So after yesterday’s passage in the House, it looks like gay marriage is a shoo-in.  The Senate will pass it like diarrhea through a bum’s lower GI tract, and Governor Messinger will sign it, possibly by Tuesday.

I’ve said it a million times; gay marriage means different things to me.  As a small-l libertarian, I don’t know that there’s not a case for allowing two consenting adults to sign a contract.  As a Christian, I think same-sex marriage is like playing tennis without rackets; it sort of misses the point of what marriage is, at least as I understand it.   As a member of a political minority in a place where the majority is deeply authoritarian, I think it’s just a matter of time before the state’s bureaucracy and an aggressive and recession-ravaged plaintiff’s bar starts suing people – photographers, bakers, tailors – who won’t work with gay couples, and eventually churches that demur.   As a divorced guy, I think “what the f**k are you gays thinking?  Gays have more disposable income per capita than breeders; a few years of exposure to the legal industry should bring you back down to earth”.

But this post isn’t about bad news.  This post is about finding the bright side of gay marriage in Minnesota.

To wit:  the Top Ten Benefits of Same Sex Marriage’s eventual enactment:

Bonanza!: My friends in the Family Law business are going to be able to upgrade their vacation plans!  Gays currently earn more than breeders, per capita; that’ll change now.

Won’t Bakk Down!:The DFL loses a wedge issue; since gays can now marry, the DFL is going to have to find another small, aggrieved, but wealthy and influential minority with an injustice to flog.  They don’t grow on trees.

The Honeymoon Is Over, And Cost A Metric Poo-ton!:  Gays can stop futzing over “Marriage” and start wondering where the hell all their tax money is going.  Now that their value as a wedge is nearly exhausted (“bullying” is going to play out pretty quick, here), it’ll be time for Gay Minnesota to figure out its political future.

The Battle Is Over, And We’re In A Metric Poo-Ton Of Doo-Doo!:  Republicans can stop futzing with marriage and start wondering where in the all their tax money and their political future is.

Walk On The Wild Side!:  Now, committed middle-class Christians can start learning civil disobedience, ignoring state marriage licensing.

Let’s Play Football!:  Chris Kluwe can get so focused on his punting now.

Back Of The Bus!:  The African-American community – which was even less favorably disposed to gay marriage than the mainstream white evangelical community – now has further evidence that the DFL wants them to shut up and sit at the back of the bus until they’re called on – on election day.

Honesty Can Prevail!:  The DFL can stop pretending to care about gays. The Teamsters and SEIU can go back to beating them up like back in the day.

A Learning Opportunity!:  The interesting thing about this debate was that the best debating on the behalf of gay marriage was done by libertarian conservatives, who made the libertarian and, to a degree, conservative case that there’s no reason to keep consenting adults out a contractual system that the other 98% of the the population gets.  The left’s argument – especially on the “Lefty Street”, the thousands of “progressive” bobbleheads who turned out to chant and eventually vote – ran more along the lines of “you are teh bigot!”.  So now that they’ve won, perhaps the left can put some of that extra energy into teaching their young adherents the rudiments of logic.  Unless, of course, having masses of stupid, smug, ignorant, sloganeering, chanting-bot followers is exactly what they want.

Hmmm.

So congrats, gays!

CORRECTION:  House, not Senate.  You seen one group of extreme liberal dogmatists, you’ve seen ’em all.

The DFL’s mulligan on the Care Provider Union Jamdown bill worked this time.

This story is from Demko at the MinnPost:

The vote came just two days after the bill, sponsored by Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, stalled in the finance committee on an 11-11 vote. Two Senate DFLers — Terri Bonoff of Minnetonka, and Barb Goodwin of Columbia Heights — joined all Republicans in voting against the controversial measure, which could affect upwards of 20,000 workers.

On the second vote, Bonoff joined her fellow DFLers in voting in favor of sending it to the floor. Goodwin again voted against the proposal.

Bonoff’s explanation was an early-morning chuckle:

Bonoff made it clear that her vote was not an indication that she supports the unionization proposal. “Make no mistake, I’m not changing where I stand on this bill,” she said.

But Republicans argued that a vote to move the bill to the floor — even without any recommendation — was no different than voting in favor of it. “Don’t fool yourself,” said Sen. Michelle Fischbach, R- Paynesville. “This is just like voting yes.”

The DFL are in a jam, of course; if the unions don’t get thousands of new dues-paying members, stat, the DFL’s major non-Alida-Messinger, non-plutocrat funding stream dries up solid pretty quick here.

If it stalls anywhere else, look for DFL legislators to go on hunger strikes, and then start taking hostages.

I almost wrote “more hostages”, but that’d be a little dramatic.

Wouldn’t it?

I got this yesterday from a source at the Capitol:

 “People are beginning to whisper the words:  Special session.  As of late yesterday afternoon, the final Finance bill (Transportation/Public Safety) was finally released, which included a 7.5 cent gas tax increase.  With not a single omnibus bill back from conference committee and [Transportation/Public Safety] still in the Tax committee (and you can’t take up any bill until 3 days of notification), there is no way we will have a complete budget prior to 5/15, at the earliest.

Also, wasn’t it Tom Bakk that said we won’t take that up until we have a budget?  

With not ONE omnibus bill to run the State government on the Governor’s desk, we don’t have a budget.”

Let that rattle around your noggin for a bit; the DFL that ran by telling the people (wrongly) that the MNGOP was focused on social issues has just spent nearly the entire session trying to unionize daycares, grab guns and legislate gay marriage – and stands a chance of needing a special session because the DFL Senate, House and Governor can’t agree with each other. 

This is what happens when you put the arrested adolescents in charge.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Heather Martens wants a do-over on gun control. Sandy Pappas wants a do-over on daycare unions. What, we just keep voting until the plebes get it right? Is that how this “democracy” thingy works? I never quite understood that.

Joe Doakes

Think of the DFL as diners at a four-star restaurant.

They paid good money for that coq au vin, or office; for what they paid, they’ll keep sending it back until everything’s perfect.

