This Saturday, AM1280 will be joining with the North Ramsey County Republicans in putting on the first really good gubernatorial candidates’ debate of the season!

Brad Carlson and I will host the event, at the Concordia Academy in Roseville (just north of Highway 36 on Dale Street).  The debate will start promptly at 1PM, and will be heavily audience-participation focused. 

As this is written candidates (in alpabetical order) Rob Farnsworth, Scott Honour, Jeff Johnson, Marty Seifert and  Dave Thompson are all on the line-up.  This may be the best debate you’ll hear before the caucuses. 

It’s a fund-raiser for the North Ramsey County Republicans (House districts 42A, 42B and 66A).  Admission is $10 if you register in advance.  Refreshments will be provided, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume some of us are going to adjourn to a local watering hole afteward for a post-debate wrapup. 

So sign up and come on out!  It’s going to be a fun event!

SCENE:  A Ramada Inn in Inver Grove Heights.  Outside the hotel, the letter-board sign says “Independence Party now accepting Applications to run for US Senate”.  The sign is subtitled “No Experience Necessary”.

Cut to inside a small meeting room inside the hotel.  Posters of Jesse Ventura and Dean Barkley prominently adorn the wall behind three people sitting at a long table.   

Mince MIETZ, a short scholarly-looking man in his thirties clad in an ill-fitting tweed jacket bearing a button identifying him as the “Independence” Party deputy director for protocol, is holding candidate screenings in a small conference room.  Along with MIETZ sits Verdana FONT, a serious-looking short-haired fifty-something woman in short hair and a peasant skirt.  She is the Indy Party’s secretary.  Lionel BULK, a sixtyish, professorial looking fellow with a meerchaum pipe and a bow tie, sits to their left.

MIETZ:  I call this meeting of the Independence Party US Senate Nominations Committee to order!

FONT: Excellent!

BULK:  Remember.  We’re going to stick to the Independence Party’s core principles!

FONT:  Right.  Speaking of which, Mince, would you read those to me so I can…

MIETZ:  (Yells out the door) Next!

(In the door walks Thorn THOMAS, a tidy, trim man of about sixty with horn-rimmed glasses in a houndstooth suit).

FONT: Have a seat, Mr. Thomas!

THOMAS:  (Softly). Thank you.

BULK:  So, Mr. Thomas – what’s your background, that would qualify you to run for the United States Senate?

THOMAS:  I was undersecretary of Commerce for Differential Tax Application Theory under the Carlson Administration.  In that capacity, I was in charge of calculating tax differentials based on abstruse accounting theories intended to find relationships between dissimilar cultural phenomenae and tax receipts.  Then, I formed a Public Relations agency, where I’ve mostly represented Minnesota social service non-profits.  I ran for Hennepin County Soil and Water Commission in 2004 as a non-partisan candidate endorsed by the Minnesota Federation of Teachers, the SEIU, ISAIAH and the Teamsters.  And I am a permanent, tenured adjunct at the Humphrey Center.

MIETZ:  Excellent.  So – what would be your platform if you were to get the Independence Party nomination to run against the GOP nominee?

BULK: Umm…

MIETZ: …and Al Franken.

THOMAS:  I believe in not just good government, but the best government.  I believe if we give government the people, money and respect it needs, everyone benefits.

(MIETZ, BULK and FONT confer briefly).

MIETZ:  Excellent, Mr. Thomas.  Thank you!  Please leave a resume and a head shot.

(THOMAS leaves a manila folder and leaves the room)

FONT:  Well, he certainly seems to be an homage to the Independence Party’s roots, a la Tim Penny and Dean Barkley!

MIETZ:  Yep.  I believe we could get behind him!  (Yells out door) Next!

(In the door walks Garth MULLER, former Vice Chair for Ideological Purity at the Minnesota 5th CD Libertarian Party.  We walks in at the head of a bearded, bow-tied entourage of twenty-and-thirty-ish white males, many of whom are chuckling and giggling softly as they line up along the wall as MULLER takes his seat).

MIETZ:  And you are…?

MULLER:  I’m Garth Muller.  I’m an anarcho-libertarian.  I was a conservative Republican, but then I decided to support Ron Paul.  I now believe all parties are exactly identical, although I think the Independence Party is different (members of bearded, bow-tied retinue chuckle impulsively).

BULK:  Excellent.  So – your platform?

MULLER:  Abolish all government.  Make all human interactions voluntary.

