Minnesota Realty Blog n News

More than one DFLer has been baffled as of late how they made it onto an email list for 5CD Congressional candidate Tammy Lee. The hottest thread on the Minneapolis Issues List has indeed been “Tammy Spam,” speculation on how Lee obtained DFL lists. An observant poster has identified a possible source of these lists–former Ember Reichgott-Junge campaign manager, Lori Jacobwith. On the FEC filings website you can see a in-kind contribution to Lee’s Campaign from Jacobwith on September 29, 2006 in the amount of $400 for “Received lists.”

The issue is probably not one of the legality of the contribution but rather the violation of DFL party rules by Jacobwith.

********************************************************************************
In the continuing saga of Lee’s campaign of emptiness, Lavender photoshops Tammy next to an old photo of a clean-cut Jesse Ventura and declares it news that the former guv and the magazine endorsed her.

Elsewhere in the pale purple rag, Keith Ellison is identified as “one of the most outspoken GLBT-allied candidates.” Yet, Lavender had previously endorsed Ember Reichgott-Junge over Ellison and now endorses Sweet Tammy Lee.

********************************************************************************
Finally, a little sympathy for Tammy who is no doubt regretting her flirtation with the sicko fucks at Kennedy vs. the Machine. His candidate reduced to whining and trying to save face, KvM’s Gary Miller recently reverted to full blown adolescence and, in a stupid attempt at a parody of the 5th CD race, reduced her to a blow up doll whose whole campaign is based on her being “smoking hot,” the description of her made by one of his ghoulish partners in rhetorical crime in an earlier post.

Welcome to the fat white underbelly of Republican politics, Ms. Lee. And happy Halloween.

–Loosestrife

Original post by Loosestrife

If money and media exposure always determined the outcome of elections, then Ember Reichgott-Junge would be cruising to a Congressional seat right about now. That she is not says something about her losing ways, but it also tells the story of this election season–the center point of American politics is moving left for the first time in over a decade. It also means that that the 5th CD is changing–we are becoming more diverse and more racially tolerant.

And it says something about Keith Ellison’s ability to connect with disparate elements in the district.

While Joe Lieberman appears to be headed back to the Senate, his defeat by Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary was the beginning of the end of for Democratic Leadership Council true-believers nationally, and Reichgott-Junge’s pathetic performance in the 5th CD primary confirms the heydays for the DLC are over. It’s not that centrism is dead, but the pro-business/free trade/globalism at all costs variant is a dessicated wisp of its engorged Clintonian self, Hillary notwithstanding.

**********************************************************************************
Keith Ellison, as the 5th CD representative remains problematic for many good Minnesotans, liberal, moderate, and conservative alike. Three reasons not necessarily in this order: he is black, he is Muslim, and he is a left leaning populist.

Tammy Lee is none of these things. And, she is blander than the Ember, who at least has some personality, albeit in a Tracy Flick kind of way. Lee is all surface innocence, cute moderation, and crisp Minnesota diction. Scroll through the photo album on her web site, and you’ll see the same expressionless smile whether she is down at the bowling alley with the peeps or rubbing up against Tim Penny and George Soule.

Soule is her campaign treasurer, and that tells me a lot–he is a prominent Republican attorney who self identifies as a moderate, when convenient. A quick look at his contributions on Open Secrets shows that he is a donor to Mark Kennedy and Norm Coleman. He also contributed to Mike Erlandson’s ill-fated run for the DFL 5CD endorsement and primary.

Which closes an unseemly circle, since Erlandson thus far has refused to endore Ellison, and his boss Martin Sabo appears on the Tammy Lee website in what Doug Grow has called an Norwegian Endorsement.

How odd. A convergence of Republicans, a former DFL party chair, the present 5th district DFL Congress Person, Independence Party regulars, and a fair number of Minneapolis List pro-law and order types behind a candidate with no experience as an elected official at any level. What drives this distinctly white group from supposedly divergent idealogical orientations to support the “new girl”?

Well, it ain’t her qualifications. I challenge anyone to demonstrate how Tammy Lee’s career has prepared her for U.S. Congress.

Is it her brillance? Yet to see it. Her agenda? Standard issue Independence Party attempt at triangulation. Or is it that she is “smoking hot” as one revved up right-wing blogger observed? That’s in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

No, I think it is pretty obvious that Tammy Lee’s support only exists because of Keith Ellison’s color, religion, and politics. What would James Baldwin say?

Regardless, we are told that Tammy Lee is really a Democrat who would caucus with the them if elected. That’s a convenient thing to say now that Republican fortunes appear to be shrinking (she was less than clear about that when her campaign began). Joe Lieberman says the same since he too needs conservative Democratic votes to win. It says nothing about how Lee or Lieberman would vote in Congress. If she were a real DFLer, she’d have run as a Democrat.

