There is indeed a serious discussion of how men treat women casually sexualizing them — as we’ve seen with the characterization of Wonder Woman and the Amazons in Zach Snyder’s Justice League — contrasted to how they were portrayed in Wonder Woman’s own film by Patty Jenkins. Men and women often see things differently. We need to discuss how men and women may perceive or fail to perceive the nuances of their own interactions, and the very serious issue of predatory abuse by people in positions of power over those who are functionally powerless to defend themselves in the moment or in the future due to the threat of retaliation.
But absolutely none of that was in play when Trump decided to Tweet about Al Franken’s current situation:
Besides the fact he hasn’t said anything about Judge Moore after 8 days — and now Kellyanne says it’s “Old News” so why should he say anything? — and the fact he misspelled “Frankenstein”, what makes him think there was a “Picture 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6” at all, and why does he suggest Franken’s hands went somewhere else — like the exact place that Trump bragged and confessed that he like to put his own hands on women perhaps?
This response betrays far more about what’s slithering around under Trump’s hair helmet than it does about Franken. This is a tell.
Also what he fails to realize, and he’s not alone, is that Franken isn’t touching her in that picture. It’s clear his left hand is several inches away, but further so is his right hand also because you can SEE THE SHADOW THAT IT’S CASTING. If he was actually touching her, there would be no shadow. [Also others in the comments have pointed out she’s wearing a flak jacket — so he couldn't actually reach her breasts through the jacket anyway, not that it doesn’t make the miming of groping her any less gross.]
Thirdly if there was another photo showing direct physical contact beyond this, why exactly would Tweeden be withholding it still? It makes no sense, and only betrays the twisted greasy wheels turning inside Trump’s head to take political advantage of this situation — not any actual concern for what happened to Tweeden or for women in general.
This has very quickly turned entirely political.
Let’s talk for a second about how Roy Moore who is accused by multiple sources of stalking and assaulting underage women in the 70’s has organized his own counter defense against the charges as framed by his wife Kayla (who is actually the exact same age as several of his accusers, and was in the same class at Gadsen High with them at the time) as merely being smears by “The Leftist Media.”
Wow, we’re in a battle. We’ve just been inundated with so much positive response from the people of Alabama. For the record it’s 90% positive and most of the negative is from out of state. The people of Alabama understand what’s going on here. My husband, Judge Roy Moore, is fighting for the people of Alabama and has been fighting for over 30 years. The people of Alabama know him, they have seen what he has done, fighting for life. Fighting against abortion, fighting for the acknowledgement of God, fighting for traditional marriage, fighting to protect the 2nd Amendment, and fighting for our rights — given by God — protected by our Constitution.
So the liberal press, Washington Post, who endorsed Hillary Clinton and also endorse our opponent gets involved in this race, along with the Human Rights Campaign, the DNC and the Washington establishment, all of the very same people who were attacking [White House occupant] Trump are also attacking us. I personally think he owes us a “Thank You.” Have you noticed you’re not hearing too much about Russia?
No. We’re still hearing plenty.
I would say now is a good time to get some things done in Congress. While they are down here trying to distract the attention from our opponent who is an ultra-liberal, who is an Obama delegate, who is for full term abortion, who is for more gun restrictions, who is for transgender bathrooms, who is for transgender in the military, is against everything that we an Alabama believe and stand for.
And that would be backwards bigoted theocracy, with forced birth, lack of educational and health resources for the most in need punctuated by indiscriminate gun death?
The Washington Post has called everybody that I have ever known for the last 40 years. They have called everyone that my husband has known for the last 40 years. They print what ever anyone says without bothering to see if it’s correct.
Wouldn’t you do that by talking to everyone you can and find out what they all have to say?
They have staked out Etoway County, basically camped out.
That’s what the media does, didn’t you see the OJ trial? Or like, anything?
So to the people of Alabama thank you for being smarter than they think you are. They will call you names, they will say all manner of evil against you. And I would say, consider the source.
I have to say this is a brilliant little turn. This is the Hillary: Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy point turned entirely on it’s head. Don’t consider the facts, don't consider what everyone involved in this case, or the fact that Moore was banned from the Gadsen mall for stalking teenagers, or the 8 (so far) women who’ve all independently confirmed the allegations against him — even though many of them are Trump supporters — just “consider the source” of the “Liberal Media” coming after a poor righteous God fearing — also gay hating, trans-hating, theocrat pedophile — man.
