Roland Burris, Jan. 5, 2009: “The Lord put his hands on the governor and said, ‘This is the person that has to go to Washington.’”

Michele Bachmann, Oct. 14, 2006: “He called me to run for United States Congress”

But isn’t Sarlin missing something here?

These books are intended to be satire. Whether you think they succeed or not, they hardly evidence how Franken might act upon becoming a senator. And most of the Franken critics that Sarlin cites — Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly — are hardly mainstream conservatives that swing voters are likely to take their cues from. Rather, they’re political pugilists whose sole purpose is to rile up the conservative base (and make boatloads of money).

If anything, the Senate campaign in Minnesota proved that merely attacking Al Franken as an ideolog and an interloper is not enough to convince voters to back the Republican candidate. Norm Coleman’s campaign attacked Franken incessantly throughout the contest — and it doesn’t look to have been a very successful strategy.

The Ohio Democrat took up the issue again in a floor speech this morning in the U.S. House of Representatives, challenging Israel’s contention that the offensive against an entity with no official military is an act of self defense and stating the the Bush administration “knows Israel is using US weapons, paid for by US taxpayers, with disproportionate force creating a collective punishment of Gazans, assuring an escalation of conflict, clear violations of the Arms Export Control Act.”

Read or watch his speech after the jump.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, floor speech on Gaza conflict, Jan. 7, 2009, 1:52

Text of Kucinich floor speech:

“We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with U.S. weapons being illegally used to kill children.

I oppose Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel.  The rocket attacks, even to try to end the blockade, have no moral justification, are illegal and must stop.

But how can Israel claim self-defense when it bombs Gaza which has no army, no air force, no navy and has been under a constant blockade? How can Israel claim self-defense when its bombs destroy UN schools, killing children?

The children of Palestinians and the children of Israel both deserve life. But the lives of the children of Gaza are cynically discounted as “human shields.” Massacres are being rationalized. Israel’s “moral high ground” in Gaza, a growing pile of small bones in a graveyard.

The Administration knows Israel is using U.S. weapons, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, with disproportionate force creating a collective punishment of Gazans, assuring an escalation of conflict, clear violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

Israel was given U.S. weapons on condition they would not be used for aggression or escalation.  The outgoing Administration must finally stand for the rule of law, not the rule of force.”

Related: Ellison on Al Jazeera: ‘Not much sympathy’ by U.S. for Palestinians

Many Democrats, including President-elect Barack Obama, maintain staunch support for Israel, despite its military crackdown on Hamas in Gaza over the past two weeks, but a few Minnesotans — including Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman — have taken more independent approaches. Discussing the conflict with Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi yesterday, Ellison expanded on his statement of last Friday, which accused the Bush administration of passively ignoring the strikes and ground offensive that have killed nearly 600 people in Gaza and during which he said he supported actively engaging both sides to find peace. He says there’s little sympathy from the U.S. for civilians in Gaza (some of whom died yesterday when Israel attacked U.N.-administered schools in Gaza, killing at least 40).

“Just declaring ‘We support Israel’ or, for that matter, ‘We support Palestine’ is no solution. What we need someone to say, ‘We support peace,’” Ellison said. “There is a legitimate Palestinian narrative that the world must hear.”

He continued: “The people who have a strong sympathy for the Israeli position dominate the conversation. It’s really not politically safe to say, ‘Look, there are two sides to this, and Israel has not been an angel in this, and certainly there have been people on the Palestinian side who have not contributed to a constructive solution.’ … I don’t believe my colleagues are fully aware of how desperately bad it is [in Gaza for Palestinians].”

Video after the jump.


Related: Kucinich: In Gaza, Israel has violated arms export act

PepsiAmericas CEO Robert Pohlad has chipped in $50,000, while his wife, Rebecca, added another $37,500. Alida Messinger — a veteran Democratic donor, Rockefeller heir, and ex-wife of former Sen. Mark Dayton — also contributed $37,500. Finally, Jeffrey Balanga, CEO of Minnetonka-based Carlson Marketing, made a $25,000 donation.

