How Corporations Stole Personhood for Themselves

The following is by Ryan Grim and Mike Sacks (both HuffPost reporters), but so very good, it is reprinted here in its entirety.


Of all the Occupy Wall Street refrains, one of the most memorable is, "I refuse to believe that corporations are people until Texas executes one." But, clever as it is, the quip looks to the wrong end of the life cycle: The only thing more corrupt than the legal concept of corporate personhood is the way a Gilded Age judge birthed it.

The discontented have been occupying the streets for a long time. But the convulsions with which the ruling class in America reacted to the Paris Commune of 1871 make Fox News' coverage of Occupy Wall Street sound fawning.

The Paris Commune was the first international incident followed daily in the United States. While President Barack Obama complains about the 24-hour news cycle today, its roots stretch back to Cyrus Field's transcontinental telegraph cable, which allowed the elites of America to focus intently on the two-month uprising and ultimate slaughter of thousands of Parisians. Cyrus Field's brother and his family were in Paris at the time, and a third brother, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field, obsessively tracked the news back in the states. It was the Paris uprising that transformed Stephen Field from a mundanely corrupt judge in the paid service of the railroads to a zealous crusader for all corporations, with the aim of suppressing what he and other leaders saw as the threat of democracy from below.

For much of the first U.S. century, it was an accepted fact that the people, through their legislators, had the power to pass laws that businesses were required to obey. After the Civil War, Reconstruction-era statutes and constitutional amendments -- particularly the 14th Amendment -- strictly limited the ability of legislators to restrict the rights of the recently freed African Americans.

In a historic irony, it was the protections contained in those Reconstruction laws that corporations sought to grab for their own. Justice Field was the hand they used.

The common understanding of how the corporation became a legal person says that a Supreme Court reporter of decisions erroneously said as much in a case summary and that error became an unremovable stain, coloring every decision after. But that reading of history whitewashes what was, in fact, a coordinated effort to win citizenship for corporations.

The idea of corporate personhood was once viewed as nonsense. A corporation was formed to limit the financial liability of its owners in pursuing their business: If the corporation went broke, debtors couldn't come after its owners. That such a company might also have all the rights of citizens was a concept on the fringes. Yet by force of judicial will, Field pulled it right into the mainstream.

He began with his dissenting opinion in the 1873 Slaughter-House cases, decided by the Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote. Writing for the minority, Field asserted that the freedom of a corporation to pursue its business interests was "the distinguishing privilege of all citizens of the United States."

The Louisiana Legislature, then controlled by a majority coalition of African Americans and white Reconstructionists known as "Radical Republicans," had passed a law insisting that all butchers move their business south of New Orleans, so the butchers' entrails didn't pollute the city's water supply. The Court upheld the law, and the city's pattern of repeated cholera outbreaks stopped cold. Field argued, however, that it was a corporation's God-given right to dump pig intestines wherever it saw fit, regardless of the public health consequences or laws on the books.

Field was as much concerned with protecting business investments as he was with working the Lord's will. He was heavily invested in railroads and other industries that came before the Court, so much so that the chief justice at the time pressed him not to weigh in on certain cases. "There was no doubt of your intimate personal relations with the managers of the Central Pacific, and it would tend to discredit the opinion if it came from someone known as the personal friend of the parties representing these railroad interests," the chief justice warned Field, according to Jack Beatty's "Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900."

Field didn't have the votes of his high court colleagues to directly insert corporate personhood into law, so he exploited another aspect of the Reconstruction-era legal system to work the railroads' will. Congress had forbidden the Court from reviewing certain cases, (presciently) concerned that the justices would undermine the work legislators was doing, even the new constitutional amendments. As a compromise, Congress allowed justices to continue to sit occasionally on the circuit courts. When sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California, Field repeatedly wrote into his decisions that corporations were persons. Those decisions became precedents in the 9th Circuit, but nowhere else.

In a dispute over taxation of the Southern Pacific Railroad Co., Field cited his own "Ninth Circuit law" to declare that the "defendant, being a corporation, a person within the meaning of the 14th Amendment," is "entitled, with respect to its property, to equal protection of the laws." San Mateo County appealed to the Supreme Court, but the case dragged on. (Following oral arguments in Washington, Field adjourned with the railroad's lawyers to a dinner party thrown by railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, a close friend of Field's who had previously appointed him to run the school Stanford set up in his son's name.) In desperate need of the taxes the railroad refused to pay -- citing its freedom to do business under the same protections granted any other citizen -- the county settled with the company.

The settlement ended the Supreme Court case and denied Field one chance to enshrine personhood into law, but he was soon given another. In 1886, Santa Clara County sued Southern Pacific Railroad in a similar case, and the company again asserted its personhood. In fact, whether Southern Pacific was a citizen was irrelevant to the particular dispute, which was decided on technical issues of tax law that applied equally to a business or a person. But the Court reporter, John Chandler Bancroft Davis, who was himself financially intertwined with the railroads, wrote the following in his summary of the decision: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section I of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a state to deny to any person equal protection of the laws."

