The candidate I support in the 2020 Democratic primary has to be the kind of person who can pull the gun out from behind the toilet and come out blazing. Or at least come back from the bathroom, blank out for a few minutes, and then start blazing. I can settle for that.
Before yesterday, the only candidate on that list for me was Gillibrand, but now Kamela Harris is on it too:
Nearly 12 hours into Brett Kavanaughâs Senate confirmation hearing, Kamala Harris opened with a tantalizing query: Has the Supreme Court nominee ever discussed Robert Muellerâs probe with a lawyer at Kasowitz Benson & Torres, President Donald Trumpâs longtime law firm?
âBe sure about your answer, sir,â Harris asked Kavanaugh. Trumpâs high court pick appeared nonplussed, responding that âIâm not sure I know everyone who works at that law firm,â but the California Democrat â a veteran prosecutor known for her tenacious questioning and high on her partyâs 2020 presidential short lists â would not let up.
âHow can you not remember whether youâve had a conversation about Robert Mueller or his investigation with anyone at that law firm?â Harris asked, suggesting that Kavanaugh was âthinking of someone and you donât want to tell us.â
I hate to go here a little bit but I generally find that a lot of Democratic women in Congress are Michaels while too many of the men are Fredos. Let’s put two more women in the Senate: Jacky Rosen (NV) and Krysten Sinema (AZ).
James E Powell
Too many of the Democratic men are Tom Hagen. LBJ had Genco and look what we got!
Doug!
@James E Powell:
You know…Hagen does greenlight killing Sterling Hayden and the Turk.
oclday
Yeah well just imagine what Franken would have done to him. As a Minnesota voter I HATE Gillebrand and think she couldn’t stick to a position with the aide of super glue.
randy khan
Newest news: There’s an email in which Kavanaugh told someone Roe is not necessarily settled law.
Pondering what excuse Susan Collins will use now.
OzarkHillbilly
I love the analogy.
oatler.
Booker’s going nuclear and Grassley’s colicky.
And I thought the “1776” musical was over the top!
balconesfault
Gillebrand lost me when she led the circular firing squad that took out Al Franken.
God, I’d love to have seen him on the Judiciary Committee this week.
catclub
@randy khan:
The Slate article saying ‘Collins is risking voter backlash if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh’ … yeah, right. She is not up for re-election this year, and voters have pretty short memories. Also, she might stop running for Senate and run for governor. So I think she will find an excuse with no problem.
balconesfault
@randy khan: Kavanaugh specifically said that as a Judge he had to respect precedent.
Of course, he said nothing about how he would regard precedent once he’s a Justice.
balconesfault
@oclday: Beat me to it … my thoughts exactly.
Haroldo
@randy khan: Collins (and LePage) make me very, very pleased I no longer am a Mainer. I do, though, really like Portland.
schrodingers_cat
@oatler.: Young black boys are monsters, but grown malevolent nasty old men of the R party are toddlers, I love how white privilege operates.
Not criticizing you but wondering out loud how we unconsciously use language.
Belafon
@balconesfault: “Considering, Mr. Kavanaugh, that the Supreme Court has occasionally overruled it’s own precedent, why should we accept ‘precedent’ as your answer to any question?”
Bruuuuce
I was thinking about the way the GOP has gone about this confirmation, and finally realized why it looked familiar. I would swear I’m watching that scene in The Court Jester where the illegitimate king decides to knight Danny Kaye on his sleazy advisor’s suggestion, and he gets rushed through several years’ worth of tests in one day, with every possible cheat and hurry applied so that “the candidate passes”. McConnell certainly has done his best to ensure that same headlong rush so that El Jefe has cover in the next SCOTUS term (and he may need it himself later). Too bad we can’t count on the same results, turning the tables.
In case you’ve forgotten the scene, here it is.
Mr. Kite
@oclday: Gillibrand did not cause Franken’s problems.
Nicole
@oclday: Gillebrand has always been very aggressive in going after sexual harassment. If anything, her stance on Franken was demonstrating consistency.
Funny how what, 40 Dems supported his resignation but sheâs the only one who gets blamed.
Amir Khalid
Please, guys: wait to see who is actually running in 2020 before you pick a favourite/most likely candidate.
schrodingers_cat
@Haroldo: Portland is good, but Bar Harbor and Acadia are great! Whatever happened to Maine? How did the entire state go so cray cray.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: Any talk of 2020 is premature.
Doug!
@Nicole:
It was the smart move, but maybe she ends up like Tessio after his smart move, in terms of the 2020 primary.
Betty Cracker
@Nicole: Yep. I don’t know whom I’ll support in the 2020 primary and am happy to mostly put off thinking about that until next year. But Gillibrand is definitely the heir of Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome, with the same vector (sexism) driving the disease.
Percysowner
Unlike a certain NY Times op-ed writer Judiciary Dems Say Theyâll Risk Punishment To Release Withheld Kavanaugh Doc We may still get Kavanaugh as a Supreme, but I’ll give the Democrats props for pulling out the stops.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Nicole: Yes, but KG could have jumped into a time machine, journeyed back to the past and forced Franken to not be creepy to 9 women (that we know of.). But she…didn’t…even…try… /sarcasm
rp
@Uncle Ebeneezer: There’s almost no real evidence that he was creepy to any women, just a staged photo in which he obviously wasn’t touching what’shername. That said, it’s a little silly to attack Gillebrand over this.
bemused
I dearly wish I could be watching Al Franken at these hearings.
oclday
@Mr. Kite: No, of course not but she decided to take out potent potential presidential competition early, stated basically can’t or won’t see shades of gray and wouldn’t let the ethics committee do its work, all the while sitting silent while Mendez is very likely corrupt and gets awards. Besides the fact that many of Franken’s accusers were suspect.
