So how much money did Big Labor spend along with Big Lefty Plutocrat to buy the Governor’s Office and the Legislature?

If you believe the Strib, it’s “around $3 million.

If you believe the Strib is going to tell the truth about DFL perfidy – and especially the big money behind the DFL, I’ve got a 50% stake in the next Lindsay Lohan movie to sell you.

Bill Walsh, long-time Minnesota political operative, did a little digging into the story – and he’s got something the Twin Cities’ mainstream media doesn’t want to give you; the facts:

I’m publishing his piece as a guest writer at Shot In The Dark today.

———-

Unions Spent $11.1 Million in 2012 to Buy Friendly Legislature for Gov. Mark Dayton

Bill Walsh, Shot In The Dark Guest Writer

A few weeks ago the Star Tribune published an article about campaign spending in the 2012 election focusing on two big individual donors – Alida Messinger and Bob Cummins. The conclusion? Each party has a big donor that gave lots of money, it’s all a wash. I’m afraid this story is all we’re going to get from the Strib on campaign spending analysis. Today, in an otherwise well written article on union influence at the capitol this year, Rachel Stassen-Berger writes that unions “put at least $3 million into elections.” I guess $11.1 million is “at least” $3 million. She’s only off by $8.1 million.

I took the time to go through the campaign finance reports of 111 different union organizations in Minnesota and nationally for the 2012 election. Spending ranged from Education Minnesota at $1.8 million to the Bemidji Central Labor Body AFL-CIO Political Fund at $250. State and local unions accounted for $9.1 million in campaign spending with national unions kicking in the other $2 million.

Union Contributions 2012 by

It took some time to come to the right numbers because many unions give money to each other for joint spending initiatives. These numbers reflect the net spending after backing out contributions between unions. It goes without saying that over 99% of the money went to DFL candidates and causes.

I blame myself for not getting this research to the StarTribune before they published today’s article. It really would have added some punch to their story.

For example, when talking about the nurses union asking the legislature for new staffing ratios that will drive up health care costs, it would have been useful to point out to readers the nurses union spent over $500,000 helping DFL candidates win back the legislature last year. As a matter of fact, that probably should be mentioned every time the media covers the progress of this legislation.

Likewise, when discussing AFSCME’s attempt to force unionization on small private childcare businesses, it would inform the reader to mention that seven different AFSCME organizations gave a total of $1.6 million to DFL candidates and causes in 2012.

The list goes on – Education Minnesota is trying to resurrect their statewide insurance pool legislation, MAPE and AFSCME are getting new generous employment contracts, the minimum wage is being increased and Dayton is following through on his promise to raise taxes on the rich.

But business spends a lot too, right? Wrong. It’s hard to get anywhere near $11.1 million if you add up the business money spent in the 2012 election. A business friendly PAC called Minnesota’s Future spent $1.2 million while the Chamber of Commerce-supported Coalition for Minnesota Businesses spent just $283,000 on the 2012 election. We all know the MNGOP received little support from the business community and the two legislative caucuses combined to spend only $4.1 million, and not all of that can be attributed to business.

According to today’s Pioneer Press, however, business interests do spend a lot on lobbying. The Campaign Finance Board reported that business interests spent $17.4 million lobbying the legislature during the 2011 session.

This may be the key to understanding today’s political environment. Unions spend heavily getting sympathetic Democrats elected to office. Once they are in place, it doesn’t take much money to lobby –the jury is already selected.

Business on the other hand, spends relatively little on the nuts and bolts of campaigns and prefers to hire lobbyists to try to influence the debate after the legislature has been selected.

What’s next?

First, Republican legislators need to hammer away on the $11.1 million unions spent to buy this legislature for Gov. Mark Dayton. They need to remind the public and the press at every opportunity to follow the money. Pay to play has never been more obvious in Minnesota.

Second, the business community needs to shift some of its resources to where it matters: the 2014 general election. Business will never match the collective self interest and desperation of the unions, so we need to reach a higher level of cooperation if we hope to recapture the House and win back the governor’s office in 2014.

———-

MITCH ADDS:  More on this in coming weeks.

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’m back!  I’ll have Representative Mary Franson on to update us on the DFL push to unionize daycares and personal care attendants.  Plus, a detailed look at the misery sequestration is causing. 
• Brad Carlson is back 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,
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Check out our new UStream video and chat  – hopefully.  
• 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!

Saint Paul business owners, trapped between Saint Paul’s crushing property tax burden and Dayton and the DFL’s tax hikes, are finally speaking out:

Paul Wagner’s family has manufactured and sold conductive wire to the medical and defense industries for nearly 50 years, but he and his wife haven’t ruled out moving the entire company from St. Paul to Wisconsin, where they already maintain two-thirds of their operations.

Smart Minnesota businesses, in other words, got a head start on the exodus.

I know that MN Wire is far from the only one.

Proposed taxes on business transactions and a possible increase to Minnesota’s minimum wage could doubly impact their decision to stay or go.

“In the past three years, there’s been 12 new costs (added) to hiring employees,” said Wagner, president and CEO of Minnesota Wire on Energy Park Drive.

It’s not just (sarcasm on) big plutocrats (sarsasm off) like Wagner.  It’s small service providers, like this woman:

Stephanie Laitala took out a second mortgage on her home and maxed out credit cards to open Owl Bookkeeping in St. Paul a decade ago. Starting out, she paid vendors and employees before herself, sometimes skipping her own paychecks entirely. The idea of a new sales tax on her accounting services leaves her cold, and one step closer to going back to working for someone else.

