CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
July 15, 2014 01:41 PM UTC
85 Comments
Wicked. Tricksy, False. We ought to wring his filthy little neck. Kill him! Kill him! Kill them both! And then we take the precious… and we be the master!
The 11th hour, me too, over the counter birth control pandering probably earned him this one.
Suck it Gardner. The truth hurts.
Why does Mark Udall think that a drunken hookup is equivalent to raping a woman at knife/gunpoint?
Jesus Christ, Elliot, are you serious? I'm asking before I completely go the fuck off on you.
Go off then.
Actually, what you're trying to get at is so disgusting that there is really no need. Rape is rape, and it is a crime. If you don't think rape is always a crime, I just hope you ever act on that. And on behalf of women everywhere, fuck you.
Sometimes you have said things that make me respect you, Elliot. You just lost it.
If me thinking that raping a woman at knifepoint is a much more serious offense then a drunken hookup by two kids not knowing what is going on causes you to lose respect for me, then c'est la vie.
Would you like a shovel?
I'd ask you the same. Do you think a good portion of CU Boulder kids are rapists because they had drunken sex after a party? And who would be raping who then there? The drunk guy? The drunk girl? Are they both raping each other?
But wait! There is more! Your position goes beyond just rape is rape. It is that all rape is the SAME – i.e. it is inappropriate to distinguish between different categories of rape. So in your eyes, all those drunken frolicking college kids are EQUALLY BAD to a rapists who uses a knife or a gun to force himself on an unsuspection woman outside her home.
That is kind of sick.
Elliot, you have issues, and I just hope the women in your life don't bear the brunt of them. I'm off to take a shower, because this conversation has really grossed me out.
Or take the guy who got charged with rape because he didn't withdraw from consensual sex fast enough after consent was withdrawn.
Did that guy commit an equally equivalent offense in your mind as a man who used a knife or a gun to force himself upon a woman he didn't know outside her home in the dead of night?
Oh, "buyer's remorse," how we've missed you since the last Senate race.
So if a girl gets drunk, she deserves to get raped, right?
But why stop there? If a girl goes to a party and other people are drinking, then she deserves to get raped, right?
But why stop there? If a girl wears a short skirt and crop top, she deserves to get raped, right?
But why stop there? If a girl is a girl, she deserves to get raped, right?
Elliot just flashed his douchebag card. Pretty stunning, isn't it?
I believe that, at least in EF's case, they gave him his douchebag card when he passed the bar exam and became a full-fledged shyster.
AJB, who said "deserves"? I never said that. I said that a drunken hookup was not EQUIVALENT to a rape involving a knife/gun done with intent and malice.
If drunlenness is an excuse for subsequent actions, why do we prosecute DUI? Well, your honor, I was to drunk to know not to drive.
Rape is what happens when we have sex with someone against their wishes. That they only start wishing half way into the act doesn't change that. You share an unfortunate fantasy with many in this society– that somehow there are degrees of rape. Rape is the violation of one person by another against their will. Whether that comes at the end of a date or the end of knife doesn't matter.
Criminal law is a social construct as are the punishments that different acts should merit.
On that basis, your idea that society has this fantasy just seems….odd? Not sure if that is the right word.
We also had laws against sodomy, Elliot. Weren't those the result of a societal fantasy that homosexuality (and, frankly, straight sex too) were evil or unnatural? That you think that the statutes around rape encompass the entirety of the moral argument shows how bankrupt you are.
Yep. We've (Western Civ.) also had laws banning religions, banning premarital sex, banning adultery, etc.
The issue though is that there is nothing inherent about "consent" or sex that makes all "rape" as currently defined by people on this thread equivalent.
That's not true at all. That's an error of fact; akin to saying "I don't know how anyone could believe the two are equivalent, so they aren't." You're just describing your opinion, but trying to make it sound like it's a definitional statement beyond question.
There is something fundamental to consent– that the giving of it is required for it to exist. Consent, by its very nature, requires permission to be given or agreement made. If one person involved in sex says no or is not given the opportunity to say yes or no, no consent exists. Sex beyond that point is nonconsensual. We call nonconsensual sex rape.
