Senator Sleaze

Ex-Senator Coleman is a man of sleaze, and I'll tell you why. He would have us believe that he is waging his enigmatic recount fight solely in the name of high-minded democratic principles. He seems to have made the discovery that some absentee voters are routinely "disenfranchised" because they can't remember to sign their form or get their address written in properly. This is pure BS, and everyone realizes it, but it not unexpected considering the source.

I voted for Franken, and believe he will make a much better senator for MN, but if Coleman had raised his absentee ballot concerns while he was still leading in the official count, this would have been a stunning, groundbreaking event. Such displays of selfless principle in a politician are so rare, I would have applauded it. If he had said, while ahead, "Ok, let's count 'em all, whether I win or lose is not the point", I may have even made a contribution toward that noble effort. But let's face it, no politician can rise to that level, and we know Franken would have fought any recount effort had he been ahead at the beginning. We know that our electoral system is mostly a ruse, and the ruthless game is all about gaining and maintaining power.

I'm afraid that voting the lesser of evils is the only reasonable approach to take, and that more for self-satisfaction than any hope of influencing public policy for the better. In this particular senate race, seeing Coleman lose is more satisfying than usual, and here's why:

Coleman's rise to national office seemed more tainted and contrived than usual. Dick Cheney (an evil man in my book) intervened personally. Tim Pawlenty was originally planning to run for Wellstone's senate seat in 2002, but he told the Star Tribune that Cheney had reached him on his cell phone while driving the kids to a soccer game. Cheney asked him not to run for senate, but suggested a run for governor instead. "What do you say to the vice president when he asks you not to run?" the StarTrib quoted Pawlenty, "Of course you pay attention and listen".

What Pawlenty didn't say, but my intuition filled in, is that Cheney promised to help win the governorship and to consider Pawlenty for higher national office at a later date. I also strongly suspect that Cheney had been working with Coleman, convincing him to change parties and make a run for the senate, promising to deliver Wellstone's seat to him.

How could Cheney deliver on a promise like that? Wellstone was popular, and Coleman would not have likely been able to defeat him. Well, let's just say that a way was found...I'll leave it at that.

Other items in the news

Pakistan is on track to become the first radical Islamic country to possess nuclear weapons. While attention focuses on Iran, and Israel's likely plans to attack the Bushehr nuclear facility, the worst-case nightmare seems ready to unfold somewhere else. Can you imagine the Taliban brandishing nukes? The table has been set and there seems little that can be done at this point to prevent it.

As I've written before, Bush's quest to topple Saddam was a huge mistake, almost as if an intentional policy had been devised that would create maximum instability and damage in the Mid East. We replaced a stable, secular regime with a vacuum and the best recruiting opportunity imaginable for Islamic radicalism. In Pakistan we see yet another example of the fallout. We also have Israel's likely attack on Iran to worry about, which will lead to the biblical Armageddon scenario, and perhaps that's what the PTB have intended all along.

By this coming autumn, the global economic collapse will likely accelerate again, after a brief summer respite. Historically, such collapses have been eventually accompanied by outbreaks of war - this tends to have a distracting effect on the suffering masses.

Meanwhile, many pin their hopes on Obama. Will he prove different than his predecessors? He has signaled a change in the hostile policies toward Venezuela and Cuba, and apparently got the Israelis concerned by encouraging talks with Hamas. This is rather surprising, considering his incongruent choice of Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff - the dual-citizen Israeli, former member of the IDF and likely Mossad operative. I have a sense of wild-card energy at work here, as the Paradigm Shift continues inexorably to move forward and bring about surprising twists in world events. Stay tuned.

-Darkwave