Norm Coleman Finally Concedes....Finally!! Congratulations Senator Franken!

And congratulations to all of us for the majority and for the end of this circle jerk. Of course, Coleman felt like he had to do this for the people...just like my own Joementum Lieberman! Sometimes the people don't want your idea of justice!



c/p RIP Coco

Tim Pawlenty throws in the towel

Apparently Minnesota Governor and alleged Republican rising star Tim Pawlenty has decided not to hinge his 2012 hopes on depriving Minnesota of a second Senator.

Via Bradblog:

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) informed MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell:

I can't sign the certificate until the State court process is complete. We don't know who the winner is, but as soon as that process is complete and they give direction as to signing the certificate, I'm going to sign it…

Pawlenty's remarks are consistent with MN Election Law as interpreted [PDF] by the MN Supreme Court in Franken v. Pawlenty. MN law prevents either Governor Pawlenty (R) or Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) from signing the certificate once an election contest has commenced and before it is completed in state court. It is also consistent with the legal argument presented by Al Franken in his MN Supreme Court brief [PDF] that the MN Supreme Court should order the Governor and Secretary of State to perform what amounts to a "ministerial duty" to sign and countersign the certification of election upon the completion of the state court process. This statement follows, within one day, Pawlenty's announcement that he would not seek a third term as Governor.

Al Franken can't be seated soon enough

The only thing one wonders is why on earth Minnesotans elected Norm Coleman in the first place.

Joe Sudbay:

Never a dull moment with sleazy Norm Coleman. Norm is in some hot water because his top campaign benefactor, Nasser Kazeminy, was accused of funneling money to Norm's wife. That accusation was reaffirmed in a sworn deposition from Kazeminy's business partner. These lawsuits had nothing to do with politics -- just business.

Now, Norm is asking the FEC to let him use campaign money to pay the legal costs from that lawsuit. Joe Bodell at MN Progressive Project asks a key question:

Is this what donors thought they were funding when they wrote a check to Norm Coleman's campaign for the recount and legal challenge?

Norm Coleman is appealing to a higher authority

God Himself:

“I campaigned 36 hours nonstop at the end, because it’s over Nov. 4,” Mr. Coleman said. “Well that was six months ago. And it’s not over. This certainly is a surreal experience.”

“I have more dinners home with my wife than I ever have before,” said Mr. Coleman.

He said that every morning, he puts tefillin — black leather boxes containing scrolls — on his arm as part of a morning Jewish prayer ritual. “I bind myself every morning,” he said. “I bind myself to God every morning because it’s in his hands.”

He paused. “David Letterman will make fun of me for this,” he said.

You're damn right he will. And so will every other sane person in this country. There you have it -- the defeated Senator from Minnesota and the next great Fox News Blubbering talk show host: Norm Coleman: crybaby.

It isn't over till Norm Coleman wins

Or so sayeth the Coleman camp tonight, after a 3-judge panel in Minnesota declared Al Franken the winner of that state's Senatorial election last November:

"More than 4,400 Minnesotans remain wrongly disenfranchised by this court's order," Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said in a statement. "By its own terms, the court has included votes it has found to be 'illegal' in the contest to remain included in the final counts from Election Day, and equal protection and due process concerns have been ignored. For these reasons, we must appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court so that no voter is left behind."

The three-judge panel rejected Coleman's equal-protection arguments, saying that "errors or irregularities identified by contestants in the general election do not violate the mandates of equal protection."

The court's decision marks a new chapter in the race — one that will play out not just in the legal system but in the court of public opinion.

Even as the two sides were awaiting Monday's ruling, they were engaged in a message war — with Franken's allies amping up the pressure on Coleman to quit and Republicans blaming Franken for dragging out the process.

“The clock is ticking for Norm Coleman – and should he choose to drag this out longer with an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court, it ought to be the end of the road,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said before the court ruled. “It is time for him to stop allowing national Republicans to hold the seat hostage to pursue their ideological agenda.”

In the days before the ruling, Coleman’s allies were increasingly trying to highlight what they see as a constitutional violation — that Minnesota counties used varying methods for tabulating thousands of absentee ballots. Moreover, they were arguing that the delay in seating a new Minnesota senator falls on Franken for trying to limit the review of some 4,400 ballots.

