBA if she had the front plate in), though her testimony obviously holds some merit, especially since franken owned up to it/apologized. Not really trying to defend franken, but I find it interesting how all these people are coming forward years after the events transpired, almost like they're trying to ride the coattails of these scandals in order to get some publicity. I saw a video of drake supposedly calling out a guy who was groping women at his concert and threatening to come into the audience and fight him. The timing is a little coincidental, almost like they are trying to build some goodwill/publicity..


----------



## narad (Nov 18, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> The photo of franken/tweeden is pretty pathetic as actual evidence of groping (she wouldn't feel shit through that IBA if she had the front plate in), though her testimony obviously holds some merit, especially since franken owned up to it/apologized. Not really trying to defend franken, but I find it interesting how all these people are coming forward years after the events transpired, almost like they're trying to ride the coattails of these scandals in order to get some publicity.



I don't think this is fair, because if you're just some random military personnel and you accuse a celebrity comedian/politician of this sort of thing, it could either be completely swept under the rug or get you in trouble. So from where she was when this happened, I don't think there was much she could really do. On top of that, sensibilities change -- "kissed me during a performance where I said I didn't want to be kissed" sounds to me like the thing that wouldn't get a second notice ten years ago.

I think if it was me though I would have let it slide for the greater good. No one should be able to kiss you against your will, but generally Franken pushes on a policy agenda that's good for women, and now that effort will be undermined a bit because of this incident. Then again, maybe the greater good is served by having a set of future politicians who are squeaky clean in this regard.



KnightBrolaire said:


> I saw a video of drake supposedly calling out a guy who was groping women at his concert and threatening to come into the audience and fight him. The timing is a little coincidental, almost like they are trying to build some goodwill/publicity..



Yea, maybe.


----------



## Randy (Nov 18, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> . Not really trying to defend franken, but I find it interesting how all these people are coming forward years after the events transpired, almost like they're trying to ride the coattails of these scandals in order to get some publicity.



Worth noting, well known conservative hitman Roger Stone tweeted at 1:30am the night before that Franken was going down for being "grabby", so clearly somebody in the conservative orbit knew this was coming.


----------



## Explorer (Nov 18, 2017)

I think Franken did the right thing in asking for an investigation.

If Republicans take the bait, they both take the chance of not finding anything further against Franken, and raise the pressure to investigate the charges against Moore and Trump which are far more substantial.


----------



## ElRay (Nov 18, 2017)

Explorer said:


> I think Franken did the right thing in asking for an investigation. ...


And that's the difference. Franken has acknowledged the one occasion, gave a heartfelt, real, apology and said "investigate me".

The GOP names on the list have: Denied, Lied, Justified, Dismissed, Trivialized, Conspiracy-ized, Victim-Blamed and tried to sweep things under the rug for multiple cases each.

HUGE difference.


----------



## HeHasTheJazzHands (Nov 19, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> The photo of franken/tweeden is pretty pathetic as actual evidence of groping (she wouldn't feel shit through that IBA if she had the front plate in), though her testimony obviously holds some merit, especially since franken owned up to it/apologized. Not really trying to defend franken, but I find it interesting how all these people are coming forward years after the events transpired, almost like they're trying to ride the coattails of these scandals in order to get some publicity. I saw a video of drake supposedly calling out a guy who was groping women at his concert and threatening to come into the audience and fight him. The timing is a little coincidental, almost like they are trying to build some goodwill/publicity..



The timing makes sense. With the Weinstein scandal and the rise of the #metoo movement, of course people are gonna come out. I like Franken, but this was pretty damn bad on his part. I'm just happy he's trying his best to make amends. Hell, he's even had staffers come to his defense. 

Just like ElRay said above, you have someone like Roy Moore with multiple child molestation accusation, and he's trying his best to call out EVERYONE against him, burn bridges, throw people under the bus... Basically everything to make himself look as shitty as possible (unless you're crazy.)


----------



## bostjan (Nov 20, 2017)

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html

Hmm.


