Leave it to state representative Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, to dig up one of the mustiest of climate denier claims to proclaim on the floor of the Minnesota House. We fear his opposition to Zombie Ziprail is but one of those stopped-clock-right-twice a day thingies.
On Thursday, during the debate over Northfield DFLer David Bly's amendment to the LCCMR bill, Draz dragged out the one about "in the 1970s, scientists talked about global cooling." The Atlantic dispatched this one in 2009 in The Global Cooling Canard:
There needs to be some sort of Godwin's Law variant for conservatives who try to argue against global warming because they remember that Newsweek dipped into pop-science in the mid-70s and touted "global cooling." Call it Will's Law, after George Will, the supposedly cerebral conservative who brings this up every time he doesn't have a better column idea....comparing apples to apples, the scientific community didn't believe in global cooling and does believe in global warming. Sadly, our political pundits have outsourced their scientific research to an intern charged with a superficial skim of Newsweek covers.
Apparently, Draz missed that one. This left him open to the patient mercies of Rick Hansen, DFL-S. St. Paul:
Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul) said appropriations from the environment trust fund “always seem to get tinkered with” and that projects involving solar power, climate change or prohibitions on lead, “always come out of the package” when Republicans have the majority. He asked fellow lawmakers to vote against the bill so sponsors could “start over.”
It's almost as if the Republicans have a blacklist on topics that can't be explored except through tired rhetoric. Since Hansen notes that Draz and Jim Newberger, R-Becker, each have a sense of wonder, Bluestem suspects that special interests are speaking here.
Photo: Screengrab from the clip. Hat tip to our reader who sent us the unlisted DFL House clip.
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We've noticed that some on our favorite rural Minnesota anti-Muslim activists are sharing a post on Facebook by anti-Muslim author Pam Geller. Here's a screengrab of her post:
There's only one Muslim currently serving in the Minnesota legislature, and that would be Ilhan Omar. Since the Minnesota House voted on HF2621, we can see who voted yes for the bill, introduced by state representative Mary Franson, R-Alexandria. Here's a screengrab:
It's clear that Omar voted yes. We're not sure who the stealth Muslims are in the Minnesota legislature, but perhaps Geller can share that. Of the four Demcorats who voted no, David Bly is Congregational, Rena Moran is Methodist, while Tina Liebling is a Jewish Minnesotan and Susan Allen is the daughter of an Episcopal priest
The headline for the post on Geller's website is Democrats legislators OPPOSE Minnesota bill against female genital mutilation, which doesn't clear much up, since "Democrats legislators" seems like sloppy editing. The passage in Geller's article--a direct quote from the Star Tribune article--is a bit murky:
"The bill won support from all but four of the 128 House members who voted, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, the country’s first Somali-Muslim legislator."
Is Omar grouped with the 123 other House members who voted "yes" or does that ambiguous comma group Omar with the four? Those coming to the article from Facebook might not look twice after seeing Geller's Facebook headline about Muslim legislators.
Update: A reader reminds us that Representive Omar also voted for the bill in Civil Law committee. [end update]
The Star Tribune copy within the article also broke from the standard journalistic convention of identifying lawmakers' party affiliation (see recent example here in the Strib). Geller opens:
This is evil. There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
Now, the author of the Senate version is voicing second thoughts about approving the legislation yet this session, though Senate GOP leadership have not committed to a course of action. “We all agree this practice is absolutely horrible, and something needs to be done,” said the author, Sen. Karin Housley. “How can we empower communities to address this practice from within rather than having Big Brother come down and say, ‘This is wrong?’ ”
Is this the new approach to law and order? Why have laws against murder or rape? Why not say, “How can we empower communities to address this practice from within rather than having Big Brother come down and say, ‘This is wrong?’”
Unsuspecting readers might be forgiven for thinking Housley is a Democrat, given both of Geller's headlines, but the author of the senate version of the bill is indeed a Republican from St. Mary's Point near Stillwater. The Star Tribune's copy editors didn't catch that omission.
One might think Geller could create yet a third headline to reflect that fact that state Senate Republican inaction, not "Democrats and MUSLIM legislators," is responsible for the upper chamber's lack of follow through.
It's not surprising why the anti-Muslim network in Minnesota is confused about this topic if they're swallowing the nonsensical spin in Geller's headlines.
Photo: Karin Housley, the Republican state senator with cold feet about an anti-FGM bill she authored. Its companion bill passed in the Minnesota House. Bonus: here's Willmar anti-Muslim activist Bob Enos' sharing of the Geller piece; note the screaming caps in the Geller Facebook post. Just as on Geller's own Facebook page, the factually incorrect headline persists, days later.
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Bluestem can understand why some might be confused about why there's no money for bonding this year (except for the Rural Finance Authority, which just funded) given last May's headlines.
Nonetheless, we lose sympathy when we read passages like this one in Albert Lea Republican state representative Peggy Bennett's weekly news email under the friendly salutation "Dear Neighbors":
Local Bills
I’m once again authoring a bill to fund improvements to the Stables’ neighborhood sewer system. I carried this bill last year, and it was included in the bonding bill, but Governor Dayton vetoed it. I’m hopeful to once again have this included in any bonding agreement.
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Now he's trolling the governor--and his own constituents--in a letter to the editor of the Morris Sun Tribune, No need for water czar. Read the whole LTE in the Sun Tribune. One paragraph stands out for us:
Here's a word picture to explain a better approach. Traffic congestion in the metro areas took decades to streamline into the interstate systems we now enjoy and take for granted. The traffic congestion was not solved in two years by a "traffic czar" or traffic law proclaiming "let there be no congestion." It took decades of patience, careful planning and concerted efforts by the citizens to solve the problem. In the same way, appointing a "water czar," or hastily passing ill-crafted buffer laws proclaiming "let the water pollution be solved by 2018" is poorly conceived and will not accomplish constructive and lasting results.
What in the wild, wild world of sports is Backer talking about? Neither anecdotal experience nor traffic studies suggest that "[t]raffic congestion in the metro areas took decades to streamline into the interstate systems" in which we've managed "solve the problem" of congestion. Nor was the planning of the metro's interstate system a kumbaya moment in our state's history.
First, about that "solved" problem of congestion. Just last month, the American Transportation Research Institute (not a bunch of dirty hippies flogging Agenda 21, but the research wing of the American Trucking Associations) sent out a press release noting Twin Cities Home to Four of the Nation's Worst Truck Bottlenecks:
The American Transportation Research Institute today released its annual list highlighting the most congested bottlenecks for trucks in America, including four in Minnesota.
The 2017 Top Truck Bottleneck List assesses the level of truck-oriented congestion at 250 locations on the national highway system. The analysis, based on truck GPS data from 600,000+ heavy duty trucks uses several customized software applications and analysis methods, along with terabytes of data from trucking operations to produce a congestion impact ranking for each location. The data is associated with the FHWA-sponsored Freight Performance Measures (FPM) initiative. The locations detailed in this latest ATRI list represent the top 100 congested locations.
"Minnesota is home to 17 Fortune 500 companies, making it a major freight generator and player in the nation's economy," said Minnesota Trucking Association President John Hausladen. "ATRI's analysis allows us to target state and federal resources to keep trucks, and the economy, moving."
The four bottlenecks in Minnesota, all located in the Twin Cities, are:
No. 45 – I-35W at I-94
No. 55 – I-35W at I-494
No. 71 – I-35W at I-694
No. 88 – I-35E at I-94
"Trucks move 70% of the nation's goods, so knowing where our highway system is most congested can lead to better decisions about what highways and bridges need improvement," said American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear, "and it is our hope that ATRI's research will guide states toward improving these pain points in the supply chain so our industry can continue to safely and efficiently moving the nation's goods."
For access to the full report, including detailed information on each of the 100 top congested locations, click here.
It's not just industry flacks fretting about congestion in the Evil Metro. Last August, Pioneer Press staffer Marino Eccher reported Twin Cities road congestion hits record high and is expected to get worse, MnDOT says. Perhaps the problem was solved since then, thought that sort of kind of undercuts Backer's analogy, such as it is. Eccher writes:
It’s not just your brakelight-riddled imagination: Freeway congestion in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul was the worst on record last year, according to a new report from Minnesota Department of Transportation.
The agency’s annual report on freeway congestion said congestion was up from 21.1 percent in 2014 to 23.4 percent last year. That’s the highest number since the agency started collecting data in 1993.
Severe congestion, lasting longer than 2 hours, was at 7.6 percent, the highest it’s been in at least a decade, MnDOT said.
Congestion is measured as a percentage of the metro’s 758 freeway miles on which traffic is moving at less than 45 miles per hour. That’s the speed at which disruptions like crashes, stalls or overcapacity ramps can trigger widespread breakdowns in the flow of traffic, the agency said.
Unsurprisingly, I-35W, I-394 and the I-494/694 loop are the most snarled stretches, with the worst of it coming near the I-35W/I-94 interchange.
The agency said road design improvements, MnPASS express-lane expansion and active traffic management and information are all part of its effort to ease congestion — but warned that projected increases in travel, an improving economy and higher road construction costs are all expected to worsen the problem.
