Author Archive for Aaron Landry
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Happy Friday, everyone. In honor of the confirmation of Norm Coleman being investigated by the FBI in Minnesota, the best caption of this photo, taken about seven or eight years ago in Cuba, gets to be the new title of this post. Have fun, folks.
The Star Tribune’s Bob Von Sternberg writes a piece entitled: “Tax day tea parties in the works.” A general reader of the Star Tribune may still assume that the “reporter” would have done some research and told the story behind the tax day teabagging. From the Strib:
Conservative outrage in the blogosphere about the surge of the federal deficit, stimulus spending and billions in bank bailouts has evolved into a broader grassroots phenomenon.
Grassroots phenomenon? No way. Everything about the “tea party movement” is fabricated from the top down:
…in a nutshell: three national-level conservative groups, all with slightly different agendas, are guiding it. All are quick to tell you that the movement is a bottom-up affair and that its grassroots cred is real.
They are: FreedomWorks, the conservative action group led by Dick Armey; dontGO, a tech savvy free-market action group that sprung out of last August’s oil-drilling debate in the House of Representatives; and Americans for Prosperity, an issue advocacy/activist group based on free market principles. Conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and other media figures have attached themselves to the movement in peripheral capacities.
That and Fox News has been continually promoting it. Yes, Fox News promoting a protest fabricated by top-conservative groups against, well, America:
Frustration culminated this week with Glenn Beck, who promoted the tea parties on his show Monday, encouraging viewers to “celebrate with Fox News” and join the protests April 15. Some of Fox’s more popular personalities — Greta Van Susteren, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, and Beck himself — will broadcast live from tea parties in DC, Sacramento, San Antonio, and Atlanta on tax day.
In other words, the Star Tribune again joins the ranks of Fox News by publishing a story without mentioning who’s behind it and claiming it’s “grassroots” — effectively promoting the tea parties.
By the way, anyone who has basic knowledge of U.S. history should find the whole premise of this teabagging phenomenon insulting.
It is official and finally re-confirmed again: Al Franken won. Dave Mindeman brings up an interesting point about the pressure shifting from Coleman to Pawlenty:
The pressure in this contest is slowly shifting from Coleman (who is rapidly becoming just a cardboard cutout for the Senate Republicans) to Governor Pawlenty. The Governor has to decide when a certificate of election is to be issued. Presidential aspirations could be affected by how this is handled.
I disagree with Mindeman one serious point: it’s not slowly shifting — after today it completely shifted. From the findings of fact today: (PDF, page 26, emphasis mine)
Franken received the highest number of lawfully cast ballots in the November 4, 2008 general election for United States Senator for the State of Minnesota and is entitled to receive the certificate of election.
The ball is in Pawlenty’s court.
UPDATE: To be clear, Pawlenty does not literally have a decision to make right now — but he’s a huge player in terms of helping Minnesota get our fair share of representation opposed to playing along with Coleman’s partisan objectives.
Ron Carey on KARE11 yesterday: “I don’t know how many Minnesotans are going to say you should have one standard if you live in Shakopee and a different standard if you live in Savage, that just doesn’t make any sense.”
Psst… Shakopee and Savage are both in Scott County.
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A video just showed up in my feed that shares my feelings over the last couple months:
While some papers are actually doing reporting, the Star Tribune continues to editorialize and spin. This one is classic:
Yeah. Since when is a 40% increase in lead called “ever so slightly”? Rather nasty spin especially if you note that this was Coleman’s contest to get more votes, not Franken’s.
Oh, and it’s nice to see the Star Tribune pinning the DFL as the people calling Coleman to quit. I guess the Star Tribune decided to leave out all the conservative voices asking Coleman to stop wasting time. (And, well, it’s almost mathematically impossible for Coleman to win.)
Via the watchful eye of Dusty Trice, the Star Tribune reports:
The former finance chief of a Texas company controlled by Nasser Kazeminy, a close friend of former Sen. Norm Coleman, said in a deposition last week that Kazeminy ordered $100,000 in fees be paid to a Minneapolis insurance agency where Coleman’s wife was employed.
