Chris Steller at the Minnesoros “Independent” is asking for town-related political plays on words:

Sen. Barack Obama has shown a remarkable willingness to fly across the country for appearances in especially apt-named places like Independence, Mo., and Unity, N.H. Here are some other possible destinations for Obama and others:

Obama explains for the 60th time that he’s Christian, not Muslim

– Dead Horse, Alaska

Sen. John McCain announces Gov. Tim Pawlenty as his running mate- Boring, Maryland

Oh, and he asks – perhaps to his eventual chagrin…:

Got more? Use the comment feature to add to this itinerary.

Loath as I am to send traffic to a Soros propaganda mill, this could be fun.

Question One

So after all my writing yesterday about the Heller decision (I’m supportive), what would you think if it were divulged by someone other than myself that I were getting payments from, say, the National Rifle Association to plug news releases from the Institute for Legislative Action (an NRA subsidiary), and not divulging that organizational or financial link?

Better example; what if, say, the Strib (owned by Avista Capital Partners) ran an uncritical, even fawning, report about the surpassing excellence of Frontier Drilling’s offshore exploration technology – and did it without disclosing that they are owned by the same company?

Woudl you consider that an ethical lapse on the Strib’s part?  Well, duh; pretty shady – right?  Pretty dubious ethics, perhaps?

Well, have no fear; both cases are supremely hypothetical.

Hold that thought as we proceed.

 Question Two

So how about if the Minnesoros “Independent” ran a piece uncritically fawning over a study put out by a political pressure group-cum-economics think tank that is a financial first-cousin of theirs, without disclosing the link?

Well, yeah, of course they did it, publishing a report by the Center for Economic Policy Research (about declining home values and, naturally, the wisdom of an interventionist approach to the housing crisis.

Learned Foot looks at the CEPR’s funders…:

Foundation support in 2008 includes:

The Annie E. Casey Foundation

The Nathan Cummings Foundation

The Ford Foundation

The Meyer Foundation

The Moriah Fund, Inc.

***The Open Society Institute***

The Retirement Research Foundation

The Russell Sage Foundation

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

The Streisand Foundation

Washington Area Women’s Foundation

There’s that “Open Society Institute” again! That name just keeps popping up like a bad Soros huffing Viagras.

And who else does the “Open Society Foundation” support?

MorOn.org – Your one-stop shop for hatchet-jobbery done on behalf of (but not in coordination with – oh no, that’d be wrong) the Democratic Party.

Media Matters – Media watchdog group that specializes in combating “conservative misinformation in the media.” As such on that site, “the media” tends to consist almost entirely of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

The Center for “Independent” Media – Runs several “non-partisan” (battleground) state-based “media outlets” that spew forth all manner of leftist drivel / character assassinations.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: A “non-partisan” ethics watchdog that specializes in suing Republicans, and making endless FOIA requests regarding Republicans.

Approdeh – An outfit that lobbies on behalf of South American terrorist organizations.

And now…

The Center for Economic Policy and Research – Issues bogus reports that can be cited by all of the above as authoritative. Kind of like money laundering.

Or like working for a law firm with one client.  In the “construction” business. 

Question Three

Does the Minnesoros “Independent’s” “code of ethics” actually impel them to behave ethically, or does it merely give them a framework under which to rationalize their unethical behavior?

Brian “Saint Paul” Ward writes over at Fraters:

[A piece by Chad] reminds me that there was an all-star group of local, liberal bloggers who formed the web site “New Patriot” a few years ago. We covered it here. They promoted themselves at the time, among other ways, as “our answer to the Fraters dicks.”

As the Fraters dicks still have questions demanding answers, let’s check in on them and see how things are going: New Patriot.

Doh! Gone with the wind they are. I guess we’ll have to stand by for the New New Patriotism.

Doh – he’s right.  The New Pats have gone 404 on us. 

