Curiously MIA on a current event, while shooting darkly.

This guy is a Republican blogger with a sidebar key word widget with "Pawlenty" one larger than others [indicative of a greater frequency of reference possibly] and a top of the site search box; so give "Pawlenty" a try. No news is good news?

Too many cooks spoil the broth in CD8.

Craig endorsed CD2, Phillips endorsed CD3, CD8 hung; per Strib reporting here. In CD8 some guy named Radinovich got in the way of Leah Phifer, who after ten ballots led but was short of the sixty percent needed to be endorsed, again, per Strib. That means with 48% Phifer and 42% for Radinovich 10% was left for strgglers.

Phifer - from her Around the 8th in 80 days website
Maybe they could have a trap shooting
contest instead of a primary.
It would not take until August.

Phifer is the better choice to defeat Stauber, but it appears there will be a primary, exhausting resources; Stauber benefiting while progress suffers. Phifer, not tardy entrant Radinovich, got the Our Revolution endorsement.

Radinovich might be the best man for the job, but Phifer is the best woman and the progressive between the two; unless you want to quibble over Our Revolution's choice.

Contribute to Leah or suffer Stauber going to DC to be a pro-mining ass.

ActBlue.

Snail mail:
Leah Phifer for Congress Committee, 
P.O. Box 424, Isanti, MN 55040


CD8 DFL voters: Tromp Radinovich in the primary for the late entry termerity. Phifer was candidate when Nolan married Emmer [figuratively] on dangerous mining; Phifer was there when blowback on the Emmer-mining monkey business "encouraged" Nolan to weigh options; Nolan quit; then his campaign management honcho Joe jumped in and mucked things up - on behalf of Stauber indirectly.

Nolan even went so far as to put his thumb on the scale at the endorsement convention, in absentia, for his campaign jock, Radinovich.

Whomp Joe R. in the primary, CD8 folks. MinnPost reports on the CD8 deadlock; this link; mentioning the Nolan thumb on the scale (which proved insufficient except to hang the endorsement voting and cause a messy primary).

Thanks a lot, Rick.

Where might you vote for that steady rising tide that lifts all boats instead of ones that raise the yachts and swamp any little boats nearby or at a distance?

While my ideal world in terms of candidates for Minnesota Governor at this point in time before the November election is Erin Murphy being endorsed from among those still actively in pursuit of the office, (Liebling's withdrawal being real and her candidacy past tense), nonetheless Congessional Districk 1 Rep. Tim Walz seems a good man with sound intentions. For the reason he may at the DFL State Convention end up the endorsed candidate instead of Erin Murphy, with the DFL candidates all promised to abide, I have gotten on his e-mailing list. The most recent item from Walz:

When I was in my early twenties I worked in a tanning bed factory. The factory wasn’t unionized and I saw some terrible stuff. There wasn’t sick time and the pay was low.

I saw coworkers injured on the job. One stapled her finger to a tanning bed. Another inhaled fumes from the adhesive and passed out. They were sent home for the rest of the day without pay, and told to show up the next day or risk losing their job.

I’ve also been a union teacher and a proud member of Education Minnesota. I’ve seen the difference a union makes: quality and affordable healthcare, sustainable hours, a livable wage, and so much more.

I’ve been proud to stand with working people in Congress, and I’ll stand with Minnesota’s working families as governor.

This election is critical for the future of collective bargaining and the right to organize in our state, and I’m asking you to stand with me today. [...] As governor, I want to be the organizer-in-chief. We need to strengthen the right to collectively bargain in our state and grow the middle class. I’ll fight back against right to work legislation, and expand opportunities for workers to organize.

I’m proud of the tens of thousands of union members who have signed on to this campaign and the dozen labor unions that have endorsed Peggy and me.

We’ll keep fighting, and I hope you’ll join us.

Well, as to endorsements, the nurses and communication workers are close allies of Our Revolution, which endorsed both Rebecca Otto and Erin Murphy. I stay with the wisdom of the most progressive within the State's population. But if Walz is endorsed, staying with the most progressive choice will then be Walz.

Can you imagine Jeff Johnson or carpet-bag do-as-told Tim telling the bankers, Freedom Clubsters and yacht owners a story such as Walz sincerely presented?

Do-as-told Tim would tell the next secret donor enclave of the unfortunate co-round table banker who at lunch spilled the last of three martinis on his expensive suit and was so distressed he went home because of that and the fact he'd fired the guy who'd been tasked with upkeep of the guard Doberman kennels for having gotten sick, and the illegal immigrant hired to replace that person spoke Spanish as his first language and might not work out either. And atop that, as-told Tim would bemoan the downright saddening truth of difficulty in finding the right people to crew a yacht.

Trouble along the Potomac would be what could get as-told Tim to cry.

Union Tim Walz, has more substance and every intermediate-affluence person at risk needs to ask, is the banker on the other side of the mortgage or the student loan more my friend more than the union member supporting a fifteen buck minimum wage which will boost consumer spending and money circulation forming the bedrock of small business prosperity? Do-as-told Tim would likely think it a fine day to see your loan somehow forced into a renegotiation to a higher interest rate. How in as-told Tim's world zero sum games should work out.

