Incredibly, the Marines could have had life saving 'Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)' vehicles that save US soldier lives two months after the first request in February 2005. Instead, it took until 2007 to get MRAP vehicles. It is a story of bureaucracy and corruption that Norm Colman as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations could have been investigating and did not!

A Republican senator, Thad Cochran, describes Senator McCain grabbing and lifting a foreign official, when Senator McCain was acting in an official senate role.

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., told a Mississippi newspaper that he saw McCain, during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., grab an Ortega associate by his shirt collar and lift him out of his chair.

For awhile Democrats forgot how to be Democrats. Democratic values had been so universal, that candidates forgot how to even say them. Then RepubliCON Neocons sold Democrats the big lie, the "moderate" lie, that being a Democrat was somehow "extreme" and "bad". That only Republican Lite Democrats could be elected! Since Democrats no longer spoke Democratic values, there was only silence on the Democratic side. Still many Democrats managed to still survive even in the silence, by running as Republican lite.

Is anyone else out there wondering about the sanity of any decision making in the human race? I want to ask questions that no one wants to answer like

1) To Conservatives: How can you believe in fiscal responsibility and still support Republicans creating trillions of dollars of debt? How can you want "limited" government where Republicans invade two countries, are now planning on a third country? If you believed in fiscal responsibility and limited government why aren't you totally abandoning the Republican party?

With the new round of floods, I think there will be pressure to build more dikes. Dikes will never be tall enough because the contained water will get higher and higher downstream. I think that we should instead plan on building more spillways. All across the state I know we have huge gravel pits, that basically needed to be recovered environmentally. A flood level granite ditch could drain into a old gravel pits. Every spillway would conserve water here as well as solving flooding problems at every area downstream.

Spillways could be

1) All across the state I know we have huge gravel pits, that basically needed to be recovered environmentally. A flood level granite ditch could drain into a old gravel pits. Even if the gravel pits are not close enough to a river, perhaps a cities storm drains could be set up to be rerouted there if needed.

This is Shawn Hamilton, running for Blaine's House Representative, at the end of Blaine's Blazin' 4th Parade, still looking ready to go. A regular energizer bunny. The weather turned out to be perfect. A whole crew of wonderful folks showed up to help.

Shawn will also be out doorknocking all the time, so he should become a warm familiar face all over Blaine!

This week Fox Nine had coverage of the danger of lawns not being green, must have been a level yellow threat! Public television seems stuck on Zimbabwe. Pakistan seems to have let go of any hold on the Taliban. The American deaths are up in Afghanistan. There is a report of an assasination attempt on Afghanistan's leader President Hamid Karzai:

The Afghan government for the first time publicly accused the Pakistani intelligence service on Wednesday of organizing the failed plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai at a parade in Kabul in April.
(Asia Pacific)

Laura Logon is right, when she said "if I were to watch the news that you hear in the United States, I would blow my brains out." I guess the Republican corporate media decided the ongoing war failures were bad press for the McCain campaign.

For every dollar earned, the poorest in state pay the most state and local taxes in the state, 19.3%, while the richest pay the least state and local taxes 9.3%! And the increase on the poorest over time 2.6% has been much higher than the increases on the richest, 0.4%. Indeed, using 1990 as a baseline, the taxes on the richest have been going down. So our Republican Pawlenty administration has been successfully fulfilling the Republican mission of serving the rich and putting more tax burdens on working people. So all of you Republican people earning under $500,000, who think you are getting "no new taxes" ought to take a close look at this chart and rethink what you really want. Explanations follow.

By Minnesota Revenue, highlights added by me

An overwhelming number of people that I talk to have no idea where our state tax dollars come from, nor how those state tax dollars are spent. This is a first pass at understanding our state budget, starting with the big picture.

By Minnesota State Finance Department

Today, we gather in mourning over any justice being in America, especially at the Supreme Court Level. The constitution says we have a right to "a speedy trial". And never was justice so delayed and so denied as in todays Supreme court ruling reducing the amount that Exxon has to pay in the massive Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Almost 20 years later, when 20% of those who deserved compensation are dead, over 8,000 people dead, do people finally get paid! And after decades does the Supreme Court award additional interest? Or increase the compensation for total loss of business that was a mere $15,000? No. Disgustingly, the Supreme Court even lowered the punitive damages. Corporations live forever unlike people. Corporations despite huge incomes are not held financially accountable in same proportions as a ordinary person paying a parking fee. The Supreme Court now supports a constitution now that is of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. If I was serving dinner to a supreme court justice tonight, I would offer him a speedy meal, served in 20 years. Try not eating until then. A corporation does not have to eat.

