City Pages defines a compare and contrast between a yo-yo and a lawyer; each wanting the same legislative seat.
HINT: Back the lawyer.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
"Fundamentalists vest great power in the authoritarian leader who brooks no disagreement," Leonard said. "They have an appreciation for Trump as an authoritarian figure." [UPDATED]
The post headline is from here. Check out the item. Make of it what you will.
Some will see it differently than I do. Alabama is different from where I live.
The headline is not enough, so, more:
Some people can rationalize anything. Agenda and cash flows can be part of the subject, but cash flow coverage was omitted from the article. Perhaps that will be next month's article's main theme.
I cannot see any of them covered in the article dying on a cross for anything, any time, at all, anywhere. Can you?
Nor can I see them fitting through the eye of a needle.
The Beast rages, some say.
WaPo.
________________UPDATE_______________
Showing a learning curve, regret and perhaps loathing, for cause; per Breitbart:
Was Ted Cruz invited? Guess. Dying is problem enough, why exacerbate it?
Some will see it differently than I do. Alabama is different from where I live.
The headline is not enough, so, more:
"He has defended the womb," Kilpatrick said. "The president has taken a stand for life. Second, the president has taken up for Israel and has declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Third, he has chosen Supreme Court justices - that's going to turn this nation around. Those three things are why the spirit of Jezebel hates him and wants him out. We may be on the verge of the greatest revival this world has ever seen."
Some people can rationalize anything. Agenda and cash flows can be part of the subject, but cash flow coverage was omitted from the article. Perhaps that will be next month's article's main theme.
I cannot see any of them covered in the article dying on a cross for anything, any time, at all, anywhere. Can you?
Nor can I see them fitting through the eye of a needle.
The Beast rages, some say.
WaPo.
________________UPDATE_______________
Showing a learning curve, regret and perhaps loathing, for cause; per Breitbart:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who was Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) running mate in the 2008 presidential election, has been excluded from his funeral.
Breitbart News has independently confirmed an earlier report in People magazine, which reported that Palin was not sent an invitation and was told through intermediaries to stay away from the ceremony.
McCain fundraiser Carla Eudy confirmed to People that Palin had not been invited — possibly, People speculated, at the behest of the McCain family.
The news comes on the tenth anniversary of the date in 2008 when Palin was announced as McCain’s pick for vice president.
Palin now joins President Donald Trump on the list of those barred from the funeral.
Was Ted Cruz invited? Guess. Dying is problem enough, why exacerbate it?
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
After seeing how Hewitt and her people butchered the investigation into the Golden Gophers football program, new proposals represent an improvement.
Could anything be worse? Getting lawyers in as early as possible to protect rights of the accused is something needed, and a kind of Miranda warning to make the option meaningful would be a sound improvement. The proposed rules are not there yet.
Clearly excluding off campus conduct from school jurisdiciton is better; recall the football program was investigated by skilled professionals with an experienced prosecutor declining to prosecute, before Hewitt's amateurs monkeyed things up greatly. This improvement appears to be a part of the DeVos Department's presently reported revision.
Having a university "hearing" process with no justification of conclusions was a mess, but will it be changed?
Exchange of evidence rather than ex parte unskilled interviews without transcripts was ripe for undiscoverable bias. Having opposing counsel present during any "interview" is only due process, after all, and Hewitt's minions disdained the thought of it.
There is more detail in Strib reporting; but in total it appears a degree of sanity and fairness will be restored.
Replacing the coach who won the bowl game against Washington State while having his entire starting defensive backfield unavailable was a discretionary act apart from any procedures leading to the backfield's absence, and replacing the coach with Joe Rah-Rah will take a few years to see whether it worked or was another Tim Brewster mistake. However, that is a digression to carp against the judgment of campus administration and the athletic department, and until proven otherwise the Fleck-era is here regarded as a mistake to be proven otherwise.
Back from the digression, things may turn out much improved over the previous informal and non-transparent regime.
Off campus is off campus and these are nominal adults who, when off campus, are still subject to criminal law with skilled investigators and prosecutors determining conduct and standards, with transparent procedure unlike Hewitt's. She had an agenda, did it, then hopped to Johns Hopkins leaving a deluge of damage and chaos behind her.
Clearly excluding off campus conduct from school jurisdiciton is better; recall the football program was investigated by skilled professionals with an experienced prosecutor declining to prosecute, before Hewitt's amateurs monkeyed things up greatly. This improvement appears to be a part of the DeVos Department's presently reported revision.
Having a university "hearing" process with no justification of conclusions was a mess, but will it be changed?
Exchange of evidence rather than ex parte unskilled interviews without transcripts was ripe for undiscoverable bias. Having opposing counsel present during any "interview" is only due process, after all, and Hewitt's minions disdained the thought of it.
There is more detail in Strib reporting; but in total it appears a degree of sanity and fairness will be restored.
Replacing the coach who won the bowl game against Washington State while having his entire starting defensive backfield unavailable was a discretionary act apart from any procedures leading to the backfield's absence, and replacing the coach with Joe Rah-Rah will take a few years to see whether it worked or was another Tim Brewster mistake. However, that is a digression to carp against the judgment of campus administration and the athletic department, and until proven otherwise the Fleck-era is here regarded as a mistake to be proven otherwise.
Back from the digression, things may turn out much improved over the previous informal and non-transparent regime.
Off campus is off campus and these are nominal adults who, when off campus, are still subject to criminal law with skilled investigators and prosecutors determining conduct and standards, with transparent procedure unlike Hewitt's. She had an agenda, did it, then hopped to Johns Hopkins leaving a deluge of damage and chaos behind her.
The biggest fraud going, pollsters who told the Clintons what they wanted to hear, and are now trying to sell a skeptical public on their theory that guru stuff is needed to be bought from beltway bandits.
This offends. We care, and do not trust their products. They had their paydays and want more. Give them the middle finger salute and concentrate on grassroots.
The polls were minimizing Andrew Gillum, favoring the establishment [yawn] candidate in Florida. As they told Podesta-Clintons what was wanted to be heard. For a pollster to belittle grassroots intensity and involvement is pure crap.
There would have been perhaps more need for more civil servants had TPP passed, so, go figure that part of worker solidarity.
The public cared much about TPP, which the establishment, who in addiiton to Obama and the Clintons entailed the bureaucrats who'd have benefit from more administrative needs generated by TPP, and TPP was a failure only because public sector labor squashed it.
Labor solidarity is key. Push the minimum wage issue or have the young tune out.
TPP was negotiated in secret to benefit corporate America, and it will take the Democratic Party a long bit of time to lessen the feelings of betrayal the entire exercise generated. Obama let his voters down, so building back trust will necessitate more than a token nod to progressives and workers.
So, where is it, the love for the progressive working base? It is not in pollsters saying you have to buy adds to boost polls. That's a reasonable way, to them, since they sell, and advertisements in the op-ed pages suits their aims to sell as much as will be purchased by established as-we've-always-done-things machinery.
Tout, and when in office actually boost worker concerns for health, shelter, affordable college, quality food and comfortable leisure opportunity. The two job trap breaks family solidarity, wrongly.
YES -- Two spouses each having a career each loves, bless it in the few instances it happens beyond beltway spouses being taken care of in kept positions or consultancies, on the public dime.
All of that is a bottom line proposition you can take to the bank. You doing so, rather than the beltway insiders banking up more, will require a hard push against them, but for the good of workers and the entire nation, please push in solidarity.
Attend to grassroot people and issues. Or be irrelevant Republican-lite and continue seeing the real Republicans skunking the watered down clone product symbolized well enough by a jackass.
End of rant.
The polls were minimizing Andrew Gillum, favoring the establishment [yawn] candidate in Florida. As they told Podesta-Clintons what was wanted to be heard. For a pollster to belittle grassroots intensity and involvement is pure crap.
There would have been perhaps more need for more civil servants had TPP passed, so, go figure that part of worker solidarity.
The public cared much about TPP, which the establishment, who in addiiton to Obama and the Clintons entailed the bureaucrats who'd have benefit from more administrative needs generated by TPP, and TPP was a failure only because public sector labor squashed it.
Labor solidarity is key. Push the minimum wage issue or have the young tune out.
TPP was negotiated in secret to benefit corporate America, and it will take the Democratic Party a long bit of time to lessen the feelings of betrayal the entire exercise generated. Obama let his voters down, so building back trust will necessitate more than a token nod to progressives and workers.
So, where is it, the love for the progressive working base? It is not in pollsters saying you have to buy adds to boost polls. That's a reasonable way, to them, since they sell, and advertisements in the op-ed pages suits their aims to sell as much as will be purchased by established as-we've-always-done-things machinery.
Tout, and when in office actually boost worker concerns for health, shelter, affordable college, quality food and comfortable leisure opportunity. The two job trap breaks family solidarity, wrongly.
YES -- Two spouses each having a career each loves, bless it in the few instances it happens beyond beltway spouses being taken care of in kept positions or consultancies, on the public dime.
All of that is a bottom line proposition you can take to the bank. You doing so, rather than the beltway insiders banking up more, will require a hard push against them, but for the good of workers and the entire nation, please push in solidarity.
Attend to grassroot people and issues. Or be irrelevant Republican-lite and continue seeing the real Republicans skunking the watered down clone product symbolized well enough by a jackass.
End of rant.
Will non-progressive Democrats listen and learn? Flat learning curve too entrenched, or can party elders learn?
A video from Florida. The primary winner for Governor explains the painfully obvious, with an olive branch in naming party names.
It is not about Trump. It is not any kind of "impeachment" howl. It is about people having needs with a Democrat having honest and helpful answers. May Andrew Gillum win the general election. At least progressives have hope, now, in Florida. They voted nicely.
It is not about big donor money buying a state house. It is about being able to resonate with the working people as legitimate and wanting progress.
____________UPDATE____________
Young Turks. Hyperbole can be disarming, or too much. But watch and consider the viewpoint, please.
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
The man campaigned vigorously and had a tour bus. [UPDATE: see short reporting here and here.]
Time for some schooling of beltway beings. Tour buses don't need those expensive consultants doing awful video blurbs to assure losses with excuses. It is time for kittens to experience eye opening.
DWS former staffer learned; so others can also. Be with winners, today's and not yesterday's. HOWEVER BE NOT TOO FAST: Today's reporting has paid attention to DWS, who goes to the general election intending to hold onto her seat in Congress. (Tim Canova mentioned.)
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Young Turks about Politico, with Politico reporting Florida today, here and here. Same Politico, different spin, here. (See photo)
___________FINAL UPDATE___________
Young Turks, thinking positive but November awaits.
Send money, twenty-seven buck increments as you can afford:
https://andrewgillum.com/
It is not about Trump. It is not any kind of "impeachment" howl. It is about people having needs with a Democrat having honest and helpful answers. May Andrew Gillum win the general election. At least progressives have hope, now, in Florida. They voted nicely.
It is not about big donor money buying a state house. It is about being able to resonate with the working people as legitimate and wanting progress.
____________UPDATE____________
Young Turks. Hyperbole can be disarming, or too much. But watch and consider the viewpoint, please.
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
The man campaigned vigorously and had a tour bus. [UPDATE: see short reporting here and here.]
Time for some schooling of beltway beings. Tour buses don't need those expensive consultants doing awful video blurbs to assure losses with excuses. It is time for kittens to experience eye opening.
DWS former staffer learned; so others can also. Be with winners, today's and not yesterday's. HOWEVER BE NOT TOO FAST: Today's reporting has paid attention to DWS, who goes to the general election intending to hold onto her seat in Congress. (Tim Canova mentioned.)
__________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Young Turks about Politico, with Politico reporting Florida today, here and here. Same Politico, different spin, here. (See photo)
___________FINAL UPDATE___________
Young Turks, thinking positive but November awaits.
