I do not read Franken's statement as an admission to whatever she is claiming. I read it as something along the lines of, "I acted in a way that does match my own high standards, and I apologize for that. [see, e.g., phoptograph] As for the other allegations, she is full of crap and I would welcome an investigation where I could prove it."

Having said that, maybe more, perhaps as many as 8, victims of Franken's assaults will come forward, and their employment will perhaps not even be based, quite literally, on smearing people like Franken.

I mean he worked in the "rough and tumble" world of live comedy TV, which presumably had lower behavior standards than a district attorney's office, so there should be plenty of others who were victims if he is prone to this sort of thing. [I recall him saying that he "only did enough cocaine to make sure other people weren't doing too much."] Or maybe he only started in with harassing right-wing minor celebs after he turned 50 or so.

I met Tweeden while on a poker show in 2006, and she had a producer scream at me for breaking eye contact with her during a practice question (I didn't look at her anywhere but her face, did not touch her either), then apparently refused to do the post-bustout interview with me altogether.

For people who didn’t watch the video, she said it happened when they were alone. And it’s kinda tough to watch the video and think she's lying.

So Roger Stone got word of this ahead of time, who cares? People gossip, how is that new?

Maybe someone else touched on this but some guy on twitter proclaiming to have been Franken’s escort at that time claimed it didn’t happen and Franken never left his sight.

I didn’t see anything to verify this claim.

So what’s the motive here? To get Franken replaced by another democrat for the purposes of... what exactly? Someone fill me in.

Or is she on the dole from the Moore camp to distract from his thing and help get him elected?

The joke was supposed to be she turned her head to avoid the kiss.

He allegedly browbeat her into it. It’s weird that some people want to try and maintain the same failed environment that has let this go on forever.

Why is it better than a flat denial though? Why do you even think it isn't a denial? It seems obvious that he is saying that her claims about what happened in that "rehearsal" are not true. He's asking everyone to proceed on the assumption that there is some uncertainty about the truth of her claims, which indicates he is contesting them. It's just not worded as an explicit denial.

It's very odd to me that Franken gets Good Guy points for being weaselly about his position rather than straightforwardly saying which claims he concedes are true and which ones he thinks are false. Indeed, I think it's actively bad to encourage such weaseliness rather than to view it as additional evidence of guilt. If false claims are being made, Franken should, politely but unambiguously, identify the specific claims he thinks are false rather than vaguely gesturing at having a different recollection. Or, as you suggested, if he really wants to be a Good Guy, he could just resign now if he doesn't think he can credibly show that the allegations aren't true.

You have posted several times itt but never read her complaint. Fix that.

This.

The "joke" in the photo is the violation of her autonomy. That's the pivot of all the "take a picture of doing something to someone sleeping" jokes, that they'd never consent to it if they were conscious. And they're all in poor taste.

Probably a good time for affirmation consent as a rule of thumb. Because if you give Franklin the benifit of the doubt you can still envision a situation where Franklin thinks they need to practice the kiss but she feels uncomfortable, but if he had asked if she were conformable beforehand and that if she didn't feel conformable she could stop it wouldn't completely ameliorate the issue but it'd show that he was more self aware of her feelings than being a possible horn dog.

Right. Poorly spoken by me. Franken's Having It All Ways response is slimey. I simply meant that it's better than calling her a liar and declaring it a witch hunt. Only slightly. He doesn't get any good guy points here. And a professional and firm denial is better than what he did, which is apologize but then give his defenders enough space to run themselves into embarrassing circles defending him.

I only meant that his response is better than Moore type responses which deny and celebrate their own victimhood. But as I said, only slightly.

She says at the end “if there are more women then, well, hey I don’t know we will see by the way someone texted me saying Al toucha her too so we will see wink wink he he.”

HIT JOB

See I don't think you can really go down the "HIT JOB" route unless/until Franken denies ever kissing her.

Saying that its necessary a kiss is written into the script and needs to be rehearsed for for a USO show is dubious. "I kissed her but didn't use tongue" is going to be weak, and it will be basically impossible for him to vindicate himself.

Notable feminists have been writing about weoponizong their informal whisper networks and it may very well be a good idea, but watch easily that morphs into calculated treachery.

I think this is what Fly describes as "telling on themselves"

No.

This is holding Democrats to a lesser standard.

Interesting list. Wonder if Franken is included? If so, it would be damning, but I generally try not to call for someone's resignation before lunch based on a single accuser. There's a reason the WaPo went through the effort of finding 4 independent accusers, each of whom was not a left wing media personality, before publishing its Moore article.




Still, you guys don't seem to get how right-wing smear campaigns work. While Moore and Trump are dealing with 10 and 18 or so claims of harassment, people are going all in on "both sides" and calling for Franken's resignation, when there are a ton of distinguishing features and unanswered questions.

But what do I know? I'm on record saying that Moore's explicit failure to follow mandatory constitutional precedent as a state supreme court judge is even worse than his kiddie fiddling (which is bad, and now known to be even worse). Personally, I also find kicking mothers off medicare and kids off CHIP worse than kiddie fiddling. I guess I am just too much of a utilitarian to appreciate the value of enforced misery when arrived at "fairly."

Well, it's much easier to weaponize your whisper network when it includes Roger Strone than when it's just high school friends or members of your book club.

Someone else on Twitter pointed out that the list is missing context. The settlements are for a wide range of violations such as FMLA and other issues not necessarily related to sexual harassment settlements.

Right. Like you've shown, watch how easily that morphs into calculated treachery.

Also of course it being a smear campaign and Franken also being guilty aren't mutually exclusive.

Yeah this is what I was alluding to before. I understand the importance of believing accusers, but if we're basing any systems on trust let's be aware that there are 60 million deplorables ready and willing to fully exploit said system.

that's all i needed to hear

Probably not wise to stand your ground on this slippery slope when there's a photo and the accused issued a lengthy apology where he admitted to behaving like a creep.

Al Franken defenders are done in by Al Franken' s own words. Let's not fret about women exploiting deference in cases that aren't really even questionable.