Category Archives: Governor

October – But No Surprise

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From his initial eledtion in the Democrat wave of 2006, until the 2016 election was all over but the shouting, Tim Walz got, and earned, an “A” rating from the NRA, and good marks from state 2nd Amendment human rights groups as well.

You could see the change, though, as the 2016 campaign wound down; he started cuddling up to the gun grabbers.

Tim Walz, cuddling up to the Dreamsicles and Moms Want action in 2016.
Pass this photo around.

It made no sense – until you remember he was starting his gubernatorial run.

And for any DFLer, the road to the governor’s mansion starts with convincing the bat-splittle crazy Metro DFL that you hate guns worse than rape.

He tried to play both sides, of course; while he spooned with the gun grabbers, even picking lifetime F-rated Peg Flanagan – one of the most “progressive” reps in the House – for a running mate, he also claimed to the press that he, given his shooter bona fides, could serve to “bring both sides together”.

Which did not amuse the Real American movement.   I think we’d rather negotiate with Erin Maye Quade; she’s at least honest about wanting to destroy our ultimate guarantee of liberty.  Also she’s out of office.

But that’s not going to prevent the Media/DFL Complex from trying to flog the charade for the uninformed (aka “Most Democrat Voters”).

The PiPress got smokescreen duty, apparently, this week, and ran this puff piece about Walz:

Tim Walz, the Democrat with the “F” grade from the NRA, wants to ban bump stocks, expand background checks and give courts the authority to temporarily take away someone’s guns if the person is deemed a threat, as well as ban “military-style assault rifles” in Minnesota.

Jeff Johnson, the Republican with the NRA’s “A” grade and endorsement, wants none of that. He opposes any tightening of gun laws.

Election 2018Guess which of the two candidates for Minnesota governor owns more guns.

Walz. He owns three today. The Nebraska native and former Mankato High School teacher grew up with guns and was given his first at age 11.

Unmentioned:  in addition to “expanded background checks” (in reality, a gun registry) and taking guns with no due process on accusation and after ex parte hearings, he also supports an “Assault Weapons” ban.

The article is part of Walz’ effort to appeal to what Real Americans refer to as “Fudds” – people who are dovish on gun control, since nobody is talking about taking their hunting rifles or duck guns or whatever their hobby is.

Yet.

Walz is yet another “camel’s nose under the tent” DFLer – only worse, since he still tries to parlay his revoked NRA cred to appear “moderate”.

He’s the worst form of traitor.

 

Monday Morning Cop

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DFL-endrosed gubernatorial candidate Erin Murphy commented on the Thurman Blevins shooting on Facebook.

Other-peoples-money quote:

He ran, yes. He was armed, yes. He reportedly was drunk and had fired shots, yes. All of those things might have led to his death, but none of them had to. I don’t understand why calmly starting a conversation wasn’t an option or wouldn’t have been a better course.

There is something about the whole “Shots Fired” thing that tends to make cops a little edgy.  Also everyone else – provided they’re in the real world, and not on Facebook, opining for a tame, partisan crowd.

(And am I the only one thinking “so why isn’t ‘starting a calm conversation with gun owners, rather than advocating confiscations and wholesale crushing of civil liberties, not an option for you, Miss

Just a few days ago in South St. Paul a mentally ill man was reported to be threatening people at a group home. Officers arrived and engaged with the man. He too had a gun, he actually fired it at and shot the officers, injuring two of them. They subdued him not with a hail of bullets but with other tools, their words, their determination to find a better solution. Those officers— Todd Waters, Derek Kruse, Dennis Brom and Julie Bishop, are heroes who found humanity in what must have been the worst and scariest situation in their lives.

The message?   Cops should be willing to get shot first, then ask questions.

Is there a conversation to be had about use of police force?   About the limits or shape of qualified immunity?  Absolutely.

Is Erin Murphy the one to be lecturing the cops about it?

I don’t know much about Thurman Blevins. Had the officers approached the situation differently he might be in jail right now for firing his weapon into the sky and ground, or could be sitting on that curb with his family enjoying a morning off. I don’t know.

I’m no cop fanboy – but this may be the dumbest bunch of monday-morning quarterbacking I’ve ever seen.

You Never Count Your Money When You’re Sitting At The Table

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Conservatives watched, amused, yesterday as the DFL played a long, comical game of musical chairs with their candidacies.