The Daycare Union Jamdown bill – sponsored by “my” Senator, the foul-mouthed Soliah-supporting Sandy Pappas – hit an unexpected speed bump in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday; DFL Senators Terri Bonoff and Barb Goodwin broke with the caucus and voted against the jamdown:

The sponsor, Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, called the defeat a disappointing setback. But she said she hopes she can resurrect the bill yet this week and have the committee re-vote and move it out to the Senate floor, perhaps without a recommendation that it be passed.

But she mentioned the bill remains challenging to pass, because it represents a major change in the idea of what a union is. Goodwin said she believes there are not enough votes on the Senate floor to pass the bill this year.

It “remains challenging to pass” because most providers hate it, and have done a great job of telling parents what’s wrong with it; it’ll raise costs (daycare is already terribly expensive in Minnesota) without affecting quality of service, and will alter the meaning of “union”, pitting small businesspeople against their customers.  The only purpose it would serve, if passed, would be to provide dues and headlines (“membership is up!”) to the big state unions.

It’s still alive in the House, and Senator Pappas has vowed to find a way to bring it back for a re-vote in the Senate.  Here’s how you can help hold this bill’s head underwater until it stops bubbling.

To:  Speaker of the House Thissen
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  Vote NOW!  For the Children!

Speaker Thissen,

You’re taking a lot of flak for pulling Rep. Paymar’s gun grab bill from the agenda.

Representative Paymar

You’re getting the flak from the usual crowd; astroturf checkbook advocacy groups whose executives are also their entire membership; “faith” groups of the type PJ O’Rourke once described as “having faith the same way some people have halitosis”, the smug preening “faith” of the church that has adopted government as a sort of Executive Assistant to God.

A group of anti-gun zealots.  They’re frowning because someone – I bet it was the second guy from the right, in the glasses – forgot to invite anyone that wasn’t a white, Volvo-diving, NPR-listening, alpaca-wearing pre-1970 Saint Olaf graduate.  Courtesy of the Joyce-Foundation-supported MinnPost.

The Minnesota Gun Violence Prevention Coalition, which encompasses the main people and organizations working for firearm regulation in Minnesota, staged a rally/press conference on Friday to demand Thissen allow the measure to come up for a vote.

 “It seems to me that Speaker Thissen is trying to protect the caucus,” said Sami Rahamim, whose father, Reuven Rahamim, was killed in the Accent Signage shooting last year.

Rahamim posed a tough question for Thissen and the rural Democrats who tanked the gun-control bill: Does the DFL House caucus need protecting, or “hardworking citizens like my father?”

I know – the Accent Signage shooting both takes attention away from the fact that violent crime (outside North Minneapolis) has been in free fall for 20 years.  And the anti-gunners are using Rahamim and the searing images of that horrible shooting to distract from the fact that nothing in any of the bills that the DFL has been pushing would have prevented the Accent shooting in any way whatsoever – that, indeed, the only thing that might have would have been a guy in the plant with a gun and the will to resist, whether a guard or just a regular schnook with a carry permit.

But never mind that, Speaker Thissen; the real point is coming up:

Advocates for more regulations stressed that polling shows the public supports such measures as universal background checks, which would regulate the private sale of firearms at gun shows and over the Internet, among other avenues.

That’s right, Speaker Thissen.  Ignore your lying eyes, which showed you Greater Minnesota hates your bill.  Ignore the polls that show support for your bills was an uninformed mile wide and an inch deep (gun control is a vital issue to 4% of the voters); never mind the historical fact that the last time the MNDFL crusaded against the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, you lost the House.

But no.  The people who carried the water

 “With the will of the majority behind us, we believed our state would pass a universal background check bill” this session, said Jane Kay, of Moms Demand Action [heh heh] for Gun Sense in America. “That has all been swept aside.”

Heather Martens [DFL Rep. HD 66A], executive director of Protect Minnesota, which lobbied lawmakers extensively on the issue, said Thissen should bring the measure up for a vote, even if it is doomed to fail.

“I think he has a responsibility to reconsider that decision,” she said.

And for once, notwithstanding the fact that she has not uttered one substantive word of truth in her public life, I agree with Representative Martens.

You need to bring this to a floor vote, Speaker Thissen.  And you need to do it immediately.    Because it’s the right thing to do.  Do it for the children.  You owe it to them.

And you need to bust some knuckles in your caucus to make sure they vote the party line too.   Get everyone in the DFL caucus to vote the Metrocrat conscience, and do it this week.  None of this “voting their constituency” BS;  make sure Joe Radinovich and Zac Dorhold and Steve Howe vote the most enthusiastic “yea” they can manage.

And smile for the cameras when you do.  Thanks.

That is all.

(SCENE:  MITCH Berg is bowling at the Minnehaha Lanes.  Avery LIBRELLE steps up to the next lane, laces up shoes as MITCH rolls a “6”).

LIBRELLE:  Hah hah, Merg.  You have nobody to run against Al Franken.  He’ll coast to another term.

MITCH:  Well, we’ll see.  The campaign is still very young.

LIBRELLE:  And the Governor’s race!   What, Jeff Johnson?  He ran for attorney General, and lost!  He’s over!

MITCH:  Er, Governor Messinger ran a couple of races and lost before he latched on as Senator and then Governor.  He ran what was at one point the most expensive failed race in state history again, back in the eighties.

LIBRELLE:  (Angrily) It’s Governor Dayton.

MITCH:  Oops.  Not sure how that happened.

LIBRELLE:  Pft.  Anyway, he’s  different!

MITCH:  You’re right.  He had an adoring media painting his toenails and covering up his issues.

LIBRELLE:  (Puts scoresheet on desk, steps up to the lane).  Waaah.

MITCH:  Well, you’ve got a point.  It’s a whole new race.

LIBRELLE:  (Elaborately prepares to roll ball; all sorts of shimmying and twitching) And what else?  You’v got Scott Honour.  He’s Minnesota’s Mitt Romney.

MITCH: (Rolls the second ball – misses the spare by one)  You say that like it’s a bad thing.  Two guys who actually earned their fortunes.

LIBRELLE:  Did you hear me?  He’s Minnesota’s Mitt Romney!  

MITCH:  Right.  I guess that makes Mark Messinger…er, Dayton – our George Soros.

LIBRELLE:  Hah hah hah!  There is no such thing as George Soros.

