North Star Politics

Quoting a Nazi does not a comparison make. MDE has overreached again.

Stupid error of judgement or malicious lying? You decide.

"I hate taxes but taxes user fees are great!"

We already know that Minnesota Republican bloggers are nothing more than appendages of the MN GOP. Now, we have news that the big national conservative blogs will be soon, if they're not already, controlled by the national GOP.

Yes, conservative friends, the GOP is "using" your blogs.

If you want some independence and diversity of opinion in your reading, read some blue-tinted blogs. If you want party-line hackery, read some red-tinted blogs.

Republicans in the Minnesota blogosphere are the classiest people I know.

To the people at Kool Aid Report: this is unbelievably offensive. I demand that the Nazi images be taken down immediately and that you issue an apology. I absolutely condemn the Rowley campaign's Kline image but that doesn't hold so much as the tiniest sliver of justification for this. You should be ashamed of yourselves - even from Republicans, I honestly expected better.

Absolutely disgusting.

Why are KvM and RM misleading by stating that Amy Klobuchar misled about Mark Kennedy's record?

First, why do KvM's links supposedly refuting an Amy Klobuchar statement not work?

Why is KvM (and RM, by extension) lying about Kennedy's supposed support for COPS? Even though they say that "Kenendy [sic] did no such thing" voting against increased funding for the COPS program, he actually did. Twice. At least.

Here's a roll call vote on an amendment (H.Amdt. 249 on H.R. 2862) explicitly showing that Mark Kennedy did NOT vote to increase COPS funding. And another roll call, on H.Amdt. 263 on H.R. 2862. That's twice that he voted against the increases. Did Kennedy vote against the program before he voted for it?

Oh, my only other beef with DFLers.org (other than their not blogrolling NSP) is the lack of an RSS feed. How about it, folks?

UPDATE: DFLers.org has added a link on their blogroll to this blog. Thanks!

Strib's got an article today about the new DFLers.org blog. It's a good article, but here's the punchline:

Although the state Republican Party does not have its own blog, [MN GOP communications director Mark] Drake said it has a good relationship with bloggers across Minnesota who promote the ideas and messages of the GOP. (emphasis mine)

Ever wondered why blogs like Republican Minnesota and MDE spit out GOP press releases, line by line, on any given day? Republicans literally count on them as their own blog, using them to get out the talking points. It's why we never have nor never will see any serious criticism of the party, its people, or its policies from Republican bloggers - they're too far in the GOP's pocket. Think back - how much criticism have you ever seen a right-wing blog throw at anything but a Democrat?

When you read a blog like this one or any of the other left-wing blogs on the blogroll, you're reading something that's the opinion of the author, not just a press release, because I know that if you want to read straight-up press releases, you can easily find them. This blog is here to provide original analysis of and commentary on politics. That's a little harder than parroting, Republican blogs - take note.

This blog has been snubbed on the DFLers.org blogroll, despite this blog's nearly entire blogroll being included. Thanks, guys!

Republican Minnesota continues the flaming hypocrisy, condeming queenmaking on the part of the DFL, even after the party that he represents has absolutely cleared the field for Mark Kennedy. No field-clearing, king/queenmaking, or whatever you want to call it has taken place on the DFL side of the Senate race.

Since your grasp of politics seems weak, RM, let me lay it out for you. People start running in endorsement contests and primaries, and if they don't have enough support, they drop out to save time and money. Amy Klobuchar has shown herself to be the best candidate, and is now the nominee presumptive. Mike Ciresi considered his options, realized that Klobuchar has a near-lock on the endorsement and his entry would have been counterproductive to the DFL's chances in the general election. No queenmaking, unless RM has a single shred of evidence of his ridiculous speculation that the DFL promised Ciresi a free ride in 2008.

BONUS hypocrisy: RM talks about "spoiled rich Democrats" on the ballot, referring to Kelly Doran and Matt Entenza. This from a blogger representing a party which represents the interests of the rich almost exclusively. Newsflash, RM: Kelly Doran earned the money that he now has, growing up far from wealthy and working to put himself through school. Is the American dream only for Republicans?

DOUBLE BONUS HYPOCRISY: Republican Minnesota calls DFLers.org a partisan "attack blog". Hey, RM, even if it is (which it's not), at least they're getting paid to write it!

Hallelujah, Ciresi's not coming into the race. It'll sure make for an interesting 2008 if he decides to run, but I'm just ecstatic that he's not trying to do it this year.

I have nothing at all against Ciresi, by any means; in fact, I know next to nothing about the guy. I just think there's a time and a place for entrance into a race, and when it's in the final stages, as this one is, that window has passed. For Ciresi to enter now, or even in the past couple of weeks, would have been a major shake-up of a primary race that was winding down, and instead of a strong candidate for the DFL coming out we would have had a dogfight until the last possible second. The continuing race between Ford Bell and Amy Klobuchar is healthy - they've both been in the race for a while now, and despite my endorsement of Klobuchar, I hope the best candidate wins.

While not as ridiculous as the title might imply, the idea of really good fundamentalist debaters is pretty scary. We've already got people like the Pajamaliners with JDs already - we probably don't need any more.

Just too rich. A sprinkling of karma, anyone?

Is MDE joking? In the referenced interview, Al Franken challenges the paper's interviewer and finds him unprepared and either inept or a liar, as evidenced by the first Abramoff question. He shows some spine by refuses to take the crap that the interviewer throws at him. It's a perfect example of bad journalism and of a smart (possible) candidate.

Decide for yourself. Is calling your interviewer out on being stupid acting "flustered"?