Send money, twenty-seven buck increments as you can afford:
https://andrewgillum.com/
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
A websearching experiment after a local carry of an AP feed, "Trump accuses Google of biased searches, warns 'be careful'."
Strib.
That merely sets the table for a quite limited experiment:
Websearch 1.
Websearch 2.
One explanation is that for those who write, and read, forming judgments apart from 30 sec soundbite mudslinging political commercials during the football games, there might be an overwhelming predominance one way, which a proper search algorithm would not ignore.
Readers can infer other things, if they want. Readers should independently on their own workstations repeat the two searches. It is not infeasible that Google search algorithms are keyed to Google collecting user data and tailoring returns to the profile as well as the query - just as they do for tons of money with targeted advertising.
Tell'em what they want to hear is not a new thing generated anew by the web, without any precedent.
That merely sets the table for a quite limited experiment:
Websearch 1.
Websearch 2.
One explanation is that for those who write, and read, forming judgments apart from 30 sec soundbite mudslinging political commercials during the football games, there might be an overwhelming predominance one way, which a proper search algorithm would not ignore.
Readers can infer other things, if they want. Readers should independently on their own workstations repeat the two searches. It is not infeasible that Google search algorithms are keyed to Google collecting user data and tailoring returns to the profile as well as the query - just as they do for tons of money with targeted advertising.
Tell'em what they want to hear is not a new thing generated anew by the web, without any precedent.
Not that Tina Smith is a political heavyweight; but what do you make of this?
YouTube. 22 views. Deservedly so.
Doug Wardlow. Yesterday's news.
Literally. Aug 27, City Pages, this link.
There is no cause to hate against transgender people. They're living people, so being accepting is, as the term REALLY means things, pro-life. Living people having to suffer others for no legitimate reason being mean spirited against who they are; why should such suffering be imposed on them? It is cruel. The height of such cruelty is to do it routinely as a paid lawyer. Even if pursued without somebody paying a fee, transgender bashing cannot reasonably be termed pro bono publica by any cogent human.
UPDATE: What law firm is Wardlow with now, if any? Aside from that, he seems more than able to throw mud.
Ask yourself, ask Doug - What record is he running upon. What accomplishments besides some real estate law practice are he most proud of, from all he has done, all of his life. Not what he wants to throw at Ellison, but what positive thing can he say for his past?
It could be an eye opener.
____________UPDATE____________
Wasted talent: Who he is and will be is who he has been, and what he's done and how he reasons defines how he will be consistent in aims and actions, as he shows no will to change. He chases demons that do not exist.
Saving a thousand words.
___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Seeing alliances is educational. From Wardlow campaign webpages, endorsements from the usual suspects:
Minnesota’s Legislative Endorsements
Rep. Cindy Pugh (Chanhassen – District 33B)
Rep. Kathy Lohmer (Stillwater – District 39B)
Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (Glencoe – District 18B)
Rep. Steve Drazkowski (Mazeppa – District 21B)
Rep. Cal Bahr (East Bethel – District 31B)
Rep. Peggy Bennett (Albert Lea – District 27A)
Rep. Josh Heintzeman (Nisswa – District 10A)
Rep. Jerry Hertaus (Greenfield – District 33A)
Rep. Eric Lucero (Dayton – District 30B)
Rep. Joe McDonald (Delano – District 29A)
Rep. Roz Petersen (Lakeville – District 56B)
Rep. Duane Quam (Byron – District 25A)
Rep. Linda Runbeck (Circle Pines – District 38A)
Rep. Abigail Whelan (Ramsey – District 35A)
Rep. Nick Zerwas (Elk River – District 30A)
Sen. Bruce Anderson (Buffalo – District 29)
Sen. Michelle Benson (Ham Lake – District 31)
Sen. Roger Chamberlain (Lino Lakes – District 38)
Sen. Justin Eichorn (Grand Rapids – District 5)
Sen. Dan Hall (Burnsville – District 56)
Sen. Mark Koran (North Branch – District 32)
Sen. Andrew Mathews (Milaca – District 15)
Sen. Paul Utke (Park Rapids – District 2)
Hat tip to Jim Abeler and Peggy Scott for not lending their names. Yet. With Abeler my guess is that there's little likelihood of his name being added. Scott, as best as I can guess, is a wait-and-see.
There is no cause to hate against transgender people. They're living people, so being accepting is, as the term REALLY means things, pro-life. Living people having to suffer others for no legitimate reason being mean spirited against who they are; why should such suffering be imposed on them? It is cruel. The height of such cruelty is to do it routinely as a paid lawyer. Even if pursued without somebody paying a fee, transgender bashing cannot reasonably be termed pro bono publica by any cogent human.
UPDATE: What law firm is Wardlow with now, if any? Aside from that, he seems more than able to throw mud.
Ask yourself, ask Doug - What record is he running upon. What accomplishments besides some real estate law practice are he most proud of, from all he has done, all of his life. Not what he wants to throw at Ellison, but what positive thing can he say for his past?
It could be an eye opener.
____________UPDATE____________
Wasted talent: Who he is and will be is who he has been, and what he's done and how he reasons defines how he will be consistent in aims and actions, as he shows no will to change. He chases demons that do not exist.
Saving a thousand words.
___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Seeing alliances is educational. From Wardlow campaign webpages, endorsements from the usual suspects:
Minnesota’s Legislative Endorsements
Rep. Cindy Pugh (Chanhassen – District 33B)
Rep. Kathy Lohmer (Stillwater – District 39B)
Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (Glencoe – District 18B)
Rep. Steve Drazkowski (Mazeppa – District 21B)
Rep. Cal Bahr (East Bethel – District 31B)
Rep. Peggy Bennett (Albert Lea – District 27A)
Rep. Josh Heintzeman (Nisswa – District 10A)
Rep. Jerry Hertaus (Greenfield – District 33A)
Rep. Eric Lucero (Dayton – District 30B)
Rep. Joe McDonald (Delano – District 29A)
Rep. Roz Petersen (Lakeville – District 56B)
Rep. Duane Quam (Byron – District 25A)
Rep. Linda Runbeck (Circle Pines – District 38A)
Rep. Abigail Whelan (Ramsey – District 35A)
Rep. Nick Zerwas (Elk River – District 30A)
Sen. Bruce Anderson (Buffalo – District 29)
Sen. Michelle Benson (Ham Lake – District 31)
Sen. Roger Chamberlain (Lino Lakes – District 38)
Sen. Justin Eichorn (Grand Rapids – District 5)
Sen. Dan Hall (Burnsville – District 56)
Sen. Mark Koran (North Branch – District 32)
Sen. Andrew Mathews (Milaca – District 15)
Sen. Paul Utke (Park Rapids – District 2)
Hat tip to Jim Abeler and Peggy Scott for not lending their names. Yet. With Abeler my guess is that there's little likelihood of his name being added. Scott, as best as I can guess, is a wait-and-see.
Give 'em money because Republicans covet their votes.
Subsidies, something Republicans dread unless it's public sector cash for them and their private sector corporate cronies. This time launch a trade war, but hope impacted farmers stay "loyal." Encourage loyalty the Republican way; give up billions in subsidies, as if money can buy midterm election love. Do that while mouthing the same old stale platitudes, disdaining the thought of there being intelligence among their base. Just because money buys politician loyalty, why project that attitude to farmers with rectitude?
Pettiness revisited. Who else but Trump. Far, far worse than day late and dollar short. Determined nastiness is unappealing in anyone. [UPDATED]
Seattle PI carrying a Bloomberg feed, "Trump White House Resumes Flag Tribute to McCain After Criticism."
The gist [UPDATED - more quoting before the first ellipsis, and via the second]:
The man was being a real butt.
Who he is, he caved under pressure.
Mueller should take notice of the tendency.
How will Giuliani spin it? Crudely at best. Ham-handed. He's a creature of habit. And of limitations.
Even Don Jr. would have shown more class. Yes, that bad.
And "two million wartime veterans" likely includes Trump favorite, astroturfing "veterans advocate," Hegseth. Who could not raise any such membership numbers for the Kochs any more than he could throw an ax straight and without peril to marching band members. But I digress . . .
______________UPDATE______________
The ultimate insult? Sending a supercilious toady to speak:
The gist [UPDATED - more quoting before the first ellipsis, and via the second]:
(Bloomberg) -- The White House returned its flag to half-staff Monday afternoon following a barrage of criticism of President Donald Trump for ending the tribute to deceased Senator John McCain just one day after he died.
[...] Trump refused to say a word about McCain during events at the White House on Monday, where flags flew at full-staff for much of the day in contrast to honors the late senator received elsewhere in Washington and across the country. The president ignored reporters’ questions on McCain on four occasions and didn’t look at a reporter who asked if McCain was a hero.
After the American Legion wrote a letter to the president imploring him to recognize McCain, Trump relented.
“Our hearts and prayers are going to the family of Senator John McCain,” he said at a White House dinner with evangelical leaders in the evening. “We very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country.”
[...]After reports on Trump’s apparent snub of McCain, American Legion national commander Denise Rohan wrote the president Monday urging him on behalf of the organization’s “two million wartime veterans” to order flags lowered until McCain’s burial to honor “an American hero.” During the day, governors in at least nine states -- Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania -- ordered flags flown at half-staff for the period.
The man was being a real butt.
Who he is, he caved under pressure.
Mueller should take notice of the tendency.
How will Giuliani spin it? Crudely at best. Ham-handed. He's a creature of habit. And of limitations.
Even Don Jr. would have shown more class. Yes, that bad.
And "two million wartime veterans" likely includes Trump favorite, astroturfing "veterans advocate," Hegseth. Who could not raise any such membership numbers for the Kochs any more than he could throw an ax straight and without peril to marching band members. But I digress . . .
______________UPDATE______________
The ultimate insult? Sending a supercilious toady to speak:
Trump said in his statement that Vice President Mike Pence would offer an address in honor of McCain at the Capitol on Friday and that the administration would be represented at McCain’s funeral by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Michelle and Craig Benson and a failed business with an SBA balance owed. There is no Schadenfreude on this, for it was a real business, not that dumb summer camp stuff Sean Nienow stuck the SBA on a few years back.
Small businesses entail risks. This one was reported as a steel fabrication shop, and if steel tariffs at the federal level was a contributing factor, it went unreported by Strib, which per an Aug. 27 item, did report:
Creditors appear to have cut quite a bit of slack. The small business sole proprietorship I know most about, a computer and communications consultancy that stayed viable through the Year 2K tech bubble collapse did not have such accommodating creditors. Vendors imposing cash and carry vs. credit differs greatly from a run-up of two million, half owed the federal government [i.e., owed U.S. taxpayers].
Creditworthiness is of course a subjective call, the accounts can show a pattern but how a pattern is allowed to remain or grow will vary from person to person and from enterprise type to enterprise type.
Nienow's situation was different. Why SBA lent even a penny there is unknown to me. You only know what you read in the news unless you comb over court files, but the Nienow thing seemed to have a miasma to it whereas I would cut the Benson family more slack.
Republicans tanking businesses and perhaps stiffing SBA [indirectly taxpayers] while talking up fiscal responsibility has always amazed me, but the Bensons are as they are, and at least it was a real business, not some hobby stuff.
Whether the SBA should be more aggressive in protecting federal funds in making loan decisions can be debated, but its purpose is to promote small business by making credit available, so it is simply doing its job unless some kind of insider action on the SBA loan brokering was at play. Strib reporting did not identify the SBA loan brokering operation involved in the Bensons' situaiton, which would be good news to know.
Hanky-panky in SBA lending doubtlessly is the exception and not the rule. It is sad that the venture did not meed success with good returns on the investment.
_____________UPDATE_______________
Further detail: Michele Benson per her LinkedIn filing has held herself out to the public as "OWNER" of the business although in the most recent Strib reporting key involvement is shifted to husband Craig Benson; her LinkedIn page stating:
[screenshot taken] Whether such a public representation is legally binding in any way would be for a bankruptcy expert to consider. It does attach her name to the venture, apparently by her affirmative LinkedIn filing.
