Why the GOP Bigwigs are Backing Roy Moore

It finally dawned on me today why Trump and so many of the GOP are holding their collective noses and supporting Roy Moore, and it is for the exact same reasons why Al Franken was forced out though he is taking his time resigning.

If Moore is elected Tuesday, which is expected by most observers, he can always be forced out by the GOP. Since Alabama's governor is a Republican, Kay Ivey, she can appoint a successor to Moore. It is a win-win for the GOP despite Moore's obvious unfitness.

Luther Strange, the current temporary senator, lost the primary to Moore to fill Jeff Sessions' seat. Since Moore is running against Democrat Doug Jones, the GOP feels it has to give support to Moore to keep the seat GOP. They can worry about ditching Moore later.

As for Franken, the idiots in his party who pressured him to resign had the same idea. Since the governor there, Mark Dayton, is a Democrat, he can appoint a Democrat to fill in the rest of Franken's term. Franken for his part is staying in until at least the tax bill goes through Congress or doesn't without a huge makeover.

I get kind of sick of the political gamesmanship that goes on.

Why More Moore and No More Franken

It is because the voters are stupid, thanks to 35 or 40 years or more of cynical conditioning by the GOP in order for them to open their wallets to those entrusted by the billionaire class to pick their pockets.

With Moore, you have people who live in complete denial and want Moore no matter what he is because they think he will help ban abortion, another truly stupid issue in the grand scheme of things but serves the purposes of the billionaire radical right. This is true now more than ever when the billionaire mob, especially the Kochs, are tightening their grip on national politics. Waxing nostalgic for the 1950s won't cut it when you have billionaires who wax nostalgic for the 1850s and have the means to force the rest of us into that era.

Franken was and is a victim of an orchestrated dirty tricks campaign. This is to help the Kochists further push their anti-American agenda.

The Rise of a Comedian

to the top of Minnesota politics is yet another example of the oddball politics of the state.

Perhaps, but the fight over the Senate seat was yet another example of attempted fraud by the GOP to steal another seat for themselves. It didn't work, though.

Al Franken Will Be Running for Re-Election in 2014,

assuming he ever gets to serve in the U.S. Senate, despite the Minnesota Supreme Court's ruling ordering he be certified the winner of last year's Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman.

Update: It's over.

Miscellaneous News

The Italy earthquake death toll is now at 207.
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Although Al Franken has won the Minnesota Senate race for all intents and purposes, Norm Coleman is going to continue with the appeals.
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Remember,

it's all Roland Burris' fault Al Franken hasn't been seated in the Senate, and let's excuse Republican stonewalling.

Will Minnesota at Long Last

get a senator.

It's long past due for Coleman to give it up so Al Franken can get to work in the United States Senate.

Blago, Etc.

I have to agree with this post that it may be time for a new Senate majority leader, despite the fact Harry Reid is my senator:

We now have two vacant Democratic Senate seats, the one duly won by Al Franken in Minnesota and the one vacated by Barack Obama, to which Roland Burris has been appointed by "embattled" Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Regarding the Franken seat, this is over. There is no reason beyond Republican petulance not to seat him at once. But Republicans will always choose petulance over cooperation, and so they are doing now. Senator Franken's vanquished opponent, the incumbent Norm Coleman, has pointlessly challenged the result of Minnesota's meticulous recount in court even though, were Coleman to win every challenge his people have been able to concoct (mostly out of whole cloth), still he would not earn enough additional votes to prevail.

If we wanted to show some strength and create a Senate environment where we will actually be able to move this country properly in the right direction, we would forcefully attempt to seat Franken and let the Republicans try to mount a filibuster. If their filibuster succeeded initially, we should use their obstructionism to change the Senate rules to revert to the OLD filibuster rule, the one we saw in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and during the civil rights struggles of the '60s, where the minority must actually physically hold the floor for cloture to enter into the mix, and otherwise the majority can just wait them out. Or abolish the filibuster entirely.