Justice Died Today!

Remember, I wrote about a sruvey from Mountain West Research. So a reliable reader wrote in about their experiences with this survey. The questions forcused around the senate race, including Arnie Carlson. The race matchups were Carlson v. Coleman, Ciresi v. Coleman, and Franken v. Coleman? Anyone out there get a similar survey?

Do we have a draft Arnie Carlson as an independent movement? On the last filing day for the senate race, we now have the possiblity of Ciresi, Carlson and Ventura filing. We could have a five way race. Hmmm, I wonder who would win?

Lets look at some of the real causes of gas prices going up. First of all, there is a real basis behind all of the fears where any disruption will cause much higher prices, since there is no excess oil/gas capacity to tap in emergencies. Speculation is the process of people betting their money on what they believe will happen - that US will instigate a war with Iran, possibly by using Israel. Many fear that this will cause a regional war disrupting oil supplies even further. Remember the movie mantra, "the spice must flow", for transportation in Dune. Well in real life, "the oil must flow", for economies to keep running. Changes in supply and usage of energy take time.

The Republican Presidential threats to engage in war with Iran have been causing the speculators to drive the price of oil and gas.

I am an advocate for adding another optional corporate charter, the socially responsible corporation. This option would attract new business to Minnesota for the charter and give us all other choices for investment. So I am reprinting Senator John Marty's excellent article with permission.

Creating Socially Responsible Corporations
by Senator John Marty
June 19, 2008

In the drive to please Wall Street investors, some corporations have shortchanged their customers and workers and polluted the air we breathe. Corporate scandals fill the news media.

In Part 1, I discussed how refinery capacity is the bottleneck that controls current gas prices. Pretend that we had all of the oil refinery capacity that we could use.

Today, this very day, if we had all US oil drilling, offshore and elsewhere, that we could possibly have, it still would NOT make a difference in gas prices. The reason is that the U.S. consumes the most world oil and has less the 2% of the world oil reserves. The offshore solution is like throwing a bucket of water at a raging housefire, it is that small of an effect. Here are the countries resized for oil reserves. Suddenly, the US is very small!

Today, this very day, if all US Offshore Drilling was doubled, it still would NOT make a difference in gas prices. The bottleneck in processing oil is refinery capacity. We know this because every spring and fall, when refineries shut down to transfer processes and do small maintenance, the gas prices spike. Don't believe me, yet check out the evidence below the fold.

The important point is that Republicans are all about marketing their political agenda to please their corporate clients, not fixing gas price problems for everyday people. Republicans do not care about speaking truth about gas prices or anything else. A Republican gets elected by promising $2 dollar gasoline, and then blaming any convenient target when elected. Just like the pretty girl on every car ad, the Republicans are just as much of a marketing lie. Challenge me on this! And check it out your self. Remember the "lemon" cars that were sold by used car salespeaple, well this lemon-car Republican lie does not even have an engine!

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(Feingold)

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(Feingold)

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(Feingold)

a href="http://www.mnblue.com">mnblue mnblue
Emphasized Emphasized Emphasized

Russ Feingold:

"The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President's illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity. And under this bill, the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power. Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration."
(Feingold)

My really great friends let me interview them for this article. Basically, I think we should all be listening and understanding what different people think. Now remember, I am presenting the other point of view, these are not my viewpoints. I was trying to ask, "What are the five reasons that conservatives are unhappy with the Republican party?" However since the Republican party is in charge of the government the question evolved to, "What are the five reasons that conservatives are unhappy with the Republican party and the government?". Here are the top five:

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) ensures that everyone can run and yet the winner has a majority vote. It means our vote always counts! It means that we don't have to worry about "splitting" our vote, we can just vote for our favorites in order of preference. Since campaigns with more candidates tend to more positive, then we can have more positive campaigns and better political discussions. And on years where we don't need a school board primary, like last year, then we can even save the cost of a primary. So for me, this is a "Happy Happy Joy Joy" moment!

Sometimes surveys can be "push" surveys, where they seem to be pushing an idea. This survey just seemed just poorly worded. The questions were state specific and they knew my name, just not my Congressional Representative. The person reading the questions did not enunciate well and could not pronounce Pawlenty at all. The survey asked about a favorable scaling on McCain, Obama, Pawlenty, Coleman, Franken, Klobuchar, Ciresi, my "representative" and National Rifle Association.