FONT:  So…legalize everything.

MULLER:  No.  To “legalize” something implies we recognize the legitimacy of law in the first place.  Abolish law and all means to enforce it.  It’s all just a form of force inflicted on the people. 

FONT:  So you used to be a Republican…

MULLER:  Most of us used to be (a few scattered hisses break out among the entourage) but after what happened at the convention in 2012, I’ll never vote Republican again. 

MIETZ:  Thank you very much, Mr. Muller!  Please leave a resume and a head shot.  (MULLER’s entourage breaks out laughing at term “head shot” as they leave the room).

BULK:  In the 30 years I spent in the DFL, I never heard of such a thing.

MIETZ:  (sotto voce with a conspiratorial grin) Oh, I bet you have not, Lionel.  (To BULK):  Oh, I have.  Like a lot of disaffected Republicans.

FONT:  A lot?

MIETZ:  Enough!  No, he matches the Independence Party’s principles perfectly fine, too! OK – who’s next?

FONT:  Wait – Muller and Thomas were absolute opposites!  One was a Carlson Republican, and the other was so far out on the Libertarian wing that Ron Paul would probably tell him to take it easy…

MIETZ:  Yeah!   I know!

(Avery LIBRELLE walks into the room, leaves a resume and a head shot).

MIETZ:  And you are Avery Librelle?  Have a seat!

LIBRELLE:  I prefer to stand!

For the injustices we face are too great, the enemies that support them too entrenched, and the damange they are causing too horrible, for a thinking person to sit!  It is time to RISE!

(FONT dabs a tear from her eye.  So does BULK).

MIETZ:  So what prompts you to run on the Independence Party ticket?

LIBRELLE:  The needs – a strong social safety net, teachers that want for nothing, single payer healthcare, and equality for all – are needs that my mentor Paul Wellstone instilled in me from an impressionable age!

But then the DFL betrayed us, and I believe its time for a different party to…

MIETZ:  Oh, look at the time.  We’ll be in touch!

(LIBRELLE leaves the room).

FONT:  (wiping tears from her eyes).  What?  Librelle was perfect!

BULK:  Yes – that was a perfect encapsulation of what the Independence Party stood for back when it was founded!

MIETZ:  Well, yes.  But then the first two were even better!

FONT:  How so?

MIETZ:  You’re new at this, aren’t you?

BULK:  Well, I’m new to the Independence Party.

MIETZ:  Everyone is new to the Independence Party!   It’s like this…

(Gretel STROMBERG walks into the room.  The Executive Director of “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes”, she is dressed in a low-cut black cocktail dress and a pair of strappy black high-heeled “talk politics to me” pumps)

(Without a word, STROMBERG slinks around behind BULK, who sits, speechlessly, as STROMBERG drags her black boa around his neck, breathing seductively in his ear.  She then leaves a box of chocolates in front of FONT, nibbles on MIETZ’ earlobe, and leaves a paper bag full of $20 bills labelled “Best Regards, “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes; Don’t Show This Bag To The Campaign Finance Board!  XOXOXO, MUFAPC!” on the chair where the candidates had been)

(Then STROMBERG leaves, as quietly as she came, leaving only the scent of her perfume)

MIETZ:  So yeah.  I think MULLER matches our principles this year.

(And SCENE).

Top priorities for Twin Cities Democrat politicians, staff, and media (pardon the redundancy):

Deal with the suddenly-crucial problem of cell phone theft:  “Kill switch” legislation a priority since the Mark Andrew incident.  Because it’s not really an issue until it happens to a DFL politician.  Of course, they’re still going to spend the coming session fighting against the citizen’s write to keep and bear “kill switches” to help prevent thugs from hitting your “kill switch” with a club, knife, or gun.

For heaven’s sake, get Al Franken some cover from that “60th Vote on Medicare” thing:  There’s an election coming up, for Chrissake.  The editors put Kevin Diaz on the “Franken PR Flak” beat this time; his point is, naturally, that there were several “sixtieth votes”, potentially, over time.  Unmentioned; without Franken, all the others were irrelevant.

Cardiac screening is job one!:  OK, not yet.  But I have a hunch with R. T. Rybak’s close call over the weekend, the problem will receive aggressive lip service.

Here’s the MN Gun Owners PAC website.