And it’s going to continue until the filing deadline of 5PM today.

Keith Ellison jumped into the race for Attorney General – evidence he wants to run for Governor someday.  In turn, Ilhan Omar filed to run for Ellison’s slot in Congress.  Phyllis Kahn promptly filed to run for that seat, which she had held for roughly 200 years.  But wait!   Deb Hillstrom jumped in to the AG race, and Mike Freeman was making noises about jumping in as well.

In the meantime, Lori Swanson, along with retiring (again) congressman Rick Nolan, filed for governor.

And the day ended with rumors of a Franken filing.  The questions – which race (Probably CD5, said the rumor mill) and which Franken (the rumors mentioned both Al and Franni).

GOP pundits greeted the news with a little glee:

And some of it is justifiable.  The DFL has given up all pretense, at least among itself, of being anything but a Metro party.

And the idea of a primary with Lori Swanson and Tim Walz squaring off against Erin Murphy, splitting the Greater Minnesota vote, was certainly tantalizing (especially given the prospect of the Dem vote fraud machine being turned against the DFL).

I’m urging a little restraint, here.

It’s pretty clear the DFL is sliding toward Metro-only status.  If they lose CD8 and possibly CD1 this  year (both are more possible than at any time in years), and with the knowledge that Colin Peterson’s potemkin seat in CD7 will never be replaced by a Democrat again when he retires), it’ll really be official, even if they someday flip CD3.

So the good news is, the DFL is becoming a Metro-only party.

The bad news is, they’re ‘the Metro party.

Hennepin County is a vote machine; a DFL super-de-duper majority that’s only getting worse.  And if – if – the MNGO manages to flip enough swing voters statewide to counter that crushing mass of government employees and government clients, the DFL can always create more; there are a zillion refugees in the world, and the DFL, working through its non-profit clients, can always import more just-add-water DFL voters.

And if that doesn’t work?  Minneapolis’ cemeteries are full of potential DFL voters.

Call me a cynic, but I don’t know if the DFL can screw up enough to lose this state, sometimes.

My Weekend In Duluth, Watching The Weekend In Rochester

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This past weekend was all about political conventions; for the first time in a long, long time,

The Gales Of November Came…In Spring:   When I left Saint Paul on Friday morning, it was up around 80 degrees.  When I got to Duluth two hours later, it was 47 with a wind howling off the lake.

But the cold on the first day of June was just about the only surprise.   Every one of the front runners – Jeff Johnson for Governor, Karin Housley and Jim Newberger for Senate – got the endorsement.

It wasn’t completely uneventful, of course.  All weekend, there were rumors that the Pawlenty campaign had voting shenanigans afoot – getting his delegates to vote No Endorsement, and then flip to Parrish.  There were signs early – the first ballot showed 7% “No Endorsement”.  That faded to 2% by the second ballot.

More surprising was Mary Giuliani Stevens’ showing.  The Woodbury mayor had a large, enthusiastic showing on the floor.  Scuttlebutt had it that if Johnson didn’t win on the first ballot, there’d be a huge Giuliani Stevens surge.   It didn’t pan out – Johnson won the first ballot 45/26 (with 20 going to Parrish), and extended his lead to 50/25/16 on the second ballot.  Dock a point from the rumor mill.

So given that the whole thing is going to a primary with Pawlenty, it’s probably just as well we didn’t waste a lot of effort on convention dramatics.

Especially since the other convention was providing plenty of that.

Crazy In Clinic Town:   We knew it was going to be a doozie when we read Rep. Jamie Becker Finn’s endorsement statement for Tim Walz:

With a sendoff like that, what could go wrong?

The first signs that the crazy train had pulled into the station came early in the afternoon Saturday, when the first ballot came in in the DFL Attorney General race.  Lori Swanson won the ballot – by four points, 52/48, over left-wing extremist Matt Pelikan.  Then, reportedly, Pelikan spoke to the delegates, telling them that Swanson had an “A” rating from the NRA (for all of Swanson’s liberal interventionism, she has always been solid on 2nd Amendment rights).  She reportedly dropped out of the endorsement race, leaving Pelikan to get endorsed by acclamation.

Rebecca Otto – one of the most disagreeable people in Minnesota politics – went out early, after one ballot, with 18 paltry percent.  The conversation in the press pit turned to What IT All Meant for the DFL Governor endorsement.  The conventional wisdom had been calling for a Tim Walz win, early and fast.

