This has gotten so bad that even the Urban Dictionary has a right-on definition of Norm Coleman: “The dogged pursuit of a hopeless goal, with utter disregard for a preponderance of contradicting evidence and mounting public distain.” Oh snap!
Monthly Archive for April, 2009
Page 3 of 7
First Norm waits until the end of the filing window to ask for an appeal on the recent three judge panel ruling (the ruling being, as you recall, that Al Franken legitimately received more votes in November) - and now this?? If the former senator truly wanted what is good for this state - for Minnesota to have full representation, for this knock-down-drag-out fight to be over - why is he drawing this out as much as possible?
I don’t think anybody envies the DFL for having large majorities in the House and Senate during this biennium. Our enormous deficit means that DFLers have some tough choices to make. It’s easy for Republicans — even Tim Pawlenty — to criticize the DFL’s plans, but it’s another thing altogether to be responsible for the outcome at the end of the day.
I don’t agree with all the choices being made by leaders in either house, but I do appreciate that they’re doing what needs to be done. The legislature is well on its way to balancing to budget by raising taxes and cutting spending. The House and Senate each released a tax increase plan this week, and now the House Health and Human Services Finance Division has approved a funding bill that would make $400 million in cuts.
Ultimately, there will probably have to be deeper cuts to Health and Human Services funding, but DFLers have made a good start so far. They seem to recognize that everyone will have to make sacrifices in order to balance the budget; there’s simply no way around that, unfortunately. It’s probably not going to make them popular — nobody likes being asked to make sacrifices — but I think Minnesotans will appreciate that the DFL leadership has made some tough choices that will benefit our state in the long run.
There is some legislation snaking it’s way through our very own Capitol that I want to take a loooooooong time to explain. Hang with me here, this is good stuff.
Bisphenol-a is often referred to as “BPA”, which is much easier to pronounce. BPA is an organic compound (meaning: a chemical compound with carbon), a chemical component of polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins (used to make plastics and as an adhesive). BPA is found in bottles and lining the inside of most food cans. The chemical is known to leach from the plastics when they are heated or start to wear (scratches, etc). There is currently a bill up in the Minnesota legislature to phase out BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups, and here is why…
Leave it to Marty Seifert and the Republicans to try to turn our attention from solving the budget deficit to an irrelevant non-issue that lets them rage in front of the media. Seifert is outraged — the Republicans always are — that a Minnesota group helped the captured Somali pirate obtain a lawyer. Thank god he’s going to do something about it.
Seifert said he plans to offer an amendment to the House public safety finance bill later this week to deny non-profit status and prohibit grants from any organization linked to piracy or terrorism.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be supporting those who support and defend people who attack Americans,” Seifert said. [Polinaut]
This is just patently stupid, and Seifert knows it. Helping to provide a legitimate defense to someone who doesn’t speak English isn’t “supprting people who attack Americans.” It’s ensuring that America’s justice system is able to operate properly. Everyone, no matter what offense they’ve committed — from Saddam Hussein to admitted terrorists to priates — has the right to a fair trial.
What has happened to the Republican party that they have to rely on a constant stream of trumped-up outrage to keep their base motivated? I’m upset about the pirate attacks, too, but that’s no reason to go after groups like the Somali Justice Advocacy Center. Let our justice system work, get out of the way, and focus on solving our state’s real problems.
Here is a great fund-raising bandwagon to jump onto: for every day that former Senator Norm Coleman refuses to concede his lost race for the US Senate, you can donate $1 to Progressive Change Campaign Committee (who will put your dollars to good use supporting the campaigns of progressive candidates). They have already raised more than $23,500 and you can sign up at NormDollar.com. You can also check out this article on the Huffington Post about the campaign.
Sign up! Show Normy that the longer he drags this out, the more money our progressive friends will receive.
I’ve often encouraged Obama and the Democrats to try to work in a bipartisan fashion with Republicans in Congress. But now leading Republicans have convinved me otherwise. Giving Republicans a place in the deliberative process would show the world Obama’s weakness. After all, just shaking hands with Hugo Chavez is apparently a sign of weakness:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that President Obama’s handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez “was not helpful” and could lead “foes” of the U.S. to “think they’re dealing with a weak president.”
But just consider this: Obama has not only shaken hands, but given a place at the negotiating table to a group even more out of tune with American values — Republicans. Matthew Yglesias puts together data from several polls showing that Americans view Venezuela more favorably that the Republican party.