Given these results, Bluestem has to wonder why Backer (or the hapless GOP House staffer writer assigned to him) selected the process of freeway construction as the model for water quality efforts in rural Minnesota. If he think this is "solved" congestion in the metro, we'd hate to let our dog and chickens drink "clean" water determined by a similar process out here.
Not all neighborhoods had voice in building MN metro interstate
The section of I-94 between Minneapolis and Saint Paul was completed in 1968. In the Twin Cities, the construction of the highway was politically charged. The highway was built primarily through many working-class and African-American neighborhoods.[5][4] In Saint Paul, the routing of I-94 is set through and displaces the historic Rondo neighborhood, which prior to the highway construction was the largest African-American community in Saint Paul. By uprooting almost the entire neighborhood, the highway disrupted the vitality of the Saint Paul African American community.[3][2][4] This history influenced the July 2016 blockade of nearby I-35W* [I-94] by Black Lives Matter protesters, to whom the freeways are symbols of oppressive urban policy.[6]
One wonders whether Backer and staff ghostwriter would think Rondo lives mattered, if either indeed knew that the neighborhood had once existed. It wouldn't be the first time Backer made factual error about an urban population, given the invidious comparisons he's made between flood victims in Browns Valley and New Orleans or odd statements about urban transportation.
Irony sidenote: not surprisingly, Backer is a co-author ofHF0390, which increases penalties obstructing traffic to a highway or airport, a bill spawned by those freeway blockades.
Governor learned lessons; Backer spews old anti-Evil Metro talking points
Gov. Mark Dayton is making another push to clean up Minnesota’s waters — and says he’s learned lessons from his contentious battle two years ago to implement buffer strips along the state’s waterways.
In a speech Friday morning to the Minnesota Environmental Congress, the DFL governor said he’ll propose improving Minnesota’s water quality 25 percent by the year 2025.
But he’s not proposing specific tools to accomplish that reduction just yet. Instead, he says he’ll solicit citizen input around the state this summer and make proposals based on that input in 2018.
“One of the lessons I learned with the buffer legislation is that it was criticized as a top-down, one-size-fits-all mandate,” Dayton said Friday. “I have my own ideas. I can advance those next year. But I want to let this process unfold and get citizens themselves engaged and citizens themselves feeling their own investment in the outcome.” . . .
That lesson is quite a bit different from the one Backer draws from Dayton, and it's ironic that the Pioneer Press article appeared on the same day as Backer's letter.
But then, Backer's learned that he can get re-elected inventing whatever he wants about the Evil Metro, which hasn't just solved its traffic congestion problem, but is always out to get him as well.
*I-35W was blocked by a separate group, primarily white allies, the Pioneer Press reported, while I-94 had been blocked the Saturday night before the weekday action.
Photo: Could this be Backer dreaming about a buffer law repeal during the farmers' panel after lunch at the Water Summit in Morris, his twin brother, or just another guy who looks ? Whatever the cast, it's clear Backer's asleep at the wheel when it comes to talking about Evil Metro area congestion or about the current details of Governor Dayton's water quality plan. Read more about the questions about this photo in Republican guy who voted for Minnesota's buffer bill continues to grandstand against it
. (Photo submitted by a former Backer constituent).
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Last Friday at a town hall meeting in Clinton, Minnesota, state senator Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, who chairs the Minnesota Senate Agriculture, Rural Development, and Housing Finance Committee, answered a question about pollinators, neonicotinoids and policy by buzzing about an invasive weed species in conservation seed mixes.
But he's not accurate about the situation that led to the weed's appearance in Minnesota nor its lack of appeal to pollinators.
What Westrom said
Answering a question about pollinator health asked by an Ortonville resident, Katie Laughlin, Westrom said (video below):
. . .Just on that issue, Katie, I just heard about it a couple of days ago when I talked to Senator Bill Weber, who's the Ag Policy Chair--I'm chairing the Finance side in the Senate. There's an issue with pollinators and some of the plants that are being brought in that are helpful to the pollinators.
This really isn't tied to the neonics that I know of but I don't know enough about it yet, I want to dig into it. But in Southwest Minnesota, they're finding there are some of the weeds that are coming that are good for pollinators but they're a weed that will take over a field in about three-four years and you will not be able to have good production on it. So that is another pollinator issue that I've been hearing about.
I need to know more about it. . . .
We could not agree that he needs to know more about it--and politely told him at the town hall that Palmer amaranth wasn't brought into the state on purpose, but had contaminated seed mixes. Nor were we alone in letting him know: two local soil and water service employees backed us up--while assuring the crowd of 60 that the mix they had wasn't contaminated.
Palmer amaranth not a favored bee forage
Moreover, Bluestem was under the impression that the plant--which is pollinated by the wind--wasn't a food source for pollinators. We decided to check with wild pollinator expert Daniel P Cariveau, an Assistant Professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Entomology/Bee Research Facility. His emailed reply:
Thanks for the email. Palmer amaranth is not purposely planted for pollinators. What has happened in some instances is that conservation seed mixes have been contaminated. This is species was not typically found in Minnesota and has likely come in, at least in part, through conservation mixes from southern states.
It is the case that some wind-pollinated plants are visited by pollinators. For example, there are records of pollinators visiting a number of wind pollinated grass species such as corn. However, these instances are rare and not a major part of their diet. So while there might be some record somewhere of a bee visiting palmer amaranth, it is not, to my knowledge, a forage plant for them. I would be surprised to collect a bee from it.
Short answer: Palmer amaranth is not intentionally planted and is rarely, if ever, visited by bees.
Fabian: Isn't it interesting on the terrestrial invasive species. . . where we get the Palmer amaranth--it comes in on some of the seed mixtures that were brought here to help out a problem and it created one. Representative Hansen.
Hansen: Thanks Mr. Chair, and I was thinking back to when we actually had passed a law to say that you had to use local seed mixes but that got repealed. That would have prevented the Palmer amaranth problem . ..
Why is it that we suspect bee champion Hansen wasn't among those repealing that law? And why do we suspect Republicans and some eager-to-please DFLers will try to make pollinator politics follow Westrom's inaccurate and ill-informed frame? It's almost as predictable as the same swarm wagging their fingers about the doubts they have of the science in the studies of neonics and pollinators by scientists not on the dole at Syngenta.
Here's the clip from Tuesday's Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee meeting:
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The website for Minnesota's incredible shrinking high speed rail project has just gotten a rebrand, along with having a lot less information (i.e. none) posted online.
A search on ICANN's WHOIS site reveals that Minnesota Corridor's domain was registered on October 22, 2016 with one person for registrant contact, admin contact and tech contact:
Name: Wendy Meadley
Organization: Social Wendy Group
Mailing Address: 6403 Limerick Drive, Edina Minnesota 55439 US . . .
The screenshot at the top of this post is the entirety of the Minnesota Corridor two and a half months later.
The prospect of a high-speed rail line slicing through the rural stretch of land between the Twin Cities and Rochester, and financed by Chinese and other private investors, is to some an exquisite dream.
To others, it’s folly.
. . .[A] privately held Bloomington firm called the North American High Speed Rail Group (NAHSR) is keeping the idea of a high-speed rail line alive. Recently the group said that it was reorganizing and is now known as the Minnesota Corridor Project. None of NAHSR’s officers has experience developing such a project. [emphasis added]
The group’s reorganization will continue to meet opposition from a determined grass-roots group called Citizens Concerned About Rail Line (CCARL) and several southern Minnesota lawmakers.
It might be helpful for the newly reorganized group tell the Minnesota Secretary of State's office about that new name as well.
While Meadley owns the domain name, she doesn't list either the North American High Speed Rail Group nor the Minnesota Corridor as current employers in her LinkedIn profile (below) as of January 9, 2017. Of course, there's no law (that we know of) requiring the Social Wendy Group to actualize its client list.
We could go on....as must likely this grifters' dreamscape will appear every once in a while, as did "Wendy Meadley sitting on a bench on the ground floor of the State Office Bldg" last Thursday, a source tells us in an email.
Screenshots: Top: the Minnesota Corridor's website (side note--thank heavens CCARL is good about keeping screenshots of the old pages in case journalists ever want documentation of earlier manifestations of the project. Bottom: Wendy Meadley's LinkedIn profile as of January 9, 2017.
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"Car rental taxes are an easy target for politicians because they only affect visitors, not residents, right? Wrong. Short term rental services have sprung up, catering to downtown residents and others who don't need or want the cost and upkeep of owning a vehicle. But the service couldn't survive with the high rental car taxes plus the high local taxes and fees in the twin cities. It was a double whammy. So Car2go will be gone by the end of the year."
Anderson adds the headnote: "interesting maybe something that could be fixed in the legislative session."
That might be a little--how do we say?--awkward, given that Representative Jeff Backer favors the Minnesota Republican caucus transportation plan, or so he told Morris's KMRS-KKOK Radio in February's State Representative Backer on Transportation Plan:
Ahead of this Friday’s February Budget Forecast, Representative Jeff Backer, R-Browns Valley, is urging support for a long-term transportation plan that would invest $7 billion in state roads and bridges over the next 10 years without an increase in the gas tax. In total, the plan would repair or replace more than 15,500 lane miles of road and 330 bridges statewide.
