F.U.N.C.

Al Franken’s Committee Assignments

Yes, thanks to the obstructionist wankery of ex-Senator Coleman, Al Franken is getting the following:

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Special Committee on Aging
Committee on Indian Affairs

Now, these are all okay committees, and Franken on three committees is better than Franken on none at all. (In fact I’d argue that Franken should have taken either Health or Aging anyway, since he was instrumental to debunking Bush & the GOP’s anti-Social Security, anti-health care myths.) But does Gillibrand deserve to be on Foreign Relations more than Franken does? Why shouldn’t Franken get a role in Homeland Security, Armed Services, or Government Affairs? Not only has he spent much of the past eight years debating policy and expounding on his views, but he’s actually been in Iraq & Afghanistan to visit the troops.

I suppose that Gillibrand has experience from her whole two years in Congress that will prepare her for Foreign Relations. And who knows? Maybe Mike Bennet has learned a lot as superintenent that he can put to use in Homeland Security debates. And Roland Burris, who almost surely will either resign or be primaried in a year, willd definitely enjoy those prestige spots on Armed Services, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.  But it sure would have been nice if Reid or Durbin could have maybe asked Franken when he visited if there were any committees he was interested in after he was declared the winner in the recount.

Because here’s the thing: Coleman knows he won’t win his lawsuit. His only goal is to piss off the DFL. Well, mission accomplished: but along the way you’ve managed to cripple your state’s say in Senate matters, leaving small-name senator Amy Klobuchar – whose committee assignments are entirely domestic – to pick up the slack.

It’s incredibly disappointing to be honest. I hope the next six years give Franken a chance to elbow his way into the important debates that will rock the Senate during the Obama presidency. Not only is the Senate short on progressives, but it’s short on Democrats with vision and determination. Leaving Franken like the proverbial last kid picked for dodgeball hurts my party, my state, and – I believe – my country.

And another one gone

Bad news for the GOP in ‘10: Bond will be out, along with Martinez and Brownback. More and more GOP senators are declaring their intention to retire, with the only Dem added to the mix being Ted Kaufman, Biden’s two-year replacement.

Who’s next to retire, besides the obvious Hutchinson? Gossip suggests Voinovich, who faces a tough re-election at an advanced age. Of course he is more moderate than Bond, but another Dem seat in Ohio would be sweet.

Franken for the win, yo

Recount latest: Franken now leads by 50 – TwinCities.com.

With only mistakenly rejected absentee ballots left to tally in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount, Democrat Al Franken has a 50-vote lead over Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

It’s still hard for me to believe we’re at this point. When I was out canvassing for the DFL, most of the people I spoke to were supporting Obama, leaning Obama, or neutral. (The few McCain supporters I met didn’t hate Obama, but opposed him on ideological grounds. The one exception was the angry Dittohead who told me Obama was a socialist and slammed the door when I tried to talk to him.) On the other hand, people were actively hostile to Coleman and Franken equally – the people who told me they were voting Franken seemed to do so with resignation, and the people who were voting Coleman sheepishly explained it away as better the devil you know. I know many of them probably went into the voting booth and, faced with a choice of two despised men, filled in the circle next to Barkley.

That’s why I resigned myself to another six years of Coleman, the man who called himself better than Paul Wellstone in every way, representing my state. I still went out and talked my mouth off for Franken, pleading with people by telling them Franken was a real progressive who hadn’t come up through the gofer system of politics, who wouldn’t be beholden to special interests or the whims of his party leaders. My spirits were further beaten down as I saw the “comic books” sent out by the RNC, talking about Franken’s supposed rape jokes and saying Minnesota needn’t be “ashamed” of its senator. Nasty, provocative, and totally ignored by the media: those will always stand out as the dirtiest part of Election ‘08 to me.

As the election results came in, I was — well, I was very drunk, so my thinking wasn’t totally clear. But I was shocked at how close the results were. I knew Coleman would declare victory if it got close enough, but I was unprepared for how close it was. Still: I was more confident than I’d ever been that we would get fair results. Franken knew what went wrong in 2000. The last thing he would do was let the Coleman camp get away with legal tricks. As time went on, I was also impressed by my state’s legal system. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie went on The Rachel Maddow Show and said that the right wing could smear him as much as they wanted (they were calling him a communist on Fox News) but that they wouldn’t get their hands on the election results. The state Supreme Court also shocked me in the most pleasant way as they ruled unanimously for Franken’s side time and again. Not bad considering that they’re mostly Pawlenty and Ventura appointees.

