Tag Archives: Alondra Cano

The Minneapolis Way

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https://pjmedia.com/davidsteinberg/ilhan-omars-husband-no-longer-works-for-minneapolis-councilwoman-sources-say-omar-asked-for-him-to-be-fired/

Ilhan Omar’s soon to be ex husband’s days of being part of the lifetime sinecure the DFL gives its “elite” are apparently at an end. His job as a bag man…er, community liaison for Alondra Cano apparently got terminated over the summer.

David Steinberg – who hasn’t quite shamed the Strib or MPR to cover the story yet – writes:

My sources stated that Ahmed Hirsi was terminated following a request by Rep. Omar. They added that Omar’s motivation for the request was to force Hirsi to become reliant upon her assets and income.
For the majority of 2019, Ahmed Hirsi has reportedly borne the responsibility of raising the three children he has with Omar. (One source used the term “abandoned” to describe Ilhan’s recent share of the parenting.) Since June 14, Hirsi does not appear to have a reliable source of income.
Meanwhile, Rep. Omar currently draws a $174,000 Congressional salary, and reportedly received a $250,000 book advance in January.

Read the whole thing. Pass it along.

La Generalissima

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On her Twitter page, Minneapolis city Council woman Alandra Cano refers to herself as a “Third World feminist” – or did, before she blocked me for questioning her thuggish ways last winter, when she published personal addresses, emails and phone numbers of her critics who had written her on the city of Minneapolis website.

I couldn’t speak to the “feminist” part, but Cano certainly has the basics of banana republic tactics down; her response to the ethics charges that came out of the episode last winter (on which My coverage led the entire Twin Cities media) is a big game of “I know you are, but what am I, and if you say anything I’m going to her you twice as hard and quote.
No my coverage led the entire Twin Cities media) is a big game of “I know you are, but what am I, and if you say anything I’m going to her you twice as hard and quote.

No, really:

“I disagree with the findings and have kept screenshots of the ways other Council Members, including CM Frey (Ward 3), Bender (Ward 10), Glidden (Ward 8), Abdi (Warsame, Ward 6) and others have used city property for ‘political purposes.’” She goes on, threatening to “speak out against the vote and circulate a press release to the media about the issue with the screenshots I’ve gathered since January of 2016” if the Council moves forward with approving the Ethics findings.

John Edwards of Wedge Live responds:

Cano responded to the stories about her email on Facebook, saying: “When a person of color speaks up, it should not be misconstrued as a “threat” to society, it should be respected as their truth.” Whatever Cano’s intent, the reason people interpreted her email as a threat, is because she constructed it that way: if you vote against me, I’ll put out a press release with incriminating screenshots. This is not to say Cano can’t make an argument that she’s being singled out unfairly, or that she can’t produce evidence to support her defense. But if she was trying to make that argument, she obscured it by writing an email that looked like blackmail.
Alondra Cano really has been the target of vicious racist attacks because of her support for BLM. Separate from those vile attacks, Council President Barb Johnson and some of Cano’s other colleagues really have gone out of their way, to a sometimes comical degree, to trash her in the local media. But it’s also true that Cano picks too many unnecessary battles, irritating her colleagues in a way that transcends race and ideology.

That an elected member of a party with sole control of a major city thinks she can complain about others’ “privilege” is a laugh riot.

And while she may or may not be a “third world feminist”, she’s certainly got the Chicago tinhorn ward-heeler thing down.

Philosophical Question

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Last week, I wrote about Minneapolis City Councilor Alondra Cano and Minneapolis NAACP president Nekima Levy-Pounds complaining about being “victims of racism” – Cano for having been criticized by her fellow councilpeople, Levy-Pounds for being scolded for barging in and interrupting giving public input at a Park Board meeting where public input was not on the agenda.

So I have to ask – is it even possible for…:

  • Cano, a senior member of a one-party political system that controls Minneapolis no les scompletely than the Stasi controlled East Germany, a woman who has the sort of power that mere citizens can’t possible imagine, a woman who is guaranteed a much-better-than-living-wage for the rest of her life, between the political system and the rent-seeking non-profit sector, even if she doesn’t run for mayor or the Legislature (as, rumor has it, she will), and accede to even more power and long-term wealth, and…
  • Levy-Pounds, a professor with tenure – she can never be fired from her job (unless Saint Thomas law school closes) who earns an upper-middle-class income and has the sort of social and political access that nobody in this audience does, a woman who can get Betsy Hodges and Chris Coleman to say “how high, ma’am?” when she says “Jump”

…to feel “racism” in any way that matters given their status as “One Percenters” in the social and political class diagram?