Nothing like that was contained in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. itself, so where did Davis get such language? The most likely answer lies with Field, who made a habit of micromanaging Davis' summaries. And Davis himself had plenty of reason to play along: In an earlier case that came before the Court, Davis had been accused of acting as an attorney and trustee of a railroad company, only to wind up with much of that company's assets in his own hands.

As merely part of a reporter's summary, Davis' statement of corporate personhood carried no legal weight. But in a 1888 decision, Field enshrined the error. Citing the Santa Clara case, he wrote, completely out of the blue and not in reaction to any facts in the new case, that a "private corporation is included under the designation of 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Section I." That a corporation was a person had -- presto -- become settled law.

More than a century later, in the 5-4 decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Chief Justice John Roberts would rely on this nonsensical and corrupt ruling to enshrine into law the equally perverse notion that a corporation is a person entitled to all the liberties of the First Amendment and therefore, in another leap of logic, free to spend as much of its money as it pleases to influence elections, regardless of any laws passed to the contrary.

But it didn't take a century for Field's coup to begin influencing public policy. Even before the Santa Clara case, corporations were asserting that a God-given "liberty to contract" allowed them to ignore laws regulating the workplace. When legendary labor leader Samuel Gompers persuaded New York to ban the making of cigars in tenement sweatshops, the Supreme Court overturned the law in a landmark 1885 ruling, In re Jacobs, saying it violated the cigar makers' freedom. A similar 1899 case struck down a law granting an eight-hour workday to employees of city contractors, and the majority specifically cited Field's original dissent in the Slaughter-House cases.

In short, corporations did not become citizens by accident. It took roughly a decade to usurp the liberty given to freed slaves and apply it instead to businesses.

Field's complete vision, fortunately, has not yet come to pass. The principle of "liberty of contract," despite libertarian efforts over the last two decades, has not been brought back in from the cold where the New Deal Court banished it over 70 years ago. Corporations still cannot vote even if they may now spend infinite amounts of money to influence an election. And the Second Amendment, which so far protects only the individual right to keep loaded handguns in the home for self-defense, does not give corporations the right to stockpile weapons in the workplace in case actual "class warfare" breaks out.

Nor, crucially, do corporations enjoy the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Such a privilege, the Supreme Court has long held, "is essentially a personal one, applying only to natural individuals." And the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures "at the most guards against abuse only by way of too much indefiniteness or breadth," according to a 1946 Supreme Court decision. Corporations and their officers, then, can be subpoenaed to produce their records and papers without running afoul of the Fourth Amendment and cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment to escape such a court order.

But for these gaps in corporate personhood to be even small comfort in our new Gilded Age, one of those bad-acting "artificial persons" must first be charged with a crime. That's something rarely seen in today's era of corporate unaccountability, thanks largely to the influence of business over politics -- the legacy, in a twisted way, of the Paris Commune."

Where is the truth?

Main stream media, especially print media and even more specifically newspapers, are in anguish or dire economic straits or just plain defunct because of the sea change the Internet has brought to their ad revenues. Or so it would seem. But maybe media's pandering to audiences and advertisers, and serving as propaganda mouthpieces for mega-corporations, while kicking real journalism out the back door the past few decades has something to do with it.

It's damn hard to get any real or accurate information out of a newspaper these days. Just take the recent spate of stories in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the "outbreak" of illness which "claimed 3 victims" (now 4) and allegedly caused by raw milk. These articles are just the most recent and egregious example of factually inaccurate reporting, smear tactics, hyperbole, pandering and total failure as journalism. I come across complete falsehoods and totally wrong understandings in the paper all the time when it comes to areas of knowledge in which I have some expertise; I'm sure you see the same. That such articles are so common in the limited areas we each know just throws the entire rest of the media into question.

So about that raw milk.

"Claimed 3 victims" read the headline -- sounds like they died, doesn't it? Well, not yet. It is possible for the very young, old, infirm or otherwise immune system compromised to die from E. Coli -- absolutely. But they have not yet; they're only ill at the moment. Or were -- they may have recovered over the weekend. (In fact, they did recover quickly.)

But 3? 4? Hello? This is no epidemic, no "outbreak." Hundreds of people probably get sick every single day in Minnesota from various forms of food poisoning, from their own kitchen to restaurants. I personally get sick a lot more often when I eat out, than when I eat at home. There was a recent case where a restaurant had 47 cases of poisoning reported in one instance. Somehow the magnitude of the alleged raw milk caused illness seems a bit ... lacking, shall we say?

But that's the least of it -- the pandering and hyperventilation and making a mountain out of a mole hill is what the media does all the time. We've almost grown numb to it.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (not Department of Health, as you might imagine) has a lot of guilt here, too. And that the MDA is guilty does makes one wonder -- who put them up to it? Follow the money, and it seems likely the corporate "pasteurized" dairies might be a likely candidate. Or someone else with an ax to grind.

