GQ sent a reporter to Kentucky to see if he could ferret out the truth about why Rand Paul’s neighbor curb-stomped the Tribble-topped senator. As the reporter noted, the altercation was originally cast as a dispute over lawn care.
More recently, Paul’s staff and conservative outlets have been hinting darkly that the attacking neighbor was motivated by politics. But the GQ report suggests the simplest explanation: a clash of egotistical assholes. Excerpts:
If it is possible for a man, as he’s being hauled in front of a judge for his arraignment, to somehow still project an air of haughty superiority, well, that man would look like Rene Boucher did as he appeared in court just over a week ago.
If Paul is ever arraigned (FSM please!), he’ll project just such an “air of haughty superiority.” It’s his permanent state — possibly a consequence of an action all mothers warn against: “If you keep doing that, your face will freeze that way.” Paul kept doing that. Sounds like Boucher did too.
Jim Skaggs, who lives nearby (and is also the developer of the community), said that he thinks that Boucher charged at Paul from the street. From that direction, Paul’s yard slopes steeply downward, toward the lake at the rear of his property. Barreling downward, about 30 degrees, this imagined path would increase the force of a running tackle, perhaps explaining how a man of Boucher’s diminutive stature—an acquaintance of the two men estimates that they both stand five-foot-six and about 140 pounds—could do so much damage.
There’s also speculation that Boucher kicked the shit out of Paul while he was down. I’d bet money on it.
But across Bowling Green, sympathy for either man appears to be in short supply. [Bowling Green resident Bill] Goodwin described them as ‘two little shits’ who have brought embarrassment upon the town.
This has the ring of truth to my ear.
In other news, Kellyanne Conway jumps on the “Republicans for Child Molester Roy Moore” bandwagon because tax cuts. Transcript from Fox & Friends via MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin on Twitter:
The entire party is hopelessly depraved. But you knew that. Open thread!
Phillydude
Wait, is this the “Bowling Green Massacre” we heard so much about? KellyAnne is a prophet!
Bruce K
It’s like Chernobyl. (I may have ranted on this before.)
They had a stupid, unrealistic goal that demanded measures the system wasn’t designed for, so they disabled safety features that had been built in for damned good reasons, and then things got away from them, and they couldn’t stop it because they’d disabled the goddamned safeties.
Humboldtblue
I bet they didn’t lock down an affluent white area during the investigation into the altercation. If you live in West Baltimore, however, the killing of a police officer leads to an open air prison for poor black residents.
O. Felix Culpa
I see what you did there.
bystander
Charles Manson said he was a devil who would live forever. Any chances he was thinking about the repub party? Now that they’re voting for a child molester, he does seem to live on.
Another accuser of Franken. This one says he grabbed her at the State Fair in front of her husband. Really? He would have had to had very low expectations for any ROI.
Immanentize
@Phillydude:
My son the Immp said that the moment he heard about it on the radio…
Meanwhile, thinking about changing my nym to “Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz.” Any thoughts, Jackals?
Davebo
@Phillydude: Win!
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Another Franken accusation just posted up at Huffpo.
Ithink
This is all just…SAD!
Oh & Good Morning everybody?…
Amir Khalid
@Phillydude:
You couldn’t really call it the Bowling Green Massacre: only one guy got clobbered and he’s not dead. But the Bowling Green Beatdown, while alliterative, just doesn’t have the same oomph.
Major Major Major Major
@bystander: I’m not excusing it, and have no reason to disbelieve her especially since she has Facebook records of complaining about it, but I will say that lots of powerful men do shit like this, and I would hope that it comes out about all of them if grabbing somebody’s ass during a photo op is the level of misconduct we’re now disclosing.
Betty Cracker
@Bruce K: Someone on Twitter said the GOP is the William H. Macy character in Fargo. Sounds about right to me — thought it could work with thugs to get what it wanted, got in over its head.
Immanentize
@bystander: @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Timed to coincide with the interview by Roy Moore accuser regarding her molestation at 14?
rikyrah
I think Helen is on the right track with Rand Paul.
It was something PERSONAL between them.
tobie
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Saw it. The woman accuses him of putting his hand on her butt while posing for a photo with him at a state fair. Apparently Hannity was tipped off to the story over the weekend before it went public.
germy
Oh dear….
(from the “let’s you and him fight” department)
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Immanentize: Also, it looks like Leeann’s account is unraveling some. But who knows ?
rikyrah
@Humboldtblue:
of course, not.
SatanicPanic
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: shocking!
Immanentize
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Well, as I said on that first day, if Leeann’s proof of “groping” was the picture, Frankin is innocent of that claim. He is clearly NOT groping her in that pic….
rikyrah
@bystander:
don’t fall for the Banana in the tailpipe.
IN FRONT OF HER HUSBAND?
Really?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Our progressive betters are going to fall for it, again.
germy
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Immanentize: Well there’s the video of Robin Williams pretend groping Leann (and doing other things in that vicinity) on a previous tour so….
Betty Cracker
Yowza! Via Vox:
Wonder how many Pinocchios he’ll give these claims?
germy
@rikyrah:
“I took the car to the nice shop on the corner, and they told me I needed a whole new engine! It was expensive, but the problem still isn’t solved…”
tobie
Oh gosh, another day when we won’t be talking about the Republican tax-hike-plan-for-the-middle-class. Cui bono?
ETA: If you haven’t done so already, call your Congress critter to complain about the bill!
But her emails!!!
@bystander:
What’s the full story about the new accusation? Is it just “he grabbed my butt at the fair”?
Major Major Major Major
@But her emails!!!: yes.
@Betty Cracker: yay!
SatanicPanic
@bystander: ass-grabbers are rarely doing it with the expectation that theyget laid, they do it because there is an ass they want to grab. I’m sure that dude who groped Terry Crews didn’t expect sex.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@But her emails!!!: The picture is posted in the comments over at RawStory. In the picture she doesn’t look like anything is bothering her, but it’s a medium shot from the chest up. Who knows?
Major Major Major Major
@tobie:
Which ‘we’? If you meant here, let’s give the front-pagers until at least Monday afternoon before we criticize them for not including your preferred topic, as opposed to the Russia investigation we’re supposed to be covering above all else (morning thread) or healthcare, which we’re also supposed to be covering above all else (previous thread).
Emma
I am repeating this because it bears repeating. If “putting your hand on someone’s ass” becomes the moral equivalent of “assaulting a 14 year old” we are in deep trouble, because the media is aimed directly at Democrats. Republicans get away with rape; Democrats must be stoned for touching someone.
There is a scale to transgression. One is definitely worse than another. The proper answer to any question, or sneering comment should be: At least Franken apologized and has asked for an investigation. Moore and his wife attack his accusers and use them as political fodder. I prefer my guy.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Betty Cracker:
Are you thinking of Glenn Kessler? He’s the one who hands out pinocchios.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Way way off topic, Squirrel-P*rn edition (or is that, in some convoluted way, on topic for the ass-grabbing discussion?). Was looking out the kitchen window noticing a couple of squirrels doing nothing in particular except being unusually close to the house (on a porch railing right outside the window). As I’m wondering what they want since there are no edibles in sight, one mounts the other and we are greeted to a show. Not a very exciting one to be sure.
This caused me to wonder out loud if squirrel-humping is a common thing in this season. We looked up the gestation period (45 days) so any babies would be born midwinter. That seems like bad timing for survival.
Anybody know anything about mammals and humping seasons?
Major Major Major Major
@Emma:
We’d be in deep trouble for more reasons than that.
Ridnik Chrome
@Betty Cracker: The worst thing about that story isn’t that he hit on the women, it’s that he spread rumors about them around the office after they refused him.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: Well, yes, but I am thinking strategically, not morally.
