And America Continues to Show it's True Colors. . .

[Old Thunder]

One will be liberal-based views and the other will be conservative-based views.

And I'll just be lying in bed watching Rick and Morty.

That's overrated. Try South Park.

 

[LittleJerry92]

That's overrated. Try South Park.

 

[Old Thunder]

Have a nice day.

 

[jvcarroll]

I know you're going to find this hard to believe but I disagree with what you have to say here.

Do you really believe that all Al Franken did was a little kissing and some brief inappropriate touching? Seriously? First of all, it doesn't matter if it was brief or not. Second of all, it was much more than kissing and brief inappropriate touching. He groped her in front of a room of men and laughed as he posed for pictures doing it. You don't have a problem with that other than being "disappointed"? I somehow expected better than that from you. So he sexually assaulted her, but just briefly. Is that like being a little pregnant? Read her account again and then tell me it was just some kissing and a brief touch.

http://www.kabc.com/2017/11/16/leeann-tweeden-on-senator-al-franken/

Next, Al Franken seems to be given a pass here because, afterall, he apologized for it? He asked for a review and investigation? If we applied that same thing to President Trump, would it hold up? After he said those things on the bus but immediately apologized for it would you just be "disappointed"? (And I know there's a lot more to President Trump than the bus conversation). But an apology doesn't give Al Franken a pass here. And the investigation? Well, that's very noble of Sen. Franken, but with these allegations, there would be an investigation anyway. And it would be done with or without his consent.

And his apology? Try reading it again.

I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture. But that doesn't matter. There's no excuse. I understand why you can feel violated by that photo. I remember that rehearsal differently. But what's important is the impact on you and you felt violated by my actions, and for that I apologize.​

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/al-f...-tweeden-stayed-quiet-angry/story?id=51218706

Classic denial/non-denial. "I remember it differently". Seems Roy Moore tried the same thing. And is he really sorry for his actions, or for how it made her feel? Or is he sorry for the photo? Hey Al, she doesn't feel violated by the photo. She feels violate by you groping her! I'm with Stephen Colbert on this one. Color me unimpressed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/arts/television/stephen-colbert-al-franken-sexual-harassment.html

I wonder how Al Franken would have reacted had there not been a picture? Had this come forward before all the allegations in Hollywood and against Roy Moore? Given his "I remember it differently" line I wonder if he would have denied it. Given the current environment in Washington and the Democrats criticism of Roy Moore, he really had no other option, now did he?

And if you want to talk about more current Democratic politicians, it was pretty widely known Vice President Joe Biden was a big-time womanizer and there are several stories of him touching women inappropriately. Democrats seemed to throw their support behind a second term for President Obama and Vice President Biden. I don't remember hearing any talk about replacing Biden on the ticket. Maybe you did.

There's plenty of stories of sexual assault coming from Hollywood and Washington lately. And, believe it or not, both sides are guilty of it. I'm sorry, but I don't give the Democrats any credit because they are better at owning up to it.

And before anyone thinks I am defending President Trump or Roy Moore, I'm not in anyway whatsoever. What they have said and did there is no excuse for and no defense for it. Put simply, it's WRONG! And the Republicans are wrong for their continued support. And no, I'm not making a moral equivalence here either. What I am pointing out is that it's very difficult to stand your moral ground when you are just "disappointed" by Sen. Franken's actions and dismiss it as just "kissing and brief touching".

Respectfully, that's a rather passionate and overly charged reaction that ignores the substance of my post. Sometimes I really appreciate our conversations and other times, I wonder what the heck you're reading, because you're not replying to what I've said at all. There's a lot to unpack here so let's start with this. I am absolutely bewildered. I think other conversations we have with other people have a way of bleeding into conversations. Maybe that happened here? I dunno. It happens.

First, there were two Franken statements. You're just looking at the first one. People's first reactions to things usually are usually inadequate. He later corrected that and called for a review for his actions. His first statement, like CK's, seemed alright at first glance, but under the scrutiny of future reads, it's kind of lame. No one deserves a lame apology, particularly not her. Not only was the second one better, the victim herself accepted it. It's only fair that we do too. Any Christian person should respect the tradition of forgiveness when it's asked of us, particularly when it comes with the contrition of having one's actions review. It doesn't make his behavior better, but it starts the ball rolling for healing.

Second, nothing is okay with what Franken did. I'm more than just disappointed with what he did. I'm disgusted by it. Maybe I didn't phrase it strongly enough, but that's what I believe. There's absolutely no excuse for it and I am in no way excusing it. That's the thing about modern interactions. We can no longer truly discuss anything without someone who doesn't like what we say extracting an incomplete portion and shouting us down for it. We also need to stop conflating every accusation and deed as the same sort of assault. What Franken did was sexual harassment, not sexual abuse. It's not just splitting hairs. It's all bad, but there are huge degrees between the levels of badness.

There's a new fad among conservatives to conflate every bad deed in some sort of "both sides" argument to create the illusion of all things being equal. They are NOT! It's the same sort of Get Out Of Being A Bigot Free Card that Trump gave everyone by using his "not being politically correct" as an excuse to treat other people poorly. I watched the victim's statement and your report of the matter is a bit of an exaggeration. It's still bad, but he wasn't molesting this woman on stage in the way you've described. That said, I appreciate that you somewhat see what I'm saying in respect to conflation.

