Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be sitting next to Host Mark Heaney tonight on "The Mark Heaney Show" from 6 to 7 pm on AM-950 KTNF - "The Voice Of Minnesota."
On June 4th - over at Michael Brodkorb's "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" - I noticed a reprehensible smear of GOP State Representative Laura Brod. While the comment making the smear, by an anonymous poster named "J" was taken down, subsequent comments acknowledging the smear were not - and I captured those comments on a screen shot. Now, regular readers here know I've taken shots at Laura Brod before, from nominating Laura Brod as Hypocrite Of The Month to her asinine voter fraud comments to, most recently, a complete debunking of a Canadian health care comment she twitted.
Those posts I made concerning Laura Brod are NOT about her or her private life - they are about her political activities and shots like I took are completely within the realm of acceptable politics: she ripped Al Franken while ignoring ol' Smokescreen's indefensible inaction during The Abramoff Scandal; she alleges voter fraud without making her case; and she made a claim about Canadian health care that simply wasn't true.
Fair game, each and every one of 'em. The smear campaign targeting Laura Brod? Completely unacceptable.
And it's interesting to note that the smear campaign targeting Laura Brod, according to rightwing blogger Andy Aplikowski, was orchestrated not only from within the GOP, but at the highest levels within the GOP. Here's what Andy Aplikowski posted:
The alleged culprits of the attack are Seifert supporters with speculation of the ringleader being the candidate himself. (ChangeWeMust.org)
Last Monday, August 10th, blogger Brian Falldin, who broke and is covering this story, posted the following breaking news:
MINNEAPOLIS (CWM) - We've received an e-mail confirmation from Residual Forces author Andy Aplikowski that Andy Gildea was the Republican Staffer referred to in his accusatory article. (CWM.org)
Tuesday, I confirmed Andy Gildea was on GOP Rep. Marty Seifert's staff when this smear campaign was being orchestrated; Andy Gildea left Rep. Siefert's staff when Seifert stepped down as Minority Leader. Andy Gildea is now employed as a Research Consultant by the GOP House Caucus.
Stay tuned as this CommentGate story of dirty GOP politics (are there any other?) continues....
...confirming the current state of today's Small Tent Party.
Well, "Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is GOP" fits, too.
A big ol' hat-tip to CrooksAndLiars.com for this one - and a big ol' (cheney)in' raspberry at the GreedOverPrinciples party for the racism they - as usual - put on display at the Sotomayor Hearings:
Does anyone see the similarity between what those good ol' Senate GOPer White Boys are doing to Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and what the good ol' State GOPer White Boys did to Representative Laura Brod?
Seriously - why would anyone that's not an aging and angry white male belong to today's GOP? The angry white males running the GOP hates EVERYONE that's not EXACTLY just like them.
I saw an interesting blogpost by Sen. Kevin Dahle (DFL-Northfield). He met with local dairy farmers to hear about their plight. I understand why Sen. Dahle met with these farmers. He'll learn from them and will do all he can to help them. Makes perfect sense.
Strangely, he let Rep. Laura Brod (R-New Prague) and US Rep. John Kline (R-MN) join him. Brod wouldn't vote for a bill to help family farmers if her political career depended on it. However, she'd never pass up a photo opportunity she could use later on her governor campaign lit. Plus having a few pro-farmer talking points might come in handy for the campaign.
Representative Laura Brod, myself, and a representative from Congressman John Kline's office listened to the concerns of area farmers...
I initially misread this. I was surprised that Kline would actually meet with constituents in a environment where everyone isn't a true-to-the-bone conservative. Before any event that Kline meets with the public, his staff make sure that everyone attending is a conservative and nobody will ask Kline any tough or unfriendly questions.
Kline doesn't care very much about family farmers except for photo opportunities for his website and campaign lit. So it's not surprising he wouldn't deign to meet with them. They simply don't donate enough and might be liberals. However, Kline loves him some large agri-businesses.
This is an excellent opportunity to bring up how lousy Kline has been on family farm issues.