I don't agree that there is more than one kind of rape, so in my opinion, all rape is the same. Suggesting to me or others here with similar opinions that there are a set of "rapes" that could be equivalent is like asking us "what's the difference between an orange?"
Elliot,
Please read "Seduction is a Four Letter Word", by Germaine Greer…please.
If you ever get tired of shystering, you've got all the makings of a modern college administrator, Elliot.
http://nyti.ms/1r72wnF
To be a good college administrator these days you have to be willing to engage in proceedings that have about as much due process as an IEC hearing.
Shyster you mean like the four people at Kent State?. They had absolutely no due process. Yup you'd be a good administrator.
I raised two daughters, Elliot. One of them was "date raped." She lived with it for 10 years before she had the courage to discuss it.
No means no. Rape is rape.
Maybe someday you'll have a daughter and then you might understand.
I have two daughters. Obviously I never want either of them to be raped.
What kind of rape would upset you if it happened to one of your daughters? Would a "dunken hookup" be OK? How about a "delayed pullout?" Are you really prepered to discuss "degrees" of rape with your daughters? Are you going to tell one or both of them that it's not that serious if God forbid it happens to one of them?
Rape is rape. There are no shades of gray. It can't be lawyered away by nullification. It either happened or it didn't.
That's what you get for letting in Republican trolls like Fladen get to you.
(hands over a spliff) – hit that, and forget them.
The Republicans will soon realize that they're being conned in a very long game.
It depends on whether you mean the parties had a little too much to drink and after giggly consensual sex the woman and/or man felt badly about it the next day (not rape in my book, just a lesson learned) or whether a frat boy found an unconscious woman, passed out from drinking too much, and had sex with her (yes rape). Another example of rape would be if a man overpowered a drunk woman or a woman too frightened of being beaten to fight back without benefit of knives or guns. Also rape. Rape is rape.
And, while it's a good thing to exercize good judgement at all times and we hope our daughters won't drink themselves into a stupor at a frat house, if you leave your keys in your unlocked car and somebody steals it, nobody says it's not theft or the person who stole the car is not a thief because you should have exercized better judgement. That thief is still a thief regardless. The same would naturally go for rapists and rape if men like you weren't so conditioned to be male chauvinist and patriarchal in your world view whether consciuosly or unconsciously
Bluecat, not all killing is murder. It can be murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslauhter, etc.
Similarly I think some rapes are inherently more severe than others. Take the guy who did not withdraw fast enough when consent was withdrawn. Is that rape? Yes. Did the woman deserve to get raped? No. Should it be punished differently than a rape invovling a stranger who uses a knife/gun to foist himself on a woman? Yes, IMHO.
The two examples you cite no doubt would call for different punishments and would probably involve a different array of charges, possible plea deals, sentence ranges, etc. But I think you're grasping at straws to justify the obsession righties have with making a distinction between rape and forcible rape that has very little to do with those two examples.
The distinctions between degrees of murder and manslaughter you cite are matters for the criminal justice system. Distinctions between rape, sexual assault, aggravated rape, whether or not charges in addition to rape are involved or not involved likewise are matters of criminal law to be dealt with via our criminal justice system. I fail to see why or even how such distinctions should be made in legislation dealing with funding issues for women who don't want to bear the child of their rapist.
Is it forcible enough to get funding if you were beaten but not if you gave in out of fear of being beaten? Yes if a gun was pointed at you, no if you were unconscious at the time? How would such an unwieldy system work? Would there be special courts set up to determine if the rape was sufficiently "forcible" to qualify?
Taking into consideration that plea bargaining often results in final charges that bear little relation to the initial charges or the crimes actually committed, would the distinction be made on the strength of the end product of plea bargaining or the evidence that led to the charge of rape in the first place? Who sets the standards for sufficient degree of force? How would this be resolved in time for a woman to have a timely abortion if that was her choice, a choice she's entitled to by law?
