The people in congress and in other leadership roles, not so much. In fact, I suspect they think they will weather everything just fine.

The same cannot be said for Cuomo.

I'd vote for Franken any day, anywhere. We lost a tremendous Dem asset when "it was decided" to let him be the sacrificial lamb. Any day, anywhere...

It was a comedy tour filled with literal grab-assery

It was schtick. The "victim" was in on it too.
Franken should never have been forced to resign.

We all knew it was schtick,
How clueless can some people be?

Franken could have been just as good, if not as great, if Hannity and Kirsten Gillibrand would have let him.

with a gun and resignation letter and tell him either his brains or signature would be on the letter before she left? No. So please don’t pretend that she did. Gillibrand was one of 39 democratic senators who called for Franken to resign on the same day. She wasn’t even the first to call for his resignation on national television. That was Harris. And she directly benefited by getting Franken’s seat on the Judiciary committee.

as the Dems were walking down the jungle path, swatting at mosquitoes, they were oblivious to the herd of charging elephants.....Pun Intended..

She just grates my gears. I don't care how much good she may have done. That's a permanent stain on her as far as I'm concerned.

and Sanders and Warren and Booker and all the other Senators who called for his resignation on the same day. Of course, it’s always easier to demonize and blame one person even if it ignores the actual facts of the situation.

Unfortunate all around.

Or just single out one as a convenient scapegoat.

and she was so shrill about it that I've neither forgotten nor forgiven her. You know that's true.

She was a junior senator and somehow got 38 other senators to do her bidding. That defies logic and rationality. It was clearly an effort coordinated by leadership. Even Franken’s own account of the events put Schumer in the forefront.

Other reps were talking about it because the media and republicans were lying about it 24/7 but she was the first to publicly demand his resignation. Her actions opened the flood gates.

I said Harris was the first to go on TV and call for Franken to resign. Gillibrand did it in a Facebook post earlier that day, which other Senators did as well, some within a few minutes. That's hard to say is "leading the bandwagon", but that's perception, not reality.
And here's the clip of Harris on TV.

It says 12:31 PM. There’s no time on the NBC clip. Any proof that it was before Harris? Plus was it broadcast live as the CNN clip was?

what's your point anyway?

i never heard harris speak out about this

gillibrand was the face people remembers

are you mad at harris or gillibrand

Why does anyone have to be demonized over it? 39 senators all called for another to resign. They can all be criticized for making a bad call but Franken wasn’t the first elected democrat to resign and won’t be the last. He was replaced by Tina Smith, another good democrat, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Still obsessing about it and trashing one of the 39 about it over 7 years later is unfair and childish.

Comparing the two clips, the CNN one has all the usual graphics on a broadcast clip including the time, while the NBC has none of that so it obviously wasn’t broadcast live.

The media made Gillibrand the face of it. In NBC clip she’s not standing at the podium when it starts. She only moves there when a reporter asks her a question. The media likes simplistic narratives. I prefer to find out all the facts and consider all the evidence before making a judgment.

Here are a few articles from different sources that discuss the events back then. It’s very obvious that this was not the act of just one person but an highly coordinated effort by the democratic caucus.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/al-franken-urged-to-resign-kamala-harris/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/senators-al-franken-resignation
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/363759-al-frankens-swift-fall-a-timeline/

"like a dog with a bone"

People still mad about Franken after 7 years and still blaming Gillibrand for it despite the facts are like a dog with a bone.

I posted links to several articles with facts that support everything I said. Here they are again:
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/al-franken-urged-to-resign-kamala-harris/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/senators-al-franken-resignation
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/363759-al-frankens-swift-fall-a-timeline/
Can you dispute any of the facts in those articles?

Franken.

Nor that she benefitted by his seat.

I want to say something that s lot of people here would not like. Maybe that's why I just had a lukewarm feeling about her.

But she was the first to go on TV. Overall it was more the number of other Senators than the influence of any other Senator that convinced Franken to resign. Of course, he could have chosen to stay, but he didn’t.

resignation letter and tell him either his brains or signature would be on the letter.

That is complete offensive bullshit , just so you can say she was blameless. She led the fucking charge and plenty of other Dems piled on knowing it was all crap. He was forced to resign. That was one of the lowest acts by our party and you are trying to whitewash it.

First, Franken chose to resign. No one forced him to. He could have toughed out like Menendez. But he chose not to.

Second, Gillibrand did not "lead the charge". She was one of 39 senators who all said he should resign on the exact same day, some within a few minutes. That is a highly coordinated effort that everyone agreed to and most likely coordinated by leadership, not a junior Senator with little seniority.

