Tag Archives: Erik Paulsen

Edina Surfs the Blue Wave

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It’s not like they’re going to hold the next Bernie Sanders rally at the Edina Country Club, (“The ECC” to us in the ‘hood), but I’m here to tell you, your father’s Edina is fading away like the old man’s canary yellow Olds 98, ill-fitting chrome trim and all.

Amid all the “Blue Wave” news after Tuesday’s elections — with a Democrat knocking off one of the least popular governor’s in the country, Matt Bevin of Kentucky, and Democrats taking full control of the legislature in Virginia, few paid much attention to the school board elections here in Edina, where, for the record, all children are exceptional and entitled to the privileges of enviable zip-coding.

While ostensibly non-partisan, once the seven candidates announced, it took the social media grapevine about a morning to figure who was on what side … and who had any tolerance for the Center of the American Experiment, the local, well-heeled conservative “think tank” that has spent the past few years trying to convince us Edina-mites that by failing to choke off the in-flow of kids from, you know, those other places, crazed socialist liberals were degrading the quality of the education of those children who, you know, belong here.

The basic charge, more or less, is that Edina’s children, their bright, pure minds open and eager for the tools to achieve, are instead being subjected to “liberal indoctrination” from teachers rolling in too much touchy-feely “empathy”, likely in response to the modest influx of kids whose ancestors worked on the plantations of our Scottish-English-German forebearers.

Those others you see, not being hedge fund traders or tech entrepreneurs by genetic stock, simply don’t test as well as our cherished off-spring. They’re a statistical burden. Also, given too many others, our children might waste valuable childhood networking time socializing with people who will, let’s be real, never qualify for an American Express Centurion Card.

The net effect is that this … this … caravan of immigrants … brings down the test score curve and sorely diminishes Edina’s standing among all American high schools. A standing that has already eroded from the top .001 of U.S. schools to only the top .005. The horror! The degradation of our precious property values! My god, they might as well roll a double-wide on to the lot next door!

The lead face/name of this elegantly cynical fear-mongering has been Katherine Kersten, best known for her years defending 1950’s-style Edina Country Club white male ethno supremacy in the Star Tribune.

Point being that soon after the slate of names appeared last summer even those of us currently without children in district schools, (our two precious and entitled little achievers chose to attend Minneapolis’ Southwest High to hang with their grade school buddies), sent our antennae up. We were looking for clues for who among the candidates was or was not on board, or playing “fellow traveler”, with Kersten and the Center of the American Experiment’s dog whistle racist “test score” bullshit.

So, finally getting to the lead … I am extraordinarily happy to report that none of the three winning school board candidates owe any fealty to Kersten and her swamp of sour, dime-deep thinkers. It was a wipe out. All instead were endorsed by Education Minnesota, (an anti-American cult of “jack-booted socialist thugs” if you’re a right-wing media fan).

One of the defeated candidates was Lou Nanne. No … not that Lou Nanne, hockey legend … but his grandson, (although happy to let anyone confuse him for the famous old geezer). Nanne the much younger made very little headway with Edina’s new blue moms by arguing that the time had come to start issuing guns to Edina’s teachers. (I didn’t hear this out loud, but the reaction was kind of along the lines of, “Dude, this is Edina, not Big Lake or one of those Sixth District free fire booyas.”)

With DFLer Dean Phillips flushing out UnitedHealth/Medtronic/St.Jude bag man Erik Paulsen in the 2018 Blue Wave, and liberal women — Rep. Heather Edelson and Sen. Melisa Franzen, representing this end of God’s Greenest Acres — the picture is getting dimmer and dimmer for any Republican, much less anyone so foolish as to play any note of lunkheaded Trumpism.

As we saw in the suburbs of Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday night, college-educate suburban woman have had about enough of what the Republicans have been selling since 2016. Not to make dangerous generalizations, but I like to think such women are a bit more attune to role modeling than your average hyper-competitive tribal corporate warrior husband.

