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Sexual Assault Scandals 3- the Fempire Strikes Back


Kelli Fury

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

No, it's not unclear if it could happen.  It can happen, and hopefully will if he's elected. 

Maybe? We've not had a lot of legal fights here. Heck, in your paper it's about the House, not the Senate.

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

To the bolded, I am aghast at that sentence.  So, the Senate certainly has the power to do so - ok, agreed!  But then, comma, it's not clear if they actually can?  What?  Your example about the filibuster is rather immaterial but I suppose informative.  Yes, the Senate can abolish the filibuster, or blue slips, whenever they desire.  Just as they have the legal authority to expel whomever they want, which was my original point.

As an example: it takes a simple majority vote to abolish a rule in the Senate, right? Will they do that first? They already decided not to previously, after all. 

I'll try and be more clear: they have the legal authority to expel Moore, though I would expect a challenge based on the grounds of overriding the rights of Alabama citizens (who also have the right to representation). It is not clear based on the senatorial rules whether or not they have the actual authority right now to do so with the senate, which may require a number of procedural hurdles. I mean, from the same document:

Quote

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.

And

Quote

.31 Similarly, Cushing noted that the power to expel “should be governed by the strictest justice,” since in expelling a duly elected Member without just cause, “a power of control would thus be assumed by the representative body over the constituent, wholly inconsistent with the freedom of election.”32

 

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3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Maybe? We've not had a lot of legal fights here. Heck, in your paper it's about the House, not the Senate.

First, it's not "my paper."  Wish it was, coulda made some money off easy research.  Second, since it's apparent you've read the document, it should also be clear that in the case of expulsion the author makes clear the same standards apply to both chambers.

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As an example: it takes a simple majority vote to abolish a rule in the Senate, right? Will they do that first? They already decided not to previously, after all. 

This is entirely irrelevant.  There is no rule for expulsion.  Yes, in terms of procedure it would take the majority of the Senate to abolish the filibuster.  But that's not what we're talking about.

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It is not clear based on the senatorial rules whether or not they have the actual authority right now to do so with the senate, which may require a number of procedural hurdles. I mean, from the same document:

Again, you're just quoting the history of how expulsions have taken place traditionally.  As you've conceded, that has nothing to do with the Senate's legal authority on expulsion, and also doesn't really matter in the specific Moore case either.

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Just now, dmc515 said:

This is entirely irrelevant.  There is no rule for expulsion.  Yes, in terms of procedure it would take the majority of the Senate to abolish the filibuster.  But that's not what we're talking about.

When we're talking about legal precedent that will likely be contested (as it almost certainly would with Moore), it's not irrelevant. 

Just now, dmc515 said:

Again, you're just quoting the history of how expulsions have taken place traditionally.  As you've conceded, that has nothing to do with the Senate's legal authority on expulsion, and also doesn't really matter in the specific Moore case either.

Legal precedent based on norms is going to go to a constitutional decision. There are countless cases where norms dealing with unwritten rules like this are still enforceable based on prior standing, and a SCOTUS decision before that actually talks about how certain things are clearly dangerous to do except in the most grievous of cases is going to have a lot of weight. History is all that matters when we're talking about something that hasn't happened since 1941, and in that specific case was decided not to do so because of the reasons we're talking about right now

And with that threat of legal action and fighting that Moore brings combined with McConnell's unpopularity, I'm not sure he presses the issue in the first place. I don't think he wants to have SCOTUS have to make this decision - win or lose. 

It is an interesting thought experiment to think about how the SCOTUS justices would vote in this case, given how it impacts state's rights and representation and the like. My suspicion is that they'd stay cautious and restrict the senate rights in this case, saying that while the constitution provides that power it clearly does not supercede the rights of the states for selecting their representation, and only in gross misconduct as a senator should it be used. Given that prior senate and prior SCOTUS have viewed it this way, that seems the safest bet to me.

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23 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Perhaps instead of writing a big ass post you should ask first? This isn't the first thing you've gotten wrong in this thread. 

Don't care, not talking about things in general. 

Why? And why is this relevant when, say, being an evangelical is not?

I doubt this.