Thirdly, as an adult, I've been abused, harassed and otherwise on just about every level a person can be. I'm not going to go into that. It's all bad behavior and it all hurts. It has a way of forever diminishing the way a person trusts other people after that. It's also why I know about the healing power of forgiveness. Not forgetting, though. People have a way of combining those two things. Forgetting is an oversimplification. Forgetting is impossible and it goes against our primal survival instinct. To choose to not let the things from our past have emotional power over us, however, is what's best. It just doesn't have the same swift alteration as Forgive and Forget does.


Franken composed an unnecessary overly bawdy sketch for our troops, forced a kiss on her, inappropriately touched her briefly, posed for a picture pantomiming assault like a friggin idiot and then alienated her for the rest of the USO tour when it was clear she had a problem with his behavior. It's awful. There's no part in my post that says it's okay. It's not what Roy Moore did at all. Comparing the two is like comparing mugging to the terrorists of 9/11. Both are bad. One is far friggin worse. Perspective, people. However, to the young lady, I can see how she felt it was her own personal 9/11 and I respect that.

Anyone who voted for Trump knowing that he bragged about his ongoing history of sexual assault has much of a leg to stand on when discussing sexual abuse or harassment. I've already added Bill Clinton into that mix too. This will probably surprise you, but all of the recent outings of abusers has many high profile liberals reviewing Bill's behavior. As with Woody Allen, many people just lumped all of his alleged behavior together as though it was all the same thing. Affairs are one things. Affairs with subordinates is another. Contact with unwilling people or coercing them to do things they don't want to do is a far different story. Everyone knows that Allen had a relationship with Farrow's adopted daughter. That was wildly inappropriate. They are still together to this day, so some give him a pass. What few people realized is that he was also allegedly abusing his own biological daughter. That's what happens when things get conflated. It's common. Those two things are icky enough, but the second one is absolutely monstrous. The same could be said about the allegations against Bill Clinton. It's easy to forget that. In recent days, I'm reminded by how much I, like many people, overlooked. I felt like I didn't really have to look at it because I didn't support the man. Ever. Still, I should have paid closer attention. Trump supporters - wake up. This is your chance to do what many Democrats didn't during the Clinton Presidency. Be a person who puts people over party.


Trump's press secretary (gawd, I loathe that woman) said that the President Tweeted several times about Franken (giving him a taunting nickname, as he does) and not Moore because Franken admitted his actions. He gets the ire of the President for taking accountability. Just like Trump. A man who's never apologized for anything, ever, punishing someone who's standing up and admitting fault, the shame that goes with that and apologized. To be fair. Trump admitted his own actions to Access Hollywood and then lied about them later. BTW. Touching someone inappropriately is horrible. Putting yourself inside them is much worse. Let's be clear. That's what our President bragged about doing on that Billy Bush tape. It's not just locker room talk. It's form of rape. What Franken did was harassment and is absolutely terrible. Trump has dozens of those allegations too, but he didn't laugh about raping anybody. That picture he took, however, is absolutely terrible. Just, gawd, it makes me angry. A lifetime of good works and that's going to be the first thing someone thinks about this brilliant man who's political career has been as a champion for the middle class. He had the picture taken with full knowledge of his behavior so the criticism and condemnation is deserved. The thing I don't understand is pitchfork wielding republican mob. I was watching Fox News (I do that sometimes to investigate the crap much of my family is digesting) and they all talked about Franken and Clinton, but they kept ignoring the one person who kept asking about Trump. Fox, the place that has fired at least a half dozen of its hosts and staff for harassment and abuse, was passing judgement on the dems without saying a thing about Trump or their own friggin network. Crazy. If there's one thing we've learned from this, it's that such behavior knows no party. How each party deals with it, however, is different.

Franken hasn't been given a free pass. Every liberal comedian in latenight has addressed his behavior. He's under review and might just lose his job. I think there's a path back. While it is inexcusable harassment, he didn't laugh about actually raping somebody as Trump did. Grabbing someone by the p***y is rape. There's no way around that. It can't be filed under the "we all make mistakes" thing. That should be career killing. I hear you talk about Franken, but I've never seen you, or other conservatives, get this upset about Trump. I'm upset by all of it. Everyone should be, regardless of party. Trump's not just a guy who did some wrong things. He actively discriminated against black tennants. He continually stiffed small business owners who worked for him. He sexually harassed women in his office (and his daughter on live television). He defrauded people who attended his fake college. He lied about Obama's birth certificate and never apologized. Whether it's officially considered collusion and his team encouraged Russia's support in taking his opponent down.

I can see how anyone who supports Trump could be angry with me for pointing all of these things out. But this is how I've always seen it because it's honest. He's awful. There's no excuse for him. And everyone who supports him turns a blind eye about all of this on a daily basis because they think they'll like what his Presidency will do for them. That's not good enough. A vote for Trump was a vote for anger. I get that anger, but like Star Wars says, anger is the path to the dark side.

