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Posts by Phoenix Woman
Franken vs. Coleman Update: A Ruling!
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on April 12, 2009 at 9:11 AM.
Well, we got a ruling from the Election Contest Court Friday -- and while it was a ruling, it wasn't the one we've been waiting to see. Sixty-one Franken voters, represented by attorney Charles Nauen and hence collectively known as the Nauen voters, had filed suit in order to get their absentee ballots counted. Thirty-six of these voters had their ballots counted in the final vote count on Tuesday; the rest were not allowed to have their ballots counted.
Check back again later this weekend, and have a joyous Ostara! (And throw some coin The UpTake's way, if you can.)
Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman: Update
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on March 21, 2009 at 11:53 AM.
More little news bits as we wait for the Election Contest Court's rulings:
-- MinnPost passes along Election Law Blog's Rick Hasen's verdict, as published at Slate, on Norm Coleman's equal-protection claim: Namely, that it's pretty weak. Well, duh. Longtime FDL commenter Sara, who was around when the case law behind the Minnesota recount was established back in the 1960s, could have told him that.
-- During Vice President Joe Biden's appearance at St. Cloud, Minnesota, for a Middle Class Task Force town hall meeting, he said that "no state should have just one senator". Hear, hear!
-- The Federal Elections Commission has decided that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can set up a fund to benefit Al Franken in his recount fight with Norm Coleman. However, they haven't yet determined if Franken can do so himself. Coleman is seeking the FEC's permission to use his campaign cash to pay his own legal bills, including those from the Kazeminy lawsuits.
Coleman-Franken Update: It's Over (the Trial, That Is)
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on March 14, 2009 at 10:14 AM.
The trial part of Norm Coleman's contest of Al Franken's certification as the winner of the 2008 election for Norm's old Senate seat is now over. The contest has now gone into the hands of the judges of the Election Contest Court, who will be spending the first part of next week having over a thousand rejected absentee ballots examined, opened, and otherwise handled to see if they can be added to the official vote count. If all goes well, they could have a ruling ready by this time next week.
Norm will likely appeal the ECC's ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court -- unless, of course, he's not able to do so. As mentioned earlier, Franken attorney Marc Elias (who wore his lucky tie to court today) could ask the court to order the Coleman campaign to put the sum of the money they'll have to pay out in court costs when they lose -- which is at least $1.5 to $2 million, and very likely much more -- into an escrow account before any appeals can be filed. In other words, they have to demonstrate their hind ends' ability to cash the checks they let their big mouths write. The UpTake, of course, has the video for Coleman's and Franken's closing arguments. (And if you haven't done so already, consider tossing a few shekels The UpTake's way. They promise not to store your credit-card numbers on their servers!)
Pot Bust Flip-Flop in LA; Obama & Holder Must Clarify RxPot Policy Now
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on March 9, 2009 at 8:37 AM.
Via Jeralyn this morning, I learned that the United States Attorney for Los Angeles, Thomas P O'Brien, spun his wheels and confused his staff with a contradictory set of memos about medical marijuana busts.
The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles sent a confidential memo to prosecutors last week ordering them to stop filing charges against medical marijuana dispensaries, then abruptly lifted the ban on Friday, according to sources familiar with the developments.
Stop filing charges? Don't stop filing charges? What kind of confusing switcheroo is that?
In addition to being told to stop filing new cases, prosecutors were instructed to refrain from issuing subpoenas or applying for search warrants in pending cases, said the sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
In fact, a few hours after the memo was circulated, [Christine Ewell, head of the U.S. attorney's criminal division] sent out another e-mail admonishing prosecutors not to discuss the contents of the memo with anyone outside the U.S. attorney's office, the sources said.
No more subpoenas! Stop those search warrant applications right now! Pending cases must be dropped! And, especially: do not discuss this memo with anyone outside this office!
And then, on Friday, in a stunning about-face, an order came down to re-open the cases that were set aside:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Competence Finally Returns to FEMA
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on March 5, 2009 at 5:43 AM.
In keeping with the general theme of rolling back the wasted years of bogus Republican ideology, President Obama's FEMA pick, Craig Fugate, heralds a return to the days of James Lee Witt, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency was as good as it gets in terms of speed, efficiency and competence.