See that? All those women aren’t victims — Moore and the people of Alabama are the victims of the “Evil Left.”
Yeah, right, that’s such a crock. If she were a black person claiming the “all the white people are out to GET ME, because I’m not white” that persons would rightly be accused of playing the so-called “race card.” If she were a man saying that women walk around and constantly make false accusations against men in order to gain and unfair advantage… oh wait, she is saying that isn’t she?
What were dealing with here is justified bias on the excuse that other people are biased and bigoted against you without providing any evidence of that bias either in general or in this specific case. Political bias is just about the only area where someone can be an open and brazen bigot without any repercussions or being called out for it.
First there’s the fact that Roger Stone mysterious knew complaints about Franken were coming.
Hours before the allegations against Sen. Al Franken became public Thursday, Trump ally Roger Stone seemed to know they were coming.
A Twitter account linked to the former Trump adviser posted a quote from Stone in the early hours Thursday morning that suggested he expected allegations involving the Minnesota Democrat to go public.
Later in the morning, Leeann Tweeden, a TV host, model and sports broadcaster claimed in an article online that that Franken had "kissed and groped" her without her consent during a USO Tour in December 2006.
How exactly did that happen?
Also it seems that right now there are Russian Troll bots pumping the Franken story.
And while that’s happening the Right is hyping more Franken stories from Breitbart and others that there is a so-called 2nd Victim of Franken’s.
[Melanie] Morgan wrote that she and Franken got into an argument about politics; specifically about budget numbers from the White House Office of Management and Budget. Morgan said it was an ordinary political discussion, but Franken “obsessed over it.”
“He approached me backstage, angrily called me out on those numbers and insisted he would prove he was right,” Morgan said. “He wouldn’t leave me alone, he kept following me. As a woman, his presence and proximity to me felt very threatening and intimidating.”
Morgan added that Franken’s “creepy behavior” continued for the next several days, after he obtained her home phone number from the show’s producer and allegedly began calling her repeatedly.
“I had thought that was the end of the story and was shocked when he started calling my home, badgering me repeatedly,” she said. “I became fearful and called Carol to complain and asked her to tell him to back off. But he made another call after that. I thought that he might end up stalking me at my home in Northern California, it was that bad.”
Morgan also accused Franken of refusing to stop until she threatened to call the police on him.
He didn’t try to kiss this woman. He didn’t try — or fake try — to grope this woman. He just had an argument with her about the OMB budget and wouldn’t let it go. Excessive? Yes. Annoying? Definitely. Harassment? Possibly. But there’s nothing sexual about it. [By comparison It’s not like Moore is being accused of calling up a girl at her school and getting her out of class to endlessly argue Trigonometry Solutions — he was trying to ask her out for a date.]
Frankly, this is the same behavior we’ve seen when Franken went after Rush Limbaugh and wrote an entire book about him “Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.”
It’s the same thing we’ve seen when he’s gone toe-to-toe will Bill O’Reilly with his book “Lies, and Lying Liars” long before he was in the Senate. (They even faced off on C-Span and It’s at the 10:35 point that O’Reilly loses it and starts tell Al to “Shut Up! You’re had your 35 minutes.” Nope, it was more like 5 mins.)
Franken’s tenaciousness is part of the reason he’s been a good Senator — specifically when he gone after Jeff Session’s repeatedly lies about when and where he didn’t supposedly meet Russians.
Perhaps he’s pushed some of that kind of thing too far in his personal life, and his little snide comments and decorating one of Tweeden’s pictures with a mustache and horns is a bit more of that kind of juvenile attitude. So he needs to grow up, and I’m going to leave aside the issue of whether he should be purged from the Senate — although I will note that Tweeden’s position on that; “Let the people of Minnesota decides” happens to be the same as Trump’s position on Moore “Let the people of Alabama decide” so that fine.
But then there’s this:
Leslie Stahl tape? What Leslie Stahl tape? Well, guess what else is burning up the Right-wing inter webs?
The Leslie Stahl Rape (Not Tape) SNL Joke that was never actually aired.