And — speculation here — those gals have reached something like maximum revulsion/disgust/mortification at the model of “leadership” Donald Trump has been embodying — and Republicans have been defending — for America’s youth … whether entitled, pre-school networked, esteem-enhanced and mostly white … or not.

Paul Ryan Cashes In

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Raise your hand if you’re surprised Paul Ryan wants to spend more time with his family.

As a “small government conservative” Ryan has spent essentially all of his adult life cashing government checks, (with those sweet, sweet government health care benefits). His ascension to national influence is due primarily to his deft cooperation with and service to Wisconsin’s and then the country’s wealthiest citizen benefactors. His promise to them has forever been two-fold. A: Repeated rounds of tax relief followed by, B: a dramatic gutting of social services, otherwise known as social spending “reform”.

Having delivered the former, in a package that guarantees a return to trillion-dollar deficits, he has in effect accomplished both, and can now dump the daily aggravation of his political gig in favor of a Tim Pawlenty/Norm Coleman style pay-off in the private sector, or put another way, by going to work directly for the .1%-ers who have kept him in DC for 20-plus years.

(Ryan achieves a fresh gutting of social services to poorer Americans by driving deficits up so high conservatives have fresh horrifying numbers to rage and rail that “spending is out of control” … once Democrats are back in power and red ink matters again.)

As loathsome as Freedom Caucus torch-carriers like Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan are, they are at least naked about their subservience to Robert Mercer-scale political “investors”. What’s always disgusted me about Ryan is his snake oil image of a serious, concerned public servant all the while he consents to the same noxious policies promoted by the truly shameless wing nuts of the modern conservative movement.

Very much like Newt Gingrich before him, Ryan is “what dumb people think a smart guy sounds like.”

Besides seizing the cash-out phase of his career, Ryan, being another character who is all about self-serving political calculus, knows that campaigning as a Republican this year is not going to be any fun. Not with Donald Trump looking ever more like a delusional third-tier mob boss and anger at DC descending from swamp to sewer more intense than it has been in a century. Even as Speaker of the House, Ryan was not going to have a pleasant time out in public in his own district. Like Erik Paulsen and Jason Lewis here in Minnesota, he knew public appearances with an actual cross-section of voters was going to be an extraordinarily perilous experience.

I’m still not convinced that a giant “blue wave” is going to sweep across the land this November. There are hundreds of millions in dark money available to spread any hysteria imaginable to prevent that from happening.

But clearly Ryan, the calculator, (aka “the zombie-eyed granny starver”  TM Charlie Pierce), has read smoke signals on the horizon and decided that moving now to profiteer off his “public service” is a far better option than being screamed at and vilified across southern Wisconsin.

 

 

Paulsen and Kline Finally Support A Jobs Bill

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Erik_Paulsen_John_KlineIn the past, I’ve been critical of Minnesota Republican  Congressmen John Kline and Erik Paulsen for not doing enough to address America’s chronic unemployment problem.  But I have to hand it to them, because yesterday they passed legislation ending the government shutdown that will immediately put 800,000 Americans back to work, and stabilize the economic position of many others.  That’s fantastic news.

Unfortunately, Paulsen and Kline haven’t always been so strong supporting job creation for Americans.  They both refused to support President Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that, according to the independent, non-partisan organization FactCheck.org, created a whole lot of jobs:

“…the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has “[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points” and “[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.”

Simply put, more people would be unemployed if not for the stimulus bill. The exact number of jobs created and saved is difficult to estimate, but nonpartisan economists say there’s no doubt that the number is positive.”

Paulsen and Kline have also refused to support pending legislation proposed by President Obama, the American Jobs Act, that, according to private sector experts, would stimulate millions of more jobs:

Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi: “The fiscal boost from the jobs package next year would be larger than in the first year of the 2009 economic stimulus, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. Zandi, who was briefed on the plan before the president’s speech, forecast passage of the entire jobs package would add 2 percentage points to economic growth next year and bring down the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point compared with current policy, under which a temporary payroll tax cut and an extended unemployment benefits both expire Dec. 31.”