Maybe don't reply to me about general cases when I'm talking about specific ones, then.

Why? They still don't believe they're deluded.

It does.

Birtherism is a political viewpoint. Obviously you said that.

Birtherism is a political viewpoint. What your view of 'knowingly spewing false bullshit' is is an entirely subjective viewpoint. 

Well, that's good. I'll just say that you sound almost precisely like the random other people who attacked Tweeden based on her prior jobs, or her appearing nude, or hugging other people on camera. And your arbitrary choice on what to make her sound credible or not appear to be just that - arbitrary. 

Again, maybe you should ask first.

It kind of is the way you did it. Knowingly promoting political opinions that you disagree with (or are based on an apparent falsehood) seems to be an odd decision to make; again, is someone incredible for pushing religious views? For pushing anti-GMO views? Their viewpoints of what they believe in vs. their ability to separate actual witness accounts seems on its face to be ludicrous. 

 Okay, let me go over this again.

This whole thing got started because another poster made comment about Ms. Tweeden’s political leanings, her appearances on Fox News, and the fact that she was a birther.

Manhole responded to that post, and I added that I don’t think Ms. Tweeten’s political orientation was relevant to the credibility of her claims. I added though that I believed that anyone promoting birther conspiracy theories would have to take a hit to their credibility. And then after that, I stated that I believed the original poster had confused Ms. Tweeden with Ms. Morgan as I was not aware of Ms. Tweeden promoting any sort of conspiracy theory or making any other outlandish claims.

Sometime later another poster, linked a transcript from Media Matters where Ms. Tweeden apparently was pushing the idea that Barack Obama should produce a birth certificate.

There was some posts thereafter to the effect that Ms. Tweeden’s dabbling in birtherism isn’t relevant or that is what it seemed to me.

I added a comment, that I believe, that pushing birtherism is relevant in assessing a persons basic credibiliy, but based on what I saw in the transcript I did not believe that the transcript was enough to not believe Ms. Tweeden.

Now sometime later you posted your comment. Now, I have no idea if was addressed to me, in part or in whole, but I thought it might be. And in reading that post it was clear to me that you were specifically talking about Franken’s case, but it wasn’t clear to me that you were not speaking in more general terms. But anyway I felt the need to address it.

Speaking in general terms in these sort of cases, I do think that persons propensity to go out and repeat crackpot theories or outright falsehoods, like birtherism or Holocaust Denial or whatever, does and should impugn on their credibility. Now depending on the facts of the case, it may not be enough to overturn the presumption of truth telling we should give in these cases. But, I feel it is incorrect to hand wave them away and say they simply are not relevant. I did the best I could to explain why I thought so.

In Ms. Tweeden’s case, I do not feel that short transcript of her dabbling with birtherism we should come to conclude that she is not telling the truth as regard to Mr. Franken. I do not expect accusers to have a 100% record in accuracy in telling the truth as nobody could meet that standard. However, saying that dabbling with bitherism isn’t relevant doesn’t sit quite right with me. I think it’s relevant, but based on what I know of this case, it’s not enough to overturn the idea that Ms. Tweeden is being truthful as what occurred between her and Franken. Now had Ms. Tweeden had a history of repeating crackpot theories and outright falsehoods, publicly, I might think differently. But, basically, I don’t really seeing her having done that. But, I don’t think, you can say her promoting birtherism has no relevance to the facts here.

Now if you want to make the claim that birtherism or holocaust denial or any other crackpot claim, that goes beyond normal ideological disagreements, is all “subjective” and shouldn’t have any effect on the credibility of somebody, then fine, you go right on ahead and make that claim. I don’t buy it.

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1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

In Ms. Tweeden’s case, I do not feel that short transcript of her dabbling with birtherism we should come to conclude that she is not telling the truth as regard to Mr. Franken. I do not expect accusers to have a 100% record in accuracy in telling the truth as nobody could meet that standard. However, saying that dabbling with bitherism isn’t relevant doesn’t sit quite right with me. I think it’s relevant, but based on what I know of this case, it’s not enough to overturn the idea that Ms. Tweeden is being truthful as what occurred between her and Franken. Now had Ms. Tweeden had a history of repeating crackpot theories and outright falsehoods, publicly, I might think differently. But, basically, I don’t really seeing her having done that. But, I don’t think, you can say her promoting birtherism has no relevance to the facts here.