Why would the Department of Agriculture be guilty of misbehavior here? Let's examine the facts. The department has stated the illnesses have been "traced to raw milk" from the Hartmann Farm, but the facts don't really support such a conclusion. 4 people are sick. 1 is not a customer of Hartmann Farm. Of the remaining, 2 are children, both of whom have parents who have stated the children did NOT consume raw milk, although the parents drank it and did not get sick. No E.coli has been found at the Hartmann Farm as of yet. We seem to lack the smoking gun here. In fact, we seem to lack any firm evidence of causality, and instead have a bunch of questionable linking by the Department of Agriculture.

The then irresponsible media jumped on it, painted Michael Hartmann to be a bad actor -- probably figuring because he was somewhat of an eccentric libertarian they could bash him with smears tactics and never be called on it.

People are reading misleading statements such as Hartmann Farm lost their class A milk license and assume that the Farm must therefore be awful. Thank you Star Tribune for starting and perpetuating a completely false picture. Hartmann won a Minnesota Supreme Court case regarding licensing because the Minnesota Constitution itself overrules the very notion that the license was required for his business. No such license is required for a farmer to sell his product directly to a consumer. You can't blame a guy for not wanting to subject himself to arbitrary and onerous licensing requirements and fees if the Constitution specifically exempts farmers who want to sell their product directly to consumers from having to obtain any such license. Citizens and so-called journalists should try doing a little research, and reading this bit of the law -- it's highly enlightening. Especially when you begin to wonder who benefits from all the unnecessary licensing red tape.

So now, Hartmann's reputation has been smeared, libeled and slandered, and his livelihood endangered on completely weak and incomplete evidence. Small business owners, farmers, and self-employed workers everywhere should be alarmed.

There are a lot of blogs and commentary on this particular case. It looks so much like the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is simply looking for an easy scapegoat for stomping on the reputation of raw milk producers. Why would they do that?

And as usual, the mainstream media is only interested in an inflammatory, pro-big corporation story which would diminish the power of the small guy (oh, say, like blogs and other web news sources), and their usual effort to be provocative at any cost. Here are some links to a couple of perhaps entertaining and enlightening blogs on the subject:

The Vultures Circle MN Raw Dairy, But What's the Real Story?

Are Sellers of Foods That Cause Illness the Same As Terrorists and Child Molesters? Yes, if They Produce Raw Milk in MN

Minnesota's Hartmann Farm releases statement re: accusations of E.coli-contaminated milk

Attempts to demonize raw milk in the American media reach a fever pitch

And the bigger picture, perhaps:

Reasons for Organic Valley Raw Milk Decision: Part of the Government/Corporate Partnership?

The truth is out there. It just takes a lot of work to find it. No wonder old-style newspapers are suffering financially; they have become incapable of reporting news and doing journalism. They have become nothing more than mouthpieces for corporate and political PR.

Tim Pawlenty, big fat liar

Here's a video of Tim Pawlenty strongly saying he will support LGA, hold it harmless and most importantly, that cutting LGA will force property taxes higher. And yet that's just exactly what he did not do a few years later as governor. He cut LGA and forced property taxes higher. He's a big fat liar, and he's stabbing every property owner in Minnesota in the back at the same time he is smiling to their faces.

Iranian Election and Twitter

While this has nothing to do with Minnesota directly, it's such a noble cause -- fighting for democracy -- I thought I would mirror this here.

This article was originally captured from here:
http://reinikainen.co.uk/2009/06/iranelection-cyberwar-guide-for-beginners

Reposted here: http://heavenp2.somee.com/helpiraniantwitters.pdf

#iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners

Posted at June 16, 2009

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.

1. Do NOT publicize proxy IPs over Twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hastag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranaian bloggers, direct message them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distribute them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags - the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88. Other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep your bull$h*t filter up! Security forces are now setting up Twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don't retweet impetuously. Try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your Twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT + 3:30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become 'Iranians' it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don't blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don't publicize their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don't signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real. Please keep that in mind.

6. Denial of Service attacks. If you don't know what you are doing, stay out of this game. Only target those sites the legitimate Iranian bloggers are designating. Be aware that these attacks can have detrimental effects on the network the protesters are relying upon. Keep monitoring their traffic to note
when you should the taps on or off.

7. Do spread the (legitimate) word, it works! When the bloggers asked for Twitter maintenance to be postponed using the #nomaintenance tag, it had the desired effect. As long as we spread good information, provide moral support to the protesters, and take our lead from the legitimate bloggers, we can make a constructive contribution.

Please remember that this is about the future of the Iranian people. While it might be exciting to get caught up in the flow of participating in a new meme, do not lose sight of what this is really about.

Sad State of Health Care

I just read some sad statistics:

One in four Minnesotans had no health insurance coverage at some point during 2007 and 2008.  Four out of five people who lacked health insurance coverage were employed, so it's not just a case of health care being tied to employment.  Employers are dropping health care benefits, or price them at a rate that's too expensive for their employees to afford.

If that were not bad enough, Minnesota had the lowest rate of uninsured people among 49 states studied.  So if 25% of Minnesotans were uninsured, and 80% of those had jobs, and those are among the best statistics in this country, the American health care situation looks pretty dismal.

Who supports Pawlenty these days?

