Apparently Al Franken is comfortable enough in his questionable 49 vote lead in the ongoing recount battle for Norm Coleman’s Senate seat, that there is an apparent attempt to fill the seat in the coming week, regardless of ongoing contested ballots in the Minnesota courts.

Senator John Cornyn has promised that he intends to filibuster any attempts to install Al Franken as Senator (even temporarily) without a certificate of election.

“This is a very, very serious matter. I can assure you that there will be no way that people on our side of the aisle will agree to seat any senator without a valid certificate. I think it is very clear that the people of Minnesota and the courts in Minnesota should make the decision about who won the Minnesota Senate election, and not political leaders in Washington, D.C. That process is ongoing and will not be resolved, in all likelihood, for weeks and maybe longer.”

I have to say I agree with him… seating a candidate without official declaration from the state is questionable at best. There are at the very least, 650 rejected ballots being questioned by Coleman’s legal team as well as more than 1,300 already contested absentee ballots. The election is not over so neither Coleman OR Franken should be seated, even IF it is temporary.

For a while now I had post updates on my personal twitter account, but I wanted to allow folks who didn’t really feel like (or use) following an RSS feed, but had a Twitter account, the ability to receive post updates.

If you have a Twitter account, and would like to receive updates within seconds of a post being added as well as a weekly digest please follow us here.

Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.

Know the line has held, your job is done.

Rest easy, sleep well.

Others have taken up where you fell, the line has held.

Peace, peace, and farewell…

Merry Christmas, enjoy what you have and enjoy time with loved ones.

Say hello to Adolf Hitler Campbell… he’s 3 and not quite as scary looking as his namesake was. His mom and dad on the other hand, are stupid. For one thing, Lil Adolf here has two younger sisters who, thanks to the parents of the year, are named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

Well these wonderful parents have their panties in a wad because a local ShopRite has repeatedly refused their requests for a cake bearing his name. A spokesman for the store also says that previous requests by the father were denied due to requests for swastikas to be included in the decorations.

I’m all for personal freedom but you have to accept that actions have consequences and these include naming your children after dictators and racist organizations. I have Adolf’s in my family tree from my German ancestry, and my son bears a German middle name, but I intentionally avoided names with negative historical context for numerous reasons.

Anyone up for nominating Heath and Deborah Campbell for parents of the year?

I received a copy of this checklist of sorts from the Investors Business Daily and thought it was worthy of a re-post here. President-Elect Obama has made numerous promises during his campaign to become President, and in his “blueprints for change” after his election…

How many will he keep?

Taxes

• Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.

• Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.

• “If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime. Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes. Nothing.”

• Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.

• Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.

• Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.

• Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.

• Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.

• Expand the earned income tax credit.

• Create a universal mortgage credit.

• Create a small business health tax credit.

• Provide a $500 “make work pay” tax credit to small businesses.

• Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.

Energy

• Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.

• Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.

• Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.

• Weatherize 1 million homes annually.

• Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.

Environment

• Create 5 million green jobs.

• Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.

Labor

• Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court’s pay discrimination ruling.

• Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.

• Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.

• Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.

National security

• Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.

• Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.

• No more homeless veterans.

• Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.

• Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.

Social Security

• Work in a “bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations.”

• Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000.

• Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.

Education

• Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.

Spending

• Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don’t need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.

• Slash earmarks.

Health care

• Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.

• Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.

• Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

• Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.