Al Franken is Gone, Sexual Harassment Allegations are Harming Democrats

Yeah and the 20 other senators asking him to resign, and the DNC, etc.

Again show me who corroborated their story, link it, give me names.

Money, no, social media attention, yes, it is practically high-school "cool kids" points. Social media provides a sense of attention and popularity and power that is virtual, pedantic and dangerous. As dangerous as a coven of virginal school girls claiming fellow village members are witches... just in digital format and across the world (with russian trolls no less) and with the election of a pig boar as the most dangerous side-effect so far, which I would argue is worse then burning a few people on stakes.

Because it is not for the public to decide if an the accuser is telling the truth or the accused is guilty or not, that is for the police, a court of law, to determine.

For society? Please do look up moral panics of history to have a understanding.

I equate people speaking out on twitter and blogs shield by total anonymity or with baseless claims clearly seeking attention, etc, to be a moral panic. If anyone really wants to do something about sexual harassment and assault: go to the police, speaking out about it on social media does nothing good, all that speaking out on social media so far has got us president trump, it is less then useless, it is destructive to progress and civilization its self.

I have stated repeatedly what I rather have happen: they should have gone to the police and lawyers years ago instead of allowing sexual assulters/harassers to roam for decades. Now nothing is going to happen to these men other then being tarred and feather, which only people like you think is a fitting punishment for sexual harassment and assault.

And you still don't see how that equivalent to Franken? Anyways if you are not threatened by my opinion that you eat children, what is the problem then?

I'm suggesting that if he wants to remain wealthy the cost of suing and the amount he would get back would be small then what he spends, this is not Hulk Hogan vs Gawker, his accusers would never be able to pay off his legal bills even if he won. That is the problem with internet slander, the thousands of anonymous people make it impossible financially to sue for slander. Even just Leeann Tweeden net worth would not make sueing profitable, who by the way is twice as rich as Franken.

blah blah blah what does this have to do with the price of cheese now?

I said that pages ago!

If there was a picture of you eating a child, just one, would you not want to be tried in a court of law and not simply assumed guilty? Maybe your lawyers and witnesses could testify that the picture was fake or that it was a joke, etc... rather then a mob of people filled with self-righteous trendy fervor just seeing what ever they want to see.

I'm going to be obtuse like you and pretend I have no clue what your saying here, or maybe go into rant about using the article "is" and suffix "-al".

Well when I have an army of thousands of other people ready and willing to call you a child eater I will get back to you on that.

Yeah tell me how I would do it? I don't even have a twitter account! I'm not a twat. Social media in this early stage is vile, only link-in and researchgate are evolved enough for useful enlightenment, everything from Facebook to twater has only brought us suffering!

Oh well if you could very well take it as a threat then maybe what was brought against Franken was slander too?

You said it was an opinion, dear god you can't even see your own argument used against you!

Get James, James am I slandering her or is it a hypothetical? You have no problem slandering Franken on claims that I have detailed how and why are bullshit, and you argue that it is righteous to do so, and yet you can't see the hypocrisy that if I raise a mob to claim you have committed horrific crimes, that you think is wrong? It not one or the other either, either they both are wrong or both are fine.

Next up you murdered and ate children... for Satan!

Lets look at the people of the Satanic Panic: 48 children and and 321 counts of child abuse against the McMartin preschool, and that actually made it to court because how could 48 children be lying? Longest most expensive trial in history to try to prove they perform satanic pedophilia on these children... no convictions, none. Tell me did the accused get any recompense for the years in prison waiting and during trial for such hence crimes, for the slander of supposedly abusing and raping that many children, for Satan?

Your case involves 4 named women and 4 anonymous women, not pressing any charges: total bullshit. My "conspiracy" is backed by historical evidence as being a predictable moral panic. Salem, McCarthy, satanic panic and now #metoo, fuck now that I think about in the 1930 there was panics running up the WW2, including Orson's "war of the worlds", that 4 moral/social panics in 30 year cycles!

aaah, but is he a murderer? Would you call him a murderer to his face? how about behind a computer screen, would you and your ilk constantly harass him for being free (and enjoying the rest of his life playing golf?) If you know what golf club he was playing at would you at least give the club a bad review? Are you capable of understanding the intricacies of those actions?

So your point is a fallacy against hyperbole? Your point is it is ok to harass someone over accusation just so long as it not a physical lynching?

