Bluestem Prairie: news about Tim Walz (MN-1)

Ixnay on the apple pie, too? WaPo reports House GOP votes against moms

We've been chronicling the financial and ethical woes of the NRCC and House Republicans for the last few days here at the Bluestem Prairie. And after Congressman Walz mentioned the nuisance votes that House Republicans, we went to Thomas and looked at the frivolous motions to adjourn that were impeding the people's business over the last few days..

But nothing prepared us for Dana Milbank's headline this morning in the Washington Post: Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens.  The details:

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?

If Boehner's explanation doesn't make much sense, he's been under a great deal of stress lately.

There's the case of one member of his caucus, Rep.Vito Fossella (N.Y.); the father of three from Staten Island yesterday announced that he has a fourth, a 3-year-old love child with a woman from Virginia. . . .

. . .For the record, Fossella did not participate in the Mother's Day vote.. . .

. . . Boehner has enough trouble to preoccupy him here in Washington, where House Democrats have been passing their agenda with little thought for Republican preferences. "The majority has taken, once again, their go-it-alone policy," Boehner lamented yesterday. "It's time for Democrats and Republicans to work together."

To induce this working together, Boehner decided to stop the House from working at all. As House Democrats tried to pass legislation to ease the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, Republicans served up hours of procedural delays, demanding a score of roll call votes: 10 motions to adjourn, half a dozen motions to reconsider, various and sundry amendments, a motion to approve the daily journal, a motion to instruct and a "motion to rise."

The high point came just after 6 p.m., when, after one of the motions to adjourn, 61 members lined up to change their votes, one by one. Forty-six went from aye to no, while 15 changed from no to aye. The maneuver ate up 28 minutes in all -- and caused an eruption by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who accused the minority of a "filibuster by vote changing."

. . . the dilatory maneuvers continued, and the Democrats finally announced that they would postpone the vote on the mortgage bill until Thursday, thereby pushing a war spending bill to next week.

Finally, Republicans decided yesterday to suspend their shenanigans; it was time to catch flights to their districts. "Never underestimate the desire of members to go home," Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith explained.

They might also need some extra time with their mothers.

For the record, Congressman Jim Ramstad (R--MN-3) joined Minnesota's Democratic Representatives in voting for motherhood after they had voted for it. Representative Bachmann and Kline voted against motherhood after they voted for it.

Will baseball and the flag be next?

Update: Think Progress has the video.

Jackson County Pilot publishes urban legend--with a twist

We were reading the papers today and came across a letter published in the Jackson County Pilot over the signature of  Les Opheim of  that fair southern Minnesota city.  Labeled Food for Thought, here it is:

To the Editor:

About the time our original 13 states adopted their new Constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith (pilgrims);
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence (here now);
8. From dependence back into bondage.”

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University’s School of Law in St. Paul points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 presidential election:

- Number of states won by Gore: 19; Bush: 29
- Square miles of land won by Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000
- Population of counties won by Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million
- Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.”

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the “complacency” and “apathy” phases of Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “government dependency” phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to 20 million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say good-bye to the U.S.A. in fewer than five years.

Les Opheim
Jackson, Minn.

Most of that looked pretty familiar, so we went online and sure enough, it isn't original. With the expection of the final paragraph about illegal immigrants, it's an urban legend, according to a page at Snopes' Urban Legend Reference site.

What makes it an urban legend?  According to the Snopes site:

1. The population of the counties and square miles of area won by each Bush and Gore appear to be accurate. They are consistent with the election-result map published by USA Today on 20 November 2000.

2. The number of states won by each candidate is wrong, but the numbers given (29 and 19) imply this piece was written before the results of the Florida and New Mexico vote-counts were determined. The final tallies were 30 states for Bush and 20 for Gore.

3. The quote from "Alexander Tyler" is very likely fictitious. His name was actually "Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler," and he was a Scottish historian/professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

However, there is no record of The Fall of the Athenian Republic or The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic in the Library of Congress, which has several other titles by Tytler. This quote has also been cited as being from Tytler's Universal History or from his Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern, books that do exist. These books seem the most likely source of the quote, as they contain extensive discussions of the political systems in historic civilizations, including Athens. Universal History was published after, and based upon, Elements of General History, which was a collection of Professor Tytler's lecture notes.

Tytler's book, Universal history, from the creation of the world to the beginning of the eighteenth century, is available for viewing and searching on-line. The complete text was searched for each of the following phrases:

• Athenian Republic
• democracy
• generous gifts
• public treasury
• loose fiscal
• fiscal
• bondage
• 200 years
• two hundred years
• spiritual faith

In no case was text identified that was remotely similar in words or intent to the alleged Tytler quote.

4. Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University is not the source of any of the statistics or the text attributed to him. Professor Olson was contacted (by me) via e-mail, and he confirmed that he had no authorship or involvement in this matter. And, as Fayette Citizen editor Dave Hamrick wrote back in January 2001:

I really enjoyed one recent message that was circulated extremely widely, at least among conservatives. It gave several interesting "facts" supposedly compiled by statisticians and political scientists about the counties across the nation that voted for George Bush and the ones that voted for Al Gore in the recent election.