Here’s the site for Stewart Mills for Congress.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

• I’m in the studio today from 1-3.  We’ll start with Brian Strawser and Mark Okern from Minnsota Gun Owners PAC, talking about the look ahead to the session and their endorsement of Julianne Ortman for US Senate.  Then – Stewart Mills, candidate for the US House seat in the 8th Congressional District!
• Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!
• Tomorrow,  Brad Carlson is on “The Closer” from 1-3PM!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via my UStream video and chat channel.
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our Facebook page!

Join us!

Big week coming up Saturday on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, so I thought I’d start talking about it now.

First, I’ll have Brian Strawser and Mark Okern of the Minnesota Gun Owners PAC, talking about their endorsement of Julianne Ortman and the year ahead in the legislature (hint: it’s going to be another doozy).

Then – Stewart Mills, CEO of Mills Fleet Farm and candidate for the US Congress in CD8, will join me to talk about his race.

Hope you can tune in.  Or join the show at 651 289 4488!

James O’Keefe and his merry band of prankersters are able to fraudulently obtain ballots 97 percent of the time:

New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61 times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents. On only two occasions, or about 3 percent of the time, were the agents stopped by polling-place officials. In one of the two cases, an investigator was stopped only because the felon he was trying to vote in the name of was the son of the election official he was dealing with.

Clearly, O’Keefe has overstepped the bounds of…

…wait.  I said O’Keefe, didn’t I?  What did the article actually say?

The New York Department of Investigation’s report doesn’t address the serious issue of absentee-ballot fraud, where at least a paper trail to catch fraud can be created. But it does highlight a troubling case indicating that voter impersonation Chicago-style is still with us.

Oh. 

Um…

Fox News!

The gun-grabber movement is going to make a particularly insidious push to attack your second-amendment rights in the upcoming session.

The Minnesota Gun Owners PAC is launching an opening salvo, getting on the endorsement board for the upcoming Senate race and backing Senator Julianne Ortman:

 “Throughout her time in the Minnesota Senate, Julianne Ortman has been an energetic and consistent advocate for Minnesota’s gun owners, “ said Mark Okern, Chairman, Minnesota Gun Owners PAC.  “She has demonstrated a strong commitment to policies that protect the rights of Minnesotans to hunt, enjoy the shooting sports, and protect their families from violent criminals.”

The gun-grabbers are going to be doing a lot of talk about “common sense”. Ortman gets it – there is no “common sense” to the idea of the gun-show background check:

As a Minnesota State Senator, Julianne Ortman consistently opposed gun control measures that would have impacted the rights of law-abiding Minnesotans while having no impact on violent criminals.  Senator Ortman supported the Minnesota Citizen’s Personal Protection Act in 2003 and 2005.  She also supported Stand Your Ground legislation in 2012 that was later vetoed by Governor Mark Dayton.  Most recently, she was a strong and vocal advocate for gun owners as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during several days of hearings.

 “As United States Senator, we are confident Julianne Ortman will continue her strong support for Minnesota’s gun owners and be a leader on this issue not only for Minnesota but also for the nation, “ said Okern.

Ortman has gotten a mixed rap – but, I maintain, has done a good job of earning conservatives’ support, especially that of the communities that support the Second Amendment. She was vital in pushing the “Good Gun Bill” last session – a finger in the eye of the “Let’s Just Ban Something!” crowd.

I think it’s a good call .

We return to look at the nascent Minnesota GOP race for U.S. Senate.  We broke down the GOP governor’s battle royale here.

____

While the Minnesota GOP governor’s race has attracted most of the attention from the state’s punditry and conservative activists, the race for U.S. Senate has been at best a political red-headed stepchild – an electoral Clint Howard.  A bevy of unheralded candidates and little money raised hasn’t fundamentally altered the state of the race since July.  This despite the increasingly polling weakness of Sen. Al Franken.

Much like the man who he’ll likely be sharing the top of the DFL ticket with, Gov. Mark Dayton, Sen. Al Franken has seen his approval rating collapse, with the last six months essentially undo six years of polling gains following his contested 312-vote margin of victory.  Franken’s approval rating has dipped to 39%, with a bare majority of 51% disapproving.  Ideologically sympathetic pollsters have pegged Franken’s percentages much higher, but his 10-12% early head-to-head numbers against a mostly unknown GOP field suggests Minnesota’s junior senator hasn’t found the political elixir that Sen. Amy Klobuchar rode to victory just a scant 12+ months ago.  The question remains whether Republicans can take advantage. (more…)

We breakdown the state of the GOP race for governor.  We offer a similar analysis of the GOP Senate contest here.

