KevinG

A couple of new songs by the Decemberists: a cover of Big Star's "Jesus Christ" and a song the lyrics for which were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame:

 

 

 

I love the Ben Franklin song. Now how can I get played in my son's 8th grade history class? (they start the Revolution next quarter)

Hey mods, how do we make sure Viachicago.org is on the fast lane of the internet?

Doug Jones appears to have won. If the vote totals hold true I would expect the first lawsuit, calling for a recount or somehow otherwise challenging the results will be file sometime tomorrow afternoon. Anything to prevent him from being seated as long as possible.

 

Trumps tweets tomorrow should be interesting.

What does it say about our state of affairs that we a celebrating a narrow victory over a confirmed racist and alleged pedophile? 

Franken used the word "her" during his statement when referring to his potential replacement. Any guesses who might replace him if his replacement is a woman?

The Lt Gov Tina Flint Smith

and for this i need to apologize to Kevin G for my post.

No need to apologize.  But I do get to dance around and yell I was right.   

In all seriousness, this is a sad day for the US Senate.  For his failings personally he seemed to be a fair and honest legislator and one who I felt shared my beliefs. Unfortunately his personal life overshadowed the the good things he has done and could have done.  With his actions he not only lost the trust of the people of Minnesota but of all citizens of the United States.  It is because of this lack of trust that it was right for him to resign.  

Hopefully some good will come of all of this.  Powerful men will begin to understand there are consequences to their actions.  Women are not objects, something that you can grab or kiss just because you are a celebrity.  What it also does politically is gives Dems the moral high ground.  With Franken's and Conyer's resignation it shows that Democrats will not tolerate these actions.  This is especially important since they turned a blind eye to Bill Clinton.  

My twitter feed was filled with retweets from every female senator asking for Franken's resignation.  The same furor and outrage needs to be placed upon our President.  Most notably Sen. Murkowski, who has remained completely silent on POTUS and Moore.   

He's got a really great voice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Discuss.)

He does an A plus job with a B minus voice.  

If that sounds critical it is not.  What I mean, is he technically is not a great singer.  But what he does with his voice, especially in context of the songs, musically and poetically is amazing.  

Or ten or twenty... big fingers strike again

your own personal covfefe moment.  

orbtennorntwenty

what is this word?

so many it done fucked up your grammar!

So what you are saying is, hey it is ok that she got groped and forcibly kissed because she did the same thing.  Good job!

Anymore victims you'd like to blame? 

maybe sometimes, the woman grabs and kisses the man.

 

 

 

Wow, there is so many things wrong with this statement.  

Although, I will say my inner libertarian (which is about 5% of my political brain) has to wonder how one would stop catcalling.

I don't call anyone the N word. Whereas 100 years ago it would have been commonplace.

i think you have unreasonable expectations.

 

 

I have the expectation that women are treated like people and not as objects.  I have the expectation that a woman should not be afraid to be alone with a man, because he might try to grab her or kiss her.  I have the expectation that a woman isn't afraid to go out at night.  I have the expectation that a woman can walk down the street and not be catcalled.  

Our society has normalized this behavior.  Played it off as sophomoric, or boys will be boys, or locker room talk.  You know what, it has to stop. Yes it sucks, Franken won't be the last "good person" to be caught up in this (looking at you Charlie Rose.)  But a reckoning has to happen, we as a society have to let it be known that this behavior is unacceptable.  So hey maybe the next guy will think twice and not treat a colleague like a piece of meat.  

A boy band called All Knight.  They dress up in Medieval garb.  

So, Al Franken's punishment, according to you, is that he should never be able to hold any kind of job ever again?

 Any job?  No, if MSNBC wants to hire him or whatever, that is fine.  Hell if he wanted to run for office again, he could, as long as all his transgressions were out in the open.  In my perfect world it would go down like this, Franken would get up on the floor of the Senate and apologize, not only to Tweeden, but to the people of Minnesota and to the citizens of the United States.  He would state unequivocally that rejects behavior like this and it is not something becoming of a representative of the US.  And state because he really has lost the trust of the people of MN he will step down.  But also he could state that know that this is all out in the open he still intends to run in 2020, and hopes that the people of MN would trust him again.  

the voters of MN should decide his fate.