August 11, 2018, Strib "Recent Bankruptcies" discloses:
It is neither the normal practice nor unusual to use several business names, but both a Minnesota corporation and an LLC are listed; Secretary of State filings respectively here and here.
UCC personal property security interest lien filings with the SoS were not researched. That would include security interests, if any, filed with the SoS upon automobiles, business inventory and equipment, which could be such a firm's major assets. Whether security interests in a firm's payables would be UCC filed with the SoS; you tell me.
Benson appears to have used his veteran status to assist gaining SBA "Veteran Advantage" credit; see, here, here, here [in listing], and here.
Thomas.net, here, notes without a date:
with a link over to here:
Readers and creditors likely might have a better understanding, but some kind of possibly ongoing successorship might/might not apply, per the "Neos Industries" business name. Neos was not further researched.
It appears the Bensons' venture aimed at precision tooling use for high-tolerance production, prototyping, etc., and not heavy commodity steel fabrication as if rebar bending or steel cutting/welding for high pressure refinery usage; etc., so that recent tariff impositions likely were not a failure factor.
SBA notes it is not a lender, but a loan guarantor. If the borrower defaults and the SBA makes payment it likely would then take an assignment and deal with the debtor from a secured creditor position; i.e., not as one of the unfortunate unsecured creditors.
SBA lending types and flavors exist in several forms, e.g., the CMDC pages here and here. Details of SBA use of firms such as CMCD would be known by experts in SBA lending, an exertise not held by this site's author. What is presented here, with links, are returns from brief web searching.
CMDC posts "Success Stories" citing specific borrowing firms.
______________FURTHER UPDATE______________
A Republican penchant for business effort leading to failure is not limited to the Bensons and Nienows. Former Ramsey City Council Member David Elvig's cabinetry, custom business fixtures and furnishings business had been featured as a CMDC success story, per earlier Crabgrass posting. When the housing bubble broke in 2006-2008, it failed. In that instance an actual market disruption led to an ongoing firm hitting the shoals.
It is anecdotal evidence, but Republican politicians Elvig, Nienow and the Bensons all tried their hand at running a business that did not last; Elvig having years of success as a history before his market turned on him. Presumably the Benson venture kept mandated earmarked reserves as required by law, and will not face any difficulties that way.
Yet the Republicans are the ones touting business savvy among their ranks and adherents. Nienow still seems to tout such things. Others who have contributed to Republicans but never sought office have done okay, with key Freedom Club folks, and Bill Cooper, having their track records as examples that way.
______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
The SoS registration for "Neos Industries, Inc." is online here. How that squares with the Bensons' situation is unclear.
______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
With the initial Strib quote noting "about $630,000 of assets — most of that comprising the couple's $500,000 home in Ham Lake" that leaves only $130,000 as the value of the precision machining equipment, CNC and laser tooling, which seems a depreciated rather than new price, at a guess, where again prices in that market were not researched. Perhaps the low number represents unencumbered equity in such hard assets, but there should be a UCC financing lien filed unless the equipment was paid off free from the general loan proceeds.
Questions like that are what Bankruptcy Court judges get paid to resolve for parties picking at the bones.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
As of Tuesday, Aug 28, 8:00 am, only the Strib reporting is online about the Benson bankruptcy filing.
As to how "Neos Industries" fits into things, three links, here, here and here, give three different addresses, the first in Hugo, the second in Forest Lake, and the third in Wayzeta.
The accompanying image is from the second link. The third link gives different information from the current online SoS filing.
It is confusing. There must be an explanation not apparent from cursory web searching. The confusion might arise in Bankruptcy Court if there is a business successorship or a previous acquisition of business assets. The venture as presented with a Forest Lake address appears to be an ongoing business with its webpage
https://neosindustries.com/
behind a login screen (unusual for a going business).
Noteworthy:
This link:
This link:
Sites such as these, aggregating and posting contact information, can often be giving outdated data. Which could add to confusion.
____________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
Adding to confusion the Strib "RECENT BANKRUPTCIES" page does not list "Neos Industries" for the voluntary [Chap.7?] filing:
_____________FURTHER UPDATE______________
One further "Micra" online item, there apparently is a 401K trust set up, this link - asserting there exists a trust for funding arrangements and benefits arrangements, Craig Benson identified as annual reporting agent "Administrator."
______________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
The Internet Archive has Micra entries; e.g., this screenshot:
____________FURTHER UPDATE______________
Why the detail? Because it bothers me to see people opposed to student debt relief in a half million dollar home and running a business aground, while thinking themselves smart enough to meddle in family decision making of others, a woman and her doctor.
It galls, bankruptcy relief for splatting a business, but none for students under water with debt or people with a back breaking medical bill that is harder to scrub by a bankruptcy. Those having such little care for the plight of others should not expect kind feelings toward their plight, given that we are all in it together until we croak, and some work the system causing others to suffer.
Next - If instituting a trade war had any impact whatsoever in the business failure, the trade war was not started by Democrats, and large corporations will prosper while small operations tumble. That pattern is not good for our nation. Meaning Republicans should reconsider who they are and what policies are important in the lives of citizens and immigrants - who are as human as they are with identical basic needs. May it be a learning experience generating more temperate and cordial feelings for others less well off to be unable to get into a business to steer it well or otherwise. Unable to get gambling money from the SBA.
_________________________________
please note technical error wiped out part of this post which had to be reconstructed. if errors in linking, grammar, or other post aspects now exist, multiple proof reading effort was needed in the hope of minimizing error.
State Sen. Michelle Benson and her family are facing financial distress, with her husband Craig Benson seeking personal bankruptcy protection after he bought a business in 2013, only to see it fail.
"We took a risk, and we failed, and we worked really hard for 5 years, paid our employees, followed the rules and it still didn't work," Michelle Benson, a Ham Lake Republican, said Monday. "And now my husband is trying to protect his family."
Benson is the influential chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and a deputy majority leader.
[...] Craig Benson's bankruptcy filing lists about $630,000 of assets — most of that comprising the couple's $500,000 home in Ham Lake — and $2.12 million in liabilities, including $1.3 million owed to the federal Small Business Administration. The now defunct company, Hugo-based Micra Enterprises, was a steel fabricator.
Creditors appear to have cut quite a bit of slack. The small business sole proprietorship I know most about, a computer and communications consultancy that stayed viable through the Year 2K tech bubble collapse did not have such accommodating creditors. Vendors imposing cash and carry vs. credit differs greatly from a run-up of two million, half owed the federal government [i.e., owed U.S. taxpayers].
Creditworthiness is of course a subjective call, the accounts can show a pattern but how a pattern is allowed to remain or grow will vary from person to person and from enterprise type to enterprise type.
Nienow's situation was different. Why SBA lent even a penny there is unknown to me. You only know what you read in the news unless you comb over court files, but the Nienow thing seemed to have a miasma to it whereas I would cut the Benson family more slack.
Republicans tanking businesses and perhaps stiffing SBA [indirectly taxpayers] while talking up fiscal responsibility has always amazed me, but the Bensons are as they are, and at least it was a real business, not some hobby stuff.
Whether the SBA should be more aggressive in protecting federal funds in making loan decisions can be debated, but its purpose is to promote small business by making credit available, so it is simply doing its job unless some kind of insider action on the SBA loan brokering was at play. Strib reporting did not identify the SBA loan brokering operation involved in the Bensons' situaiton, which would be good news to know.
Hanky-panky in SBA lending doubtlessly is the exception and not the rule. It is sad that the venture did not meed success with good returns on the investment.
_____________UPDATE_______________
Further detail: Michele Benson per her LinkedIn filing has held herself out to the public as "OWNER" of the business although in the most recent Strib reporting key involvement is shifted to husband Craig Benson; her LinkedIn page stating:
Micra Enterprises
Owner
Micra Enterprises
2013 – 2015 2 years
Hugo, Minnesota
Engaged in every aspect of operations of Micra Manufacturing. The metal fabrication company serves clients ranging in size from individuals to international corporations. We focus on partnering for success with customers. Our employees are key to the success of our company and they join us in the mission of responsive, high-quality, on-time product delivery.
As part of the executive team share accountability for all aspects of the business including human resources, customer relations, marketing, insurance, vendor relations, and financial oversight.
[screenshot taken] Whether such a public representation is legally binding in any way would be for a bankruptcy expert to consider. It does attach her name to the venture, apparently by her affirmative LinkedIn filing.
August 11, 2018, Strib "Recent Bankruptcies" discloses:
Craig A. Benson, as surety for Gusset Design, Micra Enterprises Inc., Micra Manufacturing and Micra Properties LLC, 2022 144th Lane NE., Ham Lake; filed Aug. 7, 18-42540; Chap. 7; assets, $629,662; liabilities, $2,125,240.
It is neither the normal practice nor unusual to use several business names, but both a Minnesota corporation and an LLC are listed; Secretary of State filings respectively here and here.
UCC personal property security interest lien filings with the SoS were not researched. That would include security interests, if any, filed with the SoS upon automobiles, business inventory and equipment, which could be such a firm's major assets. Whether security interests in a firm's payables would be UCC filed with the SoS; you tell me.
Benson appears to have used his veteran status to assist gaining SBA "Veteran Advantage" credit; see, here, here, here [in listing], and here.
Thomas.net, here, notes without a date:
Neos Industries - Forest Lake, MN
Custom Manufacturer*, Finishing Service Company
Neos Industries (formerly Micra Manufacturing) is a custom manufacturer, with a fabrication and machine shop. Specializes in metal fabrication, laser cutting, CNC machining, CNC forming, welding, abrasive blasting, and industrial painting. Offers swift turnaround and are capable of complex jobs from prototyping to full production. Serves multiple industries using fast implementation processes.
with a link over to here:
Neos Industries
Forest Lake, MN 55025 | map
Call: 651-900-5548
Profile
Products / Services Offered
Painting Services
Painting Services: Industrial
Painting Services
All Products / Services
Blasting and Peening Services
Cutting Services
Fabrication Services
Forming Services
Machining
Painting Services
Shearing Services
Welding Services
Readers and creditors likely might have a better understanding, but some kind of possibly ongoing successorship might/might not apply, per the "Neos Industries" business name. Neos was not further researched.
It appears the Bensons' venture aimed at precision tooling use for high-tolerance production, prototyping, etc., and not heavy commodity steel fabrication as if rebar bending or steel cutting/welding for high pressure refinery usage; etc., so that recent tariff impositions likely were not a failure factor.
SBA notes it is not a lender, but a loan guarantor. If the borrower defaults and the SBA makes payment it likely would then take an assignment and deal with the debtor from a secured creditor position; i.e., not as one of the unfortunate unsecured creditors.
SBA lending types and flavors exist in several forms, e.g., the CMDC pages here and here. Details of SBA use of firms such as CMCD would be known by experts in SBA lending, an exertise not held by this site's author. What is presented here, with links, are returns from brief web searching.
CMDC posts "Success Stories" citing specific borrowing firms.
______________FURTHER UPDATE______________
A Republican penchant for business effort leading to failure is not limited to the Bensons and Nienows. Former Ramsey City Council Member David Elvig's cabinetry, custom business fixtures and furnishings business had been featured as a CMDC success story, per earlier Crabgrass posting. When the housing bubble broke in 2006-2008, it failed. In that instance an actual market disruption led to an ongoing firm hitting the shoals.
It is anecdotal evidence, but Republican politicians Elvig, Nienow and the Bensons all tried their hand at running a business that did not last; Elvig having years of success as a history before his market turned on him. Presumably the Benson venture kept mandated earmarked reserves as required by law, and will not face any difficulties that way.
Yet the Republicans are the ones touting business savvy among their ranks and adherents. Nienow still seems to tout such things. Others who have contributed to Republicans but never sought office have done okay, with key Freedom Club folks, and Bill Cooper, having their track records as examples that way.
