AVENUE VIET

[inkpot]

Got this in my mailbox:

Today Is Al's Last Day - Don't Let Him Resign

Friends: Today is Al Franken's "last"day." Don't let it be. Please forward this to your friends, neighbors and fellow resisters. Don't let it be. It's not over until it's over. Please retweet this with #AlFrankenDoNotResign.

https://www.change.org/p/12831337/u/22191407?utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update
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[ZeroG]

I'm posting this mostly for what Bill Maher says about the Franken case - with which I agree completely.

https://youtu.be/N1MZRowhMtc


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[UnMask]

I'm not where I can listen to the video....

But...

Al Franken should not have resigned over his boorishness.

I am not a fan of his, over kill is over kill and mistreatment is still mistreatment.
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Proud Republican Elephant Flying on Magic Carpet

[Wildflower]

[Dzê]

If you don't mind my saying so, Kirsten Gillibrand was an idiot to push Franken out. What she says in that video clip there (the one ZeroG posted) is idiotic too. Of course, patting someone's butt and raping them is different. Worlds apart in fact. The first can be done affectionately. I know of no affectionate rape.

Boy, is Gillibrand gonna be sorry if Bachman gets that seat!!!
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A smile - is a sign of joy.
A hug - is a sign of love.
A laugh - is a sign of happiness.
And a friend like me??
Hell...that's just a sign of good taste!!

[Wildflower]

[Annamite_en_Amérique]

The Rising Pressure of the #MeToo Backlash
There is a reflexive cry: we shouldn’t lump all male misbehavior together. But little room has been made for the gradations of women’s resistance.
By Jia TolentinoJan. 24, 2018

In the fall of 2016, I started feeling little starburst twinges in the ball of my right foot. A podiatrist told me that I had a fat nerve, a neuroma, and gave me a cortisone injection that made the pain go away. Because something had come back odd on my blood work, he sent me to a specialist, who sent me for more tests, found everything normal, and told me to check back in after a year.

That winter, I went to the dentist, who told me that my blood pressure was a little high. “I think it’s the news,” I told her, and we nodded and sighed. In the summer, a dermatologist noticed, too. “I just spent two weeks at the Bill Cosby trial,” I explained. In October, the Times and The New Yorker reported on allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and I wrote about sexual assault for the ninth time since June. Readers e-mailed me their own stories, flooding my in-box with accounts of rape, harassment, and shame. I replied to each person slowly, crushed by how little they expected, how little they wanted, how they always reiterated that it could’ve been worse. Over lunch, a friend told me that her first boss, decades ago, had coerced her into a sexual relationship, and that she was just starting to come to terms with this. We talked until I had to go to the gynecologist. I was late filing another sexual-assault story. The speculum was freezing, and my blood pressure was a hundred and forty over ninety-five.

When I went back to the specialist, just before Thanksgiving, I told him that I was feeling fine—my blood pressure had been high, but it was stress, and I was working on it. He asked me what I meant by stress.

“Oh,” I said, laughing awkwardly. “It’s a stressful time for everyone!”

He gave me a skeptical look.

“I’m a writer, and I’ve been writing about the news a lot, and it’s sort of intense,” I said.

“What do you write about?” he asked.

“Well,” I said. “Lately, the Weinstein stuff . . . which everyone’s talking about all the time, anyway, and so it’s a little stressful.”

The doctor wrapped the cuff around my arm. “Let me ask you a question,” he said, sharply, as the cuff started to tighten. I got a familiar, awful feeling—a dissociative and desperate shimmer. I knew from his tone exactly what he was about to do. He was going to say that of course he was in favor of real victims speaking up, but he was worried that this whole thing was going too far. He would ask me if I didn’t think it was dangerous to lump all these things together, and I would try to find the words to say that the fear of things being lumped together does more to lump them together than all the speaking up, and then he would continue asking questions as a way of telling me what he thought. I am no more a specialist in sexual assault than any other woman, but I’ve found myself writing about the subject more than maybe anything else over the course of my brief career—somehow, it keeps coming up—and I have had this conversation more times than I can count. At this point, knowing that someone is going to talk to me like I’m unreasonable hits me as a distinct physical sensation. It feels like someone throwing poisoned confetti at the back of my neck.

“Weinstein is a real scumbag,” my doctor said, his hand pressing into the crook of my forearm. “But how far does this go? Someone says something out of line at the office party—you’re telling me that’s sexual assault?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“Lot of people calling a lot of things sexual assault, sexual harassment,” he said

Read more:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-rising-pressure-of-the-metoo-backlash
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Công Hòa Viêt-Nam Muôn Nam!

[vu]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her new Sundance documentary, her #MeToo revelation

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-et-mn-sundance-ruth-bader-ginsburg-women-20180122-htmlstory.html

Los Angeles Times
By COLLEEN SHALBY
JAN 24, 2018 | 11:35 AM
| PARK CITY, UTAH

It was just one day after an estimated million protesters had gathered in
cities around the world for Women’s March first-anniversary events,
including a crowd of hundreds in below-freezing Park City, Utah, where the
Sundance Film Festival is in full swing. Combined with constant talk of a
growing Time’s Up movement and a deluge of women-in-film panels, the
call for female empowerment was strong.

