SIWP was founded in 2002 with the dual goals of “empower[ing] youth to build peace skills” and erecting two 9/11 “Freedom Fountain” memorials. One of the fountains—a computer-rendered image on the website showed the body inlaid with coins symbolizing fallen firefighters and an upper basin supported by pillars resembling the World Trade Center towers—was to be located in the Twin Cities area, with the second to be built in New York. SIWP also sold peace bandanas, peace promise wristbands, and even peace water—“because creating so much peace can make one thirsty.”
But this group did not seem to really do anything for anyone, at least publicly. John Goodman and Nasser Kaseminy were “among the original directors” and John Goodman’s son, Shane, was the CEO. Shane still owns the domain name under his for-profit business, the Goodman Group:
Of course, everyone involved with SIWP is a huge donor to Norm Coleman. Where did the money this foundation raised go?Silverstein digs further:
…some six years later the foundation has raised and spent about $100,000 but has done, as far as I can tell, virtually nothing to honor the victims of 9/11 or to “remind the world…that it cannot be allowed to happen again.”
So what exactly is the purpose of this IRS-approved non-profit organization?
Very good question.
Calls to the organization at (612) 922-STEP were not answered.
The President of the Senate is meeting with Minnesota’s Senator-elect today. No word yet on the subect matter of the meeting as of yet - we’ll update when we know more.
UPDATE: From AP…
In the meeting, which is not open to the press, Franken will brief Biden on the status of the Minnesota Senate race and the two men will discuss issues coming up before the Senate.
Biden and Franken are expected to issue statements following the meeting.
Right-wing crank Joe Soucheray doesn’t know much about absentee ballots — except that more Democrats seem to use them, which makes them evil and un-democratic. In a column in the Pioneer Press, Soucheray starts out by completely misrepresenting how absentee ballots were counted during the recount:
The Coleman team — which, of course, initially rejected the idea to count absentee ballots — now wishes to count even more of them. The appeal will have to say, “Look, I was the winner until the rejected absentee ballots started to get counted and now that I am the loser, what was that all about? Why aren’t we taking a look at all rejected absentee ballots?”
Maybe Soucheray was so busy with his radio show that he missed it. We did take a look at all rejected absentee ballots. In fact, we looked at many twice. Some were rejected improperly, and those were counted in the recount. Some were rejected properly, and those were not counted, because they were not valid votes. Isn’t that how it should work? Perhaps Soucheray would like us to count all of the invalid votes — or at least the ones that are votes for Coleman.
Soucheray uses his misinformed, inaccurate understanding of absentee ballots to draw a dangerous conclusion: He argues that we should make it harder, rather than easier, for Minnesotans to vote:
PPP has a new poll of Minnesota and the results are devastating to Norm Coleman. Let’s start with the most basic question:
Do you think Norm Coleman should appeal the decision and continue to fight in court or should Coleman concede the race?
Appeal: 37%
Concede: 63%
Ouch.
In addition, 59% think Pawlenty should sign the election certificate now and 59% think Franken should be seated immediately. Minnesotans have had enough of this Senate race and are ready to be fully represented in the Senate.
The interesting thing that comes out of this poll is the potential that the recount saga could do some serious political damage to Tim Pawlenty. Already, 48% of Minnesotans think that Republicans are deliberately trying to keep this seat vacant to “slow down the Obama agenda.” That number will only climb as time goes on. Meanwhile, Obama’s approval rating is at 60%. There is a real danger for Pawlenty here. If he is seen as playing political games to hurt Obama, he’ll be on the wrong side of the majority of the state. It puts him in a perilous spot if he tries to seek re-election. It would be fairly easy for some DFLer to say “Its time to have an adult in the Governor’s office. Someone who’ll work for Minnesotans, not just Republicans.” Of course, if Pawlenty isn’t going to run for re-election, he’ll be more concerned about what Republican activists in Iowa and South Carloina think than independents in Minnesota.
Matt Adds: (I’ve taken to adding thoughts to Zack’s post instead of writing my own…) Sack, as usual, seems relevant:
The special election in NY-20 is starting to get nasty:
The Albany Times-Union reports Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) absentee ballot in the NY-20 special election was challenged by Jim Tedisco (R). Gillibrand, of course, represented the district before being tapped to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate.
Politicker NY has more on how the Tedisco campaign is being very aggressive in challenging absentee ballots — all but ensuring the election dispute will take weeks to resolve.
Gillibrand strikes back in a way that hits close to home:
Their latest move to challenge my ballot is part of a much larger attempt to disenfranchise legal Democratic voters and delay Scott Murphy’s inevitable victory in the 20th.
National Republicans are trying to turn the 20th District of New York into the next Minnesota. It is wrong. [Emphasis added]
Look, media! NY-20 is newsworthy! Please direct your attention to New York, as the Minnesota contest has now been decided.
Franken’s discipline: By the way, and it’s a point we’ve made before, but it’s been pretty impressive how Franken has been so disciplined during this recount period. Indeed, until last night, when had we heard from him. Clearly, the GOP thought they were dealing with the stereotype that was Al Franken — not the guy who proved to be a candidate who, well, got more votes than Norm Coleman. In fact, this has been a problem for the GOP in general the last few years when it comes to dealing with Democrats: They believe their own stereotypes about their opponents, rather than actually dealing with their opponents at face value.
Agreed.
On another note, Eric Black provides an interesting rundown of all possible scenarios, which I mostly agree with.
A must watch video this morning of former Republican Congressman and current MSNBC pundit Joe Scarborough telling Norm Coleman that its time to concede.
“Seriously. Norm, I like you. You lost. Okay,” he said. “Can we seat a senator so Amy [Klobuchar] doesn’t have to do the job of two Senators? It is seriously not fair to constituents in Minnesota to drag this out any longer. It is over Norm, okay. It is over.”