“I think the bigger problem is that Democrats want to end the contest before it has run its course,” said Ron Carey, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, which launched a petition drive urging Coleman to continue fighting in the courts.

Coleman himself has been making the rounds on conservative radio and TV talk shows to make an appeal that he’ll win eventually – an effort strategists say helps bolster Republican support nationally in a bid to help raise funds. And he’s been making the rounds in Minnesota to keep his backers behind him in the ongoing affair.

Franken, meanwhile, is trying to show that his seating is imminent, with a spokeswoman saying before the ruling came down that he is “spending time listening to Minnesotans and preparing to tackle these issues the minute he’s sworn in.”

The case heads next to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and a decision there likely won’t come until the end of May at the earliest. At that point, the loser has a choice — seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court or wage a new battle in federal district court.

Norm Coleman's refusal to go away even though he has clearly lost and makes new arguments that often contradict the old ones are the first real test since the Bush/Gore race of 2000 of the new Republican doctrine of elections: disenfranchise as many Democrats as you can, and if that isn't enough, tie up close elections in the courts forever. Every day that Franken isn't seated is one less day of the Democrats being that one vote closer to the filibuster-proof Democratic majority that Republicans fear more than anything else.

And in regard to The Liberal Media, Brad Friedman reports on AP's refusal to call the person who received the most votes the winner.

Norm Coleman: Just like his hero, George W. Bush

In 2000, Gail Sheehy wrote about George W. Bush in Vanity Fair:

Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn't lose. He'll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him. "If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15," says Hannah, now a Dallas insurance executive. "If he wasn't winning, he would quit. He would just walk off.… It's what we called Bush Effort: If I don't like the game, I take my ball and go home. Very few people can get away with that." So why could George get away with it? "He was just too easygoing and too pleasant."

Another fast friend, Roland Betts, acknowledges that it is the same in tennis. In November 1992, Bush and Betts were in Santa Fe to host a dinner party, but they had just enough time for one set of doubles. The former Yale classmates were on opposite sides of the net. "There was only one problem—my side won the first set," recalls Betts. "O.K., then we're going two out of three," Bush decreed. Bush's side takes the next set. But Betts's side is winning the third set when it starts to snow. Hard, fat flakes. The catering truck pulls up. But Bush won't let anybody quit. "He's pissed. George runs his mouth constantly," says Betts indulgently. "He's making fun of your last shot, mocking you, needling you, goading you—he never shuts up!" They continued to play tennis through a driving snowstorm.

It is something of an in-joke with Bush's friends and family. "In reality we all know who won, but George wants to go further to see what happens," says an old family friend, venture capitalist and former MGM chairman Louis "Bo" Polk Jr. "George would say, 'Play that one over,' or 'I wasn't quite ready.' The overtimes are what's fun, so you make your own. When you go that extra mile or that extra point … you go to a whole new level."

Now, Norm Coleman is taking the spoiled fratboy from Kennebunkport as a role model and deciding that since he didn't win re-election, we should have a "do-over" until he does:

The talk from the Coleman campaign about how the Minnesota election results are unreliable, and that a do-over election could be an option, has now gone beyond just Norm Coleman's lawyers -- it's now coming from the mouth of Norm himself.

Coleman did an interview with Sirius conservative talk-radio host Andrew Wilkow, and discussed the campaign's argument that the court's current strict standards for allowing in previously-rejected ballots must by extension render illegal a whole lot of ballots accepted and counted on Election Night, when local election officials used lax standards:

"What does the court do?" Norm asked rhetorically. "Yeah, you know some folks are now talking about simply saying run it again, just run it again."

"Have another statewide election?" Wilkow asked.

Coleman responded: "You know the St. Paul Pioneer Press is...one of the second largest papers in the state, last week [they] said we're never going to figure this out, just run it again. So you start hearing that. Ultimately the court has to make a determination, can they confirm, can they certify who got the most legally cast votes?"

Coleman also said that he truly believes that he is the one who got the most legally cast votes, but on the other hand, this whole situation shows serious concerns about the process.

"I got to believe next time this happens folks are going to say ... if you have something within a couple of say percentage - this is by the way was thousandths of a percent - but if you have something within a couple of hundred votes out of three million cast, probably the best thing to do next time is run it again in three weeks and put all this other stuff aside."

