Franken Tap Dances So Fast Tea Party Can't Start!

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When is it Economic Slavery?

MN Progressive Project

Imagine a job offered where you were payed in company script, not US dollars, that could only buy company housing and could only be spent in company stores. This is the true history of our Minnesota Iron Range. The owners were absentee owners, where the profit went elsewhere, not invested locally. The owners then went bankrupt, abandoning long term health care and pensions to what the government can provide. And in recessions, the employment dries up. I still listen to this story in awe.

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Al Franken's secret

Image via Wikipedia

Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

David Broder has a column this morning calling for bipartisanship. I know, you're shocked. But what struck me was this bit about Al Franken:

Franken, the loud-mouthed former comedian, will be the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus ...

Two points.
First, implicit in this characterization of Franken is the notion of the Senate as a decorous gentlemen's club. I doubt that club ever existed in reality; but in any case, these days the World's Greatest Deliberative Body is, not to put too fine a point on it, chock full o' nuts. James Inhofe: I rest my case.
Second, Al Franken's dirty secret is that ... he's a big policy wonk.
I used to go on Franken's radio show, all ready to be jocular -- and what he wanted to talk about was the arithmetic of Social Security, or the structure of Medicare Part D.
In fact, the only elected official I know who's wonkier than Al Franken is Rush Holt, my congressman -- and he used to be the assistant director of Princeton's plasma physics lab. (The campaign's bumper stickers read, "My Congressman IS a rocket scientist.")
So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He'll raise it.

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Minnesota Disabled are 'unfairly' targeted by state budget cuts, advocates say

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Pawlenty runs for President on the backs of the disabled.
Minnesota Independent

How significant the cuts ultimately turn out to be is difficult to say at this point. Yesterday Pawlenty ruled out a special session or a government shutdown, and threatened to unilaterally make $4.6 billion in cuts. He fired the first shot across the bow by signing off on the legislature's funding bill for the Department of Human Services, but striking $381 million from the General Assistance Medical Care program for childless adults in 2011. Democrats continue to insist that they can work out a compromise budget with the governor.
But no matter who wins the battle at the Capitol, one fallout is clear: There will be significant cuts to services for people with mental and physical disabilities. Given that the Minnesota Department of Human Services consumes roughly 30 percent of the state's general fund, few programs will come away unscathed. But disability advocates charge that their clients are taking a disproportionate hit.
"I think we can make a strong case that vulnerable adults and the programs that protect them are being treated unfairly," says Steve Larson, public policy director for the Arc of Minnesota.
"There seems to be an overemphasis on cutting programs for people with disabilities," adds Bruce Nelson, chief executive officer of the Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota.
"These are our most vulnerable people, along with the elderly. We seem to be moving away from the Minnesota tradition of taking care of those folks who are most in need through no fault of their own."
Thomas Huntley (DFL-Duluth), chairman of the House's Health Care and Human Services Finance Division, disputes that services for people with disabilities are taking a disproportionate hit, but he doesn't doubt the significance of the cuts.
"Are they going to hurt a lot of people?" he asks. "You bet. And I think people will die because of this bill."

Wow! Michele Bachmann Out-Crazies Herself

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Minnesota Independent

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann says she fears the Obama administration will create "re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums." Audio after the jump.
Here's what Bachmann said on Minnesota radio station KTLK-AM (podcast) this weekend (in reference to The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a proposed expansion of the AmeriCorps program that Obama may sign into law this week):

It's under the guise of -- quote -- volunteerism. But it's not volunteers at all. It's paying people to do work on behalf of government. ...
I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

AlterNet

There's going to be a lot more Pittsburghs if this kind of talk continues, I'm afraid.

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Study finds bias in Twin Cities mortgages

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StarTribune.com

Minority members who live in highly segregated neighborhoods in the Twin Cities area are caught coming and going.
Regardless of their income, they're more likely to be denied a mortgage. And if they can get a mortgage, they're more likely to pay a higher interest rate. Those issues contribute to much higher defaults and foreclosures in their neighborhoods.
Those are the conclusions of a study released today by the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota's Law School, which analyzed data provided by mortgage lenders under a federal mandate called the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
Myron Orfield, an associate law professor and co-author of the study, said that although it was no surprise that minority members in the Twin Cities area were treated differently by mortgage lenders, he was shocked at how pervasive the problem is even among high-income residents.
"It's a piece of a really deep problem of racial segregation we've never come to terms with," Orfield said.
According to the report, blacks are five times more likely to receive a subprime home purchase loan than whites, while Hispanics were four times more likely and Asians were twice as likely. In addition, the report said that high-income black, Hispanic and Asian applicants have a higher denial rate for purchases and refinances than even low-income whites.
Paul Schuster, vice president of Marketplace Home Mortgage and president of the Minnesota Mortgage Association, said there's no denying that some borrowers have been overcharged. But he cautioned that HMDA doesn't collect enough information to draw the conclusions cited in the report.
'Many factors' in loans
"There are many factors that go into a loan and a loan decision," Schuster said. "And the HMDA doesn't tell the whole story."