______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
The SoS registration for "Neos Industries, Inc." is online here. How that squares with the Bensons' situation is unclear.
______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
With the initial Strib quote noting "about $630,000 of assets — most of that comprising the couple's $500,000 home in Ham Lake" that leaves only $130,000 as the value of the precision machining equipment, CNC and laser tooling, which seems a depreciated rather than new price, at a guess, where again prices in that market were not researched. Perhaps the low number represents unencumbered equity in such hard assets, but there should be a UCC financing lien filed unless the equipment was paid off free from the general loan proceeds.
Questions like that are what Bankruptcy Court judges get paid to resolve for parties picking at the bones.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
As of Tuesday, Aug 28, 8:00 am, only the Strib reporting is online about the Benson bankruptcy filing.
The accompanying image is from the second link. The third link gives different information from the current online SoS filing.
It is confusing. There must be an explanation not apparent from cursory web searching. The confusion might arise in Bankruptcy Court if there is a business successorship or a previous acquisition of business assets. The venture as presented with a Forest Lake address appears to be an ongoing business with its webpage
https://neosindustries.com/
behind a login screen (unusual for a going business).
Noteworthy:
This link:
Neos Industries, Inc. is a Minnesota Business Corporation (Domestic) filed on February 1, 2016 . The company's filing status is listed as Active / In Good Standing and its File Number is 870259900024.
The Registered Agent on file for this company is Berns Knight Pa and is located at 155 E Lake Street Suite 210, Wayzata, MN 55391. The company's principal address is 155 E Lake Street Suite 210, Wayzata, MN 55391.
This link:
About Neos Industries
Your Partner in Quality Metal Manufacturing
Doing business since 1981, Neos Industries (formerly Micra Manufacturing) is your comprehensive fabrication and machine shop capable of meeting all of your manufacturing needs. We specialize in metal fabrication, laser cutting, CNC machining, CNC forming, welding, abrasive blasting, and industrial painting. We offer a swift turnaround and are capable of complex jobs from prototyping to full production. We’ve helped our clients with thousands of projects across multiple industries and our refined implementation processes allow us to complete your project fast. On time, every time.
Neos Industries (as Micra Manufacturing) was recognized by our local Hugo Business Association as an Emerging Business of the year in 2015 and we have continued to reach new milestones every year.
Sites such as these, aggregating and posting contact information, can often be giving outdated data. Which could add to confusion.
____________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
Adding to confusion the Strib "RECENT BANKRUPTCIES" page does not list "Neos Industries" for the voluntary [Chap.7?] filing:
Craig A. Benson, as surety for Gusset Design, Micra Enterprises Inc., Micra Manufacturing and Micra Properties LLC, 2022 144th Lane NE., Ham Lake; filed Aug. 7, 18-42540; Chap. 7; assets, $629,662; liabilities, $2,125,240.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE______________
One further "Micra" online item, there apparently is a 401K trust set up, this link - asserting there exists a trust for funding arrangements and benefits arrangements, Craig Benson identified as annual reporting agent "Administrator."
______________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
The Internet Archive has Micra entries; e.g., this screenshot:
 |
| click to enlarge and read |
____________FURTHER UPDATE______________
Why the detail? Because it bothers me to see people opposed to student debt relief in a half million dollar home and running a business aground, while thinking themselves smart enough to meddle in family decision making of others, a woman and her doctor.
It galls, bankruptcy relief for splatting a business, but none for students under water with debt or people with a back breaking medical bill that is harder to scrub by a bankruptcy. Those having such little care for the plight of others should not expect kind feelings toward their plight, given that we are all in it together until we croak, and some work the system causing others to suffer.
Next - If instituting a trade war had any impact whatsoever in the business failure, the trade war was not started by Democrats, and large corporations will prosper while small operations tumble. That pattern is not good for our nation. Meaning Republicans should reconsider who they are and what policies are important in the lives of citizens and immigrants - who are as human as they are with identical basic needs. May it be a learning experience generating more temperate and cordial feelings for others less well off to be unable to get into a business to steer it well or otherwise. Unable to get gambling money from the SBA.
_________________________________
please note technical error wiped out part of this post which had to be reconstructed. if errors in linking, grammar, or other post aspects now exist, multiple proof reading effort was needed in the hope of minimizing error.
Without knowing detail, a report involving "believe the victim" may have involved judicial overreach, or been appropriate.
Strib headlining an AP item, "Ex-CDC director Frieden accused of groping woman's buttocks - By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press - August 24, 2018," containng these few paragraphs:
One positive note, "believe the accuser" is better terminology, and never losing sight of presumed innocence until proven guilty, the reasonableness of what was reported rests largely on what "investigation" was entailed, with reporting of that MIA. How can we make sense of the report without scope of investigation and findings being reported (citation to and posting online the charging document would be good journalism, and not lazy journalism/editing).
Is it going too far for a butt-grab to be characterized as "forcible touching, sex abuse and harassment?" Is it over-charging? It seems such single incident things, so easily claimed without tangible evidence in most expected incidences, is resolvable between adults. It is unclear from the reporting why in this instance such a resolution was not reached. "Don't ever do that again," said and adhered to, unless there was a previous pattern of that being ineffective, should have ended the thing. Are prosecutors going too far?
However much a retained lawyer might cost for defense should factor into prosecutorial discretion, not as a weapon against persons, but as a consideration for alternate disposition of a case aside from litigation which always involves substantial costs and bother to defend.
Arguably, things have gotten out of hand.
UPDATE: Will look but don't touch be the next domino to fall? If so, would "Don't dress like that without expecting looks" be a defense?
"Abusive leering" without words or contact has not yet been reported as open to criminal charges, so, should it be?
Frieden, who also is a former New York City health commissioner, was arrested earlier Friday on three charges: forcible touching, sex abuse and harassment. His attorney, Laura Brevetti, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
The 55-year-old accuser, who knew Frieden, reported the encounter in July, and he was taken into custody after an investigation.
The judge ordered Frieden to refrain from any contact with the woman and to surrender his U.S. passport. Frieden was freed on his own recognizance, leaving in a car with his attorney. His next court appearance is Oct. 11.
One positive note, "believe the accuser" is better terminology, and never losing sight of presumed innocence until proven guilty, the reasonableness of what was reported rests largely on what "investigation" was entailed, with reporting of that MIA. How can we make sense of the report without scope of investigation and findings being reported (citation to and posting online the charging document would be good journalism, and not lazy journalism/editing).
Is it going too far for a butt-grab to be characterized as "forcible touching, sex abuse and harassment?" Is it over-charging? It seems such single incident things, so easily claimed without tangible evidence in most expected incidences, is resolvable between adults. It is unclear from the reporting why in this instance such a resolution was not reached. "Don't ever do that again," said and adhered to, unless there was a previous pattern of that being ineffective, should have ended the thing. Are prosecutors going too far?
However much a retained lawyer might cost for defense should factor into prosecutorial discretion, not as a weapon against persons, but as a consideration for alternate disposition of a case aside from litigation which always involves substantial costs and bother to defend.
Arguably, things have gotten out of hand.
UPDATE: Will look but don't touch be the next domino to fall? If so, would "Don't dress like that without expecting looks" be a defense?
"Abusive leering" without words or contact has not yet been reported as open to criminal charges, so, should it be?
Labor has [should have] strong viewpoints about the Kavanaugh nomination.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/08/judge-kavanaugh-on-work-law/
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/off-duty-conduct-employee-rights-33590.html
As to organized labor, union leadership should consider such a record and taking a strong unified public position against the man's elevation, and should as well consider things beyond organizing and bargaining collectively, e.g., Nolo, here.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/off-duty-conduct-employee-rights-33590.html
As to organized labor, union leadership should consider such a record and taking a strong unified public position against the man's elevation, and should as well consider things beyond organizing and bargaining collectively, e.g., Nolo, here.
Minn. Stat. § 609.215 is bad law and should be repealed. Courts say it should be enforced, but it is unrealistic and a burden to those having an ultimate right to end their own lives as painlessly as possible.
Opinion on suicide varies, but it's not the State's life it is the individual's, so why constrain liberty? This is different than financial stability and economic regulation legislation or legislation regulating use and provision of public goods [think road and bridge upkeep, traffic law]. This is a very individual question, one of the most fundamental an individual can face, and one which individuals in the absence of unreasonable Nanny State intent of some to intrude, is best left as such. The State should leave alone.
I want to control when I go, how I go, subject to an environment where elderly chronic disease and body functional decline setting a course to be faced which could make continuing life, in my mind, the undesirable choice. The State has no business in the way of that, and being inexpert I would welcome advice on best leaast-painful exit options.
As one close said over years: I am my mind. It is who I am. If I lose that, I no longer exist.
A body in such a state to me would be an undesirable Terri Schiavo sort of thing I would not want to suffer longer than medical science could end or maintain in an unacceptable manner.
Thinking along this line was triggered by Strib local news, "Eden Prairie man charged with assisting wife's suicide - Thomas Houck told police his 59-year-old wife lived with chronic pain. - By Paul Walsh Star Tribune, August 21, 2018." The item referenced earlier appellate litigation; see, e.g., here, here and a case linked from the second item, here.
It is vexing to see so-called and self-described "libertarians" such as Ron and Rand Paul MIA on that most basic right, as well as being opposed to abortion choice. If basic choice is not respected, how, really, are you a "libertarian?" That way one is only left as hateful toward economic law and regulations, otherwise being a clear Nanny State advocate, dressing up otherwise.
Wikipedia, on Mill's "harm principle." How does that square with assisting another in a voluntary surrender of life? If the individual is helped, where is the harm?
While far less a key issue than universal health care, fair taxation, debt abuse of students, living wage, and money in politics; as a population ages, and as the young see a heavily bleak future of near-serfdom, some may choose an early exit and the question of State imposed impediments becomes timely.
A websearch.
____________UPDATE____________
Citing a statute without presenting exact text is bad form; see, here and here.
U.S. Supreme Court, cert. denied, petition and opposition memorandum.
http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/minnesota/
That last cite presents links related to recent legislative effort in Minnesota, including bill text links, and a March, 2016, PiPress op-ed link, the item ending:
While understanding a common usage, nonetheless some might prefer "mind searching" over "soul searching" as one is absolutely known to exist. Since before Descartes's tautology was first phrased. The other is speculative and open to denial and dispute.
I want to control when I go, how I go, subject to an environment where elderly chronic disease and body functional decline setting a course to be faced which could make continuing life, in my mind, the undesirable choice. The State has no business in the way of that, and being inexpert I would welcome advice on best leaast-painful exit options.
As one close said over years: I am my mind. It is who I am. If I lose that, I no longer exist.
A body in such a state to me would be an undesirable Terri Schiavo sort of thing I would not want to suffer longer than medical science could end or maintain in an unacceptable manner.
Thinking along this line was triggered by Strib local news, "Eden Prairie man charged with assisting wife's suicide - Thomas Houck told police his 59-year-old wife lived with chronic pain. - By Paul Walsh Star Tribune, August 21, 2018." The item referenced earlier appellate litigation; see, e.g., here, here and a case linked from the second item, here.
It is vexing to see so-called and self-described "libertarians" such as Ron and Rand Paul MIA on that most basic right, as well as being opposed to abortion choice. If basic choice is not respected, how, really, are you a "libertarian?" That way one is only left as hateful toward economic law and regulations, otherwise being a clear Nanny State advocate, dressing up otherwise.
Wikipedia, on Mill's "harm principle." How does that square with assisting another in a voluntary surrender of life? If the individual is helped, where is the harm?
While far less a key issue than universal health care, fair taxation, debt abuse of students, living wage, and money in politics; as a population ages, and as the young see a heavily bleak future of near-serfdom, some may choose an early exit and the question of State imposed impediments becomes timely.
