Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Friday, May 10, 2002

Whee! We're Three! - Yow. Time flies when you're having fun.

The blog turns three today. Months, that is, which is a long time for something I started as a prank...

I'm enjoying it, so look for many more months, hopefully...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2002 06:59:18 AM

Grrrrrrr - Four years ago, I ran for Minnesota State Treasurer on the Libertarian ticket. The website from that bid is still floating around the 'net.

Oh, I know. Quit laughing.

My only campaign promise; abolish the office of state treasurer. Of course, there was a ballot initiative that year to do exactly the same thing. That initiative passed, resoundingly. I considered this a victory (along with the fact that I got 36,000 votes - which was about 35,500 more than I expected). The victory was sort of post-ironic - the citizens of Minnesota didn't need a politician to abolish their deadwood office for them, and you can't get more libertarian than that!

Now, the House has voted to retain this unnecessary and antiquated position - as an appointed job.

This is idiotic. I'm writing my representative (not that writing Alice Hausman is good for much of anything), and you ought to as well. The will of the voters is not only being flouted, but in such a way as to maximize the office's use as a spoil of political victory rather than state accountability.

Fame and Fortuyn, Part II - More on the Pim Fortuyn the media doesn't want you to get to know.

This ties into so many things we've touched on in this blog, it's enough to make one's head explode. There's angles on media bias, the hatred that drives so many liberals, terrorism, the west's responses to terror - it just keeps coming.

I'll try to find some time this weekend to write about it all. Wake the kids!
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2002 06:48:59 AM

Iraq - The liberals, the Europeans, and those who think that deep down inside we really had September 11 coming, are all lined up against attacking genocidal nuclear-bio-chem weapon producer Iraq. Newsweek started last week with a big denial of Iraq's complicity in the attack on the US.

But there's enough evidence out there to give you pause.

Do the math: if they don't have NBC weapons, they will. And they'll be dropping them on Israel, or shipping them to the US, when they need to.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/10/2002 06:39:48 AM

Thursday, May 09, 2002

Pork Pork Pork - Pete Du Pont on the stalinist travesty that is Farm Bill.

With the President cuddling up to Ted Kennedy on education, adopting prescription drugs for seniors as well as ultraliberal Paul Wellstone's plan to force coverage of Mental Illnesses, and now this caving to farm-state liberal pork, I have to ask; where is the "ultraconservative" all you liberals were wringing your hands over during the 2000 campaign?
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2002 07:15:42 AM

Woux Houx - Andrew Sullivan nails the key to the cooling of US relations with France - and why we're getting closer to Israel.

Method Acting Madness - Liberal actor James Brolin, husband of ultraliberal "singer/actress" Barbra "BS" Streisand, has signed to play Martin Sheen's GOP opponent in next year's episodes of NBC's liberal propaganda film West Wing.

Um, yeah. I'm sure that'll be a fair and sympathetic portrayal.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/9/2002 01:22:37 AM

Wednesday, May 08, 2002

Terror from the Left - Both on and off the page, in this case.

First - it turns out the Pim Fortuyn's assassin was an animal right's activist. He was murdered over fur.

Fur.

ALF and the ELF and their ilk have long flirted about the edge of what we'd call "terrorism" in this country. It's time to get serious about them - they're not a lot less radical, or more concerned with human life and suffering, than Hamas.

By the way - check out the not-at-all subtle spin in the article I link above. Note how Fortuyn is catagorized; "Far-right" and "extremist" labels abound, while neo-socialist Wim Kok is considered mainstream. A more balanced look is available. Or as Andrew Sullivan put it (commenting about a very skewed NY Times article):
"Dutch political leaders decided today to go ahead with the general elections next week, even after the killing of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing politician who had stood a chance to become the country's next prime minister. The police confirmed today that they were holding the assassination suspect, a 32-year-old Dutch environmental activist." Notice how a socially libertarian maverick is "right-wing" but an ideological assassin is just an "environmental activist." Even the Dutch police have described the murderer as an enviro-radical. But extremes, in the Time's p.c. world, only exist on the right. The subtle marginalization of Fortuyn continues, even in death. I would simply ask you to imagine: if this gay man were a liberal and had been killed by a fascist, do you think this story would be treated by the New York Times the same way?

Do you, indeed?

posted by Mitch Berg 5/8/2002 01:56:16 PM

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

Dey Fracture Loudly, Part II - Doug Grow's column in today's Strib captures some of the dismay and anger among DFL feminists over the endorsement of Roger Moe.

And late word has it that ultra-left former candidate Becky Lourey will neither run for her Senate seat again, nor run as a Green - which, combined with the redistricting and (I suggest) Minnesota's swing to the right, means a solid potential for a two-house GOP majority (let's assume Ventura remains at the executive offices in Maple Grove and Hollywood for a while.

In the meantime, Judy Dutcher apparently is not considering running for any other offices (despite some calls that she run in the Third CD against my fellow Jamestown, ND native Jim Ramstad).

My fearless prediction - the GOP will endorse a woman for governor before the DFL does. And she'll be endorsed for her qualifications - not because she's not a man.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2002 12:18:09 PM

Hooray for Hollywood Limo Liberals - Paul "I'll only run for two terms" Wellstone has gone Hollywood in search of donations.

Expect to see a parade of Hollywood's most execrable b-listers in the next six months. I'll lay ten bucks right now that we can expect a Martin Sheen appearance.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2002 07:25:56 AM

Dey Fracture Loudly - The DFL' s show of post-convention unity fractures, as ultra-leftwing former gubernatorial candidateBecky Lourey takes her toys and leaves the sandbox.

