Someone was accosted for taking pictures was questioned and threatened by the Minneapolis police.

For Democrats that is!

The Minneapolis Star Tribune endorsed the Republicans lies surrounding the Employee Free Choice Act today on their op-ed page. The Strib will do what they can to frame the issues so that they benefit Republicans Norm Coleman, Michele Bachmann, John Kline and Erik Paulsen. This means that they won't talk about Republican giving tax breaks to the richest Americans. They won't talk about healthcare. They won't talk about Iraq. The editors at the Strib know that if the 2008 election is about these issues, Coleman, Bachmann, Kline and Paulsen will lose.

Taxes. Health care. The war. Certainly, those are some of the more obvious contenders to be marquee issues in Minnesota's hard-fought Senate race. But what has surprisingly emerged to dominate the airwaves and the debate is a bill that was passed by the U.S. House but bogged down in the Senate more than a year ago: the Employee Free Choice Act.
(Strib)

Since they clearly understand what is bad for Republicans, they proceed to repeat the Republican lies about union balloting. They downplay the most important aspect of the EFCA, severe punishments for employers who intimidate and harass employees who are in the process of unionizing. They and the union-busters across America don't like strengthening labor's ability to organize.

Its innocuous name belies the furor raging over it in Minnesota and across the nation.
[emphasis mine]
(Strib)

The furor over this bill come from the union-busters who are able to spend millions upon millions in their union-busting efforts. The raging comes from the Republicans who cannot run on 8 years of the disastrous Bush Administration and have made their party platform secret ballots, "Drill Here, Drill Now" and personal attacks. The Strib is complicit by fanning these flames.

So they focus on the the Republican lies about the card check votes. Under EFCA, employees would get to choose how they want to run their election. They can choose secret ballot, card check or whatever they want. Only a small minority, 30%, need to demand a secret ballot for the union election to be by secret ballot. Regardless, pushing the Republican talking points is much more important:

But the EFCA has the potential to do more harm than good. Its provision allowing unions to bypass a secret ballot with something called a card check is a serious problem. Under the proposed law, unions could bypass a secret ballot if 50 percent of eligible employees signed an authorization form to form a union. It doesn't make sense: Would you pass a school levy or elect a mayor this way? The proposed card-check system also would invite peer-pressure from union sympathizers and, by making a supporter's name public, it has the potential to heighten the risk of employer retaliation.
(Strib)

On the principle that enough people repeating the lie must make it true, you all know that Coleman, Bachmann, Kline and Paulsen can now say that the Strib agrees with their lies. The Strib give their lies credibility and legitimacy. They can now use this op-ed in their attacks on Democrats.

Next up for the Strib, "Drill Here, Drill Now"?

Did everyone see Republican Fox News commentator Mike Murphy on MSNBC's discussion of Bill Clinton's speech? What an @$$ clown.

"I think that Sen. Clinton and John McCain have more in common on foreign policy issues than with Barack Obama and I think that the Clintons will be voting for John McCain in November."

He was booed resoundingly by the people standing around the stage. This is the kind of alternate-reality analysis we've all come to expect from Republican Fox News. I'll post a video once I find it. What a joke.

Getting into the convention on Tuesday was pretty quick and easy. I rode the delegate shuttle from downtown. Because I used this mode, I missed a large demonstration of anti-abortionists sitting-in near the front entrance. Police were removing the protesters one by one.

The arena is PACKED. I’m a little late so I rush right to the MN seats. Though our delegation chairs aren’t full yet, competition for the seats gets pretty intense as we get closer to Sen. Clinton’s speech. We have 88 delegates and 88 seats. By the time Hillary approaches the podium there is hardly any space to stand even.

Consensus says tht Governor of Montanna Brian Schweitzer Democratic National Convention speech was the best!

I'm a rancher who has made my living raising cattle and growing wheat, barley and alfalfa in Montana, a beautiful place with soaring peaks, pristine rivers and endless prairies. I'm probably a little biased, but I think it's the best place in the world to raise a family, to start and grow a business, and to build a community.

From Miguel Lindgren

As promised, now that I have a few minutes to catch my breath, here is a quick report from "ground zero."

The hectic pace of the convention is enough to make your head spin if you let it. There is so much to do that choosing among the events becomes a real chore.

We arrived at our hotel in Denver on Sunday night, at about 8:00 pm and already had missed much of the welcoming activities that began that afternoon. So we decided to have dinner and charge our batteries to what promised to be a long day on Monday.

I just received this invite via email, I think this will be a powerful event

You're invited to our launch of the Guantánamo Bay Cell Tour in St. Paul!

A life size replica of a Guantánamo Bay cell is coming to St. Paul the week of the Republican National Convention; August 31-September 3. Tour the cell and find out what it's like to be illegally detained. While you're there, you'll be able to record a video to President Bush and sign Amnesty International's global petition to shut down Guantánamo and end illegal U.S. detentions.

Already there is a report of Minneapolis police of seizing citizen journalist notes and equipment and making up a reason later. Uptake has the story!

I've just returned to my room after another exciting and exhausting day in Denver. I woke up with a hoarse throat from all the shouting last night on the floor of the convention and a rather stiff neck from the dancing (which apparently some of you saw on CNN and CSpan last night!). Today marked the 88th (I think that's right) anniversary of women having won the right to vote. This fact permeated the whole day.

Over on Michael Brodkorb's MinnesotaDemocratsExposed, he's got a video where "college Republicans" are asking if a joke that never made TV is "funny".

Ladies and gentlemen, let's be clear: that "joke" never made it to camera, it was never shown on TV. It was discussed at a backstage writing session where nothing was sacred - that's where satire is created - that's what satire is. For satire, a lot of stuff that is WAY over the top and WAY out-of-bounds is discussed - and that over-the-top stuff never makes it out of the session. Unless, of course, some republiCon political hacks resurrect it and spin it for partisan political gain.

"There is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron-clad absolutely solid evidence. The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon." -- George aWol Bush, Meet the Press, February 8th, 2004

Well, that explains it! Bush The Lesser doesn't think he needs "iron-clad absolutely solid evidence" because he thinks he's a dictator. Where did he get that idea? Well, I don't know, but he's certainly thought about it - let's look!

Wall Street pours overs the political conventions, processes the information and makes the best guesses as to effects.

If McCain Wins, So Do These Sectors
- Asset Managers & Brokers
- Coal, Oil & Gas
- Large Cap Pharma
- Student Loan Providers
Source: Morgan Stanley

If Obama Wins, So Do These Sectors
- Alternative Energy
- Generic Drug Companies
- Medicaid Companies
- Nat Gas Companies
Source: Morgan Stanley
(cnbc)

Above all, what is playing throughout the Democratic Convention is a sense of hope, that we still can have the American Dream!

DENVER - Gov. Deval Patrick brought his powerful personal story to the Democratic convention stage last night in a speech that used his struggles and successes as proof that quality education can turn lives around.

I thought that Hillary Clinton's unity speech was done and goes into the core of what makes a party - shared values and shared vision!

I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism. She didn't have any health insurance, and she discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head, painted with my name on it, and asked me to fight for health care for her and her children.

The last convention did not in anyway resound to my heart. This convention, the Democratic Party as a whole is finally using the correct themes. This particular line sums the differences between Democrats and Republicans nicely.

Senator Clinton: We don't need four more years of the last eight years... more of a government where the privileged few come first and everyone else comes last.
(NY Times)

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) is up to his eyeballs in filthy lucre. From campaign contributions from corporations to gifts from guys he does business with to donations from lobbyists who represent the murderous Myanmar government to corrupt politicians and their crooked cronies. He simply doesn't understand why anyone would think this is a big deal. All his Republican pals in Congress do it, why should anyone care? Don't you Minnesotans know how the government works?

BTW, here's the fish video the questioner refered to. BTW2, check out Norm's body language ... dishonest, slimy ... or what?

Norm is playing dumb on this because he doesn't want you to comprehend the significance. This trip in and of itself wasn't a big deal. However, it is one instance of a pattern. A pattern of rubbing elbows with the people who benefit when Norm votes the Republican Party line. A pattern of putting corporate and Republican partisan interests before his constituents.

So the guy who organized the trip was convicted on corruption charges. Norm won't return the guys donations and doesn't think this is a big deal. Combine it with cheerleading the Iraq War, supporting Bush's disastrous economic policies, ignoring all the Republican corruption, incompetence and lawlessness, voting to underfund our transportation infrastructure, ignoring the healthcare crisis and going along with the Bush Administration's denial of global climate change and it all adds up to a big deal.

Is this man worthy of representing the great state of Minnesota?

Ashwin Madia's first ad of the campaign will be hitting the airwaves soon. Very understated. Powerful imagery. I think its a great introductory ad.

Traffic was very heavy on Monday on the road to the Pepsi Center, site of the actual convention. The LRT trains that run near the 25K seat auditorium are cancelled during the convention. Vehicle access is very limited. On the ride over I saw a few individual protesters. My fave was a man standing up through the sunroof of a Hummer with a “Clinton/McCain” sign.

Jon Olson, the Minneapolis Park Board commissioner who is trying to unseat longtime State Representative Joe Mullery, put out a hit piece at the end of last week that quoted extensively from one of my posts, attributing the quotations to our website.

The views in my column are my own. While MN Blue does endorse candidates, and any of our contributors can endorse anyone they like, neither MN Blue nor I have endorsed Mr. Olson. In a twist that might surprise readers, I personally already voted for the incumbent in this primary by absentee ballot (I am an elections judge and will not be in my precinct on Primary Day).

While Mr. Olson has earned a reputation as a bully during his time at the Park Board, I was surprised by the content of his mailer. I had a chance to talk with commissioner Olson shortly after he filed for office, and at that time, he declined to differentiate between himself and the incumbent whatsoever, saying that he did not want the primary to be about Representative Mullery’s record.