Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin has announced that she will resign as governor within a few weeks. Her reason? “No more politics as usual.” Whatever the hell THAT means.

There have been no reports of any reaction from Joe The Plunger.

So let’s look at the scorecard. She leaves the town she was once mayor of in millions of dollars of debt. Then her utter stupidity results in a losing vice presidential bid. Now she just up and quits, under the lamest of excuses.

Given her performance to this point, I think we can kiss her goodbye for good.

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of a tight U.S. Senate race over Republican Norm Coleman, which should give Democrats the 60-seat majority they need to overcome procedural obstacles and push through their agenda.

Coleman has said in published reports he is unlikely to appeal the state court’s decision to the federal courts. Under state law, the court’s decision gives Franken the right to occupy the seat, which has been up for grabs since last November’s election.

Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty has said he will certify the election winner based on what the state court decides.

Read the rest of this article here.

Congratulations, Senator Franken!

State Sen. Dave Schultheis restated his opposition to a bill requiring HIV tests for pregnant women by claiming that infected babies would cause families to “see the negative consequences of that promiscuity.”

The Colorado Springs Republican with a penchant for foot-in-mouth moments tells The Rocky Mountain News in a follow-up story to Wednesday’s Senate floor controversy:

“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

Yes, Schultheis really said he is “hoping” people “have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby …”

-Article continued with links, here. Courtesy The Colorado Independent.

YouTube Link

-Article continued here, courtesy PageOneq

Courtesy BradBlog:

While former radio talk show host and author Al Franken is consistently described in corporate media reports as “comedian Al Franken”, it seems it’s the legal team of former Senator Norm Coleman who are providing the laughs in the first days of the U.S. Senate election contest up in Minnesota.

When even the unapologetic, rightwing, “Franken is stealing the election!” nutcases and conspiracy theorists at Powerline describe Coleman’s legal case as being of “Three Stooges quality”, you know these guys must really be falling apart.

Such seems the case again on yesterday’s Day 2 of the trial, following the disastrous Day 1 when the 3-judge panel tossed out doctored evidence, as submitted by Coleman’s team. Today’s Day 3 doesn’t seem to be going much better for them, either.

Yesterday, two of the six voter/witnesses called by Coleman, to testify how they were disenfranchised when their absentee ballots were rejected, actually admitted that their ballots were properly tossed because they were, in some way, incorrectly — or even fraudulently — cast…

The Uncounted

TPM’s excellent on-the-scene coverage from Eric Kleefeld describes the comedy of errors on the stand yesterday:

One of the voters was Douglas Thompson, who admitted under oath that his girlfriend filled out his absentee ballot application for him, signing his name with her own hand and purporting to be himself. His ballot was rejected because the signature on his ballot envelope (his own) did not match the signature on the application (his girlfriend’s). The Coleman team’s argument appears to be that he is still a legal voter in Minnesota, as the signature on the ballotwas his own, even if admitted dishonesty was involved in getting the ballot.    

Keep in mind: Thompson’s story came up during the direct examination by Coleman lawyer James Langdon. So the Coleman camp fully knew this information and decided to make him into a witness.

Another one of the voters, an older man named Wesley Briest, initially responded that he voted at the polls — not by absentee. Then Coleman attorney James Langdon showed him his absentee ballot envelope, reminding him that he did not go to the polls, too.

So one of the six voters called by Coleman to testify admitted his ballot should have been rejected, since his signature was forged by his girlfriend, while the another couldn’t remember whether he’d voted at the polls or via absentee. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, wheeee! Doink!

The latter voter went on to admit, under cross, that “his wife, who served as the witness on his ballot, did not fully complete the witness section of the absentee ballot.” So yup, that would disqualify the ballot, according to the rule of law.

Now we’ve made the case in the past that absentee ballots are rejected too easily, everywhere, particularly in the cases where signatures are thought to be mismatches from the voter’s registration form. We concurred with San Diego election attorney Ken Karan, who wrote via email following the questionable rejection of ballots in a contested election in CA that “It should not be as simple to discard a ballot because the signatures don’t match after a subjective comparison of signatures by people without any recognized expertise in the recognition of handwriting.”