The intent of your side is clearly to belittle, dismiss and essentially declare the victim undeserving of consideration as a "real" rape victim for anything that doesn't involve severe injury or a deadly weapon. You're lying down with fleas again, Elliot.
People on the right say I lie down with fleas by posting here at all. Well, that of worse stuff, but I digress.
i am glad you agree that different rapes should be punished differently. That is a step towards the point I have been making: that one rape is not necessarily equivalent to another.
As for focusing on the distinction between forcible and not forcible rape, it is not worthwhile to consider that purported distinction unless you first agree that all rapes are not necessarily the same.
This is exactly where you're missing the point.
The lawyer in you screams that if you are punishing the acts differently, then there is something different among the acts of rape. The punishments we place on people have to do as much, or more, with the circumstances in which crimes occur, our beliefs about the danger which certain sorts of criminal acts indicate a person presents in other circumstances, and, to be honest, our fear of the crime.
The reality of rape is that whether you are raped with physical violence, raped by a date, raped when both of you are drunk and horny, raped because you're in prison for committing a crime, or raped by a spouse who just can't live without it– you're equally raped.
Thanks Pcat, for your exceptionally lucid explanations and examples of consent and non-consent.
I haven't been disputing whether a rape occurred PC. I HAVE been disputing whether two rapes are necessarily the same simply by virtue of the purpoted notion that all rapes are created equal.
That's the point I'm making, though, Eliott. Look, I know you don't want anyone raped in any way. What you're saying, though, is that someone who is raped by a date after a bit of fooling around and a few too many drinks has somehow been less raped than someone whose rape is accompanied by the threat of imminent physical violence.
I acknowledge that rapes occur in difference circumstances and under different conditions. What you're doing is arguing about the severity of the rape based on the actions of the violator.
What I'm saying is that it should be looked at from the perspective of the person who was violated. I've heard folks talk about their rapes. Whether they were raped and threatened with death, raped and beaten, raped with a threat of economic harm, raped by their spouse, or raped during a drunken encounter at a party, they all talk about rape the same way. They don't feel like it was a qulitatively different experience because they didn't have a beating thrown in or because they were drunk too.
Good grief. Help me out here, EF. We charge "assault" and "assault with a deadly weapon" differently. How exactly would you charge three hypothetical rapists, one who threatened violence with his fists, one who used a roofie and one who used a knife? Who gets punished less, and by how much? Does this mean the victims suffered more or less depending on the means?
I think rapes where (a) both parties aren't thinking clearly due to alcohol/drugs; (b) consent is withdrawn during sex but male does not stop with sex quick enough (although no violence or threat used); and (c) rape is committed by fraud is generally not as severe as a rape where actual physical violence, or its threat, is used.
Rape survivor, here, you moron. Rape is rape. I was dragged into the bushes when I was in kindergarten and raped. Even you, EF, idiot-savant that you are, would agree that that was rape. At least I hope so. Oh, heck, I'm probably giving you too much credit.
Unless, you, personally, you yourself, have been sodomized against your will, you have nothing, I repeat, nothing to say in this debate.
Go away, Fladen, slink back into your sewer now. And don't crawl back out until I get over being very disappointed in you. I pray your daughters never go through what I went through. Or that if, God forbid it happens, you wake up enough to support them. Degrees of punishment for rape have been around for years. Degrees of rape–no. Rape is rape.
I suppose you would tell the family of a victim of manslaughter that their relative isn't dead.
I don't recall any of us insulting your family, Elliot; but at least we know that's not something you can't forgive. I'm sure they're glad to see you got over it and are back fighting the good fight.
Huh?
"People on the right say I lie down with fleas by posting here at all. Well, that of worse stuff, but I digress."
I was just pointing out that at our worst, we've never insulted your kids or your family, as the rigthies have; but thanks for the usual "you're just as bad as the rigthies" routine. I'm not surprised, just saddened. And sad that I'm not surprised, I guess.
Ok – I see where you are coming from. Fair point.