Supposedly, the people in the counties for Bush had more education, more income, ad infinitum, than the counties for Gore.

I didn't have time to check them all out, but I was curious about one item in particular... the contention that the murder rate in the Gore counties was about a billion times higher than in the Bush counties.

This was attributed to a Professor Joseph Olson at the Hamline University School of Law. I never heard of such a university, but went online and found it. And Prof. Olson does exist.

"Now I'm getting somewhere," I thought.

But in response to my e-mail, Olson said the "research" was attributed to him erroneously. He said it came from a Sheriff Jay Printz in Montana. I e-mailed Sheriff Printz, and guess what? He didn't do the research either, and didn't remember who had e-mailed it to him.

In other words, he got the same legend e-mailed to him and passed it on to Olson without checking it out, and when Olson passed it on, someone thought it sounded better if a law professor had done the research, and so it grew.

Who knows where it originally came from, but it's just not true.

5. The county-by-county murder-rate comparison presented in this piece is wrong.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), in the year 2000 the national murder rate was about 5.5 per 100,000 residents. Homicide data by county for 1999 and 2000 can be downloaded from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NAJCD), and the counties won by Gore and Bush can be identified using the county-by-county election results made available by CNN. (The NACJD provides not only the number of reported murders for each county, but also the population for each.) The average murder rate in the counties won by Gore vs. the rate in the counties won by Bush can be determined from this data.

By calculating the murder rate for each county and then taking the averages, we find a murder rate (defined as number of murders per 100,000 residents) of about 5.2 for the "average" Gore county and 3.3 for the average Bush county. But since people, rather than counties, commit murders, a more appropriate approach is to calculate the total number of murders in the counties won by each candidate and divide that figure by the total number of residents in those counties. This more appropriate method yields the following average murder rates in counties won by each candidate:

Gore: 6.5

Bush: 4.1

There is a distinct difference between these two numbers, but it is nowhere near as large as the quoted e-mail message states (i.e., 13.2 for Gore vs. 2.1 for Bush). Note that the average of these two figures is 5.3, which, as expected, is very close to the reported national murder rate of 5.5.

Last updated:   3 April 2008

As readers may remember from early April, the publisher of the Redwood Falls Gazette recently published a passed--along-email that is often attributed to Andy Rooney, who disavowed the contents as hateful and contrary to everything America stands for. The column, published on April 1, was not a joke.

Now we find a local Jacksonian passing another urban legend off as his own letter.  Presumeably the editors simply trusted the words to be original to the author. The final paragraph strays from the version at the urban legend reference site, though it, too, is not original, as a Google search turns up this blog post and other hits. Just the current version being spread around.

It's certainly an interesting trend: conservatives circulating urban legends in their search for The Truthiness.  We're guessing Opheim will probably use the same defense as the publisher--who cares about facts, when the sentiment is "true."   As the contemporary Ameircan philosopher Stephen Colbert said:

"We're not talking about truth, we're talking about something that seems like truth—the truth we want to exist."

Who knew that the Snopes site--intended for checking up on facts--would become the lending library for the forces of Truthiness in Minnesota?

Identity theft? Davis swipes Senator Day's campaign card rhetoric

...in the immigration debate.

Early last September, Dick Day said in a campaign press release:

“There is absolutely no reason VISA and Mastercard should do a better job than the US government at keeping track of people.

Last night on KTTC, Davis said:

"I don't understand when you go to an ATM, Visa or MasterCard can check someones identity pretty quickly and efficiently and almost instantaneously. Why the federal government can't get some of that technology to determine someones residency status," Davis says.

This is what is passing for common sense among Republicans these days? Back in September, Dave Mindeman at mnpACT! pointed out:

And besides, if you want to stand by this statement:

"There is absolutely no reason VISA and Mastercard should do a better job than the U.S. government at keeping track of people."

I hope [you're] willing to explain that analogy to those constituents who have been victims of identity theft [link added to statistics]. I'm not sure they will be so quick to agree.

Dave's right. Ruthless and clever thieves have come up with all sorts of ways to circumvent Visa and Mastercard ability to match card and cardholder. Breaching databases of electronic fund transfer information at retailers to swipe account numbers and PINs is a big problem.  Within the last 24 hours, the Associated Press reported:

There were 167 breaches in the U.S. in the first three months of 2008, up from 76 in last year's first quarter, the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center announced Wednesday.

Breaches disclosed so far this year have potentially affected 8 million people, said the nonprofit group, which counts breaches reported in news media and other sources that it considers reliable.

This year's biggest breach so far occurred at Hannaford Bros. Co., a Maine-based supermarket chain that said last month that hackers had exposed more than 4 million credit and debit card numbers in a breach that led to at least 1,800 cases of fraud. The breach affected Hannaford stores in the Northeast and Sweetbay stores in Florida that are owned by Delhaize America.

