Real Democrats Will Not Help Repunks Oust Ralph Northam and Overturn The Virginia Gubernatorial Election!

It was amusing watching Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night with arch-conservo  Trump supporter Jack Kingston. When the Ralph Northam brouhaha popped up Kingston attempted to criticize Northam’s behavior as an outlier for the era, sputtering “Nobody did that!  And I’m from the Deep South…”

Like a breath of intelligence and fresh air, Malcolm Nance, the career U.S. Counterterrorism Intelligence Office and frequent Real Time guest, interjected:  “Well, you exercised your racism, you didn’t need to put blackface on.”  Then Malcolm, mature adult that he was (and whom the Dems would do well to emulate) said: "If you want to know how black people feel about Ralph Northam then ask a black person!"

And evidently, The Washington Post did, in a recent poll and lo and behold, found that 58 percent of Virginia's African-Americans backed Northam and didn't want him to resign. Were they stupid, blind or misguided? Nope, they knew what side their 'bread was buttered on' given Gov. Northam has been the one to help them via Medicaid expansion. 

Something the Reep rat Trumpers who dug up Northam's yearbook (to try to overturn the 2017 gubernatorial election)  would never do. Nor would any "next in line" Repuke Gubernatorial candidate.

Worse, we now know the would-be,  next in line Dem - Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax  - already has more than he can handle with two sexual assault accusations: one from 2000 (when he attended Duke), the other from 2004.   The Virginia AG, Herring, also has a "blackface" indiscretion trailing him which the Repunks are trying to turn into a federal crime. 

Let me -  for the record -  say that there is nothing noble,  endearing or justified about wearing blackface.  But it is emphatically not the same as carrying around Confederate flags at a rally in which a protester was run down (in Charlottesville, in 2017).  As in the case of the #MeToo accusations, including those which brought down Al Franken, nuance, balance and temperance are needed.  Besides, which is more important: the legislation passed now in VA to help poor minorities, OR crucifying an otherwise decent governor for a youthful indiscretion 35 years ago?

As Gayle King put it on CBS Early Show after interviewing Gov. Northam, "How many of us would like to have stuff dug up from when we were in our 20s?"   Well, indeed, and I sure as shit wouldn't!  But to avoid moral absolutism there needs to be a statute of limitations on exposing youthful indiscretions (often stupid) and acting on them in such a way as to destroy a person's career or election in the present.  There needs to be, in other words, common sense as opposed to blind outrage -driven reaction.

Enter now the WSJ's editor -at-large Gerard Baker, who writes  ('Virginia's Governor And The Overlords of Outrage', p. C2, Feb. 9-10):

"I wonder what today's virtue police would have made of St. Paul or St. Augustine."

Also noting Prince Harry's ill -advised  2005 wearing of a costume with Nazi insignia.   Was Harry actually a Nazi sympathizer? No, only a moron would believe so. He was just another 20-something who made a stupid choice, like Northam emulating Michael Jackson in blackface.  He acknowledged it,  now it's time to move on.  Or as Mr. Baker put it (ibid.):

"If I apply for a job somewhere should I be held accountable for something I said or did 25 years ago? There are no easy answers but I'm sure that the climate the overlords of outrage are creating is increasingly intolerant of human frailty."

Besides, what if crucifying that frailty has adverse implications for millions in the present?

Bill Maher as well as Malcolm Nance pointed to the expansion of health care in Virginia which has now reached 400,000. Would anyone with a working brain trade that advance for over reacting to a "gotcha" episode - triggered by what a band of Trumpie dregs dug up - in order to destroy those very same benefits? Think about that!

As I've often always been told - from the time I was at Mgsr. Pace High in Miami - if you are searching for evil's entry in a situation always look at the source. The source in this case is a vile den of Trumpers operating under the website Big League Politics.   These vermin are not operating out of the goodness of their hearts, concern for Virginia's African-American residents, or anything positive. NO, they are out to overturn an election by hurling scandal pies at the wall to see what sticks. And hopefully ousting all three Dems.  Are these "Big League" maggots behind the effort to oust all three? Well, Malcolm Nance the counterterror expert believes so, saying on Real Time:  "When you see this much coincidence, it's a plan".
  