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Study finds bias in Twin Cities mortgages

Image via Wikipedia

StarTribune.com

Minority members who live in highly segregated neighborhoods in the Twin Cities area are caught coming and going.
Regardless of their income, they're more likely to be denied a mortgage. And if they can get a mortgage, they're more likely to pay a higher interest rate. Those issues contribute to much higher defaults and foreclosures in their neighborhoods.
Those are the conclusions of a study released today by the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota's Law School, which analyzed data provided by mortgage lenders under a federal mandate called the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
Myron Orfield, an associate law professor and co-author of the study, said that although it was no surprise that minority members in the Twin Cities area were treated differently by mortgage lenders, he was shocked at how pervasive the problem is even among high-income residents.
"It's a piece of a really deep problem of racial segregation we've never come to terms with," Orfield said.
According to the report, blacks are five times more likely to receive a subprime home purchase loan than whites, while Hispanics were four times more likely and Asians were twice as likely. In addition, the report said that high-income black, Hispanic and Asian applicants have a higher denial rate for purchases and refinances than even low-income whites.
Paul Schuster, vice president of Marketplace Home Mortgage and president of the Minnesota Mortgage Association, said there's no denying that some borrowers have been overcharged. But he cautioned that HMDA doesn't collect enough information to draw the conclusions cited in the report.
'Many factors' in loans
"There are many factors that go into a loan and a loan decision," Schuster said. "And the HMDA doesn't tell the whole story."

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Meet Sen. Norm Slimy (R-MN), the Ted Stevens of the Midwest

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The LA Progressive

Although I've lived in Toronto for going on two decades, Minnesota was my last state of residence in the US, so it is where I've voted since moving here. Reading on-line editions of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, coupled with having friends - some since high school - who still live there, it's easy for me to keep up with home state politics.
In a state known for squeaky clean, Lake Woebegon-like politics, Sen. Norm Coleman is the poster child of slimy political stunts, self-serving manoeuvring, and kow-towing to corporate campaign donors.
He was narrowly elected to the Senate in 2002 after incumbent Democrat Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash during the campaign - a sad irony because Wellstone was first elected in 1996 barnstorming the state in an battered, old, school bus. Now, Coleman is embroiled in a state-mandated recount because the election results in his fight against Al Franken fell within 0.5% of a tie.
How slimy is Coleman?
Besides demanding that Franken forego the recount even though precious few votes separate them and the law requires it, Coleman and his surrogates are attacking everyone from poll workers to Minnesota's Secretary of State Mark Ritchie with lies about vote count shenanigans, being untrustworthy and practically criminal behaviour. When Republican lies are disproven - sometimes by the very people who started them - Coleman conveniently ignores reality and goes on with his smears.
Well, what can you expect? Coleman was first approached about running for the Senate by Karl Rove.
Typical Coleman Crappola
This week on The Rachel Maddow Show, Ritchie fired back at the Senator. He noted that, as the elected Secretary of State, it is his job to take the jabs and smears "but Sen. Coleman has no business attacking the integrity of election judges around the state, many of whom have been volunteering for decades without a hint of wrongdoing or impropriety."
Now Coleman and the national Republican Party are flying in some 100 GOP lawyers to peek over the volunteer's shoulders as Minnesota's 87 counties recount the Senate vote. But while much of the nation is aghast at what Coleman is doing, for people in Minnesota his smarmy representation is nothing new.
For example, in March 2007, Coleman introduced legislation to kill the Defense Travel System, a program to automate Defense Dept. travel purchases, which spends roughly $5.5-billion annually for travel. Shortly after filing the legislation, Coleman received a generous contribution from CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson of Minneapolis-based Carlson Companies, owner of Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Its Government Travel unit provides lucrative services for numerous federal agencies. Moreover, over the years, Coleman has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from other Carlson Companies executives.
As a constituent, I wrote objecting to his measure to bring efficiency to travel purchases by the federal government. Weeks later, a form letter showed up in my e-mail saying, in effect, go stuff yourself.
He backed President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, telling me in a letter I wrote to him at the time objecting to the scheme that Americans can better take care of their future than the government. As the stock market crash amply demonstrated, had Social Security been privatized as Coleman wanted, the nation's elderly would be even worse off now than they are.
He told me in another letter that the Patriot Act is an important way to protect Americans from terrorism, saying that people not involved in nefarious activities have nothing to worry about. Uhm, it turns out we all have a lot to worry about as Attorney General Michael Mukasey proved again a few weeks ago by allowing FBI agents to investigate anyone for any reason.
charley-james.jpgSmart Money
I stopped writing to Sen. Coleman once I realised all I was receiving in return were Republican talking points, the same ones The White House shares with Fox News every day. By comparison, when I write to my other senator, Amy Klobuchar, I receive a thoughtful reply that includes a rationale for her position. I don't always agree with her but at least she explains why she is supporting or opposing some piece of legislation.
Coleman merely spits in my face.
Friends in Minnesota tell me that the smart money in the recount is on Franken who carried the urban Hennepin and Ramsey counties and their surrounding suburbs by wide margins as well as counties in the traditionally heavy Democratic-voting Iron Range, which includes Duluth. The state and the US Senate would be well-served by ridding itself of another self-serving toady who, in his own quiet way, is the Ted Stevens of the Midwest.

