Gary from Highland Park directed me to a quote in this piece about a bill that would make concert and sporting event tickets the personal property of the purchaser:

“I don’t see your bill as a free-market bill,” said Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley. “[It’s] the Legislature weighing in and picking winners and losers among competing industries, and that’s something we’re pretty bad at, but never can stop doing, it seems.”

Gary adds “”Isn’t the first step admitting you have a problem? Think he can stop his destructive habit?”

I’m just wondering why Winker’s wasting his time on this, and not out there personally creating more jerbs?

The state Campaign Finance Board is short on cash and looking for more money as campaign season heats up:

Gary Goldsmith, the board’s executive director, says stagnant funding makes it difficult for his staff to do its job effectively.

A new report by the State Integrity Investigation, a study that looked at each state’s risk for corruption, underscores Goldsmith’s concern: Minnesota scored lower than other states on some questions having to do with the board’s ability to pursue all investigations.

Well, the obvious solution would be to have the CFB get a huge contribution under the table from someone like Alita Messinger.

(Ba-dum BUM)

Funding difficulties could make the board’s job particularly tough this election year, when outside groups looking to influence campaigns and the vote on proposed amendments to the Minnesota Constitution are expected to dominate political spending.

Here’s a humble suggestion: institute “Loser Pays” for all CFB complaints.

That’ll discourage DFL minions from bringing frivolous, bogus, partisan claims that even mere bloggers can tear to shreds, but require all sorts of expensive due process anyway.

Problem solved!

The US 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court ruling on judicial campaigning and elections:

A deeply split federal appeals court restored Minnesota’s restrictions on fundraising and endorsements by judicial candidates on Tuesday, reversiång an earlier decision that held the state’s rules unconstitutional on free-speech grounds.

A plurality of judges on the fåull 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted to overturn a 2-1 ruling by a three-judge appeals panel in 2010. Five judges signed the main opinion, two signed concurrences, and a total of five signed two separate dissents.

The case relates to the ongoing quest to allow judicial candidates to freely speak and raise money, among other things:

At issue were the state Supreme Court’s limits on a judicial candidate’s ability to personally solicit campaign donations one-on-one, and its prohibition on judicial candidates from publicly endorsing or from opposing other candidates for public office except their opponents. The state allows judicial candidates to request contributions only when speaking to groups of 20 people or more, or from family members and other judges. Wersal says the restrictions give incumbents an unfair advantage and mean that few of them ever lose.

The judges’ reasoning, I think, is the interesting part -and when I say “interesting”, I mean “just a little bit maddening”:

The plurality, led by Judge Kermit Bye, concluded that the state’s rules are constitutional because Minnesota has a compelling interest in preserving not only judicial impartiality but also the appearance of it. Dissenters led by Judge Arlen Beam maintained that the rules do indeed violate First Amendment freedoms.

Judge Bye:  when every court observer can predict the outcome of every case with remotely-political overtones based on judges’ known party affiliations, and when people can start handicapping vital actions like the Redistricting Panel’s decisions months in advance – correctly! – then there is no “appearance” of impartiality.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Wersal in a key 2002 ruling, and Wersal said he’ll ask the high court to review the latest decision too. The high court accepts only a few petitions for review, but Wersal said conflicting rulings from the 6th, 7th and now 8th Circuits improve his chances.

“And so the saga will continue,” Wersal said with a laugh. “We’ll just have to keep plugging away. Someday we’ll have free judicial elections in the state of Minnesota. It’s just going to be delayed a bit.”

Nah.  A judge will issue an injunction.

I went to downtown Saint Paul this morning to rent a room for the evening.  I figured if I was going to be dealing with Minnesoita’s chanting class – the mass of chant-bots that the unions and astroturf groups like “Take Action Minnesota” can spawn to protest wherever needed – I’d need a drink or fifteen.  I’d no doubt be too hammered to take the bus, much less drive.

I went to the front desk to reserve my room.

The clerk – a chipper Hispanic woman named Rosa – asked me for my ID.

“That’s ironic, isn’t it?”, I chuckled.  “I’m here to cover people who think there should be no photo IDs to vote, and you’re asking me for a photo ID to get a hotel room!”

“Ha ha, sir”, Rosa answered through a half-hearted smile.

“Sorry about that”, I said.

“No, I’m sorry – it’s my fault.  We have some, um, difficult guests”, she said, sotto voce.   “They were up partying all night.  They don’t tip – they say tipping is “for the 1%”, and that the waitstaff and bellhops should do their job “out of solidarity with the 99%””.

“Oh, no.  Who are they…”

She shook her head as the door opened.  “Can’t talk now”, she said, looking at the group coming through the door.

A group of short men in bright pastel clothing with chemical tans walked through the lobby.  Curiously, they were chanting.  I recorded the chant, and present the transcription, unedited.

Oompa Loompa, Doopity Dounted

We demand every vote be counted!

Oompa Loompa Doopity Dipocrit

If you ask ID, then you are a hypocrite!

One of the men, in an intonation-challenged Irish tenor, then took a solo

The 99 percent can’t get an ID!

They’re for the one percent, not for you or for me!

What if you ask me to prove who I am?

That’s what I call…

[Bass voice takes over]

Intimidation!

The rest of the group came in:

Oompa Looompa Doopity Doblem

There never has been a voter fraud problem.