MITCH:  Hm.  (Mitch steps back to mark last ball)

LIBRELLE:  (Steps down the lane.  Backswings.  Forgets to release.  Hits self in face with ball.  Falls over)

MITCH: (Runs over to render assistance)  Avery?  You OK?  Can you hear me?

LIBRELLE:  (Dazed, incoherent)  I’m happy to pay for a better Minnesota.

MITCH:  I knew it.

(And SCENE)

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Governor was savagely taunted for telling taxpayers their Legislators need a raise.  Could that have been:

• Because although the Legislature has been in session since January 8, we still don’t have a budget or even a plan for one?
•  Because although they are nearly two BILLION dollars short of a balanced budget, they’re giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens?
•  Because they wasted months trying to infringe on Constitutionally protected rights?
•  Because now, three weeks from the end of the session, they finally consider freedom to use medical marijuana, that the Governor promises to veto? 

No, Governor Dayton, the Legislators don’t need a pay raise.

Now go away, or we shall taunt you a second time!

Joe Doakes

It’s not just that it’s been a do-nothing legislature – although it has.  Seriously – there is serious talk that the Legislature, which is fully controlled by the DFL, will have to go into special session anyway.

No, it’s that everything they’ve done this session has been extreme, divisive and destructive.

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

• I’ll be in from 1-3PM.   It’ll be a big show:  Hollee Saville will be talking about how you can help with the daycare unionization hearings (which are still going on).  Then, Dan Schwarz of Lift Bridge Brewing will talk about the beer tax.  Finally, Hugh Hewitt will join us to talk about our event on April 28!
• Brad Carlson is  on “The Closer” from 1-3 tomorrow. Tune on in!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all four 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 UStream video and chat
• 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!

Now that Speaker Thissen has made the eminently sensible move of getting his party out of an issue that is vital to 4% of the voters and deeply unpopular outside the 494/694 beltway – an issue that scuppered the DFL in 2002, indeed – Rep. Michael Paymar has the vapors:

Rep. Michael Paymar, a Democrat from St. Paul who authored the “Gun Violence Prevention Act,” said he was “very disappointed and very angry” that the proposal was no longer moving toward a vote on the House floor. “I think this is the kind of thing that really makes the public cynical about politicians and about the political process,” he said.

That’s right, Rep. Paymar.  You copied and pasted bills from other states, tried to ram them through after doing your damnedest to stifle public feedback, let a paid lobbyist introduce “Rep” Hausman’s bill, tried to jam your bill down on a wave of paid lies…

…in support of a bill that is considered absolutely vital by about 4% of the population, a bill that wouldn’t affect crime at all (which has been dropping faster as more people buy guns), with the aid of your buddies in the media that are perfectly happy to carry your lies without question:

Paymar painting the toenails of Jane Kay of “Moms Demand Action” (heh heh) and Representative Martens immediately after a hearing.

Why would anyone get cynical about that?

Try again next year, Mike.  We’ll be waiting for you.

DFL Speaker of the House Thissen has pulled whatever was left of the Metrocrat gun grab agenda off the table.

Several Democrats, mostly in the metropolitan area, were pushing for increased background checks for gun purchases but that legislation faced opposition from gun rights groups and rural Democrats.

Thissen says he decided to shelve the bill because neither side was willing to budge.

“Both sides of the issue are still not willing to come to a reasonable middle ground so I don’t think there’s a bill that can pass the Minnesota House of Representatives this year.,” Thissen said.

Senate Majority Leader Bakk also pulled the remaining odds and ends out of the Senate agenda – and in so doing, perhaps unwittingly showed the problem the DFL has on this issue:

DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk says the Senate won’t vote on a bill now that the House has decided not to act. He says the NRA and other gun rights groups were effective in their lobbying efforts.

“Public opinion would seem to support doing something on background checks,” Bakk said. “But I think when you measure the e-mail that many members receive, that public opinion didn’t weigh out in what their constituent contacts were. It was quite the contrary.”

So let’s get this straight; while official big-institutional polling showed “support” (in terms of numbers of people who said “yes” to “should we do more background checks”), in terms of actual feedback from the public it wasn’t even close?

Huh.

Chalk one up for the good guys.  The Gun Grab Agenda is dead in Saint Paul for this year. Kudos to GOCRA and, after years and years of sitting more or less on the sidelines on this debate in Minnesota, the NRA for resurrecting one of the great grassroots political organizations in the history of this state.

Take a break (to the extent Federal efforts will let you).  Rest up a little.  I have a hunch we’ll need everyone back on deck next January.

Governor Messinger Dayton responds to a little laughing and just about the mildest heckling in the history of face-to-face politics:

Contrast:  Tom Emmer responds to having a bag of 2,000 pennies dumped on him by an ofay young stooge acting with the full approval of the entire DFL:

I played hockey…and that actually got me to jump a little bit” 

And that was it.

(Not that whinging like Governor Messinger Dayton would have done any good; the DFL approved of young Robert Espinosa’s little stunt, and thus so did the media).

Note to Governor Messinger Dayton: we’re not your butlers and maids.  We pay the taxes – and those of us who pay attention notice that you and your idiot party are asking a lot of us to pay way too much.  For more and more people every day, it’s way more than this state is worth.

Anyway – I hope that noticing that people aren’t amused by your distracted noodling while your lieutenants and the special interests that put you in office gut the economy and our personal savings doesn’t scare you off from appearing in public (outside the Twin Cities metro, anyway); I’ve got some tough questions for you too.

“Heckling”, I believe you and your praetorian guard call it.

Take a governor who rarely sets foot in front of the public, and usually leaves the “dealing with the proles” thing to his press secretary Katie Tinucci and his ex-wife’s consiglieri Carrie Lucking.

Put him in front of a crowd that hasn’t been carefully screened for obedience, with some spectators who are fighting and losing the battle to stay in the state they, for whatever reason, love – and are losing, with taxes and fees and regulations slowing eating first the ability to start a business, and finally the impetus to live here at all.

Let one of them heckle His Excellency.

What could possibly happen?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I imagine King George felt this way about his peasants, too, right around 1775 or so.

 

 

Joe Doakes

He’s referring to this bit of video:

The Associated Press, in its capacity as part of the governor’s media Praetorian Guard, wrote:

The room apparently erupted into heckling and interruptions when Dayton was trying to explain his belief that state lawmakers should get a raise in pay.

