In this morning's edition of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Minnesotans read about how mediocre, Bush-supporting, empty-suit, incumbent Republican senator Norm Coleman is  still beating DFL frontrunner Al Franken in the latest poll.

A great many people are probably not even aware that in the Minnesota senate race that Al Franken even has an opponent for the DFL (as the Democratic Party in MN is called) nomination. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer has been running a true grassroots progressive campaign against the "inevitable" (sound familiar?) Al Franken. A big complaint made by JNP supporters has been the lack of media coverage by the local paper, the Minneapolis-based Star-Tribune. In Sunday's edition JNP is mentioned prominently not once, but twice.

The local paper here, the Star Tribune ("the Strib" for short) has a front page story on new revelations of tax-paying problems by Franken's show business enterprise in California. This "mini-scandal", coupled with an earlier "mini-scandal" where Franken was in trouble with the state of New York for not paying worker's comp. premiums may make Franken's (surprisingly difficult) quest to unseat Norm Coleman that much more difficult.

My local paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has finally had an article (on the front page no less!) about the "other" candidate for Norm Coleman's US Senate seat, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Most people here at DailyKos are probably not even aware that Al Franken even had other opponents for the DFL nomination for the late, great Paul Wellstone's old seat.

(cross posted at mnblue)

Today was the Minnesota Senate District 50 Convention. The most important activity at this convention was to elect delegates (18 delegates plus 18 alternates) to the State DFL Convention to be held in Rochester, MN this June. The delegates at the state convention will determine who will receive the DFL endorsement for the US Senate race and have the honor of facing incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The three DFL candidates are Al Franken, Mike Ciresi, and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer.

I apologize for the "timeliness" of this diary (meaning that this might be old news) but one of the things I like about taking a long break at Thanksgiving is being able to catch up on reading.

While perusing my back issues of Newsweek magazine I came across an interesting tidbit in the November 5th issue of Newsweek on page 20 ( the Periscope section). After seeing this the little lightbulb above me head turned on.

It seems that there has been alot diaries, comments and polls asking people here at DailyKos if they would support Hillary Clinton if she were to end up as the nominee. It seems there are a great many people who believe HRC "won" the debate last night and has re-ignited the inevitability talk.

Five years ago today (October 25, 2002) Minnesota lost a great senator and American progressivism lost one of it's most impassioned voices.  Paul Wellstone was on the verge of being elected to a third term in the senate after a tough campaign against former St. Paul mayor and ex-Democrat Norm Coleman and in the aftermath of his death we've all been the worse off because of it. That day still stands as one of the most shocking to me, and I don't think I have ever been saddened by someone's death (with the exception of my own family).

Minnesota freshman Senator Amy Klobuchar, a massive diappointment to the progressive base that so enthusiastically supported, now has her support for the condemnation of the MoveOn.org ad being used by right wingers to undermine fellow Democrats.

The junior senator from my state of residence, the great state of Minnesota has decided to serve the interests of the right-wing noise machine and the Bush Administration by being one of the traitorous Democrats who supported the resolution condemning an ad by the group MoveOn.org. The angry e-mail I sent to her follows after the jump:

Earlier this month 16 Democratic senators joined with the Republicans to help make it easier for the federal government to wiretap communications without a warrant. This was widely hailed in the press as a "victory" for the Bush Administration in their "war" on terrorism and the anger among Democratic supporters at those that supported this legislation was profound.

In my local newspaper (Minneapolis Star Tribune) this morning there was an  op-ed by conservative Bruce Bartlett that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times that says that conservatives should not be so worried if Hillary Clinton gets elected because she is BASICALLY ONE OF THEM.

I apologize to those who are getting sick of this story, but I have had a rough couple of nights and need to vent. I live in the Twin City suburb of New Brighton, about 6 miles north of Minneapolis. I was on that bridge at 8am Wednesday. My wife works in downtown Minneapolis and goes over that bridge at least twice a day (sometimes four times a day depending on where she goes to lunch). She was on that bridge a little after 5pm, but she usually leaves work at 6pm. It was just good fortune that she wasn't on the bridge at her usual time.

I don't actually read the New York Times, but my local paper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune today carried an article by New York Times reporter Marc Santora about the anti-Giuliani video put out by the International Association of Fire Fighters this week entitled: "Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend". The video was highly critical of Giuliani's failing to properly equip firefighters prior to 9/11 and to shift focus away from recovering remains to cleaning up the site in 9/11's aftermath.

Writer William Greider has pointed out here: http://www.thenation.com/... that the Wall Street Journal MAY actually have some doubts about the benefits of globalization. This is HUGE. The Wall Street Journal, the bastion of right-wing free trade forces, having doubts about globalization is like Jerry Falwell doubting the existence of Jesus.