Franken, then a comedian, was quoted in a 1995 New York Magazine article discussing a skit for “Saturday Night Live” that involved drugging and raping CBS reporter Lesley Stahl. Franken, at the time a writer for “SNL,” suggested one skit should play out with “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney finding an empty pill bottle on his desk.
Sen. Al Franken said in a 1995 article he was thinking of an "SNL" skit that involved raping and drugging CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl. (Reuters)
“'I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then when Lesley is passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her.' Or ‘That’s why you never see Lesley until February.' Or, ‘When she passes out. I put her in various positions and take pictures of her,’” Franken was quoted saying.
Now, the first fact is that the joke wasn’t actually used is one thing. There’s also the fact that the author of that New York Magazine articles says that it wasn’t even a serious suggestion for skit, Franken was actually being ironic and trying to sparks some better ideas from the other writers.
That writer, Chris Smith, appears in CNN this afternoon and discussed it. (This begins at 21:56 in the video below — and almost all of it before that is indeed about Russia)
Chris Smith: My first thought is that what Franken did with Leeann Tweeden was wrong. My second thought was Trump’s attempt to somehow how connect this what Al Franken said 22 years ago at 2:00 am in the writers room of Saturday Night Live somehow this is a pattern of behavior is ridiculous.
Brooke Baldwin: Let’s back up a step. So this is 22 years ago-ish, you’re at — y’know — Saturday Night Live doing t his piece on the cast and you have this incredible access to the writer’s room.
Smith: Yeah, I spent a couple months, all access, being live behind the scenes and it was very much a story about the sausage making of Late Night television. This context is really import here, those couple of lines that everyone has pulled up in the last twenty four hours, due to the prodding of Trump and Hannity, they look really bad. And we can have a long discussion about what should be in bounds, out of bounds,
Baldwin: If you talking about raping a 60 minutes correspondent.. eh...
Smith: But, at 2:00 in the morning, and I’ve been in a lot of comedy rooms over the years, there are women comedy writers who’ve said things that would make your skin crawl. And it’s all in the spirit of “How far can we push this? What will stimulate a funny idea that we can actually use on stage or on the air? To be very specific, Franken was never advocating that what he was talking about there go into the sketch on the air, he was just trying to provoke the discussion.
The ultimate segment that Norm McDonald did where he’s parodying this Andy Rooney character was a whole lot tamer. So Franken was not then, is not now, advocating violence against women.
Again, we do need a serious discussion and potentially some better policies and solutions regarding how people with power abuse, mentally, physically and even sexually their subordinates.
We also need a discussion about people overstepping personal bounds both with aggressive sexual behavior and more generally with potential harassment.
Unfortunately Trump and his wing of the GOP aren’t at all interested in that discussion — they just want to score political points, and smear any Democrats they can, Bill Clinton, Bob Melendez, Al Franken, so they look just as bad as they feel the “Evil Liberal Media” has treated them by daring to document and publicize the truth about their own predatory actions.
That’s what they did during the election with “Emails, Emails Emails” and now they’re doing it again.
Saturday, Nov 18, 2017 · 12:20:26 AM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Here’s a bit of the video from the USO tour which includes part of the Franken/Tweeden skit and there’s a portion where a soldier gives her a hug and then raises his leg as if he’s trying to hump her.
I had heard some talk about this as if Franken was the one attempting the simulated humping but he’s actually standing in the background. For some reason — part of which I would argue is consent since it was likely party of the skit — she seems to have no problem being publicly demeaned by the soldier who is tall and handsome where as Franken, simply isn’t by comparison. Sorry Al, but it’s true. Maybe the fact this guy was relatively hotter than Al, has something to do with it?
Or am I totally off base?
Comments?
Also Chris Hayes did a great job of addressing this issue, using comments and quotes directly from the various accuser of Donald Trump right at the top of his show.
Saturday, Nov 18, 2017 · 6:38:00 AM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
I’m well aware Bill Maher is probably not exactly the most reasonable voice on this subject since he’s had more than his town share of controversies — but I think his opening monologue makes some substantive points. What Franken is accused of is bad, but it’s not rape [which Trump has been accused of twice in court filings] and it’s not pedophilia [which Moore has been accused of at least 3 times, so far.]