News from Minnesota…

Al Franken won a round (I'd say the 11th round but it has to be something more akin to 3,000) in his quest to be seated as Minnesota's next senator. A Minnesota court ruled that upwards of 400 absentee ballots could be opened and counted next Tuesday. Franken currently holds a 225-vote lead. The number of ballots to be opened is down from the more than 4,000 originally demanded by the Coleman campaign and not all of the 400 may be counted as some may still be deemed ineligible once opened…

Ginsberg said they intend to appeal the unanimous decision by a panel of three judges — one of which was appointed by a Republican governor.  "We fundamentally disagree with them and that's why there're appellate courts," Ginsberg said. "We're going to appeal."

Of course you're going to appeal. Of course you are.

Because this isn't really an election battle. It's the most boring, annoying and interminable piece of existentialist performance art ever produced.

Even worse than Stuart Saves His Family.

Hey, remember that second seat for Minnesota in the U.S. Senate?

That's never getting filled…

Texas Sen. John Cornyn is threatening "World War III" if Democrats try to seat Al Franken in the Senate before Norm Coleman can pursue his case through the federal courts.

Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, acknowledges that a federal challenge to November’s elections could take "years" to resolve. But he’s adamant that Coleman deserves that chance — even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration.

There is an up side to whole ordeal, though, Minnesotites.

I'm pretty sure that having to deal with just one senator is probably preferable to having to deal with Franken or Coleman.

You know, I just can't get over how that weird jerky guy from SNL has somehow managed to inject himself into real-deal U.S. political history.

It's already unseemly enough that we might have to start saying things like "Senator Franken," but now it's looking like we might even have to use his name when discussing Supreme Court history…

Top Republicans are encouraging Coleman to be as litigious as possible and take his fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses this round, believing that an elongated court fight is worth it if they can continue to deny Democrats the 59th Senate seat that Franken would represent…

Coleman’s team says the different methods Minnesota counties use for counting absentee ballots violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause — echoing the same 2000 Florida recount case that effectively handed the presidency to George W. Bush. By making a constitutional case, Republicans are already looking ahead to federal court.

Coleman v. Franken? Does this really have to happen?

Say, did you contribute money to Norm Coleman's hilarious Senate campaign sketch? You did? Um, maybe you should think about canceling your credit card.

No, seriously, cancel your credit card…

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating how personal details on thousands of campaign contributors to Norm Coleman, enmeshed in a court battle to win back his Senate seat, were dug out of his database and posted on the Internet. [...]

[A spokesman] said the campaign doesn't know how someone obtained partial credit card numbers, card security codes and other data on more than 4,700 donors who gave as little as $1 and as much as the contribution limit of $4,600.

Well, except the campaign does admit that its site was a little crashy for a while there, and maybe some databases that should've been secure were something less than secure, but who can tell with all this high-tech stuff? Norm Coleman is .

Coleman and Franken have spent millions of dollars on legal fees since the recount and trial began. Coleman said publication of private information "seriously undermines" the campaign's fundraising efforts.

You know what else seriously undermines his campaign's fundraising efforts?

The fact that it's been going on for 8,492 months and he's still not winning.

I was halfway through writing a post right here about how Norm Coleman is now officially asking that the state of Minnesota just say fuck it to that senate election they had in November, toss out the results and start over again.

But I didn't like how the results were turning out, so I decided to start over from scratch. So, I'll probably write a post about it later on.

Please don't bother reading those two preceding paragraphs.

Sorry to waste your time.

Well, the recount and court-hearings for the interminable Minnesota senate election aren't really going Norm Coleman's way, so the best thing to do is probably just do a whole do-over of everthing and stuff…

"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?"

And if they do re-stage the election and Coleman still comes out on the bottom, well then, I guess the only thing you could do is liquidate Minnesota as a state and have everybody move back to Sweden or wherever.

I mean, it is only the fair thing to do.