The stinking pile of corruption and lies in the governor's office grows ever larger and smells even stronger. Will Minnesotans notice the odor and clean up the mess by showing Pawlenty and Awada out the door? Seems just as unlikely as it is appropriate.

Governor Tim Pawlenty is now calling for the death penalty in Minnesota in reaction to the disappearance of a young woman from Pequot Lakes.

What a big fat lying hypocrite. Let's see — he's anti-abortion because an abortion is killing a potential life and all life is sacred. But he's in favor of putting people to death who have committed a couple of nasty crimes but haven't actually killed anybody (if one can even justify the death penalty in cases of murder). He's a lawyer but spouts off about the death penalty for a man never convicted of any crime for which the death penalty can be imposed. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it is not allowed in cases of rape, for example. Pawlenty must have done poorly in law school.

Pawlenty is just playing dirt-ball politics at a time when people are expressing concern over this young woman's disappearance.

What a loser.

Hook, line and sinker — we've bought the gun industry's BS

The Minnesota legislature passed a "conceal and carry" handgun law this year.

Pro-gun people have repeatedly stated that people with such permits have not and will not misuse their guns.

Governor Tim Pawlenty signed into law an extremely liberal statute, despite hearing testimoney at the state house from a man who was wounded in Mankato by a gun permit holder in a restaurant. Permit holders have not and will not injure, threaten or kill people for other than self-defense? It has already happened. Statements to the contrary are lies.

Gun advocates have also continually claimed they needed guns for self-defense. This report clearly shows that according to pro-gun experts themselves, this claim of self-defense is also completely erroneous.

What's my party?

Someone asked what my political affiliation was. They guessed I was not a Republican, probably because of my recent bashing of the Tim Pawlenty administration. Actually, I've been bashing dishonest politicians for about 26 years, but only recently created this blog.

Perhaps surprisingly, the only political party I've ever been a member of is, in fact, the Republican Party. But I bailed out on them quite a few years ago when it became obvious that it had been hijacked by the religious right, the overwhelmingly dishonest and the politicians completely bought and paid for by the wealthy and big corporations. I was a Dwight Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater Republican — the kind who has a certain set of beliefs in how best to improve society and the country through hard work, self responsibility, honesty and integrity.

Today's Republicans, by and large, vote for what will make their contributors or themselves richer or more powerful, with little regard to the long-term ill effects on society and America. Most of today's Republicans are morally bankrupt, unethical, short-sighted ignorant scoundrels, and they're ruining the country. It's much like the fall of the Roman Empire.

So now I am an independent voter, independent of any party affiliation or loyalty. I vote for candidates who exhibit the most honesty, idealism and integrity: candidates with whom I may disagree on some issues or some methods of achieving results, but men and women who have their hearts in the right place, those who want to make life better for everybody in the long run as public servants, rather than being career politicians or self-servants looking only for personal gain.

I'll happily bash anybody in power who is corrupt, stupid, short-sighted or dishonest. On a local level, that group just happens to be Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota Republican Party at the moment.

Yet another cover-up by the Pawlenty Republicans?

Governor Tim Pawlenty's Commerce Commisioner appointee Glenn Wilson has agreed with the wrong-doer to keep secret a settlement and to not call the $100,000 paid to the state a "fine" in an insurance regulation investigation that lasted two years. Texas-based United American Insurance Company misled hundreds of Minnesota seniors into purchasing policies. Previous Commerce Commissioner Jim Bernstein lambasted the company as deceptive and predatory in a press conference last year, and called Wilson's agreement unprecedented and said,

“ The idea of keeping it secret is breaking faith with the people of Minnesota. You're not allowed to be a shrinking violet in the environment. The people of Minnesota have a right to know what actions are taken against insurance companies, or any companies, that violate state law.”

We Don't Need No Stinking Ethics...

In yet another example of politicians paying only lip-service to ethics, we now read in the paper about how Republican State Auditor Pat Awada audits the very same people who are customers of her political direct mail and signs companies. Of course, self-righteous Awada claims there is no conflict of interest.

But former Governor and State Auditor Republican Arne Carlson says:

“You can't go out and expect to have audit independence when your own company is soliciting the very people that you are auditing.
We have bought into this notion that if it's not illegal, therefore it's OK. That means we will become a society without ethics, only laws.”

