Anyone remember a few short weeks ago when a credible statement of sexual assault was made against Trump? It has just evaporated. I've been indisposed for the last two weeks, but it seems simply shocking that it is just as if it never happened.

Biden introduced a decently expansive crime policy position which includes eliminating the death penalty. They are definitely working on fixing his weaknesses and setting up guards on attacks from other Ds.

If the Brantts of the world are the ones siding for due process, I'll take the Brantts every time.

I am appalled by the dismissive attitude many progressives seem to have toward due process. Want to know whether Franken's accusers are telling the truth? Humans bear false witness. It has happened since the beginning of human existence. That's why its prohibition is one of the ten basic laws which form the basis of Western religions.

It's also what due process is all about. Due process doesn't demean the alleged victims. Rather it elevates all of society above mob rule and protects us all.

Want to cast aside due process and go on the accusations of eight people? Well I'm sure there will be thousands of Trump supporters this Thursday in Cincinnati who believe Rep. Omar is a traitor. Is that enough to condemn her?

Any person who considers him or herself to be at all progressive and enlightened should be fighting tooth and nail for any and all accused. God help us all if and when sheer numbers are enough to convict any of us.

Due process for..what? Franken resigned. If he was so weak to have been "forced" to resign and yet be 100% innocent, that's on him. He's not in prison. He's not dead. He resigned and thus the Senate didn't investigate. If he truly wanted an investigation, he'd have let it happen.

I feel no pity for the man.

Brantt wrote:

pacino wrote:8 other women accused him of inappropriate touching. Were they all lying?

Probably the majority of them. That's why they are anonymous people with non-provable accusations.

Amazingly grotesque comment

thephan wrote:Anyone remember a few short weeks ago when a credible statement of sexual assault was made against Trump? It has just evaporated. I've been indisposed for the last two weeks, but it seems simply shocking that it is just as if it never happened.

She went on Anderson Cooper and that was the end of any credibility she had.

pacino wrote:

Brantt wrote:

pacino wrote:8 other women accused him of inappropriate touching. Were they all lying?

Probably the majority of them. That's why they are anonymous people with non-provable accusations.

Amazingly grotesque comment

Amazingly!!!!

Yes, of course it is.

Brantt wrote:

pacino wrote:

Brantt wrote:

pacino wrote:8 other women accused him of inappropriate touching. Were they all lying?

Probably the majority of them. That's why they are anonymous people with non-provable accusations.

Amazingly grotesque comment

Amazingly!!!!

Yes, of course it is.

Go look for Q signs somewhere

Apparently the message didn't get through: It's not about pity for man or devil; it's about protecting due process for our own sakes.

I'm not sure in the constitution it says that you get to be senator until you're tried by a jury of your peers. And if you're worrying about when they're coming for you then you probably have some soul searching to do.

You and I don't have to worry about the court of public opinion. If we are accused of something like this, we're not going to be lambasted on twitter or on the nightly news. Your work or, god forbid, police department's due process is going to look incredibly different and should work as it is supposed to. Edge cases of senators or others getting 'unfairly' treated are not going to be the same as the common man.

I'm all for due process for people accused of crimes. I'm for it for workplace accusations. However, Franken was a US Senator. Not everyone gets to be a Senator, and that's okay! No one forced him to resign! I'm just confused about what "due process" looks like in this case.

I assume he's fairly comfortable financially. His continued presence in the Senate would have been a political liability for the Democrats, anyway. Trump would be tweeting about this weekly at minimum. I don't have a great deal of empathy for the guy.

For those who would say we are living in an era of weaponized sexual misconduct allegations, why is it that only certain people are being accused? Why Kavanaugh and not Gorsuch? Why Trump and Clinton and not Obama and Dubya?

Mob rule, real or virtual, is dangerous no matter who the accused. If you watched the clip, the creators make the point by saying clearly that the devil himself is to be granted the benefit of law for our own sakes. By the way, "A Man for All Seasons" won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design. Definitely worth watching or re-watching.