----------



## Drew (Nov 20, 2017)

ElRay said:


> And that's the difference. Franken has acknowledged the one occasion, gave a heartfelt, real, apology and said "investigate me".
> 
> The GOP names on the list have: Denied, Lied, Justified, Dismissed, Trivialized, Conspiracy-ized, Victim-Blamed and tried to sweep things under the rug for multiple cases each.
> 
> HUGE difference.


This is hugely important and absolutely worth keeping in mind, especially in that the GOP is trying to equivocate stories like Franken's with stories like Moore. Franken behaved inappropriately, but stopped _well_ short of rape, and fully owned up and apologized for his actions. Trump and Moore both followed the same playbook of accusing their multiple victims of being liars and denying everything (aside from some innocent "locker room talk"), and the former has been accused (and has admitted in as many words) to far more aggressive forms of assault, while the latter has been accused (with substantiating evidence like the fact he'd been banned from a mall around the same time for spending too much time chasing underage girls) of child molestation. 

It DOESN'T excuse Franken's actions, and the fact it still happened in the first place is pretty bad. But, at least the Democrats are owning up to it and punishing the transgressors. And, before someone says "But Bill Clinton..." yeah, his legacy is being fiercely debated now amongst the left, as well, as an area where we may have been in the wrong in the past. 

I have zero save for, I think, a couple tweets from Nate Silver to base this on, but the Menz story is supposed to be a lot less credible than the Tweeden one, and she's evidently tripped herself up a number of times in interviews since, casting further doubt onto it. This is very much 2nd and 3rdhand, though, so take this with a giant sized grain of salt - I'm passing along what I've heard from credible sources, but I'm not yet sure if it's something I believe.


----------



## Drew (Nov 20, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Not really trying to defend franken, but I find it interesting how all these people are coming forward years after the events transpired, almost like they're trying to ride the coattails of these scandals in order to get some publicity.


I think, rather than that, it's a matter of the fact that for the last several details accusers have by and large been called liars or slut-shamed, and suddenly post-Weinstein they're being taken seriously. Yes, that may invite other women to come forward (or even fabricate) stories for publicity... But, there are also a LOT of women who now feel that they can safely talk about their experiences.


----------



## bostjan (Nov 20, 2017)

The story about the groping in the photo is, what I classify as "he-said-she-said." I think it still may be quite interesting to see how it plays out.

I mean, GHW Bush was doing marginally worse already than what Franken has been accused of doing.

Again, I think that, with the level of inappropriate these allegations are, this is really something that should be dealt with between Franken and his accusers, not really by the public, but I'm probably in the minority there either way.


----------



## narad (Nov 20, 2017)

bostjan said:


> The story about the groping in the photo is, what I classify as "he-said-she-said." I think it still may be quite interesting to see how it plays out.
> 
> I mean, GHW Bush was doing marginally worse already than what Franken has been accused of doing.
> 
> Again, I think that, with the level of inappropriate these allegations are, this is really something that should be dealt with between Franken and his accusers, not really by the public, but I'm probably in the minority there either way.



Something that I find quite troublesome is seeing how the meta-issue plays out. In the past hour two more people were ousted from their jobs due to allegations of "crude sexual advances" or similar (and popped up on my FB wall). If every time someone is accused of something we rely on some form of social-media-mob vigilantism until a person steps down or is fired or otherwise ostracized, we've undermined the criminal justice system insofar as it pertains to someones livelihood, allowing them to remain outside of jail but really not so much else. 

Maybe it is just pervasive and the floodgates are opening in a healthy way and a correction for decades of hushed slaps on the wrists, but really it doesn't seem like grinding this all out on social media is a healthy mechanism. Seems more like a pillory.


----------



## bostjan (Nov 21, 2017)

Well, what this meta-issue seems to be saying, in the grand scheme of things, is that a significant portion of men in the USA don't know what's inappropriate. Just my opinion, maybe, but when you live in a society where men are rewarded, socially, for being dicks, you should expect men to be dicks. It doesn't make it okay - it makes it less okay, overall, but you see when one person is bad, the problem belongs to that person, but when a thousand people are bad, the problem is owned by society. It'll be a knee-jerk type of reaction to propose legislation, once this sinks in, but it's not the government's job to be society. Society should regulate its people and the government regulates society, then if the people regulate the government, you have a triangle of non-dominating checks and balances.

