On Almanac. I’m floored. I ran into Pawlenty the night of the collapse. I was impressed with his presence of mind at the time and I’m glad he’s following through by taking this event seriously as both disaster and opportunity for policy review. Rybak advocates for a broad vision - we have to rethink transportation from top to bottom.

Remark:  Is it true that there is a group going to protest Bush tomorrow?  That’s sick and wrong.  Please, don’t.  If Bush goes to the same place the First Lady visited, that’s right next to my cul-de-sac.  I’ll be moving my things out and that’s the last thing I need.

My home was just condemned by Minneapolis. I expected, perhaps, that the government would seize the property for eminent domain later this year…but not this. I’m back in shock.

Decided not to post video from evacuation. Really doesn’t show anything useful and is just stressful to watch. I will post video from when we finally got back home last night.

To my knowledge we are the only civilians allowed in the exclusion zone. The recovery process is going to be perhaps even slower than people think. They are taking extreme safety measures to avoid any risk of injury. The secondary collapse mentioned below was minor but it takes just one small piece of concrete to wreak havoc.
Thank you to everyone in the Mpls Police and Red Cross who helped us get back.
I’m also grateful to the media who put us in touch with the right people.

Initially, no one knew who to talk to - special thanks to Jeff Passolt of Fox 9 who took a vested interest in the situation and eventually put me in contact with the right person.

UPDATE 8/2 4:19PM: This is Aaron again. Just got off the phone with Noah who is at the north end of the Stone Arch Bridge. He just personally confirmed these two rumors with the Chairman of the NTSB and Chief of Police: The bridge was lacking redundancy and there was a secondary collapse.

UPDATE 8/2 8:36AM: Been hearing many conflicting reports of what caused the collapse.  I would  ask for people to refuse to “speculate” what caused the disaster.  Here are the only facts that I am personally aware of:

• The construction might have not been “structural” in nature, but it was still serious construction.  For a time, there were holes in the bridge through which I could look up and see the sky.
• I have been hearing multiple reports that this bridge type contains no redundancy. This is not a “fact” in my opinion until the NTSB or DOT confirms it.  Go here and read comment 14 for an interesting (if passionate) analysis.
• I have gone through an earthquake before.  The shaking was more like an aftershock.

8/2 UPDATE 7:00AM: Sean at MN Publius is entirely correct. Within approx. 20 mins everyone who could be rescued by us “amateurs” was, but people kept coming. I have some video I will be uploading later (OSX can’t see the file type apparently) of a steady stream of people coming to and from the bridge - on the ground level. Amazing.

Just finished my first (and hopefully last) nightmare regarding the collapse.

It had a happy ending though - at the last possible, horrific second, Peyton Manning (who for some reason had the powers of Spiderman) arrived on the scence and began to help. I was ecstatic, for a moment, but then I was thrown from the bridge by some unknown force and spent the rest of the dream unable to get back to the bridge.
UPDATE 1:36AM: This is Noah and I’m back from my apt. We had to walk in, since it is now in what is called the “Danger Zone”. Fairly sure I’m the only resident in the Zone. We got the cat we left behind and packed small bags.

Please, call 612-460-3700 for the Red Cross if you can help. The MN Red Cross office is directly across from my apt. - I can still see their sign underneath 35W.
I’m nominally homeless - crashing at friends. Will try and return home in the morning.

Deep thanks to Britt, Aaron and everyone else who rushed with me to help get people off 35W bridge.

UPDATE 10:25pm: Aaron Landry here still. I just posted Noah’s Photos. Shots before emergency personnel showed up, some of the survivors as well as shots from under the bridge.

UPDATE 9:50pm: Noah is off to City Hall and a batch of photos have been sent to me to post from him. I haven’t gotten the photos yet though.

UPDATE 9:20pm: Tom Elko points out Noah’s place in his latest post. I haven’t heard from Noah since but will post an update as soon as I hear anything from him.