But Elliot. The discussion I'm trying to have is in specific reference to the subject of the diary, not a discussion about whether or not there are distinctions between different types or degrees of criminal act, including rape. Obviously there are. That's why there are degrees of murder and types of manslaughter. It's about the right's insistence that, for funding purposes, it's necessary to insert the word "forcible".
While it's encouraging that you admit rape can be rape even without leaving bruises, you are completely avoiding the subject of the legislation. What do you think righties mean by insisting on the word "forcible" in this type of legislation?
This isn't about demanding equal punishment for all sexual crimes. It isn't about punishment at all. It isn't about the perpetrator at all. It's about women who have been raped seeking abortions because they don't want to spend nine months pregnant with their rapist's child. You may or may not agree with their right to make that choice but that's another discussion.
Please go back and read the diary. Then maybe you can share with us why it's so important to you and your fellow righties to include the distinction "forcible" and exactly how that would be defined for purposes of this legislation. Once again, not for purposes of determining charges or punishments for perpetrators.
Who do you think should be in charge of making those funding decisions and by what means? What mechanism do you propose for requiring a determination that the rape was forcible in order for funding to be made available?
Assuming you support the legislation with the addition of the word "forcible" (if you believe all abortion is murder than none of this is really relevant) do you believe that victims of what is determined to not meet the definition of forcible rape should be denied funding?
Once again, please remember this legislation has nothing to do with dispensing criminal justice to the perpetrators. It's strictly about funding available to the victims. Of course, as we both know, you'll probably insist that you don't have to address any of this directly and can address whatever you want to instead. That's your usual response.
I think we are largely on the same page on this then BC. If this was just a "Cory Gardner goes off on his dogmatic personhood views" ad, I probably would have kept silent. But, the ad went further – it went into the HORROR that Gardner tried to distinguish between different types of rapes (nevermind for a stupid reason, just that he attempted to do it in the first place). And as you can see from some of the other comments here, there are a lot of progressives who believe any attempt to say that not all rapes are the same is a mortal political sin.
So predictable. Of course we're not on the same page. I'm on the page of discussing why righties feel the need for the qualifier "forcible" in this legislation and what are the practical implications of that stipulation in terms of allowing funding. You are on the page of totally avoiding that discussion. Oh well. It's not as if I didn't know I'd never get a responsive reply to my point from you. In fact, any such reply would have been a first.
BC, if you agree that one rape is not necessarily equivalent to another then – like it or not – you are on my page and not on the page of most of the other commenters here.
But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the legislation and why your pals insist that it needs to say "forcible". We're not only not on the same page. We're not on the same planet. I'm a person who knows how to have a back and forth discussion directly addressing points. You aren't. Apparently you think addressing other people's points and ignoring mine is a discussion between us. It's not.
If you want to address these other people or talk about the diary in general use their reply buttons or open your own comment box. If you want to opine on some general principle maybe you should try opening your own comment box on an open thread. But please don't use my reply button unless you have a reply to points I've raised or questions I've asked. It's really rude.
Shyster if only they knew you're the one who brings the fleas.And here I though Rape was rape no means no and any penetration suffficient to complete the act defines it .You earlier made a point,if indeed you had one, about the different sorts of murder. I'm thinking dead is dead.Nothing else matters
In what way are these two situations different?
A woman, scantily clad, attends a party where she flirts with some of the men, drinks to the point of intoxication, follows one of the men to a room and makes out with him. When he attempts to undress her, however, she says, "no." He thinks she's just being shy and continues undressing her and has sex with her.
A woman walking down the street in her burka and chastity belt is grabbed by a man wielding a knife. She is then dragged into an alley, stripped, beaten, and forced to have sex.
If you answered, "They aren't different; they're both rape," You are right.
If you answered anything else, you are far right.
Thank you. That Elliot doesn't get this is…disturbing.
Because its clear that Udall just wants to narrow the definition of rape so we don't have to waste money on silly womens things like this and direct more of that money into more important things like defense spending.
