It’s interesting to see so much interest in a US senate election here in New Zealand.
Alabama would normally be expected to be a safe Republican seat, but a controversial conservative candidate with a raft of sexual misconducts thrown into the campaign, sever splits in the GOP with some Senators openly saying they would vote against their own party candidate and if he won would seek to have him dumped from the Senate./
And then President Trump stirred up his own alleged sexual misconduct while endorsing and campaigning for the GOP candidate added more interest.
Especially now the results are in and he lost, and the Republican Senate majority is down to a bare 51, which make it even hard for Trump to progress his policies.
What are their names? Moore and Jones (the winner) I think from memory, but that doesn’t matter much here.
The Republicans have had a reality check, especially Trump and Steve Bannon of helped run the losing campaign.
But this is unlikely to do much to address the dysfunction in US politics.
Your NZ 
Joe Bloggs
/ 13th December 2017Rep. Bass nails it: This was a referendum on morality and trump lost
Kitty Catkin
/ 13th December 2017What happens if the allegations are false ? I don’t think that all the Trump ones are-he boasted about some of them.
I have huge reservations about allegations being made public and being considered to be the same as evidence. No trial or investigation needed, just an allegation.
artcroft
/ 13th December 2017Even a number of Republicans regarded the allegations as credible. So lots of voters took that into account.
Patzcuaro
/ 13th December 2017Why would a woman (or a man but mainly women) expose themselves to all this if there wasn’t a degree of truth in the allegation. How many women out there have said no but the man carried on? Are you a man or woman?
Kitty Catkin
/ 13th December 2017How many men are called Kitty ?
People make all sorts of false allegations, not just sexual ones. Are we to accept that because it’s been made, it must be true ?
A Hamilton man was accused of trying to poison his wife. The allegations were given wide publicity-he lost his job because of them and had a terrible time over spiteful allegations that were eventually proved to be total fabrications.
Joe Bloggs
/ 13th December 2017Kitty, you’re in denial. Pure & simple denial.
Kitty Catkin
/ 14th December 2017Rubbish. I am in no such thing and you have no grounds for saying so. I am opposed to anyone having allegations of any kind made public with no proof. If the person is found guilty, that is a very different thing, But to have someone lose their job over an allegation is like a witch hunt. They have been accused, ergo they are guilty. How would you feel if you were accused of dishonesty and it was assumed that you were guilty because someone had said that you were ?
When I rang the police to tell them that the man across the road had driven off obviously drunk, they didn’t just take my word for this, I am sure-they would have tested him.
If you believe that all allegations of sexual harassment must be true, you must be very naive indeed. The case of the male teacher who was accused of running unnoticed across a playground (at lunchtime) with a ten year old under each arm, unlocking a classroom and doing something to these boys went to court, where he was found not guilty of these ridiculous charges. Should they have been believed and a trial been saved ? I think not.
Kitty Catkin
/ 14th December 2017The man who was alleged to have tried to poison-i.e. murder- his wife not only had the horror of knowing that this was public, he lost his job and who knows else over an allegation…had it been true, it would have been very different. It is cases like this that make me say that allegations should not be made public unless the accused has had a chance to disprove them if they are fabrications.
In theory, it is innocent until proved guilty, but it seems that more and more it is the other way around.
Patzcuaro
/ 13th December 2017Women put themselves in awkward situations but it is men who take advantage of the situation. You have genuine he said she said situations such as in the case of the Hamilton cricketer but they are usually roughly equal power wise.
In the case of Roy Moore there was a power imbalance, he was an older man and the victim a young women. The same can be said for Trump and Clinton (Bill), being either a Democrat or a Republican is no excuse.
Mefrostate
/ 13th December 2017Kitty I understand your concern, because as Project Veritas already demonstrated, allegations of sexual misconduct will very quickly be turned into a political weapon. Particularly if only the Democratic politicians step down after being accused.
But, I think this is just part & parcel of society maturing in our understanding of these issues. Currently we’re recoiling at and condemning even minor allegations, but over time we’ll come to understand the reliability & severity of what each individual is accused of, and the public will call for the appropriate level of response.
Multiple public accusations of similar behaviour will count more than single anonymous ones. Rape allegations will be punished more harshly than consensual but manipulative ones. & The media play a vital role in testing the validity of allegations also.
