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Congressional Sexual Harassment Allegations, Investigations, and Resignations
Jacobkosh
Gamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
Gamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
This is a thread for discussing the recent wave of sexual harassment allegations leveled at Congressmen and Senators.
It is for discussing specifics of the cases: the whos, wheres, whens and so forth. Talk about the personalities involved; talk about the circumstances. Talk about the steps being taken, or not being taken, to investigate these charges or to discipline perpetrators.
However, this is not for discussing past, present, or future elections. The fact that Congressman So-and-So is located in a vulnerable district or that Senator Thatguy's poll numbers have wiggled might be intensely interesting to you personally but it is out of bounds for the thread. Roy Moore may be talked about here, but again, only in terms of the actual case: what's happening in Alabama is not germane, for our purposes, to this thread.
I understand that these guidelines may not be for everyone - and that's fine! There are many other venues outside of the PA forums to have the conversation you want to have. In fact, if you feel that way at all, it's better to be cognizant of that now rather than later, as enforcement will be strict. Either way, thank you in advance for your cooperation in having a productive, focused conversation.
It is for discussing specifics of the cases: the whos, wheres, whens and so forth. Talk about the personalities involved; talk about the circumstances. Talk about the steps being taken, or not being taken, to investigate these charges or to discipline perpetrators.
However, this is not for discussing past, present, or future elections. The fact that Congressman So-and-So is located in a vulnerable district or that Senator Thatguy's poll numbers have wiggled might be intensely interesting to you personally but it is out of bounds for the thread. Roy Moore may be talked about here, but again, only in terms of the actual case: what's happening in Alabama is not germane, for our purposes, to this thread.
I understand that these guidelines may not be for everyone - and that's fine! There are many other venues outside of the PA forums to have the conversation you want to have. In fact, if you feel that way at all, it's better to be cognizant of that now rather than later, as enforcement will be strict. Either way, thank you in advance for your cooperation in having a productive, focused conversation.
+1
Posts
What we know is strange enough. Two years ago he apparently approached some of his female staffers about the possibility of being surrogate mothers for he and his wife. The Frankses have been married 37 years and were unable to have children without medical assistance. They have twin 8 year old daughters from a surrogate. Franks is 60.
That's too old to be thinking about more babies.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI, Detroit area) resigned for sexually harassing staff members and having paid out multiple settlements with Congress' fucked up secret process.
Senator Franken (D-MN) announced that he plans to resign, but did not specify a date. He is accused by 8 women of either unwanted kisses or groping. He denies some of the charges outright, says he remembers other situations differently, but resigned anyway after pressure from his Democratic Senate colleagues, particularly the women who all released statements saying he should resign on Wednesday.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) announced his intention to resign on January 31. Speaker Ryan basically shoved him out the door, which says to me it was probably more a my staff are my Handmaidens situation than what is the current public story. For Ryan to take moral action, something truly reprehensible must have been going on.
There is also some increasing pressure from his colleagues, notably Mia Love so far, for Rep. Blake Farenthold to resign after news broke that he paid his sexual harassment settlement in 2014 with taxpayer dollars. So far he has just announced plans to reimburse the government for that $84k.
Finally, there is talk of a major report done by CNN and the Washington Post which will contain allegations against something like 40 members of Congress coming soon.
There really doesn't need to be. Asking a subordinate "would you bear my child" is so beyond the pale that it's just mindblowing that he thought it was okay.
I mean, the red flags are obvious.
Are you going to fire a person performing poorly who is carrying your child?
Is the employee going to fear being fired because she said no to this fucking insane request?
It's lose-lose, there is no good angle for this for either party. What an idiot.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
failing? there's a massive difference between not bring it up (we did and still do) and gop voters simply not giving a damn.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
My favorite part of that article: Having principles is not a weakness and is shameful the attempt to turn it into one.
Jake Sherman is a senior writer for Politico.
I hope she is okay.
Edit: Further followup:
The Associated Press is a news wire service.
...wow.
I just...ew.
Yes, but I wasn't expecting "using The Handmaid's Tale as a guidebook for employee relations" level of gross.
I am not a fan of people resigning from office after accusations. It gives them a way to avoid investigation as the alleged incidents are too old for criminal charges. It gives accusations the same weight as presumption of guilt.
In an ideal environment, ethics investigations would be thorough, fair and the results would be published to record. Resignation to avoid scrutiny irritates me because we have a process. I'd have liked Al Franken to go through that process though I understand in the current political climate, it would never have been motivated by justice.
That seems shady as fuck. What possible reason could you have for making that offer? There is no way that going through legitimate channels for a surrogate would be anywhere near that expensive. I'm sure you get to be very selective about who you chose, so why the extra money to make it someone who works for you? I can only think of terrible reasons.
I flip flop on this quite a bit, but I think it essentially hinges on how much you trust the media. In these types of cases there is almost nothing that an "investigative team" can do that a reporter can't. You basically talk to people involved, and their friends and family, and look for a consistent story. Plus verifying whatever dates/locations you can based on published information. So if you believe the reporters have done their due diligence and the story isn't a complete fabrication, then you are not going to get anything new from an investigation.