Plenty of Excuses

I keep reading letters to the editor and quoted remarks by friends and of associates of Gov. Tim Pawlenty about how he is such a stand-up guy. They say he is honest, highly ethical, sharp, astute at business and law and so forth. Pawlenty is supposed to be so smart about business and legal dealings that Elam Baer's Access Anywhere pay-phone company paid Pawlenty $60,000 for part-time legal and business advice while he was running for governor.

Yet today we find out that Mr. Tim the Brilliant Lawyer did not file a legally-required registration for any company giving legal advice. Yesterday, Mr. Tim the Brilliant Businessman blamed his mistake in filing a financial disclosure on a "confusing form" and bad advice from his tax accountant.

That sure doesn't sound very brilliant to us.

Tim Pawlenty Clones a Human

In an amazing show of courage and advanced science, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who is just a run-of-the-mill lawyer by training, has managed to clone himself. No official announcement of his amazing success has been made, but the evidence is clear. How else can the following factual history be explained?

During 2001 and 2002, Tim managed to do all of these things at once:

1. Run for governor full time
2. Act as House Majority Leader in the Minnesota House of Representatives
3. Make executive strategic decisions as a board member of at NewTel Holdings
4. Run his own company, Bamco
5. Earn $60,000 as a legal advisor to Access Anywhere, a Minneapolis telecom company, working part time over one year
6. Raise 2 children

Imagine how much work and home life you could accomplish if only you had a clone like Tim Pawlenty's to help out. We should demand that Pawlenty reveal his method for producing his clone.

Don your gasmasks!

More and more the stinking, ethical slime pit of Minnesota Republicans connected to the Pawlenty administration look like a who's who list from Jon Grunseth's failed 1990 gubernatorial campaign. For those who don't remember, Jon Grunseth dropped out of the campaign to be replaced by Arne Carlson when it was revealed that he engaged in molesting under age girls.

Look at the roll call:

• Tim Pawlenty, strategist for Grunseth's 1990 gubernatorial campaign.
  
• Victoria Grunseth, former wife, ran unsuccessful campaign for state House seat in 1992. All those companies she supposedl co-founded were "co-"founded by her then husband, Jon. I guess that makes her a rocket scientist.
  
• Elam Baer, senior strategist for Jon Grunseth's failed 1990 campaign.
  
• Timothy Commers, former Young Republican according to my sources, and was Jon Grunseth's driver in the 1990 campaign. He's only 37, so cut him some slack. But don't buy your telephone service from him.
  
• Leon Oistad, involved in various telecom companies, and oh look, he was campaign manager for Jon Grunseth, and former chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota.
  

The list goes on, but heck, just go read all the gory details at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. They've done a good job here and here.

More corruption, more history

We neglected to mention that Tim Pawlenty pal, State Auditor Pat Awada, is also hip-deep in the muddy morass of dishonest telecom companies. Awada ran her own company which was paid to verify that Pawlenty's company was doing legitimate business. State regulators say her company failed in that role.

Then there is Republican strategist Elam Baer, chairman of the board of New Access Communications and advisor to Pawlenty's transition team. A thumbnail outline of these relationships was researched by the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Plenty of graft and corruption

More and more ethical lapses, insider baseball and corruption are making it to the light of day in the Tim Pawlenty administration. The latest revelations regard his dealings in telecom marketing businesses, an industry widely known for exploiting consumers. In fact, the very businesses that Pawlenty was paid by and sat as a board member on were fined over $200,000 in three states in response to consumer complaints.

The list of dirty players includes Governor Pawlenty, his recently resigned Commerce executive Tim Commers and his current chair of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, Vicki Grunseth. Tim Commers was sued for misrepresenting his own telemarketing business. Vicki Grunseth's only "qualifications" for her job are that she was a business executive (ooo! aaah! We are supposed to be impressed, no doubt) for those very same dishonest telecom businesses.

As Matt Entenza said,

"I think it's absolutely clear there is a pattern here of Republican leadership refusing to help consumers and instead working to help their friends and their investment interests. What we have here is a pattern of Republican friends being invited into these deals. We have a pattern of Republican friends protecting one another."

Of course, there are the dodos out there, like letter to the editor writer Patrick Garofalo of Farmington, who thinks that Tim Commers is an "honest and decent man" despite having been sued for dishonesty in his representation of his telemarketing business and being forced to resign his position in the Pawlenty administration.

