Minnesota Politics

Endings

2007-02-24T20:16:00.000-06:00

Observant people may have noticed that there haven't been any new posts for a while. I'm not dead, nor have I been hired by any presidential campaigns and then forced to resign. Instead, life has happened. New opportunities have arisen and all that. The result, however, is that I will soon be leaving Minnesota. It's hard to know what is going on in a state politically if you are not there. Hence, this blog is going to no longer exist.

I started this more than two years ago for one reason: I was bored. And technology allowed me to be bored at people instead of just mumbling to myself. I don't particularly think that this blog was of even average quality: I did very litle original digging, instead just commenting on whatever came along.

There are a lot more Minnesota blogs out there today than there used to be, and lots of them are good. Not MDE, of course, but many of them are. So go read them.

Thanks for the comments and memories!

Told you so!

2007-01-25T17:49:00.000-06:00

A helpful comments points out that I made this prediction before the election:

"Bachmann wins and humiliates herself immediately nationally."

Yes, I would say that I nailed that one.

Sweet Bachmann-Bush lovin'

2007-01-24T17:52:00.000-06:00

You've already seen this by now, but that doesn't make it less creepy.

She. Is. Nuts. Something tells me that in the back of her head, there's this nagging thought that she and Bush could "hook up" and bring about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, if you know what I mean.

Pawlenty's budget

2007-01-22T18:34:00.000-06:00

I don't think Pawlenty has the triangulating thing down. His budget is only impressive in the way that it manages to piss off both sides.

First, this is by no means a conservative budget. A 9% increase in spending? How is that "smaller government"? A tiny fraction of the surplus spent on tax relief? Lots of borrowing for transportation? I can't see how conservative Republicans can support this budget at all.

But it doesn't go far enough for Democrats either. No promise to provide health care coverage to all kids. No all-day kindergarten. No new transportation money. A somewhat convoluted school "rewards" system that will only serve to reward the schools that don't need the help.

All in all, there is very little leadership in this budget. Pawlenty says that the "status quo" isn't good enough, but he maintains the status quo in plenty of areas. Has he given up? Is he tired? Or is there some other explanation for the lack of inspiration in this budget?

State of the State

2007-01-17T20:27:00.000-06:00

Governor Pawlenty gave his State of the State address today, and it was mainly focused on education. To be honest, I was not terribly impressed by the details of his plans, nor by the rhetoric.

I am not a huge fan of our current school system. In fact, I think it stinks in many ways. But Pawlenty's digs at schools seemed pretty sad. If you are going to bash schools, go all the way; don't talk about how students are "coasting" with backpacks full of papers. That is insulting to both teachers and students. Say that students are slackers because they aren't fluent in a language other than English by the time they graduate, or that they haven't taken mandatory AP classes, or that they got out of high school without four years of math, four years of science, four years of literature, and four years of social studies. Those are the standards you want to set.

I don't think I agree with his proposal to give schools with high ratings extra money. That just rewards the schools with the most resources to begin with. I would much rather see a system that rewards schools for the size of their improvement. A crappy school that drastically improves itself over a few years deserves much more support than a suburban school that starts out fantastic and doesn't improve much. I know that may not be popular, and I know it's very hard to come up with the right incentive program to reward and punish the right people, but basing it on raw scores is not a good idea. So the "three stars" plan is not a good one.

All day kindergarten? Yes, so why wasn't he supporting it? Why isn't he supporting investments in our transportation infrastructure? Or giving all kids health care? Because he's Pawlenty, I guess.

A property tax cap is a non-starter to me too. Look, Republicans: you can't have it both ways. Either you support a bottom-up government, in which case local governments can do whatever they want with property taxes, or you support a top-down government, where the feds and the states dictate what is acceptable and what isn't. Make up your mind. Personally, I support the bottom-up approach, and once upon a time Republicans at least paid lip service at least to that thought.

Other than that, there wasn't much interesting. Pawlenty sounds less Republican these days, but I still wouldn't turn my back on him.

Farm Bill

2007-01-15T19:13:00.000-06:00

Here's an idea for the new farm bill: how about no farm bill at all? No subsidies. No price supports. No programs. No corporate giveaways (let's expand that to all businesses).

Why should we have governmental control of agriculture through quotas and price controls?

The Star Tribune's big wet sloppy kiss

2007-01-13T12:07:00.000-06:00

Read this and vomit. I sure hope Norm bought the Star Tribune dinner first before this shameless example. A political life "marked by nimbleness"? More like a life marked by flip-flopping and saying whatever it takes to sleaze his way to the top.

Today in the Senate

2007-01-10T19:56:00.000-06:00

Today in the Minnesota Senate, they voted to increase their per-diems and housing allowances by 45% and 25% respectively. I am not a fan of the per-diem increases. Salaries are too low for legislators, so raise the salaries, not the "extras".

They also revealed a convoluted plan to cover all people with health insurance by 2010. The plan would cap insurance rate increases and increase eligibility for MinnesotaCare. I think this is a stupid way to go about covering people, and I find the arbitrary insurance rate increase cap particularly divorced from reality. You want to cover everybody? It's called single-payer. No arbitrary caps, no mandates, no stupid tricks. Expanding health care coverage is a good idea, but doing it in crazy ways doesn't help. The faster we get to the system we will eventually have, a single-payer system, the better. No point in taking the scenic route.

Dumb and dumberer

2007-01-10T19:48:00.000-06:00

If these are the kinds of ideas that House Republicans are going to be putting forward, they should get used to being in the minority, because they will be there for a long time.

It's not really surprising. The new Minority Leader, Marty Seifert, has always enjoyed stupid gimmicks much more than rational policy. After all, he was the person behind such brilliant proposals as banning dessert in prisons, fining welfare recipients who smoke, requiring the Pledge of Allegiance to be spoken only in English, and English-only drivers license exams.

His new proposals are requirements that Minneapolis and St. Paul (and only those two cities) spend 100% of their LGA funding on public safety, and a ban on the use of taxpayer money for buyouts of coaches' contracts at the U of M (despite the fact that taxpayer money isn't used at all). Yes, that's the way to capture the imagination of the public.

Not only are these proposals plain stupid, but what happened to Republican values? What happened to local control? I remember how, in the wake of the Contract with America, Republicans abolished the strings attached to federal money and instead gave it to the states in block grants to use as they saw fit (see: welfare). Republicans supposedly believed at the time that the closer you got to the people, the better the decisions would be, and that mandates from higher up were bad. They are bad, except for when they aren't.

I expect to see lots of funny proposals from Rep. Seifert in the next couple of years. Should be fun if you aren't a Republican hoping to win back the majority.

Absurdity

2007-01-08T18:38:00.000-06:00

Somebody asked why I don't do Katherine Kersten's Korner anymore. Aside from the positive benefits to my sanity that accompanies not reading that garbage, it's just a waste of time. She seems to have three major themes: today's was Those Darn Kids Today, joining Those Dang Democrats and Watch Out For Teh Gay as covering the kolumns that aren't focused on feel-good local stories. Do I really need to comment on the increasingly irrelevant musings of a curmudgeon?

A pander too far

2007-01-08T18:30:00.000-06:00

I think that we should do a lot of things for veterans. Tuition help, health care, mental health support, even housing assistance is all fine with me. But exempting them from state income taxes? That's a bit much.

Being a tax policy purist, I think there generally needs to be a very good reason for exempting anything from taxation. I don't see any good reason here other than trying to win votes and allow people to feel good about themselves. Stretch our National Guard to the limit, don't give troops the equipment they need, but if they make it home they won't pay taxes!

Sorry, but I'm not that cynical or easily bought off. Besides, something tells me that this proposal isn't going to do much to help the roughly 50% of homeless people who are veterans.

Roads aren't built for free

2007-01-07T16:03:00.000-06:00

Nobody likes paying more in taxes. But I don't know of many people who enjoy sitting on the Crosstown mired in traffic either. Our state's highway system is in sad shape, and it's going to cost money to fix it. I think the transportation plan being put forward is a good idea.

We wouldn't need to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon right now had we been responsible and increased it sometime during the past 18 years or so, but we didn't so this is what we face. The reductions in license tab fees we got in the late 90s were fun, but times have changed. A regional sales tax has proven to work wonders in Denver and other metropolitan areas in terms of jump-starting transit. These aren't pie-in-the-sky, untested ideas. These are solutions to a very real problem.

I sure am not going to relish paying more in taxes. But I am sick of hearing how the Crosstown reconstruction is delayed or we don't know when we will finish the 610 or the new 212 or turning highway 52 into a freeway between St. Paul and Rochester. Public infrastructure is one of the core duties of government. It's time to act like adults and fix things.

Legislature reconvenes

2007-01-03T19:58:00.000-06:00

The first day of session was rather low-key. What happens now doesn't mean much. Let's wait to see what happens when the major decisions are made.

Fine with me

2007-01-03T19:53:00.000-06:00

The airport wants to crack down on taxi drivers refusing to give rides to passengers carrying alcohol or service dogs. That's fine with me. The only question I have is how the proposed punishments (30-day suspension for the first offense, two years second offense) compare to other offenses; for example, what's the punishment for refusing to carry a passgenger based on race?

No matter what religion you are, there is no excuse for refusing service. Whether you are a Muslim taxi driver who doesn't like alcohol or a Christian pharmacist who doesn't like birth control, suck it up and do your job, or find another line of work.

Transportation: delays, delays, delays

2006-12-28T21:05:00.000-06:00

If you aren't sick of delays in transportation projects yet, here's another one. The Wakota bridge will be delayed another year while the state finds a new contractor. Originally scheduled to open next year, it will now be completed in 2009 at the earliest.

