A Survivor's Defense of Al Franken

By Dr. GS Potter, Strategic Institute for Intersectional Policy

01 December 17

feel exploited. And I feel sick.

I’m sick of pedophiles. I’m sick of rapists. I’m sick of sexual violence and sexual predators. I am sick of being reminded moment after moment of the times?—?yes plural?—?that I have been shocked out of my body, stripped of my power and deprived of the right to defend my own body by a man sexually forcing himself onto me. More than that, I’m sick of my traumas and the traumas of other survivors being exploited for political gain and emotional satisfaction on both the left and the right. Physically. Sick.

I am sick to know that I cannot protect myself or my daughter from the pussy grabbing woman hater that controls every single law and policy that guides this nation. I am sick to know that Roy Moore exists on this planet and that there are millions of people supportive of a known pedophile holding power over millions upon millions of women and girls in the state of Alabama and the United States. I am sick that a member of the Trump campaign and former state Senator in Oklahoma plead guilty to child trafficking.

And I am sick that people like Leeanne Tweeden feel comfortable enough to take the traumas of the women and children that have been the true victims of sexual violence and used them for her own personal gains and the political goals of the Republican Party.

Leeanne Tweeden is the woman that recently accused Al Franken of sexually violating her at a rehearsal for a USO comedy show in 2006. Her decision to take her story public after 10 years of “silence” has been framed by both the left and the right as a survivors’ act of bravery that demands immediate attention and strict consequences.

I see Leeanne Tweeden’s actions quite differently.

What Leeanne Tweeden has done is stolen the very real traumas of very survivors?—?people like me?—?and mocked them. What she has done is taken our pain and our bravery and our strength and exploited it on behalf of a network of people that actively prey on the women and children she is pretending to show solidarity with. What she is doing is vile and it is disgusting and it is dangerous on every personal and political level associated with sexual assault in the United States.

Perhaps if she was, in fact, a survivor of sexual assault she would understand the damage that is being caused by her actions. But she is not a survivor. And she is definitely not a victim of Al Franken.

Leeanne was never raped. She was never assaulted. And she was never the victim of sexual violence or harassment. She was a willing and active participant in a comedy show that involved sexualized behaviors. She consented to participating. She actively engaged in and invited similar behaviors with other performers other than Al Franken at the event.

As recently and clearly described by journalist S. Novi:

“Both SNL and USO stage skits are well-known to be over the top when it comes to topics such as sex, but the USO performances are even more so due to the audience of mostly military males. Since the days of Bob Hope, there have always been beautiful bombshell women showing up in scanty outfits and sexual dialogue running from innuendos to outright blatant views. If you are either a male or female performing in these shows you are expected to play along.

…. there are a number of images as well as videos appearing that show that Tweeden didn’t seem to have a problem with sexual performances on stage including that of her grabbing the butt of a Country and Western performer and rubbing her behind up against him and the singer grabbing at her butt. Additional videos of the tour have included a very sexual performance with the comedian Robin Williams as well as the real on-stage ‘kiss’ with Franken.

In this case, we have a woman that signed up for known sexually oriented skits and performances that she approved of, and rehearsed, and then performed many of them onstage in both a preplanned and ad hoc way.”

Leanne Tweeden was a consenting and contracted performer for the USO then, just as she is a contracted performer for the right wing now. She was not then and is not now a survivor. She was not then and is not now a victim of Al Franken.

Al Franken’s tasteless joke didn’t make her fear for her life. It didn’t make her burn the clothes she was wearing that night. It didn’t make her scrub herself clean in the shower until her skin tore off. This joke didn’t keep her up shaking and puking and sobbing on the floor of a shower as she bled down a drainpipe. It didn’t send her to the clinic for STD tests.

Al Franken’s joke didn’t crush her notion of who she was or how she could walk in this world. This joke didn’t give her PTSD or depression or any of the lasting forms of struggle that true rape and assault victims must face minute by minute. It hasn’t informed every relationship she’s had since. And it wasn’t in any way what so ever a form of rape, assault or even harassment.

Leeanne Tweeden was not then and is not now a victim. A very large part of me wishes she had been, though.

As a survivor and active member in the struggle to protect and progress civil rights in the United States, I have a track-record of confronting both the Democratic and the Republican party for abuses. If Tweeden was a victim of a violent and predatory Al Franken, I would have stood right by her side and called for an investigation of the Senator and his immediate removal from office. I would have gladly lumped his name into a category with Roy Moore and Donald Trump and Roger Ailes and Henry Weinstein. I would have written an article about how we can’t entrust or bodies to legislators that will assault our women and children and legally enable the predators to get away with similar crimes no matter what side of the aisle we come from.

