New Senator-elect Mark Beigch has defeated Ted Stevens, bringing the total number of Democrats in the new Senate to 58 (at least once the NYT updates its map).

The Anchorage mayor currently leads by 3724 votes, more than the 2500 left to count. (And it’s more than Stevens lead at the end of Election Night.)

And we’re keeping Lieberman, so if Franken and Martin manage to win their recount and runoff, respectively, Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Does that make Ted Stevens happy?

[I'll have you know I uploaded that damn thing to YouTube, realizing that it might be my last chance to use it.]

[Actually, I will never tire of that one second clip.]

Um, in other news, I finished my marking - a task made all the more difficult by the fact that this exists.

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The upshot is that it would radically change the list of procedures that health care providers are allowed to opt out from due to ‘conscious objections’.

Or rather, it obscures the definitions so as to make them both meaningless and so broad as to include everything from birth control to sterilization to IUDs.

In September, Planned Parenthood - among others - collected protest signatures and the Admin stopped moving forward. As they’re not supposed to make any new rule changes after Nov 1, it seemed as though they had given up on the rule changes.

Not so much!

Officials at the Health and Human Services Department said they intended to issue a final version of the rule within days. Aides and advisers to Mr. Obama said he would try to rescind it, a process that could take three to six months.

To avoid the usual rush of last-minute rules, the White House said in May that new regulations should be proposed by June 1 and issued by Nov. 1. The “provider conscience” rule missed both deadlines.

Under the White House directive, the deadlines can be waived “in extraordinary circumstances.” Administration officials were unable to say immediately why an exception might be justified in this case.

Unable to say ‘immediately’ or just unable to come up with a reason that might legitimately excuse this craven, 11th-hour move?

These 63 days until inauguration are seeming longer and longer.

How I miss the days when transition pranks consisted of Amy Carter leaving a two week old, half-baked cake in a White House oven for the Reagans to find.

Rather than, you know, fucking over women in all 50 states.

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The text message capability is particularly advanced. After typing in just a couple letters, it will suggest longer words that you might be too lazy to type. (This doesn’t get used much since I’m used to typing in every godforsaken letter on my Samsung.)

I was typing ‘eek’ in a text message tonight, but the combination (335) comes up as other things first - such as ‘del’ and ‘eel’.

And, to my immense surprise, ‘felledefoo’.

Erhm, okay phone. That is not a word; I checked.

Well, I checked Google - and it appears that this guy’s friend has the same phone as me.

I am thinking about writing to Dan Savage and offering it up as a contender for the next naming contest he has. I mean, it’s already in my phone - might as well have a function.

ps - I also just scraped up my arm falling down the basement stairs for the umpteenth time. Ah, the sweet graze of stucco. Nothing says, ‘I’m home!’ like careening uncontrollably down a flight of stairs. (I caught myself about five down - hence the stucco burn on my elbow and the fledgling bruise on my left ribs.)

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Nearly 30% of Alaskan ballots have yet to be counted - including absentee and questioned ballots.

Yes, that sounds like a LOT.

Here’s another way of thinking about it: as of yesterday, there were 90,635 freaking votes left to count.

Lefty blogs are tksing because of the large number of late entries and the fact that - despite two high profile congressional races and their governor on the ballot for VP - voter turnout appears lower than 2004.

According to election officials, ballots trickling in late isn’t terribly new. The state is enormous and each ballot must be hand-delivered by moose.

But most elections weren’t hinging on a 3,000-vote lead by a Senatorial felon and a 17,000-vote lead by a representative who is almost certain to be indicted this year.

As to the low vote totals, that’s something I’m sure we can hash out in the courts for years and years.

Speaking of ballot counting and legal action - the Minnesota recount will soon be underway. Republican Norm Coleman’s lead has dropped from 725 votes last week to just 206 yesterday.

538’s been doing the math, and, according to Nate Silver’s most recent projections, Franken might just pull it off (or, hilariously, tie - since Silver has the magic number at 206, which then promptly became the amount of Coleman’s lead.)

