Blanked Out

First, the MN GOP was harping that Franken did not have enough financial support from Minnesota donors.

Now Republican operative Michael Brodkorb is complaining that Franken is taking small contributions from Minnesotans at the State Fair:

If Franken’s campaign is classifying people who buy $2 buttons at the State Fair “campaign donors”, then he may have found a way to quickly and artificially pad his donor base with Minnesotans.
-from minnesotademocratsexposed.com, August 28th 4:01pm

I’ll update this with additional information on why Brodkorb’s analysis is completely off the deep end in a bit – for now, let’s all take note of our watches. I have blogged in the past on how these types of political stories break and develop. I’m going to track this one in real time and see where it goes.

Brokorb’s time stamp on his post is 4:01 pm. Let’s try and assess how often D.J. Tice’s RSS reader refreshes or how far down Tice is on Brodkorb’s media call list.

Do you think he organizes it alphabetically or by importance?

Update - 6:42pm:

Let’s look at some of the key framing terms used by Brodkorb’s “dedicated readers” in the comments section of MDE:

• “[Franken’s] claims that he has a vast network of Minnesota donors rings hollow at best.”
• “I buy a button from Mr. Franken’s booth for $2.00, he would claim that I am a “contributor” to his Senate campaign? Sounds like a PR scam to me.“
• “Clever PR move… until it blows up”
• “If I recall, that fraud says over 90 percent of his donors gave “less than $100.” Looks like Al could say “over 90 percent gave less than $5″ and still be accurate.”

I’ve left out the more colorful language being used. All of these well meaning commentators are blissfully in ignorance of FEC law. All Senate campaigns are required to limit cash donations to $100 per individual over the entire 15-month cycle.

“But the buttons are $2 and…” Aha - they are. But consider this:

Month 1: Smith already thinks Franken is ok and buys a $2 button.

Month 3: Smith finds out Franken will be supporting Policy X. Now Smith think Franken is even better!
He buys two shirts for $25 a piece.

Month 10: Smith hears Franken speak and is so inspired he slaps a $50 bill down at the contribution table.Smith has now donated $102 to Franken and the campaign would be in violation of FEC law if they did not return the $2. Many campaigns fail to do this and are actually breaching heir fiduciary responsibilities.

To the author of that final screed, I would hope that 100% of Al’s contributors could be under $5.
Those who give $1 to $5 are usually students, blue collar workers or seniors on a fixed income. Should they not be counted?

Just how rich should you be to donate to politics in this country?

MN Campaign Report is breaking news regarding the ongoing debate on financial numbers coming out of the office of the State Auditor, Pat Anderson. Turns out, Anderson may have forgotten the use of strikethrough and UPDATE in her own reports.

The blogs, due to their nature, know how important it is to issue corrections. We break news faster than anyone, thus it is our responsibility to correct news just as fast. Auditing state government is a huge undertaking. Most people would understand a single mistake in those hundreds if not thousands of calculations - if the correction was transparent.

It’s called the Minnesota Monitor. They have a huge amount of talent behind them and already have several posts and articles up.

They launched today - check them out!

UPDATE: The Monitor is still making their site presentable. I can understand.  Creating a blog of that size is a huge undertaking. Give them a day.

On March 4th, 2005 Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District Republican Committee ceased to exist. It could no longer be active in federal elections unless it re-filed with the FEC. Currently, they have not re-filed.

On June 27th, 2006, Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District Republican Committee gave $5,000 to candidate Alan Fine. They listed their FEC ID number as C10001313.

FEC ID C10001313 belongs to the Republican Party of Minnesota (RPM).

To be honest, I don’t know yet if this is illegal or just a colossal mistake. Either way, the Republican Party along with the FEC need to give voters some much needed clarity on the issue.

Keep checking back to Blanked-Out.com for updates to this and other developing stories.

UPDATE: If anyone can a find a record of the RPM disclosing their contribution to Alan Fine, please post it in the comments ASAP. I’ve been looking and I can’t find any evidence of disclosure in their most recent FEC filing.

• If the RPM gave money to Fine, why have they not disclosed it?
• If the 5th CD Republicans gave money to Fine, why did they not re-file?

UPDATE: MDE has found the committee that gave the money to Fine. Instead of refiling, they created the Fifth CD Republican Committee instead of restarting the 5th CD Republican Committee.

One discrepancy still remains on Fine’s FEC report. The FEC ID number still points to the Republican Party of Minnesota. I can understand why Fine’s campaign might have been confused, as the Republican Party of Minnesota is the only contributor to the Fifth CD Republican Committee.

I’m sure Fine will file an amended disclosure with the corrected information any day now before the FEC needs to take any action. Thanks go out to MDE for helping a first time candidate avoid an uneccessary FEC fine. I couldn’t have done it without you Michael.

Why are Republican donors, including a Bush Pioneer, contributing to Ember Reichgott Junge’s campaign for Congress?

For some of Ember’s Republican supporters, including Bush Pioneer J.C. Huizenga , the answer may lie with Junge’s position as a nationally recognized proponent of charter schools.