Amir Khalid
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
In a medium shot from the chest up, visual evidence of someone groping your butt would of course not be in the frame. It proves only that you and someone had a picture taken together. I’d want to see better support for this claim.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Emma: You’re not wrong. Go over to the LGM post from Saturday about this. There are MANY who want Franken out NOW.
Kraux Pas
@Emma:
On today’s episode of “Things You Already Knew” our host, Emma, discusses…
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Personally, I much prefer “Immanentize” (and “Immp,” of course, for your clever and tough spawn), and I hope you don’t make that change. But obviously, it is your choice to call yourself anything you wish, and the rest of us will adapt gracefully.
Amir Khalid
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
All I really know is that Homo sapiens (some of them, at any rate) will hump any chance they get.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Uh-huh. And how many of those are “lifelong Democrats” who are actually Russian trolls?
Brachiator
@tobie:
Are we talking about George HW Bush again? Is he going to retroactively resign from the presidency?
bemused
@rikyrah:
Call me highly skeptical. Not nearly ready to throw Al under the bus.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major: I meant “we” the public in general not the BJ front pagers. I really wasn’t criticizing anyone here.
D58826
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: and the WH reporter for the NYT. Is there not a single man in a position of some power that ever learned to keep his bloody hands to himself?
Maybe we should just turn the country over to the women. They certainly can’t do any worse of a job then the men.
Jeffro
Ron Klain tweeting about the latest pro-Trumpov focus group (the one where a panelist said “If Jesus Christ climbed down from the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I’d tell him ‘Hold on a second, I need to check with the president to see if that’s true’ “)
AMEN! Where are our 65 million in-depth profiles of voters who weren’t fooled by the Orange Con Man?
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: They won’t even bother to interview the sainted WWC if they vote for Ds, like in my neck of the woods.
gratuitous
The surprising thing about the Bowling Green Beatdown is that two insufferable jerks wound up living in such close proximity. In my experience of trying to avoid insufferable jerks, they tend to mark out their territory and the other jerks stay away out of some kind of jerk courtesy. It’s quite rare to see two alpha jerks picking on the same target. Paul has been protected in his jerkdom by counting on the basic decency of people, but it appears that in Boucher he has found a kindred spirit. While decent people might consider pasting Rand one right in the kisser, their decency prevents them from acting on that consideration. Boucher obviously doesn’t have that barrier, at least not dependably. In my opinion, Paul’s reticence in talking about the incident is a product of embarrassment more than anything else. He knows he got what was coming to him, he just never thought it would happen.
Emma
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I avoid LGM on politics. The intellectual masturbation over there reminds me of department meetings when I was a hapless graduate student.
Major Major Major Major
@tobie: I saw headlines at the times, WaPo, Atlantic, and I think Forbes on tax reform this morning.
And sorry, I just get grumpy because I remember back during ACA repeal there would be somebody in the Russia threads complaining about ACA not being covered and somebody in ACA threads doing same about Russia.
Emma
@Kraux Pas: You know it and I know it. Look around….
bemused
@Major Major Major Major:
I liked Jill Abramason’s piece “Have we reached zero tolerance for sexual misconduct?”. We’ve all seen the problems with zero tolerance policies in schools.
Ryan
@Phillydude: I’d hardly call it a massacre. Drama Queen. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until 2022 for him to get massacred by voters.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major: No offense taken! Blog comments lack context and can easily be misinterpreted.
D58826
@bemused: I agree. BUT!!! As an example use Franken. The photo was stupid and the kiss may have been a misunderstanding. I imagine that there has been a lot of groping in male/female touch football games. Some accidental and some taking advantage of a situation.
BUT at some point you don’t grab the butt of a constituent as you are having your photo taken at the state fair.
So much of this is context dependent and wrapped up in behaviors that also are part of normal dating/flirting that 0 tolerance is going to be impossible to achieve. My Mom used to say of some of the TV actors – he could put his shoes under her bed anytime. While it was a joke I suspect that she might have viewed Paul Newman’s shoes a bit different than Donald Trump’s.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
It wouldn’t be Balloon Juice without irritating off-target complaints!
Major Major Major Major
@bemused: I’ll have to check it out. It could become a cure worse than the disease, or it could be that (like so many times when conservatives claim the cure will be worse than the disease) we’re not going to overshoot our goal. In the meantime, vigilance and moderation rarely hurt.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Bruce K: So basically the cooling system for stupid has failed and the stupid is now some fuming ball of rage eating it’s way through the bottom of the containment vessel?
Villago Delenda Est
Well, of course Doug Jones is a “doctrinaire liberal”. He prosecuted some good old boys for blowing up a church and killing for negro girls!
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sticking with Immanentize!
The other name once belonged to the boy that was born to one of the Manson Family members…. It is resonant.
KithKanan
@Ryan: Would you at least call it a massacree? Since it’s Thanksgiving week, the word is on the tip of my tongue (and the record will sooner or later be on the tip of my stylus).
germy
Fair Economist
@D58826:
Some depends on whether the accusation is “placed his hand on” (which is what I heard) and “grabbed”. When you’re smiling for the camera and trying to reach around somebody’s waist it’s easy to misplace your hand by an inch or too and whoops you just put it somewhere you didn’t want to. A grab or a squeeze OTOH is not an accident. With HW Bush he would have had a legitimate point that it was accidental, but quite a few of the accusers have said it went further than that.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
TELL IT!!
Betty Cracker
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: D’oh, you’re right!
germy
Glenn Thrush has been suspended from the NYT
I posted a link a few comments above but got thrown into the moderation box.
Major Major Major Major
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: and will be for decades, like the aptly-named Elephant’s Foot at Chernobyl, still fatal to look at* after all these years.
*due to proximity required
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Oh, good!
How very odd. Never came across that tidbit before.
Fair Economist
@bemused:
The Alabama Republican party is providing full support for a man almost certainly a serial child molester. How the heck is this “zero tolerance”?
sharl
@gratuitous: Boucher put his house up for sale after a 2008 divorce, but the sale that was in the works fell through; the backstory on that in the GQ piece offers yet another clue that Rand ain’t the only asshole in this brouhaha (as you noted). Anyway, for whatever reason Boucher apparently never continued trying to sell and move to Florida to be near one of his sons, which was his original plan.
But her emails!!!
Means zero tolerance for Democrats.
D58826
@Fair Economist: I read that she said ‘grabbed’ and specifically said it was below the waist. Maybe just head for the shoulders but that gets into the territory of the breasts. Maybe just put hands at side and have the photo taken.
There are just so many ways for male/female physical contact and so many different personalities that this can go on forever. I’m not taking about groping a 14 year old in the car, walking into the dressing room of a beauty pageant to ‘check the merchandise’ or having a meeting with a woman the first thing you do is show her the family jewels.
Ridnik Chrome
@D58826:
Again, the worst thing here isn’t that he hit on the women (and did so in a crude and aggressive way), it’s that after they refused him he spread false stories about them in a way that was damaging to their careers as journalists. To my mind, that’s the bigger crime.
ETA: Changed “real crime” to “bigger crime”.
Villago Delenda Est
@But her emails!!!: It’s still perfectly OK for the President of the United States to grab women by the pussy.
Honus
@bystander: you know Charlie Manson is from McMechen W Va, about ten miles down the river from Bethany.
PJ
@bemused: I think you’ve come to the wrong place. “Cautious skepticism” is two blogs down, and “Thoughtful consideration” is on the other side of the building. This is “Imminent hysteria (circular firing squad division)”. I’m shocked that Cole hasn’t chimed in yet calling for Franken to immediately step down again.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@D58826:
Never been in a group run only by women you say? Shure, they won’t be harassing the men, just each other over who is who’s friend. .
