A friend and I attended the VIP portion of the ball Friday night in Minneapolis at the Aria Events Center, AM 950 is a progressive talk radio station. While some of the people we wanted to talk to were no shows due to sickness (Stephanie Miller, Ed Shultz and Gov. Dayton) We did meet a ton of others in the progressive movement in Minnesota. We were able to grab Franken’s ear long enough to warn him about the mess Lewis & Clark has turned out to be (he is a big advocate). We also met the station’s owner, and the morning host (he has covered Sanford’s presence in Minnesota, and I may get an interview with him on his program about Sanford’s influence in Sioux Falls.) Another chance meeting was with a Minneapolis School Board member who also sits on a National Committee of School Board members. She may send me some information about Common Core, her feelings on the curriculum were very interesting.
The common feedback we received is how South Dakota seems to be the black hole of politics when it comes to Republican corruption and domination. You could sense, a lot of people felt sorry for us, and if the drinks weren’t complimentary that night, I have a feeling we would have still drank for free.
But the highlight of the night was meeting the unapologetic, liberal talk host, Mike Malloy. Mike has been fired from about every major news organization in the country, and now produces his show from his home.
You met Frankin. That’s impressive. I’ve followed him and he’s people and public oriented.
frankin seems so much taller on tv.
Al Franken at his best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUL0AkjM-g
Detroit Lewis~ Can you elaborate more on from the 2nd paragraph of this post about Minnesota’s views on South Dakota. I am curious because I go in Minnesota pretty frequently but I felt I don’t get enough input from them; It could be that they’re too nice to me and don’t want to put me down?
Thanks.
Minnesota feels Sorry for us? This from the state that’s being raped by an NFL owner,elected a wrestler, a shitty comedian and Michele Bachman.
They may want to reflect on their own decisions.
Too cool, I am envious.
A bit harsh LJL. What I appreciate about Minnesota is their democratic people oriented stature. To bad there’s state income tax but good there’s no tax on food or clothing.
Oh Yah Sure, You bet cha. Thier doing great things over there.
$1.1 billion deficit.
http://www.kare11.com/news/article/1006253/396/MN-state-budget-forecast-clouded-by-debt-limit-crisis
Obsolute power corrupts absolutley. Repubs here Dems there.
Democrats have held both chambers since 2010. Prior to that it was TPaw and a Repub House and Senate through 2006 to 2010.
Just remember how the national teabaggers have tried to teach the state transfers how to destroy governments through fun accounting.
Tell MN and Franken we’re doing just fine over here:
“Overall, the states in the best fiscal condition are Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming. At the bottom of the list are California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey. Connecticut and New Jersey are in the worst shape for the same reasons: these states have had several years of poor financial management, expenditures that outstrip tax revenue, high debt levels and billions of unfunded pension liabilities.”
Lots of Blue in that bottom 5.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=24008
I guess I can speak as a Minnesotan who came to South Dakota then went back to Minnesota. Is SD as a state government “fiscally great”? Sure! But is that the only measure of a state’s quality of life or greatness? No, not at all.
Lots and lots of South Dakotans come to Minneapolis for things. But I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone, unless they are originally from SD or have ties to SD, tell me “Hey I’m going to South Dakota for the week!” Quite frankly I’ve met tons of South Dakotans who have left and never went back.
To be honest, South Dakota isn’t on the radar for a lot of Minnesotans. Crazy enough, I had been overseas and to other nations’ capitals but not to South Dakota, a state right next to mine, until very recently in my life. Despite that I’m glad I found it! I don’t think I knew anyone who went to any of the South Dakota colleges growing up. With that I never had much exposure to South Dakota.
I met a lot of characters and had some interesting experiences in Sioux Falls. But at the end of day I could never find a job that paid the bills. Everyone talks about “jobs jobs jobs!” but quite frankly I couldn’t find anything worthwhile. Everything in Sioux Falls centers around low-end service jobs in the banking and credit card industries. Lots and lots of low-end, very entry level call center jobs, but nothing for an IT guy with a degree and experience. After wandering from dead-end job to dead-end job and going completely broke my now ex- told me to go home. And I did. And I went from being treated like a reject to my phone literally ringing off the hook with IT recruiters. Sure Sioux Falls (and SD) has “jobs jobs jobs!”. But are they worth moving here for? Depends on what you do for a living. If you are skilled at marketing 79.9% APR credit cards, Sioux Falls is your place.