Typically once multiple sources across political divides have started running the story I find it pretty safe to assume that someone has done their due diligence and the story is as credible as it will ever be.
I think that the level of credibility required for us to demand a politician resign while facing allegations of misbehavior requires a diligent and careful investigation of the facts. Multiple sources all making allegations which are impossible to disprove do not make a case stronger.
If we do not have a strict, diligent and impartial investigation of facts and we simply rely on 'outrage' to make politicians step down then we will create an irresistible lure for corruption. Even if no woman has ever made a false report in the past, then the idea that a few women can bring down a democratic senator simply by making the accusation of having grabbed her butt on one occasion while in private with no witnesses and 10 years ago, will be irresistible to Republicans and the media agencies who support them.
If we end up in a situation where...
Democrats always believe women
Republicans almost never do
Democrats always call for and receive resignation from the accused
Republicans don't care
Then the imbalance of power in that situation is impossibly tempting. We KNOW that the GOP will be willing to create false claims. It is inconceivable that they would not.
Believe women must refer to how we treat the women. Not to how we treat political figures and others who are accused.
edit - And I know this is an unpopular position. I know that the main problem in society is that women are not believed, face cruel discrimination from coworkers and others, and have nothing to gain even in victory in a harassment case. I know that false accusations in society in general are vanishingly rare right now, and are most often situations where drugs and alcohol made a woman believe something had happened when it can be proved to have not happened (accusation was not false to her, it was just that what she remembered happening did not) but I don't think the same factors exist in political accusations with misdemeanors.
I can agree with this in the same world in which I trust congress to launch an honest ethical investigation into the behavior of a political opponent or ally.
I don't really think trusting the media to be the final arbiter of truth on this is necessarily a good thing.
I don't care who makes accusations, I can't honestly say I trust the general media about this topic. It's been a sensational time with at least one attempt at discrediting a story through infiltration.
Trust (accusers) but verify (accusations).
Verify what though? Unless you think the media outlets are lying or fabricating stories, any investigation is going to return essentially the same facts. Victim says something happened, accused says it either didn't happen or the context was different, victim's friends/family support the story of the victim. That is likely the only information that exists, and it is so trivially easy to check that it's hard for me to believe that at least one reporter along the way wouldn't call around before running the story.
I honestly don't understand what people expect from an investigation.
Don’t fret and worry that some random man is irreplaceable. Be excited for all the amazing, talented women we will get once we fully mobilize that voter base and tap into that talent pool. We are a party that depends primarily on women’s votes and still have them make up less than a third of our congress people and senators. We’re leaving talent on the table because of the patriarchal society we inherited, the same society that taught Al Franken it was okay to grab women’s butts in photograph opportunities. Openly rejecting that will be our strength, not our weakness.
We must demand a standard of proof. Otherwise the incentive for corruption is infinite. At the very least, having an impartial body who could investigate all claims would mean that all congress people would be equally vulnerable to them. If resignation only comes from public outcry, then Democrats will be accused and resign in droves and nothing will happen to Republicans.
False claims are rare because there is no reason for women to create them. We are proposing creating a MASSIVE incentive for women to create them in relation to Democratic congress people. I would argue further that we have already done so.
Veterans don't typically lie about other peoples behaviour in war. The swift boat veterans lied about John Kerry. Veterans don't lie because there is no incentive for them to do so. By creating an incentive, a group of veterans were found who could be persuaded to lie. After this, we were very suspiscious of these unprovable claims and the amount of swift boating decreased, replaced with different sorts of attacks.
None of this says to me that blindly believing accusations and demanding the accused step down is a good thing. Do you genuinely believe that these incidences will be limited to men only? Perhaps in the sphere of sexual misconduct, but I can assure you that racism's 'metoo' moment is coming, and neither women nor men have any protection there.
In fact, minority men will be the ones most swiftly torn down by blindly believing accusations. Because one of the few areas where we have seen problems in society with false accusations is between white women and minority men. Perhaps white men rarely face false allegations of sexual assault, but minority men do.
I do not believe this standard of proof is high enough. Or, if it has to be, it must be applied fairly by an external agency.
If this is the standard for dismissal of a senator...
"Involved with any crime equally or more significant than grabbing a womans butt with coerced consent or less, on more than two occasions at any point in their life, where those occasions are supported by any evidence that the people involved may have met close to that time"
Then it must be applied to Republicans and Democrats alike.
Second: Even in the annals of "how dumb do you need to be?", offering $5 million to sleep with your staffers and impregnate them with your seed when you're a pillar of the pro-life community sets a new bar for all future cases to clear. I'll bet "well, at least he didn't try to make his staffers be his surrogate wombs," will be a new favorite defense for pundits everywhere.
Third: this looks to be only the beginning. CNN and the Washington Post are supposedly investigating rumors floated concerning as many as 30 representatives.