It may be the engineering firm's fault that designed the bridge incorrectly, but that is little consolation to drivers.

Silence

2006-12-27T21:02:00.000-06:00

For various reasons, thinking about politics right now is unpleasant. Maybe this will change soon, but no guarantees.

Can they get any dumber?

2006-12-19T19:39:00.000-06:00

When you talk of politicians in high office, are there more plain idiotic Democrats or Republicans? I tend to think the latter. There may be some crazy Democrats out there, but no Democrats would say something as stupid as implying that Muslims will overrun the country if Keith Ellison doesn't use a Bible at his swearing-in photo-op.

This whole Keith Ellison swearing-in issue has been hilarious if for no other reason than it has exposed the reptile brains of many Republicans. Plus, for the more intelligent out there, you can't help but laugh at the fact that these people insist on using the Bible because it is "the word of God"...but only if you use the Bible that was commissioned by some English king several hundred years ago. I wonder how many of them even realize there is more than one Bible out there?

What do we need?

2006-12-17T17:49:00.000-06:00

Yes, the retirement of the boomers means that Minnesota and every other state are going to be facing problems attracting new workers. What do we need to succeed?

The way I see it, we need several things: education, diversity, tolerance, and an entrepreneurial work ethic. The Lori Sturdevant column talks about education, which is a good and necessary first step, but it's not all. We are getting more and more diversity, as long as we don't shoot ourselves in the foot by treating newcomers like crap. Minnesota has also been pretty good historically on the tolerance issue, although it seems we need to be more vigilant these days against Michelle Bachmann clones and their stupid ideas.

entrepreneurial spirit is probably the hardest to describe, but may be the most important. It needs to be easy to start new businesses and take risks here. Universal health care would be one thing that would do this, since it would both allow small employers to recruit good workers without worrying about how their health benefits stack up against larger companies, and it would also let employees move between jobs more freely and therefore take more risks. Reducing whatever unnecessary regulatory barriers to new business creation is another thing that I have long advocated for, along with tax code simplification.

Minnesota is far better at some of these things than other states, but that is no excuse to stop innovating.

Yet Another War

2006-12-17T17:30:00.000-06:00

From the looks of things, it appears that the U.S. is going to be using the same tactics in the War on Illegal Immigrants as they use in the War on Drugs. If so, the results are going to be similar: destruction of families and communities, overwhelmed judicial systems, and no progress made against the root cause of the problem.

It doesn't appear that the government is taking any action against Swift for employing illegal immigrants. No huge fines for every illegal immigrant they find. Instead, the government is going after the immigrants themselves, destroying families and homes. But Swift will simply replace the workers hauled away with fresh illegal immigrants, and nothing will change.

Swift is providing the demand for illegal immigration, like addicts provide the demand for drugs. From time to time, the government goes after the suppliers (dealers and illegal immigrants), but after engaging in some token enforcement against them, more supplies come in to fill the gap created by the demand. In the end, all that really changes is that jails get more crowded and we spend more time and money locking up people who are trying to make a living fulfilling that demand.

But I wouldn't expect anything else from the current administration. It is despicable, heartless, and par for the course.

McCain-Pawlenty will not happen

2006-12-13T20:02:00.000-06:00

Give it up, people: McCain-Pawlenty will not happen. Not in a million years. There are two reasons for this.

First, McCain is not trusted by the far-right base of the Republican Party. He is not trusted on abortion. He is not trusted on immigration. He is not trusted on taxes. There is no way that the base would put up with McCain, a person they do not trust, choosing another now-heretical former conservative as Vice President. A ticket that the base would see as consisting of two RINOs? Not gonna happen.

Second, McCain will not be the Republican's candidate. It increasingly looks like Bush is going to call McCain's bluff of demainding 20,000 or however many more troops for Iraq. When that fails to make things better, as it will, McCain will be history. McCain has tied his fortune to Bush's ~30 percent approval rating and his even worse approval rating on Iraq. As TPM points out, the Iraq War is now less popular than gay marriage, legalizing pot, or banning handguns. McCain is toast.

A conservative-Pawlenty ticket is much more probable than a McCain-Pawlenty ticket. So knock it off, media.

More whining

2006-12-12T19:09:00.000-06:00

Liquor sales should be allowed in grocery stores. They should be allowed seven days a week. They should be allowed 24 hours a day. And no government anywhere should run a liquor store.

I don't care how much money it raises for cities. The government should not get into retail, period. That's not a function of government. Get the money somewhere else.

Random thoughts

2006-12-12T18:59:00.000-06:00

Some random, comment-induced thoughts:

I don't when anybody prays regardless of their race, as long as it isn't government-sanctioned. I simply don't care about the religious beliefs of the vast majority of people out there. I care when it moves into the political realm, true, but praying? Give me a break.

Saying that we don't need a smoking ban to protect employees because "they know what they are getting into" has to be one of the most ridiculous arguments out there. That argument implies that any safety regulation that impacts business is unnecessary because people will figure it out on their own: the gilded libertarian dream. Sorry, but in the real world, people would rather work at an unhealthy job than starve and go homeless. If you took away every single mine safety regulation, do you honestly think that all the workers in West Virginia and Pennsylvania and Kentucky would rather be unemployed than have unsafe jobs? People shouldn't have to risk their lives or their health to put food on the table. There is nothing wrong with government protecting worker safety. Who else is going to do it?

I do have to admit that "the smoking ban decimated the 4th floor bars at the MOA" is something I hadn't heard before. What a crock. Did anybody think that maybe the reason that all those bars closed because nobody in their right mind would go to a bar at the Mall of America? Why would people drive out to a mall filled with teens for a night on the town? Did anybody bother to think of that angle?

Posturing Pawlenty

2006-12-12T18:49:00.000-06:00

The liberalizing of Tim Pawlenty continues. This time, it is calling for renewable energy. He wants a quarter of all energy used in the state to come from renewable sources by 2025. He wants more E85, more money for research into producing ethanol from crops other than corn, and a reduction in fossil fuel use. He supports fining energy companies that don't comply, and tosses aside conservative concerns about regulation.

Once again, these are all great ideas that I support (with the possible exception of ethanol). But isn't this a little freaky? Pawlenty is definitely changing his tune. An earlier version of the story online had Pawlenty sounding like a far-left liberal, saying "look at all of the tax credits and subsidies the oil industry gets" when questioned about just how conservative it is to subsidize renewables. Definitely not old-time Pawlenty-speak.

What's his motivation? I have no idea. If it is higher office, this isn't the way to go about it: running as a Rockefeller Republican won't get you any Republican endorsements nationally in this day and age. So what can it be?

Smoking ban

2006-12-10T15:06:00.000-06:00

A statewide smoking ban is now more likely in the next year, and I definitely welcome this. It's about time.

The article quotes naysayer Tom Emmer, who continues to add to his credentials as craziest Republican in the House (with Michelle Bachmann gone, there will be a new craziest senator). Completely ignoring the realities of secondhand smoke, he says "If this is what government is for, let's go to the next step -- why not cheeseburgers?" Well, I don't know, Rep. Emmer. If you walked into a bar and they started shoving cheeseburgers down your throat, however, then perhaps it would be a different story, wouldn't it?

Smoking bans exist to protect employees first and foremost, and then the non-smoking customers. There is no such thing as a secondhand cheeseburger, which is why they aren't regulated. This isn't hard to understand, and I hope we do get a statewide smoking ban soon.

Incidentally, I don't support a ban on trans-fats since there is also no such thing as secondhand french fries. However, I would support a requirement that all businesses serving food over a certain size post the nutritional information of all of their dishes, including trans-fat content. Consumers can't make good choices if they don't have good information.

Message discipline

2006-12-04T17:57:00.000-06:00

Republicans are much better at message discipline. They have so completely taken over that any claims of a "liberal bias" anywhere are ridiculous. Why is this?

-They know how to use money.
-Everybody in the machine has a part to play and they fulfill those parts without thinking and without shame.

Take the "Pawlenty is responsible for the budget surplus" story. The MSM is flogging it. The blogs are flogging it. There will be letters to the editor, statements from the Republican Party apparatus, and so on. It is one unified message, something that Democrats really can't do. I won't say that Republicans have no shame, but they certain have no qualms about reciting the party line on command.

It's something to think about.

Dreamland

2006-12-01T18:35:00.000-06:00

Somebody has dreams of being Vice-President. That same somebody has probably been huffing too much glue.

As Atrios says, Na Ga Ha Pen.

Besides, it is way too early to be thinking about 2008. I can't believe that people out there are actually supporting one person over another at this point. We know nothing about anybody. Wait a few Friedmans before you start making decisions, seriously.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-29T21:35:00.000-06:00

Katherine Kersten needs to Get. A. Life. Seriously. Today's kolumn is about a play that is being put on at the U that some Catholics find offensive. So what does she do? She does exactly what conservatives have long pilloried liberals for doing: crying foul and essentially saying that such a play is terribly politically incorrect. The U is horrible for allowing it to go forward.

Wingnuttia level: 10 (She's gonna blow!)

I am frankly surprised by all of the conservatives these days that scream bloody murder in the same way that they say P.C. thugs used to do. When liberals would have a problem with a movie, TV show, act, or whatever, conservatives would tell them to get a sense of humor and get over it. Now, conservatives are doing the exact same thing. Who cares if this play paints the Catholic Church in a bad light? Don't see it. I'm no fan of religion and I'm not seeing about it. I'm not even thinking about its existence. I don't care. If I don't like something, I won't see it. Period.

According to her, "Archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath has assured the U that the archdiocese has no plans to organize protests or call Catholics into action against it." So why can't she leave well enough alone? Because it would take away the chance for her to throw one of her patented hissy fits. Sad.