She is not a victim. She is not an ally. And she is not a survivor. Those words have meaning. Those words hold weight. And she has not earned her right to wear those badges.

What Tweeden is, is a willing participant in a new skit in which the Republican Party uses her completely normal interaction with Al Franken as an excuse to accuse a Democratic Senator of sexual assault, deflect from the charges of rape and pedophilia in the highest ranks of their own party, and test drive a strategy by which they can gain increasing amounts of power by exploiting the sexual traumas of women and children.

And their plan is working. Almost inexplicably.

Politics isn’t a game of morality. Clearly. Wins and losses are accomplished on the basis of strategy. And right now, the Democratic Party is letting a pussy grabbing steak salesman and a bigoted gun toting pedophile out-strategize them with some of the most remedial and ridiculous strategies in the book: deflection.

For example, these lines of argument may sound familiar:

It’s the left that is racially dividing the country, not the alt-right. It’s the Clinton’s relationship with Russia that is suspicious, not Trump’s. It is the left that has destroyed healthcare, not the GOP. The Democrats are the Party of the KKK, not the Republicans.

That’s because one of the most common rhetorical strategies employed by the Republican Party is to deflect an accusation by turning the charges on them around to the accuser. And as common and predictable as this strategy is?—?the Democrats still haven’t come up with a consistent method to counter it.

Just as in any game of competition, and especially political competition, one side can only succeed if the other side fails to stop them. And fail is exactly what the Democrats are doing. Failing.

Rather than taking a stand against the exploitation of sexual assault survivors, they are allowing the Republican Party to use our trauma as a cover to advance their own political agendas. Worse, they have taken the political bait hook, line, and sinker and rather than launching a full-scale counterattack on the GOP, they have turned on themselves and started calling for the resignation of a member of their own party.

Rather than focusing on accusations against Donald Trump, Roy Moore or Ralph Shorty?—?the attention is turned onto Minnesota Senator Al Franken. Not only do the Republicans succeed in turning the attention away from themselves, but they succeed in turning the Democrats against each other. And the final narrative becomes:

It’s not the Republican Party supporting pussy grabbers and pedophilia. It’s the Democrats!

The Democratic Party is practically handing the nation’s women and children over to pedophiles and rapists simply because they asked them to. And if we let Senators like Al Franken?—?representatives that have voting records filled with support for women’s rights?—?fall to pedophiles like Roy Moore, then we are allowing the real traumas of exploited women be used as an excuse to put more women and girls in harm’s way.

This is what terrifies me most.

One of the key functions of the Democratic Party is supposed to be to protect its constituents and the nation from attacks by the Republican Party. They are supposed to have an exhaustive list of narratives strong enough to counter the most complex of political accusations, in addition to this predictable, rookie-level attempt to lump Al Franken into the same category as Roy Moore. They are supposed to have the media and legal prowess attuned enough to protect both the leaders and the members of the Democratic party from these predictable but incredibly dangerous attacks. The Democratic Party is supposed to ensure that a pussy grabber and a party of pedophiles don’t get to control how we talk about sexual violence let alone what we do about it.

And they have failed to execute their duties. In fact, they’re carrying out the agenda of the Republican Party for them.

The Democrats and members of the left have called for the removal of Senator Franken and an investigation into Tweeden’s right wing backed accusations. They have failed to protect true victims of sexual assault from Republican exploitation. They refused to counter the narrative that Al Franken’s completely legally, nonviolent and consensual interactions with Leanne Tweeden should be equated with sexual harassment, assault and pedophilia. And they have all but totally succumb to calls for the investigation and removal of Al Franken.

It clearly cannot be denied that sexual violence exists on both sides of the political aisle, but it is the Republican Party that has perfected the technique of weaponizing and exploiting these traumas for their own personal gain. It also cannot be denied that the Republican Party is on the offense when it comes to applying this repugnant tactic.

If the Democrats can’t figure out how to counter this most obvious and basic strategy to use sexual assault as a front to advance their political agendas and damage the Democratic Party, then this strategy is likely to destroy the standing of more than just Al Franken.