Small town, outstate Minnesota is widely seen as Republican these days, with only those darn liberal strongholds around the larger cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester and Duluth truly Democrat. So it's interesting to find an editorial in the Ely, Tower and Cook Timberjay newspapers lambasting Pawlenty.

Today's Timberjay editorial says in part:

The budget plan that the governor has proposed includes a deficit of approximately $1 billion, even after nearly $2 billion in federal stimulus funding is included. The governor proposes to address that deficit by issuing bonds, which will supposedly be repaid through future proceeds from the state’s tobacco settlement. With interest, the bonds will require payment of a total of $1.7 billion over 20 years.

The federal government does exactly the same thing when its available revenues don’t meet its spending plans. It issues Treasury bonds to cover the shortfall, and the cost of current spending is paid for by adding to the nation’s longstanding debt.

Pawlenty says he now wants to do that here in Minnesota. Now we can certainly argue about whether the state’s prohibition on deficit spending is a good thing, particularly in tough economic times, when most economists believe running government deficits is useful. But Pawlenty isn’t making that argument. In fact, he’s made considerable political hay chiding Washington for its own growing deficits, due in large part to the stimulus funds that have helped the states, including Minnesota, stave off the worst effects of the recession.

Pawlenty clearly isn’t content with mere doubletalk here - he’s speaking from both sides of his mouth while his hands are dealing three card monty. Hypocrisy is a term that just doesn’t do it justice.

Calling the proposal unconstitutional, the paper goes on to explain the problems with Pawlenty's plan, and how it's likely Pawlenty will be back asking for more deficit spending in the future. They also place blame for the cause of the state's financial trouble squarely on Pawlenty's shoulders:

There is, of course, a very simple reason behind the governor’s deficit spending. His reckless “no-new-taxes” pledge in conjunction with tax policy changes he backed as House Majority Leader, have left the state with an essentially permanent budget deficit.

It's commendable that the Timberjay editorial gets the whole story right - it's not just Pawlenty's time in the governor's office where he's done harm, but the many years in the State House where he pushed through bad financial policies.

I don't know the political persuasion of the editorial writer or writers at the Timeberjay, but I've got to imagine the general tenor of political discourse in the newspaper's circulation area to be traditional conservative. That might mean they're not fond of modern day self-labled Republicans who have stolen the party from true conservatives. Perhaps I'm going out on a log here. But the final sentences of the editorial certainly seem to indicate a lack of belief in Pawlenty as a conservative:

Pawlenty now proposes to deal with the situation he helped create by longterm borrowing that will only exacerbate the problem for future state leaders by stealing future revenues to pay for operational spending today. What we have is a governor who claims the mantle of fiscal conservatism while proposing the most fiscally damaging solution to a state budget crisis since the founding of the state.

And he has the guts to call Washington irresponsible?

Pawlenty supporters claim gov prevents wasteful spending

It's easy to find people in Minnesota who support Governor Tim Pawlenty, despite his many flaws, errors and lies, and stupidly dogmatic adherence to a cockamamie "no new taxes" pledge. They claim he is preventing those darn liberals from raising taxes and wasting money. They claim the state has plenty of money if they would just cut out the waste and unnecessary programs. Maybe they should start "at home" with the Governor himself. As reported in the Minnpost:

The legislative auditor again criticized Pawlenty administration fiscal controls, this time in monitoring federal funds flowing through state coffers. The Strib's Mike Kaszuba says there was a "material weakness" that, among other things, enabled a five-year-long, $1 million theft. Poor instructions to counties made it impossible to monitor some spending.

That's just brilliant. Mr. "I'm trying to save the state money" Pawlenty is allowing theft of money his office controls.

What does that make Pawlenty supporters? Ignoramuses? Or hypocrites?

Michele Bachmann apparently deaf

I just came across this video clip of Michele Bachmann. Judging from her inane and completely from-another-planet responses to the people around her, I would have to say she is completely deaf.

I can't believe this idiot was ever elected to any office. I guess it demonstrates that her supporters are likewise "deaf" idiots.

The problem with right-wing fear mongers

From the comments section on the Washington Monthly site, comes this:

the seal wrote: "She [Sarah Palin] is the only republican who is even dimly aware of the (white)working class, and she speaks their language."

That's hardly the case. Most of Rush Limbaugh's audience is "white working class" and much of the language that Palin uses has been pretty much lifted from Rush Limbaugh's script.

As for this discourse being "their language" -- i.e. the language of working class people -- it is really the language of their worst fears, basest instincts and most shameful prejudices, language which is used to manipulate them into despising and resenting other folks who share their interests and supporting right-wing Republican crooks who proceed to rob and steal from them on behalf of ultra-rich corporate oligarchs.

Posted by: SecularAnimist on January 13, 2009 at 1:05 PM | PERMALINK

The important part is the last paragraph. The Republicans I grew up with and admired were good conservatives, full of hope and optimism. They were honest and hard working. They did not manipulate and play to people's fears, basest instincts and shameful prejudices. They did not steal from the poor to coddle the rich.

