Al Franken Is Toast

What i don't get is why people are assuming he wanted to stay? I'm pretty sure he's glad he's out of there.

I think he's a loss. Though I don't like people who play pranks on sleeping people. I really don't.

(And it wasn't about humour or sex. It was about spite.)

rugcat said:

I don't think so. I believe he was fully committed to doing his best to make things better through the political process and however difficult and frustrating it might've been, he thought it was important and worthwhile.

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I don't believe quiting and this are mutually exclusive

"The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos." Politico


Before Franken resigned, this was merely garden variety, whispered around, wacky, congressional creepiness. Franks even tried to blow it off, saying he was sorry he made the staffers feel uncomfortable but his wife was distraught over the infertility thing and a s a good husband, he was thinking about solutions. He thought he could make a plea for sympathy and wait out the "witch hunt" by delaying his departure. After all, offering a female staffer 5 million to carry his baby--turkey baster or penis, the method was left up in the air-- was just a joke in poor taste. That kind of self serving shrug off is the very thing that worked in the past. He didn't put his hands on anyone, so how bad a man could he be?

Turns out, in a post Franken congress, that kind of eerily creepy sexual behavior is not going to fly. Neither is an 80 something male greeting female staffers in the privacy of his office, in his under wear. (Jeez--all I can think off is my grandpa in his boxers and athletic tee, grabbing a cold glass of lemonade in the kitchen, on sweltering summer night. Grandpa, a fry-cook and bouncer by profession, had the common decency to scream like a little girl and grab a chair to shield his teenage grand daughter from the sight of him in boxers. He apologized all the way to the chicken house, where he finished his lemonade. But not John Conyers, who appeared angry that these women did not realize he had the right to "Change his clothes in his own office")


No. there is a backlog of congressional creepiness. Not all of it is rape and groping but now it is out in the open. --s6


PS--my brother-in-law, once a rabid anti-Obama Republican but now horrified by the party, said that he would have bent over a chair and tried surrogacy trick for 5 million dollars.

mccardey said:

I think he's a loss. Though I don't like people who play pranks on sleeping people. I really don't.

(And it wasn't about humour or sex. It was about spite.)

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It still seems mean as well as grossly inappropriate, even if the image was posed, because it suggests / implies that this is "OK" and "funny."

I ask myself if this photo plane event was the only accusation against him, would his resignation be appropriate?

In a person's development, if, as an adult they do something wrong in a particular area, in this case against women, and after that, they do numerous things right, for the benefit of women, is the previous action the one which holds the most weight?

It would probably depend on the nature of the previous action. So, in this case, does his gross foolishness outweigh his actions to support women's rights afterwards?

That's the question, re the photo, as I see it. And I say it does not hold the greater weight.

However, we have added 'weights'. The details Tweeden gave re the kissing scene, and other accusations, such as Tina Dupuy The Atlantic etc hold credible weight. So therefore his previous actions, are greater, and may well have continued. Therefore, he had to go. No question about it.

BUT...I still feel there has to be another way of engaging with the likes of Moore and Trump, and similar than simply 'we acted with honor.'

JJ Litke said:

So Democrats in the senate should not take a stand? They shouldn't do anything, just throw up their hands and be like, well they won't listen to us so we'll just not speak up.

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What would you like Senate Democrats to do, JJ Litke? Refuse to sit near him in committee meetings? Stand and turn their backs whenever Moore is speaking on the floor of the Senate? Get off the elevator when he gets on? Otton Von Bismarck observed, "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable--the art of the next best." So what do you believe is the possible, the attainable, the next best thing Democrats can do to foil Raunchy Roy?

Tell me what you want them to do and I'll tell you how effective any of it will be.

JJ Litke said:

They are senators, and Moore is about to join their ranks. There has been no collective stand about Moore by them, in spite of the fact that his actions are far worse.

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Yes, they are and as the Democrats are in the numerical minority in both houses of Congress, there's zippity-doo-dah they can do to remove Moore from his seat should the voters of Alabama stupidly choose to elevate this freak to represent them in Washington. Elections have consequences and if you're in the political minority, it doesn't mean you have no clout, but you have significantly less clout than the majority.

