LBM20
LBM20's JournalHere is why the political lynchmobbing of Al Franken set such a rotten precedent:
1) Because it was in fact a political lynchmobbing without due process and with rushes to judgement on damn THIN evidence.
2) Because it diminishes REAL sexual harassment and abuse. (The one about "he touched my waist the wrong way" during a photo op right in front of people is the ULTIMATE BULLSHIT one. It simply takes the cake as ultra-petty NONSENSE!)
3) Because now the Dems have set an ultra-purity standard that few human beings can meet. Give me an adult, ANYONE, who has never said something a bit off color or has never done something many years ago that was a bit off color (but not that serious)? I bet even Gillibrand can't pass that test!
4) Because it just proved to the Republican attack machine that their SHIT works and now MORE is coming.
Sexual abuse and harassment is unacceptable. But there are DEGREES of off color behavior, and not every incident in the course of life deserves harsh punishment. And not every accuser is credible. And not every accusation has merit. And there must always be real due process, not conviction by media HYPE which is just what happened with Franken.
The Dems in the Congress have decided to go down a DANGEROUS rabbit hole. It was a DUMB move! And it was a WRONG move.
SHAME on the Dems for this one! SHAME!
Now EVERY TIME a Trump-Humping Republican hitjob comes along, Dems will SHOOT THEIR OWN IMMEDIATELY.
Good job Senate Dems. Good job. All you are doing is helping the ReSCUMlicans perpetrate immediate and successful bullshit hitjobs on YOURSELVES. You must be so proud. They are LAUGHING AT YOU. Their pussy grabber has the White House. They are about to put a child rapist in the Senate. And you just got PUNKED BIGTIME by getting rid of one of your best on BULLSHIT NONSENSE allegations from TrumpLoving right wing pukes. Way to go Dems. And you wonder why the party has been RIPPED TO SHREDS. And this is going to continue as long as you continue to be jelly spined weaklings on a mega-quest to be ultra-politically correct. You are afraid of your own shadow. It is a wonder you dare to sneeze or cut a fart. OH MY, YOU MIGHT JUST OFFEND SOMEONE!! Better stick corks in your nostrils and your ass so you don't dare offend anyone.
The Franken matter is a classic example of why Democrats lose and lose and lose and lose and lose...
Trump brags on tape about "grabbing pussy" and gets elected. 20 or so accusers on record. All is forgotten. No calls to resign. No calls for investigations. Roy Moore is a child rapist, and he may very well get elected. He is endorsed, and they stand by him. And it goes on and on. But Franken, accused by shady Republican Trump supporters obviously on a hitjob mission and who are obviously making BULLSHIT claims from MANY years ago over photo ops WITH PEOPLE RIGHT THERE, and the Dems line up to execute one of their own without an investigation and with SHIT evidence. Guilty until proven innocent and hellbent on being ultra-politically correct. It is political SUICIDE. And they keep committing it. No backbone. Sheer and absolute WEAKNESS. Period!
The Dems, MY OWN PARTY, are simply hellbent on proving how SPINELESS they are at every god damned turn! It just SICKENING! Enough to make me want to VOMIT.
PLEASE HELP WITH DAY OF ACTION AND BEYOND TO GET THE PEOPLE'S VETO TO RESTORE RANKED CHOICE VOTING.
Today is a DAY OF ACTION on the effort to get the signatures for the people's veto to restore Ranked Choice Voting. If you have already signed up, I hope you are out there getting signatures and will help today. If everyone who has signed up to help gets just 25 signatures, then this is DONE. The goal is to have it done in the next two weeks.
Here is a link for county level team captains who can be contacted and all the info you need to sign up:
http://www.rcvmaine.com/
People can get signatures by asking family and friends, can go door to door, or stand in busy areas like post office parking lots, or on sidewalks (public areas are best) near busy events or shopping areas, etc.
About 1500 of us have signed up to help. I myself am more than halfway to my 25 signatures. I plan to go out this weekend and get the rest.
Again, if everyone just gets 25 signatures, then we are FINISHED.
Let's get this DONE in the next two weeks. WE CAN DO IT.
Imagine that if we do this, then in June with the VERY CROWDED governor primary election we can have Ranked Choice Voting. WE NEED THIS. Thanks.
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!!
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.
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!
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!!
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! 
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.
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