In other words, a deliberate conspiracy to destroy the democratic leadership in the state- which may never be recovered again - to the detriment of all blacks in the Commonwealth.

I totally agree, which is why I beseech the Democrats to give up their prickly little "zero tolerance" moralist consciences which will only end up giving Virginia to the Republican slime. That also means the power to redraw congressional boundaries in a swing state - including for 7 of 11 districts the Dems recently won.  "Stupid is as stupid does" was once a much quoted popular movie line (from 'Forrest Gump').  Dems can let it become their motto in political strategy.

Do they really want that in order to pound their chests in some over-weighted moral superiority?  As Maher pointed out, it is stupid to trade a current good affecting a majority of black people,  for outrage against a dumb indiscretion that transpired over three decades ago. Especially when that outrage may well destroy the current good.

Northam has said in recent media comments he intends to wholeheartedly pursue greater racial equity in the Commonwealth. Fine, then hold him to it.  But at the same time don't seek to oust the guy that-   right now  -  is doing the most to help the minorities in the state.

Unless, of course, you're content to claim the elusive higher moral stage at the expense of rolling back all the gains made thus far. As well as ceding the 2020 election to Trump and his cabal. 

Memo To #MeToo: Proportionality Is Not Compatible With "ZeroTolerance"

Sen. Al Franken - victim of a zero tolerance #MeToo Movement and Zephyr Teachout.

Even as allegations of rape were made yesterday against entertainment phenom Russell Simmons, and Harvey Weinstein's pig nature of sex aggression has been exposed in an op-ed by Salma Hayek, e.g.

Salma Hayek:
Harvey Weinstein
Is My Monster Too

We've seen a few others are reconsidering harsh sanctions (such as resignation)  meted out against lesser transgressors - such as Sen. Al Franken. They appear to have recognized that conflation of serious sexual aggression with boorish and loutish behavior is not in the long term interest of the #MeToo movement.. Indeed, it is likely to be counterproductive as the political costs become more apparent, especially after the Ds possibly lose Franken's seat next November.

According to Zephyr Teachout, in a NY Times op-ed (I'm Not Convinced Franken Should Quit), she's now having second thoughts over Sen. Al Franken's ouster by the "MeToo's". It is well she (and others) should, especially liberals that fell for this farce. We now know Franken was absolutely correct when he said he shouldn't have had to resign with the  POS Trump still in office. The worst aspect of Franken's loss is that MN governor Mark Dayton plans to install his Lt. Governor as a caretaker until the primary next year.  A real Dem Senate candidate would then, presumably,  make him or herself known and compete. But unlike appointing an official sitting Senator there is no guarantee the seat will be retained by the Ds. (The last time that was done, in 1992, a Repuke won - the Dem all but hobbled from the primary.)

MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki was himself dumbfounded by Drayton's move as he tried to explain it to Rachel Maddow last week. He finally came up with the excuse that: "Well, he's made it clear he's retiring so he doesn't want to leave on a partisan note and would rather let candidates fight it out in primaries".  Fair enough, but that dumb move isn't likely to help the Dem numbers in the Senate - even if Doug Jones AL win holds up. And it is nearly as dumb a move as the Dems ousting Franken in the first place.

Teachout argues that in Franken's case there was not enough nuance, and she is correct. At the same time she claims to also share the "zero tolerance" approach of others in the #MeToo movement, which I have already criticized as moral absolutism. In other words,  like accusing a jaywalker and murderer of the same magnitude crime and punishing each to the same extent.  By its very definition zero tolerance accepts NO form of misbehavior - whether boorish groping or actually assaulting a woman- as deserving differential sanction.  All must be punished to the same extent. So Franken had to suffer the exact same punishment - resignation - as if he'd actually been accused of a sexual assault, similar to Matt Lauer's numerous aggressions before his firing from the Today show.


