Unleash the Bonoff!

I've mostly had positive responses to my post about how angry I am with Democratic Senator Terri Bonoff's proposal to remove teacher seniority as the primary consideration during layoffs.  To make sure I have the full picture, can I ask a question or two? Are we planning on laying off teachers en masse soon?  If so, why?  If not, then why are we wasting time on this?

I have met Senator Bonoff twice.  Both times it was very cordial.  I have no problem with a moderate Democrat, as half the time, I agree with them.  I love Congressman Tim Walz, and I understand Democrats who represent districts with a Republican lean need to be more on the moderate side, but starting to go after the teachers union isn't a moderate stance, it's a far right Republican stance.  I will not sit on the sidelines and say, "different strokes!"

I've had four people complain about my protest, and I can't tell if they're Bonoff apologists or anti-teacher zealots.  They all pretty much ran the same script, one I rebuffed easily, and now I'll share my counterpoints, so you can play at home!

Complaint #1 - I'm violating Senator Bonoff's freedom of speech!  Wha...?  No, her freedom of speech is fully intact, as is mine, which allows me to criticize her proposal.

Complaint #2 - I'm guilty of running moderates out of the party!  No, I have no problem with moderate Democrats, but what's moderate about what Senator Bonoff is suggesting?  Removing teacher seniority rules is the first step in dismantling the teachers union and statewide public education as a whole. You get rid of teacher seniority, and then someone proposes a new "test" to become the true standard of what is, and what is not, a bad teacher.  The test is not geared towards educating kids, or even fairly evaluating educators.  It's about punishing teachers, especially experienced ones, and blacklisting schools.  Then someone suggests getting rid of collective bargaining and mandatory union dues, while insisting it would be better if we allowed teachers to have a certificate instead of a degree, eventually neutering the biggest defender and advocate for quality education.  When statewide public schools are a mess, the GOP then starts to divert tax dollars to private schools in the form of vouchers, and to charter schools, which, according to the recent academic testing in the state, scored lower than public schools, and are run by private corporations/individuals.  Think I'm exaggerating?  It's only happened repeatedly in other states in this country, over and over and over again.  There is nothing moderate about what she is suggesting.

Complaint #3 - You're punishing good, young teachers by keeping all of the older, bad teachers on staff!  First, I'm calling you on the Loch Ness Monster/Sasquatch/Bad Teacher story.  These stories reek of lies, like a Canadian girlfriend.  The allegation:  A teacher is horrific (drunk, abusive, surfing the Internet all day) and the school has no recourse to get rid of them.  Trust me, they have methods to get bad teachers fired.  For goodness sake, one substitute teacher was just convicted in court of showing her students a horror movie instead of teaching them.  She was fired.  This conservative, made up story, a bad teacher who can never be fired, has to be created to justify the first step in dismantling the union.  It's a lie!

But I'll play your game, what percentage of teachers do the anti-seniority advocates think are "bad?"  Twenty percent, 30%?  You're a fool if you think so.  In my kid's elementary and junior high, I have yet to meet a bad teacher.  It's like the people who are for voter ID's, who insist there is far more voter fraud than there really is.  Truthfully, there are a few bad teachers, sure, but only a very small percentage, and no where near enough to validate the stripping of seniority from layoff considerations.

When seniority is disregarded in employment negotiations, you open the door to something really scary.  A school district might make the decision to get rid of 30 teachers, each with 20 plus years teaching experience, and replace them with fresh from school, new teachers, at a cost savings to the district.  This scenario has also happened, repeatedly.  It makes our schools worse when we take our most seasoned professionals and replace them with the cheapest.

And here is the best counterpoint to the young verses old misnomer; there is no guarantee you're replacing an experienced teacher with a better teacher, just a younger, far less experienced one.  They can't say one way or another if that new teacher will be better than the one they replace.

Complaint #4 - I think we should get rid of the seniority rules because I only care about the kids.  Oh, please.  I have three of them.  You think I don't care about what's best for kids?  When you pull out the "Kids" argument, you're no better than people who accuse anyone they disagree with as not caring for the troops, or for supporting the terrorists.  I'm for the kids too, including mine.  That's why I want the best, most experienced teachers teaching them.

What these made up problems really hide is the tremendous effort many teachers put forward to help students.  Considering the extreme dynamics which make up the standard public school classroom's student body, teachers do a incredibly hard job, sometimes with near zero parental support, many times spending their own money, and investing an obscene amount of time, while constantly being accused of failing.  The last thing teachers need is a hostile political environment.  Instead of asking what we can take away from the teachers, we need to be asking them, and the school districts, what do you need?

My stance is about keeping education in Minnesota strong.  We shouldn't buy into a political ulterior motive hidden behind the "bad teacher" lie. With all due respect to Senator Bonoff, I will not sit idly by why you propose the first step in destroying our public schools, with a smile on your face.

The Friday Link for 1/16/15

Everyone knows I love MST3K, so this link tonight shouldn't be too much of a leap.

I stumbled upon the Cinema Sins guys one day and have been addicted ever since.  Their series "Everything Wrong With..." is hilarious.  They watch a movie, then piece together the egregious errors from the movie, such as movie cliches, continuity problems, and feasibility scenarios.  They inter cut it with humor.  The end result is a too funny (and actually very educational in regards to making movies).

Warnings - first these guys do use a lot of salty language.  They bleep the real bad words, but viewer be warned.

Second, they are going to show you a lot of the movie they are dissecting.  When they put the "spoilers (duh)" warning up, they mean it.  If you want to watch the movie, or at least watch the movie without knowing all of the gapping holes in it, wait until after you do so before watching the Cinema Sins guys.

Trust me, the '2012' and "Batman and Robin' breakdowns are amazing, but work your way up to them with National Treasure.  Nike Cage is always a safe bet!  Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ul-_ZWvXTs

Ignoring the Lessons Learned

Minnesota Senator Terri Bonoff greatly disappointed me with her bill to strip seniority from the teacher's ranks.  It's mind boggling a Democrat would author a bill like this.  Senator, you do know that there are already methods in place to remove bad teachers, don't you?

I know Senator, "I'm not saying we throw out all experienced teachers."  In turn, yes you are.  We have already seen an education system ripped apart by the mythical weeding out of "bad teachers," but in state after state where they have gotten rid of seniority protections, the quality of education has fallen dramatically.  Why?  Because conservatives then introduce a test structure which actually hurts experienced teachers and rewards inexperienced teachers.  Then the good teachers are thrown under the bus, accused of being a bad teacher even though they had a 99% graduation rate before the new testing structure.  They are labeled as a bad teacher even though they had all passing grades on their tests but the overall scores weren't as high as a brand new teacher who only taught the test for an entire year.

What other industry is it good to throw out all of your most experienced professionals? Tell me.  Who would hire an architect or law firm, or a medical group who routinely threw out a third of their most experienced professionals just because they didn't preform well enough on an arbitrary test?  Maybe if the House and Senate got rid of their seniority rules and got rid of their bad legislators first, then maybe you could lead by example, giving your argument more validity.  And trust me, there are a lot of bad legislators, Senator Bonoff.

The tests used to get rid of teachers with seniority are not designed to educate kids, but to punish experienced teachers, validating the erosion of our education system under this modern red herring.  Then there is the desire to label our schools as under performing and insufficient so private businesses can get their hand on the money pile which is tax dollars set aside for public education.  You do know this, don't you Senator?

Senator Bonoff, this bill has to be about one of three things, 1) killing the teacher's union, 2) pandering to the charter school crowd (many of whom also hate the teacher's union), or 3) a misguided attempt at cutting costs (even though the tests in effect today point to properly funded schools preforming far better than under funded schools).  Regardless, it's disturbing.  Maybe you introduced this bill early in this session because you hope the Democrats will forget about your true feelings when primary season comes up.  Good luck with that.

Third World USA - Addendum

It has been pointed out to me how much the sulfur mine to extract copper and nickel from the ground around Ely, Minnesota falls into this Third World USA mold.  The mining companies who are the real puppet masters behind this mine are based in Canada, Brazil, Europe and China.  They have created a fake dummy Minnesota company to make it look like an American operation.

Sulfur mining is astounding in its environmental danger.  There is a mine in Montana from the 1800's where the pit of sulfur is still sitting there, threatening to overflow it's retaining walls.  That mine will not be safe for another 400 years.  In the history of sulfur mining, there has never, NEVER, been a clean, environmentally safe operation, something the pro mining people are insisting will be the case this time, but they also insist no rules or laws be enacted to ensure the international mining conglomerate is held accountable if an environmental clean up needs to happen.

