Senator Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny

Franken was a comedian at the time, doing what comedians do.

And I am with SG this time- I too wonder about Tweedon's prioritizing of her experiences. She did not come out with the stance of "Guys, don't grope the waitresses". Is it assault if the waitress considers it harmless, and knows she'll get a bigger tip for it? Or it it a different crime? I hear her as saying it's only bad when Franken does it.

And is the history of the pic that she had the only copy? Sounds like self-humiliation for her to release it. Then, an instant acceptance of his apology. You know, 10% of people are within the 10th percentile of good judgement.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
And what ideals should a prog espouse?
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Progress, obviously. If it's confusing you, just think of it as a synonym for "liberal" (for some definitions of liberal) or "leftist" (for some definitions of leftist).

I suppose you could start a thread for digging into political factions and what they really mean, but we both know it would immediately devolve into No True Scotsman douchebaggery.

Anyway, I would never call you a prog, Beelz. That would be personal. The MA would never allow it. All the trumptards and the shillaries and all the rest of them? That's other people. Nobody here but us ISF Members. And we have strict rules about not talking about ourselves.
 
Tweeden seems credible in the TV interviews, although I did get the vibe that she was reveling in it.

Roger Stone tweeting (via proxy) about the incidents in advance of Tweeden going public, along with Tweeden's right wing credentials, give me a tad bit of pause.
 
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d4m10n said:
I assume that a person either takes sexual assault seriously, or else they pose pretending to sexually assault an unwilling coworker for a fun gag, but probably not both.
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Well, there’s human complexity for you.

I’ve dangled my little kid upside down, then spun him around, overpowering him with my size and strength. Apparently, I can’t also take a stance against child abuse or endangerment.
 
casebro said:
Franken was a comedian at the time, doing what comedians do.

And I am with SG this time- I too wonder about Tweedon's prioritizing of her experiences. She did not come out with the stance of "Guys, don't grope the waitresses". Is it assault if the waitress considers it harmless, and knows she'll get a bigger tip for it? Or it it a different crime? I hear her as saying it's only bad when Franken does it.

And is the history of the pic that she had the only copy? Sounds like self-humiliation for her to release it. Then, an instant acceptance of his apology. You know, 10% of people are within the 10th percentile of good judgement.
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I do not see the relevance of any of this. Let's say that it is true that she was sexually harassed many times as a waitress and feels it is only bad when Franken does it. What conclusion should we take from it? Is her claim not valid? Is her keeping quiet about all the times she was harassed as a waitress means she has to keep quiet about any other unwanted sexual advances?
As far as releasing the photo, should she not shared it and keep the shame to herself? Maybe she should of just kept quiet about the whole thing?
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Well, there’s human complexity for you.

I’ve dangled my little kid upside down, then spun him around, overpowering him with my size and strength. Apparently, I can’t also take a stance against child abuse or endangerment.
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Worse! If you've ever accepted money for work you can't possibly be in favour of volunteer work.

I mean, if we're going to eliminate all contexts and nuance, better do it right!
 
theprestige said:
Congress has paid out $15 million in sexual harassment claims. That's a lot of bad behavior. How much have you heard about, before this week? I don't buy the argument that because we haven't heard about it, probably nothing happened.
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I have looked at that claim and it appears fairly clear that the $15 million was not paid for just sexual harassment claims but rather that was for all employment related claims, including wrongful termination
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Well, there’s human complexity for you.

I’ve dangled my little kid upside down, then spun him around, overpowering him with my size and strength. Apparently, I can’t also take a stance against child abuse or endangerment.
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Did your child publicly call out your abuse?
 
casebro said:
Franken was a comedian at the time, doing what comedians do.

And I am with SG this time- I too wonder about Tweedon's prioritizing of her experiences. She did not come out with the stance of "Guys, don't grope the waitresses". Is it assault if the waitress considers it harmless, and knows she'll get a bigger tip for it? Or it it a different crime? I hear her as saying it's only bad when Franken does it..
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Blown away by the level of assumptions here, all of them bad assumptions.

That she was groped before. That she did nothing when she was groped as a waitress (assuming that there was any chance in hell we would have heard of some nobody getting banned from a hooters). that she considered it harmless and thought she would get a bigger tip? (holy crap!) and that her experiences translate to being harassed by someone who is now a US SENATOR.

I "assume" she didn't do it before because before #metoo she was quite rightfully concerned that she would be slut shamed like she was in this thread.
 
The Big Dog said:
Blown away by the level of assumptions here, all of them bad assumptions.

That she was groped before. That she did nothing when she was groped as a waitress (assuming that there was any chance in hell we would have heard of some nobody getting banned from a hooters). that she considered it harmless and thought she would get a bigger tip? (holy crap!) and that her experiences translate to being harassed by someone who is now a US SENATOR.

