Last week, Al Franken was trying to be all Demi Lovato with his "Sorry, Not Sorry" b.s.
"But this decision is not about me, it's about the people of Minnesota," he insisted.
Well it certainly wasn't about the women he assaulted since he didn't even acknowledge his harassment.
Pig Boy was throwing shade as he huffed and puffed (when Al gets wheezy, he's lying, it's always been his tell), "I, of all people, am aware of the irony that I am leaving while a man who bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who preyed on young girls runs for Senate with the full support of his party."
That's not irony.
But it is something that he wants to deny the attacks he carried out while rushing to hide behind the victims of others.
Crooks always love to pretend someone else, someone worse!, got away with more than they did.
It's not actual innocence, you understand, but 'not guilty by comparison.'
Molly Ball (TIME) observed, "Franken's resignation speech on Dec. 7 was laced with bitterness and denial -- the defiant valedictory of a man who still believes he is always right"
At the end of last month when military veteran Stephanie Kemplin stepped forward to explain how he felt her up, grabbing/palming her breast, Al's response was to trot out a flack who insisted that Al "has never intentionally engaged in this kind of conduct."
Never intentionally?
So was that his 21 JUMP STREET defense? Did he think he could be the old woman Jonah Hill said was grabbing his junk?
He didn't do it intentionally, you understand.
He just had a lot of stress and needed to grab something?
Al Franken has 8 accusers publicly at present. There are many more women because he's done what he did many more times.
He's disrespected women throughout his career.
So imagine our surprise when Mika Brzezinski, as embarrassing as her trashy father, rushed to slut shame.
Joe Concha (THE HILL) explains:
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski referred to an accuser of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) as a "Playboy model who goes on Hannity [and] voted for Trump" during a Friday morning discussion on Franken's resignation announcement.
In Franken's Thursday announcement of his intention to resign from the Senate, he said that some of the eight accusations of sexual misconduct made against him were false and that he remembered other encounters differently.
Leeann Tweeden was the first to accuse Franken on Nov. 16, with the Los Angeles radio host sharing a photo of Franken appearing to grope her while she was sleeping during a flight on a USO tour in 2006
"I would think a dress owned by Monica Lewinsky would bring down a president. But it didn't," Brzezinski said in reference to a dress containing President Bill Clinton's DNA from a sexual encounter in the Oval Office while Lewinsky was an intern, leading to his impeachment in the House.
"So I'm surprised that a comedian's picture of a performer, playboy model who goes on Hannity, who voted for Trump. I see some politics there, but I haven't brought that up every step of the way because of course, in this ‘Me Too’ environment, you must always believe the women.”
Playboy model?
Like Barbra Streisand?
Like Tweeden, Barbra posed for the cover of PLAYBOY.
It was 21 years ago that Leeann Tweeden posed for the cover of PLAYBOY.
She posed for the cover of other magazines as well, but Mika wasn't interested in that.
Nor in the fact that when she was assaulted, Tweeden was on her ninth USO tour.
Dubbing the broadcaster a "Playboy model" on the basis of one cover? It was a clear attempt to slut shame and to discredit.
Mika should be ashamed of herself.
She can doubt whomever she wants.
She can say, "I don't believe Leeann Tweeden."
That's fine.
But when she tries to slut shame?
That's not okay.
Equally true, Leeann could have been the PLAYBOY centerfold and that wouldn't make her (a) someone not to trust or (b) worthy of being assaulted. Mika needs to clarify that on air.
Mika, like the other apologists for Al Franken, try to zoom in on Tweeden and pretend the other seven women don't exist, the other seven (so far) who've come forward to talk about what Al Franken did to them.
Not all women in media are as pathetic as Mika.
If you think I will not block you for victim-blaming, shaming, & discrediting because it's in defence of Al Franken you're about to find out how consistent my values actually are.
Also: fuck you. Seriously. Talking about "the big picture" as if promoting rape culture to protect your fave hasn't already been done before by every asshole ever.
You want to talk about the long term repercussions of Al Franken being pressured to resign? Look at the long term repercussions of countless democrats and "feminists" suddenly trying to pretend like it's ok to say that 8 women must all be lying about sexual harassment,
While Ijeoma Oluo spoke out, so many others stayed silent.
A lot of women showed their true nature. We weren't surprised by the piggish behavior of men. We expected it.
The surprise there may have been that a lot more men seemed to get it -- a lot more men than we expected would.
But with women, we saw that they attacked the women who came forward.
In some cases, they flat out lied and promoted lies (such as the photo that had Leeann Tweedem's face copy-and-pasted on to another woman's body).
They attacked.
Or, as noted above, they pretended repeatedly that 1 woman had come forward against Al.
They lied over and over.
They excused what Al had done.
They minimized it.
It was embarrassing to watch those women.
We'll praise Naomi Wolf.
- Sex, violence, and legislation: Join DailyClout as we talk about Al Franken, Roy Moore, and a wave of "bathroom bills". Also, find out why it's legal for someone to grab your ass against your will in Minnesota! https://www.facebook.com/dailyclout/videos/931281177040915/?hc_ref=ARTKXb9ivXGO1H_Kp2C2fOadel6XIfJiS6GzwSbxCwVtiOLhPXMo89IpWm-7j5S9GSo …
- Join us at 1:35 pm LIVE on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/dailyclout/ as we talk about issues of sexual harassment in congress - Al Franken, Roy Moore - and transgender bathrooms.
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She's about the only well known feminist who stood up for the victims.
Gloria Steinem?
Where was she?
No where to be found.
Now Gloria was all over the Harvey Weinstein story.
But she suddenly turned shy when the issue was Al Franken.
Lizz Winstead is another hypocrite who needs to stop pretending that she supports women coming forward and telling what happened.
She didn't support the women who came forward about Al.
She's not about women despite her nonsense of LADY PARTY JUSTICE -- and a Tweet last week that claimed to applaud all who came forward -- despite her never acknowledging the women who came forward against Al Franken.
Lizz is about using women to go after Republicans.
Guess what, Lizz?
We're not going to be your props.
Women are people.
We will be treated with respect.
We will not be used by you and your lies.
You're a fake ass and you exposed yourself.
A lot of women did.
It was disgraceful.
As was watching Senator Kirsten Gillibrand be attacked for calling on a man to resign from the US Senate -- a man who, at that point, had seven women accusing him publicly -- the eighth came forward later that day.
Disgraceful.
The way forward is necessary, and many people last week, with their awful behavior, made it clear just how necessary it was.
Not everyone was useless and Ijeoma Oluo (NBC NEWS) stood alone in daring to contemplate the future:
To those who still believe the stakes are just too high right now to start banishing mostly good guys, I sympathize. But not holding abusers accountable hasn’t worked so well for us, and we’ve been trying that one for, well, basically forever. Maybe we try radically living up to our ideals instead and see what that gets us.
Maybe we’ll lose some very important political seats. Maybe we’ll have to rebuild. Maybe there will be a lot of pain, and a lot of grieving.
But also, maybe women will feel safer running for office and will be more successful doing so. Maybe men building their political careers will know from the beginning what behavior is and isn’t important. Maybe abusers will be held accountable early enough, when their transgressions are small enough and their careers new enough, that they will be more easily and genuinely redeemed. Maybe our representatives will actually represent women as well as men. Maybe we’ll energize our voting base with a party no longer steeped in hypocrisy. Maybe.