More and more, it looks like being a Reuplican politician is equivalent to being a crook. And that's why I am no longer a Republican. Long gone are the honest, hard-working Republicans, such as Dwight Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater.

Hook, line and sinker — we've bought the gun industry's BS

The Minnesota legislature recently passed a "conceal and carry" handgun law.

Pro-gun people have repeatedly stated that people with such permits have not and will not misuse their guns. Minnesota legislators passed and Governor Tim Pawlenty signed into law an extremely liberal statute, despite hearing testimoney at the state house from a man who was wounded in Mankato by a gun permit holder in a restaurant. Permit holders have not and will not injure, threaten or kill people for other than self-defense? It has already happened. Statements to the contrary are lies.

Gun advocates have also continually claimed they needed guns for self-defense. This report clearly shows that according to pro-gun experts themselves, this claim of self-defense is also completely erroneous.

Where even the voters are stupid

Usually we observe and critique the muddled thinking and silly machinations of the leaders of Minnesota in this space. Lately, however, one can pick up any mainstream newspaper in Minnesota, and spot the ignorant and moronic voters as easily as the politicians -- simply by readng the letters to the editor or guest editorials.

A few recent examples of right-wing, short-sighted, wrong-headed thinking by people apparently wearing blinders:

Todd A. Voge of Faribault demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of arithmetic and economics in a May 22 letter to the editor by claiming that the state of Minnesota is increasing spending by $300 million, not making cuts. He totally ignores the following facts:

1. Minnesota took over K-12 education funding at the state level last year, moving the spending from the school district to the state. So of course the state will spend more and collect more tax revenue to pay for this, while local tax payers will spend less in property taxes and school districts will receive less. The change in law did not change the amount collected or spent, only where it was collected and which branch of government spent it.
   
2. Governor "King of Eagan" Pawlenty and his pals in the state legislature moved a bunch of spending that was for last cycles budget to this year's cycle to help hide the budget problem last year before the election, rather than making real fixes. It was money that would have been spent anyway, but pushing it forward like that made the previous budget's expenidtures look smaller and the current budget's expenditures look bigger. The reality is it's just a bunch of cooking the books and backroom bookkeeping. They are not real spending increases this year.
   
3. Inflation. Voge has apparently lived his life in a cave and never heard of inflation. His so-called increase has no inflation adjustment in it.
   
4. Population growth. Here's a real Homer Simpson moment: Voge somehow imagines that with more people in Minnesota paying taxes and requiring government services, this can all happen without increasing the state's budget. Voge obviously flunked Arithmetic 101.
   

Of course, maybe we can cut Todd a little slack. His ridiculous statement is essentially the same bullshit that the Republican Party, the Taxpayers League, and the Governor have been trying to feed us. It appears many Minnesotans are foolish enough to believe what politicians tell them without checking any kind of second source of information.


Then there's Mary Thompson of Circle Pines, who demonstrates complete cluelessness and utter simple-minded inanity in her letter in the same issue of the paper. She doesn't want her tax dollars paying for social programs she doesn't personally support. Hello? Does that mean the large number of people opposed to the war in Iraq can stop paying the huge portion of their income taxes that go to support our military?

Mary doesn't want to pay to support Planned Parenthood or the Minnesota AIDS Project. She only wants to pay for criminal justice and road maintenance. We don't suppose it ever occured to her that unwanted children are more likely to become criminals. We don't suppose Mary has ever heard of the overwhelming evidence that it is far cheaper to prevent unwanted children and to support children at risk than to hunt down and imprison criminals. Clearly she must also believe that AIDS only happens to "those" evil people whom she despises. We can only hope that she has to get a blood transfusion in the near future, and gets to experience AIDS first-hand.


Then there are the slightly more sophisticated right-wing nutbars like Jeff Klein of St. Paul who is convinced the citizens of the state all must be intelligent, well-informed voters (see above) who truly wanted to vote in a bunch of Constitution-shredding, right-wing neo-fascists who pander to the wealthy, the religious right and their own self interests. His letter to the editor claims the legislature is simply doing the job the majority of people elected it to do. He conveniently ignores a variety of things to the contrary. The majority of voters did not vote for Pawlenty. Most voters are not well informed -- they are, in general, poorly informed about candidates. Political campaigns are full of "spin" or "lies" and use sophisticated marketing and expensive advertising to sell their candidates. If those techniques did not work, they would not be used. Clearly enough Minnesotans were ignorant enough, or snowed enough by the rhetoric and false promises, that they voted for the people they did. That doesn't mean the legislators represent their interests, however.