He is not up for re-election until 2020.  Shouldn't they have had the change to know this when he first ran?  If this was out in the open and a known story, then I guess the people of MN did decide, but they were not privy to this, so in essence they didn't get to decide. 

 

if we are going all-in on a policy of zero tolerance regardless of when it happened, then we might as well get ready for a giant turnover in our government positions.

 You say this like it is a bad thing.  

If he's an exemplary employee, and this is the first time this has happened, there's no chance he would be fired. 

 

 

Many companies rightful have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment, including the one I work for.  

There's no equivalence between what Magnetized said and what you wrote that he "actually" said.

 

Magnetized simply claimed that Franken shouldn't immediately resign, right now. There's nothing that he said that says what Franken did is OK. That's not rationalizing the behavior. Some people disagree with you. You think Franken's political career should end, immediately. Some people don't think that he should step down, including Leeann Tweeden. 

 

It's possible to think that what he did is not OK, and also think that he shouldn't end his political career over it.  

By letting him remain in office, to continue to serve and represent the people of Minnesota after this, you are saying what he did was OK.  At what point do we continue to let people abuse their power to treat others like objects for them to have?  He needs to answer for what he did.  The right thing to do is step down.  The people of MN should demand this.  We need to expect more from the people who represent us. 

 

Sexual harassment is never acceptable. That does not mean that all transgressions are the same. If you look at what Louis C.K. did, versus what Roy Moore was doing, versus what Donald Trump allegedly has done, or Bill Clinton for that matter- they're all different. Yes, they are all men using their power in unethical ways but the degree and implications vary.

 

It is high time all of these skeletons come out of all of these closets. This is a great opportunity to push back against rampant patriarchy. That does not mean that we should become politically correct puritans who treat every act of deviance alike and prepare to nuke the career of anyone who ever behaved like an asshole. Franken is not Cosby, he is not Weinstein.

No Franken is not as others, but that doesn't excuse him, nor does that absolve him from punishment.  If I am at a Christmas Party and my boss grabs my ass and tries to kiss me, I would complain to HR and my boss would be fired. Yes it is not as bad as the guy masturbating into the punch bowl?  No, but it still is a fire-able offense.  My company would not want that person representing the company.  Why would we accept anything less from the people who represent us?  If we start allowing these little things to slide by, we end up with guys like Trump and Moore in positions of great power.  Let's put a stop to it.  Let's just say, sexual harassment is never acceptable and leave it at that. Qualifiers, and comparisons aside, sexual harassment is never acceptable, from a senator, an office worker, from anyone.    

Franken resign over this? Hell no. He is a bright light in the Senate and there is absolutely no reason for him to step aside just because of one stupid transgression. Now if more comes out, maybe so, but he has already admitted to some pretty heavy drug use in his past and that didn't seem to bother people. This was just a sophomoric stunt and an overreaching pass at a woman. It shouldn't be excused but I don't think there are too many powerful men who don't have similarly icky skeletons in their closets.

The mental black flips going on to rationalize this behavior is astounding. 

Let me break down what you actually said:

It is ok that he groped a woman and tried to forcibly kiss her, because he is a good senator. 

It is ok that he groped a woman and tried to forcibly kiss her, because it was only one woman.  But more than one (or two?), that is bad.

It is ok that he groped a woman and tried to forcibly kiss her, because he admitted to bad stuff in the past and people are ok with that.  

It is ok that he groped a woman and tried to forcibly kiss her, because it was a dumb and stupid thing to try.  

It is ok that he groped a woman and tried to forcibly kiss her, because there are ickier people out there that have done way worse.  

You know what.  It is not ok that he groped a woman and tried to forcibly kiss her.  It is never ok to do that.  It should not be allowed and normalized, it should not be acceptable.  It is not acceptable when the President bragged he did it, it is not acceptable when a Senator was caught doing it.  People that hold this much power need to respect and treat every person out there equally and not as objects that is there to do with what they want.  It sucks, Franken was a good senator and someone I quite admired, now that is gone.  The Democrats had a chance to take the high moral ground and let the American people know how completely unacceptable behavior like this is.  But they didn't.  It just goes more to normalizing and rationalization of abhorrent behavior.   

