Minnesota GOP plans to introduce Arizona-style immigration bill

Et tu Minnesota? How can a state that produced Paul Wellstone and Al Franken also be home to Looney Bachmann and these people? Guess he's just proving his Tea Bagger credentials.

Local Republican lawmakers want to enact immigration legislation similar to a controversial bill recently passed in Arizona, even as thousands of people across the country attended rallies Saturday against the bill.

Critics say the bill amounts to racial profiling because it requires police to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally. But Minnesota Reps. Steve Drazkowski and Greg Davids applaud the Arizona bill, saying it addresses a failure in federal enforcement. Drazkowski is drafting a similar state bill he hopes to introduce before the session ends this month.

(snip)

State legislation could stem the growing number of illegal immigrants in Minnesota, especially in the Twin Cities-area, Davids said.

"They cost the state a lot of money," Davids said. "The bill just says we're going to follow the U.S. Constitution, Homeland Security and the laws of the land."

But Arizona's provision has generated backlash from President Barack Obama to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to about 2,500 people at a rally Saturday in Minneapolis. And Republicans concede they'd need more seats in the Legislature before an Arizona-style bill could pass here - Drazkowski said there was virtually no chance his bill would pass this session.

Video- Bill O'Reilly Demands That You Treat Al Franken With Respect

Wow, just wow.

Four More Dem Senators Join Push For Vote On Public Option

Not going to get too excited, but Greg is reporting some good news.

Yesterday four Dem Senators made a big splash by signing a letter pushing Dem leaders to pass the public option via reconciliation, suggesting the provision may have a faint pulse.

Now four more Dem Senators have added their names to the list, their spokespeople tell me, doubling the number of signatories to eight and perhaps upping the volume of the public option’s pulse ever so slightly.

The new signatories: Al Franken, Pat Leahy, John Kerry, and Sheldon Whitehouse.

They join yesterday’s signers: Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, and Sherrod Brown.

The letter asks Harry Reid to stage a full Senate vote on the public option under budget reconciliation rules. It argues that there’s a history of using the technique for passing significant health care legislation and that a majority of Americans has consistently supported a public option.

The letter — the work of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America — also bears the signatures of over a hundred House Dems.

Weekly World News Re-Imagines Franken/Lieberman Spat

Heh.

Jeebus media, Begich had just cut Cornyn off earlier

If I hear another tsk tsk or feigned indignation from a "reporter" or a fracking staffer from 40 years ago, I'm going to throw up. They're limiting the time on the floor so they can get their damn work done and go home for the holidays. A classic example of the high school gossip quality of our media. It's alot more fun to make it a pissing match than a procedural point.

WASHINGTON — Normally when senators preside over the Senate, they do little but direct traffic, showing little partiality or emotion as they allow their colleagues to yammer on at length.

So when Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Sen. Mark Begich. D-Alaska, for additional time to keep talking about health care Thursday afternoon, it wasn't the kind of request usually denied in the polite Senate, where long-windedness is generally tolerated.

But Begich's response was unusual: "In my capacity as the senator from Alaska, I object."

Flummoxed, Cornyn retreated for a moment, then tried again: "Is it the intent of the presiding officer to prevent any senator from speaking on the floor on this important bill? I'm looking around and I don't see any other senator waiting to speak," the Texas Republican said, gesturing to the empty chamber. "I simply would like an explanation of the chair's ruling."

(snip)

It turns out the freshman Democrat from Alaska was acting under orders of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader, who said he had grown tired of what he deemed Republican delaying tactics.

Begich, who as a junior member of the Senate is required to preside over the chamber frequently to learn its rules, had been asked to limit everyone to 10-minute speeches to speed up proceedings. Another freshman, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., treated Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., much the same way Thursday.

Thanks to Heather for Tweey's concern troll video.

Video- Senator Al Franken draws map of USA

Pretty impressive. When Sundance ran his radio show, each one opened with him doing this.

VIDEO: Al Franken Talks Down Angry Mob

By GottaLaff

As Rachel Maddow says, talk me down. And guess what? It worked at the Minnesota State Fair:



Take that, TeaDeathers: It's called "communication"...

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I got to witness something really special. About a dozen tea party activists had staked out Franken's booth, and confronted him loudly when he arrived. But within minutes, he'd turned an unruly cr...

I got to witness something really special. About a dozen tea party activists had staked out Franken's booth, and confronted him loudly when he arrived. But within minutes, he'd turned an unruly crowd into a productive conversation on health care. The discussion went from insurance reform, to the public option, to veterans benefits, to cap and trade. He made a few laugh and even told a touching story that moved a few to tears. A whole lot of common ground was found.