David Christenson of Woodbury apparently doesn't keep up with things at all. He complains that he is tired of Minnesota being in the top five most taxed states. Funny, all the recent studies and press we've seen, no matter which side of the political argument they're on, all place Minnesota down in the teens. Relative rankings compared to other states are also pretty much bogus anyway, as we've written before. Some states don't have to clear snow and ice off their highways in the winter, for example. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Need we also point out that one tends to get what one pays for? If you want low taxes, move to South Dakota. Of course, you'll probably have to live in a town with dirt roads and no city sewer services. There won't be much in the way of world-famous cultural amenities or professional sports, etc. We're not in favor of new taxes per se, either, but David's ignorance is painful.

Imagine how many more examples of middle-brow thinking we could find if we were to read every newspaper published in Minnesota. There's no lack of stupid people here, it seems.

Ethics Hoo-Ha

After 2 1/2 hours of argument and testimony Monday evening, the House Ethics Committee indefinitely delayed a decision on censuring Rep. Arlon Lindner, R-Corcoran.

According to one witness, this part stood out:

"Anderson, Lindner's attorney, had his secretary (and wife of 22 years) sit at the testimony table. She stated that she was preparing the letter and typed all of the names. She then went to a "red book" and got the addresses. She implied that she got the -Black from that red book and that since the B was capitalized, she thought it was a name. She then tearfully stated that she was working under stress because she had just returned from out of town, dealing with her mother's cancer surgery, etc."

[It] "sounded like an honest mistake until the folks on the other side went scurrying off to get their copies of the "red book"-- apparently a listing of all members of the legislature and their contact info. Turns out the -Black thing isn't in that red book. Anderson was forced to admit, to the collective gasp of the standing room only audience, that he had created a list of complainants with their personal characteristics indicated. In all the other cases, he separated the name from the personal characteristics with commas. In Walker's case, he used a dash. He then had to own that he was responsible for the gaffe, not the sniffling wife."

I don't know that I am convinced that Lindner should be censured by the House. What really should be happening is the Republican leadership should be removing him from his authority positions on any committees. Republicans should likewise be vocal about personally censuring his remarks. They are not, so one can only assume they (quietly) agree with Lindner's bigotted views on blacks and gays. That Lindner keeps getting re-elected is troubling, as well.

Quid Pro Appointum Redux

I voted against Tim Pawlenty, that's probably obvious. At election time, although I disagreed with his politics and that his "no new taxes" pledge was wrong-headed, I believed he was at least a hard-working, honest guy.

The last few months have demonstrated that I was wrong. He's just another corrupt politician. I commented on his laughable appointment of Vicki Grunseth to chair the Metro Airports commission a few weeks ago in Quid Pro Appointum -- Act I, apparently.

But now comes the news that Pink-Slip Pawlenty has created a position for Ryan Bronson at the DNR, despite such deep cuts in the organization that it'll be a miracle if they can perform their function at all. Bronson will be the hunting and fishing retention recruitment coordinator. While many dedicated, necessary DNR employees will be laid off, Bronson will be getting paid $55,000 a year in this newly created, but wholly unnecessary, position.

Ryan Bronson was a former political director of Pawlenty's campaign, but of course that has nothing to do with the creation of this job, does it?

Overwhelmed by mass mediocrity

Sorry for not keeping up -- it's just not possible, these days. The amount of wrong-headed policy and regulation being output by the state's officials is so large there's just not enough to time to point it all out and comment on it. I often think of just throwing in the towel. People are just too into their own individualistic pursuits to bother noticing that they are being turned into a society of willing slaves by oligopolistic groups in power.

