Zach Glaser

New PAC in Minneapolis: Thrive Mpls (Updated August 2025) Thrive Mpls is a new PAC in Minneapolis ahead of the November election after We Love Mpls ceased operating. Its chair is Martha Holton Dimick, who unsuccessfully ran against Mary Moriarty for Hennepin...

thrive mpls a zoom meeting for their supporters a few days ago and we were inside. i've added the full slideshow to my blog post, but wanted to highlight a few things - taylordahlin.com/f/new-pac-in...

In fact, the research group cited in the article--Opportunity Insights--elsewhere conclude that standardized tests are less biased against low-income students than almost any other aspect of "holistic admissions"

Fascinating data illiteracy

While abolishing Affirmative Action and ignoring demographics certainly reduces representation of underserved groups, this graph shows the exact opposite of headline's claim of GPA and test score bias: much of the bias in admissions comes *when holding test scores equal*

If you understand the problems with the way the state of Israel rhetorically wields the memory of the Holocaust, then you understand the danger in exceptionalizing any one atrocity in human history, no matter how horrible, as the “worst ever.”

Lamentations On mourning Tisha B'Av during genocide in Gaza

I wrote about the overwhelming feelings of despair that permeate this Tisha B'Av for me.

What does it mean to share the guilt of enabling Israel with my community, even as many do not recognize the reality of genocide in Gaza?

I went from sobbing at the most recent RadioLab to crying laughing at this. @taylr.bsky.social's deadpan commentary and John's recycling of Plowy McPlowface one-liners as the police trucks advanced was hysterical.

I'm particularly emotionally labile today as I'm fasting for Tisha B'Av, so ymmv.

I was SO confused where the smoke was coming from during Totoro, and now I'm angry with myself for not having gone to investigate

My Big Beautiful Road Trip week one

I'm on the road, making a huge nation-circling trip before heading off to grad school at @caltech.edu this fall. If you want to follow my travels, I'm writing about them here:

ward 7 CM katie cashman has filed! fittingly, she was the 7th candidate to file!! adam schneider also filed for parks at large

@katiecashman.bsky.social @adamformplsparks.bsky.social

During Pride I was very concerned about the impending simultaneous outbreak of clear weather, storms, and a heat wave

katie cashman budget survey placard and qr code posted on a park bulletin board.

katie cashman budget survey placard and qr code posted on a park bulletin board.

Katie Cashman: what do everyday people out and about on the street think about the 2026 city budget?

Elizabeth Shaffer: what do my friends Tom Hoch and Mike Erlandson think about slashing services so I can give them a tax cut?

Results for @mplsdfl.org endorsement of candidates for Park Board At-Large.

Congratulations to our endorsed candidates!

It would be helpful to clarify what material action you think was improper. The passage of the rules suspension? Is there legitimate objection to a badge endorsement?

imo the only strong argument available is that a fully tally should’ve been made on the rules suspension, as that was closest to 2/3

Frey’s team fucked themselves—they needed 33% to block rules changes, 40% to block an endorsement, and chose a 50% quote standard instead 🤷‍♂️

Either that’s boneheadedness, or it was setting up to allow for this kind of aspersion casting about the outcome

Did the Ward 7 result upset me? Yes! Was it procedurally invalid? No.

The rules say 2/3 vote gets you control of the rules. Them's the breaks.

I did not see you complaining after the Ward conventions, and I think it's a bit bad faith to start now.

The PACs backing Frey are clearly not consistent

Shaffer won the Ward 7 endorsement because of a motion to suspend the rules and extend the convention that Cashman delegates didn't understand the implications of

In Ward 2, they *actively disenfranchised* 50 delegates with a bare majority vote

I could not agree more! Conventions suck! Heck, an August primary still seems like an unrepresentative tipping of the scales to me.

But then your problem is with conventions, not this one in particular! Be consistent, and advocate for their abolition with the State Central Committee

Look, I hate the convention process—I’m a Katie Cashman supporter in Ward 7, lol. I wish the DFL wouldn’t endorse in non-partisan RCV races

But you can’t pick and choose the results based on which side the inevitably awful sausage lands. 2/3 gets you control of the rules at any convention

Frey’s team fucked themselves—they needed 33% to block rules changes, 40% to block an endorsement, and chose a 50% quote standard instead 🤷‍♂️

Either that’s boneheadedness, or it was setting up to allow for this kind of aspersion casting about the outcome

The resulting ballot was not procedurally invalid, nor were there reasonable questions of its accuracy.

Obviously 60%+ of remaining delegates endorsed Fateh, and had the walkout not occurred, I do believe our chairs wouldn’t have endorsed on a badge count of which they weren’t certain

Still, I don’t think the complaint holds much water. Frey’s team had the numbers to stop the change, but their delegates had been trickling out, and had less discipline on procedural motions all day

Will’s chronology is correct, the motion did pass before the walk out, though it started slightly 9:16, @taylr.bsky.social has Palmisano walking out before 9:13

I retract this particular objection

And the 9pm stuff is just so disingenuous!

I did not want to be there at 9pm! But the rules—agreed to and encouraged to be adopted by all campaigns—made a one day convention. Everyone knew it would likely take that long

There was nothing any less legitimate about the 9pm hour than the 8pm hour

I feel like I’m losing my mind. Do you think the latter part about 150 delegates leaving might have anything to do with why the rules were tossed??

If Frey had not intentionally pulled his delegates, the convention wouldn’t have had the 2/3 delegate majority to blast through. Take it up with them!

There were issues with electronic balloting, but there is genuinely no conceivable scandal with the second ballot! Frey’s team made their play and lost!

It’s horrifically bad faith election denial from sore losers

We were headed to a *paper* second ballot with the unanimous support of delegates

Frey’s camp knew they might lose because progressives had consolidated and alternate upgrades were pro-Fateh

Badge votes were only adopted after the walkout bc the outcome was obvious provided we had quorum

courtside DFL endorsed @omarfatehmn.com

added a new badge to my collection of badges: a campaign floor pass for tom olsen. @ziglaser.bsky.social is clearly jealous!!

Now, I agree that the vote totals were kinda odd!
There's no evidence for structural bias, and there are plausible explanations for the results given with all the going in and out.

But honestly, I do agree that doing the online voting was terrible given the state it was in. Destroyed confidence.

The missing confirmation emails were straight up not suspicious. They were a bad idea given their lack of confidence, and "spam filters" shouldn't have been blamed when that clearly wasn't the problem. But that's not an unexpected hitch for this rollout, and is clearly separate from voting integrity