Teachout's statement is as follows:.

"I also believe in zero tolerance. And yet, a lot of women I know — myself included — were left with a sense that something went wrong last week with the effective ouster of Al Franken from the United States Senate. He resigned after a groundswell of his own Democratic colleagues called for him to step down."

Yes, he did resign and as I previously posted the "groundswell" against him was actually a Dem- sponsored and abetted Kangaroo court that ousted him. Thus Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's exclaiming "I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping you are having the wrong conversation."   Adding:
"You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable."

"None of it is acceptable"  so therefore even if you act like a boor and overgrown teenage horn dog you have got to go. Same as if you were Harvey Weinstein assaulting dozens of women.  Or Roy Moore preying on young girls. Pardon me, but this is insane.   But this is precisely where the contradiction enters in Teachout's piece, i.e. she is basically contradicting herself - on the one hand expressing the need for more "nuance" but on the other believing in zero tolerance. Sorry, you cannot have both. Logically this is analogous to trying to square the circle. It doesn't work. If you opt for zero tolerance you cannot be for any form of nuance - which as I've written before- demands "a weighing or interpolation of actions based on critical thinking combined with the exercise of ethical provisionalism. "

Where the latter "provides a middle ground for sanctions imposed on a scale of actions or infractions." On the other hand, with zero tolerance there is "total loss of moral perspective which then insists on the same penalties for all transgressions  - the serious and simply boorish."

Yet Teachout appears to truly believe these can actually be integrated, as when she writes:

"Zero tolerance should go hand in hand with two other things: due process and proportionality. As citizens, we need a way to make sense of accusations that does not depend only on what we read or see in the news or on social media. Due process means a fair, full investigation, with a chance for the accused to respond. And proportionality means that while all forms of inappropriate sexual behavior should be addressed, the response should be based on the nature of the transgressions."

Thereby proving she is logically attempting to square the circle.  "Due process" itself implies a measured legal response - weighing the infraction against legal sanctions historically meted out for such. Hence, one does not (as a rule) impose the same ten -year prison sentence for destroying property with a pipe bomb as for spitting on the sidewalk.  Due process then is the very opposite of the rush to judgment which characterizes the mob action of Franken's fellow Dems - especially the female contingent led by Gillibrand.

"Proportionality" means just what I wrote earlier: that there is an interpolation of the gravity of actions which then necessitates an interpolation or weighing of proportional penalties. For sure what Franken was accused of - while boorish and immature- doesn't measure up to what Matt Lauer and Russell Simmons (as well as Roy Moore) were accused of.

She goes on:

"Both were missing in the hasty call for Senator Franken’s resignation."

Yes, because it is the nature of a zero tolerance or moral absolutist milieu to enable a rush to judgment. That is exactly why nuanced ethical provisionalism is counter to zero tolerance, and why the latter must not be employed in these cases.

She goes on:

"Some might point out, rightly, that Congress doesn’t have good procedures for dealing with harassment accusations. In fact, the congressional process to date has gone something like this: Lift up the rug and sweep the accusations underneath. It’s delay, deny, pay hush money and avoid the consequences."

Adding:

"Here’s what a fair system might look like: Congress should empower an independent arbiter to investigate complaints — like a Government Accountability Office, with trained experts in the field. Clearly understood mechanisms for reporting should be established. A timetable should be set that ensures complaints receive a prompt response. Both the accuser and the accused could submit questions and would have access to trained advocates and free legal consultation."

But this is a pipedream that'll never happen. At least not until the whole political culture is changed which means many more women in top Senate positons and in the Congress overall.  It also will never happen until those voices like Zephyr Teachout's come out squarely on the side of proportionality and reject the meme of zero tolerance. As I forecast to wifey, and she agrees, on the absolutist path the movement is currently going it will implode. This will happen as a sizeable faction of liberal women break off, especially after they behold the political costs of having gotten rid of Al Franken - and a goddamned Repuke mutt taking his place next year.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/jill-richardson/76740/we-agree-assault-is-bad-let-s-agree-on-how-to-punish-it

Dems Are Accessories In Political Hit Job On Al Franken

Sen. Al Franken: His robust questioning of criminal Repukes was clearly too much, so Dem toadies had to be enlisted to take him down.