By the way: one of my favorite parts of the election cycle was Norm Coleman encouraging Franken to forgo his right to an ‘expensive’ ($90,000) recount with a difference of 0.01% between the candidates.

Coleman said he would conceded if the count had been reversed, a statement somewhat belied by the number of lawyers he’s just hired for the recount.

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Lots of the evil crap Bush has done over the last eight years has been via executive order.

These are frustrating because they operate outside Congressional oversight and basically allow the president to control a large variety of issues via fiat.

Hey, know what’s great about them though? The can be reversed by another executive.

We have one of those now.

As of January 20th, we can bid bon soir to the odious global gag rule, bans on stem cell research, and the ban on California setting its own emissions standards, amongst other such nonsense.

Look, I’m committed to rule for all - and not a Democrat who wants to spend the next four years screwing over conservatives.

Reversing the ‘policies’ designed to turn the screws on liberals, however, is something I can get behind in a big way.

Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

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It seems I was wrong - as the McCain camp is going to try like hell to lay his political disaster at her feet. (Plus, she wanted to give her own concession speech - ick).

So, now, we’re going to have days - if not weeks - of back and forth. This means we’re going to have to keep hearing from Sarah Palin, since objectivity demands right of response.

And some of the allegations are pretty absurd - that she didn’t know Africa was a continent or the three countries of NAFTA. Her response to that was pretty smart, actually:

Asked about the Fox report that she did not know the NAFTA members or that Africa was a continent, Palin said, “If they’re an unnamed source, that says it all. I won’t comment on anyone’s gossip based on anonymous sources. That’s kind of a small of a bitter type of person who anonymously would charge that I didn’t know an answer to a question. So until I know who’s talking about it, I won’t have a comment on a false allegation.”

But what I find interesting - and, god help me, I’m defending Sarah Palin - is the type of Palin quotes the media prints. General journalistic practice is to ‘clean up’ colloquialisms and misspeaks. There have been numerous debates during the Bush II presidency over just how much clean up is appropriate, given his frequent mangling of the English language.

The idea is that politicians often speak off the cuff, and this sometimes makes their sentence structure awkward for print media. With Palin, however, the print media seems content to leave clean up alone.

ABC used these quotes:

“I don’t think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit, that I would trump an economic, woeful time in this nation that occurred about two months ago, that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain’s loss to me,” Palin told reporters in Arizona Wednesday.

“Now, having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I’m sorry about that because John McCain I believe is the American hero. I had believed that it was his time. … He being so full of courage and wisdom and experience, that valor he just embodies, I believe he would’ve been the best pick, but that is not the Americans’ choice at this time.”

The first paragraph has a completely redundant clause, the repetition of which only makes her seem like an idiot. An ellipse after ‘credit’ and then picking up with, ‘that my presence…’ would have been sufficient. And I know they’re content using ellipses because they do it in the second paragraph.

As for that second paragraph, they’re doing two things. One is not helping her out with commas, such as around ‘I believe’, which would help readers break her sentences down. It reads as though it’s just pouring out of her mouth. Secondly, ‘He being so full of courage…’ should have been edited to start the sentence with ‘Being…’.

And I think it would have been edited if a different politician were being quoted.

Look, Sarah Palin is not particularly well-spoken. But if you transcribe the long, roundabout sentences used by most politicians - and I’m looking at you, Joe Biden - word for word, they all sound like idiots.

I’m not going to go so far as to accuse the media of belittling Palin in a sexist manner, but it’s clear they don’t like her. She’s going to be a punching bag for months - and she’s certainly earned some of it.

But Palin’s right, if she’s being accused of something, the media shouldn’t be attributing it to anonymous sources. The ABC story I’ve read doesn’t use a single attributed quote.

And most of the article is reporting on what other media outlets have reported with anonymous sources. It’s a media feedback loop - ABC reports what NYT and Newsweek reported, and, put through enough cycles, it’s legitimate news without ever having been attributed to a named source.

Obviously, the best way to deal with this is to ignore Sarah Palin and never interview or talk about her again.