OzarkHillbilly
Judge Orders Independent Off Congressional Ballot In Signature Forgeries Case
Gelfling 545
@Nicole: And no one could have forced his resignation. It was felt by more than a single individual to be necessary. I did not agree with it ( withour an investigation – process is important) but I understand it and it wasnât Gillibrand showing him the door.
evodevo
@rp: Yes. Sorry, but I support Al. I still think all that was premature circular firing squad..unless there was something we didn’t know lurking back there that only Franken knows about, there was nothing in the public record that I would consider resignation-worthy. And I say that as a woman who has been ACTUALLY harassed in the past.
oclday
@Nicole: Ah, yes consistent, like accepting help from Bill Clinton to win her seat then throwing him under the bus too. Her goal was to remove competition and she succeeded.
Villago Delenda Est
Cory Booker is bringing it at the hearings. Cornyn can fuck the fucking fuck off.
OzarkHillbilly
From TPM:
Gelfling 545
@oclday: Surely it was Frankenâs own decision to resign. No one could have forced him short of the ethics investigation.
balconesfault
@Betty Cracker: Sorry – you couldn’t find a more hardcore Hillary supporter than myself through the 2016 election cycle. It’s unfair to link the two … completely different issues.
MomSense
@randy khan:
Settled lawmwas always a bullshit excuse and Susan Collins knows it. She could have asked if he thought it was correct law but she didnât want to know the answer. She will always choose what is best for the wealthy and corporations over everyone else.
Villago Delenda Est
@Nicole: It’s because the MSM made her the focus of the Franken backlash.
patrick II
@randy khan:
Somebody finally had the balls. Corey Booker has released some of the emails and dared the republicans to punish him. About fcking time.
RedDirtGirl
@schrodingers_cat: I just spent a week at our summer place near Acadia. Why yes, I am a WASP, why do you ask?
Bruce K
Booker released some documents.
Is it me, or is following the news this week just goddamned exhausting?
balconesfault
@Villago Delenda Est: No – it’s because she’s the first one who came out and called publicly for Franken to resign. And let’s face it – being a male Democratic Senator and pushing back against Gillibrand at the time would have been potentially suicidal, especially at the time. She lined up the firing squad very effectively.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Villago Delenda Est:
I watched the replay. Booker wasn’t having any of it. It’s a good look.
Calouste
@OzarkHillbilly: Expulsion from the Senate needs a 2/3 majority IIRC. I doubt Grassley is able to win over 16 Democrats on this topic.
Good to see the Democrats playing hardball.
Betty Cracker
@balconesfault: Sorry, the “amoral harpy who cares only for power” parallels are too numerous to ignore. I’m sure there are people who had non-sexist reasons to oppose Clinton too, but sexism played a huge role in her vilification, and I see the same thing happening with Gillibrand.
Elizabelle
@evodevo: I’m with you. I am still disgusted with the public summary execution of Al Franken’s political career.
If he was skeeving on his Senate colleagues, they need to have made that clear. They did not, and the whole thing looked like a rush to judgment on some photos that were not what they seemed to be. And never forget that skeevy Atlantic Monthly piece. After Roger Stone had predicted Franken’s time in the barrel was coming up.
I would LOVE to see Al Franken questioning Kavanaugh.
Cowardice is the name for what the Democratic senators did, led by Kirsten Gillibrand. (And, sadly, Kamala Harris. And Marie Hirono. Although Harris seems to have a lot more to her than Gillibrand does.)
Franken should have gotten his ethics inquiry. Only a stupid fool would put Franken and Roy Moore, or any of the GOP predators, in the same class.
Elizabelle
@balconesfault: As far as I’m concerned, the firing squad hit Gillibrand harder. She railroaded the situation. I will never trust her judgment.
bemused
@The Ancient Randonneur:
It certainly is. This is how I want Dems to operate with low down snakes.
Haroldo
@schrodingers_cat: Maine has always had an ‘independent’ streak (which can be manipulated) and a fair number of rednecks. Collins is a Republican hack in an ‘independent’s’ clothing. LePage is a result of vanity candidates splitting the progressive vote, if memory serves. He’s a vile, vile man appealing to the same primordial lizard brain as Trump.
Elizabelle
@Gelfling 545: He was so ganged up on, I think Franken did not feel he had a choice.
I wish he had stood and fought.
The Democrats made me cringe on this situation, and it’s the only time I have been ashamed to be one. I am serious. I hated it at the time, and it still hurts, months out.
tobie
@Calouste: Interesting piece of information. No way McConnell gets 16 Democrats to vote to expel Booker. Well-played, Cory.
Omnes Omnibus
Jesus Fucking Christ! Are you really doing the Gillbrand-Franken thing again?
Gelfling 545
@Betty Cracker: Well said.
OzarkHillbilly
@Calouste:
My suspicion is that the repubs might try to fuck with their committee assignments but as I understand it those come from party leadership, so I am unsure how far they can get with that.
Indeed.
Cheryl from Maryland
@rp: No, there were seven other women, some of them constituents and Democrats. Not just LeeAnn Tweeden.. And not all of them in the far past. As much as I admire Mr. Franken’s work as a Senator, I feel he would have been a drag on the party, and the 40 Senators who called for his resignation did the correct thing.
Nicole
List of those senators who called for resignation so people can loudly declare who theyâll NEVER vote for:
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/full-list-senators-call-for-al-franken-to-resign-282175
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think Gillbrand and Hirono jumped a step by calling for Franken to step down instead of calling for an ethics investigation, but the idea that her commitment to issues of harassment and assault is political convenience is absurd.
And it was due in no small part to the fact that Nancy Pelosi– who I think is brilliant and people calling for her to step down are stupid– prepared the ground for it by making such a hash of the allegations against John Conyers
Nicole
@Doug!: I fear Dems are too scared to nominate another woman. Commenters on this very site have expressed reservations about it.