"Would Senator Gillibrand resign if several people came forward to allege she sexually harassed/abused them?

Why does Franken have to be forced out of office? What happened to due process? Shouldn't the residents of the state he represents have a say in this matter; not just a contingent of Democratic Senators."   - Comment on  NY Times website

It now appears Sen. Al Franken will resign tomorrow,  marking one of the most successful "dirty trick" jobs the Repukes have ever pulled using trained pawns. This time,  getting Dem Senators to act as accessories after the fact, piling on Franken after a 7th accuser has come forward about "forced kissing",  for god's sake. Thereby putting kisses, a mock grope and some butt pinches (MAYBE- we have no evidence only claims)  on the same level as the child molestations of  Roy Moore.   This followed a coordinated Senate gang up,  compliments of female Dem Senators led by Kirsten Gillibrand - who I used to respect. Not any more, not when she can so easily be manipulated and used as a tool to destroy a fellow Senator's career - merely out of unproven, unsubstantiated claims. And NO -I do not believe them just because a woman or women said them. As Bari Weiss wrote in a recent NY Times piece:

"We don’t owe anyone our unthinking belief. “Trust but verify” may not have the same ring as “believe all women.” But it’s a far better policy."-

Damned straight!

As I wrote in a previous blog post:

Some outspoken feminists and defenders of women's rights  have actually come out in public and insisted "Zero tolerance!"   Meaning that even the slightest perceived infraction must receive the full, maximal weight of penalty. In other words, analogous to putting a jaywalker in a gas chamber.

But this is bonkers and counterproductive. If all infractions major and minor receive the same condemnation and sanction - say expulsion from office and equal destruction of reputation -  then there is total loss of balance, of moral perspective. In that case, what we end up with is a misfiring moralism and an atmosphere of feeding frenzy, not morality.  We end up with absolutism as opposed to conscious interpolation of actions differing in intent and transgressive impact.

What is needed  instead of "zero tolerance" absolutism is to arrive at a weighing or interpolation of actions based on critical thinking combined with the exercise of ethical provisionalism. Just as provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and  relative systems, it also provides a middle ground for sanctions imposed on a scale of actions or infractions.  Thus, while one may rightly demand a capital punishment (say lethal injection) for a mass murderer of infants in their cribs, one may not do so for a jaywalker.

The scale of infraction is vastly different, hence it is madness to apply the same sanction to both violations.  By the same token, provisional ethics bids us withhold the hand of punitive extremism, say for infractions like Al Franken's,  compared to those of  Roy Moore (sexually assaulting children).  Hence it is also madness to demand the expulsion of Al Franken for his alleged violations, which are nowhere in the same league as Moore's.  It is also nonsense to demand Franken's resignation if you don't also demand Donnie Dotard's for his much more malicious "grabbing pussies".


Former GOP Rep. (FL) Dave Jolly put it well in his appearance on Lawrence O''Donnell's show on Wednesday, that "we have to take care to distinguish fallibility from criminality".  This is especially as Mr. Jolly expects many more allegations to erupt in the coming weeks. As these further accusations pile up one must bear in mind that Roy Moore's advances on underage girls amount to the criminality (pedophilia), but Al Franken's mock grope of  Leeann Tweeden  does not.  Neither do his "inappropriate touches" - construed as such by assorted women who posed with him in takes at the MN state fair.

 -----

  And let us pause here to note again that not all allegations made by women are true, especially if there is no clear evidence of such. While we desire to give women's claims of sexual harassment validation, we cannot ignore the possibility that there may also be ulterior motives in play- and bad actors.  These motives (and strategies) didn't just originate recently but have been around for decades under the guise of "dirty tricks" -  e.g. since the Nixon campaign's tactics against Dems in 1968 and 1972..