A websearch.
____________UPDATE____________
Citing a statute without presenting exact text is bad form; see, here and here.
U.S. Supreme Court, cert. denied, petition and opposition memorandum.
http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/minnesota/
That last cite presents links related to recent legislative effort in Minnesota, including bill text links, and a March, 2016, PiPress op-ed link, the item ending:
As Minnesotans talk about end-of-life options, there’s much to consider. The soul searching to come will call on us to weigh competing values and society’s role in individual decisions. Whatever its outcome, the conversation will be informative.
While understanding a common usage, nonetheless some might prefer "mind searching" over "soul searching" as one is absolutely known to exist. Since before Descartes's tautology was first phrased. The other is speculative and open to denial and dispute.
Sunday, August 26, 2018
MN CD8 Republican candidate Stauber gets his knickers in a twist - over traffic law: "Pete Stauber has staked his career on character and integrity," spokesperson Caroline Tarwid said in a news release. "For much of that same time, Joe has been ignoring the very law and order that hardworking Minnesotans in the 8th District follow every day."
The headline is a paragraph within a Brainerd Dispatch online report that Joe's paid his account off, with the record standing that Radinovich now owes nothing for past traffic and parking infractions.
Yeah Pete. Hammer such scofflaw things as traffic tickets. The purity of the "hard workers who obey the law in CD8" is a tremendous thing to run on, when little else favors a Trumpster Congressional wannabe, with Trumpster cohort criminal pleas falling right, left and center; immunity grants included. Millionaires cheating the government, big time crime, and Stauber turning a blind eye to such true CRIME to talk traffic tickets.
Well, this multi-county decade-long Isanti County resident scofflaw must not be "hard working" or something, under the Stauber test; with the two most recent violations of law "hard working Minnesotans in the 8th District follow every day," being actually dangerous - phone use while driving/in traffic, and later imperiling a cross-walk instead of taking time to find a legal parking spot. Not Pete's kind of guy, too worthless:
While I might agree with Pete's campaign that a lack of "character and integrity" may exist with the individual, I'd base it more on policy.
On policy, where is Pete on the income inequality his party's written into federal tax law earlier and as a Christmas gift to the super-wealthy most recently; and where is Pete on the corrosive effect of big money on politics, something his party's court jockeys inflicted on us via Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.
Pete on substantive stuff; MIA
And why is he indirectly so hard on Kurt Daudt's scofflawery? Does he even know Daudt? Is it anything but a ham-handed amateur negative campaign stunt where the positive is largely lacking? Whether Daudt by analogy gets thrown under a bus matters little because Stauber is running, running, running from all the serious, actual crime Mueller and SDNY prosecutors are uncovering in Washington, DC and Gotham City.
Bless the selective, in politics: Law and Order in the eye of the beholder.
Yeah Pete. Hammer such scofflaw things as traffic tickets. The purity of the "hard workers who obey the law in CD8" is a tremendous thing to run on, when little else favors a Trumpster Congressional wannabe, with Trumpster cohort criminal pleas falling right, left and center; immunity grants included. Millionaires cheating the government, big time crime, and Stauber turning a blind eye to such true CRIME to talk traffic tickets.
Well, this multi-county decade-long Isanti County resident scofflaw must not be "hard working" or something, under the Stauber test; with the two most recent violations of law "hard working Minnesotans in the 8th District follow every day," being actually dangerous - phone use while driving/in traffic, and later imperiling a cross-walk instead of taking time to find a legal parking spot. Not Pete's kind of guy, too worthless:
While I might agree with Pete's campaign that a lack of "character and integrity" may exist with the individual, I'd base it more on policy.
On policy, where is Pete on the income inequality his party's written into federal tax law earlier and as a Christmas gift to the super-wealthy most recently; and where is Pete on the corrosive effect of big money on politics, something his party's court jockeys inflicted on us via Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.
Pete on substantive stuff; MIA
And why is he indirectly so hard on Kurt Daudt's scofflawery? Does he even know Daudt? Is it anything but a ham-handed amateur negative campaign stunt where the positive is largely lacking? Whether Daudt by analogy gets thrown under a bus matters little because Stauber is running, running, running from all the serious, actual crime Mueller and SDNY prosecutors are uncovering in Washington, DC and Gotham City.
Bless the selective, in politics: Law and Order in the eye of the beholder.
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Ignorance is bliss.
RightwingWatch watches and posts. This is a mind worse than Donald Trump's.
Then, here and here. Think about it.
Another link.
Then, here and here. Think about it.
Another link.
Piety pays.
Yes, piety does. In the high eight figure amounts, consistently for at least a decade for James Dobson's cash cow, Focus on the Family; payroll and all.
So why does the ProPublica site cease reporting at 2015? The operation is still active and as cloyingly annoying as ever, going back decades, to well before the Michele Bachmann bullhorn displays during her tenure in DC, indeed before and during her Minnesota legislative days when she declared Dobson as a mentor.
The answer, 2015 appears to be the year Dobson's creation moved to the dark side of its force.
I.e., the bundle of affairs known as "Focus on the Family" went dark by the multi-million dollar basket of operations shifting to the dark side of IRC Sect. 501(c)(3) status - declaring itself not a think tank or idea advocate, but instead, a "church."
A major lawfirm specializing in advising non-profit entities states online:
Yeah. Sure. Not a propaganda outlet designed to solicit and receive millions of dollars every month, with hundreds on its payroll. From who, non-congregants? Likely, since the employees, those drawing a paycheck for Jesus, are reported above, to make up the "congregation."
RightwingWatch, (cited earlier next to the Darth Vader image), notes:
[links omitted] Readers are strongly advised to follow both links, for a fuller view of this so-called "church." It is all an eye-opener.
What it all shows is: You pay piety, piety pays its insiders, your contribution is duly welcome. And they don't need to buy and burn incense.
IRS non-transparency? Is there cause for "church" status having been sought besides dodging the sunshine? Your guess is as good as mine. Given how Hobby Lobby shook out, legal exemption from having to provide employees contraception is not a special "church" thing.
Cozy for a "church?" One like Dobson's empire? Not having to render to Ceasar what is Caesar's cuts true either way, so money-wise it's a wash. But not having to make the cash flows or directorship and management compensation subject to public scrutiny, that is unique to a "church."
How then might you circumstantially infer motive?
___________UPDATE____________
Those interested in Church-State topics might look here.
So why does the ProPublica site cease reporting at 2015? The operation is still active and as cloyingly annoying as ever, going back decades, to well before the Michele Bachmann bullhorn displays during her tenure in DC, indeed before and during her Minnesota legislative days when she declared Dobson as a mentor.
I.e., the bundle of affairs known as "Focus on the Family" went dark by the multi-million dollar basket of operations shifting to the dark side of IRC Sect. 501(c)(3) status - declaring itself not a think tank or idea advocate, but instead, a "church."
A major lawfirm specializing in advising non-profit entities states online:
What is a church? According to materials released early 2018, the venerable Christian radio and publishing ministry Focus on the Family pressed that question with the IRS, successfully garnering official reclassification as a “church.” The IRS’s willingness to accede to Focus’ request, as reflected in recently released IRS documentation, may be surprising and certainly invites further evaluation of what constitutes a “church” for legal purposes.
Why and How to Define “Church”?
As a foundational matter, why does it matter whether a faith-based organization is a “church” for government purposes? Perhaps most significantly from the IRS perspective, “churches” (and other religious institutions like synagogues and mosques; collectively identified here as “churches”) qualify as Section 501(c)(3) public charities, but they are not required to file annual IRS Form 990s like their tax-exempt counterparts. Correspondingly, while they may file IRS applications for tax-exempt recognition (or in this case, an application for reclassification), churches are deemed automatically tax-exempt per Section 508 of the Internal Revenue Code. In addition, churches may enjoy broader religious liberty protections, such as exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on insurance coverage for contraception, employment-related religious exemptions, and an easier path to property and sales tax exemptions.
But how does the government – in particular, the IRS – define a “church”? Webster’s dictionary defines a church as “a building for public…worship; a body or organization of religious believers; a denomination; a congregation.” Others may say that a church is a church—you know it when you see one. Just look for the steeple, people bowed in worship, prayers, hymns, and clergy in robes. But is a church really that easy to identify? For some religious institutions, perhaps; but for a historic radio ministry dedicated to “promoting biblical truths worldwide,” the line between church and not is much blurrier than one might think. Yet the IRS agreed to call a radio ministry a church—why?
Focusing on Focus on the Family’s “Church” Qualification
Although Focus on the Family had filed IRS Form 990s for many years since its 1997 incorporation, it sought reclassification as a “church” in mid-2016 through a detailed IRS Form 8940 “Request for Miscellaneous Determination” that included the requisite Schedule A factors. The organization answered “Yes” to all but four questions, which concerned ministry ordination, denominational affiliation, and church charters. The IRS ultimately agreed, issued its reclassification letter for “church” status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Code.
Focus on the Family’s materials were extensive, detailing how and why it fit the IRS definition of “church,” and more specifically thirteen of the seventeen IRS factors. To do so, Focus on the Family emphasized its heavily religious nature, notwithstanding the absence of regular Sunday meetings and other trappings that one might expect for a traditional church.
For starters, and as with all churches, Focus on the Family set forth its articulated religious purpose, a Statement of Faith, “Six Pillars” of ministry based directly on Biblical principles, and membership qualities. With respect to membership, perhaps one of the more challenging elements here, the organization shared that its “membership” is comprised of its 600 employees and their families. While ordinarily it would be expected that “members” not be associated with other churches, Focus on the Family explained that it allows for multiple church membership based on its belief that the Holy Scriptures teaches cooperation between churches.
On a related note, Focus on the Family further shared that, consistent with its Christian doctrine, work is worship. At Focus on the Family, the work is to teach and equip the local church, as is common among all churches. Focus on the Family’s other forms of worship includes all-staff prayer meeting each Monday, small group gatherings each day, and monthly all-staff chapel meetings, including average attendance of approximately 750 at such monthly chapel services. The organization’s sacerdotal functions include a “Maundy Thursday” service and a commemoration of the Last Supper during Easter season, again through its members/employees as expressions of worship.
Focus on the Family has religious leadership, ecclesiastical government, and accompanying religious policies too. The Board of Directors function as an Elder Board, including the CEO/elder. The organization is elder-led, with no ordination or licensing needed based on elder model of leadership. There is also an Executive Cabinet made up of deacons and deaconesses, including the COO. The organization follows a “Formal Code of Doctrine and Discipline” based on Biblical principles like Matthew 18 (for conflict resolution), and other religious policies.
Significantly, Focus on the Family also has its own religious literature. It has published innumerable materials, all distinctly Christian, on faith, Christian worldview, Christian heritage, marriage, parenting, life challenges, social issues, and the sanctity of life.
Yeah. Sure. Not a propaganda outlet designed to solicit and receive millions of dollars every month, with hundreds on its payroll. From who, non-congregants? Likely, since the employees, those drawing a paycheck for Jesus, are reported above, to make up the "congregation."
RightwingWatch, (cited earlier next to the Darth Vader image), notes:
Focus on the Family declaring itself to be a church is puzzling. While the Colorado Springs-based organization has somewhat softened its image since it was led by the firebrand Dobson, it remains active in political debates and advocacy (even in a nominally nonpartisan way). A “social issues” section on the group’s website currently features information on a supposed threat to bathroom safety posed by transgender people thanks to LGBTQ activists fighting in politics, churches and popular culture, and contains an update on “cultural issues in the courts.” In June, Focus invited Vice President Mike Pence to speak at an event celebrating its 40th anniversary, where he promised the group it had an “unwavering ally” in President Trump.
Gail Harmon, an attorney who has advised nonprofits on tax law for more than 30 years, said that she had never before seen a nonprofit organization declare itself a church. “I just found it shocking,” she said.