Oompah Loompa Doopity Remand

We insist on no IDs like the Oompa Loompa Doompa Scroompa Froompa Loompas Doompity Demand!

They marched up the hall to their rooms, except for one who ambled over to the desk.

“You don’t see that every day”, I said.  But Rosa had already turned her attention to the fellow from the group.

I turned, looked down, and recognized the fellow as Edgar Torvaldsbladson – better known by his Twitter handle, “EightballEdgar”.  He shoots a lot of pool, apparently.  At least, I don’t think he’s a crack user, and I’m pretty sure it refers to pool.

“Can I help you, sir?” Rosa asked.

“YES! PLEASE SEND BOOZE TO MY ROOM!” EightballEdgar exclaimed.

The volume startled me.  Rosa didn’t skip a beat.  “Er, that’d be a room service request.  Do you have a credit card on file…”

“WHAT ARE YOU, A 99PNJ?”

“A what?”

“NINETY-NINE-PERCENT NUT JOB!”

“Er, sir?  I just have to make sure the booze is paid for…”

“FINE!”, he bellowed, digging a card out of the oily  brim of his little green homburg.

“Hey, EightballEdgar, how ya doing!  Long time no see!”

He looked up at me.  “I AM HERE TO PROTEST THE DISENFRANCISEMENT OF THE POOR BY THE VOTER ID BILL AS PART OF A SPONTANEOUS DEMONSTRATION”.

“Ah.  Well, cool.  Hey – did you have to show the hotel an ID to book your room?”

“SO?  BOOKING A HOTEL ISN’T A RIGHT IN THE CONSTITUTION, LIKE ABORTION”.

“Um, yeah”, I answered as Rosa wrinkled her nose silently in distaste.  “I didn’t say it was; merely that society takes all sorts of prudent measures to ensure people are who they say they are”.

EightballEdgar looked at me.  “YOUR SUIT LOOKS STUPID”.

“Perhaps, but that’s not really the point”.

“YOU WERE PULLED OVER IN 2004 FOR DRIVING WITH EXPIRED TABS!”

“I was indeed.  Now, about the topic of voter ID.  You’re right.  Hotel rooms aren’t constitutional rights.  Voting is.  But we demand ID as a reasonable restriction on many constitutional rights.  For example, my Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is spelled out in the Constitution, and is defined as an individual right which was incorporated in very literal form on the States by the Heller and McDonald decisions.  But as a reasonable restriction – to ensure that I am who I say I am – I have to present an ID to buy ammunition or rifles, and show an ID and pass a background check to get a permit to purchase a handgun, to actually buy the handgun, and to apply for a permit to carry that handgun, not to mention to rent time at a shooting range to actually practice with the thing!”.

His eyes opened wide, and he started hopping up and down.  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  WHAT PART OF “WELL-REGULATED” CONFUSES YOU, YOU IDIOT!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

“It meant “can hit what they aim at”, but that’s neither here nor there.  Let’s say I want to carry out my first amendment right to petition to seek a redress of grievances…”

“YOU AND YOUR FANCY LAWYER TALK!”

“Er, what it means is, I went to court to file a lawsuit against this guy that slandered me last summer – long story.  Anyway – I filed my petition.  I gave them my cash.  They asked to see a photo ID, to make sure I was who I said I was”.

“BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TEH CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO SUE!”

“Er, that’s what “petition for redress of grievances” means.  It’s a constitutional right.  An important one, as it happens”.

EightballEdgar looked at me.

He looked at me some more.

“YOU WERE PULLED OVER IN 2004 FOR DRIVING WITH EXPIRED TABS!”

“O…K…” I said as Rosa stifled a chuckle.

“EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!  EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!”  He waved his little arms around, trying to get the attention of other passersby in the lobby.

I turned to Rosa and handed her my credit card.  “Make that two bottles of Glenlivet in Room 821″.

“Thank you, sir”, she said, smiling as I signed for a 25% tip.

I walked to the elevator, with EightballEdgar walking behind me, chanting “EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!  EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!” until I dropped a piece of aluminum foil on the ground, which diverted him.

A few minutes later, I was off to the Capitol.

To: All you Government Union people heading down to bum-rush the Legislature
From: Mitch Berg, your DJ for the day
Re: Mood Music

This one’s dedicated to you and your effort to cheapen democracy:

No, it’s not a compliment. If you listen to it anyway…

(And no, it doesn’t matter that “Joe Strummer was a socialist”; the song is pretty acerbic about unions…)

As this post appears, the unions and the Twin Cities astroturf community are gathering at the Capitol to bellow, shout and chant for the right to have Minnesotans’ votes counted as many times and places as the DFL needs them to be counted.  They are going to try to sway the Senate, which will vote this afternoon on putting the Voter ID Amendment on the ballot for this November, where it will likely pass by a huge margin, making vote fraud and DFL hegemony juuuuuust a little more difficult. They want to keep Minnesota a Cold Chicago.

If you’re reading this blog and you’re not one of the occasional liberal sock puppets who chimes in occasionally, you probably have a job.  You may be thinking “I can’t make it to the Capitol at noon for a rally”.

Baloney.

Call your Senator.  Even if you have a DFL marionette for a Senator, they count the numbers of calls, and they pay attention to them.

Let them know that the droogs that are stumbling around the Capitol today don’t speak for you.

