I would like to tip my hat to Ezra Klein for using the weekend to put out a whole series of articles addressing just how broken and dysfunctional our Congress has become. It is an issue that never seems to get enough attention but underlines almost every problem with our current government. He does interviews [...]

Here it is, folks — the moment we’ve been waiting for since last friggin’ November: Norm Coleman concedes the election contest to Al Franken.

It’s not out of the question formNorm Coleman to choose to ask Alito to issue a stay to keep Al Franken’s election certificate from being signed. But as Hasen noted a few weeks ago, actually getting a stay is unlikely. And considering that Norm’s legal fees for this case alone are around $145,000 a week, the NRSC may figure their money is better spent on protecting vulnerable GOP senators in next year’s elections.

There have been persistent rumors locally — rumors referenced by Dan Feidt at Politics in Minnesota — that the Supreme Court will be handing down a ruling in the Coleman appeal sometime today. My own particular source for this allegedly got the information simply by asking a person quite close to the case.

Remember how the three-judge Election Contest Court ruled that because of the egregious frickin’ misconduct committed by his legal team, that Norm was going to be on the hook for at least some of the court costs incurred by his opponent, Al Franken? Well, the bill was finally totaled up yesterday, and the ECC ruled that Coleman must pay Senator-Elect Franken $94,783.15. And counting.

In the face of what looks to be an imminent slam-dunk win for Senator Al Franken, his soon-to-be colleague John Cornyn (R-Texas) has, um, graciously decided to allow America’s newest Senator to be seated after all. How good of him.

In the wake of Tim Pawlenty’s announcement that he wasn’t running for governor again in 2010 (probably so he can run for president in 2012), the Minneapolis StarTribune put out an article listing the various persons in the Republican Party of Minnesota who were looking at taking his place — and yes, Norm Coleman was mentioned as possibly being one of these people. Here’s my take on the names they mentioned.

When Minnesota’s Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, announced yesterday that he was not running for re-election, I noticed two things right away: None of the local evening news shows mentioned how he was tanking in most of the polls, and how re-election might have been tricky for him next year; and lots of commenters online, including yours truly, suspected that this gives him carte blanche to screw the state as he rushes to please the Republican primary voters so he can get onto a presidential ticket in 2012.

If Norm Coleman is so concerned about Equal Protection, why then did his GOP brethren — including Pawlenty — zap a bill designed to fix absentee balloting because it didn’t push requiring photo ID (which is an EP violation if ever I’ve heard one as it impacts the poor and elderly)? (Oh, and by the way: Joe Friedberg, during the rebuttal, conceded that no election fraud of this or any other sort occurred in this election.)

Now, nearly seven months after the ballots were cast, it all comes down to this: The Minnesota Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in the appeal by Norm Coleman of the ruling handed down by the three-judge panel that made up the Election Contest Court. That ruling upheld and confirmed the results of the recount than Al Franken won and Norm Coleman lost — a recount that Coleman tried to stop even though it was mandated by state law.