From The "Stupid Is As Stupid Does" Department…..

…well, could be filed in the ol’ republiCon “Do As We Say (Not As We Do)” Department, too…

Yesterday, over on Brodkorb’s Blog, Michael’s newest pseudonym “Contributor” tried – TRIED – to rip Tarryl Clark for the ghastly deed of “holding a fundraiser outside of the 6th District.” Now, this is funny for two reasons: 1) Michael’s newest pseudonym “Contributor” – Luke Hellier – used to work for Bachmann, so he surely knows about the many fundraisers Bachmann MotorMouth Overdrive has held outside the 6th District, such as the infamous fundraiser D*ck (cheney)in’ Cheney held for Michele on Lake Minnetonka, and 2) Brodkorb knows – KNOWS – that GOPer Eva Ng recently held a fundraiser outside of the district bounaries where she’s running, ’cause not only did MudSlingerMike tweet about it, it’s on the official Mn GOP website, where the ol’ MudSlinger is the State Party Deputy Chair!!!

And Tony Sutton had to know about the fundraiser; it was held at FEC Tony’s taco shop.

That, gentle readers, certainly qualifies as “stupid is as stupid does.”

It’s things like this, and more, why I say – often – “Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is GOP.”

Let’s look at a couple more examples:

In 2007, Mn GOP Party Chair republiCon Ron wouldn’t answer questions about his piss-poor “stewardship” of Party Finances, as documented in a June 2007 Strib story:

Party records show that money was withheld for employee retirement plans from September 2005 through May 2006, but Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reflect no deposits into the accounts during that period. In June 2006, the party made two makeup payments totaling $12,243 into the accounts.

The delay in depositing the money could have benefitted the party by giving it temporary access to the employees’ funds.

Carey didn’t explain why the retirement money wasn’t deposited promptly.

“There seemed to be some gray areas as to what was the requirement,” Carey said. Asked to explain the gray areas, he said, “I really would prefer not to get into the weeds on something like that.” (StarTribune.com)

Hmmm….”gray areas”….hmmm….”don’t want to get into the weeds”….

Where and what was republiCon Ron doing, during the summer of ’08? Ripping Al Franken over Franken’s paperwork problems, and demanding – DEMANDING! – that Franken answer questions!!!

Oh, and it needs to be pointed out that during the whole shoddy and sorry MnGOP PaperGate saga, FEC Tony was involved, except during his stint as Deputy to State Auditor Pat Anderson. And the shoddy and sorry saga apparently isn’t over…why, less than two weeks ago, the Mn GOP had to fix MORE of their (cheney)-ups:

Filings by REPUBLICAN PARTY OF MINNESOTA – C00001313
525 PARK STREET
SUITE 250
ST PAUL

The Following FEC Electronic Filings are Available:
Click on the form name to view it.
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433152
Period FROM 11/25/2008 through 12/31/2008
Report Type: YEAR-END
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433149
Period FROM 10/16/2008 through 11/24/2008
Report Type: POST-GENERAL
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433147
Period FROM 10/01/2008 through 10/15/2008
Report Type: PRE-GENERAL
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433140
Period FROM 09/01/2008 through 09/30/2008
Report Type: OCT MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433126
Period FROM 08/01/2008 through 08/31/2008
Report Type: SEP MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433122
Period FROM 07/01/2008 through 07/31/2008
Report Type: AUG MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433116
Period FROM 06/01/2008 through 06/30/2008
Report Type: JUL MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433113
Period FROM 05/01/2008 through 05/31/2008
Report Type: JUN MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433112
Period FROM 04/01/2008 through 04/30/2008
Report Type: MAY MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433107
Period FROM 03/01/2008 through 03/31/2008
Report Type: APR MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433104
Period FROM 02/01/2008 through 02/29/2008
Report Type: MAR MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433101
Period FROM 01/01/2008 through 01/31/2008
Report Type: FEB MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433099
Period FROM 12/01/2007 through 12/31/2007
Report Type: YEAR-END
Filed 09/21/2009
Form F3XA – 09/21/2009
FEC Filing #: FEC-433098
Period FROM 11/01/2007 through 11/30/2007
Report Type: DEC MONTHLY
Filed 09/21/2009
(Federal Election Commission)

Fourteen – FOURTEEN! – more “oops! We screwed up – AGAIN” amended reports??!?