In cases of assault, let the legal system decide, but whilst Franken's alleged behaviour is inappropriate, I do not believe it constitutes assault. American culture needs to have an open conversation about this, though, to get to the root of the bigger issue.


----------



## wankerness (Nov 21, 2017)

I think what he did was bad, but what enrages me is that it looks like he may actually step down (thanks to the left's EXTREME problem with punishment fitting the crime), while Roy Moore did vastly more horrible stuff and is likely going to get elected and not end up facing any consequences. Touching a butt vs trying to bed tons of teenagers as a 30+ year old? Shut up already. This guy is working to make your life better, even if he did something terrible, and kicking him out will make your life worse.

He should step down at the end of his term and they should replace him with a woman, IMO.

And they're probably going to demand the resignation of more left-wing politicians, some of whom may be in states where the governor is a republican, which will actively work against their own political goals. I really hate the short-sightedness of the Twitter outrage brigade. I really wish that mouthpiece was removed, for a whole host of reasons. Nothing good has ever happened on Twitter (well, besides things like Dril tweets).


----------



## bostjan (Nov 21, 2017)

wankerness said:


> This guy is working to make your life better, even if he did something terrible, and kicking him out will make your life worse.



Your overall point is good, but I just felt that I had to point out this specific line of thinking as exactly what the Roy Moore supporters are using to defend him.


----------



## wankerness (Nov 21, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Your overall point is good, but I just felt that I had to point out this specific line of thinking as exactly what the Roy Moore supporters are using to defend him.



I draw the line at committing/attempting to commit crimes, I guess.


----------



## bostjan (Nov 21, 2017)

wankerness said:


> I draw the line at committing/attempting to commit crimes, I guess.



Me too. It doesn't look like Franken committed a crime. During this wave of allegations of forcible rape, coerced rape, child molestation and (this might get me into trouble) coerced sexual harassment against a ton of people in Washington and Hollywood, we seem to have gotten these two stories that have been a lot more in the spotlight than they really seem to deserve, in comparison with so many others, and I'm referring to Franken and GHW Bush. While I certainly do not want to belittle how absolutely inappropriate it is for a man to grab a stranger's "not-as-private-but-still-private" areas, Without knowing a little more clearly about the circumstances, I could see how things could get blown out of proportion, and I also don't see how a first offense would necessarily be a crime. Harassment, to me, is something unwanted, and also something where you told a person to stop and that person continued anyway, deliberately. Assault, to me, is harming someone intentionally. Inappropriate contact with a person's buttocks or chest, whilst bad and inappropriate and all that jazz, is not and should not be a crime. 

When I was a teenager, I had women in their 40's and 50's grabbing my butt on several occasions, without provocation on my part. I can see how a man in his 50's doing the same to a woman in her 20's or whatever would be totally different, but if you want to argue equality to the nth degree, then either both should be illegal or neither should be illegal. If you need to set certain norms, like "This is okay for women to do, and this is not okay for men to do, and that's okay for women to do, but that's not okay for men to do...," then we'll need some strict sort of social code to replace the antiquated "old boys' club" norms leftover from the 1960's that some men seem to still think is okay.

*I mean, what do you, personally, think is the line to not cross?*

For me, personally, I think simply not touching anyone at all unless absolutely necessary or unless you know them really well is a pretty good baseline, but I'll be the first to admit that the part about "you know them very well" is frustratingly difficult to define clearly. In the Tweeden case, though, I don't know - there might be an angle to that to address how comfortable Franken thought he was with Tweeden, but in the other woman's case, Franken doesn't know her at all...but then there's also the unrelated-to-Franken angle of mistaken identity.

Generally, it's easy to say "just don't ever touch people," but honestly, between horsing around and that whole pesky part of life that humans need to have sex with each other in order to carry on the species, there is no fraking way to expect that sort of hard line in the sand to ever work universally.