This morning Economic Forecasting FirmMacroeconomic Advisers issued a report: “We estimate that the American Jobs Act (AJA), if enacted, would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term. The various tax cuts aimed at raising workers’ after-tax income and encouraging hiring and investing, combined with the spending increases aimed at maintaining state & local employment and funding infrastructure modernization, would: Boost the level of GDP by 1.3% by the end of 2012, and by 0.2% by the end of 2013. Raise nonfarm establishment employment by 1.3 million by the end of 2012 and 0.8 million by the end of 2013, relative to the baseline.”

…Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons said, “The President’s proposed combination of personal and business tax relief, targeted spending to support infrastructure, and aid to states offers several direct and innovative ways of creating jobs and bolstering our economy. The President’s focus on assisting small business is spot on, since small business is the engine of job creation.”

Finally, Paulsen and Kline have refused to support legislation to end the “sequester” of billions of dollars federal funds.  CBO economists say lifting these spending cuts would immediately add millions more jobs for the American people.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday estimated that keeping the spending cuts from sequestration in place through fiscal 2014 would cost up to 1.6 million jobs.

Canceling the cuts, on the other hand, would yield between 300,000 to 1.6 million new jobs, with the most likely outcome being the addition of 900,000, the CBO said.

“Those changes would increase the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.7 percent and increase the level of employment by 0.9 million in the third quarter of calendar year 2014 (the end of fiscal year 2014) relative to the levels projected under current law,” the report states.

Again, these are the job creation bills that Kline and Paulsen have historically refused to support.

But I do want to give credit where credit is due.  The bipartisan legislation Paulsen and Kline supported yesterday will immediately put 800,000 more Americans back to work, and end a government shutdown that will have cost taxpayers, according to Standard and Poors, about $24 billion.  That’s $24 billion that isn’t circulating in the economy creating jobs.

Forget that Kline and Paulsen originally did nothing to speak out against their fellow House Republicans who were giddy in forcing these 800,000 Americans out of work.  At long last, Paulsen and Kline have supported a jobs bill.  Here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a trend.

– Loveland

Note:  This post also was featured in Minnpost’s Blog Cabin.

Which MN Candidates Will Sign The Pull-The-Plug Pledge?

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Pull_the_plugAs a general matter, I despise campaign pledges.  Candidates are continually badgered by interest groups to pledge in writing that they will always do X, or never do Y.

The Problem With Pledges

The problem with most pledges is the “always” or “never” parts of them.  The world changes, and policy positions therefore sometimes need to change with them.

  • Pledging to not increase taxes today may make sense at one point in history, but a few years later the circumstances may have changed dramatically.
  • Pledging to support a policy or project now may make sense, but not after surprising new information surfaces.
  • Pledging to tax millionaires may make sense at a time when they’re not paying their fair share, but not a few years later when circumstances may have changed.

So sometimes making policy shifts isn’t  a sign of weakness or dishonesty, as pledge enforcers often claim.  Sometimes, shifting is a sign of courage, vision and integrity.

That’s why I don’t like most campaign pledges.

Pull-the-Plug Pledge

But I came across a pledge the other day that fits our times, and has an infinite shelf life.  South Dakota congressional candidate Rick Weiland challenged all congressional candidates to sign this simple pledge:

“I hereby pledge that, if elected to represent you, I will never vote to shut down your government, or to place your government in default, in order to force it to act, or to prevent it from acting, on unrelated issues.” 

As a voter, I want to know where every Minnesota congressional candidate stands on this Pull-The-Plug Pledge.

Flat_line-2If there are candidates out there who think it is acceptable from them to pull the plug on the American people’s government and economy, that is their right.  But it’s also the right of the overwhelming 72% percent of Americans who oppose the Republicans’ current plug-pulling scheme to be forewarned of a congressional candidate’s position on that  issue, so that they can vote with their eyes wide open.

