Wendy: I am really pleased to welcome to The Wendy Wilde Show somebody who’s doing some moving and shaking in central Minnesota, trying to take back the State, and trying to take back America. […] Marty Ariones […,] you live in central Minnesota and you have been working diligently to invigorate the Democratic Party in central Minnesota. That is the area, folks, if you’re not familiar with it, where Mark Kennedy blasted the heck of our amazing Patty Wetterling. He just went for the throat. It was merciless. [Do] you think that that might have been, Marty, a turning point for people in central Minnesota, seeing what they did to Patty Wetterling?

Marty: No, I don’t that in itself was.

Marty (con’t): What I think is that people here have become sickened to death of this vicious, malicious, mud-slinging, muck-raking, Republican Party, and all of it in the name of God. They’re all Christians.

Marty (con’t): […] We’re in the middle of a state shutdown. They’re trying to say it’s oh, it was the Democrats, the Democrats, it was gridlock and they just wouldn’t compromise. They brought several compromises to the table, and the Governor each and every time, as soon as it looked like it was going to reach compromise, added things to that budget that had nothing to do with the budget, and made it very clear he would not sign the budget unless those things were included. And of course, Democrats said this doesn’t include that, and this isn’t what this is about. It’s really quite a war. Everything that’s been cut here has been cut, affecting middle class and working people. I notice that none of the Senators or Representatives are going to be going without pay. Neither is the governor.

Wendy: It’s funny, the Governor is still getting a paycheck and for what – for scheduling hunting trips?

Marty: Yeah, that’s about it, too. As far as Mark Kennedy goes, this guy is such a weasel, it’s just not even funny.

Wendy: Bit Marty, I have to interject. There was just an election there in November. He won again. And I noticed because I actually lived in St. Cloud […] for a couple of years. It was an area that surprised me, because it talked a lot about family values, but then it puts people like that in office who would deal in such an atrocious manner as he did Patty Wetterling. And you’re talking about smearing mud, but he won re-election.

Marty: He did. He didn’t win it by that much. It was very close. It was very close.

Marty (cont’d): I think that the problem that Patty had was that she had not educated herself on the issues. She was not able to get up and speak publicly. When she was questioned about health, education, health care for the poor, and so on, she knew nothing. She simply kept repeating the mantra, “I’m for the kids, I’m for the kids.” I’m sorry, that’s not enough. We’re all for the kids.

Marty (con’t) I think his attacks on her would have worked to her benefit [if she’d had] a stronger message, and if she had bothered to educate herself, bring herself up to speed on issues. I think she could have just whipped him seven ways from Sunday.

Wendy: I don’t want to sit around and bash Democrats and the Democatic Party or any progressive, but shouldn’t the party have been there educating here before she ever ran?

Marty: I think this was a hastily thrown-together campaign for one thing. […] We’ve got the 2006 elections coming up and we need a fireball candidate. We need somebody that’s going to get out there and speak their mind, and not be afraid to stand up for what they truly believe or believe to be factual or true without worrying about what these other people are going to say. We have so much in-fighting in the party itself.

Wendy: Oh, so do the Republicans. I don’t want to keep bashing Democrats because the Republican Party even in Minnesota is sharply divided. We bring Republicans on the show who asked to be on because they want to speak against what’s going on in St. Paul. Repeatedly, we’ve had numerous Republicans on the show who say “I can’t go along with this, I have to stand up for what’s right for my district.” So there is in-fighting within the Republican Party. […] Phil Krinke actually brought forward agreements trying to negotiate agreements behind Steve Sviggum’s back, Marty.

Marty: Oh God, doesn’t he make you sick? I tell you, we’re just sunk here. We are just absolutely sunk here.

Marty (con’t): We’ve got Michelle Bachman, a Representative, we’ve got Steve Sviggum, both of them so obsessed about other people’s sex lives, they can’t attend to business. These people are absolutely immersed in this stuff, visualizing scenarios of people wanting having sex with animals, and beastiality being the next thing down the line…

Wendy: Marty. Marty. Marty! Hello, Marty! This is my show and I told you in e-Mail we don’t go over the line and you’re going over the line.