The checks to political campaigns, ensuring this mine goes through with zero concern for the citizens of the state, are being written fast and furious, buying off the decision makers to do harm to the rest.  Union heads are screaming for approval even though the mining company has only implied it will use union workers.  No guarantees.  I would bet the same mining people are negotiating with federal regulators to allow them to ship cheap, temporary non-union workers from Oklahoma and Alabama up here to circumvent union hiring rules.

When the truth comes out years from now, long after the foreign companies have pocketed the money from Minnesota's ground and left a scarred earth behind, some Droopy of a mining executive will say "oops," followed by "we're bankrupt."  Then some Droopy politicians will get in front of some cameras and say "oops, I guess we shouldn't have trusted them."

If this sounds familiar, it's exactly what has been done in African, Asian, Central and South American countries.  In many of those places, if the locals dare protest the toxification of their land or the low sub-human wages, they get shot in the streets, or they just disappear.

Third World USA

Last weekend I realized we're in big trouble in America.  Projects like the Keystone pipeline prove America is becoming more of a third world country for the rest of the developed world, and it's happening in large part because of the complete lack of accountability Republican voters have for their elected officials.

The Keystone pipeline will not make American businesses any money and the oil from it will not help our oil needs, instead it's already committed to foreign countries.  This pipeline will surely leak, and will only create 40 permanent jobs.  This isn't the latest example of greedy, corporate America abusing US citizens.  It's Canadians doing it.  It's Canadian oil companies who could create a far shorter pipeline to take the oil across Alberta and British Columbia to the Canadian Pacific Coast, so ask yourself, why would they build an much longer pipeline to come south instead of going west?  Let's look at the USA route:

1) Port Arthur, Texas is a foreign-trade zone, where goods come into America, but are treated like they haven't entered the country yet.  Port Arthur has something more.  It has refineries, a lot of them, and the oil would come across the US, get refined at the port and then loaded onto ships to sail away without a US tax or charge on it.  Even though it is traveling across the heart of America, the oil will not be taxed unless the product is refined and then 'taken back' into the USA (this happening in a country which proudly states "America First").  We regulate train lines more than pipelines, that's why the Keystone push.  Canada doesn't have a tax free zone on their Pacific Coast, let alone one with refineries to process the tar sands oil, and will likely tax the oil as it leaves Canada.  Factoring it all in, it's more profitable for the Canadian oil company to go with the far longer pipeline.

2) Labor costs are cheap in the United States.  Conservative policies have whittled away at workers pay and benefits, to where wages for most of the country have actually gone down in the last 50 years (factoring in inflation).  Even good union jobs are a hollow shell of their former selves.  A large portion of the country doesn't even receive a living wage.  This new American work reality has been created by Republicans.

3) Product and Safety standards are almost non-existent in the modern Conservative America.  We used to demand products were made with quality raw materials, with highly trained labor, and controlled testing.  Decades of lobbying have changed the system, to dirt cheap, unsafe raw materials, unskilled hourly workers and lax testing.  It's created a system where the question isn't if the pipeline will leak, but how bad.  It also makes it far cheaper to do a pipeline in the United States verses Canada, which still maintains rigorous quality standards.

4) Because it will done on the cheap, the pipeline is expected to leak an estimated 91 times in 50 years.  How bad remains to be seen, but we can expect a few of those leaks to be major.  If the Keystone pipeline was going to go through Canada, the company would have far more rules and regulations to follow, and if the pipeline leaked, the oil companies would have to clean it up.  Not in the USA!  They can hook up a sprinkler to the pipeline, spray unrefined oil all over the land for days and Republicans will ensure the company is not only blameless, they'll find them a tax break too.

(On a side note, the fact the union heads are fighting so hard to get this pipeline approved tells me how bad things have gotten for organized labor.  There was a time when the unions would have been the biggest voice against a boondoggle like Keystone.)

If this business model sounds familiar, it's because it is starting to look like the one US businesses adopted in the 1970's.  They realized they could ship the raw materials to a foreign country, buy off the local government, get slave labor to make their products, and then ship them back to the United States.  In the years that followed, the American manufacturing base was nearly wiped out.  If international business could lower the costs of raw materials, manufacture here, and in turn save on the shipping costs to and fro, the businesses might be able to find a low salary for the American worker just high enough for them to buy the products produced.  They've been trying to find that mythical price point for years, and are very close.

What is happening is so anti-American, you'd think the modern "America First" Republican voter would be out in the street demanding it stops, but the modern right doesn't care about what's best for Americans any more.  Their entire mantra is based around hating what the Democrats are for.  Their blind allegiance creates an accountability vacuum.  Since Republican voters are only concerned about what the Democrats are doing, they pay zero attention to the politicians they've elected.  The only time the GOP voter does seem to care is when the harsh reality of the polices they've endorsed comes to light, but even then, regardless of how little say the left has in their system, they can always find a Democrat to blame first.

From the foreign companies point of view, they don't have to rely on slave labor and inhuman conditions, common in many third world countries, hence their conscious is cleaner (heck, they can do an entire marketing campaign about how they love 'Merica!), and when you look at the bottom line, it is far more expensive to pay a military despot or evil dictator millions of dollars than it is to scratch out a $20,000 campaign check to get your own Republican lap dog who will sell their soul and the souls of their constituents, with a smile on their face.  It's a bargain to pay off Republicans to treat the American population horribly!

Keystone is just the beginning.  Look for many foreign economic powerhouses to start eyeing the United States as the place for their low wage, unsafe jobs.  As long as Republicans ensure salaries are low, regulations are unenforced, quality control is a low priority and safety is never a concern, and as long as the modern Republican voter doesn't notice what the people they've elected into office are doing, the USA will continue it's regression from the ranks of the developed nations to the under-developed.

The Friday Link for 1/9/15

Game shows aren't usually funny.  You can have classic funny moments, like the one The Newlywed Game had many years ago (YouTube it), and of course you can have charismatic game show hosts, but really the shows aren't, for the most part, funny.

I think the gold standard for comedy in game shows was Match Game. Gene Rayburn was such a hilarious host, playing the straight man most of the time, corralling half drunk celebrities, and occasionally running with the punchline when he knew his was best.  The celebrities were off the cuff and uproarious at times, but the concept of the Match Game is one of the best, a simple game of Mad Libs where the contestant had to match the celebrities.  Loved that show.

The Family Feud was actually a "spin-off" from Match Game, but not like AfterMASH.  Match Game was such a popular daytime game show, they asked the creators of the Match Game, the very recognizable Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, to create another game show, which became The Family Feud.  They plucked Richard Dawson from Match Game to be the new host, and he played it up perfectly, mugging for the camera, flirting with the ladies and using the right amount humor.  The Feud was soon the number one game show on television and stayed that way through the early 80's.

When Dawson left, the show had numerous hosts, including Ray Combs (whose fall was tragic), Minnesota's Louie Anderson, Home Improvements Richard Karn and Dancing with the stars/Seinfeld's John O'Hurley, but none of them were anything special.  The show seemed destined for "remember when" specials.  Then came Steve Harvey.

Steve Harvey is the funniest host of the Family Feud since Dawson himself.  He is perfect for the show.  He has great reactions to jaw dropping answers, relates to the families and audience brilliantly and seems to be having a great time.  The show has also opened up the answers, so you can get more adult responses.  This also plays to Harvey's comedic abilities.  I can say for the first time since I was 12, I will stop and watch Family Feud whenever I find it on.

Jeopardy is my favorite game show, Match Game made me laugh, and I think the Pyramid had the best final round period, but Steve Harvey on the Feud, in my opinion, is hilarious.  Tonight, enjoy some of the funniest moments from his tenure (NAKED GRANDMA!) but there is an adult theme to some of it, so be advised.  It's your Friday link!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWXK2de97Xo

Third Party Candidates

I wanted to take some time to clarify some comments I made about third party candidates.  The discussion started on Tuesday when Diane in St. Louis Park (a listener who doesn't care for the two party system and is a big supporter of ranked choice voting) commented that the incoming Speaker of the Minnesota House not showing up to the swearing in ceremony of the Governor is more indicative of the failure of the two party system, ignoring the real problem, petty partisanship which is the mantra of the GOP today.  She then used her distorted deduction to call for an abandoning of the two party system and expressed frustration that more people were not willing to throw their long voting allegiances to the side, for third party candidates.

