Should Al Franken Resign?

[Cow Poke]

And it's NOT snowing right now at my house in ALASKA!

Does it not snow at your house in Alaska often?

[Starlight]

It's SNOWING right now at my house in TEXAS!

It's 91F here right now so I'm off to the swimming pool with my nephew.

[alaskazimm]

Does it now snow at your house in Alaska often?

Not as much as I would like it to. We've had snows of up to 12" so far this year; unfortunately it has been warm and rainy so most of it is gone.

At least we had enough snow for the Turkey Bowl back on the 23rd!

turkey bowl 2017a.jpg

[alaskazimm]

It's 91F here right now so I'm off to the swimming pool with my nephew.

Yeah, that's too hot!

[Terraceth]

It is interesting to watch the democrats try to convince that, given this same 'national attitude', Clinton would have been impeached and gone.

I don't think that this "national attitude" would ever have happened if Hillary had been elected POTUS. Harvey Weinstein and Bill would have still been best buds, yucking it up and sharing a couple starlets. The media would have continued to bury stories that embarrassed Democrats and their most powerful supporters (which was what NBC et al. was initially doing with Weinstein). And there certainly wouldn't be this sudden epiphany among liberals that maybe, just, maybe they handled Bill Clinton's predations, and Hillary's sliming of any of the women who spoke up, all wrong.

I believe Cow Poke was referring to President Bill Clinton, not hypothetical president Hillary Clinton.

[Starlight]

A Republican Congressman from Arizona, Trent Franks, has resigned because he learned an ethics committee investigation was underway. According to him, he did basically nothing wrong and just chatted to two of his female staffers about issues around surrogacy.

Naturally that is why he feels he has to resign before the ethics investigation starts asking questions or anything becomes public, because his conscience is so clear and he's so innocent.

[Roy]

Um, you realize all those points apply equally to the accusers, right?

Er, yes, absolutely. Do you think I'm arguing that Moore was banned? I'm not.

[Roy]

You might argue that this is a case of "he said; she said", but it's not.

It is most definitely a case of "he said; she said". Specifically, it's "Roy Moore and the mall manager said; mall employees said". That one set of witnesses may have greater credibility doesn't magically cause it not to be one person's word against another.

[carpedm9587]

I don't think that this "national attitude" would ever have happened if Hillary had been elected POTUS. Harvey Weinstein and Bill would have still been best buds, yucking it up and sharing a couple starlets. The media would have continued to bury stories that embarrassed Democrats and their most powerful supporters (which was what NBC et al. was initially doing with Weinstein). And there certainly wouldn't be this sudden epiphany among liberals that maybe, just, maybe they handled Bill Clinton's predations, and Hillary's sliming of any of the women who spoke up, all wrong.

Does anyone REALLY find these "what might have happened" observations at all useful? The left makes them to favor the left - the right (like this one) makes them to favor the right - and nobody knows what actually WOULD have happened. So it just strikes me as so much "rah, rah, team" and "tear down the other guy" politics.

As a nation - is there ANY posibility we can rise above these petty politics and actually see the other side as "the loyal opposition" instead of "the enemy?" We live in one country - under one Constitution - and I know of few people on either side that don't love it and want to see it succeed. We think differently about how things should unfold, and that is as it should be. But we do not NEED to blindly tear down one another in this way, IMO.

[Mountain Man]

It is most definitely a case of "he said; she said". Specifically, it's "Roy Moore and the mall manager said; mall employees said". That one set of witnesses may have greater credibility doesn't magically cause it not to be one person's word against another.

You just cut the legs out from under your own argument. If one witness has more credibility than another -- for instance, being in a unique position to have knowledge and information that the other lacks -- then it does not fit the common definition of "he said, she said".

[Roy]

You just cut the legs out from under your own argument. If one witness has more credibility then it does not fit the common definition of "he said, she said".