Marty: [We] are now reaching we hope somewhere around six to seven hundred people. And every day this number seems to be growing. [With the] dissatisfaction with what is going on in this country as a whole, people who were formerly just hard-core conservatives are moving to the left. They’re frightened. People are scared of what’s happening to us.

Wendy: It’s interesting [that what you just brought up is] what these Republicans who call and want to be on our show are saying the same thing. The people who’ve taken control both in Washington and in St. Paul are not conservatives. Look at the enormous deficit spending they have going. And the cronyism, they funnel money to their friends. They give giant contracts to their friends. That’s cronyism, that is not conservatism, that is not conservative financial values.

Marty: These people are like parasites. They have simply attached themselves to the path of least resistance. You have to look at The Federalist Society who’s behind all of this, behind what they call “the movement.” Of course they could not go to the left with the Democrats, because the couldn’t sell the […] immorality […]

Wendy: […] The interesting thing about what you’re saying, is the left actually isn’t left. Because compared with these people, everybody’s left. We’re all stuck in the middle together.

Marty: Exactly, exactly. And people are going to have to stand up, Wendy. They’re going to have to quit sitting back.and going, “oh, I just don’t know what to do.” You’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get up, you’ve got to start talking, you’ve got to start pushing back. This is our country. It is not their country. They don’t own it. They don’t our flag. They don’t own God. This is our country.

Wendy: Good work, Marty. […] Central Minnesota, a growing movement, a growing number of people dissatisfied with the right wing agenda and how it has harmed our cities. How it is harming families by pushing families over the brink. [Remember,] our median family incomes are down almost $1,000 a family in Minnesota. That is the right wing policy result.

Wendy Wilde: [John Kline, the] guy you would be running against, I’ve taken a look. His voting record is like 98% along the Bush lines. Whatever they ask for this guy votes for. That’s not very Second District. That’s not very Minnesotan.

Colleen Rowley: Yeah, […] to represent all of the constituency of a district is the goal, and if you vote lock step on highly partisan issues, I think [you’re] really going to have a tough time explaining to the people how you were voting to represent them.

Wilde: You’re really well known, best known maybe for the letter you wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller at that time. You wrote there that the issue is fundamentally one of integrity. And I think it’s really interesting that you would point that out because we’ve been seeing throughout the Bush Administration a repeated raising of the eyebrows over integrity. Do you feel that the issue of integrity has been resolved?

Rowley: Integrity, or what I also call ethical decision-making is the issue. So much of the double-speak on these issues, certainly the false intelligence of the Weapons of Mass Destruction. And so much of this really can be summed up as an issue of ethics and ethical decision-making. And of course we also know now with the various other scandals, the Tom DeLay issues in the House Ethics Committee, that we need more strengthening of ethics in House Ethics Committees […] right now to address these problems and raise the standards. It’s an issue of National Security of course, because if you don’t understand what initially caused the problem, how are you able to able to effectively remedy the problem. In ethics, there’s something called cover-up of course, and it’s just a common human nature thing to not want to admit a mistake, to basically not admit criticism. But if you act in that vein, you don’t fix the problem. I think the Iraq war is going in that direction right now. There’s no real momentum to looking at the problem, and talking the hard issues and then dealing with them, because we’re simply going down the same path and trying to dismiss that there’s even a problem to begin with.

Wilde: Tell us, why would you be a better person for [the Second District]?

Rowley: […] There’s something called the silent majority, and I’m hoping they can become the little more active and vocal majority, because those people’s interests are simply not represented by either partisan extreme. When I speak to groups, [I sensed] a large, growing unease in the country that they are not really being leveled with. You see [people] understanding now that this double-speak is going on. […] It’s been asserted many times that we have to be tough on the war on terrorism, but we also have smart and we can’t make mistakes and do things that compound the problem. And I think people out there are understanding that.

