Good news for Ted Stevens: the convicted felon and United States Senator from the Great State of Alaska won't face an embarrassing expulsion from the world's greatest deliberative body. GOP Senator Jim DeMint totally promised this morning that he had enough votes to expel Stevens from the Senate, and then, in a close-door conference meeting, everyone decided to just wait until the votes in Stevens' reelection race are all counted. Stevens is currently down a thousand to his Democratic challenger, so hopefully Alaska voters will save Stevens' Senate colleagues the trouble of doing the mind-bogglingly obviously right thing. [Roll Call]

Square-jawed Fox News host Greta Van Susteren is out to show that the media is not totally in the tank, by giving a fair and balanced interview to Gov. Sarah Palin right in her own back yard! And by that we mean not just "the state of Alaska," but literally "her own back yard." Greta is chronicling her trip to Wasilla on her very own blog, "GretaWire," which allows us all to take an intimate peek into this cross-continental journalistic excursion. Question: On a scale of 1-10, how much of this trip was for "journalism," and how much was for "Whoa, free snowmobile ride!"? Let Greta's own pictures guide you:
EXCLUSIVE PALIN KITCHEN PHOTO!!!!!

In the Senate, the Democrats picked up five seats. But hey, guess what? Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman barely held on to his seat. With all the precincts reporting, Coleman's won by 571 votes. Which means recount time! Poor comedian Al Franken should've won this, but a third party candidate took more of his votes than Coleman's (instant runoff voting, anyone? please?), and also he didn't run a very good campaign, and also Minnesotans, like many Americans, are in love with the idea of a divided government as some sort of good thing, because we all remember how well that worked in 1994, when the government shut down, as a stunt. And hey, let's check in on Alaska, the retarded child state America forgot it adopted until this year, when it nearly crashed the democratic car into a tree. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who is a convicted felon, won his reelection campaign! Stevens, convicted just last week of seven counts of corruption, has a 4,000 vote lead over his opponent, some boring non-corrupt Democrat. There are still 50,0000 absentee ballots left to count, so you know, this could still go either way. But honestly, Stevens is probably a lock. Good work, Alaska.

Sarah Palin voted in Wasilla, Alaska. She took questions from the press, with her husband Todd. The press asked who she voted for, and she said, "I am also exercising my right to privacy and I don't have to tell anyone who I voted for, nobody does, and that's really cool about America, also." She wrote in "Sarah Palin 2012," obviously. Here's the clip! Watch it now! Ha, of course, upon re-watching, the question is about whether she voted for convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens, from Alaska. She won't say, of course, because she still has to go back to Alaska when she's done with this little vacation, and "Uncle Ted" is still a powerful figure, and she "stood up to corrupt old boy politics" by not even admitting that she probably still voted for him.

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has a problem! It's not that he was found guilty of seven felony corruption charges, and that he faces reelection just next week, and the entire Republican party is calling on him to resign. No, it's that he's stuck in Washington DC getting convicted of crimes and he can't debate his opponent, who is in Alaska! The solution? They are just going to dump this debate on the internet, as if it was a big truck. And the debate will get in line, and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. [HuffPo]

[Update: Now with a minor correction, and also an awesome Ted Stevens statement!] Ted Stevens is guilty of violating ethics laws, and not understanding how the internet works. Hah, just kidding, it's just the fraud stuff. His insane jury, made up of Alaskans DC residents [deny them congressional representation and see what happens, Senators] who kept having violent outbursts, found Stevens guilty of seven charges of corruption. He doesn't have to step down from the Senate, of course, and he's still running for reelection next week. He has said he will not step down. Which is awesome. What with the presidential election going on, we've barely had time for prominent congressional Republicans to face embarrassingly public trials and indictments, like in 2006! In 2006, America watched in glee as Republican congressmen Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Bob Ney, and Tom DeLay all faced indictments on the eve of the midterm elections. Resignations and bitter GOP infighting soon followed! Ney refused to resign until days before the election! Oh, then Florida congressman Mark Foley, uh, had some sort of scandal involving sexy, sexy underaged male pages. Also there was this Jack Abramoff guy! It was an exciting time, sort of. Now we are so busy with Barack Obama being a socialist and John McCain being old that Ted Stevens getting kicked out of the Senate, finally, after 200 years, seems like some happy afterthought. So. Corrupt Alaska Republican fucks his own party and loses an election. Who knew Alaska would matter, this year?

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is terribly, ridiculously, cartoonishly corrupt. After 40 years in the Senate you're either a little corrupt or a lot corrupt, and Ted chose option two, knowing that even the very corrupt rarely pay a price. But now the 84-year-old American Hero is on trial! All because he never reported hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts from the oil industry and local Alaska businessman friends! The trial is already nearing a sad end, so let's remember the good times. Like this exchange from yesterday, in which Ted explains that a $2,695 massage chair that a local restaurateur gave him was not a gift.

We've already seen that Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin's hometown, is a mix of wild animals and Jesus freaks. But did you know it has a Taco Bell and a Senor Taco! Diversity. Hollywood liberal columnist Steve Lopez of the LA Times went for a visit to Wasilla, and found one guy who heard Palin say she would "see Jesus" in her lifetime!