But after six ballots, extremist Saint Paul prog legislator Erin Murphy was pulling ahead.  After six ballots, not wanting to fight against the endorsement, Otto and Walz came out on the floor, urging a “No Endorsement” vote.  But Murphy was not to be denied.   She took the endorsement after, I forget, six or seven ballots.

And so two vital DFL seats were decided, in large part, because of current or former stances on the Second Amendment.   Let’s put a pin in that.

But we’re not done yet.

Upshot;  The DFL convention continued until Sunday – when Murphy made her big announcement; her running mate was…

…Erin Maye Quade.  A left wing extremist, whose wife is a paid organizer for Michael Bloomberg.

So the message from the DFL convention: “Don’t be silly, nobody’s coming for your guns. But we’re coming for your guns”.

DFL endorsed gubernatorial candidate Erin Murphy has never minced words about her antipathy toward civilian gun owners; her platform is a dog’s breakfast of every terrible, ineffective bit of security theater that *can not* affect crime rates *or* mass shootings. And Erin Maye Quade’s wife is a paid “Everytown” employee. Long on snark, short on reasoning, Maye Quade never saw any pointless theatrics she didn’t like.

And long-time DFL Attorney General Lori Swanson lost the DFL’s endorsement, almost like flipping a light switch, when challenger (and extreme gun grabber) Matthew Pelikan mentioned that, as liberal as Swanson is on every other issue, she’s a solid defender of the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. And Tim Walz lost what had been considered a sure-fire endorsement in large part because he *used to be* a strong 2nd Amendment supporter (before throwing Minnesota’s law-abiding gun owners under the bus to unsuccessfully woo the increasingly extremist DFL delegate base; even that wasn’t enough to save the endorsement.

The DFL reflects a base that is more afraid of law-abiding citizens than they are of society’s actual problems. Don’t take my word for it; look at their endorsements.

Every last one of them.

The Juggernaut Strikes

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It’s convention time.

Time for groups trying to influence the political process to wield the power of their numbers, finances and organizing skill to benefit the candidate they choose.

For a group with serious power – human, financial or moral – it’s time to apply that power to the endorsement of candidates for key state offices. And the big office at play in this weekend’s state conventions will be Governor.

Pressure groups, grassroots organizers, PACs and lobbies will be judiciously applying their clout to the candidates that seem most closely to track their interests and goals, with the skill and restraint of an eye surgeon operating around an optic nerve (or, in the case of Education Minnesota, a street worker jackhammering a piece of cement).

Which brings us to “Protect” Minnesota.

Yesterday, the criminal-safety group gave its “Orange Star” to gubernatorial candidate and state auditor Rebecca Otto.

The Otto campaign, being led by Rebecca Otto – which has been flailing in the candidate count lately, and which fired its manager last week – no doubt took some encouragement in the vote of confidence. It’s probably the only “good” news the Ottos got last week.

And the Orange Star right before the DFL convention might tend to indicate that the group was playing it a little safe, endorsing a female candidate who is anti-gun – but hasn’t wrapped herself around the issue, either.    That’d be an interesting signal of pragmatism from the group.

Well, until a little bit later – when this came out:

On the veritable eve of the convention, they gave another orange star to CD1 congressman and putative front runner Tim Walz, who has flipped from an “A”-rating from the NRA and the Gun Owners Caucus to being a rabid anti (for purposes of swaying the metro progressives he needs to win the convention, no doubt before flopping before the inevitable primary challenge to try to woo outstate voters, including his gun-owning base in the south of the state.

Still – two coveted orange stars would indicate that “Protect” MN was taking a broad, pragmatic stand against Erin Murphy, who has all but made campaign videos of herself pantomiming going door to door to seize guns; she’s that anti-gun.   It’d be an interesting take on “P”M’s part.

Until a few minutes later, when this arrived in our inboxes:

So – on the eve of the DFL convention, “Protect” MInnesota has basically gotten behind…all the DFLers?

They’ll exercise a keen focus on…everyone?

With such mad political skills, it’s hard to believe Nancy Nord Bence hasn’t taken the state by storm.

 

Why Does The DFL Hate Poor People?