In 1991, Junge made history by authoring and passing the nation’s first charter school legislation.

J.C. Huizenga is founder and chairman of National Heritage Academies (NHA), a for-profit educational management company based in Grand Rapids, MI. NHA was sued by the Michigan ACLU who accused NHA for evangelizing in the classroom and teaching creationism as science.

John Sackler, a Republican donor who has given considerable funds to George W. Bush, the RNC, Ted Stevens, Joe Lieberman and Ember Reichgott Junge can be seen here testifying for Connecticut’s General Assembly in support of charter schools.

In the “Education” section of Junge’s campaign website charter schools are never mentioned. Under the section labeled “The Gift of Public Service”, charter schools are mentioned once in item 6.

However, the section used to link to this page which featured charter schools prominently.

Why is Junge actively downplaying her support of charter schools?

UPDATE: MN Publius has their take here.

An in-depth analysis of Ember Reichgott Junge’s July 15 FEC disclosure reveals that Junge is funded by twenty-five donors who have no or little history giving to Democratic candidates. These donors have collectively contributed $233,400 since 2000 to Republican candidates, committees and PACs.

The recipients of these funds range from Mark Kennedy ($29,600) to George W. Bush ($13,500). Even the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the committee “devoted to increasing the number of Republicans in Congress” has benefited ($18,600) from the same donors who are backing Junge.

Other candidates who received contributions are Tom Delay, Rick Santorum, Norm Coleman, John Kline, Ted Stevens and Roy Blunt.

Other committees and PACs who were given donations are the MNGOP, Minnesotans for a Republican Congress Committee, the Rally for Leadership Fund (John Kline), Club for Growth, Every Republican is Crucial PAC and the Majority Initiative to Keep Electing Republicans.

This analysis raises important questions regarding Junge’s campaign:

• Why are these donors who have supported Republicans nationwide for years suddenly supporting Junge?
• How were these donors contacted?
• What did Junge or her campaign say to convince these Republican donors to become Junge’s cash constituents?

An Excel spreadsheet summarizing the contributions can be found here.

A Word document that includes important additional commentary on the data can be found here.

Please read both documents before contacting me or commenting on the post.

UPDATE: MNCR weighs in with his analysis.

No, I’m not referring to all the legislative pork Gil’s been rubber stamping in Congress - I’m referring to the Other White Meat.

All hog producers have to pay a fee (or checkoff) every time they sell a hog - the vast majority of the funds go to the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). In 2000 family farmers realized that the NPPC had moved away from supporting independent producers and was instead lobbying for the concerns of large factory farms. They decided to call a referendum to end the checkoff (scroll down to “Farmers vote to end pork checkoff”): (emphasis added)

The NPPC tried everything to stop this vote, including getting its allies in Congress to authorize an investigation into how the decision to hold the referendum was made. They were hoping the investigation would cast doubt on how the signatures were collected and whether Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman has the authority to call for a vote. U.S. Representative Gil Gutknecht was the only member of the Minnesota Congressional delegation to sign a letter requesting the investigation.

The result?

The investigation, which was conducted by the General Accounting Office (GAO), backfired on the NPPC and its allies. The GAO found that USDA grossly mishandled the petition process, that Glickman did indeed have the authority to call for a vote, and that checkoff funds (not taxpayer dollars) must be used to pay for the checkoff referendum. In other words, we were right and the NPPC was wrong.

Why did Gutknecht side against family farmers and indepdenent producers?

The PAC of the NPPC has contributed $3,500 to Gutknecht’s campaign in this election cycle alone and $7,500 since 1999. Gutknecht’s connections to other large agri-business lobbies are well documented.

Recently, controversy regarding agricultural checkoffs have resurfaced:

Do you know where your thousands — and on a national scale, hundreds of millions — of federally-mandated, non-refundable checkoff dollars go?

It’s a question Bobby King, policy director of Minnesota’s Land Stewardship Project, asked when he viewed advertisements that attacked “anti-livestock activist groups” in the state on Minneapolis’ powerhouse WCCO TV station earlier this year.

The 30-second ads, says King, had an unmistakably political message. “To build the case that there’s a crisis in livestock production here,” he explains from his Twin Cities office, “because Minnesota law gives counties and townships authority over livestock facility siting.”

Since Gutknecht’s agriculture section on his campaign web site does not provide any substance, only Gutknecht himself can explain why he sided with big business over the family farm and independent producers.

UPDATE: WCCO’s Pat Kessler just released a thorough “Reality Check” on the upcoming checkoff controversy:

“Have you ever wondered what challenges Minnesota farmers face from anti-livestock activist groups?” the TV ad asks. “These groups operate by spreading misinformation and fear. They talk about local control, but it’s really a self serving, selective and arbitrary denial of business growth they’re after.”
This is MISLEADING. The ad, produced by WCCO-TV’s sales department, mixes phony newspaper headlines, a fake petition and protest photo, with one real image of a dead rat on a county commissioner’s door.