Wagner and Laitala joined a handful of fellow business owners Thursday, Feb. 28, at Minnesota Wire to speak out against DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposed tax package.

The governor’s plan would lower the state sales tax rate from 6.875 percent to 5.5 percent but also broaden it, applying the tax to clothing sales of more than $100, business-to-business transactions, and memberships to gyms and other organizations.

Someone should tell PiPress writer Fred Melo that taking $2 Billion more out of the economy is not “lowering” a tax.

Question to the businesspeople involved:  how active were you in trying to not get Mark Dayton, Chris Coleman and the rest of them elected?  Just curious.

With much fanfare, a few DFL figureheads are introducing a gay marriage bill:

“Minnesotans spoke so loudly during this last election refusing to adopt that proposed constitutional amendment. It was a very clear statement, and I think we’re now ready to take the next step, and it means everything to our families.”

Surrounded by supporters, Clark and Sen. Scott Dibble, who was instrumental in the anti-amendment campaign, said their side is prepared to combat the flood of national money that’s been promised against the proposal.

I’ve been saying since the opening day of the session that the DFL was going to stall on gay marriage – and they have.

And they’ll continue to; even the DFL’s house PR organs (including the MinnPost, from which I quote) note that the DFL leadership is going very slow:

Although DFL leaders have said they personally support same-sex marriage, they haven’t been overly enthusiastic in discussing legislative action with the press.

This is echoed in fundraising letters being sent to gay marriage supporters; outstate DFLers, already alarmed by the DFL’s gun grabs and a DFL tax bill that is going over outstate like a Lindsay Lohan one-woman show in Branson, are queasy about the bill; they remember (even if the media doesn’t) that the Marriage Amendment passed, often convincingly, in most of Minnesota; it was stopped by cataclysmic turnout in the Metro.

Where, unlike greater Minnesota, the issue is a winner for the DFL.

My fearless prediction:  the DFL will introduce the bill with much fanfare (ok, that’s not a prediction, that’s what happened).  It’ll quietly die in committee.  And the Alliance for a Better Minnesota will send its flying monkeys out next year to spin the death as perfidy by a GOP caucus that, in fact, controls nothing.

Final scorecard:  those who prosper from low-information voters: 1.  Gays who wish to marry:  0.

And so it shall stay.

Former Governor Ventura, if you’re reading this – and I am sure you are – I have to tell you that an apology is in order.

I am sorry.

For four years – including the first year of this blog’s life – I claimed that you were the biggest embarassment in the history of the state of Minnesota.

That crown – or belt, as the case may be – has been passed.  Mark Dayton, when he was a Senator, gave you a run for your money, but it was a transient thing.

But today, there’s no doubt. Keith Ellison is a morbid humiliation to everyone in this state that has the faintest interest in not looking stupid:

Representative Ellison is further proof that Minnesota Liberals never have to learn the art and craft of civil debate; they, like Ellison, come up through school systems where liberalism is taught as the social baseline, and universities where conservatism is treated as an aberration.

Listen to as much as you can. It’s cringeworthy.

I got to talk with the guy one time, on an online talk show. The guy really is more brittle and facile than I thought he was.

So I’m sorry, Jesse. I mean, I was right and all – you were a train wreck. But that was back when train wrecks were just fun rides, back in the cha-cha nineties, when consequences were dim and far-off – not like today, when the future of the Republic seemed as dire as it has in my lifetime.

Conservatives joke that liberals just. Don’t.  Get. Economics.

We joke, at times, that at some point a liberal is going to push for a “living wage” statute calling for a $100/hour minimum wage as a means to end poverty, followed by a bill barring any layoffs and banning bankruptcy.

It’s a joke.  Some liberals shake their heads and go “yeah, yeah, we’re not nuts”.

And then something comes a long to prove that they really, really are that dissociative.

Rep. Ryan Winkler (D St. Louis Park), also known as “The Eddie Haskell of the House” – is introducing a “Kill All” amendment to House File 92 that bars businesses from laying off workers, cutting hours or benefits due to minimum wage increases. 

I’m going to write that again, just to let it sink in.

Winkler’s bill would make it illegal for businesses to lay off workers, cut hours or benefits due to minimum wage increases.

No, I’m really not making it up; I’ve added emphasis to the original:

(c) Notwithstanding paragraph (b), during the first 90 consecutive days of employment, an employer may pay an employee under the age of 20 years a wage of :

(1) $6.07 per hour beginning August 1, 2013;

(2) $7.24 per hour beginning August 1, 2014;

(3) $8.41 per hour beginning August 1, 2015; and

(4) the rate established under paragraph (d) beginning January 1, 2016.

2.11 No employer may take any action to displace an employee, including a partial  displacement through a reduction in hours, wages, or employment benefits, in order to hire an employee at the wage authorized in this paragraph.

(UPDATE: Commenter Master Of None points out, the above section refers to a training wage – a wage that employers may pay for up to 90 days – and says it’s not quite as dire as I’d made it out to be.   I disagree; Winkler’s bill raises the already existing training wage, causing all the same problems that raising the minimum itself does, which negates most of the utility of a “training wage”, as well as starting some sort of enforcement mechanism to painstakingly adjudicate all disputes related to training and minimum wages.  Because Minnesota businesses needed more niggling regulations)

And as the Obama Administration launches into permanent quantitative easing, Winkler wants to key the minimum wage to inflation, ensuring that no wages will ever keep up with inflation:

2.14 (d) No later than November 1 of each year, beginning in 2015, the commissioner  shall determine the percentage increase in the rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, United States city average, as determined by the United States Department of Labor, during the most recent 12-month period for  which data is available. The minimum wage rates in paragraphs (b) and (c) are increased by the percentage calculated by the commissioner, rounded to the nearest cent. The new minimum wage rates determined under this paragraph take effect on the next January 1

In other words: Ryan Winkler wants to…:

• arbitrariliy set wages (higher than the federal minimum, no less!)
• bar business from compensating for the arbitrary change in labor costs in any way but by increasing revenues in the middle of a crap economy (which Dayton’s business service taxes and Obamacare are making worse by the day).

