Meanwhile, Back In Minnesota…

I like the idea of a coin toss. It’s been done before and would save a lot of tax payer money.

One of the things that irritates me about this is that you know if it were Coleman who was ahead, the GOP would have insisted in the beginning that he be provisionally seated. And Harry Reid would have caved.
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Is there any investigation going on into Coleman’s legal problems?

Aren’t Minnesotans just a little bit ticked off at this ongoing debacle? How many want Coleman to simply go away…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

MINNETONKA WELCOMES SENATOR STIRRUP SHORTS (subject to indictment)
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xxxooo Paul Bunyan statue down. Hugo Chavez statue up.

xxxooo Call for state trooper withdrawal from Bemidji, since their tenured insurgent types and Pell Grant dependent Hey Ho Paul Headstone Eats Snow in-laws don’t really want us there anyway.

xxxooo Minneapolis hookers required to meet 200-pound nude minimum before city certification.

xxxooo Political mail franking privileges doubled per linguistic proximity to last name.

xxxooo Stellar drug rehabs custom designed by still squealing family relations of deceased fellow Saturday Night Live chums.

xxxooo Babe The Blue Ox now referred to as Hot, Hot Babe The Very Blue Ox in 4-color state travel brochure.

xxxooo Updated I-35 bridge safety signs to read NO OVERSIZED LIMP LOADS beneath supersized Senate portrait.

xxxooo Chevy Chase promises to hilariously throw up on Birkenstocks of any DNC hack within ten thousand feet of his last lousy Vacation movie (now available on HD DVD).

xxxooo In the interest of safety, union local carpenter Dickies denim overalls to be replaced by day-glo Speedo wrestling thongs.

xxxooo Alec Baldwin designated as stunt double in the event of any unpleasant northern rural county sausage sucking contests.

xxxooo Change first name from Al to The Fat Azz Formerly Named Dork King.

xxxooo Riveting assassination jokes on Letterman will be supplemented with progressive stories about Communist cloning fairs and bisexual petting zoo stem cells.

xxxooo Chris Farley hot air balloon to replace VFW float during annual Veterans Day Parade in St. Paul.

xxxooo Broadway show tunes up the old Golden Gopher hole, if you know what I mean.

Why is the death rate for SNL types under age 40 so gosh darn high, compared to the military, or even the national average?

You’d be safer in Baghdad or Kabul, than ever having worked with Al Franken or Tina Fey at NBC.

“William Beyer, 98, an Inver Grove Heights retiree, has his own solution to the electoral circus: “Let Coleman and [Franken] take a nice gold coin and flip it in the air,” he says. “I don’t know why they are monkeying around. They’re never going to find out all the correct ballots.”
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This William Byer?
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/william-beyer.asp?cycle=08
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Great reporting.

PNNTO – thanks!

nice catch pnnto — Karen, don’t you think its REALLY CRAPPY journalism for your reporters to cite a COLEMAN CONTRIBUTOR as someone looking for a “coin toss” without noting that the guy had given Coleman money?
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what irritates me about this is Pawlenty’s refusal to provide the necessary paperwork to seat Franken — Obama won Minnesota by 10 points, which means that the people of Minnesota don’t want someone who will impede Obama….

No problem, 30 second Google search.

Is it a school holiday somewhere?

The GOP doesn’t care if they ever get Coleman seated – they just want to deny the seat to dems.
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Feh.

Pretty shoddy reporting. How did the 46% of the Rasmussen sample relate to the 49.xxx% of the electorate who supported Coleman in November, i.e., how many just want a chance to negate the valid election their guy happened to lose?
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Also, is there any legal support for the theory that a coin flip would be lawful if the result is merely uncertain? As I see the law, there must be a definite, exact tie (say, 22 votes each) before a coin flip is statutorily authorized.
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Meanwhile, what’s with this unlimited judicial review timeline? Most of the judges I know would tell the parties they have X days each to present their cases, and the appellate court would set the matter for the kind of expedited proceeding we saw in Florida in 2000. Justice delayed, as it were.

Meanwhile, back at Obama HQ…

==============================

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090310/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_guantanamo_sept11_trial

There was a great touch of false equivalency in that piece. They claim both candidates as having done about faces. To prove it they say Franken first claimed that every legally submitted vote should count but now he has taken a “decidedly less sweeping” view of things without pointing to anything he has done to support that notion. Then for Coleman they rightly point out that he has challenged ballots that he didn’t want in only to turn around and request that they be allowed. What they DIDN’T point out is that it was revealed in court that the Coleman people have been contacting everyone whose ballot was in question and they have fought to get ballots allowed that they had at first challenged after learning that the votes likely went to him. Do me a favor K Tizzle, if you want a better accounting of what is going on in Minnesota go over to Talking Points Memo where they have been following it literally day by day and ruling by ruling to get a better understanding of just how underhanded Coleman’s people have been in dragging this thing on.