After seeing the once-proud FEMA devolve into a turkey farm (that is, a place to park otherwise-unemployable political buddies as a reward) under Bush, it's so nice to see it coming back to its former glory. And isn't it ironic that the Republicans, who whine so much about corruption in government, seem to be its patron saints?
Franken-Coleman Update: Now It's Al's Turn
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on March 4, 2009 at 7:22 AM.
Editor's note: This post was originally posted yesterday morning at Campaign Silo.
After six weeks of representing Norm Coleman's case to the three judges on the Election Contest Court, the Coleman legal team has "provisionally" rested -- which means it's now the Franken team's turn at bat.
The Franken team will make a motion to dismiss the case entirely as the Franken camp claims that there's no way for Coleman to take the lead in the vote count. (Franken's lead, per Jay Weiner at MinnPost, stands unofficially at 255 -- that is, 258 minus three of the Nauen voters; those three voters' ballots were pulled from the count by the court yesterday.) This motion will likely not get anywhere as the court has already indicated that some additional ballots will be counted, and it has hinted that some others such as Pile 3a (which WineRev explains here) will also be counted. Taken together, the total number of additional ballots is large enough to potentially give Coleman the lead, and so long as that possibility exists, however small, the case cannot be dismissed. Franken may fare better with the motion for summary judgment, especially if it involved the missing Minneapolis ballots that Coleman's camp finally admitted existed last week; if the ECC now believes there is no factual dispute to be settled any more with regard to these ballots, then that issue may be struck from the contest in the interest of speeding things along.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Al Franken Update: Says Trial to End in Two to Three Weeks
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on March 3, 2009 at 8:13 AM.
Once again, the Election Contest Court's desire to keep from giving Team Coleman any sort of justification to appeal this to the Federal level has trumped the need to spank them for their egregious misconduct. Instead of tossing the double-counting gambit or even Pamela Howell's tainted testimony from the case, the ECC will allow it -- but at the same time, Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble's firm will be required to pay Franken's attorneys' costs related to the delay caused by Team Coleman's failure to provide the Howell information to the court as well as to the Franken legal team.
Speaking of Howell, Eric Kleefeld of TPM thinks that she may have actually been telling the truth about alleged ballot problems in her precinct. But (and a big hat tip to WineRev for spotting this) a Minneapolis StarTribune reader familiar with local election procedures strongly suspects not:
Where is Howell's Incident Report?
What stinks the most about Howell's testimony is that it directly contradicts the paperwork filed on the day she claims it happened. IF there was an election irregularity such as inadvertently counting ballots that should not have been counted, state law REQUIRES an Incident Report be filed by Howell. None was.
Instead Howell came up with this story only AFTER the double-counting accusation was made by Coleman. Even then, instead of going back and filing an Incident Report, or going to the SOS, she went directly to Coleman and reported it just to Coleman. At that time, the recount was still active, and she was still obligated to file an Incident Report. She did not. She has violated the law regarding reporting at the least. At the worst, she is committing perjury.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Coleman's New Plan to Steal Franken's Win
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on January 27, 2009 at 10:34 AM.
The Coleman camp apparently signaled its main strategy in a conference call Sunday:
As former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's lawsuit contesting the results of a hand recount in Minnesota begins today, his lawyers are predicting a 'very, very tedious proceeding."
The three-judge panel overseeing the suit will convene at 1 pm CT Monday. Coleman is contesting results that gave Democrat Al Franken the edge with 225 votes out of approximately three million ballots.
On a conference call Sunday, Coleman lawyer Joe Friedberg said he expects a "very, very tedious" proceeding. Friedberg, a prominent Minnesota lawyer, will present opening arguments in the case.
"It will be very boring," he said. "There's no way I think I can interject any jokes into it."
So Joe Friedberg, Minnesota's top white-shoe courtroom lawyer, is leading with the "Let me win even though you're ahead or else we'll keep holding the entire state and nation hostage with boring and bizarre stuff" strategy.