 

The Minnesota Jobs Coalition, a Republican political committee working to unseat Dayton next year, recorded the meeting and publicized the governor’s comments.

Check out the video – or go to the piece that Joe linked, which has the longer version of the video.  Tell us if “the room erupted”.

It’s preposterous.  The crowd laughs when Governor Messinger Dayton tells them the Legislature is underpaid; a heckler points out that the legislators get a little over $31K a year for a “part-time” job – which it is (40 or more hours a week for about half the year). Dayton insults the audience.

It’ll be interesting to watch what happens with these meetings in the future.  If they happen, look for the first several rows to be pre-filled with adoring fans.  That’s what the legislature tried to do during the gun hearings, and that’s my fearless prediction.

A groundbreaking new report by the Center of the American Experiment (henceforth CAX) shows what a lot of us are seeing in our own lives, social circles and workplaces: Minnesota sucks, and people are leaving.

Courtesy of the Center of the American Experiment

Says the CAX:

There’s no question that Minnesota’s tax policies directly impact economic growth and opportunity in the state. There is, however, great debate over whether Minnesota’s current tax policy and the proposals being considered in St. Paul promote or harm economic growth. Those who favor a higher tax rate argue Minnesota needs more revenue to fund the education and infrastructure necessary to sustain economic growth. Advocates for lower taxes argue Minnesota needs low rates to make Minnesota an attractive place to invest, work and grow a business.

Like most economic questions, making the direct connection between state tax policy and economic growth is difficult. As William McBride—chief economist at the Tax Foundation—admits, “the economy is sufficiently complex that virtually any theory can find some support in the data.”

And there will, no doubt, be controversy about this report (which you should read). But it’s conclusion (of sorts, with emphasis added):

Though data can deliver mixed messages, data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) point to one clear and worrisome fact: Minnesotans and their wealth are moving to Southern and Western states. Between 1995 and 2010, an average of $340 million in income—based on 2010 dollars—moved each year from Minnesota to other states—a movement totaling more than $5 billion over 15 years. The states that on net receive the most Minnesota income tend to be low tax states such as Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington.

“But wait!”, someone might interject. “Of course people leave. They retire to someplace warmer!”

But there are five – count ’em, five (5) – reasons this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Working Stiffs: For starters – would retirees move to Sioux Falls?

First, many of the leading destination cities are economic centers, not retirement centers. Retirees certainly account for a large portion of the people and income leaving Minnesota. Some of the places receiving the largest portion of people and income from Minnesota include retirement destinations like Naples, Fort Meyers, and Scottsdale. But there are a large number of economic centers in the South and the West that are clearly attracting many more workers than retirees. Cities like Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas, Austin, Sioux Falls, and Denver have all gained substantial numbers of people and income from Minnesota…if Florida and Arizona were removed from the list, the income from receiving states would still far outweigh the contributing states.

Working people have joined the retirees, in other words.

You Have To Retire To Be A Retiree: The Great Recession slowed retirement migration nationwide, as people either couldn’t afford to retire, or couldn’t afford to move anywhere warm:

Second, as migration and retirement slowed during the Great Recession, Minnesota continued to lose substantial income to low-tax states in the South and the West that are not the locus of retirement.

The net movement of income to Florida dropped from $149 million in 2008 to $77 million in 2009, the first time Minnesota lost less than $100 million to Florida since 1996. The movement of income to Arizona also dropped substantially. Despite these drops, most of the other top states receiving income from Minnesota showed either no change or a bump in the income received from Minnesota.

Both Texas and Georgia gained more income inboth 2009 and 2010, while states like Colorado, Washington, South Dakota and North Carolina remained in a normal range.

All The Cool Working Kids In Liberal Hellholes Are Doing It: Minnesota isn’t the only high-tax “progressive” cesspool experiencing this problem:

analyses of the movement of income to and from other states show similar patterns of movement from high tax states and to low tax states.

In his book How Money Walks, after analyzing the same IRS data set for the entire country, Travis Brown concludes: “When you look at the mapped data over this period of time an unmistakable pattern emerges: income moved from high-tax states to states with no personal income taxes or lower per capita taxes.”11 In addition, a recent Manhattan Institute report documents the “exodus” from California

http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=36025&TB_iframe=1&width=640&height=607 using the data.12 The authors found, “as a general rule, Californians have tended to flee high taxes for low ones.” Thus, California, a state with a similar tax climate to Minnesota but very different weather, is experiencing similar migration patterns.

Big question there: is Minnesota becoming a cold California, or is Cali becoming a cold Minnesota?

It’s Everywhere: It’s on page 11 of the report (I said go read it, dammit), but I’ll show it to you here:

Courtesy the Center of the American Experiment.

Look at all of your high-tax “progressive” cesspools – New England, New York, Jersey, California? Warm, cold, old and stodgy or young and full of “creative class” hypstrz – they’re all hemorraging people.

It’s The Young Workers, Stupid: The fifth conclusion? Younger workers in their prime earning years are not moving to Minnesota:

The people considering a move tend to be younger and looking for better jobs and economic opportunities. Table 1 [on page 3 of the report]shows a steady decline in the average size of the households moving to Minnesota, dropping from households with 1.94 exemptions per return in 1996 to 1.75 in 2010. This drop suggests that fewer families are choosing to make Minnesota their home.

We’re getting an influx of college students and lonely drifters. Families in their peak earning years? Not so much.

The conclusion? The CAX puts it diplomatically:

The data reviewed in this report show first and foremost that Minnesota is consistently losing the battle to attract people and income to the state. Year after year the state on net loses thousands of people and undreds of millions of dollars. Regardless of how large the loss is, it is a loss which demonstrates Minnesota is not competing well with the rest of the country. That’s a fact that should be worrisome to every Minnesotan.

I don’t need to be diplomatic; the data show us that tough economies and high taxes didn’t even mix in the 2000s, when we had a government that was split between bobbleheaded spendthrift DFLers and responsible Republicans, and we held onto sanity by our fingernails.

Today? Anecdotally?

I can’t tell you the number of middle-class, hard-working, tax-paying people I know who’ve told me to pencil them in for anything happening more than 6-12 months out; they’re looking to move someplace where they aren’t forced to be happy to pay their hard-earned income for a Minnesota that just gets worse and worse.