This might sound like old news to MNpublius readers, but this is a new sworn testimony. Paul McKim had the first one, and now this is from the man “who was corporate secretary and CFO at Deep Marine from January 2002 to December 2007.” Here’s a fun bit:
According to the transcript, Thomas was asked, “In that conversation that you had with Mr. Kazeminy, did he tell you, quote, United States senators don’t make shit, close quote? Or words to that effect?”
Thomas answered: “Yes, sir.”
Thomas testified in the deposition for the company’s internal investigation that Kazeminy told him that he wanted to use Laurie Coleman at Hays in relation to the consulting services agreement. Laurie Coleman, who is not a party to either suit against Deep Marine, was hired by Hays as an independent contractor in 2006. The insurance company has said she received no compensation under its contract with Deep Marine for risk management consulting.
I’m surprised this investigation is taking so long. The whole story at the Star Tribune.
Via Hotline On Call, Norm Coleman attorney Joe Friedberg answering questions from Ron Rosenbaum on KFAN:
Q. Joe, are you done?
A. Yes, I’m done.
Q. Let me ask you in a different way. Is Norm done?
A. Well, I think that we have been trying this case with the appeal record in mind, and that’s where we’re going, and it’s going to be a very quick appeal, and then I will know whether or not it worked.
Q. Well, when you say quick appeal, are you confident that you are going to lose the case in front of the three-judge panel? By losing the case, I mean Norm ends up with less votes.
A. I think that’s probably correct that Franken will still be ahead and probably by a little bit more. But our whole argument was that it was a constitutional argument, and it’s an argument suitable for the Minnesota Supreme Court, not for the trial court. So we will see whether we were right or not.
Sigh. They’re just trying to drag this on as long as absolutely possible.
Arguably, Norm Coleman might be able to get a free suit with this deal. Just depends if you go by when he was legally no longer a senator versus his definition of it. I’d bet they’d give him one for the publicity either way.
From Mike Allen’s Playbook’s on Politico:
WORD ON THE STREET: The next RNC chairman will be Norm Coleman, after he loses his recount fight and big donors see Michael Steele’s March numbers.
I can see how this might make sense: Steele has been relatively unpopular:
Most chairmen wave the party flag; Mr. Steele smiles and shreds it. A man of constantly colliding analogies, he compares Republicans to drunks in need of a 12-step program and to the mentally ill. He has insulted Rush Limbaugh and moderate Republican senators alike, and he has promised a “hip-hop makeover” that would attract even “one-armed midgets” to his party.
Norm Coleman would be a perfect replacement as RNC chair and the antithesis to Steele’s style. Even though Coleman lost the Senate race, he still has deep (although arguably corrupt) ties with Washington politicos as well as deep connections to one of the right-wing’s best fundraising machines. He knows how to pull money out of people as well as government and he knows how to smear opponents in a way few others do. Norm Coleman as chair might be exactly what the RNC needs right now.
More at Mike Allen’s Playbook’s on Politico.
Here’s a must-add to your reader, bookmarks, subscriptions or however you follow stuff: Dusty Trice. Bank on Dusty being a big player online with the 2010 races — he has the chops, the skills and the nuts to bring important stories to light — and he’s a lot of fun.
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The Pioneer Press this morning has the best and most accurate coverage I’ve seen of Coleman’s database fiasco.
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Remember when Al Franken outlined his principles regarding a financial bailout back in mid-September? Here’s one of the key points: (emphasis mine)
“I’m calling for a new Financial Products Safety Commission with similar duties and powers to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
Well, guess what? A half year later, Schumer, Durbin Propose New Consumer Watchdog Agency:
Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and Charles Schumer of New York introduced a measure to create a financial oversight agency to help consumers obtain financial products without “hidden dangers or unreasonable tricks.”
The Financial Product Safety Commission proposed by the two Democrats would help consumers obtain products such as mortgages, credit cards and retirement savings accounts. It is modeled after the Consumer Product Safety Commission that regulates goods ranging from toys to all-terrain vehicles.
Heh.
Unlike some media organizations that literally copied and pasted the Coleman press release, Dave Orrick and Rachel E. Stassen-Berger with the Pioneer Press reported on the story:
Former Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign didn’t do enough to protect donors’ confidential information, and Wednesday that lapse came home to roost as more than 4,700 partial credit card numbers were posted on the Internet.