I feel these days that I will never see a woman President. And that crushes me.
debit
My problem with Gillibrand is that she made a point to get out on stage and call for Franken to go before the committee to investigate him had even formed. It was based, IMO, on nothing more than cold political calculation. Franken was a distraction and a talking point for the GOP scumbags to hammer over and over again, and it looked like Stone and his stable of ratfuckers had an endless supply of women willing to come forward and accuse Franken of something. (Let us never forget that for one of his accusers Franken committed sexual assault by putting his arm around her and squeezing her waist during a photo op that she requested.) You’ll note that there have been no new reports of misconduct.
So I understand why she did it. It shut down the right wing screamers (on that topic), and it made her look good (for some people). I’m certainly never going to forget that she did it, and hope for her sake that her history is utterly spotless on every single front, because once she declares for higher office, she’s going to be on the receiving end of the same sort of fuckery. I will also support her if she’s the nominee for president, but otherwise she gets nothing from me.
B.B.A.
Harris and Booker weren’t on the Judiciary Committee until Franken’s resignation led to a reshuffle. I’d say Gillibrand’s decision is looking pretty good right now.
What the hell would Franken do that they aren’t doing, besides grabbing Zina Bash’s butt? (What a strange fetish, groping Republican women. I was certain there’d be another shoe to drop. But there hasn’t been, and I can’t look a woman in the eye and tell her she’s lying.)
MobiusKlein
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
Next up, Clinton / Bernie rehash – round 3::: FIGHT!
randy khan
@evodevo:
By the time Gillibrand and most of her Democratic colleagues called on Franken to resign, there were 8 distinct complaints about him, and it had just been three weeks. He was going one way or another. Blaming her for it is wrong. If anything, she showed that she understood that they had to stop the bleeding (but, again, along with all of the other Democratic women in the Senate and most of their male colleagues).
Felanius Kootea
Kamala, not Kamela ;)
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
The failure that led to Al Franken’s resignation was not Gillibrand’s alone. It was the Democratic Senate Caucus as a group that failed to insist on investigative process before denouncing Franken.
debit
@Omnes Omnibus: As one of his constituents I remain upset and still have things to say. So yes.
debit
@randy khan: Well, it certainly showed the republicans that the tactic worked and they could accuse anyone of anything because no one would actually investigate it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Nicole:
I’m not. Another Clinton? Well….
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Thank you, Amir, for being a breath of sanity.
@Nicole: Oh stuff it. It makes a big difference who got the train rolling down the wrong track.
geg6
@Amir Khalid:
True. But I can guarantee you that the one I finally decide to support won’t be Kristen Gillibrand. I didn’t like her much and definitely didn’t trust her before the whole Franken thing. She hasn’t gotten any more likeable and I trust her even less.
I’m open pretty much to anyone who isn’t Bernie or her.
Steve in the ATL
@Nicole:
I feel you, but I think it will happen fairly soon. It was considered *insane* when we put Geraldine Ferraro on the ticket as VP, but we just got Hillary Clinton winning a large majority of the popular vote and may have won the electoral vote as well.
And Obama? Who saw that coming?!
B.B.A.
@oclday: Monica Lewinsky should speak at the 2020 Democratic Convention. I don’t think the olds appreciate how fucked up Bill’s behavior looks to the youngs.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m looking forward to the pineapple on pizza debate. THEN the shit gets real!
OzarkHillbilly
@B.B.A.:
I did it to my ex all the time. You get used to it. Of course, it helped that it was true.
psycholinguist
If you haven’t watched Booker’s COME AT ME BRO reply to Cornyn (sp?) it is worth it. Tells him strait up his mouth just wrote a check his ass can’t cash.
PJ
@B.B.A.: Hey, you look like a discerning guy, can I interest you in some real estate – there’s this great bridge in New York City that – surprising, I know – is up for sale, and, if you keep this under your hat, you might be able to get it for a song . . .
OzarkHillbilly
Jeffro
I do believe Booker just dropped the hammer
Omnes Omnibus
@debit: Knock yourself out.
debit
@The Ancient Randonneur: Or the cilantro debate. Delicious or tastes like a stinkbug?
Just so everyone knows where I stand, I’m stating for the record: it’s delicious and all of you haters can just go ahead and give me your share.
Elizabelle
@randy khan: How many of those “8 distinct complaints” had merit? I am serious. Did any of them? Link, please, on the 8 distinct complaints? I mostly remember that egregious Atlantic Monthly story that had no merit, and the staged photograph with the female GOP provocateur. What else did I miss?
From what I saw, it was ratfucking upon ratfucking. I expected the Democrats to show more courage and loyalty. Instead, they turned into a pack. They did not serve Minnesota, or Democrats, well.
The fact that there was a Democrat waiting in the wings does not absolve them. If anything, it’s even more proof of their cowardice.
randy khan
@Elizabelle:
I can’t believe I keep having to write about it, but your read of the situation is so remarkably wrong (and held by a lot of people) that it drives me crazy.
First, it was never just Gillibrand. Do you think there’s one chance in a million that she would have gone ahead if the other female Democratic Senators hadn’t been on board?
Second, while absolutely calling for an ethics inquiry was the right call when it was one accusation (and I said so at the time), when it’s 8 you’re way beyond that territory. And when it’s 8 in three weeks, it’s going to be 20 in five weeks. There was only one way it was going to end for Franken, and ripping off the bandaid was way better than the alternative.
I was very unhappy about what happened with Franken. I’d always liked him, and he was a very effective Senator. It’s certainly possible he was innocent, although the number of accusations lowers the probability of that considerably. But Gillibrand wasn’t the reason he left the Senate, no matter what some people want to think. She was just the person who told him it was time.
Fair Economist
@Cheryl from Maryland: The problem is that *none* of the accusations against Franken actually stood up to any scrutiny. Three of the claims of kissing or groping were accompanied by photos that actually *dis*proved the accusation because Franken was not in a position to actually do what he was accused of (e.g. the Tweeden photo in which he is substantially closer to the camera than she is). Three of the accusations were that he put his arm around someone’s waist during a photo, which is just normal behavior in our society. That leaves one accusation of forced kissing which was anonymous and accompanied by no evidence whatsoever.
