I haven't had much to say about the Coleman/Franken imbroglio in Minnesota partly because Mark does so much better a job at jabbing him than I could but mostly because it's less a news story than a long-running (almost endless) SNL skit in which Coleman and the GOP prove that they'll pull every shabby trick in the book to "win" an election they've clearly lost. It's funny, it's sad, it sells popcorn. What it doesn't do is allow the people of Minnesota the representation they're supposed to have in Congress, but since when did Republicans care more about their state - or their country for that matter - than they care about winning?
The case is currently in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court because Norm just can't admit that he, you know, like, lost, and the Court seems a little touchy about having its time wasted seeing as how Norm don't have no stinkin evidence of his claims.
Mr. Coleman, who served one term before the November election, is challenging the rulings of a state recount board and a lower court, which declared Mr. Franken the winner of the race by hundreds of votes.
Associate Justice Christopher J. Dietzen said Mr. Coleman’s argument that thousands of absentee ballots had been wrongfully excluded had “no concrete evidence to back it up.” He said, “In my experience, I’ve never seen an offer of proof like this.”
(emphasis added)
Mr Coleman served only one term because that's what it took for Minnesota to figure out he was a douchebag on the take and in the tank for a rich businessman named Kazemeny for whom Norm's wife played bagwoman. You know, a typical Republican sleaze story of corruption and greed. The usual. And of course to complete the similarity we have serious charges being flung around without an iota of evidentiary support.
In his argument, Mr. Coleman’s lawyer, Joe Friedberg, did not contend that there had been fraud at work in the election, but that thousands of voters had been blocked from having their votes counted by inconsistently applied rules about accepting absentee ballots. Whether a person’s vote was counted depended “on where you sleep,” Mr. Friedberg said. “We have significant disenfranchisement.”
Sounds sinister, doesn't it? Sloppy practices amounting to disenfranchisement mainly of Republicans. Well, sinister or a dose of their own medicine. But serious enough that you'd think that after all this time (it's been going on for months) they'd have scared up some sort of evidence, however flimsy. Apparently they haven't even managed to do that.
Which makes this trial, b's & g's, the definition of a "frivolous lawsuit" - a lawsuit based on evidence so flimsy, ethereal, or imaginary that it borders on a dreamstate. I thought Republicans were against those?
It's really too bad Al Franken is involved in this fiasco. Imagine the fun he would have with it if he was still writing.
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