Last year, the Identity Theft Resource Center counted 446 breaches, up 43 percent from 2006.

Other strategies involve installing equipment on legitimate bank ATMs. Bad people figure out how to circumvent those things that supposedly match the cardholder and the card.

Consumer protection laws help prevent financial losses to the individual cardholder, depending upon the type of card used (credit or debit/check).  Visa and Mastercard often eat the consequences after the fact, again depending upon whether the card is a credit card or debit.

It's costly to Visa and Masterard, and takes time for consumers to resolve. The most recent FBI report on financial crimes (FY 2006) says:

A survey conducted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2006 estimated that 8.3 million American consumers, or 3.7 percent of the adult population, became victims of identity theft in 2005. Most of the financial losses are suffered by credit issuers and banks, as victims are rarely held responsible for fraudulent debts incurred in their name; however, victims often bear  the responsibility of contacting their banks and credit issuers after an     identity theft has occurred. The same FTC survey determined that victim consumers spent over 200 million hours in 2005 attempting to recover from identity theft.

While matching PIN to card is pretty easy, have VISA and Mastercard come up with a fool-proof match of card and cardholder? Hardly. Can Dick Day keep Brian Davis from absconding with foolish analogies? Guess not.

The BBC's The Real Hustle illustrated one of the scams (it's not localized to Great Britain):

Redwood Falls Gazette publisher proudly prints bogus Andy Rooney column

Since newspapers that are published in towns near the First's borders sometimes carry news relevant to our mission, we read venues like the Faribault Daily News, the Marshall Independent (a favorite) and the Redwood Falls Gazette. We spotted an approving publication of an urban legend in the latter this week.

Pat Schmidt, the publisher of the Redwood Falls Gazette is so proud of holding "politically incorrect" views that he's letting Andy Rooney do the talking in this week's column, Andy, I wish I'd said that first.

Schmidt couldn't be bothered to check up on the authenticity of the piece, even though he goes ahead and attaches Rooney's name to it:

In my younger days I used to hate listening to Andy Rooney's commentary at the conclusion of the TV show "60 Minutes."

As the years have gone by, I've come to realize some of the things he has to say make sense.

For instance, I was handed a piece he supposedly wrote or spoke. Whether or not he did, what it says does make sense. Here is what he had to say.

Many of our readers probably know what's coming:

"I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Maga-zine, Black Entertainment Tele-vision, and Miss Black America.

"Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertain-ment Television, or Miss White America; and see what happensŠ Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door. ....

We'd first wondered if this was an April Fools joke. The notion that Andy Rooney wrote this piece is so discredited that it's one of three examples given in How To Spot An Urban Legend... and avoid embarassment.

And what has Andy Rooney said about the column attributed to him? Snopes has the score:

Origins:    Curmudgeonly 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney may have delivered a vituperative essay on French politics in 2003, but this piece elaborating on his own politics is not his creation.  The text quoted above is too reactionary even for the acerbic Rooney, and the language used doesn't sound like him. ("Shoot your sorry ass" just isn't the kind of phrase Andy Rooney employs on television.)  Just to be thorough, we checked the transcripts of all of Andy Rooney's 60 Minutes pieces from the last ten years, and nothing like this item turned up.

Moreover, Andy Rooney himself denied it in 2003, saying:

About a year ago, I became aware of a more serious theft of my name and it is so hurtful to my reputation that it calls for legal action against the thief. Hundreds of people have written asking if I really wrote the 20 detestable remarks made under my name that have had such wide circulation on the Internet.

Some of the remarks, which I will not repeat here, are viciously racist and the spirit of the whole thing is nasty, mean and totally inconsistent with my philosophy of life. It is apparent that the list of comments has been read by hundreds of thousands of Americans, many of whom must believe that it accurately represents opinions of mine that I don't dare express in my column or on television. It is seriously damaging to my reputation.

Mr. Rooney disclaimed the above-quoted piece again in his 60 Minutes segment of 23 October 2005, saying of it:

There's a collection of racist and sexist remarks on the Internet under a picture of me with the caption ‘ANDY ROONEY SAID ON 60 MINUTES.’ If I could find the person who did write it using my name I would sue him.

And he denied it yet again to the Associated Press in December 2006:

Rooney said that a racist commentary falsely attributed to him is circulating over the Internet and through e-mails. The "60 Minutes" essayist wants anyone who might have seen it to know he had nothing to do with it.

"I suppose it's not important, but I hate the fact that people think I've been writing these things," he told The Associated Press. "That's hurtful to me."

The missive, which Rooney said had been passed along to him via e-mail several times, is a list of several anti-minority statements. One of the printable ones: "I have the right not to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird or tick me off."

The final two items on the list are probably a good tipoff that either this collection was written (by an as-yet unidentified author) as a parody of the "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" spots on 60 Minutes or that someone appended Andy Rooney's name to an unattributed piece because it "seemed like something he would say."  Either way, whoever created this version appears to have lifted some parts from an earlier piece known as "Yes, I Guess I am A BAD American" and falsely credited to comedian George Carlin.