And in a sense that’s a shame.  In a local leftyblogosphere crowded with knee-highs who toss chuzzlewitted snark on good days, and too-pathetic-to-bother defamations on bad ones (almost inevitably from the cover of cowardly anonymity), the New Pats were generally good writers, usually up for a rational argument (once you got past the “Fraters Dicks” bit) and, refreshingly, actual people rather than head-slappingly melodramatic handles fronting for 15-watt intellects.  While I disagreed with them on most things, I respected the likes of Chris Dykstra, Luke Francl, Chuck Olsen and most of the rest of the contribs for being good thinkers, capable readible writers and responsible bloggers.

The Elder Swings Away: Silly kids. They shouldn’t have underestimated the staying power of the Fraters dicks.

Indeed; the part I do like is taking that quick swerve down memory lane past some of the leftybloggers that, er, came out swinging at us over the years.

Ragweed?  Hah.  Stick a fork in him.

Kevin McKay?  Floating belly-up.

Daddypants (I can’t even find a link in my own archives)?  Changed and tossed!

I could go on – but you get the picture. We just keep swinging away.

Anyway – be well, New Pats.  Your scene could use y’all.

I do this about every year and a half or so; note that I’d do this for free (which is true) and pass the hat, more or less like a typical guitar busker.
So if you’re so inclined, I’ll be everlastingly grateful for whatever spare electronic change you might toss in the pail. No pressure…

Or, if you prefer the anonymous route, click here to go to an Amazon Honor System page.

Either way, thanks for your patronage.

And thanks to the people who’ve already donated.  I appreciate it!

Brodkorb notes a Robin Marty post at MN Campaign Report:

This post from MN Campaign Report is so insensitive and extreme:

“If God took out New Orleans because of the homosexuals, why’d he go after the boyscout camp? (Note: I can make fun of it because my cousin was there [he’s fine], your mileage may vary).” Source: MN Campaign Report, June 12, 2008

Er, sorry, Robin, but no, you can’t; having a cousin there doesn’t buy you a pass on this one.

The notion that anyone would say G*d “went after” either place “because of” gays, scouts, or anything else is as noxious to most Christians as the events themselves were horrifying.

The difference? I don’t know a single credible conservative commentator who didn’t slap their head in transferred embarassment at the whole “Katrina was a punishment for gays” thing. The impossibly vast majority of us are very loathe to try to tell our Creator what his motivations are.

Being the optimistic sort that I am, I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that the post was really just random characters her baby pecked, inadvertently and yet miraculously, into the keyboard. Or perhaps Rew is woozy from spit-up fumes. I’ve been there and seen what it can do; perhaps that is an example of one’s brain on eau de garf.

The interesting part, I suspect, is going to be seeing which leftybloggers leap to MCR’s defense, and their rationalizations for trying to turn this on my friend and radio colleague Brodkorb. That is going to be fun to watch.

UPDATE: Of course, Gary’s right:

Robin’s faux paus does not reveal a black soul — only a misbegotten lampoon.

And I sincerely hope nobody reads my post to imply anything more than that, as well!

I’m going to join with Patterico in urging a little restraint in the claims of anti-semitism on “BarackObama.com”.

Oh, make no mistake about it – Obama is going to draw a lot of anti-semites to his campaign.  Anti-semitism is a key tenet of the radical American left.

But BarackObama.com is pretty much open to all.

How open?

This open.

1. If your blog name is “Bill Dung” – change it.

More to come.

The Minnesota Monitor – the two-year-old lefty flak site supported by the “Center for Independent Media”, which initially set up shop in space shared with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America”, and is currently floated by a bevy of lefty organizations, has rebranded itself The Minnesota Independent. Was it because of a desire to put their past – dubious ethics, shoddy, giggly fratboy/sororitychick-level reporting, plunging traffic [or merely stagnant; the source was unclear on exactly how slow things were, over there], their long dissembling masquerade as an “independent” operation until the truth leaked out – behind them?

