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

[Delphic Oracle]

"for which the opponent must be raked over the coals." It is almost as if you intentionally wrote it that way for reasons of which I can only surmise but cannot share in this forum.

Well played.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I do not believe either of them needed practicing tongue kisses. Or any kissing.

Are you a stage actor so you know if rehearsal was or was not needed?

And here you go again, just after saying there might or might not have been a tongue involved, you post as if there was.

That's why you keep thinking I'm misstating your POV, go read your own sentences, like this one: "I do not believe either of them needed practicing tongue kisses." OK, but that implies Tweeden's perception is the valid one and Franken's is not. And you've said the same thing over and over and then you say, I didn't say that. YES YOU DID!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And?

So she can joke grope men but no one can joke grope her?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A year ago I would have more or less shrugged at the accusations against Franken. They are nowhere near as serious as those against Moore, and it irks me that the right is using it as a diversion. That said, the Democrats need to own this issue. There can be no tolerance for "boys will be boys". Defending Franken on these credible accusations cedes the moral high ground.

Franken may well be a good law maker and a fighter for Democratic causes. That's not enough today. This is more than a political thing. This is a brand new world were the momentum of women's voices is strong. Democrats need to be on the right side of history on this one. The GOP certainly won't be.

At this point, for the same reason you say, "They are nowhere near as serious as those against Moore", I say there should not be an automatic assumption this is credible.

Yes, for most of these guys with the number of women coming forward and the number of people who admit they knew all about it, the women are very believable.

In Tweeden's case there is a lot of perception involved that should be taken into account.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Certainly true, but is that good enough reason to dismiss the victims? You don't do photos like that, you make sure before a skit kiss what your partner is ok with (especially a non-actor), you don't grab butts - if you respect women.

Respecting women and fighting for their rights is very much on Franken's political agenda. It's fair and necessary to hold him by his own standards.

There you go again, assuming the accusations are true and the perceptions valid.

Going to tell me in the next post you never said that?

 

[The Big Dog]

Are you a stage actor so you know if rehearsal was or was not needed?

And here you go again, just after saying there might or might not have been a tongue involved, you post as if there was.

That's why you keep thinking I'm misstating your POV, go read your own sentences, like this one: "I do not believe either of them needed practicing tongue kisses." OK, but that implies Tweeden's perception is the valid one and Franken's is not. And you've said the same thing over and over and then you say, I didn't say that. YES YOU DID!

It unfortunately bears repeating again that the highlighted section was from his first statement that Franken walked back and more importantly has never explained how he allegedly remembered it.

I get that I have explained it before, but as this lie first statement keeps getting repeated, it is incumbent upon us to repeat the facts.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And what, exactly, compels me to judge Franken's action by your projection of Tweeden's standards rather than by Franken's own, society's or indeed my own standards?

I do not buy though that any person who gets up on a USO stage and puts his arms around her sexily clad body minds her physical proximity. My base assumption here is they still recall it as a highlight of their military careers.

What standard of Franken's is that? He has apologized for the grope joke.

You cannot say with certainty that Tweeden's recollection is correct.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Don't be silly. She was a professional entertainer, and the men who went there knew what entertainment awaited them. We may safely assume they were extremely ok with the gist of it. Have any come foward and accused Tweeden of inappropriateness? No? See.

Uh yeah, and so is Franken a professional entertainer.

As for the rest of your post, should we assume no men will object to being groped?

 

[Delphic Oracle]

No, actually, we don't. There is no right to not be offended. There is certainly a right not to be discriminated against, a right not to be oppressed or marginalized, and a right not to be harassed, sexually or otherwise, but no such thing as a right not to be offended.

By your logic, fundamentalist Christians in the US have a right not to suffer offenses created by the existence of homosexuals/transexuals, atheists, Muslims, Starbucks coffee cups, and so on, after they have made it clear that they are offended.

I really like Stephen Fry's take on being offended:

I go to Christopher Hitchens for that sentiment

If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I say "I'm still waiting to hear what your point is." I'm very depressed, however, in this country you can be told "that's offensive" as if those two words constitute an argument or a comment. Not to me they don't and I'm not running for anything, so I don't have to pretend to like people when I don't.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Quite a lot. However, there's now a second accusor. That points to a habitual behavior.....

No, the second accusation is not evidence of habitual behavior.

The absurdity here is indeed elevatorgate level.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's politically correct to say that. Almost a political necessity.

But for critical thinkers concerned with getting at the truth, it's a load of nonsense. Nobody inherently deserves to be believed. They deserve to be believed only if they're believable.

Damned if you believe the woman, damned if you don't.

Here's a man who answered the way one would expect a decent person to answer and instead of being given credit for believing the woman even when he said he didn't remember it that way, Franken gets thrown under the bus as if that apology was proof Tweeden's perception was valid.

If Franken had said the assertion was bull ****, wouldn't that have made him a bad guy for attacking the accuser? But by saying I'm sorry if I did anything to cause you the distress you felt, (putting the grope joke aside), he's also damned because that is supposedly an admission of guilt.

What option does a person who really is falsely accused have?