See what being reasonable can accomplish? It's not that hard, and so, so productive.

Video- Franken’s Time: Jon Stewart on the meaning of 60 Senate Dems

Quote of the Day

Not a bad role model at all.

"There's something in Hillary as a model for me, because Hillary, well she came in with a different kind of celebrity obviously. But there was a kind of skepticism where she had to prove herself a certain way and also prove not to be a kind of a show horse, but to be a work horse. And so I want to... put my head down and get to work when I get there."

-- Senator-elect Al Franken (D-MN), quoted by Minnesota Public Radio, on lessons he can learn from Hillary Clinton.

Video- An Emotional Franken Thanks His Supporters, His Family -- And Recognizes Wellstone's Legacy

Video was hanging the blog up, you can see it here.
Via TPM.

Video- The Agony Of Defeat: Conservative Media React To Senator Franken

Via Media Matters.

Franken-Coleman Ruling Could Come Today

Every single person in Minnesota needs to get on their reps and hammer them about seating Franken. Via Taegan-

Politics in Minnesota "has now heard from two sources on different sides of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race recount scene" that the final Minnesota Supreme Court ruling is expected to arrive today between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Added- Greg says not so fast.

Cartoon of the Day

Click to enlarge, via.

Minnesota Court Orders Coleman To Pay Franken Over $94,000

Dollars from heaven. Wonder if this portends anything?

In an order issued just a short while ago, the Minnesota election court has now commanded Norm Coleman to pay Al Franken $94,783.15 in itemized costs from the trial.

The Franken legal team had originally asked for $161,000, but the court rejected some of the claims as either not being sufficiently documented or not justified under the loser-pays provision of the election contest law. Bear in mind that even the $161,000 claim would only have made a small dent in the millions that have been spent in this process.

Five Votes Will Now Decide Minnesota Senate Race

Dear sweet Jebus, let it be over. Via Taegan-

"Almost seven months after a U.S. Senate election that was too close to call, five justices of the Minnesota Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on whether problems with absentee ballots justify reversing a lower-court ruling that declared Al Franken (D) a 312-vote winner over Norm Coleman (R), the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

"A decision upholding the lower-court ruling could end the protracted struggle and allow Franken to join the Senate, giving Democrats an invincible majority. A ruling for Coleman wouldn't return him to the Senate, but could keep his hopes alive and delay a final decision for months."

The Hill: "Franken has spent the past month and a half behaving more as a senator-in-waiting... Coleman, meanwhile, has maintained a hands-on presence in preparing the appeal."

Fox News legal analyst tells Coleman to "give it up"

Maybe the kool aid has been diluted?

Cornyn Says Coleman Challenge Could Take Years

They're really, really just fracking idiots. Let's hope the judge panel puts an end to this bullshit.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is threatening "World War III" if Democrats try to seat Al Franken (D) in the Senate before Norm Coleman (R) can pursue his case through the federal courts, Politico reports.

Cornyn, the head of the NRSC, takes this position even as he "acknowledges that a federal challenge to November's elections could take 'years; to resolve. But he's adamant that Coleman deserves that chance -- even if it means Minnesota is short a senator for the duration."

A three-judge panel is expected to rule any day now on legal challenges to the November election.

Is the Minnesota fight almost over?

Someone needs to step on this bs and squash it out. It's over, Norm lost and Al's got work to do.

The attorney for Norm Coleman's (R) recount fight in Minnesota seemed to suggest in a radio interview that Al Franken "will wind out on top when the three-judge panel finishes reviewing the counting process," The Hotline reports.

Joe Friedberg says that he's "done" but that the case could still drag on.

More Bad News for Coleman

Enough already. The people of Minnesota need to put an end to this bs. More here.

Norm Coleman (R) "had hoped an inspection of hundreds of secrecy envelopes holding rejected absentee ballots would yield enough additional votes to help him cut into Al Franken's (D) 225-vote lead. But it turned out that only 89 of them had valid registrations," the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

"That means Coleman's pool of 1,725 ballots that he has said should be counted probably has shrunk by several hundred -- at least for now -- making it more difficult for him to overtake Franken."

Norm Coleman Wants Election Results Thrown Out

The outcome was just fine on election night when he was winning, now wasn't it? Alot more here.

Norm Coleman's lawyers asked the three judge panel hearing arguments in Minnesota's Senate recount trail to set aside the election results since it wasn't possible to determine a winner, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

CQ Politics quotes the Coleman campaign saying that "the outcome of this election has become a fatal muddle."