Are you as stunned as I am? I just really thought they were going to pull it out at the last minute. I don’t know if you caught a few of the details in the news but they’re saying at the last minute the Republicans started just throwing all these little things up that nobody ever heard of before. You know, just all these things they wanted on the table at the last minute. Just crazy stuff.

You know, ever since the Republicans took control of the Minnesota House, we’ve had this kind of fake crisis. This isn’t a real crisis. These people made this crisis. This is fake crisis. […] If you paid attention, you have to pay attention, you have to do more than just listen to the mass media on this, but if you paid attention, the DFL’ers caved and caved and caved. These people, Pawlenty and his Karl Rove band of followers, they won’t compromise. They simply won’t give in. It’s do it their way or they refuse. And now look at this: 15,700 Minnesotans out of work, laid off. Some of them if they have vacation pay coming will get that, and then they get to go file for unemployment. And that comes out the pot anyway, so this is just plain stupid, profoundly stupid - Ding! Ding! Ding! - profoundly stupid. […] But then again, it was Governor Tim Pawlenty who used those words the first time. What do they say? It’s he who smells it that cuts it? [Laugh] School bus morality! The one who smells it, is probably the one who cut it. [Laughter] I’m not going to go any further than that! This is the Wendy Wilde show on AM 950 Air America Minnesota.

In the second hour of today’s show, I’m really excited. We’re going to be talking with folks who are moving and shaking in central Minnesota. Now, central Minnesota has been really swept up with this right wing mentality. Even liberals I know that own radio stations in central Minnesota are carrying right wing programming! It’s like, knock you on the head, what are you thinking? Arggh! We actually tried to put our signal on in central Minnesota and the right wingers launched a massive letter and telephone campaign, and we lost our station. Not because there were any ratings, they didn’t even wait for the ratings, they just couldn’t handle the phone calls. It is so sad that a few can dominate the conversation like that.

Well, there are folks in central Minnesota who are so ticked off that they’re just not going to put up with it anymore. In the second hour of this show we’re going to be talking to some of those folks in central Minnesota who have built hundreds of additional members of Democrats party in central Minnesota. And we’re also in the second hour of today’s show, we’re also going to be talking with the originator of a campaign that you will see around Minnesota. And indeed if you’re hitting the road, you will see this massive anti-war, anti-Bush administration campaign on Interstate Highways across America. And you’re going to meet the originator of this really fabulous idea. He tells us that Minnesota has actually one of the largest contingents of these Interstate Highway protesters in the nation, so we’re going to hearing a little bit more about the campaign, and how it began and how it’s going, coming up in the second hour of this show.

I am so pleased in this hour of the Wendy Wilde show to be bringing you a real life American hero, so you just sit back and relax and get ready to hear the words of wisdom from a real American who stood up to the big guys and said this just isn’t right.

Tim Pawlenty is howling like crazy this morning because… He’s the Governor. He’s supposed to be the leader of the State. He has never negotiated … Wasn’t it just the other day he wanted them to get on the State plane […] and they wouldn’t go. They didn’t get on the plane. They went to the mansion. They went about their business.

I don’t know what he’s complaining about. I’ve got complaints about the Democrats. I don’t think they should have dropped the income tax rollback on the irresponsible tax cuts handed out to the wealthiest Minnesotans by the wingnuts who have run [the] State and Federal Governments over the last few years. The Democrats I thought [had] a very modest proposal to restore some of those irresponsible cuts. [It] would have raised millions, hundreds of millions in revenue by restoring a small portion of the tax cuts handed to the most wealthy Minnesotans. There was a “millionaires pay your fair share” […] proposal. They dropped it in the end. I don’t think they even should have. They dropped it trying to reach a compromise.

