Al Franken with the zinger!

Damn, but I miss that man in the Senate!

And Senator Gillibrand did it to burnish her electability for President - all for naught.

We end up losing one of our most brilliant Democratic Senators.

Damn.

Everything you said.

I have little doubt he would have run this year and quite possibly taken the nomination.

He'd leave nothing but scorched earth and get some laughs in the process.

But it would be great to have him there!

At least now he does. He went through some serious depression after he was railroaded out. He couldn't believe he was sacrificed by his fellow Senators for pure convenience, especially for something he had not done (spare me the "eight women came forward" stock phrases from Fox Noise). He can't see himself serving alongside those same people, unable to rid himself of the notion that they'd do it again, no matter how much he still wants to be a Senator.

Some Senators have apologized (profusely) in private, but not in public. One, in particular, has cynically tried to pretend to do so for purely financial reasons, was caught trying to take advantage of it, and that made him even more furious. Don't ask which one. I found that out off the record in Washington last week, but the source is unimpeachable, and people who were there in the State in question at the time know it, too. Refuse to believe it if that makes you feel better.

I love Al and have since I read his book.

Where Al is concerned, I just don't care any more. He was/is just too important to us to let go without a comment. I WAS encouraged to talk to him about it a little over New Year's, and hear that he is on the mend.

I will let on one thing: if Al ever decides to join Amy McGrath's Senate campaign against Moscow Mitch, Mitchie would be wise to retire instead. Al does a WICKED McConnell impression and can break up an audience with it any time he feels like it, makes McTurtle look more foolish than the three stooges combined.

...I NEVER believed the bullshit about Al, and still resent the fuck out of the Dems that threw him under the bus.

As a Minnesotan, he will always be my hero.

I have a family connection with Minnesota that goes back three generations. My paternal grandmother was quite the firebrand of her time. She was labor liason for New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia until he fired her--for getting too cozy with Labor! She then was a major NY fundraiser for the then-mayor of Minneapolis, who was making his first run for the US Senate. His name was Hubert Humphrey, who sponsored me to be a summer replacement Senate Page when I was 15. My family got to be good friends with a lot of the "Minnesota DFL Mafia." Fritz Mondale was really "Fritz" to us. Arms negotiator Max Kampelman. My dad had already passed by the time Al entered politics, but I guess my meeting him was just a logical extension. Pundit Norm Ornstein, while not a politician himself, is also a from Minnesota, and a friend who also knew my dad well, when he was still a DC beat reporter.

As a Minnesotan, he will always be my hero as well.

He speaks about her so glowingly in his book.

They just couldn't wait to jump on a bandwagon they thought they were missing out on. "Everyone else is getting with this, I had better, too." That kind of thing should be reserved for kindergarten playgrounds, not the U.S. Senate, especially our side of the aisle.

....trump became confused and upset that he was restricted by the “foreign corrupt practices act” and asked Sec of State Tillerson to overturn it?
I am not sure but I do believe he was more concerned that the Law restricted his business and not his foreign policy.

[link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-says-he-hates-corruption-but-he-wants-to-make-bribery-easier-worldwide/2020/01/20/d6d6a652-3bcd-11ea-8872-5df698785a4e_story.html|

This is an issue that only an honest boy-scout like Trump would lose sleep over.

Love Al.



Btw, Strange how railroaded Al was when we deeply mourn a real, convicted rapist.

.....a good question. Opens the door to all the Repukes rushing in and saying how T (endlessly) opposed "Clinton corruption", (so -called,) and how the electorate decided the corruption issue by electing him in 2016.

FAUX all the way---but that's exactly how the Repukes would spin it. So the question might backfire. I have no trust at all that the middle of the curve can make the right distinction.

it will just give WH counsel another chance to lie

All Democratic questions should be going to the House managers so they can further emphasize their points and rebut WH Counsel and GOP Senate talking points.

He should still be seated.

Al, HELP!! We need you now, we need all the help you can offer.

He would be a great choice for the weekday MTP show on MSNBC. Instead it will probably be another moderate GOP like Nicholle Wallace or Shep Smith.

I wish he was one of the managers in this trial.

This has been a well known fact since at least the 1980s.

It's just that 40% of our fellow voters don't care, so long as he keep catering to their hatreds.