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Governor Dayton is set to veto a tax cut bill that would have cut taxes to the lowest income brackets in Minnesota – people whose tax burden is in fact disproportionally higher than higher-income Minnesotans, counting federal, state, local and various consumption taxes.

Naturally, it’s about feeding the Educational Industrial Complex:

Gov. Mark Dayton is promising to veto a tax bill that the Republican-controlled Senate passed narrowly on Wednesday, after criticizing GOP legislative leaders for their apparent unwillingness to approve an additional aid package for schools…

“There’s no indication of any willingness to move on my top priority,” Dayton said.

On May 1, Dayton asked for an additional $137.9 million to be spread among all 553 school districts across the state, including at least 59 districts that are anticipating budget shortfalls.

In other words, Dayton is throwing a tantrum because the Legislature doesn’t want to transfer money from poor people to Dayton’s DFL cronies in the Teachers Union.

I’ll be so sorry to see that stammering marionette go .

Mangy Housecat + Sharpie = Leopard

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails re the feckless cynic Tim Walz:

When he represented Southern Minnesota, Tim Walz proudly wore an NRA hat.  Now that he’s running state-wide, he’s “changed the ideology.”  Is that another word for “principles?”  Does he have any?
Why yes, yes he does.  His guiding principle is to gain power over others.  Say anything, do anything, pretend to believe anything, to get the power.   He’s not unique, he’s standard DFL, right off the rack.  Clinton kept the promises he meant to keep.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
The sad part is so many voters are perfectly happy to reward such bald-faced liars by giving them the power they so desperately crave.
Joe Doakes

Most Minnesota voters  go by that “feel good” gut feeling.  Look!  She baked a casserole!  Just like mom did!

Walz’s Waffles

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For 12 years, now, Tim Walz was perfectly happy to bamboozle his district by accepting the NRA’s endorsement – pretty8 much a requirement in the rural south of Minnesota.

Now – running for the DFL endorsement for governor against impeccably-Metrocrat Rebecca Otto – he’s calling for all sorts of gun controls, including gun bans.

You read it here first, two years ago:

It may look like a Nazi women’s prison camp guard re-union, but in fact it’s Rep. Walz meeting with Moms Want Action  – a subsidiary of Everytown, Michael Bloomberg’s group, which outspent all pro-gun groups 17-1 in the 2016 election.

Is he after all that Bloomberg money?  All those Metrocrat votes?

Who cares?  All we know is, he’ll be back looking for shooter votes once the DFL convention is over.

He’s cast his lot.  Will it cost him?  He doesn’t seem to think so.

Chris Coleman Whistles Past The Clogged Street

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A friend of the blog writes

As I was helping my Congolese neighbor out of the alley this morning, we talked more about the roads in DRC versus here. He told me that being buried in snow here is not as bad as being buried in mud there because at least you can dig out of snow. Then, he said the DRC government tells the people that those muddy wreck of roads are International roads. He said that is an example of a fake government.

Again, I can’t help but draw comparisons to what liberal St Paul voters and liberal elected leaders would like the city to become.

When the St Paul GOP merely posed the question of why major streets in St Paul can’t be plowed during the storm, rather than waiting until it’s all over, Democratic candidate for Governor, Chris Coleman, so stupidly believes that meant plowing before any snow fell.

 

(I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he is only pretending to be that stupid). But, his statement on Twitter (along with many other falsehoods he told during his time as mayor) certainly give me the impression that St Paul government is somewhat fake, too.

Not suire if the former Mayor and current Goober candidate is “stupid” so much as “very poorly placed to comment”; Saint Paul’s snow plowing went from “spotty but effective” under Norm Coleman and Randy Kelliy to “third world” level under Coleman.  During snowstorm ater snowstorm, Saint Paul’s streets would resemble Bolivian goat paths after six inches of snow. . “It’s a biblical deliuge”, the city’s bureaucrats and flaks would protest – but a drive across Larpenteur into Roseville would show you that the only biblical retribution that the city faced were a plague of locusts working as bureaucrats in charge of getting ostensibly useful things done.   (And it’s not just snow plowing).

So Mayor Coleman’s quip is a bitter joke for any Saint Paul taxpayer – especially the ones that needed to drive anywhere during the 24 years it seemed he ran the place. . .

Outside Her Job Description

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

 

Lori Swanson is Attorney General of Minnesota.  She’s a busy little beaver:

She’s suing because Trump rolled back Obama’s last-minute internet regulations.