“As I have traveled across the district, I consistently hear from constituents about the need to improve our roads and bridges,” said Backer. “Our plan not only makes significant investments in our transportation infrastructure, it does so without implementing a harmful gas tax increase.”
Over the next ten years, the Republican proposal invests:
$4.03 billion for state roads $1.44 billion for county roads $583 million for municipal roads $282 million for small cities under 5,000 $139 million for Greater Minnesota bus services $60 million for township roads & bridges
The Republican proposal creates a special fund called the Transportation Stability Fund that collects existing proceeds from dedicated tax revenues and deposits them into accounts for each of their dedicated purpose. There are five accounts that would dedicate a combined $3.078 billion over ten years:
1. Road and Bridge Account – revenue from existing sales tax on auto parts 2. Metro Capital Improvements Account – revenue from existing sales tax on rental vehicles 3. Small Cities Account – revenue from existing rental vehicle tax 4. Greater Minnesota Bus Services Account – revenue from 50% of existing Motor Vehicle Lease sales tax 5. Suburban County Highway Account – revenue from 50% of existing Motor Vehicle Lease sales tax
Backer repeated his support for using existing car rental taxes for the Small Cities Account in a March 2016 legislative update. Nice of him and his conservative colleagues to grab those high rental taxes from an urban car service and other rentals to pay "for street and road repair over the next ten years for communities that have less than 5,000 residents."
Predictably, conservatives in the PiPress's comment section are blaming the rental vehicle tax on those darned liberals, while the intern who wrote the article doesn't seem to have thought to mention that redirecting the tax from general revenues to the proposed "Transportation Stability Fund" is a key feature of the Republicans' avoidance of raising the gas tax.
Perhaps they could save Car2Go and lower or eliminate the vehicle rental tax--but then Backer and his pals have to find another money pot somewhere to rob for the the Metro Capital Improvements Account and the Small Cities Account.
What additional programs paid out of general funds (diverted under to the plan to the new fund) will get the axe? Mental health funding? Local government aid? Daycare for the children of the working poor? The possibilities are endless--but we doubt the legislators' mileage requests will be in play.
Screengrab: We must say, politicians like those in the Minnesota House Republican Caucus most certainly did find the pot o' money collected with car rental taxes to be an easy target when proposing to raise more money for roads and bridges while not raising gas taxes. Cough.
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Ruthie Hendrycks, who drove in from southern Minnesota, said she was stirred to action by Trump's hardline stance on immigration. "The citizenry is awakened. Trump is a movement now," Hendrycks said. "It's not just voting for the man, it's voting for the man that has started for the movement and woken up so many people."
It's unfortunate that MPR simply left readers thinking that this was a random woman who'd wandered out of Southern Minnesota to laud Trump's anti-immigration sentiments. It's saddening that she's become normalized as a standard issue Republican, when back when, she was far to the right of a Republican governor.
With many people despairing of Trump's movement lasting past Election Day (including our guest writer Phillip Cryan), perhaps it's time to look back at the way in which a prank can defang Hendrycks's brand of malice. Here's Dan Feidt's video of "Robert Erickson's" first prank:
As a bonus, here's Clayton Schoolcraft's incomparable Youtube documenting Hendrycks' reaction:
While Hendrycks might have been at the airport, her old nemesis Robert/Nick was nowhere around. Like many progressive Minnesotans, he's been working on get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts for state legislative candidates. Indeed, this contrast may may be one of the most hopeful signs we've seen on this beautiful November day in Minnesota.
Photo: Via Facebook, Scott Hendrycks (left) and Ruthie Hendrycks (middle) pose for a photo on their way to the Trump rally.
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In Browns Valley Republican Representative Jeff Backer's version of the 2016 session, Governor Mark Dayton killed the bonding bill, according to a Morris Sun Tribune story, Backer, McNamar tackle issues at forum:
Backer said Dayton also failed to support a bonding bill that the House passed and sent to the Senate. Dayton wanted light rail, Backer said.
McNamar said the bonding bill was submitted at the last minute by the House. "Blaming other people is not right," McNamar said. "You've got to get your bills done on time. It was time mismanagement."
To voters in House District 12A: in Morris on Oct. 19 your Republican representative stated that the $100 million mistake in the tax bill last spring was a "small" amount which Dayton should not have vetoed, and that Dayton vetoed the bipartisan bonding bill. Wrong on both counts. $100 million might be small to wealthy Republicans, but it isn't small to the rest of us.
Dayton did NOT veto the bonding bill. After weeks of continued Democrat cries to see the bonding bill, it was finally sent to the House shortly before midnight on closing night. It had a Southwest Light Rail amendment that the Republicans couldn't accept, so the majority adjourned the session early without a vote on the bill. If the bill had been presented in a timely manner, the SW-LRT problem could have been negotiated.
Vote to return Jay McNamar to the House so sessions can be finished without chaos the final night.
While the paper doesn't report that Backer directly said Dayton vetoed the bonding bill, that's suggested by Backer remark, while McNamar attributes the failure to pass the bonding to late drafting and last-minute dawdlng.
It was the blowup most people had been expecting for days.
Top leaders of the Minnesota Legislature were in and out of negotiations all weekend, painstakingly moving piece-by-piece to reach a deal to spend a $900 million budget surplus on tax cuts and things like broadband and education. An agreement for a long-term transportation funding bill and a large package of construction projects, known as the bonding bill, was harder to reach. But Sunday night, in the final hours before the deadline to pass legislation, things seemed to be coming together.
Democrats in control of the Senate and the Republican majority in the House had agreed to a $990 million bonding bill and a one-time infusion of cash to fund road and bridge projects, a move that would temporarily bridge an impasse over transportation funding. With less than 15 minutes to spare before midnight, the House passed the bonding bill on a 91-39 vote, sending it off to the Senate to do the same. But DFL senators were furious to learn the bill lacked funding for transit, so they quickly amended the proposal and sent it back to the House.
When word of the amendment started to spread across the chamber, House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin stood up and moved to adjourn the House, six minutes before midnight — removing any chance for the new version of the bill to pass.
And that was that.
After it was all over, both sides were at a loss as to what had even happened.
“Why they made a decision to go home … is a mystery to me, but they have killed the bonding bill,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said on the Senate floor after the House adjourned.
Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt said he didn’t know exactly what the Senate did to the bill, but he feared senators had attached funding for Southwest Light Rail, which Republicans had opposed all session. . . .
The whole weekend brought back fresh memories of the 2015 legislative session, when major negotiations on the budget didn’t start until the final week of session, and even then moved slowly and took place behind closed doors. This year, the final 599-page budget bill was given to House members four hours before they were set to vote, while the bonding bill arrived at the House moments after they already started to debate the bill.
DFL House Minority Leader Paul Thissen was particularly outspoken about the process, repeatedly railing against House Republicans on the issue throughout the weekend.
“Here we are again, doing the exact same thing one year later, after doing nothing for 10 weeks, shutting out the public and cramming everything into a single day,” Thissen said. “Legislators are reading about what’s happening in bills on Twitter. Minnesotans hate it. They hate it and they should.” . . .
How Dayton caused Majority Leader Peppin to stand up and move to adjourn the House and thus kill the bonding bill remains a mystery.
Those in Minnesota House District 12A who want more confusion and do-nothing sessions in St. Paul should by all means vote for Jeff Backer. He'll continue to turn the facts upside down.
Screengrab: The upside-down photo in the Sun Tribune's original online version of the forum article seems like a pretty good visual metaphor for Backer's upside down world.
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In the Morris Sun Tribune story, Backer, McNamar tackle issues at forum, a newspaper actually did a bit of fact checking of claims made in a candidate debate. The results aren't pretty for Representative Jeff Backer:
A Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities official said in a political forum in Morris it was mainly a disappointing year in the Legislature in 2015-2016 in large part because no bonding bill or transportation bill or tax bill were passed.
During a Coalition-sponsored forum in Morris Oct. 20 between Minnesota House District 12A Rep. Jeff Backer and challenger Jay McNamar placed the blame for the disappointment at different feet.
Backer said Gov. Dayton prevented a tax bill that had bipartisan support from passing into legislation. Dayton cared more about the light rail in the Twin Cities area than a tax bill that would benefit rural Minnesota including District 12A, Becker said.
"The governor vetoed it. He put a train ahead of greater Minnesota," Backer said.
Not so, McNamar said. The Republican controlled House submitted a tax bill with a $100 million error, McNamar said.
Dayton did veto the tax bill because of a $100 million error, McNamar said. "He didn't do it because of a train (light rail)," McNamar said.
"I was there, he didn't do veto it because of a mistake," Backer said. "He vetoed it because of a train."
In published media reports from June, including WCCO and the StarTribune, Dayton said he'd veto the tax bill because of the $101 million error. Dayton used what is commonly referred to as a pocket veto in which he took no action to pass what was called a bipartisan tax bill.
Backer said light rail is expensive, under used, not practical and takes needed money away from roads, bridges and other transportation needs.
McNamar said he'd support the Twin Cities Metro area raising fees or taxes in that area to fund light rail. Ultimately construction of light rail in the Twin Cities area eases some of the use of roads and bridges. "Light rail cuts down on the traffic construction. It helps prevent the construction of new lanes," McNamar said. If less money is spent on new roads and fixing roads in the Twin Cities area more money will be available to fix roads and bridges in rural Minnesota, McNamar said.
