Sexual Assault Scandals 3- the Fempire Strikes Back

[Mexal]

This is just the tip of the iceberg. More and more stories are coming.

 

[Kelli Fury]

Yeah, the picture might not be worth firing someone from their desk job at a stationery company- but I sure as hell don’t want that sort of disrespectful behavior from my senator, both because it reflects poorly on my state in general and because it’s important to me that lawmakers are held to the highest standards of respect for those they govern. 

And those of you who are like NBD not touching- I don’t see him doing it to dudes in the picture, which were abundant there. If you’re doing shit like that to a lady and wouldn’t consider doing the same to a man, you are being a fucking creep.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Bad precedent is not taking any substantive action against a person committing sexual harassment when there's ample proof.  If you let Franken go with a slap on the wrist despite there being photographic evidence seen be the entire world, what message does that send to female staffers that are harassed?  It reinforces the message that there is no point complaining because nothing will be done anyway.  It completely undermines the current effort in Congress at addressing this issue.

If we’re playing this game, bad precedent is not impeaching a President who has more than a dozen sexual assault accusers. And Franken won’t get off with a slap on the wrist. He’s going to pay a heavy price behind closed doors with the caucus and this will cost him dearly from an institutional perspective.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

This second "accusation" has absolutely nothing to do with sexual harrassment.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/23681/radio-host-melanie-morgan-sen-al-franken-emily-zanotti#

Color me shocked.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Kelli Fury said:

Yeah, the picture might not be worth firing someone from their desk job at a stationery company- but I sure as hell don’t want that sort of disrespectful behavior from my senator, both because it reflects poorly on my state in general and because it’s important to me that lawmakers are held to the highest standards of respect for those they govern. 

And those of you who are like NBD not touching- I don’t see him doing it to dudes in the picture, which were abundant there. If you’re doing shit like that to a lady and wouldn’t consider doing the same to a man, you are being a fucking creep.

I'm not saying it's NBD, I'm saying it's not fondling/groping.

 

/Edited to add: IF he didn't touch her.

[Yukle]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

Franken is guilty at least of sexual harassment... And if Franken's fingertips were touching her breasts, that's sexual assault.

I like the way you clarify the difference and point out that, either way, it's the wrong thing for him to have done in every way.

I also agree that there is a danger of equating this immoral action with the far far worse abhorrence of paedophilia that Moore did.

[Mudguard]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If we’re playing this game, bad precedent is not impeaching a President who has more than a dozen sexual assault accusers. And Franken won’t get off with a slap on the wrist. He’s going to pay a heavy price behind closed doors with the caucus and this will cost him dearly from an institutional perspective.

I'd have no problem with Trump's impeachment and removal for many, many reasons, but the reality is that under a Republican controlled Congress, it's not going to happen.  But that's not the issue here.  The issue is what should be done about Franken, and what should Democrats do about Franken?  He should pay a heavy price behind closed doors?  What does that actually mean?  How would this actually hurt him?  Why should this punishment be behind closed doors?  All this seems like a slap on the wrist to me.

[Darth Richard II]

Fucker should resign. How is this even a question is beyond me.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I'd have no problem with Trump's impeachment and removal for many, many reasons, but the reality is that under a Republican controlled Congress, it's not going to happen.  But that's not the issue here.  The issue is what should be done about Franken, and what should Democrats do about Franken?  He should pay a heavy price behind closed doors?  What does that actually mean?  How would this actually hurt him?  Why should this punishment be behind closed doors?  All this seems like a slap on the wrist to me.

You're a lawyer right? I would think you'd have some working knowledge of how the Senate works as an institution. This will cost him things like committee assignments and potential chairmanships, among a great many other things. Maybe that sounds like a slap on the wrist to you, but that's a huge punishment for a Senator who wants to be there for a long time. If more evidence comes out that this is a pattern and not a one off event then yeah, he should absolutely resign. But what he's accused of right now is not enough to warrant a resignation in my book.  

[Mudguard]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You're a lawyer right? I would think you'd have some working knowledge of how the Senate works as an institution. This will cost him things like committee assignments and potential chairmanships, among a great many other things. Maybe that sounds like a slap on the wrist to you, but that's a huge punishment for a Senator who wants to be there for a long time. If more evidence comes out that this is a pattern and not a one off event then yeah, he should absolutely resign. But what he's accused of right now is not enough to warrant a resignation in my book.  

I'm a patent lawyer, and law school doesn't teach you about the workings of Congress.  Everyone pretty much takes the same courses in the first year, and then it's all electives.  There might be an elective course that gets into it, but it's not required for graduation, at least not at my school and I doubt it would be required at others.

Getting kicked out of all his committees would be more than a slap on the wrist.  I'd agree with that.  I personally would prefer to see him resign, but if he's at least kicked out of all his committees, then I think that's at least a step in the right direction.  The punishment has to be more than receiving public condemnation.

[Kalbear]

The other issue is that the way congress works is itself highly mutable and subject to congressional discretion, so any answer given now would likely be different than, say, what it was 10 or 20 years ago. We don't even know if Roy Moore could legally be removed by the Senate, even though it's happened 30 times before. 

My feeling is that he shouldn't resign, but he should announce his retirement. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I'm a patent lawyer, and law school doesn't teach you about the workings of Congress.  Everyone pretty much takes the same courses in the first year, and then it's all electives.  There might be an elective course that gets into it, but it's not required for graduation, at least not at my school and I doubt it would be required at others.

Getting kicked out of all his committees would be more than a slap on the wrist.  I'd agree with that.  I personally would prefer to see him resign, but if he's at least kicked out of all his committees, then I think that's at least a step in the right direction.  The punishment has to be more than receiving public condemnation.