Would I come to SD again looking for a job? Probably not. But if I had some money and were looking to start a business I’d gladly give it another try. Sioux Falls is relatively inexpensive, taxes in South Dakota are low and, unfortunately for job seekers, the cost of labor isn’t all that high.
I find that SD is unabashedly conservative. People vote the red-party line… but they don’t really know why. Yeah we voted in a “wrastler” one time. And he was a character! And really had some neat people-oriented reforms. What kind of character or notoriety do any of the slate of SD politicians have? They all seem to slide under the radar… they make no noise. But then then they quietly “do their work”, for good or for bad. Isn’t Kristi Noem mostly known for yacking on her cell phone and slouching during meetings of the Ag Committee… ag being the #1 industry of South Dakota? Minnesota politics is rather mixed conservative and liberal, all depending on geography. As a friend of mine says, “I love being a conservative in a liberal state. I get the best of both worlds!” And isn’t that what life’s about? A plethora of options and a marketplace of ideas? I never saw a marketplace of ideas in Sioux Falls.
Maybe all of this sounds really down on and negative towards South Dakota. Don’t get me wrong, living in Sioux Falls was a valuable experience for me. But this is how I see it.
Happy New Years Sy!
On a per capital basis, if CA, CT, NJ, MA, and IL received as much Federal aid as AK, SD, ND, WY, NE do, they would be undoubtedly as fiscally sound as the latter…. And if they had more revenue to work with because of greater Federal help, then they would have greater cash reserves to deal with their pension liabilities….
Muqhtar Only a measly 20,000+ Minnesotans come to SD for hunting and fishing each year. Oh and thanks for subsiding those stadiums we visit. GO TWINS. What, don’t they have any interesting Minnesota blogs?
Do any of you have any facts to show us? Just how many exactly in those states are receive funding Winston? Or are you bending federal funding for road projects as your data? Damn us for having roads and a low population.
Why doesn’t South Dakota have a professional football team? Cause Minnesota would want 1 too.
Here is a joke-
Q: What happens when someone moves from Minnesota to South Dakota?
A: The average I.Q. goes up in both states!
A little background info on the guests that night;
Bill Luther is owner of the station, former US Representative
The Matt McNeil Show
The Matt McNeil Show features Matt’s unique take on life in Minnesota. Matt welcomes guests from all walks of life on topics as eclectic as politics, parenting, entertainment and sports. With twenty years of broadcasting experience, Matt thrives on listener interaction and enjoys looking on the lighter side of the day’s events. Matt McNeil was born in Minnesota in 1968, graduated from Edina High in 1986 and is a disabled veteran of the U.S. Army. He is married with three children and lives in Hopkins.
Mike Malloy
Mike Malloy came to talk radio by serendipity. Writing for CNN in 1987, a friend at an Atlanta radio station told him there was an opening for a weekend talk show host, if working for no pay was acceptable. Malloy gave it a try and decided it was more fun than getting a paycheck. He was hooked. Even better, within a few months he was being paid enough to cover basic necessities like rent, food and beer. But that was a long time ago.
Mike’s radio experience includes two 50,000 watt blow-torches: WSB-AM in Atlanta and WLS-AM in Chicago, and he was one of the original hosts on Air America Radio; a two-year-long association that ended in a massive train wreck. Mike’s nationally-syndicated program can now be heard weeknights from 9PM – midnight ET on affiliates from coast-to-coast, border to border, across the fruited plain as well as on live Internet streaming.
In addition to writing and producing for CNN (1984-87) and CNN-International (2000), his professional experience includes newspaper columnist and editor, writer, rock concert producer and actor. He is the only radio talk show host in America to have received the A.I.R (Achievement in Radio) Award in both Chicago and New York City, the number three and number one radio markets in the country.
It is not difficult to pigeon-hole Malloy politically. Generally speaking, he is a traditional Liberal Democrat doing his part to return the Democratic Party to its Liberal roots.
He is married to Kathy Bay (who also produces the radio show) with whom he has a daughter born in July, 2004. He has an additional five children, all grown, and five grandchildren.