A third, fourth and fifth party can exist, and they can be successful, but they're hard to start, and require a massive amount of effort, time, supporters, and financial backers to bankroll them.

But, let me start by acknowledging the reality we live in, stating the obvious: You are doing the GOP puppet masters bidding when you throw your hands in the air and insist their is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.  That is exactly what the right wants you to think.

Being angry and dissatisfied with the Democrats is a hobby for some on the left.  They can always find something the President and Democratic leaders are failing on; Keystone, Guantanamo, Net Neutrality.  Don't get me wrong, Obama's support of the TPP, oil drilling and his close allegiances to Wall Street are very disappointing, Democrats need to grow a spine more often and I think Harry Reid is a waste of skin, but the President and the Democrats have managed to do a lot of good considering the forces they have had to contend with.  The two party system is what we currently have, and if you protest not getting exactly what you want from one party by not participating in the elections, you're helping the other party by default.  That's a fact made clear by the results of 2014.

Let me challenge the flawed accusation that there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans another way.  The GOP's main goal is to end the basic social safety nets and social rights we have in this country.  Public education?  Whittled down to 'pay for education,' and if you can't afford it, no school for you.  Transportation?  No mass transportation, more toll roads, and no basic repairs, with the exception being the roads in wealthy neighborhoods and around corporations.   Workers rights?  No unions, no pay, no benefits and your only recourse is to quit.  Health care?  "Let 'em die!"  Tax policy?  Wealthy people and corporations not only don't pay any, they actually get massive rebates, all paid for by the middle and lower class, just because they are wealthy (Kansas and Wisconsin are prime examples of this principle in its early stages).  I don't necessarily agree with the Democrats stances on all issues, but don't tell me their isn't a difference between the two parties.  I imagine the families of tens of thousand of dead and permanently injured soldiers from Iraq would whole hardily agree there is a difference.

Money in elections is a legit problem, but that too can be addressed.  Prohibition wasn't a national issue until politicians who believed in enacting a Constitutional Amendment started to get elected to the US House and Senate beginning, in earnest, in the 1910 election.  After 1912, 1914, and 1916, enough politicians had been elected to office to start those wheels into motion.  Granted Prohibition was a misguided endeavor, but the point remains, if we held our politicians to one standard over all, the first act of their first day would be to introduce "a Constitutional Amendment limiting the amount of spending in elections by political candidates, and 'money isn't speech,' and we limit the amount of outside money spent on an election, and none of it anonymously," we could start to change the tide of this issue, and eventually get to a point where real change can happen.  It just will take many years, and a heck of a lot of hard work.

How about the third party's themselves?  The feeling many have is you can't run a third party candidate today and win.  I don't disagree with that sentiment.  If I was to start the Matt Party, I wouldn't get invited to the debates, I wouldn't get the press coverage, and I wouldn't get the money of the major parties.  It's foolish to think the major parties have to recognize you, just because your political party exists.  I don't agree with opening up the debates to everyone and anyone.  If your political point of view garners interest in less than 2% of the population, I don't think you should be part of the debate (currently, Minnesota demands 5%.  I think that's too high.).  I don't want to see our elections become like the California recall election where for every legit candidate, 6 others who were jokes got the same stage.  That's how you get buffoons elected.  Starting an effective third party is not a sprint, it's a marathon, but a marathon you can lose if you don't stay focused on the finish line.

Let's look at two examples.  First, I'm no fan of Ron Paul, or of the Tea Party, but they've given a textbook example of how you start a political party or highly influence a major party.  By taking advantage of the system that was in place, individual Republican state primaries and caucuses, the far right pseudo-libertarians started getting more and more say in the Republican national agenda.  Today, they have a majority control of the Republican party, a party that is terrified of them breaking off and beginning their own political party, something they could easily do.  Their demented rise started only six years ago, a tiny blip on the timeline of politics.  It can be done.

The Independence Party in Minnesota isn't dead, but it's on life support and needs a major re-boot to become relevant again.  They mismanaged their nomination process and ended up with a non-Independent, Tea Party Senate candidate.  They screwed up, but instead of ignoring that race and focusing on the Governor's race, many of the party jumped ship and endorsed the Republican.  By changing affiliation as quickly as they did, they doomed the IP to failure this last election.

What both of these cases point out is your political movement is only as powerful as the amount of people who are willing to endorse it.  The Tea Party, shockingly, strengthens because the people involved don't want to be just far right Republicans, and the Independence Party falters as the members of their congregation look to return to their old church.

Which brings up another question people who desire third party's don't want to ask.  Is the foundation for your third party an issue that is primarily important to only you and a handful of your friends?  Is it really that popular?  This is a hard question to answer.  We all become convinced something that means a lot to us individually is important to everyone, but is it really enough to start a successful political party?  Most of the times no.  Doesn't mean you shouldn't fight for what's important to you, but if I'm for taco Tuesday really becoming a mandatory "taco Tuesday," can I convince enough people to abandon their established political ties to jump on board a new political party centered around that principle?  When worse comes to worse, can I still count on all of those followers to stay on board the taco Tuesday bandwagon, or will they run back to a political party that is more relevant?  It breaks my heart to see people passionate about something fail because they never realized what they believe in is not something many others do.  Remember, it has to become a rallying cry for your new party, not just something turned down by your old political party and you're determined to prove them wrong.

And what happens when you do find an issue that does get many people motivated?  Let's look at the Green Party.  They live on because their tent pole issue fires up fervent loyalty, but the Green Party wised up years ago and started developing a complete political platform, giving their party substance and sustainability.  Their political stances have some similarities too other parties, but they are unique to the Green Party.  You can't just be the one issue and then the Democrats for everything else.  It has to be a complete foundation for a political party/movement to thrive.

If someone on the left was smart, they would start to cultivate the feelings of the Occupy Movement. There was a political issue which had massive appeal.  A political party based on defending the rights of the citizens against Wall Street and Corporate America would garner ground support quickly.

I know this article might come across harsh, but I really am for more than two major political parties.  I think the best governments function when they have three to five major political parties represented, but at the end of the day, I do prefer quality over quantity.

Quick Hits - 1/4/15

Here are some quickies before we get back at it tomorrow:

1 - House Majority Whip Steve Scalise from Louisiana is not only a lying, racist pig, but he's a fool that just exposed how warped many people who vote Republican really are.  In another misguided effort to defend his speaking to, and buddying up to, white supremacist groups in the not too distant past, he has tried to rationalize his bleach white speaking tour by comparing the white supremacists, Nazi's, Klan, and other racist groups to the League of Women Voters.  The idiotic argument goes - All that pro white and pro white male organizations do is advocate for white people rights, just like the LWV advocates for women's rights.

Setting aside the fact white men still pretty much dominate most power structures in the USA (this is white guys giving up 5 cents of the dollar, and insisting the conversation needs to revolve around the real victims, the white guys who are persecuted because all they have left is 95 cents), and moving around, not ignoring, the valid point that pro white groups are generally for persecuting anyone who is not white, male and Christian, I found the choice of the League of Women Voters interesting.

The reason the slime ball Scalise picked them is because it was probably one of the few non-racist groups he spoke in front of back then.  He is trying to paint them as some liberal, 'women only vote' organization to offset his embracing the racists.  The League of Women Voters, from their website:

...is dedicated to ensuring that all eligible voters – particularly those from traditionally underrepresented or underserved communities, including first-time voters, non-college youth, new citizens, minorities, the elderly and low-income Americans – have the opportunity and the information to exercise their right to vote. 

The LWV isn't a liberal group, and not a women first group, but a very noble and legitimate pro-information, pro-voting group,  But that didn't stop Scalise from trying to paint them as liberal, anti-man hippies.  Why? Because most people who vote Republican might not be racists (a shocking large percentage of them are), but they view being a Democrat/Liberal as a bigger sin than preaching white power.  That's scary.

2 - It is hilarious to watch Kansas, a state run completely by the modern Conservative political ideology, fall into the 7th circle of hell.  On Tuesday of last week, the jobs report showed job growth in Kansas was almost non-existent, and the promise of jobs running out of Missouri into Kansas has not materialized.  Missouri is hiring at four times the rate of Kansas.  Then, later on Tuesday, a state judicial panel ruled that regardless of Republican, anti-education, self gratification fantasies, the state of Kansas has to fund it's education system for an additional $500 million, money the state gave to the biggest corporations and the wealthiest residents, people who have no intent to give back to the state.  They have great, great, great, great, great grandkids private schooling to pay for!  This is on top of a 1.1 billion dollar hole the state is already in.  And then on Wednesday, they heard they were another $15 million short on tax collections.  And the hits just keep on coming.  Early reports are Kansas Republicans are hiding how truly horrible the tax numbers are, because they would rather watch every public sector in the state crumble than admit throwing tax dollars at wealthy people is not a sane economic policy.