None of the other major targets of #MeToo had any public allegations disproved, never mind having *all* public allegations disproved. Franken’s treatment really stands out.
balconesfault
@Percysowner: Chipped in to the DSCC just a few minutes ago. Good behavior deserves an immediate reward.
randy khan
@debit:
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I wish more Dems would do that.
B.B.A.
@PJ: “But Harvey Weinstein says he didn’t rape those women…”
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good point about the Conyers thing. That was part of the context, which is easy to forget months later.
@B.B.A.: It was fucked up, but I’m not sure it’s a burning issue for the youngs.
James E Powell
@Mr. Kite:
There is a widespread belief that if Gillibrand had said nothing, Franken would still be a senator. I really don’t think so.
debit
@randy khan: When it means killing a fellow Dem to use his corpse as a ladder, yes, that’s a bad thing.
psycholinguist
Corey Booker just kicked the shit out of Cornyn. Cornyn made some crack about him running for president and that his conduct would get him kicked out of the senate. Booker responds COME AT ME BRO unless you’re chicken shit and your mouth wrote a check your ass can’t cash. Cornyn looked like he wanted to use a particular word so, so bad at that moment, but instead crawled back into his hole. It was delicious.
oatler.
Leahy just now: “Judge, I was born at night but not last night.”
Fair Economist
@catclub:
However, Kavanaugh is going to be part of an endless stream of horrific 5-4 decisions that will repeatedly remind people what a horrible choice she made, and there will be additional cases on the dock in 2020 that will sharply focus people’s minds on it. Even for Collins, supporting Kavanaugh is going to be a big political risk.
tobie
@Fair Economist:
Bingo.
debit
@James E Powell:
The charges could have been real or baseless. But we’ll never know because they didn’t even allow the committee to start the investigation.
randy khan
@debit:
And yet they haven’t done it again. Hmm.
Steve in the ATL
@Fair Economist: Iâll defer to the Mainers on this, but my impression is that Collins could shoot a person on Commercial Street in Portland and all the white women would still vote for her.
B.B.A.
@randy khan: They leaked a forged harassment complaint against Chuck Schumer to the press. It was instantly debunked as Schumer was provably out of the country on the date when he supposedly harassed a staffer in Washington, and the staffer herself denied it. (Turned out to be a clumsy edit of one of the Conyers complaints.)
burnspbesq
@Elizabelle:
Yâall want to hate on Gillibrand, fine. Just hold your noses, show up, and vote for her when sheâs the nominee.
People whose delicate noses couldnât be held long enough to vote for Hillary gave us Trump.
Fair Economist
I was pretty horrified by Franken’s railroading but at the same time it doesn’t particularly make me want to oppose Gillibrand. She does have a long record of being front and center on harassment, and she’s shown by her votes she’ll be good on policy. There are advantages to a President working for good causes willing to ruthlessly knife other pols to gain advantages, at least for those of us who aren’t top pols and won’t be targets of the knife. If I were in Congress I’d probably have a different take on it, of course, but I’m not.
randy khan
@debit:
He already was dead. She just nudged the corpse so that it fell to the ground.
I always am gobsmacked when people don’t get this. And if you don’t believe me, ask why every single one of the Democratic women was on board with her. It wasn’t because they wanted to give her a boost in 2020.
Barbara
@oclday: @balconesfault: I also would like to see Franken, but you know what? He has nothing on Kamala Harris. Nothing. She is the real deal, a real prosecutor who got their with true grit and experience. She embodies the best of the best in female lawyers: someone who dosn’t give an F whether the guy sitting across the table would consider asking her out for a date. (You might laugh, but I was a court clerk and an awful lot of female attorneys came across as not wanting to do things that would make them seem unappealing to the judge they were arguing in front of.)
Al Franken did inappropriate stuff, he was punished too severely IMO but I am not going to mourn for him for the rest of my life. Gillebrand’s biggest mistake was being too obvious in how she went about doing what she did.
And Kavanaugh’s answer — “I don’t know everyone who works at that law firm” — is the kind of answer that witnesses give as a dead giveaway that the answer is yes when they can’t possibly say no because that would be lying.
Elizabelle
@randy khan: Randy, please link to me these 8 incidents that came out within 3 weeks. Should not be hard to do. I do not know what you speak of.
I am not being stupid (I don’t think). I just have never seen any evidence that seemed credible and worth the utter destruction of a Senator’s career with Franken.
So please, link rather than lecture. If it’s that obvious, perhaps a dumbass like myself will see and believe too.
Leto
@randy khan:
I’m glad you remain committed to the rule of law. /s
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: how about: Elon Musk is the most greatest person ever and all you loser h8ers can suck it.
Discuss.
debit
@randy khan: Franken certainly handed them a golden apple of opportunity with that photo. And how many years did that take to surface? You and I don’t know what’s out there. Hence my hope, for her sake, that Gillibrand is lily white in everything she’s ever done.
Also, too, weird that for a man who was supposedly such a sexual predator that the accusations just dried up once he was gone. Hmmmm.
oclday
@<a [email protected]randy khan: Sorry I think Chuck told him it was time. Gillebrand was just the screaming hysterical cheerleader.
randy khan
@Elizabelle:
Try Franken’s Wikipedia page. They’re listed there.
@debit:
We also haven’t heard of any more accusations against Roy Moore, and for the same reason – nobody in the press cares now.
Emma
@B.B.A.: So rehabilitate the woman who “went to Washington to get her presidential kneepads” while further spitting on Hillary? I don’t think the youngs know how effed up they would be without all the middle-aged Hillary supporters that actually run the party. Keep pushing and you might just find out.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Seems to be the case. Sigh…
Barbara
@Elizabelle: Go find them yourself. For God’s sake, I like Franken a lot, I actually hoped that he would be in a position to run for president but my allegiance is to the country not any specific individual and I am not going to sit around with my thumbs up my behind because one very wealthy white senator could not clear his name fast enough for his peers in the Senate. Any response less than a ringing “this is made up shit and I can prove it” was going to sink him. That’s the hard truth of the situation.