But that is not an argument, that is just slander.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

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No, you clearly don't. You aren't paying any attention to them, for starters. You have your fantasy world to defend, in which actual Minnesota women have been reduced to some kind of abstract collection of projected motives and interests, an audience for these "messages" your deluded brain has you think you are sending.

That dishonesty is the remaining thread issue.

Nonsense. You wouldn't lie and slander so childishly, if you had a clue. Your cluelessness is the the initial hypothesis for your inability to post honestly here - the remaining issue of the thread.

Now you are presenting your team's unforced errors and mind-bogglingly stupid rhetoric as the inevitability of fate. You deny all agency, recognize no responsibility, and are paying no attention to your own bs. That supports the "clueless" hypothesis.

So the remaining issue here is why these people cannot post honestly. Why are the self-desribed holders of the moral high ground liars, slanderers, trolls, and otherwise dishonest, as illustrated in that posting?

You're not fooling anyone but yourselves, after all - in particular, you aren't fooling much of anyone in the Minnesota voting public. If the DFL can't get some separation from you guys, they are going to get beat in 2018. Even Klobuchar is now vulnerable, in this mess you fools have created. Do you realize how bad that would be?

 

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So Franken Spoke Today

https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/al-franken-makes-emotional-speech-to-supporters.html

Senator Al Franken announced earlier this month he will resignfollowing allegations of sexual misconduct, and on Thursday night he addressed his supporters f0r the first time in a speech streamed on Facebook Live.

“Let me be clear,” he said. “I may be resigning my seat but I am not giving up my voice.”

Since November, seven women have accused Franken of inappropriate touching, groping, and kissing. The senator denied the allegations, and repeatedly apologized. But he resigned after facing pressure from his Democratic colleagues in Congress, and will be replaced byMinnesota Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith on January 3rd.

However, a recent poll suggests that 50 percent of Minnesotans believe he should stay in office, and 60 percent think the Senate Ethics Committee should finish its investigation.

Here is the poll: https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MinnesotaPoll122817.pdf

 

Try "I'm with the rapist abettor - Her". Or is that too last year?

How about "I'm with Stras, and his fine record of public service"? That's up to date.

How about "No white men!" - on the back: "except Republican ones". (That's a quote from your local message leadership, btw - the "no white men" phrase. You've already sent that one explicitly, in the local papers and on TV. In a State whose voters are 85% white).

How about "Ten year old photo-op grabass first and foremost, Medicare cutbacks and workplace assault and childcare issues and school system guttings and abortion availability sometime in the future if we can get bipartisan support without saying bad things about anybody like Franken did".
That's a little long. But everything Klobuchar and Smith say is a little long - gotta read some mighty fine print, when spineless triangulators get involved in messaging and symbolic metacommunication.

Or did you have some other messages in mind? Because if you did, you've got less than thirty weeks to get them out there - and no more Franken with his big mouth, backbone, and willingness to go to the mat on women's rights. You've got Tina Smith instead. She's going to reach across the aisle, apparently, or something.

Nonsense. You typed all that stupid shit pages ago, and now you've forgotten where it came from.

Dishonest. And you don't even know why, any more.
(I have never blamed anyone for "it". That's not in my posting.)

That's a lie.
And you don't even know it.
The "whine", the "we", the "my words", the "face value", are all bullshit and dishonest reflexes you can no longer post without.

See, when you can't post honestly, you can't. It's not an attitude any more, however it started - it's an incapability. You've got yourself in a fog, here, where you have lost track of reality - all that stupid trolling you did just confused your own self.

And the only question remaining is why. Why can't this poster type three consecutive sentences of honest response to anything I post here?

 

So let us review the accusations against Franken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Franken#Sexual_misconduct_allegations

1. First was conservative radio host Leeann Tweeden (net worth $15 million)*, who showed a photo of Franken air groping her kevlar vest covered chest while supposedly sleeping 2006, and she also accused him of forcibly kissed her without her consent as part of a rehearsal for a USO skit. She made these accusation on the radio show, on her blog and on the #metoo twitter hashtag. Franken apologized for the photo and denied the forcible kiss has haven been "remember very differently". Tweeden accepted the apology thus avoiding legal suit.