Backer said he wouldn't support allowing the Twin Cities Metro Area to increase its taxes for light rail. Buses are a much better option, he said.
Where do we begin? Perhaps best to start with a sentence in Pioneer Press reporter David Montgmoery's story, Mark Dayton’s transportation proposals hit roadblocks: "Minnesota’s gas tax revenue is constitutionally dedicated to funding roads and bridges."
In Weber addresses critics with added comments, a letter to the editors of the Worthington Daily Globe, the honorable Republican state senator from Luverne hopes to clear up what he perceives are misrepresentations in this letter and this one of his "comments to the governor during his recent visit to Worthington."
We'll have to take Weber's word for what he was trying to communicate to the governor, but there's at least one part of the letter that didn't ring true to us. Weber writes:
I urged the governor to call for careful evaluation of existing light rail operations. They are not meeting original projections of ridership, etc.If people do not use it, we do not solve problems of traffic congestion.
The METRO Blue Line set a new annual ridership record and system ridership increased for the 11th time in 12 years as customers took more than 85.8 million rides on buses and trains operated by Metro Transit in 2015. . . .
Ridership on both the Blue and Green light-rail lines continued to grow as customers used the all-day, frequent service to travel to work, school, special events and other destinations. The ability to transfer between light-rail lines in downtown Minneapolis also boosted ridership.
In all, more than 10.6 million rides were taken on the Blue Line, the highest annual ridership since it opened in mid-2004. The previous record of nearly 10.5 million rides was set in 2010. Average weekday ridership topped 30,000 for eight consecutive months.
Nearly 12.4 million rides were taken on the Green Line during its first full year of operation. Average weekday ridership was 37,400 – just under the 2030 forecast of 41,000 rides. Ridership in the Central Corridor, including the Green Line and bus routes 16 and 94, increased by about 30 percent from 2014 to 2015 and has nearly doubled since 2013, when service was provided by buses alone.
Oh. The Green Line's ridership trajectory appears to be following a similar path to that of the Blue Line, formerly known as the Hiawatha Line. In 2009, Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reported in Hiawatha light rail marks five years; what's next?:
Today marks five years of operation for the Hiawatha line, Minnesota's first light rail service.
Ridership is much greater than projected, and that success has helped spark a debate over how te expand transit in the Twin Cities metro area, and how to pay for it. . . .
Five years and 43 million passenger rides later, the Hiawatha line is coping with success.
Metro Transit spokesman Bob Gibbons says ridership for the line, which connects downtown Minneapolis with the Mall of America, is already 20 percent ahead of what ridership was expected to be 11 years from now. . . .
After two years of operations, the region’s second light rail line is exceeding expectations.
Average daily ridership on the Green Line is 37,402, well on its way to the 41,000 daily trips forecast for the year 2030. Investment along the line, which connects downtown St. Paul with downtown Minneapolis, has totaled $4.2 billion, according to Metro Transit estimates. And market-rate housing projects have sprouted all along the route, even as 3,600 units of affordable housing have been created or preserved.
As such, praising the $1 billion Green Line is a sure-fire applause line for politicians in both the east and west metro.
But southwestern Minnesota, a state senator seems certain that voters won't care about facts, but will applaud the place-baiting.
Backer is playing the same game. Don't like statistics and facts? Perhaps rural residents can look at photos of light rail ridership; we've posted one photo snapped on a Sunday afternoon and posted to Facebook the next day by trainwatcher James Oliver Smith Jr.. Smith writes:
.. People Riding Light Rail In The Twin Cities ... Sunday, October 23, 2016 1:23 PM ... Metro Transit Warehouse District/Hennepin Avenue Station ... Minneapolis, Minnesota ... An eastbound Green Line train headed for the Union Depot Station in Lowertown, St Paul approaches the platform ... The lead car of this three-car train is a Siemens S70 Light Rail Vehicle (LRv) ... LRV #254 ... You can pretty much pick any day of the week, or any time of the day, and there will be people on light rail in the Twin Cities ... This photo was taken on a beautiful October Sunday afternoon ... Regardless of what the opposition to rail transit thinks, people are using light rail in large numbers that are exceeding projections and expectations ... Light rail is servicing twice the riders that the bus routes serviced in the same corridors before ... Rail transit of any kind (streetcars, light rail, commuter rail, heavy rail subway) always attracts people, and people attract business and business attracts development ... It always works that way ... We, as a species, are mobile and have places to go, people to see and things to do ... Light rail has brought the Twin Cities into a new, modern, state-of-the-art dimension that helps people go about their daily lives efficiently, comfortably and effectively .
Maybe it's not transit costs that are the problem here. Maybe the problem is Representative Backer's anti-urban bias. Maybe Backer doesn't understand the scale any any issue of large cities--nor the notion that preventing one area from thriving by taxing itself doesn't create instant prosperity in the other.
A loss for the metro doesn't magically translate into gain for rural Minnesota. But Backer has long been fond of strange rural versus urban thinking.
One of the rural Republicans who is part of the town hall is former Browns Valley Mayor and current Minnesota House District 12A state representative Jeff Backer. Minnesota's western boundary waters, from whence both the Minnesota River and the Red River of the North spring, forms his district's western edge. The District Demographics contrast with those in Minneapolis.
Why do we believe it's a good thing for the country mouse to visit the big city and listen to Dehn's constituents?
The answer is rooted in statements Backer made while Mayor of Browns Valley in 2007, when the city was struck by a flood in those headwaters in the spring and heavy rain in early June. Shane Mercer of the Grand Forks Herald reported in Browns Valley recovering:
BROWNS VALLEY, Minn. - Residents of this western Minnesota town were reminded over the weekend of the brutal flooding that buried a large chunk of the community in March.
Heavy rains forced water over a road on the west side of Browns Valley on Saturday. The waters receded, but were back across the road on Monday.
Mayor Jeff Backer said Monday afternoon he was not aware of any damage to homes, and the areas hardest hit by flooding in March were not affected.
It's not as if residents needed the reminder. Some things are hard to forget. When ice jams forced the Little Minnesota River from its banks and into neighborhoods in March, more than 60 homes in the town of about 650 sustained severe or moderate damage. Backer estimated flood damage to the city at $4 million to $5 million. . . .
That would be less than ten percent of the town's housing stock. We continued:
Mayor Backer compared his town's misery to that of New Orleans, which had been hit by Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005. Mercer reports:
"In my opinion New Orleans would not be in the position that they are in if they had the same people that we have here in Browns Valley," he said, alluding to post-Katrina issues in the Crescent City. "The mentality of the people (in Browns Valley) is, 'What can we do to help?' " ...
As an example of how property values can affect flood relief, Browns Valley Mayor Jeff Backer Jr. said 62 homes were touched by the flood, and 17 were severely damaged. The value of the those homes in this small town in far western Minnesota ranged from $20,000 to $35,000. The city is buying out seven of them. . . .
Backer, whose basement was flooded, said the percentage of houses in his town affected by flooding was equal to those damaged in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. . . .
While Backer rightly felt great pain for Browns Valley, his math was a bit off. While 60 homes out of 650 in Browns Valley (just under 10%) were damaged, CNN notes in its 2015 Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts:
80% of the city flooded after levees failed. . . .
70% of New Orleans' occupied housing, 134,000 units, was damaged in the storm.
That's a far, far greater percentage of the housing in New Orleans than the housing in Browns Valley that was destroyed by the cities' respective natural disasters. It's likely more explanatory of why the City of New Orleans lost so much of its population shortly after what FEMA called "the single most catastrophic natural disaster in U.S. history" than not having "the same people that we have here in Browns Valley."
Backer's anti-urban placebaiting probably isn't a sound foundation for policy making, anymore than his memory or math skills.
Screengrabs: The upside-down photo in the Sun Tribune's original online version of the forum article seems like a pretty good visual metaphor (top); a photo of people waiting for a train earlier this month, via James Oliver Smith Jr.'s Facebook page.
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Whether campaigning in urban or rural legislative districts, political candidates who met certain criteria outlined in Minnesota statute are to have access to the "doors" of people living multiple unit dwellings. It's not a free-for-all however, as the law reasonable exceptions and steps for securing access.
I felt I had to apologize for my opponent's behavior today.
According to the police report, on October 14 at 4:00 PM, my opponent, Victor Lake called the Eagan Police to lodge a complaint against the manager of the Cinnamon Ridge Apartments. She was refusing to let him into the properties without first clearing it with the management.
Lake was rude and threatening and tried to bully his way by demanding immediate entry. The police responded and told him to call the management company to arrange entry on another day.
The manager said she was scared and intimidated. She noted that she is pregnant and did not feel safe with his threats. The police took her side against Lake and told her that he cannot bully his way into apartments on his terms.
I stopped there today to be sure there were no residual bad feelings that might reflect on our team. She effusively praised the Carlson team and even relayed her feelings to some new renters who were present. She also gave me a copy of the police report and said she had total support from her company.