Which doesn't mean there has been no collective stand about Moore from Democrats. Moore is the dead and rotten albatross carcass Dems can and will hang around every single, solitary Repub candidate in 2018 which includes Josh Mandel, a no-neck nobody and a sleazy little puke who will be running against Sherrod Brown next year here in Ohio, and Mandel is already being thrown into that dank closet Moore hangs out in.

Moore could turn out to be the Christmas gift for Democratic candidates that keeps giving long after December 25. Ho-ho-ho.

JJ Litke said:

You don't get to claim you're taking the moral high ground if you only do it when it's easy.

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It's not easy to cast out one of your own for their transgressions while the other side ignores their unrepentant sinners. It's not easy to do the right thing when politically it feels like the wrong thing. It still had to be done.

rugcat said:

Many, including myself, believe the rapid chorus of demands for his resignation was mostly a tactical political decision. Time will tell if it was the correct call. I think Franken realized the damage to the Dem agenda that would result if he refused to accede, and fell on his sword.

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A "tactical political decision," you say? Hokay, and what's the tactic at play here? Roll over and play dead? Disappoint and infuriate the progressive wing of the Democratic Party? That's really working well.

It's kind to Franken's decision to quit as a noble gesture done to prevent damaging the Democratic agenda (which was what again?), but If you go back to the speech, I'm not seeing self-sacrifice as the hill Franken chose to plant his flag and die on. There's more resentment than regret in there as Washington Post reporter Amber Phillips parsed through the rhetoric in search of the reality.

Serving in the United States Senate has been the great honor of my life. I know in my heart that nothing I have done as a senator — nothing — has brought dishonor on this institution, and I am confident that the ethics committee would agree.

This isn’t a resignation speech. This is the speech he always wanted to give throughout these past three weeks of accusations, a full-throated defense of himself.

Nevertheless today I am announcing that in the coming weeks I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.

I’m innocent. But I’m resigning. He had no choice as nearly his entire party said he needs to resign after a seventh accuser shared her story with Politico anonymously on Wednesday.


I of all people am aware there is some irony in the fact I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.

Daaaaaayum. On his way out the door, Franken couldn’t resist the “whataboutism” that has swallowed many partisans. The reality is: Powerful men trying to leverage their power for sex is a bipartisan problem.

But this decision is not about me. It's about the people of Minnesota. It has become clear that I can't both pursue the ethics committee process and at the same time remain an effective senator for them.


So, up until this point, Franken had yet to explain why he was resigning even though he believes he’s not a serial groper. Here’s his explanation: That an ethics investigation would have distracted from his day job. That doesn’t hold water, given up until today, Franken was more than willing to cooperate with the bipartisan ethics committee of senators while doing his job. Franken is resigning because his Democratic colleagues forced him out.

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Falling on one's sword is something of a cliche, and few politicians when they get found out for the sneaky shit they do are acting out of any noble purpose. More likely, they're only trying to cover their ass.

rugcat said:

It seems you tend to believe that those who view things differently from yourself are blinded by their own biases. I was just curious if it's ever entered your mind that you yourself might be subject to the same type of skewed vision that you so readily attribute to others.

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The snarky answer would be "no," but here's the actual one: I've been on this board for 11 years now, one less than you, and I don't believe you're the least bit curious at all. Any questions you've had about me you answered for yourself a long time ago.

You hardly need me to confirm it.

I feel like no matter what I say someone here that I respect is going to tell me my reaction is wrong.

The reality is I'm torn here. It's nice that victims are being believed this time, but I'm far too cynical to believe that's going to be a trend. In fact, my cynicism leads me to think the main reason they're being believed now is because they're pointing at targets the GOP would love to see toppled. If this were a general "people are finally believing abuse victims" trend, Woody Allen would be out of a job, Bill Cosby would be in jail, Trump would be out of the White House and Roy Moore would be on a sex offender's registry instead of walking into Congress.

I guess that's where I'm coming from: I don't believe this is a change. I believe this is a hiccup, and each party thinks they're playing it for political gain.

And I know which party is better at playing the culture wars.

Should Franken have resigned? Hell if I know. We could argue all day about whether or not his accusers were credible, or if what he did was resignation-worthy. Moore's crimes are more clear-cut, and they're the ones that aren't going to matter.