And if you are represented by a good conservative?  Encourage and thank them for standing up for democracy with integrity.

We can win this one, and win it big.

…but I’m going to repeat myself.  It’s a paragraph from a post I wrote last night for this morning.  As I wrote it, I thought the paragraph stood up as a post on its own.

Mark Ritchie claims that something like a fifth of all Minnesota adults lacks an ID for one reason or another.  (He’s referring to driver’s licenses.  Which is its own bit of misleading rhetoric; the DFL is trying to convince the not-so-savvy – the DFL base, really – that voting would require some ID above and beyond a driver’s license).  The numbers are BS, of course.

Still, I’m wondering if I am alone among all of the people in Minnesota who has to have an ID to drive a car, open a savings account, enroll my kids in school, buy a firearm or ammunition, buy alcohol, open a safe deposit box, get medical treatment, pick up a prescription, turn oneself in for an outstanding warrant, adopt a pet, get your pet out of the pound, pay a traffic ticket, use a credit card, write a check, rent an apartment, carry out any business with the government, withdraw money from the bank, deposit money in the bank, cash a paycheck, get a passport, start a new job, enroll for a class, get on a plane, buy a lottery ticket, get a hotel room, get a marriage license, rent a car, file a court action, apply for a loan, close a mortgage, collect bail paid for erroneous arrests, enroll your kid in daycare or buy Sudafed to want to say shut up, quit your whining and get a free freaking ID?

And do Mark Ritchie’s legions of phantom, ID-less Minnesotans – 20% of the adult voting population – somehow get around in this state without driving, saving, spending, schooling, getting jobs, dealing with banks or governments, marrying, traveling, sueing, borrowing, buying or sniffling?

How do they do that?

…the GOP is focused on jobs.

The “MNGOP’s “Reform 2.0” agenda moved forward yesterday with the passage of the “Tax Relief And Job Creation Act”, which passed in the House.

I wish every working Minnesotan could see this bit from yesterday – Rep. Matt Dean tearing chunks out of Ann Lenczewski, who’d just finished demigogueing against the bill:

Pass it around.

This is going to come up in the Senate soon. And while it’s not as sexy and sound-biteable as the Marriage Amendment or Voter ID, it’s much more important for Minnesota’s long-term future, especially for the parts of Minnesota that actually work.

We’ll keep you posted.

The DFL has faced three big existential threats this year.

A truly accurate redistricting would have reflected the fact that so many people have fled incompetent DFL governments and moved to GOP-controlled areas.  While the judges couldn’t avoid reflecting that on some level, they bent over backwards to preserve the DFL; all the Soros money spent on astroturf groups like “Draw The Line” and huge-money liberal lawyers like Darth Lillehaug was well-spent.

Of course, the Legislative GOP caucus is apparently trying its darnedest to back down on “Right To Work”, afraid that the unions will spend tens of millions of dollars attacking pro-Right-To-Work legislators in swing-y districts. Of course, now the unions will spend the money anyway.  Oops.

And finally, Voter ID.   I’m not going to say that Minnesota elections are invalid in a wholesale way.  I am going to say that the evidence points to an awful lot of people voting who shouldn’t be able to, and plenty of vouching fraud, and that it’s been enough to tip close elections.  Enough to give Mark Dayton an 8K vote majority?  Don’t know.  Enough to tip Franken/Coleman?  I don’t doubt it.

Anyway, the Voter ID Amendment goes to the Senate on Friday.  And the unions – freed from having to protest against “Right to Work” (see?) are calling in the clans on Voter ID (emphasis added):

Dear [whomever],

Stand with us as Photo ID moves to the Senate floor

Over the past two months, our campaign to stop the Photo ID amendment made calls, followed the money trail to the doors of Wells Fargo, stood at the Capitol to make our voices heard, and successfully raised over $3,000 in 24 hours.

On Friday afternoon, the Minnesota State Senate will vote on Photo ID. If we are going to keep the amendment off the ballot, we’re going to do it here in the Senate. That’s why we need you there with us, and that’s why we need your help to pack the Capitol:

WHAT: Photo ID Amendment Senate Floor Vote

WHEN: Friday, March 23 — 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: Minnesota State Capitol, 75 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, St. Paul, MN 55155

Click here to RSVP and let us know we can count on seeing you at the Capitol this Friday.

Of course, it’s at a time of the day when most of us people who work for a living – unlike, it seems a lot of unionized government workers – can’t make it to the Capitol.

We’ll come back to that:

Over 215,000 Minnesotans who are are registered to vote do not have a current government-issued ID. The elderly, students, people with disabilities, the working poor and people of color will be especially affected by the amendment if passed. But really, anyone who has ever registered on Election Day, moved, or lost their wallet will have a harder time voting.

Am I alone among all of the people in Minnesota who has to have an ID to drive a car, open a savings account, buy a firearm or ammunition, buy alcohol, open a safe deposit box, get medical treatment, pick up a prescription, turn oneself in for an outstanding warrant, adopt a pet, use a credit card, write a check, rent an apartment, carry out any business with the government, withdraw money from the bank, get a passport, start a new job, enroll for a class, get on a plane, get a hotel room, get a marriage license, rent a car, apply for a loan, close a mortgage, collect bail paid for erroneous arrests, enroll your kid in daycare or buy Sudafed to shut up, quit your whining and get a free freaking ID?

