I realized that if It comes out during the Cohen hearings that Roger Stone had something to do with bringing Al Franken down you can put a fork in Kristen Gillibrand’s career. She’s done
9 Likes
Al was set up by Roger Stone and Gillibrand fell for it.
Unable to support her because of that.
17 Likes
I’m also not convinced that Al Franken was innocent of the charges against him. But I was suspicious; especially considering that Roger Stone gleefully declared that it was Franken’s “time in the barrel”. Franken called for an ethics investigation on himself, and he should have gotten it. If he couldn’t defend himself sufficiently, he could have resigned then.
For me, this isn’t about Franken, but about Gillibrand. Were her motives really about doing the right thing in her very aggressive stance on Franken? Were they about removing the field of a possible 2020 competitor? Were they about building the image of a stalwart defender of women’s rights for her 2020 run? I can’t take on faith that her motives weren’t self interested.
When I combine that with the fact that her recent transformation from a blue dog to a paragon of liberal virtue is not convincing on it’s face, I’ll vote for other candidates.
26 Likes
Yeah, there is a picture and he admits what he did was wrong and he apologized for it.
But the women aren’t credible.
Sheesh.
2 Likes
Everything Gillibrand says and does is calibrated to advance her career. Flack for tobacco? Money. 100% NRA supporter? Campaign money. Anti-gay marriage? Fundy Christian campaign volunteers. Change all of these positions after 2010? Re-election. Lead the Franken denunciations? Hmmm… Why would she do that? Let me think…
Gillibrand is totally untrustworthy. Maybe AOC will primary her in 2024.
17 Likes
Not that I’m trying to excuse any untoward behavior on his part, but 4 of the accusers were anonymous and Tweeden was a Fox associate, which for me invalidates practically anything she might say, and the sudden discovery of her outrage has always seemed suspicious to me.
12 Likes
Who are the three that aren’t good enough? If Elizabeth Warren is among your three, I disagree. She is a strong candidate. She’s not perfect, but no candidate is going to be perfect. And there is no question that she has lived by the values that she’s running on.
11 Likes
“And I also call on Donald Trump, who has done far worse things to women than Al Franken ever has, both physically and in the misogynist legislation he supports, to resign immediately.”
I am squinting my eyes real, real hard, Kristen, but I can’t seem to find the above statement even between the lines. She tells 15-year-old Theo that it’s not OK for him or Al Franken to grab a woman without her permission, but doesn’t mention the horrendous actions of Donald Trump to him. And how about Kavanaugh waving his dick in a woman’s face?
5 Likes
Warren/O’Rourke would be a formidable ticket, and while I have other favorites (Klobuchar and Whitehouse, for example) I really think we need an electoral juggernaut – I’d even be happy with Bloomberg in the VP slot, just because that might peel off 10% of the GOP and flip the Senate. These are impure thoughts for a leftist progressive, I know, but this strikes me as such a crucial moment that I’d do almost anything to guarantee a clean sweep, unfettered investigations, and swift and fearless justice.
9 Likes
I think she played her hand badly. I suspect Al probably wasn’t innocent and I suspect he resigned rather than go through an ethics hearing. But I also suspect that Kirsten Gillibrand saw it as an opportunity she could exploit. We already knew she had Presidential aspirations. I think that, in the throes of the me-too uprising, the Cosby verdict, the Weinstein allegations, Kirsten Gillibrand thought she would be the hero of this story – and she badly misread how fondly progressives felt about Senator Franken. She came across as mean – even her son told her she was being mean.
Nancy Pelosi made damn sure that everyone knew Trump was responsible for the shut-down. But in over a year, Kristen Gillibrand has been unable to convince Democrats that she wasn’t responsible for Al’s resignation – or that she didn’t work to push him out before the process had run its course. Combine that with the fact that she came across poorly to begin with, and I’m left to believe she doesn’t have the political skills she needs to be a winning Presidential candidate.
15 Likes
You know what amazes me about Gillibrand and her purity test? Look at how she got where she is and who put her there.
"By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSOREJAN. 23, 2009
ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has selected Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a 42-year-old congresswoman from upstate who is known for bold political moves and centrist policy positions, to fill the United States Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a person who spoke to the governor early Friday."
“Jealous after learning of his wife’s infidelity several years ago, Paterson said he began affairs of his own while a state senator, and he revealed the matter now in part to avoid being blackmailed by anyone threatening to reveal the secret.”
3 Likes
I’m so glad we have politicians that can admit when they’re wrong.
Oh, wait.
4 Likes
When I have dreams like that I wake up sweating.LOL !
We already knew she had Presidential aspirations.
What we also know, if it wasn’t for Gillabrand, we would talking about Sen Franken as being near the top of the presidential candidates’ list as well. She really screwed the pooch.
14 Likes
I was (and remain) meh on Gillibrand. She’s… fine? At least by post-2016 standards? A vaguely centrist Dem for what amounts to a vaguely centrist Dem state when you have to run statewide. In any event, I can think of people I’d rather have as our nominee, both on political and meritorious grounds.
Franken was my hero. I’m not being ironic. He was amazing. Not just for the positions he held (that’s easy), but for how he did his job.
She’s exactly right about this.
2 Likes
You know who else switched parties and said they’d abandoned their previous pro-Republican positions then worked to defeat Dem legislation and undermined a Dem president? A senator many Dems regret having to support on a national ticket? Joe Lieberman. Gillibrand resembles Weepin’ Joe in her self-regard, ambition and unreliability.
11 Likes
I’m a lifelong Democrat (progressive). I’ll never vote for Demopublican Gillibrand! Elizabeth Warren is by far the best person for the White House. Gillibrand needs to be primaried by Cortez! Get the corporatists out of the people’s party. Gillibrand is worse than Chuckie money Schumer.
6 Likes
Tracy Flick is a rank opportunist. Hopefully her exploratory committee will tell her she lost the day she ate her own.
1 Like
Its funny that she mentions he could have gone thru the ethics hearing, which would have been brutal. Isn’t that what rape victims say why they don’t report? They don’t want to go thru the brutality of proving what happened?
Franken should have volunteered to be ripped apart by both parties?
This only proves that no mater how ‘woke’ a white dude is, and Franken was a champion for women’s causes, he will always be thrown over the second there’s a doubt, the first second there’s any accusation no matter how flimsy.
“All you have to do Al is sit through a televised lynching with the people you thought were your friends and allies destroy you publicly, and oh yeah, the Republicans too Al. Oh you don’t want to do that? Obviously your guilty”
And the line about ‘why are you being so mean to Al Franken’. Totally degrading, not a hint of compassion or understansing for Franken and what he went through, but for most feminists apparently, men’s lives don’t matter. When your done with them, just throw them away! Fuck him and fuck his life…yay sisterhood!
Fuck you.
10 Likes
Exactly what we don’t need on our nominee. No matter your platform, experience or superiority to the Republican you are facing, poor political acumen and judgment will lose you an election.
The Democratic electorate in the primaries should not make that same mistake of selecting a nominee who has in the past demonstrated poor political judgment and execution expecting that to change.
3 Likes