There is no shortage of Tweedens standing in line to gain 5 minutes of fame and a right-wing paycheck to be used as a grenade to blow up the next Democratic target. And there is no shortage of targets. If the Democratic party continues to let the Republican Party beat them with the most obvious and low hanging strategies, what hope do we have that they can counter any of the more complex attacks on this nation and the people in it? If the Democratic Party keeps allowing the Republican Party to blur the lines between sexual violence and sexualized behavior, they are putting more women and children in the hands of unthinkably powerful predators?—?and they are paving the path for the destruction of the entire Democratic Party at their violent and perverse hands.

Vote "Caging" Gets Legal?!? RNC Asks Court to Lift Consent Decree That Blocked Jim Crow Voter Purge Scam

By Greg Palast, Greg Palast's Website

01 December 17

he RNC is petitioning a federal district court in New Jersey to lift a Consent Decree that blocked an ugly Jim Crow voter purge scam known as "caging." Here’s an excerpt from a memo filed on November 5th, 2016 by the presiding US District Judge, John Michael Vazquez, which provides some background on the case:

The original Consent Decree was entered in 1982. The Decree was the result of the settlement of a lawsuit which claimed that, in connection with the 1981 New Jersey Gubernatorial election, the RNC and the New Jersey Republican State Committee attempted to intimidate the minority voters, in violation of the Voting Rights Act… Specifically, the RNC sent sample ballots to areas where a large portion of the voters were ethnic minorities, then asked that the name of each voter whose ballot was returned as undeliverable be removed from New Jersey’s voter rolls.

The Decree was modified and extended twice, in 1987 and 2009, but it's set to expire on December 17, 2017 — unless, as per Vazquez’s memo, “the DNC proved in the interim that the RNC violated the Decree, in which case the Decree would be extended an additional eight years.”

I discovered that the RNC was violating this Consent Decree in 2004, when my BBC Newsnight team caught George W. Bush’s campaign red-handed. And, get this, Roy Moore’s campaign chief, Brett Doster, was the one doing the dirty work for George W. in Florida. The RNC was busted when a little bird gave me an email from Tim Griffin (Karl Rove’s dogsbody) to Doster (Moore’s goon) with a subject header marked "caging" — with one of the caging lists attached.

The full skinny on my investigation into the RNC’s racist caging operation is chronicled in Chapter 13 of my book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. We've posted the complete chapter, entitled “Karl Rove Confidential”, below.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. explains caging in The Case of the Stolen Election — the post-election update of our film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (see clip), which is based on the book. Kennedy also discussed the original RNC Consent Decree with me and asserts that even if it is allowed to expire, caging remains illegal under the Voting Rights Act because it targets voters of color. However, it's unlikely that GOP officials will choose to interpret the law in the same way, and the Consent Decree's expiry could lead to a vastly increased, and more overt, use of these nefarious vote-stealing tactics as we head towards the 2018 and 2020 elections.

Congressman Tim Griffin is a big, BIG supporter of the XL Pipeline. And the Kochs are big, BIG supporters of Congressman Griffin. Koch interests lined up $167,183 for Griffin’s run in 2010. Let me put that in perspective: for $167,183, the average member of Congress would be willing to wash your car — with their tongue.

That kind of money doesn’t come into a GOP candidate’s hands without the helpful hand of Karl Rove.

When voting-rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined our investigations team in 2008, he examined the latest documents we’d squirreled out of Republican Party headquarters’ files. And then he said, speaking of Karl Rove and his associate Tim Griffin, “What they did was absolutely illegal — and they knew it and they did it anyway. Griffin should be in jail.”

But Griffin’s not in jail, he went to Congress. Rove is not in prison either. According to IRS records, he’s director of a non-profit “social welfare” organization. American Crossroads, GPS, tax-exempt under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, aims to improve society’s welfare by dragging Democrats out of their seats in Congress and removing a Democrat president from the White House. A federal prosecutor expressed the same sentiment to me. How Griffin ended up in Congress, not in prison, is the more intriguing story.

It was well after midnight, some time in the first week of October before the 2004 election, when the e-mails started pouring in.

The chieftains of the George W. Bush reelection campaign were copying me on their most intimate and confidential messages — and Ollie, my research director, pissed me off by waking me in my cheap motel room to tell me this whacky-ass news. I was in the middle of nowhere USA with my election investigation for BBC going nowhere, so I wasn’t in the mood for this bullshit.