Another reason to be an atheist

God Himself wants Norm Coleman in the Senate. Hey, it's true. Norm says so:

When asked about the recount and how it is affecting him personally, Coleman said he starts every day with a prayer and that he knows “God wants me to serve.” Coleman did later temper those rather immodest remarks by adding that he “is not indispensable” and that others can serve as well. Coleman closed the interview with an appeal to Gallagher’s listeners for contributions to his campaign website.

Since Coleman is Jewish, perhaps he might consider that his God also wanted Abraham to take Isaac up to a mountaintop and kill him before saying "Kidding! I just wanted to see if you'd do it!"

(via Bradblog)

OK, let's have a do-over of 2000 while we're at it, m'kay?

And here we thought George W. Bush was the Republican who always insisted on do-overs when he lost a game:

The Coleman team appears to be laying out a continued strategy of casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Minnesota election result by pointing to a fundamental underlying idea of this dispute: The margin of error is simply too big in a race this close.

"Is there some point at which the margin of error is just too wide compared to the difference in votes to determine who truly won?" Coleman lawyer John Rock asked Ramsey County (St. Paul) elections director Joe Mansky. Mansky replied that there is absolutely such a point, with accuracy topping out at over 99.99%.

"All of which is pretty good," Mansky said. "But remember that one in every thousand is not an issue when somebody wins by 200,000 votes. When they win by 200 votes, the margin of error in our computation is likely large enough to have an impact on our result, and I think that's the situation that we find ourselves in here."

Of course, this opens up the question of how Coleman could justify any finding of a win for himself, since even a mathematically possible Coleman victory margin would be too narrow for these purposes. At this point we're looking at Nate Silver's hypothesis, that Coleman might be aiming for a do-over election as a possible outcome.

Why don't they just come out and admit it: The only election result Norm Coleman will accept is one in which he wins.

Mr. Franken Goes to Washington

Isn't it funny how when there was a disputed election in 2000, the Republicans called the ticket disputing the vote count "Sore Loserman", but when it's a Republican who's far more definitively on the losing end, suddenly there's all kinds of righteous indignation coming from the elephant side of the fence? Isn't it funny how Republicans hate lawyers but when THEY don't get their way, they're the first ones to lawyer up?

On November 24, 2000, David Aaronovitch wrote in the U.K. Independent about the Party of Whiners:

What is it, I wonder, about the political right that makes them feel that they are somehow entitled to power, and that - when power is denied them - allows them to claim that they - and the country - have been cheated? Since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, and that of Tony Blair in 1997, the tone of much of the criticism from the right has not been about policies but has focused instead upon the legitimacy of the administrations themselves: Clinton won because he was a serial liar; Blair won because he was a ruthless dissembler; and now Gore is trying to cheat his way into the White House by what amounts to an election fraud. They would have us believe that the Vice-President - in the words of a spoof poster - is a Sore Loserman.

[snip]

Now the Republican attack dogs are out. You would expect the far-right shock-jocks and radio-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh to continue their anti-liberal campaigning in intemperate tones. But look who's joined them! The bulk of the right-leaning press, commentators and academics seem to have united in attempting to portray the incredibly cautious, centrist Democrats as being somehow the products of a hellish liaison between the Whore of Babylon and Vladimir Lenin.

Peggy Noonan, Reagan's brilliant scriptwriter, yells that "the Gore-Clinton Democratic Party is trying to steal the election". The eminent conservative George Will risks a hernia with the sentiment that "the Clinton-Gore era culminates with an election as stained as the blue dress." (It is unwise, incidentally, to interrogate this metaphor too closely. I tried, and regretted it.)

Claudia Rosett writes in The Wall Street Journal that Gore, learning from his boss, "has every reason to figure that he might as well go right on trying to target and redefine those vital Florida ballots until they become, well, whatever they need to be to elect Mr Gore". For her, it's all part of a pattern. "The unprecedented wrangling and lawyering of Mr Gore," she continues (somehow overlooking the lawyering of Mr Bush), "over the vote count is just the first real sample of Mr Clinton's true legacy."