Eric Cantor, R=Hypocrite, was on Fox News yesterday, trying - TRYING - to make the argument that after being elected on a "Family Values" platform, getting caught in, say, an "unFamily Values affair" doesn't much matter in today's GreedOverPrinciples Party. Let's watch!
What makes this performance by Eric Cantor, R=Hypocrite, even more hypocritical, is the smear campaign directed at GOPer Laura Brod - allegedly masterminded by high-level state GOPers.
Transcript of Cantor's We-a Not-a Culpa and a couple of thoughts below the fold.
That's part of a line in a blogpost Andy Aplikowski made, and promptly deleted on June 30th, 2009.
Here's the whole line:
Yes, that's right, it appears that a Republican staffer in the Capital is trying to tank some of the condender's on Seifert's behalf. (emphasis NOT added)
The subject of Andy's blogpost was the smear campaign against Laura Brod; Andy made allegations that the smear was coming from within the MN GOP. Specifically, Andy wrote:
The alleged culprits of the attack are Seifert supporters with speculation of the ringleader being the candidate himself.
Marty Seifert has denied personal and/or staff involvement as documented by Brian Falldin here and Political Muse here.
It's important to note in Marty Seifert's written response to Brian Falldin, Marty Seifert wrote:
I would ask anyone in question that allegedly has done this to open up to a lie detector test, open up cell and computer records and come clean.
One person that could come clean - and probably very easily - is GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb, owner of a blog where one of the smears appeared, on June 4th. This was discussed yesterday, here.
So far, GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb hasn't stepped forward to aide Rep. Seifert in locating the culprit by handing over easily located IP records. This makes me wonder if it is possible that Andy Aplikowski could be refering to GOP Senate Caucus Communications Director Michael Brodkorb when he says a "...Republican staffer in the Capital"?
More importantly, after making such serious allegations, why is Andy Aplikowski now aiding in the cover-up by not stepping forward to clear the air? Does his silence indicate that he simply made it all up or does he still have information that he isn't sharing?
Fresh soup tonight. I won't forget to serve it to you hot. Woo.
Dave Mindeman reads Miss Hairdo so you don't have to.
Liberal in the Land of Conservative: Marty Seifert answers questions about the Laura Brod smears.
Aaron Brown has some news about the company trying to build the biggest boondoggle on the Iron Range. They're changing their name. Aaron also has some not helpful news about Tom Bakk helping promote this boondoggle.
That's "IP" as in "Internet Protocol" - and here's why it's important: on June 4th, at 6:32 pm, the following message was posted on GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb's personal blog:
J Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Aside from her tax issue which will be huge, Brod will have to answer for her personal behavior if she runs. She's - ahem - played the field. A lot.(MinnesotaDemocratsExposed)
At the time, I didn't think a lot of it; it seems to be there's some exceedingly vile stuff posted over at GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb's personal blog. However, blogger Brian Falldin of Change We Must Fight For began noticing a pattern; a pattern on right-wing blogs of posts smearing Laura Brod.
Right-wing blogger Andy Aplikowski tried to take the high road and wrote about this smear campaign in a post that was almost immediately deleted. Among other things, Andy alleges "...a Republican staffer in the capital..." is involved in this smear campaign. Andy explained why he deleted that post here; it's important to note that Andy did NOT retract his allegations. In a nutshell, Andy found that exposing problems in the GreedOverPrinciples party isn't a lot of fun, if you're a rightwinger.
Brian Falldin sent some questions to GOP Gubenatorial Candidate Marty Seifert, who was identified by name in Andy's deleted post. The Q 'n A is here.
Here's what I found interesting, in Marty Seifert's response:
I would ask anyone in question that allegedly has done this to open up to a lie detector test, open up cell and computer records and come clean.
Well, that should be a real easy one for GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb. All he has to do is go back to June 4th, 2009 at 6:32 pm in his personal blog's records, and find out who "J" is - by using the IP Address "J" used to post.
UPDATE: Marty Seifert has responded to Andy's allegations, see his response after the jump.
