The House of
Representatives passed the Republicans’ sweeping tax overhaul today sending
the plan to the Senate and setting the stage for the bill to be signed into law by President Trump as early as this week.
The bill passed the
House 227 to 203. All but 12 Republican members voted for the bill. Zero
Democrats supported it.
“This is one of the
most important pieces of legislation Congress has passed in decades…for all
those millions of Americans struggling paycheck to paycheck, help is on the
way,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said after the vote. “This is a good day for workers
and a great day for growth.”
Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) echoed Ryan. “On New Year’s Day,
America will have a new tax code for a new era of American prosperity.”
The vote itself was
chaotic, with a handful activists sitting in the public gallery repeatedly
interrupting Republicans as they introduced the tax measure before they were
escorted out by Capitol Police.
At one point, an
activist yelled, “You are lying to yourselves!” and told House Republicans they
needed to go back to school to learn math, which elicited laughter among the
Democrats on the floor.
A woman in a wheelchair
chanted, “Shame! Shame!” as she was removed from the gallery.
At another point,
someone on the Republican side of the chamber reacted to the activists by
shouting, “Throw her ass out!”
House protesters gone wild: woman takes her top off in the gallery of the House protesting tax vote.
According to a
published report by the New
York Daily News, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met privately with
Franken and his wife shortly after a new allegation of sexual assault came to
light, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Schumer urged Franken
to step down.
The waffling is either
due to Franken giving the Lizard People of Minnesota 24 hours to adjust to
their loss or he’s waiting on a presentation of the 2017 Most Creative
Molestation Excuse Award.
The senator the Lizard
People of Minnesota helped to elect in 2008 is set to make an announcement on
Thursday after 38 senators called for him to resign.Added to the chorus was Democrat National
Committee Chairman Tom Perez.
The push to oust
Franken came after another anonymous woman said Franken tried to forcibly kiss
her in 2006 after the taping of his radio show.His accuser claims he said, “It’s my right as an entertainer.”
“This allegation is
categorically not true and the idea that I would claim this as my right as an
entertainer is preposterous,” Franken said in a statement Wednesday.
And then…
Freelance journalist for The Atlantic and former communications
director for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Tina Dupuy, joined the seven other
accusers saying, “I wasn’t going to come forward. Then I was. Then I wasn’t.
I’ve been hoping Franken would just step down and I wouldn’t have to say
anything. I’ve been hoping he’s a decent enough man not to force his victims to
parade in front of the Ethics Committee. I’ve been hoping I’d not ever have the
moniker of ‘Franken accuser’”.
Senator Franken will be making an announcement tomorrow. More details to come.
Garrison Keillor, the
force behind the popular “A Prairie Home Companion” show and a man who is
uglier than a mud fence was fired by Minnesota Public Radio over inappropriate sexual
behavior claims.
The 75-year-old life-long
Democrat told The Associated Press he
was let go because of “a story that I think is more interesting and more
complicated than the version MPR heard.”
Keillor sniggered
at Middle America on public radio for 42 years.
I guess if you live in
the frozen tundra of Minnesota, then listening to an old codger on the radio talk about “this
beautiful summer” or “the number of persons I know who’ve contracted a
tick-borne disease” or “hip replacements I have known that went bad” while wearing a flannel shirt, long johns and wool
socks in the dead of winter is a blessed distraction from the blizzards and
snow drifts that can linger through the month of May.
Meanwhile, back at the
ranch, a day before
announcing he was fired, Keillor penned an op-ed in support of fellow
Minnesotan Sen. Al Franken, who last week was accused of sexual misconduct.
“This is pure
absurdity, and the atrocity it leads to is a code of public deadliness,” he wrote of the criticism of Franken groping a sleeping
Leeann Tweeden in a 2006 photo. “No kidding.”
MPR says it will stop re-airing Prairie Home episodes with Keillor as the host, and the program's current iteration hosted by Chris Thile will get a new name. https://t.co/15DHkH8hm9
Perhaps Charlie Rose, himself an
old ugly perv with some free time, and Keillor could do a two-man stage act.After all, what else is there to do in Lake
Woebegon?I mean besides fondling the
farmer’s daughter?