VeniceRiley
1) Franken folded like a cheap suit. Some profile in courage! *wah wah* That’s not what I’m looking for in the Senate or in 2020.
2) KAMALA is my co-pilot.
3) her name is Kamala, not Kamela.
4) Booker this morning all “Come at me, bro!” I love that. No, your random Joe-Bob other brother Darryl and friend of the nominee does not get to randomly declare any documents in possession of the Senate confidential.
Haroldo
@Steve in the ATL: I’m an ex-Mainer, and I think you are not wrong. It’s a funny state which reminds me of where I grew up, Wisconsin.
balconesfault
@Emma: Sadly, I think with the remake of the Judiciary the youngs are going to realize how effed up they are for not joining the Hillary supporters in 2016 and not only getting out to vote … but doing what they could to persuade everyone they knew how important it was to vote.
They were sold a line that the “establishment” was bad. Their sources weren’t telling them that the establishment included the EPA, Roe v Wade, the Department of the Interior, OSHA, etc …
Betty Cracker
I rest my case.
Doug!
@Nicole:
I think we will. Obama was a real talent and that’s why he was able to win despite the disadvantage of being black. You might even say he compensated for those disadvantages by doing things like driving up turn-out among people of color.
I think it will take a real talent to become the first woman president. But I think that real talent is out there. I think Gillibrand is very smart about finding things she can do better than a male politician could (just as Obama could probably drive up turn-out among POC better than a white candidate). Not saying she’ll be prez but I think someone like her will be.
tam1MI
@Haroldo: @geg6:
There are no circumstances whatsoever under which I will vote for either Burnie Sanders or Kristen Gillibrand.
Elizabelle
@Emma: I think BBA is a troll. Subtle, but just slightly … off. In a lot of comments.
Got you thinking what a sexual deviant Bill Clinton is, though. I shed no tears for Monica Lewinsky. She was a consensual participant, and should have kept her damn mouth shut. Bill Clinton is just damned lucky she was not a foreign operative.
No one forced her to tell all to Linda Tripp. Monica destroyed her own self. If she’s carved out a career in handbags, or whatever she’s doing now, great, but she is no kind of moral arbiter we need to listen to.
I never understood why Clinton lied in the first place. I really don’t think it would have cost him the Presidency. His being a horndog was kind of baked in at that point. He lied.
trollhattan
@balconesfault:
I respect precedent myself; I also respect the steer who supplied the tritip I smoked last night. I’ll call him Mister Tasty.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Pretty much. And without Linda Tripp and Jonah Goldberg’s mommy we’d have never gone down that path.
balconesfault
@Doug!: The problem is that our lesson from the 2016 election is that driving up the vote among white women may actually harm Democratic Candidates.
Doug!
@randy khan:
Bingo.
And you know what theyâll be saying, a bunch of losers sitting around in a bar: âOh yeah, I used to be a politicians Itâs a tough racket.â
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
And at the expense of my junior Senator, too. ?
Doug!
@balconesfault:
FWIW I don’t think Hillary is that good a politician and she didn’t find the advantages in being a woman, she just got whacked with the disadvantages.
Haroldo
@tam1MI: I think you have me confused with someone else, but I’m glad you’ve got your fierce conviction.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Way to paint with a massively broad brush. She was Republican-lite most of her career. I’ve never liked her and the Franken debacle was just the cherry on top. I wouldn’t have voted for her before the Franken thing and I definitely won’t now, especially as her defenders keep telling me I’m a misogynist if I don’t support her. Fuck that bullshit. I was fighting for women’s rights when that prima donna was swanning around her exclusive private high school and fending off Ivy Leaguers at her Dartmouth sorority. And don’t get me started on the love affair The American Conservative had with her over her anti-immigrant stances. And her throwing the Clintons under the bus after all they’d done for her was the last straw. Screw her. She’s not worthy of my vote. I don’t understand why anyone who is a liberal would vote for her. She only became one when she decided she wanted to live in the White House. Well, that isn’t gonna happen if I can help it.
Elizabelle
NPR is scolding Democrats for releasing confidential files.
Not like the GOP doesn’t do that, constantly. Bad Democrats! Lawless!
Haroldo
@Elizabelle: BBA subtle????
Elizabelle
This is crazy after all the Devin Nunes crap. We never had NPR scolding like that.
I do not like daytime NPR news roundup. It’s often craven, and GOP-framed. Although I adore the classical music programming the other 55 minutes of the hour.
Elizabelle
@Haroldo: Yeah, really. LOL. Hello in Oz.
germy
I honestly thought Franken had repeatedly said he had no intention of running for president. He didn’t want to do it, his wife didn’t want to be dragged through it.
Why do people think he was a potential 2020 candidate?
B.B.A.
@Elizabelle: I gave up trolling for New Year’s. I’ve been completely honest about my beliefs this entire thread.
Emma
@Elizabelle: I think Bill Clinton modeled himself on the Kennedy men. The problem is that while the Kennedy men were the ultimate lace-curtain Irish with enough clout behind the scenes to ride out storms, Clinton was seen as a nobody from nowhere who had the goddammed nerve to raise himself by his bootstraps. He wasn’t going to get the same help from the hypocrites.
Elizabelle
@geg6: I am with you.
This much division in a Balloon Juice thread, constantly? Please let the Democrats not be so stupid as to put Gillibrand up for president.
We can do better.
Mnemosyne
@The Ancient Randonneur:
I like Hawaiian pizza.
Come at me, bro. (Or, sis, I can’t remember.) ?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Billy Joel sucks ass. That is all.
schrodingers_cat
OT: From the upcoming Anurag Kashyap (recently of the Sacred Games, fame)movie, Manmarziyaan. I love this song.
Translation
Man Marziyaan (Heart’s Desires)
Music by Amit Trivedi.
debit
@randy khan: Roy Moore was such a notorious predator that it was an open secret. Everyone knew, and none of his victims spoke because they were afraid and ashamed. And they knew they would be crucified, which they were. Until that photo surfaced, there wasn’t a whiff of an issue with Franken.