As data-privacy and security experts criticized the campaign’s handling of a confidential donor database, the Republican and his aides suggested partisan motives — and told donors they should cancel their credit cards.
…
Kelly McShane, whose job is to secure information in the banking industry, said he learned that the last four digits of his American Express card — and the four-digit security code used to verify the card — were posted online when a reporter e-mailed him.
“I’m in IT security for a bank, and I can tell you that this is so … irresponsible that I can’t believe it,” said McShane, who had donated $100 to the campaign online.
The entire piece is a must-read this morning.
There are a few additional facts that will have more light as reporters dig deeper. For example, from the Pioneer Press story:
It was unclear whether the campaign violated a state law by not disclosing until Wednesday…
I disagree — I think this is very clear. The Coleman campaign, among many others, were aware of this database being wide open back in January. I know that they knew about this because the Coleman campaign reads MNpublius vigorously (ha!). Well, they admit this in the Pioneer Press story:
Knaak said the campaign learned about the vulnerability that day [in January] from a blog post…
Perhaps it was this blog post or this one.
Now let’s break down §325E.61 from the Minnesota Statutes:
Subdivision 1 (b):
Any person or business that maintains data that includes personal information that the person or business does not own shall notify the owner or licensee of the information of any breach of the security of the data immediately following discovery, if the personal information was, or is reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person.
The Coleman campaign failed to do this in January.
Subdivision 2:
If a person discovers circumstances requiring notification under this section and section 13.055, subdivision 6, of more than 500 persons at one time, the person shall also notify, within 48 hours, all consumer reporting agencies that compile and maintain files on consumers on a nationwide basis, as defined by United States Code, title 15, section 1681a, of the timing, distribution, and content of the notices.
It is extremely unlikely that the Coleman campaign notified anyone of this nature in January as well. Being the Coleman campaign apparently has federal investigators looking into this, one can assume that they will find out what we’ve known since January: people have known about this open database for almost two months, the Coleman campaign admits they knew about it and it is well-documented what was leaked. The Coleman campaign must have asked their IT staff what was in this database.
I’ve seen Knaak say that they were told by authorities that they didn’t have any information shared to the public in January. This is either a lie or misinformation from authorities. There’s screenshots to prove it.
The Coleman campaign knew that their supporters’ information was out in the open since January 28th, 2009. This will not go well for them when this investigation is done.
Remember back in January where the Coleman for Senate database was found to be completely wide open and unprotected for anyone in the world to access? Well, apparently people did download it, confirmed that there were credit card numbers stored in it, and worse yet, the Coleman for Senate campaign was illegally storing the secret three digit codes from credit card numbers as well. From an email to Coleman supporters, sent by wikileaks.org as relayed by the Hill:
“we have discovered that all on-line Coleman contributors had their full credit card details released onto the Internet on 28 of [January], 2009, by Coleman’s staff.”
Another email from wikileaks.org, as relayed by the Minnesota Progressive Project:
Following our earlier email over the Coleman leak, we have discovered that all on-line Coleman contributors had their full credit card details released onto the Internet on 28 of Jan, 2009 by Coleman’s staff.Senator Coleman was made aware of this yet elected not to inform supporters in violation of Minnesota Statute 325E.61…
We provide proof of here (Windows Excel spreadsheet), which if you are a contributor will provide the last 4 digits of your Credit card and the security numbers on the back.
What’s Cullen Sheehan’s response?
Coleman’s campaign followed with an e-mail Wednesday morning that said the campaign became worried that its firewalls had been breached in January.
“We contacted federal authorities at that time, and they reviewed logs from the server in question as well as additional firewall logs,” campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said. “They indicated that, after reviewing those logs, they did not find evidence that our database was downloaded by any unauthorized party.
This is a bald-faced lie, for two reasons:
- Firewalls have nothing to do with it. Firewalls do not manage permissions on where this database was stored. In fact, it’s quite possible this database wasn’t even behind a firewall.
- If they did indeed review their server logs, those logs would indicate that people were at accessing the directory that contained this database. How do I know? There’s screenshots that prove it.
The Coleman for Senate campaign had this database in the wide open, in public, and available for anyone to download in January 2009 and likely for a long time beforehand. Simply telling their supporters to cancel their credit cards is not enough: they broke the law, and had to have known about it as early as January 2009. The fines on this are very high.
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