It’s the sort of thing any Economics 101 student knows is madness if he or she wants to get better than a “C”.

Bonus Question:  Do you think Rachel Stassen-Berger, Tom Scheck, Tim Pugmire or John Cronyn will bring any of this up with Winkler or the leadership that enables him?

Her lips are moving.

More below.

———-

The Strib’s longtime outdoor writer Dennis Anderson wrote an excellent profile of state representative Tony Cornish over the weekend.  Cornish, with the departure of Pat Pariseau and Linda Boudreaux from the Legislature, has taken on the role of key defender of the Second Amendment in the Legislature:

In St. Paul, however, where he’s the face of gun rights at the Capitol, he’s sometimes less popular, even downright loathed, particularly this legislative session, when a minor blizzard of gun bills has been introduced.

Not to worry, Cornish says confidently, he and other Republicans have enough votes, along with those from rural DFLers, to block any proposals that gun-rights advocates oppose.

“They won’t pass,” he said.

A one-time city cop, deputy sheriff, conservation officer, police chief and, yes — speaking of big guns — Army tank commander, Cornish legally packs what he advocates, either a .40 caliber Glock on his hip — if he’s wearing a sport coat — or a Smith & Wesson in his pocket.

“After being shot at a couple of times and receiving a number of death threats, and never knowing whether I might come across someone I arrested years ago,” he said. “Well, I guess after 36 years as a peace officer, I’d just feel bare without it.”

Plain-speaking, Cornish seems at times a throwback among legislators, reminiscent, in his forthrightness, of Charlie Berg, the onetime DFLer, onetime Republican, mostly independent lawmaker from Chokio in west-central Minnesota.

Sometimes underestimated, in that respect he’s also not unlike the outwardly wacky but ultimately effective retired Sen. Bob Lessard of International Falls.

Of course, every time the “G” word pops up in the Twin Cities mainstream media, the media beat a path to the door of Heather Martens, “Executive Director” (also likely only actual member) of “Protect Minnesota”.  Maybe the editors insist, and she’s the only anti-gun person in their collective rolodex.

The media seems to be unaware of the simple fact that every single substantive declaration about the gun issue, that Heather Martens has ever made, beyond the gurgitation of the odd statistic, has been a lie.

Every single one.

Without exception.

I have been documenting this in this space for over a decade now.

And Dennis Anderson’s piece, like every piece of coverage Martens has ever gotten in her misbegotten public life, is more of the same; I’ll add emphasis to the most dissociative of Martens’ lies:

” [Cornish says the] …background-check system needs to be improved, but it’s complicated and it will cost money,” he said. “If we mandate upgrades to the system, we’ll have to get it right, and it’s going to cost money.”

Heather Martens of Protect Minnesota, a group that would like to see gun laws tightened, wants Cornish to go further.

“We just don’t agree with him, and we don’t think he operates in good faith,” Martens said. “He believes guns are an unlimited right, no matter how many people die. We believe gun deaths can be prevented and that prevention is warranted.”

Martens is ranting – and she’s counting on the public to be both stupid and gullible too.

Cornish, like every single significant pro-Second-Amendment figure, anywhere, believes that there are limits:  criminals, the insane, the chemically-addled, at a fair and clear statutory point, must not get guns.  People who use guns to commit crimes must be punished.  People who get carry permits must know the laws and know how to handle their guns without hurting themselves or others.

Those are limits.  Those are gun controls that, unlike anything Heather Martens says (or hands off to the legislature), actually work.

Cornish disagrees. Background checks on gun sales between private parties? “No.” Restrictions on modern sporting arms, or what commonly are called assault-style rifles of the kind he uses to hunt coyotes? “No.” Prohibition of high-capacity magazines? “No.”

“None of those will reduce crime,” he said. “And none of those bills will pass. We’ve got the votes to block them.”

Thank God for Tony Cornish.

And in the Almighty’s own way, thank God for Heather Martens.  The harsh, incoherently-gabbling, upper-middle-class elitist pathological liar symbolizes the myopia and hypocrisy of the gun control control movement as capably as anyone since Carl Rowan.

I try to stay civil about most things.

Unlike my more demented detractors (you know who you are), I try to argue issues, not personalities.

So with that in mind, some take umbrage when I call the sides in the gun control debate “Real Americans” and “orcs”.  It’s really fairly simple; either you support the Bill of Rights, all ten Amendments of it, the Second and Tenth along with the First and Fourth, at the very least in terms of their intent, or you might as well be a North Korean kommissar.

Anyway – the Minnesota State Senate yesterday voted on a resolution upholding the Second Amendment.

And the DFL voted against it – voted against the Second Amendment – on a straight line party vote.

What this means is that the Senate DFL wants you to know that “we’re not coming for your hunting rifles and shotguns – yet.  We just want to leave our options open”.

This photo needs to be sent to every outstate, exurban and second-tier suburban household in districts with DFL Senators.  To the DFL, the Constitution is just a series of means to their ends, and “liberty” is a quaint hindrance.