But it wasn’t bullshit. It was a miracle. Karl Rove’s right-hand man, Tim Griffin, Bush’s research director (read, smear director), had sent the data for some sick scheme to the chairman of the Bush reelection campaign in Florida, Brett Doster. Griffin, instead of sending copies to GeorgeWBush.com, their internal e-mail domain, sent copies to GeorgeWBush.ORG, to my friend John Wooden’s joke site. Wooden passed them on to us for forensic analysis.

Here was the GOP leadership with their pants around their ankles, exposing their cheat sheets.

Holy Mama! Do I have to believe in God, now?

What we’d been handed proved to be an electronic back door into the darkest corners of a criminal vote-suppression machine.

By the morning, we had booked flights to Washington, DC, and Tallahassee, Florida, while Ms. Badpenny, in charge of our investigations, began the decoding work. We knew there was a scheme afoot, but what exactly was it?

Smoking-gun memos rarely read, “Louie, this is how we cheat the public,” or “Brett, here’s the plan to steal Florida.” If they do say that, they’re fake.

These e-mails’ clues were a bit tougher than most to crack. That pudgy little wad Griffin had written to Doster several e-mails with the cryptic subject line Caging.xls, with Excel files attached, and terse messages like “Here’s another list.”

Each was a very selective list of voters, names, and addresses. What struck me right off were names like Rodriguez, Washington, and Goldberg — typically Hispanic, black, and Jewish. Badpenny and the crew mapped the addresses and, sure enough, it was a perfect scattergram of poor, minority neighborhoods and townships with Gone With the Wind names like “Plantation, Florida.” There was also that list of Yiddish names from retirement homes: the GOP was certainly targeting the Elderly of Zion.

But for what?

At the Bush headquarters in Florida’s capital, Campaign Director Doster agreed to an interview. But when BBC required me to disclose we had his “caging” e-mails, Doster fled like a bunny into his Tallahassee offices and sent out his mouthpiece, Mindy Tucker Fletcher, clutching a supersized cup of Coca-Cola as big as a mortar shell. She brought a flunky to nod at whatever she said, and a sneering list of explanations, beginning with a corker: the “caging” lists, she said, were a compilation of Republican donors.

Really? Including these folks? Here were the Bush-Cheney “donors” who all lived at the State Street Rescue Mission:

Page after page of names contained residents of homeless shelters.

Want to try again, Mrs. Tucker Fletcher?

A “caging list,” she explained, was a term of art in the junk mail business referring to returned letters. I knew that. The Republicans, she said, didn’t want to send duplicates to wrong addresses.

You don’t say! So Mindy, you’re telling me that Karl Rove’s top attack dog is now running the mailroom via confidential messages to state party chairmen — for address corrections?

Why don’t I give you one more try, Mrs. Tucker Fletcher. Could these, by chance, be lists used to systematically challenge the registrations of voters of color?

Mindy Tucker Fletcher grinned and said, carefully, “This is not a challenge list. That’s not what it’s SET UP to do.” Bingo.

You see, we’d already made a couple of visits to experts before stopping by Fortress Bush. After sending the lists to America’s junk mail king Mark Swedlund, who’d helped me on many an undercover investigation, I had a damn good idea what these were — an opinion confirmed, without prompting, by Ion Sancho, Florida’s county elections supervisor, the recognized expert on voting systems — and vote heists. “They couldn’t be anything but challenge lists. And if they are, they’re breaking the law.”

More than one law, actually, especially if the targets have a racial or religious profile. And it would be breaking a consent decree: years earlier, the Republican National Committee was caught challenging black voters en masse at polling stations and had promised, under penalty of perjury, not to do it again.

Now it looked like they were doing it again, but in a most sophisticated way. Bobby Kennedy explained the game: “They send out letters to poor black and Hispanic voters, first class, with instructions to return, don’t forward, if the letter is not deliverable. The returned [“caged”] letter is then used as ‘evidence’ the voter’s listed address is fraudulent, and the Republican functionary then gets the name struck from voter rolls, or the absentee ballot, if mailed in, is not counted.”

Targeting the black, Hispanic, and Jewish vote this way is not just icky and racist, it’s against the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Kennedy’s late father Bobby Sr., the US attorney general, and his uncle, President John Kennedy, helped draft. Bobby Jr., looking at the evidence, suggested hard time for Griffin and Rove.

But who was going to prosecute Griffin and company, anyway? Was the Bush Justice Department going to tell Mr. Griffin, “spread’m?” Mr. Griffin, of the Bush campaign? Mr. Griffin, assistant to the senior advisor to President Bush?