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.

Wobbling bridge finally fell

This seems to be rather revealing: apparently the 35W bridge was felt to wobble by construction workers resurfacing it on the days preceding its collapse.

Here's a letter to the Star Tribune editors, talking about that point:

The bridge had been wobbling

In the Aug. 4 front page article "Disbelief gave way to action for first responders," there was a recounting of information gathered from Minneapolis Police Sgt. Tim Hoeppner. On page A11, the continued article reads, "Hoeppner talked to construction workers who survived the fall. They had been doing repair work but expressed concern to him that the bridge had been wobbling several days before it collapsed."

What?! This is shocking! It goes on to say, "Every layer of concrete the workers removed, the bridge would wobble even more, they told Hoeppner."

Can Star Tribune reporters find out if these workers passed this information to supervisors, MnDOT or to other government representatives?

The headline should have been, "Wobbling bridge finally fell."

LAURA THOMAS, MINNEAPOLIS

Sure enough. I just re-read that article, and here's what it said:

At the site, Hoeppner talked to construction workers who survived the fall. They had been doing repair work but expressed concern to him that the bridge had been wobbling several days before it collapsed. Every layer of concrete the workers removed, the bridge would wobble even more, they told Hoeppner.

I think that's a pretty good clue that further investigation should have been done.

Why did the 35W bridge collapse?

Virtually every state in the USA gets the majority of its money for interstate and U.S. highways, as well as bridges for such roads, from the federal government. The federal government is also the biggest fund source for all transportation projects. The majority of the money for light rail projects, such as the one completed recently in Minneapolis, come from the federal government. The federal DOT also specifies the safety and construction specifications which must be used for any projects which receive federal dollars. Despite that, the blame doesn't lie with the federal government. On-going maintenance and inspection responsibility generally lies with each state, even if reconstruction projects obtain federal dollars.

In Minnesota, the responsibility for maintenance of the 35W bridge lies with MnDOT, the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Of course, MnDOT's direction and funding come from elected and appointed politicians. MnDOT has been headed by Lt. Governor Carol Molnau, who was appointed to the position by Governor Tim Pawlenty in 2003.

The Pawlenty/Molnau administration (coming up on 2 terms now) have been in favor of tax cuts, and have strangled Minnesota's widely-praised high investments and pay-offs in infrastructure and education. Now the state's infrastructure -- highways, airports, railways, etc. -- and education system are suffering.

According to this story in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

On her watch, MnDOT staff has been reduced 15 percent to 4,587. Last year, the department's professional engineering staff was down to 420, a 9 percent drop during her administration.

The union representing MnDOT's blue-collar workers contends she has cut muscle and bone, even down to short-staffing the state's snowplowing needs.

"Morale in that department is at an all-time low," said Bob Hilliker, state field director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5.

Last year, highway contractors rebelled when MnDOT asked its construction companies to front the state up to $96 million to help finance the I-35W-Crosstown project when federal payments were delayed. The private financing plan flopped, forcing postponement of the $250 million project for a year.

The harshest criticism of Molnau, by both Republicans and Democrats, is that she has failed to advocate for the funding required to meet the state's transportation needs. By MnDOT's own estimates, there's a $1 billion-a-year gap between its anticipated revenues and needs from now to 2030 - and a $2.4 billion annual shortfall for the next six years.

She opposed increasing gas taxes to plug that gap, arguing instead for more borrowing and moving the state toward a tax based on how many miles people drive instead of how much gasoline they use - a system she acknowledges will take several years to develop. Pawlenty shared that view and vetoed gas tax increases passed by the Legislature in 2005 and earlier this year.

"I don't think she has had any vision of transportation, and she did not advocate for the department, and I think that she should," said Rep. Ron Erhardt, R-Edina, who has long supported a gas tax hike.

ANTI-TRANSIT REPUTATION

No fan of rail mass transit, Molnau hasn't shared Pawlenty's enthusiasm for the Northstar commuter rail line and light-rail lines in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

"She is very hostile to transit and transit interests, actively so in my opinion, and hostile of any inquiries that are made of her on transit," said Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, who served with Molnau in the House and now chairs a Senate transit subcommittee.

Molnau has turned the MnDOT into a train wreck in progress. Good people are leaving and have left, because of the hostile environment promulgated from the top and because of butchered budgets.

Prior to being Lt. Governor, Molnau was the chair of the state legislative committee which made all the financing decisions for state transportation spending. She held that position for many, many years. She gradually choked all the money out of the system over those years, piling up huge amounts (billions) of deferred maintenance and upgrades. People who spend hours sitting in traffic jams, wasting time and gasoline, and generating pollution can thank Carol Molnau. In the late 1990s, Molnau was asked about the increasing traffic jams in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metro area. Her reply (paraphrased from the radio) was essentially: "What traffic jams? I commute every morning to the capitol from my home in Chaska and don't see any traffic jams." Molnau neglected to mention to the reporter that she typically commuted to the capitol at 5am, before most people were even awake, so of course, she didn't see any traffic.

But Molnau was not alone in this. At the same time she was in the legislature de-funding MnDOT, Tim Pawlenty was the house majority leader, whipping the rest of his Republican party members into voting against needed infrastructure funding. Now as Governor No New Taxes, he has continued to cut into the quality of life Minnesota was famous for, a result of its earlier investment in infrastructure and education. He has twice vetoed small gasoline tax increases -- a tax which has fallen far behind inflation having not been increased in many years.