Now if you want to make the claim that birtherism or holocaust denial or any other crackpot claim, that goes beyond normal ideological disagreements, is all “subjective” and shouldn’t have any effect on the credibility of somebody, then fine, you go right on ahead and make that claim. I don’t buy it.

I think that you'll find dabbling in holocaust denial isn't the same thing as going into birtherism. Again, 40% of all Republicans STILL believe that Obama is a Muslim. Something like 75% believe that climate change science is a hoax. I find both of these things insane, horrible bizarre thoughts, but they are entirely mainstream, and discounting someone's credibility based on their belief in a mainstream view - no matter how reprehensible it might me to you or I - is not a reasonable thing to do. 

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

When we're talking about legal precedent that will likely be contested (as it almost certainly would with Moore), it's not irrelevant.

 

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Legal precedent based on norms is going to go to a constitutional decision.

How many times can I say this...The examples you cited are not legal precedent.  If this ever came before SCOTUS (which it won't), those instances would be on the level of an amici.  

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It is an interesting thought experiment to think about how the SCOTUS justices would vote in this case, given how it impacts state's rights and representation and the like.

No, it's not.  If 67 (and likely many more) Senators vote to expel Moore, SCOTUS isn't going to take the case.  First, I highly doubt it'd be granted cert in the first place.  Second, if it was, the is the same type of legitimacy protection that led Roberts to finagle his way into ruling for (most) of the ACA.

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4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

 

How many times can I say this...The examples you cited are not legal precedent.  If this ever came before SCOTUS (which it won't), those instances would be on the level of an amici. 

How can a previous ruling by SCOTUS not be legal precedent?

4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

No, it's not.  If 67 (and likely many more) Senators vote to expel Moore, SCOTUS isn't going to take the case.  First, I highly doubt it'd be granted cert in the first place. 

Alabama has a right to their legally elected representation. Cert would be obviously implied. 

4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Second, if it was, the is the same type of legitimacy protection that led Roberts to finagle his way into ruling for (most) of the ACA.

Alternately, he can point to Alabama legally electing Moore, and how this process effectively disenfranchises that state from their senate seat (and potentially any other state). I'm sure Roberts could find grounds one way or another, but my suspicion is that he wouldn't - and more importantly, I suspect any ability to remove more power from the senate would be granted with the conservative court right now.

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7 hours ago, The Wedge said:

I have a question:

Did Tweeden (or an intermediary on her behalf) ever approach Franken in the ensuing years to let him know that this USO trip deeply upset her?  Is there a reason that this had to be done via a story to the press if Franken never had a chance to realize his actions caused such suffering on Tweeden's part?

I ask because Franken seems to me like a man who would have made his apology and amends as much as possible to Tweeden without having to have learned it through the media.

 

Tweeden made it very clear after he kissed her that the kiss was unwanted and that he should never do that again.  He knew he upset her, and according to her account, treated her with petty insults afterwards, and of course took the photo of him grabbing or pretending to grab her breasts.  This wasn't a situation where he was unaware that he upset her.  If he genuinely felt sorry, he would have apologized long ago.  

Another reason why I'm skeptical about Franken's current apology is that in 2008 when he was running for the Senate, he apologized about making a "joke" about drugging and raping Leslie Stahl when he worked at SNL.  Recently, he published a book where he's admitted that the apology wasn't sincere, and that he apologized only to improve his chances at getting elected.

Quote

“Al Franken, Giant of the Senate” is, in part, the story of how Franken became a giant phony — how he pretended to be a serious person in public even as his inner comic monologue never stopped running. He recalls that during the 2008 campaign, he was attacked for such transgressions as a late-night writers’-room joke about raping Lesley Stahl, and a 2000 Playboy article entitled “Porn-o-Rama.” Franken didn’t think he should have to apologize for the cracks, which his opponents were taking out of context. “To say I was sorry for writing a joke was to sell out my career, to sell out who I’d been my entire life,” he writes. “And I wasn’t sorry that I had written Porn-o-Rama or pitched that stupid Lesley Stahl joke at 2 in the morning. I was just doing my job.”