“There’s nothing about them that meets the traditional definition of what a church is,” she said. “They don’t have a congregation, they don’t have the rites of various parts of a person’s life. There’s a whole system for what a church is.”
The IRS lists a number of factors that it considers in determining whether an organization is a church, including whether it has a “definite and distinct ecclesiastical government,” “established places of worship” and “regular religious services,” but notes that an organization “need not have all of the characteristics” listed in order to be considered a church.
Samuel Brunson, a tax law expert at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, said that it is difficult to create clear rules on what counts as a church for taxation purposes without running afoul of the First Amendment. “Because of the First Amendment, Congress and the IRS are hesitant to create bright-line rules for fear of creating unconstitutional rules, which means that everything is fairly murky in the area,” he said.
[links omitted] Readers are strongly advised to follow both links, for a fuller view of this so-called "church." It is all an eye-opener.
What it all shows is: You pay piety, piety pays its insiders, your contribution is duly welcome. And they don't need to buy and burn incense.
IRS non-transparency? Is there cause for "church" status having been sought besides dodging the sunshine? Your guess is as good as mine. Given how Hobby Lobby shook out, legal exemption from having to provide employees contraception is not a special "church" thing.
Cozy for a "church?" One like Dobson's empire? Not having to render to Ceasar what is Caesar's cuts true either way, so money-wise it's a wash. But not having to make the cash flows or directorship and management compensation subject to public scrutiny, that is unique to a "church."
How then might you circumstantially infer motive?
___________UPDATE____________
Those interested in Church-State topics might look here.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Follow the money, with immunity and impunity, "Weisselberg has been a Trump confidant who started working for his family in the early 1970s." [UPDATED]
 |
| WWRCSAD: What would Roy Cohn say and do. |
That image [as cropped] is from Time, April 2017, this link.
The above headline quote is from another item, an AP feed, "Trump Organization finance chief gets immunity," published online today. About Weisselberg and immunity.
The quote and the opening image, while not congruent in time or context, show that this accountant/bookkeeper for Trump's businesses dates back to the early days of Trump impudence, when Trump was close and likely mentored in ways and means by Roy Cohn, however that may have influenced the man being who he is today [who Trump is, Cohn being dead, today].
Today's story, as linked above, is a short read left to readers to pursue.
The earlier year-ago Time report stated:
Pulitzer Prize winning historian Richard Hofstadter noted that the paranoid style has been around long before the alt-right discovered it — its targets in American political history have included immigrants, Catholics, international bankers, Masons, Jesuits, abortionists, the press, munitions makers, and most anyone else worthy of scapegoating. The term is intentionally pejorative as paranoia has “a greater affinity,” Hofstadter argued, “for bad causes than for good.”
Immigration has long been a salient feature of paranoid politics. Hofstadter wrote about Lyman Beecher, father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote in his 1835 Plea for the West that “A great tide of immigration, hostile to free institutions, was sweeping in upon the country, subsidized and sent by ‘the potentates of Europe,’ multiplying tumult and violence, filling jails, crowding poorhouses, quadrupling taxation, and sending increasing thousands of voters to ‘lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our power.’”
In modern times, besides Trump, leading exponents of the paranoid model have been Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. All these men did political battle in a paranoid style. And connecting the dots between these complicated men was a corrupt lawyer named Roy Marcus Cohn, who never held elective office, but was close to all of them.
The grand jury brought three separate indictments against Cohn in the Southern District of New York for crimes ranging from conspiracy to mail fraud, bribery to securities fraud and extortion to obstruction of justice. Cohn launched a vicious counter attack against the motives of his accusers; Prosecutor Robert M. Morgenthau, he claimed, was engaging in payback because McCarthy alleged Morgenthau’s father, as FDR’s Treasury Secretary, had helped the Soviets manipulate the currency in Berlin. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he said, held a grudge against him from McCarthy days because Cohn edged Kennedy out to become McCarthy’s chief counsel. [...]
None of these men had hard and fast policy objectives. When Trump breached the barriers of political correctness and the Constitution to preach criminalizing abortion, mass deportation of immigrants, or barring Muslims from the country, these views were hardly born of a sincerely nurtured ideology. Fear-mongering techniques such as anti-intellectualism, communist witch hunts, racism, sexism and the suggestion of anti-Semitism, xenophobic building of walls to keep out foreigners and refugees are all paranoid ideation that go down well in the populist “alt-right” culture.
Cohn parlayed his reputation as the prosecutor in the Rosenberg atomic spy case, into appointment as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy. In January, 1950, McCarthy had soared to national prominence with his infamously bogus claim: “I have here in my hand a list of 205 names made known to the Secretary of State as Communists, but who are still on the payroll.” In fact, there were only 65. Of these, the Secretary ordered further security tests. All passed.
As McCarthy’s consigliere, Cohn mastered the art of the smear, the lie, and the counterattack. Cohn, a willing handmaiden, sat at McCarthy’s side at the nationally televised Senate hearings.
That is the start of the Time item, with links omitted. You can guess where the Time item goes from there. And it does. Follow the link and read the entire item, links and all.
___________UPDATE__________
A Crabgrass post from two years ago. Also, see Politico, from May 2016.
____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
CNN, and here; cumulative.
Timmer on credibility, with this Crabgrass site's usual segue pattern upheld.
Those claiming abuse victim status should be heard. They should be encouraged to speak up, and when abuse happens to involve immediate complaint, when bruises or other signs may be apparent, that is best as an evidential thing. Verbal abuse can be very real, consistent, and discouraging as well as demeaning. And a pattern of ongoing verbal abuse is harder to prove than physical violence. Even a single instance of verbal abuse, can have an awful long term effect. Victims should be heard.
After the fact and after the relationship's dissolved, with claims of tangible evidence can be considered, however the tangible evidence is presented. Claims of tangible evidence not produced are not too credible. If an Ellison video does exist, and it "goes public" per holders of such an item, on the eve of the general election, motive can be guessed at but tangible evidence must be seen and weighed.
Timmer begins his post by writing of the Argento SNAFU business, dead chef by suicide as part of the sad tale, with a segue to Ellison-Bonahan showing the point of his post.
Where I would supplement a viewpoint, a seventeen year old male having a chance to roll with an attractive and experienced female - is there any real "victim" other than one with a wooden interpretation of age limits in a statute trumping what was and should have remained a voluntary and private thing. No violence by either against either, and it surely looking as if Argento was set up but willingly cast discredit upon herself, emotion of the moment outweighing anything resembling good judgment.
A lesson for many - hush money can not always buy hush. Perhaps in some percentage of situations, clearly not all involving dalliance by a most prominent public figure where there's money in disavowing purchased hush. So prudence is proper. Even if prudence is anathema to Donald J. Trump. Perhaps he had a little too much Roy Cohn in his formative years insulating him from consequences of his being himself, whatever, but prudence - would prudence pick Rudy Guilani?
Likely not.
Bonahan per an earlier post reference to an MPP post, referenced again, is fairly well-spoken, but again - no video, no cred.
It has to be that. Tangible evidence from a time of alleged conduct cannot misrecollect nor shade statements to fit whatever motives may exist.
Timmer does not address directly the "what if" part of perhaps a video existing and being strategically (tactically?) withheld; (comedians always say timing is everything). If it exists and at some point is produced, then the event did happen, and the Ellison absolute denial would in such a situation be troubling to most of us.
Timmer keeps a single aspect to the post; Wardlow not being mentioned, but thinking here is one cannot look at that race without the full fear and loathing attaching to who Wardlow is and has been and who, from that, he'd be if handed AG reins. The mind repels at the thought of such a possibility. Wardlow has the mark of James Dobson on his forehead, Think Progress having published:
[bolding added, links in original omitted]
Ignoring some stridency within a post, the LGBTQ community notes that "big gorilla" operation's fingerprint appearance in ways sincerely Christian people might question as dirty pool:
[bolding added, links in original omitted]
Casting the AG election as about Ellison-Bohanan bedroom events would be a wrong focus. It is entirely about how bloody awful Wardlow and his henchpersons are and how corrosive things would be, were Wardlow ever to be AG.
Ellison is one major party candidate; Wardlow is the other; and Wardlow is such a despicable fan of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby that his defeat is paramount, even if Ellison is proven to have been lying about an event in a relationship. He'd be weakened, but bottom line, he'd not be Doug Wardlow as Attorney General of Minnesota. Which would be his saving grace in any such moment.
End and totally of story. Vote against Wardlow. If liking Ellison's progressive roots, then vote for Ellison and against Wardlow.
___________________________
photo credit, this link
After the fact and after the relationship's dissolved, with claims of tangible evidence can be considered, however the tangible evidence is presented. Claims of tangible evidence not produced are not too credible. If an Ellison video does exist, and it "goes public" per holders of such an item, on the eve of the general election, motive can be guessed at but tangible evidence must be seen and weighed.
Timmer begins his post by writing of the Argento SNAFU business, dead chef by suicide as part of the sad tale, with a segue to Ellison-Bonahan showing the point of his post.
Where I would supplement a viewpoint, a seventeen year old male having a chance to roll with an attractive and experienced female - is there any real "victim" other than one with a wooden interpretation of age limits in a statute trumping what was and should have remained a voluntary and private thing. No violence by either against either, and it surely looking as if Argento was set up but willingly cast discredit upon herself, emotion of the moment outweighing anything resembling good judgment.
A lesson for many - hush money can not always buy hush. Perhaps in some percentage of situations, clearly not all involving dalliance by a most prominent public figure where there's money in disavowing purchased hush. So prudence is proper. Even if prudence is anathema to Donald J. Trump. Perhaps he had a little too much Roy Cohn in his formative years insulating him from consequences of his being himself, whatever, but prudence - would prudence pick Rudy Guilani?
Likely not.
Bonahan per an earlier post reference to an MPP post, referenced again, is fairly well-spoken, but again - no video, no cred.
It has to be that. Tangible evidence from a time of alleged conduct cannot misrecollect nor shade statements to fit whatever motives may exist.
Timmer does not address directly the "what if" part of perhaps a video existing and being strategically (tactically?) withheld; (comedians always say timing is everything). If it exists and at some point is produced, then the event did happen, and the Ellison absolute denial would in such a situation be troubling to most of us.
Timmer keeps a single aspect to the post; Wardlow not being mentioned, but thinking here is one cannot look at that race without the full fear and loathing attaching to who Wardlow is and has been and who, from that, he'd be if handed AG reins. The mind repels at the thought of such a possibility. Wardlow has the mark of James Dobson on his forehead, Think Progress having published:
The 800-Pound Gorilla Of The Christian Right - By Josh Israel, May 1, 2014
The Alliance Defending Freedom wants to take America back to the 3rd century. Literally. On the website for its legal fellowship program, the organization explains that it “seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries.”
[...] While the Arizona-based organization has not made much progress in its mission of restoring the religious sentiments of the Byzantine Era, it has built a massive “legal ministry,” relying on 21st century attorneys and an eight-figure annual budget to reshape American law and society.
[...] In the high profile Terri Schiavo case, ADF reportedly gave six-figure funding to the attorney representing her parents in their efforts to keep Schiavo on life support.
As it has grown enormously, other similar organizations have seen their own finances stagnate or have withdrawn from the legal arena entirely. And while ADF’s success has been mixed, allies and opponents alike agree that it has become the most powerful force fighting for its agenda.
[...] The founding board and original funders of the group included several of the nation’s most prominent conservative Christians: James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Larry Burkett of Crown Financial Ministries, Bill Bright of the Campus Crusade for Christ, D. James Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, and radio host Marlin Maddoux. Alan Sears, ADF’s president then and now, was a Reagan appointee and served as executive director of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography under Ed Meese. [...]
The group’s ambitious plans included three things: strategic coordination for the Christian legal community, training an army of Christian lawyers, and funding goals of raising $1 million in 1994, $6 million in 1995, and $25 million by 1997. It would distribute the money to those Christian lawyers around the country, in the form of grants, so they could counter the ACLU and its ilk.