Gotcha. I just assumed you picked up stuff about Congress along the way. And hopefully I'll be learning about those electives in a year and a half. 

He wouldn't lose all of his committee positions unless leadership is determined to get him to resign. Committee assignments are arguably the most valuable thing to MoCs, especially Senators, and Franken has some choice ones. What they could do is strip him of some of them and reassign him to some of the crappier ones, or more likely, strip him of sub-committee chairmanships if he had any (he's a ranking member on two). 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The other issue is that the way congress works is itself highly mutable and subject to congressional discretion, so any answer given now would likely be different than, say, what it was 10 or 20 years ago. We don't even know if Roy Moore could legally be removed by the Senate, even though it's happened 30 times before. 

My feeling is that he shouldn't resign, but he should announce his retirement. 

Are you implying retire now or at the end of the term? Because if it's the latter the Dems would be better getting someone in now (KF and I have named a few good choices) and get them the benefits of being an incumbent. 

On the Moore front, couldn't the AL SoS void the election if the steering committee pulls his nomination and allow the Governor to appoint someone? That way even if Moore won a trial he'd still not have a seat he could fill because the person selected would have already been sworn in? 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Are you implying retire now or at the end of the term? Because if it's the latter the Dems would be better getting someone in now (KF and I have named a few good choices) and get them the benefits of being an incumbent. 

I don't really care at this point about it being 'better'. I think that Franken should announce his retirement and that at the end of his term he'll be stepping down. I get that it makes it a toss-up seat, and that sucks a bit, but it's a reasonable response to this that shows he's serious. Resigning I think is way too overblown for something like this, an apology isn't enough, and losing positions is too arcane. Waiting to see if voters forgive him isn't right, either. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't really care at this point about it being 'better'. I think that Franken should announce his retirement and that at the end of his term he'll be stepping down. I get that it makes it a toss-up seat, and that sucks a bit, but it's a reasonable response to this that shows he's serious. Resigning I think is way too overblown for something like this, an apology isn't enough, and losing positions is too arcane. Waiting to see if voters forgive him isn't right, either. 

 

That's fair, but like you said, I'd prefer that it wasn't a toss up seat. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's fair, but like you said, I'd prefer that it wasn't a toss up seat. 

I think for me I'm going to draw the line at sexual harassment as far as excusing politics goes. It is a politically not awesome option, but it's better to actually enforce norms that I care about instead of letting them slide when they're not politically expedient. 

No more excuses for this, for me. 

[Martell Spy]

The Backlash Is Coming
Rebecca Traister on the inevitable blowback to our sexual harassment moment.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/11/rebecca_traister_on_the_coming_backlash_to_this_sexual_harassment_moment.html

[Dr. Pepper]

4 hours ago, Leap said:

From the US politics thread: (Mle Zabzie I think)

 

 

I think it makes a difference, certainly (kevlar specifically that is). It's not some sort of magical bullet, and it's not an excuse, but it does make a difference, physically and symbolically. I know I wish I'd been wearing kevlar when I was groped, but that's me, not the victim. Might well be that Franken wouldn't have done it if she hadn't had body armour on.

My take is that it's perfectly reasonable for the victim to be perturbed by this photo, and to demand an apology at the very least. At the same time, I don't think it's worthy of stepping down over. People are stupid, ignorant and crude, that doesn't mean they are predators. How many good people are out there who have never done a single thoughtless, moronic or even cruel thing? 

I don't include the kissing part in that assessment - I haven't read enough about it.

Ewww.  No.  No no no.  I don't think you realize what it feels like to wake up and find out that a group of people messed with you in your sleep in a way that was highly sexual.  Yes, perhaps wearing kevlar was helpful, but SHE WAS ASLEEP and couldn't give any sort of consent for this and it was recorded to film.  

It's a highly disturbing photo whether she was wearing kevlar, metal armor or nothing.  I think it's worth stepping down for, and I say this as someone who loves Sen. Franken.  

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I think those who are worrying about touching or not are kind of missing the point of why a picture of someone doing that is violating. 

Yes, exactly.

 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

We don't even know if Roy Moore could legally be removed by the Senate, even though it's happened 30 times before. 

Yes we do.  Moore can most certainly be legally removed by the Senate.  From a CRS report published just last year:

Quote

Grounds for Expulsion

There is no limitation apparent on the face of the Constitution, nor in the deliberations of the Framers, on the authority to expel a Member of Congress, other than the two-thirds vote requirement. [...]

The Supreme Court of the United States, citing Justice Story’s historic treatise on the Constitution, found an expansive authority and discretion within each house of Congress concerning the grounds for expulsion. In In re Chapman, the Supreme Court noted the Senate expulsion case of Senator William Blount17 as supporting the constitutional authority of either house of Congress to punish a Member for conduct which in the judgment of the body “is inconsistent with the trust and duty of a member” even if such conduct was “not a statutable offense nor was it committed in his official character, nor was it committed during the session of Congress, nor at the seat of government.”18 While each house of Congress has broad authority as to the grounds for an expulsion, this disciplinary action is generally understood to be reserved only for the “most serious violations.”19 As noted above, expulsions in the House (and in the Senate) have traditionally involved conduct which implicated disloyalty to the Union, or the commission of a crime involving the abuse of one’s office or authority.

 

[DMC]

Anyway, Re: Franken, I think announcing retirement is an appropriate solution in principle, but yes, the politics do still matter.  If the extent of his misconduct is that photo and Tweeden's account of the french kiss, I guarantee there is a large (large) swathe of MCs with more egregious behavior.  So, this would set a precedent that Democratic MCs retire.  That'd be fine if ignoring the fact everybody knows GOP members would in no way follow the same standard.  if you think gerrymandering's iniquity is disproportionate...