Enter: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her #MeToo revelation.

A crowd clamored around the Supreme Court justice when she arrived Sunday
afternoon, holding up phones in futile attempts to grab a photo of the
5-foot-1 Ginsburg as she walked inside the Filmmakers Lodge on Main Street
for a chat with NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg.

Ginsburg was at Sundance for the premiere of “RBG” — a documentary
about the 84-year-old’s life from early childhood, her justiceship, her
rise to cultural icon status (and “Notorious RBG” nickname), as well
as her unprecedented critique of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Three days later, the documentary was acquired by Magnolia Pictures and
Participant Media for worldwide distribution, including theatrical, home
video, SVOD and international television. CNN Films, which produced the
project with Storyville Films, retains U.S. broadcast rights to RBG. A
healthy Oscar campaign is sure to ensue, and Ginsburg’s increasingly
iconic status will only boost interest.

Inside the Sundance premiere’s theater, the packed audience stole
glances and whispered, “She’s here.”

The film opens with a barrage of sound bites from several men criticizing
her.

“She’s an absolute disgrace to the Supreme Court,” then-presidential
candidate Donald Trump is heard saying.

Several women then consecutively appear on screen to say otherwise.

“She’s the closest thing to a superhero I know,” Gloria Steinem
asserts.

“RBG” directors and film creators Betsy West and Julie Cohen used
footage from Ginsburg’s 1993 Supreme Court confirmation hearing as the
film’s narrative spine. Also included are home movies and interviews
with Ginsburg, her family, Steinem, Bill Clinton, Sen. Orrin Hatch,
Totenberg and others to create a picture of her professional and personal
life.

In person though, she showed the audience why she’s such an important
voice for women of all ages. Asked by Totenberg about the “me too”
movement. Ginsburg didn’t hesitate.

“I think it’s about time,” she said, before sharing her own
experience.

As an undergraduate student at Cornell University, she told the Sundance
audience, an instructor gave her the answers to a test. Ginsburg knew that
a sexual favor was the implied payment.


Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Sundance before the premiere of the documentary
"RBG." Robin Marchant / Getty Images “I walked into his office and said,
‘How dare you? How dare you?’”

It was the early 1950s. At the time, “sexual harassment” wasn’t a
phrase. It would be coined roughly two decades later, right around the
time that Ginsburg co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American
Civil Liberties Union, and voiced her support for the Equal Rights
Amendment.

“Women woke up and complained,” she says in the film.

A Rolodex of those women’s rights cases she fought for in the 1970s —
some that she brought before the Supreme Court — intertwines with
contemporaneous footage of women marching for equality. The film details
two women’s rights cases that have come before the Supreme Court during
Ginsburg’s tenure — one being the 1996 United States v. Virginia
decision to overturn the Virginia Military Institute’s men-only policy.
The other is Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. — a 2007 case about
gender discrimination that led to the establishment of the Lilly Ledbetter
Fair Pay Act.

A man’s world, redefined

Throughout the film, the audience sees moments from Ginsburg’s personal
life. Her love story with her late husband Marty, a constant supporter and
champion of her work. Her home at the Watergate Complex. Her workout
routine. Her relationship with her granddaughter, Clara Spera, who calls
Ginsburg “Bubby” and has followed in her footsteps by getting a law
degree from Harvard University.

The film also details her love for the opera, and how it bonded her with
the late Justice Antonin Scalia and solidified their odd-couple friendship
— he a conservative, she a liberal.

At one point, she’s shown Kate McKinnon’s “Saturday Night Live”
parody of herself for what appears to be the first time. She is an instant
fan.

“I would like to say ‘Gins-burn’ sometimes to my colleagues,” she
told Totenberg earlier in the day about the catchphrase McKinnon’s
character uses.

Before Ginsburg had to maneuver the intricacies of being a woman on a
male-dominated court, she did so at Harvard University.

“How did it feel to be one of nine women in a class of over 500 men? You
felt like you were constantly on display,” she said in the film.

“RBG” details Ginsburg’s personal fight against sexism, and how it
rolled into her work’s mission to stand up for those impeded by gender.

‘We the People’ now includes people who were left out from the start.

In one scene, she shows the variety of neckwear she displays above her
robe — an idea she and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor came up with
as an answer to the ties their male colleagues wore. It’s a lighter
moment, but one that shows a sliver of what Ginsburg and her fellow female
colleagues have faced in a world of law first created and inhabited by
men.

“Think about where we started,” Ginsburg said on stage after the film.
“Who were the founders? Who were the people who counted? Who were the
people who voted? They were all white men and property owners. Well, I
think the genius of our Constitution is that over the course of well over
two centuries, ‘We the People’ now includes people who were left out
from the start.”

And as for those on both sides of the ideological spectrum who wonder how
much longer she will be on the bench, Ginsburg has staffed law clerks
through the 2020 term and told Totenberg in their earlier chat that she
doesn’t have plans to retire anytime soon.