I’m inclined to think not; the changes seem to be all cosmetic (of which more below); all but one of the Center for Independent Media’s operations are now named “…Independent”, though.

On the upside: The new design is better. Forget politics for a moment. The graphics are different, sure – but big whoop.  I’m a usability guy; graphics are for kIdZ with Photoshop. But give credit where it’s due; the site’s overall interaction design is a huge improvement (and I am pretty remorselessly clinical about this sort of thing, since income trumps politics every time). And the old, frustrating, utterly opaque comment engine seems to have been finally, unlamentedly flushed. I presume the new one is better, but I don’t know; I haven’t left a comment yet. Either has anyone else in a while, from the looks of it.

Unchanged; the staff, the relentless sunshine-up-the-trousers DFL flakkery, and of course the “Code of Ethics“.

Anyway – welcome to the big world, “MinnIndy“.

Ed notes that he and the First Mate spent three and a half hours on the tarmac before their flight got cancelled.

They got to Cali eventually, anyway.

Not a great reference for Northwest Airlines.

MLP at Casual Sundays is back on the air.

Don’t scare us like that again.

Now go talk some sense into your sister.

It’s Gary Miller’s birthday!

40 years ago Robert F. Kennedy exited this world nearly the same moment I entered it.

The world suffered a big net loss.

Nevertheless, on this milestone birthday, I am grateful for the many friends I have discovered since beginning this blog almost 4 years ago:  John Swon, Jeff Kouba, Doug Williams, Andy Aplikowski, Barry Casselman, Pat Shortridge, Jerry Plagge, Mitch Berg, Bob Collins, Congressman Kennedy, Carol Cooper and many others.

The pleasure is all ours.

And here’s to 40 more!

Oh, heck.  Take 60 or 70.  They’re small.

…that I learn as much about the law in a week on KAR JARWB than I do in a month of Harvey Birdman reruns. Or even Law and Order.

Yes, I do.

Regular commenter “Peevish” has apparently finally taken several years of his fellow commenters’ advice, and started his own blog.

All the best, Peev! 

…on Kool Aid Report.

Art:  From South Park, via the Urban Dictionary: 

Stan Darsh – Stemming from the South Park episode where the children go skiing and encounter a stereotypical 80s movie plotline. Sort of a lame whiney insult for someone equivalent to Douchebag or Lamer.

“DARRRSHHH! Sup STAN…DARSH! Stan Darsh!”

“Life”:  “Scottsdale Woman”, from Fired Oglake: 

“Proschlockateur“. 

Votes, please!

Gavin Sullivan has been trying to ask CD3 GOP Congressional candidate Erik Paulsen some questions.  The discussion, for whatever reason, isn’t going well; Sullivan isn’t getting answers, Paulsen isn’t talking to him, Sullivan carries on an escalating campaign to get the answers, Paulsen doesn’t play along, Sullivan posts Paulsen’s home address on his blog, charges are made that Sullivan is “stalking” Paulsen, it’s noted that Paulsen’s site also has the home address…

…in  other words, a typical day in the Twin Cities blogosphere.

Let’s come back to that fracas in a moment here.  Because Gavin turns the flap into a question that strikes close to home:

A hypothetical: Let’s say I’m your longtime DFL state representative and I’m the endorsed DFL candidate for US Congress in CD3. Let’s say you’re a conservative blogger who resides near me, in the same legislative district. You start emailing questions; I don’t reply. You include my staffers’ email addresses; you still don’t get any reply. You find that whether you ask a policy question or you simply ask me to confirm biographical data, I refuse any interaction with you whatsoever. Eventually, you corner me in a public setting and ask me why I won’t answer your emails; I tell you I refuse to respond because I believe you’re insincere.

Hypothetical?  Sez who?

