Some of you probably know this. But there’s been chatter out of Minnesota over the last 24 hours that the long-awaited state Supreme Court decision on the Coleman/Franken recount may be coming down today. And if it does there’s a decent chance it will come down at 11 AM ET.
To be clear, this is just chatter. But it would be on schedule. So we’re prepping for it here at TPM HQ. And needless to say, if and when it happens, we’ll be bringing you the news as soon as it comes down, along with analysis of the decision and where the story goes from here.
Late Update: It’s now 11:22 ET, and nada from the court, except the court clerk perhaps throwing some cold water on the rumors. —dk
Gary Sick says the scenes from Iran today look very much like those leading up to the 1979 Revolution. Massive but largely silent crowds, occasional outbursts of violence from nervous and antsy security services. The shining difference to Sick is the lack of the charismatic opposition figure that Khomeini played in 1979. This is a very illuminating analysis of the players guiding or perhaps trying to guide what’s happening in Iran. It’s Mousavi and Khamenei, with Ahmadinejad a largely ancillary passive player on the side, Sick argues. But each lacks command and charisma and both seem to be trying to keep up with rather than lead events.
The son of the couple in the Ensign love triangle, who previously worked for a brief time at the NRSC when Ensign was the chairman there, is now working for the same Las Vegas airline that employs his father as vice president for governmental affairs — an airline whose CEO is a big political contributor to Ensign. Zack Roth has our exclusive.
Stranger and stranger.
Sen. Ensign’s out-of-the-gate story was that the husband of his former mistress was extorting money from him. That seemed questionable since extortion is a serious felony. And generally people get arrested for it — which didn’t seem to be happening with this guy. Now Ensign seems to be backing off that story.
If he made it up, why did he come forward now? And if so, does he take heat for a false charge?
That South Carolina GOP big wig who had to apologize for a racist Twitter joke about Michelle Obama also served on a city council charged with promoting racial diversity. Guess it didn’t really take …
Yesterday, you’ll remember, clinically unselfaware Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) tweeted that the struggle of Iranian reformists was similar to the oppression faced by House Republicans when Nancy Pelosi won’t let them bring enough amendments to the floor. That tweet triggered a wave of tweet heckling, as others mocked Hoekstra’s unique mix of grandiosity and cluelessness. Eric Kleefeld rounded up some of the best of these counter-tweets in a post at TPMDC. But I hadn’t realized until just now that folks were keeping up the ridicule in the comments section of the post.
This one was funny: “My mom made me carry the trash out to the alley. Now I know what the Bataan Death March was like.”
It’s almost developing into a niche Hoekstra-mocking art form. Kind of like a Haiku.
Hoekstra spokesman: My boss didn’t compare House GOPers to Iranian protestors … But they are pretty similar.
For real time updates on all the news out of Iran bookmark our auto-updating TPM Iran Live Updates page right here. The most recent updates are also included under the “Crisis in Iran” rubric below and to your right.
We’ve reported out many of the details about one of the two new jobs Doug Hampton landed after leaving Sen. Ensign’s staff last year in the aftermath of his wife’s affair with Ensign — as government affairs vp for an airline whose CEO is a big political backer of Ensign. Now Zack Roth takes a look at the other landing pad for Hampton — the political consulting firm run by a former Ensign chief of staff that counts Ensign as one of its clients.