But that's what many of today's self-labeled "Republicans" have become. Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty and many others sully the Republican name. It's no wonder so many voters have turned away from the party.

I guess that's as it should be. When a party allows itself to be corrupted and hijacked, it's time for it to die -- perhaps to be reborn as a better creature.

Downfall of the Empire, Rome Burns

The news just keeps getting worse and worse here in the USA.

"Bipartisan group works to revive auto bailout" reads the AP headline. Well, yeah, there are corrupt Congress-critters from "both" side of the aisle supporting the taxpayer money giveaway. But they're really all on the same page -- paid off by auto industries residing in their homes states.

And then there's this jerk, South Financial Group CEO Mack Whittle. He takes an $18 million golden parachute just before his company gets $347 million in taxpayer money bailout.

We've already heard about lots of other such cases, like the notorious AIG junket and party paid for its bail-out millions.

How bad does it have to get before taxpayers rise up and storm the offices of these greedy bastard CEOs bearing pitchforks, tar and feathers? Or are Americans so complacent and stupid these days, they won't do a thing?

Many years from now when they write the history of the USA ("a quaint democratic republic which died decades ago due to corporate greed and citizen apathy"), this bailout spending will be noted as a turning point in the downward spiral.

Michele Bachmann: Pathological Liar

Good grief! Now the Minnesota 6th district congresswoman (and FOX TV talking head wanna-be) is claiming what she said is just an "urban legend" -- despite millions of people seeing her say it on video. Bachmann is essentially claiming that Day is Night.

Too bad this kind of stupidity isn't painful or fatal; it would put Bachmann out of our collective pain.

FUD on the Coleman/Franken election recount

Jim Ragsdale of the Pioneer Press gets it right in his November 12 article:

The Coleman campaign, while promising to "work together to get things done,'' has dished most of the dirt, suggesting that normal bounces in the unofficial results are evidence of vote-tampering or worse. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty jumped in this week, saying that the question is whether "ballots from outside the process are going to be allowed in."

I understand the freak-out factor for the Republican team when the net result of the "unofficial" changes has benefitted Franken, the Democrat. That will be sorted out in the recount. But having our top Republican officials suggest that state and local election officials are crooked is irresponsible and reminiscent of the battle in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Tallahassee in November and December 2000.

In fact, Ragsdale says it so well, I have little to add. He finishes his article with this:

Deep breath time. While it is true that Coleman-Franken is also a statistical dead heat and that vote-counting remains an inexact science, Minnesota has two important elements in its favor.

• An automatic statewide recount law. In Florida in 2000, there was no statewide ballot-by-ballot recount. Gore had to seek hand recounts in selected counties. Minnesota law provides for an automatic recount of all votes in close races. It ends with two district court judges, two Supreme Court justices and Minnesota's Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, a Democrat, voting on challenged ballots and deciding who won.


• "Intent of voter" language. Those good Floridians looking at punch-cards for hours upon hours had no law to guide them to determine what a voter intended when the hole wasn't punched clearly through. Minnesota uses paper ballots marked by voters and counted by optical scanners. For incorrectly marked votes, state law gives officials considerable guidance on how to determine a voter's intent.

That was the civics-class version. It will produce a winner, sometime before Christmas. But Florida showed that there are separate legal and political realms where this battle will also be waged. Either side can go to court and contest the election or challenge specific decisions; there is even the possibility of a court-supervised Recount II.

And the political fight goes on. While the Franken side has been quiet, the Coleman team has not gotten out of campaign mode. When the unofficial results change, the Coleman team issues a statement saying that "improbable and statistically dubious chunks of votes appear and disappear.'' Coleman went to court over Minneapolis absentee ballots that his lawyer later said proved not to be a problem. He fired off demands to vote-counters as if he were dealing with a hostile nation.

The tie will not be broken to everyone's satisfaction. Election officials have to check out all allegations, operate out in the open and show their work; but we as citizens do not have to assume the worst until proven otherwise. And we can judge Coleman and Franken by how they allow their supporters to behave in this difficult challenge to our precious democratic system.

Deep breath, indeed. Coleman should rethink his criticism, essentially of every person involved in the election process, and his fear-mongering. He knows the facts better than what his statements say; his complaints about a few hundred votes changing are ridiculous in the face of his benefiting from changes in the thousands in the very same manner in the 2002 election.

Minnesota District 6 Voters: Morons

Last election, where Michele Bachmann was elected to Minnesota's U.S. House District 6 seat, pretty much left me appalled. But to re-elect the biggest nut-job in Minnesota politics? Against a moderate, well-liked El Tinklenberg who has demonstrated success at getting the taxpayer's job done at a couple of positions, both elected and appointed?

That's completely nuts.

One can only draw one conclusion when a district elects a woman who hides in the bushes at rallies, places a lip-lock on the president upon meeting him and repeatedly shoots herself in the foot by making completely false or inflammatory statements -- amongst the many, many crazy, bigoted, racist, and just plain stupid additional things she has said and done.

That one conclusion can only be that too many of the district 6 voters are complete, utter, mindless, uninformed, raving, idiots.

