Just saying.

It's obvious to me that all this is part of a strategy and maybe we should let it play out before making a judgement call about Gillibrand and the Democratic Party. This is one thing that bugs the shit out of me about DU and Dems in general. One setback is an instant catastrophe.

2: Not yet.

3: She knows she did not take the "moral high ground"...she knew she was making a cynical calculated ploy to expand her own visibility/power. She did it with the Clintons and now with Franken.

Take her at her word: She is untrustworthy.

The personal anger shit needs to stop, she was a group of many other senators who called for this.

Franken has to resign, I have no problem with what she did.

single hearing are also going to find they made a mistake...none will be the Democratic nominee.

She made a public statement, the person who started this would be Al Franken.

And she's caused enormous damage all around.

Kristen didn’t cause damage... this is just ridiculous.

If the accused is innocent, how did the accused caused the damage? This doesn't have anything with a court of law.

So it’s all back to Al.

so now its back to you.

Facts matter. There is not a single shred of credible evidence against Franken. Not one.

But sure whatever.

No one is allowed to have an opinion or judge facts for themselves unless they're the court of law? Hardly.

If someone accuses you you started it? Regardless of the veracity of the claims?

Sorry but that is some class A bullshit.

Two different activities.

One is a an accusation and defense.

The other is a rush to judgment.

Two separate things entirely.

The only person responsible for his resignation is Al.

That’s the end of it.

Rubbish. Up to the point of Gillibrands intervention, Franken was following due process of ethics investigation, where we would have found out whether there was a transgression severe enough for Franken to go. Instead Gillibrand issued her own summary judgement, and the other cowards followed suit rather than give kudos ground to her. What she did was unforgivable to most fair-minded Democratic supporters. I hope she gets her comeuppance in due course.

Nobody forced him.

Franken had said no to Gillibrand and the other 37, when they said they wouldn't work with him, effectively knifing him in the back and denying him due process ?

Franken would still be a senator, a bunch of people would have asked he resigned he wouldn’t have. There would be accusations flying on both sides (kinda like there are now).

He made the decision, he potentially is the one who groped these people, all of this lies at his feet.

Gillibrand jumped the gun and started the ball rolling to force him out, followed by the sheep. To say otherwise is a lie. As a person of great integrity, he was left with no choice.

Her statement started it. And based on her words, I won't vote for her in a primary. Of course if she managed to win I would vote for her in a general, but she won't. That ship has sailed.

If the allegations were true, I would have no issue with Al Franken resigning. The problem is there is no credibility to them and, in fact, it was clearly a coordinated right wing hit job! THAT IS WHY MANY OF ARE ANGRY AT SENATOR GILLENBRAND! She allowed the false eqivlencies to win again and denied Franken due process!

This blanket dismissal of 8 people is ridiculous.

I have no way of knowing if they are who they say they are.

There are also 4 additional non anonymous accusers.

She gained weight at that time and that made her uncomfortable. All righty then.

(and I do count myself among their numbers).

That was just crazy and she should be ashamed of coming forward with that

and she has her hand on his shoulder.
And yet she is counted as Franken's supposed victim.

There is a reason they didn't come forward.

based on anonymous accusers only.

and I will never believe Franken play grab ass with her while her hubs took the picture.

resignation.

unconvinced that McConnell will seat Franken's replacement. I hope I am wrong.

They signed their names in support.
Half of Franken accusers did not. The other half have VERY questionable ties to right wing rat fuckers.

and a pattern of behavior completely counter to a serial groper.

Not to mention you would have to be insane to serial grope people in front of cameras.

Which is more likely the story from all of his co workers or the story he gets off on groping in front of cameras with not a single picture of him groping anyone to show for it.

How would you feel if a group opposed to you made false accusations about you to your boss, and instead of investigating, your boss forced you to resign?

women's statements. Then I was thinking am I just not wanting to believe them because it's about Al? I mean I'm believing just about everybody else but these women I question...so I'm wondering if I'm letting my own bias cloud my thinking.

then i thought about how ridiculous these claims were. All of them were supposedly done in front of cameras.

So I am being asked to believe that a man that by all accounts by the women he actually works with and spends time with is nothing but respectful and a champion of women's issues is going around groping people in front of their husbands with a camera in their hands.