Under the rules, this would require only a MAJORITY of the Senate, with the concurrence of the President of the Senate (currently unavailable to us because Dick Cheney wouldn't agree, but this will change in less than two weeks when Joe the Biden is sworn in). The Republicans would scream bloody murder but would not be able to avert the attainment of a quorum to enact the change. If we succeeded they would try to shut down the Senate, but without Democratic defections they do not have the numbers to make it stick. This would present some public relations complications but in my opinion it would be worth it in the long run, making compromise with evil so much less of an issue when we try to enact the Administration's various badly needed proposals. Remember, they snookered us out of the filibuster when they held a Senate majority, and I say sauce for the goose...

The current cloture rule is NOT a long-standing Senate tradition and should not be viewed with any particular reverence. To require a supermajority to prevail over an obstinate, obstructionist minority is not reasonable and is not an effective means of governance.

The second seat, the one in Illinois, is demonstrating rather conclusively that the current Senate leadership is too weak to be permitted to endure. Whatever one may think right now of Rod Blagojevich, I might urge that you reserve judgment on that point until more is known, given the partisan nature of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's history (remember, he protected Karl Rove and Dick Cheney from scrutiny during the Valerie Plame scandal, allowing Scooter Libby to become the lone scapegoat for illegal actions that originated right at the top) and his highly improper grandstanding in the current case. I have not heard the entire contents of his wiretap tapes, but what I have heard lends itself to a variety of alternative, less incriminating interpretations than would warrant Fitzgerald's jury-tainting public behavior. Remember, it is unethical for a prosecutor to bring charges or order an arrest unless he has a substantial reason to believe that he would prevail in court, and it is entirely unclear if any illegal act was committed or planned by Rod Blagojevich.

Be that as it may, Mr. Blagojevich remains the duly elected Governor of Illinois with not only the power, but the sworn DUTY, to appoint a successor to fill Barack Obama's now vacant Senate seat. To do otherwise would be an unforgivable breach of his responsibility as governor to serve the needs of Illinois citizens, particularly during this period when legislation plays such an important role in recovering from Bush's various messes and quagmires and a single vote in the Senate may prove decisive in determining the difference between a return to prosperity or a deepening depression.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Roland Burris has done anything even remotely illegal or unethical. Even if Patrick Fitzgerald's worst allegations of wrongdoing by Mr. Blagojevich prove to be true, that does not relate in any way to Roland Burris's qualifications or fitness to hold the Senate seat to which he has been duly appointed.

Harry Reid has been made to look the fool in this, and not for the first time. His whole reaction to it has been inexplicable, childlike in its whinyness, wimpy in its flaccid weakness, and counterproductive of not just the current power but the future stature of the Democratic Party. It is time that we voted in a new, more effective leader more attuned to the needs of the dangerous present and uncertain future.

I have several candidates for the post, each of whom provides various strengths that seem to be absent in Mr. Reid. To name three: Charles Schumer of New York, whose seat is safe and whose willingness to go to the mat against Republican obstructionism (except in the weird matters surrounding the treatment of Wall Street income as tax-favored capital gains instead of earned income) is impressive; Dick Durbin of Illinois, whose intelligence and predilection for partisanship might serve us well against our Republican adversaries; Carl Levin of Michigan, whose record on security and defense are unassailable and whose positions on social matters, particularly worker rights, are exemplary, and who positively drips intellect from every pore.

Maybe Harry Reid was the right man for the times when we were in the minority and needed conciliation in order to preserve whatever we were able to save from the predations of the Republican right wing, but that time is past and we need stronger leadership, leadership that remembers which party won the last few elections and which way the people of the United States want us to go with our legislative affairs. This is NOT served by denying Democrats the seats in the Senate they were elected or appointed to fill.

There are also some good suggestions of what Obama and Congress need to do to get the economy back on track. Trying to "reach across the aisle" with the GOP whose policies created the mess we are in is not the way to go.