2. Lindsay Menz, on facebook and twitter, claimed in 2010 that Franken gropped her butt in a photoshoot, Franken denied this claim with a "I don't remember, I have taken thousands of photoshoots"

3-4. Huffington Post reported that two additional women who insisted upon anonymity said that Franken had subjected them to very similar misconduct during political events in 2007 and 2008, franken again denies with "I do not remember"

5. Jezebel reported that another anonymous woman said that after she was a guest on Franken's radio show in 2006, Franken leaned in toward her face during a handshake and gave her "a wet, open-mouthed kiss" on the cheek when she turned away.

6. Stephanie Kemplin told CNN that Franken held the side of her breast for 5 to 10 seconds "and never moved his hand" while posing for a photo with her during a 2003 USO tour in Iraq.

7. Politico reported that an anonymous former Democratic congressional staffer said, and Franken denied, that Franken had tried to kiss her (but failed to do so) as she exited the studio after an interview on his radio show in 2006/

8. Tina Dupuy, wrote a piece in The Atlantic alleging that Franken squeezed her waist while posing for a photo at a presidential inauguration party in early 2009.

So we have 4 named women and 4 anonymous women, claimed franken at worse kissed them forcibly, to squeeze their waist, from as as soon at 7 years ago to 15 years ago. We have no corroborators linked in there by the way.

For this Franken was first removed from an anti-rape bill, he started an ethic committee review on himself, then Indivisible called for his resignation, then over 2 dozen senators called for his resignation. Under all this pressure he as resigned.

Base on the nature of the evidence I believe this will go down in history with the satanic panic and mccarthism as a moral panic and franken as a victim of the hysteria. Though I suspect he was forced out for political purposes: Liberals can't deny a women's claim because of the infantilizing "women never lie" ideology of the SJW left, as such franken could only sit there and take it, also he was forced out to put pressure on moore and trump, while moore lost thankfully, nothing phases a narcissistic psychopathic pig boar like trump, or moore as it turns out who continues to deny he lost and claims voter fraud. Republicans always double down on being totally right and everyone else including reality itself being wrong... and somehow they keep getting elected! Well certainly we should not go that far into emulating the republican level of borish denialism certainly apologizing for any claim against you is clearly the kiss of death. The DNC considered Franken a worthwhile sacrifice despite Minnesota being one cancer riddled governor away from going Red, now we are in a tight spot for the 2018 elections with Tina Smith having to earn her keep in a republican controlled senate in just 9 months. Republicans will most certainly attack on the fact that a majority of Minnesotans feel Franken was wrongly forced out and use that a wadge against democrats in general, thus gaining votes against the whole DFL, improving their chances in the governors race and replacement senator race.

*Apparently being rich means you are not allow to have human rights, while I'm all for taxing the rich, plastering them with sexual harassment claims is not going to do anyone any good. As we should have learned from the fall of Gawkier, airing the rich's dirty laundry does nothing, it does not help the poor and middle class and only at best gets and outed gay conservatives billionar to finance hulk hogan to sue gawkier into oblivion, the only ones making any money out of all that were lawyers, the fucking jaw-less lampreys of our society.

 

Maybe a little more rundown is neceessary, to counter the liar's repetition technique:

Dishonest.
I have posted nothing about "best candidate", nothing about "acceptable", and was referring to something else entirely with "depends on the politics". You invented that bs as slander and trolling at the time, remember? You - not me - invented that stupid shit.

I haven't addressed that. You keep trying to assign that crap to me, to avoid dealing with my actual posting.

Short version: Not "can be", has been. It's a consideration, not an endorsement. Not a "voice", an agent - an actual vote, employer of power, enactor of legal and political leverage in those interests. It's the reason the DFL should not have (imho) put his seat at risk in 2018, especially and flagrantly not on the accounts and issue in the media.

How does one know this? By not being a fucking idiot like you. By not going off fecklessly and half-cocked.

It's called the "public record". Check it out. Compare Franken's Senate record with - for example - Klobuchar's, Clinton's, Hillebrand's, basically anyone's. The latest example would be his blue-slip denial of David Stras's appointment - an act of historical awareness and actual political courage in defense of women's legal rights and future prospects in his State, beyond that available from (for example) the triangulating and Republican-enabling Klobuchar.

Look: The only target of your bullshit about my posting here is here. You can't help the DFL in its self-inflicted emergency situation by slandering me and my posting here. The women of Minnesota are not supported by lies and slanders and feckless spewing - at least, they say they aren't. Are you listening to them?

