Colonel Joe Repya burst onto the regional scene close to six years ago, with his “Liberate Iraq” signs.  In the run-up to the war (which would eventually be Repya’s third war, after Vietnam and Desert Storm), the Colonel gave away thousands of the big, paper-on-corrugate signs, which popped up all over the city and showed people that not everyone in the Twin Cities supported leaving Hussein in power.

The Colonel is at it again.

As the Twin Cities prepares to welcome the Republican National Convention in three weeks, the Cities are also getting ready to be swamped with demonstrators.  And it’ll be nice to show the world that not everyone in the Twin Cities is a kool-aid-drinking, chimpy-mcbushitler-chanting, wide-stance-giggling, patchouli-reeking, terrorist-coddling cut-and-runner.

So it’s time for another giveaway:

From the Colonel’s press release (I’ve added emphasis):

At noon on September 1, the anti-war crowd claims they’ll have upwards of 50,000 marching from the Minnesota Capitol Building to the Excel Energy Center where the Republican National Convention, at the Excel Energy Center in Saint Paul.

We are asking everyone who supports our men and women in uniform defending America in the War on Terror to line the streets from the Excel Center with our signs. It is our way of being “Minnesota Nice” and wishing these protesters a “nice day in Minnesota.” We encourage no discussion or verbal exchange with the demonstrators – only a pleasant “smile!

Here’s the fun part:

You can pick up a sign as long as the initial order lasts on Saturday, August 16th, in the parking lot of STEPHANO’S Restaurant, the corner of Highway 13 and Cliff Road (across from Walgreen’s) from 12:00 Noon to 3:00 PM. Please arrive early since we are printing a limited number. Your donations will be greatly appreciated and will allow us to print more signs.

So I’ll see you on the 16th at Stephano’s – and, naturally, at and around the convention.

Leave a comment here and/or at the Colonel’s blog if you plan on showing up.

I’ll be bumping/reprising this post many, many times in the coming week. 

And if you’re a regional blogger who supports the Colonel’s effort, shoot him a link.

NYT Front Page on the Pawlenty Vice Presidency:

Outside his home state, Mr. Pawlenty is among the least-known of the prospects Senator John McCain is said to be considering as a vice-presidential partner. But those who have followed his political rise here say Mr. Pawlenty’s personal story — his direct, everyman appeal to ordinary people — is among his most powerful attributes.

Long before the polls began suggesting that Republicans could face trouble in November, Mr. Pawlenty, now in his second term, was urging his party to become “the party of Sam’s Club,” not just the country club.

“We need everybody — to grow the party and to move forward,” Mr. Pawlenty explained in a recent interview. “One of the most powerful reasons people go to Sam’s Club or Target or Costco is they want value, and Republicans are well suited to be the party that says, ‘We’re going to have a limited but also effective government.’ ”

Mr. Pawlenty can talk about such things from experience. He now lives in the well-off suburb of Eagan, but holds blue-collar credentials. He grew up in South St. Paul, then a working-class town where life revolved around the stockyards, where his father drove a truck, where he played hockey, where his mother died of cancer when he was still a teenager, and where he went on to become the first in his family to graduate from college.

A damn good goalie…

If anything, Mr. Pawlenty’s critics say, he is too prepared for this moment; they say he has been so conscious of the possibility of higher office that he has been overly careful as governor. This year, he vetoed 34 bills passed by a Democratic-dominated Legislature, more than any other Minnesota governor had vetoed in a year since at least World War II, leading his most fervent critics to describe him as more of a goalie fending off pucks than a leader rushing the net.

You call that a mullet?

Some critics even note changes in his haircut — once a mullet-style, now a cropped conservative look less common at a Minnesota hockey rink — as evidence of his political calculations.

Mrs. Pawlenty dismissed claims that her husband’s ambitions had driven policy choices. “That’s not who he is,” she said.

Nor, for that matter, she added, has Mr. McCain’s vice-presidential search driven her husband’s hairstyle. The governor has cut and grown out his hair at various times over the years, she said.

Sour Grapes?

“He’s done popular stuff, easy stuff, symbolic stuff,” said Tim Penny, a former Democratic congressman who lost the governor’s race to Mr. Pawlenty in 2002 as the Independence Party candidate and who says he supports Mr. McCain for president. “I can’t think of a single issue in which he has been leading public opinion. What you find here is an unremarkable record.”

Classic Pawlenty

Asked at a press luncheon in Washington what the most important quality of a running mate would be, Mr. Pawlenty responded, “Discretion,” and walked away from the microphone.

Clinton Leaves Convention Nomination Open

Observers have all but ruled her out as a potential running mate to Senator Barack Obama, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is not going away.

I got a little change in my pocket going jingle lingle ling
want to call you on the telephone baby I give you a ring
but each time we talk I get the same old thing
always no huggin no kissin until I get a wedding ring
my honey my baby don’t put my love upon no shelf
she said don’t give no lines and keep your hands to yourself

In a video clip making the rounds today, which, according to ABC News is from a fund-raiser in California on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton fielded a question about whether her name would be “placed in nomination” at the convention.

Cruel baby baby baby why you want to treat me this way
you know I’m still your lover boy I still feel the same way
that’s when she told me a story ’bout free milk and a cow
and she said no huggin no kissin until I get a wedding vow
my honey my baby don’t put my love upon no shelf
she said don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself

“Well, I’m asked this question every day. And it is a question that I think is a very obvious one to ask. I mean, what will happen at the convention in respect to you know, my putting my name in nomination, the roll-call vote, you know, the usual kind of process that occurs at conventions,” she responded, emphasizing the word “usual.”

you see I wanted her real bad and I was about to give in
that’s when she started talkin’ true love started talkin’ about sin
I said honey I’ll live with you for the rest of my life
she said no huggin no kissin until you make me your wife
my honey my baby don’t put my love on no shelf
she don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.

We’re trying to work that out with the Obama campaign and with the D.N.C. I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views were respected. And I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified, because I know from just what I’m hearing that there’s just this incredible pent-up desire. And I think that people want to feel like, O.K., it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Senator Obama. That is what most people believe is the best way to go. No decisions have been made.

she said don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself

Every year on February 6th I do a tongue-in-cheek “Reagan’s Birthday” celebration.  Oh, we do do a special dinner at home, and I do talk about the Cold War, the demise of which President Reagan was the primary architect.  But that’s just being a good parent.

And while I make noise about wanting to make Reagan’s Birthday (formerly “Reaganmas”) a national holiday – c’mon.  Even Reagan wouldn’t want that. 

The tongue, in every case, is lodged firmly in cheek.

Because people who treat their leaders like subjects of cultish adoration?  They’re just plain wierd:

Wondering what to give a presidential candidate on his birthday? Minnesota supporters of Barack Obama are celebrating their guy’s 47th birthday today with “house parties” across the state.

As I sit trying to write this, a lot of snarky comebacks suggest themselves. 

None of them are any better than the vision of the “events” themselves.

Demko at the Minnesoros “Independent” covers Franken at FarmFest.

Typical stuff.  But I caught this bit here, about a pheasant-hunting trip with 7th District congressional representative Collin Peterson:

Franken noted that it was his first time toting a rifle into the woods and that his staff needed to give him a tutorial in order to make sure he didn‘t accidentally shoot the powerful chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Going after pheasant with a rifle?

If it worked, I suppose it’d be one way of impressing Republican voters.

Of course, Peterson wouldn’ve been in less danger than all the people half a mile downrange…

An analysis of the purchase of Anheuser-Busch, producer of America’s most iconic brew, by the Belgian firm InBev reveals there was more to the deal than a handsome payday for shareholders.

According to the Tax Foundation, Belgium’s corporate tax rate is 33%, but the effective tax rate can be half the nominal rate thanks to adjustments for something the OECD calls a “notional allowance for corporate equity.” Bottom line: InBev was paying around 20% of its profits in corporate taxes, compared to Anheuser-Busch’s rate of 38.4%. 

Things have gotten pretty bad when U.S. companies relocate to Europe to cut their tax payments. But a research analysis by Morgan Stanley finds the combined company’s corporate tax bill will be lower than in the U.S. and that the tax differential indeed figured into the economics of the sale.

So while John McCain may have benefited from his wife’s ownership of Anheuser stock (estimated at between 40,000 and 80,000 shares), the country will continue to see its competitive edge wither away without a corporate tax rate cut. Mr. McCain to his credit wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 25%, close to the global average. Senator Obama is more interested in raising tax rates than cutting them.

Does the Anheuser-Busch deal represent a precedent? Maybe not. Milller Brewing, long a Milwaukee fixture, is majority owned by SABMiller, the “S.A.B.” being South African Breweries.

Is there more of this to come? With Obama in the White House? Yes and definitely yes.

Wall Street dealmakers tell us to expect more sales of U.S. companies to European rivals thanks to the combination of America’s higher corporate taxes and the weak dollar. They’re right. New data from the OECD for 2008 indicate that the international average for corporate tax rates fell by another percentage point last year, meaning the U.S. is pricing itself out of the market as a corporate headquarters.

In my daily skimming of leftyblogs yesterday, I noticed an item on a couple of leftyblogs. As Andy Birkey at the Minnesoros “Independent” put it:

Bachmann slams Dems on bill she voted against:

And then Zack Stevenson of MNPublius (in the post “Bachmann vs. Bachmann“) reprised the story, using Birkey as his source.

Here’s Birkey’s money quote (emphasis added by me):

On Friday, Rep. Michele Bachmann slammed Congressional Democrats for not passing tax credits for solar and wind energy. On the Laura Ingraham Show, a conservative talk radio program, she called Democrats “strange” for not passing a bill that they actually did pass, but without Bachmann’s help…The Democrats did pass such a bill in the House, but without Bachmann’s help. In May, before her newfound campaign issue, she voted against it, Think Progress reports. The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 would provide such tax credits but has been stalled in the Senate by Republicans.

“Hm”, I thought. “Not one but two leftyblogs, and ThinkProgress! That’d be an odd, inconsistent stance for Rep. Bachmann to take, if it’s true”!

Of course, that final “if true” clause is always the clinker when you’re talking about leftymedia coverage of any issue; all the more so with Rep. Bachmann, given that:

1. No figure in Minnesota – not Kersten, not Brodkorb – provokes the derangement among the left that Michele Bachmann does, and…
2. …the Dems are waking up, I think, to the realization that energy is their achilles heel in this election; they can’t solve the issue and placate their base, so their only real option is to…
3. …use their paid propaganda streetwalkers – like their Center for “Independent” Media publication, like the Mindy – to try to obfuscate the issue.

So I figured – before dinging Rep. Bachmann for her apparent inconsistency, I’d check a few things out.

First and foremost: why would Rep. Bachmann vote against alt-energy tax credits before she voted for it? Would it be because…

• Rep. Bachmann has no idea what she wants, policy-wise? Seems less likely with Rep. Bachmann than with most Congresscritters, but heck- let’s put it on the list. Or maybe…
• …because there is some picayune bit of context that the Mindy and the MNPublius kidz didn’t feel compelled to tell you, the gentle reader? Some bit of key, vital information about the “Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008” (PDF pr HTML) that’d make it, I dunno, utterly noxious for a conservative to vote for? Some thing or things that’d make it much more attractive to withhold support of the bill, and push to implement the parts she supports, independently?

Always, always check out the second option before assuming the first. I did.

And, as it turns out, The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 has just a few bits and pieces to it that’d make it – I dunno – utterly anathema to a principled, consistent free-market small-government conservative.

For example, the bill includes about $55 billion in tax increases over ten years (mainly on capital formation – a huge no-no for conservatives) on top of a skeezy corporate estimated tax payment shift. Worse still, the tax increases are long-term, while many of the tax cuts in this bill – the ones that Birkey and Stevenson are whooping and hollering over – are just one-year extensions of current law. To a principled fiscal conservative, more long-term taxes are hardly a good trade for a brief hiccup in short-term ones. And it’s even worse than that; energy, especially alternate energy, is extremely R and D intensive; the focus on short-term extensions in existing tax cuts prevents American companies from planning for the near future, to say nothing of one that’s realistic in the world of research and development.

Dumb and dumber? The bill would apply Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements to all tax-credit bonds, whether created by this legislation or not. Mannah from heaven for Democrats, and feel free to argue their merits, but you can’t realistically expect a fiscal conservative to vote for more salary mandates that’ve been slipped into a bill with one item she supports, can you?

Dumb and dumberer? At the end of the day, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008’s “incentives” are aimed primarily at energy sources and technologies that are, to coin a phrase, technological “shots in the dark”; sources that might someday prove capable of powering a growing, first-world economy, but equally may not (remember when ethanol was going to solve our problems?). Either way, there is one ineluctible fact that the “alternative energy über alles” crowd keeps ignoring; if our economy isn’t healthy, we will never develop viable alternatives; for the next decade or two or five, that signal fact is going to depend on having enough oil. There is no way around that fact. The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 doesn’t recognize this; Rep. Bachmann does.

Oh, yeah – and the bill contains tax perks for trial lawyers, movie producers, and a huge earmark for New York City (for transportation infrastructure projects, including mass transit, highways, railroads, airports, ports, waterways, etc).

Read it for yourself (PDF or HTML). It makes no sense to take (let’s be charitable) 2 steps forward and 20 steps back in the grand scheme of things. There’s just too much pork for the Congresswoman to vote for this thing. I, a genuine conservative and energy hawk, would have been upset with her if she had!

The Twin Cities’ liberal altmedia; all the news George Soros and Brian Melendez want them to print.

1972: Nixon wins in a landslide. Pauline Kael: “How could we win? Nobody I know voted for him!”

2008: Hypothetically, John McCain wins. Macintosh/Twitter/MyFace/AppleCrack users: “But he doesn’t even use Safari!”

Y’see, he’s older than a lot of candidates. He’s not a real computer guy. At an age when most of Obama’s latte-guzzling Mac-toting Twitter-tweeting audaciously-hoping e-advisors were learning how to put video on SpaceBook, he was learning how to fly an A4 Skyhawk and lead men into harm’s way. About the age most of the too-cool-for-Starbucks crowd was getting burned out on Match.com, Mac was getting his hands hammered flat by NVA goons which, lemme tell you, is hell on your texting speed.

Oh, he’s making tentative moves toward the online crowd – but to some of that particular pack of hamsters…:

His efforts have won him brutal derision from the online left.

“McCain Makes Historic First Visit to Internet,” Obama-backing satirist Andy Borowitz headlined one imagined dispatch.

“Sen. McCain said that he had embarked on his visit to the Internet to allay any fears that he is too out-of-touch to be president, adding that he plans to take additional steps to demonstrate that he is comfortable with today’s technology: ‘In the days and weeks ahead, you will be seeing me rock out with my new Walkman,’” Borowitz wrote.

Show of hands; anyone who gives a crap?

I mean, anyone who actually pays taxes and doesn’t think Che Guevara was sexy and heroic?

I thought so.

Others have been less gentle.

After a spokesperson told The Associated Press that McCain is “fully capable of browsing the Internet and checking Web sites,” a front-page diarist on DailyKos sneered: “I hope someone gave him a cookie.”

And if we were looking for someone who could out-twitter Ahmadinejad, that’d mean a whole lot to me.

But we’re not, and it doesn’t, and as a side note to anyone who docks a candidate any points for being ten years behind the online fashion curve, I’m going to refer you to www.whogivesacrapyoutriteslapnuts.com.

Consider yourself s3rv3d, pwn3d and, what the hell, v@nqui$h3d.

LO friggin’ L.

Joe Kimball has long has a reputation for impeccable ethics and credibility.

Now?  Pfft:

People are asking: How can we, Dick and Jane Public, get a ticket to attend the Republican National Convention in St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center?

Oh, really, Joe Kimball?

Name them.

Chief over at the Dogs on the “guests” who’ll be coming to Saint Paul in less than a month:

Awake to the Che’ alarm clock, smoke a bedside bong, have some green tea, rub on the BO/patchouli ointment with indigenous soil to look and smell the part, pull on the camoflauge and hemp togs for the day, then step on down to the curbs of sunny St. Paul for a week of America, GOP, western civ, Bush McChimpHitler, conformity hating. A great day in the life of a paid protester in Amerikkka.

Back when I was at KSTP – when I was, I feel it safe to say, the only conservative pundit in the Twin Cities underground rock and roll scene – I interviewed a bunch of the kids from the “Backroom Anarchist Center”, which was sort of the “Jackpine” of the ’80s. After I booked them, I did a little cursory backgrounding on the three guests who were coming to the show. Every single one hailed originally from Edina, Woodbury or Orono. Nothing wrong with that, of course, although it saps a little credibility when your “revolutionary zeal” all stems back to the kick you get cheezing Mumsy and Dadders off when you say you’d love to french-kiss Che Guevara.

And it’s save to say that I never met a single “anarchist” who didn’t fit exactly the same profile, when pressed or called on their BS.

It’s a tangent, of course. But read Chief’s bit for the real payoff.

Check out this piece by Paul Demko in the Minnesoros “Independent”, re Ashwin Madia’s campaign to try to replace Jim Ramstad in the Third Congressional District.

Note the many, many references to Madia’s time in the Marine Corps.

Forget, for a moment, that military service in Republicans is something about which Democrats are at best silent, and at worst scabrously defamatory or (in the Mindy’s pages, no less) ignorantly mocking.

What does this constant spin tell us about the DFL’s appreciation of this issue?

Discuss.

To:  America’s writing teachers

From:  Mitch Berg (BA, English)

Re:  Status Report

As my friend Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci notes over at the Kool Aid Report, it’s quite clear from this example that some of you really, really aren’t pulling your weight.

Seriously – we presume that most of the people writing the linked bilge are adults, right?  High school, if not college graduates?  They can’t even pull off “cutesy” and “smug” well.

Perhaps more surprising; given the demographics of most “counterculture” protesters, many of the perpetrators are likely private school grads.

This should be popping up on your performance reviews (presuming justice breaks out in this universe any time soon).

See to this, please.

That is all.

According to Mike Pence – one of the heroes of Friday’s insurgency on the House floor – te fun’s not over:

House Republican Leader John Boehner announced today that House Republicans would be back on the House floor Monday “to continue and unprecedented protest that began last Friday, when dozens of Republicans joined hundreds of American citizens on the House floor to protest Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to send Congress home for the rest of the summer without a vote on legislation to lower gas prices and move America toward energy independence.”

And MOB blogger Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring got a nice surprise…

For a little flavor of what to expect, check out this blog entry that includes unedited video from Friday’s protest on the floor of the House.

Yes, I’ll be tuned in tomorrow…

This 4:52 worth of video should give us all the motivation we need to work our butts off the last 90-something days of this campaign. Watching Mike Pence got my blood flowing. It was inspirational watching him. I’m betting you’ll feel the same way.

Nancy Pelosi tried shutting the House down. Ms. Pelosi’s strongarm tactics failed. They failed because an inspired group of GOP representatives used their words, their camcorders and their smart use of technology to tell Ms. Pelosi that this is still the People’s House, not Pelosi’s Politburo.

Steve Perry is shocked – shocked! – that after months of setting himself up as The Messiah, of Michelle Obama prescribing him to fix this nation’s soul, that the GOP is actually taking Obama at his word.

Because in the world of Steve Perry – former journalist, now paid propaganda flack and majordomo of a really, really bad glorified blog – is certainly getting the vapors over “The One“, Mac’s inspired mocking of the Obama personality cult.

You really have to watch this to appreciate how committed the McCainiacs are to their scorched-earth policy for courting the dumb-dumb vote. An hour or two ago, the McCain campaign posted a new web ad that leaps even further over the top in its denunciation of Barack Obama than the “Celebs” TV spot from earlier this week.

They only hate you if you draw blood.

Oh, and Perry – whose idea of a great source his is weekly mutual toenail-painting sessions with David Schultz – thinks the peasants are just revolting:

It’s a close relative of “Celebs” in the distasteful, incredulous reaction it’s likely to elicit from bloggers and even mainstream pundits. Then again, like “Celebs,” it’s not for that crowd. It’s for the more lumpen elements of the Christian extremist base. Who else is going to get worked up at the not just dubious but profoundly cheesy implication that Obama thinks he, like Chuck Heston, is capable of parting the Red Sea?

And where could that “cheesy implication” have come from?

I’d point out that Perry’s “response” is of a piece with the entire left’s mutual talking point on this spot – but that’d be redundant, wouldn’t it? The entire justification for Perry’s blog and its bloated payroll is to recite the talking points when the leash is yanked.

(I’d also point that Perry’s response is actually worse than most; it’s nothing but but a class-action ad hominem.
You earned your pay, Steve. Now go feed the pets; your grudges and hatred are hungry.

I’ve heard Governor Pawlenty talk live twice while he’s been governor and have been tremendously impressed by his unflappable posture and his ability to successfully steer a talk away from politics when the subject of the talk was clearly not politics.

He is one of the most comfortable, adept leaders we have had around here in years and certainly the GOP and McCain have taken notice for some time now.

Yesterday in Ames Iowa the Governor spoke out in a way that may portend a near future role in the McCain campaign as it was uncharacteristic of Tim Pawlenty.

“He’s put so many contingencies around it that I wonder, in fact I question, whether he would do it at all,” Pawlenty said after he helped open Republican campaign office in Ames. “It may be a way for him to gain favor during the election, and tube it later because all the contingencies weren’t met.”

Pawlenty further criticized Obama, saying there is not one issue of national prominence where he has led the country. He said a vote for Obama “is the political equivalent of bungee jumping.”

A clear shot at Obama, Pawlenty’s comments are uncharacteristically direct, and encouraging as it relates to the Governor’s political future.

His cool and unflappable reputation gives his criticism of Obama a certain gravitas and McCain is going to need all the help he can get. 

Both John McCain and Barack Obama have shifted their positions on drilling for oil. McCain acknowledges that while an increase in supply may be years away, the psychological effect will create downward pressure on the market and he is right.

Obama, feeling the heat from his groupies, is now changing his position as well, but clearly out of political necessity.

“I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term…”

But it’s not enough for a Democrat to allow for drilling of our own oil in our own territory. Obama must assuage his guilt by promising Americans a gift. A a gift at the expense of the oil companies, those evil doers!

Earlier in the day, Obama pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to McCain’s call for more offshore drilling.

It’s called pandering and Obama is showing he is fast becoming an accomplished liberal politician having mastered the technique.

“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said during a two-day campaign swing in Florida. “It will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills.

(unless your name is Al Gore)

Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills, or even to pay down your own debt.”

Or you could buy four hours with Brett Favre.

Thanks for the financial planning advice perfesser. Maybe the mother land should follow that advice and pay down it’s own debt and stop promising it’s citizens a free ride.

Obama isn’t addressing the real issues here – not going far enough. I am outraged that many Americans have suffered greatly at the hands of supply and demand and oppressive refining regulations evil oil companies and have canceled many a family vacation. I say we increase the windfall profit tax to say $10,000 and enable each and every American family to visit Disneyland.

Or you could use the money to grow wings and fly to Never Never Land, or to organize a community protest, or buy a 1999 Volvo Wagon with 75,000 miles and a Kerry/Edwards sticker on the rear bumper, or invest it by placing it in a jar and burying it in your back yard.

President Bush’s economic stimulus was a bad idea that had little effect on our economy. Rebates (Money for Nuthin’) just dig us a bigger hole. Robin Hood and his groupies are too economically obtuse to realize this.

Via Ms. O’Hara, I see that pandemonium has broken loose in the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi and the Dems tries to pack up, go on recess, and literally shut down the debate:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) [“Kim Jong Pelosi“, as Patterico says] and the Democrats adjourned the House and turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi’s refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m. and are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.

What? Doing the people’s work on company time?

At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark. But as Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz..) was speaking, the lights went back on, and the microphones were turned on shortly afterward.

It sounds like a ton of fun:

Only about a half-dozen Republicans were on the floor when this began, but the crowd has grown to about 20 now, according to Patrick O’Connor.

The Party of the Media is upset that they’re being outflanked:

Democratic aides were furious at the GOP stunt, and reporters were kicked out of the Speaker’s Lobby, the space next to the House floor where they normally interview lawmakers.

“You’re not covering this, are you?” complaing one senior Democratic aide. Another called the Republicans “morons” for staying on the floor.

And it gets better:

Update – The Capitol Police are now trying to kick reporters out of the press gallery above the floor, meaning we can’t watch the Republicans anymore. But Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is now in the gallery talking to reporters, so the cops have held off for a minute. Clearly, Democrats don’t want Republicans getting any press for this episode. GOP leaders are trying to find other Republicans to rotate in for Blunt so reporters aren’t kicked out.

The First Amendment: It’s for Democrats only!

Update 2 – This message was sent out by Blunt’s office:

“Although, this Democrat Majority just Adjourned for the Democrat 5-Week Vacation, House Republicans are continuing to fight on the House Floor. Although the lights, mics and C-SPAN camera’s have been turned off, House Republicans are on the Floor speaking to the tax payers in the gallery who, not surprisingly, agree with Republican Energy proposals.

Pelosi’s feeling a bit…churlish?

Update 3 – Democrats just turned out the lights again. Republicans cheered.

And kudos to good ol’ American, Republican do-it-yourself knowhow:

Also, Republicans can thank Shadegg for turning on the microphones the first time. Apparently, the fiesty Arizona conservative started typing random codes into the chamber’s public address system and accidentally typed the correct code, allowing Republicans brief access to the microphone before it was turned off again.

“I love this,” Shadegg told reporters up in the press gallery afterward. “Congress can be so boring…This is a kick.”

The piece from Politico reads like a liveblog, and sounds like fun:

Update 4 – The scene on the floor is kind of crazy. Normally, members are not allowed to speak directly to the visitor galleries, or visitors are prohibited from cheering. But in this case, the members are walking up and down on the floor during their speeches, standing on cheers, the visitors are cheering loudly. Some members even brought in visitors, who are now sitting on the House floor in the seats normally filled by lawmakers, cheering and clapping. Very funny.

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), not normally known as an distinguished orator, just gave a rousing speech, accusing Democrats of stifling dissent. He referenced President John Quincy Adams, who returned as a House member after being defeated in his bid for re-election as president. Waving his arms and yelling, Manzullo brought the crowd (including a lot of staff shipped in by GOP leaders to fill up the place), and he left the floor to hugs from his colleagues. You don’t see that up here every day.

Wonder if this’ll make The Daily Show?

Update 6 – Rep Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) just pretended to be a Democrat. He stood on the other side of the chaber and listed all of the GOP bills that the Dems killed.

He then said “I am a Democrat and here is my energy plan” and he held up a picture of an old VW Bug with a sail attached to it. He paraded around he house floor with the sign while the crowd cheered.

Rumors that Janet Reno called Pelosi and told her to burn the Capitol down are unconfirmed.

I’m trying to imagine what life’d be like if Saint Paul had “won” the Democrat rather than GOP National Convention.

One thing I don’t see ever happening:  Republicans making up snotty, stupid lawn signs to parade their elitism, bigotry, and exaggerated sense of moral and intellectual entitlement.

Of course, they’ll be contributing to the city’s light (and moral, aesthetic and intellectual pollution) with “True Blue Minnesota”‘s jumbotron on Cathedral Hill; we an exclusive preview of True Blue Minnesota’s video event right here:

And here, True Blue in their uniforms:

But thanks to more lefties with deep pockets, it’ll extend to the neighborhoods as well!

The top vote-getter, receiving 130 votes, was Teri Kwant’s sign, “I’m for preemptive peace. Others making the cut: “Give a shit” by “Liza Minelli” (or, perchance, Liza Minelli?); David Brynestad’s “My redneck, sexist, gun-toting, racist brother-in-law is voting” (“Are you?”); and Joseph Hughes’ simple sign that shows a checkbox with the first of two options marked: hope and fear.

Oh, and as if property values in the Twin Cities’ blighted neighborhoods weren’t crappy enough already:

The 50 designs will be distributed in yards in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff, St. Paul’s West Side and Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhoods. But if you don’t live in those communities, you can still plant one in your yard: $20 gets one delivered to your door.

Twin Cities liberals; happy to pay to make themselves look like smug, blinkered, self-satisfied prigs!

Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring connects the dots on a letter to the editor from Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner about Michele Bachmann’s recent spate of publicity on energy policy.

Susan Gaertner, of course, is the Ramsey County Attorney – and the wife of John Woedele, former Jesse Ventura press flak. Woedele’s working for the Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenberg campaign.

Conclusion:

The big picture point I’m making is that Ms. Gaertner’s sloppily researched LTE is a poorly disguised hit piece for her hubby’s boss. That certainly isn’t Minnesota Nice. In fact, it’s downright sleazy. If Mr. Tinklenberg suggested that this be written, then the Tinklenberg campaign should apologize for suggesting it. If Ms. Gaertner’s LTE was suggested by her husband, then it’s something that the Tinklenberg campaign should distance itself from ASAP.

In either case, the Tinklenberg campaign’s behavior has been shameful.

Woedele and Gaertner’s relationship is hardly an obscure factoid. You’d think the newspaper would make that clear if they printed her letter. Wouldn’t you?

Nah. Me either.

You know it’s bad to be Steve Sarvi when the Congressional Quarterly “upgrades” your campaign to “devoid of hope”, from “pray for a relatively painless death”.

After that, how could it get worse?

Oh, it could:

The Independence Party of Minnesota has endorsed Steve Sarvi for Congress from the south metro Second Congressional District, according to Sarvi and the IP.

Sarvi, former mayor of Watertown, is already the DFL endorsee. He is running against John Kline, the Republican incumbent who is seeking a fourth term.

The “Independence” party endorsement – a nod from Minnesota’s DFL-Lite concoction that has earned a dozen years of “major party” status on the electoral detritus of having ridden a “wrestler’s” coattails to Saint Paul, and is clinging to relevance by an ever-decaying thread – is sort of like winning Ms. Congeniality.

At a boxing tournament.

Jodi Cantor writes a fairly balanced piece on Obama’s pre-politics career as an instructor. As you read this, remember the old adage, people don’t change…very much.

Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart

He was also an enigmatic one, often leaving fellow faculty members guessing about his precise views.

Before he outraised every other presidential primary candidate in American history, Mr. Obama marched students through the thickets of campaign finance law. Before he helped redraw his own State Senate district, making it whiter and wealthier, he taught districting as a racially fraught study in how power is secured.

In the genus of John Kerry, the Clintons and the Kennedy’s, Barack Obama no doubt seeks the Presidency not as a means to an end; rather the end itself.

But Mr. Obama’s years at the law school are also another chapter…in which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself. Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was well liked at the law school, yet he was always slightly apart from it, leaving some colleagues feeling a little cheated that he did not fully engage.

The Chicago faculty is more rightward-leaning than that of other top law schools, but if teaching alongside some of the most formidable conservative minds in the country had any impact on Mr. Obama, no one can quite point to it.

“I don’t think anything that went on in these chambers affected him,” said Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague who says he longed for Mr. Obama to venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. “His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”

Michelle, on the other hand may have actually changed quite a bit!

his wife, Michelle, a black woman, loved “The Brady Bunch” so much that she could identify every episode by its opening shots.

Groupies!

As his reputation for frank, exciting discussion spread, enrollment in his classes swelled. Most scores on his teaching evaluations were positive to superlative. Some students started referring to themselves as his groupies.

Liberals flocked to his classes, seeking refuge. After all, the professor was a progressive politician who backed child care subsidies and laws against racial profiling, and in a 1996 interview with the school newspaper sounded skeptical of President Bill Clinton’s efforts to reach across the aisle.

In a calculated fashion, Obama will do or say or refrain from doing or saying anything to attain the post and there is ample evidence of this in his tenure as an instructor and in the observations of those who were colleagues but were never quite able to “know” him or pin him down on his philosophy. 

But the liberal students did not necessarily find reassurance. “For people who thought they were getting a doctrinal, rah-rah experience, it wasn’t that kind of class,” said D. Daniel Sokol, a former student who now teaches law at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

For one thing, Mr. Obama’s courses chronicled the failure of liberal policies and court-led efforts at social change: While students appreciated Mr. Obama’s evenhandedness, colleagues sometimes wanted him to take a stand. Nor could his views be gleaned from scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically, as Ms. Guinier’s writings had hurt her. “He figured out, you lay low,”

Because he never fully engaged, Mr. Obama “doesn’t have the slightest sense of where folks like me are coming from,” Mr. Epstein said. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues.”

As for his fundraising abilities, Obama has come a long way.

“Maybe we charged an audacious $20?” said Jesse Ruiz, now a corporate lawyer in Chicago. Mr. Obama was sheepish asking for even that, Mr. Ruiz recalls. With no staff, Mr. Obama would come by the day after a fund-raiser to stuff the proceeds into a backpack.

Now, watching the news, it is dawning on Mr. Obama’s former students that he was mining material for his political future even as he taught them.

Few question Obama’s intelligence; more his motives, sincerity and true political makeup. The glimpses he has allowed coupled with his voting record reveal a candidate leaning farther left than even his supporters let alone most voters realize.
 

Last month, we (via the Mindy) noted that the Minneapolis Park and Rec board had jacked its “large tent event” fee from $60.00 to $10,000 dollars for the Republican Convention.

Specifically for the convention.  Specifically to soak Republicans. 

Minneapolis Shadow at the Urban Renaissance Coalition blog finds another:

Take a look at the agenda for the Public Safety and Regulatory Committee Agenda item number one on taxicabs. The time period for the fare increases are during the Republican National Convention.

Instead of being happy to allow the increase in revenue from the activity that the convention brings, such as income from cab rides, they need to raise fares. I find this practice appalling. It is another example of how the city officials purposely go out of their way to discourage business growth, or are just plain stupid when it comes to long term thinking on economic development.

Y’know what?  I’m not going to stop buying things in Minneaopolis.  Nosirreebob.

I’ll come to the Mill City, all right.  And buy clothes.  And unprepared food. 

Lots of it.

Stuff that isn’t taxed. 

Not a damn thing more.

Paul Schmelzer at the Minnsoros “Independent” seems to have been huffing cheap paint.

Either that, or he’s getting spin from someone who has:

Ever since Ronald Reagan trounced Jimmy Carter in North Dakota in 1980 (64 to 26 percent), our neighbor to the west has reliably voted Republican in presidential contests: a majority went for the GOP candidate every race at least the last six times. But two new polls suggest that could be changing.A Rasmussen poll two weeks ago show a dead heat between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama (both garnered 43 percent of the vote). Now a new Research 2000 poll puts McCain with a slight edge: 45 to 42 percent, with a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percent (same as the Rasmussen poll). As of today, Pollster.com’s average of polls still has Obama with a national lead over McCain, 47 to 41.9 percent.

Check your sampling. Five will get you ten they oversampled Grand Forks, Fargo and Minot – home, via UND, NDSU and Minot State – to 80% of the states’ 5,000 or so Democrats, including my Mom.

North Dakota will ban shotguns and Coors before they opt for Obama, or any liberal Democrat.

That is all.