PS. I'm not sure if I did the namecalling thing. If I did, it's probably for referring to Trump as an jacka** of some sort. It could could have been me. It's rare, but sometimes passion gets the better of me too. He is an a-hole. Even those who support him admit that. They love him for it. And no one who supports Trump can seriously complain about expletives or namecalling. He does that at his rallies and on Twitter daily with such malice. It doesn't make any of it right. But complain about that as a Trump supporter is, for lack of a better word, hypocritical.

Also, I have to say this. In social media today, we have a way of holding people to higher standards than we do ourselves, our friends and our family. Every time I criticize someone, I think - what if this person happened to be me, my partner, my sister, my parent? I'm rather outspoken, but almost everything I say comes with that bit of perspective.

 

[jvcarroll]

It's not about you as an individual. As a group, whites are more privileged.

I hear ya. I hear this a lot and have a few things to say.

• White privilege, as described, exists.
• White privilege is an emotionally charged and politically branded word.
• No poor white person who works their butt off feels privileged.
• Poor white folk, while not feeling very privileged, are prioritized over minorities in countless ways that we don't see.
• Priority is a privilege in itself.
• White Priority is a more accurate term that actually has a chance of reaching the people who need to hear it most.
  
  
  
  When I talk about branded language and charged words, this is a perfect example of why. Presentation is everything. We democrats get this wrong over and over again. The republicans didn't win because they had the better candidate. Their candidate had a better presentation for their supporters (and some Russian help).

 

[jvcarroll]

Also, there's this. Hide as some might, these are just some of the detailed accusations that came out about Trump long before the election and they seem to be supported by Trump's own words on Access Hollywood and the Howard Stern program. It should be cued up to 3:00 into this clip. This, again, is how democrats fail. If these charges had been about a democrat, Fox News would have had them on a loop for a year. MSNBC and CNN are late in the game to exposing these this efficiently. This should have been one of Hillary's ads. The only reason it wasn't was probably because of Bill's history. Never voted for the guy. Gawd, how many ways can one person ruin his wife's life. Eugh. Anyway. Here we go...if you supported Trump, you supported a man with years of these accusations far worse than the terrible one instance Al Franken is accused of. There's no valid vitriol about sexual abuse, harassment or rape from anyone who voted for Trump for President. Choosing to overlook years of allegations to support a political agenda is terrible. It was terrible when it was Bill Clinton. In fact, I don't think he'd ever have become President if we had the technological capabilities as we do now. It's particularly terrible now because technology has brought all of this information to the fingertips of every American. There's no hiding from it. Everyone makes mistakes and errors in judgment. Voting for Trump, by anyone with any degree of empathy for people who have been raped, harassed or assaulted, is a MISTAKE.

 

[LittleJerry92]

See, here's what I want to know. Where are the sources that Russia "hacked" the election? I find nothing to back that up.

 

[D'Snowth]

• No poor white person who works their butt off feels privileged.

I can pretty much attest to this.

• Poor white folk, while not feeling very privileged, are prioritized over minorities in countless ways that we don't see.

I'm going to disagree somewhat - in this country, it really doesn't matter your race or your background, if you're poor, you're pretty much disregarded no matter what. It's like I said, particularly whenever there's a Republican in Office (Trump, Bush, et al), you have to meet all of the following criteria if you think you're going to have much luck surviving in America: white, wealthy, heterosexual, conservative, fire-and-brimstone Christian. If you don't meet all of that criteria, then you pretty much just have to fend for yourself. So, because I'm not wealthy (never have been) and liberal, I've seen a lot of struggle whenever Republicans have been in Office, despite being a straight, white Christian, because when it comes to the middle and working class, Republicans hate them all equally. It's the same tune everytime: "you're all just a bunch of lazy pricks who don't want to work and just want free stuff from the government." And yet, they're the ones working upwards of five or more jobs just to make a living and support themselves and/or their families, and what, exactly, are these wealthy politicians doing? So, ugh, who are the lazy ones here? Hmm?

See, here's what I want to know. Where are the sources that Russia "hacked" the election? I find nothing to back that up.

Well again, once Trump actually got into Office, the GOP tossed a lot of that out because they said, "it didn't matter anymore."

 

[CensoredAlso]

Love to see what Jamie and heralde have to say about this....I find this to be just another example of the right pinning the blame on the victims and basically everyone else rather than own up to their responsiblity.

I'll say what I always say. Both parties do this when it's their own people who get in trouble. I can't take either party seriously anymore and I don't blame the general populous for feeling the same way. I just wish they hadn't flocked to a snake oil salesman as an alternative. But maybe things do need to get extremely bad before they can get any better, heh.

 

[jvcarroll]

See, here's what I want to know. Where are the sources that Russia "hacked" the election? I find nothing to back that up.

OMG. Okay, terminology aside. our own government, aside from Trump himself, and Facebook itself have all confirmed that Russia created fake Facebook accounts in order to spread false information about Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. In some states where the vote was very close, this could have easily turned the election. Fact. One must be living under a rock not to have noticed this. It might be a good idea to try Googling these things before you ask them? Sorry, it's just so strange a question to ask.