To: GOP Senators Thst voted for the DFL’s Cash Grab
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re: Your vote

Take a Mulligan.

ASAP. Plead diminished capacity if you need to.

That is all.

It was ten years ago yesterday that the Minnesota State Senate passed the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, making Minnesota a “Shall Issue” state.

I was there, back during this blog’s infancy.  I sat in the gallery in the Senate and watched as the Metro DFL did what they always do on Second Amendment issues; lie as fast as they can.  I cringed a little as the Senate Metrocrat DFLers came back from recess theatrically donning flak jackets to express the fear that was really their only message.

That and crushing, embarassing, vindictive provincial ignorance; I cringed more when I tried to talk with the Code Pinkos that showed up.  The Women Who Lunch With Style made quite an impression with the media, who gave them slavish coverage, then as now – but they were embarrassingly ignorant about the law involved‘  No, I do mean ignorant.

And the media was as in the bag for the orcs then as they are today; indeed, today the connection is financial as well as ideological, with the MinnPost being the recipient of big money from the anti-gun-zealot Joyce Foundation .

The Metrocrat orcs predicted blood in the streets; Wes “The Original Lying Sack of Garbage” Skoglund claimed he feared being stalked by “gang-bangers with carry permits”, apparently having access to a list of gang-bangers who had clean criminal records who felt the need to pay $100 and get training to use the guns they already have illegally.

They also predicted maybe 90,000 Minnesotans would get permits eventually.

Today the total is somewhere over 140,000.  And in ten years, there’s been one unjustifiable homicide by a post-2003 carry permit holder, a rate of .036/100,00, as opposed to the state’s rate of around 1.4/100,000; Minnesota carry permittees are roughly 40 times safer than the average Minnesotan.

As in the 39 other shall issue states, the streets didn’t run red with blood.  Indeed, not much happened; nearly no murders, exactly two justifiable self-defense shootings (which are not “good” things, but certainly beat the alternative), this one and this one.

After ten years, the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act’s legacy is this:

• Reduced violence: Minnesota’s murder rate is down nearly half since 2003; violent crime in general, nearly 15%.  That’s not entirely the responsibility of the MPPA – but it’s the exact opposite of what the DFL-Media noise machine warned us about.
• Grassroots Matter:  The battle to pass the MPPA mobilized a huge army that represents a silent majority; people on both sides of the aisle, or no side, who care about human rights and civil liberties enough to get involved in an abstruse issue, and donate to it heavily with time, treasure and energy.  The victory of the MPPA – from no traction at all to victory between 1995 and 2003 – was among the great bits of genuine grassroots politics in Minnesota history.
• The Road Goes On Forever: And remember – always, remember – the way The People, regular workadaddy, hugamommy schlumps with day jobs and mid-size late-model used cars, dwelling far behind the fashion curve and well outside NPR’s target market demos, humiliated the elite of the DFL, Representatives Paymar and Martens and Hausman and Senator Ron “I Went To Harvard” Latz, providing conservatives one of precious few whiffs of victory in a dismal session, splitting the DFL into two, providing one of the most priceless images of the year; a helpless hapless extremist faux-elite metrocrat orc declaring majority to support to a crowd where the good guys outnumbered them 40:1.  Every time.

The troops at GOCRA – helped, this year, by the NRA – won the victory ten years ago, and continue to defend your human right to protect your self, your family, your property and your democracy today.  If you’re not a GOCRA member and you care about protecting your human right of self-defense, please sign up now.

To the orcs?  Keep fearmongering, Representatives Paymar and Hausman.  Keep lying, Representative Martens and County Attorney Backstrom; keep sucking the filthy toes of the heirs of Stalin and Pol Pot, Doug Grow.  We may be mere peasants, but we beat you ten years ago, we humiliated you this year, and we will always beat you.

To the good guys?  Thanks, and happy anniversary.

Businessman Scott Honour threw his hat into the ring for governor yesterday.

“I love Minnesota. But I fear that our state is headed in the wrong direction, and under the wrong leadership. I know that the same people with the same political resumes are not going to solve our problems,” Honour said in a mass email. Honour has not run for any major political office before in Minnesota and several Republicans have said they may be interesting in challenging Dayton as well.

As soon as Honour made the announcement, Carrie Lucking tweeted:

I think Honour might have more yachts than Romney, judging by the pics. Potential slogan: Yachts for MN! ow.ly/i/1XQ6P

— Carrie Lucking (@CarrieLucking) April 24, 2013

and…

I’m surprised Honour doesn’t have a Scrooge McDuck money pool in the back yard.

— Carrie Lucking (@CarrieLucking) April 24, 2013

and…

I imagine Honour is against asking the rich…er, I mean him…to pay their/his fair share.

— Carrie Lucking (@CarrieLucking) April 24, 2013

Lucking, of course, is Executive Assistant Director of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, an organization largely bankrolled by a Rockefeller heiress, largely launched to aid the career of a feckless trust-fund baby; the organization is attacking a guy who actually earned his money, unlike any of Lucking’s benefactors.

And so it’s on to another campaign battling for the low-information voter.

A bill in the Senate would pay your Senators more for the privilege of jacking up your taxes and grabbing your guns – but at least relieve them of the burden of having to tell you about it.

SF 1534, by Senator Sandy Pappas (what else, DFL – St. Paul) would make Legislative pay equal to a third of the governor’s salary…:

The Minnesota Senate on Tuesday is set to approve salary increases for legislators and the governor, who have had their pay frozen since 1999.

…and peg pay increases to the Governor’s salary, which…well, I’ll add emphasis below to explain that bit:

Under the plan crafted and approved by the nonpartisan Minnesota Compensation Council, the governor would get a 3 percent pay increase in 2015 and another in 2016. The governor’s salary would be reviewed yearly after that, with increases tied to the Consumer Price Index. Gubernatorial pay has not risen in Minnesota since 1998 and ranks 32nd among the 50 states.

…meaning that the Legislature would no longer have to go through the politically-fraught process of having to vote themselves pay raises; it’s simply rise along with the CPI.  No questions asked.  No debate needed.  No friction from the fractious peasants, whose own wages, let us remember, aren’t necessarily pegged to the CPI.