“Furthermore, if the signatures don’t match,” Karan added, “then that should mean that someone is trying to vote someone else’s ballot. Now, that is voter fraud. Every questionable ballot should either be verified with the voter whose registration signature is at issue, or it should be the subject of a criminal prosecution.”

-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.

Courtesy Open Salon:

The city of Nashville, Tennessee today underwent one of its grandest social experiments since it merged with Davidson County to form the first major metropolitan government (Metro Nashville) in the USA back in 1963. Eric Crafton, a Metro councilman, pushed a bill through that sent voters to the polls to mandate a change to the Metro charter that would, in essence, forbid city officials to conduct business in any language other than English.

The amendment reads: “English is the official language of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Official actions which bind or commit the government shall be taken only in the English language, and all official government communications and publications shall be in English. No person shall have a right to government services in any other language. All meetings of the Metro Council, Boards, and Commissions of the Metropolitan Government shall be conducted in English. The Metro Council may make specific exceptions to protect public health and safety. Nothing in this measure shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state law.”

Crafton, who claims to be a world citizen because he has spent some time in Japan, is a demagogue and serial embellisher who has consistently exploited the rampant anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant Metro Council into passing bills that would make it illegal for city government officials to translate written materials into other languages to use interpreters for people who don’t understand English well.

This is his third attempt to have English declared Metro Nashville’s official tongue, the last having been vetoed by then-mayor Bill Purcell. Nashville’s current mayor, Karl Dean, has been a vocal opponent of Crafton’s measure, as has Governor Phil Bredesen, and a host of local religious and business leaders. The bill would make it illegal for police officers to take statements from crime suspects via interpreters. It would make it unlawful for economic development officers to negotiate in foreign languages when recruiting overseas corporations. It would mean that important public outreach documents about issues such as 911 and immunization could not be printed in Spanish, Kurdish, Laotian, Somali, French or any other minority language of the city. Crafton’s bill has been viewed by detractors as xenophobic and small-minded.

As one such detractor, I will add that it was also a colossal waste of money, since it was mandated as a special election just a scant two months after the 2008 presidential election, and cost city taxpayers about half a million dollars: approximately what the city spends on interpreters in five years.

-Article continues @ Sourced Site.

Courtesy The Christian Science Monitor:

The billion-gallon wave of toxic coal-ash sludge that burst from a power-plant retention pond and buried 300 acres of rural Tennessee hints at a far larger problem: hundreds of similar threats nationwide.

More than 1,300 coal-ash waste sites are dotted across the United States, about half of them actively used, federal data show. Some are landfills. The rest are “surface impoundments” (storage lagoons), which, like the one in Tennessee, mix ash with water.

Coal ash has some beneficial uses. It can be mixed with concrete to make roads, for example. But storing coal ash in a retention pond – common at coal-fired power plants nationwide – can be a threat to the environment and humans as well: The ash contains many toxic metals, including arsenic, lead, and chromium.

At least 67 coal-ash sites have been found to be damaging drinking-water supplies in communities across 23 states, the US Environmental Protection Agency reported last year. But those EPA-identified sites grossly understate the threat, environmentalists say.

EPA study finds only 13 ’safe’ coal-ash waste dumps

Among an additional 155 landfill and surface-impoundment sites in 36 states reviewed by the EPA in 2007, all but 13 had no liner or an inadequate clay liner. Most – two-thirds of them – had no liner at all. (An impermeable liner is needed to keep toxic metals from leaching from the ash into groundwater supplies.)

This concerns Kevin Madonna, who, with his law-firm partner, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,  keeps a close eye on water-pollution issues. Using last year’s EPA data, Mr. Madonna cross-checked coal-ash lagoons and landfills that had either a clay liner or no liner to see which ones were close to human populations and waterways.