Candidates behaving as Lake did damage to the reputation of present and future officeholders. The Carlson campaign apartment team, led by Jim Johnson, has always taken extra steps to work with apartment management, to maintain good relationships, build trust and protect the security and privacy of constituents who live in secured apartments.
Any candidate who violates that trust not only hurts all candidates but also those who work in support of candidates regardless of party. Victor Lake should be ashamed of himself and needs to get a grip on acceptable campaign behavior.
Bluestem asked Carlson for a copy of the police report which the manager had given to him, which we posted on scribd and embed below:
[6] RP cited a state statute that allows political campaigns access to properties for political purposes. Petty misd if violated. I advised RP that he should make phone calls to property management corporate and arrange access to the property knowing full well that they would allow him the access he is seeking, he would just have to make the phone calls himself to arrange it.
(1) denial of admittance into a particular apartment, room, manufactured home, or personal residential unit;
(2) requiring reasonable and proper identification as a necessary prerequisite to admission to a multiple unit dwelling;
(3) in the case of a nursing home or a registered housing with services establishment providing assisted living services meeting the requirements of section 144G.03, subdivision 2, denial of permission to visit certain persons for valid health reasons;
(4) limiting visits by candidates or volunteers accompanied by the candidate to a reasonable number of persons or reasonable hours;
(5) requiring a prior appointment to gain access to the facility; or
(6) denial of admittance to or expulsion from a multiple unit dwelling for good cause.
Perhaps Lake should actually know the laws he waves around to intimidate people.
Team Carlson doorknocking rules build relationships
Carlson passed along the guidelines his campaign has developed for door knocking in apartment buildings and complexes:
We experience several levels of coordination and cooperation with the property managers in the district. One or two of us try to visit rental offices to build a trusting relationship with these folks who have make-or-break decision powers for me and for our doorknockers and lit distributors. There are many stories of resistance and success but “being nice” always pays off. The relationships vary from “super” to “wary.” We ask permission before scheduling at any secured buildings or unsecured living areas such as senior living properties.
1. They provide pass keys to the front doors to all of their buildings and encourage providing information. We always promise to not litter and to respect concerns of anyone who asks how and why we were let in to the secured buildings or allowed to go door-to-door in unsecured locations.
2. Some have a person walk with our people to open any locked door or to explain to any resident, why these people are in the building.
3. Some ask for a driver’s license and give our people the passkeys.
4. Some ask for a candidate to introduce the team members and put management at ease.
5. Some ask for a candidate to be present at all times that a team is on site.
6. Some will schedule a property employee to verify that all of the above are met and we are doing or limiting the activities as we promised.
7. If a property manager is not aware of a commitment by their management, we go away and retry at another time. We are never confrontational or attempt to bully our way by waving the law in front of their face. We do carry copies of the law in cases where the person may not be familiar with the appointments we have made.
From the sounds of it, voter contact is viewed not just as an opportunity to win a vote for the senator, but to build relationships as well.
Photo: Winter is coming and so is Victor Lake, with a lot less warning. Photo via Politics in Minnesota.
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We've noticed that Representative Miller likes to claim things that aren't true or particularly accurate. That's an added charm to changing his positions on issues. Take Sunday sales and legal medical marijuana, which he was for before he was against them.
Former MnDOT employee Galen Henjum identifies one special wrinkle in Miller's veracity in a letter to the editor of the West Central Tribune, Taking credit for work by others:
I'm amazed when I see elected officials taking credit for things they didn't do. Tim Miller claims responsibility for getting Highway 12 resurfaced between Benson and Kerkhoven and this is simply not true. That project was included in the state transportation improvement program as far back as 2013 when Andrew Falk was serving as our state representative. I know because I was working there (MnDOT).
Tim Miller takes credit for passing a large transportation bill that is rebuilding roads and bridges. The truth is, Tim Miller passed no long-term comprehensive transportation bill. He simply voted for a "lights-on" transportation bill, which was a continuation of the bill and policies passed by Andrew Falk and the DFL in 2013-2014. . . .
Photo: Representative Tim Miller. Are the eyes the "tell"?
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Bluestem's not a big fan of the tactic of attempts to get speaking events cancelled, so as Bagley Public High School once again finds itself in the midst of a dust-up over an anti-Muslim speaker, we're wondering if more education might be a better strategy to counter tonight's John Guandolo event in the Northwest Central Minnesota small town in Clearwater County.
Our post is mentioned in a new press release issued by the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN):
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today called on administrators of Bagley High Schoo lin Bagley, Minn., to cancel an event this evening featuring notorious Islamophobe and anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist John Guandolo.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that tracks hate groups in America, describes Guandolo as "a disreputable character, who regularly attacks the U.S. government, claims that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a secret Muslim agent for the Saudi government and says that American Muslims 'do not have a First Amendment right to do anything.'"
"Islamophobes like John Guandolo have the right to spew their misinformation and bigotry, but they don't have the right to do it using a taxpayer-funded academic institution as a platform," said CAIR-MN Executive Director Jaylani Hussein. "The perception that the high school may be endorsing Guandolo's anti-Muslim bigotry could lead to a hostile learning environment for Muslim and other minority students."
He suggested that high school administrators tell Guandolo to find a private venue for his talk.
In June of this year, a Texas college canceled a similar event. The college's decision came following a request by CAIR's Dallas-Fort Work chapter.
SEE: Texas College Cancels Controversial Law Enforcement Training Event Led by 'Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theorist'
Last year, CAIR welcomed the withdrawal of an FBI representative from an event in Texas that was initially sponsored by the anti-Muslim hate group ACT! for America and featured Guandolo.
SEE: FBI Withdraws from Texas Event Initially Sponsored by Hate Group and Featuring Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theorist
Virginia's Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy rescinded its approval of in-service training credits for state law enforcement scheduled to attend a training Guandolo was conducting in Culpeper, Va., after being made aware of his anti-Islam rhetoric.
SEE: Virginia Agency Pulls Accreditation for Anti-Muslim Training
A sheriff in Kansas decided not to partner with a citizens group sponsoring a Guandolo training after being informed of his conspiracy theories. When a journalist at Kansas' Wichita Eagle covered the controversy, Guandolo accused the reporter of material support of terrorism.
SEE: Kansas Sheriff Won't Partner on Training by John Guandolo
Guandolo left the FBI shortly after reports surfaced that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with a key witness in a corruption trial targeting a member of Congress. In addition he is documented as having falsified his credentials and work experience.
Major General Tony Cucolo, Commandant of the US Army War College, informed CAIR in an email: "Mr. Guandolo's claim (in print) that he teaches at the Army War College and any other references (e.g., online) identifying him as an adjunct instructor here are simply untrue."
CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
We'll monitor the news for developments in this story.
Photo: John Guandolo.
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QFM is "a Christian radio station licensed to Fosston, Minnesota with its main studio in Grand Forks, North Dakota and additional studios in Bemidji, Minnesota," according to Wikipedia. It's owned by Pine to Prairie Broadcasting (FCC ownership data here, here, and here).
The calendar posting lists Tammy Godwin as the contact person (Godwin was responsible for asking Usama Dakdok to Bagley for speaking engagements in 2013 and 2014).
John Guandolo’s website is www.understandingthethreat.com I suggest you go to his website and click on “About John Guandolo” to access a pdf with 2 pages of information about John and his organization, an organization dedicated to providing strategic and operational threat-focused consultation, education, and training for federal, state and local leadership and agencies, and designing strategies at all levels of the community to defeat the enemy: Islam and the Jihadi Movement in the U.S.
UTT is the only organization in America which is briefing leadership at the national, state and local levels on the severity and dangers of the jihadi network here, providing training to law enforcement detailing the strategies and modus operandi of the jihadis (“terrorists”) while providing specific investigative guidance showing them how to locate and prosecute terrorists, (organizations and individuals) and working at the state level to create strategies to dismantle these networks.
John’s presentation will review the threat and the jihadi network in the U.S. and Minnesota, but will focus on the cooperation between the hard-left/Marxist Movement and the Jihadi Movement in the U.S. and practical actions citizens can take to defend their communities and take back ground.
County seat of Clearwater County, Minnesota, Bagley was home to 1,392 people at the time of the 2010 U.S. Census. Residents are represented by state representative Steve Green, R-Fosston, and state senator Rod Skoe, DFL-Clearbrook, in the Minnesota legislature--and by MN07 Congressman Collin Peterson in the U.S. House of Representatives.
A former FBI agent, Guandolo shares his version of his bio on his website's About page. Elsewhere, Guandolo's critics paint a different picture. Reporting in Salon in 2014, Josh Glasstetter of the Southern Poverty Law wrote:
[Guandolo] regularly attacks the U.S. government, claims that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a secret Muslim agent for the Saudi government and says that American Muslims “do not have a First Amendment right to do anything.”
Guandolo joined the bureau’s Counterterrorism Division in the wake of 9/11, but by 2005 he was posing as a driver for a “star witness” in the corruption case of former Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA). He made “inappropriate sexual advances” to that witness and soon was having an “intimate relationship…that he thought could damage an investigation.” He also unsuccessfully solicited the witness for a $75,000 donation to an organization he supported and carried on extramarital affairs with female FBI agents.