Boys have their problems, girls have their’s. I think it’s more important to educate people not to do stupid things, think with their heads and not with their genitals, rather than take a scorch earth policy because on the scorched earth, only monsters like Moore can survive.
sharl
@Betty Cracker: Oooh, Thrush has that deal, along with Maggie Haberman, for a book on the Trump White House. I wonder if Random House will now find Thrush to be too radioactive?
Haberman might be able to pull it off on her own, assuming all the parties would be amenable to that (a big ‘if’ in that scenario). My poorly-informed impression is that, of the two, Haberman has the most critical connections to Twitler and other senior WH players.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ridnik Chrome: Agreed.
This is on top of his hacktackular collaborations with Haberhack.
bemused
@Major Major Major Major:
There has been the same serious issues with mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Hysteria and being tough on “crime” in schools and in courts created some ludicrous and seriously damaging effects on people for the rest of their lives. I fear we are about to make the same mistakes with sexual misconduct accusations.
D58826
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
We are proud owners of the ancient reptilian brain stem which is quite happy to ‘think’ with our genitals. But we were also give the higher order cerebral cortex to keep the reptile in its lockbox.
eric
@Betty Cracker: i bet he has only a small pinnochio to give.
bemused
@Fair Economist:
Zero tolerance only applies to Dems.
Read about an Alabama woman supporting Moore who said even 14 years olds should know better or something like that.
Brachiator
@bemused:
I call that absolute intolerance.
Ridnik Chrome
@Villago Delenda Est: Not so surprising that his failings as a human being resemble his failings as a journalist.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I was in Bowling Green after that weekend. The lawyer on the other side of my case knows and hates both of them, says that both are assholes. According to him, the perp hasn’t practiced medicine for the last 10 years due to a brain injury, and is obsessed with HOA rule. Paul is a shitty neighbor and may be the last person in that development to do his own yard work, but is lousy at it AND doesn’t care.
Take one brain damaged goof who is quick to anger regarding his obsession and throw him up against a tiny guy who can’t take a punch, and voila…
eric
@Brachiator: I suppose she should be allowed to control her body in other important ways too…………
Major Major Major Major
@bemused: agree, and it’s worth watching out for.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@gratuitous: Perhaps Boucher is a late bloomer jerkoff? Maybe Boucher has been hiding his inner nine year old for decades now and Trump’s election enabled Boucher to let his freak flag fly free, right into an assualt on Rand Paul’s back? The irony if so.
Barbara
In evaluating the way Trump was treated by journalists last year, it was always in the back of my mind that many of the males had done things that might have been similar, if not as obvious (e.g., groping and kissing the journalist from People Magazine). One big difference between them and Trump is that they would never have bragged about it. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a vested interest in not demonizing Trump for that kind of conduct. This stuff being brought up against Franken seems so small beer by comparison (strangers, transient conduct, easily misinterpreted, goofy, not hidden but right out in front of others). I think his willingness to apologize probably goes to all of those things — whereas, all those creeps in a perpetual state of outraged denial know that if they admit the truth, they are toast. Certainly, Moore’s stalking a 14 year old girl is just beyond creepy. And he and his wife’s campaign to shoot the messengers and Moore’s victims puts them into an even lower level of Dante’s circles.
germy
Writer Leaves Lenny Letter Citing Lena Dunham’s ‘Well-Known Racism’
Barbara
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Brain injuries often manifest themselves in decreased impulse control and anger at others. Even stroke victims often exhibit lower social inhibitions. After having a stroke, my mother in law said things to people that she would have been horrified to say prior to her stroke — like referring to someone as being fat or ugly right to their face.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
I’m finding that the number of fucks I have to give regarding random gropes is actually starting to diminish, since groping allegations against liberals seem to come out every time we talk about serious sexual misconduct on the part of republicans.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: That doesn’t explaining fawning coverage by Maggie H, though.
Aleta
@bemused: You’ve probably seen this photo collage…
https://twitter.com/BoycottUtah/status/931613780223471616
ETA Over the weekend, a number of Alabama newspapers condemned Moore, same as many other Alabaman women and men have done (and kids pretty sure)
trollhattan
@Barbara:
I can’t let go of Trump and the 13 YO. Given his history, it would be irresponsible not to speculate (thanks, Our Lady of the Magic Dolphins).
Barbara
@germy: I read that letter. Let me say, Lena Dunham stepped in it by reflexively and publicly defending her writer. She should have known better, and she exhibited exactly the same kind of circling the wagons that makes the overall problem so hard to address. However, the letter brought up accusations of a very general nature (Dunham was close to a group that the author knew had some members whose racism was dressed up as hipster cool — e.g., someone else, not Dunham, used racist terms as a joke or ironically) and drew from that a fixed conclusion that Lena Dunham is clearly a racist — well, it seems a little too forced. YMMV.
hueyplong
GOP’s best shot at avoiding the wave election that Virginia threatened is to get back to hyper-partisanship of the type that worked in 2016. Once it’s back to Us vs. Them instead of the steady diet of what we’ve seen in 2017, the GOP is where it wants to be.
Legitimate concern for and action to prevent sexual harassment would be collateral damage. Someone here predicted that very thing last Friday. I believe that person.
scav
@bemused:
Well, then we’ll count on her vote for the next transgender candidate who haunts bathrooms!
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: I can’t explain everything. Haberman was clearly trawling for access, as she has clearly been doing since Trump was elected. She pulls her punches to maintain access. That seems relatively obvious.
hueyplong
Standing alone, that picture of Thrush in a fedora sets off warning signals.
opiejeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: Correction, since this is Alabama we’re talking about: Nigra girls. It’s how my Uncle Dummy said the word, walking right up to the N-word line but not quiet crossing it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Really, rather amazing that this is happening. Ratfucking. I smell the disgusting ooze that is Roger Stone.
Aleta
@Barbara: good point
ETA w/ my mom’s dementia from accumulation of TIAs, also more likely to be confused by what was going on and get angry from the anxiety of that
rikyrah
President Trump Is Making His Only African-American Judicial Nominee Move For Brett Talley
No SEEMS about it. This is what happened.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: @Barbara: yeah, that letter is weak sauce, and I say that as somebody who more or less despises Dunham, or at least the Dunham portrayed by Dunham.
Ohio Mom
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I wouldn’t worry about the squirrel, deer or Canada geese populations. Whatever they are doing, it’s clearly working for them.
Maybe the baby squirrels snuggle in the nest for a month or so after being born and before venturing out into the world?
Ridnik Chrome
@D58826:
I think that one of the things that’s going to come out of all this is that HR departments are going to start adopting blanket “no interoffice dating” policies.
bemused
@PJ:
I’d lol but I’m feeling too stabby with liberals who go all weak kneed practically every time the rightwing
I normally like Amanda Marcotte and Michelle Goldberg but I’d like them and others who immediately “sadly” said Franken should resign what making Franken a sacrificial Dem would really accomplish and how many more sacrificial Dems would they be willing to tolerate.
Barbara
@hueyplong: Maybe. All I can say is that Gillespie’s hyper partisanship turned off many college educated white people and animated non-whites to vote at greater levels than in past elections. That also might just be a Trump effect. Charlottesville is always heavily Democratic, but the turn out was high and final distribution of the vote was 84% for Northam. They were pissed at what Trump had done and Gillespie was feeding off of Trump, e.g., his avid support for keeping Confederate memorials, and stoking fear of immigrants.