And stop with this bullshit statement that behavior shouldn't be excused, because that is exactly what you are doing.  

Not OK, but we should all be able to agree that a person who does something terrible once, realizes they did something terrible, apologizes with sincerity, never does it again, and fights for the victims of said behavior is a much better person than someone who repeats a terrible act many times over a long period of time, accuses their victims of wrongdoing to deflect from their own behavior, and doesn't apologize or admit guilt.  The first person is much more redeemable than the second, and that counts for a lot.

 

Having said that, we don't know the extent of Franken's or Moore's acts, so I'm just going on what we know now.

The only reason that Franken apologized is because someone came forward and confronted him about it.  So, either he did knew he did something wrong in 2006 and didn't say anything, or he thought what he did was ok, until someone came forward.  So not a good look either way.  

I am not saying what Franken did was in anyway equivalent to that of what Moore did.  Moore is a special type of horrible person and should not only be forced to drop out of the race, but be arrested and charged with a crime.  

I'm not sure how I feel about having Franken fall on his sword at this point. He openly asked for an ethics committee to look into the matter. If he's got other skeletons in his closet, it might be the best move to resign now

I am not sure what an ethics committee can uncover.  He admitted it, he apologized, she accepted his apology. But let me understand this, if you forcibly kiss and grope one woman, that is ok?  More than one, that is where the line is crossed?

It is interesting how different the accused actions have been.  Ray Moore and Donald Trump and their supporters have said their accusers are liars and have impugned their character.  Whereas Franken has apologized and been pretty straightforward.  Now is that because there is some sort of photographic evidence?  That is hard to say.  It will be interesting where the ethics investigation goes from here.  

Nonetheless, I think Franken should resign.  Admit to wrong doing, and let everyone know that this is unacceptable behavior and not fitting of someone who holds public office.  It would suck and we would lose a pretty good senator, but it has to be done.  Show the American people that Democrats stand for something and are the honest politicians this country needs.  Then the moral equivalency and whataboutism (on this issue) will be cut off at the knees.

After Franken resigns the Governor of MN should appoint Keith Ellison, a Somali-American Muslim to his seat.  And if, God forbid, Roy Moore is elected to the Senate, I would love to watch his racist head explode. 

Also BTW isn't funny how being a super racist homophobe doesn't disqualify someone for Senate, but cruising for teenagers at the mall does.    

i hope you are talking about watching Stranger Things w/ the kids and not Black Mirror...

Nothing like getting the kids into Pig love with the first eps

My idiot cousin (who I love) just posted another insipid "it's not the guns, the problem is evil in society" article with examples of some knife attacks in China as evidence and I'm doing everything I can to bite my tongue and resist firing off a salvo that will do nothing but piss everyone off. These fucking guns...

and this is exactly why nothing will ever be done about gun control, ever.  Those who fetishize guns will never see them as the problem and always point to something else.  And by pointing to something else, all they are doing is just taking the focus off of the guns.  Your cousin, the President, Congress, will offer no solution they just want to deflect from the real problem.  

I would ask you cousin, to see if since he does not see guns as the problem, what his solutions are and if he plans to vote for people who have those solutions.  

I love how POTUS first response to this is that it was a mental health issue (just forget the fact if this guy was "brown" he would be singing another tune entirely).  But this is the same Congress and President who cut and are planning to cut a lot of mental health funding and made it easier for those who have mental illness to buy firearms. 

I have said this before, this is not an easy issue to solve, it is gonna take some work and compromise.  No side is gonna be truly happy with a solution if reached.  But we clearly have a problem.  We can not send our kids to school, we can not see a movie, we can not go to a Christmas party, we can not go to a concert, we can't even go to church with out the fear of getting shot.  That is a problem, that is not the price of freedom, that is fear, that is terrorism.  

Oh hey sorry for the interruption but another couple of dozen good folks got mowed down over the weekend. But he was a white guy so it's cool.

Hey it is too early to talk about this.  So is it time to talk about Las Vegas?

note: I don't think Hilary sold uranium...

She didn't. It is not a thought that is worth having, nothing more than a distraction. If any single person looks at critically that whole urainium story falls apart quickly.