Third, I'm not a mindreader so I don't know all or any of the 39 senators knew is was crap or not.

Franken wasn't the first democrat who resigned and won't be the last. Long time Rep. John Conyers resigned just a few days before him. But no one seems to lament the black guy. People need to get some perspective and stop acting like Franken was treated worse by his fellow senators that Julius Caesar.

And as far as the lowest acts of the party, supporting slavery, then segregation and the internment of Japanese Americans might qualify, not a rich TV celebrity losing a job.

Did someone put a gun to his head?

And they are just people, not guns. Franken had a choice and he chose to resign. You can even say that he "fell on his sword" for the good of the party. But he wasn't forced to do anything.

of an otherwise excellent Senator who was planning to run for president.

Dems think our bench is deep enough to throw somebody overboard to make a point. We could have used Franken in the next presidential election. We ended up with another candidate who. had sexual harrassment claims.

The issue isn't as simple as some want to make it.

I remember seeing a bit of the "play" they were doing. I am usually very sensitive to male use of chance to grab. I did not see that as far as I recall. Still, you pretty much give up a lot of those concerns knowing it will be part of the show. If you say no you usually lose the part back then.

NOT the same.

For jumping on with the others and said he wished he hadn't done so.

Very seldom do you hear politicians admit when they are wrong.

He switched to a Democrat, I'm guessing, so that he could run for mayor of Long Beach.

He has used language, at least in the past, about working together to get results.

Maybe with the death of the Republican party he has become more of a hard liner? IMO, he has a ways to go to equal Jasmine's fire, in a cage match my money's on Jasmine.

Both Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton were republicans. It is to their credit that they have the capacity to reason and change.

People who have consumed too much alcohol often say and do things that their prefrontal cortex normally controls.

Not that I've ever been drunk lately.

Is that a flex for Cuomo?

If you think using alcohol to make an excuse for Cuomo's behavior, yes, I am.

That does not mean I am excusing Cuomo for his behavior.

Expresses what a sober mind thinks. Tis too true sometimes.

I'm OK with Rep. Garcia. If they had picked Stephen Lynch I would have been pissed.

Anyway, I don't think it's asking too much for men to have respect for women. There is a sexism problem within the Democratic Party. It's not nearly as awful as with Republicans but it is there and it sucks.

in the steering committee vote.

There is a sexism problem in our party.

Nobody even looked at the super qualified woman, Adrienne Adams, running for Mayor of NYC.

There is a sexism problem in our COUNTRY. Otherwise we would have had President Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Kamala Harris in 2020.

We have to run people that are electable as much as I hate to admit it..............

There is a huge block of voters that will Never vote for a woman, there are a huge block who will never vote for a Black/Hispanic/ or any other minority. And that block of voters will certainly never vote for a Black Woman......

That is wrong! But the object is to win the war................

solid blue areas?

My thought is to run the best candidate. I was told that John Fetterman couldn't win in Pa. because he was too liberal. He did beat out Conor Lamb and went on to beat Dr. Oz. Something drastic happened to Fetterman since his medical episode, he is not the man I voted for.

can we say the word 'patriarchy'
yes it's all to alive and well, doing
great strides in the wrong direction.

😉

That would almost certainly have passed. But 7 other women, several of the Democrats, some of them who told others at the time also came forward with stories of more than ill advised pranks. I don't think that we as a party should be endorsing men who don't understand that they need consent before touching people especially in ways that would be considered sexual. If the same guys can manage to avoid acting this way towards other men, they can avoid doing it to women too.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/sen-al-frankens-accusers-accusations-made/story?id=51406862

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/16/16665830/al-franken-sexual-assault-allegations

Franken didn’t sexually harass anyone. He conduct was very disrespectful but democrats, as a group, over reacted.

not actual harassment.

acting this way with other men?
You won't find any of their cohorts spilling the tea on these encounters,do ya?

He's bragged about it. Never heard about him groping guys. Same with Bill O'Reilly, etc. I'm sure that there's instances of sexual harassment/groping of men by men by men who are gay/bisexual, but on average no, men don't treat other men the same as we treat women when it comes to sexual harassment.

have ever been proved. Not one. Not by Trump or anyone else. People need to accept the outcome of elections. That’s democracy.

And kinda dumb, actually.

Franken walked away

I would have stuck up for Franken if he'd stayed in office.

Loved watching Franken in Senate hearings.

Franken can say: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!" Cuomo can't.