We called the Redwood Gazette to see if this was an April Fools joke. The person who answered the phone put us through to  Pat Schmidt, who was defensive, denying that he was a racist, even though we didn't bring that term up in the conversation.

Schmidt said that he believed that regardless of authorship, everything in the piece was "true" (his word). He said that he hadn't researched its authenticity as a Rooney piece since the content rang "true" to him. He'll be writing about the reaction in his next column.

We didn't call the sentiments in the piece racist while on the phone with Schimdt. However, Andy Rooney did while trying to establish the facts of the case. After all, it's his reputation getting put on the line when his name gets attached to beliefs he finds repugnant.  We, as a mere blogger, checked that out. 

Schmidt, on the other hand, simply couldn't be bothered with fact checking  details when he knows that something's "true." We're not sure why he thinks this approach to establishing "truth" strengthens his credibility.  Apparently, he thinks ignorance of an article's provenance trumps knowledge.

He certainly has the right to publish it, though we'll let lawyers versed in defamation law consider how responsible it was to bring Rooney's name into this without checking to see if his suggested authorship was a matter of fact or desired by the 60 Minutes pundit.

Schmidt's critics, too, have the right to weigh in on his lack of due diligence as a publisher.  Moreover, any discussion about whether Rooney is right when he labeled the text racist is also protected by the First Amendment. 

Not that Schmidt shares that wide open interpretation of the First Amendment.  After all, since he believes everything in the column is "true," he believes that it's okay to tell people to shut up. Quoting from the piece:

"Therefore, I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having "In God We Trust" on our money and having "God" in the Pledge of Alle-giance. Why don't we just tell the 14 percent to be quiet."

We anticipate that Schmidt will declare himself a victim, since people wouldn't "be quiet."

Since Schmidt had his defenses up in the phone call, we didn't think to ask who passed the column on to him. Had we asked, he would have been under no obligation to share that information with us.  However, the miracle of Google search is helpful to learn the circles in which a forwarded email message is circulating.  Here's a search for the last month.

 

An Onion moment at the Byron Review and the Mankato Free Press: April Fools. . .no, really

Reading the district newspapers this morning, we come across this lead from publisher Larry Dobson's column in the Byron Review:

I kicked around the idea of doing a special April Fools edition of the newspapers this week, since the Byron Review actually comes out on April 1 and the Dodge Center Star Record and Hayfield Herald are distributed the next day. I played around with a few ideas like, "Escaped bear moonstruck by statue at Byron High School forces school closing," "Homesick Dutchman says Dodge Center windmills remind him of home," and "Oslo runestone leads archeologists to Norse treasure buried in Hayfield." I had collected photos and drawings for Heather, our graphic design genius, to doctor up in Photoshop as illustrations of my absurd and ludicrous ideas. Everything was progressing nicely until I started reading last week's national and international news and discovered nothing I could make up, dream up or imagine could top the absurd and ludicrous stories coming from the Bush Administration!

Dobson cites stories like Supplier Under Scrutiny on Arms for Afghans:

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking. . . .

. . .This week, after repeated inquiries about AEY’s performance by The Times, the Army suspended the company from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian.

Mr. Diveroli, reached by telephone, said he was unaware of the action. The Army planned to notify his company by certified mail on Thursday, according to internal correspondence provided by a military official.

But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966.

“This is what they give us for the fighting,” said the colonel, Amanuddin, who like many Afghans has only one name. “It makes us worried, because too much of it is junk.” Ammunition as it ages over decades often becomes less powerful, reliable and accurate.

AEY is one of many previously unknown defense companies to have thrived since 2003, when the Pentagon began dispensing billions of dollars to train and equip indigenous forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its rise from obscurity once seemed to make it a successful example of the Bush administration’s promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy. . . .

Dobson points out:

No one knows how many of our Afghan allies died as a result of depending on this dangerous and unreliable ammunition. American soldiers may also have died as a result of failure of this ammunition in combat situations, whether they were using it themselves or it was being used by Afghan troops with them.

We know American soldiers who have been deployed to Afghanistan. That fact makes this personal, unlike the abstract conservative ideology which fuels the "the Bush administration’s promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy."

This isn't the first time we've learned about the notion of not getting the very best to soldiers in the combat zone.  Friends deployed to Iraq have shown us pictures of Hummers outfitted with "Hillbilly" up armor improvised in attempts to protect the vehicles from IEDs.

While the marketplace may dictate nickle-and-diming in order to secure profit, securing a war zone probably should be driven by precepts from military science, not ideological constructs about the purity of the marketplace.

Fortunately, the Onion Presidency is drawing to a close. Let's hope that the headlines written by the humor magazine's editors to satirize the next administration never resemble--or surpass--the tragic classic from January 17, 2001: Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'.

We read another echo of that sadly enduring story in the Mankato Free Press's editorial pages today. The Onion contained this nugget:

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders. "Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. . . .