The Governor all year long put forward one nutty proposal after another, and one dishonest tax hike after another. His own people called him out, like Phil Krinke, the Chair of the House Tax Committee, who said at one point […]let’s start calling these taxes by what they are – taxes! […] Pawlenty has tried to sneak them under the radar, hundreds of millions, billions actually, over a billion dollars in user feed [and] surcharges. There’s a billion dollar property tax offload that has gone on for the last couple of years with local governments being forced to raise property taxes while they’re being starved by State government. All of this has been going on, not to mention the “butt” tax, 75 cents, or it was also talked about as a dollar on a pack of cigarettes. A tax that is not called a tax. He called it a health impact fee.

All of this nonsense that went on has two goals. One is to cover his political butt and preserve his pretense to be a Presidential pretender and a person who has never raised taxes. Of course, he’s raising them left and right, but he’s raising them on the low and middle income people, and dropping the neediest from protection of State government and from State services that the need to get out of … If you believe in a progressive government that helps people move along to get along with the help of their own bootstraps and the compassionate people, that’s not happening anymore.

You know where the compassion is going? To the millionaires! So he was dead set against any income tax increase for the wealthiest Minnesotans, even after the Democrats shaved it. It was very small to begin with and applied to only a small percentage of the wealthiest Minnesotans, and it was reduced. And he wouldn’t take it because that would be owning up to his responsibilities, that would be owning up to the obligations of government, while they are playing games.

The Racino? Excuse me? The Racino was bad policy. What did he do? He bashed the Tribes all year long. He played his own little Minnesota version of a popular game in Washington among politicians and lobbyists which has been shakedown of Indian Tribes. The Indian Tribes of this country, they didn’t do anything wrong. They played by the rules, and the rules were set against them very violently for two centuries or three centuries. But they totally went by the rules. They totally went by the system. They played what government asked them to do and with the deck that they were dealt, and they made some very successful businesses. Now they are a target. […] They’re not being targeted fairly. They’re being targeted around the country by politicians who have used centuries of racial resentment and prejudice to whip up [an] environment where it’s OK to go to after … Indian gaming and the Racino is just another aspect of that.

That’s off the table, now, too. Nothing got done. […] What do we have here? There’s no funding for libraries, early childhood programs, adult education or local public health agencies. […] Because those are not important. Early child programs? We’ll catch up with them when they’re sixteen, and in [Juvenile Detention]. And on licensing: new licenses won’t be issued. I got one, you don’t want one, they’re freaky-looking. And driver testing suspended. Most new professional licenses won’t be available, either. No permits for most over-size, over-weight truck loads. Thank God for small favors. […]

No enforcement of minimum wage, prevailing wage, overtime laws, along with routine workplace safety inspections. Oh, a few arms will be lopped off. Closed completely: Disability Council, [...], Physical Therapy Board, and no traffic information via message boards. […] Most highway rest areas, some of which will close today. […]

At any rate, […] 9,000 State workers [are] off the job. I think most Minnesotans can grin and bear this for a couple of weeks. It’s not a disaster. Remain calm. Remain calm. Your State government is shut down but I still love you, and we’ll get through this together.

But when you see who’s mad this morning, who’s hopping, hollering, stomping, yelling mad, it is the Republicans. It is the leaders of the Republican Party and the Governor of this State, and that’s [because] they bought into a wingnut agenda from day one. It did not work. It will not work. It does not fly. And they would not leave it, they would not abandon it, and as a result, this State government is shut down. They dropped this baby on their toes, and that’s why they’re hollering.

Well, have a good Holiday anyway.

Nick Coleman:

7:00 to 7:30 - The 646 lb catfish and the "Shutdown"

7:30 to 8:00 - Interview with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace

8:00 to 9:00 - Discussion with two historians about the First Minnesota Regiment at Gettysburg

Wendy Wilde:

9:00 to 10:00 - A couple of minutes on the "Shutdown", then Colleen Rowley for the remainder of the hour.

10:00 to 10:30 - Interviews with a central Minnesota DFL activist, then the "freeway blogger" who advocates putting up anti-war signs on freeway overpasses.

10:30 to 11:00 - Bobby De Pace of the Machinists District 143 talks Northwest Airlines, politics, and sings a tribute song to the late Paul Wellstone.