 

First of all this was the DNC doing, not the DFL.

Yes this was a serious loss of a progressive, not a bernie progressive, but more so than most democrats, and I will put high bets even his replacement Tina Smith will not do as much for progressivism and even women as Franken did. Apparently a few accusation of him groping during a moral panic is worth granting republicans an opportunity to further fuck as all, including women who republicans have no problem striping rights from in appease their "Jesus loves the little babies" base.

Now back in 2008 I voted against Franken in the primary for Tinkleberg (yeah even the name would have meant him losing the general, my bad) Franken was too corporate for me over a far left tinkleberg, that and Franken's career as a comedian looked to be a detriment (turns out it was) none the less Franken wanted my delegate vote so he came the UMN and came to the BBE department where we pitch biofuels on him. In the long run Franken turned out to be better then I expected.

Again I don't think the DFL is at fault, this is hte DNC doing, and also Bells speaks for all women, don't you know that?

 

I don't know, Iceaura, a couple weeks ago you broke down to outright lying↑.

Maybe you should do more than spend your time looking for ways to talk down to women like a petulant child talking back. Because, really, when your only answer for yourself is to make up bullshit, other people notice.

You ran out of credibility weeks ago, and are only embarrassing yourself. I mean, we get it; the human rights of women are subordinate to your aesthetics. Seriously, Iceaura, that doesn't make you new, or smart, and the least you could do is be honest about it, but as you showed a couple weeks ago, when you can't figure out how to insult someone, you just make shit up.

I personally don't see why Bells or anyone else should have to tolerate you or your behavior, Iceaura; the one thing you've made clear in recent weeks is that you have nothing honest to offer.

So let us be clear: You aren't fooling anyone.

We're aware of your priorities—

—since you already told us.

You know, in the same post where you could only answer your own history by ... wait for it ... blaming someone else.

No, really, you laid out your priorities in that one. And much like the question about acceptable levels of sexual violence↑, the problem you seem to have is others disdain your priorities↑:

You've pretty much spent weeks, now, focusing on an altogether unoriginal, uninspired, and unintelligent obsession with ritually denouncing a woman as a liar, and no, that's not really surprising.

So, yeah, liike you said:

Yes, show us yet again:

No, seriously, dude, you're the one who advocates safe political space for sexual violence.

So, yeah. Show us again, Mr. Depends On The Politics; just keep making shit up, because, what, obsessive dishonest sloth is the best you can achieve?

 

Why not? Some women you don't listen to?

You would have to be honest to do that. You're not capable here.

You can't post like that and stand against - or for - anything. At least, not as a liberal or progressive.

You can't even read and respond to it honestly when it's directly in front of you, let alone pages later.

That's your entire posting here - lies, slanders, misrepresentations.

Do you think I am going to forget my own posting, my own issues, my own arguments, if you repeat your bs often enough? Is that why you post like that?

Why do you lie, and slander, and misrepresent?

You're specifically ignoring them, in order to lie and slander and misrepresent. Why are you doing that?

You have never posted honestly in response to me on this thread. Not once.
You lie, you slander, you misrepresent, and that's all you do. Why is that?

You don't need to post any more examples - your spew is documented thoroughly in this thread. It has become the remaining topic of interest.

You can't post honestly here, in response to my posting. The remaining question is why not.

And that's a relevant question for this thread. Because if the DFL can't figure out how to handle this faction, the risk of a Republican coup in ten months is high. People do not vote for incompetence and stupidity and slander and unreliable bullshit from the DFL - that's the Republican base. The Republicans have the power and money and media influence, they will run the table if the DFL abandons reason and principle for feckless "messages".

 

Aaah who here is advocating rape? No one here is advocating rape. What excuses are being made? I ask that if anyone, male or female is harassed, assaulted or raped you go to the police so your assaulter can be arrest, tried, punished and treated, or at the very least sue. What are you asking be done? Beside some generic make the justice system nicer to the accused, yeah sure no one is in disagreement with that, they still need to go to the police though. Oh do you want laws passed, well regardless of what ever those laws are we would need politicians that would pass said laws, certainly not going to happen with trump in charge, and all these women knew that and only 53% voted against trump, clearly being a fucking pussy garbing pig boar was not a serious enough detriment in the mind of roughly half of women in america. So long story short your priorities are totally whacked off the norm, you have no comprehension of what most other women prioritize, your rather have a progressive left wing senator forced out because of unproven accusation of sexual harassment and leave an opening for anti-abortion corporatist bible thumping republicans, then leave a progressive senator be to do progressive work that would overall benefit women, by the millions.