Come at me, bro.
Emma
@geg6: Co-signed. In blood.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: We can do better than Gillebrand. Totally agreed, on that point, but it has nothing to do with Al Franken.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I know a lot of people like(d) Gillibrand a lot, but I think in terms of star power/charisma/stage presence (whatever) she would be eclipsed by, just thinking of women who might run in 2020, Harris, Warren, even Klobuchar’s smart college professor persona. Claire McCaskill if she survives this round would be a potent “centrist” candidate, and I’m deeply ambivalent about her even as I pray she does survive. An even bigger “if”, Stacey Abrams.
Emma
@Doug!: Excuse me? OK, either you are trolling or you’re the dumbest… never mind. I give up. Not today.
debit
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): How dare you, Sir!
West of the Rockies
@Steve in the ATL:
Or this: the New England Patriots cheated against the Rams in the ’03 Super Bowl!*
They did.
Amir Khalid
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I’m not crazy about everything he’s released, but I wouldn’t go that far.
debit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not Klobuchar. She is perfectly nice, but she is the baloney sandwich on Wonder Bread with Miracle Whip candidate. Perfectly bland, inoffensive and really, really white.
Jeffro
Ok, now we have Lindsey Graham straight-up defending circuses (aka the Trumpov administration).
I actually want to know what ‘they’ have on Lindsey more than I want to know what ‘they’ have on Trumpov at this point…
burnspbesq
@tam1MI:
You would refuse to vote for Gillibrand if she were running against Trump?
debit
@Jeffro: Me too. I’m going to guess something other than his sexual orientation, because really, who doesn’t already know and who cares?
geg6
@B.B.A.:
Why do you think Monica is a victim? She wasn’t. And she isn’t interested in politics. And what the fuck does Bill Clinton and a 20-year-old scandal have to do with the youngs?
You are an idiot.
Barbara
@Bruce K: There is simply no reason for these to have been made confidential but the discussion is sufficiently complex that I doubt it will create any additional opposition to Kavanaugh. Those are my thoughts.
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
That’s only because Commercial Street can be a traffic nightmare, and everyone is too busy yelling at other drivers or the sky to notice.
Danforth Street, on the other hand …
West of the Rockies
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Ate you expecting disagreement?
James E Powell
@Doug!:
Sonny decided; Hagen acquiesced.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debit: I’m not saying I want her to run, but there’s a lot of speculation that she will and I do think she projects authenticity. Gillbrand, while her track record on harassment is solid, always comes across to me as I trying too hard. Remember a year or so ago when she and Perez tried out performative swearing? Just made me cringe, and not because I’m a member of the Broderist Good Manners Club.
Barbara
@geg6: She was a victim in the sense that too many people blamed her for conduct that was really equally if not more so the responsibility of the man in the frame, who happened to be president. All I can say is that someone with Clinton’s “issues” would not be nominated today.
Fair Economist
@Elizabelle:
Actually he didn’t, at least not on the stand. The prosecutors asked him whether he’d had sexual relations with her, and provided a detailed definition which actually excluded his relationship with her. The “it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” joke was Clinton mocking the extremely detailed definitions of ordinary words they were giving him.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I don’t get it, either. Franken always said he had way too many Hollywood skeletons in his closet to run for president, and he would never do it.
IMO, Franken was sacrificed to get those last few votes Doug Jones needed to win in Alabama, and it worked. I can be annoyed that it had to be done, but I do think that’s what the political calculation was, and the calculation turned out to be correct. I would be even more pissed if Jones had ended up losing, but he didn’t.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl, was married to a man accused multiple times of sexual harassment and worse, said “super-predator” once, blah blah blah.
As I said in #43, I’m sure there were people with non-sexist reasons to oppose Clinton, but that doesn’t erase the fact that there was and is a massive amount of sexism behind the antipathy towards her. I think the same is true of Gillibrand, and I invite you to see #103 above for a handy example in this very thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: @debit: until there are further revelations, I’m going with Ockham’s Razor and “absolutely desperate to be reelected”. A different room in the same club as Collins, Murkowski, Flake, etc
SFAW
@debit:
As I understand it, it’s a genetic thing.
Speaking as one who keeps trying it, because I really want to enjoy it, but it keeps tasting like soap (or whatever). I keep hoping things will change, but I also keep hoping the Rethugs will stop trying to destroy the country, so maybe I’m fighting reality.
Hildebrand
Seems we have gotten a bit off-track. I do believe that we should hooping and hollering about the way in which Kamala Harris made Kavanaugh look like a cheap, lying hack. Harris had him squirming throughout her questioning. It was a delight. One of her best questions of the night, ‘do you know of any laws that give government the power to make decisions over the male body?’
Elizabelle
@Emma: The times changed, too. We’ve left the early 1960s. It’s striking to watch the movies from then (and really the 1930s on forward; just about no people of color not in servile roles; it’s startling.)
Early James Bond films look like … date rape, at the very least. Overpowering a woman, because he knows she wants it. Uh, no.
FWIW and OT: Casino Royale (from 2006) had a great version of the James Bond theme at the end of the credits. Love that music.
A compilation of James Bond music from a 2011 BBC Proms performance. Thunderball, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger too.
I’m kind of fascinated with them, because I missed most of them in the theatres. The later ones are too violent for me. Hand to hand fighting bores me.
Calouste
@West of the Rockies: IPA: Toilet cleaner or weed killer?
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: Not to revisit this too much, but the proof is in the natural experiment that was conducted in the 2016 elections in Pennsylvania. There were five statewide positions: Five male Republicans, three male Democrats (state supreme court and AG) and two female Democrats (U.S. Senate and president). The male Democrats won all three positions they were running for, and the only two Republicans who won were those with Democratic female opponents. Capice?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
How ’bout it? And how has no one ever thought to ask this before! ? ! ?
