Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just the latest voice in a Democratic chorus calling for the New Jersey senator to leave office

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined the calls for Bob Menendez to resign, after the Democratic US senator from New Jersey was charged with accepting gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and other gifts as bribes.

Speaking on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez said the charges against Menendez were “extremely serious” and he should step down.

A growing number of Democrats are calling for Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006, to resign.

Menendez is accused of using his position to aid Egypt’s authoritarian government and pressuring federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend.

  • @Eldritch
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    21 year ago

    Harassment absolutely requires intent. If it did not. You could claim harassment simply for walking out your front door. You are being recorded through images and video everywhere you go every moment you spend outside the confines of your house.

    There has to be some sort of threshold beyond which something becomes harassment. But before which Things Are not. Otherwise everything is. And nothing is. So your claim is a bit non sequitur.

    So when does something become harassment? Does an image simply existing of you constitute harassment? Whether or not you are aware of it. Are all images of you without your consent harassment? If someone took a picture that you didn’t know about where someone who wasn’t trying to look like they were doing something to you that they weren’t. Is that harassment? Or let’s say I was going to go full Kids in the Hall and take a forced perspective picture where I look like a giant using my fingers to crush your head. Is it harassment? By simple existence? Or would it become harassment if it was something that I was intentionally pushed and published against your consent. These are important questions to ask and answer. And this is why people are rightfully upset with what happened in franken’s case. Let me be clear people like Anthony Weiner can go f*** himself. I think Justice was not done in his case. Only because I think more should have been done.

    Let me also be clear here. I am absolutely 100% behind believe all women. Absolutely. Believe all hyperbolic hypocrites? No. And she has objectively been shown to be a hypocrite in this case. There is a reason it was never taken to court. It would have gotten laughed out. It was a picture not taken by franken. It was also a picture not published by Franken to my knowledge. A singular unique picture in which he never touched her. The whole trial was held in the court of public opinion by someone accusing and clearly in bad faith where Justice was never served. And let me be clear. If someone levied such heavy accusations at yourself with so little evidence. You and other people around you would rightly be pissed if your life and career were heavily impacted by it. Pretending that it’s suspect that people are still unhappy about an injustice is not their problem. It’s yours.

    • queermunist she/her
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      -71 year ago

      Harassment absolutely requires intent.

      Wrong. As long as a “reasonable person” would consider the act intimidating, hostile, or abusive then it is harassment.

      A “reasonable person” is, itself, a legal fiction that creates a standard for a judge or jury to weigh the behavior against.

      • @Eldritch
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        21 year ago

        Hostility literally is intent. Abuse is a product of such intent. Your argument makes no sense. You are literally claiming it’s not defined by intent, just by intent. Again, you aren’t being objective or honest.

        • queermunist she/her
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          1 year ago

          Acts can be intimidating without intent; making sexual gestures to a person while they are sleeping and then taking a sexually compromising photo of an unconscious person is pretty fucking intimidating. Forcibly groping or kissing someone, too, is pretty fucking intimidating.