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from the is-everything-bigger-in-Texas? dept.
(Update: The Capitol Police are investigating the release of the photo.)
Texas Congressman Joe Barton has confirmed that an explicit image circulating on social media shows him exposing himself. Barton claims to be a victim of "revenge porn", which was outlawed in Texas in 2015:
Sarah Dodd of Dodd Communications, who is helping Barton respond to the image, confirmed that the image is of him and on Wednesday the Congressman apologized for not using "better judgment" while separated from his wife and in consensual relationships with women. "While separated from my second wife, prior to the divorce, I had sexual relationships with other mature adult women," Barton said in a statement first reported by The Texas Tribune. "Each was consensual. Those relationships have ended. I am sorry I did not use better judgment during those days. I am sorry that I let my constituents down."
[...] Wednesday evening, an unnamed woman came forward to The Washington Post [archive], telling the newspaper that Barton sent her lewd photos, videos and messages when they had two sexual encounters over the course of five years.
In a 2015 phone call, Barton allegedly confronted the woman over her communications with other women, including her decision to share explicit materials he had sent, the Post reported. The woman shared that secretly recorded phone call with the paper and, according to the Post, in that call, he warned her against using the explicit images he had sent her, in a way that would negatively affect his career -- vowing that he would go to the Capitol Hill police over her actions. The woman told the Post she took that phone call as a threat, and she never had any intention to use the materials to retaliate against Barton.
Barton, in a statement released through a spokesman, says it was to stop her from publicly releasing the images as "revenge porn." Revenge porn -- when sexually explicit images are posted online without consent -- was outlawed in Texas in 2015.
Revenge porn is defined by Texas as "visual material" depicting a person's exposed "intimate parts" or engagement in sexual activity, distributed without a person's consent and causing them "harm", and created under circumstances in which the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The depicted person's identity must also be revealed for the defendant to be held liable, but the bar for this is low and includes any information provided by a third party in response to the disclosure of the material.
The city of Washington D.C. also has a revenge porn law. In April, a man was convicted of five misdemeanor counts under the Criminalization of Non-Consensual Pornography Act of 2014. The crime rises to a felony if more than five people viewed the image/video.
The image of Rep. Barton was censored by the Twitter user (⚠ Warning ⚠: contains the image), which may cause it to not be considered revenge porn under the Texas law. The user reportedly claims to also have videos of Barton masturbating.
Here is a guide to revenge porn laws in other states.
Related: MPAA Opposes Minnesota "Revenge Porn" Draft Legislation
Facebook to Fight Revenge Porn by Letting Potential Victims Upload Nudes in Advance
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:51AM (9 children)
It so happens that I live in Barton's district, for now. I was already going to vote against him or any other Republican that might beat him in the primaries. Maybe this means the Republican might actually lose. But don't count on it.
The so-called Christians in these parts can easily overlook this very un-Christian behavior that violates the 10 Commandments, in someone whose policies they like. They'll eagerly seize on anything to excuse it, like that it's libel by Democrats, it's a part of the big liberal conspiracy, etc. There's even one house a few blocks away that flies a Confederate flag in the front yard, though the last time I passed by, I noticed the flag was gone. The Democrats need to get a clue, too. Hammer Barton on his sins, and his corruption. And shut up about being all edumacated and qualified, people don't want to hear that crap, they want to know what's in it for them. Will there be more and better jobs for them if they vote for the Democrat or the Republican?
Then there's the problems of Gerrymandering and vote suppression both designed to give the Republicans a big edge no matter who the candidates are. The courts struck down the latest Texas voter ID law, but don't think for a minute the Republicans have given up on that angle. The local newspapers are all "tackers", going whichever way the wind blows, anxious to offend the fewest readers possible by endorsing whoever is most popular with the locals, too afraid of the fundamental change that the Internet has brought and the decline in readership it has caused them to dare to do anything else. The Dallas Morning News actually endorsed the Huckster (Huckabee) in 2008 after McCain had the Republican nomination wrapped up and almost all the other Republicans had dropped out.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 25 2017, @05:19AM
Incumbent politicians in "safe" Congressional districts have little trouble getting reelected. Barton got 68.7% in the 2016 primary, and 58.3%-39% (2.6% went to a Green Party candidate) in the general election.
Barton previously said he would run for reelection, now he's reconsidering. A Republican might win either way, but it would be safer for him to retire and perhaps expose himself to ladies in person instead of over the phone.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:17AM (5 children)
I'll totally agree with your dislike of gerrymandering - it really gets pretty ridiculous at times. More: it would be easy to fix, by just defining and enforcing a maximum mathematical ratio of circumference to area.