To the Tea Party idiots in the state of Kansas who never even thought of voting for the other candidates on your ballot, even though you knew the Republicans had failed miserably, I'm really enjoying watching you reap what you sowed.  Have fun!

3 - Louis Gohmert is going to challenge John Boehner for Speaker of the House.  I am on my knees praying he wins.

4 - The University of Minnesota Gopher Football team lost in the Citrus Bowl because of multiple reasons.  The defense got run down and tired, unable to wrap up Missouri's running game, our QB is good enough to get to a bowl game, but he's not bowl game winning caliber (yet), and the referees clearly missed enough big drive calls that would have changed a lot of the game's dynamic (face mask, holding, offensive pass interference), and in turn gave Missouri an advantage, but lets not look past the biggest problem.  The coaches for the Gophers mis-managed that game horribly.  They looked like they were the epitome of "just happy to be there."

5 - Minnesota kicks caboose!  I've lived in towns where showing up on one of those "best of" lists was the selling point of their town for the next three years.  Ben Johnson from City Pages has a great story about how many times Minneapolis/St. Paul and Minnesota showed up on these positive lists in 2014.  So far for 2015, we showed as the 9th safest state to live in and the Twin Cities has the best drivers in the nation.  Go Team, GO!

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2014/12/the_top_10_top_10_lists_minnesota_landed_on_in_2014.php

The Friday Link for 1/2/15

So now that I mailed it in for the last two weeks, paying tribute to Stephen Colbert, the question needs to be answered, "since we are saying goodbye to the best political humorist in the country, who will take his place?"

My answer is not Jon Stewart, but Stewart does own the fake news category.  He does it so well, the Saturday Night Live fake news cast is horribly unfunny now, in comparison.  Colbert understood he couldn't just be a The Daily Show 2, and that's why he excelled.  To find the next big political humorist, we must now look to another former Daily Show correspondent, John Oliver.

Oliver was exceptional when he filled in for Stewart while he made the movie Rosewater, and it was a matter of time before one of the other networks plucked him away.  He was smart enough to go with HBO and the freedom cable television brings.

John Oliver not only skewers the big stories brilliantly, he does not shy away from a treasure trove for comedy, international news.  Some of the comedy bits he does are the first time I am even aware of a political or social event overseas.  He also does something which makes him my pick to rule the political humor category, he does investigative journalism.

Investigative journalism used to be a tent pole of every major news outlet, but with the streamlining of news and budget cutting, those departments, and many great journalists, are no longer around.  Oliver and his crew must have realized this window was there.  In the first season he has been on, his show Last Week Tonight has done amazingly work exposing the real story behind predatory lending, the sugar lobby, civil forfeiture and the Ms. America pageant.  It's important work which elevates his comedy to a different level.  He is a fine choice to take over Colbert's throne.

The link tonight is his hilarious look at State Legislatures. Warning - Adult content and language!!! Enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIMgfBZrrZ8

The News Stories of the Year, 2014 Edition!

Happy New Year everyone!!!  I hope 2015 is wonderful for you.

Let's put a cherry on top of the sundae that is 2014 with a countdown of, what I consider to be, the news stories of the year!  This is solely my opinion, and a story might be here for good or bad reasons.  It might be a local story, a Minnesota story or a national story.  Many of these just make me laugh!  WARNING - some adult themes involved!

Before we get to the countdown, three honorable mentions:

HM #1 - The Midtown Greenway Self Gratifier - May.  Let's set the tone early, shall we.  This really doesn't need too much explanation.  

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2014/05/confessed_greenway_masturbator_stephen_smith_is_allegedly_serial_self-exposer.php

HM #2 - Reid Sagehorn's Twitter Mistake - Feb.  I understand the people who insist this was a joke gone wrong, but with the new technological age we live in, we allow kids to wander in an adult realm without them comprehending the real world consequences for their actions.  If there is a silver lining to this story, I think a lot of parents sat down and talked to their kids about online social media etiquette after this story broke.

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/246805341.html

HM #3 - Grape Salad - Nov./Dec.  This was one that made no sense, but at least the NY Times admits  it was a touch off with this holiday recipe selection.

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/new-york-times-minnesota-grape-salad/?_r=0



That's it for the also rans.  Let's start with...



#10 - Ed Hansen and his Confederate Flag - Jan.  The main reason I was fascinated by this story was how, even after people pointed out the Confederate Flag represented the south during the Civil War, a south which killed a lot of Minnesotans during that war, he was incredulous.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_19940491


#9 - The War Eagle Sheila Kihne, and the war between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party - Jul.  I stumbled upon this gem of a political sign:

I love this campaign poster.  Forget about the fact she had some extreme views, some of them religious, and that she stated she went to my church, a church which never put forth those ideals, Sheila epitomized the war inside the GOP with traditional Republicans across the country fighting off tea party challengers left and right.

http://www.twoputttommy.com/2014/07/14/from-the-archives-sheila-kihne-channels-the-ghost-of-joe-mccarthy/


#8 - Nolan Defeats Mills - Nov.  A race which saw the groomed Republican challenger receive insane amounts of cash, obscene media bias, and talking points once only reserved for the greatest of spin doctors, Rick Nolan fought off a tremendous onslaught to win re-election in the tightest US House race in the state.

http://www.kare11.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/05/rep-nolan-edges-out-mills-in-8th-district/18522393/


#7 - Michelle MacDonald gets the MN GOP nod for the Supreme Court - Jun.  There clearly are problems in the Minnesota GOP when it comes to screening candidates for their nomination process and the process of nomination on their convention floor.  She should have been forthright about her legal issues, but it was the doe eyed Republican leadership after the convention which told the whole story.

http://minnlawyer.com/2014/06/19/macdonald-in-spotlight-after-gop-court-nod/


#6 - Roger Weber cuts his neighbors garage in half - Sep.  Another entry that doesn't need too much explanation, just know he is the man the GOP pegged to try to beat Carly Melin for her MN House seat.  That's right, he was endorsed by the Republican Party of Minnesota.

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2014/09/mngop_candidate_roger_weber_literally_sawed_neighbors_garage_in_half_photo.php


#5 - Fiscally conservative State Senator Sean Nienow and his wife sued for defaulting on a $748K federal loan - Jan.  Once again, a massive hypocrite of a Republican, talking about cutting the fat and trimming the waste in budgets, someone who rails at social safety net programs as wasting government tax dollars, showing he not only can't manage his money, but the government money he pursued for his own personal use.  Sad and funny.

http://www.twincities.com/crime/ci_24951949/state-sen-sean-nienow-wife-sued-748k-federal


#4 - #Pointergate - Nov.  Seriously, KSTP, if you would have just said sorry in the days after the initial story, you wouldn't have been the laughing stock you became.  For God's sake, you were trending GLOBALLY, on Twitter, for your self induced ignorance.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/kstp-gang-signs_n_6123534.html


#3 - The Minnesota GOP State Fair Booth Implosion on the first day of the Fair - Aug.  The only two things the State Fair is politically good for is forgettable photo ops and unforgettable photo ops.  What happened when the GOP tried to prevent their tarnished endorsed Supreme Court candidate, the aforementioned Michelle MacDonald, from appearing at the fair, within hours of the Fair opening, was a public relations nightmare which haunted the GOP in Minnesota for the rest of the election cycle.

http://www.startribune.com/local/yourvoices/272245441.html


#2 - Minnesota gets the election right - Nov.  I have been asked by a lot of people why Minnesota was one of the few places in this country that bucked the GOP wave.  I think it comes down to an eclectic variety of voices in this state, from all viewpoints.  Minnesota is spoiled with the variety and depth of media, and even the Republicans in this state have options beyond Fox News.  A well informed public votes with a lot of common sense and with all statewide races going the DFL's way, that theory gets proven.  It also points to why the GOP won the rural state house seats; less media options and easier to distort message.  What does it tell you about a person who wants the public uninformed and confused about the issues in order for their guy to win, well outside of their Republican political affiliation?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/10/1343629/-Resisting-The-Wave-How-Minnesota-Democrats-Mostly-Prevailed-Last-Tuesday


#1 - Sarah Palin, the GOP nominee for Vice President in 2008, and her family, were all involved in a drunken street brawl in Alaska - Sep.  Gold, pure freaking gold.  I am guessing at least $50 Million was spent on obtaining all of the cell phone footage of the incident, at least $50 Million.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/sarah-palin-drunken-family-brawl-police-in-alaska-release-report-on-fight-involving-former-governors-son-daughter-and-husband-9787307.html




Have a great New Year everyone!   Here's to 2015!!!

