AOC joins calls for Bob Menendez to resign from Senate over corruption charges
theguardian.com
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just the latest voice in a Democratic chorus calling for the New Jersey senator to leave office
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined the calls for Bob Menendez to resign, after the Democratic US senator from New Jersey was charged with accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and other gifts as bribes.
Speaking on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez said the charges against Menendez were “extremely serious” and he should step down.
A growing number of Democrats are calling for Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006, to resign.
Menendez is accused of using his position to aid Egypt’s authoritarian government and pressuring federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend.
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This really exemplifies the difference between the two parties.
In the Republican party, when someone is caught taking bribes or luxury vacations from billionaires then the rest of the party rallies behind them and says all the accusations are a fake DemocRAT witch hunt.
In the Democratic party, when someone is caught doing the same thing the rest of the party whines loudly about it and then does nothing to actually force the corrupt politician to face consequences.
Truly the best country on Earth!
No consequences other than the indictment and charges he's facing?
No consequences from the Party.
Democrats believe in The Process, rather than just forcing him out of the Party immediately.
So you're mad that they want there to be an investigation into wrong-doing rather than just jumping straight to the punishment?
It's not like AOC can kick him out of the Senate from her seat in the house.
Where is the investigation?
Seriously? Where do you think the indictment came from?
He's being charged in federal court. Are you mad that the Democratic party itself isn't conducting the investigation?
Do you think the Democratic Party has no levers of power that it could use on him right now? It seems pretty damn clear cut - they found fucking gold bars! There's pictures!
Jesus Christ man, it's been like two days. If things keep going the way it looks like they're going, he'll be gone soon enough.
We'll see.
Actually, after arguing about it for a while, I feel like the Party will probably oust him if it stays in the news cycle. As long as something newsworthy doesn't come along and push this out of the headlines, he's gone. His only hope is something more interesting happens.
What about Al Franken?
Sexual misconduct (with photo evidence!) is a bit different from corruption. You don't have to grope women to become a Senator. You do have to take money from generous donors. The difference between corruption and politics is a line in the sand.
There was no photo evidence though. And that was the problem.
There's definitely a photo of him joke groping a sleeping woman.
No there isn't. Even in the photo it's clear he didn't touch her. You're misrepresenting it wildly. Was the photo crass, tasteless and juvenile. Absolutely. Did he actually grope or sexually assault anyone? There's more evidence that the woman accusing him did herself. Than there is that he did. At least be honest.
That's what I meant by "joke groping"? Actually groping someone isn't a joke, pretending to clearly is (like you said).
Also? That's not "crass, tasteless and juvenile" it's just harassment. If a man treated me that way I'd raise hell too.
How is it harassment? If someone takes a single photograph of you. In a place where you have no expectation of privacy. Regardless of what they may or may not be doing in it. What makes that in and of itself harassment?
And let me be clear here that the following in no way justifies or makes what Franken did acceptable. But there's literally videos and pictures of her physically touching and groping enlisted men on stage. Non-consensually at that. I do not find her a trustworthy or reliable narrator. At worst, franken's photo was a rather benign product of the overly toxic environment in which it was taken. The accuser guilty of much worse. Both were bad. One was worse. What Franken did however doesn't really qualify as harassment without wildly misrepresenting what it was. A single photo. Not a series. And without any demonstrable larger intent to demean or harass. Definitely inappropriate. As is a lot of what goes on with USO shows. But calling it harassment is a bit beyond the pale.
To my knowledge (IANAL) sexual harassment can, in fact, be a single isolated incident and it does not require intent. That would mean that pretending to grope a sleeping woman and photographing it, by itself and in isolation, is harassment. All the other accusations and the other nine women are suspicious, but that one incident is enough.
And the fact that people are still mad about this is sus as hell
Fellas? Just don't get photographed pretending to grope sleeping women. It's that easy.
Harassment absolutely requires intent. If it did not. You could claim harassment simply for walking out your front door. You are being recorded through images and video everywhere you go every moment you spend outside the confines of your house.
There has to be some sort of threshold beyond which something becomes harassment. But before which Things Are not. Otherwise everything is. And nothing is. So your claim is a bit non sequitur.
So when does something become harassment? Does an image simply existing of you constitute harassment? Whether or not you are aware of it. Are all images of you without your consent harassment? If someone took a picture that you didn't know about where someone who wasn't trying to look like they were doing something to you that they weren't. Is that harassment? Or let's say I was going to go full Kids in the Hall and take a forced perspective picture where I look like a giant using my fingers to crush your head. Is it harassment? By simple existence? Or would it become harassment if it was something that I was intentionally pushed and published against your consent. These are important questions to ask and answer. And this is why people are rightfully upset with what happened in franken's case. Let me be clear people like Anthony Weiner can go f*** himself. I think Justice was not done in his case. Only because I think more should have been done.