Many of the existing organizations and law firms enthusiastically signed on to the idea. But one group had its doubts, even from the earliest stages. The conservative Rutherford Institute, perhaps best known for its representation of Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, emerged as an early and consistent critic of ADF.
John W. Whitehead, Rutherford’s founder and president, told ThinkProgress that Tom Minnery, an ADF board member and high-ranking executive at Dobson’s Focus on the Family, visited him around the time of the Alliance’s formation to invite his group to join. “I told him I thought it was a vehicle to raise money,” Whitehead recalled, “I believe if you’re gonna be in this area, if you’re defending poor people, you shouldn’t be making money off it. Jesus was an itinerant preacher who was homeless. The guy that kept the money [Judas] turned out to be a government informant.”
Whitehead said that, because his group declined to join, it was blackballed by the ADF leadership — like an Amish shunning.
[bolding added, links in original omitted]
Ignoring some stridency within a post, the LGBTQ community notes that "big gorilla" operation's fingerprint appearance in ways sincerely Christian people might question as dirty pool:
And James Dobson… where do we begin? James Dobson advocates murdering trans women attempting to use the restroom. He claims proponents of gay marriage are literally Hitler. That’s probably a good start. He’s the founder of the group Focus On The Family, also known as Family Policy Alliance, as in WoLF’s partners in the Gavin Grimm counter-suit. This group also advocates gay conversion therapy, changing immigration laws to deport LGBT refugees back to countries that will torture, jail or execute them, and is dedicated to undermining abortion laws and restoring 1950s-style family values.
[...] On January 12, 2017, leaked WoLF board meeting notes came to light (not linking directly to a TERF website, sorry) that have made even other anti-trans feminists concerned. The notes are as follows:
“The board voted unanimously to engage Imperial Independent Media to fundraise for WoLF on a 20% commission basis, and to authorize Natasha to enter into a contract for these services on behalf of WoLF."
Imperial Independent Media is run (according to related LinkedIn profiles) by a man named Zachary Freeman, a Focus On The Family-related activist who was most recently in the news over a lawsuit to gather and distribute names of employees at abortion clinics by having them turned over to the Religious Right anti-abortion activist group Center For Medical Progress. The Center For Medical Progress recently had 15 felony charges filed against them for invasions of privacy and illegal recordings made of abortion clinic employees. These recordings were used in sting videos to propagate the completely debunked “fetal-tissue sale” meme that weighed heavily in arguments to defund Planned Parenthood the past year.
[bolding added, links in original omitted]
 |
| Joinder of Jesus and the money changers? That is a form of "marriage" to challenge; Alliance without any actual love, besides a love for money talking. A Dob$sonian proposition. The money changer standing taller. |
Casting the AG election as about Ellison-Bohanan bedroom events would be a wrong focus. It is entirely about how bloody awful Wardlow and his henchpersons are and how corrosive things would be, were Wardlow ever to be AG.
Ellison is one major party candidate; Wardlow is the other; and Wardlow is such a despicable fan of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby that his defeat is paramount, even if Ellison is proven to have been lying about an event in a relationship. He'd be weakened, but bottom line, he'd not be Doug Wardlow as Attorney General of Minnesota. Which would be his saving grace in any such moment.
End and totally of story. Vote against Wardlow. If liking Ellison's progressive roots, then vote for Ellison and against Wardlow.
___________________________
photo credit, this link
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Correction to an earlier post. There error was NOT a scrivening error. Rather it involved misrecollection in the earlier posting and not looking it up.
Apology to readers. This post, in referring to Painter, and "should the Senate ever impeach with the House then voting yes or no." Running on recollection a role reversal ensued; in fact, the House impeaches and the Senate then votes on removal from office based on the House resolution; Wikipedia. Not an error of thought as much as one of insufficient care and attention.
HIMTOO?
TMZ loves sleaze, here and a day later here. Things are getting stale when economic issues of progressives get sidetracked by METOO, and it is time to reach a sounder balance in adult-oriented needs of families and workers, organized or not, minimum wage or not. Yes, harassment in the work place is a problem; but it is not what wins elections. It should go into things as one plank of progressive platform positions. However, the tail should not wag the dog, and Kirstin Gillibrand should be less aggressive in her slashes and burns. Those truly presidential are different and do not cavalierly use careers of others as springboards. And they call out big money instead of sucking up to it like Gillibrand or Cory Booker. We do not need more of the same while Richard Painter's dumpster fire still burns strong in the cesspool of DC:
CP: What has, for you, has been the most surprising thing--good or bad--about Washington?
MD: I said 10 years before I came here that I thought Washington was a cesspool, and nothing here has changed my opinion of it.
CHANGE. From the outside, of course. From the inside, insiders are entrenched, etc.
AP reporting on Kansas; a quote:
Later in the item:
A closing image and item, here.
Democrats horrified by the thought that provocative conservative Kris Kobach could be Kansas' next governor are attacking a Kansas City-area businessman whose independent candidacy could thwart their ambitions and help elect the Republican.
Their reaction to Greg Orman, the 49-year-old founder of a private equity fund, contrasts sharply with Democrats' embrace of Orman during a U.S. Senate run in 2014 that garnered national attention. This time, Democrats have launched a legal challenge aimed at removing Orman from the November ballot, and a state board plans to consider it Thursday.
Orman expects to tap discontent with the two major parties to become his red state's first independent governor, and supporters contend political scientists and partisan activists greatly underestimate voters' disgust with the hyper-partisanship in U.S. politics. [...]
A top Democrat's aide filed a formal objection with the state this week questioning the validity of petitions signed by registered voters that Orman submitted to the state to gain his ballot spot. Orman's campaign has called the objection "frivolous." [...]
"Voters are going to have a clear choice in the fall," Orman said during a recent interview. "And it's going to be between someone who's an independent and an outsider and is going to serve them and someone who is a lifetime, career partisan politician."
Kobach, 52, the Kansas secretary of state, defeated Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Republican primary after being tweet-endorsed by Trump. Kobach promises to slash taxes, push for tough state laws against illegal immigration and sustain strong anti-abortion laws. An advocate of strict voter ID laws, he was vice chairman of a now-disbanded Trump commission on voter fraud.
The Democratic nominee, state Sen. Laura Kelly, 68, of Topeka, sees Kobach's brand of conservatism as a threat to public schools and government services. She supports abortion rights.
Later in the item:
Kansas Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley — whose chief of staff filed the legal challenge to Orman's candidacy — derided Orman as a "vulture capitalist." But Orman said his approach is to hold businesses and grow them.
His relationship with prominent Democrats was less contentious four years ago as he ran as an independent against veteran Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts.
The Democratic nominee dropped out after Orman did well in early polling, and the party fought successfully in court against efforts — by Kobach — to force it to name a replacement candidate. Roberts ultimately won, but only after the GOP brought in big stars like Sarah Palin and made his race about regaining control of the U.S. Senate.
Afterward, Orman wrote a book, "A Declaration of Independents," about breaking the "two-party stranglehold" on American politics.
A closing image and item, here.
AP in an item asserting Democrat election strategy is to emphasize corruption, more than expressly seeking as Painter did, impeachment.
This link. Word search the item for the word: Pence. It is a masterful report about impeachment as a possibility, to do that without mention of "Pence." Painter did not mention "Pence" either.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
With Manafort's tax crimes being the jury's verdict, what about the hush money recipients' 2016 returns? Reported contract earnings, i's dotted, t's crossed? Or less?
Hopefully Stormy and McDougal while hushed with the media for a while before hitting the press for PR more recently, did not hush with tax people. It is a valid question. One Mueller should investigate. There might be plea possibilities, or if not pleas, pursuit of culpability.
Does Mueller owe the public scrutiny of things, that way? While investigating the hush-ups?
Does Mueller owe the public scrutiny of things, that way? While investigating the hush-ups?
Your bet? Trump huffs and puffs on an illegal immigrant murdering a college student in Iowa, or McConnell and Ryan worried over blowback, hence wanting to successfully stymie twit Twitter tweeting on the topic? [UPDATED re Housley]
Two Strib wire feed carries, each dated today:
Authorities: Iowa student killed by Mexican in US illegally - By RYAN FOLEY Associated Press - August 21, 2018 — 9:35pm.
The Latest: Suspect worked at farm tied to Republican farmer - Associated Press - August 21, 2018 — 9:20pm. Stating:
As a guess there are more wealthy politically connected Republican farmers hiring illegal labor, over the last four years and knowing the lllegal status exists and gives employer levearage, than Mexican farm laborers committing serious crime.
Far more. Greed among Republicans knows few limits. At a bet Trump declines to seriously rock Yarrabee Farms' boat. Too many to hurt, of fine Republicans, in such a boat. Likely, in fairness, Democrats too. Like Zoe Beard, decades ago. Or have we collectively forgotten "Nannygate" because it came before Twitter?
Yesterday's disqualification from public office consideration has become today's detritis. Why do you suppose that's so?
A rural/urban divide? Something else? There are Republicans owning packing plants and sweat shops too, yes/no?
Should ICE be checking the Wisconsin dairy farm owned by Marcus Bachmann and relatives? Would Michele like ICE to be tasked that way, or is there a Wisconsin boat to not be rocked? Animal Farm equality, all that?
_________________UPDATE________________
Does Karin Housley really want to make rural workforce practices an election issue? Expecting no blowback?
Housley is shamelessly waving the story around, strangely without the part of four years of steady employment of the illegal worker, by one of her Republican politician-farmer colleagues across the Minnesota border, in Iowa. Selective, for whatever motivates her attention, and attention getting effort.
Well, she should query her rural Republican legislative colleagues, and ask about illegal immigrant usages they would not want to see discontinued. Mechanized wheat and corn harvesting are prevalent, but it is either Roundup and GMO seed crops, or field work, for other farming. Dairy farms in particular, if large in scale beyond family capabilities, need labor. Despite posturing, would rural Republicans in Minnesota really want illegal immigrant employer sanctions as would be proper, or do they like the status quo of blind eyes toward what's under their noses - labor needs for jobs so severe in workload imposition that illegals seem to gravitate to them because everyone else does not want to work so hard while earning so little.
Housley must be doing that stuff because she is bankrupt of any actual ideas to run on aside from demonization of others. It is her race to run as she chooses but often telling half a story can be as dishonest as telling an outright lie. If the lady wishes to discuss exploitation of migrant labor in rural areas of the nation, there is data, aggregate crime statistics included.
Investors know that Rule 10b5 recognizes how partial selectively-presented truthfulness can be a fraud. A fraud is a fraud, independent of internal polling or other motives to only tell part of a story, and to demonize a necessary and underpaid part of the rural workforce, for gain. Outside of investor protection law, the principle of half-turths being misleading is intuitively known anyway.
Imagine early explorers being told by native peoples if asked how to get from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, "Go downriver, the river connects the lakes," without mentioning the falls.
This link, subsection (b). Wikipedia. Again, the latest Strib report, here, late-item, stating in part:
[italics emphasis added] The Strib report continues:
[italics added] And again, the makeup of the labor force at the Bachmann dairy farm in Wisconsin might be relevant anecdotal evidence to the question of whether "a crackdown on those who hire them" is a question needing more sunshine instead of telling half truths over it, for votes.
Add to that, fear-mongering never has been good, and lynch mob frenzy helps nothing. Dairy farming is labor intensive, and ripe for ownership wanting the cheapest labor force with the strongest leverage over such labor, both such motivations being aspects of illegals at risk to ICE.
(note that in updating the post the headline was edited for greater clarity)
_______________FURTHER UPDATE________________
That Strib item also notes uncertainty over whether the perp even was an illegal entrant to the nation; vs having legal status. Either way, Housley is inflammatory in her approach and should modify her campaigning to a positive message, if she has one.
