16th November 2017, 9:13 PM
Dark Jaguar Wrote:We all had a fun time gloating about Roy Moore, then just like that, BAM, Al Franken disappoints us all. He's admitted it straight up, and that photo of him groping that woman you can find easily online is just sickening.That is disappointing, yes. If the photo really shows him (pretend?)-groping her while she was asleep, yeah, it's horrible and there is no defense for such an unfunny "joke", particularly in the context of the creepy behavior she discussed earlier. If it's a staged photo then it's "only" not funny, creepy, and in incredibly bad taste.
It does not absolve him of guilt, but at least Franken admits what he did though, unlike Roy Moore or Donald Trump...
And on that note, to nobody's surprise Trump is not going to try to force Moore out of the race. Here's hoping that this helps gift us a miracle Senate seat in one of the redder states in the country, it may be unlikely but it's possible! Polling right now is looking good for the Democrat, though there is still a while to go before the election.
Quote:Not that this has ever really been a secret, but we've got a serious problem here. And yes, Bill Clinton is a rapist if we are consistent with our standards of evidence here (multiple women accusing him). Republicans keep bringing him up as some "whataboutism" when we criticize Trump, but I don't get that. We're decrying him too, it doesn't excuse Trump's terribleness.Yeah, it's "these men, from both parties, have all taken advantage of women". It's not an issue of party, not really.
Quote:The democratic party can really get the moral victory here if they are willing to bite that bullet and once and for all denounce any of their own members, even their very most popular ones, that are now being exposed for being utter creeps. Bill Clinton and Al Franken have both done a lot of good, but you know what? There's so very many more people out there that are just as willing and able to do just as much good WITHOUT being sexual abusers.
On the Clinton front, there have been several articles in the last few days on Vox and the NY Times about how we got it wrong in the '90s and Democrats should have believed more of Bill's accusers and pushed Clinton to resign (in favor of Al Gore). It's a very reasonable case, yes. On the one hand, the one definitely proven case, Monica Lewinsky, was a consensual relationship. However, there was also obviously a huge power gap between them, which Bill exploited to his benefit. And someone who did that once probably didn't only do it once, so some of the other accusers are probably telling the truth as well.
At the time, in high school, I remember thinking what many Democats did -- that it was wrong, but probably not something that he should have to resign over. It inevitably became a part of the huge Republican war against him, and that definitely colored judgements. In retrospect, yes, maybe he should have resigned, this kind of behavior only stops once people are actually punished for it, as might finally be happening now. It is a shame, though -- I mean, Bill Clinton is an amazing speaker. I've mentioned this before but I heard him speak once, in 2014 at a rally with President Obama for our Governor candidate that year, and I thought that as good as Obama's speech was, Bill's was better. Policy-wise Clinton was certainly often frustratingly centrist however, but he's a really good speaker... who took advantage of women and maybe should have resigned because of it.
(If the Paula Broadrick rape allegation was proven true he definitely should have resigned, of course.)