The DFL Executive Director’s victory lap already took him to Jackson Hole - now Andy’s heading to DC with Tim Walz to chat with the DNC Executive Committee…
Release after the jump…
Archive for November, 2006
As our unscheduled absence extends through mid-week (we’ll be back in full force by Monday at the latest, I promise) I took a look at the Mark Olson thread below and realized that, at the very least, we need to implement some open threads here to foster conversation. Three stories have been biggies this week: Rybak/Bleskachek and the potential problems this creates for a Rybak ‘08 Senate bid (read about the disaster here); the big heaping surplus that is about to tempt a lot of people on the hill in a bunch of different directions; and the whole Islamic Cleric airplane prayer incident followed by Ellison’s desire to meet with US Airways.
So, to that extent, I’m opening three open threads on these topics. Comments on this post have been disabled so that people actually click the links below to comment on the respective topics:
-Rybak/Bleskachek. What went wrong and how does it affect Rybak’s political career, if at all?
-The Big Black-Ink Budget>. Whose win is this? What will be done with it?
-The Clerics. Did they bring it on themselves? Is racial profiling always morally reprehensible? Is Ellison’s request to meet with US Airways appropriate?
Please help keep the conversation going while we deal with the non-blogging portions of our lives (they do exist, really!).
Part of our “Open Threads–Truant Edition” series.
Probably one of the biggest stories this week has been the ongoing investigation into Mpls Fire Chief Bonnie Bleskachek’s abhorrent job and how this reflects on Mayor RT Rybak. This is an open thread and I don’t have too much time to get into it, but here are my abbreviated thoughts on the issue:
- It was a bad choice on Rybak’s part to reach so far into the organization just in order to pluck out an open lesbian Fire Chief
- I don’t think, however, that reaching a little bit to find an openly lesbian Fire Chief is bad in of itself. To the contrary, if Rybak had found such a woman who actually fit the bill and had been properly vetted, I would have applauded the choice. Such a gesture does much to help along both the causes of feminism and gay-rights; two causes that should always be helped when possible. And it puts Minneapolis on the map.
- Where Rybak went wrong was in putting these causes before the well-being of the city by reaching beyond qualified candidates just to find his woman. That was a gamble and, unfortunately, it has failed not just to the detriment of Rybak’s political standing but also to the causes he saught to champion.
- That being said, everyone makes mistakes and I can forgive Rybak for this. After all, his subsequent handling of the investigation has been quite admirable. But, and it’s a big but, if he’s running for a bigger office forgiveness won’t come as quickly from others
- Finally, does this hurt Rybak ‘08. I have to say yes. But if there really is such a thing as Rybak ‘08, then I have to say that he has larger statewide acceptability problems than appointing an unqualified lesbian to be Fire Chief through affirmative action… not to say he can’t pull it off…
Well, as usual, my thoughts went on a bit longer than I would have liked but it’s my blog, so what are you going to do. What are your thoughts on this whole thing? Did Rybak mess up majorly or minorly? Does this sink the Rybak ‘08 ship? Was there even a ship to begin with? etc… Comment!
Part of our “Open Threads–Truant Edition” series.
It was just announced that the State Surplus will top $2 Billion and while this is certainly good news regardless of any political implications, we just can’t help but ruin it by digging in and evaluating just howgood this is and who should recieve credit or blame. As to the first question of how good, caution seems to be the name of the game (Star Tribune):
“We want to caution everyone against irrational exuberance,” Pawlenty said.“We do have some breathing room, but we should make sure we don’t dig ourselves back into a hole we just climbed out of.”
The predicted surplus for the next 30 months comes in two parts:
• $1.038 billion that is expected to remain unspent and not be allocated to reserves when the current two-year budget period ends June 30.
• $1.132 billion that would accumulate during the subsequent two years — if there were no changes in the state’s $32.5 billion biennial budget, even to keep up with inflation.
Pawlenty and other officials said the first part should be considered one-time money that won’t necessarily recur in future budget periods. They said the second part would barely cover inflation through June 2009.
And as a further damper on hopes of a state government spending or tax-cutting spree, bipartisan leaders talked of the possibility of boosting state rainy-day funds and cash-flow accounts from today’s combined level of $1 billion.
