Tag Archives: Norm Coleman

Franken Declared Winner in Minnesota Senate Race

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The judicial panel hearing Coleman’s challenge against Franken in the Minnesota Senate Race has made its decision: Franken is the the winner of the election and should be certified. The procedure is this: A ten day period occurs after which the Governor certifies the election. Unless there is a challenge in the State Supreme Court.

Colman has been ordered to pay Franken’s legal costs.

Coleman is expected to continue to obstruct democracy. About half the people of this state knew he was a bastard before this started. That number has grown.

GIVE IT UP, NORM!!!!!!

Franken Lead Increases in Minnesota Senate Race

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According to news reports, the Minnesota Election Contest Judicial Panel finished their review of votes, counting just under 400 absentee ballots that were previous excluded. These votes were included as the result of Former Senator Norm Coleman’s legal challenge to the election. With Senator Al Franken’s lead over Former Senator Norm Coleman rising from 225 at the start of the process to 312 as of a few moments ago, it would appear that Coleman’s challenge has backfired.

The judicial panel still has a few more issues to rule on.

One of the issues os the ca 130 votes that were lost in a Minneapolis precinct. It was previously decided that the machine count, rather than the hand recount, stand in for this set of votes. Even if the votes were thrown out, it would only change the current count by a small amount.

Another outstanding issue is the assertion by the Coleman challenge that some votes were double counted. Again, if this ruling went in favor of Coleman, it would not change the total count too much.

It is estimated that if these two rulings both went Coleman’s way, he would gain fewer than 100 votes.

Coleman is planning to appeal the outcome of the 3 judge panel’s decision in the Minnesota Supreme Court. In that appeal he is expected to argue that many more absentee votes be counted. Even if that were to occur, it is not expected to change the outcome of the election, but it will delay the seating of Senator Franken in Washington. It is now widely accepted that the Coleman challenge and subsequent appeals are nothing more than a bald faced attempt to delay the seating of Democratic Senator Franken, as an overall Republican effort to block the Obama Agenda.

Sources: NPR, WCCO

Minnesota Recount Update

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The three judge panel convened for the purpose of addressing the Coleman challenge of the Minnesota Senate Election won by Al Franken (after a detailed recount) will meet today to examine ballots they had asked brought to the court. The panel had asked for four hundred ballots, but a small number of these (just over a dozen) had already been included in the recount and thus will not be examined.

The panel will examine the 387 or so ballots today, and decide which should be counted. Tomorrow, in a two step process the ballots will be opened by the judged (step one) and counted by court officials (step two).

It seems to be presumed that this is the final act of this panel, and that the panel will adjust the current vote count (from the recount) based by adding this new set of numbers. It is further presumed that candidate Al Franken will maintain his lead after his adjustment. That is a reasonable assumption given that it is statistically almost impossible for Coleman to erase and surpass Franken’s lead with this small number of ballots being considered. The presumption, then, is that this panel will conclude its business right after this adjustment, some time tomorrow.

I keep using the word “presumption” because I don’t believe the court has actually indicated that it is finished with this process. I’m expecting the court to take a few more days to produce a ruling, and possibly even allow additional arguments. The Coleman campaign, sensing defeat, has vowed to take this contest to the next level … the Minnesota Supreme Court. I’m certain that the election contest panel intends to send that court a decision that is as un-reversible as possible, and that is exactly what they should be doing. A little extra adjudicating around now may save a great deal of trouble later.

Sudden movement in the Franken-Coleman Senate Race Recount

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The judicial panel that has been off somewhere deciding what to do about the Coleman election challenge has ordered 400 additional ballots opened and counted on April 7th.

If (and we do not know this for a fact) these are THE remaining ballots to count, them Coleman would have to get a statistically unlikely majority to overtake Franken’s lead of 225 votes. I suppose this is possible. So I suppose we’ll be sitting on the edges of our respective seats for the next week.

There does not seem to be any systematic meaningful bias in which candidate is likely to come out ahead in this group. The mix of 400 ballots includes both Coleman-supported and Franken supported absentee ballots.

I understand that there is a news conference being held right now, and I’m checking on that … will report back if anything new developes.

UPDATE: From the Franken Lawyer’s news conference: It turns out that the court intends to look at a subset of the ballots and THEN determine which will be opened. We do now know what percentage of the ballots make up this subset, or what their characteristics might be.

This is important: There are at least two other issues that have not addressed by the court and that the court may still chose to address. So this may be complicated.

Added:

What do these 400 votes have to look like for Coleman to win? If we assume that they represent a random subset of votes, we can guess that 60 are Barkely votes (the third party candidate). This leaves 340 votes.

Then, Coleman has to get 225 votes, which is about 66 percent. Coleman would have to win this tiny mini election by a landslide.

So, if he does win it by a landslide, that would pretty much mean that he cheated.