Ultimately we've got a tax bill with fetal personhood language in it, never mind that it financially screws the vast majority of the population, and there's a damn good chance it's going to pass. And we've got a white supremacist government that's quietly altering the judiciary in ways that'll alter the landscape for generations.

I don't want sexual abusers as public servants (or anywhere else). I don't want the government's hands in my reproductive organs, either. I shouldn't have to choose, but I have a sinking feeling that's exactly what I'm doing. Because this country never gets anything other than what the Pack-of-White-Guys-du-Jour decide they're willing to give us.

Patty said:

To say culture does not change is to imply that it cannot. No thank you.

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That's a straw man argument because no one said culture doesn't change. What I said is that even in the 70s it was not acceptable for a man in his 30s to date teenagers. If you find individuals who thought differently that's still not proof of the overall culture at the time any more than the existence of snake-handling cults is proof of acceptance of bringing snakes with you to church.

nighttimer said:

What would you like Senate Democrats to do, JJ Litke? Refuse to sit near him in committee meetings? Stand and turn their backs whenever Moore is speaking on the floor of the Senate? Get off the elevator when he gets on? Otton Von Bismarck observed, "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable--the art of the next best." So what do you believe is the possible, the attainable, the next best thing Democrats can do to foil Raunchy Roy?

Tell me what you want them to do and I'll tell you how effective any of it will be.

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I was clear about what I want them to do, and you continue to take my comments out of context, misrepresent them in the most childish way possible. I'd have expected good faith from you, and it's disappointing that you refuse to do that.

JJ Litke said:

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.

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JJ Litke said:

No, because my post was in response to the concept of the Democrats taking the so-called moral high ground.


So Democrats in the senate should not take a stand? They shouldn't do anything, just throw up their hands and be like, well they won't listen to us so we'll just not speak up.

They are senators, and Moore is about to join their ranks. There has been no collective stand about Moore by them, in spite of the fact that his actions are far worse.

You don't get to claim you're taking the moral high ground if you only do it when it's easy.

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JJ Litke said:

I was clear about what I want them to do, and you continue to take my comments out of context, misrepresent them in the most childish way possible. I'd have expected good faith from you, and it's disappointing that you refuse to do that.

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I have not taken your comments out of context or misrepresented them childishly, and I resent the assertion.

How have I refused and disappointed? By asking for specific actions you want the Democrats to take against Moore instead of the vague general demand they DO something, even though you haven't said what it is they should do? You've refused to provide any clear course of action and that is disappointing.

Here's what the Democrats can do. They can keep Moore at arm's length, treat him like a pariah, and refuse to work with him or have anything to do with him. It won't bother Moore in the least, but what they can't do is take any sort of substantial, meaningful action against him because they don't have the power to do it and even if they did, they don't have the will to do it.

The only things of substance the Democrats could do to Moore would be to censure, reprimand or expel him from the Senate, but they can't do ANY of those things while they are in the minority. The Republicans are in the majority and they aren't going to do it. No senator has been expelled since the Civil War and Roy Moore is not going to be the next. Even if the Dems were to retake the Senate in 2018, they would not make it a priority to then expel Moore.

Good faith is a knife that cuts both ways. Accusing me of showing none because I was rude enough to ask where is the bite behind the barking is rich. But before you start in slicing and dicing me with cutting barbs over how "childish" I am and taking your words out of context, be sure they have some context first, lest you end up taking a chunk out of yourself while trying to get to me.

rugcat said:

No, it makes him a comedian who did something juvenile and sexist because he thought it was funny. Something we would associate more with a particularly obnoxious type of frat boy.

The question is, though, does that negate all of the work he's done in the senate to stand up for those without power, and does it warrant him being forced out of his job and ending his political career?

For some, the answer seems to be yes. For others it's no.

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Alessandra Kelley said:

There is a concept my husband has dubbed “The Shield Wall.”

It refers to, not the roughly 6% of men who commit nearly all rapes and grave sexual abuse, but the vastly larger percentage of men (and women) who laugh off funny frat humor and groping jokes and jokes demeaning women and all the similar misogynistic humor that provides camouflage and safe haven and cover for the rapists to walk freely among us all and do what they will with impudent confidence that they never will be held accountable while women are told they must wear burqas and cower behind garden walls if they are not to be blamed for being raped.