And today's MFP on funding one of those programs under Hastert's watch:

The 2005 Deficit Reduction Act has finally been interpreted to mean Medicaid funding will no longer be used in some cases of child protection. A recent ruling by the federal Department of Human Services determined that child welfare case workers salaries will no longer be paid through the Medicaid program. The figures are significant. Blue Earth County spent $450,575 on case managers in 2007.

Fortunately for children in dangerous family situations, the funding will be made up by counties and to some extent the state of Minnesota. That’s because even though the federal government no longer provides the money for the services, it mandates that they be provided.

The federal, state and county governments work together on funding a number of social services, but the latest shift in cost seems to be particularly onerous. Sens. Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar are urging the federal government to retract the rule that put counties in the bind of paying for these crucial services. Congressman Tim Walz has authored a bill that would delay the rule a year, hoping a more sympathetic president will do away with the rule altogether.

But for now, the situation is one that may begin to play itself out over and over again. As Congress and the president continue to enable a federal spending system that, according to the Comptroller of the Currency, is not sustainable, these kinds of cost shifting will become more prevalent.

At some point, elected federal leaders will have to decide which spending is essential, and which is there simply to appease an interest group. They will have to decide if financial incentives to create jobs which may or may not come about are more important than helping protect children in abusive situations. They will have to decide whether such federal mandates should be funded by a local source, or whether they should eliminate the mandate.

There will be in the near future thousands of such little decisions that must be made, especially if we want tax rates to remain stable. That in itself will be a difficult task, given the growth in spending for the programs like Medicare that we have already said we will fund.

Cutting taxes also doesn’t seem to have “grown” us out of the spending dilemma we face.

Now why would that be? The MFP editors seem unwilling to consider that perhaps some of the tax cuts themselves were enacted to appease special interests.  Looking only at spending, without reviewing revenue options, sets up a false dilemma.  Not that all tax cuts should be rescinded,f ees increased, no any unnecessary spending maintained, but a wider mix can be kept on the table in budget discussions.

Those who champion an ideological silver bullet over ammunition that can actually be fired might need to think again.

Note to readers: The opinion developed above, like any on this site, is solely that of  Bluestem Prairie and should not be construed to represent policies advocated by Congressman Walz (we know you want to, Brian Davis). Walz is more fiscally conservative than we are.

Update: We add an item from CQPolitics to the mix: Transportation   Issues on Campaign Back Burner. Apparently, talk about rebuilding the infrastructure doesn't play well on the presidential campaign trail, since we have to figure out a way to pay for it. And who wants to hear about that?:

The 12-member National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released a report on Jan. 15 that said the federal government needed to spend $225 billion a year in infrastructure for a half-century to build the kind of transportation system the nation needs to stay competitive, but it’s often considered political suicide to champion spending money.

The article ends:

Transportation experts feel fairly certain they can count on Obama and Clinton even if they don’t discuss transportation on the stump. They are worried about McCain, one of a handful of senators who voted against final passage of a highway bill in 2005. He maintains a hard line against Amtrak and resists federal spending, they said.

      

McCain’s campaign did not return calls for comment.

      

“Both Obama and Clinton have at least talked about the need to reinvest in America. I don’t think they go nearly far enough, but they have clearly showed some commitment to the issue,” Wytkind said. “If McCain is elected it will be George W. Bush  all over again, maybe even worse. I defy you to find anyone with a worse record.”

The article mentions that Dwight Eisenhower campaigned on building the Interstate system. Now the politic landscape seems littered with people who consider I35 to either be God's holy way or the demon road of NAFTA. Some mornings we're convinced that America's Finest News Source has simply taken over politcal discourse in this country.

 

Breaking skin: Republican spokesters embrace recycling

While the first district Republicans' endorsed candidate rejects government programs to help incubate Southern Minnesota's nascent renewable energy industry, we can report this evening that Bluestem Prairie has discovered that the pachyderm party at least supports recycling.

However, Scripture reminds us that re-use isn't always the best option. We recall that memorable analogy from the Gospels that tells us to pour new wine into new skins, lest the old wineskin burst and leave one heckova mess to clean up.

And hence a quip in the "breaking news" of Brian Davis's endorsement may indeed indicate that something's broke with Republican congressional campaigns.

In Mayo doctor Brian Davis gets GOP nod in First District, the state GOP chair speaks:

Prior to the vote, state Republican Chairman Ron Carey urged delegates to unite to defeat Walz, whom he said "masqueraded" as a conservative when he ousted Gil Gutknecht in 2006.

"The only conservative thing about Tim Walz was his haircut," Carey said. . . .

Now, where and when did we hear that before?  Oh yeah,  Minn. Roundup: Walz a Legit Barrier to Gutknecht in 1st District, a New York Times article published on October 17, 2006:

Republicans are trying to emphasize what they portray as Walz’s liberal outlook, which they said will not play well with voters who voted in favor of Bush both in 2000 and 2004.

“The only thing conservative about Tim Walz is his haircut,” state party spokesman Mark Drake told CQPolitics.com.

The NYTimes and CQPolitics teamed up to share coverage in the 2006 elections.