----------



## KnightBrolaire (Nov 30, 2017)

http://americanmilitarynews.com/201...urce=dvf&utm_campaign=alt&utm_medium=facebook
veteran claims franken groped her


----------



## Randy (Nov 30, 2017)

Not for nothing but something weird about all of his accusations involving taking pics with women. Like he only grabs tits and asses when someone's snapping a photo.


----------



## bpprox22 (Nov 30, 2017)

Hovering should be unacceptable across the board then.

However its not. 

Its not sexual assault if I'm not offended but it is sexual assault if I am.


----------



## Drew (Dec 7, 2017)

Well, it took him longer than it should have, but he stepped down a few moments ago. Sorry to see him go but it was unquestionably the right move.


----------



## thraxil (Dec 7, 2017)

Yep. Now if only the Republicans (you know, the "family values" folks) would adopt a similar zero tolerance policy toward sexual harassment, assault, pedophilia, etc. Not holding my breath.


----------



## Randy (Dec 7, 2017)

Drew said:


> Well, it took him longer than it should have, but he stepped down a few moments ago. Sorry to see him go but it was unquestionably the right move.



...yay...?


----------



## bostjan (Dec 7, 2017)

Ok.

So Franken, who's creepy for being too touchy-feely goes out and Roy Moore, who's creepy for pedophilia goes in. [/mixedfeelings]


----------



## wankerness (Dec 7, 2017)

This is horrible. It's an idiotic political move so they look good in some hypothetical future where people look back and say "oh, the democrats had such integrity that they kicked out one of their best senators for kissing some people, while the republicans elected a child molester." Unfortunately, most democrats think this was a horrible idea, and it won't change one republican mind. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a focus on THE PATRIARCHY causes votes for democrats to decrease, since a majority of people that don't live in huge cities think it's obnoxious identity politic BS. This also allows the right to weaponize sexual allegations. If the democrats will kick someone out for ALLEGATIONS, before any due process of law, just imagine when Bannon calls for any accusers possible. IIRC, a couple of THESE people were tied to Breitbart (could be fake news).

Regardless, best case scenario is that these morons can watch from the moral high ground as social security and medicare and the environment get burned to the ground, and the president starts wars via Twitter. Good job! It doesn't help anyone and in fact does damage to our cause. I understand the "moral victory," but that is absolutely the last thing we need right now.


----------



## Drew (Dec 7, 2017)

Randy said:


> ...yay...?


So, we've talked about this a bit elsewhere (or maybe here) but I'm pretty conflicted on this. 

On one hand, Franken is a guy who historically I've always had a lot of respect for, and in addition to being funny as hell I think he's been a surprisingly effective advocate in the Senate. He always struck me as one of the good guys. 

On the other, clearly knowing what we know now that isn't the case, and he's done some really shady things. Not quite to the degree of Moore, sure, but the allegations here, even if you ignore the ones he denies and only focus on the ones he admits to but interprets differently, are thhings that complicate that respect. 

Idunno. It's hard to lose respect for someone you've admired for decades. He was right to step down, he was wrong to wait as long as he did to do so, but it's still tough to see someone you used to respect have their name tarnished, however much it turns out they deserve it.


----------



## Drew (Dec 7, 2017)

wankerness said:


> This is horrible. It's an idiotic political move so they look good in some hypothetical future where people look back and say "oh, the democrats had such integrity that they kicked out one of their best senators for kissing some people, while the republicans elected a child molester." Unfortunately, most democrats think this was a horrible idea, and it won't change one republican mind. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a focus on THE PATRIARCHY causes votes for democrats to decrease, since a majority of people that don't live in huge cities think it's obnoxious identity politic BS. This also allows the right to weaponize sexual allegations. If the democrats will kick someone out for ALLEGATIONS, before any due process of law, just imagine when Bannon calls for any accusers possible. IIRC, a couple of THESE people were tied to Breitbart (could be fake news).
> 
> Regardless, best case scenario is that these morons can watch from the moral high ground as social security and medicare and the environment get burned to the ground, and the president starts wars via Twitter. Good job! It doesn't help anyone and in fact does damage to our cause. I understand the "moral victory," but that is absolutely the last thing we need right now.