TANGENT:  I’d almost place a bet that some Minneapolis DFLer will now say “if we can afford to raise legislative pay, we can certainly afford to raise the minimum wage 33%!”

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails in re my piece yesterday in which Sally Jo Sorenson snarked that there was no way, no how, never ever, that a Gay Marriage bill would oppress people who still exercised belief in traditional marriage:

The proposed statute says there will be no problem, so that ends it, right? Not so fast. The Courts are a separate but equal branch of government. They can snip out bits of the statute, leaving the rest operational, ignoring what the Legislature promised.

For example:

145.412 CRIMINAL ACTS.

Subd. 2.Unconsciousness; lifesaving.

It shall be unlawful to perform an abortion upon a woman who is unconscious except if the woman has been rendered unconscious for the purpose of having an abortion or if the abortion is necessary to save the life of the woman.

[See Note.]

Subd. 3.Viability.

It shall be unlawful to perform an abortion when the fetus is potentially viable unless:

(1) the abortion is performed in a hospital;

(2) the attending physician certifies in writing that in the physician’s best medical judgment the abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman; and

(3) to the extent consistent with sound medical practice the abortion is performed under circumstances which will reasonably assure the live birth and survival of the fetus.

[See Note.]

NOTE: Subdivisions 2 and 3, clauses (2) and (3), were found unconstitutional in Hodgson v. Lawson, 542 F.2d 1350 (8th Cir. 1976).

The Legislature passed a law but the Court snipped out parts, leaving the rest.

Just as the Court could decide the mother’s right to be free from government interference in her reproductive freedom outweighed the unborn child’s right to life, the

Court could decide the gay couple’s right to equal protection of the laws outweighs the minister’s right to practice his own religion.

The Court may decide the portion of the proposed same-sex marriage statute that protects a minister’s right to refuse to marry gay people is really an attempt to authorize discrimination against gays, which is an unconstitutional violation of the gay couple’s right to equal protection of the laws. The insulating portion of the statute could be struck down by the Court, leaving gay marriage intact and the minister on the hook for violating the Human Rights Act. And with Liberal Governor Dayton appointing Liberal David Lillehaug to the Supreme Court, Senator Osmek is right to be concerned.

The point is this; thinking the way a law is written when it’s in the legislature protects one, in and of itself, is simply delusional.

Although it does provide good snarking material.

Not that the two are mutually exclusive.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is running his snowblower down his sidewalk.  Avery LIBRELLE walks by, eating a granola bar.

LIBRELLE:  Why do you hate gay people?

BERG: (shuts off snow blower):  Huh?

LIBRELLE: (dribbling granola crumbs onto sidewalk) Why do you oppose gay marriage?  You’re a bigot!

BERG: Er, no.  As we’ve discussed over and over again, I favor civil unions on libertarian grounds.

LIBRELLE:  Hah.  Two people who love each other should be able to marry.

BERG: Right, but marriage isn’t about love.  Not entirely, anyway.  It’s pretty utilitarian, actually.  It’s about raising kids – and the notion of gay marriage devalues gender, which I think is a huge mistake, since gender is so hugely important in raising kids.  In our society, it’s also about taxes.  Personally, I think government should get out of the business of granting favors through the institution of marriage, but I think gay people should be able to sign contracts with each other.

LIBRELLE:  Pfft.  What are you afraid of?

BERG:  Er, yeah.  On the one hand, that question is an abusive strawman.  I’m not “afraid” of the notion of same sex marriage.  But I’m definitely worried about some of the potential consequences.

LIBRELLE:  (Spit-takes, blasting granola flakes all over the place) Huh?  What are you talking about?

BERG:  It is inevitable than once you legalize gay marriage, government will oppress any person, business or institution that disagrees with it.

LIBRELLE:  Hah!  People who support marriage equality are very sensitive to diversity of opinion, you paranoid teabagger!   And the First Amendment protects your observance of religion absolutely!

BERG:  Right, just like First Amendment absolutely protects my right to hold government accountable, or free association, or choice for my children, or the Second Amendment absolutely protects my right to keep and bear arms, the Fourth absolutely protects me from unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth absolutely grants me due process and the right to face my accuser in court, and the Tenth guarantees the enumeration of powers absolutely.

LIBRELLE:  What are you, a lawyer?  That’s just paranoid!

BERG:  So it’s your position that the full weight and power and budget of government isn’t going to descend upon anyone who doesn’t embrace gay marriage?

LIBRELLE:  Yep.  Paranoid paranoid paranoid.  Cray cray.

BERG:   Huh.  Good to know it’s just paranoia:

 Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a consumer protection lawsuit against a florist who refused to provide wedding flowers to a same-sex couple.

The complaint was filed in Benton County on Tuesday against Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Richland.

The lawsuit is in response to a March 1 incident where she refused service to longtime customer Robert Ingersoll. Stutzman did not return a call Tuesday night seeking comment. Ferguson had sent a letter on March 28 asking her to comply with the law, but said Stutzman’s attorneys responded Monday saying she would challenge any state action to enforce the law.

Washington state voters upheld a same-sex marriage law in November, and the lawtook effect in December. The state’s anti-discrimination laws were expanded in 2006 to include sexual orientation.

Ferguson seeks a permanent injunction requiring the store to comply with the state’s consumer protection laws and seeks at least $2,000 in fines.

LIBRELLE:  You’re a racist and you hate womyn!

BERG:  Right, I got that.  But the point is, the precendent is there; government squats on opponents of social policy!

LIBRELLE:  That’s Canada!

BERG:  Right.  But it’s the pattern all governments follow when they want to impose social policy.

LIBRELLE:  (throws granola wrapper on  BERG’s snow-covered lawn)  Why do you dance on the graves of the children of Newtown?

And SCENE

There may be few more frustrating jobs in American politics than being a Republican in the Twin Cities.

Minneapolis is sort of like Berkeley on the Lakes, while Saint Paul is a mini-Chicago on the Mississippi.  Both are one-party liberal gulags.  And Republicans in both cities continuously batter themselves against the unthinking masses of DFL droogs, year after year, with seemingly no result.  Good candidates?  Bad candidates?  It seems to make no difference whatsoever.

