Almanac: At the Capitol

One of the poorer members of the US Senate, Minnesota's own Norm Coleman, has been taken care of by his friends. From a sweetheart apartment deal in Washington, DC to a job for his wife so she can afford to live in California to clothes, it is clear that Republican donors are taking good care of Norm and his family.

Coleman also has a close relationship with Minnesota businessman Nasser Kazeminy, a big donor to the G.O.P. and to Coleman. In 2005, the senator and his daughter jetted down to the Bahamas on a private plane owned by Kazeminy, a trip valued at $3,960. In 2004, he and his wife flew to Paris on Kazeminy’s plane, a $2,870 value.

“The trips … fall under the Senate gift rule, which allows for pre-approved gifts from long-term friends, the Star Tribune said in a 2006 story about the trips. “Coleman said he has known Kazeminy for more than a decade and the two have spent Christmas together. ‘It’s a friend with a plane,’ Coleman said.”

I’ve been told by two sources that Kazeminy has in the past covered the bills for Coleman’s lavish clothing purchases at Nieman Marcus in Minneapolis. The sources were not certain of the dates of the purchases; if they were made before Coleman joined the Senate in 2003, he obviously would not be required to report it under senate rules. But having a private businessman pay for your clothing is never a good idea if you’re a public official (Coleman was mayor of St. Paul from 1994 to 2002).
(Harper's)

Even if I wanted to make stuff up about how Norm has been purchased, I couldn't have dreamed this one up. But it gets better. Norm's staff won't answer basic questions about this and Norm is even getting flustered over this:

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In today's Minneapolis Star Tribune, Pat Doyle writes about the ads Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and DFL challenger Al Franken have been running against each other in a article entitled "Franken, Coleman ads cross line between fact, fiction." This is intended to be a neutral analysis piece. Unfortunately, Doyle has not been following this race closely and does not know that all the facts. Norm claims in his defense that another organization was doing the oversight of Iraq reconstruction. Doyle apparently does not know that this organization is just as corrupt as everything else in the Bush Adminstration. If Doyle would have had more time or inclination to research this article more thoroughly, he might have discovered that Franken's claim does hold merit.

I attempted to contact Mr. Doyle prior to writing this, but he did not return my emails or phone calls.

I will start with Doyle's inaccurate sub-heading:

A Franken ad criticizing Coleman for holding no hearings into Iraq contract abuse isn't entirely accurate, but neither is a rebuttal ad Coleman is airing about his successes.
(Strib)

The problem is endemic to the Strib's death spiral. Readership is down. Consequently, they weren't making enough money in ad revenue so they slashed their reporting staff. As a result of the reduced staff they were unable to adequately cover the MN-SEN race. It was only in June that a writer was assigned to solely cover the race. Previously, one writer was assigned to this race, the Governor and the legislature. But as the race heats up and their resources get stretched, they've given an assignment to someone who does not know all the background of the race. Since Doyle did not return my emails and calls, I can only assume that he did little to no research into the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

Doyle relates how Franken claims that Norm has ignored his oversight duties in Iraq. He then relates how Norm claims in his own defense that he has uncovered $80 billion in fraud in Iraq:

The $80 billion figure refers to subcommittee inquiries since 2003, focusing on issues other than alleged Iraq bid-rigging, such as abusive credit practices, vulnerabilities in homeland security and Medicare.

The independent investigator referred to in Coleman's ad wasn't part of Coleman's panel but the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). The "nonpartisan reviews" that Coleman supported refer to 122 SIGIR audits from 2004 to 2008.
...
The subcommittee Coleman headed has a history of conducting aggressive investigations into military contract abuse, and Coleman's critics say he should have used it to conduct hearings into allegations that surfaced in 2003 about the Iraq contracts. Coleman says that SIGIR and other entities were better suited for the job and that he focused on exposing waste, fraud and abuse in other areas of government.

Ultimately, it's up to voters to decide whether the panel should have taken up the Iraq contracts.
(Strib)

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"Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion. That's not what the constitution says. The constitution of the United States says we're all -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America." -- George orWell Bush, second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., October 8th, 2004

Well, you have to give Boy Blunder credit; unlike Governor MooseMeat, Dumbya actually can name a Supreme Court case that isn't Roe v. Wade. But as this election's first presidential debate demonstrated; as the VPOUTS debate demonstrated, and as tonight's second presidential in all probability will demonstrate, a vote for Bushy McSame and Governor MooseMeat is a vote for four more years like the last eight - Stay The Course!

In one hundred and four days, a new president will be sworn in. Make sure that it's Barack Obama, and that January 20th, 2009 is The End Of An Error.