While doubtless in pursuit of some important story yesterday, angry ad blogger Copyranter came across this adventure in contextual advertising on the dedicated Sarah Palin web page of Alaska's Anchorage Daily News: ads for SHRED ALASKA onsite document shredding. Ha, can they shred Yahoo accounts, ha? A new ad on the Palin page today also seems appropriate, in its own way:

"An even bigger clash involved a proposed city ordinance backed by Stambaugh to close the town bars at 2 a.m. instead of 5. Stambaugh says he believed this would help curb late-night drunken driving at a time when, according to Stein, the former mayor, 'people were driving out from Anchorage to the valley for more alcohol and crashing.' But Palin, as a council member, had voted against the measure-making her the favored candidate among bar owners, one of whom held a fund-raiser for her." [Newsweek, Photo]

Governor Sarah Palin is, according to the Anchorage Daily News, "stonewalling" the investigation into allegations that she abused her power by firing the Alaska public safety commissioner. They also say Palin's lawyer is threatening to sic the secret service on the Alaska legislature's investigator. ABC reports that Alaska state senator Hollis French is now fast-tracking his investigation into the scandal, dubbed "Troopergate." But in MORE IMPORTANT NEWS: the guy Sarah Palin maybe had an affair with (it seems like she probably didn't?), her husband's former business partner, filed an emergency motion yesterday to have his divorce records sealed. The motion was denied! Hooray! [Alaska Trial Court Cases via Andrew Sullivan, who has become a madman.]

We think the conventional wisdom, now, is that Sarah Palin is a cynical appeal not to Hillary voters but to the Republican "base," which means religious white people. It's a last-ditch effort to win just one more with George W. Bush's coalition, not to bring in those moderates John McCain supposedly appeals to most. But here's the risk: the old, conservative Jewish vote McCain's had in the bag since day one? They might not like this lady so much. As you can see in this clip (attached below), even Ben Stein—the Nixon speechwriter so happy to pretend to be something other than an educated East Coast elitist that he'll hop in bed with creationists—is insulted and shocked by the Palin pick. This is just the beginning. The New York Sun, that probably doomed organ of intellectual Zionist conservatism, seemingly also can't quite believe this selection. Allow them to tell you about Sarah Palin's grand plans for The Jews!

Palin Fever: Celebrities the world over are fired up about potential VP Sarah Palin and eager to weigh in with the fruits of their opposition research. The latest multi-hyphenate to opine is Albert Brooks, writing on the Huffington Post under the barely disguised pseudonym "A. Brooks." "Do we want a president who cannot communicate to their own child that possibly having a baby a year after you get your driver's license is not the smartest thing to do?" asks Brooks. "Is this the new way for women to break the glass ceiling? To have their daughters throw their babies at it?" Perhaps not, but it would sure make for a hilarious summer tentpole at 20th Century Fox! [HuffPo]

While all of Hollywood waits with bated breath to hear the reaction to VP pick Sarah Palin from the only actress who matters — her doppleganger, Tina Fey — headline-friendly Lindsay Lohan has decided to wade into the political waters, spouting off her own, unsolicited thoughts on the matter from her Myspace celebrity blog. Now that Palin has revealed that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant, she's become fair game for the Us Weekly set (indeed, she's snagged that cover as well as the front panel of OK!) — and who knows that territory better than Lohan?

"North! To Alaska—c'mon, the rush is on." Caribou, moose, and redneck jokes, gun porn, and now a real, live, out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy. How will the chattering classes of the blue states respond to the family saga of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin? Why, with the same flinty-eyed suspicion and close-mindedness that we profess to hate in the "God, gays, and guns" country of rural Americans. The Palin family background gives otherwise intelligent people the chance to indulge in the basest and most cartoonish of regional and rural stereotypes.Exhibit 1: The use of the word "Baby Daddy" by everyone from Drudge to Radar to Us Weekly to the Daily Intel. Everyone's using this phrase, because it's easy and snarky. It's not particularly original, though, and it's no longer funny if everyone else is saying it. Cut it out. (Also, I am aware that many persons of color sometimes use this phrase un-ironically, but you sound like an ass if you're white.) Exhibit 2: Alaska, OMG! Even the highfalutin' Bill Maher couldn't help reaching for some easy laughs, jumping into the fray with, "when [Palin] got a phone call at three in the morning, it was because a moose had gotten into the garbage can." Funny! But also: "If [McCain dies] this stewardess can handle it." Snob! Exhibit 3: Redneck Hillbilly White Trash Hicks Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's soon-to-be teen dad, called himself a redneck out of pride, so there's his excuse. Everyone else, however:

Far from us to "belabor" something like this, but 17-year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant. Which officially rules out, as a 19-year-old Gawker source did yesterday, the insane internet rumors that Sarah Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her daughter's premarital sex-caused one. Here is our favorite Alaskan blog on the issue, or take a walk on the "high road" over at Jezebel.