People in the Shield Wall are not rapists. They often see themselves as regular people who don’t see anything wrong with a little fun, not realizing that the 6% of men who push this image hardest have criminal reasons for encouraging it. People in the Shield Wall are sacrificing their own good names and their humanity to protect rapists.

Groping jokes are not funny. They are abusive and dehumanizing, and they create an atmosphere that gives rapists a free pass.

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There are gradients of 'evil'.

Personally I don't think the photo alone justifies Frankel's resignation. But it wasn't just the photo event in this case. It was a lot more.

The Shield Wall is an excellent analogy. But that doesn't mean that there is no gradient in evil action. If every action is either automatically absolutely right or absolutely wrong, we'd be in a very strange place indeed.

To judge the photo incident fully, more information would be needed. As it stands, we've been given that information, by the context revealed by Tweeden, (the kissing 'scene' etc), and so it is no longer a simply a photo event.

But ultimately, each action has to be judged individually. If we move towards 'blanket truths', we move towards nothingness.

nighttimer said:

I have not taken your comments out of context or misrepresented them childishly, and I resent the assertion.

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I meant that you are misrepresenting my comments as if they were childish. I worded that part poorly and I apologize for that. I stand by the rest.

Davy The First said:

There are gradients of 'evil'.

Personally I don't think the photo alone justifies Frankel's resignation. But it wasn't just the photo event in this case. It was a lot more. ....

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It was not a lot more, not if you look at the accusations and the response and don't just reflexively put Franken in the same box as the very clearly abusive men.

MaeZe said:

It was not a lot more, not if you look at the accusations and the response and don't just reflexively put Franken in the same box as the very clearly abusive men.

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I suggest reading Tina Dupuy's piece in the Atlantic. Her and Tweeden's accounts have a ring of truth, em, ringing through them, for me. But it's an individual thing, I guess. But is he the same as Moore? or Trump? Or Weinstein? Nope. But he's still over the line.

Please remember:

Don't make it personal.

I'm dealing with winter snow, and modding on my cell phone. I'm not inclined to tolerate much in the way of members who know better making it personal.

MaeZe said:

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

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MaeZe said:

It was not a lot more, not if you look at the accusations and the response and don't just reflexively put Franken in the same box as the very clearly abusive men.

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MaeZe, please consider backing off from statements like these. It's hard not to find them insulting. My first jobs were in politics, all the way back to interning in DC as a college girl. I would wager large amounts that some people who feel differently from you are following the story as closely as you are.

I don't equate Franken's alleged behavior with Roy Moore's alleged behavior.

Here's how I think about it.... has anyone released a photo of Franken pretending to grope a man? Nope. Did Franken kiss a bunch of junior, male entertainers who were trying to do their jobs along side him? Nope. The sexism bothers me, and for me, that's enough. I don't know if all of his accusers are telling the truth, but since he admitted to some behavior, and there's a photo, I believe some of this stuff happened. And, I believe that, out of the whole state of Minnesota, there are women and men other than Franken who could do, roughly, as competent a job as he does... and who haven't engaged in such behavior.

lizmonster said:

I feel like no matter what I say someone here that I respect is going to tell me my reaction is wrong.

The reality is I'm torn here. It's nice that victims are being believed this time, but I'm far too cynical to believe that's going to be a trend. In fact, my cynicism leads me to think the main reason they're being believed now is because they're pointing at targets the GOP would love to see toppled. If this were a general "people are finally believing abuse victims" trend, Woody Allen would be out of a job, Bill Cosby would be in jail, Trump would be out of the White House and Roy Moore would be on a sex offender's registry instead of walking into Congress.

I guess that's where I'm coming from: I don't believe this is a change. I believe this is a hiccup, and each party thinks they're playing it for political gain.

And I know which party is better at playing the culture wars.

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I think this is well said, and it summarizes many of my concerns as well. The GOP doesn't seem to worry about even the appearance of hypocrisy anymore, and they are adept at tossing twisted versions of liberal priciples back in liberals' faces, then covering their own ears and going "lalalalala" when someone explains why it's a false equivalency. The strategy appears to be working, since they control both houses, the presidency, and more than half of state governorships.