One-third are close to human populations

Of the 155 waste sites, more than one-third were close or very close to significant human populations; two-thirds were near or very near key waterways, Madonna found. About half of the sites were coal-ash surface impoundments (lagoons).

“You have toxic wastes leaking into water bodies from probably every single one of these lagoons,” Madonna says. “It’s a huge mess.”

Little is known about coal-ash storage sites, which are lightly regulated by states and exempt from federal hazardous-waste regulations. Many are decades old, which increases the potential for leakage and containment failure, experts and environmentalists say.

Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental group, says the EPA underestimates the problem. “Most impoundments are not monitored at all,” she says. “The list of sites identified by the EPA in 2007 is far from comprehensive.”

-Article Continues @ Sourced Site.

Courtesy Page One Q:

The firings continue at a Tennessee hotel after its assistant general manager spoke out against its owner for dismissing a man for being gay.

David Hill, former director of human resources for ARTE’ Hotel in Brentwood, said that he was “dared” to sue after being told the decision by owner Tarun Surti to terminate his employment on January 8 was specifically on the basis of his sexual orientation; assistant general manager Leonard Stoddard confirmed it to the press.

“The owner, Mr. Surti, comes from a culture that is not very tolerant to the gay lifestyle,” Stoddard, who was ordered to dismiss Hill, told WSMV-TV, “and therefore he felt it necessary to have him removed from the workforce at the property.”

Stoddard, also openly gay, has since been given his walking papers, Out & About reported. “I am here in the office and shocked to hear what you had said to the media,” Surti e-mailed Stoddard. “If it is true that you told media that David was fired because he is gay, you obviously told them a lie. Such behavior is subject to immediate termination and I would like you to restrain (sic) from coming to the hotel.”

-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — The Illinois House of Representatives on Friday voted almost unanimously to impeach embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The vote was 114-1, with three representatives not voting.

The question of whether to remove Blagojevich from office now moves to the state Senate.

On Thursday, an Illinois legislative committee unanimously recommended impeaching Blagojevich amid corruption allegations.

Blagojevich was arrested last month after federal prosecutors alleged, among other things, that he tried to sell the Senate seat that President-elect Barack Obama vacated.

The committee heard testimony Thursday afternoon from Roland Burris, the man Blagojevich appointed to succeed Obama in the Senate.

Burris denied any quid pro quo with Blagojevich for his appointment to the U.S. Senate. Burris, former attorney general for Illinois, is not accused of engaging in “pay-to-play” politics with Blagojevich.

Blagojevich denies any wrongdoing and has rejected calls for his resignation.

Read the rest of the article here.

(CNN) – Estimates for the amount of thick sludge that gushed from a Tennessee coal plant last week have tripled to more than a billion gallons, as cleanup crews try to remove the goop from homes and railroads and halt its oozing into an adjacent river

The sludge, a byproduct of the ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville. The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill and damaging 15 homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three homes were deemed uninhabitable, according to the TVA.

TVA’s initial estimate for the spill was 1.8 million cubic yards or more than 360 million gallons of sludge. By Friday, the estimate reached 5.4 million cubic yards or more than 1 billion gallons — enough to fill 1,660 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Environmental advocates say the ash contains concentrated levels of mercury and arsenic.

The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the Clinch River. At least 300 acres of land has been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

A spokesman for TVA, a federal corporation and the nation’s largest public power company, said the agency has never experienced a spill of this magnitude.

“There’s a lot of ash there,” spokesman John Moulton said Friday. “We are taking this very seriously. It is a big cleanup project, and we’re focused on it 24 hours a day.”

Initial TVA estimates put the cleanup timeline at four to six weeks, but Moulton said the agency will no longer say how long it expects the effort to take. Environmentalists say it could take months or even years to clean up the mess.

Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the area. An estimated 78,000 cubic yards, or 15.7 million gallons, of sludge covered local railroad tracks and Swan Pond Road.

-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.