Budget forecast

2006-11-29T17:23:00.000-06:00

So the word is that Minnesota has about $1 billion left over from this budget, and will have an additional surplus of about $1 billion for the next two years. If you ignore inflation in the spending side, though; if you pay attention to it, the surplus drops significantly.

Which is reason enough for people to keep their expectations realistic, as everybody is cautioning. Doing away with "some inheritance taxes"? Please. Rewarding state workers? Well, that depends on what the rest of the economy is doing. Raising some revenue, like closing loopholes, is just fundamentally right and should be done regardless of the budget situation.

No going crazy, though.

More bigotry

2006-11-28T19:21:00.000-06:00

I have heard that a bunch of mouth-breathers are upset that Keith Ellison will be sworn in with his hand on a Qur'an. Seeing as how he is Muslim and all, I guess he thought it would make sense to take an (unfortunately) religious oath using a holy book he believes in. Right-wingers are trashing this, saying it is an affront to 9/11 victims, blah blah blah.

It's time to admit that in this country, there are a lot of people with a psychopathic hatred of Muslims. They don't just hate extremists. They don't just hate the fanatics who have hijacked Islam to justify their murder. No, they also hate liberal Muslims like Keith Ellison. There is nothing that any Muslim can do to placate these people, short of renouncing their faith. To borrow a phrase used to describe another minority, the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.

So once again bin Laden is laughing. It does the U.S. no good to argue that we are not in a religious war against Islam when prominent conservatives say that we are. These aren't fringe characters. These aren't people sitting around in wife-beaters in the trailer park, ranting at the TV. These are people with TV shows, newspaper columns, radio programs. And they unabashedly hate Islam and want to see it obliterated from the face of the Earth, by force if necessary.

I'm sick of these wankers wanting to destroy more than 200 years of religious freedom in this country. I don't believe in Hell, but if I did, I think Lucifer would set aside a special part of it for these cowards.

Afterthought: I won't provide a link to the Townhall.com column about this because it so monumentally disgusting, but it starts off like this:

"Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization."

And it only gets stupider from there, not to mention factually inaccurate...

Books

2006-11-28T19:19:00.000-06:00

I'm looking for some conservative books to read. Not anything by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or moralistic hypocrites like Bill Bennett. No, I'm looking for an intelligent critique of liberalism AND conservatism from a right point of view. A book I read long ago, Dead Right by David Frum, fit the bill. But it's an old book. Is there anything new out there? I'd appreciate some suggestions.

Budget forecast

2006-11-28T19:16:00.000-06:00

The November budget forecast is coming out tomorrow, and all indications are that it will show a surplus, perhaps as much as $1 billion.
Which means that the DFL-controlled legislature is going to have some money to work with to implement its policy goals.

What will they start with? Probably with what they promised on the campaign trail: property tax relief, health care, and education investments. Since Governor Pawlenty now supports covering all kids with health care, perhaps that will be the first big issue tackled. I do agree, though, that any decisions need to be sustainable. No giant laser space frisbees.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-22T21:51:00.000-06:00

Today's kolumn is about people doing nice things for foreign visitors on Thanksgiving. Bravo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-22T21:34:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a safe trip if you are traveling.

No fear

2006-11-22T20:02:00.000-06:00

Read this for why it is important not to act like morons when it comes to threats of terrorism. The goal of terrorism is not to blow things up or kill people. Those are means. The goal is to get people afraid and to get them to act like idiots. Well, mission accomplished here. Advantage: bin Laden.

Oh no! Brown people praying!

2006-11-21T17:57:00.000-06:00

It happened in Minnesota, and it's political, so what's wrong with commenting on the injustice of six Muslims being kicked off of a plane for, um, looking Muslim and praying as far as I can tell.

Every time something like this happens, Muslims around the world like the U.S. a little bit less and Osama bin Laden gets a smile on his face.

I wonder: if I had been on that plane and yelled, "All of you ignorant racist hicks who are scared of brown people on the same plane as you can go to hell" once all of this crap started, would I have been arrested too?

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-20T06:45:00.000-06:00

She already did today's kolumn before, and I'm not biting again.

And fish are trees!

2006-11-18T20:25:00.000-06:00

MCCL has put up a lot of very stupid billboards throughout the years, but the dumbest one I have ever seen has to be a new one that says "Embryos are Babies!"

Are they ignorant of biology, or just hoping that the rest of the world is?

I'd like to mention that I am George Clooney. Just sayin'.

$*@&% You, Glenn Beck

2006-11-15T22:35:00.000-06:00

Seriously, just @*#! you. You are a pathetic human being.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-15T22:17:00.000-06:00

If you need any more proof that Governor Pawlenty's dreams of holding higher office as a Republicans are doomed, look no further than today's kolumn. In it, she joins the growing chorus of conservatives who are up in arms about Pawlenty's proposal to give all kids health care coverage.

Wingnuttia Level: 10 (She's gonna blow!)

Of course, whatever Kersten finds fault with I tend to like...except maybe in this situation. But regardless, Kersten thinks like most hard-line Republicans (shudder) so her opinion on this matter is illuminating. Like many others, she thinks Pawlenty has totally sold out with this proposal.

She thinks that government health care plans tend to "cost more than expected, result in rationing, and be hobbled by assembly-line care?" Yeah, right. Take Medicare, for example. Low administrative costs, no rationing, best customer satisfaction of any health care plan...how terrible! The absurd prescription drug benefit plan is a boondoggle, but that's because the Republicans wrote the legislation and protected their friends in the pharmaceutical industry, not because there are fundamental flaws.

Then, she trots out the same old crap about how if only "market forces" were brought into play in health care, then everything would be better. See, if you had a heart attack, you would open up the latest issue of Consumer Reports, find the hospitals nearest to you that provide the best value, call them up for some quotes on emergency angioplasty and similar procedures, and then finally go to the hospital that gives you the best bang for the buck. Simple. It's like finding a restaurant or a home.

The more conservatives blubber, the less they can explain how the U.S. spends more money than any other industrialized country on our health care with dismal results. But people like Kersten are so wedded to the religion of the Free Market (praise Ford!) that even with reality smacks them in the face, they refuse to believe it. The commissars in the Soviet Union would be proud. Now that Pawlenty is seeing the light at least a little bit, he has become apostate, and therefore must be punished.

Minnesota's Governor: Tim "Howard Dean" Pawlenty

2006-11-14T20:28:00.000-06:00

Does anybody else find it a bit ironic that all of a sudden, Governor Pawlenty has come out for a program to provide universal health care coverage to all Minnesota children, a program that was a centerpiece of former governor Howard Dean's political career? Can a leopard change his spots that quickly?

Make no mistake: I think any program that provides health insurance to more people is a good one (pending details). Universal coverage of children is a step on the way to universal coverage for everybody, something that I think is long overdue.

But can we please stop with all of the talk about Pawlenty having a shot at higher office? You don't get the Republican nomination by taking after the much-vilified (on the right) chair of the DNC. Pawlenty has as much chance for higher office on the Republican ticket as pro-gun control, pro-gay, pro-choice Rudy Giuliani. Which is zero, for those wondering.

Republicans in jail

2006-11-13T19:46:00.000-06:00

Crazy right-wing Republican legislator Mark Olson has been arrested and charged with fifth degree domestic assault for allegedly slapping around his wife. Yet another "family values" Republican.

Are there any pro-"family values" politicians that aren't horrible people? Or is that a stupid question?

The myth of the sensible center

2006-11-13T18:15:00.000-06:00

Atrios talks about this a lot: this myth held by mainly middle-class educated white men in Washington that there is a "silent majority" of "sensible centrists" in this country who are socially permissive and fiscally conservative. These pundits think that if you just listen to the sensible center, everything will be okay and there will be no strife in U.S. politics.

Of course, such a center only exists in the minds of the pundits that are clapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves for realizing such a deep notion. What makes it especially ironic is that I would fall into that category. However, I am under no illusion as to believing that I represent the majority of people in this country. I know that I am on the fringe for the most part. I haven't drunk the Kool-Aid that Washington experts have.

Like many of these pundits, I am an educated middle-class white guy. I believe in free trade, balanced budgets, minimal spending, the abolition of corporate and agricultural subsidies (things like this and stadium subsidies really make me mad), and in general a hands-off approach to the market when interference isn't necessary. I also believe that the government should get out of the marriage business and allow two adults to enter into civil unions, that most drugs should be legalized, that prostitution should be legalized, that gambling should be legalized or completely banned (no state lottery exemption), and that people should generally live and let live.

What I don't get is how anybody who believes in these things can believe that this is a majority position in this country. The Pew Research Center has this handy graph that shows that Libertarians (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) make up 9% of the country, while Populists (socially conservative, fiscally liberal) make up 16% of the country, or almost twice as many people. There are more social conservatives than social liberals, which is obvious to anybody that has noticed that all but one anti-gay marriage amendments proposed around the country have passed.

So what does this mean? Well, as far as the Independence Party is concerned, it means that if the party really does encompass a fiscally conservative, socially liberal ideology, it is going to be a minority party. If not, well, then what the heck does the Independence Party stand for? In the broader scheme of things, it means that the educated elite may find it easier and more natural than others to move towards Libertarian beliefs, but that doesn't make it a prevailing ideology.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-12T20:33:00.000-06:00

Today's kolumn is about an utterly pointless issue: what the mascot of UND is. It's not like there is anything else important going on in this world.