For example, several 6th district supporters claimed they voted for Bachmann because of her "Christian" morals -- as if her opponent, Tinklenberg, a minister himself were not Christian. With that kind "thinking" (or lack thereof), they can't be anything other than plain stupid.

A commenter on the Star Tribune web site (who appears to be named Lisa and live in Savage) describes the situation well:

I don't know what ever happened to the Republican party I used to support. Oh wait... yes I do. The party I used to support did not embrace far-right evangelicals trying to impose their specious religious beliefs upon the rest of us. THAT party lauded higher education. THAT party was fiscally conservative. THAT party embraced reason and logic. Now you all seem to rejoice in your lack of education, celebrate your lack of heart and hold up your fear tactics and warmongering as virtues. I was a registered Republican from 1988 to 2000. George W. Bush drove me away from the party and I remain a proud anti-Republican - voting against the party of theocracy, hatred and fear at every opportunity.

How can any sane person support Michele Bachmann?

Even Governor Sarah Palin is critical of Michele Bachmann's latest foot in the mouth rant:

Speaking with reporters in Colorado yesterday, Palin said she does not agree with Rep. Michele Bachmann’s recent comments suggesting that some congressmen hold “anti-American views,” NBC/NJ’s Matthew E. Berger reports. “Well that's quite subjective,” she said of Bachmann’s comments. “I would think that anybody running and wanting to serve in Congress is quite pro-American because that's what the mission is, to better this country, so I would question the intent of that."

Who are the people who are supporting Bachmann? There is no way she represents mainstream conservatives and Minnesotans.

Brilliant

A brilliant observation by Boris Johnson:

However well-intentioned it was, the catastrophic and unpopular intervention in Iraq has served in some parts of the world to discredit the very idea of western democracy.
The recent collapse of the banking system, and the humiliating resort to semi-socialist solutions, has done a great deal to discredit - in some people's eyes - the idea of free-market capitalism.

Democracy and capitalism are the two great pillars of the American idea.

To have rocked one of those pillars may be regarded as a misfortune.

To have damaged the reputation of both, at home and abroad, is a pretty stunning achievement for an American president

This is why our country is in a mess

Is the rest of America populated by people as stupid as this? Or is it just Minnesota?

It's all over the media, how John McCain dialed back the hatred and incitement at his rally in Lakeville, Minnesota, where he defended Barack Obama and asked for respect for his opponent. The eyes of the world are on Minnesota once again.

Here's how the Star Tribune reported one particularly boneheaded Minnesotan's racist remarks at the rally:

Late in the town hall meeting, Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee called Obama "an Arab." Taken aback, McCain shook his head and, taking the microphone from her, said, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

After the rally, Quinnell was unrepentant. "You can't trust Barack Hussein Obama because he is a Muslim and a terrorist," she said.

Obama is a Christian, and has been all of his adult life.

Moreover, what if a politician were Muslim? Or Jewish? Or Buddhist, or Catholic, or whatever religion? Should it matter in a country where church and state are supposed be separate?

Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee is just exactly the kind of person who has caused this country to sink so far from the Founding Fathers' vision. Ignorance is not bliss, and bigotry is worse. It's harmful to our nation and to the well being of all its citizens.

What is Norm Coleman hiding?

This video of Senator Norm Coleman's spokesman repeating himself endlessly in stonewall mode over a couple of suits is both hilarious and worthy of some concern. If this is how Coleman reacts to minor questions about something as trivial as the shirt on his back, what kind of reaction can we expect over more serious and controversial issues?

Actually, we should already be very concerned. Anybody who would stonewall on such a trivial issue must have something to hide. The more he refuses to simply answer yes or no, the more it looks like he's got something to hide. What is it?

No Bailout!

It looks like Congress is about to stick us poor taxpayers with the $700 billion bailout of the fatcats on Wall Street -- tonight.

Citizens contacting their representatives and senators were 100 - 200 to 1 against the first bailout bill, and that's why it failed to pass. Now is the time to call your Congress person and tell them no again. Otherwise, they'll sell us down the river.

No economist has made the case that if this bill does not pass, we will suffer 10 years of double-digit unemployment like we did during the Depression. But politicians and Wall Street bankers all throw the word "Depression" around to cow the taxpayers in fear, even though there is no evidence we are facing such a thing.

If this bill passes, once again the wealthy gamblers on Wall Street will make out like bandits, not learn their lesson, and continue their greed-filled business as usual while we taxpayers and out children and our grand-children get stuck paying the bill. And because Wall Street didn't have to feel the pain and pay the piper, this same mistake and cycle will happen all over again before the 22nd century. Will the taxpayers get screwed again then?

Tell your Congressman: vote no on this $700 billion bailout bill!

Trillion dollar accident?

When the taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident. This is intentional, by men who were willing to plunder the economy for their personal greed and ideology, and who had every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the taxpayers pick up the tab.

Congress shouldn't tinker on the edges of the administration's bail-out proposal. Their substitute plan should put the pain on the pin-striped grifters where it belongs, instead of on those Americans who have been repeatedly victimized by them.