___

The seasons have changed significantly since our last detailed analysis of the GOP governor’s race – and so has the political climate.

Last July, Minnesota’s political commentariat had all but official declared Gov. Mark Dayton the winner in his 2014 re-election effort.  Sporting a 57% approval rating, despite a legislative session that saw no shortage of controversial bills (including a warehouse tax even the Star Tribune editorial board begged Dayton to reconsider), Dayton looked in good position to cruise through the fall and winter political doldrums.

Fast-forward six months and Mark Dayton’s numbers are dropping as quickly as the temperature.  Dragging a 52% disapproval rating into the 2014 session, Dayton has been eager to recast his imagine as a traditional tax-and-spend liberal, suggesting he’d return the bulk of Minnesota’s projected $1.1 billion surplus (minus erasing the shift in education dollars) as tax cuts.  The reception to the concept has only been slightly warmer than absolute zero in the DFL caucus, framing a potential conflict between Dayton’s yearning for re-election aid and the legislative desires for more spending.

Tax cuts or not, Dayton’s greatest potential saving grace may simply be his opposition. (more…)

To:  Governor Dayton
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:   Remember all those pieces of paper you signed last spring?

Governor Dayton:

Yesterday, you told MPR News in re the new $90 million Senate Palace that Tom Bakk rammed through at the literal last possible moment of the last session…:

“I think the building itself is necessary … We’re talking about a project for the next century,” Dayton told reporters Wednesday. “But I think the price tag on it, and appearance of it, are a little high.”

Er, Governor Dayton?  You signed the appropriation into law.

Or at least we presume it was you, and not Carrie Lucking moving your hands.

That presumption looks weaker and weaker these days.

Dayton said he wants a more modest, less expensive version and planned to share his concerns soon with Senate leaders…The new building is needed to make up for the square footage lawmakers will lose once the renovation of the Capitol is complete, Bakk added. Under present Senate arrangements, the majority party is housed in the Capitol while the minority is housed in the State Office Building. Bringing Democrats and Republicans together under one roof is important, Bakk said.

Here’s a solution.  Mere blocks from the Capitol lies downtown Saint Paul.  It’s got a 30% vacancy rate – and I suspect that’s even higher in the gulch between Cedar and Jackson streets, where there is virtually nothing living (thanks, largely, to DFL policies).

Why not move the Senate into the old USBank building?  Or 375 Jackson?  The Hamm?   Alliance?  The Big Red One?

Or maybe Macy’s?   That’d seem…appropriate.

PS to Governor Dayton:  Nancy Pelosi was being just a little bit flippant, I think, when she said “you have to pass it to see what’s in it”.  It technically is your job to know what you’re signing into law.

There are two ways to look at Rep. Keith Ellison’s statement to a group of minimum wage protesters last week; emphasis added by me:

“We in Congress will try to raise the minimum wage. We got opponents on the other side of the aisle who say that there shouldn’t be no minimum wage. So, we are in difficulty fighting these guys.

“But, we know, at the executive level, an executive order can change the situation. We demand it, right now. Mr. President, sign the executive order. We demand this federal worker work reform, federal contractors. Give the pay raise, the livable, fair wage. Let’s do it now. I gave him a letter to this effect, yesterday.”

As Ellison walked off stage, the crowd chanted: “Sign the executive order!”

Either Ellison thinks Obama is a King, with absolute control over this country, or he has very little respect for his audience and thinks he can trick them into believing so. 

I’m going to lean toward “has very little respect, and thinks he can trick them”; that a graduate of a Jesuit high school, Wayne State University and a Tier 1 law school thinks saying things like “shouldn’t be no minimum wage” is authentic reeks of distilled cynicism.

Here’s Senator John Pedersen’s website running for the CD6 nomination.

Here’s my piece on Mandela.

And here’s Berg’s Law.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The old Sears Roebuck building on Lake Street in Minneapolis was converted into Midtown Global Market, an indoor bazaar.  It’s been losing money for years.  Now the mayor wants another $1.8 million to bail them out.

 

Look, Mr. Mayor:  if the project can’t make enough money to fund its own operations, it’s not a business: it’s a hobby.  The City has no business funding hobbies.