The uselessness of the Independence Party

2006-11-12T18:30:00.000-06:00

Does this election mark the end of the Independence Party? Peter Hutchinson got fewer votes than Tim Penny, who got fewer votes than Jesse Ventura. The only other race of note, that in the Fifth District, was more of an anti-Keith Ellison vote than a vote for Tammy Lee. Had anybody else been the DFL candidate, Lee would not have been a factor at all. So why should the Independence Party stick around?

The issue is not really that of the party not standing for anything, although that is true. It is simply a matter of the voting system we have: a first-past-the-post electoral system will not have third parties. Read about it.

If people want there to be viable alternatives to Democrats and Republicans, voting for losing third parties isn't the answer. The answer is changing the voting system. Proportional representation or instant run-off would lead to other parties sprouting up. It's not impossible to change voting systems; Minneapolis just did it. The supporters of IRV in Minneapolis have the right idea: get elected officials to support the change regardless of their party orientation. Then, after the change, you can start supporting candidates from other parties.

Until that happens, though, the Independence Party isn't going to accomplish anything. It's time to put it out of its misery.

Hatch loss

2006-11-09T22:12:00.000-06:00

Over at the Minneapolis Issues Discussion list, some other people are arguing that Hatch lost because he didn't get enough DFL support, not because of the "Republican whore" thing. They have looked at the numbers, and they found something that I suspected (without any proof, of course): that Hatch polled behind other Democrats in the core cities.

It's an interesting discussion, which can be found here.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-09T20:46:00.000-06:00

Today's kolumn is a big, sloppy kiss to Michelle Bachmann. Since Kersten is a woman, I think Bachmann would have a big problem with that.

Wingnuttia Level: Hot woman-on-woman action...

I don't think Bachmann would like anybody to give her big, sloppy kisses except for Jesus. Seriously, when I saw her at her victory party on Tuesday night, I fully expected her to say at some point, "And I'd like to give a big shout-out to Jesus. We finally made it, baby!" Or to maybe vacuum in her high heels again.

Getting back to the kolumn...well, there's nothing there. Really. I do like the fact that Bachmann once again plays the victim and pretends that the media and other people are out to get her because of her Christianity. You know what, Michelle? I'm out to get you not because you're a Christian, but because you are a bigot. Those two things don't have to go together, no matter what you learned in your twisted Sunday School along with lessons about how the Antichrist wears a funny hat and drives around in a golf cart.

Fortunately, since so few Republicans won on Tuesday, Kersten won't be able to embarrass herself with many other winners. Although she will probably blow a few more gaskets over Keith Ellison's victory. Can't wait for that.

Interesting...

2006-11-09T20:41:00.000-06:00

Fresh off of their expanded majority, Senate DFLers got together today and selected as their majority leader...Larry Pogemiller?? What?

I thought the whole plan given the DFL-dominated legislature was to demonstrate that when Democrats are in control, things will work better, not worse. Pogey in charge is not a good way to make that happen.

Yes, it would be very hard to find somebody as classy as Dean Johnson to take over (whatever you think of his politics, he is probably one of the highest-quality legislators in recent memory). But come on, people. Try a little!

Maybe I will be completely wrong about this, and Larry and Timmy will sit down and work everything out and there won't be any brinkmanship or last-minute deals or special sessions. Is anybody willing to make that bet?

The aftermath

2006-11-08T19:30:00.000-06:00

I think I did pretty well with my predictions. I was a bit conservative and underestimated the Democratic wave. I definitely underestimated how that wave would trickle down to local races.

Klobuchar won, but by much more than the high single digits. Republicans knew that they were going to lose this, but they hoped to keep it relatively close to prevent a catastrophe for their other candidates. They did not keep it close, and the catastrophe came.

Hatch did lose by less than a couple. A lot of people are going to say that it was his "Republican whore" comment that did him in. My gut says that's not true; I think he pissed off too many Democrats by how he acted earlier this year. But there is no way to test this theory now, and the popular explanation that it was his "meltdown" will carry the day.

Incumbents did win, with the exception of Gutknecht. That was the only race where I saw a possibility of flipping, and I was right. Rowley was a terrible, terrible candidate. Wetterling was not as bad as Rowley but was not good enough to win. No other incumbents were in trouble.

Democrats ran the table with the other statewide offices. Part of the Democratic wave.

For the Minnesota House and Senate, I did not see the huge DFL rout (but I don't think anybody else did either). The Democrats in the Senate added a net of six, more than the "one or two" I predicted. Instead of the low 70s, the Democrats in the House are now at 85. All DFL incumbents in the House won; the Senate lost Dallas Sams and Dean Johnson.

I do feel bad for Johnson. By keeping gay marriage off the ballot, he helped engineer the big DFL gains. But more than that, he did the right thing. And he paid for it. As a preacher, I'm sure he's well versed in this kind of situation.

Nationally, I predicted low 20s for the House, and the Democrats are in the upper 20s now with several races left. The Senate will be controlled by the Democrats as well, with a net gain of six seats. I honestly didn't think the Democrats would be able to win Virginia, Montana, and Missouri, but they did.

There was other good news nationally too. Arizona rejected a gay marriage ban. South Dakota rejected a ban on abortions, proving once again that even in a conservative state, the majority of people want to keep abortion legal in at least some circumstances.

An aside on the abortion debate...I am sick and tired of hearing from people that "If the Democrats want to win they should become pro-life" and "Democrats don't respect their pro-life members." First of all, there are a lot more pro-life Democrats than pro-choice Republicans. If you take a look at the Minnesota House, for example, there are plenty of pro-life Democrats and no more than one pro-choice Republican. But more than that, I fail to see why both major parties should be pro-life if the majority of people in this country are pro-choice. Where are the majority of pro-choicers supposed to go with two pro-life politcal parties? Democrats just proved that they can win by respecting abortion rights (like in Kansas where a Democrat knocked off the abortion-obsessed pervert of a Republican Attorney General). So give it up. I don't want to hear anymore about your grandparents in Podunk, Nebraska who voted Democrat their entire life until they started voting for Republicans based on that one issue.

The new Democratic majorities are not more liberal, nor are they more conservative. They are diverse. I certainly hope they start out by pursuing the agenda they laid out for people and that the voters agreed with: raising the minimum wage, implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, and investigating the malfeasance of the Bush administration. People want answers, they want accountability, and they want results. The Democrats are poised to deliver what the people want.

An incredible night

2006-11-08T02:30:00.000-06:00

What a night.

Nationally, Republicans were beaten senseless.

Locally, with the exception of the governor's race, Republicans were beaten senseless.

One of the most amazing election nights in recent history.

Ellison wins

2006-11-07T20:39:00.000-06:00

Keith Ellison won in the 5th. No surprise.

I'm wondering why MPR has a net gain of 3 seats in the Minnesota House for DFLers already.

Nationally, Democrats seem to be stomping Republicans. It's early, but it looks like a very, very long night for the GOP.

No more blogging tonight probably; I'll be heading out to try and get a handle on things. Staying in and watching the results is no fun.

Klobuchar wins

2006-11-07T20:23:00.000-06:00

The polls closed 15 minutes ago, and the media is calling it for Klobuchar.

I guess Kennedy can go back to being the nerdy C.P.A. I'm shedding a tear, I really am.

The word

2006-11-07T17:17:00.000-06:00

So far, the elections here look smooth. Problems are evident in other states, but for the most part Minnesota is okay. Still almost three hours left to vote, so get out there if you haven't already.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-06T18:04:00.000-06:00

In today's kolumn she gives a little history lesson on how a politically split country is typical. The fact that she can do this sounding like an impartial observer instead of sounding like the cog in the Republican noise machine that she is, is pretty incredible.

Wingnuttia Level: 7 (My head hurts...)

And what is Kersten's party currently doing? Why, they are trying to keep people from voting or otherwise engage in dirty tricks. Proud about the Republican role in polarization, Kersten?

Then there is the issue of relevance. Recently, a former Bush speechwriter wrote an editorial about all the liberals he hates. What struck me most about the article was the fact that he pointed to virtual nobodies: does anybody know who Nicholas De Genova and Kevin Barrett are? The people I recognized from the list, like Ward Churchill (favorite whipping boy of the right) and Harry Belafonte (seriously?) aren't running for office, aren't Democratic leaders, and really have no constituency at all. Ted Turner? Give me a break. These people aren't responsible for discourse in this country. They do not sway opinions.

So when Kersten says that "Republican visions of Democratic control hint at cultural free fall, tax rates hovering around 95 percent, and Fidel Castro as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice", does this reflect reality at all? Is there a single Democrat who has come out for 95% tax rates? Or support for Fidel Castro? These positions do not exist, yet she believes that this stereotype is somehow valid.

Contrast that with the vision that Democrats have, "images of America as a totalitarian theocracy, where the Rove-Cheney politburo dictates secret orders through coded messages to millions of mindless evangelicals." Well, to tell you the truth, there are plenty of Republicans who are in favor of basing our government on Christianity, Mary Kiffmeyer and Michelle Bachmann among them. There are no secret order; this is all done in the open. Democrats really aren't hallucinating things here. The most extreme Republicans do believe in a quasi-theocracy and torture for just about anybody who could be a terrorist; the same can't be said about the most extreme Democrats.

So yes, Kersten, polarization is nothing new. But to pretend that you have nothing to do with it is ridiculous.

Where do I vote?

2006-11-06T18:03:00.000-06:00

Don't know where to vote? Go here.

Predictions

2006-11-05T19:42:00.000-06:00

Oh well, I'll do them now.

Senate: Klobuchar no problem. Maybe high single digits for the spread.

Minnesota's Congressional representation: All incumbents win, with the outside chance that Walz beats Gutknecht. Ellison wins. Bachmann wins and humiliates herself immediately nationally. Sixth district voters still care too much about teh gay and will believe the "scary liberal tax" issue just enough to beat Wetterling.