I say “that matters” because after a certain point, as the great African-American and arch-liberal columnist William Raspberry once said, at a certain point you have to realize racism is just ignorance, and beneath you.   Given the power and status that the likes of Cano and Levy-Pounds have accreted, isn’t “racism” to them sort of like Erik Pusey criticizing my writing – it is irrelevant, and has no real, tangible impact on my interaction with the real world?

Alondra Cano: Bully

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You might recall Minneapolis City Councilor Alonda Cano; last winter, she was abusing her access to city data to “shame” people who criticized her support for Black Lives Matter.  Then, when called for alleged laziness by (of all outlets) the City Pages, she…

…well, that actually brings us up to this week:

Tuesday evening, it was Cano’s turn to join the public conversation, doing so in the form of a Facebook post on her city council page. Cano wrote it was “hurtful and disappointing” to read the words “lazy,” “always late,” and “clueless” used to describe her work ethic on the council.

“It is important to illuminate,” Cano went on, “that these words, when used to frame women and people of color, carry a history of coded language that serve to create negative racial stereotypes.”

That could be.

Those words, when referring to someone who’d rather grandstand than learn their damn job, are also not-coded-at-all terms to refer to lazy, inconsiderate people who don’t do their homework, whatever their skin color.

Cano wrote that the negative story “weighed on me heavily,” and she went back and forth on whether she should respond to it. After all, she and her south Minneapolis constituents in the Ninth Ward have far greater concerns: wage theft, slumlords, a lack of paid sick time for workers, even working moms.

Which Cano, apparently, isn’t doing jack for.

“However,” Cano continued, “when loaded and biased attacks occur, it is vital that we stand up and speak the truth. In this case, this story was racist, sexist, and it was an attempt to smear all of the things I stand for.

Well, no.  It was an attempt to tell the public that Cano – who reportedly has ambitions to run for Mayor or the Legislature – isn’t doing a very good job, when her job doesn’t involve granstanding, or taking spiffy trips on the taxpayer’s dime.

I want you to know that I am unabashed in my commitment to continuing to advance a racial and social justice agenda no matter the backlash.”

Let’s take a moment to go over what just happened.  Alondra Cano – an elected member of a power bloc with absolute one-party control of a major city, a person with in effect a lifetime sinecure either in government or non-profits for her and (likely) her entire family, one who wields the kind of power that mere citizens don’t even know how to dream of – is trying to paint herself as a victim.

Cano – like Nekima Levy-Pounds, another person with immense power and privilege herself – is perfectly fine using her position to shame critics who don’t buy newsprint by the trainload; when someone – even the lowly City Pages – comes along and hits her from the level, she cries “victimization”.  

Question, Minneapolis:  Do you deserve better, or not?

 

When You’ve Lost “City Pages”…

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City Pages turns on Alondra Cano.

Which is not unusual – the City Pages, as always,  loves throwing dirt around.

Perhaps more telling? Other members of Minneapolis is DFL-strangled city Council are turning on Cano:

“She’s always late to meetings. Sometimes she doesn’t show up at all,” says a council member, who spoke to City Pages on the condition of anonymity to maintain their working relationship. “When she does, she hasn’t done her homework and has to wing it. That’s what she was trying to do here. The problem is this is stuff she’s supposed to know. It’s city council 101.”

Cano also didn’t have a printed version of her amendment. For 13 minutes, Cano grasped as she tried to figure out how to add her amendment. In other words, what should have been as simple as adding a couple words became a Laurel and Hardy skit.

“Why don’t you try to walk us through what you would like to do,” suggested colleague Elizabeth Glidden.

“I guess should I just read it?” asked Cano.

” — if you’d like me to assist you a little bit,” Glidden offered.

The problem with Cano isn’t so much that she’s absentminded, or apparently thinks that staying in a Holiday Inn Express actually does make you an expert.

No.  It’s the fact that while she bills herself as a “Third World Feminist”, she tends to act more like a “Third World Banana-Republic Tyrant” in real life.

The City Pages has decayed into “bad high school newspaper” territory in recent years.  The only real interesting question in this fracas is “which Minneapolis DFL ward heeler is using the ‘Pages to undercut Cano, and why?

My guess:  whichever councilor besides Cano that files for Mayor in the next city election.  `

La Generalissima

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Alondra Cano – “third world feminist” (whatever that means) and Minneapolis City Councilwoman – took time off from not bothering with her actual constituents’ real problems to sound off, like every other demigogue, on the Freeman press conference yesterday.

Her Facebook page seems to be set up to disallow copying, so I screenshot the whole dismal lashup:

 

screencapture

Let’s be clear, here; I don’t find the inquisition into possible police wrongdoing comical.

I find Alonda Cano – industrial engineer par excellence, social-media bully and frothing-yet-brittle demigogue – comical.