Let me also be clear here. I am absolutely 100% behind believe all women. Absolutely. Believe all hyperbolic hypocrites? No. And she has objectively been shown to be a hypocrite in this case. There is a reason it was never taken to court. It would have gotten laughed out. It was a picture not taken by franken. It was also a picture not published by Franken to my knowledge. A singular unique picture in which he never touched her. The whole trial was held in the court of public opinion by someone accusing and clearly in bad faith where Justice was never served. And let me be clear. If someone levied such heavy accusations at yourself with so little evidence. You and other people around you would rightly be pissed if your life and career were heavily impacted by it. Pretending that it's suspect that people are still unhappy about an injustice is not their problem. It's yours.
Wrong. As long as a "reasonable person" would consider the act intimidating, hostile, or abusive then it is harassment.
A "reasonable person" is, itself, a legal fiction that creates a standard for a judge or jury to weigh the behavior against.
Hostility literally is intent. Abuse is a product of such intent. Your argument makes no sense. You are literally claiming it's not defined by intent, just by intent. Again, you aren't being objective or honest.
Acts can be intimidating without intent; making sexual gestures to a person while they are sleeping and then taking a sexually compromising photo of an unconscious person is pretty fucking intimidating. Forcibly groping or kissing someone, too, is pretty fucking intimidating.
What was the outcome of the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee's investigation into Al Franken's misconduct?
He was forced to resign because of the investigation started by McConnell.
Don't worry, I found it.
From Wikipedia:
"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent Tweeden's accusations to the Senate Ethics Committee for review, a decision supported by members of both parties, including Franken."
"Although Franken had asked to be allowed to appear before the Senate Ethics Committee to give his side of the story, on December 6 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told him he had to announce his resignation by five o’clock or he could be censured and stripped of committee assignments."
Got to love due process and justice for all.
Fair enough. I thought he testified - so actually, Democrats are worse than I thought. They don't care about The Process or ethics lol
It's... a lot of women though. And looking at the article:
I can't help but notice he doesn't say say "these accusations are lies and the women are liars". He couches everything he's saying in "I would have sworn" and "I'm sorry you feel that way". That's such obvious bullshit he was trained to say by his lawyers lol
I guess people do only what their lawyers tell them to say and not actually go through personal growth; learn that their actions may have negatively affected someone, learn from that experience and grow as a person to become better from what they were before.
They accused him of inappropriate touching and kissing. Am I supposed to believe he didn't know that would negatively affect people, but now he's learned better?
If those things actually happened I want him in prison. If they didn't and those women are all liars, why does he avoid calling them out?
Why does he avoid calling them out? IDK, I can't speak for him or put words in his mouth and I'm not going too either. The cynic in me says he knows he is a high profile political figure that he has gotten on the bad side of dems and republicans and saw him a strong political contender. So strong that if you had ambitions of higher offices he could easily get in your way. But if a convenient opportunity arrived to oust him from office, and get him out of the way so be it, all the better.
Well if he did grope and kiss them, if he called them liars they could take him to court for it. Then, because the burden of proof is lower in civil court, he'd risk actually being found liable even if there isn't enough evidence to convict him of a crime. So, if the allegations are true, then he has a lot of incentive to use this mealy mouthed legaleeze to keep it out of civil court.
And then that swings the other direction! Why hasn't he sued for defamation? The legal burden of proof is lower so he should be able to prove they're lying. Yet he didn't do that.
We'll probably never know for sure, but it really doesn't look good for him.
Franken did say, "I would have sworn that I’d never done anything to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but it’s clear that I must have been doing something." That alone is reason enough not to call them liars. It's clear that he admits he did something to make these women feel uncomfortable, but he himself at the time didn't feel like there was any inappropriate actions at the time. Men are often oblivious to things they do that make women feel uncomfortable, trust me I know, been there before.
Now, for why he hasn't sued them for defamation? The burden is wildly different for public figures vs. private figures in the U.S. The bar for defamation is higher and harder to prove for political figures, to the point it's almost impossible for politicians to prove, so they don't even bother with it. Who knows though, with this Supreme Court I guess that's subject to change now tbh.
He was accused of groping and kissing. Unless he was raised in a literal sex cult there's no fucking way he wouldn't know that would make people uncomfortable.
Democrats believe in The Process, until they don't.
There was an ethics investigation for Franken. That's a process.
Let's see if there is one for Menendez (this time, because this shit has happened before). Maybe Democrats will surprise me!
@queermunist @MicroWave You're right, but I do not think the US is the best country. I'm not saying Russia and/or China are good, they clearly aren't.