The financial market meltdown

John McCain's former economic adviser is ex-Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

Last February, Fortune Magazine called Gramm "McCain's Econ Brain." Gramm lost the official title of economic adviser for making an impolitic remark about this being "a nation of whiners." But Gramm's belief in letting speculators do as they please was never an issue. And even after he left the campaign, Gramm had been mentioned as a possible treasury secretary in a McCain administration.

On Dec. 15, 2000, hours before Congress was to leave for Christmas recess, Gramm had a 262-page amendment slipped into the appropriations bill. It forbade federal agencies to regulate the financial derivatives that greased the skids for passing along risky mortgage-backed securities to investors.

And that, my friends, is why everything's falling apart. That is why the taxpayers are now on the hook for the follies of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns and now the insurance giant AIG to the tune of $85 billion.

Reuters, estimates that when you combine all of the bailouts and other rescue deals orchestrated in the past year, taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $900 billion, or about $6,500 from each and every taxpayer (not including interest, of course).

I don't think conservatives have truly grasped what this means for the big picture. The fact federal authorities had to essentially nationalize the largest mortgage companies and the largest insurance company within weeks makes the government's role in our financial markets unprecedented. This is not the Republican party I grew up with.

Wishing for Tim Pawlenty

Readers of this blog will know I can't stand Tim Pawlenty as a governor. He sold out the welfare of this state for a stupid promise to the noTaxpayers League. He's a lying, cheating, conniving politician who will do almost anything to get ahead. I completely disagree with most of his policies.

But he's not ignorant, and he's not rash, and he's not a religious nutcase.

Sarah Palin is all of those.

So here I am wishing that Tim Pawlenty would have been John McCain's pick for VP. At least then when McCain was elected, we would have VP who would have a Clue. As much as I might disagree with Pawlenty's ideas, they would be much more carefully considered, more fully informed and a whole lot safer for the country and the world than anything Palin might do.

Sarah Palin, nitwit

The thought of Ms. Palin sitting across the table from the likes of a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chills me to the bone. It is quite possible she could be the President of the United States of America. She really does not have the experience in the international arena.

Ok, let me hear it -- "neither does Obama." Let's compare!

Obama spent 3 years as a community organizer, became the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, created a voter registration drive that registered 150,000 new voters, spent 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spent 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, became chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spent 4 years in the United States Senate representing state of 12.8 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees.

Sarah Palin's resume is: beauty queen, local sports girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people. Then she's qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive? Not.

Brent Johnson, Belle Plaine: Idiot

Brent Johnson writes to the Editor of the Star Tribune newspaper to whine about the government spending money on mass transit, demonstrating vast ignorance or something. Sadly for us, but perhaps happily for him, he has lots of company in his half-witted belief that only the [mass] "transit system" is heavily subsidized. Never mind the trillions of dollars in general revenue which have gone into the nation's highways over the past decades, eh?

Keep in mind that this was only part of the $6.6 billion bill for higher gas taxes and other fees to bring in more money not only for roads and bridges, but an already heavily subsidized transit system!

BRENT JOHNSON, BELLE PLAINE

Second Ward, Minneapolis: DeLaSalle Astroturf

I'll be damned. A local politician gets it right. Minneapolis City Council member Cam Gordon points out the complete hypocrisy and favoritism begin exhibited by his council member colleages in his blog posting "Second Ward, Minneapolis: DeLaSalle Astroturf."

FUD and worse

The so-called Minnesota Voters Alliance is pursuing a lawsuit against Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) -- after thousands of citizens worked hard to enable it -- claiming such nonsense as it would confuse senior citizens. As these three letters to the Star Tribune newspaper illustrate, the Alliance is doing nothing more than spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). It's not too difficult to figure out why, either. They don't really represent the voters -- who with IRV actually get an improved chance to voice their will -- but instead the "inside" interests who stand to lose some of their power, some of their undemocratic grasp on the political system.

To the Minnesota Voters Alliance, I say FOAD. I hope the court throws your silly suit right out of court.

Media morons

Go, Ron Paul, go!

The corrupt, inept and brainless mainstream media refuses to acknowledge Ron Paul even exists, yet he managed to out-poll Rudy Giulani in Iowa.

And that 5th place rank was only out of third by a few votes, while Paul's 5th place was quadruple the votes of Giuliani's 6th. The critics were pretty much all wrong.

Stanek ever less popular

Stanek's self-promotional video just keeps making people unhappy. The Star Tribune is reporting that private e-mails it obtained from City Hall contain numerous criticisms of Stanek and the video by Minneapolis Chief of Police Tim Dolan and Mayor R.T. Rybak. They challenged Stanek's accuracy in recounting what happened during the recovery phase.

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek

Minnesotans continue to suffer Rich Stanek. Why can't this big jerk just disappear, once and for all? Never have the least deserving risen so far in Hennepin County, it seems. Stanek no doubt believes he deserves it all, having an ego bigger than the state of Montana. Why, just look at his recent self-promotional video.

FOX 9 News "has discovered that the $30,000 production was produced by the same folks who helped run his campaign, and according to a memo leaked by a local blog... some of the claims in the video are just not true." Watch the video yourself and see how Stanek used $30,000 in taxpayer funds to pay for his new self-promotional video.