Note to readers: Andy Aplikowski removed his original blog post yesterday. We were able to make a copy of the original post and save it. Links to his posting are to our archive. Andy has linked to our archive indicating its validity on his own blog Residual Forces.
According to the conservative blog Residual Forces, operatives close to Rep. Marty Seifert are "trying to tank some of the contenders on Seifert's behalf ... making up rumors about one's marriage." These references specifically point to the whisper campaign currently underway against Rep. Laura Brod. Also according to Residual Forces author Andy Aplikowski, the accusations against Rep. Laura Brod are false. However, he also claims "Seifert's close supporters and Caucus staff are using DFL bloggers like Shawn Towle & Dusty Trice to torpedo Republican candidates with smears and lies." If these accusations prove true, the implications are significant. A scandal of this proportion could derail Rep. Seifert's expected gubernatorial campaign launch next week, and create a cloud of suspicion regarding his candidacy and campaign tactics. Attempts to contact Rep. Seiftert's staff for comment were made. However, at the time of this publication, Rep. Marty Seiftert has not responded to our requests for comment.
We will provide updates as we learn more about this breaking story.
There are times when reasonable people read something, and just know - JUST KNOW - that what they just read just cannot - CANNOT - be correct. And just this morning, Laura Brod provided reasonable people another one of those times.
What's needed, is analysis! And fortunately, I'm here to help!!! So, let's take a look at domain names - taken and available and related to those considered "potential candidates" by those from the party that bows to the guy with the big cigar....
On June 12th, from KSTP:
But to get an idea of who might be thinking of running, it's helpful to check the purchase of Internet domain names.
House Minority Leader Marty Seifert also bought a domain, SeifertforGovernor.com, the same day of Pawlenty's announcement.
If KSTP viewers had read MN Progressive Project, they'd have known a full week earlier about what KSTP reported on, and a whole lot more - like who owns the domain names www.SteveSviggum.com and www.Sviggum2010.com and www.SviggumForGovernor.com
So, keep reading this blog - even if we don't get the hat-tips we ought to....
T-Bag announces he's out; which obviously means there's a whole buncha republiCons in. Well, even some Republicans, too. Which begs the question: how serious are they?
It's important to note: what you might find, might simply be "opinions." Well, "opinions" if - and I mean "if" - the following "commentary" is considered "opinion":
D Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Laura Brod was one of the chief proponents of the "Rape the Taxpayers of Hennepin County to the delight of multi-billionaire Carl Pohlad".
Nobody, I mean NOBODY, in the Hennepin County GOP has forgotten her vote and defense of ripping our right to vote by referendum on the Twins stadium.
And I will take great joy in reminding my state delegate friends of this woman. (MinnesotaDemocratsExposed)
Gotta love them RightWingNuts, "right"?
"Right." Even when they got opinions such as this:
J Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Aside from her tax issue which will be huge, Brod will have to answer for her personal behavior if she runs. She's - ahem - played the field. A lot.(MinnesotaDemocratsExposed)
Doncha just love "blogs" "written" and "moderated" by "gentlemen" considered "candidates" for "positions" of "authority" in today's "Family Values" party?
But, I digress. What's "written" is just "opinion."
What's needed, is analysis! And fortunately, I'm here to help!!! So, let's take a look at domain names - taken and available and related to those considered "potential candidates" by those from the party that bows to the guy with the big cigar....
(Yesterday, Laura Brod (R=Hypocrite) announced she wasn't running for re-election this fall; today, I thought it would be a good idea to "highlight" some of her escapades...so, here's a reprint and make sure to link and read Spot - promoted by TwoPuttTommy)
It was just one year ago, June 2008, when GOPer Laura Brod was a nominee for that month's "Hypocrite Of The Month". It's important to remember why Brod was singled out that month: she stood in front of a microphone, as a surrogate for ol' Smokescreen, even though ol' Smokescreen had done his best to cover for his pals Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, et al. And Laura earned that nomination; click here for a recap of her hypocrisy and the sordid treatment of women that Norm Coleman ignored as Chair of the Truman Committee.