Minnesota wasn't the only place nor Walz the only Democratic candidate against whom the elephants rallied this punchline. Witness a 2006 ad against Montana's Jon Tester:

Earlier this week, the NRSC released both a television and radio ad centered on Tester's trademark buzz cut. Both are set in a fictional barbershop and feature the punch line: "Conservative haircut. Liberal values.

Like Walz, Tester unseated an incumbent. 

We knew that the National Republican Congressional Committee was short on cash, but we're surprised to see a new candidate's chances poured so recklessly into the old skin of an unsuccessful slogan.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are awfully quiet about Walz's ranking as a centrist by the nonpartisan National Journal. We think they are so far to the extreme right that the center looks far, far way to the left. It's quite likely that Southern Minnesota's common sense voters are closer to that center as well.

Mediawatch: KTTC stumbles on basic reporting in Demmer

We paused at this reportage from KTTC in the case of the anti-Demmer smear:

"Could it mean that Demmer is a serious threat to Congressman Walz's campaign?
 
Demmer responds, "When your opponents work very very hard to try to find a way to get you out, I suppose you cold take that as a sign that they don't want you in. And maybe the reason they don't want me in is because maybe they feel threatened. That's probably a fair characterization."
 
Demmer says he hopes to avoid issues that were settled 13 years ago, and move toward issues that need to be settled today."

Either KTTC has completely stumbled in reporting the basic facts, or Demmer has been on the receiving end of a severe "come-to-Jesus" lecture about the GOP's Eleventh Commandment. It's amazing what two days will do.

KTTC-TV's take--or Demmer's spin--is considerably different than the way the three-term Representative talked about the threats to the Post Bulletin on Tuesday.  The story that appeared on Wednesday morning:

Demmer said he suspects the effort originates in Republican circles, because he's not even the endorsed candidate to oppose Democrat Walz yet. He said he received a call from a Republican in Washington, an apparent ally, who had received a package with the information and called to warn him.

And the station also reports: 

Whoever did it sent a copy of the lawsuit to the Rochester Post-Bulletin which printed an article about it this week.

Well, no, that's not what happened, so far as we can tell from reading the Post Bulletin.  The paper reported:

. .On Monday, the Post-Bulletin received an anonymous telephone tip with information about the sexual harassment suit filed in U.S. District Court against Demmer, the three NAPA Auto Parts stores he then owned and a store manager in 1995. The paper also received an anonymous e-mail on the subject. . . .

Indeed, when readers open the Post Bulletin's pdf of the lawsuit that's posted on the paper's web site, the document's heading indicates that it was obtained--probably faxed--from the Dodge County Court on Feb.27. It appears that the paper was tipped, but obtained the copy of the lawsuit own its own after the slimester contacted it. We are contacting Matt Stolle to verify this sequence of events. It corresponds to what we were told by the Dodge County Court administrator.

Today's editorial in the Post Bulletin repeats Demmer's suspicion of the intra-party smear:

It's an ugly story of harassment, complete with threatening phone calls, hints of blackmail and shattered trust. People who read the description of what happened can't help but recoil at the overall sliminess of the whole incident.

No, we're not talking about the allegations of sexual harassment that were filed against Rep. Randy Demmer more than 11 years ago. Rather, we're disgusted by the way someone or a group of people -- fellow Republicans, according to Demmer -- tried to use that long-settled lawsuit to force him from the race for the GOP's 1st District nomination.

The Post Bulletin editorial gets it right in the editorial 1st District GOP race takes nasty turn.

Update: We have contacted KTTC-TV reporter Chris Hrapsky to see if Demmer has indeed changed his story since being interviewed by the Post Bulletin. If so, that change is a major shift on Demmer's part and we'd be curious to learn why.[end first update]

Second update: KTTC's Reporter Chris Hrapsky responses and with his permission, we're posting it below.

The questions that I wrote in the article are the questions I asked in the report, and if you click on the video link you can actually see me ask those questions and get his quoted response.

Demmer said what he said, but he really didn’t want to speculate, to me, who was behind the attack.  That quote came out of his mouth.  By opponent, I’m not sure who he was talking about.  He never suggested that it was from Congressman Walz . . . he just said the threat was being passed through an intermediary Republican buffer in  Washington . I’m sure in any race of this magnitude you can have opponents from both sides of the aisle. 

It was not my intention to edit in any sort of subjective way, for that would be unethical.  But Rep. Demmer simply stressed the fact that he wanted to meet these threats head on and wanted to move toward real issues affecting people in this district.

Thanks for the email!
Chris Hrapsky

[end update]

Rochester Post Bulletin: GOP state chair shouldn't wear two hats

The current plight of the Republican Party of Minnesota is enough to make us channel the ghost of Magnus Johnson. The Star Tribune reports today that Mirroring larger party, state GOP is deeply split.

Earlier, the Rochester Post Bulletin editorial board wrote in Minnesota GOP chairman  becomes agent of disunity:

. . .Given Minnesota's swing-state status, the state GOP should be doing everything it can to avoid not just wars but even the slightest unnecessary interparty skirmishes, which is precisely what Carey is creating. . . .