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According to Sarah Palin, I'm a terrorist!

The whole bogus issue of the McCain Campaign has raised the "associations" of candidates. As anyone with more than an ounce of brains and a memory longer than slug will remember John McCain's association with domestic economic terrorists like the folks that brought you the S&L bailout that we are still paying for. I guess a better classification might be calling them domestic economic traitors.

I lived in Chicago during the 90's working as a photojournalist covering politics, news and the arts for folks like the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek and many others. I had the chance to photograph Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn at their home on Chicago's southside. He had just published a book about his years in the Weather Underground. Both he and his wife are professors at the University of Illinois-Chicago and Northwestern, respectively.

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If it weren't so serious, it'd be funny. John McCain has now attempted to transform himself from the consumate insider, to Washington Outsider; from the staunch promoter of Reaganism and De-Regulation, to a regulatory protector of the American Taxpayer.

Yeah, "right."

John "WaterBoard Express" McCain is as corrupt as anyone in Washington can get; in many respects, worse: while he was up to his neck and barely avoided a Perp Walk back in the day due to his involvement in The Keating Five; his continual and ideological-driven work to de-regulate Wall Street led to the meltdown America (and, the world) is now suffering through.

So, what was John McCain's role in The Keating Five? While much has been written, let's look at a YouTube. It features William Black, Ph.D., the Federal Banking Regulator involved in this case of fraud that cost the American Taxpayer so much:

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Minnesota's third congressional seat (MN-03) election pits DFLer Ashwin Madia against Republican Erik Paulsen. David Dillon is the independent candidate who is more or less a Republican with a twist and will likely peel off some conservative voters from Paulsen. This race is one of the most closely watched in the country as moderate Republican Jim Ramstad is retiring and this district has been trending Democratic in recent years in local elections. It is an excellent opportunity for a Democratic pick-up and many signs are pointing to a Madia win.

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My wife and I own a modest home in a Saint Paul neighborhood. I took the follow screen capture from an MLS search that allows you to view only foreclosed houses. Every home in this picture has been foreclosed, and this is only a partial listing that have made it onto the MLS so far.

Please take a look at the picture. This is our neighborhood. We are both professionals with good jobs, and we are in a middle class area. I would defy anyone to look at the picture and try and conclude all those people are lazy, irresponsible, gullible, or were caught trying to make an easy buck. All of those houses with F's on them were once families. Families like us. Families in our neighborhood.

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It's just a rumor; a rumor I heard on Saturday. Then on Sunday, on Esme Murphy's WCCO TV interview with Paulsen, The Hustler stated he was going to be outspent 4 to 1.

A simple fact of politics, is people and organizations don't fund losing campaigns. While there hasn't been a poll released on this race, my gut feeling is internal polling by Paulsen, Madia, the DCCC and the NRCC all show Madia either in the driver's seat, or getting ready to hop in and take the wheel.

So, I have to ask: is this true, and did Paulsen inadvertantly confirm it?

Whether the rumor is true or not, this is really, Really, REALLY the time to dig deep and give - and give of time, too. It's "pour it on!" time, and time to end the political career of career politician Erik "The Hustler" Paulsen.

Stay tuned.....

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"We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." -- George orWell Bush, Washington, D.C., October 4th, 2001

Ladies and Gentlemen, substitute "greedy Wall Street Bankers" with "the evildoer", and you have Bushy McSame's economic plan for Boy Blunder's Third Term. Actually, you can subsitute "anyone that disagrees with us", and it describes the plan, too.

Fortunately, the plan is for January 20th, 2009 to be The End Of An Error.

[Updated: transcript of Al's closing statement]

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), Al Franken (the DFL candidate) and Dean Barkley met in Rochester for the second Minnesota Senate (MN-SEN) debate. It was a tag-team pummeling. Franken and Barkley pointed out time and time again how all of the bad things that have happened have been under Norm's watch. Furthermore, they both spent time pointing out all of the specific things that Norm hasn't done and all of the bad things he has done. Franken specifically pointed out vote after vote where Norm voted against the best interests of Minnesota. Al's closing statement was brilliant ... he got the last word and really summed up what the race is all about.

Norm played defense all night using Norm-speakTM. He tried to insinuate that Al has no practical experience, the wrong temperament and claimed that "it's not enough to talk." He talked incessantly about how much he's worked across the aisle. He defended his and his buddies' personalized attack ads against Al -- he complained that Al has no voting record, so he's justified. He talked about how he's kept taxes down and name-dropped as often as he could.