How can it be found?

Hardly "nothing else."

Three of which were when he hugged them while posing for a photo that they asked for.

And the fourth was the prank photo everyone knows about, where he wasn't even touching the person.

So, let's not hide behind numbers and instead speak directly of what the accusations actually were.

In just as public a location, not a single person noticed, other than me. No one even noticed my reaction.

Photos mean nothing - they capture a single moment in time from a single perspective. Videos might, if they captured the entire interaction, and were aimed with an unobstructed view.

The OP claimed one accusation, arising out of a staged incident. There were 8, not 1, Ford of which were made by people willing to disclose their names. It wasn't a numbers game until the OP made it one.

I'm not saying he should have been tarred and feathered - or even that he should have made a different choice. I'm even willing to acknowledge that he may be just a very handsy guy and didn't understand he'd crossed boundaries (as was the case with the guy who fondled my butt in public).

Just don't try to pretend that he resigned because of a single staged prank, when there were 8 accusations against him.

I'm sorry, but I don't consider hugging or embracing someone during a public photo op to be """sexual harassment.""" It is pretty common in our society and Franken -- among many others -- have posed for similar pics with many people and none of them would ever have deemed it sexual harassment. And just because three people did doesn't mean that it was sexual harassment. If they personally felt uncomfortable, okay, that's fine, they are entitled to their feelings, but it doesn't mean that just because they were uncomfortable that it rises to the level of sexual harassment because it does not.

As I asked the other person, if someone shakes my hand and I shake their hand but didn't really want to, do you consider that sexual harassment?

None of them were limited to hugging or embracing.

And yes, fondling buttocks (3), groping breasts or the side area near the breast (2), and kisses (2) ARE all sexual harassment when they are unwelcome.

All three of the named accusers involved Franken putting his arm around women in public, in front of people, while photos were being taken.

If you think he intended to sexually harass anyone by doing that, in those situations, it says more about you than it does him. I guarantee you that you can find any of your favorite politicians in photos doing the exact same thing that Franken did -- are they also guilty of sexual harassment?

You don't just get to pretend the only accusation related to a staged prank, when 8 women who made accusations against him. You may choose not to believe them, but that does not erase the accusations.

As to believability and anonymity, four of those women were not anonymous, and the other four were known to the media who interviewed them - just as deep throat Watergate whistle blowers was known to Woodward and Bernstein.

As to whether they were Democrats: The first anonymous accuser voted for him. The second described an event which took place during a Democratic fundraiser, The third was, "the chair of her town's selectboard at the time of the alleged incident," but party affiliation was not disclosed to the reporters, and the fourth was a Democratic Congressional aid. Not that it matters.

And, since the point of this was to compare Cuomo and Franken - at least 3 of Cuomo's accusers were also anonymous (and described by similar generic identifiers).

Whether knowingly or unknowingly, he made a number of women uncomfortable by his actions. Ideally, resigning showed remorse and respect for those who came forward.

Groped another while being filmed for a documentary (and in front of that girl's mom). So no, the presence of a camera isn't always a deterrent. Can you clarify why you think that the victims asking for a picture somehow discredits their claims? Because asking for a picture isn't consent to be touched in inappropriate ways.

As for why people might decide to be anonymous in reporting sexual misconduct, look at how people here are attacking them. Because sadly we still treat victims as if it's their fault. Because someone involved in Democratic politics might not want to be attacked by people who hold the person who groped them accountable because the person was powerful or likeable.

Literally the only people being honest about the accusations against Franken are the people who acknowledge it wasn't just Tweeden. But you are only trying to chide one side. Doesn't seem particularly accurate to use your word.

And asking for a picture also does not discredit their claims.

Do you consider innocently -- yes, innocently -- hugging/embracing someone during a photo to be sexual harassment? Because I sure don't. Just because someone has their own insecurities doesn't mean that someone else is doing something wrong, much less it rising to the level of SEXUALLY HARASSING the other person.

If someone shakes the hand of someone that didn't really want to shake hands, do you consider that sexual harassment as well?

He should never have been forced to resign.

Cuomo, otoh, a whole different story.

There were 8 accusations against Franken, which most people seem to have forgotten.

There were at least 8 accusations of sexual misconduct against Franken (a comparable number to Cuomo), half of whom publicly disclosed their names, and most of the anonymous complaints spoke directly with investigative reporters.

Without addressing whether he should have resigned, it was his choice. He could have made a different choice and taken his chances in the next election.

