Al Franken
gregladen | March 23, 2009So, my friend Phil was in the Air Force up near Grand forks (where the flooding is happening now). He told me today they use to use a super tall radio tower to spot weather, and this tower was something like 70 miles away. So it was in sight, but almost unbelievably so.
Similarly, there is an end in sight for the Minnesota Senate Recount...
The end has to happen at some point, of course, because these things only seem to go on forever. Here is what is supposed to happen:
1) The state judicial panel that is now in deliberation will make a couple of decisions regarding what to do about…
gregladen | March 19, 2009This is interesting, if true, and it is mostly about legislation regulating access to reproductive services at the federal and state level.
I have a column written by conservative Charles Biggs that makes the claim that Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, is "telling us that if the federal government tries to lift all restrictions on abortion, our only option is to disobey that law" as stated by Biggs. Coburn allegedly used the phrase "Civil Disobedience."
This is interesting because up to now the Republican position on "Civil Disobedience" has been that it is the same thing as…
gregladen | March 17, 2009Oh, but wait, he wasn't. But Al Franken IS. That's Franken, zero els.
A group promoting United States-Israel ties is raising funds for Norm Coleman with an e-mail that opens by referring to Al Franken by the not-particularly-Jewish-sounding name "Franklin":
We are making an appeal for one of our friends and steadfast supporters of US-Israel relations, Senator Norm Coleman. The election in Minnesota and its recount have been distressing to follow. Coleman won the election. After the recount, Franklin came out slightly ahead, but tragically this recount was filled with many…
gregladen | March 3, 2009Seriously! The Franken team is now entering the 'defense' phase of the absurd Election Challenge launched by Norman Coleman, who lost the election for Senate to Al Franken but who refuses to give up his seat.
If everybody who reads this blog sends five dollars to Al, they'll have enough to ... well, to make some photocopies or something. But every little bit helps!!!!!!!
Rumors are, as you know, that the Coleman Campaign is out fund raising. We've got to help Al.
gregladen | March 3, 2009Norm Coleman had to pay a $7,500 fine yesterday for failure to disclose important evidence in the 26 day long Franken-Coleman Senatorial Election Challenge Trial. The plaintiff, Coleman, also claimed in a written statement to the court that since the number of illegal votes cast in this election exceeds the narrow margin of difference between the two candidates (which has Franken as the winner), the election needs to be set aside. However, Coleman has failed to show that any votes were actually cast illegally, or to make any compelling legal argument that this extraordinary request be…
gregladen | February 25, 2009So Ana IM's me, and I can tell through the text that she was almost out of breath with excitement or fear or something. But then I remembered shes been observing the Minnesota Senate court challenge. Turns out something rather interesting happened. Luckily, TPM has it covered:
Norm Coleman's lawyers just had a very awkward moment in court, in their attempt to prove that absentee ballots were double-counted -- it turns out they've failed to share evidence with the Franken camp, involving a key witness.
The Coleman camp called Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis, who…
gregladen | February 14, 2009In his bid to Take The Senate No Matter What, Norm Coleman has been trying to get a very large number of previously rejected absentee ballots counted. Most of these ballots were not counted because they were truly borked. Folks, remember this: If you are going to vote absentee, keep in mind the fact that an envelope with a vote in it showing up at city hall is looked at only as a possible vote. It would be so easy to produce fraudulent votes (and goodness knows there are enough Republicans around to carry out such nefarious acts) that the rules have to be pretty strict. My recommendation…
gregladen | February 13, 2009"While Al Franken, Harry Reid and their allies will likely continue their efforts to short-circuit Minnesota election law, you can be assured that I will continue fighting to ensure the Minnesota voters -- and nobody else! -- will truly decide who won this election."
Source: MnIndy
gregladen | January 26, 2009At 1:00 PM Central Time court procedings being in the Franken-Coleman senate race. A three judge state court will ultimately hear and rule on a lawsuit essentially filed by Coleman's team. The suit, an "election contest," alleges a number of problems with the current nearly-certified recount which gives Franken a small lead over Coleman.
All of these issues have been previously aired, and some but not all addressed by the State Canvassing Board. Most analysts currently believe that none of these alleged problems are real, or material in relation to the outcome of this election. Coleman…
gregladen | January 14, 2009What a moron. A lying moron, if you must know.
I love it: "Fair Judge = Norm Coleman Wins"
gregladen | January 13, 2009Al Franken has, as his his right and duty, filed papers to the court now reviewing Coleman's suit regarding the Minnesota Senate Race.