Governor: I truly do not know. I think that in order for Hatch to win, he needs to be up by several points in the last polls to overcome the incumbency issue (not because of the whole E-85 gaffe or anything like that). Is he up by that much? Hard to tell. Either he wins in a squeaker or he loses by less than two. Probably loses.

Attorney General: Lori Swanson no problem.

Secretary of State: Not enough information. Mark Ritchie has ads and is a better candidate; Kiffmeyer believes that the separation of church and state is evil and anybody who believes this needs to be removed from office (or forcibly converted to another religion). But I don't know what will happen, same for...

State Auditor: Pat Anderson [Awada] seems to have a pretty anti-government and anti-public school streak. I would like to see her go. But I don't know what will happen.

Minnesota House: I think the Democrats will retake this, and will have in the low 70s for total members (currently, it is 68-66 Republican).

Minnesota Senate: Not much change here, maybe a net of one or two seats either way, most likely down for Democrats. Democrats retain control (currently, 38-29 Democrat).

Nationally? Well, I think...

House of Representatives: Democrats will pick up a net of 20-25 seats, taking control.

Senate: I think there is a 50% chance they will get four seats, and a 50% chance they will get five. Five would tie it up in favor of Republicans.

Fake meltdowns

2006-11-04T19:42:00.000-06:00

The Hatch campaign in a "meltdown"? Come on. It's nice to see that media outlets are spreading the official Republican spin on things, but it's a bit ridiculous.

The issue here is that the candidates are suffering from a condition that seems to hit DFLers running in Minnesota: acting like it is the first time they have run for office.

Dutcher has held office before, so she should know better. She could have handled things far better than she did during that interview. Ignorance is hardly a barrier to winning office; if it were, the leader of our country would be President Gore. All you have to do is admit ignorance, say you will study it, apologize for not knowing, and move on. Maybe throw in a self-effacing comment, a joke, or use some jujitsu and turn it around to the opponent. Had she done this, the story would have died in a day.

Of course, Hatch compounded the problem by getting mad. There are simple rules for when to get mad. When it is your fault, do not get mad. Laugh it off. If you make a mistake, and then you get mad at those around you, it certainly doesn't look good. If you dropped a glass jar at the grocery store, would you yell at the cashier? Only if you want to look like a jerk.

On the other hand, when somebody unfairly attacks you (Swiftboating, calling you a terrorist, etc.) then you get mad at whoever is doing it. If you don't respond and let people walk all over you, then you look weak. Anger in these situations is appropriate. If somebody throws a glass bottle at you in a grocery store, saying "Thank you sir may I have another" or ignoring it makes you look a bit daft.

These are simple rules. They should be familiar to people who have run for office before. Amnesia in the last days of a campaign doesn't seem to be all that unusual, though. Maybe flash cards would help?

DFLers bad for business? Nonsense!

2006-11-04T13:56:00.000-06:00

So the anti-Hatch group that has come together in recent days is funded by businesspeople who are afraid that one-party control will be bad for business. DFLers bad for business? What a load of crap.

Let's ignore all of the historical data showing that Democrats are better for the economy. Let's forget all of the recent evidence, those comparisons between Bush and Clinton (like how Clinton created something like 20+ million jobs, and Bush has created maybe a third of that). Let's look at what Democrats could do from now on. If I were in charge, this would be my agenda:

1) Income tax simplification for businesses and individuals. Get rid of the majority of arcane deductions and exemptions.

2) Leveling of the income tax playing field. Elimination of the subsidies that huge corporations can take advantage of, but small businesses can't (like setting up foreign shell organizations to avoid paying income taxes).

3) Universal health care to take that cost off of the books of businesses (and their pension plans).

4) Where possible, reducing the regulations that are a barrier to small business creation.

Looking over that list, I do notice one thing: that many of those changes would be most beneficial to small businesses. Which is no accident. I think that the Democratic party can easily be the party of small businesses if they get smart about it. They don't have to change their ideology, because it naturally coincides with the desires of entrepreneurs. It just requires refocusing.

So, does anybody have any issue with this agenda, or any comments about how this would not be beneficial for small businesses?

The guv race

2006-11-02T21:31:00.000-06:00

A group of Republicans have gotten together and set up an anti-Hatch campaign. But unfortunately, the way things worked out, campaign donors can't be revealed. How conveeeeeeeenient.

I can't say that Hatch and Dutcher have handled the whole E-85 issue well, however. How hard is it to find candidates that can think on their feet? Why couldn't Dutcher have jokingly said, "Well, I'm looking forward to a lot of on-the-job training!" instead of drawing this out forever? Sheesh.

This race certainly is wacky (and not just because of the kitten-eating ad). I will be making my predictions on Monday, including this race.

Wait for it....

2006-11-02T17:52:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is the Friday before the election. Do you know what that means? Something is up. Will the CIA "uncover" a video from bin Laden? Will we catch al Qaeda's latest number three man? Will Bush admit he has been wrong on Iraq from the start (err, scratch that last one).

If we make it through tomorrow without some kind of insane news break, I will be amazed.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-11-02T06:42:00.000-06:00

Today's kolumn is about military recruiting, peppered with insults. I especially like how Kersten, a member of the "mainstream media", bashes said media for go[ing] out of their way to make sure you know every scrap of negative news about our military." I guess we need more stories about all the schools that are being painted, and not, you know, stories about the reality of our soldiers getting killed in a civil war.

The rest of the kolumn is not terribly interesting, unless you have never talked to a military recruiter.

Our liberal media

2006-11-01T20:37:00.000-06:00

Rush Limbaugh mocks, literally physically mocks, a guy with Parkinson's, and aside from some tut-tutting, the story goes away and Bush does an interview with him.

George Bush says that voting for Democrats means you support the terrorists. Yawn.

Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner just said that the problems in Iraq are the fault of the troops on the ground. Nothing.

John Kerry botches a joke that anybody with an IQ above room temperature understands. CNN runs wall-to-wall coverage on it. It has been the top news story on Excite.com all day. The Star Tribune has it prominently displayed on their home page.

First up against the wall, I tell ya.

Journamalisming

2006-10-30T18:20:00.000-06:00

The Star Tribune editors ask, should we do our jobs and fact check candidates? Well, what do you think you are killing so many trees for? CJ's columns?

The fact that they even have to ask this is sad, but considering how little fact-checking goes on, it's not surprising. Not only is fact-checking not done, but more often than not it is done in a pretend "balanced" way. The media is unable to admit when one side is wrong or worse than the other. No, it has to be "balanced". That's how reporters lump Michael J. Fox's issue ad along with real attack ads like the Playboy ad in Tennessee. Republicans smear character, Democrats...get an endorsement from a person with a vested interest in an issue that Democrats support and Republicans oppose. If Carl Pohlad cut an ad for Pawlenty saying that he supports Tim for bringing a new stadium, would that be an "attack ad"? Give me a break.

The issue of immigration ads is a perfect example of this. True, the Star Tribune reported the fact that all of a sudden tons of Republicans put out immigration ads, but that's it. Immigration remains one of the least understood issues in this country. There's plenty of soundbites and goofy characters, but reality is something much of the public is unfamiliar with. Why didn't the Star Tribune take a closer look at these ads and immigration in general? Why didn't they take a look at the internal fight within the Republican party between the business conservatives who want cheaper labor and the social conservatives who hate furriners? Where's the context? Where's the explanation? Where's the work?

So ink-stained wretches, why else do you think you exist?

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-10-30T18:00:00.000-06:00

Kersten's latest kolumn is about the series on debt I posted about yesterday. She blames the lack of "virtue" for the problem and suggests sitting down with grandparents to figure it out.

Wingnuttia Level: 2 (Beware of hidden agendas)

True, the fact that people of all ages today have the mentality that they "deserve" the latest and greatest is a big issue. But where is the talk about the "virtue" of not having seven kids and sending them to private schools? Is that responsible? Is that "virtuous"? There is more here than just more "government programs", but as usual Kersten just picks the facts that she can use to bolster her ideology.

As an aside, it looks like Kersten has a blog now and people can comment on her stories. Interesting.

Credit Card Nation

2006-10-29T13:40:00.000-06:00

The Star Tribune had a few articles today about how indebted Americans are, along with portraits of three families that are mired in debt. The only person who gets my sympathy is the single mom; after all, being a single mom is an extremely hard thing. The single girl just needs to stop buying clothes and liquor; some meditation on not being so materialistic may help too. As for the family with seven kids...STOP HAVING KIDS! Jesus, I just can't fathom how people can have tons of kids without caring one bit how to pay for them. When does that kind of cluelessness cross the line to becoming child abuse? I'm betting, based on the story, that they are the type of people whom God told to breed a baseball team, which doesn't help matters much.

Some people in this country get into debt because they don't have health insurance and get sick, for example, or they get laid off from their job, or they get divorced and have to raise their kids on their own. In other words, for some people, they get behind because life just happens to them. For two of these families, however, they are in their situation because of the choices they are making; are we supposed to feel sympathy for them? Or did the paper choose unsympathetic people on purpose?

George Will's Corner

2006-10-29T13:38:00.000-06:00

I hardly agree with anything George Will writes aside from what he writes on baseball, but this is something I agree with. Paper ballots, people. It's not that hard! And if you are worried about people voting more than once, there's this handy thing called indelible ink that even third-world countries know how to use.

Young politicos

2006-10-28T12:16:00.000-05:00

Hey, I know some of these people.

Is that you, Bob Dole?

2006-10-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

A couple points I'd like to make about movies:

1) If you think you wouldn't like a movie, then don't see it.