 

[angrysoba]

It's not a false equivalence from my POV. It's exactly the same thing.

The grope joke was par for the USO tour and so *********** what, it was sexual.

I don't equate that to men joking about the big busted woman at the office, or some guy putting up a nude pinup calendar in his office at the warehouse where women also work. That's sexual harassment. And in the military soldiers need to take extra steps not to make sexual jokes because women are harassed and it's a serious problem.

But what, now we can never make any sexual jokes whatsoever in any setting? That's on par with claiming you can never flirt or get on an elevator with a lone woman on it because any and everything is unacceptable objectification.

That grope joke, given we've seen grope jokes were the norm on those USO tours, was much less out of line than it is being portrayed as.

You can make a sexual joke sometimes. Every single sex joke does not need to be eliminated from the planet. Men can flirt without asking for permission first.

Go back and reread the main elevatorgate exchanges, yes that grope joke is analogous to the POV the world must be sterilized of all sexual interactions without express permission of the woman ahead of time.

Too ranty. And no, I have better things to do than re-read endless threads of people bickering. Elevatorgate was a guy making a pass. There’s nothing wrong with that. Tweeden is *alleging* that Franken groped her. At least get the allegation right.

Now, that said, I have changed my mind on Franken having to resign. I think that he has done the right thing by putting it to the ethics committee and we should see what they conclude. I think allegations are not sufficient in and of themselves.

 

[acbytesla]

I go to Christopher Hitchens for that sentiment

I miss Hitch.

I often disagreed with him, but I so much valued his opinion and how articulate his discourse was.

 

[The Big Dog]

No, the second accusation is not evidence of habitual behavior.

The absurdity here is indeed elevatorgate level.

Oh brother... now we need three or more before we should believe any?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So anyway, it doesn't matter if the allegations against Franken are true; we need his Trump-agenda resistance vote in the Senate, so he must not resign.

Current Minnesota governor is a Democrat and would appoint Franken's replacement. Your argument, if not a joke, is a fail.

OTOH, Franken is an very important Senator politically. We should lose a good man as collateral damage to the flood of revelations about the actual sexual abusers.


John Conyers, OTOH, should go if he sexually abuses his staff. Settling a wrongful dismissal case is rather incriminated, depending of course on the details.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Perhaps it would be better put: "Women deserve to be heard, justly considered, and not immediately dismissed."

Or perhaps, more technically: "Do not allow a claim differing weight due to gender."

I wish people could do a better job of this.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think it’s fair to say that Tweeden is pretty much in charge of how we perceive Frankens actions as there is almost nothing to suggest he is guilty of such lewd and salacious behaviour. I’m not prepared to give any credence to the “ass grab” accusation (shoot me) so it’s safe to say that Frankens past behaviour seems to be benign and supportive of women.

So, we have that against Tweeden, a proven sexual assaulter.

 

[acbytesla]

Oh brother... now we need three or more before we should believe any?

As a Christian apologist...I'm sure you know that the devil is in the details.

Note that unlike when the details of Rose, Ailes, O'Reilly, Weinstein, etc when the dam broke just about every woman they knew came came out against them, the opposite has been true about Franken. 36 women Franken worked with on SNL had this to say about Senator Franken.

In our experience, we know Al as a devoted and dedicated family man, a wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant. That is why we are moved to quickly and directly affirm that after years of working with him, we would like to acknowledge that not one of us ever experienced any inappropriate behavior; and mention our sincere
appreciation that he treated each of us with the utmost respect and regard.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A lot of people use that logic to justify why their psychic is a real one.

Should we really be using that standard when the stakes are this high?

How about let's put this a different way, Franken has been an activist for women for decades, exposing O'Reilly and the sweatshops and forced abortions on Saipan.

Rose, OTOH, displayed overt sexism when he interviewed Clinton. He interrupted almost every one of her answers. It was difficult to watch and I've never seen him do that with male guests. In addition, people have come forward and said 'everyone knew' about Rose.

Franken's current coworkers and past SNL coworkers have come forward to say they never saw any such behavior.

 

[Oystein]

As long as we actively avoid slut shaming, we can still use the baselines of each to measure the impact of the event upon each of them. I think Tweeden is exaggerating the impact upon her life for reasons best known to her,

Possible.

based on her prior behaviour in similar situations and the fact that she has sexually assaulted (by her own metric) unconsenting adults in the past.

How exactly do you know they were unconsenting?

Really, you're making that assertion in todays snowflake world?

Yes.

Maybe some felt peer pressure to attend and went up on to the stage under the same pressure? Maybe she grabbed their ass or wrapped her legs around them (we know she has form for it) and they felt uncomfortable? How do you know none have complained? Maybe their complaints have been brushed aside? Maybe they are afraid to complain because of folks like you, you know the "it's the highlight of their time in service, hot chick etc" line you're laying out.

You almost sound like you're saying that if they did feel uncomfortable or even assaulted, they deserved it.

Look, I know the above is a bit of a stretch but your are showing a massive double standard here.

Yes, maybe, if, a stretch.
I am not going to accept the burden to prove a negative for you.