It was a quiet late Fall day in Lake Woebegon, the frost glisten of Sven Olson's pond. I stopped by the Chatterbox cafe for a cup of coffee with Al Franken, and we agreed to treat ourselves to a waitress sandwich
Homer: remember that postcard of that alligator biting that woman's bottom? we all thought it was hilarious. But turns out we were wrong: that alligator was sexually harassing the woman.
Bart: And the dog in the Coppertone ad? Same deal, Dad?
Homer: Well, its kind of a grey area.
UPDATE 11-29-17 2:37 PM:The
Daily Mail, citing the email sent by Keillor to the Star Tribune, explaining why he was fired read in part, “I put my
hand on a woman's bare back. I meant to pat her back after she told me about
her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches.She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an
email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to
think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her
lawyer called.”
UPDATE 3:13 PM:Welcome
readers of Bad Blue
Uncensored News.We wish to thank
Doug Ross for linking to this post.
There is nothing wrong
with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are
controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the
volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will
control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image,
make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to
crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that
you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set.
You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience
the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to…Dirt Bag Bingo.
Hello and welcome to
Dirt Bag Bingo.I’m your host Justin
Sider.Today, we have two new
contestants and one returning champion.
JUSTIN:John, tell us a
little bit about yourself.
JOHN:A month ago my
Auntie Maxine was addressing the National Women’s March organizers in Detroit
about the “rape culture” among Hollywood and media celebrities and she gave me
a wonderful shout-out.She said, “You
know, there is a member of Congress who has been supportive of women for many, many,
many years.He is quiet, he is
confident, he is powerful, but he has impeccable integrity on all of our
issues.”
JUSTIN:Bless your heart.Al, you’ve been patient while John rambled
on.Why don’t you share with us a little
something about yourself?
AL:I used to work as a
writer for a well-known comedy show on NBC.Frankly, I’ve been in a little trouble lately but my female friends from
that show wrote a lovely letter explaining what a delightful fellow I am; how I’m
a family man.Yadda, yadda, yadda.
I respect women. I
don't respect men who don't. And the fact that my own actions have given people
a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed. Coming from the world of
comedy, I've told and written a lot of jokes that I once thought were funny but
later came to realize were just plain offensive.
I think my friends just
made things worse for me by writing that letter.The proof was in a tweet from @Laura_Moe who
wrote, “Ted Bundy was well-liked by his co-workers too.”
JUSTIN:Thanks for that deliciously
banal Crisis Communications Script.Now, let’s hear from our returning champion,
Bubba.
BUBBA:Politics gives a guy so much power they tend to behave badly around
women and I hope I never get into that.Hold my beer.
JUSTIN:That’s all the time we have.Join
us again tomorrow for another stimulating round of Dirt Bag Bingo.
Most, if not all of us,
remember the bizarre Minnesota senatorial race in 2008 between incumbent Norm
Coleman (R-MN) and former Saturday Night
Live “star” Al Franken.
It was impossibly close;
on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted, Coleman
led Franken by 725 votes.
Franken and his
Democrat allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results. After
the first canvass, Coleman's lead was down to 206 votes.
During the controversy,
a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to investigate claims of
voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified
1,099 felons─all ineligible to vote─who
had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.
After months of
wrangling and litigation, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was
sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.Franken was elected on
the strength of voter fraud.
During the campaign,
Republicans sought to keep Coleman’s seat in the Senate and unearthed a racy Playboy article, “Porn-O-Rama”, published
in 2000.The RNC also called attention
to a 1995 skit on SNL where Franken joked about raping CBS journalist Lesley
Stahl.
Franken: “And, I
give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then, when Lesley's passed out, I take her to
the closet and rape her. That's why you never see Lesley until February. When
she passes out, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her."
Senator Yuk-Yuk was
forced to distance himself from his crass and profane comedy routines when he
accepted his party’s endorsement in 2008:
“For 35 years I was a writer. I wrote a lot of jokes. Some
of them weren’t funny. Some of them weren’t appropriate. Some of them were
downright offensive. I understand that. And I understand that the people of
Minnesota deserve a senator who won’t say things that will make you feel
uncomfortable.”
To get and stay
elected, he had to suppress his sense of humor and project an air of utmost
seriousness. The people of Minnesota, after all, were not interested in being
represented in Washington by a clown—a truth revealed to the candidate in
multiple focus groups with Minnesota voters.