These aren’t just numbers — they are your neighbors, your friends, your family, and quite possibly, you.

All my neighbors and family that don’t drive, save4, shoot, drink, go to the doctor, adopt pets, use plastic, bank, travel, live indoors, go to school or work?  Yep.  It could be any of them.  Or me.

Ya never know.

But I digress:

Like so many bills we’ve seen at the Capitol this year, the Photo ID Amendment is an national attack on our democracy by the 1%. Join us as we raise our voices to protect Minnesota’s democracy for the 99%.

See you at the Capitol on Friday!

Liz Wasserman-Schultz [OK, I changed the name; it’s “Loeb”]

Democracy Campaign Manager

TakeAction Minnesota

P.S. Can you help us pack the Capitol? Ask five friends to join you by forwarding this email, sharing the event page on Facebook, and spreading the word on Twitter.

So there it is.  The DFL is calling in its packs of droogs to bellow their little lungs out tomorrow at the Capitol.

You’re a real Minnesotan.  You work for a living.  You can’t make it to the capitol – and you’re not a “Stand around with a sign” kind of person anyway.  What can you do?

Call your Senator.  Even if you have a mindless DFL hamster (I’m still “represented” by Mary Jo McGuire, which seems bad until you remember that redistricting has put me into Sandy Pappas’ district for the next session), they need to know that opinion is against them.  And the GOP needs to know that that 4:1 margin of Minnesotans who support Voter ID is really out there.

So call.

And remember their vote in November.

From the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department page on “Turning Yourself In“, if you have an outstanding warraint:

Individuals with an active arrest warrant can turn themselves in 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the Adult Detention Center (425 Grove Street, Saint Paul, Minnesota).

Individuals turning themselves in are encouraged to provide the Sheriff’s Office with as much information as possible related to why they are wanted.

When turning yourself in, please bring the following items:

• Valid state or federal issued photo identification, such as a driver’s license
• Current prescription medications in original sealed and labeled packaging
• Clothing appropriate for the season
• Cash for bail (if appropriate)
• Necessary personal assistive aids, such as glasses, hearing aids, or orthopedic devices

Has anyone told Mark Ritchie?

Of all the facile DFL chanting points sluicing outward from Media Matters For America the Alliance For A “Better” Minnesota this session, perhaps the most galling is “The DFL is focused on jobs, while the GOP is obsessing over constitutional amendments over social issues”.

For starters, it’s absurd; the GOP as a rule doesn’t believe government “creates jobs”.  And as we noted at the beginning of the session, the “jobs plan” contained in Dayton’s bonding bill is really just a “Jerbs Plan“, creating a bunch of temporary – ahem, “Shovel-Ready” – construction jobs (for DFL-up-sucking unions and the state workers that supervise them, naturally).  As we saw last January, the job numbers themselves make no sense.

The fact that Minnesota’s unemployment is as low as it is is, in fact, testimony to the GOP’s real jobs plan; keeping taxes as low as possible (given an irresponsible and dogmatically partisan  DFL governor for the past year, and DFL legislatures for the four preceding).

As to the “social legislation?”  The Legislative can walk and chew gum at the same time (the fade on “Right To Work” notwithstanding).  They can do both just as easily as Tom Bakk can propose legislation on the State Beer and whatever else it is he does every day.

But the real difference is this:  while the DFL and Governor Dayton propose to “create” temp jerbs, the GOP is out to make Minnesota a place where business can get established, grow and thrive.

After almost a year of listening to the DFL chide the GOP for “borrowing” money from the schools (actually just delaying some of the payments from one budget year to the next (notwithstanding the fact that Mark Dayton’s “budget” proposed an even bigger “loan”, naturally), the DFL is now proposing continuing the “delay” to refill the budget reserve.

Well, not “the DFL”, per se, but the Strib editorial board.  But that’s a distinction without a difference; the editorial board serves as the DFL’s trial balloon launcher.

And launch they do:

Budget reserves don’t get a lot of love at the State Capitol.

Throngs don’t congregate to shout “Don’t raid our reserves!” Lobbyists don’t line the corridors plotting strategies to plump up reserves or shield them from attack.

It’s a pity that they don’t. Adequate reserves are the taxpayers’ insurance policy.

“Insurance policy”…against what?

Hard times?

Like the ones we’ve been in for a few years now?

They guard against disruptive cuts and/or tax increases when an ill-timed financial calamity strikes.

For a family budget – for people who earn their money – a budget reserve makes ample sense, and is a priority.

For a state?  Keeping a billion dollar reserve – that’s $200 for every man, woman and child in the state of Minnesota – is yet another case of the Strib editorial board DFL saying “Tough times schmough times; keeping government running comes first; bend over, it’s tax day!”

The best “budget reserve” for government is to spend not only less than its means – its revenues – but much less.  Let revenue drop to where the budget is when things turn dodgy.  That means the next time times turn good, do not treat the new revenue as a sign that it’s time to have more permanent spending…

…which is exactly what the faux Republicans like Arne Carlson, stealth DFLers like Jesse Ventura, and of course the Strib Editorial Board DFL do.

Reserves are necessities for a family.  They’re a luxury for government – something to plump up only when revenues are increasing so fast that even a DFL legislature can’t try to spend it fast enough.

Gotta hand it to the DFL.

