We’re now officially in the dog days of August, and things are supposed to be slooow. But nooo. 
Not in America in 2010. We haven’t had a slow news week in over a year, it seems.
In the car just a few minutes ago, we were listening to Rachel Maddow (on XM channel 120), and she heard about the Target boycott due to the fact that they donated $150,000 to MN Forward, a PAC who used the funds to purchase TV ads for GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmers, a staunch opponent of marriage equality. She looked at me and said, “Great. By the time I’m 15 I’ll only be able to shop at thrift stores.”
Yes, my 11 year old daughter bitches that I won’t let her shop at Walmart… and now Target. Oh well, it’s the price we pay, I suppose, to try to do the right thing.
We addressed this latest shit storm on tonight’s show with my friend and former Air America co-worker Jack Rice who’s a Minnesota re-plant. Yes, he and the family recently moved back to Minneapolis after his AAR stint in DC ended.
So he’s quite familiar with the mess in Minne which prompted MoveOn to circulate a petition urging Target to “Stop trying to buy elections” and promise “I won’t shop at Target until it stops spending money on elections. Companies like Target should stay out of elections, period.” (Yes, I signed it.)
But Target’s not the only Minnesota-based company that contributed to said PAC. Best Buy did too. The difference here is that Target has prided itself as a company that was very gay-friendly. I’d say this says “not so much.”
Best Buy, on the other hand, has positioned itself as a “green” company. Apparently, the people at change.org’s Environment page take exception to their contributions to this particular Republican gubernatorial candidate too.
Jess Leber writes (in a piece titled “Tell Best Buy: $100,000 To Minnesota’s Tom Emmer Doesn’t ‘Keep the Planet Healthy'”:
For the record, Best Buy, which is headquartered in Minnesota, is usually a pretty green company. It supports climate legislation, is known as an energy efficiency leader, and already has reached its goal to make an 8 percent cut in its carbon footprint by 2012. Through its “Greener Together” program, Best Buy also has one of the best electronics recycling programs in the industry and has pioneered state and federal programs to reduce landfill waste. It even field tested that program in Minnesota.
Then continues…
Tom Emmer, in addition to cheering on a rock band that advocates killing gays and lesbians, is a one-man bulldozer when it comes to the environment, as the group Alliance For a Better Minnesota points out. (Sign their petition to call out Best Buy.)
On electronics: Emmer voted twice against an electronics recycling program in Minnesota, and now that the program is law, is on a campaign to abolish — get that, abolish — the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which is set to implement the program.
On climate and energy: Emmer calls climate science “Al Gore’s climate porn,” and says green jobs are a “fancy marketing slogan.” He voted against Minnesota’s 25 percent renewable electricity mandate and swears if elected he would repeal it. Instead, he thinks too little is being done to develop the fossil fuels of the future. Want to challenge his retrograde stances? Don’t bet on it, he probably won’t show up, just like he skipped out on a recent “green debate.”
On health: He was a minority even among Republicans when he was one of only five state house legislators to vote against banning toxic BPA from children’s toys and sippy cups. Last year, he also voted against a pilot program to collect and recycle toxic paint.
Hypocrisy much?
There’s also a very questionable election situation going on in Michigan, where voters will vote in their primary tomorrow. Apparently, a congressional wannabe named Kande Ngalamulume decided to throw his hat in the race against Republican rubber stamper Mike Rogers. Unfortunately, Mr. Ngalamulume decided to quit the race about a week past filing deadline, and apparently headed back to Pennsylvania- where he had been living before moving back to Michigan to run. Confusing yes, but Karoli at Crooks & Liars spells it out nicely.
Now, the only way to get a Democrat on the ballot in November to run against the incumbent Rogers is via a write in candidacy. Enter Lance Enderle! He’s a progressive Democrat, who sounds like the read deal. Lance was my first guest on tonight’s show… So listen to what he has to say, and then call, text, tweet, email… get in touch with anyone you know in Michigan and help spread the word to write his name in tomorrow! To be continued, I hope…
Victoria Jones checked in with a great report from the Talk Radio News Service.
And we wrapped up the show with Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars, who visits almost every Monday with a look back at the Sunday talking head shows in a segment we may call “Fools on the Hill”…
In addition to our regular talking smack session about who was on and what they said, we took a couple of minutes at the end of the show to talk about what’s really being proposed, but described as a “Mosque at Ground Zero” (it really isn’t). Nicole wrote a great piece about it that you can read at Crooks & Liars, “On Tolerance and Healing.“