Senator Franken

[Brandenburger Toro]

He won.

[linus]

Senator Franken

Still better than the republican guy, but god, what a crappy choice for a senator.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Senator Franken

You're serious? A brilliant communicator, and impeccable progressive credentials. He's a superb choice.

[Lucy Waterman]

Senator Franken

I'd like to like Franken, but in all the SNL reference books he comes across as a total arsehole.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Senator Franken

Read his own comedy/politics books, they're good.

Norm Coleman was the clown that got hammered by George Galloway.

[Cal Alamein]

Senator Franken

linus wrote:

Still better than the republican guy, but god, what a crappy choice for a senator.

Why would he be a crappy choice? Al will be a fresh, new face and philosophically should kick congress square in the ass. He'll be on judiciary committee and Indian affairs (which means Abramoff investigations). He will be an advocate for working Americans who I hope?! will not back down like many of his dem colleagues.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Senator Franken

Is this a record for length of time taken to decide a senate election? Has any elected senator been seated after June 30?

[Guest]

Senator Franken

I went off Franken big-time after he weighed in resoundingly on the side of Israel in the wake of its annihilation of the Gaza Strip during the winter.

He's about as progressive as Alan Shatter.

[Bruno]

Senator Franken

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

Is this a record for length of time taken to decide a senate election? Has any elected senator been seated after June 30?

According to the end of that article:

Believe it or not, this is not actually yet the longest ongoing dispute over a Senate election since direct voting was brought in -- that "honor" belongs to the 1974 New Hampshire Senate race, which left the seat vacant through August 1975, when a temporary appointment was made, and then had a do-over election in September 1975.

[Bruno]

Senator Franken

vennegoor strokes wrote:

I went off Franken big-time after he weighed in resoundingly on the side of Israel in the wake of its annihilation of the Gaza Strip during the winter.

He's about as progressive as Alan Shatter.

As you're probably aware, there are other metrics for how progressive someone is apart from their stance on Israel.

[Guest]

Senator Franken

It's invariably a very good indicator of how awake a politician is, and where he or she stands on basic things.

Franken was so eager to get up Israel's arse that, at the height of the bombing of Gaza, he stood together with Norm Coleman at a pro-Israel rally in St Louis Park and shook hands with him on stage (and called him "Senator Coleman" at one point, this being a good two months after he had won the election).

And he works for the Democratic Party, which is not exactly the epitome of a progressive organisation. It paints itself as being progressive by virtue of being a bit more progressive than the Republican Party, which I think we can all agree is not exactly a yardstick that pushes at the outermost borders of human enlightenment.

If you are a politician and you cast your eye over an issue like Israel's ongoing brutalisation of the Palestinians, and then decide to declare your unequivocal and unconditional support for Israel, then your claim to be a progressive looks completely piss-poor. It's like saying you are a conservative and then trumpeting your support for abortion rights, gay marriage, the legalisation of drugs and lowering the age of consent.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Senator Franken

vennegoor strokes wrote:

If you are a politician and you cast your eye over an issue like Israel's ongoing brutalisation of the Palestinians, and then decide to declare your unequivocal and unconditional support for Israel, then your claim to be a progressive looks completely piss-poor. It's like saying you are a conservative and then trumpeting your support for abortion rights, gay marriage, the legalisation of drugs and lowering the age of consent.

Which is a fair summary of Ron Paul's platform, isn't it?

I think I'm with Bruno on this - people can hold progressive views on some issues while being less progressive on others (although I'm not sure "progressive" is an easy label to use in foreign affairs). The founder of Canadian medicare and our first socialist premier, Tommy Douglas, flirted with the eugenics movement, as did a number of other prominent lefties and suffragettes.

[Bruno]

The Me Too thread didn't come up when I searched for Al Franken; here's Jane Mayer's apologia in The New Yorker:

The Case of Al Franken

tl/dr, she thinks he was "railroaded"

[Bruno]

Clarification: she used the term "railroaded" in a tweet about it; in the article, Senator Tom Udall is quoted using it.

[Flynnie]

If my social media is any guide, an enormous number of Boomer women think Franken got borked, for lack of a better term.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yes. There seems to be a whole lot of "Franken was terribly hard done by, because he doesn't appear to be as much of a sex-pest as Donald Trump" stuff on the internet. It's rubbish, isn't it?

[anton pulisov]

Oh come on, who on this board hasn't partaken in a funny photo op where we pretend to grab our sleeping colleague's breasts.

Political correctness gone mad, I say.

[Lang Spoon]

It's a precursor of the desperate defenses of Slick Bill should any Epstein stuff result in solid charges, I guess.

[Flynnie]

Well, that’s your problem. A lot of older Democrats, especially women, love the Clintons, think the VWRC is real (and it’s hard to argue it isn’t, given the proximity of Ailes and Hannity to this story), and I don’t think there’s any question one of the big reasons Gillenbrand has failed to take off as a presidential candidate is her expected base appears to see her as the woman who borked Al Franken, a Democrat they know and like.

[Bruno]

My assumption is that if everyone were to resign for similarly weighted ethical missteps, we wouldn't have a Senate.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Excellent. Let's do it.

[Bruno]

Okay but keep your eye on Palpatine.