I "assume" she didn't do it before because before #metoo she was quite rightfully concerned that she would be slut shamed like she was in this thread.
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How are any of those assumptions when they are specifically prefaced by an "is it" and followed by a question mark?
 
Scootch said:
I do not see the relevance of any of this. Let's say that it is true that she was sexually harassed many times as a waitress and feels it is only bad when Franken does it. What conclusion should we take from it? Is her claim not valid? Is her keeping quiet about all the times she was harassed as a waitress means she has to keep quiet about any other unwanted sexual advances?
As far as releasing the photo, should she not shared it and keep the shame to herself? Maybe she should of just kept quiet about the whole thing?
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WTF ?

I still don't understand why she is ashamed ?

WTF did she do to be ashamed about ?
 
PhantomWolf said:
It's illogical to be certain either way. She may have been harassed and/or even abused while working there, it seems from the articles I have read that so called "Breastraunts" such as Hooters does have an issue with customers doing so, but the fact is that even if there is a high probability, it isn't a certainty so she might have skated through her Hooters employment and avoided the harassment, without further evidence we can't know.
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Of course we can't know with certainty. What can we ever know with certainty? Sometimes that's just an impossibly high standard. Can we ever know that Franken shoved his tongue down her throat? What if no witnesses confirm that he "badgered" her?

I'm dealing with a situation now where a student has a "service dog" (or an "emotional therapy" dog) that she's bringing to class. This dog wimpers during lecture. He's constantly whining, so she pets him and feeds him treats. After the first day of this ********, I asked if I could pet her dog. She said yes! (We're not supposed to be able to pet real service animals, so she's probably lying, but I can't be certain.)

Since this goddamn dog keeps interrupting me, I'll make a passing comment, "Yeah, I know, you disagree, [dog's name]." Anyway, I was contacted by the dean this week because the girl said that my asides about her dog make her feel "uncomfortable." She lodged a complaint against me! Bitch.

Seeing picture of you naked is not an invitation for unwanted sexual advances, and regardless of what you do to your copies of Playboy (I'd really rather not know) nothing gives someone the right to non-consensually press themselves onto any of the girls whose photographs are inside in the real world. It's quite simple really.
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Of course posing for pictures is not an invitation for unwanted sexual advances. And we probably shouldn't assume the intent of Franken's picture was to "humiliate" Tweeden. If anything, Franken only embarrasses himself with such infantile frat humor. The comparison to Playboy is to cast doubt on this notion that she's mortified because the photograph circulated amongst "co-workers." That's like believing a poorly behaved dog is a well-trained service animal simply because he's wearing a vest.

I believe that this incident should be investigated and taken VERY seriously because other classes are probably getting interrupted.
 
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TheL8Elvis said:
WTF ?

I still don't understand why she is ashamed ?

WTF did she do to be ashamed about ?
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I think what Scootch means is that she was the one who release the picture, but intimated that the picture was taken to shame her, which is an odd combination. I don't know if any of that's true.
 
TheL8Elvis said:
WTF ?

I still don't understand why she is ashamed ?

WTF did she do to be ashamed about ?
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I used shame in relation to Casebro's post I was quoting. "And is the history of the pic that she had the only copy? Sounds like self-humiliation for her to release it." TBH I don't understand either where self-humiliation plays into it. And she does not have anything to be ashamed about.
 
theprestige said:
Progress, obviously. If it's confusing you, just think of it as a synonym for "liberal" (for some definitions of liberal) or "leftist" (for some definitions of leftist).

I suppose you could start a thread for digging into political factions and what they really mean, but we both know it would immediately devolve into No True Scotsman douchebaggery.

Anyway, I would never call you a prog, Beelz. That would be personal. The MA would never allow it. All the trumptards and the shillaries and all the rest of them? That's other people. Nobody here but us ISF Members. And we have strict rules about not talking about ourselves.
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Are you saying that calling someone a progressive (or "prog") is a personal insult?

Is "progressive" the same kind of belittling insult as "trumptard" or "shillary"?

Is Senator Franken a progressive? Or a liberal Democrat?

Does it matter when it comes to inappropriate behavior?
 
Argumemnon said:
I think what Scootch means is that she was the one who release the picture, but intimated that the picture was taken to shame her, which is an odd combination. I don't know if any of that's true.
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Right. And the example was given that Al passed the picture around to all the boys so they could all have a a good old laugh about how Al pretended to feel up her tits while she was asleep.

I still don't get ... what is she ashamed about ? She didn't do anything ? She was asleep.

Her whole purpose at the USO show was to be eye candy.

But yet, she'd deeply ashamed of this picture that she literally had no control over ?
 
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