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I-35E reopened after part of bridge falls

Incredibly, a chunk of a bridge over 35E fell on two cars, narrowly missing killing the occupants.
StarTrib

Chunks of concrete crashed down from the Maryland Avenue overpass onto Interstate 35E Saturday, shutting down the busy freeway for several hours and causing a big traffic jam. The freeway is open today.
Concrete pieces struck two vehicles, one on the hood and the other on the windshield, but no one was hurt, said Kent Barnard, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
A section, about 6 feet by 9 feet and 1 inch thick, fell from the bottom of the overpass in several pieces and covered the northbound lanes of I-35E with powdery debris.
The State Patrol closed the freeway in both directions shortly after the incident at 4:45 p.m. Traffic was rerouted onto exit ramps to get around the overpass.

Of course MNDOT is working on it's image.
TwinCities.com

Over the past year, the department has worked to rebuild its image. For an agency that often seems to live and breathe safety, the bridge collapse led to a secondary disaster within the department -- a tattered image.

Meanwhile, rumors of the Governor shifting money from highway projects over past years persist from within MNDOT.

Victims of Bridge Disaster Say, "You've Forgotten Us!"

While politicians debate and posture about culpability and new bridge design, the real problem festers.
StarTribune.com

Kimberly Brown, a passenger in a car on the way to a soccer game, and other survivors who went down with the Interstate 35W bridge say their needs are being forgotten.


[..]Brown said in an interview Thursday evening that she wants leaders to set aside blame and help people simply because they need it. She said she wants survivors to recoup what they're losing because of the collapse.


"I want these innocent people ... taken care of by the entities that were in charge, or partially in charge, of that bridge," she wrote in her letter. "And not just today, but months and years from now.
"It's time to slow down and back up," she wrote. "Your new bridge is going up too fast. You still have a huge mess from the old one. Fix this."

Is It Franken Vs Normie?

Juan Cole at Informed Comment appraises the Minnesota Senate race. He sees Franken as formidable and Coleman as "hilarious".

Al Franken is proving himself a formidable political fundraiser as he revs up his campaign to be the Democrat who faces Neoconservative Senator Norm Coleman in the '08 elections.

It is tiresome that some observers dismissed Mr. Franken because he is a humorist. Lots of comedians have served in the US Congress, though few had been professional humorists before being elected.

Norm Coleman himself has said the most hilarious things. His positions on various issues are listed at this page (scroll down and look on the right). He wants to increase the number of people carrying concealed weapons in Minneapolis (after what happened at Virginia Tech, is that a good idea?), wants to fund the Iraq War indefinitely and no questions asked, opposes auditing contractors with Defense Department contracts in Iraq, and wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Like Joe Lieberman, he seems to be preparing his constituencies for a brutal aggressive war on Iran. He's just a barrel of monkeys.

Mike Ciresi seems to be falling behind on fundraising by a formidable 3 to 1 margin. But he still polls unfavorably against Coleman.

You have to take Franken's candidacy very seriously," said Carleton College political scientist Steven Schier. "He is a political figure with a national network, and being able to draw that money from outside Minnesota is something Mike Ciresi can't do."


There are still significant hurdles. Despite Franken's fundraising success, he has yet to capitalize in the most recent head-to-head poll. A May Mason-Dixon poll showed Coleman leading Franken 54 percent to 32 percent, with independents preferring Coleman by a 16-point margin. A plurality of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Franken.


Franken also faces a challenging path to win the Democratic nomination. In Minnesota, candidates are traditionally chosen through the party's statewide convention -- set for June 2008 -- making the nomination process fairly unpredictable. At the convention, the nomination is determined by a small core of the party's activists. Having strong organization in all of the state's counties is more important than having boatloads of cash. Both Franken and Ciresi -- and four other long-shot candidates -- have said they will abide by the results of the convention.

Ciresi has secured the endorcement of Betty McCullum, but is not getting the attention that Franken is. Time will tell.