However, I really do not understand the objection to voter ID laws. Voting is an important responsibility, and it only makes sense to ensure that the people voting are (a) allowed to vote, (b) vote only once each, and (c) are who they say they are. Where's the problem in that?
Worried that minorities will have trouble getting IDs? That's not an objection to requiring IDs, that's a reason to ensure that the offices issuing them are fair to everyone.
When my mother passed away (in New Mexico), I specifically contacted the voter registration office to de-register her. From their reactions, it was apparent that no one ever bothers to tell them when someone dies. This ought to be a regular event, but it took me multiple phone calls to even find someone who know what to do. In the absence of voter ID laws, anyone could have voted in her name, or the name of anyone else they see listed in the obituaries.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by vux984 on Saturday November 25 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
Because it's always really a thinly veiled attempt by republicans to make it harder for democrats to vote.
There is simply no evidence of voter fraud.
That's a misdirection. It doesn't exist. Propose a policy that you think is fair.
More importantly, think about it this way -- a voter id system is, at its heart, a swapping of the burden of proof onto the citizen to prove that they are not committing voter fraud when they go to vote. It should be on the state to presume the voter is acting legally unless it can prove the voter is committing voter fraud. Voting is about the most fundamental right a citizen has.
Denying a citizen the right to vote because they can't prove to the states arbitrary satisfaction that they aren't committing voter fraud is beyond the pale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:03PM
Read between the lines! BradleyI3 at least double voted, before he moved ex patrium and then realized he had to stop some Democrat from being able to do the same thing. Republicans know voter fraud exists, because they have committed it themselves!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:30AM
That's exactly it. The state puts the burden of proof on citizens to demonstrate they have the right to vote, when it should be the other way around. The state further picks ID methods that favor likely Republican voters, Like, a hunting license of all things is considered acceptable proof. But the voter registration card that the state hands out to voters is NOT enough to get a voter admitted. Why on Earth not? The entire exercise of "registering to vote" is another hoop designed to screen out potential voters, completely unnecessary when there are so many ways to determine residence, and useless for its stated purpose if they refuse to use registration to establish residence and the right to vote.
It's hard enough getting people to the polls at all. The beauty of swarm intelligence is that the collective decision making really is superior to that of even the most well informed individuals. But the Republicans especially seem anxious not to leave election results to the choice of the people, but instead resort to lies, propaganda, and cheating to nudge elections their way, meanwhile brazenly accusing everyone else of cheating at the polls. They just don't get it that such manipulation queers and worsens the decisions of the voters, and for that reason should not be done at all. That is a sophistication that the Republican Party is no longer capable of understanding and accepting. Also, that cheating is digging yourself into a hole that just keeps getting deeper. To win future elections, cheaters have to pull it off again, and again, keep covering up more and more.
There was a time, in the days of Eisenhower, that the Republicans were the party of hard nosed, scientifically founded pragmatism and it was the Democrats who were the misty eyed, impractical hippie dreamers. The Republicans were the Party of Lincoln. Now the Republicans have completely flip-flopped, and sunk to barbarism. I mean, wow, mocking and dismissing science itself? "I love the poorly educated." Under Kennedy and Johnson, the Democrats took the path that Martin Luther King opened, and ended Jim Crow. And what did the Republicans do in response? The freaking Southern Strategy. Rather than stick to their Eisenhower and Lincoln principles, they swooped in and embraced all those racist bigoted voters the Democrats had dumped. Lincoln must have turned over in his grave.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:05PM
Funny thing is, death notices are filed with the government as well as published in the paper. There are parts of the government that will mark you dead and refuse to serve you, even if it was a mistake. But, not the polls... that would be beyond the volunteer poll workers' capabilities to process something like that, and we can't spend a tax dollar on keeping the voter rolls clean of the dead, can we?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:44PM
Anything the government can use against you, it will use against you. Notice how drivers license and state ID photos in many states are being entered into massive FBI facial recognize databases? This is why you can't trust the government to do a single thing. Fuck voter ID laws. I doubt voter fraud is pervasive enough to make a different, but even if it is, I'd rather have that than voter ID laws. I want to vote completely anonymously (both the actual vote and the fact that I was there) or not at all.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:02PM
So, you're in Texas, and you're thinking anywhere but the central core of the cities will vote Democrat? I think folks in those parts are actually afraid that somebody might spy on their secret ballot and burn a cross in their yard, or worse, if they voted Democrat.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:39PM
Neither of them will respect your individual liberties, most likely. Or does that not matter to the hoi polloi, even though we live in 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'? What a nice set of priorities.