Category Archives: Democrats

Democrats, the Democratic Party, and the dumb things they do.

The People’s Palace (People Not Allowed Without Permit)

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Instead of building State Senators a nice place to do business, we should erect pup tents.  This is a part-time legislature.  We should encourage them to get their business done and go home.  Incentives work, just need to create the correct incentives.

Also, this is odd:

“Hausman’s committee usually would have had the task of vetting and approving such a large-scale project like a new Senate office building. Instead, it was placed in the tax bill in the final hours of the session and bypassed most of the usual committee process.”

She’s a Democrat.  She should already understand that laws are passed so that you can read them later to learn what’s in them.  Why is she claiming to be confused by this now?

Joe Doakes

Representative Hausman  - who, confusingly, is listed as the representative from HD66A, which we all know is Heather Martens’ district – is a good DFL soldier.  She claims what she is told to claim.

Still, this sort of thing – jamming down a huge capital expenditure without the requisite government oversight – is a little strange.

If only this state had an institution – say, with printing presses and transmitters, with a group of people who perhaps annoyingly see themselves as a monastic class of truth-seekers, but whose job was to, I dunno, report on things like this?

You may say that I’m a dreamer…

The Media/Non-Profit Racket

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

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

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

Glahn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going to buy friendly media coverage?

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

Abuses And Usurpations

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From the Declaration of Independence, with emphasis added :

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

From the Journal – again, with emphasis added:

Copies of two subpoenas we’ve seen demand “all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications” both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees. The groups include the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

One subpoena also demands “all records of income received, including fundraising information and the identity of persons contributing to the corporation.” In other words, tell us who your donors are.

Oh, yeah – and since the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel may be one newspaper that might occasionally take its lips off of the Democrat party’s boy parts long enough to worry about that whole “holding government accountable” thing…:

The investigation is taking place under Wisconsin’s John Doe law, which bars a subpoena’s targets from disclosing its contents to anyone but his attorneys. John Doe probes work much like a grand jury, allowing prosecutors to issue subpoenas and conduct searches, while the gag orders leave the targets facing the resources of the state with no way to publicly defend themselves.

And hey, just in time for campaign season!

I’ve always tried to stay hopeful for the future of this country.  But it gets harder and harder every day.

Pulling The Strings

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Bill Glahn has been doing the work the Twin Cities media hasn’t won’t in covering the big, unseen unreported-on force in Minnesota politics:  Take Action Minnesota.

Even among people who know that TAM exists, I think few know exactly what they’re into, and how the organization works:

Charity Status—whether legal or not, I object to TakeAction’s abuse of its tax-exempt non-profit charity status. Unlike the traditional political party—whose role the group is increasingly displacing —TakeAction can accept tax-deductible contributions from anonymous donors. Despite my best efforts at discovery, we really do not know who contributes the millions of dollars that fund TakeAction’s operations.

Quasi-Party Status—although TakeAction operates much like a political party—recruiting and financing candidates, conducting campaigns, and getting out the vote—it does not have to abide by the same laws on transparency and accountability. It acts as a closed political machine—answering to its (unknown) donors, but not to voters and taxpayers in the same way that the Democrats and Republicans must answer.

They also sit among a warren of offices for similar “progressive” “non-profits” – “ProtectMN”, “Wellstone Action” and others – in the Griggs Building, in the St. Paul Midway.  This isn’t just a happy accident, or entirely the product of the Griggs’ very low rent.  The network shares much more than just an address; phone banks, lists, staff, know-how.

You should read Glahn’s entire series on the subject:

My latest “Who Is TakeAction?” Series:

·         Part 1—Political philosophy
·         Part 2—TakeAction takes over city politics
·         Part 3—All the cool kids went to this year’s Progressive Prom

My original TakeAction Minnesota Series:

  • Part 1–Intro and the 2010 election for Minnesota Governor
  • Part 2–Follow the Money, as it spins around inside the TakeAction network
  • Part 3–Tracking down the money to its sources
  • Part 3A—More donor names and dollar amounts
  • Part 4–The lobby machine
  • Part 5–The 2012 referendum on Voter ID
  • Part 6–Updating Part 5 with final 2012 money figures
  • Part 7–TakeAction Goes to Washington

The entire series is excellent.

