Al Franken has been officially sworn in as a U.S. Senator. [TPM]

The Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate! Hooray! Now we get health care and climate control and bullet trains and all the wars will end! Except that this doesn't really change anything!

Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) conceded to former comedian Al Franken (Jew-SNL) today after losing an appeal to Minnesota's Supreme Court in the months-long litigation surrounding their 2008 Senate race. The standoff is over, and democracy is restored to long-suffering Minnesotans.

Minnesota Supreme Court: Al Franken won Senate election, governor expected to certify the results. [WCCO]

The Senate race between the loser and the unlikable comedian is still being decided by the Minnesota Supreme Court, but at Hubbard County's 4th of July party, they will race piglets named "Norm Coleman" and "Al Franken."

Late this afternoon a Minnesota court ordered Norm Coleman to pay Al Franken close to $95,000 to compensate Franken for some of the legal costs he's incurred during Coleman's seemingly endless legal battle to win the Senate seat. [TPM]

Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota will not seek a third term. That is pretty boring news, right? Except that it might end up really sucking for Al Franken!

It was back in late April that we said "oh, come on" to the news that Norm Coleman wanted to begin oral arguments in his state supreme court election appeal "no sooner than mid-May." Mid-May! Hah! Now it is June. And the first day of oral arguments!

Author/New Yorker writer/CNN pundit Jeffrey Toobin turns 49 today. Duly elected United States Senator Al Franken is turning 58. Actress Fairuza Balk is 35. Lisa Edelstein from the TV show House turns 43. Judge Reinhold is 52. Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers is 68. Hairstylist Ed Tricomi turns 57. Manhattan Media CEO Tom Allon is 47. Porn star Briana Banks is turning 31. And Laurence Tureaud (better known as Mr. T) celebrates his 57th birthday today.

"Norm Coleman today proposed a more leisurely schedule for his election appeal than Al Franken wants, asking that oral arguments in the case be held no sooner than mid-May." [Strib]

Political reporter Adam Nagourney went to Minnesota to explain just what the hell is going on there to New York Times readers. It is a mess.

Al Franken won a key ruling from a three-judge panel in Minnesota, confining the election recount there to 400 absentee ballots and thus probably protecting Franken's 225-vote lead.

John Cornyn will throw a fit if Al Franken is seated before Norm Coleman's exhausted every possible legal recourse. And that could take years! According to Politico! And they never exaggerate!

Soon-to-be-former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman has some of the best lawyers dirty money can buy. And one of them just basically admitted that his current strategy is "tie this election up in court forever."

Say, whatever happened with that Norm Coleman/Rev. Al Franken thing? Well, Norm's political career is dying the death of a thousand judicial setbacks and yet refusing, oddly, to concede.

The Minnesota GOP noticed that, hey, some Obama appointees were having tax problems. And then they remembered that last year, Al Franken had some tax problem, in California! So they made a YouTube.

Choke on the history, America: After 62 days of counts and recounts, a Saturday Night Live alumnus has officially been elected to represent an actual state in the US Senate.

Al Franken was just certified the winner of the Minnesota Senate recount! Of course that race will still never ever be decided, Nate Silver be damned.

Opponent Norm Coleman is already promising a challenge, but as of Monday famed senator-impersonator Al Franken will be an official senate-election winner, per a Minnesota election board.

The Minnesota Senate race recount will never, ever end, and everyone in that cold and desolate state has obviously proven to be a complete buffoon. Let's meet one of those buffoons now!