She’s suing because Trump rolled back Obama’s illegal health care payments.

She’s suing because Trump tried to keep terrorists out.

She’s suing because Trump threatens to end Obama’s illegal Dream Act for illegal aliens.

Aside from fielding a team of taxpayer-funded lawyers to litigate Democrat talking points, Ms. Swanson, what is the Attorney General’s job?

What would you say you do here?

Joe Doakes

The honest answer would be “Get some taxpayer-funded chanting points to flog on the stump during a gubernatorial run”.

Empathy

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Governor Dayton appointed a Hmong woman to fill a vacant judgeship in Ramsey County.  He has a track record of history-making judicial appointments: first Native American woman, first openly gay woman, first Hispanic appellate court judge . . . all very progressive and helping to increase the diversity of people sitting on the bench.  But I wonder . . . does it do any good?

Suppose I am a Black man who has been accused of robbing a gay man.  Can I request the Black judge instead of the gay judge?  After all, isn’t that the purpose of increasing diversity on the bench — to have people with different backgrounds who can bring empathy and perspective to the proceedings?  If I can’t pick my judge, then what difference does it make to have diversity on the bench?

Worse, if we empty the bench of hard-hearted old men who judge the case on the law and the facts without regard to who the parties are, and replace them with empathetic young women eager to understand the plight of underdogs, will the rest of the judicial system become like family court?

Joe Doakes

Like that’s not the goal…

Baited, Switched

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A long time ago, in a beautiful but cold place far far away, a communist dictator built a colosseum.  Being committed to the populist flim-flam most totalitarians use to get help in seizing power, he named it “The People’s Stadium” – although “the people” only got to use it with the permission of the dictator’s cronies.

And the dictator built a train – “The Peoples’ Train” – to bring people from the miserable, decaying, crime-sodden cities to The People’s Stadium.

The dictator and his cronies planned a massive rally to celebrate their power and perspicacity; the entire world’s media would be there to see the dictator’s work.

And the dictator worried: while he put on a slick facade for the foreign press, some of the locals were unruly, and parts o the city were falling apart.

So the dictator took steps to make sure The People wouldn’t screw up The People’s  Event at the People’s Stadium before the eyes of the world.  First, he barred The Hoi Polloi from the Peoples’ Train, to make sure they’d never encounter foreign visitors.

And then, to take no chances, he deployed his Army in the People’s City, to make sure the locals stayed in line.

Minneapolis officials are calling on Gov. Mark Dayton to mobilize the state National Guard for the Super Bowl, amid questions about whether the city’s police force has enough officers to effectively patrol neighborhoods and handle other demands.

Even with dozens of departments across the state pledging to send officers to help with security, Mayor Betsy Hodges and mayor-elect Jacob Frey wrote in a letter on Tuesday that the city’s police “cannot by themselves meet of all the safety and security needs of the 10 days of Super Bowl LII while maintaining public-safety operations for the entire city.”

When I wrote my book Trulbert:  A Comic Novella ab out the End of the World as We Know It, I wrote the scene in which a thinly disguised Roger Goodell-type NFL commissioner exacted concessions out of Minneapolis’ dictator, Myron Ilktost, to be as over the top as I could imagine; a complete NFL takeover of all civic resources, free transportation, prostitutes, whatever the NFL wanted.  And when I went back and edited and re-wrote, I massaged it to make it even more over-the-top.   I was satisfied that real life could never imitate my fiction.

Kudos, Roger Gooddell and Mark Dayton.  You’ve proven me wrong.

Wishing

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Minnesota Supreme Court held that Governor Mark Dayton’s veto of all legislative funding was perfectly okay, because despite his attempt to de-fund a co-equal branch of government, the Legislature has set aside money to cover unforeseen contingencies.   The Legislature’s fiscal responsibility rendered Dayton’s attempted coup irrelevant so we can just sweep his little faux pas under the rug.

I’m guessing next legislative session will be . . . contentious.

Joe Doakes

Given the confrontation-aversion the MNGOP showed in the 2017 session, I think Joe may be too optimistic.

Politics Of Convenience

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Chris Coleman – Saint Paul’s utterly undistinguished three-term DFL placeholder mayor for the past 12 years, and yet again a DFL candidate for Governor – released his gun control agenda.