Amending and re-amending and re-amending the re-amended is a long-standing pattern for Minnesota’s GreedOverPrinciples party. Amazing, when you consider GOPers like to consider themselves “The Party Of Fiscal Accountability”…

The last example I’ll use today is GOPer Governor-Candidate Marty Seifert – as explained by Dusty Trice:

Marty Seifert Gets Hit With His Own Slime!

Last Wednesday Marty Seifert held a press conference where he attacked several of his opponents by saying they might be using taxpayer money and their elected positions to gain publicity.

“I don’t know if they are doing that, but I want to throw it out there,” Seifert said. (MinnPost)

Looks like Marty Seifert combed over one very important detail. It turns out in the MN House Seifert is the chief offender!

MPR News checked, and it turns out it was Marty Seifert who claimed more money for expenses over the last four months than any other House member running for governor. (MPR via Blue Man)

Seifert has expensed $6,081 in travel, lodging and other expenses to the taxpayers since early June! (DustyTrice.com)

There’s Pawlenty plenty more examples of GOP Hypocrisy, such as Republicans Believe In States Rights (Except When They Don’t), and we’ll be reviewing them often.

Why?

Because:

“Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is GOP”

(cross-posted from MnProgressiveProject)

Another Piece In The CommentGate Puzzle

On June 4th – over at Michael Brodkorb’s “Minnesota Democrats Exposed” – I noticed a reprehensible smear of GOP State Representative Laura Brod. While the comment making the smear, by an anonymous poster named “J” was taken down, subsequent comments acknowledging the smear were not – and I captured those comments on a screen shot. Now, regular readers here know I’ve taken shots at Laura Brod before, from nominating Laura Brod as Hypocrite Of The Month to her asinine voter fraud comments to, most recently, a complete debunking of a Canadian health care comment she twitted.

Those posts I made concerning Laura Brod are NOT about her or her private life – they are about her political activities and shots like I took are completely within the realm of acceptable politics: she ripped Al Franken while ignoring ol’ Smokescreen’s indefensible inaction during The Abramoff Scandal; she alleges voter fraud without making her case; and she made a claim about Canadian health care that simply wasn’t true.

Fair game, each and every one of ’em. The smear campaign targeting Laura Brod? Completely unacceptable.

And it’s interesting to note that the smear campaign targeting Laura Brod, according to rightwing blogger Andy Aplikowski, was orchestrated not only from within the GOP, but at the highest levels within the GOP. Here’s what Andy Aplikowski posted:

The alleged culprits of the attack are Seifert supporters with speculation of the ringleader being the candidate himself. (ChangeWeMust.org)

Last Monday, August 10th, blogger Brian Falldin, who broke and is covering this story, posted the following breaking news:

MINNEAPOLIS (CWM) — We’ve received an e-mail confirmation from Residual Forces author Andy Aplikowski that Andy Gildea was the Republican Staffer referred to in his accusatory article. (CWM.org)

Tuesday, I confirmed Andy Gildea was on GOP Rep. Marty Seifert’s staff when this smear campaign was being orchestrated; Andy Gildea left Rep. Siefert’s staff when Seifert stepped down as Minority Leader. Andy Gildea is now employed as a Research Consultant by the GOP House Caucus.

Stay tuned as this CommentGate story of dirty GOP politics (are there any other?) continues….

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

Does Andy Gildea Still Work In Rep. Marty Seifert's Capitol Office?

Brian Falldin reports that Andy Gildea currently works for the House GOP Caucus, and as recently as October 9th, 2008, Andy Gildea was one of GOP Rep. Seifert’s assistants. Does Andy Gildea still work in GOP Rep. Marty Siefter’s Capital office?

A phone call and email have not been returned.

Stay tuned!

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is GOP

Eric Cantor, R=Hypocrite, was on Fox News yesterday, trying – TRYING – to make the argument that after being elected on a “Family Values” platform, getting caught in, say, an “unFamily Values affair” doesn’t much matter in today’s GreedOverPrinciples Party. Let’s watch!

(h/t to CrooksAndLiars.com)

What makes this performance by Eric Cantor, R=Hypocrite, even more hypocritical, is the smear campaign directed at GOPer Laura Brod – allegedly masterminded by high-level state GOPers.

Transcript of Cantor’s We-a Not-a Culpa and a couple of thoughts:

WALLACE: Finally, when you’ve got Republican leaders like Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina or Nevada Senator John Ensign admitting to extramarital affairs and staying in office, questionable use of either private funds or state money, in the case of Sanford, doesn’t the GOP, with all its talk of family values, risk looking like a bunch of hypocrites?

