HOUSTON COUNTY NEWS LTE: HOLD GUTKNECHT ACCOUNTABLE
While Gutknecht's staffer may want the readers of the Winona Daily News to believe that the Representative's staff only edited Gutknecht's Wikipedia entry on one day, saw it changed, then edited it again and forgot about it ten seconds later, that was not the case.
The two attempts were on separate days and involved multiple edits on the part of Gutknecht's staff. (See the history pages for July 24, 2006 and August 14, 2006).
Letter writer Don Sattler reminds readers of the facts in today's Houston County News:
An editorial in the Winona Daily News got it right when it criticized Congressman Gil Gutknecht for his two attempts to change his biography on the Internet, and for his refusal to apologize to the voters. Apparently, he had tried (twice!) to get rid of any reference to the promises he made when first elected. As the editorial said, “Gutknecht signed on for term limits and now doesn’t like having to answer to why he’s going back on his word.”
This is about accountability. Gutknecht loudly promised us three things in his Contract with America: to serve no more than six terms, to restore clean government to Congress, and to balance the budget.
How well has Gutknecht done? Well, he’s already served six terms, but now insists on running for a seventh. His party has brought us massive lobbyist scandals in Congress. And Gil has helped take us from billions in surplus six years ago, to such massive U.S. debt now that our kids and grandkids will be paying if off for decades.
Yet, incredibly, Gutknecht claims to be a “deficit hawk.” He obviously hopes that the voters of this district haven’t been watching his votes to spend hundreds of billions on tax giveaways to the ultra-rich and to the war in Iraq, for which he has been a major cheerleader for George W. Bush.
Our elected representatives must be held accountable. And Gil, because you refuse to be accountable, we the voters of southern Minnesota will turn you out of office this November.
Don Sattler.
Winona
MANKATO FREE PRESS LTES
William Anderson calls it as he sees it in "We need new legislators who won't abuse power":
--Let’s review: Huge surplus turned into endless deficit; rush to war based on knowingly false “intelligence”; treasonous outing of undercover CIA agent; premature announcement of “mission accomplished”; no plan for post-war occupation by poorly-armored military; civil war in Iraq and nothing productive in Afghanistan except opium; the illegal Guantanamo gulag; soaring health care costs; collapsing retirement plans amid corporate scandals; incompetent short term response by FEMA to Katrina followed by long-term broken promises; DeLay/Frist/Cunningham/Reed/Abramoff/Ney; Homeland Security protecting pharmaceutical profits from those deadly Canadian prescription drugs; Medicare reforms that are huge giveaways to the drug industry; soaring gas prices accompanied by obscene oil company profits; tax cuts for the rich and tax burdens passed down to state and local governments; DM&E idiocy — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg (if there still are any after they finish denying global warming).
So, is it fair to blame local Bush poodles, Gil Gutknecht and Mark Kennedy? They don’t seem as corrupt as the rest of the administration (we’ll overlook one’s excessive travel and broken term-limits promise and the other’s confusion about what a CPA is), but they are too willing to take money from questionable lobbyists and from Bush/Cheney fundraisers to argue their independence.
[snip]We need new legislators with the strength to stand up to abuses of power and to a government given away to the highest donors.
Fellow Mankato resident Jim Decker gets a little more specific in his letter:
How can we vote for a party that keeps the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour for 10 years? During the past 10 years approximately, Congress gave itself seven raises.
How can we vote for a party that deceives the people by attaching the estate tax to the bill supporting a minimum wage increase? The estate tax adjustment would affect less than 1 percent of households in the country and, according to a recent newspaper article, cost the U.S. Treasury $670 billion over 10 years.
Preventing people from making a decent minimum wage is immoral. When we vote in November, let’s have some compassion and vote against the party that wants estate taxes cut for the rich and wants to keep the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour.
NEW ULM JOURNAL
The New Ulm Journal picks up on the blogosmear: Walz traffic offense reported on political blog. For a little context about the m.o. here for those readers not familiar with the Twin Cities blogosphere: The Wege offers insight into political operative blogging. AHS looks at political operative blogging in another congressional race.
NETROOTS
So far, 391 people have contributed $9,786.20 to Tim Walz as an ActBlue Netroots Candidate; $10,902.36 has been raised overall at ActBlue. Click on the link above to contribute.
Democracy for Minnesota publishes a note from the Walz Campaign. Find out what contribution money will buy in MN-01's media market. There's a reminder about the September 11 forum for Walz and Gutknecht in Rochester:
Tim Walz and Gil Gutknecht will debate again on Sept 11, 2006 in Rochester. The event is sponsored by the Rochester Chamber of Commerce. To purchase tickets, visit here.
BSP have more on this forum later today or over the weekend as time permits. Let's see: September 11. . .hmmm.
Kid Oakland has published an update k/o list of local bloggers. The Kid notes the Left Coaster's Progressive State Blogs list.
Out of the mouth of babes comes truth: a Mankato high school student talks about the Walz race on a MySpace blog. A Faithful Democrat looks at Wikiality.
BLUES TEMPORARY
Not political news, but there's a free music festival in St. Peter this weekend: The Rock Bend Folk Festival will celebrate its 16th year. Don't let the name deceive; there's more than folk music in this family-oriented event. The Mankato Free Press reports that "folk" means that people put together the lineup.
We promised Tild~ we'd do some Friday Cat Blogging, MN-01 style today. Come back later--some famous cats came out of the bluestem.
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