. . . We'll be even more blunt. If Carey truly believes Mike Huckabee is "the best of the best," then he should resign as party chief. That would allow him to work full time for the former Arkansas governor. Huckabee's fledging organization in Minnesota could use the help, and the state GOP doesn't need a leader who tries to wear two hats.

Meanwhile, the Post Bulletin reports that Pawlenty budget plan doesn't include Mayo Civic Center. The state Republican Convention will be held in Rochester this year, as will the DFL state convention.  The state Republicans have taken down their website, Republicans Love Rochester.  We're sure they do, but not too much.

"We had no idea": Coleman campaign snubs farm group in favor of dentists

Early yesterday morning, we were searching for the meeting room where an MFU committee would gather. On the Four Points by Sheraton schedule, we didn't see a room listed for that committee, but we were surprised to see "Coleman for Senate" listed. This seemed like good news; the MFU had sought to schedule the senator to talk to members at the convention, having phoned, emailed and faxed requests.

We mentioned the hotel schedule to Thom Petersen, who was genuinely surprised, since he had heard nothing back from Coleman's people. As the day went on, the fact of the "Coleman for Senate" room reservation became a punch line as Ciresi and Franken were introduced to the convention.

Curiosity killed the cat; satisfaction brought her back. We were curious about the details of the "Coleman for Senate" event.  We left the MNFARMPAC reception on the other side of the Four Points by Sheraton's meeting room and ballroom complex to check out the Coleman party.

We peeked into the room, where a lovely and archetypal hotel food service spread of fruit and other goodies waited. A sweet-looking and upbeat young woman staffed the table.

"What's happening here?" we asked, feeling a little sneaky in asking the pleasant and professional campaign staffer/volunteer our question.

"It's a fundraiser for Coleman for Senate," she said. "The senator will be here any minute."

"Oh, we're with the Minnesota Farmers Union," we said," We're having our convention here."

"We had no idea," she said.   She was so cheerful that we could no longer play semi-secret agent and so  strolled back to our own event.

A friend there told us who Coleman was meeting with in that room.

Dentists.

Suddenly, it all made sense.  What Minnesota politician owes more to dentistry than Norm Coleman?  The information brought back a flood of old reading.

In January of 2005, the Washington Post's Reliable Source posted When Dental Floss Is Not Enough, following the Star Tribune's lead:

How does a politician get a perfect smile? Now we know -- at least in the case of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). Photos of his cosmetic dental work were gleefully forwarded around Washington offices by e-mail yesterday.

Coleman's pearly whites became the topic of political chatter when the Star Tribune in Minneapolis reported that a dentist was using before-and-after pictures on his Web site to promote his business. The dentist extracted the pictures of Coleman at the senator's request, evidently to avoid any grief from the Senate Ethics Committee.

Longtime Coleman watchers will remember that Taegan Goddard's Political Wire asked in February 2005 Will Coleman's Teeth Be a Campaign Issue?:

"If comedian and liberal talk-show host Al Franken decides to run against U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008, his campaign might feature the Minnesota Republican's teeth," the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports.

"He said he envisions television ads featuring before and after photos of Coleman's teeth that St. Paul dentist Frank J. Milnar had posted on a promotional Web site to show how he fixed a gap in the senator's front teeth in 1999. The photos were widely circulated on political Web sites."

The next year,  the City Pages Blotter wrote in Oh, the irony: Smilin' Norm thanks dentists for giving away smiles:

The senator best known for his dental and Wikipedia work has cosponsored a resolution congratulating the American Dental Association. Last year, when a cosmetic dentist displayed photos on his website of Coleman's before-and-after work in an effort to drum up new business, questions arose as to whether Coleman ever paid the dentist for his mouth makeover and if taking the free or discounted smile was a violation of Senate ethics rules.

Coleman's dentist, Dr. Frank J. Milnar, told the press the then-St. Paul Mayor received a 20 percent discount for his seemingly permanent and disingenuous grin. Coleman's Wikipedia-rewriting staff attempted to squash the teeth chatter, but it didn't help matters much when Coleman's spokesperson told the press, "The closest Senator Coleman has come to drilling [in ANWR] was in the dentist's chair."

Now Norm Coleman is giving back to dentists by cosponsoring a resolution that congratulates the American Dental Association for sponsoring the fourth annual 'Give Kids a Smile' program and thanks dentists for volunteering their time to help provide needed dental care. The resolution passed in Senate on February 7. Coleman's before-teeth could not be reached for comment.

Wonkette weighed in Norm Coleman, Big Smile!:

Senator Norm Coleman's plastic surgeon is really proud of his work, and has featured the Minnesota congressional newbie on his website, "StPaulSmiles.com." You can judge results for yourself, but we have to admit, the guy on the right looks much less like a ghoulish, grave-dancing opportunist.