Quid Pro Appointum

In another joke on the citizens (you know, those people singled out in the Constitution as being the only ones who have the power to vote), the Pawlenty administration has made a mockery of the concept of government for the people, instead preferring government for the benefit of wealthy corporations. In this instance, he appointed Vicki Grunseth to chair the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), a woman who has virtually no qualifications for the job whatsoever other than being a party-line Republican who knows how to take marching orders from Pawlenty or Northwest Airlines, as they see fit. Virtually every adult I know is ten times more qualified than this sycophant. Of course, Northwest Airlines is very happy with the selection -- so happy one wants to know how much money they dumped into the Pawlenty campaign (of the $520,218 they donated in the 2001-2002 election cycle, ignoring, of course, the personal contributions of its executives). However, someone should coach Northwest CEO Richard Anderson on improving his spin, since the goals of government versus the goals of private enterprise are quite different. Anderson comments on Grunseth's position by saying, "the airport commission is going to run more like a business." -- as if this were a Good Thing. He's missing the fact that private enterprise strives to make profits for its owners, while government strives to provide representation for all citizens and to provide them with cost-effective services as they so require.

He's probably right that MAC will be run as if it were NWA's own business from now on, now that those pesky citizens are out of the way.

No wonder suburban Republicans think we need to pave every last inch of the inner cities. They are so geographically challenged that their idea of a 45-minute drive during afternoon rush-hour traffic takes them on an indirect route through both downtowns. State Rep. Lynne Osterman, R-New Hope, trying to get from the Capitol in St. Paul for a speaking engagement in Bloomington decided it would only take 45-minutes leaving at 3:15pm, driving via I-94 through St. Paul and then Minneapolis to I-35W to I-494 in Bloomington, 6 miles further than taking I-35E south to I-494, and 7 miles further than the shortest and quickest route of taking West 7th Street / Highway 5 and/or Shepard Road from St. Paul to 494.

Rep. Osterman is obviously not the only person who has made or will make such a navigational mistake. But one has to wonder when legislators and politicians take on micro-managing our transportation infrastructure as if they were experts, when they clearly are not.

How much is that politician in the window? The one with the lobbyist tale?

The Tim "King of the Suburbs" Pawlenty administration is showing that it knows some Latin, specifically quid pro quo. Turns out they have given a big break to a Florida insurance company that made a hefty donation to their campaign. For a mere $15,000 contribution, the American Bankers Insurance Group was able to cut their fine for illegal business practices in Minnesota by more than a million dollars.

Nice, when you're a company facing legal action in a number states. Besides Minnesota, Massachusetts, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington D.C., Washington state, West Virginia, Wyoming and Wisconsin have all pursued legal remedies and have been financially compensated.

All your base are belong to us

Metropolitan Council District 9 candidate Bart Rehbein of Centerville says, "It doesn't make sense to get people living in a certain area and commuting in a certain way when you know they're probably not going to." Huh? Are you want to speak the English?

He's probably trying to say there's no point in doing regional planning because people will just do what they want to anyway. Doh! The fallacy is this: when done properly, regional planning results in zoning, infrastructure like transportation and utilities, tax breaks and much more which provide various incentives and disincentives for living or commuting in certain ways. People are still free to choose, but maybe now they will choose differently because they will be presented with a different set of options, a different group of benefits and costs.

The latter thinking is being demonstrated successfully around the country, even in the worst of the sprawling cities like Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Denver. Typical of our local officials now in office, they continue to leave their heads in the sand, intentionally ignorant or willfully dishonest.

From the Foxes Guarding the Chicken Coop Department

The newly-elected King from the Suburbs Governor Tim Pawlenty nominated attorney Jane Volz to head the Department of Labor and Industry, the department charged with enforcing labor laws in Minnesota. Now it turns out that Ms. Volz didn't bother abiding by the very laws she would enforce as commissioner of this department when it came to her own employees. That was the news a week ago. Despite King Pawlenty's expressed support, it appears the governor's administration has decided to cut their losses and are forcing her to resign.

Volz's law practice specialized in employment law, so if anyone should have been aware they needed unemployment coverage for their employees, she should have. Any remarks about not knowing about it are disengenuous at best and outright lies at the worst. Besides, when was ignorance of the law an excuse?

As Patrick McFarland, executive director, Anoka County Community Action, recently wrote, "It should not surprise anyone that Tim Pawlenty, an attorney who violated Minnesota campaign law to get elected governor, selects as labor commissioner Jane Volz, also an attorney, who violates the very Minnesota labor laws she is charged to enforce."