Recount Day 238: Coleman quits; Goshdarnit Al Franken's a senator

Well, it's finally over. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 today that Democrat Al Franken won the more than 2.9-million vote Senate election there by a landslide 312 votes.

Hours later Republican incumbent Norm Coleman conceded defeat to the former comedian. Coleman said he "will abide by its results" and "now congratulate Al Franken and his victory in this election."

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has indicated he will sign the official election certificate according to the state's top court decision.

Now, Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul, can decide on his rumored run to replace Pawlenty in the governor's office next year, while Pawlenty ponders a presidential run in 2012.

Besides bringing an often-blue sense of humor to one of the world's most exclusive clubs, Franken will be the 60th Democratic vote out of 100, preventing the possibility of any Republican filibuster if GOP members could ever agree on such a thing.

And providing that the recent Republican turncoat Arlen Spectervotes with his new-found Democratic BFFs, which he's warned he won't always do. Which explains Rep. Joe Sestak's developing primary challenge back home in Pennsylvania.

And providing that 91-year-old West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd keeps surviving his frequent hospitalizations. As reported by renowned Byrd expert Don Surber here, the longest-serving senator ever was released most recently today after recovering from a staph infection contracted while he was fighting a minor infection..

Texas Sen. John Cornyn,chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: "I would like to commend both Norm Coleman and Al Franken on a hard-fought campaign. In particular, I would like to be among the first to welcome Al Franken to the United States Senate."

Developing.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

McCain aides trash Palin (anonymously) in Vanity Fair. What else is new...

Longtime friends and campaign workers for Arizona Sen. John McCain have been talking to Vanity Fair about what Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's candidacy as vice president did for the GOP ticket in 2008.

"A Little Shop of Horrors," said one unnamed aide.

Perhaps they want to keep the governor -- still a hot-button favorite among social conservatives -- off the ticket in 2012?

In a just-published piece by Todd Purdum in the August Vanity Fair, McCain aides said they still suffer a kind of survivor's guilt. (An earlier version of this post misspelled the author's last name as Purdam.)

"They can't quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be," Purdam writes.

A former reporter for the New York Times and husband of former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers, Purdam has a few nuggets of news. Reports of tension between Palin and McCain are, well, true.

She maintained "only the barest level of civil discourse" with Tucker Eskew, the operative assigned to be her chief minder, Purdam reports. Mark McKinnon, a longtime McCain admirer and a former Democrat who told insiders he would never work against Barack Obama in the general election, signed on to be Palin's "whisperer," the calming influence. And Obama, on learning of Palin's selection, said Palin would never have time to get up to speed. "I don't care how talented she is, this is really a leap," said Obama, telling aides it had taken him four months to learn how to be a national candidate.

But for the most, the piece reads more like juicy political speculation than news. Many of the quotes are from aides who would rather not be named. And it's hard to read the title -- "It Came From Wasilla" -- as anything but an insult, at least to anyone who's a person who came from somewhere.

Palin refused to talk to Vanity Fair for the piece. At work on her own book about her life -- to be published jointly by HarperCollins and the Bible-publishing house Zondervan -- the self-described pit bull-with-lipstick  from Alaska will get plenty of ink for her rebuttal.

In the meantime, here come the knives.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: J.D. Pooley / Getty Images

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In Indiana, and elsewhere, lawmakers play beat the clock to OK budget

When it comes to the time being a sensitive subject, there’s arguably no one who watches the clock more closely than Indiana Hoosiers.

This is the state where people fought – and ultimately lost – the right to have different counties be on different time zones. (Though there still are a few spots in the northwest corner of the state where, while standing on the shore, you can technically land a fish an hour before you caught it.)

So in some ways, it’s fitting that lawmakers here in the Indianapolis state house are counting down the minutes as they fight over the state budget. As of this morning, there's no budget. Inside the state Assembly chambers, there’s a rumble that lawmakers will have something to vote on when they reconvene just about now, at 1 p.m. EST. By then, legislators will have 10 hours and 59 minutes to get something passed. Otherwise, government services will begin to shut down.

The last time lawmakers in this Rust Belt-meets-agriculture state blew past its June 30 deadline was during the Civil War. Back then, when the state general assembly adjourned without passing a budget, Gov. Oliver Perry Morton simply didn’t recall the legislators – and for a year or so, he ran the state government on his own. (Lawmakers later forgave Morton: There’s a statue of him standing at the entrance of the state house here in Indianapolis.)