Eh, another Democrat will be named in Franken's place, and while 2018 won't be a lock for the Democrats, in a Democratic wave it's a seat they're highly likely to hold onto. Franken is a dangerous distraction at a time when Moore is running for a Senate seat in a dead heat, and Trump is president. And I LIKE Franken. 

Put another way - if you want to look at political calculus rather than reasonably objective right or wrong (and, remember, Franken admits to some of the accusations, so they're not simple allegations), then if this helps the Dems shore up their cred on women's rights issues, the party is FAR better off without Franken and with Jones than they are with Franken and Moore.


----------



## wankerness (Dec 7, 2017)

The big problem with him stepping down, apart from infuriating practically every democrat, (seriously! for a great example just look at the top user comments and votes on the NYT article about this - NO ONE supports this until you get about 20 comments/several hundred fewer upvotes, with most of the top ones saying "f these corrupt grandstanders I'm going independent and working for Bernie Sanders etcetcetc), is what kind of precedent does this set? It's NOT going to change any republican behavior, that's for damn sure, and it just gets that minority of screechy millennials, super dogmatic types who can't see the forest for the trees, and other people who don't give 1 shit about due process in the position of having to do this any time the republicans dig up dirt against their competition. This is the worst.


----------



## Randy (Dec 7, 2017)

Drew said:


> Eh, another Democrat will be named in Franken's place, and while 2018 won't be a lock for the Democrats, in a Democratic wave it's a seat they're highly likely to hold onto. Franken is a dangerous distraction at a time when Moore is running for a Senate seat in a dead heat, and Trump is president. And I LIKE Franken.
> 
> Put another way - if you want to look at political calculus rather than reasonably objective right or wrong (and, remember, Franken admits to some of the accusations, so they're not simple allegations), then if this helps the Dems shore up their cred on women's rights issues, the party is FAR better off without Franken and with Jones than they are with Franken and Moore.



A Democrat will fill Frankens vacancy but it's far from a slam dunk that they'll win when the seat comes up in a couple years (Franken won by the skin of his teeth) and it's even less of a certainty that Jones will win in AL as some kind of payback from the universe for Franken falling on his sword. If you want to argue the decision on purely moral footing than have at it but trying to chalk this up as something strategically sound is horseshit.


----------



## bostjan (Dec 8, 2017)

What if this is all part of a bigger plan by democrats to sway public opinion, and Franken is in on it, at some level? Probably not the case, but I can't rule out the idea that maybe Franken got caught in the middle of some sort of political strategy game between the GOP and DNC. I know it sounds paranoid, but:

1. The first accuser to come forward, not that it matters, is a Sean Hannity supporter, and the timing of the accusation seemed to be perfectly timed. Nothing wrong with either of those, just seemed like there might have been a political aspect to it, even if it was an afterthought.
2. On the flip side of this, the timing of Franken's (and Conyers's, too, to some extent) announcement to resign is also timed perfectly to drive political pressure toward Trump as he rallies in the FL panhandle (quite near Alabama).
3. If you know me, you know that I am very much in favour of having investigations before drawing _any_ conclusions that have irreversible effects. Franken seemed to keep an "air" of integrity through this. First rightwing folks were casting accusations against him, then some leftwing folks did. All, most likely by coincidence, were politically opinionated people. Which leads to three leading possibilities: 1. Franken is a sexual predator who gets aggressively grabby and slobbery around women. 2. Franken is one of those touchy people who mouth kisses people and hugs a lot, and things got misinterpreted and embellished over the years. Or, and this one might seem out on a limb, and it kind of is, but maybe not as much as it sounds at first: 3. The democrats saw Franken in trouble, and decided to sacrifice him in order to sway public opinion on the entire issue.