Should Franken have resigned? Hell if I know. We could argue all day about whether or not his accusers were credible, or if what he did was resignation-worthy. Moore's crimes are more clear-cut, and they're the ones that aren't going to matter.

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Not to the people in charge of government right now. The only hope is that this will help push the midterm elections towards the Democrats because more liberals get out to vote and at least some conservatives are disgusted and demoralized enough to stay home, and enough moderates decide they've had enough of the GOP for now. It's a thin one, though, and a lot can happen over the next ten months or so.

Ultimately we've got a tax bill with fetal personhood language in it, never mind that it financially screws the vast majority of the population, and there's a damn good chance it's going to pass. And we've got a white supremacist government that's quietly altering the judiciary in ways that'll alter the landscape for generations.

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The GOP is also much better than the Democrats at creating smoke and working quickly under its cover to push their agenda through. And their agenda baffles me, because it is counterproductive from a fiscal and "small government" perspective. I don't know if years of courting the socially conservative, so-called "religious right" vote has resulted in them starting to believe their own propaganda about the personhood of embryos, or if they have a more Machiavellian plan to preserve the traditional power hierarchies by keeping women under the control of men (and this is a facet of that). I suspect the latter, because nothing else they do suggests that they have any real concern for the lives that will result from their policies.

I don't want sexual abusers as public servants (or anywhere else). I don't want the government's hands in my reproductive organs, either. I shouldn't have to choose, but I have a sinking feeling that's exactly what I'm doing. Because this country never gets anything other than what the Pack-of-White-Guys-du-Jour decide they're willing to give us.

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Yep, though we don't get to choose Franken's fate ourselves. No one polled the American people, women, or even just Democrats about whether or not he should resign.

JJ, I have hope that elected Democrats will get much louder in denouncing Roy Moore after the Dec. 12th election. There's some evidence that loud, national denunciations of Moore right now could increase turnout among Alabama Trump voters enough to tip the election in Moore's favor. I'd say doing one's damnedest to defeat Moore might be the best way to respect the women who came forward, though I can understand someone feeling differently about this.

mccardey said:

Yeah but in what century was it okay for a 32 year old man to hit on a 14-year-old? In America? I think that was a very long time ago.

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I'm not back in on this thread.

I'm out like I said. And enjoying it! But two people asked for a reference and I'm a scientist dammit so ...

20th Century is when it was 'OK' (<- That term is too vague) for a 32 year old to hit on a 14 year old in ... some areas of the United States. See long quote at end for more details. Things were worse in the 19th century, and worse yet in the 17th century, on the other hand life expectancy was much shorter.

And, according to Wikipedia, there was no legal lower age limit for marriage in Virginia as recently as last year. I realize marriage is different than pedophilia, but we are talking about sex and children in both cases, and so I will add the link and trust you to understand the various nuances.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States

In 2016, Virginia changed its law to set 18 as a minimum age, and 16 in special circumstances with judicial approval; prior to that date there was no minimum age in the state. According to the Tahirh Justice Center, between 2004 and 2013 nearly 4,500 children under 18 were married in Virginia.

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The following link has the "mother saying the Luckiest girl in the world" reference in response to the 'opportunity' to date Moore within it. The link also contextualizes within fundamentalist belief in the American South:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...istian-men-date-teens/?utm_term=.16034c0d3f3f

And the next link provided ... is to a Slate article that reviews a book written by an academic historian that has worked on the issue:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/...l_syrett_s_american_child_bride_reviewed.html

And here is an excerpt from the article:

Syrett writes that according to English common law during the colonial era, the minimum permissible age for marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys, although kids as young as 7 could enter into a kind of unconsummated starter marriage that lasted until they were old enough to change their minds or transition into the real thing. Setting the minimum age so low—far lower than the 21 years required to make decisions about property—was supposed to account for the onset of puberty, so as to contain sex within marriage. And girls could marry younger than boys because, as one 1600s marriage treatise put it, women’s bodies are “more tender and moister than the Male,” ripening and decaying earlier.

The phrase “child bride” didn’t come into regular use in American newspapers until the 1870s and ’80s, Syrett writes—not because such a thing was uncommon but because it had been so common as to be beneath mention. Well into the 1850s, many states relied on the 12-for-girls and 14-for-boys minimum age rule, although such youthful marriages often required parental consent (mainly to protect parents’ rights, rather than their kids’). But a series of 19th-century forces, including a women’s movement, a campaign to lower divorce rates, and a growing recognition of the idea of childhood as a separate stage of life, combined to raise the marriage age in many states. This reform was egged on by a late 19th-century newspaper craze for chronicling May–December weddings, which had at last come to be seen as weird. Syrett quotes contemporaneous reporter accounts of a 9-year-old married off to a 50-year-old (the girl still in “short dresses”), a teenage bride playing with dolls, and an 11-year-old taking her honeymoon trip on a half-price youth ticket.

History doesn’t move in a straight line, though. Continuing concerns about child marriage prompted another reform movement in 1920s, when the press had fun with the Peaches-and-Daddy romance. (The concept of pedophilia as a psychiatric disorder was only just gaining currency, and Daddy’s reputation suffered as rumors swirled about a long-standing interest in young girls.) In the ’50s, the median marriage age plummeted as a wave of teenagers got married. This trend arose from several factors, Syrett writes, among them the culture’s “intense preoccupation with domesticity,” and a kind of untenable moral compromise—while sexual experimentation was becoming increasingly acceptable for unmarried middle-class girls, at least behind closed doors, out-of-wedlock children were not. Shotgun weddings ensued.

And, too, many teenagers in the ’50s wanted to get married; they saw it as a ticket to adulthood, Syrett says. Without dismissing the phenomenon of forced marriages, Syrett explores the agency of children and teenagers gingerly throughout his book, sensitive to the fact that our understanding of what kids are capable of has changed radically over the last 250 years. There are legitimate reasons why girls wanted to get married in past centuries: to escape abusive and controlling home lives; to escape the suitors their parents had chosen for them; because the alternative was poor-paying factory work or worse, prostitution.

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Moore was born in '47 (in Gadsden Alabama). According to Wikipedia.

Works cited:

1. Wikipedia
2. Washington Post
3. Slate
4. Wikipedia

AW Admin said:

It still seems mean as well as grossly inappropriate, even if the image was posed, because it suggests / implies that this is "OK" and "funny."

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It absolutely does. It is mean and grossly inappropriate.

Not as bad as Weinstein or Moore or Trump is a terribly, sadly low bar.
ETA: When I say it's not about sex - it's totally about sexism. I doubt he'd do it to a man.

Roxxsmom said:

Yep, though we don't get to choose Franken's fate ourselves. No one polled the American people, women, or even just Democrats about whether or not he should resign.

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Pollsters surveyed 600 Minnesotans after the second allegation against Franken came out. About a third wanted to see the results of an ethics committee investigation, but only 22% of Minnesotans said he should remain in office.

Patty said:

I'm not back in on this thread.

I'm out like I said. And enjoying it! But two people asked for a reference and I'm a scientist dammit so ...

20th Century is when it was OK for a 32 year old to hit on a 14 year old in broad terms. See long quote at end for more details.

And, according to Wikipedia, there was no legal lower age limit for marriage in Virginia as recently as last year.:

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Every state allows exceptions to the age of consent (18) for marriage, and approximately half of all the states have no lower limit for marriage with parental consent. I posted a link up thread and expressed my thoughts on why I think this is so atrocious

According to my source (linked up thread) most of such marriages today happen in the southern states, but plenty of "blue" states also allow children younger than teens to be married off if their parents wish it. In its grossest form, it allows parents to marry off a "ruined" girl to her rapist, and of course it allows members of religious communities that routinely marry young girls off to older men to do so with impunity.

Whether or not the presence of a law implies that such practices are normalized in the US, however, is another question, as is whether or not it was widely acceptable for men in their thirties to "date" teenagers back in the days when Moore was doing so.

Anna Iguana said:

Pollsters surveyed 600 Minnesotans after the second allegation against Franken came out. About a third wanted to see the results of an ethics committee investigation, but only 22% of Minnesotans said he should remain in office.

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Maybe that should stand, then. He represents the state, and it sounds like most of his constituents wanted to see him go. That's enough of a majority that it wouldn't just be based on partisanship (I suspect Democrats and Republicans would differ there, but it looks like most Democrats in the state also wanted him out).