“Political pressure?”   The City of Minneapolis has bent over backwards to accomodate Black Lives Matter.  If a Tea Party or Pro-Life group ever blocked a freeway, the Minneapolis or Saint Paul police departments would rain down attack dogs and billy clubs like the Great Deluge.

Like all wannabe liberal demigogues, she’s making up her reality as she goes along, knowing the stupid and gullible won’t care.

Meet The DFL’s Praetorian Guard

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The City Pages – the Twin Cities’ media’s aggressively dumb and mindlessly aggressive little brother – engages in “Trump-shaming”, in an article that asks the question that’s on every Minnesotan’s “mind”:

DFLMinistryofTruthLARGE

Who among us would give to Donald Trump? These people, that’s who.

The article then publishes the names of everyone (they could find) who’s donated to Trump, from the $1,000 donations down to $19.

Now, let nobody be under the delusion that the City Pages is anything but the low end of the DFL’s PR chain, covering the “dumb, entitled, self-impressed would-be hipster” market segment.

But this is part of a larger Democrat strategy – and it’s nothing new.  Back in 2010, the DFL used the media to help “shame” Tom Emmer’s corporate donors into acquiescence.   Newspapers around the country have been trying to “gun-shame” carry permit holders (in states that have less-effective protections for permittees than Minnesota law does, thankfully) ever since they could.  Even Minneapolis city councilwoman, Generalissima and Councilwoman for Life Alondra Cano, used/abused her position with the city to try to “shame” her critics by publicizing their personal contact information.

This is your Twin Cities media, doing its job.

No, I mean its real job.

Alondra Cano: Transparent As An Iron Curtain, “Conversational” As Rain Man

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Busted last week for using public data to try to shame constituents who disagreed with her participation in a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of America, Alondra Cano is sorry…

…that all you dissenters are such racisssss rubes:

“It was not my intent to put anyone in danger by any means, and this was not an attempt to punish anyone,” Cano said. “But it was actually an attempt to have a public conversation about the importance of Black Lives Matter and how the public should continue to have that debate publicly without fear of having to hide your thoughts behind some rationale that doesn’t make sense.”

“…behind some rationale that doesn’t make sense”.  Hmmm.

Of course, her “public conversation” talk would seem less bullshit-y if Cano actually had a conversation.  She didn’t. She took the four dissenters contact information from a city server, and published it on Twitter – which is sort of like “having a conversation” with someone after you’ve hung up the phone with them.

And her “conversation” – like Heather Martens and Kim Norton before her – is, of course, a monologue; everyone who criticized her on Twitter got blocked; she responded to no media requests.

Which is an interesting response for someone who claims “”I did it out of a belief in government transparency and public discourse”;  intimidate dissenters, ignore questioners, hide from reporters.

Check Your Urban Liberal Privilege

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Minneapolis ninth Ward representative Alondra Cano likes to paint herself as the champion of the underprivileged…

…while availing herself of that most excellent privilege, awesome vacations on the taxpayers dime.

(And that other awesome liberal privilege, using the government she works for to strong-arm those she disagrees with, all the while claiming to be the victim).

Alondra Cano Doxxes The Halls With Abuse Of Power. Fa La La La La, La La La Lawless.

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Minneapolis City Councilwoman Alondra Cano makes no bones about the fact that she’s a progressive.  Her Twitter bio begins “Daughter of the Third World Feminist movement”, which may or may not be true, but she’s certainly a product of the sort of unbridled prosperity that First World free-marketeering has wrought; it takes a lot of prosperity to make a public life like hers sustainable.  And thank goodness for that prosperity – since her future as an industrial engineer looks dim indeed.

At any rate, she spent a good chunk of yesterday on social media rooting for Black Lives Matter’s protest at the Mall of America.  And while Ms Cano seems as confused about the distinction between public and private property as the rest of the City Council usually does, I’ll certainly defend her right to protest in favor of or against anything she wants.

Provided, of course, she doesn’t abuse her office to do it.

And we’ve got a problem, there.

Chicago-y:  On her Twitter feed yesterday, she went around and around with some of her critics.

Including, as it happens, some who’d written to her on her City of Minneapolis feedback form – the one people use on the City website to send her feedback.

She took to posting some of the responses she disagreed with.  Note:  While I redacted personal information, including phone numbers, email addresses and home addresses, from the screenshots, Ms. Cano did not:

Cano 1

Cano 2

Cano3

And this condescending little jape:

Cano4

When people tried to call “foul” on Twitter, Cano responded:

CanoAccountable

Emails may be public – but one might ask why a public official is posting citizens data on Twitter, when they contacted her via the City’s contact form.  Because she expects them to be reading Twitter?  Seems unlikely.

