Senator Al Franken (D-MN), presiding over the Senate, shot down a request by Joe Lieberman (MISERABLE PRICK-CT) for an extra minute of speechifying last night, and John McCain (R-AZ) got VERY UPSET, because he had never seen something like that before and it made him worried for "the comity of the Senate." It's like some '80s comedy where the brash young outsider comes in to shake things up and all the stuffy establishment types are horrified, except in this case the brash young outsider is 58 years old, and the things the establishment types are trying to defend aren't funny at all. Although "comity of the Senate" is a pretty good one.

Thirty Republican Senators voted against an amendment prohibiting defense contracts for any company which restricts its employees "from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who sponsored the amendment, makes the case in the speech above: It's a horrifying story. The amendment passed 68-30.

"EVEN the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery," says the New York Post, repeating the latest right-wing smear and showing the tenacity with which conservatives will relentlessly keep pushing an issue that works for them for as long as they think it still has legs (and, often, long after). It's a pretty good tactic, I guess, even allowing for the fact that is demonstrably untrue.

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Politico is reporting that Norm Coleman has conceded the Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken.

"[W]e affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. 32 Stat. § 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota," a unanimous Minnesota Supreme Court just ruled. The decision, coming approximately 9000 years after the Senate election, gives loser Norm Coleman only one more whack at the result-an appeal in federal court. No word yet from the Coleman camp on whether he will seek federal relief, but we expect to hear something once his Republican puppetmasters decide how much longer they're willing to forestall the inevitable in an attempt to prevent a Democratic supermajority in the Senate. READ MORE

64% of Minnesota voters want Norm Coleman to concede to Al Franken in that state's astoundingly protracted Senate race, according to a Star Tribune poll. The Coleman campaign immediately vowed to appeal the survey all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Minnesota court panel has decided that Al Franken has won his U.S. Senate seat. In the course of the endless recount and legal battle, Franken actually gained votes. His opponent, Norm Coleman, has 10 days to appeal to the state's Supreme Court. Undoubtedly he will, because if we learned nothing anything from Bush v. Gore, it's that you should never throw in the towel too soon!