The TC Daily Planet reports: "The total cost of the video was $30,000, but the job was split at $15,000 between two companies -- $15,000 is the threshold for bidding on county projects." Gosh, what a coincidence.

Ron Paul, 2008

Now here's a Republican I can get behind, running for president. He doesn't pull any punches about the state of our society today. It's like a breath of fresh air.

Now if only we could get a breath of fresh air here in Minnesota, especially in the governor's office. Do we have to wait until another bridge collapses?

I urge all my readers (yes, all 6 of you) to support Ron Paul's presidential campaign. I am.

Strib editors get caught adding a conservative spin to wire story

Your humble and obedient servant came across a new site chock full of interesting local information today, The Daily Mole. I've just started to dig into the site, but a couple of interesting posts got my attention for starters. The first is the article with the same title as this post: Media: Strib editors get caught adding a conservative spin to wire story. It just figures, doesn't it? One or two of the remaining editorial page writers and columnist Nick Coleman remain obviously liberal, but the rest of the news and opinion is slanted to favor the right, usually in subtle ways.

The other article was the amusing report that the Minneapolis Parks site was hacked by Russians. One has to wonder how reliable any data on the site is now that it's become obvious that it is easily altered by nefarious external parties using very simple methods.

Expensive

Ouch, that hurts right in the pocket book.

But apparently, most people are numb to the pain. So far, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the average Minnesota family about $20,000.

One would think the penny-pinchers over at the Minnesota [no-]Tax Payers League would be howling loudly about such a large withdrawal from their piggy banks. But they aren't, are they? No, they only scream when we spend a fraction of that amount on educating our kids and keeping them healthy.

Far better to spend a hundred times as much blowing up people who were never a threat to us, and turning thousands of American men and women into corpses or life-long hardship cases -- maimed, disabled, traumatized.

Well said.

Address by Salt Lake City Mayor Ross Anderson

This is not Minnesota-specific, except that it challenges any politician or public leader in Minnesota to stand up, show some moral courage and speak out against the disaster that is our situation today. If Mayor Anderson can do it, especially in a very conservative state like Utah, why can't others?

Anderson puts it so well, that I reprint his entire speech here. The link leads to a PDF copy on the Salt Lake City official website.

Address by Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson on October 27, 2007
Salt Lake City, Utah --

Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”

“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.”

“You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.”

“You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.”

“We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!”

“You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation’s treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

“Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false ‘patriotism,’ our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before.

It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense – when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling – and disgraceful. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand? What part of the “Golden rule” do you not understand? What part of “be honest,” “be responsible,” and “be accountable” don’t you understand? What part of “Blessed are the peacekeepers” do you not understand?

Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, ‘We won’t take it any more!’ ”

“As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nation’s values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places – for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good of our world.”

In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.

It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.

In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress’s sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment.

We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country – and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people – 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks – a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.

As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: “You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions.”

“But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say ‘We won’t take it any more.’”

If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders – the leadership has to come from us. If we don’t insist, if we don’t persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy – and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration – and to candidates running for office – and to the world – that we support the status quo.

Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what’s right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part.

Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.

It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.

How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses.

Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness?

We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don’t cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.

Let’s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: “We won’t take it any more!”

I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say “No more” and mean it?

I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.

If we expect our nation’s elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted – that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided, principled leadership.

The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we won’t let it go on one more day – that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation’s reputation in the world.

Let us be unified in drawing the line – in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.

In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as Americans – and as moral human beings – we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.

Michele Bachman, unabated hypocrite

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachman remains the unadulterated hypocritical nutcase she's always been. Now she's whining about TV advertisements attacking her vote against health care for children in the SCHIP bill. Journalist Eric Black nails her latest hypocrisy over on his Eric Blank Ink blog.

Pawlenty has a credibility problem

Governor Pawlenty has gotten by with a lot of dishonesty with his boyish looks and aw-shucks mannerisms. But yet again, here's a perfect example of how his credibility is really zero among anybody who actually thinks. Nick Coleman nails it in his recent column:

"At no point did anyone say the bridge needed to be closed," the governor has said.

But according to an Aug. 19 Star Tribune story by reporters Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe, state officials had "talked openly" about the possibility of a bridge collapse.

Inspection reports dating to the 1990s suggested critical issues required "immediate maintenance" and calls for that maintenance grew more urgent after the Pawlenty administration took office in 2003.

Maybe it is coincidence that Pawlenty-Molnau imposed a no-tax ideology on state government, especially in transportation, where Molnau cut back on snowplowing while laying off employees and placing loyalists in key positions.

But what we have now in the Mississippi is a bridge that was carrying 140,000 vehicles a day despite missing bolts, cracked girders, severe corrosion and a tilted pier -- a bridge with parts "beyond tolerable limits."

A leader shouldn't say he didn't know the bridge might collapse. A leader demands to know why his appointees didn't tell him it might fall.

Maybe this catastrophe will result in a few more people using their brains.