Photo by Adam Meyer, emailed to Tom Elko

UPDATE 8:44pm: Aaron Landry here; Noah is being overwhelmed with phone calls so he gave me the keys to the castle to relay his updates. Here’s a couple shots of Noah’s place is in comparison to the bridge:

UPDATE:

I’m at the Humphrey School waiting for a ride. We couldn’t take a car our any of our belongings. One cat was taken, one was left behind.

I’m shocked, but no longer shaking. Still sweaty from sprinting to river side to help rescue people. Didn’t see any dead or hurt on the West side of non existent bridge. Helped people off girders. My cell phone isn’t working like many of yours, so email me at noah@blanked-out.com if you need to. I have pictures, will upload later. Confirmed all of my friends (except one) who commute are safe.

Description of collapse: Surprisingly quiet, but my entire warehouse apt shook quite a bit. Bridge fell so very slowly - poof. Yelled and yelled but no one answered. Only a handful of ppl in water, all got out ok and then began to help as well. Ran into woman who thought school bus was trapped on east side in fold of highway. Couldn’t confirm it or get to the other bank to help.

more later…hope everyone is safe…

I live the closest to the 35W Bridge than anyone in Minneapolis and I watched it come down from my roof.

I spent 20mins getting people out and off the bridge.

I’m being evacuated.

PS This was not a bomb.

According to the new Survey USA poll (hat tip to MNCR).

Key points:

• The difference is within the margin of error (MOE).Remember: the MOE applies to both statistics. So if Coleman is at 49% and Franken at 42% with MOE +/- 4%, the true values might have Franken at 46% and Coleman at 45%.

• Coleman is getting 15% of his total support from Democrats! No, this isn’t a sign of Democrats rejecting Franken - even against Ciresi the numbers are almost identical.Did I say identical?I meant to say that Franken gets more Democrat, Republican and Independent voters than Ciresi does against Coleman. That’s what we call a “non-issue”. Zing Brodkorb!This is the soft underside to Coleman’s support level, which is already slipping. Once the campaign begins in earnest, that 15% is going to slowly fade away…
• Moderates support both Democrats over Coleman Brodkorb at Minnesota Democrats Exposed wrote, in reference to this survey, that Franken has said things that would make a “goat sick”. I guess there aren’t too many sensitive goats among Minnesotan moderates.
• Coleman also loses to the Democrats with:
  

• Women
• 65 year olds and over
• Registered Democrats! (Yes, this matters, since Democrats comprise 11% more of the registered electorate over Republicans). Woot!

I’ll whip up some visual aids later. I’ve got to get downtown…more on this later.

The quote is from none other than Star Tribune Politics and Team Leader, D.J. Tice:

America’s habitually low voter turnout is not a sign of our democracy’s frailty, but unmistakable evidence of its hearty good health.

(…)

Americans are not seriously afraid of the outcome of elections because, as a rule, nothing truly fundamental is at stake in our elections. The nation’s constitutional institutions are strong enough that basic freedoms are secure, no matter who gets elected.

But if what is meant is that voting should be made so effortless and convenient and, in a sense, trivial as to encourage voting even among those whose minds are uncomplicated by a single informed political thought — well, then it is challenging to imagine how the republic would be strengthened in the process.

-Pioneer Press, Oct 19th, 1994

Mr. Tice is blatantly wrong to even the most casual student of U.S. history and current events. In fact, his thesis statement (underlined above) is completely inverted from the truth:

The nation’s constitutional institutions are strong enough that basic freedoms are secure insecure, no matter who gets elected.

I’m sure Tice’s sanguine advice would have comforted the 74,000 Americans who suffered through the Japanese-American Internment. Or anyone who “published ‘false, scandalous, and malicious writing’ against the government” under the 1798 Sedition Act.

I doubt many Japanese-American’s berated themselves, wailing “Oh, if only we had elected Republican Wendell Willkie, instead of that disgraceful FDR, our constitutional freedoms would have remained secure!” After FDR destroyed Willkie in the 1940 Presidential Race, Willkie became a huge booster for FDR policies.