We’ll see how this goes…

sources: MN progressive, Strib

Minnesota Senate Recount: Refining the prediction on how it ends

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In conversation with reporters earlier today Coleman noted that he does not anticipate this case going to the US Supreme Court, though he did apparently say this in his usual smarmy way so he can change his mind later. He did indicate that he DOES anticipate bringing the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court if the judicial panel now considering the case rules against his claim.

source

Minnesota Recount End Is In Sight

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So, 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…
Continue reading Minnesota Recount End Is In Sight →

How to Make a Republican Firing Squad

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First, draw a circle. Then, assemble your most incompetent boobs and make sure anyone who is competent you undermine. Such as the case of RNC Chairman Tom Steele … keep him in power only long enough to demonstrate (because you’ve totally undermined him) that his sort should be avoided in the future, once and for all.

The most amazing bit of news we’ve heard since the Party of Racism cynically and quite temporarily appointed a black man to lead them, is that Minnesota’s Norm Coleman could be appointed to replace Steele. The reaction of one Democratic Party official when asked what the Dems are going to do about this: “When the Republicans are forming a circular firing squad, the last thing we’re going to do is step into the middle.”

The rumor was first posted on Politico, and is discussed in more detail here.

What I think actually happened was this. Top Republican Party officials were talking about the future of the party while riding the subway into the city from their posh Virginia neighborhood. Nearby, a crafty reporter was listening in, trying to get some news to report on Politico.

One of the party officials said to the other: “Let’s convince Norm Coleman to leave the Republican Party” but the reporter heard this as “Let’s convene Norm Coleman to lead the Republican Party” because just then the subway, which is normally quite quite in DC (seriously … those trains whisper compared to NY and Boston), went rattling over a bad piece of track.

That is the only possible explanation.

I had no idea Ben Frankelin was Jewish….

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Oh, 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 irregularities and is now being contested in court.

Both Franken, a Democrat, and Coleman, a Republican, are Jewish — as were the last two men to hold the seat: Rudy Boschwitz, a Republican, and the late Paul Wellstone, a Democrat. A letter that Boschwitz sent just before Election Day 1990 to “Our Friends in the Minnesota Jewish Community” asserting that Wellstone “has no connection whatsoever with the Jewish community” is sometimes blamed for Boschwitz’s loss to Wellstone that year.

…continued…

Oi ve.

Computer Security, A Bug in Google Docs(?), and Norm Coleman Is a Ghoulish Skeletal Idiot

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…. Not to pick on Norm’s physical appearance or anything, but those of use who find his continued existence in Minnesota politics both enigmatic and unconscionable (for us, for allowing it) are starting to see him like that. Anyway, somebody who is too busy to blog sent me this interesting item: Wikileaks comes back at Coleman on donor database exposure. The long and the short of it: Norm Coleman’s campaign donor database, including such interesting items as name and credit card number, became internet-visible a couple of months back. Since that time, this error was exposed, and Norm Coleman decided to blame the Franken campaing and/or other forces of supposed evil for causing the mistake, or exploiting the causing of the release, or whatever. Additionally, the Coleman campaign has pretty clearly violated the law (which is not surprising given Coleman’s alleged long history of being a self absorbed misogynous racist renegade bastard, allegedly) by not reporting the release as required. By law.

The bug in google docs …. I’m not sure if I can reproduce this or not, but … If you use the Google Docs spelling tool (which I’ve used only this one time) and leave a bunch of words misspelled (because they really aren’t misspelled, perhaps) then turn off the tool, then copy and paste the text into, say, a web-form box somewhere, then the spaces that existed before the word (as the text flows) may disappear.

We had a computer security seminar yesterday at which our unit-local IT boss discussed security issues with various unit heads, staff, and so on. He’s a great guy and really know his stuff, even if he does think Windows is OK. (Or maybe it’s just the chip making him think that, I dunno.) Anyway, the idea that nefarious operatives with radios could listen in on your wife, or even your wireless keyboard, was brought up and discussed. That may seem a little extreme to worry about (but it is not, actually) however it turns out that it is WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!!!

That PC keyboard you’re using may be giving away your passwords. Researchers say they’ve discovered new ways to read what you’re typing by aiming special wireless or laser equipment at the keyboard or by simply plugging into a nearby electrical socket.

And no, we are not talking about wireless keyboards here. Details here.

Give Some Money to Al Franken!!!!!!

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Seriously! 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.

Coleman rests, pays fine, asks Judges to overturn election.

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Norm 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 honored.

The judges indicated to Coleman that additional fines would be charged if his shenanigans continue. They also indicated that “In the event this sanction fails to deter future conduct on the part of [Coleman’s] counsel, the court will not hesitate to impose harsher sanctions, up to and including dismissal [of the case].”

The essence of the unethical behavior by Coleman: Republican election judge Pam Howell had been on the sand a couple of times last week, but was pulled off the stand as the result of documents she secretly passed to the Coleman lawyers. The crux of her testimony seemed to be unverified hearsay about a Souh Minneapolis (= Democratic) election judge stuffing a ballot box. But the Coleman camp and Republican Howell also seem to have bee in cahoots, and worked out the exposure of evidence that seemed to (ineffectively) support Coleman’s claim, but the suppression of evidence having the contrary effect.
Continue reading Coleman rests, pays fine, asks Judges to overturn election. →