November 24, 2017

Al Franken should NOT resign.

Franken has apologized for the gag gone wrong photo. TONS of evidence proves he is NOT some kind of serial sexual harasser. TONS of women he has worked with over DECADES have signed statements saying he was not a harasser AT ALL.

Any progressives saying he should resign need to stop taking the RIGHT WING ATTACK BAIT!

Trump the pussy grabber isn't resigning. Moore the child abuser isn't dropping out. Barton the online nudist isn't resigning. David Vitter the right wing DC Madam prostitution purchaser ran for governor of Louisiana. And on and on.

So ENOUGH! I STAND WITH AL!!

November 23, 2017

Does ANYONE here, or anywhere, have a perfect past? Very doubtful.

OK, put your life under a microscope. I am not condoning inappropriate behavior, but fairness and context and degrees of things must ALWAYS be considered (as well as deliberate smear campaigns) because NO life has been perfect. NONE. Man or woman. We have all probably said or done something that seemed innocent and playful at the time but could later be considered inappropriate and maybe even regretful. Men do it. And women do it too.

So when someone like Al Franken receives shady accusations and when something happened 11 years ago meant to be a comical gag is thrown out there (most likely at the behest of right wing operatives), be FAIR and take things into degrees and context. (I know he apologized for the staged photo, and should have. I am making a larger point.)

And remember your OWN life and background and ask YOURSELF "Have I been perfect? Have I EVER done or said ANYTHING even years ago that someone could throw back in my face now if they really wanted to?" As a male I can say that I have said some things that today I wouldn't say, even jokingly as I did many years ago. And I also have received touches, gestures, and comments from women on a few occasions that today, or even back then, could be considered inappropriate. (At the time I took these as innocent playfulness and flirting on their part.)

Be fair. Be careful about judging and throwing stones. Examine thyself first. Serious and repeated allegations of predator abuse is one thing. A comical gag gone bad is another. In Franken's case, there is little evidence of a pattern of abuse. In fact, just the opposite. But has he been perfect? No. NONE of us have. Let's remember that.

November 18, 2017

If ANY right winger has ANYTHING to say about the Franken matter, just send them this:

Simple as that. The Orange Slimeball had the gall to tweet about Franken while dodging Moore. Trump is a shameless PIG!

November 17, 2017

There is a VAST difference between a comedic gag gone bad 11 years ago and a raper of kids!!!

Enough of the god damned false equivalencies! Enough of the typical jelly spined caving! Look, Franken should NOT have done that thing in front of the camera. It was a DUMB thing to do, but we must always, always, always consider CONTEXT in these things. He was a comedian on a comedy tour. It is obvious he is not actually touching the woman. It was a staged gag for the camera 11 years ago. He was goofing around. I'm not excusing it and he should not have done it. It was very disrespectful and it was over the top. And he has SAID so.

Franken has apologized very sincerely, taken full responsibility, and welcomes an investigation. This is NOTHING like Roy Moore who has many women accusing him of very serious sexual misconduct against them when they were teens as young as 14. And then that nasty thing in Alabama is attacking the victims. The Franken matter is NOTHING like that.

Comedians naturally go over the top. Sometimes TOO far. Kathy Griffin went over the top with the Trump severed head gag for the camera. But this is in the context of comedy. She apologized and has expressed regret. But she was not actually trying to threaten Trump.

TIMES CHANGE. What may have been more acceptable as a gag 11 years ago would not be now. Just as another poster says, SO many things on television that were totally acceptable many years ago would not be now, such as how women characters in shows like The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, and All in the Family were often portrayed. It was very typical to call women "broads" in those times. From shows to All in the Family in the 70's to LA Law in the 80's, the "N" word appeared in certain situations. Comedians like Richard Prior used the "N" word all the time in their acts back in those days. Look at Andrew Dice Clay and his form of comedy in the 80's and early 90's. My goodness, schools like mine in the northeast had "Slave Day" as a fundraiser back in the 60's and 70's. For example, the high school juniors might "buy" the high school seniors for a day and make boys wear dresses, sing silly songs, etc. No one thought of this as a bad thing or that it had anything to do with the terrible legacy of black slavery in past centuries. It was just a fun and silly fundraiser. We also didn't wear seatbelts or bike helmets and rode around in the back of trucks. These things were so common. Today we do not do them. TIMES CHANGE.

So enough of the false equivalencies. We have "PUSSY GRABBER" in the White House. What happened to THAT outrage?? Those who voted for Trump did so AFTER that and all his accusers came forward. Maybe it's time to bring all THAT back up again.

So Franken made a mistake and he needs to make amends. But my god, it is NOTHING like what Moore OR Trump has done. Progressives, don't be taken in here. Don't be WEAK. Don't get sucked into ANYMORE false equivalencies (i.e. "Hillary is as bad Trump." ) And don't let the right wingers get away with being hypocrites AGAIN.

You have Right Wingers all over the Congress and all around the country standing with "PUSSY GRABBER" and singing his praises. My goodness, if he took a shit in their mouths they would call it ice cream. Then they have the gall to go after Franken as they are doing. So if they want to do that, then let's start playing the "PUSSY GRABBER" tape again 24/7. They HAVE NO CASE!!

November 11, 2017

PLEASE SIGN UP HERE IF YOU CAN HELP WITH THE PEOPLE'S VETO TO RESTORE RANKED CHOICE VOTING.

Hi Folks, Please sign up here if you can help to collect some signatures to enact the people's veto to stop the bad bill narrowly passed in the legislature which delays for four years and effectively repeals our Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) law passed by the people of Maine in 2016. See this link: http://www.rcvmaine.com/ ** If you would like to sign a petition, use the contact information on the site and someone will hook you up with a petition gatherer so you can sign. If you support RCV, please consider helping with letters to the editor, etc.