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/he-said-she-said

ADJECTIVE
1 Designating or relating to a narrative dominated by simple back-and-forth dialogue with attributions.
2 US. Of a dispute: characterized by conflicting statements from opposing parties in the absence of concrete evidence.

NOUN
1 US. A contentious dispute in which the parties express opposing accounts of an event or situation; an account of such a dispute lacking analysis or concrete evidence

© Copyright Original Source

Nothing there about relative credibility, only lack of analysis/evidence. Where's your concrete evidence that makes this dispute more than "he-said-she-said"?

Also, since in just about any case where parties are making conflicting statements there will be a credibility bias towards on or other side, your suggestion that the mall manager should be more credible doesn't prevent this being "he-said-she-said". And if you had any factual analysis of the claims or concrete evidence you wouldn't need to raise relative credibility.

[Cow Poke]

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/he-said-she-said

ADJECTIVE
1 Designating or relating to a narrative dominated by simple back-and-forth dialogue with attributions.
2 US. Of a dispute: characterized by conflicting statements from opposing parties in the absence of concrete evidence.

NOUN
1 US. A contentious dispute in which the parties express opposing accounts of an event or situation; an account of such a dispute lacking analysis or concrete evidence

© Copyright Original Source

Nothing there about relative credibility, only lack of analysis/evidence. Where's your concrete evidence that makes this dispute more than "he-said-she-said"?

Also, since in just about any case where parties are making conflicting statements there will be a credibility bias towards on or other side, your suggestion that the mall manager should be more credible doesn't prevent this being "he-said-she-said". And if you had any factual analysis of the claims or concrete evidence you wouldn't need to raise relative credibility.

This is getting silly. Since you can't prove a negative, the logical assumption would be that the burden of proof would be on the person alleging an event, and if your only "proof" was "Bob said" and Bob then says "I don't recall such an incident", it's time to move on to another narrative. Or, find something else that proves that Bob is lying or "misremembering".

[Roy]

This is getting silly. Since you can't prove a negative, ...

Again, it's not me you have to convince, but the person who claims to have proven a negative.

[carpedm9587]

This is getting silly. Since you can't prove a negative, the logical assumption would be that the burden of proof would be on the person alleging an event, and if your only "proof" was "Bob said" and Bob then says "I don't recall such an incident", it's time to move on to another narrative. Or, find something else that proves that Bob is lying or "misremembering".

Exactly. Until someone comes up with a copy of a letter/document/memo that says "Roy Moore was banned" what we have is he said/she said, with no way of knowing the core motivations of the players, and the underlying truth of the situation. I do not know if the accusers are telling the truth because they were harmed, or lying because they hate Moore. I don't know if the former manager, at 88, is telling the truth, is remembering the truth accurately, or is lying through his teeth because he loves Moore and is a Republican. Heck, I don't even know if he IS a Republican. No one here knows more than what he said and what she(s) said.

This whole discussion is about putting on the team jersey and assuming the other team is bad/evil, IMO. We've had enough of that in this country. It's time we applied a little critical thinking and separate facts from opinion a little more clearly.

[Mountain Man]

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/he-said-she-said

ADJECTIVE
1 Designating or relating to a narrative dominated by simple back-and-forth dialogue with attributions.
2 US. Of a dispute: characterized by conflicting statements from opposing parties in the absence of concrete evidence.

NOUN
1 US. A contentious dispute in which the parties express opposing accounts of an event or situation; an account of such a dispute lacking analysis or concrete evidence

© Copyright Original Source

Nothing there about relative credibility, only lack of analysis/evidence. Where's your concrete evidence that makes this dispute more than "he-said-she-said"?

Also, since in just about any case where parties are making conflicting statements there will be a credibility bias towards on or other side, your suggestion that the mall manager should be more credible doesn't prevent this being "he-said-she-said". And if you had any factual analysis of the claims or concrete evidence you wouldn't need to raise relative credibility.

A credible witness is evidence, you dingus.