I’ve gotten the same thing from my city council president, my Congressional representative, Rep. Ellison, one of my Senators – and gotten nothing.  Not even the courtesy of a “f**k off, you hatemongering conservative”.  The reason…

…well, none of them ever gave a reason, but the peanut gallery pointed to my “credibility” (absurdly so; the Northern Alliance is honest about its biases, unlike most of the Twin Cities media) and worries that I’d “ambush” the politicians (a baseless worry – and a hypocritical one at that, since the same people criticize Rep. Bachmann for citing the same reasons for avoiding the partisan local media).

So no, Gavin, there’s nothing hypothetical about your scenario.  Even among my local representation – while Senator Anderson (DFL-SD66) is quite conscientious about her constituent relations, so as much as I criticize her politics, I admire her for that, at least.   Rep. Hausmann (DFL-66B) can’t be bothered; she’s too busy pretending to be an engineer.

So as to Rep. Paulsen avoiding Mr. Sullivan’s blog?  I don’t know; I’d like to get Paulsen’s take on things.

From the Iron Matron.

There is no joy in blogville.

Katie McCollow is signing off Yucky Salad with Bones.

Katie – the sister of both one of my homies from college and of the wife of my college’s basketball coach who is, herself, one of my favorite non-politics bloggers in town – is one of the funniest writers around; she’s either the Erma Bombeck of the David Letterman set, or vice versa.

Anyway.

Thanks for a great run, Katie.  And if you ever feel the need to just drop random posts on some blog without the hassle of doing your own, I know a blog run by a frazzled solo-blogger who’d love to have you on board, whenever you wanted to fire something off.

Just saying.

…but not surprised, to note that at least one person considers yours truly an “Everyday Hero”. 

Grace “The Pentagon Was Destroyed By A Cruise Missile” Kelly started the tradition, to give credit where it’s due. 

And today Ryan, mirabile dictu, lists me as an everyday hero. 

Thanks, Ryan.  I do my best.

It’s official.

…bow before the heroes walking in our midst. 

Grace “The World Trade Center was a Controlled Demolition” Kelly started the tradition, to give credit where it’s due. 

But Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci carries it on with style, interviewing Ryan Rhodes.

These tears are tears of joy.

I hate to think that I’ve become this cynical – but, sad to say, I have.

Whenever I see some lefty parrot-media outlet make some disparaging claim about Republicans, in the back of my mind a voice chimes in “somewhere out there, a Democrat is doing the same thing, only worse, and they are trying to draw attention away from it”.

And that little voice is usually right. Nobody would be argling about “McCain’s preacher” had it not been for Jeremiah Wright. Not a single Dem would be nattering about Limbaugh’s tongue-in-cheek “Operation Chaos” if they hadn’t been doing the same exact thing for years.

And so when I saw that the leftybots at Uptake were yapping being ejected from GOP conventions…

Minnesota’s Republican Party seems very camera-shy. Over the past several months Republicans have prevented journalists from recording their candidates at events…“[the] DFL makes it a policy to allow press, including videobloggers to attend all of its conventions and debates”,

…that voice said “the Tics have to be doing it, and much worse”.

And as usual, that voice was right. DFLers ejected Republican camerapeople at DFL conventions all over the state.

At CD2:

a Republican staffer was told to stop video tapping at 2nd CD DFL convention today.

And CD1:

Last week, a Republican staffer was kicked out of the 1st CD DFL Convention. If you’re keeping score at home, this is the second black eye for the Minnesota DFL.

And CD8:

…a Republican tracker at the 8th CD DFL convention was verbally and physically harassed. The staffer was pushed, his camera was grabbed and disgusting comments were made to him about President Bush and Senator Coleman. Thankfully, most of the incidents were caught on film.

Michael adds:

I should add that I haven’t had any trouble blogging from DFL conventions and both DFL staff and volunteers have treated me with respect.

It’s up to the hosts, of course – but I conventions should be opened to the other party’s observers, especially bloggers. And the local Sorosphere should be ashamed of their one-sided “reporting” of this issue.

Or, since shame would seem to be beyond them, the news consumer should know that they’re only getting half the story or less from them.

