If we got rid of every member of Congress who grabs women, we won’t have any left. I don’t know how he recovers from this allegation, especially since he was already a senator when it happened:
A woman says Sen. Al Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010, telling CNN that he grabbed her buttocks while taking a photo at the Minnesota State Fair.
It is the first allegation of improper touching by Franken, who is a Democrat, while he was in office. It comes just days after Leeann Tweeden, a local radio news anchor in California, said that Franken forcibly kissed and groped her in 2006, when Franken was a comedian.
Franken has since issued an apology to Tweeden and faces a potential investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.Lindsay Menz, a 33-year-old woman who now lives in Frisco, Texas, reached out to CNN on Thursday hours after Tweeden made her story public. Menz said she wanted to share an “uncomfortable” interaction that left her feeling “gross.”
According to Menz, she attended the Minnesota State Fair with her husband and father in the summer of 2010, almost two years after Franken was elected to the Senate. Her father’s small business was sponsoring a local radio booth, and she spent the day meeting various elected officials, political candidates and celebrities and taking photos with them as they stopped by the booth.
When Franken walked in, Menz and her husband, who also spoke with CNN, said they recognized him right away. Menz said she had a brief and cordial exchange with the senator.
Then, as her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken “pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear,” Menz said. “It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek.”“It wasn’t around my waist. It wasn’t around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt,” she said, recalling that the brazen act lasted three or four seconds. “I was like, oh my God, what’s happening.”
“He reached around her and kind of pulled her into him,” said her husband Jeremy Menz, who didn’t see what happened behind his wife. “He pulled her in and pushed his head against her head. It was over pretty quick.”
Lindsay Menz told CNN that she walked away as soon as the photo was taken, without saying anything to the then-first term senator. When she reconnected with her husband moments later, she told him: “He totally grabbed my butt.” Jeremy Menz described that conversation the same way to CNN.
Getting rid of every member of Congress who grabbed a woman’s butt, whether it’s a man or a woman doing the grabbing, would be wonderful.
As a matter of fact voting every sitting member of Congress out of office next November would be even better.
“f we got rid of every member of Congress who grabs women, we won’t have any left.”
Yes we would, although they might all be women, which would be OK by me, for the most part. I think that all of my representatives except for my state assemblyman are women already: Diane Feinstein, Kamala Harris, Barbara Lee, and Nancy Skinner if I remember correctly. And as far as I know, Tony Thurmond, my state assemblyman, hasn’t groped anyone lately, at least according to the Google…
On the other hand, there are many male congresscritters I would like to see still working for our interests, but god damn it, they need to learn to keep their hands (and other appendages) to themselves.
Barbara Mikulski was a known lesbian; maybe some Baltimoreans I know have some stories. Or not
Just saying, shoe/foot etc.