The DFL-controlled House of Representatives is debating – surprise, surprise – a “Red Light Robo-Cop” bill that would contract a private company to get photos of red light violators and refer them to the cops:

 Supporters said installing traffic cameras at intersections would improve public safety. Chief author of the bill, DFL Rep. Alice Hausman of St. Paul, said she has found that red light cameras reduce traffic deaths.

I suppose Rep. Hausman’s constituents should be happy she actually showed up rather than subcontracting her job out to one lobbyist or another.

But Rep. Hausman isn’t the only DFLer who yells “off what?” when a lobbyist tells them to jump:

The committee chair, DFL Rep. Ron Erhardt of Edina, said he wanted the committee to vote on the bill but later decided to table it after a lobbyist for a company selling the traffic cameras sent him a note. Erhardt later told reporters that the bill did not have the support of the committee and would likely have been defeated. He said the committee may consider the bill later but only if there is enough support to pass it.

My big question today:  “has the DFL actually given office space in the Capitol and State Office Buildings to lobbyists?  Perhaps with staff?”

Last week, it came to our attention that the local lefty alt-media was shilling for the DFL meme that anti-gun Representatives felt “intimidated” by the presence of all the gun owners – people with carry permits who’ve passed criminal background checks, and are thus most likely less apt to resort to violence than, well, the Representatives and Senators on the panels – in the audience.

I feel I should respond to this.

I’ll neither confirm nor deny that I have a carry permit, a handgun, or permission to carry in the Capitol complex.  If I do, I would never carry openly, primary out of deference to the warped sensitivities of the ones complaining; “pick your battles”, I always say.

But I’ll urge you, gun-grabbing DFL legislator, to be intimidated.

Be intimidated by the fact that I, like most of the pro-Gun Rights people I know, know more about the issue than you do.  Be intimidated that I make the anti-gun, pro-gun control argument better than you, and better than Heather Martens, for that matter – and can then turn around and destroy it.  With facts, history, the law, and a lot of style.

Be intimidated by the fact that I, and most of the pro-Gun Rights people I know, take that superior knowledge out to my fellow MInnesotans, one by one, and win them over, just as we have been for 25 years now.

Be intimidated by the fact that I am one member of what was, 10 years ago, one of the most amazing grassroots political movements in Minnesota political history, the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance which, with no help from corporate donors or Rockefellers or PACs, started rolling a big heavy rock up a very high, steep hill in 1995 – and won the issue in 2003, playing a key role in flipping the House of Representatives along the way.

Be intimidated by the fact that GOCRA, and other gun rights groups and the people they represent, are coming back bigger and tougher and more focused than ever before.

Be intimidated by the fact that our movement adds more people every day than will ever show up at a gun control rally, and that every one of those people understands the issue better than any of the anti-gunners, and most of  you legislators as well.

Be intimidated by the fact that we have energy, savvy, and the grim determination to crush you, rhetorically speaking.  We’ve been through this before.  We’ve run the marathon – the seven-year battle to enact Shall Issue.  You’ve run the sprint.  Who’s going to be still up and standing and fighting in a year?  Two years? Four years?

My gun – if I have one, and if I’m carrying it?  That’s literally, figuratively and statistically the least of your worries.

We Real Americans – that defined as “Americans who support all ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the Second and Tenth as devoutly as the First and Fourth – know that giving any ground with the gun grabbers is a fool’s bargain.  The metrocrat Orcs will exploit any opening we Real Americans give them to harass us, badger us, turn us – the most law-abiding people in this country – into criminals.

The “assault weapon” bans are – or were – stupid, and would not affect crime in the least (or at least would never reduce it).  Magazine restrictions are also of no actual value as anything but harassing the law-abiding, as well as putting them (in rare cases) at a disadvantage to criminals.

But it gets worse.

This just in from GOCRA:  The worst of them all is up on the dock now:

The most dangerous bill this session is not a magazine ban, or an “assault weapon” ban. It’s universal registration, masquerading as “universal background checks.”

It’s called SF 458, and it will be heard on THURSDAY at the state capitol. GOCRA will be there to fight it. Will you?

I’ll give it my best shot.  Hope you can too.

Why is this bill so bad?  For starters, because it’ll tack $25 onto the sale prices of a firearm, plus $25 for permit to purchase – which makes firearms $50 harder to obtain for the poor (who are, after all, the ones the DFL wants to disarm…first).

Worse?  It’s registration!  It doesn’t go by the name, but that’s exactly what it is; a paper trail leading, over time, to every single gun in the United States.

This bill needs to be not just defeated; it needs to be crushed and humiliated.  Any outstate DFLer that supports it needs to feel the wrath of every gun owner in their district, sports or self-defense.  Any Republican who supports this abomination must be primaried and expunged from public life.

No retreat.

No surrender.

No compromise on the rights of the law-abiding.

No mercy for the politicians who get it wrong.

Here’s the hearing schedule; all hearings are in room 15 of the State Capitol. Get there two hours early to get a seat in the hearing room, or use overflow seating with a closed-circuit feed of the hearings.

Please let us know if you plan to attend (and which session) by sending an email to volunteer@gocra.org.

Thursday, February 21
Noon: SF 235, 458, 69

Thursday, February 21
6 p.m.:  Public testimony on SF 235, 503, 69, 458, 557, 520, 400, 413 and 568

Friday, February 22

Noon: SF 503, 557, 520, 400, 413, 568

You can read summaries of all gun grab bills at the Gocra website.

And remember; don’t commit a felony! Only liberals get away with gun crimes, so please remember to notify the DPS as required if you intend to carry at the Capitol. GOCRA’s simple instructions are right here.