Molnau and Pawlenty are a new breed of Republican in Minnesota, cut from the same cloth as GW Bush, it seems. Past Republicans, like former Governor Arne Carlson, are in complete opposition to the wrong-headed methods practiced by the current administration. MnDOT is a sick, twisted version of its former self. Corruption oozes from the Pawlenty administration. It's no surprise that bridges like the one which collapsed are not getting the inspection, repair and replacement attention they need. The Federal government rated the collapsed bridge as "structurally deficient" in 2005. Nothing has been done to remedy that situation since. Pawlenty was elected in 2002.

Draw your own conclusions.

Plays a doctor on TV

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom thinks he knows medicine better than physicians, apparently. As physician David Lang wrote in a recent letter to the editor:

Now a top-notch study, published in last month's issue of the peer-reviewed journal Neurology, has come to the exact same conclusion that my patients have been telling me for years: Medical marijuana is an effective treatment for this kind of pain.

So I had to shake my head when I heard that Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom testified that there are "no scientific studies" supporting marijuana's effectiveness. In addition to this very recent article, supportive studies have appeared in respected journals like the American Journal of Surgery, the British Journal of Cancer and Molecular Pharmacology, among many others.

If Backstrom feels that his training is sufficient to debate with the researchers, doctors and patients who have firsthand knowledge of medical marijuana's benefits, that's his prerogative. But to claim that "no scientific studies" demonstrate those benefits is demonstrably false.

So is Backstrom an egotistical, arrogant jerk, or just a fucking moron? Why is it that politics seems to select for idiots?

When the going gets tough, Minneapolis gives up

The bonehead politicians in Minneapolis are about to commit historical hara-kiri. They seem to be all together on ramming the idiotic idea of giving the city library system to the county. Is there any other major city in the USA that has been unable to run their own library system, especially if that city happens to be the largest city in their respective states? If so, I'd like to know about it, because of all them that I'm aware of seem to be able to accomplish this seemingly insurmountable for Minneapolis task.

I'll bet even Omaha (as in "Cold Omaha") does a better job.

One library board member speaks out at this link: http://www.buzz.mn/?q=node/861

Then there is this little editorial in the Monday Star Tribune which demonstrates just what a bunch of bullshit the city hall argument about not enough money to run the libraries is. They currently spend far more to pay for the convention center than the libraries need, yet dollar for dollar, the libraries return a much higher economic value to the city.

Well said, Jim Lynskey

In a letter to the editor, write Jim Lynskey gets it spot on with regards to idiot Ron Carey, state Republican chair:

When state Republican Party Chair Ron Carey claimed that the goal of voter registration should be "quality, not quantity" (Star Tribune, Feb. 25), he confirmed my suspicion that Republicans still don't understand the word "democracy."

I bet Ron would be happy if we just went back to having a poll tax -- and maybe taking the vote away from blacks and women, too.

Dear Taxpayer: BOHICA

Dear Taxpayer: BOHICA

Here's a little proposal I'm sure all Minnesota taxpayers and voters would support unanimously: spend tax revenue on building and supporting websites for family members of elected officials. After all, the minor quibble about the voters not having voted for those family members can't be enough to complain about, right? And the state has plenty of extra money, right? All the school districts statewide are fully funded, every city and park has all the money it needs, and all the highways and bridges are in top-notch repair, are they not? Those family members would never use state resources simply as a ruse to generate positive propaganda for their elected parent or spouse.

So why not? We're a generous state, right?

What's that you say? Family members of elected officials are simply private citizens like the rest of us? And they shouldn't be abusing and using state resources that we taxpayers worked so hard to provide? (Anybody out there want to pay more taxes?)

Well then...

What the fuck is up with Mary Pawlenty, the governor's wife, having a state-created and maintained web site?

Miss Construed

Miss Construed

Nut job U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann is living up to her reputation as the premier kook from Minnesota. Joe Bodell's article on the Twin Cities Daily Planet sums up the latest contretemps (to put it lightly) Bachmann has managed to create. As one respondent put it, one has to wonder if she thinks she's hearing voices from God.

Follow the link for Bodell's spotlight story.

Latrell Sprewell Greed Award Goes To...

Latrell Sprewell Greed Award Goes To...

You may remember back in late 2004, when Latrell Sprewell, who played basketball for the Minnesota Timberwolves, announced he had a problem. He was worried about being able to feed his family. At the time, he was being paid $14.6 million a year by the Timberwolves. But what really worried Latrell was that the Timberwolves had offered to pay him $21 million for the next 3 season, a mere $7 million per year. When it comes to greed without shame, Latrell Sprewell is one of the guys leading the league.

Now I read where Investment Management president Bruce Lambrecht, who has had personal and political ties to Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein, is whining about the number of millions of dollars Hennepin County is about take from its tax payers and give to his company so that it can build a stadium on his land. Stenglein said that when the county filed for condemnation two months ago, Lambrecht said to him, "God, Stenglein, you guys are condemning our livelihood."

Richard Pogin, chief financial officer of Investment Management Inc., which represents the property owners, said Friday that the county has budgeted a maximum of $13.5 million to buy the site, which he said is far below its fair market value. County officials have declined to make public what they have offered, though county records list the property's assessed value at $8.37 million.

So basically Lambrecht helped get Stenglein re-elected specifically so that the county would buy his land and make him richer, but $13.5 million isn't enough!

Bruce Lambert gets one of our Latrell Sprewell Ten Most Selfish and Greedy Minnesotans award for 2007.