Let us note the first to come out and level accusations at Franken was Leeann Tweeden  .  She was clever-  perhaps too clever by half - in also producing a photo. This she likely saved since the transgression occurred to use as a conservative payback, as she looked forward to a career as a conservative talk host. Franken wasn't a Senator yet but Tweeden perhaps had an instinct, or maybe intuition, he might have a future political career. If and when the time came she could then pull out her evidence and lower the boom, in the right circumstances.

Indeed, it also appears Nixon- era dirty trickster Roger Stone might have put Tweeden up to it, and yeah, you can call me conspiracy -minded if you want, see:

  Roy Stone knew well ahead of time that Al Franken was going to be accused of something. 


 We know also Tweeden's background has indeed been exposed as "a Conservative talk show host, conservative commentator on many shows,  Trump supporter, model.:"   Left blogger Amanda Marcotte, in a recent salon.com piece,  suspected a Reepo dirty trick or political stunt after Tweeden came out with her claims. However, Amanda perversely invoked that to insist Franken resign -which was total bollocks  - on the fear the Reeptards might employ it later.. According to Marcotte "if this is a political stunt then the people behind it surely want Franken to stay".

Of course! And Tweeden and her conservo allies can now point to a victory enabled by Dem weaklings acting as accomplices because they insist on a stupid, conflationary,  "zero tolerance" policy.   Thus Sen. Gillibrand's exclaiming "I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping you are having the wrong conversation."   Adding:

"You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable."

So the moral scolds like Gillibrand appear to have won.  In this new climate of moral absolutism and "zero tolerance"  I guess  we can expect child rapists and wanton kissers (like Franken)  to suffer the exact same sanctions. Wifey conjectures that the Dem Senate women were emboldened and triggered into action by TIME's earlier selection of the #MeToo movement as "Person of the Year". Who knows? . I hope they are all satisfied in their exultation after tomorrow,  but are also aware of the can of worms they've opened with their imperious hyper rectitude.

 That is, now anyone's past from years ago- including minor sexual indiscretions -  can be dredged up and re-litigated by the pseudo-moral scolds to destroy their current careers. How many of us really, seriously, would be able to withstand such scrutiny?  Let's please let all those pure as the driven snow, without any moral blemishes, cast the first 'stones'.

Lawrence O'Donnell ruminated on his 'Last Word' show that "perhaps the Democrats have now risen to a higher moral standard."  Maybe. But cynic that I am, I suspect it is more about political expediency - and believing that if they can just ditch their "Roy Moores" (never mind the violations weren't the same) they can expect a huge, unencumbered wave win in the mid terms next year. Let us hope they're right - though I won't be donating any more $$$ to their campaigns.

What was really choice yesterday is seeing and hearing guppy mouth  Sen. Mitch McConnell also calling  for Mr. Franken to leave the Senate. This barely days after he did a 180 and has now opted to temper his opposition to pederast Roy Moore. He will "let the people of Alabama decide" Moore's fate in that state's Dec. 12th election. What a gracious POS.

Way to go, Sens. Schumer, Gillebrand and company!   You stupid, effing dupes!

See also: 

https://www.liberalforum.org/topic/221984-a-coordinated-hit-job-against-democrats-is-underway-and-al-franken-wont-be-the-last/

Update: Dec. 7th - Sen. Franken to resign:

His statement:

“I of all people am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party,”

Thanks for your stalwart service, Senator! And you did hit the nail on its proverbial head. It is a pity the Democrats took the easy road of adopting zero tolerance (for political expediency) , rather than exercising their presumed intellectual capacity to make the case that the acts of Moore and yourself amount to comparing chalk and cheese.  As Bill Maher put it in his last show - it should not have been that difficult to do.  See also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/us/politics/al-franken-senate-sexual-harassment.html