In his new memoir, “Al Franken, Giant of the Senate”, Franken
admits the truth: His inner clown never went away. It just got suppressed,
forcibly and with great effort. He became a giant phony.
There’s an old axiom that says every senator wakes up
humming “Hail to the Chief”.That axiom
now includes just about any Democrat who isn’t a convicted felon.Enter Senator Al “Yuk-Yuk” Franken.According to The Hill, political associates say they think he could be talked
into running for president if he believes he’s the best positioned to defeat
President Trump.
As much as Franken and his army of toadies would like to
scrub the Internet of that photo of him donning a pair of bunny ears wearing a
diaper or a video of
him holding two traffic cones suggestively, the Minnesota senator has never
failed to beclown himself.
While the aforementioned tasteless antics are years old,
the antic that conclusively proves his tenure in the Senate has been a colossal
farce was the Neil Gorsuch confirmation hearing.
NOTE:Franken serves on
the Senate Judiciary Committee.He has
not one scintilla of knowledge about the law.He neither attended law school nor practiced law.
Franken grilled Gorsuch
about the case of the freezing truck driver who had been fired after he had
driven away from his broken trailer after waiting several hours for help.
"Don't you think
it was absurd that this man was fired?" Franken asked.
"My heart goes out
to him," Gorsuch said.
“But the plain meaning
rule has an exception. When using the plain meaning rule would create an absurd
result, courts should depart from the plain meaning. It is absurd to say this
company is in its rights to fire him because he made the choice of possibly
dying from freezing to death or causing other people to die possibly by driving
an unsafe vehicle. That’s absurd.Now, I
had a career in identifying absurdity,” Franken said.
GORSUCH: Senator, a
couple of things in response to that, if I might. Going back, the absurdity
doctrine argument was never presented to the court. And it usually applies in
cases where there is a scrivener's
error, not where we just disagree with the policy of the statute.So, I’d appreciate the opportunity to respond
there.
FRANKEN: When there’s a
scribner there?
GORSUCH: Scrivener’s
error.
FRANKEN: Error. Okay. I’m
sorry.
GORSUCH: Not when we
just disagree with the policy.With
respect to…
FRANKEN: Well, if I
read my statutory interpretation from─let's see. This is from the Notre Dame
Law School National Institute for Trial Advocacy. This is a pretty well-known exception
to the plain meaning rule.
GORSUCH: Oh, yeah.
FRANKEN: And I think
you can apply it without it. I mean don't you think it is absurd that this man
was put─given that choice and then fired for it? Don't you think that was
absurd?
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN)
said
early Sunday that he is "nervous" about the presidential race two
days before Election Day.
"A lot of
Democrats out there are nervous. Are you among them?" Jake Tapper asked
the senator on CNN's State of the Union.
"Oh, sure. I'm
always nervous. I was nervous in '12. I was nervous in '08 — for good
reason," Franken replied.
He and other Hillary
sycophants have besodden themselves after hearing Trump was visiting
Minneapolis-St. Paul today and Pence would be in Duluth on Monday.
The quick visit puts
Trump’s face behind his claim that he can win Minnesota, which last voted for a
Republican presidential candidate in 1972, along with other traditionally
Democratic states. The visit also gives Trump access to the crucial voters of western
Wisconsin, a swing state in nearly every poll.
Minnesota polling has
shown Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with a lead in the single digits, but Minnesota
Republican Party Chairman Keith Downey said the election has been moving
in Republicans’ direction both here and nationwide.
He added that when he
goes to canvassing centers, he tells volunteers: "Many of you have jobs.
Many of you have families. Ignore them. Get on the doors."
This is virtually the
same thing he said in July at the Democratic National Convention, “Many of you
have jobs. Many of you have families. Ignore them. Let me tell you something:
kids love it when their parents aren't home. And let me tell you something
else. An 8-year-old knows how to use a microwave. And let me tell you something
else. An 8-year-old can teach a 4-year-old how to use a microwave. That's just
scientific fact. They'll be fine. You have work to do. Get on those phones. Knock
on those doors. And tell 'em Al Franken sent you.”
Franken, an alleged
comedian, gained notoriety for his role as Stuart Smalley; an effeminate
man with a perfectly coiffed bleached-blonde hairdo wearing a powder blue
cardigan sweater on Saturday Night Live during the 1990s. Of course he’s nervous about Tuesday’s
presidential election. After all, he’s
only in the Senate because of voter
shenanigans at the ballot box involving Lizard People.