 

Granted, it’s Minneapolis, so I don’t care what they do in their own town.  But whatever Minneapolis does, St. Paul wants to do, like a younger brother who whines “How come I didn’t get a train?”  Throwing cold water on damn-foolishness is wise, no matter where it occurs.

 

Joe Doakes

That, and the bill is eventually going to be passed on to taxpayers in Moorhead, Wilmar and Lakeville (and any left in Saint Paul) via Local Government Aid.

Which is, of course, why we have Local Government Aid – so the citizens of Minneapolis can continue to be gulled into thinking their government is doing its job with the tax money they extract for life in the city.

Marty Seifert’s website.

Here’s Larry Jacobs’ piece in the NYTimes.  I may be posting a refutation in coming weeks if time permits…

Info on Rep. Knoblauch’s lawsuit.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

• I’m in the studio today from 1-3.  I’ll be talking with former House minority leader and gubernatorial candidate Marty Seifert about the race for the GOP nomination.  Then, former Representative Jim Knoblauch will join me to talk about his lawsuit against the new Senate Palace Office Building.
• Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!
• Tomorrow,  Brad Carlson is  back!  Brad’ll have Marty Seifert on the show.  “The Closer” airs from 1-3 Sundays!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via my new UStream video and chat channel.
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

Michael Paymar is leaving the House:

State Rep. Michael Paymar announced Wednesday he will leave the Legislature after his current term expires.

 

The St. Paul Democrat is the chairman of the House Public Safety Committee; his district is considered safe Democratic territory.

No.  New York under Boss Tweed was “safe Democrat territory”.  Michael Paymar’s Highland Park, a part of Saint Paul that ponied up seven figures in donations for Kathleen Soliah’s defense fund, is a whole level beyond that.  The DFL could endorse a bag of dog food and get 60% of the vote, and most of the voters would say the bag of dog food made perfectly good sense in the debates.

Paymar collided this year with his party’s leadership over whether to change Minnesota’s gun laws. His bill to expand background checks and restrict gun purchases stalled when House leaders declined to call a vote.

Well, no.  It stalled when Paymar’s (and Hausman’s, and Rep. Martens’) copy-and-paste gun-grab bills served their purpose to the people who paid for their offices.

Best of luck, Representative Paymar.

In past months, I’ve showed you how not only big-media-alum group-blog MinnPost, but “No Rant, No Slant” Minnesota Public Radio are on the take from the Joyce Foundation – which funds “Protect MN”, the anti-rights group run by Rep. Heather Martens.  I speculated that it might be the reason that MPR has been so incurious about Martens’ astroturf group, and why the MinnPost – with all its pretenses to legitimate journalism – spent the past year giving Martens a public tongue bath.

I asked – does this involvement go any higher in the Twin Cities’ “progressive” political world?

I asked, and Bill Glahn answered – ten months ago.  Joyce is a huge financial backer of “Take Action MN”, a non-profit that verges on being a political party in its own right, a descendent of “Progressive Minnesota”, which had its own unseemly connections with “non-partisan” institutions.

Glahn:

The Joyce Foundation of Chicago, Illinois, was founded by Iowa lumber heiress Beatrice Joyce Kean.  This $760 million foundation has been involved with TakeAction since near the beginning of the Minnesota non-profit’s existence.  Joyce’s 2006 Annual Report (p. 25) shows a grant of $350,000 to be paid out to TakeAction over two years, “To develop and promote a political reform agenda focused on campaign finance, judicial, and voting rights reforms.”
Joyce’s 2009 IRS Form 990 reveals that the $350,000 grant to the 501(c)(3) TakeAction Minnesota Education Fund was renewed in 2008 for two additional years, “for ongoing efforts to reform and strengthen democracy in Minnesota.”[12]
Joyce’s 2011 IRS Form 990 reveals that, yet again, the $350,000 grant to the TakeAction Education Fund was renewed in 2010 for two additional years, “For advancing a political reform agenda that encompasses election administration, voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting, and judicial independence.”[13]

The Joyce Foundation’s website indicates that the TakeAction Education Fund received an additional $150,000 in 2012 for one year, “For advancing a democracy reform agenda using legislation, community organizing, movement building, coalition work, and unexpected alliances.”
Unexpected alliances?  In any event, the seven-year total of grants from the Joyce Foundation to TakeAction equals $1,200,000.

So let’s break this down:  The Joyce Foundation heavily sponsors “Progressive” non-profits, including “Take Action MN”, “Protect MN”, and (I strongly suspect) “Common Cause MN”.