Emma
Univision is fighting the good fight.
bemused
@Brachiator:
Oh yeah. Or call it extremely selective tolerance/interpretation of the Bible.
TenguPhule
Second accusation against Franken.
Again, the woman making the accusation in question is a Trump supporter.
Again, a photo, but this time not a damning one.
No witnesses, no other evidence.
Only her husband is backing that she told him about it and he’s a Trump supporter too.
Jury’s still out on this.
Aleta
@trollhattan: And the quotes and audio of T with H Stern — boasting about walking into the teen pageant when they were undressed; and talking about the appeal of having sex with a well-known teenage star because of her mental health problems
ETA It’s time to broadcast the audio of him talking about the teen pageant as often as the Franken photo is being broadcast.
TenguPhule
@Emma:
What do you mean if?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: The CNN article I read this morning said that she complained about it on Facebook at the time, and the article included quotes, though the post is only available to friends. I assume this means that they were given access to it so they could verify it.
Aleta
@TenguPhule: Do you have a link to her being a Trump supporter? As for other evidence, I read that she wrote about it to her friends shortly after, via facebook. If so, that’s a form of documentation from 2010.
rikyrah
@bemused:
Falling for the Banana in the tailpipe, and I ain’t got time for such foolishness.
rikyrah
@Barbara:
Gillespie ran a straight up
BIRTH OF A NATION Campaign…
and, thought folks wouldn’t notice.
Fair Economist
@TenguPhule:
It’s sad, but it’s getting hard to trust accusations from the “other team”, especially when they are extremely weak ones like “took a crude picture” and “possibly groped at a photoshoot”. It was really smart of the original Moore piece to stick to solid accusations – one made by Trump supporters *and* made far in the past.
BlueDWarrior
@Major Major Major Major: Which is entirely fair. And I’m not dismissing the veracity of him touching her. The question is – does everything rising up now out rise to the call for resignation from the Senate right now?
And I don’t know if it does. But I don’t know how to express this while also saying that we should be punishing and admonishing people for inappropriate touching and the like.
Just like not every crime rises to the need for jail time (or worse); not every incident of sexual impropriety or ‘bad touch’ should result in a sacking and a tar-and-feathering.
But are we just in that zero-tolerance frame of mind now?
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
I think he was banking on folks noticing — just not, y’know, those kinds of people.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
I assume nothing at this point.
Brachiator
@bemused:
There’s no Biblical interpretation here. They’re just making shit up.
rikyrah
@Emma:
That IS the bottom line.
Mnemosyne
I’ve been reading this book about Marie-Therese, the only one of Louis XVI’s children to survive the French Revolution. The account of the Revolution in the book is from the perspective of the royal family and obviously a little slanted, but it was interesting to me that the family felt that Louis’ cousin, the Duc d’Orleans, was actively manipulating events during the Revolution to eliminate Louis and his family so he himself could become king.
However, just like almost everyone else in history who thinks they can harness chaos to rise to the top, d’Orleans ended up being guillotined himself only a few months after the king he had helped depose.
There’s a lesson in there, if current Republicans care to look for it.
PJ
@Major Major Major Major: @Aleta: She and her husband voted for Trump. http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html The alleged victim first posted the photo to Facebook, then her sister commented: “Sorry, but you two aren’t Bibles (sic) width apart”, and then she responded: “Dude — Al Franken TOTALLY molested me! Creeper!” Make of that what you will.
Fair Economist
@BlueDWarrior:
Apparently resignation for isolated misdemeanors is a requirement for Democrats only. Felony sexual conduct? IOKIYAR.
TenguPhule
@Aleta: She claimed she’s an “independent” who tends to favor Republicans and voted for Trump in 2016, along with her husband, on CNN.
sharl
Haha
germy
“If you want truth to go around the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go around the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it.”
Mnemosyne
@BlueDWarrior:
Also, frankly, I have occasionally experienced touches in “bad places” that seemed to be fully accidental, and I wrote them off that way. Is she claiming a grab-and-squeeze, or a oh, geez, I wonder if he realizes that was my ass that his hand first landed on when we were getting arranged for the pose?
Millard Filmore
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Would a perfectly behaved set of entertainers going on tour to a bunch of sex starved troops in far away lands be invited back?
Major Major Major Major
@BlueDWarrior: I was merely relaying my recollection of the article.
As for tarring and feathering somebody for some alleged grab-ass during a photoshoot and an alleged inappropriate version of a rehearsed kiss, I don’t think we have that luxury.
TenguPhule
@PJ: According to her story, Franken apparently reached out and grabbed her, got “uncomfortably” close and squeezed her buttocks in front of her husband who took the photo.
None of this is backed up by the photo in question. Or apparently noticed by her husband when he’s standing right there in front of them.
Color me skeptical.
ruemara
You put your hands on someone’s waist and your hand is gonna bump their butt. If he “grabbed” her ass, then he grabbed it, no bump, no hand on hip. Some of this seems ridiculous, but you’re not being harassed here. It’s kind of obvious. I’ve had two very public moments of harassment. One, my PR for the first series I’d worked on where a producer, while we were on the red carpet, put his arm around me for pictures. His hands were very busy feeling up my back while we were posing for the cameras. You can’t tell. 2 weeks ago, my friend’s husband got incredibly handsy and decided he should keep hugging me and rubbing my shoulders and back (i don’t even hug his wife). We were in front of her, plus friends and family. It was very discomfiting and I left as I could tell he was focused on me for some reason. I’ve had undesired hugs, people bumping me when putting an arm around me, but there’s an attitude about that that’s different.
I listened to the Tweeden telling her story and I don’t know. It sounds off. The new accuser is just “he touched my butt, I felt gross”. This is harassment? I fear they’re weakening the chance for a change in how we teach consent and how we fix rape culture, just for political gain.
burnspbesq
Doug Jones is hardly “soft on crime.” But as far as Republicans are concerned, he’s strong on the wrong kind of crime (i.e., white men killing black children).
catclub
@tobie:
I just saw a chart showing there are people with incomes over $1M who will get tax hikes under the new bills. I would like them to show their work.
I wonder if they ignore the AMT repeal in that calculation. Changing the point at which the 39.5% rate kicks in from $28K to $1M is a huge break for those
people. Even if the rate for income above $1M is unchanged.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara:
I think this is exactly what they’re doing, which doesn’t make the touching (if it happened) any less inappropriate. But, as I said, wringing our hands about such minor allegations isn’t really a luxury we have right now. Frankly, it’s not a luxury we’ll have for as long as this many people are Trump voters.
I know that “we’ll deal with [women’s/LGBT/racial justice/whatever] issues when things cool down a little” is a common refrain but this seems like an especially egregious mismatch of injustice and direness.
@catclub:
They probably own a lot of property in New York or California (or New Jersey or …..).
BlueDWarrior
@TenguPhule: Yeah that’s the part that triggers my own incredulity. That Franken reached out for her at the hip, grabbed her ass, and had to have done it while her husband was looking at them with the camera ready to shoot.
Now, he might have reached around and grabbed, but not done anything like just yanking someone over like you’d see in a melodrama. And that would make any woman uncomfortable at the least; but I still can’t shake this sense of “Really, that’s what you’re going with?”
I dunno if that’s me or ingrained disbelief pounded into me subconsciously.
TenguPhule
We’re really getting showered in Republican shit in the news right before the next tax abomination vote.
Coincidence or enemy action?
catclub
@sharl: I still favor the explanation that R. Paul was tupping the neighbor’s daughter and/or wife.
No Drought No More
I still think it likely Paul’s neighbor had watched re-runs of an NFL player’s flying cheap shot tackle of an opponent, the film of which had been broadcast all day that Sunday on TV. And, yeah, if the neighbor was angry enough to have done that, he probably did kick Paul’s ass around a little more, too.
As it was happening to him in the moment, I wonder if Paul possessed the wits to envision the inevitable headlines the attack would garner? Or, as he was getting thrashed, did he he care only about the torn cartilage in his rib cage? That must have felt like he was being skinned alive…. I guess I just answered my own question, didn’t I?
I’ve even overheard someone state that everyone living in a “gated community” deserves to have their ass kicked for principle’s sake, so there’s that, too.
BlueDWarrior
@TenguPhule: I’d wager both.
I’d also wager they might try something against Schumer since he’s been there forever and might have had some ‘improprieties’ in his not-quite-as-old days as well.
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: Yeah. That’s the first thing that occurred to me too. I used to work with someone who was a “toucher,” not a lewd toucher, but I am practically the opposite and I always found it to be disconcerting even though it was never on a body part that anyone else would consider problematic. He just did it so automatically. Re Franken, how long do you pose for a picture like that? Still, if he did that for every woman in every picture — e.g., was a bottom pincher — it would make me think of him differently. But I will say it again. Unless someone is facing criminal charges, I really do not think elected politicians should resign their position. That’s what we have elections for. I feel the same way for Roy Moore. If he is elected, he is elected and the Senate should not try to expel him unless he becomes the subject of an active criminal investigation. Spitzer and Wiener committed crimes that involved sexual behavior. They were, in that sense, different.
TenguPhule
@BlueDWarrior: I think the Trump loyalist who said on CNN that they’d trust Trump over Jesus has destroyed any vestige of credibility I’d be willing to give them.
No credit for them, cash only.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Now that the Rs have tasted blood*, these allegations are not going to stop.
*The hysterical reaction of the bloggy leftosphere after the first Franken allegation.
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
Avoid nations where guillotines are operating?
This reminds me of the lesson Calvin learned after using his transmogrifier – mostly along the lines of ‘don’t do exactly that thing’, no other lesson learned.
The Moar You Know
We have a solid case with Moore. They do not care. They will elect him and he will have a seat in the Senate. He will help pass tax cuts. He will be an embarrassment for the next few years, true, but they don’t care. They will have gotten their tax cuts.
But the GOP has a trick.
They will find some real victims of something similar (instead of kids getting groped it’s adults, but those are just details in GOPLand) and, if no victims exist, just pay somebody. Not very much. There’s probably volunteers I expect. They will accuse every Dem politician who is in any way useful, and then just sit back and watch as we do their work for them. And we will.
The GOP will ride on with their caucus of child molesters and snatch grabbers and frat rapists. Not one will suffer any consequence whatsoever. And we will have “purified” the Dem caucus, leaving whatever incompetents and blue dogs that the GOP didn’t want to waste the effort on this time. And we will wonder why we aren’t winning. Hey, we cleaned up our party, right? Why aren’t people voting for us?
Voters want winners, not saints. The GOP knows this, and knows if you don’t win you can’t get anything done. Dems do not understand either and probably won’t until the US devolves into functional one-party rule.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: When, not if, money starts changing hands, the accusations are going to fly Fast and Furious and we’re going to have 48 separate Sexual Bengazhis becoming the 2018 EMAILZ!!!
/Because I’m cynical and can predict what someone with no moral qualms or concerns would most likely do
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Agree. It serves a triple purpose – distract liberals and leftists with infighting; generate bad press for Democrats and possibly even get rid of some; and discredit the “believe all women” idea even in the minds of its advocates.
BlueDWarrior
@schrodingers_cat: There is this need for purity of motive and being in the left that I honestly do not understand.
We aren’t playing around in the realm of theory and potential. We are in reality – and reality is that people are humans and sometimes they are going to do shit you don’t want them to do, or get in trouble with something unrelated to the issue they are good on, and it’s incumbent upon you to sit there and think “Is this thing so bad to where (s)he can no longer be an effective advocate for the things that I want?”
And as bad as these allegations sound against Franken, he still looks small potatoes compared to the various accusations and actual proven bad behavior of people even within our own party.
Which is not to say that we should keep the bar as low as we do, but we have to realize that setting a high jump bar at 30′ does no one any good either. We are going to have to draw a realistic line somewhere and that ‘real line’ might not meet to where we’d want it to be in an ideal world.
frosty
We gotta make more calls on the tax hike. I just talked to a real person in Toomey’s DC office. I never got anything but voicemail the whole way through ACA repeal. That tells me the phones aren’t busy enough. Call!
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know: The irony is that we’re not going to get a functional one party state, we’re going to get a junta constantly going crazier and crazier and in constant need of new scapegoats to blame.
Ruviana
@catclub: Boucher (the neighbor) was divorced and lived alone so I assume there was no one around for Rand to shtup. Boucher also reportedly had a brain injury that prevented him from working and that could have contributed to his hostility (I mean beyond the fact that it was Rand Paul).
The Moar You Know
@Barbara: That’s a dominance move. Woman or man. Don’t put up with it. Running into a lot of men these days who introduce themselves as “huggers” and I say, very forcefully, “I am not, and if you lay a finger on me you will find it later lodged in your ass, along with the rest of your arm”. That’s the actual language I use. And I’m very big enough to make that stick.
They usually throw a very public squalling fit at that point about what a violent asshole I am. Don’t care. If you don’t explicitly threaten them, then they will do it anyway, and I lost my patience with that shit 30 years ago in college. I am not a hugger or toucher, don’t fucking touch me.
Major Major Major Major
@BlueDWarrior:
Ideologues of all stripes have trouble with this, almost tautologically.
catclub
@bemused:
Again. See Little Rascals daycare convictions.
rikyrah
RIP, Della Reese
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: In Alabama, white men killing black children should never have been considered a crime in the first place. Any more than raping those little girls’ great grandmothers.
catclub
@Ruviana: Facts are no fun.
The Moar You Know
@Ruviana: I think we’re going to get both and yeah, the need for the GOP to constantly find new boogeymen (there’s a lot of good writing about that recently) is going to make life in America unpleasant for a lot of people for a long time. They cannot exist without their monsters.
What a wretched way to live.
Calouste
@ruemara: The goal of the allegations against Franken is either to force him out or have the women exposed as making stuff up, thereby weakening allegations from other women against Republican sexual harassers like Moore and the shitgibbon.
The media will run with either of them (if not both) because the idea that this is an orchestrated campaign by ratfckers like Stone and Hannity is a step too far for them. Besides of course, as shown earlier in this thread, that there are probably quite a few journalists who would be happy if people took the accusations of women less seriously.
Mary G
I will call for Franken to resign the day after Trump does, i.e. never.
McConnell isn’t rushing to start the ethics inquiry either, because he knows he has a lot of people on his side that have done much more.
Ruviana
@catclub: And even before, the McMartin Preschool. Moral panic is such a fun thing!
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: So what’s the solution? Automatically assume that any woman who accuses a Democrat of sexual harassment / misconduct is lying? Tell women to stop speaking out about sexual harassment, rape, abuse, etc., because #MeToo can be weaponized by scumbags?
You identify a real problem — Republicans will stop at nothing, and while I still believe very few people make up accusations of sexual harassment / misconduct, that could change if the response changes. Seems to me the best approach would be to evaluate each accusation on its individual merits.
schrodingers_cat
Is Balloon Juice website slowing down your computer? It is taking forever to load for me.
rikyrah
Donna Stewart @DStewart541
2h2 hours ago
Replying to @LindsayMenz @Liz_Wheeler @alfranken
Something weird about this story. You posted multiple times a day in 2013, linking to since deleted Instagram account. Then once a year in 2014 and 2015. Nothing in 2016. Now Franken accusation. Then reached out to @OANN – Trump propaganda TV.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Oh no!
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: To not be in an ungodly rush to crucify the said Dem without due diligence would be a good start
ruemara
@Calouste: Glenn Thrush, for example. Most of the Uber left Chapo Trap House. That’s what’s insidious about this. Either way, it does something good for folks I hate.
@Betty Cracker: I think that’s it. And to stop organizations we need working on outreach and resistance to stop using their platforms for kneejerk calls for resignation. Looking at you, Indivisible head office.
Ruviana
@catclub:
“Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to”
Calouste
@Betty Cracker: I think we can safely assume that everyone who is a bible humper is lying. Not just about harassment, about everything.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: there’s no doubt in my mind that the Chapo assholes have sexually questionable behavior in their past. Or present.
sharl
Yeah lol, if Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren’t gonna be forced to get their shit together – they clearly ain’t gonna do it on their own – maybe we should all just adopt the ‘if-we-can’t-beat-them–join-them’ club, and start ladling stuff like this out on social media. Team Nihilism!
ETA: I like your explanation. Too lazy to go back to the GQ piece, but as I recall Boucher only has (two) sons, and his wife left him almost ten years ago. Dunno about Boucher’s dating situation, though with his winning personality, any woman involved here would be an interesting case study herself.
Mike J
@rikyrah:
I don’t think he thought nobody would notice. Republicans have been pushing the idea that calling somebody a racist is worse than being a racist, and he thought Democrats would be afraid to be impolite.
What makes me sad is knowing that all these people who are learning hard lessons about what Republicans are really like aren’t going to be believed in 10 years by the next cohort of voters who insist that nobody really understand the youth vote.
D58826
@The Moar You Know: I’m a male and find the entire hugger thing uncomfortable.
TenguPhule
@Calouste: I hate Morton’s fork when its lodged in our ass.
Lapassionara
@Barbara: Anyone who works around men has likely been touched in a not great way by a guy. One guy in particular used to grab the back of my neck while saying hello. This happened more than once, but I never thought he was “harassing” me. It was just him. The conduct stopped after a few years.
My training has made me lean toward gathering more information before reaching a judgment. These calls for Franken to resign seem ill considered to me.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: But if we don’t show that we are more willing to throw an effective Democratic politician under the bus at the first allegation of misconduct, no matter how insignificant, how can we demonstrate that we are morally superior to Republicans?
aimai
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know–I think we have to evaluate the utility of the political actor as well. Moral panic leads to a moral stampede and that is going to be hugely dangerous to our side and, ultimately, to women as well. Franken has called for an investigation-why keep trying to get him thrown out before that takes place? Why keep insisting that Democrats have to be “like Ceasar’s wife” instead of just working jerks who make mistakes and pay for them the same way other people do. If Franken is being charged with an actual crime–like assault–then by all means let him be charged and let him be sentenced. IF he’s just being charged with insulting someone (that is: its just a twitter or media based assertion that he did something without the person being willing to file charges or even alleging an assault) then let the process proceed.
But as others have pointed out there is no reason–and not utility–in Franken dropping out until other similarly situated republican politicians also step down. I.E. Trump.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Republican Accusing Republican = Believable
Democrat Accusing Democrats = Believable.
Democrat Accusing Republican = Believable
Republican Accusing Democrat = Evidence or GTFO.
This is where we are now.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: Its not just you. Its the fracking new ads, of which there are EVEN MORE OF THEM ON THE SITE NOW THEN EVER BEFORE.
D58826
@Ruviana: and recovered memory syndrome and the missing (faces on milk cartoons) kids epidemic.
Sad thing is there is/was a kernel of truth to each but it was blown way out of proportion. Some missing kids were kidnapped by strangers, but the vast majority were runaways or ‘kidnapped’ by the non-custodial parent.
schrodingers_cat
@PJ: This moral poutrage of the uber left cost as the last Presidential election. Its like they never learn.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: Use an adblocker. If you feel guilty there’s a PayPal button.
Kathleen
@Emma: The “How many angels can dance on a strand of Bermie’s hair” discussions can be beakome tedious. Couldn’t resist a OT bird pun.
D58826
@PJ: I’m beginning to miss ‘but her e-mails’
trollhattan
@Lapassionara:
Odds the Republicans aren’t combing Minnesota with all their available assets digging for Franken dirt approach zero. If they can help torpedo a second-term Democratic senator and coincidentally create a distraction from…all their shit then it’s well worth the effort. I too will take further anecdotes with a necessary grain of (luckily pink Himalayan) salt.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: I have an adblocker, NoScript and ghost script running, even then Tunch Blog is taking forever to load.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826:
I hate to say it but the huge jump in children and teenagers finding themselves transgendered/nonbinary and wanting hormone treatments, larger than the general occurrence of transgendered individuals is understood to be, may have a social/clinical contagion aspect just like that did.
Villago Delenda Est
@Calouste: This.
The media will not be willing to indicate that they get played, repeatedly, by subhumans like Stone.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: But you aren’t complaining about the ads, so that wasn’t for you. Why is it slow, I have no idea. Are you well-versed enough in such things to check out the timeline on your inspector tool and see if the issue is backend (Alain) or frontend (me)?
Ruviana
@D58826: Yep.
Fair Economist
@Lapassionara:
I’m working on teaching my teen son not to do that, with some success. He does it to both boys and girls and it’s a dominance move, not sexual. Still very icky.
Barbara
@Lapassionara: @The Moar You Know: When he was making a point he would do things like put his hand on my hand or shoulder. It wasn’t an ambush or a anything other than a light touch meant to stress the point he was making. And I worked with him for a long time. He was above board in every other way. Never heard any rumors, and he worked with lots of women. My main point is that touching (like personal distance) is so personal that someone might take even a transient or incidental touch as being inappropriate. And that would be their right, of course, but that doesn’t make every incidental touch objectively a form of abuse or molestation. I really hated being touched like that. I told someone else in the office that I didn’t like it but I knew that it wasn’t abusive, and wasn’t intended to be.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: The slowness of the BJ site is what finally forced me to install an adblocker (I’m generally OK with “paying for” what I use). It worked like magic.
As suggested, I donate instead.
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: Could be or just a short term spike in people now feeling comfortable about coming out.
bemused
@catclub:
How could I forget that! Another horrible era fueled by panic and hysteria.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
I have a pretty good book at home called Smoke and Mirrors that was written by a psychologist about False Memory Syndrome. He explains in detail how the police interrogators for the McMartin case managed to help the kids create false memories — basically, if you ask a kid the same question more than once, they assume that their previous answer was wrong and you want a different answer, because that’s how school works. That’s why the stories just kept getting wilder and wilder.
For adults, the complicating factor is almost always hypnosis and the belief that some therapists have that people can’t lie while under hypnosis. In fact, since hypnosis is close to a dream state, it’s quite likely that people will make symbolic connections that aren’t actually factual that a therapist can mistake for being facts. That’s how Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago got caught up in a sex scandal — the victim (who had been sexually assaulted while at seminary) underwent hypnosis, and his subconscious feeling that Bernardin was responsible for his being assaulted since Bernardin was in charge of the seminary turned very literal under hypnosis.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: It could very well be, or it could be both. Again, this is in teenagers and pre-teens, so if it’s short-term that will be very apparent very soon. The only problem is that hormone therapy at that age is not as reversible as it is in older people.
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker:
In this case we have a Senate Ethics Committee which is reasonably capable and has pushed for proper action in the past, as with Packwood. The proper way to handle this non-time-critical issue is to use a working system and not demand mob justice.
Weirdly McConnell is being the voice of reason on this – he cut off support for Moore and called for an investigation on Franken, which is about the right level.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Other websites seem to be loading just fine. When I shut down the Balloon Juice tab, everything seems run at the usual speed.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@TenguPhule: An adblocker is your friend.
Depending on the blocker, it’s possible to whitelist a site and then add custom blocking code to kill specific ad servers. I kill Taboola and Kontera/Vibrant/etc. everywhere, even on whitelisted sites. Ora.tv, too.
bemused
@trollhattan:
Not much so far from R’s. No doubt they are working on smear strategy as we speak. Although Norm Coleman surfaced to say he would have won over Franken if that groping flak jacket photo had come out during the campaign. I remember when Coleman’s daddy was caught by police parked in his car with a prostitute outside a pizza place.
Meanwhile Democratic women in MN are doing the job for Republicans. They are so disappointed with Franken.
Spanky
@Mnemosyne: But I’m sure I read about the Duke and the Dauphin in a Mark Twain book.
OK class, discuss how the D&D episode relates to the modern day Republican.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: Umm, no. It’s not that I don’t believe that Franken touched her, it’s that being touched and being molested are not the same thing. I don’t necessarily think that a touch that occurred during the five seconds it took her husband to take a picture was more than incidental. I would need to know more. I would also say that with the exception of the 14 year old girl, what we are learning about Moore is really skeevy but not criminal. The shock value is how young these girls were, how many of them there were, and also, in some cases, he seemed to be stalking girls in ways that made them uncomfortable or even fearful. If you knew he was doing that to your daughter you would make it clear he should cut it out immediately. But you wouldn’t likely call the police. And both of these allegations are not the same kind made against Weinstein (and others), in which they clearly used their professional power to reward and punish women based on whether they would submit to sexual advances.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: There’s a social component to recovered “memories” and there’s a social component to non-binary identifications. The underlying issues and mechanisms are very different though. It’s a big problem that teens are typically unsettled about their identities but hormonal actions, including the choice not to take action, have irreversible consequences. I personally lean towards not intervening because I’ve come to the attitude of “trust your body, it’s pretty smart”. But you can’t draw a bright line – some do seem genuinely agonized at the prospect of a misgendered body.
Greater tolerance for obvious transexuals would help. And yes, I’d like a pony with that.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: I remember reading of a kid that they convinced had been lost at the mall. He filled in the details of the nice matronly lady who found him and the ice cream cone that he had. It never happened but he was certain of it. Memory is not a video tape
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: So your whole browser is lagging when you have the balloon-juice tab open?
D58826
@Mnemosyne: With regard to the pre-school scare, I’ve always wondered if some of those kids really were molested but by a family member. It was to painful to talk about it so when the police pushed the issue they transferred the assault to a stranger.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
I believe that. That’s exactly what happened to me pre-adblocker. I have fairly heavy firewalls FWIW.
Fair Economist
@D58826:
There were hundreds, so just by statistics it’s almost certain some were.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist:
Well, of course. But these diagnoses, especially in people who as you note are already unsettled by their bodies and about their identities, can be very blurry. I’d also err on the side of waiting until you’re older to take hormonal action since a pre-/peripubescent person’s concept of gender is… iffy, and it’s not like being gay (no physical intervention) or being, I don’t know, misdiagnosed as depressed and taking wellbutrin for a while (few known long-term side-effects, and those are rare).
Part of the social/clinical contagion aspect is that some clinicians feel pressure to not do nothing.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Oh, sad news. Lovely, talented woman. May she R.I.P.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: I noticed it happened to me sometimes before I stopped using chrome. I think it was the video ad, which was slipping past my adblocker.
Jeffro
Mnemosyne:
And if they could hurry the fuck up, look for, and FIND that lesson before disaster strikes our country/the Korean peninsula/the world economy/the world, period that would be great…
D58826
@Jeffro:
Der Fuhrer has added NK back to the terrorist nation list. Not sure that it makes that much difference but he does seem to be intent on goading Kim into doing something stupid/violent that would act as a justification for US military action.
bemused
@Barbara:
I have Scandinavian DNA, born and raised in northern MN where people were and a lot still are not touchy, feely people. They like their space. There was hardly any hugging among my entire family aside from hugging children. I was well into adulthood before I got comfortable with hugging, even with friends.
We have a couple of male friends (married) who genuinely like and appreciate women and show it. They get who women are. I have have never felt uncomfortable with them because the vibe they give off is real. After being female for long enough, you can tell the difference from guys who don’t.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: @Fair Economist: Yes.
The Moar You Know
@Major Major Major Major: Don’t “hate to say it” when it is obviously true. The hormone treatments will cause lifelong and irreversible damage, and a massive increase in cancer rates, and more than one “somebody” needs to take a really good, hard look at anyone who is asking for this therapy and why before signing off on it.
My mother was a psychologist (non-MD) when the McMartin thing happened. She always claimed those fuckers were going to destroy her entire profession. There was never one shred of evidence for repressed memories being an actual thing short of organic brain damage and everyone in the profession knew it.
She was right. They did.
SiubhanDuinne
@TenguPhule:
I’m glad Alain is taking the time he needs to grieve his beautiful mother (and take care of the myriad details that need attention in the wake of a bereavement), but it will be good on several levels to welcome him back whenever he’s ready to return to us.
schrodingers_cat
@bemused: True. All the hugging was pretty alien to me to, growing up as I did in an Indian family where even the traditional greeting is a hands-off Namaste.
Emma
@TenguPhule: Actually, no. Every accusation should be treated exactly the same. Evidence counts.
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know: I said it on my tiptoes because there’s a Denkverbot against it.
The Moar You Know
@Major Major Major Major: I get that. You’re not wrong. And I’d normally be tempted to go along, but not with this. The harm grossly outweighs the good.
Also, these days I’m just not willing to shut up about most anything anymore, it’s how we got to where we are as a country, and where we are as a country is completely not acceptable.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: You could try a different adblocker, or simply uninstall your existing one and reinstall it. Maybe something got mangled somewhere.
Be aware that there are lots of bogus adblockers out there (especially ones with names like Adblock and Adblock Plus). Make sure you get the genuine article.
B-J works fine for me on Chrome on Winders with UBlockOrigin and UBlockOrigin Extra.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: Adblock and Adblock Plus aren’t bogus.
I use Adguard and ghostery, personally.
bemused
@schrodingers_cat:
Ah, I didn’t realize it was a thing with Indian culture too so you know exactly what I’m talking about. We joke about Swedes, Finns, Norwegians, etc being suspicious if people are being too friendly or showing too much emotion but there’s a lot of truth to that. So spouse and I had all boys. Some days I want to throttle them all, spouse included, because sometimes it’s like pulling teeth to get information out of them. Once when our oldest son was in his early 20’s his aunt was talking with him after not seeing him for awhile but she was doing all the talking. He just stood there and smiled. Finally aunt stopped and said, “well, feel free to jump in anytime”. He still gets away with just grinning.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: I phrased it badly. Yes, those aren’t bogus.
Last I looked on the Chrome Extensions “store”, months ago, there were about 15 adblockers with a name very similar to Adblock or Adblock Plus. It was obviously an intentional effort to get people to install something different from what they were looking for.
Happily, that seems to no longer be the case. Maybe Google finally clamped down on things like that.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@bemused: India is a big country and not just one culture, but I come from the west of India from what used to be a priestly/scribe caste, not big on physical expressions of affection but big on debate and discussion but not of a personal nature. So I just don’t get the Oprah style personal confessions on air.