They’re playing a pair of “fours” this election.   But they’re playing them for all they’re worth.

Intellectually and politically, the DFL is running on fumes this year.  The closest thing they had to a legislative agenda – “tax the rich!” – stalled and died in the legislature.  The regional economy is slowly (sloooooowly) obsoleting their “We have to tax our way out of deficits!” meme.  They’re looking at Obama’s eroding popularity and hoping that the President’s coat tails are like the ones on a tank top.   And redistricting, for all of the partisan media’s backing and filling, looks to be mostly a wash in the near term, and reflects long-term demographic changes that can not bode well for the DFL (other than the progressives’ great long-term fairy tale, “lots of potential liberals are immigrating to the US”, which is of course true provided that we allow generations of new Americans to stay ignorant about what this country’s about – which is, of course, Democrat policy).

In response, the DFL really has only a few points to run on:

“Aren’t Those Republicans Awful People?”  In 1998, when the Democrats had a skirt-seeking missile in the White House, they responded by teaching a generation of American teens that oral sex wasn’t really sex at all, and demanding that we all just Mooooove On.  The French were laughing at us after all.

Now, after a low-grade “sex scandal”, Mary Fransion’s manufactured gaffe and a few other minor incidents, expect the Party of Infanticide to plead “family values”, making me wonder if all those teenagers from the Clinton era – now pushing thirty – will need years of therapy to sort out the mixed messages.

“Just Look At The Economy!” Minnesota’s economy is doing better than most.  Not North Dakota-good, but not bad.  The DFL and media (ptr) will work overtime to convince Minnesotans that correlation – Mark Dayton is governor and the economy sucks less than the rest of the US – equals causation, scrupulously ignoring that it’s the GOP majority in the Legislature that have done all the positive work this past few years (and, likely as not, eight years of Pawlenty’s leadership and four years of his stymying of the DFL that set the stage for the relative level of health we have).

“We Saved The Vikings!”  And they’ll save snowmobiling and binge-drinking, too, if they have to!

The mainstream media – especially the Strib, which profits from the current Dayton/Bakk plan – spun this as a partisan issue (and part of it was; principled conservatives joined a few principled liberals, like John Marty, in rejecting Wilfare), playing up Dayton and Senate Majority Leader Bakk’s “leadership”, and only incidentally scratching the surface of their plan, which seemed to rely on money borne down from heaven on the backs of unicorns. (You can go to MPR to read what I was reporting on two weeks ago, if you’d like).

Of course, with the Senate tabling the bill, that’s looking a little dodgy.  But no worries – the Dems still have the big daddy of them all:

“It’s Inevitable!”  One of my favorite aphorisms is an old Hungarian saying: “the best way to become wealthy is to appear as if you already are”.

The DFL apparently read it too.

The DFL and the media – and on this, as few other issues, when I say “pardon the redundancy”, it rings truer than usual – are doing their best to portray this next election as an inevitable winner for the DFL, for…well, whatever reason.  Redistricting favored them (more on that probably later today), or people are sick of GOP squabbling and want the government to “get things done”, or demographics make it inevitable, or the economy is racing back so fast that Obama’s coattails are going to lift them up, or Minnesotans just loooooooove keeping their beloved government fat and happy…

…or all of the above.  Because the best way to win an election may not in fact be to appear as if you already have – but it doesn’t hurt to add it in there, either.

So this blog will spend a good chunk of the next seven and a half months covering the DFL Ministry of Truth’s attempts at psychological warfare.  There’ll be no shortage of material.

Sources at the Capitol tell me that the Employee Freedom Act – the proposed Right to Work Amendment – is in trouble.

The sources tell me the House GOP caucus leadership is going wobbly, and some caucus members are nervous about the money the unions say they’re going to bring to bear.

It’s time to call your House GOP caucus and its members, especially if you’re a constitiuent.  Encourage them to support the amendment.  Polls show the people support Right to Work by a significant margin.

Fortune favors the bold – and the DFL noise machine will play this like a victory they earned.

House GOP Caucuse:  Please stop the wobbling.

Another liberal state.

Another state where you can practically register your dog as a voter:

The video, a sequel to O’Keefe’s “Primary of the Living Dead” in New Hampshire, shows a Veritas agent entering various voting places around the state of Vermont, giving a different name each time. Each time, he is given a ballot without showing an ID, to his disbelief.

In the video, the agent repeatedly requests (but does not take) a Republican primary ballot. As he explained to Breitbart.com: “We wanted to remind viewers this is not a partisan issue. This is a situation wherein anyone — Republican or Democrat — can exploit the system.”

The new video follows in the wake of a highly-politicized media attack on Mr. O’Keefe after his exposure of voter fraud in New Hampshire. Those videos resulted in calls from the left for O’Keefe’s arrest. However, the videos soon resulted in the New Hampshire State Senate passing a new bill requiring voter ID.

This comes on top of the expose on Minnesota’s comical voter registration system last month.

Just a hunch – but a few hundred more of these and we may just reach a tipping point.

I don’t want to become one of those blogs that carry party press releases (I very rarely do this) and is all about calling people to one kind of action or another.

But this blog has always been about grassroots politics – mine, sure, but everyone else’s as well.

Anyway – the Right to Work amendment gets its hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.

