Frankenrant, now with more Omar

The New Yorker takes another look at Al Franken. Unsurprising takes. He got railroaded, that was obvious at the time but at the time MeToo was fully weaponized and the friendly fire was hard to distinguish from any actual justice served.

In real time I fought to keep Franken from the nomination. No one likes to talk about the fact that he was the most conservative candidate running for the DFL nomination, or that out-of-state money coupled with celebrity coverage all but handed him the nomination. Or that he didn't learn how campaigns work until the general thanks to the primary free ride (you can go to the Senate with no previous experience, but you damned well better have a stiff primary first to teach you how to win).

It took half a year for Franken to be seated and he only won because of outside consultants who righted his campaign in the closing month. MN dodged a bullet, but, as with Ilhan Omar, did not do due diligence.

Anyone who grew up on Saturday Night Live should have known that there are almost no comedians who do not have countercultural lifestyles. While it's entirely possible I've smoked more pot than Al, I'm just as sure he's shoved more Bolivian marching powder up his nose than I have (or for sure been in rooms where vast quantities were consumed). The article also points out that the damning picture of Al fake groping Leann Tweeden could have been released in 2007, and MN probably would have gotten Senator Nelson-Pallmeyer serving in the tradition of Paul Wellstone, or Senator Mike Ciresi, who would have been a liberal Catholic version of Franken and probably a bit to Al's left.

Al Franken is immeasurably more morally fit than Trump. Or Nancy Pelosi. He did good work as a Senator. And despite my opposition to his original candidacy, I fought like hell for him when the MeToo shit started up. His was clearly a different level of offense, and one that was obvious to the voters who elected him. Most voters knew him from SNL and were OK with that.

I'd love to see a head count on how many of Franken's MN MeToo critics supported him in 2008, and how many of them are current Ilhan Omar fans. The overlap of those two groups would be good to know, because they are most of what's wrong with the Mpls DFL. So full of themselves that they can't step back and take another look, so fucking right about everything they can just keep blundering forward without any thought to the chaos left in their wake.

I'm down with revolution, but it must be self-aware. If the radicals are using Omar, fine. But that's not the case at all, is it? She's using them. Despite the bigamy charge, Ilhan Omar (like Al Franken in real life) is strictly monogamous and frankly, virtuous. But unlike Al Franken, Omar prefers the campaign trail to the work of legislating. Franken worked diligently and quietly in the Senate, Omar cosponsors absurd amounts of legislation without understanding any of it. I'm sorry she gets crapped on, but that comes with choosing to be a lightning rod.

Minnesota can do better than Franken (but he'd be better than either current Senator).

MN 05 can do better than Omar, but they're having too much fun being morally superior to notice how much ground they're losing.

Neither Franken or Omar are bad people, both are sincere. Neither was qualified for office when they first ran, but Franken grew in office while Omar sought out the cameras. Famous Al tried to blend in, build working relationships. Omar went with a different designer hijab every day, miniskirts and Twitter. I don't care what Omar does to redeem herself, she told too many disqualifying lies to get where she is, and her nondisclosures screwed over her closest allies. She has broken laws. Understandably so, but what is understandable in a refugee is unforgivable in an elected official.

And Al is still Al. I haven't listened to his podcast, but I'm not a podcast guy and not a fan of talk radio in any format. But it's a niche and I'm sure Al Franken would kick Cenk Uygar's butt when it comes to quality content. Ilhan Omar, otoh, is probably the nextgen version of Al Sharpton.

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Random links:


I know it's juvenile of me, but I find it hard to spell SCROTUS without adding an R. More on the John Roberts court and the death of democracy on a state by state basis.

This week's most pirated movies (I've seen the cartoony ones but am still not doing well with serious movies which do not provide much relief from an all too serious world).

Democratic debates hopelessly rigged. Based on her living in Iowa the last couple months, Amy Klobuchar will probably keep qualifying for more debates based on her showing in a new poll (funny how many new polls we have that never seem to track with reality).

Burn me when I'm gone, but if I had to be buried, this would be the way to go.

And speaking of burned... Clusterfuck Nation on Mueller's clusterfucked report. Adam Schiff seems determined to go down with this slowly sinking ship, issuing more still more vacuous bullshit clearly not supported by fact.

Epstain.

CWA still a very shitty union that could be the new UAW if they ever chose to 1) split in two, separating office workers from outdoor crews, and 2) worked in their members' best interests instead of DeepState's.

In These Times with two takes on Amazon:

Break it the fuck up

Take it over and make it serve the public

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I'm going to try to do this every day just to make sure the DMR is as scrupulous as they try to appear to be. Today's Des Moines Register candidate mentions:

Buttigieg 1 (highest placement online front page)

Bullock 1 (2d highest placement)

O'Rourke 1 (much further down the page)

Warren 1

Williamson 1

Yang 1

Sanders AND Biden 1 (combined headline buried five screens down from top)

••••

Maybe something later. Franken blowing up on social media and even though no one's reading this I feel compelled to post while my take is still fresh enough to piss off those who've been pissy towards all the wrong people for years now.