Hard to say who the worst member of Congress is. But there are few short lists that would exclude narrow-minded and extremist Minnesota religious fanatic Michele Bachmann. However, today isn't about Bachmann. You want Bachmann, you go to DumpBachmann; no one does it better. At the time of the 2008 election, Bachmann was just as odious as she is today. Blue America didn't get involved in that race though because her opponent simply seemed... "better than Bachmann." That standard is too low for us.
And today we're going to meet state Senator Tarryl Clark (below in the comments section), a hard working leader with a proven track record who would be a great candidate whether she were running against Michele Bachmann, or just some garden variety Republican.
People say this suburban/exurban district mostly north of the Twin Cities is too red for a Democrat. But that isn't true. Bush won it in 2004 with 57% and 4 years later McCain took 53% but, the district has also voted to elect Amy Klobuchar to the Senate-- and against Mark Kennedy, the kook who represented the district before Bachmann. And in the 15th senatorial district near St Cloud, the part Tarryl represents-- and which was a GOP bastion before she came along-- the vote totals in that 2006 race were very interesting. Because she knows what it means to work hard and work smart, and with a very committed Wellstone-style of campaigning, Tarryl outpolled everyone on the ballot:
Clark 15581 (56.30%)
Klobuchar 14980 (53.45%)
Pawlenty 14307 (51.1%)
Wetterling 13082 (46.81%)
Bachmann 12542 (44.88%)
MN-06 has the most devastating unemployment rate in Minnesota and the worst foreclosure crisis in the state. But Bachmann has neither understood nor been sympathetic to her constituents finding themselves in a jam because of the vicissitudes of an economy buffeted by disastrous conservative ideological experimentation. She has not only not contributed to finding solutions to these very real problems, she has tried to capitalize of politicizing them.
Tarryl's reaction, as a state legislator, has been the exact opposite. Instead of running around the country and ranting and raving at tea parties, she proven herself an effective leader for the people she represents, working to secure the funds to upgrade the facilities at Saint Cloud State University, working to ensure Central Minnesota’s nursing homes are paid fairly, working to establish a special law enforcement unit to fight gang activities in Central Minnesota.
Tarryl’s been a champion for issues including early childhood and higher education, health care, serving veterans, protecting Minnesotans from predatory lenders, and investing in the local communities that make America strong. Because of that her colleagues elected her to serve as the Senate’s Assistant Majority Leader. Bachmann's colleagues have recognized her as a clown and have tasked her with going on Fox to stir up divisiveness and animosities.
Tarryl’s record of results on reducing unemployment:
• Created 22,000 jobs with last session’s bonding bill
• Helped small businesses add new jobs with Angel Investor Tax Credits
• Authored the Central Minnesota Bioscience Initiative to bring jobs in the biotech industry into the 6th district
• Authored economic development bill that improved workforce development (job training) and expanded the Small Business Growth Acceleration Program, and entrepreneur and small business development grants.
Tarryl’s record of results on reducing foreclosure:
• Authored legislation to protect seniors from predatory lenders and reverse mortgages
• Helped families in keep their homes with the MN Subprime Borrowers Relief Act
• Authored legislation to reduce the burden of property taxes on middle class families
Tarryl is the newest member of the Blue America family. If you can volunteer for her campaign, there's a sign up form here and if you can help the campaign financially, she's on the Blue America endorsed candidates list.
That's so this year. What's that? Silly Bandz? Twilight? As Mark Cuban writes on his blog, "Location check in is so 2010." Cuban explains that he just invested in a company that, through video footage, determines how many people are in a given area at a time, ostensibly for security and traffic-pattern analysis. For now anonymity is given to crowd members, but Cuban wonders if adding facial recognition software would allow locations to forego checkin applications because "we would already know you are there." Sound a little like Minority Report? TechCrunch thinks so. "It sounds like a future we're inevitably headed toward."
Behind the scenes at Gilt Groupe. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alexis Maybank shares the story of how she and co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson built Gilt Groupe, the online flash sales site for men's and women's luxury fashions. The company, founded in 2007, reported $170 million in revenue last year and now boasts three million members who shop for designer brands at up to 70 percent off retail prices. Maybank talks about the challenges of getting the word out there, signing up initial designers, and raising VC as a woman. She explains to the Journal that "it's an old boy's network, and that's intimidating for a lot of women. So when explaining fashion to a bunch of men in khaki pants and blue button-down shirts, their response was always 'Oh, let me see if my wife thinks if this is a good idea.' But it worked."
Our annual 30 Under 30 list. They're running innovative companies, they're building communities, they're setting trends, they're giving back--and they're all under 30. Here's this year's winners, from Sprouter, to Agile Sports, to The Man Registry. Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments.
Foursquare is prowling for a partnership. Yet another 30 Under 30 winner is making headlines this morning as it attempts to snag a whale of a partnership. Foursquare, the game/ social network that recently raised $20 million in Series B funding, claims it is in talks with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft about deals involving their location-based data (via GigaOM). While the novelty of being the mayor of your local mall might gradually wear off it can still be a useful tool to make money for your business. Also, this type of partnership is what catapulted Twitter to profitability.
Facebook's co-founder on the Facebook movie. When you're trying to revolutionize social networking while you're still at Harvard, you're probably not thinking about how Aaron Sorkin might portray your life in a feature film six years hence. In SocialBeat, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, gives his take on the silver screen adaptation. In short: it overplays the sex and booze. "It is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things that didn't matter . . Other than that, it's just cool to see a dramatization of history. A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I'm just going to chose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds," writes Moskovitz, who is currently working on a productivity startup Asana, backed by Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. As for Zuckerberg, he adds, "At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is."
What financial reform means for angel investing. In a guest post at VentureBeat, Scott Walker, CEO of a law firm that specializes in entrepreneur representation, breaks down the impact of the financial regulation bill on angel investing. The verdict: it's a mix of good and bad.
Renting a room to save a home. Today's BusinessWeek explains how San Francisco-based startup AirBnB is helping homeowners escape foreclosure. The site allows people from 142 countries to rent out empty rooms and pull in a little extra income. One New Yorker tells BusinessWeek, "This has been our stimulus package...we were going to lose our house." Founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia say they got the idea for the company when they were cash-strapped, themselves. After renting out space in their own home, they decided to turn the idea into a business, enlisting the help of their friend Nathan Blecharczyk. All three founders made it onto our 30 under 30 list this year, having seen a tremendous amount of growth since the site launched just two years ago.
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Family: NATO Recovered Body of Missing US Sailor Justin McNeley in <b>...</b>
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Fwix is a news aggregation service focused on dishing the dirt on hyper-local news stories to help you stay on top of what's happening right in your backyard. Fwix is available both in the US and select countries abroad.
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