Fair Economist
@Hildebrand: Harris and Booker are both looking really good right now.
Elizabelle
@Fair Economist: On the stand, you say. He could have headed the whole thing off by owning up at the time, before the GOP went for impeachment. At least IMHO. I remember listening to that the first day it blew up and thinking “really? I hope you are telling the truth.”
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq: I am just going to hope that never happens. And I do not think it will. So, no reason to answer.
debit
@SFAW:
I don’t know. I used to be a cilantro hater and it really did taste like stinkbug to me. I continued to hate it until I quit smoking. Then it was the best ever.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Just wait until you see the disgusting shit they have prepared against Kamala Harris if she runs — the CA-based trolls have alluded to it, and it’s all based on what Harris was allegedly doing in bed with Willie Brown, who is a powerful guy in the CA legislature (former Speaker, etc).
burnspbesq
@Elizabelle:
Cowardly, chickenshit non-answer.
PJ
@B.B.A.: Funny how every Franken accuser was a Republican and/or Trump supporter, except for one Democrat who was upset that he put his hand on her waist during a photo. Women continue to speak out against Harvey, whereas no one has accused Franken of anything since he resigned – could it be because Roger Stone’s work was done?
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne: Whoever we nominate is going to get smeared in the NYT. If they can’t find anything, they will make something up. The treatment of Hillary showed what we’re up against.
Hildebrand
@Fair Economist: Yep, they have been doing some great work. Glad that they are not letting Kavanaugh or the Republicans off the hook.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I dunno, I find this distressingly close to such lowlights as “Hillary Clinton said she was a Yankees fan but she also said she was a Cubs fan, haw haw so much pandering!” and “Hillary Clinton said she carried hot sauce, haw haw so much pandering!”
PJ
@Mnemosyne: She’s got to know it’s coming, and I hope she’s prepared for it, because it will be relentless.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I have had a theory for a while that the reason Bill went out and did the whole “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” press conference is that he was still lying to Hillary about the whole thing. And she was super pissed that he convinced her to go out and publicly defend him after lying to him.
There’s a story about her (allegedly) horrible temper that has her throwing a lamp at his head in the WH residence after she found out he was lying to her about the affair but, really, I don’t blame her a bit. I probably would have done the same.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
D’oh! “lying to her.” I hate not having a 5-minute edit window.
debit
@Mnemosyne:
That’s pretty mild. I told an ex, after I discovered his infidelity, that his dick would have to go into boiling water before it went back into me.
Haroldo
Rant ON/
Jesus Fuck! We’ve got straight-up fascists standing in line to run this country. There is an existential crisis. And Juicers are arguing about the past. I view these differences as trifling when compared to our common enemy. Mid-terms are paramount.
Rant OFF/
Thanks for your attention.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Betty Cracker: Oh, come on. It’s possible to call Gillibrand out for overreacting to something without it being sexism.
Now, it’s entirely possible that the sexism of others is why I have heard absolutely nothing else about her. Or it could just be that I live too far away and she’s done too little to catch my attention. The entirety of what I know about her is that she apparently has a huge blind spot on this subject and that she apparently used the Clintons to get into her current position while loathing them for Monica Lewinsky. Instead of insulting me for not liking what I’ve heard so far, sell me on her.
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq: OK then. No. At this point, I would not vote for Gillibrand. Nor would I volunteer for her, and I am a longtime volunteer. She is an opportunist. We can do better.
I do not even know that Trump will survive his term (nor if we will!). I do not know that Gillibrand will be the Democratic nominee. But there should be enough good options that someone as compromised and polarizing as Gillibrand should not rise to the top.
Character counts with me. How safe are you with a careerist opportunist?
debit
@Haroldo: We can talk about more than one thing at a time. It’s a pretty common ability.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
“Ooooh! Ooooh! Oooh! Ms. Elizabelle! I know the answer to the first part!”
/Horshack
Nicole
@Elizabelle:
You seem nice.
Betty Cracker
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Calling a woman senator a “hysterical cheerleader” in 2018 is sexist as fuck. Period. As for “selling you” on Gillibrand, sorry, that’s not my job. I can object to her getting slimed on Twitter and elsewhere by sexist assholes and speak up when someone does it in my presence without joining the Gillibrand 2020 committee. If she’s the party’s 2020 nominee, I’ll vote for her because I’m not stupid. I don’t know who I’ll support in the primary because I don’t know who’s running yet.
Percysowner
@Elizabelle: Al Franken just announced heâll resign from the Senate after 8 women alleged sexual misconduct the article lists the accusations with some of the names and notes that several women woman wanted to remain anonymous.
I miss Al Franken, and I would not be unhappy if he ran again and got re-elected. Frankly the accusations weren’t as problematic as those against other politicians and entertainment people. But the culture in zero tolerance and it is hard to say, “what our guy did wasn’t that bad” while arguing tat sexual harassment is a bad, disqualifying thing. It was the wrong time for this to happen for Franken to ride it out. It is a cause Gillibrand believes in and it wasn’t going away no matter what. She helped staunch the bleeding and was able to show that Democrats will police our own,
Do I find it telling that no more accusations have come up since his resignation? Sure. But Gillibrand wasn’t recruiting the accusers, merely responding tothe accusations. And really, the press would be all over the conveniently timed ethics hearing, which the Republicans would have scheduled for, let’s say…now to overshadow Kavannaugh.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
I hear you.
Elizabelle
@Nicole: You were piling on, Nicole.
And usually I am pretty nice.
Elizabelle
@Percysowner: Thank you for providing that vox article. I literally never did see all the allegations lined up. (And it blew up just as I was leaving the country for an extended stay, the week before Thanksgiving, so I really never did see all the additional stuff.)
It surprises me that Franken lasted until December 7th. Whole thing seemed to take a week, max.
chopper
@B.B.A.:
clearly, gillibrand is history’s greatest monster.
J R in WV
@tam1MI:
Well!
What a relief, as you can’t even spel Senator Sanders’s name….
