Politics Posts

It’s time to party and the candidates’ answers

See the Hillsider electronic newsletter here for links to where the National Night Out parties are located and candidate questionnaires for the upcoming election.

Many people are especially interested in the judicial candidates. At our last board meeting we decided to ask the judicial candidates:

What could you do in your position to prevent the disproportionately high number of children of color that are in the juvenile justice system? Are there alternatives to juvenile detention by focusing on solutions rather than punishment?

Target Corp Gives $150,000 for Republican Tom Emmer

Some Minnesotans seem upset about Minneapolis-based Target giving money for Republican Tom Emmer’s campaign for Minnesota Governor, as Target is usually not associated with conservative politics. Minnesota-based BestBuy also gave $100,000. National News has picked up the story.

Will Walleye-gate Matter?

The attempt by St. Louis County Commissioner Dennis Fink and State Senator Satveer Chaudhary to circumvent the standard Department of Natural Resources process for changing fishing regulations on the Fish Lake Resevoir has already cost Senator Chaudhary his DFL endorsement and may likely cost him his job. The question is what impact will the Fish Lake scandal have on Commissioner Fink’s bid for re-election?

St. Louis County Primary Election 2010 Sample Ballot

Some notes on the Aug. 10 Primary Election:

* This is an election in which you have to choose a party. You can’t, for example, vote for a Republican governor and a DFL congressman. On the partisan side of the ballot you have to vote for the same party in all races. That’s how it works, whether you like it or not.

* Your party choices are Republican, Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Independence. Yes, there are some candidates representing other parties — Constitution, Green, Ecology Democracy, Resource and Grassroots — but those candidates do not have any opposition within their parties and therefore move on to the General Election automatically.

* If you live in Duluth, you won’t see the County Commissioner races that are listed on the sample ballot — those are for districts outside of Duluth. Pretty much all of the Duluth-relevant nonpartisan county races have only two or one candidate, so you won’t get to vote on them until November. The exception is the Sixth District Court Judge 11 race, which has eight candidates.

Duluth Waits for Shane, Sarah and Josh

Thursday, July 29 | 10pm | Pizza Lucé

Local musicians perform the music of Tom Waits to benefit the hikers detained in Iran.

The lineup will include Coyote, Bill and Kate Isles, Rachael Kilgour, Tony Bennett, the Tico Three, Dave Mehling, James Moors, Jim Hall, Charity Huot and the Mark Anderson Trio.

Cover charge: $10, which goes to Free the Hikers.

On July 31 it will be a full year that Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal have been detained in Iran with no charges brought against them. Shane and Josh have been sharing a cell in Evin’s Prison, but Sarah has been held in solitary confinement.

Bauer is a Minnesotan. His sister and brother-in-law live in Duluth, and he also has family in Shakopee and Pine City.

A protest walk and benefit will be held on July 31. More info on that in a future post.

No Bad Apples

Members of RWDSU-UFCW Local 220 in Williamson, NY, have been trying to negotiate a contract with Mott’s, a subsidiary of Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. The company is looking to slash wages by as much as $1.50 an hour for each and every employee, and is trying to take away the workers’ pension plan. There is no economic necessity for what the company is seeking to do. It is a profitable, growing company.

The New Duluth

Minnesota Business Magazine July 2010 Cover Don Ness

Duluth’s own Mayor Ness graces the July 2010 cover of Minnesota Business Magazine.

Article// The New Duluth

Do I have the right to drive to work without seeing dead fetuses?

Apparently not. Corner of First Street and First Avenue East. The fact is, I cannot get to the parking lot for work without driving by, and often getting stopped at a light, near signs of dead fetuses.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty on the Daily Show talking about his undersized schtick

This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.

BP Gas Station Protest

Northlanders for Corporate Accountability is a new group for folks committed to applying pressure to reckless/unethical companies like BP Oil and Goldman Sachs. To quote Noam Chomsky, many corporations engage in “massive rip-offs of the public.” And “under one guise or another, the public pays the costs and takes the risks, while profit is privatized.” The NCA is committed to changing the status quo in the only way possible – on the local level.

Interesting article.

Interesting article over at Salon.com about aid making it to Gaza. It seems Hamas has a little bit to do with the aid not getting where it should. Color me surprised.

But hey, let’s just blame Israel instead.

Election 2010: The Weird Stuff

As noted in a previous post, an Elvis impersonator is running for lieutenant governor in Minnesota.

Here are some other things that jump out at me from the candidate filings:

* Kenny Kalligher, co-host of Duluth Public Access Community Television’s The Average Guys is running for state auditor. He’s also a musician. Maybe you saw him at the Homegrown Music Festival, performing as Uncle Kenny.

* Longtime Republican Harry Welty is running for the State Senate in the 7th district on the DFL ticket. (By the way, Welty was my geography teacher in the 7th grade. My 9th grade civics teacher was Sam Solon, who held this senate seat for 31 years. And just to stretch these parenthetical Morgan-Park-Junior-High-related remarks out longer, I’ll note that the son of my 8th grade social studies teacher is running for judge in sixth district court 11.)

* Joe Reasbeck of Iron River is running for Congress in Wisconsin’s seventh district (currently Dave Obey’s seat; Obey’s retiring). This is, of course, the Joe Reasbeck of Google Goes to Twin Ports fame. He’s running as a Democrat.

An article in the Wausau Daily Herald notes that “in 2006 Reasbeck ran as an Independent write-in candidate for Congress in the Houston-area district formerly held by House Majority Leader Tom Delay. He raised about $4,000 from donors and ended up with less than 1 percent of the vote.”

An AP story notes that Reasbeck and other Republican candidates were officially considered independents after DeLay quit the race, but Reasbeck “said he was running as a Republican at the time and his campaign listed his party affiliation as Republican in a federal filing.”

Emergency Protest against Flotilla Murders 5pm Tuesday

On Tuesday, June 1, at 5 p.m., peace and justice activists in Duluth will gather at the Federal Building to denounce the Israeli government’s assault on the Gaza Freedom Convoy and call for an end to U.S. aid for Israel.

2010 Minnesota Governor Race

You’ve got until Tuesday, June 1, to pick a running mate and file your candidacy for governor in Minnesota.

Your list of opponents will surely grow in the next week, but here’s the lineup so far:

Tom Emmer & Annette T. Meeks (Republican)
Ole Savior & Todd “Elvis” Anderson (Republican)
Margaret Anderson Kelliher & John Gunyou (DFL)
Mark Dayton & Yvonne Prettner Solon (DFL)

Congratulations to Ole Savior for being more hilarious than ever this time around.  Elvis Anderson? Really? Wow.

By the way, in Wisconsin the list of candidates for governor is up to 20 already. Lieutenant governor candidates run separately in Wisconsin. There are 10 of them, including Superior Mayor David Ross.

And how about the crazy scramble to run for Prettner Solon’s Minnesota Senate District 7 seat now that she’s running for lieutenant governor? No one has filed yet, but that one is bound to get interesting.

Oh, and I apologize in advance for provoking a discussion of politics.

Move to Amend! Tell a Friend!

My dad and my uncle are walking from sea to shining sea to raise awareness and prompt discussion about the perils of corporate personhood. Their blog is at lairdandrobin.org.

To learn more about the amendment that made corporations people, check out movetoamend.org. (There’s a petition there if anyone wants to get crazy active.)

As with any grassroots effort, every little bit of attention helps. Thanks in advance.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!