Wait, that didn't come out right.
Is your drunk hookup example the same as Ken Buck's buyer's remorse case? And are they both the opposite of Rep.Todd Akins' legitimate rape case?
Eliot,
A drunken hookup is not a rape. Got that? So your question is just stupid.
I gather your point is that there are different kinds of rape. Well, yes, there are, and criminal law recognizes those distinctions with respect to the rapist. But you know what? From a victim's point of view, rape is rape. The Gardner bill was a product of stupid fuckheads–apparently including you–who wanted to punish women who didn't have the good fortune to be "legitimately" raped (as your kindred spirit Todd Akins put it.
Politifact is a joke. The point is the change incorporating the word "forcible". The fact that it's not an attempt to change the definition of the word "rape" in the dictionary is splitting hairs since it's a clear attempt to change the working definition for purposes of federal funding.
Politifact does this all the time, also rating things that are clearly true only mostly true for whatever lame excuse they can come up with. Even following their own logic, this should get no worse than a mostly true, not mostly false, rating. But you know what? A lot more people will see the ad than hear about the Politifact rating or even know Politifact exists. Dems have learned the hard way that corrections to lies (not a lie in this case) on fact checking sites after the effective ads run don't do a lot of good.
My god, these people are slow learners. Anytime a political candidate is spending most of his/her time debating when rape is forcible, or "legitimate", or really any other adjective attached to the word "rape", he/she has lost the debate. Period, end of story.
Politicians need to stay out of discussions about rape and leave it to courts, lawyers, victim advocates, doctors, and the like.
Elliot, you're an OK guy. But one in three women has experienced some form of sexual assault on that continuum Pcat outlined above, and I'm not even exempting myself. 41% of college students experience it, and many drop out or are traumatized for years because of it. The law already has distinct penalties for the different gradations of rape, although most rape goes unpunished. As a lawyer, you know all that perfectly well.
Just don't even go there.
I do believe that Mr. Fladen forgot to mention "legitimate rape" as defined by his friend in Missouri.
I never raised the issue of whether some rape was legitimate. I simply have been saying that not all rapes are equivalent. Important difference you are missing.
How can you make that statement without having been raped?
I hope you train your son better than that.
Ralphie,
Have you ever been murdered? How do you know what punishment would be appropriate for murder?
(I don't have a son – I have two daughters)
Coming back to the topic of this diary — Elliot you are missing the important difference between quoting Gardner's stated positions as being "a lie" (sort of like Gingrich's announcement that anyone quoting what he previously said is "a lie"), and simply being the uncomfortable truth he's trying to run away from.
Are you backing up the Republican position that not all rapes are equivalently deserving of federal funding for abortion?
All the rest is mental masturbation.
Exactamente. This isn't really about sexual assault law, it's about politics, as Daft points out. So what is the agenda here? Methinks EF doth protest too much.
The Colorado statute spells out exactly what sexual assault is and isn't.. It's usually a felony, depending on circumstances, and is often plea bargained down. Other states laws vary, but are more alike than not.
The exceptions are about sexual assault on a child, which has several bipartisan bills in the Colorado legislative works to make a mandatory hard time or life in prison sentence.
Unless you have gop sheriff who's definition of rape, coinsides with the republican definition of rape…My daughter was raped, RAPED…the sheriff dismissed it as a wild party gone wrong…there were other girls who were too scared to report their assaults…and the motherfucker is still walking around, a mile from my home…I just haven't pulled the trigger, because that would disrespect my deceased daughter's memory, and deprive my grandkids of me…I wish no one to have to go through a situation like this, but the whole RAPE argument is bogus from the gop…and fuck you elliot…
Summusing, while I feel bad for what your daughter went through, punishment is something that we as a society determine. Like punishment for murder, that means that people who have never been raped will determine what the appropriate level of punishment is for an action.
Elliot, give it a freaking rest. You're enjoying this discussion entirely too much, and triggering painful memories in readers. One in three women, one in seven men, has been sexually assaulted.