U.S. citizens know that their civil liberties are completely mutable, no matter who gets elected. Thus, many don’t bother to vote at all.

More worrisome than Tice’s ignorance is the complete and utter absence of a “mea culpa” from Tice in regards to the mainstream media. People think elections don’t matter because there aren’t many people out there telling them any differently. Sure, chucking civil liberties in war time might be a bipartisan pastime, but politicians and parties have varying degrees of success in promoting universal health care, strengthening the economy or protecting the environment: people need to know the record.

Tice is smart enough to know this - which makes his recent quote in City Pages ironic and sad:

In my own area, politics, we have a looming presidential election, the Republican convention, congressional races,” says D.J. Tice, the former Pioneer Press columnist who is now the Star Tribune’s politics and government team leader. “I just don’t like thinking about it, thinking about how we’re going to cover it. Who’s going to do the cop checks? Who’s going to the city council or the school board? Who’s going to keep an eye on those things?”

I guess people took your advice seriously D.J. Since it didn’t matter, they stopped paying attention.

They then stopped buying newspapers to read your column.

Ergo, your budget and staff has been cut to the bone so you now barely have the resources to help inform the rest of us who would like to develop at least one “single informed political thought” before next November.

What local media personality said the following back in 1994?

It may be difficult to believe for the pundits, politicians and activists who dominate public discourse, but politics is not, for everyone, the core of human existence, or life’s most interesting and important enterprise.

The option of being indifferent to politics is one of the unambiguous blessings of a free society. America’s habitually low voter turnout is not a sign of our democracy’s frailty, but unmistakable evidence of its hearty good health.

(…)

Americans are not seriously afraid of the outcome of elections because, as a rule, nothing truly fundamental is at stake in our elections. The nation’s constitutional institutions are strong enough that basic freedoms are secure, no matter who gets elected.

But if what is meant is that voting should be made so effortless and convenient and, in a sense, trivial as to encourage voting even among those whose minds are uncomplicated by a single informed political thought — well, then it is challenging to imagine how the republic would be strengthened in the process.

Hint: The answer is dripping with tragic irony, since the author’s bread and butter is now currently dependent on the public interest in politics. The answer later today.

Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man’s brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.

- George Orwell, 1984, Chapter 5

I’ve always wondered why I can’t seem to land any of those plush political communication positions.  No longer.  It obviously requires a much more pliable perception of reality than I’m capable of producing. Witness a master:

7/16/2007

Leslie Sandberg, communications director for Ciresi calculates that “68 percent of Ciresi’s money this quarter came from donors inside Minnesota, compared to about 50 percent for Coleman, and about 20 percent of Franken’s donors.”Ron Carey, MNGOP Chair: “No matter how many millions he raises from his far-left friends outside our state, Al Franken won’t be able to convince Minnesotans he has the temperament, demeanor and experience necessary for the U.S. Senate.”

7/24/2007

Kevin Diaz, Star Tribune: “In all, Franken’s camp reports that more than 4,000 of his 28,000 donors were from Minnesota, including 3,677 who gave less than $200.

Coleman’s camp reports that about 3,500 of his 7,000 donors for the period were from Minnesota, including a little more than 3,000 who gave less than $200.”

(…)

“I wonder what the Republican Party’s talking points will be now that they’ve found out that more Minnesotans supported Al Franken than Norm Coleman?” said Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh.

Enter the maestro!

Mark Drake, a spokesman for the Minnesota GOP, stuck to his original point: “Al Franken may not like it, but the fact is that overwhelming majority of his donors come from outside Minnesota.”

So quick…like a mongoose’s final blow, Mark Drake, in mere seconds redefines the English language. A new epoch has begun!

Before: money given to political campaigns was called “money” and the people who gave that money were called “people“.

Now: no difference at all between pieces of paper and living human beings!

Yes Mark, moneypeople. I am sure this is merely the first of a whole litany of exciting and novel political newspeak. Funny thing that word…always reminded me of newspeak. I’ll write more on newspeak on Monday.