That it’s a monument to DFL Metrocrat entitled ignorance should come as no surprise.

But there’s a dose of the kind of hypocrisy you only find in a one-party city thrown in as well.

Ignorance Is Chris:  The first point makes sense – if you know nothing about the issue.

Requiring background checks on every gun purchased or transferred in Minnesota. There should not be different safety rules for online gun purchases vs. in-store gun purchases.

You already need to get a background check – in stores, or at a federally license dealer if you buy online.

Either Coleman is aiming for the hysteric vote, or he’s being advised by the terminally ignorant, or – and my money’s on this – both.

They Blinded Him With Pseudo-Science:  Next, a bow to the DFLers who think they love them some science because Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

Allowing scientists to do their jobs by rolling back gun lobby restrictions on studying gun violence as a public health issue. We must invest in the Minnesota Department of Health and give researchers the tools they need to help address the epidemic of gun violence.

The notion that crime is a public health issue is balderdash, postulated by that rare breed of “scientists” who start with their conclusion before the actual experiment.  Government is right to withhold funding from this non-scientific “science”.

Guilty Until Proven Guilty:  This next one almost sounds like it makes sense:

Implementing a Gun Violence Protective Order (GVPO) law to create a legal path for family and household members, and law enforcement, to temporarily remove guns and prevent new gun purchases by those who pose a risk to themselves or others.

Sounds like a good idea, especially in the wake of last week’s shooting in California.

But be careful; if this proposal skirts judicial due process, then it’s a camel’s nose under the tent.  Before long, it’ll turn into the terror watch list – any government bureaucrat will be able to put your name into the database over some of the most abstract possible definitions of “risk”.

Among Friends:  But number four?  That’s the funny one:

Requiring mandatory reporting of all lost or stolen guns because we know the sooner law enforcement can identify and recover missing firearms, the more likely we are to keep dangerous people and criminals from perpetrating gun-related crimes. States with mandatory reporting laws report 33% fewer gun-related crimes than states without these regulations.

Does that include buddies of the Mayor?

Like Melvin Carter, who had two guns stolen from his house, but never bothered to report them?  And then went on to become the next mayor of Saint Paul, in part with Mayor Coleman’s endorsement?

When You See That Nauseatingly Cutesy Rebecca Otto Video…

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…just mention this article, or paste the link in the comments if you can.

And then if you’re a member of any of these unions…:

  • AFSCME Council 5
  • AFSCME Council 65
  • Duluth FirePAC
  • Education MN
  • IBEW Local 292
  • IBEW State Council Local 49
  • Operating Engineers
  • MAPE Minnesota
  • AFL-CIO Minnesota
  • International Association of Fire Fighters Local 21
  • Minnesota Nurses Association
  • Minnesota State Building & Construction Trade
  • Minnesota State Council of Unite Here Unions
  • SEIU Mn State Council Pol Fund
  • Sheet Metal Workers PAC #10
  • State Council of Machinists
  • Teamsters
  • UAW MN State CAP Council

…why not ask your leadership why they support her?

Princess Pander

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It’s almost a year until the convention, but Saint Paul DFL gubernatorial candidate Erin Murphy’s campaign is already doomed.

Rep. Erin Murphy, doomed gubernatorial candidate

Perhaps with that in mind, she’s swinging for the (Metrocrat) fences, calling for single payer helathcare:

Murphy criticizes capitalist models of health care, saying that a for-profit model of any part of the health care system is bad for Americans. She tells a story of her dying mother’s struggle to get her insurance company to cover the care she needed for cancer treatments near the end of her life.

“We must guarantee health care for people who are sick, focus on the health of Minnesotans, and control health care costs,” Murphy wrote. “We must make strategic and difficult choices with valuable resources, putting the health of Minnesotans ahead of health insurance profit making.”

Asked how this plan would be paid for, Murphy responded “with golden coins borne down from heaven by unicorns [1]”

[1] Fake but conceptually accurate.

 

The Pet Governor

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Governor Dayton agreed to a budget deal.

Then, when his leash was yanked by the special interests that own him, he vetoed the budget:

And now? Layoffs are imminent.  Over 400 legislative staff jobs – not to mention the 201 legislators themselves – will find themselves without a paycheck pretty quick here:

The layoffs could include up to 230 regular Minnesota House employees and 204 staffers in the Minnesota Senate.