Hey Hey, It's a Louisiana Racist!

A few years back, right after I started at AM 950, when I was doing the old evening show, I was asked by a regular listener/pseudo friend if I could come and speak at his group's monthly event.  I said, "sure," even though I really didn't know too much about his group.  That was my mistake.

When I realized this was a fringe, bizarre, conspiracy gathering, I could not go through with it.  If I was to have spoken that evening, unless I went up and did a scathing speech, condemning their cause and calling the groups members delusional idiots, I would've been endorsing the groups message, by proxy, even bringing my employer into the mix.  I said I couldn't speak and I had to go.  It's what you do when you realize you've agreed to speak to a extreme fringe group, a group you didn't understand was that extreme when you agreed to talk, and you have to prevent your mistake from becoming a much larger one.

This brings us to the case of Representative Steve Scalise, Republican from Louisiana.  Rep. Scalise was just elected the incoming US House Majority Whip, and, when he was a State Representative in Louisiana, he also spoke at a conference of white supremacists in 2002, according to white supremacist website Stormfront.  The organization he spoke to was one dedicated to the promotion of white rights, and the website states he spoke about "civil rights and heritage related activism," went after HUD as an "apparent give-away to a select group based on race," and later was a receiver of white supremacist support, them saying [Scalise] offered "his support for issues that are a concern to us."

Also to note, then State Representative Scalise was only one of six state representatives who voted against the MLK Holiday in Louisiana.  He also is taking the position Eric Cantor held, the only Jewish Republican in the US House, who was recently run out of the party by right wing extremists.

Now, let's get the obvious out of the way.  In my opinion, Representative Scalise is a racist pig.  In my opinion, he knew exactly who he was speaking to when he agreed to speak before them, and even if he didn't, the KKK and Nazi paraphernalia likely adorning every aspect of their white power pride rally should have been a big red flag...if he wasn't a racist pig (in my opinion).  My guess is he insisted on being there to let his loyal followers know exactly where he stood.

The excuses he's frantically trying to get to stick to the wall are hilariously weak.  "I don't have records from back then"?  Really, from WAY back in 2002, or are you having a hard time 'finding' them over the sounds of staff members frantically shredding paperwork and hitting delete keys?  "I detest these types of groups"?  Then why did you stay when you realized what they stood for?  Was there a nice buffet (probably a lot of white sauces)? "I was only speaking about slush funds"? But, according to Stormfront,  it seems you did so with a sickening racist slant which won rave reviews from the racist conference goers.

These excuses are not sincere, heartfelt or honest, instead they are designed with three purposes.  First, to give his Republican colleagues the ability to defend their new US House Majority Whip by deflecting to Scalise's deflections.  Second, to give his followers a thin Kleenex veil to hide their racism behind, but the real purpose of the excuses is a jab at the American people.  What racist politicians really want to say is, "you caught us red handed as the racists we are, but, in America, we allow people to hide behind 'innocent until proven guilty.'  We'll throw these nonsensical excuses out to muddy the waters just enough to prevent us from ever having to acknowledge the behavior we so proudly express."

Now, we get to see what the rest of the GOP does.  This is supposed to be an open arms Republican party today, but what do they do with a politician with a race issue which sizes up the mindset of a large percentage of people who vote Republican?  This guy is the Whip, partially due to his popularity with the Republican voting base.  If he didn't want his name associated, by proxy, with racists, then he should have never spoken at that conference, and if the GOP wants to avoid to endorse his decisions, by proxy, whether they voted for him or not, whether they knew about it or not, they need to remove him.

Representative Scalise could learn a lesson from another Louisianan, Harry Connick Jr.  While appearing on an Australian variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday, he was to judge an act who did a Jackson 5 parody in blackface.  Did Harry condemn it like I wish he had?  Sadly no, but for him to speak out like he did, criticizing the 'act' in a later segment (something he received a lot of grief from some Australians for doing), it was an appropriate response to being caught off guard in a situation he didn't agree with or endorse.

But let's face it, for Scalise and the GOP, it's not about admitting a mistake, it's about trying to hide in plain sight.

The Friday Link for 12/26/14

Colbert Part 2!!!

I will miss this guy so much.  I am posting this epic moment from Stephen Colbert's testimony to the US House Judiciary Committee in 2010, in regards to the issue of immigrant farm workers.  Colbert had taken a day to work as a farm laborer and was truly shocked by the pay and working conditions.  He was invited afterwards to share his thoughts with the committee.  Jokes aside, he actually makes a lot of great points here.  First is his opening remarks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewPburLEZyY

Next is the monstrous take down of Rep. Steve King, from Idiot...Oops I meant Iowa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mncOjWmZw

And finally is the great response to Rep. Judy Chu.  Wait for the final minute of the response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxeIO4pW05s

Two notes:  King clearly stayed at the hearing in a weak attempt to embarrass Colbert.  It doesn't work out too well for him in the end, but there were a lot of Republicans who ran out of that hearing as soon as they could.  A lot of empty Republican seats.

Also, watch the people in the back trying not to laugh with his responses.  Dana Bash is one of my favorites, to the right a few rows back.  Enjoy!

Water Boarding George Bailey

I have often made an observation in regards to the classic film, It's a Wonderful Life.  I have said many of the modern Republicans, and those who vote Republican, would actually find the Potter character, the miserly, power hungry banker, as the true hero, and George Bailey, a man, who also ran a bank [Building and Loan], as the villain, for trying to help the needy and recent immigrants in his community.  The Raw Story has a very good article about how the anti-Communists which fueled the McCarthy era in this country went after the movie something fierce.  Here is the link:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/ayn-rand-helped-the-fbi-investigate-whether-its-a-wonderful-life-was-commie-propaganda/

Ayn Rand, self centered, delusional idiot, anti government zealot (who actually used the country's social safety net programs under a false name to prevent from being called out as the hypocrite she was), and hero to many Republican politicians today, was part of a group that hated the movie, and insisted Lionel Barrymore's portrayal of Potter was pure anti-capitalist propaganda.  Two of my favorite parts of the Raw Story story include the narrative coming from the anti-communists that all bankers are great individuals and should be portrayed as such (the relation to the banking crisis of 2008, the bankers insistence on public help, then turning viciously on the tax paying public who helped them, all while putting out ad campaigns of how banks "are here for you," does not go unnoticed).

The second is what I eluded too above.  The portrayal of Potter verses George Bailey is not Capitalism verses Communism, it's greedy individuals who worship power, using the money they have been entrusted with to promote their own agenda, verses a system which represents what America is supposed to be, the American dream, that anyone can make it with hard work, and if the banking industry and capitalism encourage such dreams, we become better overall as a society.  When someone pointed this out in one of the hearings, it apparently created a ruckus.

Notice Reagan was mentioned in this story, selling out friends and colleagues to promote his own aspirations.

I want to reiterate, Ayn Rand and the rest of the modern GOP template from the paranoid late 40's/early 50's felt as if portraying a bank to help the neediest people, the lower class, the middle class, and recent immigrants, even going out of their way to prevent Potter from railroading the town when there was a run on the Building and Loan, was the bad role model, and Potter who tried to take advantage of the banking crisis, who proudly brags how he would have never loaned money to many of the Building and Loan's customers, and whose Machiavellian dream was realized in the non-George Bailey world where the town, so under his control, had even been renamed Pottersville, was what we need to celebrate.

At Christmas, many Republicans do a lot of last minute switching.  For most off the year, they cheer on the actions and ideas of a Potter, and only acknowledge such blind devotion to money and power are bad when they hear the jingle jangle of Santa's sleigh.  They insist all lives are sacred and precious when the presents are being opened, but then will insist unarmed African American male teenagers deserved to get killed by police after the wrappings are in the trash, and they will talk about honoring the bravery and sacrifice of the American soldier when they are in their church pews, but God forbid a week later you suggest W. Bush and his administration, whom sent those beloved troops to their death, into an unnecessary war justified under false pretenses, face any charges for the thousands of coffins returned to American soil.