Lee’s position on the war is vague, “honoring our commitments to combatting terrorism and creating peace in the middle east” and “an orderly staged exit strategy that,” among other things, “protects against nuclear threats from bordering Iran.” Huh?

“Spend less. Get better government.” That sounds like Tim Pawlenty to me, a line calculated to appeal to Taxpayers League types while promising greater “efficiencies.” We all recognize that budget is out of control under Bush, but the problem is ill-advised tax cuts, pork, and profligate military spending. No mention of that from Lee, of course.

I heard Lee using her hybrid Ford Escape as an example of her environmental committment. Global warming, however, is not mentioned on her web site. Too negative I suppose.

*******************************************************************************
Struggling to remain the attractive empty vessel that can be all things to all people is getting tough now for Lee.

On Wednesday, the excreable blog, Kennedy vs. the Machine, endorsed Lee–a fact foregrounded on her web site early in day before, I assume, someone at headquarters figured out that she was tipping her hand. Mention of the endorsement disappeared totally from the website. Nonetheless, she sent a nice note to the boys at KvM thanking them while they ogled her.

The Lee team replaced the enthusiastic notice on the KvM endorsement with an equally gushy acknowledgement of a vapid Rake piece supporting her over Ellison. Tom Bartel’s endorsement is another Ellison attack piece: read in vain to find even one mention of Lee’s politics.

And so it goes. Tammy Lee is simply the anti-Ellison: white, female, surburban, vague on issues, and willing to kiss Republican ass. She’s never taken a truly controversial political stand in her life, I bet. And if we send her to Congress we will get more of the same, the smile, the go along to get along, and the appeal to “common sense”.

As the saying goes, common sense tells us that the earth is flat, and the sun goes around it.

Tammy Lee’s candidacy is based on fear–fear of a black planet.

Don’t be fooled.

–Loosestrife

Original post by Loosestrife

“Sloth. Greed. Abuse of power. Hatred of Democracy. Government as a cheap backroom deal. . . . And brains too stupid to be ashamed of any of it.”

No, not Dean Zimmermann.

That’s how Matt Taibbi sums up the 109th Congress, “The Worst Congress Ever,” in the latest Rolling Stone.

It’s a good companion piece to the Bill Moyers thing I keep bringing up, “Capitol Crimes.”

Taibbi isn’t as polite as Moyers, cutting his journalistic teeth in post-Soviet Moscow at the incorrigible Exile , founding The Buffalo Beast, and almost bringing down the New York Press with his notorious article on the death of the pope. He is, however, one of the best journalists working the national political beat: nonpartisan, nondelusional, self-reflexive, funny, and profane. Had Hunter S. Thompson ever grown up, he might have become Matt Taibbi.

Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article digs into the disturbing “congressional methodology” of the Republicans on the Hill. And after finishing “The Worst Congress Ever,” you’ll wonder whether supposed “good” Republicans like Jim Ramstad and compliant DLC Democrats like Joe Lieberman are more contemptible than the cynical bastards like John Kline and Mark Kennedy.

After all, Ramstad and Lieberman have to know better but remain quietly complicit in the now well-documented scam run by the Republicans for the past six years.

–Loosestrife

Original post by Loosestrife

It’s been a fun couple of days watching the Repugs sputter and spiral.

While enjoying ourselves, W signed a bill that guts our rights–the Military Commissions Act.

Here’s Keith Olberman on the death of Habeas Corpus.

Think about it. Even you stupid bastards in the Northern Alliance.

–Loosestrife

Original post by Loosestrife

Three weeks to go to the pivotal 2006 election, and it looks like the Democrats will take the House and have at chance at the Senate.

Michele Bachmann’s epic fuckup in consort with Daddy Mac Hammond of the “Living Word” megachurch may well seal her Godly fate. Appearing onstage at one of Hammond’s religious “services,” Bachmann went over the top and hot for Jesus.

That was bad enough, but Daddy Mac possibly cooked his church’s nonprofit status and served it on a platter to the IRS by publicly endorsing Bachmann in front of the congregation. (Kudos to Ken Avidor for capturing the video and to Dump Michele Bachmann for unceremoniously sharing it with the world. And God bless YouTube.)

The day after, the FBI raided six locations as part of an investigation of Pennsylvania’s Curt Weldon, already running behind his Democratic opponent, Joseph Sestak, in a race for the 7th District Congressional seat.

That night I watched Tavis Smiley’s conversation with David Kuo, author of Tempting Faith, the new book disputing the sincerity of Bush’s Christianity. Kuo’s appearance is hard to shake. He’s a convincing fellow and comes off as genuinely hurt by the Bush team’s cynicism towards their own base. Of course, his account resonates with the Bill Moyers on America episode, “Capitol Crimes,” that I talked about in my last post.