“…Coulter began her remarks by noting that it was once OK for the media to mock a candidate’s middle name — as when James Danforth Quayle was the GOP’s VP candidate in 1988.

“Doesn’t the middle name ‘Hussein’ in a Democrat reinforce the impression of the Democrats being soft on Islamic terrorism?” Coulter said, adding that she finds it “hilarious” when Republicans toss it around.

Coulter said liberals are always first to be offended — and are “masters of finger-waving indignation.”

She didn’t hold back on the media, either.

“Overnight, the media went from being watchdogs for the people to guard dogs for the government. That’s with the exception of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, who are lapdogs of the government,” she said.

“Time magazine got the ball rolling by comparing Obama to Jesus Christ,” Coulter said moments later. “So I lost a bet: They do know who Jesus Christ is.”

Coulter riffed on the media’s comparisons of Obama not only to Jesus, but also to Lincoln, asking: “Did Lincoln do blow mostly in high school, or did he wait until college?”

…………

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090310/pl_politico/19830

Flown–I think Coleman only got 43.xxx% of the vote, franken only a few decimels more. There was a third party candidate who received over 10% of the vote.

What 2008 proves IS that the ACORN cheats in The Peabrains Republic of Madison were successful in their long planned SDS export of beer, bong, and ballot box stuffing Moving On to Minnetonka.

Some change, those ones.

KT– Clearly the GOP will do just about anything to stop Obama. I think it’s time there is a story that reflect this in its entirety. In fact, you can even choose to stay with the current meme that in the face of a constantly changing agendas, supposedly on both sides, why not do one of those big picture comparison articles that maps Obama’s ultimate goal = change and the branches of all the things he’s done and initiated to get there = agenda. Then compare that to the GOP’s goal = I think it’s to obstruct, but you could leave that open for others to conclude as you map out there response to Obama’s every move. Let’s who is muddled, distracting, etc.

Truly, here’s an opportunity for the PRESS to do their job (INVESTIGATE and REPORT), instead of yapping the Rahm-A-Dong line of Howard Scream BS:

How did Franken manage such a statistically unlikely (damn near impossible) flip-flop in the After The Fact vote count, and from which particular districts?

This thing re-reads like the JFK vote buying, legit ballot burying fraud in 1960 in Chicago (how shocking).

And the lib media?

AWOL, as usual.

The news trade in this nation has always been yellow.

2008 just re-set the septic tank cover to a new low, even for the Klein clods and Keiffer Oberamergau moops.

When Franken was behind in the recount, his counsel argued they wanted every legally cast ballot counted. But with Franken in the lead, they have taken a decidedly less sweeping position.
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Oh really?? I don’t remember Franken suggesting he doesn’t want every legally cast ballot counted, which is quite clearly what Time is saying here. I believe they are arguing about what ballots have been legally cast. Very sloppy reporting, without a citation.
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This would all be a little easier to swallow if it weren’t for Bush 2000. I wouldn’t think Republicans would want to remind the general public of this. But then there’s not a whole of evidence the Republicans give a sweet damn what the public thinks.
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^^Or to expand on it, rip a page from TDS and do a comparison piece over the last 10 years of the party platforms vs actual proposals, leading into the present day with the curious phenomena of campaign promises being followed up with action.
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People love reading about hypocrisy, after all. And in DC, there’s enough to choke an entire barnyard, let alone a donkey and an elephant.
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Of course, that might be poorly received by the hypocrites in question.

“We are now living in the Al Franken Decade.”

………..

Allah help us all, because Al won’t.

Just ask his dead friends from SNL.

That the democratic party picked up 9 seats in the senate and the white house made the right wingnuts sputter and look foolish.
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That its going to be Senator Al Franken is making them apoplectic. Mmmm….tears….so sweet.

hula,
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It’s all a giant conspiracy led by the media, Democrats and election officials, right down to precinct workers. A lot of us know the details, but we have been sworn to secrecy.
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The only way you’d manage to get it out of me would be to have Dick Cheney waterboard me. But, luckily, that crusty old bas*ard doesn’t have any power anymore.

Dee – I was thinking the same thing. Time for the media to claim (correctly) that the Republicans are adversely affecting the economy by trying to tear down support for Obama’s programs. Many were happy enough to aid and abet the Bush agenda to question the patriotism of any who disagreed with them.

“…why not do one of those big picture comparison articles that maps Obama’s ultimate goal…Then compare that to the GOP’s goal…”
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Obama’s agenda/ultimate goal = improve government as much as possible.
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GOP’s agenda/goal = obstruct better government and defeat Democrats.
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These articles just write themselves.

sgwhite – I’m surprised that it’s legal for Coleman to be canvassing voters to see how they voted and then only trying to include those votes. Course Franken should be instructing Democrats to say they voted for Coleman.