What I hope we will avoid is overtly partisan responses to these things. “Ok for me but not for thee” will just cause further division and moral decay when our standards for what is appropriate decline as we adjust in favour of our team.
Kitty Catkin
/ 14th December 2017I do believe that allegations of any kind, but especially sexual ones, are a terrible thing-it’s too easy to make them and have them take off, like the man who’s supposed to be ‘live-baiting’. Time enough to name and shame when the allegation is proved.
Mefrostate
/ 14th December 2017Sure, a false-accusation would be devastating. But by nature of occurring in private with very little physical evidence, sexual crimes are extremely difficult to prove.
Don’t you think it would be equally terrible if people could commit such acts with impunity and hide behind the inability to prove the allegations in court?
And similarly, what about things that technically aren’t illegal but are still horrible ways to treat someone? Many of the things that are coming to light are just people using their position of power to manipulate a subordinate into doing things they don’t want to. How do we react to people that do those sorts of things?
Kitty Catkin
/ 14th December 2017It would surely be better to have them heard in private before being made public. The unlucky teacher who was accused of those absurdly unlikely things had to go through the ‘teacher (his name added) accused of sex assault on two pupils’ before the nature of these made it obvious that he couldn’t possibly have done it.
So much depends upon whether one is the accused or the accuser.
There will never be a time when power-mad people of either sex will stop being like that, I fear.
Look at Christine Rankin !!!
Mefrostate
/ 15th December 2017I understand your empathy for those falsely accused, and I share it.
But I also have empathy for those who are victims of sexual harassment but unable to prove it in a court of law. I think we should hear them out as well, and measure our responses along the spectrum I described above.
Kitty Catkin
/ 15th December 2017My objection is to allegations generally being made to the press first and appearing as if they were fact before they have been proved; trial by television. The case of the greyhound trainer is a case in point. If he did use live animals, that is revolting, and if he used dead ones, that is illegal, but he’s been accused (and the story appears every night on the news) and basically found guilty by allegation. I must confess to being tired of this story being dragged out night after night !
There are surely places where one can go with sexual harassment complaints other than Twitter and television.
If Salma Hayek really had threats made against her life, she ought to have gone straight to the police; that is a serious crime. Going on working with someone who has threatened to kill one looks very odd.
Mefrostate
/ 15th December 2017“My objection is to allegations generally being made to the press first and appearing as if they were fact before they have been proved”
What level of proof are you requiring here? Because I agree that journalists should look to verify allegations & conduct some fact-checking before publishing them. Broadly, they appear to be doing so – as evidenced by Project Veritas being caught making a false allegation.
“There are surely places where one can go with sexual harassment complaints other than Twitter and television”
This whole thing has been about the systematic structures that enable people to get away with sexual harassment precisely because the other avenues aren’t always available: coming forward puts their careers at risk, things occur in private and cannot be proven to the police, victims are doubted, etc.
Patzcuaro
/ 13th December 2017Sanity rules
Patzcuaro
/ 13th December 2017Apart from thumbs down that is.
Belledejour
/ 13th December 2017Moore won’t concede, wants recount.
Pete George
/ 13th December 2017The vote was quite close so I wondered if it might not be a done deal yet.
Fox: Alabama Senate election: Doug Jones wins in major upset, Roy Moore won’t yet concede
So it is left up in the air for now. I suspect Moore won’t get much support from Republicans to fight the result.
Blazer
/ 13th December 2017On what grounds do you assume that?The Republicans stick fat when a Demo is going to upset them in what was a safe… constituency.
Joe Bloggs
/ 13th December 2017The vote wasn’t “quite close”.
Jones has a 20,000 vote majority in the ruby reddest of deep red states.
All thanks to Steve Bannon. His master plan has just blown up big time.
Patzcuaro
/ 13th December 2017Thankfully God is in control, no Christian God would want Roy Moore.
Gezza
/ 13th December 2017Probably no Muslim God would either. I expect the Jewish God has had someone offer them both incentives to see things his way over Palestine.
Joe Bloggs
/ 13th December 2017https://mobile.twitter.com/elainaplott/status/940800304194424833/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2017%2F12%2F12%2F16770678%2Froy-moore-loses-steve-bannon
Go Steve!
Zedd
/ 14th December 2017another ‘chink’ in Mr Ts armour !?
the deadly blow is coming soon, methinks 😀