But as the attacks caused Franken to bleed support from women voters, he saw that his explanations weren’t working. “I learned that campaigns have their own rules, their own laws of physics, and that if I wasn’t willing to accept that, I would never get to be a senator.” And so Franken took a deep breath and told a little white lie: “I’m sorry.”

Why should I believe his apology now, when under similar circumstances (it was a joke both times! haha!), he's admitted to giving a fake apology?

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1 minute ago, Mudguard said:

Why should I believe his apology now, when under similar circumstances (it was a joke both times! haha!), he's admitted to giving a fake apology?

How often in general do you believe the apologies of celebrities? Of course there's a lot of CYA in it. What matters more is what he does going forward.

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3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

How often in general do you believe the apologies of celebrities? Of course there's a lot of CYA in it. What matters more is what he does going forward.

I believe in Louis CK's apology.  He apologized privately to several of the women he harassed years before the story broke.  Doesn't lessen the wrongness of what he did, but I do believe that he's sorry.

But most of the time I don't care enough to make any determination.

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12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

How can a previous ruling by SCOTUS not be legal precedent?

What previous ruling?  Please remind me if you've cited any cases.

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Alabama has a right to their legally elected representation. Cert would be obviously implied. 

That's not how cert works.

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Alternately, he can point to Alabama legally electing Moore, and how this process effectively disenfranchises that state from their senate seat (and potentially any other state). I'm sure Roberts could find grounds one way or another, but my suspicion is that he wouldn't - and more importantly, I suspect any ability to remove more power from the senate would be granted with the conservative court right now.

Any judge can find grounds for anything.  Moore himself is a pretty hilarious example of that.  That's not the point.  The point is SCOTUS would not touch such a case that at least 2/3 - and probably at least 3/4 - of the Senate has already determined they're expelling someone with a ten foot poll.  Granted, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch would likely want to take the case.  But cooler heads would in all likelihood prevail.

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

What previous ruling?  Please remind me if you've cited any cases.

The article you provided did, and you did from it:
 

Quote

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.

 

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

That's not how cert works.

Sorry, you're right; I was thinking standing. I think 4 of the 9 justices would grant it without that much difficulty, simply on the grounds that there is a public interest in deciding it. 

This assumes, of course, that any other court could actually hear the case in the first place, but probably the Alabama Supreme Court could decide it.

1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

Any judge can find grounds for anything.  Moore himself is a pretty hilarious example of that.  That's not the point.  The point is SCOTUS would not touch such a case that at least 2/3 - and probably at least 3/4 - of the Senate has already determined they're expelling someone with a ten foot poll.  Granted, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch would likely want to take the case.  But cooler heads would in all likelihood prevail.

You have a lot more faith in the SCOTUS than I do, apparently. 

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17 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Another reason why I'm skeptical about Franken's current apology is that in 2008 when he was running for the Senate, he apologized about making a "joke" about drugging and raping Leslie Stahl when he worked at SNL.  Recently, he published a book where he's admitted that the apology wasn't sincere, and that he apologized only to improve his chances at getting elected.

Why should I believe his apology now, when under similar circumstances (it was a joke both times! haha!), he's admitted to giving a fake apology?

I think you can make a fairly easy distinction between those two things. One is a matter of professional pride, which many comics cite after having been criticized for problematic bits or jokes. 

"Hey, this is my job. I have to be able to try out new material, I push boundaries, etc, etc."

The Tweeden pic doesn't really qualify as that. It was a cheap, inappropriate joke made at the expense of a co-worker. And as you and others have mentioned that it could be easily seen as a form of payback for her rebuffing him after he kissed her. I have no problem believing that he's sorry for behaving in that manner. 

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51 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that you'll find dabbling in holocaust denial isn't the same thing as going into birtherism. Again, 40% of all Republicans STILL believe that Obama is a Muslim. Something like 75% believe that climate change science is a hoax. I find both of these things insane, horrible bizarre thoughts, but they are entirely mainstream, and discounting someone's credibility based on their belief in a mainstream view - no matter how reprehensible it might me to you or I - is not a reasonable thing to do. 