I was waiting to see Fritz Knaak's and Tony Trimble's names come up, but apparently the decision was made from On High that they couldn't run a one-car parade -- and really, when you've got the most prominent right-wing bloggers in the state, bloggers who are also practicing attorneys, repeatedly chewing you out over your bogus strategy, you know you've screwed up. So now, aside from Friedberg, the local talent has been pushed aside and the Pros from Dover are taking over spin duties:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Come Saturday Morning ... the Torturers Strike Back
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on January 24, 2009 at 7:05 AM.
You didn't expect the jackbooted Jack-Bauer-worshiping sadists to go away quietly, did you?
Faced with President Obama's order setting in motion the shutdown of Gitmo and other US-run-and-approved torture sites, the folks who in a really just world would be in the dock at The Hague are now doing a full-on, lie-driven media pushback:
In a January 22 article, the Associated Press falsely stated, "The Pentagon recently reported that 61 former prisoners at Guantanamo have returned to the fight against the U.S. and its allies." Similarly, during the 1 p.m. ET hour of the January 22 edition
of CNN Newsroom, anchor Kyra Phillips asserted, "New Pentagon figures actually say 61 released detainees have been linked to some kind of terror activity." Both the AP and Phillips were discussing President Obama's executive order requiring that the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay be closed within a year. But the Pentagon has not confirmed that 61 former Guantánamo detainees have, in the AP's words, "returned to the fight"; that figure includes 43 former prisoners who are "suspected" of doing so.
[...]
Additionally, as Daily Kos contributing editor Joan McCarter noted, Seton Hall University School of Law professor Mark Denebeaux [sic] has disputed the Pentagon's figures, asserting: "Once again, they've failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which their report relies. Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers."
As Media Matters goes on to show, the lies are being spread far and wide by a very helpful GOP/Media Complex.
Right on cue, Lidice Logic is being invoked by everyone's favorite would-be dictator, Rudy Giuliani, who tried and failed to use the bombing of the Twin Towers as an excuse to blow off the mayoral election and stay on as mayor. Rudy's now waving around the case of a Yemeni who was released from Guantanamo and went on to commit crimes as a reason to keep Gitmo going. Our own Jane Hamsher's ripped into what he said on Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe yesterday:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Franken-Coleman Recount: How Far Will It Go?
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on January 10, 2009 at 9:03 AM.
Now that Norm's decided to blow another couple million bucks on his lawyers, the big question is: How far will it go? Will Norm be able to take this all the way to the conservative-controlled US Supreme Court, should the three-judge contest panel not give him the answer the national Republican leadership wants to hear? An FDL commenter, Sara, believes that Norm won't be able to take this to the Federal level at all:
You have to begin with the Statute Law — in this contest, the party bringing the suit has the burden of proof. What the court will and can order would depend on whether Coleman comes in with proof of his claims sufficent to cause the court to issue an order. The court could, for instance, require bond for any expenses, and by law the loser pays all court costs.
Ironically, the whole Minnesota Recount system and statute law is based on the foundation of the decisions in the MN Governor’s recount case in 1962-63, Anderson V. Rolvaag. That decision is actually addressed in Bush v. Gore to the argument that State Election Law prevails in State Elections. The court in 2000 had to argue around Anderson v. Rolvaag on the grounds that the Constitution set a deadline for Flordia’s vote count — the date of the Electorial College meeting. That exception would not apply to Minnesota, as we have no deadlines other than requirements as to when trials have to begin in a Contest. So in essence Bush v. Gore actually recognized Anderson v. Rolvaag as the lead precident, the settled law. So no, I don’t predict it will successfully get into Federal Court. In '63 the case went through the Federal Courts — the decision Anderson v. Rolvaag was written by the 8th Circuit Appeals Court, and affirmed by the Warren Supreme Court. So given this — I don’t think the Feds will even look at the case.
Meanwhile, local blogger Centristy debunks Norm's "duplicate voting" allegation (h/t REW at Blog of the Moderate Left).
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Franken-Coleman Update: Coleman's Desperate Haily Marys
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on December 23, 2008 at 8:16 PM.
Another day, another set of Hail Mary efforts by the Coleman campaign. They fared about as well as Norm's previous Hail Marys -- that is to say, not well at all.
