COMMUNITY VOICES | Winners and losers in the Obama investigations

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Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it…Obama in a lose/lose position in what is a trifecta of attacks on his administration. But not so fast!  There are nuances, blowback, and a variety of mitigating circumstances which make this conclusion not as obvious as it seems. And some reasons are even counter-intuitive.LOSER: Congress. With ratings already in the toilet, anyone who follows (mostly conservative) congress people on television has to notice their sanctimonious and disingenuous concern about our nation’s future claiming an IRS seemingly out of control; and the DOJ unconstitutionally grabbing  phone records from the AP. Was all this wrong? Sure, but it is not placing our great country on the verge of collapse as some have actually claimed. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Political satire videos & pundits on Democratic Visions

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I’ve been grousing about the lack of sharp local, political satire and comment on Minnesota television and radio.  I’ve looked for it on YouTube, surfed our Comcast channels and radio dial — nothing.  (Yes, I do have a radio with knobs; a Christmas gift from my teenage kids.) I’ve not found one single wag with a grinning, perceptive sense of the politically absurd or mundane on our local airwaves and their Internet repeaters. The ones pretending to be – like the teleprompter readers on Almanac or, say, the awkward talent on AM950 Radio’s Laughing Matters are, to be polite about it, duds. They lack juice and are delusional in their self-confirming shows. Michele Bachmann’s recent TV campaign ad pegged to her U.S. House bill to undo Obama Care sparked more laughs per second than a month’s worth of Almanac. None-the-less, these local monologists, essayists, iconoclasts and chumps posture as if they are players in league with Bill Maher, Whoopi, Janeane Garofalo or perhaps sewer surfer Tom Bernard. Andy Rooney, Molly Ivins and George Carlin were never guilty of an “I’m clever and perceptive” attitude.  With brilliance, you don’t need attitude.  Jon Stewart is a special case.  His shtick of melodramatic asides, raised eyebrows, long takes at the camera and fist-pounding the fake news anchor desk is funny.  The show is CPR for democracy.  With maybe more than 15 Emmy winning writers and more producers making it up for him, Stewart is perched above the heap.  But our local broadcast pretenders to that comic aerie are bottom feeding; they seem to be worried about offending the Crocus Hill Chapter of the League of Women Voters.Rooney, Carlin, Stewart and Keillor set the bar, not the neurotic Catholic guy with his naughty priest jokes on open mic night at the Ha Ha Club.  Sweet Jesus!  Minnesota, via local TV, radio and video is dreadfully pleasant, un-funny, pulseless.  Politics have been left for the elected, the poly sci prof, partisan sound bite trombones and the Ember Reichgott Junges and Barry Andersons of this world. While the theatrical arts get better every year, satire remains as pointed as a Creamette noodle stuck in the drain.   The likely video production venues for prospective comic cynics with no restrictions are the metro area’s cable access television studios and channels.  It’s never happened.  That said, MN Progressive Project co-captain Eric Pusey has the licks, looks and wit to slap the puck into the net for scores. Fox Nine News knows that and so do I.On the current edition of Democratic Visions you can see him splash vinegar on the life political as he and host Tim O’Brien provide the continuity to four independently produced satirical videos, one from LaLa Land, two from Vancouver and one from Eden Prairie.  The vids take measure of President Barack Obama and the fiscal cliff, local TV weathercasters and climate change, Canada’s tar sand industry, and the National Rifle Association.  The latter features Eden Prairie’s Junk Yard Democrat’s Doug Lind, Norb Gernes and MN PP’s Tommy Johnson.  The boys aren’t pretty to look at and sing even worse, but deliver a damn strong message about gun cultists.  As Mel Brooks knows, you can’t beat monsters like Hitler with more speeches, but you can hobble them with silly.  The tar sand oil video is written and animated by Dan Murphy, who had been the Vancouver Province’s long time, brilliant political cartoonist before he bit the hand that fed the daily paper’s publisher.  Ronny Butler is superb as Barack singing and strumming a ukulele, and Deep Rogue Ram, a young Vancouver-based parody ensemble can tar and feather SCTV style. The Big E has at Chip Kravaack’s retirement, Tony Cornish’s guns for teachers bill and the Sixth Congressional District’s Princess Sparkle Pony.  Our program was taped a few weeks before the legislator announced that she will not seek another term in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. DEMOCRATIC VISIONS – ABOUT, WHEN & CHANNELSDemocratic Visions is produced with no budget by volunteers through DFL Senate District 48 at the Bloomington Community Access Television studio by arrangement with the Southwest SuburbanCable Commission.  The half hour can viewed on your home flat screen if you’re hooked up to cable as shown below –Bloomington Channel 16 on Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m., Fridays at 9:30 p.m. , Saturdays at 7:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. Minneapolis MTN Channel 16 – Sundays at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays 2 a.m., 8 a.m., 1 p.m.Eden Prairie, Mtka, Hopkins and Richfield – Comcast Channel 15 Sundays at 9 p.m. and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Edina, Richfield and Hopkins. MORE VIDEO SATIRE & PARODY Daniel Murphy (with Lamar) YouTube Channel –https://www.youtube.com/user/damnmurphy/videos?view=0 Deep Rogue Ram YouTube Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/DeepRogueRam?feature=watch Ronnie Butler Jr YouTube Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/ronniebutlerjr?feature=watch Continue Reading

