Levi has been in the news and on blogs coast to coast over speculation that he somehow managed to get an apprenticeship electrician job on the North Slope ahead of all the others on the waiting list, and without the required high school diploma. More will be revealed on this in time.

But today’s Anchorage Daily News focused on his mother, and Bristol Palin’s soon to be mother-in-law Sherry Johnston.

A Mat-Su drug investigator and the union representing Alaska State Troopers are alleging political meddling in the Sherry Johnston drug case, including a delay in serving the search warrant because of the November election.

While new Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters (Walt Monegan’s replacement) and Col. Audie Holloway of the Alaska State Troopers deny that there were any irregularities, the head of the Troopers Union, John Cyr, and Troopers drug investigator Kyle Young say otherwise.

Cyr said the union is confident Young’s version of what happened is true. That’s because the union verified it in discussions “with the entire drug unit, with all of our members,” he said.

He said the people the union president spoke with included the case officer for the Johnston investigation, Donna Anthony. She works on the Mat-Su drug unit but is a member of the Palmer police force, which is not part of the union.

The rest of the new developments can be found HERE.

And Tuesday, Ms. Johnston will be arraigned at the courthouse in Palmer, Alaska. She will then be informed of the charges against her, and presumably enter a plea. Stay tuned.

TUESDAY, January 6, 2009 is looking like IT will be a BIG DRAMA DAY!! :>) :>)

But Coleman, the incumbent, has asked Minnesota's supreme court to require that a few hundred additional absentee ballots be included in the recount — and he could then ask the court to investigate the contest all over again.

“At the moment, Franken has a 225-vote lead,” after the weekend counting of what were deemed the last uncounted absentee ballots, said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat who oversaw the process.

Ritchie said unless the supreme court acts on Coleman's request and orders more ballots to be counted, he will reconvene the state's Canvassing Board on Monday to certify Franken as the winner of the November 4 contest.

Even so, Coleman's campaign said it will likely challenge the result, which would require the state supreme court's chief justice to appoint three judges to investigate its claims.

Hundreds of absentee voters were “disenfranchised,” other votes were double-counted, and still other ballots that went missing were counted anyway, Coleman's campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said in a statement.

“We remain convinced that this process is broken, and as a result, the numbers being reported will not be accurate or valid … (It) clearly means that a contest is the only likely remedy to ensure a fair outcome,” Sheehan said.

SATIRIST

Franken, 57, is a well-known satirist who wrote for and starred on NBC television's long-running comedy show “Saturday Night Live,” and more recently hosted a liberal radio show before running for the Senate from his home state.

Coleman, 59, just completed his first term that he won by defeating Walter Mondale, the former Democratic presidential candidate who stood in for Sen. Paul Wellstone. Wellstone died in a plane crash during his 2002 reelection campaign.

The recount of some 2.4 million votes cast for the pair has swung back and forth over several weeks. Coleman initially held the edge, but his narrow victory margin necessitated the recount under state law.

The Canvassing Board sifted through hundreds of ballots contested by the two campaigns.

“The recount has been done so precisely, and so transparently,” it would be difficult to envision a challenge succeeding, Ritchie said.

Senate Republicans have pledged not to seat Franken provisionally while the race is still in doubt. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York urged that Franken be seated, which would expand the party's majority to 58 of the 100 members.