I have it on good authority that some of the more moderate Republicans on the committee are getting a little squishy on this amendment.  They are afraid of all the union money that’s going to come into the state.  Fact is, the union money will always be there – but with RTW legislation popping up everywhere, it’s going to be spread a lot thinner than it will be in two or four years.  If not now, when?

So if you’ve got a senator on the committee, give ’em a call.  Encourage them to support the Right to Work amendment.  Encourage ’em to remember why they got sent there – and if it’s not a Freshman in the Senate, also encourage ’em to remember how they got the majority.

This just in:  Astroturf protesters heckled Mary Franson in the House Ag Committee, trying to overturn the 2010 election results by demanding her resignation over their context-mangled attack on her.  (The issue was in danger of fading from the headlines; the left can’t afford that)

Here’s her response – emphasis added:

Intimidation and bullying are hallmarks of the far left. The protesters here today exemplify the abusive nature of their political involvement by demanding my resignation and silence. They don’t engage on the tragedy of dependency and poverty because they have no solutions, only threats and theatrics.

No one is fooled or persuaded by these Alinsky tactics and far from resigning, these astro turf events only make me more committed to helping the poor out of poverty. My constituents support my efforts to change that status quo. The public knows stunts when it sees one and today’s orchestrated, manufactured “protests” are just that.

Mary Franson

The poor aren’t animals – but huge swathes of the DFL are a bunch of hyenas.

Mary is under a lot of fire right now – and it’s becoming more and more depraved.  She could use a call from some real Minnesotans, supporting her.

I went to my first Fourth Congressional District GOP meeting since the redistricting last night.

We got two bits of news:

1. We’re down to one candidate to replace Betty McCollum.  With the withdrawal of Dan Flood, Tony Hernandez is the guy with the hat in the ring.  There’s about a month for someone to jump in.
2. With the addition of all that new territory between the old Fourth and the Saint Croix – Stillwater, Woodbury, Dellwood, Lake Elmo and Afton – most of which skew at least slightly GOP, the Fourth has gone from a 65-35 DFL district (sometimes more like 70-30) to a 60-40 DFL district.

So there’s two bits of good news there.

The Good Candidate: I’ve known Tony Hernandez for a couple of years.  He ran against Dick Cohen in SD…er, 64, right?  Anyway, in 2010, Hernandez ran against Cohen’s sinecure.  And like all Republicans in the city, he got trounced.  But – he was the only Republican in the whole city to get a precinct inside twenty points, and when you’re a Saint Paul Republican, you look for whatever scrap of good news you can find.  When we heard the announcements last night that it was down to Tony, the committee-person next to me said “Hernandez is going to have to work“.   That, naturally, goes without saying.  It’s going to take a superhuman effort.

Fortunately…

The Numbers Are A Tad Less Superhuman: 60-40 is daunting indeed.  But it’s a lot less daunting than 70-30.  The latter is more than 2:1, which in political terms might as well be 50:1.  Betting on 3:2 odds is a whole different critter.

I mean, it’s still  a long shot.  But the Fourth now has the same numbers as the Eighth had two years ago.

Back after Cravaack won, I noted the keys to his victory; lots of hard work, sure – the guy logged a jillion miles, and he’s still doing it.  But hard work without focus is just wasted energy.  Cravaack had good staff – and he ran his district campaign like a military operation, with a chain of command breaking up the district and the work to be done into chunks which an individual (with a day job and a family who was also working their ass off to volunteer) could manage.  And they managed it.

I joked at the time that what the GOP needed was eight former Navy Chief Petty Officers (Army master sergeants, Marine gunnies or Air Force technical sergeants, naturally, would work too), one in each CD – not so much to run, but to manage the campaigns.

And so I was excited to see Flood – a retired Navy senior chief – throwing his hat in the ring.  It’s always fun when your quips come to life.

But Flood’s back out (although it’d be great to have a good CPO working on the campaign, if for no other reason than he could no doubt get things ship-shape, as it were), and unless someone else jumps in and exhibits some fund-raising and organizing mojo very fast, Martinez could be the guy.

And he’s gonna have to work.  And so will all the rest of us.

And that work looks a lot less hopeless now than it did two years ago.

Because while a 60:40 margin is a pretty comfortable one for a good politician…

Betty McCollum is not a good politician.  She is a ventriloquist’s dummy for the various Metro special interests.  She isn’t a representative; she a stenographer and lever-puller for the MFT/AFSCME/MAPE/SEIU/Common Cause and the rest of the DFL’s rouge gallery.  She doesn’t have any beliefs she’s not instructed to have.  She’s overmatched in a debate with her own reflection.  Hearing her talk is like listening to someone reading a list of chanting points and ignoring the punctuation (“The central corridor will bring a lot of new jobs and those are infrastructure jobs and we also support the right to choose and we get behind working families and don’t you know working families need help and that’s why President Obama supports targeted tax cuts and healthcare is a right…” isn’t a direct quote, but if you’ve heard McCollum speak, admit it, you’re laughing now, aren’t you?)

So there you go, Fourth District.  The impossible just got a lot more do-able.

Last month, Minnesota’s American Civil LIberties Union chapter ran a publicity stunt, offering a thousand dollar reward for an example of a case of voter fraud that a Voter ID Amendment would have caught.