Minnesota legislators’ pay could jump by 32%—but still, 2014 is no 1979

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On Tuesday, April 16, the Minnesota Senate voted 34-32 to pass SF 1589, a bill that would raise the pay of Representatives and Senators next session by about $10,000 annually, from $31,000 to almost $41,000 in 2015.  The pay raise was included in an omnibus bill covering a range of topics, and debate largely avoided discussion of the pay raise even as Republicans and a handful of Democrats from swing districts threatened to kill the legislation. But the brevity of discussion on the pay raises ignores the historic conversation surrounding Minnesota legislators’ salaries.The first reference to legislative salaries appears in a travel book by a Swedish visitor to the state.“Although the government officials in America are in general very poorly paid, which naturally results in fraud on every side, on the other hand, the members of the legislative bodies are paid enough so that they do not have to go home empty handed. The senators and representatives are paid five dollars a day, and they receive free travel back and forth and about twenty dollars for stationary [sic].” (Hugo Nesbitt, Two Years in America (1872-1874); Accounts of Travel, republished in Minnesota History, December 1927)Ever since the 1870s, debates over legislative pay have been vigorous. Legislators may be reluctant to vote for pay raises because of negative public reaction. In 1961, for example, Liberal Rep. Peter Popovich floated an anonymous trial balloon in the media proposing a pay raise. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Tim Springer: A Life on Purpose

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Tim Springer, a Minneapolis community leader from East Phillips, Powderhorn, and Central for the past 23 years, is running for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 9.  He is known for his leadership of the Midtown Greenway Coalition, where he played a major role in making the Greenway Minnesota’s busiest bikeway and a platform for urban revitalized and community connection. Tim’s accomplishments have not happened by accident.  He has led a life pursuing his values.  His perspectives and experience extend beyond the Greenway.  As Ninth Ward resident Janis Lane-Ewart says, “Tim has the rare combination of impassioned advocacy for challenging ideals like equality and sustainability, while at the same time bringing people together and actually getting something done.”Most of you know Tim as the Executive Director of the Midtown Greenway Coalition, but some of you may not know that he co-founded the Coalition, starting as a volunteer in 1992.  As Executive Director since 1995, he led the Coalition to advocate for creation of the Greenway, now a national model for greenway and urban renewal. During his tenure, Tim tirelessly advocated for safe neighborhoods, friendly trail design and implementation, attractive land use and green space planning, neighborhood art, community partnerships, and neighborhood involvement. The Greenway helped Minneapolis to be named the number-one bicycling city in the nation by Bicycling Magazine in 2010.  Tim has worked with all levels of government including neighborhoods, and city, county, state, and federal officials. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Something good from the gun bill defeat