The final part of Alice Hausman’s HF241` – her gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – may be the strangest, most vaguely-written, dumbest of all.  It’d ban any…:

3.23(5) shotgun with a revolving cylinder

 

It’d seem to be aimed at the big, scary looking “Streetsweeper”-class shotguns, which do, indeed, have a “revolving cylinder” holding their rounds…:

And it’s not “semi-automatic” (not to get technical, but that means “weapon that uses the force of either the explosion or recoil to eject the empty cartridge and chamber a new round”; the Sweeper has a wind-up spring).

But it said “shotgun with a revolving cylinder”.  That also includes the Rossi Circuit Judge…:

…a popular .410-gauge varmint plinker.

And for that matter, it includes the extremely popular Taurus Judge (no relation)…:

…which is a pistol, sure – but a .410 gauge shotgun with a revolving cylinder (that also happens to fire .45 Long Colt pistol rounds as well.

Look – we get it.  Alice Hausman is subcontracting her bill-writing out to Heather Martens – who, herself, knows nothing about guns whatsoever.

The question isn’t “are Hausman and Martens and the rest of the DFL metrocrats on the Public Safety committee talking out their asses on the subject”.  That’s a given.

The question is “aren’t you DFLers embarassed?”

I’ve been a little nervous about this for weeks.

Let me explain:

The Minnesota GOP is a shambles – but this state is full of conservative people.  And while conservatives are not the kind to stand around waving signs for any old thing, when you get us riled up, we turn out in droves, and we punch way above our weight.  One conservative out on the street speaking out is worth four or five figures of Alida Messinger’s money.

And the DFL knows this; they know that while they’ll get inundated with hard-working, well-informed, taxpaying folks when they propose radical and stupid legislation, that – unlike the people who turn out (and, often, are paid to turn out) for their events, they work for a living, don’t have unions giving them time off, can’t leave their lives on hold while they play politics for an extended time.

And so they’ve been proposing an avalanche of radical and stupid legislation:

• As I’ve noted (and will be noting today and tomorrow), a raft of gun laws almost bizarre in their absurdity.
• A rules change in the House seemingly designed to poke Republicans in the eye.
• A flip-flop on the “school shift” so seemingly clumsy it could come from a Betty McCollum speech.
• A groaningly extreme sales tax plan that only the Iranians would stick us with, one that not just tax experts and economists but even Democrats who work in the private sector think is stupid.

On the one hand, it’s the DFL getting control of the wheels and levers of power after ten years of incomplete control, which has to be a little like an ex-con looking for a hooker after ten years in jail.

Still, it’s made me a little nervous.  And I can’t be all wrong, because it makes Dave Thul nervous too.

There is only so much in the conservative activist excitement bank. You can get our people out once, twice, maybe three times in droves during a session, and after that fatigue as well as lack of vacation time come in to play. I can’t say with complete confidence, but it sure looks like the DFL is ramping up the outrage on issues they really don’t intend to make a full court press for-gun bans, tax hikes on the poor, tax hikes on businesses, ect. They are getting us to waste our ammo on targets that don’t matter, so we will be low on ammo when the real battle starts.

If there’s anything more insidious than overestimating your opponent, it’s underestimating them.

The DFL has to know that even in the best of times the GOP runs on volunteers (2000 and 2004) or the passion of activists who somehow scrape up the time and energy to move mountains (2002, 2010).

If you were Ken Martin Mark Dayton Alida Messinger, it wouldn’t be rocket science to see that the weakest link remaining in the GOP is the energy and passion level of the volunteers and activists that are, really, the party’s only real resource at the moment.

Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – now turns to shotguns.

Shotguns are a fearsome weapon, close-in – deadlier than assault rifles in some cases; British special forces have long used the Benelli semi-automatic hunting shotgun as their favorite weapon in the jungle.

But this part of Hausman’s bill is no less bizarre and ill-informed than the rest of it; it’d ban any…:

3.16(4) semi-automatic shotgun that has one or more of the following:

(i) a pistol grip or thumbhole stock;

(ii) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;

(iii) a folding or telescoping stock;

(iv) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of seven rounds; or

(v) an ability to accept a detachable magazine;

It’s aimed, seemingly, at weapons like the Russian-built Saiga…:

…which is basically a 12-gauge semi-automatic AK47.

But the Mossberg 930  – it’s semi-automatic, and holds eight rounds…:

…is also covered.

In the meantime?  It doesn’t cover pump-action shotguns with all the same goodies…:

…which are almost exactly as deadly.  But “pump” sounds quaint, while “semi-automatic” sounds, if you’re a DFL staffer or (who are we kidding) Heather Martens, vaguely evil.

I keep saying “it gets dumber”.  Because it does.  Stay tuned.

The next stop on our dissection of HF241 – Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – is, I’ll be honest, mind-bogglingly obtuse.

It would ban…:

 (3) semi-automatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has one or more of the following:

(i) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;

(ii) a folding, telescoping, or thumbhole stock;

(iii) a shroud attached to the barrel, or that partially or completely encircles the barrel, allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel; or

(iv) the capacity to accept a detachable magazine at any location outside of the pistol grip;

This is aimed at the various semi-automatic pistols that have been teased into a vaguely military-looking appearance, like the “Uzi Pistol”

…which are, literally, pistols with little collapsible stocks on them.  They are mostly famous for appearing in movies in the hands of gang-bangers, which is no doubt why Heather Martens some DFL staffer added them to the bill.

But it also includes our old friend the Mauser C96…:

…which can add a stock to make it a light carbine (for horse-mounted troops in the 1800s), and is a big collectible.   No, I had a friend who owned one.  It’s not that far-out.