Tim Pawlenty is placing himself above the Minnesota Supreme Court, saying he will only sign an election certificate if the Supreme Court addresses the case properly. It takes a lot of chutzpah to say that you’re going to double-check the Supreme Court’s work, but that’s just what Pawlenty is saying:
During an interview on MPR’s Midday today, Pawlenty added another layer of doubt as to whether he’d sign the certificate after the state appeal. He said his signature may hinge on whether the state court fully dealt with the issues Republican Norm Coleman is expected to raise in his appeal:
“I doubt that it is even going to get to that point but beyond that I would look at what the courts did with the case in terms of leaving issues for appeal, the strength of those issues, how directly and effectively they address them so I’m not saying that I’m going to or not going to issue the certificate at that point I just want to make sure I have the facts in front of me before I made a decision like that.”
You know, I thought we had separate branches of government for a reason. It is simply unacceptable for Pawlenty to say that he will only sign an election certificate if the Supreme Court addresses the issues “effectively” enough for his liking. Of course, I’m sure there’s only one way the court can be effective — by declaring Coleman the winner.
Still working my way through the court’s final order, but something caught my eye. On page 27 of the opinion, the court makes the following order:
Pursuant to Minn. Statute 209.07, subd. 3, consts of the contest must be paid by Contestants, and Contestee and the Court shall prove up the applicable costsby affidavit after all proceedings in this matter are concluded;
If I am reading this correctly, Coleman has been ordered to pay for the entire cost of the contest. This was not completely unexpected, but its still significant. Some have speculated that the huge cost of the contest could weigh on Coleman’s decision whether to pursue his appeals into federal court. I don’t know if cost is a factor for Coleman (and I’m sure a lot of national Republicans are promising Coleman all the fundraising help in the world), but judging from the fact that Franken Campaign Manager Stephanie Schriock said that the cost of the recount has so far been “double” their estimates, this is a very significant ruling.
UPDATE: There is some confusion right now as to how much Coleman is going to have to pay. Some think that Coleman will only have to pay a limited ammount as a result of the order in paragraph 3 and not all of Franken’s costs (including items like attorney’s fees). Franken was asked about this at his press conference and said it was his understanding that Coleman would not be paying his legal fees for the entire contest. Other sources I have spoken to tonight are less certain on this point and some are convinced that Coleman will have to pay. There is no doubt, however, that Coleman will have to pay some of Franken’s expenses and also some of the court’s expenses. We’ll have to wait to see how much.
The pressure in this contest is slowly shifting from Coleman (who is rapidly becoming just a cardboard cutout for the Senate Republicans) to Governor Pawlenty. The Governor has to decide when a certificate of election is to be issued. Presidential aspirations could be affected by how this is handled.
I disagree with Mindeman one serious point: it’s not slowly shifting — after today it completely shifted. From the findings of fact today: (PDF, page 26, emphasis mine)
Franken received the highest number of lawfully cast ballots in the November 4, 2008 general election for United States Senator for the State of Minnesota and is entitled to receive the certificate of election.
The ball is in Pawlenty’s court.
UPDATE: To be clear, Pawlenty does not literally have a decision to make right now — but he’s a huge player in terms of helping Minnesota get our fair share of representation opposed to playing along with Coleman’s partisan objectives.
Christopher Dietzen, a Justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court, has been a longtime supporter of Republican causes. Dietzen was even Tim Pawlenty’s campaign lawyer in 2002 before being appointed by T-Paw to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 2004 and the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2008. Dietzen is not the only Supreme Court Justice with a partisan background, and his prior work in party politics does not, in my opinion, justify a recusal in the inevitable recount appeal. Down with Tyranny, however, has discovered something that might.
Turns out that Christopher Dietzen is a Norm Coleman donor. Dietzen made two contributions to Norm, one in 2001 and one in 2004. I actually don’t find the 2001 contribution problematic. It was made towards Norm’s 2002 campaign. But the 2004 contribution was towards Coleman’s 2008 re-election campaign - the very campaign that is the genisis of the litigation soon to come before the court. In my opinion, this is enough of a conflict to justify a recusal.
As in any extremely close election, the Coleman-Franken recount was not without flaws. There were flaws in the administration of the election, and there were flaws in the recount process. In particular, there was the MN Supreme Court’s decision that only absentee ballots agreed upon by both campaigns should be counted.To the greatest extent possible, those flaws should be addressed — but not at the expense of Minnesota’s representation in Congress.
No election is perfect. Typically, we rely on the margin of error being large enough that small flaws have an insignificant impact on the result. In situations as close as the Coleman-Franken matchup, though, those small errors are magnified and assume disproportional significance. Ultimately, it will be good for Minnesota to have as many of the issues as possible are resolved. Norm Coleman and the voters of Minnesota have the right to make sure as many valid votes as possible are counted, as accurately as possible.
However, Minnesotans also have the right to be represented in Congress. Minnesota law provides that an election certificate may not be issued until after the state courts have decided an election contest. Once the MN Supreme Court makes a final ruling on Coleman’s appeal, it will be time to seat the winner.
That’s not to say that Norm Coleman shouldn’t be given the right to appeal to Federal courts. But Coleman’s federal appeals should not be allowed to prevent Minnesotans from being properly represented for months. Al Franken should be provisionally seated based on the result of Minnesota’s election contest. If, for whatever reason, the Supreme Court overturns Minnesota’s decision, Franken’s provisional seating could be revoked. But until that time, Franken needs to be recognized as the winner of the election contest and a duly-elected Senator from Minnesota.
Just a quick note on a piece of 
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