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It hasn’t really sunk in yet. (And I know for sure my that right-wing taxi driver tonight hasn’t come to terms with the Obama win).

I was down at the rally tonight and, instead of the pushy morass you’d expect, everyone was lovely and amazing. It was a fabulous night. I hugged strangers (and also some people I’d gone to high school with).

We’re still waiting on Proposition 8 in CA (which would ban gay marriage); it is not looking good in California.

Oregon’s Jeff Merkley is still hanging in the balance - and the NYT’s map, which I lauded in my last post, doesn’t have the cities labeled. I have to figure out for myself where the hell Portland lives, county-wise.

Indiana looks like it’s polled for the Democrats - an amazing feat, due largely, I expect, to Illinois pull in Gary. [Update - Indiana is ours. That's just insane.]

We’re still waiting on Missouri and North Carolina and Montana - though I expect Montana to go for McCain. Fox seems to be reporting that parts of Nebraska are still out (Nebraska splits its electoral votes). [Update as I'm writing - Nebraska's 2nd has gone to Obama (via 538, whose permalink is broken).] [Further Update - they're pulling that call...]

Meanwhile in MN, does Al Franken have enough votes in Hennepin County to close the 1400 votes separating him from Norm Coleman? St Louis County also hasn’t fully reported, and they look to be heavily Franken. [Update 2:30am - looks like Franken might pull it off, by about 1000 votes. He's still going strong in St Louis and Hennepin, whilst the counties still reporting for Coleman have much lower numbers.]

As to Alaska, I don’t actually believe that convicted felon Stevens is winning against Mark Begich. Since I’ve last looked, it’s closed a bit more, so another nail biter. [Update - Unless Anchorage hasn't weighed in yet - I'm having a trouble finding a map that breaks the state down - Alaska is freaking insane. Young is also winning with 72% reporting.]

And in Oregon - looks like Merkley (D) might just beat out the 25th Udall cousin, Gordon Smith (R). Looking at 47.3% vs 47.1% as I’m writing…

Update: Propositions results - looks like Prop 8 is winning, i.e., people have voted ‘yes’ to a gay marriage ban; IL’s con-con failed; Florida defined marriage (as between a man and a woman); and Arkanas saw fit to ban all unwed couples (though targeting gay couples) from adopting or fostering children. (Nice work, Arkanas; more kids to sit in the system!)

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Fivethirtyeight and electoral-vote are also updating regularly.

If you’re interested in local Chicago elections, the Tribune’s is down, but the Sun Times has results up as does ABC 7. Those are for IL House, but you can navigate to other areas.

I’m headed either to the bar or downtown to the festivities. See you in a bit - or at the end of the night!

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Again, I blog because I’m too lazy to del.icio.us.

Have a good sleep, everyone - tomorrow’s gonna be a doozy. (I know I’m up at four am…)

No matter who you support - please get out there and vote tomorrow!

Google can help you find your polling place.

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For Green Party faithful, this is a no-brainier. As a life-long Democrat, however, I also believe Berrios needs to go.

Here’s the deal: She’s a good person and her heart’s in the right place, but she’s an installed representative - the nepotism of her father, Joe Berrios, earned her the seat - and she’s just not as effective as she ought to be.

Karpen has been endorsed by the Sun Times:

This Northwest Side district has been represented by Maria Antonia “Toni” Berrios since 2003, when her father, the Cook County Democratic chairman, installed her in the job. She’s inexperienced and not considered a productive legislator. We prefer Green candidate Jeremy Karpen, a therapist for troubled youth at a residential treatment center in Chicago. He strongly supports school finance reform and increased funding for mass transit and has some innovative ideas on campaign finance and electoral reform. [emphasis original]

I also wrote about the race for Gapers Block back in August.

In an ideal world, votes should always be for the candidate rather than the party - if the party hasn’t earned one’s loyalty with good candidates, voters should go elsewhere. In this case, I hope they flock to the Greens.

Put simply, Karpen deserves it; Berrios doesn’t.

[Disclosure: I am a friend of Karpen's and have been campaigning for him for the last couple days.]

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