Al Franken ascendant

So the Minnesota recount is finally over and done in a speed that makes Russia's withdrawal out of Georgia seem swift. Funnyman Al Franken will be certified as the winner of the election by a massive landslide of 225 votes, cuing up the imminent Scanner-style exploding of Bill O'Reilly's melon. This of course means that Franken will be able to take his place in the Senate around...oh...say never.

The state Canvassing Board was poised to certify the results of the recount in Minnesota's grueling Senate election in Al Franken's favor _ but that doesn't mean the race is definitely over.

The board was to meet Monday and was expected to declare which candidate received the most overall votes from nearly 3 million ballots cast. The latest numbers showed Franken, a Democrat, with a 225-vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who led Franken on election night.

But after the announcement, there will be a seven-day waiting period before an election certificate is completed. If any lawsuits are filed during that waiting period, certification is conditional until the issue is settled in court.

That's right, Coleman still has to file countless numbers of lawsuits and drag this out to the bitter end. Of course the major lawsuit he wants to file is over the matter of a number of ballots that Coleman claims were double counted but no one else seems to agree with. The number of ballots he says were counted twice? 150. Meaning that if he's right, he still loses.

In the Senate, Chuck Schumer has said that they should honor the results of Minnesota's election and seat Franken. Republican Senator John Cornyn finds that legally seating the certified winner of an election to be "troubling" and has vowed to filibuster any attempt to seat Franken until Norm Coleman is able to jack his lawyer's billable hours into the millions. Of note is the fact that Franken is Democratic Senator number 59. John Cornyn is a man of rules and laws, but also making sure he'll be able to stall shit with impunity. So as we see Minnesota will never legally have two Senators, they get one from now on.