Yes, Americans and their policymakers must always be able to make their government a different size and shape as future circumstances dictate.  This pledge doesn’t prevent them from having such flexibility. It simply says it’s not acceptable to completely pull the plug on the American economy and government.

So, Tim Walz, Mike Benson, John Kline, Mike Obermuller, Paula Overby, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Erik Paulsen, Tom Emmer, Rhonda Sivarajah, Phil Krinkie, John Pederson, Judy Adams, Collin Pederson, Rick Nolan, Stewart Mills III, Monti Moreno, Chris Dahlberg, Mike McFadden, Julianne Ortman, Jim Abeler, and Al Franken, will you sign the Pull-The-Plug Pledge?

– Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota‘s Best of the Blogs.

Mullet Brotherhood Starts Draft Shelby Drive

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Bloomington, Minn., July 31, 2013 — A national hair style advocacy group called the Mullet Brotherhood announced today that it was organizing a drive to draft legendary WCCO-TV anchorman Don Shelby to run for Congress against Minnesota 3rd Congressional District Representative Erik Paulsen.

After retiring from the anchor desk, Shelby became a cause celebre in the mullet-American advocacy community when he let his hair down, the hind half of it.  News reports that Shelby may run for Congress have caused a buzz among mullet activists anxious to see one of their own representing them in Washington.

“Former Governor Pawlenty had a chance become the first mulleted President, but unfortunately he dumped us for a Super PAC-approved cut,” said Floyd “Flow Joe” Joyner, President of the Mullet Brotherhood.  “We’ve long admired Mr. Shelby’s silver cascade, and would dearly love to see that bad boy in the Capitol Building.”

Joyner admitted that the road will be long for Shelby.  Protesters outside the news conference mocked Shelby and the group with various forms of hate speech, such as hockey hair, ten ninety, helmet hair, coupe Longueuil, haircut o’ death, neckwarmer, shorty longback, the 10-90, the Kentucky waterfall, the bi-level, the faded glory, the Ben Franklin, the Missouri Compromise, the Louisiana Purchase, the Camaro crash helmut, the business cut (business in front, party in the back), the LPGA, the soccer flip, the convertible, the Tennessee top hat, the Canadian passport, the New Jersey neckwarmer, the Chattanooga choo choo, and the neck blanket and the Wisconsin waterfall.

“If that ‘Wisconsin waterfall’ label sticks, that could be the end for Shelby,” said Dr. Harold Cloister, political science professor at St. Thomas University.  “I’d look for Shelby’s handlers to spin it as more of a Minnesota Mudflap.”

With the exception of a few short-lived fads, hind heavy hair has been slow to be accepted in contemporary mainstream society.  Though fossil records indicate that homo sapiens with primitive mullets have walked the Earth for at least 130,000 years, it was 2001 before the word “mullet” even appeared in dictionaries.  Mullet activists see a Shelby candidacy as a historic opportunity to normalize the oppressed mulleted minority.

“We did have Governor Ventura in the State Capitol a few years back, but to be honest there is a rather ugly debate within our community about whether a skullet should be considered to be in the mullet family,” said Joyner.  “Naturally, we value all forms of unbridled neck hair, but many feel that crown-based flow is a necessary element of the art form.  But dandy Don’s ape drape, dude, we all get goose bumps about that mofo.”

Joyner announced the launch of a Draft Shelby website www.DonsDo4u.com.  Along with a draft petition, the site also is selling “Don’s Do 4U” trucker’s hats, with a faux silver mullet flowing from the back.

Mr. Shelby refused to comment for this story.  However, in previous news reports he has indicated that he has not yet ruled out becoming “a terrible congressman.”