1) This like so many of our other referendums has been under attack mainly by Republicans in the legislature and LePage. This CAN NOT STAND! WE MUST TAKE A STAND!

2) Seven of the ten elections in the RCV law have no constitutional issue at all. We can use RCV for those seven elections: the primary elections in June for state and federal offices and for federal races in the general election in November of next year.

3) As you probably know the state supreme court, in an advisory opinion last spring, ruled that the three state level general election races were problematic because of the plurality clause in the constitution. They took a narrow view of "plurality" saying under that constitutional wording a candidate for state office in the general election was allowed to win by a mere plurality on the first count of the votes. Our view was that under RCV, which results in a majority, a majority is indeed a plurality. The court took a stricter reading of that clause in the state constitution. So, it is what it is. Fine. So we should fix the constitution by changing "plurality" to "majority." That was tried in June, but it takes a 2/3 vote in the legislature to make that change, and that failed because the R's and couple of D's in the Senate would not do it. So, Rep. Ackley of Monmouth introduced a bill in October to suspend RCV for those three state level general election races but allowed it to be used for the rest. And this passed the House. However, it was narrowly defeated in the Senate. So then some D's in the House switched their vote to instead support the bill to delay RCV for four years and then repeal it unless they can get the constitutional amendment which they know is not going to happen. This just thwarted the will of the voters yet again as they have been eliminating or drastically modifying our referendums in an unprecedented way. WE MUST STOP THIS!!

4) RCV is simply an instant runoff voting system that allows us to rank the candidates in races with more than two candidates in order of preference. If after a first vote no one gets a majority, the person who came in last is dropped, and the second-choice votes of those who voted for that candidate are distributed to the remaining candidates. The votes are then re-tabulated. This continues until a winner is determined, and that winner will have a real majority and not a mere plurality thereby much more closely reflecting the actual will of the voters. This is simple and used in many places around the country and around the world and has been for many years as have traditional runoff systems (but which are problematic because you have to return weeks later for a second in-person election, and turnout is almost always much lower). It is used in Portland for their mayoral election with great success.

5) So many people are running in the primaries for governor in 2018 that it is conceivable that without Ranked Choice Voting the votes could be so split that someone could win a major party nomination with just around 20% of the vote, or even less. How is that real democracy? How does that get us to an accurate measure of the real will of the voters? Wouldn't it be so much better to use the Ranked Choice Voting instant runoff process which would result in nominees for governor who would win with margins much closer to the actual preferences of a majority of voters and avoid all this vote-splitting and spoiler effect? The June primaries will be the the perfect time to try Ranked Choice Voting, and if history is any indication, most people will see just how easy and how much better it is, will like it as is the case in Portland and so many other places around the country and around the world.

Thanks very much!

November 5, 2017

The notion that Brazile was seriously considering replacing Clinton with Biden tells us all we need.

Donna Brazile is generally a smart person and longtime Dem operative and insider. That she is telling us that she was seriously considering replacing the Democratic ticket because Hillary Clinton stumbled after an event due to heat exhaustion tells us just how politically BRAINDEAD she was. This, along with the fact that she broke ethics by offering a debate question ahead of time to the Clinton camp, simply destroys her credibility. Just imagine the total and utter chaos such an ATTEMPTED move to replace the ticket would have created, let along following through on it. And of course Biden and Booker would NEVER have agreed to such a thing. And to think she even CONTEMPLATED such an INSANE idea tells us that she lost her political marbles and perhaps has never found them. I think Brazile is angry with the Clinton people, is giving payback, and wants to make a lot of money for her retirement with this book. The only thing I give her credit for right now is that she has gone on record saying, "No, Clinton did not rig the primary." That is her one redeeming thing right now. Otherwise, her credibility is toast and she needs to be IGNORED.

November 3, 2017

Learn from the '16 election and MOVE ON. We know what happened. So let's focus on 2017 and 2018.

So many people are tired of re-litigating the '16 primaries and general election. Wasserman and Brazile are GONE. Goodbye to them. In the long run what we need is national campaign finance reform to give the system back to the people and take it away from the rich donors.

As to 2016, tt was never any surprise that party and DNC insiders and the party establishment would be partial to Clinton because she was a longtime member of the party high in the chain, and Sanders was an independent and not a member of the party. Still, Sanders was allowed to run in the party and did receive DNC resources. There was no widespread "rigging". Primaries and caucuses are run by the state parties, not the DNC. Never forget that. In my view, in the general election, Sanders would have been the stronger candidate because it was an outsider year when people wanted change. And while we should all thank Hillary Clinton for her service and we all know she would have been a THOUSAND times better than Trump and I certainly voted for her, she just didn't have great enthusiasm, was plagued with the email scandal, just did not run a strong enough campaign (not a bad campaign, but some real mistakes too), and was an establishment candidate who simply did not embody "CHANGE." She was seen as the status quo, and people wanted change. And yes, the third partiers, Russian interference and the Comey letter were SERIOUS factors too, but we can't discount the other fundamentals and problems that led to her electoral defeat. Still, in the primary Clinton was better known in the party and simply had large advantages in the South and most delegate-rich primary states. Sanders just didn't have the national standing in the party to win that nomination. He did not lose the primary due to vast "rigging." He lost because he received fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.

So, we know just what happened in the primary and the general election last year. We also know the party needs to unite and have a strong affirmative MESSAGE for voters going into 2018 and that message is that we will keep Crazy Donnie in check, we will create good jobs for everyone everywhere the CORRECT way with middle class economics instead of failed trickle down, and we will solve the nation's problems the right way because the R's and Trump are unable to lead.

So let's put 2016 away once and for all and move on to 2017 and 2018.