It appears that there is a better than even chance that we will have to stifle our gag reflexes and start referring to the bufoonish, former Saturday Night Live writer and clown Al Franken as "senator."

From Powerline:

The Minnesota Supreme Court has entered an order per Justice Page denying Senator Coleman's petition for relief on the issue of double counting in the recount. (John Hinderaker described the double counting issue here.) The Coleman campaign believes it has identified approximately 130 double-counted absentee ballots mostly in heavily Democratic Minneapolis precincts. Rather than provide some resolution to the issue during the recount, the Minnesota Supreme Court expressly reserved the issue to an election contest of the recount.

[snip]

As a result of the Supreme Court ruling on the issue of double counted ballots, the ballots in issue will be included in the totals rendered by the Board of Canvassers in early January. If the margin between the candidates is fewer than 130 votes, or if other substantial issues remain as a result of the treatment of the 1,600 absentee ballots, a contest is guaranteed. I take the Coleman campaign statement's slight hesitation on this point only to mean that so long as the margin is not prohibitive, a judicial contest of the recount is now inevitable.

Incredible but true. As promised, the Democrats kept counting until they will now apparently win the recount. By allowing Democratic voters to, in essence, cast their vote twice, the Minnesota Supreme Court (minus two Republicans who had to recuse themselves because they sit on the elections board - a masterstroke by the Democratic Secretary of State who named them to the board thus preventing the Supremes from deciding the issue fairly) has handed the race to Franken.

Coleman's last chance will probably be a challenge to the way the recount is run. But even SCOTUS will probably not rule in his favor given their historic reluctance to intervene in state elections - especially one where their intervention will change the outcome.

Six years of this idiot in the senate? Get used to it.