Imagine, if you will, that the situation had been reversed, and that it had been Norm Coleman who was found to have received more votes than Al Franken for the U.S. Senate seat in MN.
Imagine if Al Franken’s campaign, as opposed to Norm Coleman’s, had now been found to have disclosed the names and credit card numbers of their donors on their own website, where they also inappropriately stored the unencrypted three-digit security codes of contributor credit cards, violated state law by failing to notify anybody about it, and then lied about it.
Imagine if everything — actually, if any one of the dozens of improprieties — that Norm Coleman has pulled since the November election, had been done by Al Franken instead.
Might Sean Hannity be repeating, over and over, something akin to the following for three hours a day on the radio (over our publicly-owned airwaves), and during his hour-long solo Fox “News” freak show, five days a week??…
“The shameful sore loser Democrat Al Franken, who clearly lost the election against Norm Coleman, needs to move on and stop obstructing the people’s business in the U.S. Senate with his endless frivolous lawsuit while we have two wars going on and an economy in shambles. He should be in jail, frankly, for fraudulently attempting to overthrow the will of the voters of Minnesota.
“Incredibly, during his sore loser challenge to Coleman’s clear victory — where all of the legally cast ballots were counted transparently for everyone in the state to see, and then certified unanimously by a bi-partisan panel of both Democrats and Republicans — Franken has repeatedly lied, broken the law, and now he’s even been found to have given away the private names and credit card numbers of all of his donors on his website.
“When the trial began — and it seems like months ago — Franken lied about his website crashing to try and play the victim and get sympathy from his supporters. That backfired on him.
“Then he was found by a bi-partisan panel of judges — on day one of the trial — to have actually doctored up and altered evidence presented to the court in his frivilous case.
“He put admitted forgers on the stand, and tried to get their ballots and those of convicted felons who voted from prison illegally counted. He was found to have hidden witnesses and email from the Republican, Norm Coleman, the clear winner in the election, and he even had to be fined by the judges for his outrageous and illegal antics in the court room.
“And now he was found to have broken the law by illegally and carelessly exposing the private credit cards and security numbers of thousands of his unwitting supporters. And then he lied about it.
“Doesn’t Minnesota deserve better than this?
“I remember well when Franken had embarrassed himself, by prematurely announcing himself the winner, before all of the people’s ballots were actually counted, and he even criticized Coleman, at the time, for not getting out the way, by claiming that if it were him, he “would step back” rather than ask for a full count all of all the ballots, suggesting it would be a waste of tax-payer money…Let’s play that video-tape, it’s just 25 seconds…
“So, who’s wasting tax-payer money now, sore loser Al Franken?
“Franken is a disgrace and an embarrassment and needs to step aside to let Norm Coleman, the people’s rightful winner of the election, serve in Congress right now. And frankly, Al Franken should be thrown in jail…and he probably will be, since there’s still an FBI investigation look into hundreds of thousands of dollars said to have been illegally funneled to him and his wife by shady financiers in advance of his run for the U.S. Senate!”
Such as it is, of course, Coleman, not Franken, did all of the above. But he’s the Republican candidate. So, um, never mind.
I don’t have cable so I’m insulated against such obvious theatre of lies. Whew. Stinky. Bad enough on non-cable. When Al’s people get settled in DC, I’m sure they will continue smearing. But I leave it to anyone with cable to contact the network.
Al Franken is all about exposing the liars. He’s got some exposing to do. I wonder if he’ll have any time to write a book. One can write a book by merely, making out an outline, and speaking into a handy micro cassette recorder, or some such device, then having it typed up by someone else of course. Surely he, Al, drives so he’s got some work to do, on his way to and from the Senate. How is it that so many Rs can be so completely void of any shred of character? Not a scintilla of honor within the hearts and minds of these repungnant Reptiles!
There’s a typo in the second paragraph of the rant. It should say Franken, not Coleman, has repeatedly lied. I know it’s hard to keep the misinformation straight.
[Ed. note — Good catch! Now fixed. Thanks!]
Following the MN circus one can only come to one conclusion – Coleman is a f#@king idiot.
Imagine if you will, living in a democracy where every vote is sacred. Where our leaders watched out for the good of it’s citizens. Where judges were chosen by their peers based on sound law. Where our news whether in print, radio or tv reflected good values.
Norm Coleman would be in jail. And so would bushco, Rush and Hannity.
At least newspapers are going down in flames. Are others close behind?
The Coleman/Franken election exposes much that is good, and much that is bad about elections management and candidate integrity. The elections system seems to be functioning, albeit slowly; but what are the lessons to take away from this political farce and how do we get a public hearing?
Is there any potential that this farce could become a poster child for the general decline in the integrity of our elections?
Over the last 2 decades, what have been the top 5, or top 10 examples of elections gone bad, and how can we, as members of an electoral reform movement, move those memorable examples into the public imagination?
It seems to me that the public wants to get back to basics in all areas of public and civic behavior. Now would be a good time to begin reminding them that, in America, we fix things at the ballot box, and if we can’t trust the integrity of each of the systems that get us to the ballot box then we will never be able to fix things.
In another area of this site Brad is trying to list the electoral reforms that we all consider important. It would also be helpful to identify and summarize particular, memorable elections as demonstrable of these particular reforms which our E.R. movement would like the public to recognize.
Given that our democracy is widely considered our proudest national birthright, given that many of the multiple systems that make it work or fail are failing, given that schools have basically quit teaching civics, I believe that it is time for a major re-education movement, with conferences and teaching tools, to engage the public in understanding how democracy works and doesn’t work. Conferences that promote democracy as a complete system of interactive component operations and events. Currently, it seems to me, there is too little unity between the various issue groups that promote this or that important component of democracy. They compete for resources and for attention. I think that it is time to pull those groups together into a strong, well financed, united front to promote democracy as a complete whole and an important part of our national discussion, right up there with healthcare and the war.
If we want more participation and interest we could start with more major conferences on The State of Our Democracy. A serious campaign for democracy should be a unified campaign and the fundamental principles are not partisan.
Why hasn’t the U.S. & Mn. Atty. Generals gone after the charges of credit card law violations? These are FELONIES. The legal system must start to function again, instead of the way Bush-Law “worked”. This was to go after liberals, Democrats, Independents,and free thinking people BUT leave the Conservatives, Republicans, and Religious Fanatics alone.
Bernie Madoff was walking around after stealing a reported sum that is incredible, over $50 BILLIONS
Frankens opponent should be remanded without bail pending trial for addmitted credit card fraud and other credit card violations and wirefraud.
Why is this tolerated and treated so lightly when abuse of these credit card accounts are open for all to plunder. The US Secret Service is tasked with the investigation and prosecution of credit card laws on the federal level. NOTE To: US Sec.Service
George W. Bush and his cronies are not in office. Enforce the laws again. Like it should have been done during the last 8 years!
I dont know why people talk about Coleman.