Good find, pnnto! I wonder how the original ace reporters found “random” codger, William Beyer to chime in on this issue?

Of course, if there roles were reversed, the Republican noise machine with their selected media allies, would be screaming to the high heavens, “Get over it!”

Hammerlock – good catch. I stand revised. So the 46% who want a do-over should be compared to the >50% who voted for someone other than Franken. Not exactly a compelling argument.

KT– you know now that I think about it his can be a Pulitzer prize winning investigative report. I’m sure the commenters here would be happy to help with the research and track down all of the little branches that provide a clear picture. Of course I’m not trying to imply that you are incapable of conducting this kind of exhaustive research, I’m quite sure you are. But perhaps instead of commenters and posters always playing adversarial positions.
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Perhaps we can meld our strengths to produce a meaningful piece of journalism. There is nothing wrong with employing the skills and passions of so many of the people hewre that respect you. It’ better than relying on lexis-nexis which will undoubtedly be full of original errors and the countless repeat offenders.

I am from Minnesota, and I will tell you that there is a lot of support here for a re-vote. The only requirement is, neither Coleman nor Franken can run in the re-election.
I don’t agree with the article’s conclusion that this will go on forever. I think the three-judge panel’s ruling will be decisive. Coleman rested his case last week. Franken has a few hundred more votes he wants counted — how long will that take? Then the panel will decide which additional votes to count, and they will declare a winner sometime around the end of March. IMO the state Supreme Court will refuse to hear an appeal. Most of the Supremes have already been involved in the recount process and court case — there aren’t enough justices left to form a quorum. The state Supreme Court has already tipped its hand to say that the winner can get a certificate of election once the state court case appeals are done. The winner (probably Franken) will file suit to force Pawlenty to do exactly that. I think Minnesota will have a second Senator in the April-May timeframe, even if the loser files suit in federal court.

Wow.
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What a perfect “he said/she said” story for the political press corps.
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…the suspicion, voiced by Franken, that the GOP wants to drag out Coleman’s legal battle as long as it can to prevent Democrats from gaining another vote that will bring them even closer to a 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority. “They’re willing to let Minnesota have one senator in order to delay my getting there,” Franken recently told the Associated Press. For his part, Coleman has said he is “not in this to prolong it” but “to get it right” — though his decision to attend certain meetings with his former GOP colleagues in the Senate has struck some observers as presumptuous.

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This piece is literally “he said/she said”. The political reporters get to play a few bars of their favorite “politicians are all crooks” theme, that nicely segues into the savvy “elections don’t really matter” refrain.
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The reader is left to decide based on their own prejudices whether or not Coleman’s case has merit, or whether or not the system is working as intended, and the writers get to move on to other stories with their own smug senses of savviness. Super.

The near total lack of press investigation of the apparent massive FRAUD by Franken makes any media mention of Minnesota look particularly foolish, but that of course goes without saying when you’re spending more Time worrying about the UK tabloids and other BBC bilge, than what’s actually need-to-know for making intelligent choices about 2008′s imitation of LBJ creating votes for Kennedy in South Texas in 1960.

Dee in Columbia

….

The DNC says The End Justifies Our Fraud?

BUTT of course.

Not news.

Move On!

This is a serious issue. There are many aspects of it to investigate. Too bad it was only used as an excuse to post a SNL video. Our media. Jus’ havin’ some fun!
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The media exists to protect the interests of corporate America and further it’s agenda

kathy
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I don’t know if its legal or not but it came out when one of Franken’s lawyers was cross examining a Coleman witness who was supposedly “disenfranchised” when he told his girlfriend to sign the absentee ballot instead of doing it himself. There has been a lot of shady stuff going on and the judges have lost patience with Coleman’s lawyers several times. They had witnesses they didn’t disclose as well as “evidence” that the didn’t turn over. Coleman has almost zero chance of winning his case which is why they are already readying an appeal. But they won’t win that either because the judges have literally gone over board to accomodate him instead of throwing the case out. But the more time he fights the harder for the Dems to get their agenda through which is why fellow Republicans are filling up Coleman’s coffers. It will also be interesting to see what kind of high paying job Coleman gets after this boondoggle is all said and done that I am sure has been promised to him for taking this as far as he can go.

Sure, I’m a Red Sox fan, but I am also a baseball fan. I don’t want uncertainty clouding anyone’s eventual win. So I am willing to settle Game 7 of last year’s ACLS with a coin flip.
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I am just that magnanimous.

Elvis wins the post.