And while she pleads “public data”, you’ll note that she only published the names, email and home addresses of detractors, not supporters.

In short, Cano used her city social media presence and city-supplied data to try to intimidate constituents who disagreed with her.  Furthermore, she used city-supplied data to stump for Black Lives Matter.  While Cano has every right to believe what she wants, and protest on their behalf, using data from a city web form to intimidate citizens is grossly inappropriate.

screenshot-twitter.com 2015-12-23 20-44-40

It’s hard out there for a member of a major urban political elite.

So while Ms. Cano – an elected officeholder and high-ranking member of a power structure that has boundless power over a major American city – may try to eke out a shard of victimhood out of the fact that anyone would ask…:

screenshot-twitter.com 2015-12-23 21-13-27

I haven’t seen the term “womyn” used unironically in twenty years. Minneapolis is truly a commemorative museum of progressivism.

…I’m going to ask anyway.

I posted four questions to Ms. Cano – although I suspect I’ll be blocked from her Twitter feed long before she reads them, even if she did.  But for the record, here they are:

  1. Why are you, Ms. Cano, using Twitter to respond to feedback that came to you via the feedback from on the city website?  She can’t possibly believe that the correspondents were going to read her on Twitter, did she?
  2. While it may be true that emails from the feedback form are “public”, Twitter is hardly a data practices request, now, is it?
  3. Is it proper for a city councilwomen to use data from a public website to shape opinion for a private group?  Black Lives Matter is not city business!
  4. In what way is posting citizens’ home phones, addresses and email addresses not intimidation?  And is it proper to use social media to intimidate people at all, whether on behalf of government or someone completely different?

If you live in Minneapolis, I urge you to ask Ms. Cano exactly that.

And maybe tell her to check her urban liberal privilege.

For Those Afraid…

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… that a potential, currently unforeseen retirement from the state legislature by Phyllis Kahn would result in a shortage of completely daft, dotty ideas in Minnesota politics – fear not.

Alondra Cano is ready to step in, without breaking a sweat.

“If people want to go to the Y and exercise, well why aren’t all those bicycles and all those treadmills connected to a grid of energy where we’re ourselves generating our own electricity instead of trying to get it from somewhere else?” she asked.

Cano suggested pedal-based peanut butter as a possible alternative to a facility the city’s water department wants to build in her ward. She opposes that proposal, which goes before the Minneapolis Planning Commission next week.

She says the site, which is currently home to a roofing material warehouse, could be put to much better use.

“We have to really unleash our imagination and not be afraid to experiment with new models,” she said.

And this isn’t Ms. Cano’s first entree into the world of Kahning her constituents.

Given Minneapolis’ voters, I see a long, fruitful political career ahead for Ms. Cano.

Because There Aren’t Enough Unemployed Blacks, Latinos And Immigrants In Minneapolis

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Minneapolis is now talking about following Seattle’s “lead” in raising the minimum wage to $15/hour.

Council member Alondra Cano tells us she’s working with the U.S. Department of Labor to get a sense of the legal challenges the city could face if officials try to follow Seattle’s lead and raise the minimum wage within its borders.

What do you call three people without a single honest clue about economics between them? I dunno, but this pic says a thousand words. Jacob Frey (Annoying DFL Hipster, South Mpls), Ryan “Uncle Tom” Winkler (Smug Volvocrat, Saint Louis Park) and Alondra Cano (union puppet, Minneapols) grinning at the thought of more unemployed black, Latino and immigrant youth to demigogue.

 

“My office and myself and my constituents are very supportive of the efforts of fast food workers,” Cano tells us. “We’re very happy that a handful of council members are very interested in this topic. There’s a lot of political interest in this, I think people feel that it’s the morally right thing to do, and the right time to do it.”

The most annoying part?  They know it’s a dumb idea. Well, not in as many words – but read this next bit and tell me there isn’t  an “and then a Miracle happens” tucked away here:

But Cano acknowledges that the context in Minneapolis is different than it is in Seattle, where earlier this summer the city council voted to gradually increase the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour. “Minneapolis is a very competitive and connected environment where if we make any moves that would discourage companies from doing business here, they could move to St. Louis Park, Bloomington, or St. Paul,” Cano says. “Seattle is a hub of the local economy, a lot of companies are locked in and anchored there, so the real question is how do we ensure that people in Minneapolis benefit from this move? If we do this, how many of these jobs would stay in Minneapolis and benefit residents? At this point we’re doing a lot of research.”

They’re doing a “lot of research”.  All of it political.  None of it economical. It’s a payback to the public employee unions, perched on the backs of black, latino and immigrant Minneapolitans.  Who the DFL just knows aren ‘t voting for anyone else…