I’m positive now that Franken won. Looking at the results, I can see that the Democratic get-out-the-vote machine in the state was far better than I could have anticipated. And while Barkley took a bite out of both sides, he didn’t take as much as I’d feared – and far more of Coleman’s side than I’d dared to hope. And thanks to my state’s commendable recount system, I’m positive now that Franken will be seated as Minnesota’s next senator. That’s the kind of sentence that seemed crazy to me in so many ways a few months ago, but I write it today with complete certainty.

So… I guess in a way, you could say that for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really  proud to be a Minnesotan? Yeah, that works.

Oh, and just to rub it in the right-wingers’ faces — Mark Ritchie for Governor 2010!

All Blago, all the time

Blagojevich is my favorite delusional politician EVAH. Further proof why: he’s decided to appoint a Senator after all! The fucking valuable seat goes to former Illinois AG Roland Burris, who previously expressed interest in running for the seat, saying he would only serve temporarily and step aside for the next candidate.

It’s sort of suprising to see myself type this, but I think Allahpundit at Hot Air has the funniest take. Blago really should pull the “I’m on a mission from God” card. And it’s hard to tell what the best course for Reid is. Reject the appointment? Seat him provisionally? Pass the buck on to the Senate lawyer team? Jeff Greenfield seems to think the Senate doesn’t have much say in the matter.

Whatever happens, we’re sure to be in for more Blago insanity — and that makes me a happy, happy girl. I’d be happier if he’d decided to appoint himself, but that may have been too much to ask, huh?

Why do bad things happen to mediocre people?

From the Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Reid Hits the Ground Running in Uphill Re-Election Bid

Sen. Harry Reid will command the biggest party majority of any Senate leader in a quarter century when the new Congress convenes in January. But the Nevada Democrat is already worried about his own re-election fight in 2010.

Sen. Reid, perhaps the most-vulnerable Democrat who will face re-election in a midterm race that is likely to favor his party once again, began interviewing campaign managers last week. The Senate majority leader also recently stepped up fund-raising.

Starting early could help Sen. Reid avoid the fate of his predecessor, Tom Daschle, who was Democratic leader for a decade before losing his re-election bid in South Dakota in 2004. The current Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, narrowly won re-election in Kentucky this year.

Sen. Reid “saw what happened to Tom Daschle and Mitch McConnell,” said Republican Sen. John Ensign, Nevada’s the other senator. “He saw the consequences of being the majority leader or the leader of one of the parties.”

Despite Murdoch’s spin, the news is not all bad for Reid. His best opponent is Brian Krolicki, who has been indicted for misappropriating state funds. He claims innocence and even tried to link his arrest to Reid – how hilarious is that? Harry Reid as a criminal mastermind? He couldn’t even mastermind his way out of a Chinese finger trap.

Nonetheless, while Republicans are certainly salivating at the chance to annoy liberals one more time by taking down Reid, I wonder if they realize how un-annoying that really would be. Of course we want every left-of-center politician  we can get in Congress, but while Republicans look at Reid and see everything they hate about the Dems (his apparent embrace of defeat in Iraq, his… um, embrace of alternative energy?), Democrats look at him and see exactly the same. He is pro-death penalty, anti-choice, anti-gay rights, anti-public transportation — and that’s leaving out his mixed record on Iraq. Worst of all, he lets the Republicans smack him around. Just the threat of a filibuster is enough to make him drop an issue. The slogan “give ‘em hell, Harry” is starting to sound more like a plea. Could you please give ‘em hell? Just this once?

So, it goes without saying that Reid is not the best choice for majority leader. Who would be better? Like most liberals, I have a huge amount of respect for Russ Feingold, and seeing him in the position would be more happiness-inducing than a basket of puppies wearing party hats. But on a more realistic note, Reid’s #2 in the Senate is a great choice – Dick Durbin. I am not crazy about his gun control record, although it is par for the Democratic course. But he has impressed me over and over, especially with his rejection of the Iraq War Resolution, undoubtably the most important political test of the past decade.

If not Durbin, there are plenty of other qualified candidates. John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, and Patrick Leahy come to mind. All of them have problems – what politician doesn’t? – but all of them are better than Reid.