Dee, I can write that article for you.
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“The Obama administration aims to shore up a faltering economy and reduce the long-term deficit. But Republicans point to excessive earmarks in the recent appropriations bill. (Click here to read about the “10 Most Outrageous Earmarks.”) On March 4, Mitch McConnell called for a spending freeze and more tax cuts. GOP lawmakers have also complained that Obama has not reached out to them on budget issues. Even some moderates are asking whether Obama’s agenda is too ambitious. For example, David Brooks wrote … “

‘A recent Rasmussen poll of 500 Minnesotans found that about 46% supported conducting another election altogether.’
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Is it really surprising that in an election that was virtually 50-50 nearly half of the people want a re-vote? What do you think the chances are that the half that wants a do-over is the same half whose candidate (Coleman) is behind in the count?
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Here’s part of the same Rasmussen poll that was left out of the Time article (link here):
‘Forty-seven percent (47%) of Minnesota voters now believe Democrat Al Franken has been elected to the U.S. Senate…’
-and-
‘Not surprisingly, 71% of Republicans support a revote, while 69% of Democrats are opposed. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, a revote is favored by 12 points. ‘

part of the same Rasmussen poll that was left out of the Time article
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Oh, my lord.
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So the entire conclusion of the article is false?
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Jesus Christ, Time Magazine’s reporters are incompetent.

So the entire conclusion of the article is false?
Yes.
Karen and her pals think this whole thing is funny so the idea of reporting the truth is not even on the table. It’s all a joke to them. Bush v. Gore was a joke as well. Elections don’t matter you silly people.

“We are now living in the Al Franken Decade.”
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Would that be the decade where the former comedian and political satirist is a more thoughtful and serious political figure than the entire Republican Party opposition and most of the political media assigned to tell us about him?

Karen, save what dignity you have, quit journalism and join the Bad Girls Club.

OT, but I just had to share. I just got my first ever wingnut hate comment at the bottom of the … and that’s a good thing for Republicans … . . post! He found my site with these search words: “limbaugh gingrich site:blogspot.com”. I’m simply all a twitter. Here it is:
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Blame professulas whose posh pensions graze on stumbent loan interest from vacuous degrees in basket weaving commie nutty organizing. Turn grant grubbing blatherers into fuel, especially perverts like mayor crotch who gas for obsama zbin biden. Your islamosympathic gutterswabbing clothing and pierced privates spread diesease. If you weren’t such baby killing, vermin snuggling perverts you wouldn’t be driving up our health costs, then collecting disability for your commie nutty organizing dementia. Your passive aggressive labor unions grab our guns, cars (congestion pricing), balls (SONDA), wallets, and homes but we will grab your throats and dang you from trailer bone tolls. Apply Sarbanes Oxley to non-profits! Repeal the seventeenth amendment before any VAT. All the homeless are drugged out hippies. Second Amendment is the ONLY Homeland Security. Wait until we waste all your stumbent subprimes, so you need to sell your affectation glutton art and work instead of diverting tuition and Y2K scams to soviet freezeniks! Deport for multiple visits to same country. If you controlled your own pension neither your boss nor the government could abuse it. Lynch soviet wealth fund abetting aghadhimmic peakies when oil plummets! Parasites complain about salaries but pig out with benefits. Global warming is a grant grubbing extortion racket. Urban sprawl annoys terrorists. Hazards and pollution stem mostly from mandates. Aqua volte! This land wasn’t build by bullocraps.

My goodness, wvng! Could you ask the commenter to diagram that? Perhaps that would help me make sense of it.

Hi Ivy. I’m still chuckling over this. I have a blog of clippings auto-scheduled to post at 6 pm titled “Wingnuts and Journamalism” that will lead with that timely bit. It will also have your most excellent Will Bunch clipping.

Ivy–my hats off to you that you can do with a diagram, I need a full translation.

wvng,
Quick. Please hide your wingnut’s respoonse before hulagate sees it and it becomes part of his next set of copy-paste non sequiturs.

It ain’t great reporting, but at least KT is sending along something on MN. If it weren’t for this, I’d assume the media had been barred from the state. After all, it’s only a U.S. Senate seat at issue.

There is the possibility you may be wrong K-Tum. Apparently the Minnesota SC has several judges who would be forced to recuse themselves because they have been involved one way or the other in various decisions regarding the recount, and the remaining justices cannot form a quorum. So the inevitable appeal of Coleman’s loss may be dismissed simply out of hand. Also, the decision to dismiss is still pending and has not been ruled on yet, and unless I am wrong (I need a lawyer please!) a dismissal cannot be appealed. Coleman’s only chance will be in federal court at this point, which should not delay Franken’s being seated.

KT – I heard you’ll be on the next episode of Fresh Air, talking about your recent cover story. Look forward to hearing it!

Franken’s lawyers rested their case today. If you want to follow along in this “As the court case turns” soap opera, the best source of information I’ve found is Minnpost.
http://www.minnpost.com/dailyglean/2009/03/11/7297/daily_glean_cocky_about_prospects_franken_forces_rest_case