NOTE: I have updated
his Smalley character for this post.
Bernie Sanders, the witless oaf peddling socialism, was
victorious in Washington state's caucuses 72.7 percent to Clinton's 27.1
percent and won Alaska's caucuses by a landslide, defeating Clinton 81.6
percent to 18.4 percent. At 4 a.m. Sunday, with 87.8 percent of precincts
reporting, Sanders was declared the winner in Hawaii, leading Clinton 70.6
percent to 29.2 percent. That followed
his runaway wins in Idaho and Utah.
The delegate math still favors The Ice Cube In Heels. Clinton has amassed 1712 delegates to
Sanders’ 1004. The nomination will
belong to the candidate who garners 2383 before the Democrat convention. There are 2049 delegates still up for grabs.
And if you needed further evidence that Democrats are
divorced from reality, savor this nugget from Bill Scher of Politico as he opines about the Lizard
People’s idol:
This is not a joke.
Senator Al Franken should be the Democratic Party’s choice for Vice-President.“If I had said that 10
years ago, or even six months ago, the notion would have been preposterous: a former Saturday
Night Live writer, perhaps best known as the mock self help guru Stuart
Smalley, Franken became synonymous with left-wing bombast thanks to his
best-selling book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big
Fat Idiot.” He took the presidency itself as a joke, writing a satirical
campaign memoir, “Why Not Me,” in
which Franken wins the White House on a platform of eliminating ATM fees, only
to be quickly chased out by the “Joint Congressional Committee on the
President's Mood Swings.”
With Hillary Clinton’s
grip on the Democratic nomination firm, and Donald Trump on track to insult his
way to the Republican nomination, Democrats will want their vice-presidential
choice to accomplish the following:
1.Prevent Bernie Sanders’
energized left-wing youth from snubbing Clinton and flocking to the Green Party,
2.Protect the Rust Belt
from Donald Trump’s blustery charms; and
3.Navigate an
unprecedented media circus dominated by Trump’s barrage of taunts
Scher prattles endlessly on about the virtues of
this idiot and then concludes with this gem, “The reason for Clinton to pick
Franken is this: it would make the
entire fall campaign bearable to watch.”
On Monday, August 4, 2014 the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce will announce its endorsement of GOP businessman Mike
McFadden in the Minnesota Senate race.
The race is emerging as
potentially competitive, despite receiving less attention than other
battleground contests. This week, University of Virginia political analyst
Larry Sabato moved the
Franken race into the "Leans Democratic" category, calling it a
potential sleeper contest. Unlike other
targeted Democratic senators in 2014, Franken has maintained a solidly
liberal voting record, rarely breaking with President Obama on high-profile
issues.
Sabato notes that six years ago,
Franken won by the barest of margins (312 votes) against incumbent Sen. Norm
Coleman (R) only after a lengthy recount process. The process was derailed when it was
discovered that Lucas Davenport had sullied the voting process by casting a write-in
vote for Lizard People.
In
an interview with MPR News
Davenport said, "I don't know if you've heard the conspiracy theory about
the Lizard Men. A friend of mine, we
didn't like the candidates, so we were at first going to write in “revolution”,
because we thought that was good and to the point. And then, we thought the
Lizard People would be even funnier, and there was kind of a running inside gag
between some friends and I."
“Lizard People” refers to the
conspiracy theory that there's a race of shape shifting lizards masquerading as
humans who rule the world, but Davenport doesn't consider himself a believer.
McFadden still faces an Aug. 12
primary opponent in GOP state Rep. Jim Abeler.
McFadden talks about “unshackling the energy industry” by voting for the
Keystone Pipeline and permitting the fast-tracking of 24 LNG plants. He also favors limiting the stifling effects
of government regulation.
He advocates
“abolishing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with a market-based system
that provides coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. On immigration,
he says he would first secure the borders and then implement a multistep path
to citizenship. He says he will oppose any effort to change Social Security and
Medicare benefits for those at or near retirement.”
Dear Minnesotans, in 1998 you
elected a pro wrestler your governor. In
2008 you elected Stuart Smalley your senator.
Howze about ya take 2014 seriously? UPDATE: A big ‘ol “Thank You” to Diogenes’
Middle Finger for linking to this post.