It's a Wonderful Life is a great American film.  We can learn a lot about being better people from paying attention to the Bailey's of the world, instead of trying to validate the actions of the most realistic character in the film, Potter.

Good night Bedford Falls!

Christmas 2014!

Merry Christmas to everyone!  As far as the radio gig goes, I will have new interviews over the next two weeks, Jack Rice is in for me on Monday the 29th and I will do the show on New Year's Eve.

Attached is a link to a video a friend of mine did about Christmas.  Her name is Daniela, and she is very dear to me from my military days.  She told me, "I bleeped out the bad words, so it's okay for the kids."  NO!  It really isn't.  It's not as bad as the MadTV bit they did that one year (heck that thing gave ME nightmares), but you've been warned.

Regardless of what you do or do not celebrate, all my best to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhDAD8mopB0&app=desktop

The Place for Protesting in Your Life

The Mall of America was the latest scene of protest.  On Saturday, a few thousand supporters of the “Black Lives Matter” campaign, occupied the mall’s rotunda for a few hours, during one of the busiest shopping days of the year, trying to bring public awareness to the deaths of young African American men at the hands of law enforcement.  Considering they are a private business, I do feel bad for MOA, to a point, but the squelching of the public’s right to protest over the last few years is a main contributor in protesters looking for new, much higher visibility venues.

            I feel as if Mall of America mishandled and misunderstood this protest.  If they would have maintained a more subdued tone, my guess is a much smaller crowd would have shown up, and probably would have dispersed quicker, likely visiting some of the mall stores as they left.  But by initially asking the protesters to not protest, then trying to push them into a parking lot away from the Mall, and then using a threatening tone, they basically dared the protesters to show up in force. Mall officials said afterwards, “…these political activists were more concerned about making a political statement and creating a media event…”  Well of course they were, but the larger point is being missed.  When people try to silence protest, the people protesting have a tendency of getting louder and more visible.

            The First Amendment of the US Constitution preserves the rights of freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble.  The country’s early leaders wanted to make sure people’s voices were heard.  Some of the worst moments in American history have come at the hands of people abusing the public’s right to protest.  The Boston Massacre, the labor riots of the early 20^th Century, Selma, Kent State, and many others are examples of peaceful protests met with horrific violence, but the repression of the right to protest has been usurped lately, not by blunt force, but by city ordinance, hastily made legal loopholes and a desire to make the protesting voices as quiet and as ignorable as possible.

Law enforcement during the Republican Convention of 2008 in St. Paul was all for people protesting, but not on public land near the Xcel Energy Center.  They created protest zones nowhere near the venue, and detoured marching routes away from the main event, creating a new hindrance to protester’s rights, distance.  When the Occupy Movement rose up in this country, city governments, including the leaders of Minneapolis, created hurdle after hurdle for protesters, making sure the protests were discouraged, limited, and non-intrusive, especially for the nearby banks whose actions riled up the masses.  It seems the only type of unrestricted protest allowed today is when individuals strap a loaded assault weapon to their back and visit a large store.

A main reason the Mall of America, Interstate 35W and the main terminal at MSP were targeted was the limiting of the public’s right to be seen and heard when it comes to voicing protest.  Would these protests happen if people were allowed to, or encouraged to, go to highly visible, public land in the Twin Cities, and peacefully protest, as long as they didn’t break any laws?  By trying to silence the public through quickly written laws or herding ‘undesirables’ into pre-approved protest zones, we are only asking for more of this. The protesters are not backing down.

I encourage people, even people I disagree with, to make sure their voices are heard and embrace public protesting, just like the founding fathers wanted.  If protesting becomes something only allowed in a desolate industrial area, behind some dumpsters, in a fenced in barbed wired lot, surrounded by an intimidating police presence, between the hours of 4 and 6, on Tuesdays and every other Sunday, not only are worse off as a society, we are erasing one of the base rights we have as Americans.

The Friday Link for 12/19/14

Stephen Colbert will be sorely missed.  His last show on Thursday night was as funny and brilliant as his first.  Some of his GOP takedowns are must watch, and his lambasting of Fox News was epic.  My personal favorite Fox News takedown was when their idiot male morning show hosts insisted women can get their pap smears taken care of at Walgreens.  His eager endorsement of such an insanely stupid comment, and his ensuing natural comedic indictment, is so funny, even he can't keep a straight face.  For more laughs, search for anything where he goes after Sarah Palin, and the shows from around the elections of 2008 and 2012 are pure gold.  And then there is Colb-chella...

When he started his show, I don't think a lot of people got it.  The artistic challenge to stay in character for as long as he did is so underrated.  His persona was such an "in-your-face" challenge to the right wing zealots who did, and still do, monopolize the media circus, I think some just wrote him off as the same.  He was so good (and subtle) at mocking self congratulating talking heads, he initially fooled many Republicans into thinking he wasn't a made up character.  This led to some hilarious outcomes early on in his run.

Colbert's show was never meant to be The Daily Show junior, and he strove to find it's own tone, it's own vibe.  It became a great counterpart to Jon Stewart's show, must watch every night, or for me, in the morning.

I've often wondered if whomever suggested Stephen Colbert to be the keynote speaker at the 2006 White House Correspondent's dinner, with then President George W. Bush, was oblivious to the act, or knew exactly who Colbert was and suggested him, thinking he would never actually be chosen.  When they called Mr. Colbert with the offer to be the main talent for the night, he didn't pass up the golden opportunity.  Considering this was the same president who had people dragged out of public town hall meetings for wearing t-shirts his team deemed offensive, this is the gutsiest comedy performance I have ever seen.  He did this to the President's face!!! He didn't back down.

Apparently, the speech didn't hit it off that well with the live audience, with reports of some people walking out.  It was only after the speech was posted online, and everyone saw Stephen Colbert dismantle W. Bush and many other conservatives for the political clowns they were (check out the hand gestures he throws at Justice Scalia!), did the country stop and say, who is this guy.  This speech was also an overdue bashing of the media, who had been willing puppets to their Rovian puppet masters.

Follow it up with an amazing appearance at the 2007 Emmy awards, and he cemented his place as one of the all time satirical greats.  Here is the speech from that night.  Watch and be amazed.  It's your Friday link!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7FTF4Oz4dI

Franken, Clinton, Biden, Warren

I've had a few listeners ask if I'm angry with Senator Al Franken for endorsing Hilary Clinton.  No, I'm not.

Clinton learned her lesson in 2008.  If you act like you've won before you've won, you'll grab defeat from the jaws of victory (thanks Jeff Stein for that line!).  She is being very cautious, getting one of the more liberal Senators from one of the most liberal states on board before the Primary season.  She understands the primaries are won by appealing the more traditional part of the Democratic Party.  In my mind, her getting Franken in the fold this early for the 2016 race is a smart move.

People who do seem upset by Franken's endorsement then ask, "what about Elizabeth Warren?"  Funny, we skip over the candidate who I think is most likely to give Clinton the biggest primary challenge, if he decides to run, Vice President Joe Biden.  I like Biden, and as of right now [these things can change.  I went into 2008 supporting Edwards before jumping on the Obama bandwagon by late February], I'd lean towards him in a straight up head to head with Clinton.  I think she is an exceptional candidate too.  The Democrats once again have a good problem going into an open Presidential seat.

Elizabeth Warren reminds me of the idealist I, and most Democrats, have inside ourselves.  I believe she would make Wall Street a much better place and would tackle the unfair tax code if she became President, but she doesn't stand a chance.  The Wall Street bankers would do anything, ANYTHING, to stop her if it looked like she would win.  At the very least, they would all hand over half of their paychecks to the Republicans in an effort to wipe her out and maintain the corrupt system they thrive in.

Warren will also be a hard sell in non-liberal states in the primary season.  She will get accolades in Minnesota, California, and Massachusetts, but with the Democratic parties of states like Georgia, Texas, Virginia and Arizona, she will have a much harder time selling her wares.

I trust Senator Al Franken.  He is my favorite politician outside of Congressman Keith Ellison, and his judgment and rationale are exceptional.  He is entitled to his opinion, and his thoughts on an issue or individual will have a lot of weight with me.  More power to him.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Hi all!  Been real busy with the holiday stuff, professional and personal.  Good news, I have my holiday cards finished and we are going to have a ton of great shows over the holidays, pre-recorded, original stuff.  A treat for you!