And finally, he lied. He accused his opponents of wanting to cut off funding to our troops. He talked about how much he's done to make college affordable and to increase Pell grants when in reality he voted for the largest cuts in history and voted to cut off low-income kids from the Pell grant program. He claimed he was opposed to the first Wall Street bail-out package that failed in the House, when the truth is he indicated he was for it.

Franken and Barkley hit Norm on the bail-out -- they called him out for cheerleading while Bush drove the economy into the ditch. They whacked him on his support for the Iraq War. Al called it a "tragic blunder of epic proportions" while Barkley called it one of two of Norm's trillion dollar mistakes (Norm's support of Bush economic policy was the other). They slapped him around for his lack of support for renewable energy ... Al in particular for his reelection year conversion. They hit him foreign policy: Al accused him of dropping the ball on Afghanistan. They hit him on healthcare. In particular Al pointed out that Norm voted against Medicare negotiating drug prices and giving a huge freebie to Big Pharma. They clobbered him with how wrong his support of Bush Doctrine of preemptive war is especially since it was all based upon lies.

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Just when you think Erik Paulsen can't sink any lower, he does.

Editor's note:due to page loading issues, videos are below the fold. So just click on "read more" to get to the great videos

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The recent string of polls in the Minnesota Senate race indicating widely disparate findings raise one question. Why? Why did SurveyUSA have Norm Coleman leading Al Franken by 10%, 43%-33%, then the Star Tribune poll have Al up by 9%, 43%-34% (MoE 3.7%)?

The answer is in the cross-tabs.

In the SurveyUSA poll, 37% self-identify as Democrats, 30% as Republicans. This is inaccurate. For at least a year, the average in polls has been fluctuating around 40% Democrats and 25% Republicans. By getting such a higher percentage of Republicans, both John McCain and Norm Coleman did far better than they probably are. The Strib has a more realistic break-down:

The poll detected a significant increase in Minnesotans who label themselves as Democrats. Forty-two percent of likely voters identified themselves as Democrats, compared with 27 percent who said they were independents, and 26 percent who said they were Republicans.
(Strib)

The Republican brand is in the toilet. A failing economy given to us by the most unpopular President in history, a hugely unpopular war and countless Republican corruption scandals ... oh yea ... did I mention incompetence ... have convinced many Republicans that their party is horrible at governing. They are abandoning ship. Any poll that doesn't have this 40-25 spread isn't accurate.

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I've heard several people refer to the Wall Street bail-out proposal that failed in the House and the subsequent version that passed both Houses as letting the fox run the hen house. Their reason is because there's no oversight. I don't think that metaphor is appropriate. What would be more appropriate? How about this twist:

The Fox convinces the police to stop patrolling the part of town where the banks are. He then convinces everyone in the neighborhood where all the banks are to shut down all their security cameras. Then he convinces all the guards at the banks to take extra long lunches for the indefinite future. Yet everybody is shocked when there are a string of robberies at the banks.

Who is this Fox? Henry Paulson.

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While on normal days, broken windows and overturned trash cans cannot even get a police report. The same threat of violence at the Republican National Convention (RNC) had satellite assistance for vehicle control. There is something very very wrong when this level of military support is used on people essentially just using freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble!

Tactical Tracking System Deploys for Stateside Use

Oct 02, 2008
BY Skip Vaughn, AMCOM

Members of the National Guard use Blue Force Tracking-Aviation at their joint operations center during the Republican National Convention. Photo by Courtesy Photo

A satellite-based system for tracking friendly forces in war has now been used in domestic missions.

Blue Force Tracking-Aviation served since July to support National Guard units battling wildfires in California and Nevada and to support units providing security at the Democratic national convention in August in Denver and at the Republican national convention in September in St. Paul, Minn.
(mnblue)

Kind of like the weapons that they had trained on me at Mears park, when I had a camera!

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Now that McCain and Palin have draped themselves in Obama’s mantle of change, the crucial question has become: change to what? Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin all claim to feel the pain of hard working Americans who seem to be falling behind rather than getting ahead. All envision a bright tomorrow in which every American will be safe and prosperous. But there is a stark contrast between the Obama-Biden and the McCain-Palin vision for America. And nowhere is this contrast starker than in their competing plans for health care reform.

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

I'm so disgusted, I'm at a loss for words. For now. I'll have them by Monday, after I continue to wrestle with what to say. Until then, go to Minnesota Public Radio on the following link, and listen - LISTEN - to what Republican Geoff Michel said on Erik Paulsen's behalf - and, presumably, request, at the State Capital last Wednesday.