Guandolo’s actions risked tanking the government’s prosecution of Jefferson, and he faced an investigation by the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Though he later expressed “deep remorse” for his actions, he resigned from the bureau in December, 2008, ahead of an investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility. Later that month, he became a full-time anti-Muslim activist and conspiracy theorist –– all under the guise of being a counterterrorism expert.
According to his resume, Guandolo became Vice President of the Strategic Engagement Group in December, 2008. He describes the tiny consultancy as the “only company in the United States aimed at identifying potential threats to homeland security.” This would come as a shock to the many U.S.-based consultancies and contractors who actually do this work, often for many millions of dollars – e.g.Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, Stratfor, Ashcroft Group. But that’s the thing about Guandolo, he actually believes that only he and a small cadre of allies – including the anti-Muslim ACT! For America, whose Thin Blue Line project he helped launch – understand geopolitics, terrorism and Islam.
In Guandolo’s mind, the U.S. government has already been infiltrated by the enemy –– Muslims. He raised eyebrows –– and was widely mocked –– a year ago with wild claimsabout John Brennan, who was later confirmed as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Speaking on a far-right online radio show, heclaimed that Brennan had “interwoven his life professionally and personally with individuals that we know are terrorist” and given them access to top government officials. What’s more, he claimed Brennan “brought known Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood leaders into the government and into advisory positions.”
Why would Brennan do such things? Guandolo knows. It’s because Brennan was the target of a successful “counterintelligence operation against him” in Saudi Arabia and converted to “Islam when he served in an official capacity” there. And the conspiracy doesn’t stop there. Guandolo claimed a couple weeks later that President Obama had “made a significant effort to protect known members of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood inside this government.” . . .
The SPLC also looks at Guandolo here and here, while Right Wing Watch has a John Guandolo category on its webpage. The Washington Post reports that author David Shipler has debunked the central tenet of Guandolo's conspiracy theory in hisbook "Freedom of Speech: Mightier in Than the Sword":
A compelling chapter depicts the community of self-appointed guardians who make a business of issuing impassioned, McCarthy-like warnings about Islamist conspiracies to take over the United States. Shipler introduces us to Frank Gaffney Jr. of the Center for Security Policy; John Guandolo, a former FBI agent; and Steven Emerson, who runs the Investigative Project on Terrorism Web site. All maintain that the Muslim Brotherhood is engaged in an international conspiracy, through a variety of front organizations, to insinuate itself into American life and achieve Islamist world domination. Shipler attends an all-day training session run by Guandolo on how to advance these anti-Muslim views in the media, and he tracks down the sources these so-called experts rely upon to back up their overheated claims.
He finds that the central document underlying most of the claims is a 15-page “explanatory memo” found in an FBI search of an Annandale, Va., home in 2004. Signed by Mohamed Akram, a member of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood, it describes the Brotherhood’s goal as “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within” and includes a list of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends,” naming some of the most well-established, mainstream Muslim groups in the United States. Gaffney calls it “the Rosetta stone for the Muslim Brotherhood.” Shipler shows that in fact the document is nothing more than a thought piece drafted by a single individual in the early 1990s, and that there is no evidence it was ever considered, much less adopted, by the Muslim Brotherhood or anyone else. Shipler’s research shows that other supposed evidence of the grand Islamist conspiracy is similarly speculative.
This chapter, much like the book as a whole, illustrates the freedom of speech at work. Gaffney, Guandolo and Emerson are, of course, exercising their First Amendment rights, but in doing so they pose a real threat to the political freedoms of others, as they tar with unjustified suspicion Muslim civic organizations that are engaged in the promotion of civil liberties, religious freedom and Muslim identity, not terrorism. Shipler’s response is not to call for the suppression of the conspiracy theorists’ speech, but simply to demonstrate that their claims are vastly exaggerated and unsubstantiated. In short, he answers their speech with his speech. An objective reader cannot help but come away with a better understanding of the truth. This is the freedom of speech at its best.
A 2015 Guandolo talk in Little Falls
The seminar at Cragun's isn't the first time Guandolo has spoken in Greater Minnesota. Columnist Tom West of the Morrison County Record wrote:
. . . about a month ago, another speaker showed up in Morrison County. His appearance was by invitation only (meaning only those on the approved list were told the location), but about 70 people showed up at a senior center to hear what he had to say.
I was told that the reason for the secrecy was because the organizers were afraid that CAIR would attempt to disrupt the meeting.
The speaker was John Guandolo. If one runs a Google search on him, what one finds is interesting. Guandolo is a former FBI agent, and he is well connected to a group that includes a retired lieutenant general, a retired admiral, a former U.S. ambassador and a number of former CIA analysts.
Guandolo believes that the Muslim Brotherhood through various front organizations is working to overthrow the U.S. government from within and replace it with an Islamic caliphate governed by Sharia law.
That’s quite a bold statement, but Guandolo says don’t believe what he says, just listen to what U.S. Islamic leaders are saying. He has written a book, “Raising a Jihadi Generation,” which contains numerous excerpts from the documents of U.S. Islamic leaders to confirm his position. Many of the documents were seized during FBI investigations. . . .
. . . The writer’s information source, John Guandolo? He’s a “former” FBI agent because he resigned from the FBI after it became known that, while married, he had inappropriate sexual relationships with female agents and with a confidential source witness during a federal government corruption investigation. He now cruises the anti-terrorism speaker network looking for secret meetings and gullible Islamophobic folks.
The writer owns a bully pulpit from which is displayed editorial sloppiness that is cause for concern in this community. Even where it is legal to speak contemptuously about a religion, is it wise? Does it encourage intolerance? Is it compassionate? Should society encourage or oppose it? If we are going to move forward as a society, we must do all that we can to avoid denigrating the dignity of another human being.
We found no evidence that Guandolo's most recent [the one in January] visit was promoted to the general public--and so we'll have reserve judgement as to whether he actually linked Black Lives Matter to terrorism.
Critical thinking, hearsay, and policy
We believe Americans can say pretty much anything that we want--but shouldn't expect that our freedom from censorship includes freedom from criticism, ie, others' freedom to speak their minds. . . .
Photo: John Guandolo.
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These are the times that try poor country bloggers' souls, especially the moments of nincompoopery that Representative Dale Lueck, R-Aitkin, dropped in a debate this week..
In District 10B candidates share positions, Chelsey Perkins' coverage for the Brainerd Dispatch of a candidate forum between Lueck and DFL challenger Erin Wagner, we read this passage:
. . . Funding for broadband internet expansion in rural areas, was also a success, he said, adding metro legislators don't understand those needs.
"Frankly, they just don't know what you're talking about when we're talking about no coverage or spotty coverage," Lueck said.
Everybody knows "metro legislators" is Republican code for "DFL." But as the infographic at the top of this page illustrates, those God-awful metro-centric Democrats stated the digital divide quite clearly when they posted the image to the Minnesota House DFL Caucus Facebook page on January 21, 2016.
That damn metro Minority Leader Paul Thissen and his crew, spreading those facts before the session started. We gather Lueck missed that part about his "metro" colleagues knowing what talk about "no coverage or spotty coverage" means.
The Aitkin Republican must have missed another image posted that same day:
Indeed, that inglorious metro bastard Thissen, who represents Minneapolis for cats' sakes, had been rattling on for months--months! we tell you!--about such matters. Witness his October 7, 2015 column in the Grand Forks Herald, GOP leaves communities disconnected by underfunding broadband:
At a recent forum about the lack of high-speed Internet access in greater Minnesota, a woman from Aitkin, Minn., told us, "this isn't just a need—it's a necessity."
I agree. The availability of high-speed Internet has become a critical issue of economic vitality and quality of life for all Minnesotans. Unfortunately, House Republicans ignored this critical priority for greater Minnesota and halted our momentum to ensure all Minnesotans have access to high-speed Internet.
Broadband infrastructure—the means in which we provide high-speed Internet access across our state—got its first significant investment in 2014 by our DFL-led Legislature. But we knew this was only a down-payment. In fact, the Governor's Broadband Task Force has recommended a $100 million per year investment in our state's Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant program.
Many people in greater Minnesota began this year with high hopes, given the promises Republican legislators made on the campaign trail. But despite a $2 billion surplus, the Republican-led House did not continue this commitment to rural broadband access in 2015. They initially zeroed-out our state's broadband investment and ended up putting just $10 million into our broadband program.
They also proposed to eliminate the Office of Broadband Development. That's because their top priority last session was massive tax breaks that benefit large corporations and businesses that predominantly reside in the metro area.
We knew that $10 million for broadband was inadequate then, and we have now confirmed it. This past week, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development released their list of communities that applied for broadband grants. The resources passed by the Republican-led House will only cover about one-third of the requests, leaving dozens of Minnesota communities disconnected.
And as noted at the meetings, the skimpy Republican commitment probably discouraged a lot of communities from applying.
Consider what is happening in Pine City, Minn., and in many rural areas across the state. After closing time at the local library, you can see people huddled in their cars with their laptops, struggling to maintain a connection on the library WI-FI so that they can complete homework or send an e-mail.
We must do better—for a student who can't log on to the Internet to complete a research paper, for a small business owner trying to stay competitive with the metro area, and for a parent who wants to connect online with a son or daughter at college.