Authorities: Iowa student killed by Mexican in US illegally - By RYAN FOLEY Associated Press - August 21, 2018 — 9:35pm.
The Latest: Suspect worked at farm tied to Republican farmer - Associated Press - August 21, 2018 — 9:20pm. Stating:
The immigrant from Mexico charged in the kidnapping and murder of an Iowa college student worked at a dairy farm owned by the family of a prominent state Republican leader.
Yarrabee Farms said in a statement that Cristhian Bahena Rivera had worked at its farms for the last four years and was an employee in good standing. The company said it was shocked to hear that Rivera had been charged in the death of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts.
Spokesman Dane Lang said Tuesday night that Yarrabee Farms is a "small family farm" owned by him and his father, Craig Lang, who has long been a prominent Iowa farmer and political figure.
Craig Lang previously served as president of the Iowa Farm Bureau and president of the Iowa Board of Regents, which governs the state's public universities. In June, he lost a close GOP primary in the race for state agriculture secretary.
As a guess there are more wealthy politically connected Republican farmers hiring illegal labor, over the last four years and knowing the lllegal status exists and gives employer levearage, than Mexican farm laborers committing serious crime.
Far more. Greed among Republicans knows few limits. At a bet Trump declines to seriously rock Yarrabee Farms' boat. Too many to hurt, of fine Republicans, in such a boat. Likely, in fairness, Democrats too. Like Zoe Beard, decades ago. Or have we collectively forgotten "Nannygate" because it came before Twitter?
Yesterday's disqualification from public office consideration has become today's detritis. Why do you suppose that's so?
A rural/urban divide? Something else? There are Republicans owning packing plants and sweat shops too, yes/no?
Should ICE be checking the Wisconsin dairy farm owned by Marcus Bachmann and relatives? Would Michele like ICE to be tasked that way, or is there a Wisconsin boat to not be rocked? Animal Farm equality, all that?
_________________UPDATE________________
Does Karin Housley really want to make rural workforce practices an election issue? Expecting no blowback?
Housley is shamelessly waving the story around, strangely without the part of four years of steady employment of the illegal worker, by one of her Republican politician-farmer colleagues across the Minnesota border, in Iowa. Selective, for whatever motivates her attention, and attention getting effort.
Well, she should query her rural Republican legislative colleagues, and ask about illegal immigrant usages they would not want to see discontinued. Mechanized wheat and corn harvesting are prevalent, but it is either Roundup and GMO seed crops, or field work, for other farming. Dairy farms in particular, if large in scale beyond family capabilities, need labor. Despite posturing, would rural Republicans in Minnesota really want illegal immigrant employer sanctions as would be proper, or do they like the status quo of blind eyes toward what's under their noses - labor needs for jobs so severe in workload imposition that illegals seem to gravitate to them because everyone else does not want to work so hard while earning so little.
Housley must be doing that stuff because she is bankrupt of any actual ideas to run on aside from demonization of others. It is her race to run as she chooses but often telling half a story can be as dishonest as telling an outright lie. If the lady wishes to discuss exploitation of migrant labor in rural areas of the nation, there is data, aggregate crime statistics included.
Investors know that Rule 10b5 recognizes how partial selectively-presented truthfulness can be a fraud. A fraud is a fraud, independent of internal polling or other motives to only tell part of a story, and to demonize a necessary and underpaid part of the rural workforce, for gain. Outside of investor protection law, the principle of half-turths being misleading is intuitively known anyway.
Imagine early explorers being told by native peoples if asked how to get from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, "Go downriver, the river connects the lakes," without mentioning the falls.
This link, subsection (b). Wikipedia. Again, the latest Strib report, here, late-item, stating in part:
“This is an awful tragedy and my heart breaks for Mollie’s family. I can imagine nothing worse than losing a child. The individual responsible for this heinous crime must be brought to justice and punished,” [Senator] Smith said in a statement to the Star Tribune.
Cristhian Bahena Rivera was charged with Tibbetts’ murder Tuesday, and authorities said he was in the country illegally. But on Wednesday his lawyer filed a motion stating his client is living and working in Iowa legally.
On Wednesday, a member of Tibbetts’ extended family, Sam Lucas, a recent graduate of the University of Missouri, tweeted angrily that the death should not be used as “political propaganda.” In addition, Tibbetts’ aunt, Billie Jo Calderwood, urged people in a Facebook post to remember that “evil comes in all colors.”
Republicans — and especially President Donald Trump — have sought to shine a light on millions of people here in violation of American immigration law, and who Republicans say pose a threat to the nation’s safety.
[italics emphasis added] The Strib report continues:
In her statement, Smith detailed her own views on immigration: “Since coming to the Senate, I have voted to increase funding for border security by more than $25 billion. I also believe we need better intelligence and more effective technology at the border. And we need to make sure reform includes a tough but fair path to citizenship for people who are in this country working, paying taxes and contributing to our society.”
Housley and Trump, who favor a border wall and want to force cities and states to aggressively enforce immigration laws, say violent crime is a natural outgrowth of an uncontrolled border.
According to a 2015 National Academy of Sciences report, however, “Immigrants are in fact much less likely to commit crime than natives, and the presence of large numbers of immigrants seems to lower crime rates.”
Jessica Vaughan, the policy director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter immigration controls, said the data are inconclusive. “Anyone who says they know the answer to that question is misleading you” because the vast majority of jurisdictions don’t track the immigration status of criminals and the census data on the immigration status of the incarcerated is a flawed measure of crime rates, Vaughan said.
Vaughan said the relevant policy questions are about deterring people from coming, the swift removal of those who commit crimes and a crackdown on those who hire them.
[italics added] And again, the makeup of the labor force at the Bachmann dairy farm in Wisconsin might be relevant anecdotal evidence to the question of whether "a crackdown on those who hire them" is a question needing more sunshine instead of telling half truths over it, for votes.
Add to that, fear-mongering never has been good, and lynch mob frenzy helps nothing. Dairy farming is labor intensive, and ripe for ownership wanting the cheapest labor force with the strongest leverage over such labor, both such motivations being aspects of illegals at risk to ICE.
(note that in updating the post the headline was edited for greater clarity)
_______________FURTHER UPDATE________________
That Strib item also notes uncertainty over whether the perp even was an illegal entrant to the nation; vs having legal status. Either way, Housley is inflammatory in her approach and should modify her campaigning to a positive message, if she has one.
Timely musing about Presidential pardon power, and double jeopardy. Originalist viewpoint?
Hypothetical scenario, aside from the question of a President pardoning himself and aside from the question of whether a President can be indicted for a crime while in office, or only after a term ends or an Impeachment/removal from office. In passing, if there is a bar against federal/state indictments, one expects such a bar would toll a statute of limitations.
Hypothetical: Manafort is pardoned by Trump against federal tax/fraud convictions now in the news; can state courts under state law properly adjudicate if local prosecutors go after comparable claims re state taxes and criminal fraud under state law?
The Justice Department has taken the separate sovereigns position that a President can only pardon those convicted of federal crime, but that state convictions require clemency petitions to state governors.
But what of double jeopardy; being tried a second time if acquited in either a federal or state court, and the other of the separate sovereigns moves against the same conduct. First, presume elements at each level for the crime are the same, what then, and what if at the two levels the elements of the offense are different by statute? While that is a distinction deserving mention, limit the question by presuming identity of the elements required to convict, both levels, what then?
Over a month ago The Volokh Conspiracy website considered double jeopardy:
[links in original] The Trump/Pence ticket was for federal office, but in each state the ticket was put to the population of each state, so presumably there would be state authorities having standing for prosecution under a local campaign regulation law applicable within a state, for violation of a state's statute independent of any jurisdiction of a state to pursue a concurrent jurisdictional look at both state and federal criminal law. Likely there is definitive law on powers of county prosecutors or state Attorneys General on that question, so readers may research it. That question goes beyond the scope of this post.
Since the Michael Cohen federal plea deal is reported as a guilty plea to federal election law violation, there likely would be implication of others arising from testimony Cohen might, by agreement, provide in some later federal prosecution for accessorial liability or original liability for such other persons, same offense. A conspiracy allegation may also arise under present media reporting of alleged factual events.
Bunches of interesting leagal doctrine dimensions seem attached to current events. Lawyers might do well for themselves over the next year or two.
Add to uncertainty, what was the Gamble decision below; and what if there is delay in reaching a nine-member court so that a lower court decision stands if the Supremes deliver a 4-4 split? Readers interested in that question are encouraged to research it online.
____________UPDATE_____________
More opinion on the reach of the Presidential pardon power, here and here.
Hypothetical: Manafort is pardoned by Trump against federal tax/fraud convictions now in the news; can state courts under state law properly adjudicate if local prosecutors go after comparable claims re state taxes and criminal fraud under state law?
The Justice Department has taken the separate sovereigns position that a President can only pardon those convicted of federal crime, but that state convictions require clemency petitions to state governors.
But what of double jeopardy; being tried a second time if acquited in either a federal or state court, and the other of the separate sovereigns moves against the same conduct. First, presume elements at each level for the crime are the same, what then, and what if at the two levels the elements of the offense are different by statute? While that is a distinction deserving mention, limit the question by presuming identity of the elements required to convict, both levels, what then?
Over a month ago The Volokh Conspiracy website considered double jeopardy:
[The Supreme ...] Court has long held that this [double jeopardy part of the Bill of Rights] only bars reprosecution by the same sovereign: The federal government may reprosecute a person after a state prosecution (and vice versa, and in principle the same for multiple states, in the rare cases where multiple states both have jurisdiction over the crime).
In Commonwealth v. Sanchez (2016), Justices Ginsburg, joined by Justice Thomas, argued that this doctrine should be reexamined:
I write only to flag a larger question that bears fresh examination in an appropriate case. The double jeopardy proscription is intended to shield individuals from the harassment of multiple prosecutions for the same misconduct. Current "separate sovereigns" doctrine hardly serves that objective. States and Nation are "kindred systems," yet "parts of ONE WHOLE." The Federalist No. 82. Within that whole is it not "an affront to human dignity," Abbate v. United States (1959) (Black, J., dissenting), "inconsistent with the spirit of [our] Bill of Rights," to try or punish a person twice for the same offense? Several jurists and commentators have suggested that the question should be answered with a resounding yes: Ordinarily, a final judgment in a criminal case, just as a final judgment in a civil case, should preclude renewal of the fray anyplace in the Nation. The matter warrants attention in a future case in which a defendant faces successive prosecutions by parts of the whole USA.
Today, the Court agreed to consider the issue, in Gamble v. U.S. For an earlier petition that makes what strikes me as a powerful originalist argument against the "separate sovereigns" doctrine, see this 2013 certiorari petition written by my UCLA colleague (and legal historian) Stuart Banner.
[links in original] The Trump/Pence ticket was for federal office, but in each state the ticket was put to the population of each state, so presumably there would be state authorities having standing for prosecution under a local campaign regulation law applicable within a state, for violation of a state's statute independent of any jurisdiction of a state to pursue a concurrent jurisdictional look at both state and federal criminal law. Likely there is definitive law on powers of county prosecutors or state Attorneys General on that question, so readers may research it. That question goes beyond the scope of this post.
Since the Michael Cohen federal plea deal is reported as a guilty plea to federal election law violation, there likely would be implication of others arising from testimony Cohen might, by agreement, provide in some later federal prosecution for accessorial liability or original liability for such other persons, same offense. A conspiracy allegation may also arise under present media reporting of alleged factual events.
Bunches of interesting leagal doctrine dimensions seem attached to current events. Lawyers might do well for themselves over the next year or two.
Add to uncertainty, what was the Gamble decision below; and what if there is delay in reaching a nine-member court so that a lower court decision stands if the Supremes deliver a 4-4 split? Readers interested in that question are encouraged to research it online.
____________UPDATE_____________
More opinion on the reach of the Presidential pardon power, here and here.
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