Rebecca Gagnon
Board of Education, Treasurer
I am honored to have the opportunity to serve on the Minneapolis school board. I understand the challenges and take very seriously my stewardship role in the education of our children. Before moving to Minnesota in 2008, my family lived in Columbia, Missouri, Singapore, and Austin, Texas. I currently have three children in three Minneapolis public schools, (Southwest High School, Lake Harriet Community School, and Whittier IB). I bring a broad range of experiences to my role as Director, including my work as a school, church, and community volunteer. The support of my family, and more specifically my husband of over 17 years, allows me to dedicate myself to serving the students of families in MPS. During the next four years, I know that building and strengthening partnerships will be critical in addressing the various barriers to achievement that our children face. I look forward to partnering with all stakeholders in our children’s education, including community members, parents, teachers, staff, other elected officials and students. This work, albeit difficult, requires courage, collaboration, and an unwavering commitment to the idea that all children can achieve academic success, every child’s success matters, and all stakeholders must be held accountable when a child fails. “Let us harness our common humanity and make a better world.” ~ Ban Ki-moon
http://www.nagb.org/newsroom/press-releases/2012/2012-appointments/appointee-gagnon.html
LJL
on point and quite succinct.
OBG
Back at ya Winston.
And please re-read the sentence below, and if you’re feeling up to seeing some more data and the metrics on how they arrived at their ratings, please click the link and read some more:
“these states have had several years of poor financial management, expenditures that outstrip tax revenue, high debt levels and billions of unfunded pension liabilities.â€
You can slice and dice scenarios all you want, but you can’t run away from the fact that other than Christie, who’s beachside love affair with Obama showed everyone his true colors, all the States at the bottom of the list have been and continue to be run by Democrats, including the NJ legislature.
Your “solution” seems to be the typical Liberal worn out play of call a hail mary for still more funding (and bash Republicans with any club you can if they balk, preferably the race card like O’dear Leader just played yet again) Tax & spend ad nausea, despite the glaring evidence that since LBJ declared war on poverty we’ve dumped $17 trillion at the problem and the dial has barely moved if at all. Even more disturbing is most of the demographic groups who came out in droves to support Obama in ’08 & ’12 are actually worse off now then when the evil George W Bush was in office:
“From 2009 to 2011, almost one-third of Americans lived in poverty for at least two consecutive months. This is an increase from the pre-recession rate of 27.1 percent in 2005-2007.
People are also living in poverty longer. The median length of time spent in poverty was 6.6 months during 2009-2011, an increase of almost a month from the 2005-2007 rate. However, while the time spent in poverty increased, 12.6 million people who were living in poverty in 2009 were out of poverty in 2011.
The report also shows poverty was more prevalent in some communities of color. From 2009 to 2011, one-quarter of non-Hispanic white Americans lived in poverty for at least two consecutive months, but nearly half of Hispanic Americans and 45.3 percent of Black Americans lived in poverty. They were also more likely remain in poverty throughout the 2009-2011 period.”
http://minnesotabudgetbites.org/
We have 6.7% unemployment and only because 91 million people in this country aren’t working and most have simply quit looking. Many of whom are like Muqtar above and refuse to take jobs that don’t perfectly align with their field of study and/or in their desired location. What’s the Dem line to fix that? $10.10 an hour for the 3% of the workforce that actually make the minimum wage. Per the link above, tax hikes on the wealthy and a better than expected holiday shopping season (Thanks mobile South Dakotans with discretionary income) are helping MN dig out from their $670 million deficit. You’d think they’d at least send us one of Taylor’s thank you e-cards.
In the interests of fairness, I will give Liberals credit on the rare occasions they are right:
“Apparently he doesn’t give one damn about the separation of powers,†Hentoff told WND. “Never before in our history has a president done these things.â€
http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/liberal-icon-urges-obama-impeachment/
LJL – Interesting that you pointed out the projected budget deficit for last year, which was dealt with (by Democrats) without borrowing any more from schools, cashing out long-term assets, or slashing public services (which Republicans had done). They also raised taxes progressively and increased funding in strategic areas.