And that’s not counting 201 elected lawmakers — a total of 635 people.

Dayton says:

“I regret the effect on the staff very, very much,” Dayton told reporters on Friday.

Maybe he could sell another Renoir?

The Dayton Doctrine: Ghost Of Tax Day Future

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Connecticut – a state that has done everything the Minnesota DFL wants to do to the Minnesota economy, but put it on a turbocharger – is about to pay the proverbial piper; Aetna Insurance is pondering leaving Connecticut and its confiscatory taxes behind.

Governor Malloy, after an entire administration spent pilfering the coffers of Connecticut businesses and entrepreneurs to benefit his stakeholders, is wondering what all the moving trucks are for, and he’s oh, so sorry:

“As a huge Connecticut employer and a pillar of the insurance industry, it must be infuriating to feel like you must fight your home state policymakers who seem blind to the future,” Mr. Malloy wrote in a May 15 letter to Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. “The lack of respect afforded Aetna as an important and innovative economic engine of Connecticut bewilders me.”

Now he tells us. Gov. Malloy has spent two terms treating business as a bottomless well of cash to redistribute to public unions. Now that his state is losing millionaires and businesses, he has seen the light. But the price of his dereliction will be steep.

Sound like any other governors and minority caucuses in state that this blog is written in that you can think of?

Last month the state Office of Fiscal Analysis reduced its two-year revenue forecast by $1.46 billion. Since January the agency has downgraded income-tax revenue for 2017 and 2018 by $1.1 billion (6%). Sales- and corporate-tax revenue are projected to fall by $385 million (9%) and $67 million (7%), respectively, this year. Pension contributions, which have doubled since 2010, will increase by a third over the next two years. The result: a $5.1 billion deficit and three recent credit downgrades.

Minnesota’s current tax climate is survivable by Fortune 1000 companies – for a while (small business is another story).   But Connecticut shows us that even big-business inertia has its limits.

(By the way – the DFL jabbers a lot about the “meltdown in North Dakota” and “Wisconsin’s disaster”.  What are the respective unemployment rates as of this week?

Oh, my.  Earlier this year, amid the “oil industry melteown, North Dakota was a full point lower than Minnesota, and Wisconsin pulled even.  Today, North Dakota’s rate (driven by more exploration, thanks to the impending impact of the Dakota Access Pipeline) is 1.1% lower than Minnesota’s.   And Wisconsin, which Minnesota’s DFL and media (ptr) have been calling a “disaster” for six year?  It was tied at the end of last year; it’s a half a point lower today.

Look waaaaaay down the list to find “high tax, high-service” Connecticut.

Protest Too Much

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First things first: Mark Dayton is “governor” of Minnesota in exactly the same sense as Mickey Dolenz was the “drummer” in the Monkees. Tina Flint-Smith is calling all the real shots in the state. Mark Dayton is there to say stupid things and draw attention away from where the action is.

But with that said?

Seriously, Governor Flint – Smith “Governor” Dayton?

You want tolerance?

Get over yourself, “governor”. If Minnesotans weren’t fundamentally tolerant, there wouldn’t be 100,000 Somalis in Minneapolis, and 20,000 in St. Cloud.

And if yesterday’s attack had happened in great swathes of the rest of the world –  the Middle East, India, the Balkans, Greece, and or dare I say Somalia itself – this ethnic and religious oriented attack would have been met by death squads roaming the streets looking for Somalis to beat, stab and shoot.

No, “governor”, the intolerant one is the one who says “go along with the program and shut up, or get out of Minnesota”. Which, if you recall – and that is by no means certain – was you, “governor”.

For chrissake, just resign already.

UPDATE:  Or as Walter Hudson puts it, “If we’re going to talk about tolerance, fine. Let’s define it as — above all else — not going on a stabbing spree at the mall.”

Dodging The Point

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Ever since Governor Dayton passed one of the highest taxes in the nation on people earning over about $150,000 a year, conservatives have been predicting an exodus of the productive class.

DaytonDustbowl

The Minnesota left is doing cartwheels over “data” showing it’s not happened…

…sort of.  I add emphasis:

The ranks of the very rich are growing in Minnesota, despite a controversial tax increase that singles out the biggest earners to pay more.