I am not sure if these claims could be any more ridiculous or unbelievable.

and as such bears more responsibility than others.

Or, she was Schumer's cover, which is almost worse as it indicates that she's clueless.

Either way, it isn't good.

I'm extremely disappointed in all of them, though I suspect it is less about women than it is about appeasing wealthy donors who will become much more wealthy when net neutrality is gone.

We are angry, here. And people who comment on her facebook (I checked a few days ago, I assume it's the same) are angry.

But until we see some data - we really don't know. We just have a skewed sample........

I"m looking forward to some (any!) data on this.

I'm sure she can survive just fine without my vote in the presidential primary and without the paltry amount I'd be able to contribute to a candidate for president. I hope she enjoys the "moral high ground."

B. There is very little personal anger out there towards her

C. She did what she thought was right morally and politically

A simple search just for "Gillibrand": https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=news&q=gillibrand&src=typd

Are these all bots? Check out the bona fides of as many as you want. If you think the outrage is confined to DU, you're kidding yourself.

While most people, I would guess, are more interested in how the tax bill affects them.

Denial is not a helpful tactic in the long run.

Social media is self selecting and isolating.

Fine, you're in denial. You'll get over it.

So that argument falls apart on it's face.

The MSM reports on his Twitter junk all the time. People all over the world read his junk on Twitter.

But I’m not on Twitter not do I plan to be.

And that's good news.

Spent a few days with a group of friends who i know are all democrats but never have been politically active. They have always voted democratic but you would never find them on DU or at a rally. Their main source of news is the TV.

Over dinner the discussion turned to current events, specifically what one of the group reffered to the "perv purge" and how great it was that women were leading the purge. Her specific example was the courage of senator Gillibrand. She was surprised at finding out Franken was "one of the pervs"

So I ask the question. Are we an echo chamber? Do my friends represent the majority of the democratic party?

Even though she’s one of my senators I’ve never paid that much attention. I really didn’t want to vote for her the first time due to her tobacco career. I discussed it with my father and I think he convinced me to. I think she’s a closet r to be honest and I always thought that. She’s from upstate, took a tobacco job and so on. So on some level this doesn’t surprise me.

If she’s reading or being told about her fb pages comments she must realize on some level. There are thousands of comments and none have been deleted. I’ve made three, none of them are gone.

Time will tell how this will play out.

This was not taking the moral high ground this was McCarthyism/ fascism. How anyone can reconcile that this was ok or normal is beyond me. In the space of three weeks an obvious hit job went down and Dems behaved like a bunch of fascists and spineless cowards. It’s all pretty scary.

She herself seemed crazy in a couple of interviews on tv I saw briefly.

did to Franken. If the leadership wants to turn a blind eye to this it's at their own peril.

and provided good cause for looking elsewhere for party leadership

pretty cocky (please pardon the expression) about next year, the primary filing deadline for her Senate seat is just a bit over four months away. We'll see what happens after folks have enough time to speak to their families and potential supporters during the holidays and their aftermath.

I'd bet that Trump would back someone from upstate NY to be a solid challenger in the general election, if he thought that NYC-area voters might be less than enthusiastic about Gillibrand eleven months from now. The GOP has only put forth placeholders for the elections, but please remember that NY has, on occasions in my memory, elected some Republicons statewide, including D'Amato and Pataki. I expect the upstate voters to be energized by Trump, and I expect the Green Party to get some vote from people who are ticked off at Gillebrand.

I believe the people of NY will re-elect her when she runs.

She's also stated flat out she had no designs on a 2020 run.

The clue will be seeing her backpedal in the form of changing the subject by seeming to be passionate about other topics as income inequality.

She wants to be President. So she does need to expand from a single issue candidacy.

But it is too late in IMO.

She had done previous important work on this important issue of systemic abuse and then became an extremist who gambled that sacrificing one man on her altar of purity would not really hurt the party, but would further her own career.

problem solved...

A is an unsupported premise.

B is also an unsupported premise, predicated on little more than anecdotal data.

C is an unproven premise.



I think your personal bias is much more heavily invested in her than any rational thought you'd otherwise use.