We hear a lot of happy talk from Republican legislators about broadband. But talk won't build a single mile of broadband infrastructure.
Before next session, I urge Herald readers to contact their legislators and urge them to put their money where their mouths are in support of broadband infrastructure funding.
Indeed, the Republicans ended up taking Thissen's advice--though with only one-third of what that equally-metro governor wanted for broadband.
No wonder Lueck is reduced to placebaiting of the lowest sort. The fact is that "metro" legislators--like the leader of the Minnesota House DFL Caucus--fully understand the problem, as does the DFL governor and Lt. Gov. Tina "Bright Lights, Big City" Smith.
However, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith said in a statement that the Republican broadband proposal wasn't enough, and pointed out that Gov. Mark Dayton proposed $100 million in grant funding.
"The governor and I welcome the work of House Republicans on broadband," Smith said. "Their proposals, however, barely make a dent in the need for high-speed, affordable broadband access in greater Minnesota. At the level of investment they are proposing, the 244,000 households in greater Minnesota without broadband connections will wait decades to get up to speed. This is bad for our economy, bad for greater Minnesota, and we need to do better."
Perhaps Lueck simply imagines that since so much of rural Minnesota is still left without reliable high-speed broadband, no one's going to fact check the complete blither that escapes from his mouth into the world as he placebaits his metro colleagues.
Images: Infographics released by the Minnesota House DFL Caucus. Via Facebook.
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In his first rodeo, Nolan served in Congress from January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1981, in Minnesota's old, old Sixth Congressional district. In his second, he's served as congressman for Minnesota's 8th, from the northern exurbs to Duluth and the Range.
With each passing year, this becomes increasingly clear: U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, simply put, is good for Duluth, good for the Iron Range and good for Northeastern Minnesota.
On Nov. 8, voters here are going to be needed to propel Nolan to re-election victory, assuring the congressman stays on the job for them, the same congressman who got pavement-pounding semis off of Superior Street in our downtown, a feat long eluding local leaders; who has been consistent and unwavering in his support of mining, pipelines and protecting good-paying Northland jobs; who has made national headlines by fearlessly butting heads with politics-as-usual Washington; and who has been willing to contradict his party in favor of supporting his 8th Congressional District.
Rick Nolan has been accessible and responsive and has earned the support he’ll need to prevail and remain in office.
Little his challenger has done or said suggests he’d be as open or as willing to address our needs here in the north. Republican Stewart Mills’ base of support clearly is in the southern end of the district. He’s rarely seen in Duluth or on the Range. That’s in stark contrast to Nolan and, before him, Reps. Chip Cravaack and Jim Oberstar. Mills has no campaign office here, even though Duluth is the biggest city in the district.
And voters can be forgiven for being suspicious of Mills’ seeming unwillingness to answer questions publicly or to face scrutiny — or even inquiry — in front of constituents in the north or anywhere. Mills turned down numerous invitations this campaign season to debate his opponent or to appear with him on television, on radio or elsewhere. And the one time he did agree to share a stage with Nolan — at the Playhouse in Duluth on Sept. 19 at a candidate forum sponsored by the News Tribune and Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce — he arrived through a back door moments before the debate was to begin and then dashed away soon after it was over.
When the News Tribune editorial board requested a follow-up meeting, Mills said he’d only do so off the record. . . .
Read the rest at the News Tribune.
One example of Mills public shyness? On Thursday, Minnesota Public Radio host Tom Weber and Nolan chatted about Nolan's record, then Nolan took listeners' calls. Readers can listen to the audio online at Mills and Nolan battle it out over Minnesota's 8th District.
In the copy that follows the audio, the MPR staff did provide Mills some time with the website's readers:
Mills declined the invitation. . . .
Below are some key points taken from Nolan's conversation with host Tom Weber. Also below are answers Mills has given in other instances on similar topics.
Check out the answers at MPR.
Photo: Via MPR, Mills (left) and Nolan (right) in their only debate, back in September. Perhaps Mills fears the giant blancmange on stage between them will return and challenge him to a game of tennis. (Hat-tip Chris Steller for recognizing the object for what it is).
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Bluestem is no friend of private prisons, so this fact check relates only to a claim made about legislation related to the Appleton prison in a lit piece Representative Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg, has been distributing in doorknocks and lit drops in Minnesota House District 17A.
As the photo above shows, the lit piece states that Andrew Falk "Never proposed or offered a bill addressing the Appleton prison closure." The prison closed in February 2010, according to a report by Minnesota Public Radio.
Falk maintains otherwise, stating that he worked with the late State Senator Gary Kubly, DFL-Granite Falls, on language that would require the Department of Correction to house prisoners in the Appleton prison.
Miller's claim that Falk "never" proposed or offered a bill addressing the Appleton prison is false.
On March 4, 2010, Falk introduced HF3375, which would have shifted control of a portion of the Moose Lake Correctional facility from the commissioner of corrections to the commissioner of human services, and transferring offenders who had been incarcerated to private prisons.
In Minnesota, that would be the Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton.
Relevant text: "requiring the commissioner of corrections to incarcerate offenders from the transferred portion [of Moose Lake] in private prisons" and "appropriating money for costs incurred by the Department of Corrections to incarcerate the offenders transferred to private prisons."
This is unlike Miller's proposed bill (HF3223), which did not appropriate funds for operating the Appleton facility. Read the Fiscal Note on HF3223 for an idea of what the nonpartisan staff at the Minnesota House Fiscal Analysis Department estimated running the prison would cost.
And there's this in the Falk bill:
No later than December 31, 2010, the commissioner of corrections shall transfer 50 percent of the offenders incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Moose Lake to a privately owned and operated medium security correctional facility within the state if the commissioner is able to negotiate an agreement to do so with the facility. If the commissioner is unable to successfully negotiate an agreement with the facility, the commissioner shall transfer the offenders to other state or locally operated correctional facilities or to privately owned correctional facilities in other states.
We're guessing CCA would have wanted the facility to be generating revenue, rather than sitting idle.
Kubly was the chief author of the state senate companion bill, SF2876. While Falk's bill had no co-authors, Kubly was joined by four colleagues from both sides of the aisle:
While not being accurate about Falk's record, Miller has been successful in making the closed prison more of an issue for the district. Koenen had served in the House until the special election in 2012, but didn't sign on to the 2010 Falk-Kubly bill, and still beat Gimse in the 2012 special election.
In 2016, however, Koenen is the chief author of the senate companion bill, SF3192. Falk, on the other hand, now proposes buying the prison for its assessed tax value and re-purposing it as a mental health and substance abuse treatment center.
Photo: The Miller lit piece with the claim about Falk's inaction on the Appleton prison.
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Democrats brought the bill to put this constitutional amendment proposal on this year's ballot through the legislature when they had full throttled control in 2013. Not one ordinary Minnesotan asked for it. Not one. It was devised by those feckless lawmakers who, knowing that we continued to squash salary increase proposals in the legislature, wanted to find another way to get their pay raised.
That description--branding the measure partisan and those favoring it "feckless--is at odds with the history of the amendment's origins that state senator Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, shared at a Republican basic party operating unit (BPOU) gathering on Thursday.
Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, talked of her work to get an amendment to the state constitution that would take away legislators' power of setting their own pay and replace it with an appointed citizen commission. She said she discovered the idea through her involvement with the National Foundation for Women Legislators, after a delegate from the state of Washington told her about it. It's a good solution to break the legislative gridlock around the issue, she said. The fear of political blowback effectively shuts down any hope of a frank discussion on legislator pay.
"We can't ever talk about it," she said. "We can't have an honest conversation, because it's the postcard in your next election that says 'You tried to raise your pay.'"
Ruud described the rules for appointing pay commission members, that were designed to help ensure not only that there wouldn't be a partisan bias on the new body, but that the legislature as a whole couldn't exert influence on it. Appointed by the governor and the state supreme court chief justice, the 16 members of the committee are split evenly between eight DFLers and eight Republicans. In order to be eligible to serve, potential appointees can't be current or former legislators or their spouses, lobbyists, legislative employees, judges, elected officials in the executive branch, or employees of the executive branch, she said.
"We tried to make it as tight as we possibly can, so that commision cannot be part of the Legislature, or be influenced by the Legislature," Ruud said. "It's a total citizen entity."
Voters have the opportunity to mark their ballots for or against the constitutional amendment in this year's general election.
Looking over the legislative history of the amendment, Bluestem finds that however "feckless" Draz might find Ruud and four DFLers in the Senate to be (the authors of the senate version of the bill for the amendment), his painting of the bill as partisan exposes some fascinating political gamesmanship.
House Republican strategy: All about the 2014 election
It's got the feel of the creation of a talking point for the 2014 Minnesota House elections, especially when one looks at the vote on the bill in the Senate.
Senate bill and vote bipartisan
In the Senate, the bill passed with a 43-23 bipartisan vote, with Michelle Fischbach, Paynesville; Paul Gazelka, Nisswa; Mary Kiffmeyer, Big Lake; Warren Limmer, Maple Grove; Sean Nienow, Cambridge; Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson; and Ruud voting for it.