Since then, say locals, meeting that midnight budgetary deadline has been a point of Hoosier pride. That’s not to say folks haven’t bent the rules a bit. Inside the state general assembly’s chambers, there is a wooden clock mounted onto the balcony just above the lawmakers' seats. At one point, many years ago, there was a switch, tucked next to the House speaker’s podium, which would turn off the clock.

When the fiscal budget debates dragged a bit too close to midnight, “they’d stop the clock and battle it out,” said Alan January, director of patron services for the Indiana State Archives. “It’d buy them a few minutes, a few hours, maybe longer.”

As legislators race from meeting to meeting today, quite a few have cast a longing glance toward that podium. The switch is gone. It was removed years ago. The clock, though, remains and is still ticking down. To read more about state lawmakers across the country racing to beat the clock, check out this story.

-- P.J. Huffstutter 

Iraqis dance in streets as U.S. troops pull back -- Americans like it too

Iraqis danced in the streets today as American soldiers pulled back from towns and cities (including  Basra, above) to the stronghold of U.S. bases. A countdown clock on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as midnight approached. Fireworks lit up the skies over Baghdad.

Some voiced fears about renewed violence. And some 200,000 U.S. soldiers remain in the country -- four tragically killed just last night during the transition, joining the more than 4,300 U.S. soldiers who have died in the cause.

Iraq declared a national holiday and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki proclaimed June 30 Iraq's "National Sovereignty Day." "All of us are happy — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — on this day," Waleed al-Bahadili said to the Associated Press as he celebrated in a Badghad park. "The Americans harmed and insulted us too much."

Americans might be upset to hear that, given that they gave so much of blood and treasure to give Iraq a chance at democracy. But the latest poll by CNN found 73% of Americans favor the withdrawal with surprising unanimity -- 72% of Democrats and 74% of Republicans said yes. And two-thirds said even if violence flares again (which a majority think is likely), U.S. troops should not go back into Iraqi population centers.

Of course, the Big Number is that two-thirds of Americans no longer support the war in Iraq, a rebuke to President Bush's policy -- though his neo-con supporters hope he will be vindicated by history's more long-range endorsement -- and an explanation for President Obama's decision to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31 of next year.

But for today, the news was not in the Oval Office but in the streets of Iraq. Here are more photos:

-- Johanna Neuman

In Ramadi, as Iraqi forces take charge of patrols in the city.

In Basra, Iraqi police officers celebrate.

At a cafe in Baghdad.

In Baghdad's Green Zone, a parade of Iraqi security forces.

Spc. Charles Lewis of the 10th Combat Support Hospital prepared to leave Baghdad.

Photo credits, from top: Khalid Mohammed / Associated Press; Karim Kadin / Associated Press; Haider Al-Assadee / European Pressphoto Agency; Khalil al-Murshidi / AFP/Getty Images; Ali al-Saadi / AFP/Getty Images; Daniel C. Britt / Reuters

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More questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate, still

Well, here we go again on the Barack Obama birth certificate controversy that just won't die because it's one of those zombie issues like who really killed JFK.

No less an authority on politics, history and government archives than the Pat Boone is now raising serious questions about the legitimacy of the entire Obama administration and everything it has done since those 21 guns went off shortly after noon on Jan. 20.

This is because a lot of people, including firebrand conservative Alan Keyes (as The Ticket described here in February) and now Boone, insist or suggest or imply that Obama cannot be president of these United States because they insist, suggest or imply he wasn't really born in Hawaii but was actually born in Kenya, his father's homeland.

(See below for the certificate of live birth provided by the Obama staff a year ago, even though technically that's not a birth certificate.)

(Helpful Ticket Political Reminder: Obama thoroughly thumped Keyes, a last-minute hopeless fill-in GOP candidate, in his initial 2004 U.S. Senate run in Illinois. So there may be a lingering issue there in the mind of Keyes, wherever that is.)

Now, none of this should actually matter because Obama's mother was an American, if you consider Kansas America. So she could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American. All the courts have consistently thrown out challenges to the first African American president's legality. And Obama's spending, golfing and official POTUS Air Force One jacket sure don't indicate he's got any doubts about his legitimacy.

But maybe the courts are all part of a vast Kenyan socialist conspiracy or something. As they do daily, Wonkette has a lot of fun with its own theory about this conspiracy theory.

Anyway, the latest development is that Pat Boone, in an article headlined "Mr Obama, Show Us Your Birth Certificate," goes on a long while about the hassle of non-terrorists trying to board commercial American flights nowadays. Which is so true, isn't it?

It's gotten so bad, Pat reports, that he's actually turned down some gigs just to avoid the airport hassle. Which must be a nice position to be in, even with the hassle.

