^ That’s the truly disturbing part to me. It’s bad enough when someone is harassed or assaulted, but it jumps to another level entirely when the victims are threatened over telling people about it. That’s when we shift gears into genuinely evil territory.
You assault someone, apologize for it, and don’t do it again. Yeah, your career and personal life may still may be ruined for what you did, but when you weigh your options, you are better off apologizing for what you did than threatening the person over it.
Maybe that’s just me being naive about this. I don’t get it.
Maybe Franken just wanted to accompany the women to the W.C. to make sure would be safe?
There are always two sides to any story, but when he goes down the “I don’t remember” route, that tells me all I need to know. If I’m cupping a women’s ass in public, then suggesting we visit the bathroom together, you can be damn sure that I’ll remember it, unless I’ve done it so many times that the incidents all run together.
I would love it if a woman(or man) stood up to the mic at one of these meetings and said, “I was a fan of XXXX before I came here, but that doesn’t give you permission to grab my XXX.”
I have a completely different view of the Joe Barton case. He had a consensual affair with an adult women, during which private explicit photos and messages were sent. She then tried to blackmail him, threatening to expose him, and he said he’d call the police.
Blackmail is illegal. Revenge porn is illegal in some places and should be illegal in all places. She is in the wrong here for blackmailing him and then exposing what should remain private.
Or you’ve been drinking or imbibing in some other substance to the point where you don’t remember (and behave badly). A different kind of (and additional) problem.
The women never said she was going to blackmail him - he preemptively said what he would do if she released the photos.
“I want your word that this ends,” he said, according to the recording, adding: “I will be completely straight with you. I am ready if I have to, I don’t want to, but I should take all this crap to the Capitol Hill Police and have them launch an investigation. And if I do that, that hurts me potentially big time.”
“Why would you even say that to me?” the woman responded. “The Capitol Hill police? And what would you tell them, sir?”
Said Barton: “I would tell them that I had a three-year undercover relationship with you over the Internet that was heavily sexual and that I had met you twice while married and had sex with you on two different occasions and that I exchanged inappropriate photographs and videos with you that I wouldn’t like to be seen made public, that you still apparently had all of those and were in position to use them in a way that would negatively affect my career. That’s the truth.”
“The woman said she never had any intention to use the materials to retaliate against Barton.”
I can’t link to it, but the Star Tribune (Mpls paper) just published that Franken intends to stay in office and work to regain the trust of Minnesotans. There is more to his statement, but I can’t get the link to copy or the article to open in Safari, unfortunately.
It appears Franken now has several accusers and he should probably step down. I said if more came out about him I would re-evaluate. I did not think he should’ve been removed based on the accusations of the first accuser. He didn’t touch her, and she had inappropriate behavior during that tour as well.
The Minnesota man admitted molesting the woman after first denying anything. She said he grabbed her breast and reached in her pants and digitally penetrated her. He denied touching her. DNA samples from in her pants showed his DNA. THEN he admitted it.
Seems to me he got off light. She says he digitally raped her, and he got off with a misdemeanor which will be dismissed in two years if he doesn’t get caught for another sexual assault during that time.
^^^And he adamantly denied it…until DNA testing of the woman’s pants showed that he actually HAD put his hands down into her pants.
I would never have thought to submit my pants for testing. A good thing she did, too, or people would be saying “oh well, he said, she said,” which seems to usually result in believing whatever HE said because, you know, “women lie.” We see that line of thinking in pretty much every single assault/rape/harassment thread on CC, typically by the same handful of posters.
If that were the only accusation, I’d give him a pass: he grabbed her around the waist, not a private part, after all. But it’s not the only accusation, and with all the other accusations, it paints a picture of a guy who tends to be handsy and gropey without thinking about it when he touches women. He may have been thinking all along that it’s fine and he’s just friendly. But it isn’t fine. We need to make clear that it isn’t.
Because think about it. When does a straight guy ever, when posing for a picture with another man he doesn’t know, grab the other man around the waist or the butt and squeeze several times? This is NOT OK. Men grope women, but it’s NOT OK.
I’m curious @Nrdsb4 @“Cardinal Fang” , do you believe every claim of assault/rape/harassment? Every, single one? I have followed most all of these threads and what I read people saying is that we have to look at these claims on an individual basis not that the women cannot be believed. Who on here has defended rapists?
I agree CF. Even if he thinks he is being funny — smile for the camera while I goose you! — it’s not ok. Then women are socialized to “take the joke”. I like your example in your last paragraph, post #302
No I don’t. I’m not sure what prompted your question, but I don’t blame every claim. However, when I see accuser after accuser appear, with plausible-sounding accusations, and the accusers do not seem to be linked, and they’re all telling the same story, then I tend to give them a lot of credence. In every single high-profile case we’ve been discussing, that’s what happened: accuser after accuser appeared, all telling the same story.
That’s why I believe Bill Cosby’s accusers, and Weinstein’s accusers, and Lauer’s accusers, and Donald Trump’s accusers. There are a lot of them, they have little reason to come forward other than to finally expose their attackers, and they’re all telling the same tale.
And that’s why I was initially skeptical of the Franken story. I like Franken, and with one accuser, the story could have been fabricated or blown out of proportion. But I can no longer indulge my skepticism.
Sounds like Franken is stepping down. I’m sure MN governor Mark Dayton will appoint a woman to his seat for now – maybe Rebecca Otto if she wants it? Quite a few of the best Dem candidates in MN have already announced for Dayton’s seat (not running for reelection), so that is actually a complication. Give up governor’s race for short term Senate seat, and maybe inside track in Senate special election?