When Class Warfare Goes Local

Montana and Minnesota share an issue these days. Very likely so does the rest of the country. With all the head way the super rich have made in the past 8 years of the Bush Administration, they continue to squeeze the rest of us on the local level. Sometimes even the issues stand out as obscenely unfair.
But the rich count on controlling government by pinching the working class until they are too busy and stressed to pay attention to the political process. Then the lobbyists get busy padding the pockets of legislators.
The only solution is watchful vigilence. And it would help to tax the rich until they are too tight to pay for political adventures.
SFGate.com

Our story begins in the Montana legislature, though it could be anywhere, as this lawmaking body is a microcosm of America's ideological divides. Democrats pushed to boost education spending and give each resident homeowner a $400 property tax rebate. To fund the plan, they proposed closing tax loopholes and strengthening tax enforcement in a state where roughly half of all Fortune 500 companies doing business get away with paying less than $500 a year in taxes.


But such a move offends conservative politicians and the corporate lobbyists who crowd the hallways of state capitols like the one in Helena -- and these types don't take lightly to being offended.


The GOP-controlled Montana House pressed a tax cut for corporations financed by spending cuts, including one eliminating all public-health programs. When last week it came time to negotiate a compromise, Republican class warriors dug in further, offering amendments to kill Democrats' proposal to beef up corporate tax enforcement.

It's a little less obvious in Minnesota, but it's still about the super rich soaking the rest of us.
Postbulletin.com

Property taxes have risen more than $2 billion over the past four years and will rise by another $500 million if we adopt the governor's budget plan. That is unacceptable.


To pay for ongoing property tax cuts, the bill increases the tax on high levels of taxable income. Income above $400,000 for a couple or $226,000 for a single filer would be taxed at 9 percent instead of the current 7.85 percent, so a couple earning half a million dollars per year would see an increase of $1,150 on their income tax bill.


To further reduce property taxes, the bill also includes more than $1 million in additional Local Government Aid for Rochester and $2.7 million in school levy reduction aid for Rochester public schools. The proposal is "revenue neutral" because all of the money raised in additional income taxes from 1 percent of Minnesotans would go toward property tax cuts.


Is it fair to raise the taxes of the top 1 percent to give cuts to 90 percent of Minnesotans? You be the judge. A recent report from the Minnesota Department of Revenue shows that middle income Minnesotans pay 12.3 percent of their income in state and local taxes while the top 1 percent pay only 9.6 percent of theirs. Without a change in law the gap will be even wider by 2009. The House tax bill is not just property tax cuts; it is a step toward tax fairness.

Minnesota Under the National Spotlight

This election season was a big win for the Democrats. But I don't expect to see a sweeping move of progressives into positions of power in government. Instead, all the signs suggest both sides will swing towards the center in preparation for the 2008 presidential election.
Minnesota has attracted attention as one of the new swing states, a purple state since the Reagan revolution took hold. Both parties looked closely at Minnesota for it's national convention. But the Republicans committed first. Minnesota's Governor Pawlenty is one of the few Republicans to survive in states where Democrats surged. Pawlenty is considered a front runner for a Vice Presidential offer from presumed Republican candidate McCain.
Now, political pundits are watching the internal workings of a state legislature, having swung control to the Democrats, politics in general have been pushed to the center. The New York Times is beginning a series analysing Minnesota politics from time to time, expecting to learn something about national trends as we head towards 2008. This could be a very interesting two years in Minnesota.

Money, policy and tactical choices are all in play: how best to spend a $2 billion surplus and address what both parties see as a mandate for improving public education, health care and transportation and for making taxes more fair.


[...]But if Minnesota’s capital, with all of its local quirks and traditions, shows where the election’s wave may lead, it also confounds much of what may be expected.


The Democrats won big here — taking the House for the first time since 1998, expanding their majority in the Senate, winning the secretary of state’s and attorney general’s offices and nearly defeating Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican.


But they emerged divided, too, owing much of their surge to newly elected moderates from the suburbs who are unlikely to embrace a pure liberal agenda. The Republicans lost big, but were pushed toward the center as well, led by Mr. Pawlenty, who has said since the election that many of his second-term priorities will overlap with those of the Democrats he fiercely battled in his first four years.


And those pincer forces, both pushing toward the political center, will set the stage for everything to come when the Legislature convenes in January, elected officials and political experts here say. In the first Pawlenty term, a $4.5 billion budget shortfall was resolved through deep cuts in spending for health care, education and other programs, capped by a bitter shutdown of the government in 2005 when Mr. Pawlenty and the Legislature could not agree.


The fight of 2007 will revolve around restoring some of the cut programs, and how far to go beyond that in pushing what both parties say is pent-up demand for property tax relief and for spending increases on education, health care and transportation.


One of the first tests could be a Democratic Party plan to extend health care benefits to 70,000 low-income children not covered by the MinnesotaCare program. That alone would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. MORE