What does forcing someone to resign look like? Are you guys saying the Senate as a body did not formally vote to remove him?

He was definitely "forced" to resign imo. A large number of his colleagues were putting a great amount of pressure on him to do so.

Augustus wrote:I'm all for due process for people accused of crimes. I'm for it for workplace accusations.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'm comforted by the knowledge that you're "all for due process" in certain situations.

Augustus wrote:However, Franken was a US Senator. Not everyone gets to be a Senator, and that's okay!

Senators are not required to check their rights at the door upon election.

Augustus wrote:No one forced him to resign!

As Calvin points out: "He was definitely "forced" to resign imo. A large number of his colleagues were putting a great amount of pressure on him to do so." I'll go further: He was railroaded.

Augustus wrote:I'm just confused about what "due process" looks like in this case.

Let me help you. Go back and review the Nuremberg Trials where the Allies set up an entire system to give the Nazi leaders at least some semblance of due process. Why did they do so? It was important to show the world that after years of fighting and millions killed the Democracies weren't going to lower themselves to the Nazi level of mob justice; that there was a better way for which we all fought and millions died. They could have just gathered up the Görings and Himmlers and executed them, as Stalin wanted to do. But the Allies had the wisdom and vision to see that condemning people without some form of due process is not only wrong, but degrades all of humanity.

Augustus wrote:I assume he's fairly comfortable financially.

Wealthy people deserve justice, too.

Augustus wrote:His continued presence in the Senate would have been a political liability for the Democrats, anyway. Trump would be tweeting about this weekly at minimum.

Sorry, but political convenience is not a good excuse to condemn someone.

Augustus wrote:I don't have a great deal of empathy for the guy.

Again, it's not about empathy for the accused, even if he's the devil incarnate. It's about constructing and adhering to a set of laws and values for our own sakes. In fact, the whole point is to try, to the extent possible, to remove the emotional from the equation.

Augustus wrote:For those who would say we are living in an era of weaponized sexual misconduct allegations, why is it that only certain people are being accused? Why Kavanaugh and not Gorsuch? Why Trump and Clinton and not Obama and Dubya?

This is a very odd question. Certainly you don't mean to imply that all who are accused are guilty and all who remain not accused are innocent.

Look, I've preached enough about this for now, so I'll stop. It just blows my mind that I feel the need to defend due process in a forum of what I consider to be made up of fairly enlightened and progressive individuals.

I'll close by reiterating one last point I made earlier: The application of laws and due process is not meant to degrade victims nor does it in any way mean we don't believe in victims. Instead it's an attempt to elevate society by doing our level best to make sure that justice is done.

Trump is visiting with the Turning Point teen summit today. Seemed like he was trying to evoke a "send'em back" chant. Full into the squad attack mode with them. No surprise.

Just skimming here, but agreed, we should have sent Al Franken to The Hague.

JFLNYC wrote:Senators are not required to check their rights at the door upon election.

Them having less right to due process strikes me as pretty bizarre logic, yeah. I mean, if you're saying we shouldn't feel as bad for a guy of means like Franken versus this happening to a regular Joe, fine. But they both deserve a little time for a review of facts. Sort of the underpinning of the whole country no?

JFLNYC wrote:If the Brantts of the world are the ones siding for due process, I'll take the Brantts every time.

I am appalled by the dismissive attitude many progressives seem to have toward due process. Want to know whether Franken's accusers are telling the truth? Humans bear false witness. It has happened since the beginning of human existence. That's why its prohibition is one of the ten basic laws which form the basis of Western religions.

It's also what due process is all about. Due process doesn't demean the alleged victims. Rather it elevates all of society above mob rule and protects us all.

Want to cast aside due process and go on the accusations of eight people? Well I'm sure there will be thousands of Trump supporters this Thursday in Cincinnati who believe Rep. Omar is a traitor. Is that enough to condemn her?

Any person who considers him or herself to be at all progressive and enlightened should be fighting tooth and nail for any and all accused. God help us all if and when sheer numbers are enough to convict any of us.

JFLNYC in general I find myself agreeing with you more often than not and, as a union rep, I am all about due process.

