FREE SPEECH ZONE | A Rant

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A friend sent me a story (Tea Party Nation Prez Wants to ‘Rewrite’ Constitution; Thinks Allowing Only Landowners to Vote ‘Makes Sense’). With it, she commented: “Amazing! All those poor jerks who attended those lovely tea party events are going to be very surprised when everything they hold near and dear is gone.” That prompted the following rant.Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Advance the Progressive Agenda in November: Don’t Vote DFL!

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 If most of the apocalyptic prognostications are realized, the GOP/Tea Party coalition is going to win big next month. And, typically, those of a progressive, liberal, Democratic persuasion are saying, “We can avoid the tsunami of Tea Party crazies by sticking with the Democrats. The Dems may be bad, but the Tea Partiers are even worse!” And I ask you, how does voting fearfully, ignorantly, and irresponsibly (sticking with the Democrats, voting for the lesser of two evils, voting against someone) advance the Progressive agenda? And that is what we are concerned about isn’t it? Advancing the Progressive agenda?Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. Continue Reading

Well, Isn’t This a Fine Mess the DFL’s Gotten Us Into

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Well, Isn’t This a Fine Mess the DFL’s Gotten Us Into

DFL Candidates: Get out from behind the lawn signs, the brochures, the ads, the polls and surveys (all that branding crap), and start behaving like candidates for political office: talk to me face-to-face of ideas I can get fired up about in language that I can understand. 

David Culver, Evergreene Digest
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FREE SPEECH ZONE | The Emmer Campaign: Lies, Pandering

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Republican Tom  Emmer’s  gubernatorial campaign is a string of lies and pandering, a regular runaway political freight train. It only under those terms that his campaign makes sense. I’m not talking about misstatements of fact, misunderstandings, differences of opinion, not knowing at the time, fibs, or any of the other euphemisms we use for not telling the truth. I’m talking about plain, unvarnished, bald-faced lying and it’s companion, pandering, done for personal gain. Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | An open letter to DFL legislators

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I have a couple of suggestions as you continue your work after the Easter Recess.It’s time to raise taxes. I really don’t give a damn whether you want to or not; whether you think you can or not; whether you’ve got the votes or not: just do it! Minnesota cannot cut itself out of the budget crisis (1). We’re going to have to raise taxes or accelerate our inevitable slide into the abyss. This may upset some wealthy campaign contributors to both sides of the aisle but it’s better for the state to have them upset and paying their fair share of taxes than continuing to make more attempts at squeezing blood from those who have no more blood to donate: the poor, the homeless, veterans, people with disabilities, the sick and infirm, the elderly, the jobless. Free Speech ZoneThe Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Why I Did Not Caucus with my party (DFL) on February 2

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The next years are going to be about mediocrity, broken promises, and striving for second best. That’s not the MN I grew up in. And it’s not what I voted for, or was promised.Do we continue as part of a political institution that we feel in large part is not serving us or the common good, or do we strike out towards something that we can participate in with integrity?For as l-o-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-n-g as I can remember, certainly ever since the obligations of getting an education, serving in the military, getting established in a career, and starting to raise a family were completed, I have attended my party’s (DFL) precinct caucuses. It’s a habit, born of a middle school teacher’s planting the seeds of activism deep in my heart, becoming radicalized in college at the feet of the good Jesuit fathers at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and my church’s (St. Joan of Arc) nurturing of that commitment to activism in pursuit of peace and justice. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Our Treatment of Sarah Palin – An American Nightmare

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No, this is not a defense of Sarah Palin. Anything but. You’ll find me defending her when pigs fly over frozen lakes in hell. FREE SPEECH ZONE The Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. Rather it is a warning. Continue Reading