Al Franken to be Minnesota Senator

We have finally learned who the newest Senator for Minnesota will be…. Al Franken has been officially announced the winner of the highly disputed Senatorial race from this past November.

The state Supreme Court announced today that it was going to force Republican candidate Norm Coleman to concede the race to Franken. The decision to add Al Franken to the Senate is a big win for Democrats. Franken gives the Democrats 60 votes, which is enough to prevent any Republican attempt at delaying legislation, also known as a filibuster.

Definitely a major blow to the Republicans, and another major win for the Democrat party.

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Former Secretary of State states Palin not up to the job

Lawrence Eagleburger, who was Secretary of State under George H Bush, has been a pretty vocal supporter of the struggling McCain campaign, but as to his thoughts on McCain’s Vice President selection, Sarah Palin … well, Eagleburger doesn’t seem too optomistic about her ability to run the country.

When asked yesterday if he thoughtPalin’s had the ability to take over as President should something happen to McCain, Eagleburger stated that obvious with three simple words… “Of course not.”

But surely Eagleburger thinks that Palin would be able to learn and grow into a position where she would be able to lead the country in these tough times. Not so fast! Let’s see what he had to say about the possibility of her taking over control:

“Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be adequate. I can’t say that she would be a genius in the job”

Not that big of a deal I guess… afterall, America has managed to survive the last 8 years with a less than genius mind at the controls!

As of today, polls are showing Obama is probably going to win by a pretty sizable margin… depending on what polls you look at, it seems like political analysts are thinking he will win by an ectoral vote of 338 to 178… but you never know how elections in America are going to turn out. Should be interesting to see!

Sarah Palin

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Obama tells McCain… “It’s on!”

Just when I thought we were about to see Obama whip up on McCain in tomorrow’s night first Presidential debate, it looks as though there is a good chance that McCain is going to decide not to attend the much anticipated confrontation.

While the official word from the McCain camp is that McCain is going to be ceasing all campaigning in hopes of helping Washington pass an economic package aimed at halting the economic slide the country is experiencing, many are questioning his true reasons behind trying to back out of the debate… mainly the fact that his campaign is slipping and Obama is picking up steam.

Everyone can have their own opinion, and I am not here to try to convince you that McCain is scared of Obama, but come on now McCain… you can accomplish both tasks here. Go back to Washington and do your part to help convince Republicans to come to a deal with the Democrats on the plan, and still find 90 minutes to go and sit down with Obama for the whipping that is coming to you.

I must say, I have to give at least a small percentage of possibility to the fact that McCain may have the country’s best intentions here, but the move he made to get in front of Obama on the situation I believe speaks volumes for what sort of politician we are dealing with. Both candidates talked yesterday and decided that they would make a joint statement on the situation, but then McCain went ahead and made his own public statement while Obama was on a plane. Nice move McCain… good to see you have a little of the strong Republican morals running through your veins.

While McCain is going with the idea that there will be no debate if Congress can not agree on a plan, Obama is going under the impression that the debate is on, only time will tell if we get to see these two men duke it out on Friday night.

Also, McCain, why not let your Vice President candidate Palin take the stage for you, if you want us to believe that this woman is capable of running the country if something happens to you, then let her get up there and talk. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend this, since Obama will run circles around her, but isn’t the whole point of picking such a seasoned running mate as Palin that she would be able to step up to the plate when times are tough? Those times are now buddy, let’s see what she has to offer.

OK, enough Republican bashing… let’s just hope that the debate goes on, and we can actually hear from both sides there thoughts on the current situation.

The debate was not the only public appearance that McCain has decided to back out on. He also decided to ditch David Letterman at the last moment, which prompted close to 10 minutes of McCain bashing on the popular late night show.

Here is the video:

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Iran missile tests enter day 2

Yesterday Iran spooked the world when it test launched 9 missiles, one with a long enough range to hit its Middle East enemy Israel. Despite the harsh warnings to got in return, Iran has done more tests today involving more long range missiles.