As you listen, keep in mind the following definition:

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

dem·a·gogue -- Pronunciation Key - [dem-uh-gog, -gawg]

noun, verb, -gogued, -gogu·ing.

–noun 1. a person, esp. an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.
2. (in ancient times) a leader of the people.
–verb (used with object) 3. to treat or manipulate (a political issue) in the manner of a demagogue; obscure or distort with emotionalism, prejudice, etc.
–verb (used without object) 4. to speak or act like a demagogue.

Also, dem·a·gog.

[Origin: 1640–50;

This gutter politicking by Republican Geoff Michel, doing Erik Paulsen's dirty work, is simply unacceptable in civilized society. I'll have more thoughts on this, on Monday.

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Rep. John Kline (R-MN02) was for earmarks before he was against them before he was both for and against them before he descended into confusion. Compare this to his DFL opponent Steve Sarvi. Kline cannot run on his abysmal voting record so he's looking for bumper sticker issues upon which to base his campaign. One of these is his anti-pork pledge. Sarvi, on the other hand, is for real fiscal responsibility. Kline promised to swear off all pork and oppose all earmark-laden bills. Then the economy began to collapse, the House rejected a bail-out package, the Senate passed one and the House passed it, too. Here's what the conservative NY Post says that Kline voted for:

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Elwyn Tinklenberg, the DFL sixth district candidate for the US House of Representatives is now on the Progressive Patriots Fund. In my experiences door-knocking in the sixth, Elwyn Tinklenberg is the candidate most often offered up in surveys with great enthusiasm, even by people who are voting for no other DFL candidate. So strategic use of funds really could help in the 6th district. You can also give directly to the campaign!

Elwyn Tinklenberg, 57, was born in Princeton and grew up on a farm in Pease, Minnesota, a small, Dutch, farming community in central Minnesota. He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota at Duluth and attended seminary at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He served as a United Methodist Minister in Blaine, Minnesota from 1977 to 1986.

While serving on the city council for 4 years and as Mayor of Blaine from 1987 to 1996, Tinklenberg quickly gained a reputation as an expert in the field of transportation, eventually serving as Governor Jesse Ventura's Commissioner of Transportation from 1999 to 2002. Charged with managing the day-to-day operations of the department's 5,500 employees and $2 billion annual budget, he worked directly with the legislature to secure funding for the state's first light rail, the development of a regional commuter plan, and a (short-term) doubling of the state transportation budget. In 2003 he served on the Board of Directors for the American Public Transportation Association.

Tinklenberg lives in Blaine with his wife Terri. He is the father of two sons and one daughter with his late wife, the step-father of three children and has seven grandchildren.
(Progressive Patriots Fund)

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"I think it's important to bring somebody from outside the system, the judicial system, somebody that hasn't been on the bench and, therefore, there's not a lot of opinions for people to look at." -- George orWell Bush, on the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Washington, D.C., October 4th, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen, if there's any question why Boy Blunder picked Miers, link here.

And that's just another reason why January 20th, 2009 will be The End Of An Error.

"I'm sick," Franni Franken told me first off. Franni is DFL US Senate candidate Al Franken's wife. "One month to go and I've caught a cold." This is what happens when you're pushing as hard as she is. "I got rained doorknocking on one day and then it was eighty the next." Yup ... that'll do it. She took a break Monday and Tuesday with Rosh Hashana and she had to take off today and rest. I'm thinking with her enthusiasm she'll be over it by Monday at the latest.

"Last Saturday I spoke at a Somali Town Hall Forum," she continued once we were done talking about getting sick during campaigns. "They've had 9 murders in their community this year. It's so sad. And then another this last Monday. I'm sure they're working with the [Minneapolis] Mayor, police and City Council on this."

"Just last night I was in Steele County at a DFL event," she continued. "There were a load of local candidates giving their speeches. Everyone wanted to talk about the bail-out. This one guy had asked a question and I don't think he'd had his question answered, so I spent most of my time talking about the bail-out. I don't have a prepared speech or anything, so I talk about what folks want to talk about."

I've heard Franni talk on a bunch of occasions. She always wings it. She hits all the talking points she wants to, but really she's reacting to what the people at the event want to talk about. If you've heard her, you know she's good, too.

"The question was 'How do we prevent this from happening again?' and so I told them Al's position," she said. "Al is opposed to the two bail-out bills (first the House version, second the Senate version) because neither did anything about foreclosures. Plus, there's no regulation or oversight in either of them. That's what got us into this mess. We need to help the middle class by doing something about the foreclosures."

Of course, we talked about her ad. How couldn't we?

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