UPDATE AND BUMP:  The MinnPost, which claims to be “High Quality Journalism For People Who Care About News”, runs the Uptake story pretty much verbatim, ignoring the DFL’s at-least-equal transgressions.

Why, it’s almost like the MinnPost is…a leftyblog!

CORRECTION:  My bad. I have the “Daily Planet” and the “MinnPost” in the same category in my feed reader. 

I apologize for any insult inherent in comparing the MinnPost to the Planet – a site that can be fairly described as “all the measured journalistic detachment of the Minnesota Monitor, heh, without the funding”. 

My bad.  Sorry.

News Flash; the Minnesota Monitor is helping Al Franken circle his wagons by taking an ad hominem attack at Michael Brodkorb.  Indeed, other than Katherine Kersten (who earns the left’s ire by transgressing the liberal old-boy’s-and-Lori-Sturdevant’s-club at the Strib), nobody in the Twin Cities arouses more deranged ire than Brodkorb.

Indeed, it seems sometimes it makes them depart the surly bonds of reason.

Disclosure:  Michael’s a friend of mine, and my NARN colleague.

Background:  Along with many of us on the center-right, Michael smelled a rat when the Monitor – whose operations are underwritten by the “Center for Independent Media” – went live back in ’06.  The CIM started life sharing offices with George Soros’ attack-PR firm Media Matters for America – which, many of us felt, was more than just a coincidence.  The Monitor’s first editor, Robin Marty, tittered and giggled and obfuscated when Michael and many other local bloggers asked for details about the Monitor’s funding – or even a denial that Soros was involved.  Not that it would have mattered, other than as a way of helping the casual reader assess the “independence” of the “Center for Independent Media” from Soros; to the informed observer, being in bed with Soros, whose other activities are to say the least unsavory, might have helped the reader in judging how much and what kind of credibility to assign the Monitor. 

But other than a slip of the lip from a contributor (who admitted that the Monitor was  “supported by liberals with deep pockets”) and stalled – until former Strib reporter Erik Black let the truth slip out when departing the Monitor for the MNPost last fall. 

Now, there’s a reason the left gets all deranged over Michael Brodkorb; if Michael were a fighter pilot and big scoops on DFL shenanigans were enemy planes, the side of his cockpit would look like John Landers’ P51, only with donkeys instead of swastikas and rising suns.

“Surely”, their reasoning goes, “he must be on the GOP’s payroll”, the reasonable among them insist – although nobody’s ever come up with anything, beyond Robin Marty’s hit piece from a few years ago (which made the unsubstantiated leap from “Brodkorb was a paid consultant to the Mark Kennedy campaign” to “the GOP pays Brodkorb to blog”) which served only to give the local deranged left an ad-hominem shrieking point.

And to this day, they’re still hovering out there.  Still trying to make that connection. 

Today, we got a double helping of fun.  We were not only served with the rich irony of Paul Schmelzer (whose writing and editorship I have in the past guardedly praised in this space), a paid employee of a group linked with people to whom the Monitor and the CIM have gone to great lengths to hide their ties, flogging the thin gruel of Robin Marty’s old, debunked accusations about Brodkorb’s blog’s supposed financial ties to the GOP…

…but we got him muffing the basic facts of the story – the AP piece by Pat Condon I wrote about earlier today.

Schmelzer:

The AP neglects to mention Brodkorb’s past work as research director for the Republican Party of Minnesota and a part-time gig as “press consultant” to former Republican senatorial candidate Mark Kennedy; according to Federal Elections Commission reports, he earned $4,500 per month at that job.

Condon’s AP story:

He dropped out of college in 1995 to work on the failed U.S. Senate campaign of Rudy Boschwitz. In the late ’90s, Brodkorb worked for state Senate Republicans, where he started to learn how to do “opposition research” — digging up dirt on opponents. He did it well enough to become director of research for the state Republican Party, and served in similar roles for several Republican campaigns…

…and later…

Brodkorb started Minnesota Democrats Exposed anonymously in 2004, when he was still a paid employee of the state Republican Party.