The problem is too serious for band-aid solutions.

Miscellaneous

Our dictator had little use for California, and it had no use for him, either.
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It appears Al Franken will be declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate race over Norm Coleman, although this will be fought in the courts.

Senate Races Aftermath

Currently Al Franken leads incumbent Minnesota senator Norm Coleman by 251 votes. It would seem to me he will be declared the winner when this is all over with.

Senate Races Aftermath

According to this report, Coleman is only 2 votes ahead of Al Franken in Minnesota's Senate race, surely one of the closest races ever.

Senate Races Aftermath

Al Franken may look to a higher power in his quest to unseat Minnesota Senate incumbent Norm Coleman, and I ain't referring to God.

Senate Races Aftermath

Minnesota Senate incumbent Norm Coleman is now a mere 174 votes ahead of challenger Al Franken, and the lead continues to shrink.

Election Aftermath [Updated]

Mark Begich widens his lead over incumbent Alaska senator and crook Ted Stevens:

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich's lead over Sen. Ted Stevens is growing in today's ballot count in the race for U.S. Senate. The latest numbers, issued just before 1 p.m., show Begich up by 2,374 votes.

The Division of Elections expects to release more numbers between 4 and 5 p.m.

Today's count of about 24,000 absentee and questioned ballots should pretty much decide the race, although there will be a few more overseas absentees to count over the next couple days and a likely recount in early December.

Update: Democrats have picked up yet another Senate seat. Mark Begich has won the seat over incumbent crook Ted Stevens by 3,724 votes, and it is an unsurmountable lead.
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Over in Minnesota, the state canvassing board says incumbent senator Norm Coleman is 215 votes ahead of challenger Al Franken, which means a recount will happen tomorrow.

Post-Election News

Mark Begich is leading incumbent crook Ted Stevens by a gigantic three votes in the Alaska Senate race.

A recount is slated for next Wednesday at 120 locations in Minnesota to see who actually winds up with the Senate seat, Al Franken or incumbent Norm Coleman. Coleman is currently ahead by 206 votes.

Senate Races

Al Franken is now down to a mere 237 votes from his rival, incumbent Republican senator Norm Coleman:

The margin in the tightest Senate race in the country bounced like the stock market throughout the day, with the difference between Coleman and Franken dropping, then rising briefly to 590 votes before shooting down to a razor-thin 237 as of 9:27 a.m.

In a reversal of the previous day, when Coleman had declared victory and suggested that Franken should waive a recount, Coleman kept to himself on Thursday, while Franken called reporters to talk about the prospects for a continued narrowing of the count.

Since the ballots are of the optical scan variety, all kinds shenanigans could take place regardless of a paper trail. But thank God a paper trail exists.
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Now that the count has narrowed in Georgia, the chances incumbent Saxby Chambliss will NOT face a runoff against Jim Martin are probably zilch:

By percentage, the race stands at Chambliss, 49.8 percent; Democrat Jim Martin, 46.8 percent; and Libertarian Allen Buckley, 3.4 percent.

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Ted Stevens continues to hold a narrow lead against Mark Begich, and if he returns to the U.S. Senate only to be forced out, there is speculation galore as to the possibility Sarah Palin could appoint herself to replace him.
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Oregon's Gordon Smith was defeated in a bruising, close election against challenger Jeff Markley.

It was the first time in 40 years an incubent Oregon senator had been thrown out of office.

With the above three contests yet to be decided, Democrats will have 57 senators come January.
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More Election News

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the unofficial vote margin separating incumbent senator Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken is a mere 725 votes out of 2.9 million cast. A recount is required when it is this close.

That hasn't stopped Coleman, a Republican, from claiming victory.

Miscellaneous News.

Can't Minnesota Democrats do better than Al Franken?

He's not going to beat incumbent Norm Coleman by any stretch of the imagination.
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This is why the California Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage was so politically stupid.

I don't think any ban would pass "narrowly"; I think it would be overwhelming.