One year into the experiment, things look pretty good. The deficit is gone ($1.1B surplus projected), economic indicators are much better than the neighbor to the east, and (best of all, in my book) the party in power doesn’t have a death grip on the government, meaning they must compromise and cooperate with the Republicans, leading to centrist, moderate policies.
So yeah, I pay an extra 2% or so in income tax each year, but for things like functional public transportation, a cohesive metropolitan government, and a world-class educational system, I’d say it’s worth it.
Sy,
Your first four paragraphs ignore the across the board decline of the American middle class over the last 30+ years thanks to a national conservative economic/political bent which has been anti-worker, anti-families anti-fair trade, and pro-business, and pro-deregulation, and pro-supply-side economics at the cost of the American worker and the American family. When your policies destroy the middle class then they will also destroy the working class, the working poor, and those in desperate poverty regardless of what “War on Poverty” agendas you want to cite.
With a brief exception in the mid 1990s, the failure of American economic and political policy to affectively address the issues of poverty in this country in modern times demonstrates the collateral damage that “Reaganomics” and its political/economic legacy have had upon the quality of economic life for the average American whether they be middle class or of a lesser economic class… Don’t blame LBJ, but you can blame Ronald Reagan and the enabling “New Democrats” who for too long acquiesced supply-side economics and its destructive results.
Then your next paragraphs compare 2005 through 2007 to 2009 through 2011….. Hum, hello!….. Talk about apples and oranges, there was this little thing between these two time periods called the “Great Recession” or should we say the beginnings of it that need to be noted before you compare 2007 stats with 2009 or 2010 or 2011 stats.
Based on your logic, America was better-off under Hoover in 1928, than FDR in 1933, therefore, FDR was a failure. But there is just one problem with this logic, you have to ignore the “Great Crash of ’29” to make it work.
CORRECTION: “Hoover in 1928” should be “Hoover in his first six months as President.”
So by your “logic” Winston explain how is our current regime’s allegedly pro-worker, pro-families, pro-fair trade, and anti-business, and pro-regulation, and pro-demand-side economics is such a miserable failure? And by failure I mean all the sound bytes aside we are averaging 2% growth in our “recovery” since 2009 and when Reagan guided us out of the Carter years recession (which was statistically worse & much longer than ’08) he averaged twice the growth rate (4%) and in Reagan’s first year alone his policies created 3 million jobs vs. Obama’s “Stimulus” that created -200K jobs in it’s first year? (Hello Solyndra!) Even if you take an inflation adjusted look at both terms, Reagan is miles ahead of Obama in every category that matters and unlike Reagan, you won’t see any attempt by Obama to reach across the aisle and work out some deals the way he & O’Neill did. He’s planning more of the same crap you spill on here: Bash Republicans, keep running the Alinsky playbook and keep the media focused on the shiny object of the day, which these days is Christie.
Remember the “shovel ready” promise? Looks like the only shovels working were the ones piling all the bullshit on the voting public that this neophyte & hard Left ideologue POTUS could guide the country out of recession doing the exact opposite of what Reagan did.
BTW Winston, since ignorance is bliss & you’re easily the most blissful poster on here, here’s a list from the other link above (that you likely ignored) on how many different ways Obama has ass raped the same Constitution he apparently used to be qualified to teach college level classes on:
•Delaying the employer mandate in Obamacare
•Changing the types of plans available under Obamacare
•Ensuring abortions would be covered under Obamacare
•Enacting key provisions of the failed Dream Act to halt deportations of illegal immigrants
•Enacting stricter gun-control measures
•Sealing presidential records
•Creating an economic council
•Creating a domestic policy council
•Changing pay grades
Sure, he has a pen, along with a massively growing bureaucracy that apparently he only learns about their antics when he reads it in the paper. Only a hard core Liberal and/or Statist like yourself could defend these practices and you and I both know if this was happening under a Republican admin you’d be marching in the streets. And before you give me the “Yeah but Bush…” line, Bush went to Congress and got what he needed to pursue his policies, none of the above were done with even a courtesy phone call.
OBG… You have just increased my vocabulary. Had to look that one up.
succinct===LOVE IT.
Good debate gentlemen. Take note Ruf and Testor. No one needed to be called a Fuknews Puke or a MSNBC doody head.
Bunch of tiny bald dudes representin!
Anyone there over 5’5″ without moobs.
OBG
end of line