And they pour money into at least two “non-profit” Minnesota media outlets that have pretensions to respectability; Minnesota Public Radio and the MinnPost.

I’ve sought comment from both organizations in the past, without success.  I’ll try again.

All of this carefully obfuscated money going to support “campaign finance…reforms” is one thing.

Going to buy friendly media coverage?

And finding willing takers, in an industry whose “code of ethics” tells journalists who avoid financial entanglements in their “journalism?”

In the past week or so, the news got out that “ProtectMN” – the astroturf group almost entirely funded by Joyce Foundation – is getting some big-name help.

Richard Carlbom, the PR whiz behind the “Vote No” movement re the Marriage Amendment, has started his own consulting operation. 

And as all consulting operations do in every industry, Carlbom and his consultancy are going where the money is. 

Michael Bloomberg is going to spend a metric ton of money on attacking the Second Amendment.  And the Joyce Foundation is picking up the pace in its campaign to fund grassroots astroturf anti-gun groups, buy friendly media and media coverage, and gin up junk-academia to attack gun violence gun ownership.

And Carlbom is bellying up to the fiscal bar; he’ll be working with “ProtectMN”, Rep. Heather Martens’ astroturf gun-grabber group – a relationship made possible by the Joyce Foundation’s grant, reportedly, of $100,000 to “ProtectMN” (via an intermediary cut-out group). 

This is on top of Joyce’s purchase of $50,000 worth of the MinnPost’s “Journalism” on the subject (to say nothing of their sponsorship of Minnesota Public Radio coverage of the issue), and sponsorship of a network of other liberal “community organizer” groups like “Take Action MN”, who share resources with the gun-grabbers. 

Nobody knows if Carlbom has any actual passion for the gun issue.  He could well be just an ideological Hessian.  But if so, he’s a Hessian that “ProtectMN” desperately needs; Heather Martens may be the most inept community organizer in Minnesota political history.  It’s bad enough (for the orcs) that every single substantive thing Martens have ever said is a lie; it’s worse (for them) that pretty much everyone with a right to an opinion knows it.  So Carlbom getting into the issue may or may not be a game-changer – but it’s a line-up change that the orcs have needed to make for over a decade. 

Here’s The Important Part:  Liberals with deep pockets will always fund gun-grabber groups.  They’ll try to put different shades of lipstick on the pig that is suppressing our human right to self defense; they’ll change their spokespeople and their tactics, trying to create something – popular support for gun-grabbing – from nothing. 

There are very few conservatives with deep pockets supporting our human right to self-defense.  And much as the Good Guys would welcome their involvement (and money), it’s not what the issue will turn on.

But with the addition of Carlbom, the gun-grabbers now have several people working full-time to try to sway not just legislators, but your neighbors. 

Against that, the good guys have a bunch of plucky volunteers. 

If every single Minnesotan with a carry permit, all 160,000 of them, would donate $1 a year to the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance – the group that organized the entire grass-roots “Shall Issue” movement in Minnesota – the group could not only fund itself, but have at least one, probably two people working the issue full-time.  Lobbying, building infrastructure, investigating the orc groups, and above all making sure the grass roots – you and me, the Real Americans – can focus our efforts as effectively as possible.

Working together as volunteers, we Real Americans are more than a match for Michael Bloomberg, Representatives Martens and Hausman and Paymar, Senator Latz, Jane Kay and all the rest of the orcs. 

With the aid of a couple of people working the issue for a living?

We could stomp them flat and keep them flat. 

A buck a permit a year. 

We gotta make this happen.

“My Way or the Highway” absolutists aren’t new to politics in any party, much less the GOP.  In 2000, it was hard to get any traction in some caucuses I remember if candidates weren’t not only pro-life, but weren’t sufficiently, convincingly pro-life enough.  It was the litmus test for a lot of people.

I think it was Ronald Reagan who said “if someone is 80% your friend, it doesn’t make them 20% your enemy”.  And beyond that, William F. Buckley enjoined conservatives to “vote for the most conservative candidate who can win“.

There are a few such groups in the GOP today that just don’t buy that; some of the Ron Paul crowd, and some traditional conservatives, have morphed over to the “Anything less than 100% might as well be 0%” school of thought.

It’s easy to sigh and roll your eyes and chuckle “that’s naive” – and then catch yourself for doing it, since there’s almost nothing in the world (short of adults who hang around comic book stores) more annoying that people who roll their eyes and chuckle about other people’s politics. 