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
So do I. Consider it stolen.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
So two consenting adults, right? Who cares. In fact, isn’t she single? Don’t care about Mr Brown… he isn’t running.
TenguPhule
@Uncle Ebeneezer:
Claims of bullshit by Republicans and people who did not identify themselves. Who mysteriously dropped off the radar once he was ratfucked out of a seat.
She advocated for execution without trial or even investigation.
FUCK GILLIBRAND.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
/Suggest you get glasses
Gillibrand is the tired old meme of “Democrats will always turn on their own.”
TenguPhule
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Heresy!
TenguPhule
@debit:
To be fair, this is a genetics issue.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Betty Cracker: Ah, that was word policing and supposed to be compartmentalized from the “people who don’t like Gillibrand are sexists transferring their CDS from Hillary to Gillibrand” that always shows up when someone mentions Franken. Got it.
I still object to being accused of CDS because I don’t like Gillibrand.
@burnspbesq: If we get to the point where the choices are Trump and Gillibrand, knowing only what we know right now, I think we’re fucked as a party. But the courts matter too much.
In the primaries, though, she’ll have to be utterly amazing to get my vote. Or running only against Wilmer by the time they get here.
TenguPhule
@randy khan:
So if 40 anon accusers can be found against Gillibrand, you’ll definitely call for her to never run for any office in 2020?
Betty Cracker
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Since we’re not compartmentalizing, I’ll just point out that I’ve said repeatedly in this thread that there are no doubt people who dislike Gillibrand for non-sexist reasons, just as there were people who objected to Clinton for non-sexist reasons. That doesn’t erase the fact that much of the antipathy toward Clinton was driven by sexism, and I think the same is true of Gillibrand. In other words, if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.
PJ
@J R in WV: I don’t care either, but Willie Brown was 31 years older than her, and the Republicans will plaster her with the “she slept her way to the top” argument. I think if they were similar ages, it wouldn’t have much effect, but the difference in age makes her look like more of an opportunist. So I think it will have some effect. (Again, I think consenting adults should have relationships with whomever they please, but that is not the majority of voters, or even likely the majority of commenters here, judging from the number of people who chime in with an “that’s gross” whenever there’s an age difference of more than a decade between people in a relationship.)
Elizabelle
@PJ: I’d never heard that story about Willie Brown. Is it provably true? Is it relevant? If memory serves, Senator Harris is married now, and was an effective and popular attorney general in California.
Why are you harping on this issue?
PJ
@Elizabelle: I’m not harping on it, another commenter brought it up: https://balloon-juice.com/2018/09/06/scenes-from-an-italian-restaurant-2/#comment-7008854 . A quick glance at newspaper articles on Goole indicates it is true. It’s only relevant to people who care about such things, and there are a lot of them; more to the point is certain that Republicans will use anything and everything to smear Democratic candidates. That’s not a reason why she shouldn’t run, but it is a reason why she needs to be prepared for it.
Nicole
@Elizabelle:
Piling on whom? I posted 3 comments- one pointing out Gillibrand has been very consistent in going after sexual harassment, one in a reply to someone who replied to me, and one with a link pointing out that over half of the Democrats in the Senate called on Franken to resign. Please, expand on how that’s “piling on.”
I don’t really care about Franken’s resignation. He was an adequate Senator, admittedly one who was very good on TV. But I am absolutely fascinated by how quick Democrats are to attack Gillibrand for being the first one to call for his resignation. Never mind 24 other Democratic Senators quickly joined in- they get a pass for what, caving to peer pressure? While she gets attacked for being bold enough to be the first voice.
While we’re on the subject of Gillibrand, I also, and I say this a screaming lefty liberal, can’t blame her for shifting her political stances since become Senator. She was elected in a conservative area- after she became Senator, a Republican won the seat back in 2010. Upstate NY is not NYC. Now that she represents the whole state, her constituents have changed and so have some of her positions. I’m the kind of idiot who would like to think that my elected representatives are at least aware of my positions, if not, horror of horrors, actually trying to represent them.
Elizabelle
@PJ: Apparently something to the rumors. From a Vogue profile this May, Kamala Harris Is Dreaming Big
The first stories that came up had trollish links. Bookmarking the Vogue profile to read later. Preparation sounds like Senator Harris’s middle name, though. She’ll be ready.
(1) Democratic voters are just, in general, smarter, more inclusive, and more empathetic than GOP “fear uber alles” types. It’s a different set of values.
(2) Democrats do not go for “test tube” types like Brett Kavanaugh. Seasoning with full life experience is important. Harris, like Obama before her, was traveling out of the country early in life, which gives one a wider perspective than the snake oil purveyors and reality TV stars the GOP falls for.
Elizabelle
@Nicole: Totally get what you are saying about the difference in representing upstate NY vs. the state as a whole. Albeit, there is a difference between flexibility and opportunism (and that calls for an essay!)
debit
@Nicole:
Really. You’re a constituent? You had first hand experience with his office? Because I was and I did and he was not “adequate.” He was probably the best senator I will ever have in my lifetime. If you want receipts I am happy to provide them.
Elizabelle
@debit: Yeah. “Adequate” is a dismissive word. Franken appeared to take his duties very seriously, and asked probing questions at hearings. Not quite a back bencher.
Haroldo
@debit:
It’s true….people can do it, whether it’s always useful to do so is another.
Howevah….. the ‘Left’ likes arguing more than working together, it seems. It’s an historical affliction that’s fucked us over time and time again. The 2016 elections, fer instance. This particular post, for another, infinitely more minor but illustrative, example.
Haroldo
@Haroldo: Lack of edit strikes again. “…….is another thing entirely.”
Grubert
Another Minnesotan pissed off at Gillibrand and Schumer. Gillibrand’s crocodile-teared “what shall I tell my son?” when asked by Colbert why she called for resignation so quickly was a disgraceful avoidance of responsibility.
That said, of course I would vote for her against Trump, but never in a primary