2) You don't get to make critical judgments about a movie until you see it, though.

That is all.

More ads

2006-10-26T19:14:00.000-05:00

I saw Hatch's immigration ad today for the first time. I don't know when it started running, but probably within the past couple of days. It's pretty much as commenter Mark described it on another post: Hatch starts out in front of some trailers that house transient workers, saying they sleep twenty to a trailer without windows. Then he says that Pawlenty hasn't done enough to go after employers who hire illegal aliens.

So yes, this is an immigration ad, but unlike other Republican ads it really doesn't bash immigrants. It does go after the employers who hire illegal immigrants, which is in my opinion the right tack to take. As long as there are drug users, there will be drug dealers, and as long as employers are happy to look the other way and hire illegal immigrants, there will be people coming here looking for jobs. If it costs less to hire illegal immigrants, even with the occasional fine, then businesses will do it. That's the free market, folks.

Personally, I like Peter Hutchinson's take on the issue as described here, where he says he is proud to support in-state tuition for resident immigrants. So do I. But at least Hatch's ad isn't as anti-immigrant as some others.

For the record, I am pretty pro-immigration. I believe that we need to go after employers who are hiring illegal immigrants so that it becomes more expensive for them to hire illegal immigrants. But I also think we need to normalize the status of those immigrants who are already here. We also need to drastically overhaul our immigration system and generally let more people in here. I am opposed to guest-worker programs of any sort; let them stay and become citizens and members of the community if you need workers. While some people see immigrants and see only a drain, I think, "There's another person paying for housing, paying for food, paying for clothing, and generating economic activity." That's just me.

Another ad I saw tonight is an independent one from the DFL tying Pawlenty to Bush. A pretty common tactic among Democrats this year.

So when it comes to negative ads, Republicans have immigration. Democrats have Bush, the war in Iraq, veterans issues, corruption and ethics...a pretty long list. Not looking good for Republicans.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-10-25T21:55:00.000-05:00

Once again, in a way, I am in agreement with Kersten in several ways in her latest kolumn, but for vastly different reasons than hers I suspect. It is about the ridiculousness of certain Muslim taxicab drivers refusing to take passengers with alcohol at the airport. This story, like the story about the bus driver who refused to drive buses with "pro-gay" advertisements, is something so repulsive to me it hurts my head. But since Kersten has commented on it, it's my job to do so as well.

Wingnuttia Level: 2 (Beware of hidden agendas)

Assuming that Kersten's facts can be trusted (sometimes a dubious assumption), apparently this started when the Muslim American Society put out a "fatwa" earlier this year saying that Muslim taxi drivers are prohibited from taking passengers with alcohol, because "it involves cooperating in sin according to the Islam." I am certainly no fan of religious stupidity of any kind. It makes no difference what religion it is. And this certainly qualifies as religious stupidity. If people have a problem with providing a public, regulated good to a customer carrying alcohol, then they should not be in business at all.

Kersten goes off into the background of the Muslim American Society, eventually making a connection to bin Laden, natch. Of course, taking issue with Muslims is nothing new for Kersten (see Keith Ellison). At the end, she tries to ask a serious-sounding question to let people know that her kolumn is quite serious: What should we do about religions that don't share our values?

What, indeed? What's missing here? Oh, that's right: every other stupid religion. Kersten stops with this particular fatwa; she doesn't talk about the bus driver who refused to drive the bus, a Christian following her own fatwa. Nor does she talk about Christian pharmacists who refuse to prescribe birth control, following yet another crazy fatwa. Something tells me that Kersten's troubles with arbitrary fundamentalist religious proclamations does not extend to Christianity or any other religions other than Islam.

Which is ultimately what makes this kolumn so disingenuous. As you read it, you know that she would be saying the exact opposite if she were talking about the bus driver or the pharmacist or the person against stem cell research or the person against gay marriage. Instead of seeing how these kinds of actions illuminate how dangerous mindless adherence to any religion can be, she tut-tuts the easy target. Not that I expect anything better.

So is Kersten really concerned about how religion and tolerance can be at odds with each other, or is she just using this incident as an excuse to trot out her views on Islam and these dark-skinned furriners? Once she starts taking rabid Christians to task, then perhaps I will start believing the former.

Immigrants: the new gay

2006-10-25T17:49:00.000-05:00

With two weeks to go until the election, it is obvious what the Republican strategy is in the closing weeks of the campaign: bashing immigrants. I don't know if these ads came out before, but today I saw immigrant-bashing attack ads from Pawlenty, John Kline, and Michele Bachman. Losing on the Iraq war, terrorism, the direction of the country, ethics, and competence, Republicans have apparently decided that the only thing they can do is bash furriners. Maybe this will play well enough with the mouth-breathing crowd to win a few racist Republican votes. Who knows?

Unfortunately, even Democrats are hopping on the bandwagon; I saw an immigrant-bashing attack ad from Tim Walz too, meaning that bashing immigrants probably plays well in the First District. Sad.

The Pawlenty ad is particularly disgusting in my opinion, where he pledges that illegal immigrant kids won't get in-state tuition at Minnesota colleges under his watch ever. Yes, it would be horrible for Minnesota and our economy if kids who have been going to high school and even elementary school in this state went to the U of MN and ended up being engineers or something. Terrible, I tell you. Kids should definitely have to pay for the crimes of their parents and be doomed to a life with no education, don't you think?

I wait for the day when people will grow up and realize that those who are having the truly devastating impact on our economy and the middle class are Republicans and the overpaid corporate wankers who give them campaign contributions. I think I will be waiting a pretty long time, though.

MPR election results widget

2006-10-24T19:37:00.000-05:00

This looks pretty cool. I don't envision live-blogging the election, so this may be useful.

T-Paw's legacy

2006-10-24T19:33:00.000-05:00

Higher tuition. Shocking, isn't it?

Hatch has already done an ad on tuition, so this probably won't provide much fodder for anything new. Too bad. I'd like to see Tim get smacked around a bit more.

Democrats in power

2006-10-23T21:10:00.000-05:00

Election day is still two weeks away, and nothing is certain. There is still lots of work to do, and lots of surprises from both sides. But it is looking increasingly likely that the Democrats will take over the House, and an outside chance they will take the Senate as well. So perhaps now is a good time to express to Democrats what they should do if they take charge.

Some Democrats will feel that they need to roll over and play nice to usher in a new era of "bipartisanship" because that's what the voters want. Doing so would be a mistake of such a magnitude that it would dwarf almost all others in political history. If Democrats win, it is because voters want them to put the Republicans up against the wall, not in spite of it.

I always thought that if there was the barest plurality of voters in favor of things like investigations into the intelligence that led to the Iraq war, or investigations into war profiteering by Halliburton et al (say 41% in favor, 40% against, with the rest undecided) that Democrats should go all out. But that's not the case; polls show that solid majorities want the Democrats to thoroughly investigate the misdeeds of the Bush administration. This is why Democrats are poised to make such a huge sweep. They need to follow through. They need to go to the mat. They need to stake their careers on this, for if they get soft, 2008 will be very unpleasant indeed.

When Republicans run on tax cuts and win, do they go soft after the election and start talking about not cutting taxes and maybe funding programs instead? Of course not. They cut taxes twice as much as they said they would. Democrats cannot afford to become weak should they win. If they do, they will enrage both the Democratic base and the independents that voted for them to clean up Washington.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-10-22T21:09:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, but I've found a way to help me deal with Katherine Kersten's kolumns. It's a secret potion that helps insulate me against teh stupid; reading her stuff doesn't hurt as much anymore. Unfortunately, it won't work for anybody, but never fear! Read me, and you won't have to try to wrap your head around Kersten's stuff. Including her latest kolumn, which is nothing more than a candidate commercial for a Republican running for the state senate from Rochester.

Wingnuttia level: ?? (Shouldn't this be an in-kind campaign contribution?)

Like I said, it's nothing more than a commercial for Scott Wright, who is running for the senate from Rochester. Surprisingly, Kersten is pushing a Republican. If you are living in Rochester and want to read an unbiased report on the candidate, go nuts. If not, well, skip it. I am not terribly interested in hearing another Republican's plan to provide health care coverage to everybody by letting the magic of the market work, seeing as how it has worked so well so far. That's Kersten's idea of good policy; not terribly shocking given her statements of the past.

The only silver lining in all of this is that in less than three weeks all of this stuff will hopefully stop.

Fighting them where?

2006-10-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

Some people still support the war because they say we need to fight them "there" (in Iraq), so we don't have to fight them here. I just saw a Mark Kennedy TV ad pretty much saying the same thing. I don't get it, I really don't.

A poor 20-year old kid with an AK-47 and nothing else attacking soldiers in Iraq was never a threat to the U.S. mainland. He has no support structure. He has little, if any training. The U.S. brought the targets to him, and as a result he is taking advantage of it. If there were no U.S. soldiers in easy reach to attack, he would just sit there fuming, or more likely wouldn't do much at all.

Similarly, people like the 9/11 terrorists with training and money aren't those 20-year old kids. They probably aren't taking potshots at our troops. They may be taking advantage of the Iraq war by using it for training, learning how to use shaped charges and plant IEDs, for example, but for the most part I bet they are not getting heavily involved with the war in Iraq. They are doing the same things they would be doing even if we weren't in Iraq.

There is no fixed pool of terrorists. By going into Iraq, we have created many more fighters were there wouldn't have been before. At the same time, we are in no way helping to fight those sleeper cells that are plotting the next terrorist attack from somewhere other than Iraq.

When Mark Kennedy says that we need to fight them there so we don't fight them here, he is either completely ignorant about the world, or lying. Take your pick.

Nonbelievers?

2006-10-19T19:08:00.000-05:00

This really doesn't have much to do with politics, but it did get me thinking. Earlier today I was perusing the City Pages' Letters to the Editor section, and found a response to the article they did on Michelle Bachman a couple of weeks ago. It's the letter that says "Interesting, the Christian bashing. I don't ever seem to read an article by you liberals discussing the extreme pagan lifestyle of someone. Oh, that's right, those extreme pagan views are yours, too."

Now, I'm probably one of those "extreme pagans" the letter writer is referring to, since I am one of those agnostic non-believers. Hearing this kind of sentiment is pretty common, and it always puzzles me.

I can understand where it comes from: a lot of self-described religious people have huge issues with our modern culture. The materialism, the sexualization, the violence, the appeals to the lowest common denominator...they don't like it and they feel that they are fighting a battle to keep it out of their lives, especially the lives of their children. The problem, however, stems from their belief that people with opposite views from them ("pagans", us atheists, etc.) must logically have the opposite view of culture too: the heathens must love this culture.

For the most part, that just isn't true. I also detest the materialism, sexualization, violence, and shallowness of culture. I tend to ignore it and live what I consider to be a pretty stand-up life, even for an atheist: I don't lie, I don't cheat, I don't diddle interns or pages, I don't abuse anybody, I don't drink and drive and hurt or kill people, I don't swindle, and I try to be humble. If I get too much change back at a store I give it back. I help out people whenever I can. True, I have some "crazy" ideas like thinking that homosexuals are perfectly okay people and should be allowed some legal benefits with their long-term partners, for example. But that stuff really doesn't matter; my thoughts on gay marriage have almost zero impact on my daily life and how I interact with others. If your car gets stuck in the snow in front of my house, do you care what I think about legalizing drugs or do you care that I will get out and push your car?

The flip side of this is that even if heathens were full-blow supporters of our American culture, there are too few of us to be able to support it. Atheists make up what? Three, four percent of the population? Do you think that TV shows and movies and clothing designers and stores cater to the wallets of less than one twentieth of the population? Of course not. Our culture is one of capitalism, and that means that we will get the culture we pay for. Since the majority of this country is Christian, it is only logical that this means a large chunk of Christians, perhaps even a majority, in some way support our culture through the purchasing decisions they make.

So perhaps people like Gail should take a closer look. Maybe the people who hate things like "Wife Swap" are liberal pagans like myself, while the religious watchers of those shows are just that: religious Christians. There are lots of atheists and heathens out there who lead saintly lives, and lots of self-described "Christians" who have no problems lying and cheating to get what they want. Nobody has a monopoly on morality, and even people who don't believe in the New Testament Christian God can tell right from wrong.

A break

2006-10-19T18:53:00.000-05:00

If you haven't noticed, I've taken a little bit of a break from politics. You know what? It's been pretty nice. Not reading MDE and Katherine Kersten lately has been pretty fulfilling. Politics is important, and it is interesting, but it is not the sum total of life. If you talk to candidates or their overworked staffers (and not an insignificant number of bloggers), they probably can't see beyond the walls of the campaign, but remember that the minority of people pay close attention to politics, and an even tinier minority obsessively check blogs ten times a day.

I can appreciate that most people find this stuff boring; in fact, I'm pretty lucky to be able to spend time paying attention to politics. I have no major crises to deal with (knock on wood), nothing that really prevents me from following politics in my copious free time if I so choose. For many people, devoting time to following the news is a luxury they don't have.

But as we get close to November 7th, I'm sure my break will end. Too much going on, too weird an election. This is shaping up to be one of the most groundbreaking elections in a generation, so it's hard to ignore. I just hope campaigns will keep on ignoring me; I like not getting phone calls and campaign literature.

Go Twins!

2006-10-01T16:55:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, they flashed the Detroit-KC score during the Vikings game, at which point it was something like 7-0 Detroit. "So much for winning the AL Central", I thought, and I proceeded to go outside and enjoy the 80 degree October day.

When I returned, I learned that the Twins beat Chicago finally, and somehow, Kansas City tied it at 8-8. The Tigers had the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th, but nothing happened. Then, in the top of the 12th, the Royals put up two, and that's how the game ended.

Detroit got swept by the Royals to end the season, and while the Twins did their best to refuse the pennant a couple times when Detroit offered it on a platter, they finally grabbed it today.

What a crazy season.

Mark Kennedy

2006-10-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

The Star Tribune has an article on the man today. Read it to see what he's like.

I learned that he listens to Amy Grant. As if I needed another reason to vote against him.

Light blogging

2006-09-28T18:41:00.000-05:00

Blogging will be light to perhaps non-existent for the foreseeable future. Like some long-hair once said, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. Hopefully, I will be able to once again turn back to the wondrous excitement that is Minnesota politics before too long.

So, what's up with that debate between the gubernatorial candidates last night? Is Hatch ever going to be able to say something concrete about transportation? Is it all that hard to get behind a bipartisan funding plan that will pay for things like fixing the Crosstown?

Speaking of the convention...

2006-09-27T22:58:00.000-05:00

...what a mess. I didn't want either convention coming here. What a huge hassle this will be for everybody who actually lives and works here.

And I don't believe for a second the stuff about the economic benefits. Why is it that every city that hosts these conventions ends up losing money on the deal, not making any money?

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-09-27T22:52:00.000-05:00

In today's kolumn (which is somehow about why the Republicans picked the Twin Cities for the 2008 Republican National Convention, despite the fact that it was just announced today), Kersten talks about the evolution of politics in Minnesota.

For the most part, it's not bad. It is certainly true that Minnesota is a lot less DFL than in years past, such as in 1984 when it was the only state to go for Mondale. Back in the day, the combination of the Iron Range and the Twin Cities themselves generated big margins for Democrats. With the rise of suburbs and the relative decline of central cities, it has become more balanced. It has not, however, come close to swinging to the Republicans, nor do I think it will.

I do think that is is pretty sad that Kersten has to hold up people like Norm Coleman (empty suit) and Tim Pawlenty (breaker of no-new-taxes promises) as stars in the Republican party. I'm not saying Mark Dayton is my idol, after all. And Michelle Bachman? Please.

But what can you do with that cast of characters? Certainly not run on a positive, forward-thinking platform. Carping about taxes or talking about the horrors of teh gay are not what Minnesotans want to hear, which is why Republicans have not taken over yet, and won't if Republicans don't remember what they used to stand for. Since I don't see that happening anytime soon, the RNC shouldn't expect too many dividends from choosing the Twin Cities for its next convention.

Tim Walz ad

2006-09-26T17:42:00.000-05:00

Tim Walz has a TV ad up. It's your standard bio ad, and I like it. Coach, teacher of the year, vet...and "staying the course" in Iraq is the wrong thing to do, so let's change Congress. Holy crap, a Democrat who gets it!

Republicans don't need no stinkin' facts!

2006-09-26T17:38:00.000-05:00

So I see that Republicans are running a hit ad against Patty Wetterling on the subject of taxes, including the estate tax, which supposedly hurts "family farms and small businesses." Okay, NRCC and Bachman, let's see you back it up: I want to see evidence of just one family farm that had to be sold as a result of the estate tax in the 6th district. Just one. Lots of farms in the 6th, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a "family farm" that was negatively influenced by the estate tax. Right?

We already know that your multi-millionaire donors want the estate tax gone, so no need to bring them into this.

What's going on?

2006-09-25T18:49:00.000-05:00

Amy Klobuchar is so far ahead it's not funny, Republicans are still ranting about Keith Ellison, and the governor's race isn't nearly as depressing as four years ago, but it's close.

Something has to be going on somewhere!

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-09-25T06:47:00.000-05:00

Kersten seems to have a thing for strict schools these days, and today's kolumn is no different. Not exactly my cup of tea, though, especially the "no dating" stuff. Whatever floats their boat, I guess.

Sheer idiocy

2006-09-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

How about we have a new rule in politics: if a candidate invests in mutual funds, they are not responsible for the actions of the businesses that make up those mutual funds. First it was Amy Klobuchar and her oil profits, now it is Patty Wetterling and "shipping American jobs overseas." Of course, the hit piece from the NRCC ignores the fact that Michelle Bachman also has mutual funds. What wankers.

For Republicans, these morons sure don't know much about how mutual funds work, or why it can be advantageous to invest in mutual funds instead of individual stocks.

Illegal?

2006-09-22T17:58:00.000-05:00

Here's a thought experiment on the illegality of something. Remember, this is about illegality, not about whether it is ethical to do something.

1. Is it illegal to go to a public website, and generate random webpage requests to see if those pages exist on that website? For example, if you are at www.somesite.com, would it be illegal to request www.somesite.com/a.html, www.somesite.com/b.html, www.somesite.com/c.html, www.somesite.com/jones.html, and so forth? Most of the time, you will get "Page Not Found" errors. If you do find something, it is publicly available even if there are no outside links to it, so you aren't "hacking" anything.

I can't see how this is illegal. Lots of bots, search engines, etc. do these kinds of things. Now, if you were going to generate a million random page requests, somebody is probably going to notice, but is generating those page requests illegal?

2. Now imaging that you create a webpage with a Javascript redirector that takes input and then asks for the appropriate web page. So, you type "a" in a box, and it requests www.somesite.com/a.html. You type "jones" in the box, and it requests www.somesite.com/jones.html. In effect, instead of randomly requesting pages, you are requesting specific pages that you type in. Is this still illegal? If so, what is the change from #1 to #2 that would make this illegal?

3. Finally, imagine that www.somesite.com itself has this box, and you use it to request web pages. Is this now illegal? What are the legal differences between #1, #2, and #3?