Today, the Minnesota Majority took the stunt ball and rran, producing a case and putting in its clam for the reward:

Dan McGrath, executive director of Minnesota Majority, produced court records from an Anoka County case involving voting in the 2008 election. The records concern an Andover woman who was charged with three felonies. According to the records, prosecutors believe she voted in person in her own name, and by absentee ballot in the name of her daughter, who was away at college.

The daughter also voted near her college in the same election. The mother, according to records produced by McGrath, pleaded guilty to one of the charges and was sentenced to probation in August of 2011.

I”ll be asking McGrath for the names.  I’ll bet dimes to dollars the woman voted DFL both times.

But that’s not really the subject of this post.

No, I have two other observations.

Is Jim Ragsdale Gunning For Lori Sturdevant’s Gig?: Ragsdale kicked off his piece with the following, to which I’ve added emphasis:

A small conservative activist group known as the Minnesota Majority, which has been investigating voting irregularities in Minnesota for years, claimed a $1,000 prize offered by the ACLU for finding a case of fraud that a photo ID requirement would have prevented.

So the MInnesota Majority is “small” and “conservative” – but the ACLU is omniscient and balanced?

Why does Ragsdale feel the need to  label Minnesota Majority’s ideology but not that of the ACLU?

And why does he call it “small”, when the MM likely puts more activists out in the field on any given day than the ACLU – which is, let’s not forget, a couple of lawyers in an office in Saint Paul and a “membership” that is largely a list of donors?

Mr. Ragsdale:  Editorialize much?

So How Much Fraud Does The Left Find Acceptable?: Greta Bergstrom, who works for “Take Action Minnesota”, tweeted:

A college student was impersonated by her mom. Seriously? This is the “voting threat” in MN? #mnleg #stribpol

Let’s try to illustrate this for you.  Let’s say that the Koch Brothers forges a ballot on a referendum to ban abortion.  That forged ballot negated the vote of one pro-choice woman.  Would that level of fraud be acceptable?  Just one pro-choice woman?

Think hard, Greta.  Crank that finely-honed progressive propaganda-bot mind up to “puree” and cough up an answer.

You can do it.  I just know you can.

To: Dave Senjem, Kurt Zellers and the rest of the Legislative GOP Caucuses
From: Mitch Berg, Conservative Pugilist Without Portfolio
Re: WTF?

I was talking with a fairly prominent GOP/conservative activist the other day.  He noted that some of you are getting squishy on some core conservative issues – specifically “Right To Work”.

You’re nervous about the amount of money the “labor” movement is going to spend against against you this fall if you pursue this issue.

My question:  If not now, when?  The “labor” movement is spread incredibly thin this year; they’re fighting “Right to Work” in a slew of states, all of them “must-wins” for them.  They have a lot of ill-gotten money, it’s true – but they’ll be playing whack-a-mole in a whole bunch of legislatures.  Next session, and 2014, they will not be.

You were sent to Saint Paul in an epic reversal of fortune from the previous two cycles; you went from plucky but almost irrelevant minority to solid majority in one election.

I’m going to suggest to you that the voters didn’t do that because of anything connoted with the term “Republican Party of MInnesota”, or because they wanted Lori Sturdevant to approve of you.  They threw out the Democrats because you took a courageous stance on the stump, and convinced the voters that they didn’t want Democrats passing the laws.

They did it because the Cauci proposed to change things in this state, and the voters believed them.

So deliver.

That is all.

Commenter “Nate” yesterday, in a comment I thought was worthy of being posted:

It is strangely appropriate that the man who shut down his Senate office for fear of talcum powder now insists all Minnesotans should have a legal duty of cowardice. You may NOT stand up for yourself. If threatened, you MUST RUN AWAY.

Brave, brave Sir Robin

Perhaps James Backstrom warned him about the talc.

Ted “Mini-Governor” Mondale wants you, the voter, to believe that 4-2=6.

Metropolitan Sports Facility Chairman Ted Mondale said the electronic pull-tab financing mechanism for the state’s $400 million share is solid, despite questions about gambling revenue projections and the bonds the state intends to sell. Mondale also seemed to be hinting that he’s not worried about charitable gambling operators’ complaints about their taxes:

“As it relates to the revenue estimates. We believe that the total pot in the first year will be $72 million. There will be a final negotiation when the bill goes through with the bars and the restaurants, but we think their revenue almost doubles.

That’d be amazing!

Of course, it’d involve gaming revenues taking a huge U-turn from their past ten years’ performance.  Gary Gross at the Examiner unpacks reality (I’ll add some emphasis):

According to this pdf report, the trend continues. In FY2002, gross receipts were $1,435,426,000. That figure had dropped 31% to $989,906,000 in FY2011. To be fair, that represented a 1% increase in receipts from 2010.

That said, that’s the only increase in gross receipts during the FY2002-FY2011 decade:

FY2010 gross receipts dropped 5%.

FY2009 gross receipts dropped 9.6%.

FY2008 gross receipts dropped 9.8%.

FY2007 gross receipts dropped 3.3%.

FY2006 gross receipts dropped by 4.8%.

FY2005 gross receipts dropped by 3.1%.

FY2004 gross receipts dropped by $100,000. That was listed as breaking even.

FY2003 gross receipts dropped by 1.2%.

FY2002 gross receipts dropped by .1%.

When you factor in the fact that only 4% of all receipts get to charities, there isn’t nearly enough revenue to pay off the state’s share of $398,000,000.

Mondale is saying that charitable gaming will not just turn around a constant bleeding away of receipts, but double.