“It’s a tremendous honor that I have this job,” she said. “And a
huge responsibility.”
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[Annamite_en_Amérique]

Joy Behar Challenges Kirsten Gillibrand: Why'd You Push Out Al Franken?
HuffPost, Rebecca Shapiro
Joy Behar kicked off an interview with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on Monday by confronting the lawmaker for calling on Sen. Al Franken to resign after being publicly accused of sexual misconduct.

Franken, whose last official day in office was Jan. 2, announced his resignation from Congress after eight women publicly accused him of behavior ranging from unwanted advances to unwanted groping and kissing. Gillibrand was the first Democratic lawmaker to call on him to step down.

“I just thought that was unfair to make him an example,” Behar said during Gillibrand’s appearance on “The View.”

Behar asked why Democrats didn’t hold a hearing and compared the allegations made against Franken to those made against President Donald Trump. At least 20 women have accused the president of sexual harassment and misconduct.

“Why did you push Franken out?” Behar pressed.

Gillibrand called Franken a friend and the situation “heartbreaking.” Still, she said, he had to go.

“He’s entitled a hearing. He is. But he’s not entitled to my silence, Joy,” Gillibrand said. She added that the allegations against Franken were different from those against other men in politics, including Trump, but said they all deserved attention and action.

“Why would you want to hold our elected leaders to the lowest standard and not the highest standard?” she asked.

Check out the heated clash in the video above.

Gillibrand, a frequent Trump critic, has invited San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz to accompany her to the State of the Union address on Tuesday. Trump lashed out at Cruz in September when she requested aid to improve the humanitarian crisis caused by Hurricane Maria.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joy-behar-kirsten-gillibrand-al-franken_us_5a6f7f4de4b01fbbefb4dfa3?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000313
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Công Hòa Viêt-Nam Muôn Nam!

[GalleonFlame]

Why the Hell Is Hope Hicks Getting Off Easy?
There’s a special place in hell for women who choose to use what limited power they have to protect men who hurt women.
BY Erin Gloria Ryan

What the hell is wrong with Hope Hicks?

The White House communications director spent at least part of this taxpayer-funded week on the job helping draft a fawning statement in defense of her boyfriend on behalf of her boss. The boyfriend, White House staff secretary Rob Porter, was accused of abusing both of his ex-wives. Hicks’ boss is White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former general who, despite months ago spending some of his taxpayer-funded time pontificating to the press corps on how women used to be “sacred,” reportedly knew about the alleged spousal abuse for months and signed off on the statement anyway.

Kelly and others even encouraged Porter to “stay and fight” the charges, the worst possible choice of words one could use in defending a domestic abuser. According to former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, the White House also attempted to frame Lewandowski for the leak that led to Porter’s resignation.

What the hell is wrong with the White House? What the hell is wrong with John Kelly? And last but certainly not least: Why the hell is Hope Hicks getting off easy?

This is not the first time Hicks has carried water for a man accused of hurting women. From her boss, the president, accused of sexual misconduct by 19 women, to rumored former boyfriend-turned-framee Lewandowski—caught on video grabbing then-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields—to Porter, Hicks has kept her head down and professionally defended the alleged abuse of men for much of her post-collegiate twenties.

Hicks has been wearing out her good faith since she stepped into the public eye. Since Donald Trump glided down that Trump Tower escalator in June 2015, the press has harped on the weirdos and wackos he’s surrounded himself with. But the media found its narrative counterweight in Hicks.

Hicks went from lowly PR flak for Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand to Trump campaign communications maven to White House communications director, all before she turned 30.

In all the ways Trump and his acolytes were brash, Hicks was understated. He was a barging, greased-up bull in a china shop. She was a cool Connecticut lacrosse player, effortlessly rich and glamorous, as quiet as he was loud. She kept her head down. She was professional.

Hicks had a more defined job in the White House than “first daughter” Ivanka, who inspires the professional confidence of an obvious mannequin that has come to life and found itself in the Situation Room. Hicks’ position allowed her to be more behind-the-scenes than White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and thus avoid some of the scrutiny thrown her way. Hicks was less nakedly attention-seeking than Kellyanne Conway, who often didn’t appear to have any aim beyond her primal desire to sass cable-news anchors.

But despite her more palatable branding, Hicks doesn’t deserve the gentle handling she’s gotten thus far, because she’s used her below-the-radar status to fight for the worst kind of people. And she certainly doesn’t deserve to be able to keep her head down and avoid the blowback from the fallout from how she tried to protect her boyfriend’s reputation during his exit from the White House.

Apart from being Porter’s girlfriend, Hicks is the White House communications director. And the White House’s handling of the resignation of Porter should bring all of Hicks’ publicly ascribed qualities into question. No matter how dedicated and efficient the White House communications director is, the White House’s wagon-circling around Porter paints Hicks as unprofessional, unethical, and unfit.

To paraphrase a cliché, there’s a special place in hell for women who choose to use what limited power they have to protect men who hurt women. And Hicks has devoted much of her professional life to doing just that.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-hell-is-hope-hicks-getting-off-easy?via=newsletter&source=AMDigestOrig_ABTest
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Rule the Waves! The cyberwaves, of course!