First up was his bid to have 16 ballots that had been marked with an "X" pulled and reviewed by the state canvassing board, out of a stated concern that the ballots had either been assigned to the wrong candidate or not counted at all. The 16 ballots soon became 40 ballots, which were all pulled and reviewed -- and no votes were changed as a result.
Second up was his petition to the Minnesota Supreme Court to get rid of what he claimed were "duplicate ballots" in the city of Minneapolis. As mentioned yesterday, the Hennepin County Canvassing Board itself filed a motion with the Soops The Supremes didn't rule on it yet -- they probably won't until tomorrow, per The UpTake's Mike McIntee in his video recap -- but judging from their comments as Twittered by The UpTake, they didn't seem to be too friendly towards Coleman's arguments.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Blagojevich Impeachment Proceedings Starting Immediately; Durbin Calls for Special Election
Posted by Phoenix Woman on December 9, 2008 at 12:30 PM.
They're not messing around in the Illinois legislature now that Blago's own-goaled himself:
Within hours of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's arrrest, state lawmakers were calling for impeachment proceedings to begin.
Democrat John Fritchey, told CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery that impeachment proceeedings will have to begin now.
Speed is of the essence since even a jailed Blagojevich can make appointments, and the last thing anyone wants to see are tainted appointments.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Franken-Coleman Update: This Is Not Florida in 2000
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on December 2, 2008 at 4:51 AM.
As we watch the recount process unfold in Minnesota, bear this in mind: The persons screaming the loudest about "chaos" (which is apparently what would happen if all the votes were honestly counted, to judge from their squawking), and how icky everything about the recount supposedly is, and comparing the Minnesota recount to that of Florida in 2000, are the ones with the most invested in delegitimizing the results.
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has sussed this out from the get-go, noting both Norm Coleman's frantically sleazy campaign and even more frantically sleazy post-campaign aren't exactly helping him here -- not when that notorious weathervane Tim Pawlenty had to tell him off in public for being a dorkwad.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Franken-Coleman Recount Update: Searching for Spines
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on December 1, 2008 at 5:16 AM.
Last Friday morning, I reported that the state canvassing board had avoided making a ruling that would commit them to reviewing the thousands of rejected absentee ballots in the November 4 election. This action is cowardly in the extreme, being done largely because the board members are afraid of being mobbed by mindless hordes of local right-wing radio listeners. The local lawyers I know say that the board does indeed have the right to rule on the ballots -- and that everyone knows full well that the right thing to do is to reexamine those ballots as part of the full recount (since that is what a full recount is about, non?) In fact, officials in Itasca County have already gone ahead and decided, without waiting for the canvassing board to stop being so damned scared of the GOP Noise Machine, that they are going to go ahead and reopen their recount because of three wrongly-rejected ballots in their county.
Pressure is mounting on the canvassing board's members to grow spines. Harry Reid himself has weighed in on the situation, calling the canvassing board's members' abdication of their authority "a cause for great concern," which at least one analyst, Washington University political scientist Steven Smith, thinks is a sign that Reid will be readying a US Senate probe into the recount. SoS Mark Ritchie was doing pretty much the same thing when he told the board Wednesday, after they ruled not to rule, that if they continued to abdicate their authority, they were setting up a situation where the only relief for rejected-ballot voters was in the courts -- and that this would lead to a collapse of the state courts system under the weight of court cases by screwed voters.
Update: Franken and Coleman Vote Count Timeline
Posted by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake on November 29, 2008 at 9:02 AM.
I've decided to channel Emptywheel and start constructing a timeline of sorts for the Franken-Coleman recount. Take a look at this handy chart compiled by Twin Cities blogger Jeff Rosenberg. It shows the ratio of challenges to ballots counted.
Notice that for most of the first three days of the recount, the ratios for each campaign stayed between three and five challenged ballots per every ten thousand ballots cast. Those three days were the period where Coleman's officially-announced lead over Franken was shrinking. (See here, here and here for details.) They were also in the period just before the Coleman campaign went on a frivolous-challenge jag in order to artificially (and temporarily) goose the official recount numbers in their favor, and the Franken campaign felt compelled to play tit-for-tat just to make sure the publicly-announced faked-up Coleman "lead" didn't get too high.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
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