I appreciate input. Again, I am not asking if it is ethical to probe public websites in this manner, I am asking about legality.

Torture

2006-09-22T17:49:00.000-05:00

Read it and literally weep.

TV commercials

2006-09-21T21:15:00.000-05:00

On to more mundane things...TV commercials!

Patty Wetterling's is okay for your standard introductory biographical piece. As if there are people in this state that don't know about Jacob Wetterling, but you have to start somewhere.

Pawlenty's tax ad is pretty lame. True, that is probably because I think he's pretty lame. I just can't keep from adding "....and led to the delay of the Crosstown reconstruction project" whenever he says he vetoed the bipartisan gas tax increase. That is something to be proud of?

The "word games" anti-Pawlenty ad isn't bad either. It points out how his "no new taxes" pledge is a joke, without being too negative or too kooky. It's not a groundbreaker, but it'll do.

How to become a hacker in three easy steps!

2006-09-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

Want to know how to become a "hacker"? Well, it's simple:

1. Go to this page. Select "Page 2" and click on the Go button.
2. Notice that you have just been forwarded to http://www.isotton.com/scripts/fastredirector/page2.html
3. Send that link (http://www.isotton.com/scripts/fastredirector/page2.html) to another person so they can get to that page directly.

Congratulations! You are a 1337 haX0R! w00T!

Now, if I understand this whole brouhaha, this is essentially what Noah Kunin did, except that instead of selecting "Page 2" from a list, he typed it in a box. But that's it.

Am I missing anything here?

A more pathetic day I have never seen...

2006-09-21T18:40:00.000-05:00

Today has to be one of the most pathetic days I have ever seen in Minnesota Politics. This "security breach OMG liberal blogger did something illegal OH NOES!" nonsense gives anybody with any knowledge at all a huge, gigantic, monstrous headache. The fact that Mark Kennedy and his Republican underlings have no problem lying to exploit this non-issue is, quite honestly, disgusting.

First, the "hacking" of Scott Howell's website by Noah Kunin. Simply put, you can't hack security that doesn't exist. The allegation is that Noah went to http://www.scott-howell.com/netview.html and then "hacked" where it says "enter a password." Now, to somebody who is ignorant about the web, that may look huge and foreboding. But how can it be security when you are just asked for a password, not a username? Without both, there is no way to authenticate the user, even if you do make the "password" box have little stars in it. And where's the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) that secure websites are supposed to have? Do you see an "https://" in front of that address? I don't.

Becuase it's not a password, and the site is not password-protected by any means. Enter some random gibberish in that box to see what I mean. Say you enter "bob" in the box. You simply get forwarded to http://www.scott-howell.com/cybersession/bob.html. If you enter "mde", you will be forwarded to http://www.scott-howell.com/cybersession/mde.html (of course, neither of these websites really exists). If you simply typed in the URL directly into your web browser, you would get to the same place without a fake "password" prompt. There is no security there.

Now, I'm not saying that what the Klobuchar campaign did was wrong, or that Noah Kunin did the right thing when he discovered that Scott Howell's website was coded by an idiot (and I hope that Mr. Howell has fired whoever is in charge of his web security, because that kind of mistake should not be made by somebody who has even a rudimentary knowledge of the web). I fail to see how Kunin did anything truly illegal; he just figured out that Scott Howell's web minions coded some shortcut, called it a "password", and hoped that nobody would figure out that all of their web pages are public. Putting a sign on a door saying "This door is locked" doesn't make it locked; putting up a webpage asking for a "password" does not mean you are securing your site.

Then we get to Mark Kennedy's "securing" of his website because Scott Howell's was "hacked." Forget for the moment that Howell's website was not hacked. Forget that it is completely absurd for one person to "lockdown" their site because another site, somewhere else on the interwebs, was insecure. The most pathetic, and most disingenuous thing is that Mark Kennedy has done nothing to secure his website. Not a single damn thing, except to put up some WATB page that all of his other pages redirect to instantly.

But are his old pages gone? Are they secured? Are they now invisible to the world? Of course not. Just go to a page like http://www.markkennedy06.com/Action/Register.htm and hit Escape when it starts loading. If you are quick enough, you will keep it from automatically forwarding to the WATB page, and you can clearly see that the contents are still there, still open, still available to the public. Like I posted elsewhere, Mark Kennedy has done with his website the equivalent of throwing a sheet over a couch and saying "Look! The couch is gone!" Pretty impressive and secure...against infants.

But Republicans are still going to act all high and mighty and lie knowing full well the truth, hoping that the public will be ignorant enough about HTML and META REFRESH tags and the like to buy it hook, line, and sinker. The Klobuchar campaign, in my opinion, handled this case in a way far and above how they had to. Kennedy, meanwhile, is going to try to milk this non-scandal for all the slime he can.

There are times when principled Republicans are right about certain issues. And there are times like these when Republicans will do anything, up to and including blatant lying, to get their way. Sadly, the latter happens much more frequently now than the former.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-09-21T06:32:00.000-05:00

No kolumn? Maybe her last one left her spent after all of the ridiculous attacks on Ellison.

Outrageous

2006-09-20T20:36:00.000-05:00

If you want to read a disturbing story, go here.

It is the year 2006, and women are still treated like absolute trash by certain people in power. I'd like to say that I can't believe these things happen, but I know better, especially when it comes to religious wackos. Every sperm is sacred, indeed.

Mark Kennedy's next ad

2006-09-19T19:52:00.000-05:00

Fade in from black to black-and-white images of crime: Watts riots, fires, non-white people doing bad things. Scary music in the background...

Alleged Prosecutor Amy Klobuchar would like you to believe that she fights crime. So then why has crime gone up in Hennepin County? It's simple: she refuses to take responsibility.

Cut to: image of Amy Klobuchar playing with puppies or some similar innocuous image.

You see, Amy Klobuchar refuses to take to the streets of Hennepin County and take the law into her own hands. She doesn't have a concealed carry permit. She probably doesn't even own a gun. Has she ever chased down a criminal while on the job?

Cut to: image of Mark Kennedy in a cowboy hat with a revolver.

Mark Kennedy takes crime seriously. That's why he personally patrols the streets of Minneapolis with a six-shooter in hand. In fact, he kills an average of three drug dealers and al-Qaeda terrorists a day. Has Amy Klobuchar ever killed anyone?

Cut to: smiling image of Mark Kennedy in front of locked-up criminals.

Mark Kennedy will fight crime. Amy Klobuchar won't. The choice is clear.

Huh?

2006-09-19T18:43:00.000-05:00

Senator Dayton, it's called "the weather." It is unpredictable, especially here in Minnesota, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Katherine Kersten's Korner

2006-09-17T20:21:00.000-05:00

I'm shocked that in Kersten's latest kolumn she resumes her attacks on Keith Ellison. She joins the cadre of Republicans who are trying to paint Ellison as some extremist and paint the DFL as extremist for voting for an extremist. It's a really highbrow strategy, and Kersten has just enough intelligence to join in.

Wingnuttia Level: 10 (She's gonna blow!)

There is literally nothing new here. If you want a rehash of everything that wingnuts like Alan Fine and Ron Carey are saying about Keith Ellison, read her kolumn. If you are sick of it, don't.

Knee-jerk ignorance

2006-09-17T11:38:00.000-05:00

I found this article on the Ellison's "Hamas-loving" supporter to be interesting, and to verify what I assumed the story was. There are obviously lots of people who support Hamas: the PLO was corrupt and Hamas provided services that the people need. Same with Hezbollah. That doesn't mean that the people who get medicine from Hamas support their terrorism, it means they support the only group that cares whether they live or die.

I see this as a sad reflection on the state of politics and the economy in these Middle Eastern locales, because when things fall apart so badly that these quasi-governmental organizations need to pop up to provide people with basic services, it's not a good thing for obvious reasons. But Republicans? Most of them are probably ignorant of the history of Hamas or the Middle East in general, so they can't comprehend how anybody can support Hamas. They are terrorists!

It must be fun to have such a narrow mind and live your life based on white-or-black moral absolutes. Actually, it's probably not fun. I've spent enough time around those kinds of people to know how much fun it isn't.

Minnesota Poll shows Hatch and Pawlenty tied

2006-09-17T11:32:00.000-05:00

The latest Minnesota Poll shows Mike Hatch and Tim Pawlenty tied in the governor's race at 42% each. I'm not really surprised by the closeness of the race. The state isn't doing horribly, but there are a lot of issues (transportation, health care, "no new taxes") that aren't going well. There's no clear direction.

A couple things jumped out at me when I read the crosstabs. First, Pawlenty is hugely popular with the 18-34 group; what's up with that? Second, there are more undecided women than men at this point, which I see as a good thing for Hatch. Hatch, like most Democrats, has a lead among women, so if these undecided women break for Hatch, he could be up slightly. We will see.

A thought experiment

2006-09-16T11:07:00.000-05:00

I normally don't do national politics, but this is something that is so outrageous, it bears comment: the trials for suspected terrorists, and what the Bush administration wants to do.

The way I understand it, the Bush administration wants something like this: they haul in Michael Brodkorb of MDE as a "suspected terrorist." They also haul me in as a suspected terrorist. Under "coercion" (read: torture), I finally exclaim "Yes! Yes! Osama bin Laden personally told me that Michael Brodkorb was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks when we were eating at Tucci Benucch in the year 2000! He did it!" This becomes the main piece of evidence in the case against Mr. Brodkorb, but because it is "classified" he never gets to see any of it. He could even presumably be put to death on the basis of this, and he would never know it.

So is this it? Do I have anything wrong?