CANTOR: Look, I mean, is anyone happy to see all that have happened? No. I mean, it’s not good. But listen. We have our thoughts with their families and they themselves.

However, look. The party is not just about personalities. It’s about ideas. It’s about our ability to go out and prove that yes, we can lead this country again. So we have got a plan. We are talking about the solutions that actually can address some of the problems that working people in this country are facing, and we’re going to do that over the course of the next 16 months.

WALLACE: But if you’re going to talk the talk, why not walk the walk and say, “You know what? They should step down?”

CANTOR: Well, listen. I mean, again, I say in the instance of the people in South Carolina and Nevada, it is up to them, and those are the elected individuals by those states.

And again, it’s not about, necessarily, these personalities. The direction of this country — and the challenges that we face are enormous. And we ought to be talking about how to go about creating jobs again. We ought to be talking about the things that matter most to people in this country.

WALLACE: Congressman Cantor, we want to thank you. Thanks for coming in today and please come back, sir.

Everybody catch that? Let’s do that again:

We ought to be talking about the things that matter most to people in this country.

Two Points:

One – if the situation were reversed, does anyone really think that Cantor would be saying the same thing about a Democrat that got caught with the proverbial pants around the ankles? and…

Two – while Cantor, a national high-level GOPer is defending Sanford and Ensign at the national level, it’s allegedly state high-level GOPers trashing Laura Brod at the state level.

Hypocrisy, Thy Party Is GOP.

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

"…a Republican staffer in the Capital…"

That’s part of a line in a blogpost Andy Aplikowski made, and promptly deleted on June 30th, 2009.

Here’s the whole line:

Yes, that’s right, it appears that a Republican staffer in the Capital is trying to tank some of the condender’s on Seifert’s behalf. (emphasis NOT added)

The subject of Andy’s blogpost was the smear campaign against Laura Brod; Andy made allegations that the smear was coming from within the MN GOP. Specifically, Andy wrote:

The alleged culprits of the attack are Seifert supporters with speculation of the ringleader being the candidate himself.

Marty Seifert has denied personal and/or staff involvement as documented by Brian Falldin here and Political Muse here.

It’s important to note in Marty Seifert’s written response to Brian Falldin, Marty Seifert wrote:

I would ask anyone in question that allegedly has done this to open up to a lie detector test, open up cell and computer records and come clean.

One person that could come clean – and probably very easily – is GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb, owner of a blog where one of the smears appeared, on June 4th. This was discussed yesterday, here.

So far, GOP State Deputy Chair Michael Brodkorb hasn’t stepped forward to aide Rep. Seifert in locating the culprit by handing over easily located IP records. This makes me wonder if it is possible that Andy Aplikowski could be refering to GOP Senate Caucus Communications Director Michael Brodkorb when he says a “…Republican staffer in the Capital”?

More importantly, after making such serious allegations, why is Andy Aplikowski now aiding in the cover-up by not stepping forward to clear the air? Does his silence indicate that he simply made it all up or does he still have information that he isn’t sharing?

Stay tuned!

(crossposted from MnProgressiveProject)

Hey, KSTP – Where's My Hat-Tip, Dude?

On Friday, June 5th, I published a blogpost entitled “So – How Serious Are They??!?”; on Friday, June 12th, KSTP TV ran a piece called “Who’s In For Governor?. Both pieces discussed the issue of domain names.

On June 5th, I posted:

What’s needed, is analysis! And fortunately, I’m here to help!!! So, let’s take a look at domain names – taken and available and related to those considered “potential candidates” by those from the party that bows to the guy with the big cigar….

On June 12th, from KSTP:

But to get an idea of who might be thinking of running, it’s helpful to check the purchase of Internet domain names.

A little less wordy, but: same-same, yes?

Let’s take a look at what I posted, on June 5th:

Seifert2010.com – taken!
SeifertForGovernor.com – taken!!!

OK, that explains the presser, less than 24 hours after T-Bag bolted for Iowa….but:

What explains this?

MartySeifert2010.com – available!
MartySeifertForGovernor.com – available!!!

KSTP reported, on June 12th:

House Minority Leader Marty Seifert also bought a domain, SeifertforGovernor.com, the same day of Pawlenty’s announcement.

If KSTP viewers had read MN Progressive Project, they’d have known a full week earlier about what KSTP reported on, and a whole lot more – like who owns the domain names http://www.SteveSviggum.com and http://www.Sviggum2010.com and http://www.SviggumForGovernor.com

So, keep reading this blog – even if we don’t get the hat-tips we ought to….

