Et tu, Stuarte?

[ZiprHead]

HOW AN ALT-RIGHT BOT NETWORK TOOK DOWN AL FRANKEN

http://www.newsweek.com/alt-right-trump-franken-mueller-twitter-810355

"White nationalist provocateurs, a pair of fake news sites, an army of Twitter bots and other cyber tricks helped derail Democratic Senator Al Franken last year, new research shows.

While everyone has been focused on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to support Donald Trump, the Franken takedown originated in—and was propelled by—a strategic online campaign with digital tentacles reaching to, of all places, Japan. Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's initial accusation against Franken became effective propaganda after right-wing black ops master Roger Stone first hinted at the allegation."

 

[TSwizzle]

Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's

LOL. Stopped reading after that.

 

[blastula]

Franken could have remained in office if he wanted. Either he agreed he should go or he caved.

 

[laughing dog]

Franken could have remained in office if he wanted. Either he agreed he should go or he caved.

I think the lesson here is not for the victim but for the bandwagon jumpers. Maybe waiting for the facts to come out is a better course of action.

 

[Toni]

Franken could have remained in office if he wanted. Either he agreed he should go or he caved.

I think the lesson here is not for the victim but for the bandwagon jumpers. Maybe waiting for the facts to come out is a better course of action.

But how else will Kirsten Gillibrand keep her name on the forefront of those to be considered for nomination for POTUS unless they can keep on finding people to castigate and drive out of office over....essentially nothing. And I do mean nothing. Now, 20+ years after the fact, Gillibrand is deciding that Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Lewinski affair(disgusting but I don't agree it was reason to resign) and others are piling on using the Juanita Broaddrick allegations against Clinton to say that he's not fit for decent company. I was never a fan of Clinton, without the rape allegations, which I find credible. I think the long game is to try to keep Hillary off the public stage, permanently. This, I believe is the one note that Gillibrand has to ring to keep herself 'relevant.' As a warrior for women's rights, no matter what women she has to trample to do it. Gillibrand is simply a shill for the right wing but too dumb or too morally corrupt to know or care. I vote for both.

 

[ronburgundy]

Franken could have remained in office if he wanted. Either he agreed he should go or he caved.

I think the lesson here is not for the victim but for the bandwagon jumpers. Maybe waiting for the facts to come out is a better course of action.

The lesson is for Dem politicians to stop being banners of gutless cowardice blowing in whatever direction the wind of the moment appears to be heading. The lesson is for them to stop reacting to the latest social media fueled outrage and realize that most of it is irrational blather by a minority of idiots, even when there are no Russian bots involved. Even at the height of the frenzy about Franken, 71% of women voters in MN did not want the Senator they voted to represent them to resign. I bet that number is closer to 90% now. And they didn't merely want to wait for the "facts" because it is unlikely any clear evidence either way would ever come to light. Many thought (quite rationally) that he should stay even if the accusations were true, because the good he did for women way outweighed the harm of those actions.

Another part of that lesson includes realizing the destructiveness of platitudes like "women must be heard", and that such virtue signaling is a real and destructive problem that is infecting liberal politics. Franken's accusers said what they did and everyone in the world heard it, and still the rhetoric about "women must be heard" was trumpeted to the point where Franken himself parroted it. Given they were already clearly heard, "heard" clearly meant believed and the accuser punished. Once one denies the reality of false sexual assault accusations and promotes the attitude that every unwanted act of touching (or just mimed touching) is "assault", then Franken had no choice but to resign.

 

[ZiprHead]

Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's

LOL. Stopped reading after that.

Are you saying she wasn't a Hooters girl and an adult mag model?

She was featured in the '93 Hooters Calendar and had a pictorial in playboy.

 

[TSwizzle]

Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's

LOL. Stopped reading after that.

Are you saying she wasn't a Hooters girl and an adult mag model?

She was featured in the '93 Hooters Calendar and had a pictorial in playboy.

No, not at all. I'm laughing at the silly tabloidesque lead in, tells me their agenda.

 

[ZiprHead]

Are you saying she wasn't a Hooters girl and an adult mag model?

She was featured in the '93 Hooters Calendar and had a pictorial in playboy.

No, not at all. I'm laughing at the silly tabloidesque lead in, tells me their agenda.

Her only reason for being a story is because she is spank bank material. She would never have gotten near Franken on the USO tour except for her background.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

None of them should resign over this stuff. Its stupid to. It almost always has no bearing on the job they are doing. Let them lose the next election if people care so much to repeal them. Odds are they won't.

 

[Derec]

http://www.newsweek.com/alt-right-trump-franken-mueller-twitter-810355

"White nationalist provocateurs, a pair of fake news sites, an army of Twitter bots and other cyber tricks helped derail Democratic Senator Al Franken last year, new research shows.

While everyone has been focused on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to support Donald Trump, the Franken takedown originated in—and was propelled by—a strategic online campaign with digital tentacles reaching to, of all places, Japan. Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden's initial accusation against Franken became effective propaganda after right-wing black ops master Roger Stone first hinted at the allegation."

Kristen Gillibrand is a robot? I knew it!

Seriously though, it is not Russian bots or even flesh and blood right wing agitators who did Franken in but his Democratic Senate colleagues. Had Kristen et al not been so eager to throw old Stuart Smalley under the bus, nothing would have happened.

 

[blastula]

Are you saying she wasn't a Hooters girl and an adult mag model?

She was featured in the '93 Hooters Calendar and had a pictorial in playboy.

No, not at all. I'm laughing at the silly tabloidesque lead in, tells me their agenda.

Her only reason for being a story is because she is spank bank material. She would never have gotten near Franken on the USO tour except for her background.

No, it was that Franken got near her. Her employment past is irrelevant. What makes her account questionable is that the ratfucker Roger Stone knew she was going to write about it before she had. However, she's not the only woman accusing Franken of anything.

 

[Copernicus]

The fact is still that half the women accusing Franken remain anonymous, so their accounts simply cannot be verified. All of the accusations were about acts in extremely public venues and not really more than perceived gropes (except for Tweeden's "French kiss" during a rehearsal). So the hysteria surrounding his expulsion could easily have been spun-up hype by political enemies plus Russian trolls. Franken's public shaming became "perceived reality" for Democrats, whether they believed the charges or not. In fact, Schumer never wanted Franken to run in the first place and resisted spending Democratic party funds on his campaign initially. Stuart quit because the Democratic Senate hierarchy expelled him.

The whole "me too" campaign is a wedge issue that Republicans use to split Democrats and divert them from those issues that have broader traction with moderate voters, who are ultimately needed to win close elections. Franken would have been reelected. His replacement is a political novice, who will have weaker appeal with the general public.