BONUS: The picture links to an MPR story on the CD-ROM that Drake and MN GOP distributed on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Remember this?

Problem was that the CD-ROM submitted data back to MN GOP servers without notifying the user. Drake’s response? The user should assume data is being collected.

Just like how poor Winston assumed Big Brother was watching him through the telescreen.

Mr. Drake, you are a delight.

Yes, I’m still here. But since this blog isn’t, contrary to public belief, run by some secret Democratic slush fund I had to work a bit harder at my day job to pay my hosting fee which is due yearly

on August 1^st. I was able (barely) to budget it in so Blanked-Out won’t be going dark anytime soon.

Returning to the subject at hand…

Rep. Ellison has since apologized for the now infamous Reichstag comments. And, in keeping with the principles I outlined for myself in the post and comments below, this was the wrong move.

I still believe in 99.9% of Rep. Ellison’s policies and positions. I also respect the opposing opinion that Rep. Elliso

n’s simile was in bad taste. Had Ellison himself apologized say, the day after, I would have found no fault in his admitting to the gaffe. As it stands, it was not a change of heart but acquiescence to the mounting media pressure.

Before I breakdown the media twirl-a-whirl, let me clearly state why I think the Reichstag comparison is apt.

First: Ellison, as far as I can tell from the source material, never invoked the Holocaust despite several media outlets and non-profits saying he did. (Hey, I’m looking at you Holocaust Museum). So there’s no reason to invoke the Holocaust to denunciate him.

The media totally missed the ball on what Ellison was talking about. The comparison was not made to show h

ow similar Bush and Hitler’s hit squads were or how they both suspended the constitution - - Bush didn’t send out hit squads nor did he suspend the constitution. Thi

s is the point!

We did.

We, being the collective social entity of the United States.

We, over a period of years, suspended the Constitution and allowed the War.

Bush merely did what any President with his background would do - most Democratic Presidents would have probab

ly made the same requests of Congress. To blame and demonize the Administration is to completely obscure the message. No members of the opposition were thrown in jail or execute

d. No gun was held to anyone’s head to secure a signature on a bill. It was given without widespread opposition.

(?But what about the protests and the lobbying and the?.? Yeah, I was there with you in D.C. for the protest. Guess what? That was a fraction of the outrage society should see when the collective tells the Government NO.)

Heart wrenching events like 9/11 or the Reichstag will prompt any Executive, Republican or Nazi, to ask for more power. As they should! It’s our job and the job of our Representatives and Senators to make sure that we don’t give them too much.

Governments can ask for power (Bush) or take power (Hitler) during these periods. The people must ask the tough questions and oppose the abuses of either.

This is the intended design of our Government - a brutal and constant tug of war between the People and the Executive. Behind either group is a sign that reads “Anarchy” or “Authoritarianism” is a very steep and rocky hill.

When the People suddenly let go of the rope - everyone descended together.

That’s it.

There have been dozens of ripe opportunities for an early return. But no single event perfectly captured the reasons for starting this blog in the first place - until now.

The masterful rebranding of Rep. Ellison?s remarks on the Reichstag fire has reached its apex - overseas! The UK Daily Telegraph’s most viewed link today had the following headline: “Bush like Hitler, says first Muslin in Congress”. This is quite possibly the most egregious blank out of the year.

Congratulations are in order. Tice, Kersten, Brodkorb and the Powerline Crew: you have all done a spectacular job.

Your rampant double-speak and subtle editing promoted the story to national status last week - over the weekend it jumped the pond and obtained international status. Your “story” now has a guaranteed patina of legitimacy. I’ve been stunned, not into silence, but into action.

This is the same roster that already attempted to prevent Rep. Ellison’s election with frivolous tabloid news. Rep. Ellison is now constrained by his resounding success. His office demands he render respect and decency to his feckless, undeserving attackers.

I, on the other hand, possessing no office or position or party restriction, am not so bound.

Stay tuned.