{"id":25944,"date":"2012-02-02T05:51:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T11:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25944"},"modified":"2014-11-28T04:42:31","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T10:42:31","slug":"rule-by-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25944","title":{"rendered":"Rule By Complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the things I predicted on election night back in 2010 was that, out of power, the DFL would revert to whatever forms of power it actually had with more passive-aggressive vigor.<\/p>\n

One of those forms of power was the “bureaucratic complaint”.<\/p>\n

The DFL has created a small industry of bureaucratic complainants. \u00a0Groups like “Common Cause” essentially exist, at least in part, to complain about non-DFL politicians and politics. \u00a0Of course, “filing complaints” is one of the few areas where the DFL allows do-it-yourself-ism<\/a> in politics.<\/p>\n

The reason, of course, is to create a buzz in the compliant media; the goal is to create the possibility that a voter – inevitably poorly-read, ill-informed, one who still believes anything the mainstream media says, especially about politics – will hear “corruption” and “Republican” and think “Hey, Republicans shore must be KerrRUPT!” and cease thinking right then and there.<\/p>\n

That the complaints are pretty much inevitably dismissed? \u00a0Even if the mainstream media were to hypothetically report it as aggressively as they did the original complaint – and they never, ever do – the DFL knows that with at least a few voters, the damage is done.<\/p>\n

And so the “Ethics Complaint” against Senator Dave Thompson of Lakeville got big play in the media – but the fact that there was no there there?<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has dismissed the Complaint filed by DFL Chairman Ken Martin against Senator Dave Thompson. In a letter dated January 26, 2012, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board stated there is no basis for a claim against Senator Thompson. In the letter, Executive Director Gary Goldsmith stated, \u201cUnder the authority delegated to me by the Board, I have reviewed the complaint and concluded that it does not provide a sufficient basis for the commencement of a Board Investigation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Echo)<\/p>\n

On Monday, January 23, 2012, DFL Chairman Ken Martin filed a Complaint against Senator Dave Thompson (R-Lakeville) with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board regarding an alleged failure to disclose payments made by the Republican Party of Minnesota.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Weasels chew things. \u00a0Ken Martin files spurious complaints about Republicans. \u00a0The circle of life.<\/p>\n

Senator Thompson said, \u201cI complied with all disclosure requirements. Therefore, I am not surprised by the Board\u2019s decision. Still, it is gratifying to see a clear statement from Mr. Goldsmith concluding that the Complaint does not even provide a basis for an investigation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet for Ken Martin -the former executive from “Win Minnesota”, which collected contributions from plutocrats and unions to run an attack PR campaign against Tom Emmer – it’s “mission accomplished”.<\/p>\n

Because somewhere out there, in a trailer park in New Prague, a gas station attendant with a DUI and a couple of misdemeanor domestics pled down to “disorderly conduct” but whose vote counts just as much as yours does is now thinking “G’huck – Dave Thompson and the GOP sure must be corrupt!”<\/p>\n

And that’s a form of power you can’t take away from the DFL no matter how many elections you win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the things I predicted on election night back in 2010 was that, out of power, the DFL would revert to whatever forms of power it actually had with more passive-aggressive vigor. One of those forms of power was the “bureaucratic complaint”. The DFL has created a small industry of bureaucratic complainants. \u00a0Groups like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,20,320],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-democrats","category-mndfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25944"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25957,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944\/revisions\/25957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}