(I didn’t forget the Browning HP35…

…which the DFL staff and/or Heather Martens didn’t think about, apparently because it’s not appeared in any gang-banger movies or TV shows, but also has a 13 round magazine, so the DFL will want to ban it anyway…)

Later today:  Yes, this bill gets dumber still.

Bill Glahn – who’s been blogging for a couple of years, but has really jumped out as a go-to blog since the election – notices a huge change in the DFL’s tone, starting the second week in November:

For some reason, Dayton is given credit for proposing a “no-gimmick” budget, but he continues the biggest gimmick from the last budget for another four years.

More troubling, the new Democrat majority in the state legislature ran on ending the school shift as one of their top issues.

And “ending the shift” was one of the DFL’s biggest – and most dishonest – rhetorical cudgels:

Freshperson state Senator Melisa Franzen used the school shift as one of her top issues. Senator Franzen was elected from Senate District 49–covering Edina and parts of three other SW metro suburbs–in what was recognized as the most expensive race for the Minnesota state legislature in 2012. Some $600,000 was spend by various entities for a job that pays $31,140 per year.

In her campaign literature, Franzen listed education as her top issue area, and the school shift as her top education issue. “Paying schools back will be a top priority for me,” she writes on her campaign website. Her campaign piece No. 1 (p. 3) mentions “the accounting shifts and gimmicks used to balance the budget.” Piece No. 2, (page 2) has as bullet 2 of her vision, “pay back the $2.4 billion borrowed from schools.” Her piece No. 5 focuses on education and (page 2) has as her first education priority “pay our schools back.” Her piece No. 8 touts her “bipartisan” endorsements and (page 2) lists “pay back our schools” as her first agenda item. She writes, “Melisa Franzen will balance the budget honestly without gimmicks.” Likewise, this Franzen piece shows an adorable toddler and implores the voter to support Franzen’s efforts to “pay back our schools.”

You may also recall – and recollection is all you have, since the media will never mention it – that the GOP passed a bill, with bipartisan support, that would have had the “shift” paid back by now.

Governor Messinger Dayton vetoed it, at the apex of a whisper campaign by the “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” (the attack-PR group run by his ex-wife, who also holds his pedigree papers) that the GOP’s plan was “a gimmick”, although not a single DFLer, when pressed, could say what the “gimmick” was.  Messinger Dayton vetoed it entirely to give the DFL a campaign issue.

Glahn notes the results:

What a difference an election makes. During the campaign, ending the school shift was the No. 1 issue, now…we’ll get to it in 2017. Senator Franzen now faces the prospect of running for re-election in 2016, not having achieved her top priority, unless her colleagues reject Gov. Dayton’s budget and do the right thing by our children.

And Alida Rockefeller Messinger will never give them permission to do that.

The next section of HF 241 – Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – is a little bit confusing:

3.4(2) semi-automatic pistol, or any semi-automatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle with a fixed magazine, that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds of ammunition;

Does this section mean “any semi-automatic pistol with a magazine capacity of over seven rounds” is banned, as well as fixed-magazine rifles?  Or does it only refer to “semi-automatic pistols with fixed magazines of greater than seven rounds”?

I’m not trying to be tendentious here; it could refer to semi-auto pistols with fixed magazines, although I can think of only one…:

…the Mauser C96, and it has an eight-round fixed magazine.

But I suspect it means “semi auto pistols with more than seven round magazines, or any semi-auto rifle with a fixed magazine of greater than seven rounds”.

Which means this pistol…:

…the classic Colt M1911 .45 calibre with its seven round magazine, is legal, while this one…:

…the SIG P220 .45 with its eight-round magazine, is not.

Huh?

Beyond that?  “Semi-automatic rifles with fixed magazines” holding more than seven rounds include…:

…Grampa’s M1 Garand from World War 2.

The WW2-era Swedish Ljungmann I used to own?

Ten-round semi-detachable magazine (you could detach them, but only for cleaning or clearing jams).

Or the SKS – a Russian design that’s become one of the most popular deer-hunting rifles in America?

Yep, it’s got the ten-round fixed magazine.  It’s cheap (under $300 up until before the election) and ubiquitous – and, apparently, an “assault weapon” in Alice Hausman’s curious little world.

HF 241 – Alice Hausman’s gun grab bill focused on so-called “assault weapons” – has morphed from a list of ugly-looking army-type guns into a recipe book written by people who don’t understand much about guns, but know they really really don’t like them.

Rather than write one long article about this deeply stupid bill, I’m going to break it down in terms of its pure, specious illogic over the next day or so.

The first part of the bill bans any…:

(1) semi-automatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has one or more of the following:

(i) a pistol grip or thumbhole stock;

(ii) any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;

(iii) a folding or telescoping stock; or

(iv) a shroud attached to the barrel, or that partially or completely encircles the barrel, allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel;

Put briefly, if the rifle has a detachable magazine (the thing that holds the bullets) it can’t have a pistol grip, a forward handgrip, an adjustable stock or – this is confusing – the wrong kind of thingie wrapped around the barrel.

So in other words, this Ruger Mini-14 is legal…:

…while this one is illegal…:

…even though the two are functionally exactly identical.

Exactly. As in, there is no difference, down to and including the magazine size.

Oh, it gets dumber.  Yes, the bill would ban this rifle…:

…which is functionally exactly identical to this rifle here:

Both are Ruger 10/22s, perhaps the most ubuquitous .22 caliber plinking rifle in the country.  They are mechanically identical – but one has furniture that offends Alice Hausman’s sensibilities.

Dumber still?  If you like sniping at varmints, this 10/22 is just as illegal as the “tacti-cool” one above:

It’s the same gun, with the “thumbhole stock”.  And if you want to have an adjustable stock, so your kids can shoot the same rifle you do?

