The Strib just won’t stop running this insanely homeristic political puffery in their outside sidebar on many of their political stories.
But not opposite Nick Coleman’s columns. See if you can guess why.
The final report on the Interstate 35W bridge blames the collapse on an obscure bridge designer who, like 13 citizens trying to get home on Aug. 1, 2007, is dead. In effect, the NTSB adopted a conclusion reached days after the collapse by an outside consulting firm hired by Gov. Tim Pawlenty for $2 million — the exact same cost as a plan to reinforce the bridge that had been rejected by the same administration: “The dead guys did it.”
A very convenient theory. But there’s one problem: Carol Molnau is still alive.
On the morning after the bridge collapse, I wrote here that “both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap” and both have scrimped “on the basics.” Still true. But the buck stops with the man in the governor’s chair, and during six years in office, Tim Pawlenty has stopped billions of bucks designated for crucial highway and bridge projects. He has vetoed three transportation bills, including one that passed over his veto while he was engaged in a yearlong beauty pageant, trying out for Miss GOP V-P, a role that went to Caribou Killin’ Sarah Palin.
His complaints about being the target of premature and unfair criticism after the bridge fell should be viewed as the posturing of a guy who wants to be a standard bearer for the Republicans and needs to shake the mud off his feet.
Is it unfair to link the bridge to the infrastructure problems that have grown much larger during Pawlenty’s tenure? Hardly.
Despite his post-Obama-slide conversion to a belief that Republicans need to reach out to moderates, T-Paw has embodied the knife-point anti-government agenda of those who think the best way to shrink government is to prove that it doesn’t work. On Aug. 1, 2007, he may have felt the effort had gone a bridge too far.
“Premature?” How about unveiling plans for a new bridge while victims were in the river? How about hiring a firm supposed to investigate independently that ended up partnering with the NTSB and fingering the gussets (before the wreckage was examined)? Premature? A week after the collapse, Pawlenty declared it “unrelated” to any shortcomings in inspection or maintenance.
Fast work, T-Paw.
Reporters found differently: State officials had worried openly that the bridge might fail. Consultants had warned that it needed immediate maintenance. Molnau, Pawlenty’s running mate, rejected plans to reinforce the bridge. Instead, MnDOT ordered a cosmetic fix, a repaving project that added about 300 tons to the bridge.
Follow the bouncing ball: MnDOT rejects a $2 million plan to reinforce a bridge that was deficient, fracture critical and the subject of fretting about a failure, in favor of a heavy repaving project.
More scrimping: The resurfacing went ahead without a precautionary use of ground-penetrating radar that would have shown whether subsurface deterioration had taken place since the last exam, eight years earlier.
The radar would have cost $40,000. Instead, the state dragged a chain across the bridge, listening for thumps that might indicate problems. It would have been even cheaper to hire a dowser to check the bridge with a magic wand. And it would have worked just as well.
No Mere Mortal or Molnau could have kept the bridge from falling. Its doom was sealed at the dawn of time, predicted by Nostradamus, right after he got done inventing gusset plates.
Big excerpt but someone needs to keep these words accessible after the Strib buries them in that cyber-landfill they call their archives.
Because long after that Tim Pawlenty will still be our governor, and will still be running this state on the super cheap, the better to avoid pissing off the League of Whiny Assed Titty Baby Taxpayers.
As I’ve said, the truth won’t come out until the lawsuits go into discovery, and then we will see what we will see, and it won’t be what we’ve been sold told. And, lucky for us, Marty fucking Seifert will be there to respin the spin, spitting on everyone who’s not him in the process.
The only thing that even remotely comes close to justifying the arrogance of the zombiesque DFL abide-aholic control freaks is the intransigent insufferability of the pugnacious ditto-bred leadership Minnesota Republican party.
And throughout it all the Strib moderates like the spiritual heirs of Pravda, even as the Republican political burros busily airbrush thirteen bodies out of the state’s history books.
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Norman “my finances are so shady I can’t even tell you what my wife’s job title is” Coleman farts out some demands regarding the need for oversight on the $700 billion bailout package he voted for.
Shouldn’t he have insisted on that before giving away the money?
Es machts nichts. Coleman doesn’t care, he’s just desperate to manufacture a headline that contains his name but not the words recount, Yasser Kazeminy, suits, or alleged.
Related links:
Charlieq on the recount mau mauing
Local TV political analyst calls out Pawlenty for the car ballot myth
Tild updates Norm’s schtick (watch closely for the peeping Nasser)
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Late links (Bloglines was bloggered but these have aged well):
Delicious gossip about Tom Friedman’s sudden reversal of fortune
Xmas symbolggery (yesterday they were playing Christmas music on the P.A. at the Chinese warehouse — it’s going to be a looong winter)
Scott Horton on a decent prosecutor
Islamofacists not thrilled by Obama
Nasty news from Chicago about police thuggery on election night
Emptywheel on the Siegelman developments
No, they really couldn’t be more corrupt
India lands on the moon (& discovers the dark side of media coverage)
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Last but hardly least, Rip sent us a story about how Agriprocessors is dragging down the entire NE Iowa economy. Since I was still living in Iowa when Agriprocessors bought Postville, I remember how hard locals worked to accommodate and reach out to the Chabad Lubavitch. Culturally, it was not unlike Southern Californians embracing the Manson Family back in the day.
Cults are cults are cults, but not all cults are into mind control. Agriprocessors just wanted cheap labor, not cult members. You have to feed cult members. Cheap labor doesn’t have to be housed, fed or cared for.
Chabad Lubavitch isn’t just a cult. It’s a racist cult that exploits the vulnerable. More important, they put filth in a casing and sold it as a kosher hot dog.
Again, these are all Agriprocessor brands:
Aaron’s Best
Rubashkin’s
Shor Habor
Iowa’s Best Beef
Supreme Kosher
Much as I hate the union-busting Hormel, a Hormel hot dog is 1000x more pure than meat mixed with Guatemalan sweat, bovine feces, rodent hair and packing floor dirt.
I can’t say the Rubashkins ever went Sweeney Todd on their workers, but I can’t say they didn’t either. And here’s a totally unrelated story for everyone whose eyes lit up at the mention of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
UPDATE: More from Lynda Waddington.
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Comment on Nick Coleman’s article n the Strib.
“Back to normal
with his blind hatred for Pawlenty and Molnau. I honestly don’t get it. It is interesting to compare Nick with Kersten. Both offer opinions but Nick often descends into this illogical hatred, fueling the flames of an emotional left wing that needs no such fuel.
posted by Extraman on Nov. 16, 08 at 7:49 AM |”
Extraman lives in the Strib comments section. His name shows up in many of the politically related Strib articles. He honestly doesn’t get it? He is doing his damnedest to muzzle the truth. Propagandists don’t have to believe in what they say, right? They just have to give that impression.
T Miss wrote: yesterday they were playing Christmas music on the P.A. at the Chinese warehouse — it’s going to be a looong winter
I was scanning the FM stations in my car yesterday, and one of the Des Moines stations is already playing Christmas songs all the time. Usually, its about every 6th song starting the day after Thanksgiving.
Ukrop’s, the local Christian-owned grocery store chain, was playing Xmas tunes non-stop this weekend.
Normally, their playlist is apparently all alternative 80s stuff. Heard Joy Division one day.