But pacino is right here: Al Franken resigned, of his own accord, in the face of political pressure. Perhaps some of that pressure was placed on him rashly. But that's all it was - pressure. No one could force him to resign.

Bucky, I think, talks about his belief that sports figures need to be held to a higher standard of public morality because they are public figures and children look up to them. I basically don't agree with that position, but it has its merits; certainly athletes, if they're smart, should carefully keep a reasonably clean public image.

But Senators and other politicians? There is a place where even the appearance of impropriety becomes deeply problematic very quickly. Granted, if we simply permit every unfounded allegation in and of itself to be reason enough to end a person's career, it would be easy to eliminate effective politicans one doesn't like simply by manufacturing anonymous claims of bad behavior. So there has to be a limit.

But Franken first of all did do something - granted not something criminal, but something that even he acknowledges at the very least looks bad, and, if we're being honest, isn't gentlemanly behavior and therefore is bad. At the time, he was a comedian being paid to be funny, raunchy, or both, and in that context the photo might not seem so bad. Although I would still argue the photo as taken is out of bounds, regardless of its particular context, and he should have known it was out of bounds: you don't make any kind of sexual gesture at or towards someone, particularly when we are talking about men against women, but really anyone against anyone, when the object of the gesture is ASLEEP for heaven's sake; if he were like a kid in college or high school, maybe it could be written off as a not-yet fully formed adult making a bad decision that could be seen as a learning experience, but he was a family man well into his 40s who should have known better.

But as a senator, not a comedian, the photo is totally unacceptable. Granted: he was not a senator when the photo was taken. Counter point: he did it when he was (a) contemplating a run for seante, as everyone acknowledges, and (b) at a time when he was, as I said, old enough to know better.

And again, the premise even of his defense seems to be, "Well I did that because that's what the sketch was" - but even the sketch he wrote is in questionable taste, particularly for a professional setting, which is what the USO is, and is almost a case-in-point example of what is meant by "rape culture" - the idea that sexually aggressive men who cross commonly accepted boundaries of personal space are merely "naughty" or "impudent" or some other sobriquet that implies their transgressions are minor, insignificant, and to be tolerated, handled, and/or laughed at, rather than to be stopped and shut down immediately.

And we're not talking about whether he should go to prison or get sued and lose his house and his belongings, or whether his wife should divorce him over it or his kids should cut off all contact. It's basically: what action, if any, should he face from his employer, since he was at work? If this happened at the union I work for, I guarantee the boss would take a step. Of course we would defend him, as is his right, if the matter went that far, but this would not pass without comment by the boss. Not in today's environment, certainly, but also not in 2006, which is hardly ancient history.

In this case, Franken, of his own volition, decided to avoid the inquiry and the drawn out process by resigning. His right. Employees resign all the time rather than face possible termination if they lose arbitration. Usually a settlement of some kind is involved (some severance, etc.).

I am saying on a personal level, I agree with Franken's decision to resign: this job requires not just moral behavior but the absence of immoral behavior, and the appearance of the absence of immoral behavior, to do it effectively. I think it therefore, in my personal judgement, does disqualify him from holding one of only 100 positions in a country of 340M people. In the whole history of the United States, there have been 1,982 senators - for context, there have been ten times that many major league baseball players.

The job of being in the United States government is unquestionably one, unlike MLB baseball player, where character has a role to play. In Franken's own judgement at the time, he had failed the test.

I agree with him then.

Wolfgang622 wrote:in that context the photo, which I would still argue is out of bounds (you don't make any kind of sexual anything against someone, particularly a man against a woman, when the object of the action is ASLEEP for heaven's sake - if he were like a kid in college or below, maybe it could be written off, but he was a family man well into his 40s who should have known better), might not seem so bad. But it's a terrible look for a senator.

It being a terrible look and or inappropriate was the joke. It was entirely innocuous then and got swept up in Weinstein today.

I like that India went with the GTFO against Trump's claim that they asked him to negotiate a deal for them with Pakistan over Kashmir.