Josh Marshall covers the posterior-covering post-mortem on Norm Coleman's recount loss to Al Franken.

As one GOP operative told The Hill, "They allowed the legal proceedings to define the media environment."

But Josh reminds us that Coleman did define the media environment for the first month.

But for the first month or so after the November election hardly anyone gave Franken any hope of winning. And all the all-knowing editorial commentary was pushing for him to get out. But Coleman's boffo media environment started to buckle as the recount started to show that he'd probably lost. Admittedly, a hard set of facts for a well manicured media environment, such as Coleman's, to overcome.

Minnesota finally completed the recount and Al Franken officially beat Norm Coleman by 312 votes out of nearly 3 million. So what's next? Norm Coleman will appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which will uphold the meticulous work of the 3-judge panel. Then Coleman will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the outrageous decision in Bush v. Gore as precedent, even though the Supreme Court declared Bush v. Gore should never be used as a precedent.

As Ernest A. Canning reports for BradBlog:

Referencing Florida 2000's controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore, Ginsberg contended Coleman was denied equal protection.

By Dave Lindorff

The calls for a reckoning for the criminals of the Bush/Cheney
administration are growing by the day, as the final few days of the
Bush presidency tick down, and as new evidence of their crimes keep
pouring out of the deflating gas bag that was the Bush White House.

For years, the Democrats in Congress, with a few notable
exceptions, have sat on their hands, allowing the ongoing destruction
of the Constitution, of the US military, of the nation’s reputation,
and of the rule of law, as well as of the institution of Congress
itself, by a cabal of Republicans in the White House, led by Vice
President Dick Cheney, who have sought to establish an executive-led government
that answered only to itself.

By David Swanson

Former Vice President, and the man elected president in November 2000, Al Gore was asked on the radio this morning about a letter that Gore Vidal and many others have sent to presidential candidate Barack Obama urging him not to concede a stolen election.

(Read and add your name to the letter here:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/donotconcede )

Al Gore, like the rest of us, hopes it doesn't come to that but discusses his memory of what happened eight years ago. Above all he stresses the need to get out and vote today in huge numbers.

(Listen to the clip of his interview with Nicole Sandler here:
http://radioornot.blogspot.com )

Gore also advocates a massive green jobs program as a solution to both the climate crisis and the economic crisis. He lists a number of causes of the economic / financial crisis, and includes prominently among them the occupation of Iraq. Perhaps he will be willing to advocate for its speedy end.

By Dave Lindorff

With the polls continuing to show Barack Obama holding a steady or
even growing lead heading into Election Day, especially in the key
swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire
and Virginia, and with Democratic challengers looking strong in at
least 10 Senate races and dozens of open-seat or Republican-held House
races, it’s looking like this will be a big win for Democrats, both in
the presidential and the Congressional races.

Hopefully one thing such an across-the-boards win will lead to
would be a withering away of the self-destructive conspiracy-theory
paranoia that has gripped much of the Left over the last eight years.

In 2000, Democrats.com was the largest blog fighting the stolen election in Florida. In 2004, we were the largest blog fighting the the stolen election in Ohio. But in 2008, I'm not very worried about another stolen election. I'm not saying Republicans won't try, because they certainly will. I'm just saying they won't succeed. Why?

Stealing elections isn't easy. Voting systems vary by state, even by county. Some are all paper (like Oregon's vote-by-mail) or old-fashioned mechanical (like New York's levers). Optical scanner systems produce a paper trail that can be manually recounted. Only touchscreens are black boxes, and honest election officials can keep evil hackers away if they try hard enough.

By Andrew First

Open this report in a PDF.

2008 Presidential Election Analysis, November 4, 2008

Introduction: On December 6, 2008, 538 electors will cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States. A candidate must receive 270 votes to win. These electors will be chosen on November 4, with a popular vote within each state, with a winner take all system in 48 states, and the District of Columbia. Maine and Nebraska award 2 electoral votes to the winner of the state at large, as well as one vote for the winner of each congressional district. Although in about half of the states, electors are bound by law to vote for their chosen candidate, electors in other states face no such constraints. Occasionally an electoral vote is cast for someone other than the candidate, however, this is very rare, and is always done to make a statement. No elector would take such a risk in a very close electoral contest.

States and DC that were blue in 2004 = 252 electoral votes
Obama has leads in the opinion polls well outside the margin of error, and in most cases a double digit lead.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast explain how Republicans are trying to steal this election, and offer valuable advice how to steal it back:

Contrary to Mr. McCain's assertions, the real threat to democracy is from the GOP itself. ACORN has served as a good distraction from Republican efforts to steal the vote from hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters, a genuine threat that has received almost no media attention.

By David Swanson

Change is in the air. How about a change away from violence?

The state of Georgia is preparing to execute a man widely known to almost certainly be innocent. Here is an Amnesty International report on the case of Troy Davis. And here are things you can do to try to prevent this murder, this state killing, this official lynching in the twenty-first century.