This is more Democrat economics in action.

As we pointed out this morning, the Minneapolis “contribution” is wobbly as well.

DFL economics; based on phantom revenue growth and nonexistant consensus!

And 43% of this state voted for Mark Dayton exactly why?

The Twin Cities media has been painstakingly buffing and spit-shining Senator Amy Klobuchar’s reputation as “the nice Senator” – not just in terms of being uncontroversial, but just plain personable.

And if you meet her at a DFL event, or at the fair, surrounded by her staff and on point, she sure can seem like a nice enough person.

But Luke Matthews at True North has an example against the narrative, and begs to differ:

“We went to Senator Klobuchar’s office. Her lackey at the desk told us she couldn’t meet with us.

 

 

Unfortunately for her, 50 veterans fill up the hallway in that area of the Senator’s office area, and her attempt to sneak down the hall unnoticed was a failure. We gathered around her and explained that we just wanted to talk to her. In a nasty tone, she said “I’m talking to you now, what do you want?” We were all wearing matching Vets for Freedom shirts, and we had scheduled this appointment with her, so ignorance is not an excuse for her behavior. She was nasty and vile to us. One of the concerns many of us who have been to Iraq had was the fate of the Iraqis we had come to know – decent men, women and children who just wanted to live their lives like we do. What would become of those who assisted the U.S. because of their desire for freedom, should Al Qaeda, Iran, and Al Sadr take over? Little miss “for the children” betrayed her liberal hypocrisy by saying that wasn’t her problem and we shouldn’t have gotten involved. When asked if that meant she would rather they were still being brutalized by Saddam, her only response was that we want the same things we just see them differently, or some similar political nothingspeak.”

http://www.redstate.com/hooah_mac/2012/02/26/mn-sen-id-like-a-side-of-delicious-irony/

We have been told, time and time again, that Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the nicest, most caring, and most respectful people in the world. She’d just like to give the whole world a hug and make everything all better. She’s so popular, she can’t be beat because her genuine concern for her fellow man is so, well, endearing. Klobuchar is salt of the earth.

I believe this salt has lost its saltiness.

Put another way?  The narrator is off the narrative.

Now, I’m always a little leery of articles that try to draw big sweeping conclusions about someone’s personality based on a single, uncorroborated report.  It’d have been nice to get a video on this.  And I don’t vote for “nice people”; I care no more whether a Senator is a son of a bitch in person than I do if she’s black, gay or Moslem, as long as they’re limited-government free-market conservatives.  Which Amy Klobuchar, angry or nice, certainly is not.

Still, the same thing goes the other way; the media’s narrative about Klobuchar is just a tad too monolithic to be real.

But if this is true, and happened as portrayed above – and I’d love to see some corroboration – the Senator’s got some explaining to do.

MPR’s Curtis Gilbert and Jon Collins report that the Minneapolis City Council is not on board with all the triumphalistic high-fiving from the Administration on the Dayton/Rybak stadium plan, as I noted yesterday.

The proposal would peel money away from the part of the city’s (exorbitant) sales taxes that currently support the Convention Center, which under city charter requires a referendum – which, as you recall, was so effective in stopping the taxpayers from being shaken down to build Target Field:

Gary Schiff championed the charter amendment back when he was executive director of the political organization then-called Progressive Minnesota. Now he is a member of the City Council and he said if city money is involved, then the referendum is not negotiable.

“I could never support a plan that circumvents city law,” Schiff said. “I won’t break the law. I’ve sworn to the law as an office holder. And I’m not going to break the city charter.”

Council Member Cam Gordon, who represents areas around the University of Minnesota, said he still opposes the plan because his impression is that it ignores the requirement to hold a referendum.

“I have a concern that ultimately, it’s probably going to be a judge who’ll have to make this decision. Apparently there’s lawyers, maybe in the city, the Vikings, the governor’s office, who are all working on the rationale to make the arguments that this doesn’t violate the charter,” Gordon said. “But there’s probably other lawyers who could read the exact same rules and ordinances and statutes and say it is violating the charter, and so it may end up going to court.”

Council Member Robert Lilligren said he is “philosophically opposed” to public funding for stadiums. He wants a referendum, but he stops short of vowing to vote no on the plan.

“It’s clear that if the legislature wants to see this stadium plan go forward, they will need to write into legislation a way of circumventing the charter amendment,” Lilligren said.

Council Member Lisa Goodman also opposes the stadium plan. Council Members Elizabeth Glidden, Sandy Colvin Roy and Betsy Hodges previously opposed the stadium plan, although they haven’t yet commented on the current package.

So half of Dayton, Rybak and the Downtown Brotherhood’s plan relies on a tax diversion that may be illegal – as I reported yesterday.

As to the other half?  The mainstreams haven’t quite twigged to the fact that the Dayton-Bakk proposal to divert money from the state’s charitable gambling industry relies on some unsupportable figures; it assumes a doubling in charitable gambling receipts, even though as Gary Gross notes, charitable gambling revenues are trending down, not up.

And the tribes haven’t spoken out publicly yet.  But they will.

So – two takeaways:

1. The “Deal” is a turkey.
2. MPR has given you yesterdays’ “Shot In The Dark” today.

Please call.  Fifteen seconds is all it takes.

This will remain at the top of this blog until the issue is resolved.