Yet there Laura Brod was, a year ago, rippin' Al Franken. Nothing demonstrates hypocrisy more than an indignant republiCon woman defending a guy like Norm Coleman's inactions by criticizing someone else's jokes.
And no one epitomizes a republiCon makin' (stuff) up more than Laura Brod and her imaginary issue of "voter fraud." Take, for instance, part of what Spot at The Cucking Stool wrote, in a piece entitled "A solution in search of a problem" back in February 2007:
In her little incitement to action, Rep. Brod mentions the increase in "identity theft and fraud." What she doesn't do, because she can't, is tie the efforts of digital thieves to voter fraud. And frankly, you'd have to be a pretty stupid thief to try to steal a vote here and there. Now that he thinks about it, Spot has never gotten a Nigerian voter-fraud scheme email!
How many voter fraud cases in Minnesota have you read about in the paper recently, boys and girls? Spot certainly hasn't seen any. If Rep. Brod's proposals ever gets a committee hearing, Spot hopes that Rep. Brod and her sidekicks will get a good grilling on the evidence behind statements like those contained in her letter.
Rep. Brod says that she just wants to be sure that "only those who are legally eligible can participate." Bull chips. What she really wants is to depress the turnout of the poor, the minorities, and the natives. (The Cucking Stool)
PhoenixWoman at Mercury Rising noted "right" around the same time:
Reforming our election system is already getting attention from the legislature and one of the ideas being pushed by members of both parties is a run-off in cases of a close result. From one of the supporters herself, Sen. Ann Rest of New Hope:
"It would be $3 or $4 million instead of $250,000, which is the cost of the current recount. But I think voters would believe that is a worthwhile expenditure to have a clear result in an extraordinary circumstance."
In other words because the recount had a few glitches we should spend anywhere from 12 to 16 times the amount of money. And what happens if the runoff is really close? Do you have a recount of the runoff?
The other question to ask is would Minnesotans even want to go back to vote again for a single race? In Georgia this year there was a huge drop-off between turnout on Election Day and turnout in the Senate runoff. This means the people who ultimately decide the race will be a different group from the people who decided all the other races.
Another runoff supporter Laura Brod had this to say:
"The voters are the ones that are looking at it, saying it's a confusing process, I don't understand why these votes were counted and these votes were not. I don't understand how a recount total can be used in one place and not in another. I think a runoff vote -- not an instant runoff vote, but a runoff vote -- would create clarity. I think it would lessen confusion in the system, and I think it's something we should very closely look at."
I don't see how a runoff creates any clarity; there is the very real possibility that the person who wins the runoff is not the person who won on election night. I don't think that's clarity and I'm not so sure that clarity is something we should aspire to. Transparency, yes. The issues she brings up are clear though, not confusing. The issue of the missing ballots in Minneapolis is unfortunate, but to then say that those votes shouldn't count is ridiculous. This is a human system so mistakes will happen and ballots will be lost and it's not the voters who should be punished because of it. Just because some people are allowing themselves to be confused doesn't mean the process is confusing.
A runoff election is a solution to something that isn't a problem, a close election. A close election will expose problems in any voting system, but that doesn't mean that the closeness of the election is the problem, the problems are the problem. The number of rejected absentee ballots are a problem. The lost ballots are a problem. The ballots that were found while looking for the lost ballots are a problem. There were certainly problems with the election and the recount, but they are all problems that can for the most part be addressed with tweaks and changes to Minnesota's existing election law.
With the 2008 election behind us, campaign finance reform in ashes and the 2010 census looming, redistricting reform has emerged as the next good government battleground. The increased attention to a normally boring and usually litigated issue is in large part due to the partisan gerrymandering in Texas that followed the 2000 census. What's mostly forgotten is that a similar attempt was made in Colorado but failed in the courts.
In the aftermath of Texas and Colorado a national consensus of sorts to reform the way redistricting is done has emerged. There have been multiple efforts in numerous states towards some sort of reform and many different ideas from all over the political spectrum about what kind of form it should take.
The calls for change are only likely to increase as we near 2010, so now is as good a time as any to take a look at the issues in play and what reform might look like.