So if Obama shouldn’t be allowed to shake hands with Chavez, how could we possibly condone him interacting with Republicans? Hugo Chavez may be vocally anti-American, but Americans aren’t fooled. They recognize that the Republican party has done far more damage to the US than Venezuela ever could.
Once upon a time, the state collected taxes and distributed them to counties and cities to help pay for the expense of state mandates, which are largely administered by counties. Then, Tim Pawlenty and Minnesota Republicans slashed local government aid, causing property taxes to soar as counties tried to replace the lost revenue.
Falling state aid has been a direct cause of rising property taxes, but that hasn’t stopped Tim Pawlenty from blaming local governments for rising property tax bills. In fact, his big “achievement” last year was to cap property tax increases, virtually ensuring that local governments would fall even further behind.
It should come as no surprise, then, that counties are not happy about a DFL-sponsored bill that would allow counties to raise local sales taxes to pay for state mandates.
Jim Mulder, the executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties (AMC), tells PIM his organization is far from sold on the idea that letting counties levy up to one-half of 1 percent in sales taxes. “To be honest,” says Mulder, “we’re not very comfortable with it at this point. We’re not exactly sure what all the unintended consequences could be. We’re also concerned that it’s just a backdoor way to increase state taxes, but put us in the position to have to do it.
…
Though the proposal ostensibly makes county sales taxes optional, he argues, the practical logic of the idea is that “to replace aid we’ve gotten before, they’re going to have us levy taxes in order to be able the same amount as we’ve previously gotten in aid.”
This is money that used to come from the state — that should come from the state — to pay for the cost of state mandates. As Mulder implies, if legislators want to increase taxes, they should have the courage to do it themselves, instead of forcing counties to do it for them. Especially because it will be only a few years before Republicans in the legislature complain about county taxes and move to decrease local government aid even further.
We have a $6.4 billion budget deficit here in Minnesota. It’s going to take major sacrifices and many difficult choices to solve the problem. But despite the enormous deficit, Republicans are willing to take options off the table:
House Minority Leader Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) said he is “disappointed, but not surprised” by tax increases proposed in the bill, adding, “Tax increases are not in the game this year.”
Not in the game? We’ve got one of the largest deficits in state history, and you’re unwilling to even consider any sort of compromise? This sort of unacceptable knee-jerk reaction makes me afraid that Republicans are going to be completely uncooperative during end-of-session negotiations.
There are only two options for reducing a deficit — cutting spending and raising taxes. Both are harmful to Minnesotans. Rather than focusing all the pain on one group — those most impacted by spending cuts — doesn’t it make sense to compromise between spending cuts and tax increases? Everybody is going to have to make sacrifices to solve the budget crisis; unfortunately, the Republicans appear unwilling to face reality.
Anti-union groups, ironically, complain that the Employee Free Choice Act would stack the deck in favor of unions. That simply won’t do — they’d much prefer the current situation, in which the deck is stacked in favor of corporate interests.
A new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows why we need to make it easier for employees to unionize. Corporate-sponsored anti-union groups misleadingly talk about fair elections and secret ballots, but in at least quarter of all union elections, there’s nothing fair about them. That’s because 26 percent of union elections involve illegal firings by the companies being unionized.
We can’t allow big corporations to bully their employees out of better wages. We need the Employee Free Choice Act today.
As reported by the Star Tribune, the Franken camp has announced that Alana Peterson will be Franken’s Minnesota state director (and will be officially hired when former Senator Norm Coleman decides to GIVE IT UP ALREADY). This is great news for Al Franken, and the state of Minnesota. Alana is well respected in MN politics and recently working for Rep. Jim Oberstar as political director and state field director. She is also known and loved for her role with Team Franken - Alana came in to run the recount campaign and was an invaluable asset. I’m sure Oberstar will be sad to lose her!
Some people are American Exceptionalists - they consider the United States the “one indispensable nation” in the world. Stories like this one in the New York Times make me a Minnesotan Exceptionalist. I think after reading the article, you will agree that Minnesota is the one indispensable state in the union, at least as with regard to food safety.
In just about every major contaminated food scare, Minnesotans become sick by the dozens while few people in Kentucky and other states are counted among the ill.