Critics predicted that the ultra-affluent would flee after Gov. Mark Dayton secured 2013 passage of a new income tax tier of 9.85 percent on individuals who make more than $156,000 a year. But the latest data show that the number of people who filed tax returns with over $1 million in income grew by 15.3 percent in the year after the tax passed, while the new top tier of taxpayers grew by 6 percent.

So many holes in this “story”:

People making over a million a year – the “ultrarich” – can live anywhere they want;  the Twin Cities are a great place to be rich; good quality of life with lots of bigger-city amenities, and your dollar, after taxes, still goes a ways.   That’s why so many big corporations have their headquarters in the Twin Cities, even though they haven’t hired a non-service blue-collar worker in Minnesota in decades; it’s a great place to be a CEO.

As to the number of people in the >$156K tax bracket rising?  So what?  As the value of the dollar drops, and inflation creeps in, more real estate agents, dentists, software architects, insurance salespeople and the like find their incomes creeping upward from $145K to $156K.

But you have to then ask:

  • How many of them hit that $156K mark, stew on it for a year or so, and decide to move to Hudson or Fargo or Superior?
  • How many more would have reached that threshold if it weren’t for the tax hike?

The answers, by the way are “anecdotally, many” and “the Strib, being Tina Flint-Smith’s waterboys, sure aren’t going to tell us”.

Eating The Seed Corn

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Minnesota DFLers are romping and frolicking in money from the “surplus” – a misnomer referring to the billion dollars overtaxed from Minnesota’s productive class.

DaytonDustbowl

But more and more, the evidence shows that the “surplus” is a false positive – and that Minnesota’s productive class is choosing greener, lower-tax pastures:

Minnesota, on net, lost $1 billion of income to other states between 2013 and 2014. Specifically, the state lost $944 million in adjusted gross income reported by tax filers who moved in and out of Minnesota. This is the largest net loss of income ever reported for Minnesota, and it represents a dramatic rise from just three years ago, when the state lost $490 million.

Gotta tell you – if Wisconsin somehow manages to stay the course, the greater Hudson area is looking better and better…

“But it’s mostly retirees leaving the state!”.

Well, no (emphasis added):

While the IRS has been tracking income movement since 1992, it released a new data series last year that for the first time provides annual information on who is moving from state to state, based on age and income. These new data refute a long-held assumption that Minnesota’s income loss is primarily due to retirement.

In fact, people in their prime working years represent the largest portion of the net loss of taxpayers and income. Working-age people between 35 and 54 account for nearly 40 percent of Minnesota’s net loss of tax filers for the 2013-14 period. People between 55 and 64 — most of whom are still in the workforce — account for another 23 percent.

“But it’s just the ‘one percent’, moving to their beach houses in Coral Gables!”

Some of them certainly are; capital is mobile, and when it needs to, it moves.

But no – in fact, the biggest chunk is the part of the middle class that provides both much of the spending and many of the entrepreneurs that provide jobs for, well, everyone else:

But this isn’t just about the top 2 percent, as the governor wants people to believe.

Minnesota taxes on the middle class are still high relative to other states. Not surprisingly, Minnesota is, on net, losing this population, too. In fact, between 2011 and 2014, taxpayers earning between $100,000 and $200,000 accounted for 41 percent of the state’s net population loss.

 

Minnesota’s consistent net loss of people and income to other states poses serious challenges to the state both today and into the future. Economic growth is currently constrained by a tight labor market, which, in part, is due to the state not attracting the people with the qualifications necessary to fill today’s jobs.

The parable of the ant and the grasshopper springs to mind.

The DFLers are the grasshoppers.

A Pattern

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To: Governor Dayton

From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant

Re:  Tomorrow’s Faux Pas, Today.

Governor,

You should be getting used to the fact that your most “progressive” left of center advisers routinely lead you into policy statements that sound disconnected from reality. I say “should” be learning it; clearly you have not yet. Because your latest announcement on second amendment issues – “no-fly, no buy”, barring people who are on the federal “no fly” list from buying guns – is quite clearly an attempt to ramp up the left’s turnout in the upcoming election.

But – as we on the right, and among the second amendment Human Rights movement told you – it’s unconstitutional.

You should be getting used to this by now; they’re wrong, we are right. Every time. No exceptions.

Are we detecting a pattern, yet?

That is all.

(PS:  But by all means, keep going.  The right needs all the rallying points it can get).