I think that counts as a “mention”, don’t you, Paul?

Schmelzer: 

The AP also doesn’t mention the check for $5,500 Brodkorb received on September 3, 2006, for research services provided to the Michele Bachmann campaign.

And for about the thousandth time in three years, I have to ask – so what?  Brodkorb gets to have a day job – right?  Leaving aside that adding “scare quotes” around “press consultant” doesn’t by itself impeach Brodkorb’s story (right?), I have a question for the Monitor:  Given the reputation as a giant-killer that Michael Brodkorb has built up, and the fact that he is not a dumb guy, and that he’s got a city full of leftybloggers and DFL opposition researchers scurrying about like cockroaches on amyl, looking for that magic link that’d discredit him, does anyone rationally think that Brodkorb – who claims not to earn his living from politics today – would risk all of that by trying to lie about his income?

Y’know – like the Monitor did?

And when you get back to us on that, Paul and Robin and your various supporters (heh), please try to use things like “evidence” rather than “innuendo” and “jumping to conclusions that aren’t warranted by evidence”. 

UPDATE:  Joe Tucci hit the same conclusion at about the same time, noting that Schmelzer has added a “correction”:

The “correction” is even funnier than the “error”:

The AP only mentions in passing Brodkorb’s past work as research director for the Republican Party of Minnesota and leaves out specific reference to a part-time gig as “press consultant” to former Republican senatorial candidate Mark Kennedy… (emphasis mine).

It’s a 1,000 word fucking wire story. Should they have posted a detailed and exhaustive C.V. along with the story? “OMFG – Brodkorb worked at McDonald’s when he was in high school , and they clear cut rainforests!!!”

Is that something they normally do? Is it desirable?

Only if you’re a power hungry partisan hack with an axe to grind

My NARN colleague Michael Brodkorb has been beating up the Franken campaign like Mikek Tyson going over an errant waiter.

Now, even the AP is on the story, with this piece by the AP’s Pat Condon (with whom we’ve visited in the past) on Brodkorb and his MO:

From the kitchen table in his tranquil suburban neighborhood, Brodkorb for the last year has used his blog “Minnesota Democrats Exposed” to launch a furious political assault on Franken. He’s labeled the former comedian and liberal commentator a “mean-spirited and un-Minnesotan” candidate who’s running a “desperate and ridiculous” campaign.

That’s routine stuff in the world of political blogging, but in the last two months Brodkorb has scored two direct hits that have the Franken campaign reeling. Brodkorb scooped the traditional media by detailing extensive bookkeeping problems in New York and California that ultimately prompted Franken, this week, to pay about $70,000 in back taxes to 17 states.

The stories have knocked Franken off balance as he prepares to take on Sen. Norm Coleman, in what’s expected to be one of the most expensive and toughest-fought U.S. Senate races this year.

I loved this next bit (emphasis added by me):

Democrats have tried to downplay Brodkorb by portraying him as part of coordinated Republican attacks.

“When people talk about the right wing noise machine, that’s what it is,” said Franken spokesman Andy Barr.

But even some of his harshest critics admit Brodkorb, who has no real counterweight on the left, has been effective.

No counterweight.  I love that.  And ain’t it the truth.

UPDATE:  The DFL is spinning like mad to try to un-poink Franken.  And Gary Gross is chopping the spin up like a rhetorical teppanyaki chef.  Read the whole thing, and – if you don’t much care for the notion of a Senator Franken – chuckle.  It leaves a mark on a lot of people other than the would-be senator.

So yesterday I read Doug Grow for the first time since he left the Strib.  It was a review of P.J. O’Rourke’s speech at the Northrup.  And since it’s the first thing I’ve read from Grow now that he’s working for an overtly-political “news” outlet (The MNPost), I have to ask…

…is he doing anything different?