[snip]

So let's get this clear. If Gore wins, though he will lack authority, he will be a legitimate victor. Should, however, the ludicrous Bush (who says he doesn't like messy situations; he should enjoy the Middle East, then) be inaugurated next January, he will be the president who got 320,000 fewer votes than his rival, and who finally triumphed because there just wasn't enough time for one county to hold a recount - a recount described as being democratically essential by the Supreme Court of Florida.

My God, can you imagine how he would have fared had he been a Democrat?

Well, now we know. Norm Coleman isn't going away quietly, and the Republicans are not going to put up with losing the seat that some believe they dispensed with Paul Wellstone to win. Indeed, John Cornyn has already said they will filibuster if necessary to prevent Franken from being seated.

Somehow the idea that what we have on our side is the milquetoast Harry Reid is not reassuring. So...how's that "new way of doing politics" working so far, Mr. Obama?

Funny how Blagojevic is the ONLY corrupt midwestern pol getting attention

Isn't it interesting how the corporate media are completely ignoring the Ted Stevens-like scandal involving Minnesota's incumbent Republican Senator, Norm Coleman? It's no wonder Coleman is suing to stop the recount. He needs to have a court declare him the winner before too many details about this get out:

The timing and cost of Sen. Norm Coleman's home renovation has again raised questions about allegations that an Edina, Minn. businessman funneled money to Norm Coleman's wife Laurie.

The FBI is now reportedly investigating the allegations that Nasser Kazeminy tried to funnel $75,000 in campaign contributions through the Senator's wife. By why would a U.S. Senator, who makes about $180,000 a year, need the money?

Norm Coleman's home in St. Paul's Crocus Hill neighborhood is not lavish -- but it's a lot nicer than it used to be, thanks in part to contractor Jim Taylors, who helped remodel the home two years ago.

"Put in a second floor master bedroom/bathroom, the bedroom was there, we just added a bathroom and closet and a kitchen remodel, actually turned into half the house remodel by the time we painted and refinished floors and did some landscape work," says Taylors.

The remodeled kitchen was the backdrop for some of the Senator's campaign commercials. FOX 9 learned the woman in charge of the project was Shari Wilsey, an interior designer. Wilsey, along with her husband Roger, are longtime friends of the Coleman's and financial contributors to the Senator's campaigns.

Video report from, yes really, a Fox affiliate here.

Somehow I think Jesse Jackson, Jr. is going to get more press coverage than this will

Stormin' Norman Coleman may be in a tad of hot water:

Federal investigators are looking into allegations that a longtime friend and benefactor tried to steer money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, the Pioneer Press has learned.

Agents with the FBI have talked to or made efforts to talk to people in Texas familiar with the allegations, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Houston is where the first of two lawsuits was filed alleging Nasser Kazeminy, a Bloomington financier, tried to steer $100,000 to Coleman via his wife's Minneapolis employer. The second suit, filed in Delaware, alleges Kazeminy initially tried to get money directly to the senator.

Both Coleman and Kazeminy have denied any wrongdoing, and Coleman last month said he welcomes an investigation.

Neither Coleman nor his office has been contacted by the FBI, spokesman LeRoy Coleman said Tuesday morning.

"We have not been contacted by any law enforcement or investigative authority on this matter," he said.

On Tuesday evening, Coleman's campaign released the following statement: "We are not aware of any investigation that is under way, nor have we been contacted by any agency with respect to this matter. As we have said repeatedly, we welcome any investigation of these lawsuits by the appropriate authorities to get to the bottom of these baseless, sleazy and politically inspired allegations."

The campaign provided no evidence for the claim that the allegations are "politically inspired."

Funny how the wingnuts who have been screaming about Tony Rezko for the last year have nothing to say about this. But hey, after all, it's only Democrats who should be punished for corruption. Republicans? They get standing ovations from their party.

And ANOTHER Republican lie is debunked

I get so tired of doing this.

This morning I had to send a letter to my local paper in response to a letter to the editor that attempted to defend Sarah Palin's designer shopping spree on the Republicans' dime by citing the already-disproven "The Obamas Stayed at the Waldorf Astoria and Orderd Lobster and Caviar" horseshit dished up by the New York Post in October and then retracted a week later.