Although Glahn also observes:

[S]imply from a journalistic viewpoint, the rise of TakeAction as a political force is a major story—one that has received almost no coverage from Minnesota’s legacy media. In contrast, oceans of ink have been spilled over the Tea Party and its relationship to the Republican Party. There is a man-bites-dog story waiting for an enterprising reporter to pick it up.

This is not an accident.  It’s a case of Berg’s Seventh Law in action.

And most of the Twin Cities media shares TAM’s mission, whether they admit it or not (and whether their friendly coverage/non-coverage is being purchased by some of the same donors or not).

Verdict

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Support for the anti-rights “gun safety” agenda is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Support for gun rights is a mile wide and a mile deep.

Case in point:

Although Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ efforts helped defeat GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, no one seriously expected him to win. However, of the 67 Virginia House of Delegates candidates endorsed by the National Rifle Association and targeted by Bloomberg’s group, 65 won, according to the Washington Examiner.

That’s about a 3% win rate for the splashy anti-rights group – or alternately, 97% for the good guys.

It’s been a tough year for the splashy, big-bucks rights-grabbing group:

After December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the group got behind President Obama’s call for sweeping gun control legislation. But negotiations between U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., yielded a mere milquetoast background check proposal.

Still, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns website reported that the group got firmly behind the bill and aired a new series of ads campaigning for its passage. When the measure came for a Senate vote, it went down in flames.

It wasn’t just legislation: 

The group then tried to prevent the recall of two anti-gun state senators in Colorado. Although a reported $2 million was spent to support the lawmakers, both lost their jobs, according to Reuters.

About 10% of the mayors are voting with their feet: 

Some 95 key members of the group that targets and criticizes lawmakers backed by the National Rifle Association are losing their title of “mayor.” According to an election review of Bloomberg’s membership list of about 1,000, three quit the group, 69 retired from their jobs, and 23 were rejected by voters.

And that doesn’t even count the ones that have left office for, er, other reasons.

And I bet Michael Bloomberg would call this next factoid an “unintended consequence”, if he were honest enough:

As for that Virginia election, the number of state lawmakers the NRA rated “A” actually grew from 63 to 65 as a result of Tuesday’s election.

More of this.

Since The Subject Is “Integrity”

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To: Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, Hosts, NPR’s On The Media
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  Your Concern For Journalistic Integrity

Ms. Gladstone / Mr. Garfield

I caught your story in this week’s edition of On The Media criticizing NBC for paying, not only for footage (of this spectacular skydiving accident) but for exclusive access to the principals to the story.

This – paying for access to news – is one of those things that furrow the brows of journo-wonks.   And the two of you were audibly furrowed.  Gotta hand you that.

So – paying for access to a news story is bad.  Gotcha.

So is being paid by a partisan pressure group to run a news story even worse?

Get back to us on this.

That is all.

Blight of Day

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Is Detroit’s new-found cause célèbre ignoring the past to cloud the future?

George Clooney had the Sudan.  Bono has Africa.  Anthony Bourdain – and much of the American media - apparently has Detroit.

Michigan’s So Not Grand Central Station: built in 1912 and on the national registry of historic places. It was closed in 1988 and is one of Detroit’s estimated 78,000 abandoned buildings.

In recent months, the city of Detroit has witnessed two narratives arise in Phoenix-like fashion from the economic ashes of the city, often in conjecture with themselves.  One is the purported economic revitalization of the city that gave birth to Motown and the American automotive industry.  It is a narrative fostered by Quicken Loans founder (and Cleveland Cavs owners) Dan Gilbert who, among others, has put millions into Detroit to try and restore its grandeur.  The other narrative, the so-called “ruin porn” seen in picture form below, depicts Detroit as a third-world ghetto.  A Somalia on the St. Clair River.