Some people might knee-jerk and say that even entertaining the possibility of 2 or 3 is demeaning to women, or disrespectful toward his accusers, but let me set this straight right away - calling someone a liar is disrespectful, *but so is calling someone a liar*. If person A says X and person B says NOT X, we must entertain more than the possibility of X. Assuming person A, who we don't know as well as person B, is telling the truth, is frankly stupid. Assuming person A is lying is also stupid, so what do you do, you investigate, and you open up possibilities, not to take away person A's power, but to make sure that you don't make an idiotic mistake in judgement. There's no reason person A nor person B should retain all of the power and authority over the story - the facts need to be evaluated. That's just the way the world *has to work* or else there will never be justice.

This is the douchiness of post-modern thinking. If someone claims something, and there is no reason to disbelieve them, then we should not contradict them. If someone claims something, and someone else contradicts them, then we should weigh the evidence and decide for ourselves. Honestly, sometimes, there is not enough evidence, and, when that is the case, we must choose not to decide anything, as tough as that is. That's where things get really tricky.

In Franken's case, there was photographic evidence and there were also multiple testimonies of similar behaviour, so, generally speaking, it's a closed case, right. Well, sort of - the photographic evidence available doesn't establish very much, IMO. And the fact that there are multiple accusers supports both options 1 and 3 I listed above.

There's a big problem with trying to draw a conclusion with sexual assault. That's that these things generally happen in private. So, unless it's a certain kind of rape, there will not likely be any evidence aside from the two testimonies of the people involved, which leads to a legal conundrum of he-said-she-said. But, let's set that notion completely aside in Franken's case, because of one very very big detail - these allegations against Franken were all incidents that happened in front of plenty of other people. That's right, I said it's a very big detail, because there is potential for witnesses to exist who were not directly involved, but it's also complex, because, just because something happened with a thousand people around who could have seen it doesn't mean that someone necessarily saw it.

I don't want to go as far as defending Franken, but this is a serious question that the media hasn't picked at - two or more of the women have said now that the groping that was done was very direct and deliberate, such that Franken didn't do it on accident. Both of those cases were photographed, which means someone else was there paying direct attention to both of the parties involved. Why haven't we heard from these third parties? Don't get me wrong, they have defended neither side, so it means nothing aside from the fact that asking them is the obvious next step, but after a couple of weeks, it seems weird (for both sides) that this hasn't been addressed publicly. That minor detail is on of the reasons option 3 seems more appealing than it ought to be.


----------



## Randy (Dec 8, 2017)

bostjan said:


> 3. The democrats saw Franken in trouble, and decided to sacrifice him in order to sway public opinion on the entire issue.



I don't find that to be particularly conspiratorial or controversial at all. Democrats are building a case against Roy Moore in the short term, but they're also cashing in a lot of chips that the accusations against Trump will mature into or maybe beyond the 2018 midterms. For that to work, the 'unclean' need to be purged from their ranks. It's *a* strategy or at least it can be assembled into something resembling a strategy, I just don't personally find it to be a good one.


----------



## Drew (Dec 8, 2017)

Well, I think arguing for or against this in strategic terms is tough - too many unknowns, for one (what happens in Minnesota in 2018? Does Moore win? Does this refocus allegations on Trump?) and you can probably make a reasonable case in either direction. 

So, I think all that leaves us is the fact that it DOES give the Democrats a much clearer claim to the moral high ground. Franken and Conyers were accused of sexual harrassment in varying degrees, and while they could have acted faster both men resigned. Meanwhile, Trump admitted to sexual assault in the campaign, and is no longer facing pressure from his own party about it, Moore is accused of sexual assualt on a child and isn't dropping out of the race, and while Franks resigned, Farenthold is facing multiple allegations and his party has been silent on the matter, too. 

You can debate whether moral high ground matters, fairly I think when we have an Alabama race where evangelicals are going through mental contortions to argue that a pedophile could have not only been justified ("after Vietnam, young girls were the only pure ones left") and that even a flawed man can still do the work of God. But, the Democrats are coming out of this looking like the only major party that takes sexual assault seriously, and with Gillibrand publicly declaring that Clinton should have resigned too (and, with the fact that this all happened 25 years ago, now), "But, Bill Clinton..." is becoming a less effective rejoiner, too. 

Worst case, I don't think they're actively hurting themselves in the short term, or probably medium term. Best case, moral high ground _does,_ in fact, matter.


----------