Contaminated peanuts? Forty-two Minnesotans were reported sick compared with three Kentuckians. Jalapeño peppers last year? Thirty-one in Minnesota and two in Kentucky became ill. The different numbers arise because health officials in Kentucky and many other states fail to investigate many complaints of food-related sickness while those in Minnesota do so diligently, safeguarding not only Minnesotans but much of the rest of the country, as well…
…If not for the Minnesota Department of Health, the Peanut Corporation of America might still be selling salmonella-laced peanuts, Dole might still be selling contaminated lettuce, and ConAgra might still be selling dangerous Banquet brand pot pies — sickening hundreds or thousands more people.
In these and other cases, epidemiologists from Minnesota pinpointed the causes of food scares while officials in other states were barely aware that their residents were getting sick. From 1990 to 2006, Minnesota health officials uncovered 548 food-related illness outbreaks, while those in Kentucky found 18, according to an analysis of health records.
Kudos to the Department of Health.
Politico has an article today exploring the GOP’s unpreparedness on health care:
There’s no Republican plan yet. No Republicans leading the charge who have coalesced the party behind them. Their message is still vague and unformed. Their natural allies among insurers, drug makers and doctors remain at the negotiating table with the Democrats.
The problem for the GOP is that Obama has shifted the terms of the debate too rapidly for them. For two decades now, we’ve been discussing health care reform, but Republicans have been able to stop it. They’ve never had a plan — they’ve just convinced enough people that we don’t need reform.
That’s worked for quite a long time, but there’s one major problem with being the party of no: Once a topic comes up for debate, you’ve already lost. Such is the problem for the GOP on health care. They’ve spent nearly two decades now arguing that we don’t need health care reform. Suddenly, though, the consensus is that we do need reform — and Republicans are unable to transition to discussing how to accomplish reform.
The shift is due, in part, to the White House’s approach to passing reform. Rather than bring a fully-written plan to Congress, Obama has simply made it clear that he intends to have healthcare reform passed this year. He’s said he’s open to compromises from Congress, and has put pressure on representatives from both parties to contribute ideas.
By putting the spotlight on Congress, Obama has shifted the debate from whether we’ll pass health care reform to how we’ll pass it. Since the GOP’s position is that we shouldn’t have reform, Obama has put them in a tough spot. They now look — once again — like obstructionists with no new ideas. But any idea they propose will reinforce the message that health care reform needs to be passed.
I just returned from my DFL ward convention (the fightin’ 10th!) where we endorsed a candidate for city council. Meg Tuthill (yes, that one) came out ahead in the second ballot - a shock to those who thought Matt Filner was a sure shot. Matt came in with a Take Action team on the floor and numerous endorsements from respected elected officials (Mayor Rybak, Congressman Ellison, etc), but Meg still pulled 58% on the first ballot, and cinched it with 62% on the second.
There is a lot of chatter about whether Filner will abide by the endorsment - looks like this fight beween the small business owner and the seasoned politician could still have some steam.
One of the things wealthy tax protesters like to complain about is that not everybody is liable for Federal income taxes. But that makes sense, if you think about how our taxes are used. We use our taxes to fund government services designed to increase the prosperity and opportunity of our citizens — for instance, we build infrastructure to strengthen our economy and maintain a social safety net for citizens down on their luck. If we tax citizens who are barely able to afford their day-to-day expenses, isn’t that counter-productive?
The Tax Policy Center has analyzed the distribution of “tax units” who would have no income tax liability under the Obama Administration’s budget proposal. As the righties like to complain about, nearly 40 percent would have no income tax liability. But these are mostly individuals and households who barely have enough income to get by as it is.
I love the behind-the-scenes stories that come out after Election Day:
Former McCain veep vetter and Washington power lawyer A.B. Culvahouse made clear in remarks before a Republican lawyers group today that the campaign had investigated the legal issues surrounding putting Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman on the GOP ticket last year and determined it would be a difficult task.
“Five states have sore loser statutes … [making] it very difficult for someone who’s not a member of the Republican Party to become the vice presidential nominee if they only switch parties to become a Republican shortly before the convention,’ Culvahouse said in public remarks at the Republican National Lawyers Association annual meeting aired on C-SPAN.
Culvahouse specifically noted the example of West Virginia, a state Republicans have relied on in recent elections, saying “the constitutionality of that statute has already been litigated in West Virginia.”
“So you were looking at going to the Supreme Court, which is not particularly appetizing,” he said.
Fascinating stuff.
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