Shot in the Dark

Category: Chanting Points Memo

  • Chanting Points Memo: Perhaps Her Nickname Should Be “Lyin’ Tarryl”?

    You’ve seen her ads:  Tarryl Clark bags on Michele Bachmann for not voting for a congressional tax cut. I saw the ad, and nodded, and moved on; something about it didn’t pass the sniff test, but I couldn’t quite make out why. Yesterday in the comment section, commenter Gundog76 put his finger on it.  Not…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Slashing Health And Human Services!”

    The other day, I paraphrased an old PJ O’Rourke quip; only in baseline budgeting can it be said one is “cutting” a budget when one merely reduces the “planned” increase. Where have you gone, P.J. O’Rourke?  Our state turns its broke eyes to you. The local leftyblog buildup and and array of special interest pimps…

  • Turnabout

    For the past two months, we’ve had the Big Left – the DFL and media – asking “When is Emmer going to come out with the details of his budget plan?  We need details!  Gotta have details!  Where are the details!  He owes us details! The people need details! Bring the details!  Where’d he put…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Unvetted”

    Do you remember way back last week, when the biggest crisis of the week was “Emmer didn’t get his budget validated by the Minnesota Department of Revenue“? Either does the media, I’ll bet.  From DFL-leaning Tweep “Stowydad“: Dayton says he has sought tax plan info from state gov’t. Revenue Dept. has no recent record of…

  • Chanting Points Memo: The Non-Cut Cut

    Last week, Tom Emmer released his education plan. The left’s been sputtering ever since. We’ll come back to that. ———- Education in Minnesota, like most entitlement programs, is a “baseline” program.  It doesn’t start from zero every year; it starts with the previous years’ budget, and adds to it.  What what you add is where…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Emmer’s “Big Lie”

    Did Tom Emmer lie? No. But we’ll come back to that.  We’ve got a bit of business to take care of first. ———- It’s time to inaugurate a new Berg’s Law.  These laws of human and political behavior are based on decades of observing people and their behavior, and, as “laws”, have passed beyond mere…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Bachmann And The Friendly Media

    They never learn. It’s been a little over two years since Andy Birkey of the Minnesota “Independent” first sniffed that Rep. Michele Bachmann “only does sympathetic media”. Of course, it makes perfect sense for Bachmann; she represents a conservative district; talking with hostile media (and when it comes to the Twin Cities media, “hostile” is…

  • Chanting Points Memo: DFL Busted Lying

    As Tom Emmer was setting up at Permac Industries in Burnsville to announce the first part of its budget plan, the Minnesota DFL party’s Twitter account announced…: Spoiler Alert: Tom Emmer to Hold Press Conference at Company Saved by the Recovery Act Funding He Opposes http://ht.ly/2A8QT #goDFL This prompted other DFLers to crow that Permac…

  • Chanting Points Memo: A Prediction

    Charting and predicting the continuum of DFL chanting points. Last Week: “Where is Emmer’s plan?” This Afternoon: “OK, where is the rest of Emmer’s plan?” A Few Weeks From Now: “Where is the last little bit of Emmer’s plan?” Novenber 3: “Where’s Mark Dayton?”

  • Chanting Points Memo: The DFL Morale Booster!

    The New York Times publishes a morale booster for the DFL, a week after the MPR/Humphrey Institute poll showed the Minnesota Gubernatorial race a dead heat. The analsysis – from “Five Thirty Eight”, a left-leaning statistics blog run amok (without mentioning anything about “Lies” and “Damned Lies”, for some reason) says Mark Dayton has a…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Baer Facts And Hog Wild Tales

    A few weeks ago, “Politics in Minnesota” (PIM) made a splash by moving all of its content behind the “paywall” – pay for read – decided that yesterday’s piece by Paul Demko on the farm family Tom Emmer uses as an example of state overregulation from the stump deserved to be a freebie. Why do you…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Watching The Detectives

    Pat Kessler is one of the small pack of “deans of Minnesota political journalism”. And he’s done some good work during the campaign so far. But his “Reality Check” piece yesterday deserves a look. First, Immigration: Tom Emmer, the Republican Candidate for Governor, said he supports Arizona’s tough new immigration crackdown. However, on Sunday, he…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Faint Damnation

    After I wrote my piece on Friday – the left and media’s current chant about “investors targeting Target”, which showed that the three firms that the Strib was crowing about amount to .0015, or fifteen ten-thousandths, of Target’s market capitalization – I wondered; how do the various “Socially Responsible Investment” (SRI) firms stack up against…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Investors Angry At Target!”

    It was in all the headlines today:  “Target feeling investor backlash”, screamed the Strib. Emphasis added: The backlash from gay-rights supporters against Target Corp.’s recent political donation now includes some institutional shareholders. Three management firms that collectively hold $57.5 million of Target stock — Walden Asset Management, Calvert Asset Management and Trillium Asset Management —…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Repeat A Big Lie Often Enough

    I am hosting a debate in five minutes. I’m calling Mark Dayton’s office to invite him. HAH! He declined! What is he hiding? Nothing, of course; I threw a debate with five minutes’ warning, on a day when Mr. Dayton is likely out preening for his donors campaigning somewhere. Pretty stupid, huh? Not much different…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Sixgun Mark

    In  a debate at “Game Fair” over the weekend – a firearm-friendly venue if there ever was one – Tom Emmer pressed Mark Dayton on his record on gun issues. And perhaps it’s a good thing that we’ve come to the point that Mark Dayton, as extreme a liberal as exists in Minnesota, someone so far to…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Blowing Sunshine Up Minnesota’s Skirt

    It’s the keystone of Mark Dayton’s entire plan, if he’s elected governor, for trying to close the DFL’s budget deficit. It’s “Tax the Rich”. On Esme Murphy’s WCCO TV show this morning (the program should be called “DFL Puff Piece”, but we’ll come back to that later), Dayton said “the rich” start at $150,000 a…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Maaaaaah! Tom’s Smearing Me!”

    In the DFL “Unity” rally yesterday, Mark Dayton – who has funded, along with his family, the most expensive orgy of attack advertising in Minnesota history, unprecedented in both its cost and its fallaciousness –  complained: “I expected the smears to start right away, and they have.” He was complaining, of course, because after a…

  • Chanting Points Memo: I Accuse

    Conservative have been claiming for decades that the press is biased toward the left. It’s hard to look at the Twin Cities’ media’s record of mangled context, selective reporting and generalized ennui this past three months and reach any conclusion other than this; the Twin Cities media has an agenda. Let’s go over the past…

  • Update Your Scorecards

    Three weeks ago, Shot In The Dark showed you that “Alliance For A Better Minnesota”, which has been funding the avalanche of anti-Emmer attack ads, is an astroturf group funded by the Dayton family and their friends, relatives and cronies (60%, give or take) and the unions (around 40%). Today, Pat Kessler’s “Reality Check” on…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Donating To Emmer Is Bad For Business

    Somebody on Twitter pointed me to this PiPress  story claiming that Target’s stock value is suffering because of its donation to MNForward, which is supporting Tom Emmer in this fall’s Minnesota Gubernatorial race. “Shares in the Minneapolis-based discount retailer have declined 3.5 percent since the morning of July 27, when Target Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Emmer And No Child Left Behind

    While we’ve been focusing a lot on the “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” and their serial lies about Tom Emmer (currently accuracy rate climbing up toward 0%), the other DFL candidates haven’t done a whole lot better in the accuracy department. Matt Entenza has been running a very dirty campaign…against Tom Emmer.  Not against Mark…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Emmer And Drunk Driving, Part II

    Earlier this morning, we busted Jeff Rosenberg at the DFL-congruent MNPublius carrying the Alliance for a “Better” Minnesota’s water in a piece riddled with factual errors. And when you catch someone carrying foul, deceptive water, it’s best to go back to the well. Here’s what A4aBM had to say about the legislation in question: In…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Emmer On Drunk Driving

    When it comes to politics this year, you need to remember the following rule of thumb; when the DFL or one of their affiliated blogs writes about Tom Emmer, you need to distrust, and then verify.  Because the ratio of BS to truth is the worst I’ve ever seen.  Ever. When I was a kid,…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Fake But Accurate

    I saw this bit on CBS News yesterday – entitled “Target Boycott Movement Grows Following Donation to Support “Antigay” Candidate” – and I thought “Wow.  Sounds like there’s a wave of spontaneous anti-Target fervor out there!” Then I – or “we”, actually – looked a little deeper. The piece – featuring someone named “Roadie Roaring”…