(crossposted from /a>MnProgressiveProject)

So – How Serious ARE They??!?

T-Bag announces he’s out; which obviously means there’s a whole buncha republiCons in. Well, even some Republicans, too. Which begs the question: how serious are they?

It’s easy to go to various blogs and find out what various rightwingers are postulating; it’s even easier to check in with the (almost)official rightwing site (although, many bona fide RightWingNuts haven’t weighed in yet.)

It’s important to note: what you might find, might simply be “opinions.” Well, “opinions” if – and I mean “if” – the following “commentary” is considered “opinion”:

D Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Laura Brod was one of the chief proponents of the “Rape the Taxpayers of Hennepin County to the delight of multi-billionaire Carl Pohlad”.

Nobody, I mean NOBODY, in the Hennepin County GOP has forgotten her vote and defense of ripping our right to vote by referendum on the Twins stadium.

And I will take great joy in reminding my state delegate friends of this woman. (MinnesotaDemocratsExposed)

Gotta love them RightWingNuts, “right”?

“Right.” Even when they got opinions such as this:

J Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Aside from her tax issue which will be huge, Brod will have to answer for her personal behavior if she runs. She’s – ahem – played the field. A lot.(MinnesotaDemocratsExposed)

Doncha just love “blogs” “written” and “moderated” by “gentlemen” considered “candidates” for “positions” of “authority” in today’s “Family Values” party?

But, I digress. What’s “written” is just “opinion.”

What’s needed, is analysis! And fortunately, I’m here to help!!! So, let’s take a look at domain names – taken and available and related to those considered “potential candidates” by those from the party that bows to the guy with the big cigar….

…taken:

LauraBrodForGovernor.com – taken
BrodForGovernor.com – taken
Brod2010.com – taken
LauraBrod2010.com – taken

OK, every indication is Laura “Screw Hennepin County” Brod is in!

But, what domains did her “brain(dead) trust” miss?

Well, by my unofficial and quick reconoitering:

BrodForGovernor2010.com – available!
LauraBrodforGovernor.com – available!!
Brod4governor – available!!!

Dam – what were THEY thinking??!?

Plus, they missed these:

DumpBrod.com – available!
DumpLauraBrod.com – available!!!

One would think those around “The Card Check Girl” woulda checked what’s happened up in the 6th, what with the Dump Bachmann stuff…..

Then again, has anyone ever accused Brod of bein’ “brighter than Bachmann”?

Not likely….

Anyway, on to the next contestent “contestant”, in the “Small Tent” Party!

SullivanForGovernor.com – taken
Sullivan2010.com – taken

Well, I guess that’s not surprising; there’s a lot of “Sullivans” in these fifty states. Let’s look a little closer:

BrianSullivan2010.com – Available!
BrianSullivanForGovernor.com – Available!!!

Gee – is Brain “Brian” – a GOP National Committeeman – so out of touch that he didn’t register his domains, before T-Bag headed for the Des Moines Register??!?

How ’bout Marty – who couldn’t wait 24 hours to dance on T-Bag’s grave “legacy”?

Seifert2010.com – taken!
SeifertForGovernor.com – taken!!!

OK, that explains the presser, less than 24 hours after T-Bag bolted for Iowa….but:

What explains this?

MartySeifert2010.com – available!
MartySeifertForGovernor.com – available!!!

Could it be, that after spendin’ all them years in the GreedOverPrinciples party, that Marty got a case of the cheaps?

You tell me.

And tell me – is Pat in?

PatAndersonForGovernor.com – available!
PatAnderson2010.com – available!!!

And all of the Rammer’s are available; then again: did anyone really think Rammer could get a state-wide GOPer endorsement, anyway?

Now, here’s the deal: Steve Sviggum is a really nice guy. Horrible policies, but: truely a nice guy.

A genuinely nice guy. Again, horrible policies, but…. I noted “Sviggum.com” was taken. So, when I found that “SteveSviggum.com” was open, I took it.

Well, I took “Sviggum2010.com” and “SviggumForGovernor.com” too, but: that’s a tangent.

I took “SteveSviggum.com” ’cause I wanted to make sure no one took it and play games with such a nice guy.

Well, “no one would play MOST games with such a nice guy.”

One never knows, eh? OTO….

…that “DumpBrod.com”?

I got a funny feeling that one would go for a right might bit more….

(crossposted from <a href="http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/3355/so-how-serious-are-they"<mnProgressiveProject)