Yep. Banned.

Every last one of them is precisely mechanically the same; same ten-round detachable magazine (it pops out of the stock just ahead of the trigger guard), same low-power .22 round.

In other words, Hausman’s gun grab isn’t aimed at even the most tangential definition of “Deadliness”; it’s entirely focused on cosmetic features that have nothing to do with a weapon’s effect.

They get dumber.   More later today.

Emailed from a source in the Senate:

“Guns…Gays…and Growin’ Government!”

And I’m not sure even the gays are going to get what they want this session.

I used to read a lot of liberal bloggers.  I don’t so much anymore; part of it’s the time; part of it is that there are so few good ones.

A few Minnesota liberal blogs – one in particular, but I’m not naming names – have a particularly annoying habit when they get pressed in an argument with a rare conservative commenter; if it’s not going well for them, one of the blog’s writers will dig hard to wrench context hard enough to find some sort of offense in the comment; he’ll feign the Victorian Vapours at the (contrived) offense…

…which has the side-effect of taking the focus of the debate off of, well, the debate.

I’m not sure I’m surprised to hear this next story – that the Minnesota DFL is using the same precise tactic after having been shredded in the marketplace of public opinion last week.

I am a little surprised at the person asking the questions.

From: Nick Coleman <[redacted]@[The Uptake].org>

Date: Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 8:15 AM

Subject: guns at capitol query

To: [redacted]@gocra-mn.org

Joe, Andrew, et al:

There is a growing sense at the Capitol that the presence of so many guns during last week’s gun control hearings affected the process, or even intimidated Legislators. Would you please comment today for a story I am writing for The UpTake?

Is it possible to debate guns in a room full of guns?

Thanks,

Nick Coleman

Executive Editor, The UpTake

www.theuptake.org

651-747-[redacted]

Oh, good lord.

The “Growing Sense” is weasel words for “a conclusion that we can’t actually substantiate”.

A little background here: a carry permittee – a person who has passed a background check and taken a training course – can get permission to carry in the Capitol and the State Office Buildings by informing the head of Capitol security they intend to do so.

And those notifications spiked big-time before Gun Week, last week, as carry permittees – out of symbolism or the practical desire not to have to sweat storing their firearms in their cars – filed with the capitol cops.

Are some legislators intimidated by the existence of firearms?  No doubt.

Are they right to be intimidated by a population that is two orders of magnitude less likely to commit any significant crime than the general public?

No more than they would be to feel “intimidated” by exercise of free speech, worship, press (or radio) or assembly – although some of them are.  And they’re wrong then, too.

And the cutesy final question: “Is it possible to debate guns in a room full of guns?”  Given the reality – carry permittees are safer to be around than just about anyone – the answer is “just as possible as it is in a room full of speech, assembly or religion”.

But let’s cut the crap: the only “growing sense” is among the DFL Caucus’ PR flaks (and, let’s be honest, Alida Messinger and Carrie Lucking) that they need to do something good ‘n Alinsky-riffic to try to undercut the groundswell of popular opinion that swarmed the Capitol last week and humiliated the DFL representatives and their copy-and-pasted bills.

Andrew Rothman, VP of the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, had a response too.  It’s below the jump.  And it includes a classic story about Heather Martens, from the late Joel Rosenberg, that is perhaps one of the best examples of the hyperbolic hypocrisy of the gun-grabber movement…

…and its’ new stenographer, Nick Coleman.

(more…)

Can you imagine if a Republican legislator did this?

Video of registered gun-grabber lobbyist Heather Martens introducing a bill for “Representative” Alice Hausman last week at the Capitol.

The DFL – including committee chair Michael Paymar, the night of the hearings – claim that lobbyists speak the the committee all the time.

But this isn’t just “speaking to the committee”. This is introducing a bill for consideration by our elected representatives.

Hausman claimed that she had other committee assignments – but the committee she chairs didn’t meet on Wednesday night.

Are the people of Minnesota – even you liberals – going to tolerate having your representation handed over to registered lobbyists?

The Strib “Hot Dish” notes that Rep. Alice “The Phantom” Hausman is taking some flak over her “bump and run” act last week; as we noted last week, Hausman introduced several gun grab bills, but didn’t stick around to hear the testimony:

Hausman excused herself Wednesday morning after introducing the assault weapons bill, saying she had another appointment, and did not attend Thursday’s session focusing on her bill to ban larger ammunition magazines.

Hausman said she had other commitments as a committee chair and was told her bills would not be voted on. Rather, Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, chairman of the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee, said ideas contained in many of the bills would be included in a larger, gun-violence measure that will be assembled and voted on later this month.

Now, this brings up one surprise and two issues.

The surprise:  Rachel Stassen-Berger is flirting with reporting something that might conceivably not advance the DFL’s interest.  I thought I saw a flying pig along 394 this morning.  Kudos, Rachel!

The first issue:  while Second Amendment supporters were piqued at Hausman for fleeing any questioning of her gun grab bills, the big problem was that she turned that job over to a registered lobbyist.  If a Republican – any Republican – did this on any issue, the assembled media elite, the Schecks and Cronans and Stassen-Bergers that prowl the Capitol, would be asking some very probing questions.

The other issue?  I’ll add emphasis:

That meant that Hausman, who is not on the public safety committee, was “not a decision-maker,” she said, and was presenting bills that were put together by Protect Minnesota. She said she meant no disrespect to the testifiers.

Remember last year, when Alida Messinger’s “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” paid for a chanting campaign against the “American Legislative Exchange Committee” (ALEC) for submitting model legislation for legislators’ consideration?  Why, you’d have thought democracy itself was at risk.