ETA: My husband is from southern India and compared to him my family are good time party types. And they don’t talk much. So its all relative.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: Its messed up since the latest Windows 10 upgrade.
david
A 59-year old man weighing 140 pounds (maybe) beat up another man so badly that he broke 6 ribs. Yeah.
This is not believable. Someone got to Paul. Maybe a couple of Trump’s goons, whoever.
But, the “just a dispute over a few manicured blades of grass” doesn’t hold.
D58826
@bemused: My M-I-L was Norwegian. Did not matter how bad/good the joke was the funny part was her not getting it. Norwegian and sense of humor are contradictions in terms. Fortunately my F-I-L was part Irish so my wife had a normal sense of humor.
bemused
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m not fond of Oprahlike personal confession stuff either. I’m suspicious of that kind of TMI, lol. Guess it’s in my Scandinavian DNA too, lol.
bemused
@D58826:
Funny.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: Have you tried reinstalling your adblocker?
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
opiejeanne
@catclub: Tupping? She’s not a sheep, is she?
Laughing because I haven’t seen that term in a while.
opiejeanne
@No Drought No More: hey now. We lived in one for two years because it was where we could afford a nice house; got out as soon as we could.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: don’s change it!
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
I see what you did there.
J R in WV
@D58826:
I suspect that for some people, they think their ass starts right under their shoulder blades. For others it starts down around the middle of their crack.
Maybe I’ve been abusing all these women we hug when we see each other every couple of months? Surely they would stop holding their arms out for a hug when we get together at an event/dinner/party???
J R in WV
@Barbara:
My close friend Lena Duerham is NOT a racist !! Wait, whut?
Seriously, I do not know Ms Dunham personally, but from reading about her and the kind of work she does, I find it incredible that anyone could accuse her of racism without video of her dancing around a flaming religious symbol at midnight in a completely covering white costume.
This is as stupid as groping. Your ass doesn’t start at your waist, and some people pull their waist up to their cleavage. This stuff is completely undefined. No one gropes someone out in public, or in front of their husband/wife!!
J R in WV
@Ridnik Chrome:
HR will probably try to stop dating internal to a company. Sad. Mrs and I met working together as summer vacation relief while in college. Like interns but on the payroll. About 49 years ago.
And a hard 50 years it has been!!
;-)
JaneSays
@bemused: There is other incriminating evidence – a contemporaneous message posted on FB alongside the photo that read, “Dude — Al Franken TOTALLY molested me! Creeper!”
That certainly wouldn’t suffice as conclusive evidence in a court of law, but then again, neither would any of the evidence against Moore. But it does lend a little more credence to the allegation. If it were the photo alone coupled with her claim, I would agree that it would seem a lot more questionable. The fact that she characterized Franken’s behavior in the photo as “molesting” (which was probably a bit hyperbolic) at the time the photo was taken (long before we knew the pussygrabber would even be running for the presidency) sort of suggests that Al was being a little more touchy than she was comfortable with.
I don’t believe we should base the credibility of these sorts of claims on the political leanings of the accusers. Women of all political ideologies have been subjected to inappropriate touching, harassment, and abuse by men of all political persuasions. If we’re basing our willingness to believe her on whether or not she shares our political ideology, we’re tacitly giving wingnuts justification for dismissing accusations against theirs when they come from anyone who happens to be on the left. I know they’re going to do that regardless of how we approach it, but it would be better if they weren’t able to defend it by saying that the left always dismisses accusations against Democrats when they are made by people on the right.
Ted Kennedy was a giant in the senate, and in many ways a proud icon for progressivism. I’d like to think that the good he did while he was there outweighed the bad in his personal life. But let’s not kid ourselves – if any Republican today found themselves in the exact same situation as Teddy did in 1969 in Chappaquiddick with Mary Jo Kopechne, we’d be calling for their head. As we should.
What Franken did was in no way as bad as what Moore has been accused of doing or what Trump has been accused of doing. But if we take the position that, “they always get away with much worse, so why should we be held to a higher standard?”, then we empower the abuse to continue. Franken’s behavior was far from the worst we’ve read about in recent months, but it was still bad. And when the first accusation came out, a lot of people on the left argued that while what he did was inexcusably bad, it didn’t merit his immediate resignation. I was one of them. But for myself and many others, there was a caveat that went along with that – “as long as this was an isolated incident and no other accusers come forward”.
Well, that is no longer the case. I can’t in good conscience give him a pass a second time, because he already burned his “get out of jail for free” card after Tweeden’s accusation. And if the only thing available in this second accusation was the photo (which doesn’t show enough for us to know whether or not he was grabbing her butt) and her word, I might be a little hesitant. But the fact that she was creeped out by it AT THE TIME and said so on her FB post leads me to believe that the accusation is most likely true. And while an unwanted butt grab of an adult woman is arguably not as bad as groping a 14 year old girl, it’s still inexcusably bad. And if it happened after a previous incident with similarly inappropriate touching, it shows a pattern of behavior.
Ultimately, I asked myself the question, “IF a Republican were in the exact same position as Al Franken with the exact same accusations and evidence, would I be calling for their resignation?”
Yes, I would. Absolutely. I can’t let him off because I like his politics.
J R in WV
@No Drought No More:
We have some really, really rural property in Arizona. It’s 3 miles and 40 minutes to the blacktop road from our little house. There are mountain lions, rattle snakes, coyotes, deer, antelope, coatimundi (yeh, rare, I haven’t seen one yet) and lots of other desert fauna, foxes, etc. I carry a sidearm because of the mountain lions, one stalked me at my cousin’s place a few miles away late one night, very scary! The deed has verbiage about a home owner’s association.
There’s one sign on one gate (yes, kind of a gated community – kinda) that says “trespassers will be shot” and others with similar sentiments. The first gate coming in is often closed to keep the cattle in, sometimes to keep horses in. Sometimes those with cattle or horses leave it open, so the rule is leave it the way you find it.
The last winter I went out to work on the house I was told about a new property owner who was excited about starting up the “home owner’s association” which had never existed. She was told that no one else wanted a home owner’s association, and that if she started one that would be very bad for community relations. I agree that home owner’s associations are appropriate in some conditions, but in a rural space with lots from 10 to 120 acres, dirt roads, mountain foothills, I don’t think so.
I’m glad the neighbors talked her out of starting up a HOA. I hates ’em!
J R in WV
Here’s my take on this:
People who are officeholders and are convicted in court will need to resign. If they are not convicted, they won’t need to resign, but will have a disadvantage in their next election campaign.
People who are not holding office will need to run with a disadvantage, the accusations pending against them. If they win and then are convicted, they will have to resign. If they lose, they’re out of politics. If they are convicted before the election, they need to be removed from the ballot and replaced by a new candidate who isn’t a convicted criminal.
If their offenses are not crimes, or if the statute of limitations has expired, there won’t be a court case, just the statements of the witnesses and victims against the statements of the accused.
Right now “judge” Roy Moore is in that running for office, accused but not convicted category. He looks as guilty as sin to me, I wouldn’t vote for him for dog-catcher. Voters have to make up their own minds about his honor.
Republicans apparently have no honor any more. I don’t know if they should be allowed on juries under these circumstances. “We need that vote more than we need to exclude pedophiles from the U S Senate!” There’s a learning experience for would-be creepers!!!
ETA: Any office holder who says “We need that vote more than we need to exclude pedophiles from the U S Senate!” should be impeached instantly. That Alabama can’t do that says a lot about Alabama, home of exploding churches and dead civil rights workers. I spent some months in AL back in the early 1970s while in the Navy. The racism at that time was unbelievable. Apparently, it still is. For shame, Alabama!!