Pat -- we call him that because we've never met -- questions the validity of the certificate of live birth published on The Ticket. He raises dramatic fears about what will happen if years down the road Obama is actually proven to be legally barred from holding the Oval Office as is, say, California's Austrian-born Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But then PB gets to his main point:

If I have to produce my passport, my driver’s license, my birth certificate, for things like leaving the country and returning, buying and selling and leasing and renting — all the things ordinary citizens are required to do all the time — why then, in the name of decency and equality, and, in the “open” and “transparent” approach to government Obama promised, should our elected leader not do the same?

Now, some might say, who is this Pat Boone to question the legitimacy of the president of the United States? Well, he's a lifelong conservative who had a very nice voice and made so many popular hits for your parents that for many years he was second only to a singer who died of drug issues (that would be Elvis).

Pat's qualifications also include popularizing the wearing of white suede shoes about a century or so ago, even though such foot gear is impossible to keep unscuffed for more than 27 seconds..

Pat says Obama is dismantling America’s free markets, taxing the higher-earning middle class into despondency, spending and taxing the nation into bankruptcy, imposing socialistic, government-run healthcare, seriously weakening our military and encouraging our enemies and enacting crippling and fraudulent “global warming” laws, among other nefarious things.

And, he asks, what if "he wasn’t even legally entitled to be president at all. Yes, it is important, crucially and everlastingly important. America’s very future depends on the defense of, and obedience to, our basic constitutional laws."

So while it seems unlikely Pat will be invited to perform at the next White House lesbian gay pride celebration, this birth certificate thing doesn't seem to be going away as quickly as white suede shoes.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Obama urges lesbian, gay patience overturning 'unjust laws' (text)

Remarks by President Obama at the LGBT Pride Month White House Reception, June 29, 2009

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Hello, hello, hello. (Applause.)  Hey! Good to see you. (Applause.)  I'm waiting for FLOTUS here. FLOTUS always politics more than POTUS.

MRS. OBAMA: No, you move too slow. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: It is great to see everybody here today and they're just -- I've got a lot of friends in the room, but there are some people I want to especially acknowledge. First of all, somebody who helped ensure that we are in the White House, Steve Hildebrand. Please give Steve a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  Where's Steve?  He's around here somewhere. (Applause.)

The new chair of the Export-Import Bank, Fred Hochberg. (Applause.)  Where's Fred?  There's Fred.  Good to see you, Fred.  Our Director of the Institute of Education Sciences at DOE, John Easton.  Where's John?  (Applause.)  A couple of special friends -- Bishop Gene Robinson.  Where's Gene?  (Applause.)  Hey, Gene.  Ambassador Michael Guest is here.  (Applause.)  Ambassador Jim Hormel is here.  (Applause.)  Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown is here.  (Applause.) All of you are here.  (Laughter and applause.) Welcome to your White House.  (Applause.)  So.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)  (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Somebody asked from the Lincoln Bedroom here. (Laughter.) You knew I was from Chicago too.  (Laughter.) 

It's good to see so many friends and familiar faces, and I deeply appreciate the support I've received from so many of you. Michelle appreciates it and I want you to know that you have our support as well.  (Applause.)  And you have my thanks for the work you do every day in pursuit of ...

Big Billy Mays' big heart gave out, coroner finds

Qwik update:

Sort of dueling autopsies on opposite sides of the country today: One case in LA possibly involving OxyContin and that famous singer what's-his-name, who died at 50 last week, and the other in Tampa involving OxiClean spokesman Billy Mays, who also died at 50. Hmmm.

We had our tribute to big Billy Sunday (click here to see the hilarious video of Billy having so much fun at his own expense), wishing he'd been in politics or his style of pitching had been in politics.

And we affectionately celebrated his big presence and big voice and big heart. Turns out today's autopsy results indicate it was that big heart that gave out.

The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner reports the exuberant TV pitchman died quietly in his sleep from hypertensive heart disease -- the left ventricle was enlarged, a key symptom.

The M.E. also said there was no evidence of head trauma. So the heart rate of U.S. Airways lawyers' is slowing down now. During a rough landing Saturday, something fell out of an overhead bin and hit Mays on the head, raising speculation of one of those silent brain injuries without symptoms that claimed Natasha Richardson after a skiing accident left her feeling fine for several hours.

The stocky Mays was taking painkillers for a bad hip, but the M.E. found the dosage was appropriate.

Check out the video here of the American insomniac's best friend.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: WireImage

Ruth Madoff: Homeless and without a hairdresser as husband gets 150 years in jail

Ponzi scheme swindler Bernard Madoff, the 71-year-old financier whose greed wiped out fortunes, ruined retirements, bankrupted several prominent Jewish charities and even led some investors to commit suicide, was sentenced today to 150 years in jail.