You may know that the Usual Suspects on the right have had their panties in a twist about Thirty-Two Franken Ballots In a Car™ -- the idea pulled out of the asses of Minnesota Republicans and the mouthbreathers on right-wing talk radio and television that a Minnesota election director drove around for three solid days with exactly thirty-two votes for Al Franken in the car. They've even put up a web site for their ravings.

There's just one problem: It isn't true:

1. The ballots were never in her car.

2. The ballots were never in anyone’s car for several days.

3. The ballots were never lost or forgotten, and spent Election Night until counting day in secure city facilities.

The sorting hats

OK, so were the ballots ever in a car?

Yes. But stow the outrage until you hear the details.

As most folks know, there were a ton of absentee ballots this year. State law mandates voters return absentee ballots to elections offices, such as the Government Center or City Hall. Officials then must deliver the ballots to individual precincts on Election Day for tallying.

Since the "Star Trek" teleporter has not yet been invented, these ballots are driven to the polling places.

Yes, in cars — like they are every year, throughout Minnesota. (Ramsey County officials confirm they do this, too, for example.)

“What I find ludicrous is that this goes on all around the state,” Reichert says. “If we could process them [at City Hall] we’d love to do that.”

In Minneapolis, the cargo is transported by “precinct support judges,” one for each ward. Seven of the city’s 2008 “PSJs” were declared Democrats, three Republican, two independents and one listed no affiliation.

At about 7 p.m. Election Night, the county sent the city a batch of “uniformed overseas citizens” absentee ballots — from military personnel and Minnesotans living abroad. The ballots have two envelopes — an outer one with basic registration information, and an inner security envelope with the actual vote.

City Hall staff checks the outer envelope to assure registration validity. They then sort the envelopes into 131 Minneapolis precincts for delivery.

Ballots are further sorted by five differing absentee-voting instructions. (For example, some electronically delivered overseas ballots don’t come back in machine-readable form, so precinct judges must transcribe them onto optically scannable sheets.)

Then they have to be handed to the PSJs, who have to travel a 10- or 11-precinct circuit so judges on-site can open the inner security envelope and cast the vote.

For this final batch, it all had to happen in as little as an hour.

Driving the ballots
The drivers went out about 7:30 p.m. Reichert soon heard from some who were worried they might not get to every precinct before closing. Once a precinct judge removes a tallying machine memory card, votes can no longer be counted there.

Reichert says she sent a broadcast message to each precinct’s lead judge to keep sites open, but not everyone received it. Some less-busy sites shut down before the drivers got there.

In accordance with longstanding procedures, the couriers immediately brought the uncounted, unopened ballots — 28 of the now-famous 32 — back to City Hall, where they were stored in a secure room.

(The other four ballots were accidentally unprocessed in the precincts, and were also returned that night to the same place.)

So: The ballots were in cars because state law mandates precinct counting. An election judge always had custody, and they were never “lost.” They were not in vehicles overnight and spent Election Night, and the next several nights, tucked away safely in City Hall.

I have a special interest in the Minnesota Senate seat, and it isn't just because I strongly believe that we need more comedians in Congress. (Maron? Maron?) Now I will be the first one to admit that I have zero proof and that this is strictly tinfoil territory. But I have always found it extremely convenient for the Republicans that they wanted that Senate seat, then occupied by the late Paul Wellstone, very, very badly -- and then like Missouri Sen. Mel Carnahan, he conveniently shows up dead in a plane crash. Contemporary Independent Speculative Investigators (as Marc Maron calls them) like this and this examine it further. But whether you choose to don the tinfoil chapeau or not; whether you believe that foul weather was the cause of the Wellstone crash or something more sinister, the fact remains that the crash allowed the odious Norm Coleman to sail into office without a hitch.

If Norm Coleman did actually win re-election, we will know by the manual recount and accept the judgment of the voters. But given the many irregularities we saw in Minnesota, it seems unlikely that the Republicans would give up such a hard-won Senate seat without a fight.

Franken is running

Al Franken just announced that he is going to run for Senate in Minnesota in 2008. Climb on board here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the next Senator from the great state of Minnesota:

I hear William Donohue is busy already.

OK, all kidding aside:

Somewhere, Paul Wellstone is smiling.