Why Don Shelby Will Never Run For Congress

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Do not, repeat, do not believe the “Don Shelby Mulling a Run for Congress” hype.  Political reporters, bored with their jobs in the dog days of a non-election year, desperately want Shelby to run against the ever-bland Erik Paulsen.  But it’s not going to happen.

Anchors like Shelby need to be the center of attention, with a battery of cameras forever trained on their every move.  Being in a body of 435 egomaniacs leaves one obscure.  Our local version of The Donald does not do obscure.

Anchors need to be in control, with entire newsroom staffs at their beck-and-call.    Being the most junior member in a seniority bound institution leaves one a pawn.  King Don does not play the pawn.

Anchors need to feel above-the-fray of distasteful partisan politics, forever avoiding even a hint of controversy. But in Congress one is forced off the fence to vote on the most contentious issues of the day, and one’s hair gets mussed in the ensuing scuffles.  And above all else, Dandy Don does not do mussed hair.

If Shelby runs for Congress, it will be because he is in denial about these realities, and denial is certainly a possibility for the humility-challenged amongst us.  Shelby adores the current attention from political reporters, but he does not appear to be a stupid man.  There is no way he will give up his elder statesman role on WCCO-TV and the rubber chicken circuit for the rough and tumble of partisan politics.  He does seem to sincerely care about environmental issues, but not as much as he cares about preserving his local image as a legendary newsman.

– Loveland

Note:  This post was also featured as a Best of the Blogs by Politics in Minnesota.

Franken Opponent Wish List

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Minnesota Senator Al Franken doesn’t have a high profile challenger yet in the 2014 U.S. Senate race.  People don’t seem to be flocking to run against Franken at a time when a January 2013 Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey is finding that Senator Franken is leading former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman by 6 points, Congressman John Kline by 8 points, Congressman Erik Paulsen by 11 points and Congresswoman Michele Bachman by 14 points.

Despite these findings, 45% of Minnesota Republicans want to nominate Bachmann to oppose Franken. I would be in Blogger Heaven if a Franken-Bachmann race came to be, but I find it difficult to imagine that I, or Franken, could possibly be so lucky.

Given that the conventional candidates like Coleman looks to be taking a pass at the Senate race, maybe it’s time for the Minnesota GOP brain trust to get unconventional.  These are some of the match-ups that I personally day dream about: Continue reading →

For 30th Time, Bachman and the Gang Misread Obamacare Public Opinion

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When it comes to Obamacare, Minnesota Congressman Michele Bachman could not be more certain that she has public opinion behind her.  For instance, in her latest broadside, she signed a letter to all 50 Governors urging them to avoiding implementing Obamacare insurance exchanges to help Americans obtain affordable coverage, Bachman cited an oft repeated myth:

I urge all Governors to let Congress finish the job the American people sent us to do, to fully repeal Obamacare and replace it with common-sense free market solutions.

“…the job the American people sent us to do, to fully repeal Obamacare and replace it…” Whether they are spinning or they actually believe that, they are wrong.  This notion that a majority of the American people want the Affordable Care Act repealed or weakened is demonstrably false.

A June 2012 Kaiser Permanente poll is the last latest to show that a majority (53%) either wants to “keep the law as is” (25%) or “expand the law” (28%).

At the same time, only 38% of Americans support what the Republicans propose.  The Kaiser poll finds that 18% of Americans said Congress should “repeal the law and replace it with a Republican-sponsored alternative,” and 20% said Congress “repeal the law and not replace it.”

So, yes, a majority doesn’t support the law as is, because so many Americans, myself included, would have liked the law to have been stronger…if there had been congressional will to do so.  But it simply is not true that a majority of Americans want to do what the Republicans propose to do to the Affordable Care Act — real it or repeal and replace it.

And so today, for the 30th time, Michele Bachman, John Kline, Erik Paulsen, and Chip Cravaack will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  And for the 30th time, they will be dead wrong about the will of the American people.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post was also featured as part of the “Best of the Blogs” feature in Politics in Minnesota’s Morning Report.