The former delights the denizens of Detroit with hopes of a better future.  The latter rankles them.  Gilbert himself expressed outrage when 60 Minutes balance their report on the Motor City between Gilbert’s altruism and the destruction of the out-lying portions of the city, comparing it to Dresden after the Allied bombing of World War II.  Gilbert tweeted a defiant message, stating “a city’s soul that will not die was the story & they missed it.”  But even a sympathetic, blue-collar soul as Bourdain, whose CNN show Parts Unknown highlighted the city last night, saw the need to balance Detroit’s attempts to pick itself up off the ground with the stark realities of a city undone.

The Fisher Body Plant: once part of the GM empire

Both narratives ignore the Chrysler in the room – how Detroit got to where it is today.

If the “ruin porn” industry renders pity without judgement, the acts of Dan Gilbert and others, as well-intended as they obviously are, seek a future for Detroit without acknowledging its past or present.  Not once in 60 Minutes‘ coverage did the story’s telejournalism deal with the political causes for Detroit’s decay - a corrupt, one-party institution burrowed like a tick into City Hall.  Equally, if differently, ignorant are the views of Gilbert et al who believe that once their plans to remove all of Detroit’s blight (78,000 buildings), capital will come easily rushing back into the city:

Gilbert is no fan of urban farming, though. When he envisions land cleared of  blight, he sees developers rushing in to build anew…

“When that blight is gone, maybe we don’t have to be talking about shrinking cities because it will be such a rush of people who want to get into low-value housing — when all the utilities are there and the land is pretty much close to free— not exactly free, but close to it — and all the utilities are there, it becomes very cheap for a builder/developer to develop a residential unit, and they are going to develop them and develop them in mass as soon as we get the structures down and maybe we don’t have to worry about raising peas or corn or whatever it is you do in the farm.”

The Highland Park Police Station: even Detroit’s police stations no longer want anything to do with the city

And what will cause developers (yet alone individuals or businesses) to return to a city with the highest property tax rate in the country?  What will encourage retail industries when Michigan’s sales tax is 6% on top of that?  Detroit’s backers can honestly claim that the city ranks no where near the top of the tax chain (Detroit ranks 92nd nationally; Minneapolis is 52nd by comparison).  But the tax climate is far from ideal, especially the dubbed ”most dangerous city in America” with a murder rate 10-times the national average.  Throw in a 58-minute response time for police, to attract businesses back, Detroit may literally need the fictional hero RoboCop (to whom a statue is being built - seriously).

There isn’t much evidence that Detroit is about to change its ways.

The Merrill Fountain at Palmer Park: has sat empty for 50 years since being moved from the Opera House. Vandals have stolen much of it.

The Merrill Fountain at Palmer Park: has sat empty for 50 years since being moved from the Opera House. Vandals have stolen much of it.

Since Governor Rick Snyder’s decision to appoint emergency manager Kevyn Orr last spring, Detroit’s journey to bankruptcy has been managed with minimal (some would say no) input from City Hall.  As the case has headed to court, where Orr has testified about Detroit’s long-term debts of $18 billion, city officials have fought the measure almost every step of the way.  The election of Mike Duggan as mayor, the former head of the Detroit Medical Center, has been advertised as the promotion of a turnaround artist.  But while Duggan had success revitalizing the city’s Medical Center, Duggan also ran on opposing Orr’s decisions and comes as a political protégé of former Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara – an official who backed the cartoonishly corrupt Kwame Kilpatrick and had FBI agents and state police raid his own office in November 2002, over alleged corruption in airport contracts and campaign fundraising.  Meet the new boss.

The American Hotel: built in 1926, the hotel is 11 stories high with over 300 rooms. It has remained vacant since the early 90′s.

Oh, there have been the requisite platitudes.  Duggan and Orr have broken bread in what was described as a “very good first meeting.”  And Duggan has said all the right things that a reformer would state, such as being “a huge believer in lean processing. If you are not excellent at making systems work, you cannot survive…”

But the inertia of the status quo has been apparent even after only one week from the election.  The Michigan House Appropriations Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Fred Durhal, Jr. is angry that Duggan hasn’t called him yet.  Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis essentially threw down a polite ultimatum that Duggan must “honor” his commitment to working families, while suggesting the labor doesn’t trust the new mayor.  Duggan claims he just wants a seat at the table as Detroit’s debts are solved, and if Synder and Orr are smart, they’ll allow it.

Wilbur Wright High School: closed in 2005, this building actually is among the few on this list that has been demolished. 10,000 buildings have been torn down in Detroit since 2010.

The decision to abrogate Detroit’s city government in the bankruptcy process may have been politically necessary (Detroit certainly hasn’t come to grips with its position despite many, many, many opportunities), but doing so has allowed Snyder and Orr to play the villain while the usual suspects who caused this economic disaster play the victim.  However, it’s also allowed Snyder to take all the credit too.  67% of Michigan voters approved the move back in March (including 41% of Detroit), and the decision has given Snyder a welcome bump in his approval rating.  That’s a short term political fix to a long-term structural problem.

Mike Duggan may be a product of the system that failed Detroit, but he’s viewed warily by both it.  Orr’s contract expires in the fall of 2014; Duggan and the City Council can vote whether or not to renew it – almost literally the only voice they have in the process.  If that’s the first time Duggan has to impact the process, he’ll have likely caved by then to labor, vote to end Orr’s tenure and – more importantly – work to undo reforms set in place.  Should Rick Snyder not return in 2015, an opportunity to address Detroit’s deeper fundamental problems will have passed and a new administration will slap a band-aid bailout on the city, and hope more journalists write about Dan Gilbert than urban hunters who live off of raccoon to supplement their meals.

The Wages Of Horner

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In Virginia last night, the Republican and Libertarian votes together totalled 53% – including about 8% for the Libertarian candidate.  Macauliffe got 47%.

Now, not every Libertarian votes Republican – but it’s a safe bet that most of the Libertarian voters in Virginia – a state where the Libertarian party has barely gotten into single digits in the recent past – were more likely to vote Republican than Democrat.

And Republicans are pointing out that this – the Democrats pumping big money into spoilers that undercut the GOP vote – is the wave of the future.

And like so many of the most noxious trends in current politics, it got its start here in Minnesota, where in 2010 Mark Dayton was saved by a concerted Democrat effort to peel off Republicans to fake Republican Tom Horner.

Horner got 10% of the vote – just enough more of them from Republicans to hand the race to Dayton.

Minnesota’s past, America’s future?

Perhaps.

Path for Minnesota “libertarian” candidates to get into that Bentley they’ve been looking at in the next election?

What do you think?

Why Does The Minnesota DFL Support Spree Killings?

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There’s been very little talk about Paul Ciancia in the mainstream media, compared to most of the major spree shootings.

Perhaps it’s because “only” one person died.  Maybe it’s because the shooting spree was ended before it really got started by good guys with guns.

Or maybe it’s because Paul Ciancia’s story ties in nicely with the NRA’s line on mass shootings; it’s not the gun, it’s the mental illness:

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said on Sunday the suspect’s “mental illness” was a chief reason behind the shooting at Los Angeles International Airport.

Of course, there’s been no dispositive diagnosis yet – but if I were a gambler, I’d go long on “crazy” in this case.  As I have in every recent mass-shooting incident.  And won.

Of course, there’s a problem:  mental illness data isn’t getting to the NICS system, the national database that provides the “go/no-go” answers on disqualifications for buying guns.

The data Minnesota reports, in particular, has gaps in it – gaps that were supposed to be fixed over a decade ago. The DFL – which has controlled the process one way or another that entire time – has dragged its feet on improving the system.

Most recently, the Metrocrat Extremists – Representatives Martens, Hausman and Paymar and Senator Latz – blocked the “Good Gun Bill”, which would have fixed the gaps in Minnesota’s data reporting.

Before that?  Governor Dayton – who, let’s remind you, ran as a “Second Amendment Friendly” governor (with a pair of .357 Magnums in a gun safe, doncha know) vetoed Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill, which would have likewise fixed the gaps in the data we report.

So why do Democrats support mass murderers?

Oh, Noes! Hypstr Chick Imposes Sexist, Classist Emo Templates On Discussion She Doesn’t Really Understand!

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I’ve said it a few times; Sally Jo Sorenson of the outstate leftyblog “Bluestem Prairie” is one of the few Minnesota leftybloggers who don’t deserve to be under some kind of police surveillance.

But that doesn’t mean she gets all that much right.

Or maybe when your target is “voters who don’t think that hard about voting”, “getting it right” isn’t the goal.

I’ll commend to you this piece on…

…well, apparently the Sibley County GOP thinking Things That Make Sally Jo Sorenson Angry Even Though She Doesn’t Appear To Understand Them All That Well.

I’ll add some emphasis here and there:

Bluestem’s favorite Minnesota Republican Basic Party Operating Unit (BPOU) is at it again, promoting an informational town hall against the court-delayed organizing of home-based daycare providers, while simultaneously asking the readers of the New Ulm Journal to dream of a future where moms can stay home and care for their own kids.

 

Yes, indeedie: Emily Gruenhagen and her fellow executive board members are here to save daycare so they can destroy it…The more recent epistle, Childcare Unionization Town Hall Meeting, repeats standard talking points against the organizing drive by AFSCME, before asserting this vision for a better Minnesota:

 

“Imagine a society with taxes and utility rates so low that mothers have the economic freedom to choose to stay home with their children, again…”

 

Yes, indeedie. Those days of women staying home in the glory days of the 1950s and 1960s (or 1850s and 1860s) had absolutely nothing to do with wages, and everything to do with low taxes and utility rates.

And yes indeedie-doo, the market for daycare today is all about women with degrees in Arts Admin from Saint Olaf having time to run off to their day job at an arts-education non-profit to negotiate a visit by a Bulgarian women’s therapeutic drum circle co-op.

Sure.  Sometimes it is.

But much more often, it’s about low-income women (and, uh, men) needing someone to watch the kids while they earn a living – something that Sally Jo Sorenson’s Democrat party just made a whole lot harder, especially in rural Minnesota.

And daycare unionization will do absolutely nothing for those families – or the daycare union providers – but make it less affordable.

Sorenson swerves through a krazy kwilt of other bits of outstate un-PC before returning, eventually, to the daycare topic:

Representatives Glenn Gruenhagen and Dean Urdahl, along with Senator Scott Newman and anti-daycare union advocate Hollie Saville, who shares the belief that allowing daycare providers to vote to choose or reject representation amounts to “forced unionization,” will speak at the meeting, the letter notes.

According to the Sibley County Republicans, “the lying DFL” isn’t concerned about low income people, just “more money for unions, which everyone knows their leaders run the DFL.” 

And here we thought it was George Soros, with the billions he was making in shale gas, along with Alida Messinger, who ran the DFL.

The good ol’ “if you can mock it, it must be false”.  Never seen that one before from every single Minnesota “progressive” blogger.  Nosirreebob.

But there are two objective facts that every “progressive” supporter of the union jamdown is either ignorant about, or just lies about:

  1. The “election” to unionize is always, always stuffed with ringers – unlicensed providers that the unions drag into the election to stuff the ballot boxes.  It’s what they’ve done to pass unionization in many states (Michigan jumps to mind), and it’s what they’re doing in Minnesota.  So when people like Sally Jo Sorenson say “what’s wrong with letting daycares choose?”, they either don’t know how the plan works, or they’re lying. You know where my money is.
  2. If and when the jamdown happens, the “union” will provide absolutely nothing to the daycare providers but a bill for services.   No more money (that’s between the providers and their clients).  No more “training” that the providers aren’t obliged to provide for themselves via state law already (and no help getting that).  Nothing.  Bupkes.  All it’ll be is a bill – that must be either eaten, or passed on to the parents, their clients, or avoided by refusing families who take part in the government daycare subsidy program – which in turn raises the price and lowers the supply of daycare.

So Sally Jo Sorenson is pushing a rigged election that will lead to a jamdown the licensed providers don’t want (they can already join the union, although 99.5% don’t), that will lead to hikes in Minnesota’s already-high daycare prices, pricing more working families out of the market for daycare.

I’m going to guess Sally Jo Sorenson has never been a parent in one of those poor working families.  I have.  Daycare costs more than rent for many families; it did for mine, twenty years ago.  Jacking up that bill for no benefit other than giving the public employee unions (and the DFL they own) a new $2 million annual revenue stream isn’t just cynical; it’s cruel.

Why does Sally Jo Sorenson hate working families?

Oh, you don’t have to believe me.  Hollee Saville – one of the leaders of the brilliant grassroots campaign against the DFL/AFSCME/SEIU’s well-funded push – tried to leave Sorenson a comment.  Now, Sorenson doesn’t often post critical comments – and never without writing her response first, which is certainly her right; it’s her blog.  But it sorta screams “insecure”, doesn’t it?

Anyway – goodness only knows if Saville’s response will ever see the light of day on “Bluestem Prairie”.

So with her permission, I’m posting it here.  Below the jump.

Continue reading →

The Voice Of The DFL, And A Brilliant Plan

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The “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” – the attack-PR drones financed by Alida Messinger and a group of plutocrats with deep pockets to make toxic, sleazy attacks on their opposition – stepped in it last night, to the point that even the Twin Cities mainstream media had to report it (with emphasis added):

The DFL-supporting Alliance for a Better Minnesota took its mockery of a Republican candidate a step too far, it admitted on Thursday.

In a Halloween-themed blog post, it suggested that Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson should dress as Patrick Bateman, a serial killer in American Psycho, because he is “seemingly nice but actually pretty evil inside.”

Carrie Lucking tried to bury the evidence – but the Internet sees and knows all:

Leaving aside the obvious question – what should Alida Messinger and Carrie Lucking dress as? – it appears as if the smooth-running messaging machine at ABM is trying to break in some new amateurs.

But have no fear.  Lucking explains it all (again, emphasis added):

Carrie Lucking, the group’s executive director, said within 10 minutes being alerted to the post they took the image down, removed the reference to Bateman and changed what it said about Johnson.

Instead of calling Johnson evil, the site says that he is “seemingly nice in public, but actually the policies he supports are pretty evil. It also appended an apology to its post. 

Ah.  Disagreement is “evil”.  That’s much better.

How very Alinsky.

“The original image and text for Jeff Johnson was removed and the costume changed because it was an inappropriate reference to a fictional character. We apologize for this error. It will not happen again,” the web site said.

Yes it will – because every time ABM writes about Republicans, they’re writing about “fictional characters”.  Alinskyite “framing” is all about turning real people and real ideas into characters and catch phrases that have little or nothing to do with reality.  ”Tom Emmer is angry”.  ”Jeff Johnson is evil”.  ”King Banaian is Arab”.  Little bits of mental chaff that ABM is hoping – indeed, paying big bucks to prove – will stick in the minds of people who don’t think that hard about politics come election time.

It’s dishonest.  It’s also how the Democrats do politics.

But I Promised A Brilliant Plan, Didn’t I?:  Watch ABM’s coverage this past couple of days.  Their flailing at Johnson was only the tip of the iceberg; I wrote earlier today about their calling Julianne Ortmann a “Genie”, with video of a blonde, jiggly Barbara Eden helpfully added in case you thought Lucking was referring to the “Djinn” of Arab mythology.

The election is a year away, and the attacks are already…

…unhinged.

And it occurs to me – maybe that’s a good barometer for the GOP races?  Whichever candidate is drawing the most unhinged, scabrous “coverage” from ABM can be presumed to be in the lead?

A look at ABM’s front page this morning shows two weak-gruel attacks on Jeff Johnson.

That’s probably good news for the Johnson campaign.

The challenge for the Thompson campaign is obvious.

As Things Are

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

In October, when Republicans were trying to de-fund or delay Obama-care, Democrats said:  Republicans hate poor people.  They want them to die.  That’s why Republicans don’t want my friend, Poor Crippled Timmy, to OBTAIN medical insurance to pay for medical care.  In the face of that vicious onslaught, week-kneed Republicans caved.

Confident prediction: in January, when the temporary continuing spending resolution expires and Republicans are hinting at de-funding or delaying Obama-care, Democrats will say:  Republicans hate poor people.  They want them to die.  That’s why Republican don’t want poor people like my friend, Poor Crippled Timmy, to RETAIN the Obama-care medical insurance he just obtained to pay for his medical care.  In the face of that vicious onslaught, week-kneed Republicans will cave, again.

Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, John McCain and all the other Republicans desperately trying to find a way to placate the Republican base and also appease the Democrats in Congress, here’s a news flash: Democrats hate you.  They hated you in the past, they hate you now, and they will hate you in the future.  Their friends at the New York Times and the Star Tribune hate you, too.  No matter what you do, what you say, what bribe you give them, they will say bad things about you, attribute to you the most wicked motives and refuse to compromise with you.

Once you accept that, you have a choice: stay and abandon your principles; stay and fight for your principles; or quit.

One of these choices makes you a Republican.  The others make you a weasel.  Pick one.

Joe Doakes

It’s time for a reference to Berg’s Law – in this case, Berg’s Eleventh, which comes to the fore at campaign time:

Berg’s Eleventh Law of Inverse Viability: The conservative liberals “respect” for their “conservative principles” will the the one that has the least chance of ever getting elected. Here are all the references I could find to Berg’s 11th Law.

The McCain Corollary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: If that respected conservative ever develops a chance of getting elected, that “respect” will turn to blind unreasoning hatred overnight.

The Huckabee Corollary the McCain Corolloary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: The Republican that the media covers most intensively before the nomination for any office will be the one that the liberals know they have the best chance of beating after the nomination, and/or will most cripple the GOP if nominated.

The Reagan Corollary To The Huckabee Corollary the McCain Corollary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: The Media and Left (pardon the redundancy) will try to destroy the conservative they are most afraid of.

More on that later today.

Let Me Get This Straight

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Minnesota’s media talking head-bots continually bellyache about wanting Minnesota politics to be “more civil” and “more like it was back in the good ol’ days”…

…but they give a continual pass to the antics of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, which every single day makes Minnesota a cheaper, dumber, uglier place to do politics?

With Prejudice

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A mediator ordered the Dayton Administration to pay the legal bills for the plaintiffs against his “unionization by decree” stunt.

From a news release from MN Majority (with emphasis added):

Governor Dayton and the Bureau of Mediation Services yesterday settled to reimburse $60,000 in attorneys’ fees to the home-based child care providers who sued to halt Governor Dayton’s unlawful executive order establishing a unionization procedure for the providers. In Swanson, et al. v. Dayton, et al, the court found that the governor’s executive order exceeded his constitutional authority, struck down the order and awarded attorneys’ fees to the prevailing plaintiffs. The Administration paid these fees in compliance with a Minnesota Court of Appeals’ order earlier this year which said the fees were owed because the Governor was not merely wrong in issuing this unionization order, but had no substantial legal justification to do so at all under Minnesota’s Constitution and laws.

Mark Dayton:  The Law and the Constitution are for peasants.

The providers aren’t done:

 Plaintiff home-based child care provider Hollee Saville said: “This is a great day for the small-business child care providers who resisted the schemes to force unionization, dues and fees on our entire industry, and we plan to continue to resist the new unionization legislation, which is also unlawful.”

And I love the closing quote so much, I’m going to add emphasis to it:

Plaintiff Becky Swanson commented further on the fee payment made yesterday. “This fee payment illustrates that the real ‘extremist’ in the child care unionization scheme is the Governor, who ignored the constitutional limitations on his own authority to do political favors for his union friends, not us self-employed child care providers who resisted this overreach, and whom he arrogantly derided as ‘right wing extremists.’”

It’s the only line they know.

Suck it, commies.

Teacher Of The Year

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Perhaps you’ve heard; Minnesota’s new “Teacher of the Year”, Saint Paul science teacher Megan Hall seems to have answered the question “are today’s public schools nothing but left-wing indoctrination centers” with a rousing “Hell yeah!”

This is from her acceptance speech, with emphasis added by me:

Teachers are persistent and responsible and generous because we believe that every child in America, regardless of circumstances of birth, deserves a decent chance at a good life. [Applause] From where I stand, teachers create equality of opportunity. From where I stand, teaching is a profession that takes a gritty patriotism. And from where I stand, teachers are American democracy’s last line of defense against the tyranny of the 1 percent

Don’t believe me?  Here’s the video

How over the top was it?  Even the City Pages’ Aaron Rupar seemed to feel a little uncomfortable: “Yeah, maybe that would’ve been a good line to save for when you’re having beers with your liberal buddies after the speech”.