Eric Kleefeld has an excellent summary of the paper. You can read the papers here, and read Eric's summary here. Oh, and if you want a real laugh, you can read Coleman's suit here.
I'll give you the bottom line. There are the usual hopeful elements in any such filing, which usually have no effect, such as jurisdictional questions and so on. But there are two key elements based on which I would expect a decision by the court to throw out the case. First,…
gregladen | January 11, 2009.... via his court challenge of the recount that places Al Franken ahead are assessed by Eric Kleefeld:
The complaint ignores the existence of counter-evidence, employs one maneuver when it is self-benefiting and opposes the same maneuver when it goes against them, attacks not just the recount but votes that were counted for Franken all along, and overall throws everything against the wall to see what sticks.
Which is what I've been saying all along.
Have a look at Eric's point by point analysis.
gregladen | January 7, 2009And other Republican Hypocrisy.
The long term plan is to keep Franken out of the Senate forever. Not likely to work. The short term plan is to "taint" Franken, so that morons like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan (MSNBC) and Ann Coulter can constantly refer to "Franken" and "Tainted" in the same sentence again and again and again.
Which will not be a big problem, really, because this is an old and tired strategy that no on cares about any more. But it is their strategy.
Now, about the law suit: We have the Republicans hitting all the same exact issues that have been hit before. Of these issues…
gregladen | January 6, 2009The Wall Street Journal published an editorial yesterday called "Funny Business in Minnesota" which is so full of inaccurate innuendo and fallacious factoids that when I read it I thought I was reading a piece of junk mail from Ann Coulter.
Well, the honorable web site Five Thirty Eight has torn the WSJ a new one with a brutally accurate deconstruction of the editorial. There really is virtually nothing in this editorial that can be salvaged from the bright light of actual truth. Shame on the Wall Street Journal.
Read the commentary from Five Thirty Eight here.
Thanks Mike for the tip.
gregladen | January 6, 2009Details are just coming in now.
LIVEBLOGGED
They are suing regarding: the missing ballots from Minneapoilis (that won't go anywhere, already settled); Double counting (that issue was killed off already, it will go no where) and absentee ballots (they have a small chance that this may develop into something).
They state that they will win in state court but have federal level issues to argue as well.
The won't and the don't. But it looks like they will continue to press.
We are being told that several Coleman lawyers are not being dispersed around the state to depose, under oath,…
gregladen | January 5, 2009As many of you have already heard, the recount process in Minnesota to determine the outcome of the Senatorial race is over, and Al Franken has been certified as winner.
There is now a review period of seven days during which any voter in the state of Minnesota. Including me, Al Franken, whomever, can sue for an Election Challenge. Although both Secretary of State Ritchie and I have expressed the opinion that Norm Coleman, who lost the race, is unlikely to issue such a challenge, the press and even Coleman's lawyers have suggested that a challenge will in fact be filed by three o'clock…
gregladen | January 4, 2009... regarding the likely response by Coleman following the certification of the Minnesota Senatorial Race tomorrow (Monday) by the Canvassing Board.
No matter who wins, either party can lodge a legal challenge, potentially pushing the election results out quite a period of time from now. In 1969, Minnesota was unable to certify their Senator until well in to March.
But this isn't the 1960s, and Norm Coleman surely knows that.
Just because he challenges the election, which is something he's well poised himself to do, it doesn't mean the outcome will change. If he fights tooth and nail to…
gregladen | January 3, 2009And the worst case scenario is that this lead could drop by far less then necessary to turn the race around.
Everyone assumes that the loser, in this case Coleman, will file a law suit. It would fit with how the game has been played so far. But what would such a law suit do? It is not the case that there is some 300 votes laying around that Coleman could have if he won a suit. The best he could probably do, and this is very unlikely, is to get about 130 votes that may or may not have been double counted thrown out. Not enough.
The other thing Coleman could do with a law suit is to…
gregladen | January 2, 2009I live in Minnesota, and our team is the Vikings. So I know something about losing, and from this perspective, I can explain to you what Norm Coleman is doing.
First, the context. Tomorrow, Saturday, the canvassing board will open and count absentee ballots and add that to the mix. As I demonstrated to you mathematically it is highly unlikely that this will change the current situation, in which Al Franken is ahead. To be more exact, the Worst Case Scenario estimate that I made predicts that with 650 or so ballots to open, there is a better than 75% chance that the count will not change…