So with holiday cheer in the air, here's a quick note on the evil SOB that is our former Vice President, Dick Cheney.

The disgusting display he preformed on Meet The Press this last Sunday was beyond words.  The coward has hidden behind 9/11 when anyone ever questioned his actions, and he continues to trample on the dead with his invoking of 9/11 victims to justify torture.  He used 9/11 victims to validate the killing of an innocent man, a man who died of exposure after being beaten and chained to the wall.  An innocent man died under the guidance of American foreign policy, and Cheney is proud of it.  The reality: under the 'leadership' of Cheney, we probably did a lot worse under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes.

At one point, Chuck Todd asked the jerk, "didn't we prosecute the enemy when they water boarded our guys during WWII?" That fact punches a huge hole in Dick Cheney's validation argument.  When we tortured, we were following in the footsteps of the Nazis, not the Founding Fathers.  Cheney did what he always does when he can't answer something, he bloviated and screamed "How dare you," at Todd. He insisted it was out of line to bring up such a comparison, and by proxy implied our water boarding was far more dignified and classy then when others did it to our guys.

Cheney then hid behind the "these guys are bad people" defense.  No one is doubting the actual guilty parties are bad guys.  I think we all agree on that, but weren't the Nazis, Italians and Japanese all bad guys in WWII?  They did mass execute the Jewish people and there was that whole surprise destruction of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, yet we never stooped to an actual US policy of torturing the enemy (internment camps were bad enough).  These extremists we are fighting in the Middle East, and worldwide, are the latest incarnation of the "bad guy," but by torturing, we have now lost the moral high ground.  We have become no better than them, wallowing in their gutter slime, even torturing the wrong people.  But at least Dick Cheney has found a happy home in the filth.

I worked with the late John Lundell when I was reporting traffic.  John was far right on the political spectrum.  When Minnesota lawmakers were having the discussion about Carry and Conceal, John bragged it was the best thing that could ever happen.  He insisted Carry and Conceal would end all crime in Minnesota, and when I called him on that outrageous claim, he then threw out the most preposterous scenario, ever(!), to try to validate carrying a concealed weapon. "Matt, what happens if terrorists have taken your kid's daycare hostage and they are holding your son, with a gun to his head.  You'd want a loaded weapon then, wouldn't you?  Are you a coward Matt?  Are you just going to let them shoot your son in the head?"

I really liked John, and I miss him, but that was the most insane argument I've ever heard.

If, to validate your actions or opinions, you have to wrap yourself in the worst moments of American history, or story lines so outrageous that even the Die Hard movie series would think are unbelievable, you clearly can't see how extreme your actions and opinions really are.

Dick Cheney, you are a disgusting pig of a man.  Your blood lust and blood money, all hidden behind your fake 9/11 piety, are the true legacy you will be remembered by.  You are a horrible human being.

Happy Holidays!

The Friday Link for 12/12/14

For me, the Blues Brothers were a transitional comedy for my family.  It was a movie my parents would watch, laughing hysterically, and I loved it too.  I remember when it was the Saturday Night Movie of the week.  They would have Bond films, the disaster films or the 70's, some musicals, but the Blues Brothers was always a hit when it aired.  We'd make some popcorn and settle in for a good ride, with me on the floor in front of the TV.

The main reason I was a fan at 13 was simple, they destroyed a lot of cars in this movie.  There is no CGI or computer animation.  They are just crashing cars constantly in this film.  The final chase scene is a demolition derby on steroids, an over the top celebration of carnage.  Watch it in letterbox to get the full impact of it.

The mall chase, which I have linked to here, also has another distinction, capturing the American Mall in all of it's late 70's/early 80's glory.  This was right before malls became the iconic hangout of the Reagan 80's teenagers, and some of the stores they mention are friendly reminders of the culture before big hair, British New Wave, and shoulder pads.

Watch the movie for the music too.  The music in Blues Brothers is so good, it has rarely been matched for soundtracks.  As a matter of fact, I would even recommend the sequel (I'll wait for the boos to die down) for the music in that one too.  The one exception in Blues Brothers 2000 is Riders in the Sky, a clear take off of Rawhide from the first movie.  Also the sequel has as much hilarity as a Dick Cheney interview on Fox.  Still, the music is very good.

Enjoy a trip inside the mall!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTRXnuoK1ss

The High Ground has a Gutter

This is an e-mail I wrote in response to Bob from Eden Priarie who, this morning, tried to dismiss the torture issue by focusing on a small element of a military story I only brought up to make a minor point. This is what John Fugelsang and Jon Stewart mean when they talk about the left leaning media having zero room for error.

Enjoy!

Bob in Eden Prairie,

I don't think there is a need to follow through on reporting this incident from my military days over 25 years ago.  It wasn't forced rectal feeding or constant beating and water boarding.  It was one punch, in 1988.  If you decide to follow through on this, for the record, you are not speaking for me, or acting on my behalf.  Do not imply you are speaking for me in any capacity.

But to tell the truth, you have a point.  The "non-punching by drill sergeants" rules, although new, were in place at the time.  If you want to follow through on this, you are welcome to, and I won't deny the incident took place.  Whether the military would spend a second on it or not remains to be seen. 

You're clinging to a flimsy patch on your high ground when you say I should have, at 20, as a private in Basic Training, sternly walked up to the nearest officer and filed a report on that Drill Sergeant for his misguided attempt to make a point that the US Army doesn't torture.  Technically, you're following the letter of the law, but you clearly don't understand the dynamics of the military.  It's like the newest 2nd Lt. putting a 25 year Master Sergeant into attention.  Technically they can do it, but they don't do it.  Doesn't mean they can't, but no one in the military will back them up if they do.  I'll let you tackle that problem next.

It is not fair to label you a hypocrite before hand, so I apologize, but let's make sure you understand the choice you have to make.  

If you decide you want to follow through with this, e-mail me back and let me know.  I will forward you the name of the Drill Sergeant from 1988 for you to pursue.  At that point, you have only two options.  The first would be to follow through in a misguided attempt to prove you're a better person than I am.  Go to the Army and report the incident and work to get the Staff Sergeant prosecuted for his actions.  If you're successful, you may be able to strip a decorated NCO of their retirement benefits.  Since you insist you are proudly taking the moral high ground, I'll promise to keep the listeners up to date on your personal efforts to strip a retired NCO of their benefits, all in an effort to prove me wrong.  Afterwards, if you are successful, we'll have a get-together, where I will invite the VFW, Marine Corps League, Wounded Warriors, and all other veterans for you to high-five, and I'll let you explain to them why you did what you did.  You shouldn't be afraid of doing that.

If I do send you this name, and you don't do anything, well, you'd then be a massive hypocrite for suggesting I was a bad guy for having knowledge of an incident and not reporting it, and then in turn not reporting it yourself when you the opportunity to do so.  

If you decide you do not want the name, and in turn do not want to file a report, I will take it as your agreeing with my point of view on this matter.  These are your three choices right now, that's it.  Your call, your decision.  I am sure you'll try to wiggle into some other option, but really these are your only three choices.

I am going to post this e-mail to the public, using only "Bob" (for the time being).  Let me know what your decision is.

Thanks for listening!

Matt McNeil

Morning Host - The Morning Grind

AM 950 

Response to Randy

This morning, I talked about the Senate's torture report, a disgusting revelation of violent abuse and the unconscionable cover up by the CIA and the W. Bush administration.  The bipolar mentality by the Bush administration, sized up primarily in former Vice President Dick Cheney, highlights the internal struggle the Republican Party has with this sort of thing.  On one side, if they admit they tortured, they know their eternal legacy will be tied to the heinous act, so they tip toe around it, acting as if the worst thing that happened was a purple nurple, and the end result is 1500 thwarted attacks.  On the other side, they so want to brag about it, thrusting their freedom boners at anyone who questioned their decisions, with an "F-yeah we tortured them.  We did it with a smile on out faces and got nothing in return.  That's right, we did because we could!  U-S-A, U-S-A!"

Randy in Coon Rapids, a regular caller from the conservative side of life, chimed in this morning.  In back to back sentences, he said he was 1) a Christian and 2) glad we tortured people and hope we do it again.  One might ask how can Randy, and many other Republicans, so blindly defend the un-defendable, making a mockery of their humanity.  They can because they follow one core belief, no Republican could ever be wrong, regardless of how much it compromises their own dignity and morality to defend them.