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Of course, it asserts the truthiness of the impulse to post a bogus representation. Since their point was to illustrate that stabbings at a mall took place, they should be forgiven for posting the double-duty hoax using a decade-old photo of an inmate stabbed in a brawl in an incarceration facility. Because they fear Muslims, their hearts are pure. You betcha. [end update]
Let's hope that St. Cloud's Ron Branstner and Willmar's Bob Enos take it upon themselves to let their new friends know they've been punked by a fake photo online.
A gruesome photograph from a decade ago does not show injuries sustained by a victim of the September 2016 St. Cloud mall stabbing.
Claim: Photographs show injuries sustained by a victim of the September 2016 St. Cloud stabbing
Rated: False.
Origin: On 17 September, nine people were injured (none of them fatally) in a rampage by a knife-wielding man at the Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud. Minnesota, who was himself shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. Afterwards, some of the photographs displayed above were circulated on social media as pictures of one of the St. Cloud victims.
However, these images are much older than that incident. The photographs of a man with inch-deep slash wounds across his chest and back first reached our inbox March 2006, accompanied by text stating they depicted a United States Air Force (USAF) airman injured in a barroom incident near Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, home of the 8th Fighter Wing, also known as the Wolf Pack:
Kunsan Staff Sergeant Michael Jones, was assaulted in an A-Town bar by unknown assailants. 8th SFS and members of the OSI Detachment 641 B, are investigating. If anyone wishes to donate to the family of SSgt Jones you can call the 8th MXS First Sergeant at 782-4041 or (281) 330-8004.
"A-Town" is a commercial district about three miles from Kunsan Air Base frequented by Americans; "8th SFS" and "8th MXS" designate the 8th Security Forces Squadron (an Air Force police unit) and the 8th Maintenance Squadron, both at Kunsan; and "OSI" refers to a USAF Office of Special Investigations detachment at the air base.
According to the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, Air Force officials quickly determined that there had been no such attack involving any USAF personnel around Kunsan, nor was anyone with the name included in the e-mail (Staff Sergeant Michael Jones) currently stationed at Kunsan Air Base:
"The name of the person on that hoax e-mail is not anyone that is stationed at Kunsan," [Capt. Richard] Komurek said. "I don't know in the history of Kunsan if that person was ever stationed here, but when that e-mail came out, that person was not stationed here."
Wing officials, including OSI personnel, checked into the report and within a day or so concluded it was fake, Komurek said.
"We had no such attack and we confirmed that the e-mail was a hoax. We notified the chain of command and the Wolf Pack members about the e-mail right away," he said.
The e-mail gave a DSN number and a commercial number with a Houston area code for those wishing "to donate to the family of SSgt Jones." Repeated calls to the DSN number went unanswered and calls to the Texas number produced a recording stating that the number is not in service.
Evidently Air Force investigators didn't get the joke: the name and phone number used in the text were taken from Houston rapper Mike Jones' 2005 CD release on the Asylum label, Who Is Mike Jones?, on which he exhorts listeners to "Hit me up: 281-330-8004, baby."
According to Air Force officials, the photographs are genuine, but they originated in the U.S. and were pictures used by law enforcement authorities for training purposes (that documented the aftermath of a fight between inmates).
Air Force investigators aren't the only ones not to get this extended joke--the frightened people in Aberdeen didn't stop to verify the authenticity of the photos, either. Let's hope they gain at least a tiny bit of enlightenment from Branstner and Enos tomorrow night.
Screenshot: Americans First, Task Force of Aberdeen SD shared this online hoax on its Facebook page.
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Update September 29: The mailing that Regan received is from 2016, but it's not from ABM's federal PAC. Rather, it's from the Alliance for a Better Minnesota Action Fund, a state political fund. Here's the side of the card that includes the disclaimer as is required by state law:
It's not the text that Regan described in her letter and it's not from the federal fund. We've pointed out to Regan and in this post that it's a common practice of ideological non-profits like the Alliance for A Better Minnesota (on the left) and the Freedom Club (on the right) to establish legally separate political funds. Both organizations maintain legally separate state and federal PACs in accordance with Minnesota statutes. The Minnesota Jobs Coalition, also a non-profit, works only on the state level, and so its legislative fund PAC is registered only with the Minnesota campaign finance board.
It's worth noting that the new postcard isn't a negative attack on Representative Miller (an earlier letter writer claimed ABM had sent negative mail pieces about Miller beginning in 2014 through the present) but a positive independent expenditure urging voters to cast a ballot for Falk.
It's worth noting that Regan originally sent us only the address side of the postcard (we've obscured her address but left her name on it):
By originally sending only this side, Regan thought to bolster her published claim that the federal PAC--a legally separate fund--sent her the piece about Falk since the return addresses are the same and that all entities using that address are "one and the same."
As for that national network to which ABM belongs, this too is not unusual. The Coalition of Minnesota Businesses appears to be part of the BIPAC national network that was established in 2001. (The CMB--not its legally separate PAC or legally separate IEPC--is sending "issue advocacy" postcards in MN17A) If Regan dislikes networking and organizations with PACs and IE funds, she can find plenty of targets. The other letter writer saw them as part of free speech, but claimed ABM had sent out "hate mailings" against Tim Miller.
[end update]
Bluestem's household received its issue of the Clara City Herald in the mail today, and as with last week's edition, the letters-to-the-editor in the Opinions section did not disappoint.
DeGraff resident Cindy Regan also has a bug up her bonnet about the Democratic front group, and like the earlier letter writer Mike Thein, her memory of the political mail she's received doesn't match campaign finance reports of spending. [See our update above; the 2016 mail piece doesn't match her description and was not sent by the federal PAC].
Nor does she have a grasp of how independent expenditures work. Regan writes in part:
Andrew Falk's campaign seems to center around telling us about Tim Miller's so called supporters such as the Jobs Coalition, Reynolds America, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Koch Industries, Las Vegas Sands, Exon [sic] Mobil, and Northern Oil and Gas. As of yet there hasn't been a single mailing from any of these organizations on Tim Miller's behalf.
We don't know if Regan deliberately gives a shortened, incorrect name for the MN Jobs Coalition, whose political fund received contributions directly or indirectly from the corporations she names. But she does misrepresent what Falk wrote.
Regan continues in her letter in the September 14 Herald (no online edition):
. . . However, I have received political mailings from Alliance for a Better Minnesota Federal PAC with Falk's picture and the words, "Andrew Falk Agrees!" . . .
[See our update above; the 2016 mail piece she provided doesn't match her description and was not sent by the federal PAC].
Had such a mail piece ever been sent by a federal PAC on behalf of a state candidate, former Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board executive director Gary Goldsmith and his staff would be very cross indeed.That federal race spending needs to be spent on federal races--and indeed it was. We found no evidence of independent expenditure cash on mailings in the Minnesota House District 17A race.
The only independent expenditures by ABM's Federal PAC were related to online ads against Republican United States Senate candidates from Minnesota: Mike McFadden and a couple of also-rans.
Even if Regan is mis-remembering the copy from an online ad as a mail piece, we're at a loss to figure out why the online ads would include Falk's photo and the copy "Andrew Falk Agrees!" since we're not sure about what, if anything, Falk and Mike McFadden would agree.
Perhaps it was some other group. [Update: it was sent by the state PAC, a legally separate entity]
An earlier PAC kept by America Votes, American Votes-Minnesota, was terminated in 2014.
Since the America Votes-Minnesota shares an office suite with ABM, Regan believes that these organizations are THE SAME! She continues:
I decided to do a little digging into this PAC [Alliance for a Better Minnesota Federal PAC], and they actually share the same address in St. Paul with an organization called America Votes. In my opinion, they are one and the same.
Regan then lists the national partners of America Votes, all found on the national group's website Our Partners.
Whatever the case, neither the ABM Federal PAC nor the America Votes Action Fund--Minnesota, sent any mail out in 2014 or since, to any state or federal race in Minnesota, much less House District 17A. It's puzzling that two Letters To The Editor attempt to pin their tales on these donkey allies without producing a copy of any mail piece or campaign finance report to support their claims.
Was there a mail piece with Falk's picture and copy about agreement? We don't have it in our collection of 2014 political junkmail, but someone might have sent it.
Just not ABM or America Votes.
Regan does switch over later in the letter to discuss votes that Falk took on abortion, child custody and daycare regulation. While the list appears to be drawn from a 2011-2012 cycle voting checklist (she doesn't mention which group put the key votes together nor chose the wording). While we don't share Regan's positions, Bluestem thinks this issues-based approach is much more grounded and legitimate than her forays about mis-remembered sources of the junkmail she may or may not have gotten.
For a fact-based discussion of spending, "negative campaign messages and a loud drum beat paid for largely by money from political action committees outside the district" and voter turnout in Minnesota House District 17A in 2014, we recommend Tom Cherveny's Andrew Falk in the aftermath of defeat, in the West Central Tribune.
Photo: Negative campaigning at its most simple.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 33166 770th Ave, Ortonville, MN 56278) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.
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All of the statements, opinions, and views expressed on this site by Sally Jo Sorensen are solely her own, save when she attributes them to other sources.
The opinions, statements, and views of contributing writers are their own.
Sorensen, editor and proprietor of Bluestem Prairie, serves clients in the business and nonprofit sectors. While progressive in outlook, she does not caucus with any political party.
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