I’m glad to see that caution is the reiging attitude; too often we get carried away. But we’re not politicians, and most of our readers aren’t politicians, so let’s get carried away! How big of a deal is this surplus; how great is it really? Who should get credit, if anyone?
Part of our “Open Threads–Truant Edition” series.
You’ve been reading about it for the past week: six Muslim clerics were removed from a US Airways flight last Monday after passengers registered concerns over their conversations and prayers. Subsequent reports make it look like the clerics had done little more than audibly pray together as the flight was prepping for take-off. Personally, I’m torn on this. Suppression of religious expression is almost universally unacceptable, but, on the other hand, is it that surprising that six Muslim men praying loudly together in what sounded like an arabic tongue frightened passangers? Is racial profiling always unacceptable? And what about Congressman Keith Ellison’s request to speak with US Airways? I actually find it fairly admirable, but I’m interested to hear what everyone has to say.
Pam’s House Blend, one of the premiere LGBT blogs in the nation, picked up the Mark Olson story and pontificated on the events. The post adds in the interesting information of Mark’s having abused an employee in 1997, which I hadn’t seen before, but It’s almost worth a read solely because the post lives up to the blog’s tag-line “Always Steamin’”
From the release:
On November 30, the Young Progressive Majority will hold their first Minnesota event at Grandmas Saloon in Minneapolis. The event will featureUS Senator-elect Amy Klobuchar, Rebecca Otto and Mark Ritchie as well as many newly elected or re-elected members of the Minnesota Legislature.“This is a great opportunity for young people to meet other progressives and get involved in politics in non-traditional ways,†said 33 year old event organizer John Lesch, who just got re-elected to his third term in the Minnesota House of Representatives. “We constantly need to find new ways of engaging young people in politics.
What better way than at a bar just a stone’s throw from the University of Minnesota?â€The event at Grandmas (1810 Washington Ave. S.) begins at 7pm, with
free food and drinks until 8pm ; a short program will commence at 8:30. Organizers are asking for a $5 donation at the door to defray costs, but guests can give more if they choose. For more information visit www.goypm.org.
Hopefully the most astonishing news today is the number of calories you consume.
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone and, while we’re in the spirit, I sincerely thank all of our readers for the interest you’ve shown in this site. I never thought our traffic would rise to these astonishing levels, but needless to say, we couldn’t have done it without you and we enjoy every (well, almost every) minute of it.
Ever since House Speaker Steve Sviggum’s comment that he has no interest in being the minority leader in the House everyone’s been wondering where Steve’s sore-loser attitude is going to take him. And, sure enough, Seifert, not Sviggum, ended up the minority leader (not that Sviggum was angling for it) leaving Sviggum as just another House minority party member for the time being.
Now
If true, this would make for
Political Wire caught the fact that Al Franken told Lou Dobbs on CNN that
UPDATE: Just talked to the political director at Franken’s Midwest Values PAC and
I only mention this because Zack was such a public proponent of a Vikings stadium in Anoka and now
Anoka County abruptly ended its contentious relationship with the Minnesota Vikings to build a stadium in Blaine after the team failed Monday to respond to the county’s ultimatum that it be the team’s exclusive partner.
Jon Stewart, in response to Glenn Beck asking Rep. Ellison to prove he’s not “working with the enemy”:
Just like as a conservatuive white guy the burden is on me to prove to you I’ve neither blown up a federal building with a fertilizer bomb…
We’ve been saying from the beginning that these allegations were a bunch of baloney but it’s nice to see a court agree with us again. The woman who made levied all sorts of accusations at Keith Ellison this past election cycle filed a request for a restraining order against Ellison in court. The decision came today and
Amy Alexander’s request was denied and she was ordered to keep quiet about her allegations against Ellison, according to an order agreed to after 70 minutes of closed-door meetings with her lawyer and Ellison’s lawyer.
In addition,
Alexander is barred from filing the order or making the accusations against Ellison either in court or to a third party such as a reporter or a blog .
Even though this is pretty much as close as a court gets to straight up saying that this woman’s allegations are wholly false and completely nuts, I’m sure MDE will find a way to keep beating this horse. After all, verifiable fallaciousness doesn’t seem to be a criteria for disengagement over there.
People are Shouting