Heroes often have warts. I'm tired of people on DU whitewashing the facts surrounding Franken's resignation.

was the greatest democratic senator who ever lived

That's the difference.

Schumer never wanted Al Franken in the Senate. He made no effort to defend Franken or prevent his resignation. Even the slightest attempt to delay the resignation or demand a hearing so would have been in order, but Schumer was silent and Franken was out in a heartbeat.

What did Schumer do behind the scenes trying to save Cuomo from resigning the governorship? I don't know but I can guess.

Schumer went to see Franken to tell him to resign.

Harris was the first senator to go on tv to call for Franken to resign. Gillibrand was asked questions about it during a press conference on another issue along with some other Senators.

Last edited Wed Jun 25, 2025, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Al Franken shoulda changed his name to Frank Allen long ago.
I don't agree, but people are



On Edit: There was a smear campaign against him.

She is what we need more of!

I wouldn't say "Democrats were Ok with Cuomo's sexual harassment." It's pretty clear that many were NOT.

There was more of a divide over Franken, and while he chose to resign under pressure, he might have been able to withstand staying in. Or not. I don't know.

As for Garcia, I don't see him as particularly 'moderate.' If anything, I think it's good to have someone in the Hispanic caucus at the top of the Oversight Committee. On the other hand, there was a clear case to be made for Crockett (and questions to be asked about sexism going forward), as well as the rush to replace our elders like Mfume for the sake of "younger blood."

Instead, huge numbers came out and swallowed every “came forward” that Roger Stone could coax into doing so, and thus managed to fell one of the Senate’s best fighters we had.

Now, I just tune out when I hear stock phrases like that. No longer interested. People will either fall for what they want to fall for, or they won’t. I get requests for money all the time from Democratic Senators who used their positions to publicly urge Al to resign. Unless I know for a fact (as in Al told me so, or he told Norm) that they have apologized to Al for piling on him, those requests land unopened in the trash—right next to where they put Al.

Were the 8 allegations ever made under oath? with evidence? the photos I remember seeing definitely did NOT warrant his resignation. If it was important enough for the accusers to come forward to ruin a man's career, shouldn't they have pursued legal action? THAT is what pisses me off - the accusers only wanted to ruin his political career and did NOT seek any justice for harm. I think they were paid bad actors.

None so there never would have been a day in court. No one accused him of harassment or assault, just being rude.

Franken under the bus, then back over him several times. Over NOTHING. A fucking prank in a grab ass comedy tour.

Franken's photo prank was with a colleague over whom he had no control. It was a joke in bad taste. Comedians sometimes bomb, and he paid a huge price for that. But it was never alleged to be systematic and never coming from a power position. I mean, the woman could have just told Franken to F off and there would have been no consequences to her. The 11 that Cuomo harassed feared for their jobs and careers.

It really is different.

who had to be neutralized. And they were. Easily.

MAGAt Republicans know Democrats will eat their own. One of the best ways to accomplish this is a manufactured sex scandal.

They tried to do it with President Biden. Remember the hair sniffing, the handsy hugs in photos, I remember. When that didn't work they went after Hunter and his laptop, stole his daughter's diary, FFS!

And then the coup de grâce: he's OLD! Dems didn't take the bait with the attempt at Biden's "time in the barrel" (sound familiar?) but boy did they jump at he's old, he's feeble, he's not progressive enough, blah blah blah. That worked! He's tossed out of the presidential race easy peasy! Demonizing a woman of color is a MAGAt Republican specialty, and so now there's a fucking criminal asshole fucking up the entire world!

But at least there's not an old feeble white guy...oh, never mind.

I have a memory. Gov. Cuomo was referred to as the acting president during Covid. That would have sent the fucking felon cosplaying president with the bottomless ego right over the edge. He holds petty grudges forever. And, oh look! Now Cuomo's a pervert! What fortuitous timing! And just like that, Dems munch away and he's out.

Meanwhile, there's a rapist in the White House and at least two "sex pests" on the Supreme Court. Oh well!

The MAGAt Republican set ups are so blatantly obvious but they don't care, because they know Democrats DO care, or at least pretend to, and will eat their own every time.

So! The NY mayoral race has knocked out Cuomo. Yay! Yippee! That'll teach him! So gee, I wonder how long it will be before the progressive man of color is "discovered" to be whatever the fuck accusation works for them, while the incumbent splits the votes running as an independent! Tada! Just that easy, and just that predictable.

And the MAGAts will win AGAIN.


For anyone interested in remembering reality:

Political terrains so different as to be unrecognizable.