The DFL Feminists, especially the younger ones, seem to be (from the email traffic I've seen) in a serious snit about Lourey losing the nomination. Expect trouble. This should be good.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2002 07:24:06 AM

Moe Betta - Is Roger Moe the best news Brian Sullivan ever had?

If the GOP ran Tim Pawlenty, we'd be facing a career politician with...well, a good, interesting career politician who has conservative credentials (albeit a weaker record than I'd like) and who will run rings around Moe (and most others) on the stump. Pawlenty is one character who can go head to head with Jason Lewis in a stump speech and come out looking good - he's quite an orator (and that, as the son of a speech teach and former radio guy, is something I respect). But he's still a career politician. And with Jesse probably in the mix...

Is this the best news Sullivan's ever had? The "outsider", and some the media will have to work very hard to smear.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2002 07:22:29 AM

Fame and Fortuyn - Why Fortuyn's death matters.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/7/2002 07:18:11 AM

Monday, May 06, 2002

"Far Right" - Watch the liberal media start to spin the murder of Pim Fortuyn. They'll start by calling him "far right", comparing him to Le Pen. But by all accounts, he's not even as far right as Pat Buchanan. He'd be classified as a fairly strident libertarian-conservative in the US. He wasn't "anti-immigrant", as portrayed by many in the leftist media - merely wanted immigration controlled, and immigrants to assimilate themselves into Dutch society.

He was anti-EU, gay, and a small-government activist. By all accounts, he had not a fascist bone in his body.

This is a dark day for rational politics.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2002 10:13:38 PM

US Dumps World Court - The US bailed out of the International Criminal Court today.

Thank Goodness. Under no circumstances should the US turn over any of its legal sovereignty to any world body that includes such pioneers of freedom and legal equity as Red China and the Sudan.

It was for good reason Israel didn't kowtow to the UN over the "massacres" at Ramallah - the UN is full of people who hate the first world, especially the US and Israel. By no means are the perpetrators all third-world natives, either... It's an object lesson for the US as we deal with the UN, the EU, and their detritus.

Our Professors, Ourselves - Interesting article about women's studies programs...
posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2002 07:39:53 PM

European Politics Gets Nasty? - Pim Fortuyn was to the Netherlands what Pat Buchanan is to the US. He was a conservative rabble-rouser who ran for the prime ministership in the Netherlands.

He was shot dead today outside the Dutch national radio station at Hilversum.

I"ve been following the increasing vituperation of the European left in the face of resurgent national-sovereignty movements in many countries - Italy, Hungary, France, Denmark, Belgium, Hungary and more. If this killing is politically motivated, it'll ratchet things up even more.

Fortuyn was, in particular, a lightning rod for left-wing fascists. A few weeks ago, he was hit in the face by a number of cream pies laced with urine. His supporters are very upset.

Two points:
Europeans had best not be yapping about how much better and more civil their system is than ours.

It's time to start watching left-wing terrorism, here and abroad.

More - much more - later.

The State Is Your Mommy alert - A national ID card creeps closer to reality. The rationale? Terrorism, of course.

This is scary.

posted by Mitch Berg 5/6/2002 07:27:22 PM

Sunday, May 05, 2002

Moe - The DFL Feminist crowd is already in full fume over Roger Moe beating out Judy Dutcher and Becky Loury for the DFL Gubernatorial nomination.

But I have to wonder - why? And is it all it seems it is?

I was at the convention. You couldn't swing a cat without hitting a feminist activist in full froth and combat plumage. Women, I believe, outnumbered men. Feminists and their sympathizers certainly outnumbered their opponents by an order of magnitude. Itis apparently beyond some DFL feminists of both genders to consider that.

So after decades of fruffing and phumphering, why is the DFL base still whining about its inability to nominate anything but white European males? Those who want a woman at the top of the ticket at any cost have ALL the advantages, not the least of which being a majority of voters.

So why, in 2002, after decades of electoral quotas and Emily's Lists and supercharged fundraising to get women on every possible (liberal) ticket, do we come down to Renee's near-liturgical expresson of frustration yet again?

Two theories to advance, tonight:

The DFL Feminists don't WANT a woman to run for governor, least of all a hand-picked, far-left, utterly FPC one. Having a sense of invincible victimhood is worth more to the DFL Feminists than a candidate - one that would probably get shredded at the polls (largely because her DFL-Feminist-endorsed campaign would be so far the left that even Minnesotans, outside the Metro, wouldn't vote for them). The clobbering would reduce the DFL Feminist faction's "kingmaker" status within the party. And let's not forget - the DFL Feminist's power is not through power, but that sense that she's been so deeply wronged (yet again) that there's NOTHING all those nasty white men can do to atone.

The GOP will be the first to nominate a woman for governor. Dunno how or when, but that's what'll happen. Not only will we beat the DFL to it, but we'll feel better about, because she will have been nominated based on qualifications, not gender.

Women are 51% of the vote - literally fifty percent at the DFL convention, but I'd suspect (and the "Gender Gap" seems to corroborate) that the majority of DFLers are women. If the feminists can't jack the ticket, perhaps it's not the DFL's fault.

Not that Buffett, Unfortunately - Warren Buffett warns that a nuclear terrorist attack of some sort is a virtual certainty.

He's in the insurance business. That's the part that scares me.

posted by Mitch Berg 5/5/2002 09:07:09 PM

Good Thing They Have Gun Control, Part IV - An NYC bus driver kills the man who stabbed him, with the attacker's own knife.

If it'd happened in the Twin Cities, five'll get you get the bus driver would be facing serious charges.
posted by Mitch Berg 5/5/2002 09:01:24 PM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive