This will actually happen about the same time Rosie O’Donnell moves to Canada.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I was promised by every Liberal in the nation that if Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education, she would end public education.

 She got confirmed earlier this week.  So why were there so many school busses on the road this morning, blocking up traffic?  Shouldn’t those kids be sitting at home, stultifying in ignorance?

 Joe Doakes

We were also supposed to be at war with the Soviets…er, Russians.

No, wait, that was Hillary.  Never mind.

Bill Cooper, former chair of the Minnesota GOP and longtime CEO at TCF Bank, passed away earlier this week  at 73.

In addition to leading the MNGOP during the Carlson years, Cooper did two things that made him a hero to me.

Nick-Slapped:  Back in 2005, then-Strib columnist Nick Coleman wrote a deeply dumb column wondering how Scott Johnson of Power Line  managed to blog during his work day (Johnson was at the time TCF’s corporate counsel), and urging TCF customers to pull their money out of the bank in protest over employing an “out” conservative.

Cooper pulled TCF’s ad money from the Strib – $250K a year – and followed up by cutting off the City Pages as well.

And the whining and carping lulled me to a sound, happy nap.   I’d like to think that costing the Strib a cool quarter mill had a lot to do with Coleman’s retirement.   For that alone, we should thank Cooper.

Friends:  In a more serious and productive vein, Cooper was one of the movers and shakers behind “Friends of Education”, a chain of charter schools that were focused on specific communities and educational models.

Friends of Education schools were, and perpetually remain, among the top-performing charters in the state.  And that was in part due to Cooper’s business sense; “Friends” charters that didn’t succeed got shut down; the successful ones carried on.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

“A good way to tell whether a pundit or citizen understands the field of risk management well enough to critique Trump’s performance is to ask how they view his history of bankruptcies. If a person thinks those bankruptcies are a sign of poor management, they probably don’t know much about business. But if they understand the few bankruptcies – out of hundreds of projects – as part of a diversification strategy with good risk management that siloed off the losers, you might be seeing someone who understands business.”

 From Scott Adams on the Dilbert blog

 I would tend to agree – most commentators have no idea how Trump is operating, only that he’s not doing what the traditional politicians normally do, and it bewilders them.

  Joe Doakes

The intellectual ossification of this nation’s self-appointed “elites” never ceases to astound.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ivanka went on a date while Liberals were busy protesting in airports.  How dare she?  She should be wearing sack cloth and ashes to atone for the sins of the man who was elected to do what he is doing.

Two thoughts: first, what happened to the “Leave the Children Out of It” policy regarding Presidential offspring?  She’s not the President, she’s not out there making stump speeches for him, she’s not responsible for what he says or does.  Leave her out of it.

 Second, the reaction is quite a contrast to the total silence when The Light Bringer was golfing, or beaching, or just lazing about watching the playoffs as soldiers got killed or ambassadors dragged through the streets.  Almost as if there’s some sort of, I dunno, maybe a double standard?

 Joe Doakes

I’m pretty convinced that:

1. The Democrats’ current messaging strategy is “just say whatever we need to, because gullible peoples’ votes count as much as anyone’s.  Consistency, logic and ethics are for those square-state rubes”.
2. The big media are just fine with that, and playing along with enthusiasm.

Just you watch.

Liberals over the past 2 decades introduced campaign finance “reforms” intended to control the pace, funding and content of political speech.  Conservatives warned them.  They didn’t listen.

Donald Trump turns those laws to his advantage.  Watch the left bleat about censorship.

If Donald Trump never does another single good thing in office, or if he falls down an elevator shaft tomorrow (heaven forfend), he will have accomplished the one solitary hope I, and a lot of conservatives, had for a Trump adminsitration:  appointed a worthy successor to Antonin Scalia. in Neil Gorsuch:

As Gorsuch put it (in Cordova v. City of Albuquerque), the Constitution “isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams . . . , but a carefully drafted text judges are charged with applying according to its original public meaning” (emphasis added). In his one foray as a National Review Online contributor, in 2005 (before he took the bench), Gorsuch lamented that “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.”

Music to my ears.

Senate Republicans:  Screw this up at your peril.

Who else thinks Gorsuch is a good, “mainstream” choice?  This conservative talking head.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Senior Secret Service agent doesn’t like Trump, says he’s a disaster for the country, wouldn’t take a bullet for him.

 So?  Plenty of other work for Secret Service agents.  Anti-counterfeiting investigations in Alaska.  Running down people in Alabama who make on-line threats against the President.  She’s the special agent in charge of the Denver district so she coordinates advance teams when the President comes to town – that experience would be particularly valuable in case he decides to visit Iceland . . . maybe she spends the next couple of years checking sight lines and roof tops over there?

 This is the Deep State, bureaucrats who are supposed to be neutral and honestly serve the public without regard to who won the election.  But the IRS was happy to go after conservatives, government lawyers readily lie to federal judges, intelligence agencies are leaking obvious propaganda and now this woman decides her oath was personally to The Won, not generally to the job.  

 Drain the swamp. 

 Joe Doakes

It’s time for all those government workers who said they’d quit if Trump won to be held to it.

I’ve heard some of you refer to the idea of turning your efforts toward impeaching President-Elect Trump.

I say that not only should you do it, but you should treat it as an absolute imperative, and pursue it with maniacal devotion.

It’s the Progressive thing to do.

As Joel Kotkin points out, Donald Trump faces two major hurdles.  One is the structural mess Barack Obama left; a shallow, fragile “prosperity” (nonetheless called a “boom” by the Democrat media) built on hoarding low-interest cash.

The second?  The perception that the media is pumping out that this potemkin prosperity is actually a “boom” (emphasis added):

Yet this is more a matter of perception than reality, a kind of “fake news.” To be sure, President Barack Obama inherited a disastrous economy from George W. Bush and can claim, with some justification, that on his watch millions of jobs were restored and the economy achieved steady, if unspectacular, growth. Under Obama average GDP growth has been almost twice as high as under his predecessor, but roughly half that of either President Reagan or Clinton.

(And, lest anyone forget, “under Clinton” really means “under Gingrich”, since Clinton showed every sign of being no  better than Obama for his first two years).

Less appreciated, however, are the fundamental long-term weaknesses in the U.S. economy that Obama and Bush have left for Trump. A recent report from the U.S. Council on Competitiveness details a litany of profound, lingering flaws — historically slow growth, rising inequality, stagnant incomes, slumping productivity and declining lifespans. As the report concludes: “The Great Recession may be over, but America is dangerously running on empty.”

Like everything by Kotkin, it’s worth a read.

…that Trump and his people might be smarter than their critics.

…who wonders if all of this hysterical angst from the Left about having to share a democracy with people who disagree with them isn’t just an epic practical joke?

Like, the entire American left (or at least those that pull their intellectual strings) playing a huge joke on all of society?   Like, Ashton Kutcher is going to go on all six networks (counting Univision) and say “Dudes and Dudettes, you’ve been punked?”

I mean, reading this little tirade, it seems more and more plausible.   This person just can’t be for real.

Help me out, people.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

My Facebook friends are still losing it about Trump.  Now the persistent theme is that his Cabinet appointments are rich people who know nothing about their departments; or worse, they do know something but it’s the wrong thing.

 The woman appointed as Secretary of Education sent her kids to private school.  So that means she knows nothing about public schools?  No, dummy, it means she could see what a complete disaster public schools are so she pulled her kids out to give them a chance at a decent education.  She’s taken the top education job to try to reform public education into what private education already is.

 The guy in charge of the Labor Department opposes the minimum wage.  Yeah, him and every other competent economist.  So what’s your complaint: he has a brain and isn’t afraid to use it? 

 The Marine we just put in charge of the military isn’t sensitive, he’s confrontational.  Oh for crying out loud, confrontation is the whole point of a War Department.  Those aren’t all “participation ribbons” on his chest: at least one is an award for heroic bravery in combat.  That’s the kind of leadership the military desperately needs nowadays.

 For all the whining and complaining, nitpicking and second-guessing, the issue still comes down to the same issue that decided the election.  Is he Hillary yet?  No?  Still not Hillary?  Okay, good to go.  Carry on.

 Joe Doakes

And to the left, the question is, “is he appointing liberals, after having beaten them?”

The electoral college confirmed what everyone but the most deluded of Democrats already knew:  Donald Trump is the President-Elect.

There was some drama; a total of six electors – four Democrats from Washington State, two Republicans from Texas – broke ranks and voted for other people:

In the end, however, more Democrats than Republicans went rogue, underscoring deep divisions within their party. At least four Democratic electors voted for someone other than Clinton, while two Republicans turned their backs on Trump.

With nearly all votes counted, Trump had clinched 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227, according to an Associated Press tally of the voting by 538 electors across the country.

“I will work hard to unite our country and be the President of all Americans,” Trump said in a statement responding to the results.

This won’t end the Democrats’ attempts to  affect the Electoral College process – when Congress meets on January 6 to officially count the votes, I fully expect Illinois to gin up 300 electoral ballots.

And they will no doubt redouble their efforts to abolish the Electoral College.   Hopefully this election will end all talk of the National Popular Vote on the GOP side of the aisle, at least.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Leon Panetta, Big-shot Democrat, Clinton pal and former CIA Director time-server, says Trump will be blamed for an attack on the United States if he skips regular intelligence briefings.
So is Leon guaranteeing that Trump will NOT be blamed for an attack, if he DOES attend regular intelligence briefings? Hard to believe, given the way Democrats blamed Bush for 9/11 and Bin laden, even though the set-up for those disasters occurred entirely on Bill Clinton’s watch.
And even harder to believe, given the way Democrats still chant “Bush lied, people died” which rests on the foundation that “faulty intelligence” sucked us into the War in Iraq. Democrats insist nobody should have believed those intelligence briefings, so why should Democrats insist we believe the current ones?
In nearly 8 years of The Won proudly getting his news from the NYT, repeatedly stating that he wasn’t aware of anything until he read it there, skipping briefings routinely, when did Democrats ever demand that he pay attention? What’s changed?
Joe Doakes

To the left, reality isn’t a state; it’s a construct.

Oh, yes, liberals.  We did.

When the President started going crazy on the number and scope of his executive orders, we we warned you; “y’all might not control the White House forever.  You might not want to set that precedent”.

But you did.

And when Dingy Harry Reid tubed the filibuster, we warned you; “this is one of those traditions that has served to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority for longer than anyone can remember”, you laughed and shot the filibuster in the head.

They did it – do you remember this? – because they weren’t getting their way fast enough for their petulant adolescent tastes!

Let’s flash back to 2013:

“The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken. And I believe they are right,” Reid said Thursday on the Senate floor. “The need for change is so very, very obvious.”…

“I’ve sat on the Judiciary (Committee) for 20 years and it has never, ever been like this. You reach a point where your frustration just overwhelms and things have to change,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who had previously opposed efforts to change filibuster rules but voted with Reid on Thursday. “I think the level of frustration on the Democratic side has just reached the point where it’s worth the risk.”

So the Democrats, in a tantrum as shortsighted as that of any teenager, blew up the filibuster.  

Today?  The hangover is setting in:  

Senator Chris Coons (D., Del.) said on CNN Tuesday that he regrets the rule change Senate Democrats made to the nomination process.

“The filibuster no longer acts as an emergency brake on the nomination,” Coons said….“I do regret that. Frankly I think many of us will regret that in this congress because it would have been a terrific speed bump, potential emergency break [sic], to have in our system to slow down the confirmation of extreme nominees,” Coons said.

The problem, as I see it?  Too many Republicans are too compassionate, and absorbed the lessons they used to teach people about “good sportsmanship” and “being a good winner” as well as losing with grace (which we’ve done so much of we’re out of practice being “good winners”).   We have been loathe to pound home the fruits of the victories we’ve gotten (although the GOP’s idiot consulting class has a lot to do with that too).

But compassion must be tempered with teaching the Democrats a lesson.  We have federalism, and the traditions that up until Reid’s tantrum, protected the minority from the depredations of the majority.

So yes, GOP – we do need to make this a painful lesson for the Democrats.  We do  need to empanel a generation of conservative judges (to roll back the damage Obama did to the federal judiciary).  We do need to use this mandate that the people gave us in Congress to make the changes you were sent to make.

For the Democrats’ own good.

We tried to teach them about limited government the easy, comfy way.

Now it’s time to teach them the hard way.

Google is reaching out to hire something foreign, and a little scary, to them.

Conservatives:

In the weeks since the Nov. 8 election, Google has ramped up efforts to hire Republican lobbying firms and in-house lobbyists to change the composition of its Washington office, according to three lobbyists with knowledge of the matter.

The company also posted an advertisement for a manager for conservative outreach and public policy partnership, seeking a “liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups.”

I’m available to serve as a conservative-to-Silicon-Valley interpreter.

I offer the same service to the Twin Cities media.  Have your people call my people.

For a price.

The progressive chattering classes are all in a tizzy because many of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees are long-time opponents of the departments they’ve been chosen to lead:

• Rick Perry at Energy – who has advocated disbanding the entire department and reducing a cabinet seat
• Ben Carson at HUD, who has criticized federal housing
• Betsy DeVos at Education – a major proponent of school choice and degrading the government monopoly on education
• Scott Pruitt at the EPA, an agency against whom he’s spent years litigating
• Andy Puzder at Labor, who would oppose most “progressive” labor regulations
• Tom Price at HHS, who advocates rolling back Obamacare.

The chattering classes are all aflutter.  Perhaps because most of these departments are nothing but make-work programs for worthless Ivy Leaguer poli sci grads like, well, themselves.

Or perhaps because the American people might just support it:

And that leads us to the really burning question: Will anyone miss those departments if they go away?

We could try to answer that question by diving into the bitterly partisan political and economic debate over the size of government that’s been dividing people in this country since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton. Or we could wisely dump that academic argument and realize that the answer lies in how well the Trump team manages to make sure the changes get noticed by normal voters in a positive way. In politics, perception truly is reality.

And Trump, for all his faults, gets that better than most other Republicans.  For worse or, when it comes to slashing the size and power of the Federal Government ,much much better.

Trump is no conservative.  He’s a big-government former Democrat who, previewed solely on his own record, merits and statements, looks as if he could be a bigger spender than George W Bush, if not Obama himself.

But his cabinet, so far, is well to the right of the Congress, which is moving to the right, but not nearly fast enough.

King Banaian pointed this out on the show on Saturday – and John Fund agrees, today, in NRO:

The biggest surprise Donald Trump has provided as president-elect is just how conservative a cabinet he is putting together. “This is a more conservative cabinet than Reagan assembled in 1980,” says Ed Feulner, a key Trump transition adviser. As president of the Heritage Foundation at the time, Feulner provided guidance for Reagan’s choices. The conservative cast of the nominees thus far is somewhat unexpected, given Trump’s well-known reputation as a non-ideological thinker who has often backed big-government solutions. Plus, Trump was a registered Democrat until 2009. Indeed, Trump’s entire family is largely non-ideological. It was only last August, in a meeting with New Jersey governor Chris Christie, that Donald Trump Jr. ticked off a list of his father’s new positions and said, “Well, I guess that means we’re conservatives!”

If they get through the Senate, it’ll be that rare example (as King and Ed pointed out over the weekend) of the cabinet being to the right of Congress.

And if they don’t?  It’ll be an epic chanting point for the 2018 mid-terms.

The WashEx asks if Trump is already president:

With weeks to go until he takes office, Trump’s moves have tested the limits of his unofficial powers as the president-in-waiting. And although his activism has drawn scrutiny from detractors, his favorability ratingshave hit new heights on the heels of several high-profile successes.

“I don’t think it’s normal for a president-elect to be out and about like this, but this is the era of Trump, and he is literally rewriting the rules,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.

My answer?  Why not?  Obama’s been semi-retired for the past two and a half years.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Google “Trump salary” and you’ll see endless articles claiming Trump is waiving the $400,000 annual salary as President.  No, he’s volunteering to become A Dollar A Year Man.  That’s an important distinction, as it evokes historical parallels to great men who sacrificed to save the nation in time of peril.

 Of course, no journalist knows that.  Or if they did, they certainly can’t admit it, because that would mean Trump is a statesman and a patriot; we can’t have that.

 Joe Doakes

As Glenn Reynolds puts it, “if you remember that they’re Democrat operatives with bylines, it all makes sense”>

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

It occurs to me that I haven’t heard Larry Jacobs opine about Kellyanne Conway, the woman who ran Donald Trump’s stunningly successful Presidential campaign.  Why not? 

 It’s not as if she had such a great candidate that the campaign was a walk in the park.  Trump isn’t George Washington, someone the whole public would love to proclaim King.  I’m absolutely confident that no other candidate could have beaten Hillary.  The other Republicans all were hiring the same strategy consultants, making the same media buys, hitting up the same super PAC fundraisers.  They even shop at the same tailors: I never saw so many identical outfits as when the twelve dwarfs were in those early debates.  Somehow, she pulled her guy to the top of that heap.

 And did it practically free.  She convinced the media to give Trump a zillion dollars of free publicity, thinking they were killing his campaign by reporting on his outrageous promise to “Build the Wall” when in fact, he was using them to reach out to Joe Six-Pack who heard the slogan and thought “Damned straight and about time!”  Talk about your all-time classic backfires . . . that’s a brilliant tactic nobody else could have gotten away with.

 Kellyanne Conway ought to be on the cover of every political magazine, the talk of every political news program and the subject of every Poli Sci class on every campus.  She ran an insurgent campaign on a shoestring and beat the best political consultants and candidate in the nation.  And did it with a unruly novice as the candidate!  And won walking away, an Electoral College landslide. Why isn’t she getting more praise?

 She’s either the single luckiest woman in the world or the smartest, I’m not sure which and I don’t care.  I’m just grateful to her for preventing The Lizard Queen from ascending to the Rose Garden Throne.  In the first week alone, she saved me $1,000 that I was planning to spend on ammunition before Hillary banned it.  Her guy hasn’t even taken office and already, my life is richer.  

 Joe Doakes

Same same.

To:  House GOP Caucus, Senate GOP Caucus
From:  Mitch Berg, ornery peasant
Re:  Focus

Dear Cauci,

Congrats on taking the majority.  I’m truly overjoyed.

Now, let’s get real.

Focus:  Ever watched someone doing karate?  When they do a strike, they focus all their energy, from their waist on down through their hands, into their knuckle.  One or two of them.  Because that’s how you inflict as much force as possible on your target – focusing the energy.

We’ll come back to that.

Focus Some More:  When the Allies landed in Normandy in 1944, it took eight or so weeks of brutal fighting to break through the German defenses.

And when the Allies forced that breakthrough, did they then pause, and redirect to the invasion of Denmark?

No!   They focused on driving to Berlin, and destroying any enemy that got in their way!

They focused on the mission at hand!

No.  Really Focus:  You have the majority in both chambers of the Legislature (if only by a vote in the Senate).

You got it for three reasons:

1. The Dems brought us MNSure, and you were able to tie it around their necks
2. The economy in greater Minnesota isn’t nearly as spiffy as it is in the Metro
3. Just like nationwide – the metro “elites” are utterly disconnected with the experience of Greater Minnesota.

That is why you have the majority.  Not to protect marriage.  Not to argue about who goes in what bathrooms.

Heathcare.   Economy.   Elites.  

No more.  No less.

I Said Focus, MKay?:  It was six short years ago that voters last gave you both chambers of the Legislature.  Even with a DFL ideologue for a governor, it was a golden opportunity.   You were given that majority because:

1. Obama overreached – on healthcare
2. The economy in Greater Minnesota sucked!
3. The DFL had made a hash out of the budget.

What did you – or at least the previous leadership – do?

Well, good work on the budget, to be honest.  But that wonky triumph was overshadowed by the national, media-stoked furor over the Gay Marriage issue.  The legislature bet a ton of political capital…

…on an issue that had nothing to do with you getting your majority.

Nothing!

If you’re a North Dakota or Montana Republican, with a near-permanent majority and an opposition Democrat party that barely qualifies as a party at all, you can spend political capital on anything you want, and there’ll be no consequences.   It might even work (long enough to get struck down by the Supreme Court, anyway).

But not in Minnesota, the purplest of purple states.

Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus!:  This is not North Dakota.  Perhaps if you hold your majorities long enough to bring a quarter century of unbridled prosperity to Minnesota and we might become so lucky.  But we’re nowhere close to that yet.

You were elected by a fickle electorate over…what?

Let’s run the list again:

1. MNSure
2. The economy in greater MN
3. Our idiot elites

You have political capital – a mandate, indeed.

And like the Allies after D-Day, you need to focus that capital on beating the enemy in front of us; MNSure, taxes, regulations, mining-phobia.

And like Bruce Lee, you need to focus that energy straight to the metaphorical knuckle, as narrowly and overwhelmingly as you can to win on the issues we, the voters, sent you there to win!

For The Love Of God, Focus!:  I’ve heard talk of legislators discussing floating some legislation:

• Rest Rooms:  Don’t be idiots.  We already have laws making mischief in bathrooms illegal. And all it’s gonna take is one angry father or grandfather at some Target somewhere to make that issue pretty well self-enforcing.  It’s a private property issue,   And it’s a distraction.   Deal with the restrooms when the majority is rock solid safe.
• Abortion:  It’s an important thing.  I get it.  It’s also not why you were sent to Saint Paul.  Not this time.  If you win long and big enough, you’ll get your chance.  This is not that chance.   Do not screw this up.  
• Other social issues:  Stop.  Just stop.  Now.  Seriously. 

GOP legislators:  today, you control the agenda in Saint Paul.  It gives you a huge opportunity.  With the opportunity comes risk; if you take the GOP majority off beam, and bog the party down in a fight that has nothing to do with why you have the majority, fighting a veto you can’t win over an issue that does nothing but focus all of the Big Democrat Money, all their bottomless funding and masses of drooling droogs, over something that the voters that sent you to Saint Paul don’t care about nearly as much as healthcare and the economy, you will deserve to lose again in 2016.  

Focus.

Focus.

Focus focus focus.

Kill MNSure.  Kill regulations.  Lower taxes.

No.  More than that.  Focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus.

No.  More than that.

Sing along with me:  Kill MNSure.  Kill regulations.  Lower taxes.  Kill MNSure.  Kill regulations.  Lower taxes.  Kill MNSure.  Kill regulations.  Lower taxes.

Win the war we sent you there to win.

Oh – and focus.

No.  More than that.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

“Hello, Congressman Never-Trump?  Yeah, hi, this is PRESIDENT Trump.  What’s all that wailing in the background?  Oh, you were just about to call to congratulate me?  Yeah, that’s great.  Listen, I’m gonna need some money to build the wall with Mexico.  About those appropriations in your district . . . be a shame if anything happened to them, like maybe a line-item veto.  Oh, I can?  Great, I’m glad to have your support.  That’s fine, talk to you soon.  Get some rest, you sound a little down.  Bye now!”

 Joe Doakes

We shall truly see.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Paul Ryan has become an Establishment Republican.  He’s not going to help Trump win.  He thinks that’s the smart play but I wonder if his voters will mind that he’s back-stabbing the Republican candidate? They’re already booing him in his home state.

 Trump isn’t the one who killed the GOP.  He’s just the one who walked up to it and poked it with a stick to be sure it’s dead.

 Last time, the base turned out nice, polite Tea Partiers who left the lawn cleaner than when they arrived.  This time, we picked Trump who is loud and vulgar but at least knows the greatest threat facing America is not global warming.  If the Democrats, the media and the Establishment GOP conspire to keep him out of the White House, just wait to see who comes next.

Joe Doakes

The anticipation is killing me.