Back to one of my earlier questions: If the choice was Bill Clinton or Bob Dole, which would you go with?

 

No, I didn't.
You did. That was you, lying. Flat and open. You swallowed the koolaid on Clinton, that was humiliating, and you've been hiding from the way you treated other people in that matter ever since.

Meanwhile, to quote the wise advice giver of the forum: The women are speaking - you shut up. Full stop.

That will save you from further descriptions of your fucked up twisting like this one:

Which was spot on, dude. And you know it.

 

And the women you don't listen to - are the rest of us allowed to listen to them?
Do we have your dispensation to maybe even believe them? Pay attention to why and how they vote, who they think is on their side, and who is incompetently betraying them for bullshit?
The reason I ask is that these women - the ones not worth your attention - are actually kind of like a voting majority in my region. And since my interests lie in the area of political power and influence - including actual women's rights in the real world, which I believe are seriously threatened by the rise of fascism in the Republican Party - they are worth my attention. In my opinion. Only if you approve, of course - wouldn't want to be all misogynist and rapy cultural by listening to the wrong women.

And that's a lie, intended to slander. You can't post anything else.
You haven't posted three consecutive honest sentences in response to my posts in this entire thread.

And slandering, and misrepresenting, my posts. Yes. As you did right there.

The question is why.

And the reason for the question is the 2018 election in Minnesota - which is thirty weeks away, and which is currently in grave danger of being handed to the Republican Party.

 

You know, you're really lazy about your temper tantrums, and you're also a really lazy liar↗, so maybe you should take a moment to consider just how unreliable your assessment is.

The only thing you appear to get out of spending all this time verbally abusing a sosobra is the smug fantasy satisfaction of putting a woman in her place.

Your judgment is seriously questionable.

 

"Temper tantrums"? "Liar" based on Bells's posts in response to me?
You're serious.
That Clinton koolaid is fearsome stuff - major league. You're going to be years in recovery.

And you. My fantasies - otherwise known as posts, which one can read at will (and even comprehend, with just a minimum of the good faith you will never repossess without repentance) - include open mockery of you and your bullshit in this matter as well.
You're not a woman, remember, despite your unwillingness to quit speaking, full stop.

And neither are many of the underlying players in the Minnesota elections ten months away.
Up: the Republicans have no good candidates yet - the GOP is without defensible policy or ideology, and no prominent Republicans here can as yet separate themselves from the national Party. So their otherwise clear strategy of running as the competent Party is compromised in the early going.
Down: the DFL seems to be fighting for status quo, playing not to lose or at least minimize losses. This is nothing new for Klobuchar, and is easy to understand given the situation they have created for themselves, but may handicap new faces such as Smith. Smith's reputation seems to be one of ability and intelligence and strong backroom skills in negotiating with corporate power - that can be made to look like weaseling and double-dealing with big money, she lacks name recognition especially among black people and outstate, and if she proves a weak campaigner caught up in DNC tactics of triangulation and politalk her genuine abilities will not save the seat.
Here's the map she's contending with: https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/minnesota/

 

Another of Franco’s accusers, filmmaker Violet Paley, told the LA Times that Franco pressured her into performing oral sex on him in her car. The two had been having a consensual relationship, but they’d never engaged in oral sex before he exposed himself, she said.

“I was talking to him, all of a sudden his penis was out. I got really nervous, and I said, ‘Can we do this later?’ He was kind of nudging my head down, and I just didn’t want him to hate me, so I did it.”

She began to perform the sex act, but was uncomfortable. To extricate herself from the situation, she told Franco she spotted someone near the car.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...754e4b08a1f624bc76a?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

I guess Franco must also be guilty of forcing all of Violet’s other actions in their consensual relationship. What if Franco had asked her to cut off her forearm with a pocket knife? Would she have complied just to make him happy? And from Franco’s point of view, what sexual compromises did he endure just to please Violet? Must all of the nuances of a relationship be so rigidly governed to be deemed acceptable and forgivable?

 

you have to read between the line and the whole picture. it is not a crime to be an asshole but it's clear (if the story is true even on it's face), that he is one and doesn't much respect women.

this compounded with other women he has mishandled out of a lack of respect.