Further inquiry brought us the information that the hotel fundraiser was arranged by a dental association and the suggested contribution was $300.00.  About 40 people attended and Coleman talked about how members of the Senate from both parties were spending wildly in Washington. We will read Coleman's next FEC report with an eye for spotting the take from his dental fundraiser.

A knowledgeable source also has it that Coleman was invited on the spot to speak to the MFU banquet, but he said that he had to go meet his wife and left.

As we noted in an earlier post, Coleman didn't snub all farm groups this weekend, as he spoke at a lunch at the Minnesota Farm Bureau's annual convention in Bloomington.  His pick-and-chose contrasts with other members of the Senate and House ag committees. Senator Klobuchar and Congressman Walz, who serve on the Senate and House ag committees respectively, spoke to both conventions. Rep. Peterson, chair of the House Ag committee, was not on the agenda of either group.  According to Thom Petersen, Congressman Peterson is in Washington this weekend, working on the Farm Bill.

Had Coleman, who also serves on the Senate Agriculture Commitee--confirmed to speak to the MFU convention, it's likely delegates--like Senator Klobuchar--would have applauded his break with his party to vote to move the Farm Bill forward. As it is, we've heard some hard feelings instead.

Update: via the Wege,           The farm bill isn’t so sweet for Coleman, an article in The Hill about why this matters, especially when Coleman is trying to repair the damage his CAFTA vote did among sugar beet farmers.

Mn House Minority Leader Seifert: Soft on Security?

This news comes from outside of the First, but unfortunately, his Republican leadership position gives state rep. Marty Seifert influence across Minnesota.

We had been puzzled the other day when we read this article in the Redwood Fall Gazette: Seifert to 'look into' court order in which he thought a metal detector in a courthouse was all about him:

When Rep. Marty Seifert walked into the Redwood County commissioner's room Tuesday the first question out of his mouth had to do with the new security system on the third floor.

"Is there a murder trial going on?" Seifert queried.

Seifert was then informed of the court order from Fifth District Court Chief Judge George Harrelson, which placed a metal detector on the third floor and required the Redwood County Sheriff's Department to man it Monday through Friday during regular business hours.

"I appreciate the security you put up for me," said Seifert to the county board.

Yeah, it's all about him on Planet Seifert. An article in Seifert's hometown paper looks into the matter in Judge’s concerns lead to tightened security:

An order to secure the third floor, including the courtroom of the Redwood County courthouse, wasn’t done for Rep. Marty Seifert’s benefit, but for the protection of those in the courthouse.

The security in Redwood County could be found in other county courthouses in the Fifth District in the future, said Fifth District Court Chief Judge George Harrelson, who serves as a judge in the Lyon County District Court.

Harrelson said he issued an order for a metal detector and security person to be on the third floor at courthouse at the request of court officials.

“They confiscated four knives in a few days,” Harrelson said of the security system recently installed.

Harrelson issued the order because of a specific threat and ongoing security concerns:

The security order in Redwood County came because of a recent threat, Harrelson said, but discussions of inadequate security at the courthouse have taken place over the years.

Similar discussions have happened in regard to courtrooms in other Fifth District counties such as Lyon and Lincoln, Harrelson said.

“Right now, we have a security committee looking into this,” Harrelson said. “There is not a decision yet if all of southwest Minnesota will have a similar (order).”

Yet, “at some time in the not too distance future I believe there will be a blanket order for all of southwest Minnesota,” Harrelson said.

The security system in the Redwood County courthouse could be viewed as pilot project for southwest Minnesota, Harrelson said.

Safety concerns aren’t just prompted by criminal cases, Harrelson said.

Some of the most contentious issues are divorce cases and even probate cases, Harrelson said.

“You never know, there is a lot of high anxiety when they come into a courtroom,” Harrelson said of people involved in a court case. “At least three or four times a year I have people so upset I have to contact the court administrator to get a sheriff’s deputy into the court room.”

The security issue has been raised in brief discussions at Lyon County Board meetings in the past few years as commissioners have noted security increasing in other counties.

Harrelson said the Eighth Judicial District, which includes Yellow Medicine County, has a blanket order requiring security in the court room areas. In Lyon County, a deputy or police officer will accompany a defendant in custody to court and inside a courtroom.

Marty needs to get out more, say to the Eighth Judicial District, if he's never heard of security orders. Judge Harrelson offered to give Seifert a free lesson:

Harrelson also said in the letter to the editor that “I am sorry that Rep. Seifert found my order ‘odd.’ I would be glad to discuss with him the jurisdiction of the Judicial Branch of state government.”

Harrelson said he understands that county officials don’t like what could be called unfunded mandates from the state. Counties, however, are responsible for providing security for the courts, Harrelson said.

The security system in Redwood County is working, Harrelson said.

Harrelson said a public defender told him Wednesday that two more knives were confiscated in Redwood County that day.

The judge is too kind to Marty. We're not sure whether he needs to be sentenced to 90 days of watching "Law and Order" reruns or a distance learning course in law enforcement. Perhaps the Danielson School of Adult Education could consider adding yet another program to its burgeoning catalogue of remedial education for Minnesota's Republican leaders.