• A CLEAR MANDATE FROM THE PEOPLE: “The elections division still has over 10,000 ballots left to count today and thousands more through next week, but the latest numbers show Mark Begich leading Sen. Ted Stevens 125,019 to 125,016.” [ADN]

Remember how convicted criminal-senator Ted Stevens of Alaska finagled his way into an election night lead despite every poll showing him down by 4,750%, due to those seven (7) crimes? Well the Alaska elections board has found a few hidden ballots that might change the score. But not many ballots, just THIRTY PERCENT OF THEM. You know, thirty percent, as in “one-third.” Countin’ starts tomorrow at high noon or some other time of the day. [ADN, Brad Blog]

A ballsy Wonkette hero operative sends us a fantastic photo with this description: “I got convicted Senator Ted Stevens to sign this ‘I am VECO’ hat with a silver sharpie on election night 2008.” No, it’s not just funny because she fooled Stevens into believing that she was a supporter. Veco, for you hippie anti-corporates, was the corrupt company that bribed Ted Stevens with hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and money, which he forgot to report! This led to his criminal conviction on seven counts, which was followed immediately by his reelection to the United States Senate.

Fancy this mystery from Alaska: as things stood before the election, recently convicted-on-seven-counts felon Ted Stevens was appropriately losing by 13 percentage points in The Polls; similarly corrupt (but so far unconvicted!) at-large Rep. Don Young was losing by 6.5; John McCain was ahead by 14 in the state; early voting in the state was shattering records; and hometown gal Sarah Palin was still all the national rage. Sounds about right, HEHNGNN? And yet Alaska now finds itself on the brink of re-electing Stevens; Young easily kept his seat; McCain won by 25 percentage points; and voter turnout somehow declined 11% since 2004, when there was no mention of Alaska in the news! HMM WEIRD HUH? Well, fear not, because the most important mammal since Abraham Lincoln, NATE “DOGG” SILVER, is going to nab the bastards with his KILLA TREND LINE REGRESSIONS and cold motherfuckin’ MATH LASER GLOCKS. Then he’ll launch those slimy pervs into space with a pop-gun because he can do that. [FiveThirtyEight, Andrew Sullivan]

Amid all the excitement of last night’s HISTORIC ELECTION a few important questions went unanswered, at least here on the Wonkette. For example: did fluorescent light foe and unrepentant baby-farmer Michelle Bachmann successfully defend her Minnesota district from insurgent chaotic-good lawn sprite Elwyn Tinklenberg? And whatever happened to that poop factory over in San Francisco? This morning, we have answers. MORE »

The jury deliberating over Ted Stevens’ corruption trial consisted exclusively of angry cat ladies and addled kooks, one of whom was so disruptive she almost caused a mistrial. But then there was this OTHER juror, Juror No. 4, who ALSO messed things up by disappearing, mysteriously, to “go to her father’s funeral in California” over the weekend and never turned up again. (She was replaced at the last minute and bam, the alternate and the old jurors quickly reached a verdict.) But HMMMM has anyone ever been to a funeral on a racetrack where they race horses, for sport and money? MORE »

Alaska Congressman and enemy to interns Don Young still loves his partner in corruption, Ted Stevens. This corrupt duo remembers being corrupt together ever since their corrupt days eating corrupt sandwiches with corrupt Richard Nixon and then corrupting each other’s wives: “I can remember Richard Nixon, you know, his years of service, what he’s done, and everybody [was] ridiculing him, and he ended up being the greatest president in the history of our century. … The Senator will be re-elected. He will appeal it. When he does go, he will win it because there’s no way this is a jury of his peers.” Much like corrupt Ted Stevens, corrupt Don Young will also lose his corrupt seat this year. [Roll Call]

• McCain, addressing Queen Frostine and Lord Licorice in the chocolate village of Hershey, PA, described Obama’s energy policy as: “blah blah blah, all this.” [The Caucus]
• Say goodbye to your Christian Science Monitor, it is relocating permanently and exclusively to the Internet, which is a sunny suburb of Phoenix. [Marc Ambinder]
• And so begins the Great Ohioan Civil War between two van-driving teens and the McCain supporter who shot them with a rifle, to protect the partisan lawn accoutrement he figured they were sabotaging. [Ben Smith]
• Just three weeks ago Colin Powell could not stop from going on about his first husband Ted Stevens. And then Ted Stevens turned out to be this liar who was just not the man Powell married. And then, then, America is supposed to trust anything Powell scrawled about Obama in colored pencil in his pink moleskine? [RedState]
• A McCain adviser called Palin a “whack job,” which is a filthy sexual act not performed since Valentine’s Day 1968, when Obama and Ayers put on some Van Morrison and dropped acid in a cave in Kandahar. [AMERICAblog]

Alaskan Republicans are all so corrupt and stupid, when we saw the big “McCain Tells Alaskan To Fuck Off” headlines, for a fleeting happy moment we thought he fired Sarah Palin — even though, in our hearts, we knew it was about Palin’s creepy old boyfriend and convicted felon criminal, Ted Stevens, the other Republican from Alaska. So Palin won’t be thrown under the Straight Talk Express until after the election. Then she can get a show on the NASCAR channel where she just shoots out new brothers for Trig every five or six months, forever, demurely covered by a Confederate Flag. [Christian Science Monitor]

John McCain does not believe Earmark Welfare Queen Ted Stevens should be running for Senate re-election anymore, now that he has been convicted by a jury of being a terrible fraud. Yesterday Stevens was found guilty of making false statements regarding the free sex dungeon a contractor built for him and his wife in Nowheresville, Alaska. And today John McCain pitched Ted Stevens’ corrupt, embittered old carcass under the bus. MORE »

Republican hero Ted Stevens is guilty on all charges, ha ha, but his name will remain on the ballot, so who knows, maybe Alaska will give him another term, for fun. Anyway, it looks like Sarah Palin’s favorite boyfriend is going to jail, and Fox News is so sad, because this means, what, 79 Senate seats for the Dems?