Imagine Pavlov's Dog.  The master rings the bell, the dog salivates waiting for the kibble to come.  Now, replace the bell with a Republican position they want to sell or a Republican crisis they need to defend, replace the dogs with brainless Republicans who never question, replace the drool with the conservative talking points fed to the right's fervent supporters, and the kibble is the promise of money.  The GOP knows they never have to deliver the money, as the drool starts the minute the Republicans ring the bell to rally their troops.  They just have to make vague promises of "someday" bringing out the bowl of money.  The drool flows so freely from the right's lemmings, they've gotten to the point where they will trample upon the two things they swear they defend most of all, Religion and American Values.

To justify their belligerence, the right has created a jaw dropping, stunningly stupid series of defensive positions:

• Obamacare, trying to give millions affordable healthcare, must be stopped due to "Death Panels!"
• Gun Violence must never be addressed because the founding fathers wanted everyone to have a machine gun, the only people with guns if you make them illegal will be criminals, and all of these shootings are actually perpetrated by the anti-gun community as "false flag" operations.
• An unarmed Michael Brown being gunned down in the street was justified because he was a "demon!"
• Benghazi, with the tragedy of four American dead, is FAR worse than the Iraq war, fought under false pretenses, at a cost of trillions of tax payer dollars, with near 5000 dead American soldiers and over 30,000 permanently injured American soldiers, and Iraq is no better off than it was before we got there.
• Voter ID is justified, because spending millions of dollars and knowingly disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters is a small price to pay to stop a one or two miscast votes, votes which are generally miscast purposely by Republicans trying to prove the system is broken.
• Sarah Palin is not an embarrassment, it's just the Liberals are jealous.

I could go on for days...

The amazing thing about the Republican voter never ending drool is how in states like Oklahoma, Mississippi, Kansas and South Carolina it still flows so freely.  The GOP has firmly been in charge of these states for many years.  They never have delivered on their promises, quite the contrary, the quality of life for most of the residents of these God forsaken nether regions is horrid.  But the drool never stops, like a simpleton's Old Faithful.

Now we have torture, and the Republicans saliva patrol is out in force, making a mockery of the principles of this country and the religion they wear on their sleeves.  They will scream "partisan politics," desperately trying to dismiss the truth, just so they can get back to investigating Obama's birth certificate, starting another Benghazi investigation, revisiting Whitewater and debating whether to impeach President Obama, you know, their "non-partisan' agenda.

Don't worry, I am prepared for the next Randy call.  I just hope I don't laugh out loud when he starts his version of a thoughtfully constructed counterpoint.

Weekend Pot Luck

Here are some random thought from this weekend.

1)   It is amazing how much control conservatives have over media in this country.  Right now, we are in a bit of a dead zone for news.  Most people don't care about the day to day goings on in the world as we are in December, the time for holiday shopping and good cheer.  If you did pay attention to the news, you'd have heard the country is in the best hiring year since 1999, the deficit has been slashed dramatically under the Obama administration and oil prices have plummeted, partially due to the Presidents handling of world crisises and his international policy.  I had a conservative friend, ask me on Facebook, "this is very impressive, so why didn't the Democrats mention this before the election?"

From August to Election Day, the media in this country, not only the clearly corrupted by agenda and money big 5 (CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC), but other, more trusted outlets such as NPR, Huffington Post and Yahoo, did the journalistic equivalent of running around, waving their hands in the air and screaming "EBOLA!!!!"  Then, the day after the elections, they just stopped.  There wasn't a grace period, there wasn't a transition, they just stopped.  The only 'news' outlets who didn't seem to be controlled by the news disinformation machine were the BBC and Al-Jazeera.

There was a concerted effort by the media in this country to prevent the American people from hearing anything positive about the President and the Democrats prior to the election.  They buried all of this positivity until after the election was over, and now, with no agenda driven message to present to the masses, and all of the Christmas sales securely in place, they stumble back to their original job, reporting news.  In the future, one thing the media in this country will be judged on is not only their failures to report the truth for the last 20 years, but their complicit nature as accomplices to Conservatives in driving the right's agenda.  I swear, if I hear another 'bought and paid for' journalist or editor bloviate their insistence about how they are fair to both sides and hold Republicans accountable...BULL!

2)  To be fair, the media wasn't the only thing which cost the Democrats the Senate in this last election, it was God awful Democrats as well, whether incumbents or candidates, who should have never been part of the party in the first place.  It's with that, I say "let the door hit you in the ass on your way out" to soon to be former Senator Mary Landrieu, the fake Democrat from Louisiana.  She lost.  She was an embarrassment to have in the Democratic Party anyway, so good riddance.

3)  This brings up a third point about elections, and the real important one coming up.  No, I'm not talking about 2016, although that is very important.  I'm talking about 2020.  In 2020, the state legislatures who win get to decide if the current unabashedly unfair US House districts stay the way the GOP gerrymandered them, or do they get redrawn to represent people fairly.  That year, 2020, the President is the biggest office up for grabs, but now, due to the wins in 2014, the GOP has to hold a ton of Republican Senate seats they likely will not be able to hold, the US House will have their biannual money suck, and the GOP will be pouring money into individual state legislature and governor races at never before seen, incomprehensible levels.  My guess is, since the total cost for the GOP will likely be in the trillions, they will have to take off the 2018 election cycle in order to stockpile cash for 2020.  If the right wins in 2020, well may God have mercy on us all.

4)  If you still insist the police used acceptable force in Ferguson and on Staten Island, and have never once condemned Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has stolen a million dollars from the American people, a person who when Bureau of Land Management employees, law enforcement, came to enforce the laws, his followers pointed loaded weapons at the heads of said law enforcement, clearly threatening them with deadly force, you are not worth listening too.  If you condemn Cliven Bundy just as vigorously as you condemn Michael Brown or Eric Garner, I won't agree with you, but at least you're consistent.  If you insist there is a difference, you're not fooling anyone.  You back up Bundy, whose crimes were far worse than Brown or Garner's, because he is white, and you hate the two dead men because they were black.

5)  Minnesota ranked 5th in a 24/7 Wall Street poll of best run states.  Unlike a lot of polls, there wasn't the usual Democratic states are in the top half while the Republican states are in the bottom half outcome, but rather the states are scrambled nicely.  Minnesota is the highest rated state with a major metro area (with all due respect to Omaha and Des Moines, both lovely towns, you're not the same as Minneapolis/St. Paul.  But with all sincerity, if you are looking for a fun weekend, those are great towns).

Democratic states like Minnesota can be well managed, business friendly, economically sound and worker and middle class strong, even top five in the nation.  What this proves is not what the GOP wants you to believe.  They want you to think states like Mississippi, Kansas and Wisconsin are great, but they are only great for the wealthiest of wealthy and largest corporations.  I'll put it bluntly, I know a lot of people moving to Minnesota from Wisconsin, I don't know one person who has moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin in the last two years.  Seriously.  That's a new trend.

6) Finally, and completely away from politics, I made a really interesting observation about eggs the last two weeks.  Yes, you read right.  I needed eggs around Thanksgiving and my wife picked up a dozen while running an errand.  They were not the eggs we usually get.  For many years, I've been only buying organic eggs from cage free chickens.  The eggs my wife bought were from some corporate farm.  It was really scary how different they were from my usual eggs.  The shells were very fragile, the yokes broke way too easy and they did not taste like eggs.  They tasted (pardon the pun) like a hollow shell of themselves.  This is one of those things you need to be used to the organic ones to really notice the difference, but it was undeniable to me.

The Friday Link for 12/5/14

So, I have been busy this week.  No seriously, I have been so freaking busy.  I had to go buy all of the gifts for my friends in Ireland, pack them and ship them, I had to get all of the photos from the last year sorted and mailed, I had to dismantle a turkey carcass into turkey soup and turkey tetrazzini (both delicious FYI!) and we now have a tree upstairs decorating the living room for the next month.  Thanks to some cool music and food from Park Tavern, tonight I am keeping my sanity...

No excuses though.  This is my blog, and the buck stops here.  I do have about 40 posts I want to get written and I promise a new one this weekend...sometime...I hope...

I am punting...

Arrested Development is the funniest show ever written and it is amazingly dirty at times.  They bleep this all out but let's face it, you get the idea.  In case you are missing my point, this is dirtier than I usually post, but most of it was on network TV so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWcsIMKAvUw