Al Franken Is Toast

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cornflake

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I'm going to support whomever challenges Gillebrand. This is insane.
 

Anna Iguana

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I was moved by his speech, too. I think the photo of him with Tweeden hurt him a lot. I have no better way to explain why, in contrast, the RNC is still funding Roy Moore.
 
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lizmonster

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I believe he was forced out primarily due to political considerations, so that democrats can draw a bright line between themselves and republicans.

Shame it's not going to help us a single bit.

The GOP doesn't care what their guys get up to. It's all better than the universe they believe the liberals will bring them.

They already know that they're hypocrites. It's a feature​.
 

lizmonster

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I was moved by his speech, too. I think the photo of him with Tweeden hurt him a lot. I have no better way to explain why, in contrast, the RNC is still funding Roy Moore.

The RNC's funding of Moore has nothing to do with Franken. The RNC is funding Moore because they believe he can win, and he will vote for the things they want to accomplish.
 

ElaineA

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The GOP has been weaponizing the key features that make a liberal a liberal since the Reagan era. Empathy, fair-mindedness, the idea that government is for the people. Like anyone looking to build a nuke, it's been taking time. They've watched, learned, tested, gradually increased power, range. They got Citizens United. 20 five- and six-year-olds were gunned down at school when democrats had control of the presidency and they made sure not even a whiff of gun control legislation was discussed. When McConnell blocked President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, that was the final test. They knew then that liberals could do nothing to fight for their positions that didn't contraindicate with their core values. If they did, that, too, would be weaponized.

When you're dealing with people who are willing to forsake every last ounce of morality, norms, and decency for power, there isn't much to be done if you don't want to get dragged into the mire. The GOP is willing to bomb liberals into submission and there's absolutely no one who will, or can, stop them. They own the court, gerrymandering will ensure they will continue to own congress, and give them a leg up on the presidential election process.

If you're willing to sell your own soul, you don't bloody care about anyone else's, that's for sure.
 

nighttimer

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I want both Democrats and Republicans to be consistent, and condemn sexual harassment. Let the crime dictate the punishment, whether it be censure, calling for voluntary resignation, or expelling. If Al Franken has been an abuser and should go? Then so should Trump, and Moore shouldn't be elected.

But, I won't bet a thin dime on it working that way. Instead, what's going to happen is that Democrats will resign, Trump will stay in office, and Moore will be elected. What will people say about this? Trump & Moore supporters will point to it as proof that their guys are innocent, because they maintained their innocence, whereas clearly the Democrats were guilty, because they resigned (or were forced out). Trump supporters will say that Democrats are obviously the party of abusers.

Meanwhile, if Democrats don't regain a majority in the House or Senate, all the horrible shit that the GOP and Trump together are gleefully enacting will continue. More rightwing religious zealots appointed to the courts, more social progress and safety nets undone, more regression. The purely Machiavellian behavior of the GOP is not going to be moved a whit by Democrats policing their own.

And I hate to say it, but I'm starting to think that in this environment, it's playing a sucker's game to try to do the right thing here if it means not regaining power. Not regaining the ability to build a dike across the river of shit flowing from the GOP is going to set all of us back generations. It's not my preferred choice. I'd rather people like Moore, Trump, Conyers, Weinstein, etc pay a stiff price for what they've done. But dammit, our democracy is being burned down around our ears. Maybe we need to triage that first??

I really hate this. :Soapbox:

Don't we all?

The only ones happy Al Franken is bailing are the enemies of everything good and right and decent Al Franken stood for and championed. And yeah, right about now playing by the rules, trying to be a decent human being and not stooping to conquer does seem like a sucker's game.

How many times do you have to get kicked in the nuts before it becomes obvious the only one playing the game fair is you and you keep losing the game and they keep cheating and playing unfair and all you get is the warm tingly sensation of sore nuts?

Even if you don't have nuts, nobody likes a kick in the privates. Right, Dalia Lithwick?

Remember “when they go low, we go high?” Yep. So do I.

I remembered it in the fall of 2016, when Senate Republicans and then-candidate Donald Trump first made it irrevocably clear there would be no hearing for anyone Barack Obama nominated to the Supreme Court, ever, even though Obama had put up a moderate, centrist nominee who was once acceptable to Senate Republicans. I remembered it when Trump won, and we realized that that seat would stay stolen.

I remembered it this week when the Senate passed a tax bill at 2 a.m. that apparently contains a $289 billion error, thanks to the fact that it was drafted in the margins rather than adjudicated through normal congressional standards, as, say, Obamacare was.

And I remember it almost daily now, as John Conyers steps down after 52 years in Congress, amid credible allegations of sexual harassment, and Al Franken is called upon to step down, amid credible allegations of sexual harassment, while Roy Moore continues—with the president’s and the GOP’s overt endorsement—his run for Senate amid credible allegations of sexual abuse of children.

Al Franken, many argue, should now resign. He should resign immediately because there are credible accusers (another emerged Wednesday), and because the behavior alleged is sufficiently abhorrent that there is simply no basis to defend him. In this parade of unilateral disarmament, Trump stays, Conyers goes, Moore stays, Franken goes.



Is this the principled solution? By every metric I can think of, it’s correct. But it’s also wrong. It’s wrong because we no longer inhabit a closed ethical system, in which morality and norm preservation are their own rewards. We live in a broken and corroded system in which unilateral disarmament is going to destroy the very things we want to preserve.



To see the double standard in action, watch Mike Huckabee making the case that Roy Moore should be welcomed into the Senate because Franken has stayed. Then keep watching and realize that in the next breath, he adds that Moore has “denied the charges against him vehemently and categorically” so they must be false. Franken and Conyers are deployed by the right to say Moore should stay, and then they are dismissed as suckers for crediting their accusers.

Sexual predation is bad and grotesque and disqualifying for national office and positions of power. Stipulated. Victim-shaming and claiming that “the people should decide” is contemptible avoidance of responsibility. But the question that remains is whether the analysis stops right there. I, too, would like to live in a world where the debate begins and ends with that proposition. But I don’t think any of us live in that world anymore. And this may not be the moment in which to try to resurrect it.

I don't feel sorry for Al Franken. I feel sorry for the people Al Franken could have and would have helped had he been able to keep his fucking hands and tongue to himself. He couldn't and he didn't and he's gone and yeah, that sucks but actions have consequences. He was stupid and he was selfish and now he's gone.

But Franken isn't the only loser here. Progressive politics took a big hit and as Lithwick notes with bitterness the Democrats have staked out a zero tolerance position. It's high-minded. It stakes out the moral high ground. Does it win elections? Maybe not. How many voters list being a notorious, predatory sexual beast as a deal breaker when choosing a candidate? Go down to Alabama and ask those folks.

I'm not mad at Kristen Gillebrand or Kamala Harris or Patty Murray or Claire McCaskill or Maggie Hassan or Maize Hirono for calling on Franken to step aside. I'm not mad at the other Democratic senators that joined in and echoed their sentiment.

What I'm mad about is I didn't think I'm more moral or ethical or decent or responsible than your typical Republican, but apparently I am because the shit that bothers me doesn't bother them at all, and I am more moral, ethical, decent and responsible than your typical Republican who supports pigs who grab women by their private parts and screws teenage girls.

I should have known it all along, but I didn't and boy, does that annoy the shit out of me. :rolleyes Mostly because it buys me absolutely nothing.
 

blacbird

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I'm glad he's going away. He has horribly disappointed me, betrayed me even, and that sentiment got expressed vigorously and clearly by his colleagues in his own party. Nobody is indispensable.

Including that . . . person who occupies the Oval Office.

caw
 

MaeZe

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I'm glad he's going away. He has horribly disappointed me, betrayed me even, and that sentiment got expressed vigorously and clearly by his colleagues in his own party. Nobody is indispensable.

Including that . . . person who occupies the Oval Office.

caw
Or, just possibly, Franken is the victim of a witch hunt. Just sayin'.
 
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Tazlima

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Don't we all?

The only ones happy Al Franken is bailing are the enemies of everything good and right and decent Al Franken stood for and championed. And yeah, right about now playing by the rules, trying to be a decent human being and not stooping to conquer does seem like a sucker's game.

How many times do you have to get kicked in the nuts before it becomes obvious the only one playing the game fair is you and you keep losing the game and they keep cheating and playing unfair and all you get is the warm tingly sensation of sore nuts?

Even if you don't have nuts, nobody likes a kick in the privates. Right, Dalia Lithwick?



I don't feel sorry for Al Franken. I feel sorry for the people Al Franken could have and would have helped had he been able to keep his fucking hands and tongue to himself. He couldn't and he didn't and he's gone and yeah, that sucks but actions have consequences. He was stupid and he was selfish and now he's gone.

But Franken isn't the only loser here. Progressive politics took a big hit and as Lithwick notes with bitterness the Democrats have staked out a zero tolerance position. It's high-minded. It stakes out the moral high ground. Does it win elections? Maybe not. How many voters list being a notorious, predatory sexual beast as a deal breaker when choosing a candidate? Go down to Alabama and ask those folks.

I'm not mad at Kristen Gillebrand or Kamala Harris or Patty Murray or Claire McCaskill or Maggie Hassan or Maize Hirono for calling on Franken to step aside. I'm not mad at the other Democratic senators that joined in and echoed their sentiment.

What I'm mad about is I didn't think I'm more moral or ethical or decent or responsible than your typical Republican, but apparently I am because the shit that bothers me doesn't bother them at all, and I am more moral, ethical, decent and responsible than your typical Republican who supports pigs who grab women by their private parts and screws teenage girls.

I should have known it all along, but I didn't and boy, does that annoy the shit out of me. :rolleyes Mostly because it buys me absolutely nothing.

This perfectly encapsulates how I feel about the whole mess and which I wasn't able to put into words.

I have one hope. It's faint, perhaps naive, but it's something.

I hope the quiet ones are watching.

We've all been in a situation at one time or another where someone was being horrible and obnoxious and someone else steps up and shuts them down. In that situation, there are always people who stayed out of it, people who, for one reason or another, chose to tolerate the jackass rather than confront them. Yet those people were also bothered by the behavior, and when it gets shut down, even if they never say a word, they feel a vicious satisfaction combined with admiration for the person who stepped up.

I think, I believe, that just as there were silent Trump voters during the election, there are silent onlookers now. They're watching the US degrade with each passing day and thinking, "I can't personally do anything to fix this, but someone should do something."

If we were in a bar right now, these sexual predators would be drunken asshats. Republicans are joining in with theirs, hollering, brawling, peeing on the toilet seat lid and, of course, harassing women. Democrats are kicking theirs out, or at their kindest, saying, "Dude, you've had enough to drink. Let's get you home."

And maybe the other folks in the bar aren't saying a word... but they're watching, and if they had to pick one group to hang out with moving forward, well, I'd like to think that the bulk of them won't choose the asshats.

...of course, I've been proven wrong before.
 
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cornflake

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It actually makes me less prone to support the dems. I'm so fucking done with this 'but we're not going to make a recess appointment because that's not the process,' 'we should resign because we believe all women,' 'we're...' crap that results in Neil Gorsuch, who this week put forth the argument that perhaps requiring managers to explain non-discrimination law to employees was a First Amendment violation.

There are no brownie points for this; there is only Neil Gorsuch. If you're in a fight and someone keeps kicking you in the groin, it really isn't going to help to stand there and keep saying, 'I won't hit below the belt.' At some point, sweep their knees out and stomp them into submission or end up stomped yourself. Fights are not always fair, and someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. Obama was a loser because he was convinced fighting fair was the thing to do, no matter what. Here we are.

I am wildly angry -- at Gillibrand.
 

shakeysix

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“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.” -- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

I have lived a long, long time. The truth always does float to the top, even if it takes years, and that is what we Democrats are counting on. When it does, and it will, where would we be if we backed a lie?
 

Prozyan

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If you're in a fight and someone keeps kicking you in the groin, it really isn't going to help to stand there and keep saying, 'I won't hit below the belt.' At some point, sweep their knees out and stomp them into submission or end up stomped yourself. Fights are not always fair, and someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. Obama was a loser because he was convinced fighting fair was the thing to do, no matter what.

Being a pacifist is a great and noble thing until the barbarians show up. At that time remaining a pacifist means before long only the barbarians will remain.
 

Tazlima

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Being a pacifist is a great and noble thing until the barbarians show up. At that time remaining a pacifist means before long only the barbarians will remain.

Refusing to fight dirty isn't the same thing as refusing to fight at all.

Those groin shots? That's what cups are for. And while your opponent is wondering why their signature move is suddenly ineffective, you'll be beating the snot out of them fair and square.
 
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Roxxsmom

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Or, just possibly, Franken is the victim of a witch hunt. Just sayin'.

Possibly, though there are enough allegations coming out, including the pictures, that it's hard to believe all are fake or concocted.

Is what he's accused of "as bad" as what Roy Moore is accused of? No. Most of us would agree that groping minors is a special kind of disgusting--not only an abuse of power and disrespectful, but sick. But it's still wrong, and it's made him a liability. Do we want to be waiting for the other shoe to drop over the upcoming weeks, months and years?

And the Democrats do need to take the moral high ground here. They're the party that still appeals more to women overall, and they're the party that is supposed to be about protecting the rights and promoting the equality of marginalized groups. They're the party about changing traditional power structures. I'm sick of conservative friends saying "What about Bill Clinton?" or "What about Al Franken?" when I mention how angry I am about having a self-confessed sexual predator in the white house (of course, the sex crimes are only one of a long list of reasons I think Trump is the most unfit-to-serve POTUS we've ever had).

And, sadly, while this is happening the GOP is quietly trying to enact more legislation that will hurt women.
 

Davy The First

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I wonder is a new ethical but politically effective approach, possible at all. Maybe Truth's the only 'weapon' available to the Left/ Dems.

And I suppose truth takes time, and many will die, literally, before it gains ascendancy.

That said, I do think it is possible that certain 'battles' can be won. Like the recent gubernatorial elections. Where specific hate mongers were targeted and lost in the lesser political posts (and the bigger ones).

We'll see, I guess.


ETA

This was playing on the radio as I was typing: What's Up, by 4 Non-Blondes. Written 1992.


"Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means
And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's going on?"
 
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Introversion

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But truth can’t get a foothold when your only sources of information say it’s a lie, “fake news”, etc. If your trusted sources say Trump’s “grabbed me by my privates” accusers are just liberal hags wanting to damage him, when investigations into Russian-Trump collusion are just a political witch hunt, when climate change is just a liberal conspiracy to force Big Gvernment everywhere / is a Chinese hoax, you think your “true facts” have a chance?

I don’t see this ending well for any Americans, including billionaires in their bunkers.
 

CWatts

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I have nothing more to add except this whole episode with Al Franken makes me think of the time in Game of Thrones (Season 3 / A Storm of Swords) where Robb Stark executes his bannerman Rickard Karstark for murdering the Lannister and Frey squire boy prisoners. He did the honorable thing, but it divided his allies and helped lead to his downfall. Winning every battle doesn't mean you win the war.
 