Victims pleaded with the court to throw the book at him as federal prosecutors sought the maximum term -- 150 years -- for what is considered the largest heist in Wall Street history, now estimated at $13 billion. And he did.

Madoff  apologized to his victims -- "I'm sorry," he said, turning to face them. But Judge Denny Chin gave the perp the maximum because, he explained, Madoff never cooperated with prosecutors -- about either  who might have helped him in his elaborate deception or where the money had gone to. When the judge pronounced his verdict, the courtroom erupted in applause. For once, the judge did not gavel them to silence.

Even as the Bernard Madoff sentencing took center stage, Ruth Madoff, the swindler's wife of 49 years, was drawing almost as much ink as her husband.

Two weeks ago, in a piece entitled "The Loneliest Woman in New York," the New York Times reported that her usual salon, Pierre Michel, on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side, had told her not to return for her every-six-weeks blond foil highlights.

Ruth Madoff made a deal with federal prosecutors last week to sell most of the couple's assets -- the $7.5-million co-op and primary residence in Manhattan, the $11-million house in Palm Beach, Fla., the $3-million beach house on Montauk, at the tip of Long Island and, as the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, jewelry insured at more than $2.6 million and two fur coats valued at $48,500. In exchange, the Justice Department agreed to let the 68-year-old woman keep $2.5 million.

Now, the New York Post is reporting that landlords don't want to rent to Mrs. Madoff, who is shopping for an apartment. She has started using her maiden name, Alpern, but no luck there either.

"She has nowhere to go," a top broker said. "No one wants someone with her name in their building. People like their privacy."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

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Supreme Court overturns Sotomayor, an opening for Republican critics (full text)

The Supreme Court today ruled 5-4 for white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who qualified for promotions by doing well on a test that the city later threw out because black firefighters did not.

Ordinarily, that would make for an interesting news bulletin, another round in the cultural debate over discrimination, affirmative action and the fairness of testing.

But this case will get a lot more attention, if only because federal  Judge Sonia Sotomayor -- the first nomination President Obama has made to the Supreme Court -- was one of three judges to rule against the white firefighters.

True, the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision found the usual suspects on their expected sides, with Justice Anthony Kennedy casting the swing vote as he often does and Justice David Souter -- on his last day at the court -- ruling as with the liberal wing, led by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Translation: Sotomayor's confirmation wouldn't change the court's ideological makeup.

Still, the case gives conservative critics an opening to accuse Sotomayor of putting her much-touted empathy ahead of her dedication to the rule of law. In fact, even before today's Supreme Court decision, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had homed in on the case, criticizing Sotomayor not only for ruling against Frank Ricci and the other white firefighters but for dismissing their cause in just a few sentences, without explaining the legal underpinnings of their decision.

“In reviewing the Ricci case, I am concerned that Judge Sotomayor may have lost sight of" the distinction between personal views and the law, McConnell said. "As we consider this nomination, I will continue to examine her record to see if personal or political views have influenced her judgment.”

Never mind that the Fourth of July is still a few days off. You can start the political fireworks now.

Click here to read the whole decision in the case, Ricci vs. Stefano (he's the mayor of New Haven).

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: New Haven firefighters dubbed "the New Haven 20"  outside New Haven's federal courthouse in January. Credit: Brad Horrigan / Associated Press

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Obama's FCC pick happens to be daughter of key House Democrat Clyburn

Ah, the rewards of picking a winner.

Last year South Carolina Rep. James E. Clyburn was expected to stay neutral in the long, bitter Democratic presidential primary struggle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

An influential endorsement from Clyburn, a civil rights hero and top member of the House Democratic leadership, would have been welcomed by former President Clinton, who worked closely with him in the 1990s and thought they were close friends.

But the down-South campaigning got a little rough and, as The Ticket noted here, Clyburn didn't help his old ally. In fact, he started to quietly tilt toward Obama, whom he eventually endorsed after the primary. And Clyburn and the ex-president are not talking much anymore.

Last week, tucked inside a short announcement of White House nominations being sent to the Senate for confirmation was a little-noticed line: "Mignon L. Clyburn, of South Carolina, to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission for a term of five years."

Clyburn is the eldest daughter of James Clyburn and a member of South Carolina's Public Service Commission. She's also a former weekly newspaper publisher. Now, the nation's first African American president has nominated someone who would become the nation's first African American female member of the FCC.

But there's probably no connection with last year's maneuvering.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Associated Press