And two more women, because of course there is.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5...ushpmg00000009

If Franken resigns I wonder if the Trumpkin in the tribalism thread pretending to be a Serious Centrist will admit that it's Republican tribalism that is the problem. If so, well let's call it a day boys, it's Miller time.

Looks like Franken will be the sacrifice that liberals are going to have to make.

*facepalm* at anyone who defended him. Tribalistic bullcrap.

Not like a single republican will ever resign for that anyway ofc but still gtfo.

Not limited to Franken though actually.



At least one more is going.

Conyers is just another corrupt capo who justifies the rage against politicians. Be happy to see him go.

And this thread was relatively mild. In a thread on another site, a 'liberal' who's so 'liberal' that her avatar is a cartoon cat in a pink pussy hat greeted the HuffPo article by going:-

And I'm afraid it hasn't got any better since then.

Note the term of denial, 'actual sexual assault', precisely equivalent to the far right's 'legitimate rape', because there is no difference between US 'liberals' and the far right. It's all quite startlingly mad.

And the award for false equivalence goes to...

Can someone give me cliffs on the whole Barton thing? If anything it seems like he is the victim here. But it's very likely I may have missed some details.

Are any politicians condemning him for this. If so, what exactly are they condemning them for?

I mean we've been overdue for a purging of old Establishment Democrats for a while. If a few people get got for groping I don't really care.

afaict, people are mostly just loling and that's it.

Although you get a few who are using this opportunity to take out the blowtorch for *unequal protection under the law*.



https://twitter.com/EsotericCD/statu...36406433140741

Barton is being condemned for gross stupidity or for being just plain gross.

Seems appropriate.

As does this.

Your post is terrible. People distinguishing between butt grabbing and rape is not precisely equivalent to the far right's "legitimate rape", get the **** out of here.

I mean yeah grabbing a butt without asking and violent rape aren't the same level of awful. Both are far below the expected conduct of a sitting US Senator and Franken should just resign tomorrow.

So while Franken was campaigning for Senate, at public fundraising events, presumably sober, he was intentionally grabbing women’s butts left and right in front of their families during public photo opportunities, and not, like, in some more secluded location? I think there are either way way more of these incidents that have yet to be reported and Franken is a massive creep (because that is really brazen given the context, and like, not something a late-middle aged man does out of nowhere once or twice), or there is some misunderstanding. (Before people jump all over me, I’m not saying the women are lying. They clearly felt wronged or violated in some way, but Franken could have inadvertanly touched their butts in a way that made them feel uncomfortable, which he should have apologized for, certainly, but that is way different than intentionally copping a feel like we are all assuming happened)

Franken is like the worst possible test case for the Dems. If he were a pedophile like Moore, pretty much every Dem would call for his resignation and not even think twice. Sure Franken is a popular guy with the right agenda and now may even be a champion for women. Doesn't matter. If he were a pedophile, he would be gone. No one can say the Dems are hypocrites and they will just get a new Dem senator in his place. The new guy probably won't bring as many positives to the table as Franken did, so it will still be a loss. However, the calculus is easy, so it is a loss they know they have to take. Moreover, any senator who might have some milder sexual misconduct in their past doesn't have to worry that much. Any skeletons in their closet can't possibly be worse than pedophilia.

But what we initially had was a photo where he wasn't touching her and something that happened in the context of rehearsal. It all sounded bad, but was it bad enough to justify losing Franken? That's a tougher question. Now throw in some serial butt grabbing at photo ops. And it gets a little easier. But still, the calculation of whether to lose Franken over this is a still not the slam-dunk easy decision it would be if he were a pedophile. Furthermore, I suspect that many senators (D and R), probably have a few butt grabs or worse in their past. If they call for Franken to step down, then what happens when their conduct is revealed? It's just much messier.

This is a huge boon for the republicans. Now they basically equivocate between Franken and Moore by basically they're both sexual predators and the dems are just giant hypocrites for not condemning him the same way they are condemning Moore. Anytime anyone brings up Moore, they will just say, "What about Franken?".

Interestingly, if a few weeks ago someone came to the GOP leadership and told them they had damning evidence that one sitting DEM senator was a pedophile and another did the stuff Franken did, but the informant would only reveal the evidence for one of them, they would have to pick Franken over the pedophile every time. Politically, Franken gives them a lot of problems that a straight up pedophile doesn't.

Once Franken is out of the news they will just go back to play the good old "What about Bill Clinton?" card.

True. But that's easier to counter. Dems of today can just say that they would have done things differently if they were there then (of course that won't work for the ones who were around then). Or if a Bill Clinton type came up now they would handle it better.

They can't do that with someone who is currently in office that they have the opportunity to act on right now.

But you're right that for many members of the base "What about Bill Clinton?" is sufficient.

Who cares about what's easy to counter? That implies republicans are at all concerned with logical consistency or morality. As if Franken was actually a pedophile, they wouldn't force him out and continue running Moore anyway.

Any normal non-lizard person already realizes what the two did isn't even close to being in the same league.

True, but we're dealing with a lot of lizards here. You're right that most don't care about logical consistency in the least, but I think there's a small percentage that might get woke if they're forced to stomach too much inconsistency. At least that's what I'm hoping.

People should realize that these actions don't necessarily imply sexism. The easiest way to demonstrate that would be to think about those who are groping their own sex.

It's usually about power rather than sex, (as Trump commented).