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Without a doubt, one of the great movies of all time was The Wizard of Oz. In the end, Dorothy (actually her dog Toto) had the nerve to pull back the curtain and learn the truth about the Wizard – just an old man pulling a bunch of levers that made lots of smoke, noise…and fear.  Very similar to what happened to the now defeated gun control bill in the Senate.Once we have pulled back the curtain, the truth emerges.  Some folks pulling a bunch of levers. However, in this case, pulling the curtain back presents us with two vital lessons: the general power of lobbyists in our political system, and the NRA’s ability to use them. If that brings change, perhaps we can get something good out of the gun control defeat. Most Americans would be shocked if they understood how potent lobbying is in our Congress as just happened during the Senate vote on background checks.  Examining some statistics at the Federal level in 2011, where there are good numbers available, there was $3.3 Billion spent on lobbying in Washington; that is double the amount spent just ten years earlier. That supported 12,719 registered lobbyists – and some quick math tells us that there were 23 lobbyists for every one of the 535 members of Congress that year.  Or stated another way, there are about 14,000 people who work on the Hill – so there is about one lobbyist for every staffer in Congress. (Local side note: in 2011 there were 1496 registered lobbyists in the State of Minnesota – about 7 ½ for each legislator. They spent over $65 million on lobbying our 201 legislators, or about $325,000 each). Which brings us to another travesty in this system of lobbying and influence; the incestuous relationship between K Street and Congress. Continue Reading

HERC incinerator and the Minneapolis environment: What can one person do?

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I now have a little paper bag in my kitchen, filled with banana peels and coffee grounds, with a few apple cores thrown in. There are also some chicken bones and egg shells, but as I write this, I look up “should you put meat in your compost?” on Google and I realize that you’re not supposed to compost meat, so I guess I’m going to have to start over.This is actually my second bag. The first one was first thrown away by my boyfriend, who didn’t realize I was saving it. He’s not happy about the whole project, as it stinks up the kitchen. But I’m intent on soldiering on until I figure out how to do it right. Continue Reading

OPINION | Welcome new (fertilized egg) citizens

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No, this is not about immigration, or becoming an American citizen – the “new citizens” in this piece are the newly fertilized ovum who will become “persons” upon conception, if the advocates of “personhood” have their way. That’s right, these tiny little eggs will have all the rights, privileges, and duties of new citizens immediately conferred upon them, as proposed by organizations such as Personhood USA. And already they have had “personhood” successes.Most notably in our neighboring state of North Dakota, where they have successfully gotten personhood granted upon the first sign of a heartbeat (usually about 10 weeks); and as a person, “killing” the embryo would be a crime equivalent to murder. Consequently doctors who would violate this dictum would also be subject to prosecution and severe penalties. (Note: Roe vs. Continue Reading

OPINION | Is the presidential election over?

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Silly me. I guess I must have missed it? Maybe, like Rip Van Winkle, who slept through the American Revolution, perhaps I didn’t notice that there really was an election; and apparently Obama won.  Why would I come to this conclusion? Because here in March of 2013, it seems to me that presidential politics are still in full swing.Just the other day, House Speaker Boehner stated that Obama was not interested in avoiding sequester, and was just “campaigning”. Campaigning? Continue Reading

How about a better state budget for housing?

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Anna is a resident in the shelter at which I work. Despite having disabilities, Anna volunteers at a thrift store, takes care of her health, and hopes to attend college next fall. Anna’s grown son is educated and working, despite his own mental disabilities. Anna’s greatest wish is to have a home where her son can visit her, and see her as an example of success. She doesn’t need the expensive “crisis care” that a shelter provides—she just needs a modest apartment she can afford on her limited income. Continue Reading