Years like 2012 are especially frustrating.  The GOP fielded some excellent candidates, and some hard-working campaigns in CD5 (Minneapolis) and CD4 (Saint Paul).  And all of that hard work and effort and occasional inspiration held up like a stream of pee in a hurricane on November 6, as the GOP efforts ran smack-dab into the anti-marriage-amendment tsunami.

On the face of it – expressed in terms of percentages – it looked as dismal as ever – like the cities in the Twin Cities were the same 70-30, or 75-25, cesspools they’d always been.

But if you dig into the numbers a little, things brighten up nicely.

I’m going to look at a couple of races in traditional DFL country, just to see what I come up with.

———-

Tony Hernandez ran a solid, spirited race against Betty McCollum in CD4 in 2012.  There were flaws in the campaign; fundraising was slow, among other things – but Hernandez worked hard, and he had a group of very hard-working volunteers.

So what happened?

Well, Betty McCollum won.  She won big.  Part of it was the votes siphoned off by a Ventura Party candidate that ran to Hernandez’ right.  Part of it was the fact that it’s CD4.  And a big part was the epic DFL turnout against the Marriage Amendment.

The first illustration shows that it’s nothing new:

The top two rows show the head-to-head vote totals between the GOP and DFL candidates in CD4 for the past seven cycles, back to 2000.  The bottom two present the results as percentages.  Note that some of the results will not match the Secretary of State’s numbers; I presented the numbers as DFL/GOP totals, leaving out third-party candidates.

And the news?  Well, it’s not news.  The 4th CD is a 70-30 district.

Right?

Sure.  But look at that top row – the number of GOP votes.  109,000 people voted for Tony Hernandez in 2012, which was a fair-to-middling Republican year (against a great base-burnout campaign for the Dems nationwide, and a huge “new-voter registration” campaign in Minnesota).

This chart shows two more sets of data:

The top two rows show how many more voters there were for each party in 2012 from the selected year.  In other words, in 2012 there were 10,723 more Republican votes than in 2008 (and 418 more Democrat votes).

Compare presidential years (which always have better turnout for both parties than non-presidential years).  Hernandez drew 10,000 more votes than in 2008 (even without the thousands of conservatives who voted for the uncharacteristically-conservative Independence Party candidate), which was not a great year for Republicans; he was up 4,000 from 2004 (a decent GOP year) and 25,000 from 2000 (a very good GOP year).

The interesting part?  The bottom two rows.  They show a “rematch” of the selected years’ races using Tony Hernandez’ 2012 GOP vote totals.  The 2012 match shows they actually exist (in part due to redistricting, although that wasn’t nearly as favorable to Hernandez as one might have hoped); this time, they  happened to exist against the backdrop of an epic DFL turnout.

But what if those Republicans could be inveigled to turn out against a more prosaic DFL turnout?

Hernandez’ numbers against BettyMac in 2008 (which was also a great DFL year – notice the fact that the epic 2012 turnout only added 400-odd votes to McCollum’s 2008 totals?) makes it a 66-33 race.  Against her 2004 numbers (blah year for Democrats, base-turnout year for Republicans) it was 60-40, which is a whole world apart from 70-30.

And against 2000 – a good GOP year with a functional state party and average DFL turnout – Hernandez’ numbers make it a nine point race.

And against off-year DFL turnout?   If the GOP were to pull off a miracle and generate presidential-year turnout against off-year DFL turnout, it’d be a ten point race.

Which still isn’t victory.

But Hernandez – running an underfunded all-volunteer campaign with no outside funding to speak of, endorsed by an intensely-dysfunctional party Congressional District unit of a state party that sat out the 2012 election completely, against a cash-sodden union juggernaut and a media praetorian guard that seems sworn never to mention the great unspoken secret (that McCollum is one of the dumbest people in Congress), “aided” by a redistricting that seemed designed to be as benign as possible to the incumbent, and attenuated by a conservative third-party candidate – turned out more Republicans than the 4th has seen in decades.  He had the bad fortune to do it into the teeth of a DFL GOTV wildfire.

So if he’d had $500,000 instead of less than a tenth of that?  If he’d had a state party that could help, and a CD committee that could help marshal support?  If he’d had experienced management, and maybe a full-time field staffer?

Just saying – not only are there grounds for optimism, but they may be stronger than we thought.

So that’s Hernandez against history.   How about in the Fifth CD?

We’ll look across the river tomorrow.

(more…)

…don’t get far from a radio.

Or a computer, or a mobile device.  You get the idea.

Big Northern Alliance Radio Network broadcast tomorrow.  We’ll have Cam Winton on to talk about the Minneapolis mayor’s race, and Senator Sean Nienow will be with us to talk about his call for an investigation into the Vikings Stadium funding fiasco.

That’ 1-3PM tomorrow, on AM1280 The Patriot!

Grover Norquist will be speaking at the Tax Day Rally at the Capitol.

(SCENE:  MITCH is at the grocery store.  He meets Avery LIBRELLE, who is also out shopping)

LIBRELLE:  I’m so upset that the GOP in the Legislature has muddied the waters with their “Civil Union” proposal.

MITCH: Why’s that?

LIBRELLE:  Civil unions are nothing but separate but equal.

MITCH:  Yeah, that’s the cliché du jour for gay marriage supporters.  The idea that having an identical civil contract that confers exactly the same rights – in the eyes of the government, which is what we’re talking about here – is somehow like Plessy v. Ferguson Jim Crow-era absurdities is completely nuts.  From the perspective of government, it’s more like “Equal but Equal”.

LIBRELLE:  But the word “marriage” has a status to it that “civil unions” doesn’t.

MITCH:  And that remark shows what “gay marriage” proponents are really about.  It has little to do with “rights”, and lots to do, I suspect, with forcing society into accepting something that it, on its own, just does not.   The “status” of the word “marriage” is a matter of individual perspective and belief; is it government’s job to change that, for its own good?

LIBRELLE:  Sure!

MITCH:  Huh.  Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

LIBRELLE:  No kidding.  The GOP is wasting the legislature’s time with this bill, bringing it up after the deadline for policy bills.

MITCH:  Right.  No different than Representatives Paymar and Martens still flogging their gun grab legislation.  They can’t get committee hearings, but they can still bring up their bill as an amendment to another bill during floor debate.

