Defiant to the Last, Senator Franken Succumbs to Democrat Party Pressure and Resigns

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, December 8, 2017:  

I am proud that during my time in the Senate I have used my power to be a champion of women and that I have earned a reputation as someone that [sic] respects the women I work alongside every day.

In his heart, he knows he’s a good guy and that all that has been written about him and his sexual predations over the years is false and misleading, and, in the grand scheme of things, won’t matter:

I know there has been a very different picture of me painted in the last few weeks, but I know who I am.

That’s been Franken’s problem for years, but it’s just been in the last few weeks that fellow Democrats finally had their fill of him and his predations, and moved Heaven and earth to get him out of the Senate before he took down the entire Democrat Party with him.

Franken’s demise began with a joke that turned sour: touching a sleeping woman’s breasts in a photograph that went viral. Franken said he was just trying to make a joke (he was a comedian before winning a contested election fraught with irregularities for the Senate in Minnesota in 2008). It was a joke that went bad, and has cost Franken his Senate seat. Within weeks, eight women stepped up to denounce Franken’s penchant for attempting to dip his pen into company ink.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer saw the danger of letting Franken off the hook, calling on him personally to resign and then later meeting with Franken and his wife at his apartment urging him to step down.

This appeared to be coordinated with more than 30 senators, most of them female Democrats, who issued a series of social media blasts on Wednesday demanding that Franken leave the Senate. The first came from Democrat New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who declared on her Facebook page, “Enough is enough,” adding that “As elected officials, we should be held to the highest standards – not the lowest. The allegations against Sen. Franken describe behavior that cannot be tolerated. While Senator Franken is entitled to have the Ethics Committee conclude its review, I believe it would be better for our country if he sent a clear message that any kind of mistreatment of women in our society isn’t acceptable by stepping aside to let someone else serve.”

Hypocrisy isn’t limited to Franken, however; it seems to be part of the job description to be a Democrat. Hear this from Tom Perez who heads up the Democratic National Committee:

The Democratic Party will stand up for women and for what is right. Public service is a public trust. If you are a candidate for office or an elected official who has engaged in sexual misconduct, you should step aside – whether you sit in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, or the Oval Office.

Would that include Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy and Democrat Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, Mr. Perez?

Following Franken’s resignation “in a few weeks,” Minnesota’s Democrat Governor Mark Dayton will choose his successor to complete the balance of his term. Pundits are predicting that, in the interest of avoiding naming someone with similar proclivities, Dayton will choose a woman: perhaps Lt. Gov. Tina Smith or Attorney General Lori Swanson. She will still be a Democrat, but, it is hoped, her appointment will end the sexual predations emanating from Franken’s office.

What’s especially painful for Democrats is that Franken’s resignation follows that of John Conyers a day earlier, but with this difference: Conyers, at age 88, was well into his dotage and expected to retire soon, whereas Franken was on the ascendancy in the Democrat Party, despite his long and well-known record of harassing women under his control along the way.

It’s also a painful reminder that the charges against Conyers and Franken are real and substantive, whereas those against Judge Roy Moore running in Alabama for Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat are being considered by likely voters in next Tuesday’s election to be frivolous and false. If Franken were allowed to keep his seat, Roy Moore’s arrival would provide unavoidable and painful grist for Republicans in the upcoming midterms: that Democrats are willing to put up with such behavior from one of their own while making hypocritical and unsubstantiated charges against Moore. In other words the evidence of hypocrisy and double standards of behavior by Democrats versus Republicans would be evident every day the Senate is in session.

With the unlamented departure of Conyers and Franken, one must ask: how many more are there lurking in Congress who are taking advantage of their positions of power by forcing unwanted advances onto women under their influence? There’s another rule that applies here: when one lifts the corner of a carpet and finds a cockroach, he knows that cockroaches don’t come in singles.

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Sources:

NPR.org: Sen. Al Franken Announces He Will Resign ‘In The Coming Weeks’

MPRNews.org: Sen. Al Franken will resign, Democratic official says

CNN.com: ‘Their patience had worn incredibly thin’: How the dam broke on Al Franken

The New York Times: A Democratic Chorus Rises in the Senate: ‘Franken Should Resign’

WashiingtonExaminer.com: 4 reasons Democrats finally abandoned Al Franken

Newsweek: WHAT TOOK THE DEMS SO LONG TO OUST FRANKEN?

Wiki on Franken’s 2008 election irregularities