But there it is in plain black and white; the DFL majority is cribbing legislation from an extremist gun-grabber group that has among the worst records for truthfulness and veracity anywhere in politics – only the Ku Klux Klan and the “Joe Isuzu PAC” do worse – and, apparently (judging by the petulance and illiteracy of the DFL’s responses to the testimony against their gun grabs) without having read them themselves.

…to paraphrase Albert Einstein, is to keep trying to use taxes to engineer society even when you know it doesn’t work.

Last month, we talked about Governor Messinger’s Dayton’s plan to jack up cigarette taxes by a buck a pack.  Raising cigarette taxes never works; revenues plummet because people avoid the taxes the best they can, and if taxes get high enough they switch to the inevitable black market, and even the purported health benefits tend to stall once the casual smokers get priced out of the market.  And, for all the DFL’s palaver about progressivism, cigarette taxes are the most regressive tax there is.

So what could be better than Governor Messinger’s Dayton’s $.94/pack hike?

Ann Lenczewski’s proposed $2.83 per pack – up $1.60 from the current $1.23 in total state taxes – is like Messinger’s Dayton’s proposed hike, only more so.

Kim Crockett from the Center of the American Experiment, quoted in the left-leaning Daily Planet:

But the taxes are seen as regressive — meaning they affect a larger share from those least able to pay, and, according Kim Crockett, chief operating officer for the Center of the American Experiment, the goals of decreasing smoking and increasing revenue can sometimes conflict.

She cautioned against raising the price of cigarettes to the point where there are unintended consequences. She said the state could expect to see more smuggling of the product — casual smuggling by those who cross state lines to purchase the product if it is cheaper, but also commercial smuggling by large-scale operators bringing the product to the state for sale.

“This undermines both the revenue goals and the health goals of higher cigarette taxes,” she said. Additionally, she questioned the anticipated revenue projections.

The DFL are acting like spoiled teenagers who got the car taken away from them for misbehaving with it – and finally got it back, and are acting like now they’re really gonna stick it to Mom and Dad.

To: Rep. John Lesch, HD66B and closet authoritarian
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  “Local Control”

Rep. Lesch,

Last week, at the House Public Safety Finance Committee hearings on the DFL’s various gun grab bills – the one that’d funnel all carry permit applications through the local police chief, if applicable, rather than the county sheriff – you kept repeating “it’s about local control”, as if you were one of those old pull-string toys with the little tape recorder inside.

Little story for ya, here, Leftenant.

Perhaps you recall; back in the bad ol’ days before the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act, when we had a discretionary-issue system where getting a permit depended entirely on ones’ connections, one of the metro-area police chiefs – I think it was Bloomington – said he’d never, ever, ever, ever give out a permit to a common peasant (although he issued one to his wife, as memory serves).

Now, if citizens wanted to voice their displeasure at the transparent unfairness of the system, they had to organize a battle to win the mayor’s office – at whose pleasure the chief served.  Not the citizens’ – the mayor’s.   Which means you need to go a couple of levels of government removed from the citizen in the street to voice any meaningful dissent from the system.

But then the MPPA got passed. And the Sheriffs’ offices got the job, statewide.

And perhaps you remember this, Rep. Lesch:  your old buddy Bob Fletcher got caught denying three times as many permits as any other sheriff in the state, including Hennepin County.  And a huge percentage of those denials, when contested, were coming back losers for the County, costing Ramco a ton of money.

And it was us shooters – of all races, genders and social levels or, put briefly, the people – who were part of the coalition that tossed Fletcher from his job at the polls.

That – a law enforcement official who answers directly to us, as opposed to the local machine and bureaucracy – is what “local control” is.

That is all.

As we noted this morning, most of the DFL representatives on the Public Safety Finance committee spent a good chunk of the time during yesterday’s hearings not listening to testimony about the gun grab bills their caucus was copying and pasting from Andrew Cuomo introducing, and letting a registered lobbyist sit in for one of them.

And then there was this; a Second Amendment activist (writing on Facebook) noted that he approached Duluth DFLer Erik Simonson – who introduced a dumb gun control bill of his own, of which more later – about a bill to “ban body armor” – based on the canard that mass-murderers just love to use body armor.  The bill is written so broadly that it’d include – and require a $100 fee and a background check – protective gear for motorcyclists, paintball players, snowmobilers and, near as I can tell from reading the bill, Highland drummers (whose drumheads are made of Kevlar these days).

The activist went to Simonson (I’ll add emphasis):

I approached Rep Simonson after the hearing in a very polite manner and introduced myself. I told him that some snowmobile and motorcycle jackets not only contain Kevlar but state it right on them. Helmets are made of Kevlar and I believe but am not sure paintball jackets could have Kevlar in them. The Rep said “I am not going down that road. I am not going to have a bunch of exemptions carved out”. I replied “So you want me to have to pay a $100 dollar fee to register my snowmobile jacket? Very curtly he said “I am not going down that road” and turned away…

In other words, “Don’t bother me with the details, peasant!”.

So many questions.  Did Representative Simonson even know what was in “his” bill?  Because all of the DFL’s raft of gun grab bills read like they were cribbed from someone else.  Andrew Cuomo, maybe?

And all of you snowmobilers, Highland drummers, paintballers, and industrial protective equipment users?  You need to contact Rep. Simonson.  His number is 651-296-4246; call him (email doesn’t have enough impact these days).

Ask him.

Especially all of you snowmobilers, motorcyclists and industrial protective equipment users in Duluth.  To say nothing of Second Amendment supporters.