Category: Minnesota Politics

by Dave Mindeman

Just for fun, I took a look at Michael Brodkorb's "highly touted" sister site... BLOGS FOR NORM. Going back to February, I took a look at all the posts on the site, and came up with the following statistics:

Total Posts Since February......................228
Posts related to Coleman.........................89
Anti-(or related to) Franken Posts............101
Anti-(or related to) Ciresi Posts.................38

Looking strictly at the Coleman posts you will also find that of the 89 posts related to him, only 62 of them deal with policy issues.

Maybe it was just mis-named. Should have been Blogs Against the Other Guys.

Category: US Politics

by Tom Hammond

In the jungles of the South Pacific, young Americans gave their lives at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal to protect America from Japanese aggression. There was good reason.

In Europe, on Omaha Beach, young Americans sacrificed their lives to protect us from the Nazi threat. There was good reason.

Today, in Iraq, young Americans are sacrificing their lives in 130 degree temperatures to protect the Iraqi government so they can take a month long vacation.

Does anyone know a good reason?

Category: Minnesota Politics

by Paul Bartlett

As the Dow Jones Industrial Average flirted with 14,000, many Wall Street talking-heads equated that with a lofty domestic economy. Balderdash. Large international companies, like Deere, Caterpillar or IBM, have realized great profit gain through exports, foreign sales. Those rising sales are the result of a weak (and getting weaker) American dollar. The weak dollar is a casualty of the Bush Administration's reckless tax, spending, and borrowing policies. Under Bush, we have seen a precipitous drop in the value of the dollar. Versus the euro, the dollar is little more than play money.

For the average Joe, real wages remain stagnant.

When you hear someone foolishly rail about "socialist" France, or Europe in general, remember that European Union members must comply with strict national debt limits. I doubt that our "capitalist" America could meet their standards. It is the Bush Administration -- not France or Europe -- that cannot keep its financial house in order.