The man's Potomac friendship liklihoods and his core Unalloter smallness of character and personality would be forecast to aim always to not ever appear to bite the hand that fed him so extravagantly for his several years in DC. Recall that before that he dropped at a distance away from Romney's show, and got the bank lobbying job as reward for services in office and for stepping aside. Demonstrable character shown the right people, that way.


If between the banker and the union man in prosperity, wonder about that tax cut and how it steepens the hill your prosperity is sliding down while the house at the top of the hill is lavishly redecorated, spare no expense, rosewood being nicer than pine.

Opinions can differ.

______________UPDATE_______________
While with morning coffee email was opened first, and this post believed proper, looking at Strib's homepage; this item from the news outlet owned by former Republican legislator Glen Taylor, and hence no tool of neo-communism or in tune with any such nonsense claims:

In 2012, when Pawlenty took the job of CEO for a Wall Street trade association called the Financial Services Roundtable, more than a quarter of all American homeowners were still “underwater,” meaning they owed more on their home than it was worth. Millions more had already lost jobs and homes in the four years since the financial panic of 2008, which economists and government investigators blamed on reckless mortgage lending and Wall Street’s unsound trading practices.

Pawlenty earned more than $10 million in a little over five years in the job, which he left in March. Now, the Republican faces scrutiny of his tenure at Financial Services Roundtable (FSR), which fought aggressively against financial regulations that the industry deems too burdensome. Pawlenty’s opponents in both parties are already making political fodder of his time in the job.

“[Pawlenty’s] lobbying will be yet another thing he’ll be on the defensive about in this race, and it’s clear Republicans have a much better chance without all that baggage,” said Jeff Johnson, Hennepin County commissioner and Pawlenty’s chief competitor for the GOP nomination.

Wall Street’s progressive critics, who battled Pawlenty in Washington for years, are eager to discuss issues like the safety of the nation’s financial system; lax privacy laws that led to fiascos like the Equifax breach of the personal information of millions of Americans; and Wall Street’s efforts to prevent customers from suing them.

“Across party and regional lines, most people think Wall Street has too much influence in Washington. And they think that because it does,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, a consortium of labor unions, consumer groups, liberal think tanks and organizations like AARP.

Pawlenty declined an interview request to talk about his time in the FSR job.

[italics empahsis added] "... in both parties ..." is interesting language. Most Republicans likely make monthly mortgage payments and feel the hurt felt more by those less affluent than most Republicans. With that big pay bonanza Pawlenty got, he suffers less than rank and file GOP voters, especially those within the Tea Party faction. Freedom Club self congratulating elite, they probably either love the bankers, or are the bankers; a diverse membership, that way.

Idiot convention.

This link. Be there if you fit the headline description.

City Pages these days is a gift that keeps giving. Gossip column: Mary Franson has a crush on Rob Undersander. Sort of.

This link.

City Pages publishes an item on Minnesota Congressional District 3's incumbent, his money sources to run for reelection.

No quote, only this link, and the title, "Erik Paulsen’s campaign funded almost entirely by corporations and the wealthy."

Big surprise? He's a Republican.

In particular -- Residents of CD3 should read the item. One of the easiest things is to vote out a mistake. The only thing easier is to keep the same lame horse pulling a wagon. Shoot the lame horse and get a good one? Ever think of that CD3 rank and file? Counterexample, CD2 going from Col. Kline to talk radio. There are learning curves, some places, learning curves being lacking elsewhere or even downward sloping.

Early in the City Pages item, there is a link to OpenSecrets.org Palusen-money info.

Comp plans can nourish Crabgrass? What a novel idea. The develpers never told us that.

City Pages, today's focus, this item, stating in four mind-item sequential paragraphs, re Minneapolis, but possibly true elsewhere:

Just as profits were made off segregationist housing policies in the past, today’s real estate investors and developers have a lucrative future invested in the shaping of the Comp Plan. We should be sober that they will fight hard, using all their resources, to defend against tenants and communities organizing for rent control, demands to tax developers and build affordable housing, or for a tenants bill of rights. Last fall’s elections showed this, when for-profit developers flooded hundreds of thousands of dollars behind candidates who won’t challenge their influence on City Hall.

The Minneapolis Comp Plan reflects what developers want while giving lip service to renters’ rights. Most of the progress that has been made is the result of grassroots organizing by tenants, under strong opposition from groups that are excited by the Comp Plan, like the Multifamily Housing Association. The Comprehensive Plan offers nothing concrete in the way of protections for tenants in Stephen Frenz and Mahmoud Kahn’s buildings, slumlords with long histories of violations whose names only came to light after renters organized to change things.

Renters’ rights only get vague references in the plan because the assumption is that slumlords exist because renters lack the freedom to move, not lax enforcement, stagnant wages, discriminatory practices, etc. Without renter protections, landlords have all the power to encourage renters to move along by neglecting repairs, threatening rent increases, or evicting people for any number of reasons that could permanently tarnish a rental record. Rent control and public housing are viewed with hostility, since they discourage investment.

The city’s logic amounts to punishing working people by awarding handouts to developers, incentivized by the city to build the housing most profitable for the developers and their investors, while energetically attempting to privatize rather than repair what little public housing still exists (like the Glendale Townhome residents fighting to stay in Prospect Park, many of whom are skeptical of accepting Section 8 vouchers and promises they’ll be able to rebuild community in the suburbs).

Read the entire item. Dispute this blog's title. Landlords are hosing people.