LIBRELLE:  Well, that’s different.

MITCH:  Why?

LIBRELLE:  I don’t know. (takes a bunch of grapes from the produce stand, picks a few, starts eating) It just is.

MITCH:  OK.  Well, anyway – I think this means the GOP minority sees that there’s a fracture in the DFL caucus.  We know that outstate DFLers are feeling really nervous about this bill – that support for gay marriage, like gun grabs, is entirely focused in the Metro.  It’d be dumb for them, as a minority, not to propose the compromise; it shows the people that, contrary to the DFL and media’s narrative, there is a compromise.

LIBRELLE:  That’s so wrong.  We should not play games with civil rights.

MITCH:  Like Paymar and Martens and Latz are doing?

LIBRELLE:  Oh, that’s different.  That’s about the children.

MITCH:  So is marriage.

LIBRELLE (eating more grapes)  Well, the courts have ruled on this already.

MITCH:  Right – the courts ruled that civil unions interactions with existing laws, and the federal DOMA law, were a problem.  So the law needs to be written right, and adjustments need to be made to other laws, state and federal.  That’s what legislatures do; try to pass laws that pass legal muster.

LIBRELLE:  But eventually gay marriage is going to happen.  Young people all support it.

MITCH:  Maybe they do.  Young people also made Justin Bieber and Nicky Minaj stars.  More to the point?  Most “young people” have no idea what marriage really is.  But whatever, fine; maybe gay marriage is inevitable in the great scheme of things.  And truth be told, but for one thing, I don’t really care.

LIBRELLE:  (3/4 done with bunch of grapes) And that one thing is that you’re a bigot.

MITCH:  Er, no.  In fact, I guarantee I’ve put more on the line against genuine hatred of gays than you have or ever will.  But no, the one thing is that gay marriage is one more attack on the importance of gender – the idea that the sexes are different, and different for a reason, and that reason is that each gender has a vital role in raising the next generation of children.

LIBRELLE:  Gays can raise children just as well as breeders.  Sometimes better!

MITCH:  Right.  This isn’t a dig at gays’ motivations as adoptive parents; I think gay adoptive parents are a better idea than, say, single parents if that’s the choice, which it very rarely is.  And at the moment, I don’t doubt that gay parents are better parents than straight parents, as an average across all of society, if only because you have to be so superhuman-ly above average to qualify to adopt, whatever your affectional orientation.  In fact, that is one of the reasons I would like to see gay marriage – so that we can drop this absurd stereotype of the Magic Gay Couple, all superhuman in their loving wisdom.  I joke that Gays will have truly arrived as equals when you see a gay married couple on Cops, with a lady in a wife-beater T-shirt being dragged out to a squad car as her wife screams “I’ll be waitin’ for ya, Evangeline!  Ah love yewwww!”.

LIBRELLE:  That’s just weird (almost done with grapes)

MITCH:  Whatever – the point is, when society grows beyond the narrative it’s been fed this past few years, the idea that gay couples are actually better than straight couples, then maybe we can talk about equality.

LIBRELLE:  Oh, whatever.  Hey, didn’t you predict gay marriage would die in committee?

MITCH:  Yep.  I win some, I boot some.  I think gay marriage is worth more to the DFL as a wedge than as a few thousand married couples with nothing to be pissed off about other than…property taxes and business taxes and regulations that restrict entrepreneurship.

LIBRELLE:  Huh?  Well, you were wrong.

MITCH:  Really?  When did Governor Messinger Dayton sign the gay marriage bill into law?

LIBRELLE:  He hasn’t yet.

MITCH:  Huh.  OK.

LIBRELLE:  But they will pass it!  They have to!

MITCH: OK!  We’ll see!

LIBRELLE:  (finishes grapes, tosses stem into trash bucket)

MITCH:  Um – were you going to pay for those?

LIBRELLE:  Oh, it’s not shoplifting. It’s an undocumented meal.  The AP says so.

(And SCENE)

As of yesterday, 132,552 Minnesotans have current, valid carry permits.

And as the Gun Owners CIvil Rights Alliance notes, the rate of applications and issuances is zooming almost geometrically, even as the bobbleheads in our legislature try to ratchet back our Second Amendment rights:

The increase over last month (7,213), is also a record, breaking last month’s record (5,765), which broke the record set the month before that (4,800), which broke the record set a couple months after the carry law passed in 2003 (3918).

And if that nearly-vertical total line doesn’t smack you in the head, perhaps this chart – the monthly delta in permits in circulation – will:

Among Minnesotans who are over 21 and have clean criminal records, 132,552 is right around 3% of the entire population.  That’s huge; the House Research staff back in 2003 figured maybe 70-90,000 Minnesotans would get permits, eventually.  We’re almost double that now, and the more Michael Paymar and Ron Latz talk, the faster people sign up for their card.

And if each of them could pony up a buck, GOCRA could afford to have a full-time lobbyist at the Capitol to make sure Heather Martens’ lies were being countered in real-time.

The lessons are obvious:

• Minnesotans – the smart ones, anyway – aren’t fooled.  The DFL majority, despite Governor Messinger Dayton’s blandishments, is run by gun grabbers.
• If you are a law-abiding citizen, you should get your permit.  Even if you never plan to carry a firearm; it’s a good primer in the law, and every permit granted to a law-abiding citizen sends the right message to Senator Latz and Representatives Paymar, Hausman and Martens; we’re not the problem; we’re not fooled; we’re not going anywhere, and we’re not going down without a fight.
• You should join GOCRA.  The Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance is the single most successful grass-roots political organization in Minnesota (emphasis on Grass Roots; GOCRA isn’t supported by plutocrats with deep pockets, or foundation money) today.  It’s like a “Spanky and Our Gang” movie come to life, a bunch of regular guys and gals who got together and have, over the past 15 years or so, moved mountains.   And they need all us Real Americans (people who care about all ten amendments in the Bill of Rights) to beat back the orcs.  Come on out, there’s plenty of room.
• It’s a great time to become an activist.  There may be things in life more fun than being in a room with a couple of hundred like-minded fellow freedom fighters, watching half a dozen bobbleheaded orc-sympathizers wallowing in their ignorance.  But few of those other things are this inexpensive!

Now is the time!