"People who have never been raped will determine what the appropriate level of punishment is…"
Maybe, but leave it to the criminal justice system, not to cynical politicians like Cory Gardner. Gardner is mostly about punishing victims, not perpetrators, anyway.
Again, you're missing the point. Summusing said nothing about the punishment meted out.
The focus of the post, other than to express some deeply held pain, was that the sheriff thought that what happened could not possibly be rape because everyone was liquored up and did not pursue the case.
What allowed him to do that? A notion that what I have (ad nauseum) indicated is rape in prior posts really isn't. Or it isn't a serious rape. Or it was partly her fault for being in a place where she could get raped.
You're still arguing about punishment. The act isn't the rape Elliot, the experience of it is.
Elliot,
Take my earlier advice…read the book. It may help you look at this in a slightly different light…
The racist scare-voters flier was really either just a Photo Shop error or a tricky trick to show the same person voting twice (with the second 'same' person in a hoody and in different clothes and with a different body); and rape is only rape when it registers on the GOP guy's 'is it really rape' model.
Elliot-Do you really wonder why your party is in the situation it is in? I bet there is a device in your house that can help with that. You might check above the bathroom sink–It may be hanging there.
Summing it up, Elliot's libertarian definition of "rape" is having sex with any woman you want, anytime you want.
The flaw in that logic is that rape is not sex. It's violence.
Exactly but Elliot doesn't want to have that discussion. He'd rather quibble about the obvious; that charges and sentences vary according to specific details of particular crimes. Duh. Never mind the legislation in question has nothing whatever to do with charges or sentences. Considering the attitude of his GOTP cyber buddies toward his own wife (she just married him for the green card) and children (anchor babies) it's no wonder he's created around himself such an impenetrable armor of avoidance and denial. Like the kind those Log Cabin Republicans must find necessary.
No – I am only pointing out that ridiculousness of the position raised in that debate that all rapes are necessarily equivalent.
fuck you elliot…
All rapes are rape.
So predictable your actual presence is superfluous. You're never going to address the question of why righties think we need "forcible" in that legislation, exactly as anyone who's been here for any length of time knew all along.
To be fair mental masturbation and degrees of difference are where shysters make their money.
The wench protesteth insufficiently enuf, eh?
Sorry lass, no equal sign for you!
Obviously rapists can commit additional crimes in commission of a rape, and the more crimes the longer sentence, additional unishments, etc. but that doesn't change the definition of rape. Rape is rae, and as another Polster noted it is easy enough–was someone able to and did give consent? Then its not rape. No means no and all that. It really is that simple.
Republican operatives trying to nuance Gardner out of his very clear, very googleable record does not benefit your case, counselor.
Ooh, with all that's going on in my RL, I can't believe I wasted my time answering Fladen. Oy, oy, oy.
Don't be to hard on yourself. He's made himself almost irresistable in this discussion.
This has been a remarkably cogent discussion, however, I think the main issue has not been fully addressed. The legislation evidently refers to federal funding for abortion that under the Hyde Amendment is allowed only for rape, incest, and life of the mother. The legislation would have only afftected women on medicaid, medicare (if they were disabled and on social security disablity and still in their reproductive years), federal employees and women in the military.
As I see it, there are three components to the issue: political, legal, and medical.
The Political has been throughly discussed here.
The Legal issue begins, not with what constitutes consent, but the assumption that the man is innocent until proven guility. There are strict legal processess that much be followed to make the determination of guilt or innocent. These procedures are time consuming at best and can go on for months. That is the problem.
A pregnant woman who decides to terminate the pregnancy should be able to access that procedure as soon as possible in the age of the pregnancy. Any legal or bureacratic process that delays that procedure is stressful for the woman (and I believe it is wrong always to stress a pregnant woman), may make the procedure more complicated the later the age of the pregancy, and for taxpayer concerns, make it more expensive. Therefore, no barriers should be placed in the way of a woman seeking a federally funded abortion.
I agree with you on this….
I think Fladen truly doesn't undestand how bad he makes the GOP look.