Why does how mainstream a belief is factor into someone's credibility? Beliefs aren't more credible because a lot of people believe them.

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5 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I think you can make a fairly easy distinction between those two things. One is a matter of professional pride, which many comics cite after having been criticized for problematic bits or jokes. 

"Hey, this is my job. I have to be able to try out new material, I push boundaries, etc, etc."

The Tweeden pic doesn't really qualify as that. It was a cheap, inappropriate joke made at the expense of a co-worker. And as you and others have mentioned that it could be easily seen as a form of payback for her rebuffing him after he kissed her. I have no problem believing that he's sorry for behaving in that manner. 

If he had apologized to her in the past before the story broke I would have believed him, but he's had over a decade to apologize, and he only apologized after he was exposed.  That's one count against his apology being genuine.

The second count against him is that he recently admitted that he's lied about an apology about a joke that could be construed as sexual harassment.  It might not be exactly the same situation, but it seems pretty close to me.

The third count against him was that his initial apology was completely inadequate.  

What objective reasons do you have that balance the scales and lead you to believe that his apology is genuine?  

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15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The article you provided did, and you did from it:

I don't understand how what's quoted below supports your point.

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

You have a lot more faith in the SCOTUS than I do, apparently. 

Sure, I suppose I do.

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I am pretty sure with Franken and Moore, there's some lame joke hidden in that mess. Let me try it.

Two Senators walk into a bar. One said," I fondled a woman's breast." The other one said: "I tried to force myself on highschool girls in my thirties". Suddenly they heard the voice of the President: "Grab them by pussy."

Yes, I know it's sad. And no. It's not supposed to be funny. Why did start a post with that? It's a bit going back to the Franken should resign, because it would give Democrats the moral highground argument, I read earlier in this thread.What good is the moral highground, if the other side, or a big part of the electorate doesn't really care. The Christian Party of family values has as recently as the last Presidential election declared they are cool with that sort of behaviour.

Yes, you can demand Franken's resignation as a matter of principle, but don't expect the same standards will suddenly be applied to Republicans.

 

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1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

If he had apologized to her in the past before the story broke I would have believed him, but he's had over a decade to apologize, and he only apologized after he was exposed.  That's one count against his apology being genuine.

The second count against him is that he recently admitted that he's lied about an apology about a joke that could be construed as sexual harassment.  It might not be exactly the same situation, but it seems pretty close to me.

The third count against him was that his initial apology was completely inadequate.  

What objective reasons do you have that balance the scales and lead you to believe that his apology is genuine?  

I don't really, I just think you can make a distinction between the two instances. In his Senate campaign, these jokes were taken out of context in order to defame his character. For instance, the Playboy article that was cited earlier. 

From an NPR interview Franken did earlier this year:

GROSS: So continuing the idea of how your humor could be used against you, you have a great example in the book about a sketch you did for "Saturday Night Live" that involved a bestiality joke. It's a really - it's a, like, hilarious...

FRANKEN: Oh, no. This was in the Playboy article.

GROSS: It was in the Playboy article. Right. OK.

FRANKEN: Basically, I had written an article for Playboy that was used against me. And in one part of it, I'm talking about the benefits of new technology. And I say, for the example, the Internet is a great, great learning tool. My son did a great sixth grade report last year on bestiality. He downloaded a lot of great visual aids from the Internet. And the kids in the class just loved them because, you know, at that age they're just sponges. Now, that is a very conservative joke because the joke is saying, parents, watch what your kids are getting on the Internet, right? So they use this in an ad where they're going like, Al Franken talks about bestiality. And it kind of comes - zooms in at you (laughter). And that one made my mother-in-law cry.

GROSS: (Laughter) Literally?

FRANKEN: Literally made her cry. A lot about the campaign made her cry. It was a vicious, vicious campaign.

 

So they turned a satirical piece that he'd written into "Al Franken thinks it's okay for kids to practice Bestiality" So you can understand making an insincere apology for political expedience, methinks.

 

I don't think the Tweeden allegations fall into the same category. 

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