It targets unspecified “anti-livestock” and “environmental activist groups” that the ad sponsor refused to identify for Reality Check.

The video is top notch and the article is full of additional references. The groups funding these ads want to frame the debate in their favor by stealing the cloak of rural populism. Don’t let them do it - get the facts for yourself.

In the September issue of Minnesota Monthly there is a feature on the Center for the American Experiment (CAE). The CAE broke ground as Minnesota’s first conservative think tank and is widely credited as creating the intellectual infrastructure that would back Minnesota’s new generation of conservative leaders: Pawlenty, Coleman, Kline, etc. The CAE is over $300,000 in debt. Not even an appearance by Gen. Tommy Franks in May could rally the troops: (emphasis added)

…[it] drew less than half the attendees, and brought in less money, than previous CAE dinners featuring such speakers ads Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.

At least it gave Gen. Franks the opportunity to again put Saddam Hussein and bin Laden in the same sentence. It’s unfortunate that more people don’t realize that the transitive property of equality only holds true in mathematics. “If Saddam was doing the same thing as bin Laden, and bin Laden planned 9/11, then Saddam also planned 9/11!” Eh, not quite.

CAE’s problems are not just financial: (emphasis added)

This past spring, the CAE board of directors stunned Minnesota political observers when it abruptly fired most of he center’s staff, including president and CEO Annette Meeks. Her ouster prompted the resignation of a key longtime supporter and board member, former Minnesota congressman vin Weber; in the wake of his departure, several high-profile conservatives who had been poised to sign on as directors begged off to avoid the chaos.

As CAE struggles to maintain its base of donors in the midst of mounting long-term debt, its very mission, which had lurched rightward during Meeks’s tenure, is now in question. Many observers wonder if the Experiment can even continue.

Part of CAE’s current troubles might be connected to Meeks herself. While CAE always put forth assertive arguments for its vision and policies, the debate was always civil under their founder Mitch Pearlstein. Not so with Meeks:

…the fact that to survive, liberals have to tell us, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ And this hypocrisy will ultimately doom liberals to what the great president Ronald Reagan called the ‘great ash heap of history’.”

Again, the refrain of “liberals = communists”. First off, while Reagan used that line to great effect, the phrase “ash heap of history” was actually coined by Leo Trotsky during the 1917 walkout from the Second Congress of Soviets. To be precise, you would have to say “doom liberals to what the great president Ronald Reagan referenced”. I know it doesn’t have as much zing, but such are the restrictions of living in a reality based-community.

Perhaps it is time for former CAE staffer Katherine Kersten to rejoin her conservative brigade? Your ideas on what policy positions or fundraising plans might save this venerable Minnesota institution are welcome in the comments.

NOTE: I will ad hyperlinks to the original article as soon as it’s online.  Hyperlink is up.

In 2004, several first-time candidates won seats in the Minnesota Legislature by running positive grassroots-driven campaigns. One of the closest victories of the ‘04 freshman class was Maria Ruud - she beat a Republican incumbent in a GOP district by a mere 239 votes.

The GOP knows they can’t run a smear campaign against Ruud’s character - too many residents in 42A know her personally as a result of her excellent field work in 2004 (courtesy of Camp Wellstone). Instead, they have decided to blank out key facts regarding the 2003 cut to Local Government Aid (LGA) to smear Ruud’s record.

More under the fold.

(more…)

Many issues over the years have driven citizens to protest on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Although it won’t draw any protesters, the financial malfeasance currently practiced by the federal government demands immediate redress. Turns out, Minnesota’s financial ledger takes a page right out of the federal playbook: (emphasis and hyperlinks added)

The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.

The set the government doesn’t talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government’s accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

Congress has written its own accounting rules — which would be illegal for a corporation to use because they ignore important costs such as the growing expense of retirement benefits for civil servants and military personnel.

Over the entire lifetime of my blog 5 days I have been writing at Blanked-Out.com, I have never seen such an egregarious blank out. They don’t include Social Security or Medicare? What kind of accounting rules are these?

Social Security chief actuary Stephen Goss says it would be a mistake to apply accrual accounting to Social Security and Medicare. These programs are not pensions or legally binding federal obligations, although many people view them that way, he says.

Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you go programs and should be treated like food stamps and fighter jets, not like a Treasury bond that must be repaid in the future, he adds. “A country doesn’t record a liability every time a kid is born to reflect the cost of providing that baby with a K-12 education one day,” Goss says.

Oh. Those kind. The kind of rules where social welfare programs and education are considered benefits the state may or may not confer upon its populace. Last time I checked, we did not live in a laissez-fair economy. If the wool has been pulled over my eyes all this time, I want a lifetime tax refund so I can start building a private school for my potential children. Furthemore, I will start voting Libertarian up and down the ticket: at least I’ll get an honest answer as to the actual financial obligations of government.

This problem was caused by both parties and needs to be solved by both parties.

[UPDATE: More hyperlinks and spelling correction. WP 2.1 with spellcheck could not come too soon - the Google Spellcheck toolbar doesn’t play nice with WP.]