But chuckling and rolling is a bad idea, if only because it prevents the possibility of anyone learning anything.  And a little learning is simply desperately needed.

Here’s a great example; over the weekend, I interviewed Cam Winton, the moderate Republican candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis.  He’s a sharp guy, and he’s got a genuine chance to shock the world in Minneapolis next month, and if I were a dishonest guy I’d figure out a way to get to Minneapolis and vote for him a couple of times, just like the Democrats do.

Now, in the great Republican scheme of things Winton’s a moderate.  And I’m not.  On the show, since the topic came up, he specifically listed three areas where a base conservative – like the AM1280 audience – might disagree with him; he supported gay marriage, he supports background checks at gun shows (provided that it can be shown they can’t be turned into a registry for confiscation) and…er, something else that I can’t remember.

Against that?  Winton advocates bringing a whole lot of free market common sense to Minneapolis; cutting spending, prioritizing the spending that’s left better (cops and roads, in a city with the highest crime and worst roads in Minnesota), cutting the pork (streetcar lines, city power co-ops), slashing mindless regulation of small business and much more.  He favors giving Minneapolis’ taxpayer a bigger bang for fewer bucks – something Minneapolis desperately needs after two generations of DFL spendthrifts. 

And I had a couple of Minneapolis conservatives write me after the show.  One wrote and said he’d sit the election out until Minneapolis got “a real conservative” running for Mayor.  To which I replied “Tom Tancredo is never going to get 51% of any vote in Minneapolis.  Ever.  You’ll never even get Rhonda Sivarajah or Dave Thompson or Jeff Johnson over the top for mayor in Minneapolis.  Cam Winton is the closest to a conservative I’ve seen running for office in the 28 years I’ve been watching Minneapolis politics that’s had a credible chance of winning.  Perfect is the enemy of good enough, especially when you’re a Republican in a city full of Democrat workers and clients”.

Put another way; Minnesota conservatives complained about Norm Coleman’s conservatism.  But none of them have shown me how a more conservative candidate could have even gotten into position to stage a credible run for mayor of Saint Paul – and that was 20 years ago, when the Saint Paul DFL still had people like Norm, Jerry Blakey and Randy Kelley – all of whom have been purged.

Another critic, a Twin Cities Second Amendment activist, decried Winton’s stance on background checks.

To which I respond:  Minneapolis is run by people who invite Michael Bloomberg to town; people who support Michael Paymar; people who would schuss right past background checks to ban every gun you own, if they could.  So even if you leave out the fiscally-conservative stuff completely (and you must not!), how would electing a person who favors just about the weakest credible “gun control” there, is provided that it could be made non-threatening in terms of confiscation (an iffy compromise, but one we made, successfullly, on the NICS system 20-odd years ago) be any worse than the current, anti-Second-Amendment, gun-grabber-friendly Mayor, or all of the DFL front-runners for the office who are at least as bad as Rybak, and jointly and severally worse than anything Winton is proposing…

…all of which is completely irrelevant, since the Mayor of Minneapolis, or any city in Minnesota, can have absolutely no policy impact on gun control, or any impact beyond their “bully pulpit” at all (and ask Representatives Paymar and Martens how much that bully pulpit got them this last session) by state law?   That’s right – the state’s pre-emption statute bars cities from having gun laws more restrictive than the state law!

On the issue of victim disarmament, the Mayor of Minneapolis – whatever their party or their beliefs – is as relevant as a promise ring on Kim Kardashian.  If Minneapolis elected a mayor whose entire platform was “melt down every gun”, it would be the same as electing a mayor with no platform at all.  It’s the law.

More realistically – if Minneapolis elects Cam Winton (and I hope they do), it’ll be a huge benefit to Minneapolis citizens and property tax payers – and a net gain for Minneapolis gun owners from the bully pulpit (it’s just not a big issue to Winton), and an absolute “no change” in terms of policy – because the City of Minneapolis has as much control over gun control policy as it does over building nuclear submarines and setting the federal budget; it’s not a job the law gives them.

Principle is a great thing.  One of the most important principles, I think, is analyzing ones’ principles to see if they’re making you do dumb things.