That’s not to mention the Mark Foley scandal.

It seems that the Republicans are at risk of reaching a tipping point where mere affiliation with the Party becomes a negative. It may already be happening.

In poll after poll, Democrats are gaining ground across the country. Coleen Rowley has picked up 12 percentage points on John Kline, who looked to be a lock with a 20% lead a short time ago. Even Mike Hatch seems to have found some traction against Teflon Tim Pawlenty.

And it is cool to be liberal again. No amount of right wing bile in the remaining three weeks can change that. Suddenly, the Dems have the advantage–preserving a wider political spectrum within their party now means broader appeal while the increasingly sectarian rhetoric of the Republicans (think Terri Shiavo) limits their ability to motivate the moderate voters who the Repugs always assumed were really social conservatives.

The Republicans have shit loads of money, however. The question for them is whether Bush and Company have so disgraced the Republican name that party affiliation–and the word Republican–is itself now a negative with many voters.

If that is the case, the more they spend getting their message “out there” the worse it could get for them.

Here’s hoping.

–Loosestrife

Original post by Loosestrife

I was hit by a personal tsunami of political awareness in the last twenty-four hours.

First, I read the G.R. Anderson’s City Pages article on Michele Bachmann. You should too. It will explain a lot about how her personal ambition guides her faith and why attacks against her hypocrisy don’t work. She is comfortable in her hypocrisy–since, as the title of the article says, she is “The Chosen One.”

Shortly thereafter, I witnessed the pathetic “Impeach for Peace” March wind through downtown Minneapolis. Utterly predictable and completely banal, the ragtag largely white marchers shuffled through their act in hippy drag chanting the same tired slogans and beating an arrhymthic drum. Already, the chatter has started about the fine protests to be held outside the Republican convention.

Wake up, folks. Those in power are waiting for us. Action is no doubt needed, but let’s not do the same ol’ ineffectual shit–the puppets, the slogans, the signs, the kissing of the media’s ass, the sacrificial arrests. Ignoring the Repugs convention and generating something of our own might be far more useful than bitching about the “free speech” cage into which many of us would willingly march.

Then, I watched Bill Moyers’ unrelenting On America episode “Capitol Crimes” on the corruption endemic on Capitol Hill–and in our culture. I knew much of the information–although I learned a lot about how religion, business, sleaze, and Congress are intertwined–yet I was left wrung out by utter depravity on display. Like a refrain to Michele Bachmann, Tom Delay says something about wanting people to see Jesus through his mug shot. Pardon my sacrilege, but Christ Almighty.

Maybe the biggest revelation is the utter cynicism on display among Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Mike Scanlon towards the church goers who make up the Christian Right, who we on the left often assume are in on the deal.

No, it appears that the cynical bastards behind the money mill in Washington looked at working class Christians with almost the same contempt held for the Indian tribes that they likewise bilked for millions of dollars in order to pedal influence and line their pockets.

Seriously, regardless of whether you agree with my politics or my distrust of organized religion, you need to watch this Moyers’ thing. It ain’t pleasant, but before you vote in November, you need to see it. You can watch it on the web, and the web site has lots of solid supplementary material.

Finally, I woke early to leftover coffee and Crooks and Liars, the essential website if you want to watch the dissolution of the republic. There I found another video document that I recommend to all. Keith Olbermann has been noted mostly for his feud with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, but as of late, he has risen out of the tar pit to an Edward R. Murrow level of erudite journalism. Watch his special comment demolishing George W. Bush’s administration not with some lame “Bush lied, People died” sentiment or faux outrage, but with a methodical yet passionate exposure of the cynicism, lies and incompetance.

But what does all this leave us with? Sorry to say it, but we need to vote Democratic in this election, and when I say we, I include the Christian working class folks and the alt left too. It is sad that we have sunk to this level where we have to rely on the Democratic party–and believe me I will be pinching my probocsis–but the alternative is a referendum wherein the Bush, Norquist, Abramoff, Delay, and their ilk–including the smiling Timmy Pawlenty– will return to finally put a stake through the Republic’s heart, assuming that it still has one.

I have no illusions about the limits of the Democratic Party, but as Norm Ornstein says in the discussion following the Moyers documentary, this level of sleaze in government as invented by the modern Republican party is something quite different. Ornstein didn’t say it, but I will. To vote Republican, or regrettably, to vote Green or another third party, in this election is to tacitly approve the final preparations for an uniquely oily Bushoid fascism. With Democrats in, the work will just have begun, but with a Republican victory, the tools we need to change things will be taken from us.

–Loosestrife

Original post by Loosestrife