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JJ Litke

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The accusations against Franken were about being too touchy in photo ops. The accusations against Moore and Trump involve pedophilia, molestation, and rape.

THESE THINGS ARE NOT FUCKING EQUAL.

And I have yet to see the Democratic senators calling for Franken to resign put the same energy into denouncing Moore or Trump.

So no one try preaching to me about moral high ground. Because the Democrats sure as fucking hell don't hold that patch of earth.
 

ShaunHorton

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There's nothing wrong with holding onto your morals. There's not even anything wrong with dying for your morals.

But don't delude yourself that you're winning by holding onto your morals while the enemy is bashing your head in.
 

MaeZe

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“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.” -- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

I have lived a long, long time. The truth always does float to the top, even if it takes years, and that is what we Democrats are counting on. When it does, and it will, where would we be if we backed a lie?

Which lie?
 

MaeZe

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Possibly, though there are enough allegations coming out, including the pictures, that it's hard to believe all are fake or concocted.
I don't want to get into this argument, someone here, people I like, will get mad at me. But I will go this far:

The numbers are meaningless when 6 of the 8 involve people that didn't like the way he hugged them during photo ops. There were people around. It is not the same as sexual predatory behavior.

That leaves one accusation he denies and one I discussed above.

What's bugging me here is how fast people are to repeating false framing of the Franken case. A fake, not really touching grope becomes a grope. Eight accusers becomes a preponderance of evidence when the accusations are questionable.

... Do we want to be waiting for the other shoe to drop over the upcoming weeks, months and years?
Yes, we do. Otherwise we are letting the GOP bully us into ousting one of the more effective Senators merely on how it looks if we say, no, this one is not the same.

And the Democrats do need to take the moral high ground here. They're the party that still appeals more to women overall, and they're the party that is supposed to be about protecting the rights and promoting the equality of marginalized groups. They're the party about changing traditional power structures. I'm sick of conservative friends saying "What about Bill Clinton?" or "What about Al Franken?" when I mention how angry I am about having a self-confessed sexual predator in the white house (of course, the sex crimes are only one of a long list of reasons I think Trump is the most unfit-to-serve POTUS we've ever had).
Yeah, our history with Bill sucks. That's where the moral high ground has been knocked down more than a few notches.

But we are letting the right wing bully us here over Franken. We (as in the Democrats) repeat the false narrative, don't stand up and say this one really is different, and then talk ourselves into believing if we don't burn Franken at the stake we are hypocrites.

And, sadly, while this is happening the GOP is quietly trying to enact more legislation that will hurt women.
All the more reason we should not get rid of Franken unless the accusations really do amount to sexual abuse and at the moment, if you look closely at the evidence it is as weak as warm piss.


I am reminded of Karl Rove's Playbook: When you are guilty as accused, no worries, just accuse back. In no time the attention will all be on the opposition defending themselves and they need not be guilty. Guilt doesn't matter, being louder and more assertive in your accusations does.
 
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MaeZe

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The accusations against Franken were about being too touchy in photo ops. The accusations against Moore and Trump involve pedophilia, molestation, and rape.

THESE THINGS ARE NOT FUCKING EQUAL.

And I have yet to see the Democratic senators calling for Franken to resign put the same energy into denouncing Moore or Trump.

So no one try preaching to me about moral high ground. Because the Democrats sure as fucking hell don't hold that patch of earth.
:Hug2: Thank you.

Thank all of you who have been willing to look at the evidence.
 

MaeZe

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I started a MoveOn petition: Senator Franken DO NOT RESIGN

Not sure if I'm allowed to post the link here but PM me if you want to sign it and I'll send you the link, or you can find it by searching the MoveOn site for that petition title.

Thanks.
 

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It's never over, regarding where these politicians might go next. Franken has a huge base of support. Mark Sanford fell from grace and is now divorced and back in politics.

Franken could run as an independent in 2020 - for president -

And this resignation will look brilliant in hindsight.
 
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