As the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal previously reported, there are some other donors with Minnesota connections. UnitedHealth Group Executive Vice President Thomas Strickland contributed $50,000, while three other employees of the Minnetonka-based company gave at least $200.

Under rules put forth by Obama’s inaugural committee, individuals are prohibited from giving more than $50,000. In addition corporations, political-action committees, lobbyists and non-citizens are barred from contributing to the festivities.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission told staff Tuesday to renegotiate a draft deal that would ease a repayment requirement of $245 million bond debt under promises Northwest made to keep its headquarters here, the Pioneer Press reports. Now that Delta owns Northwest and intends to break that promise, the MAC wants to exact new pledges on money and jobs — but how much and for how long is at issue.

Meanwhile, in the legislative session that started Tuesday, elected representatives will take up schemes to make money through airport privatization inspired by a lucrative, 99-year deal at Chicago’s Midway Airport. But, writes Conrad deFiebre at Minnesota 2020 (via), there’s a more local lesson for legislators in the sad tale of the Twin Cities’ once-public transit system that private owners (including the just-deceased Carl Pohlad) drove into the ground four decades ago, necessitating a new public bailout.

With those fixes made and one no-longer-timely sentence dispatched, the Pioneer Press set about breathing clean Minnesota air into a wheezy editorial from Wall Street for the (dubious) benefit of local readers, many of whom will see the column for what it is — tainted and undeserving.

Here is the text of a statement released today by the Austin Informant Working Group, a follow-up to the group’s Dec. 31 statement that, among other things, cites an Oct. 29 Pioneer Press article outing Darby.

Austin RNC Informant is Provocateur Not Hero

A group of Austin activists today released their conclusions from reviewing over 70 pages of FBI documents obtained through a legal case regarding alleged actions to protest the Republican National Convention (RNC). From reading the documents, and from their own experience with him, these activists have concluded that the FBI informant Brandon Darby did not heroically intervene to stop violence. Rather it appears that he actively sought out people that he could manipulate and entrap. The two Texas men that Darby was most closely associated with during the convention, Bradley Crowder and David McKay, are accused of making Molotov cocktails and have been in jail since early September. Their trial is set for January 26. The disclosure of Brandon Darby as the informant casts further doubt on the charges against these two men.

According to the FBI’s documents, Darby, posing as an activist, had been covertly gathering information for the FBI since at least February 2007, twelve months before he ever met Crowder or McKay or knew of any plans for the RNC. “As an older seasoned activist, Darby had a lot of sway over Crowder and McKay, making them susceptible to his often militant rhetoric,” said Gabby Hicks, who was in St. Paul with Darby during the Convention. “He was always the one to suggest violence, when the rest of us clearly disagreed with those strategies.”

Darby has been characterized by many people who have known and worked with him as both persuasive and manipulative, with a history of provocation, instigation, and incitement. According to Lisa Fithian, who worked with Darby for years, “Brandon was always provoking discord and aggression, in the anti-war movement in Austin in 2003, in protests in Houston against Halliburton, and in disaster relief at Common Ground in New Orleans.  I worked with Darby in all of those places and saw the disruption he caused.”

The FBI documents make it clear that Darby did not restrict his informing to people he alleges were planning illegal activities. He also gathered information on numerous people who were engaged in lawful activism; including some who had no plans to attend the Republican Convention. “The wider net cast by Darby in his information gathering shows that he was part of an FBI campaign to suppress political dissent and activism,” said Will Potter, an award-winning independent journalist. “By gathering information on law abiding activists and then defending his actions as stopping violence, Darby contributes to the public perception that political dissent is criminal, which has a chilling effect on free speech.”

Because of Darby’s leadership role and his militant rhetoric, two impressionable young men, who have been held without bail since September, now face 7 to 10 years in prison. As the prosecution prepares for trial, friends and family of McKay and Crowder are hoping for a not guilty verdict. “We miss him a lot,” said Mckay’s father. “Every night David calls –- at this point those calls mean everything to me.”