It was wrong. That shit was a hit piece on Franken by Bannon and company for the Roy Moore thing and she and the others fell for it and did not defend one of the best Senators we had at the time and it has been a bad thing to lose him.
They totally weaponized the #metoo movement and had those “victims” lie their asses off. And the Dems asking for him to resign were spineless.
It is ridiculous that people can’t distinguish between flirty jokes and fun and rape. Al Franken was the best Senator. His questions were on point. He is the reason that Jeff Sessions recused himself. I always looked forward to hearing his questions. He was an incredible public servant. I am still made at Killibrand for her political cowardice.
It made me absolutely SICK…especially since it was so ‘ginned’ up. Where IS that woman that was so wronged anyhow? I was also sickened by the haste that some sanctimonious Senators on my side (I’m looking at you Gillibrand) were so ‘outraged’.
He’s got a weekly podcast now - The Al Franken Podcast. It is as witty and on point as his service as a Senator was. Give it a listen to get your Franken fix. The conversation with Andy Slavitt was especially good.
From the article… So Gillibrand is willing to make gut decisions based off of incomplete and unverified rumors, so long as a few reporters have talked with unnamed persons third-hand…
And she should get access to the nuclear codes why, exactly?
Because Al Franken has no agency over what happened. Of course it has to be a woman’s fault he resigned. There can be no other explanation, amirite?
And for me, this is why Gillibrand is a non-starter as candidate for President.
Ah yes, the 8th grader “throw their words back at them” approach which has never worked in the history of anything. If this was meant to salvage Franken, it didn’t work. It doesn’t actually absolve him of anything.
And this is the worst that’s going to happen to Franken: early retirement. Whoop-dee-doo, he gets to sit around being old. In fact, this what the piece could have alternatively been titled as: “Old White Guy Pouts Over Early Retirement.”
What it does do is establish that the accuser lied or mis-remembered numerous facts in her allegations, has a history of doing so in other areas (her interview with Stern and lies about Harvard), and had motive to do so.
If this was a trial, the defense attorney would have her for lunch.
VP candidate? smh
He isn’t a sine qua non. Tina Smith is doing a good job. There are many others who research issues. There are many good Democratic senators (and House members)
She tried early on in her Presidential Run to EMPHASIS how SHE was the one who “Got” Al Franken, portraying it as a “scalp” hanging on her belt to be proud of.
She got such huge pushback for it that her campaign dropped all mention of it from her website after a few weeks.
Gillebrand is an opportunistic politician who does not care who she has to stab in the back or how many bodies she has to climb over to achieve her ambitions. Just ask her staff.
I regret that he resigned without a hearing as well. This really needed to go to the ethics committee and have all the information brought to light (good and bad).
I’m relieved that Gillibrand’s presidential run is currently polling under 1%. I’d try to hold my nose and vote for her if she somehow got the nod, but it would be really hard for me to do that.
No. She emphasized that she stuck to her principles even when it was unpopular.
I thought that was supposed to be a good thing. But, someone we like was involved, so she is a b-
Re: Kirsten Gillibrand
Maybe some people are just sick and tired of wealthy powerful men getting away with sexual assaults, harassment, and rapes of women and girls.
I am one of them. So is Gillibrand.
But if you’re okay with men taking sexually provocative pictures of women while they’re sleeping on airplanes, then I guess you’re not. If it happened to your wife, mother, sister, or daughter, though, you might feel differently.
“For instance, that picture. I don’t know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn’t matter. There’s no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn’t funny. It’s completely inappropriate. It’s obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it—women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.”
Al Franken
But the mansplainers going to mansplain.
Thank you comrade.
“I’d like to have Al back in the Senate. That doesn’t make what Gillibrand said wrong or opportunistic.”
Yes the fact that you’d like Al back doesn’t itself make what Gillibrand did wrong. It was wrong for other reasons. In what universe is it fair or right to end someone’s political career without giving him a chance to defend himself or having a full understanding of the relevant facts?
Then why didn’t Franken stay in the Senate and fight the accusations if he believed he was wrongly accused? Is he a coward, unable to withstand criticism? Did he recognize truth in the accusations?
If Franken was so easily cowed by what he believes to have been unfair accusations then he isn’t someone I would want on my side in a fight. To blame all others except himself for his decision to resign is another sign of cowardice.
Yes. Fortunately it is an academic question. You would be hard pressed to find a Democratic candidate over the years who has garnered as much loathing as has Gillibrand.
Just a thought … It’d be cool if Franken ran again and kicked off his campaign on SNL, perhaps by announcing the Al Franken Era on Weekend Update. After all, the Al Franken Decade was so successful in the '80s he had to pass the torch in the '90s to his son Joe.
I mean, if they can let a fucking cur of a candidate like Toadglans host …. It the least Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels “can do for me, Al Franken.”
Fun Fact: Michaels was presented a petition from Latino activists with 500,000 signatures to cancel his appearance.