You vote for the most conservative (or libertarian-conservative, if you’re me) candidate who can win.  At the moment, in Minneapolis, that candidate is Cam Winton – who I am proud to support, “imperfections” and all.  He is the most conservative candidate who can win; not just because Minneapolis is a solid blue city, but because he is the most conservative candidate to have posted a single lawn sign, appeared at a single debate, knocked on a single door, gotten a single media appearance – much less running a pretty masterful campaign to boot. 

Yes, conservatives; there could come a time in the future when government by “moderate” Republicans as a sensible and solitary sane alternative to Democrat hegemony starts to convince the unconvinced that “Republican” and “conservative” aren’t the untrammeled evils that their establishment and media (pardon the redundancy) have been programming them to think.  Hint:  You’re not going to get there with 20 more years of R.T. Rybaks and Chris Colemans in power.  It’s happened before, in a place you may have heard of; the state of Minnesota.

Minnesota tax revenue is off since July.

After a couple of years of faster-than-expected receipts – read “the economy was growing faster than had been predicted”, largely due to GOP economic policies – things are flat to a little slow.

And if you’re a conservative, you already know why “flat” is as good as it’s gonna get (emphasis added):

The state took in more from personal income taxes and sales taxes than budget officials predicted.

Minnesota workers contributed $2.1 billion in income taxes, about $27 million more than state officials projected. Consumers paid $1.1 billion in sales tax, about $46 million more than expected.

Corporate income taxes came in at $342 million, down $11 million from estimates. Other revenue accounted for $457 million, about $64 million below projections.

This the first budget snapshot since new tax hikes on high earners and a menu of sales taxes on business-related services kicked in.

Catastrophic?  Hardly – yet.

Dispositive empirical proof that the DFL tax and spend policy is going to tank the economy?  Not just yet.

A sign that Minnesota’s economy can’t possibly be amused?

I’ll bank on it.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

When the IRS scandal broke and Progressives were poo-pooing it, I said it wasn’t about mistakes or miscommunication but voter suppression.  The Obama Administration used the IRS to prevent conservatives from raising money to get their message out, so Romney lost the election.

Now there’s proof.

All that time Dog Gone was howling about voter suppression, she was engaging in one of your most famous laws.

I knew it.

Joe Doakes

Eventually everyone knows it.

Minnesota has the 47th-best tax climate, according to the non-partisan [1] Tax Foundation.

In none of the five major categories – corporate, individual income, sales, unemployment or property taxes – is Minnesota even in the top 60%.

Keep up the good work, DFL!

[1] – Hey, if the media calls “Common Cause” “non-partisan”…

CORRECTION:  47th best.  Not 47th worst.  I needed coffee.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Keith Ellison managed to get himself arrested, rallying for social justice and anti-racisss enlightened immigration open borders.

Where was my congressional representative, Betty McCollum? Why wasn’t she arrested?

Did she skip the rally?

Why does Betty McCollum hate brown people?

Joe Doakes

Not sure she does much of anything.

Rod Grams has passed away after a long battle with cancer. 

Son of a dairy farmer from Princeton, MN, Grams came up through broadcasting, working his way from small radio stations into the anchorman’s seat at Channel 9 by the mid-eighties. 

From there, he went into politics – defeating Gerry Sikorski, who was hobbled by a capitol banking scandal that showed the door to not a few Congresspeople that year. 

And in 1994, at the crest of the “Contract with America”, he took over Dave Durenberger’s Senate seat, after beating Ann Wynia by  squeaker in a race that showed both the nascent power of conservatives in the exceedingly moderate Minnesota Independent Republican party, and the rising power of the state’s Second Amendment lobby. 

His term in the Senate also was a barometer for the slide of the Twin Cities media into outright partisanship; the Twin Cities media lavished coverage on the twists and turns in Grams’ personal life, and breathless wall to wall scrutiny on the travails of Grams’ son Morgan – of whom Grams’ ex-wife had had full custody – in a way that they never quite managed to for DFLers. 

But it is an objective fact that Grams accomplished more in his six years in DC than the celebrated Paul Wellstone did in 12, or than Amy Klobuchar likely will in her entire career. 

After being defeated for re-election by future “Worst Senator in America” Mark Dayton in 2000, Grams went back to his first love, broadcasting; he owned a cluster of radio stations in Central Minnesota.  

I had the pleasure of interviewing Senator Grams two or three times on the NARN.  He had a broadcaster’s knack for being a great interview subject. 

I urge you to direct your prayers – or whatever your worldview calls for – to his family.