The feud between Iran and Israel is nothing new, but tensions have definitely been increasing over the past couple of weeks, with Israel conducting war games in Greece last month that many believe is a precursor to an eventual attack on its Middle East neighbor. These games did not go un-noticed by Iran, which has vowed to destroy Israel and set American interests in the region on fire.

While you could list numerous reasons for the feud, the main one in the forefront these days is Iran’s nuclear intentions. Iran is insistent that its nuclear ambitions are for peaceful means (electricity), but Israel and America have been skeptical of such claims, and have insisted that the country is in pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Israel and America have both come out very vocally and stated that Iran must stop their nuclear program, or actions may be taken. The irony of course being that both Israel and America do posses the nuclear bombs.

Of course having a nuclear bomb is one thing, being able to deliver it is another. Short of walking into Israel with a nuclear suitcase bomb, Iran would first have to build accurate missiles to use to deploy the weapons.

And that is where we are today. Iran has been appearing to be developing its nuclear program for several years now, and now we are seeing missile tests.

The strange thing is that now America is actually down playing the country’s nuclear program, saying that Iran has not made any significant progress in developing nuclear weapons. I know its tough to believe that this is actually coming out of the Bush white house, but it is. What should we take from that? I’m not really sure… I will have to think about that one for a while.

For now it’s anyone’s guess who this will play itself out. Perhaps Iran is merely launching these missiles to get it a little more leveraging power in diplomatic discussion, or perhaps, and hopefully not, they have figured out how to produce the nuclear bomb, and are now working on a way to be able to deliver it should they ever decide that was the right move. Lets hope that is not what is going on.

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More warning signs over Iran

In a new report today, the International Atomic Energy Agency made its most straight forward statement yet over Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

According to the new 9 page report, the Agency stated that Iran has shown a willful lack of cooperation with efforts to inspect the country’s nuclear ambitions. The argument has been going on for some time now, as Iran insists that it is merely looking to improve it’s country energy while the West (especially America) insists that the country is looking to develop weapons of mass destruction with their nuclear endeavors.

The Agency’s report seemed to really be effected by documents that showed that the country’s military had definitely been playing a role in the country’s nuclear program, and that there was evidence that the Iranians have moved into working with explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design — activities that it said could be used towards eventually developing nuclear weapons.

Iran, of course, denied the reports and claimed that the documents were forged, which is no surprise coming from the country that has been refusing to let inspectors visit all of their nuclear research sites.

Whether or not you believe that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons is up to you to decide, but the real question is what should the world do to move to prevent the country from getting the weapons that they may or may not be looking to develop? There are really only two options here. The first being to negotiate with the country to try to work out some way to convince Iran that nuclear weapons are not in their best interest. The second method is the one that George Bush has decided to take, which is to refuse to talk to the country at all, and hope that sanctions will prevent it from getting the weapons. Gee, if memory serves me correct, I think that was the same method Bush decided was the right way to go with North Korea too… and we all know how that worked out.

Unlike Bush’s policy (and the same one that McCain has promised to follow if he becomes the next President), there are a handful of large and powerful countries that have decided to have talks with Iran to try to prevent what I believe to be the inevitable entrance of the country into the nuclear power countries.

Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are all looking to hold talks with Iran. Foreign ministers from all of those countries are going to be visiting Iran to try to work out a deal to convince the country to stop moving forward with its nuclear plans.

Which policy is the more effective one? Once again, that decision is yours to make… me personally, I think it’s always better to negotiate before a problem develops instead of waiting for the problem to be in your face, but who really knows. As for Bush, nothing will change his perspective, so at least while he is in office do not expect to read any news about America and Iran sitting down to discuss the problems between the two countries. The only way that will happen any time soon is if America wakes up and elects Barack Obama this November.

What are your thoughts? Should America try to work with Iran before a problem develops, or wait until after and then claim there was nothing we could have done? Maybe I am just missing something very obvious here, but from my point of view I, once again, just can’t seem to figure out what is going through Bush’s mind.

image from Meantoons

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