For all I know Ms. Hall is a perfectly adequate teacher – and in my experience in the Saint Paul Public Schools, adequate would have been pretty superlative.

But I have to wonder:  if Ms. Hall is protecting the students from “the 1%”, who is going to protect them from the Saint Paul Public Schools?

Because between the child abuse, the brain-dead kommissariat masquerading as a bureaucracy, and the massive horde of intellectually-walking-dead union members Ms. Hall shares a district with?

I’ll take my chance with those gol-durned rich folks, thanks.

But look at it her way; I suppose if I taught for a district with the worst major-market achievement gap in the United States, with a minority graduation rate lower than Miley Cyrus’ neckline, a district that minority parents were decamping from as fast as they can find open spaces in charter schools or suburban schools via open enrollment, I’d look for a scapegoat too.

Kennedy Non Grata

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“Today’s GOP wouldn’t endorse Reagan!”

It’s an ofay little meme that’s been trotted out for the last couple of years by a bunch of liberals who might, on a good day, stick to trying to whiz on Reagan’s grave, with the aim of trying to undercut the “independent” vote going to conservatives as they did for Reagan. 

They note that Reagan passed legislation controlling guns, legalizing abortion and raising taxes.  The first was an error of judgment while governor of California for which he more than atoned later in his career; the latter two, errors involving trusting Democrats to hold up their ends of deals; in the case of the taxes, the “increases” were both results of Tip O’Neil’s perfidy and a small fraction of the cuts he’d implemented earlier in his administration; they happened at a time when the economy was humming along, rather than on life support; dumb, but not dumber. 

But the meme almost rises to the level of a Berg’s Seventh Law violation – because while Reagan would likely do just fine in today’s GOP (his strength was in building coalitions of diverse people toward common ends, something the GOP needs today even more than it did in 1980), the great Democrat hero, John F. Kennedy, would get run out of most Democrat meetings on a rail:

Today’s Democratic Party — the home of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Al Gore — wouldn’t give the time of day to a candidate like JFK.

The 35th president was an ardent tax-cutter who championed across-the-board, top-to-bottom reductions in personal and corporate tax rates, slashed tariffs to promote free trade, and even spoke out against the “confiscatory” property taxes being levied in too many cities.

He was anything but a big-spending, welfare-state liberal. “I do not believe that Washington should do for the people what they can do for themselves through local and private effort,” Kennedy bluntly avowed during the 1960 campaign. One of his first acts as president was to institute a pay cut for top White House staffers, and that was only the start of his budgetary austerity. “To the surprise of many of his appointees,” longtime aide Ted Sorensen would later write, he “personally scrutinized every agency request with a cold eye and encouraged his budget director to say ‘no.’ ”

 

On the other hand, he was a Cold War anticommunist who aggressively increased military spending. He faulted his Republican predecessor for tailoring the nation’s military strategy to fit the budget, rather than the other way around. “We must refuse to accept a cheap, second-best defense,” JFK said during his run for the White House. He made good on that pledge, pushing defense spending to 50 percent of federal expenditures and 9 percent of GDP, both far higher than today’s levels. Speaking in Texas just hours before his death, he proudly took credit for building the US military into “a defense system second to none.”

 

Read the whole thing.  And send it to your Democrat friends.

JFK, whatever his foibles and peccadilloes, would puke his guts out at the legacy of John Kerry, much less Barack Obama.

Doakes Sunday: Heeeeere’s Meadowlark!

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The House Stenographer was hauled away when Republicans were voting to cave in, shouting about God and Freemasons.  Apparently, she’s had enough.

 

I know just how she feels.

 

The Washington Generals always lose to the Harlem Globetrotters but at least they play the whole game, they don’t quit and start high-fiving each other.  I wonder where I can get some Washington Generals jerseys to send to Boehner, Cantor, McCain . . . .

 

Joe Doakes

Some days, being a Republican feels like being an offensive lineman for Cumberland College.

“Moms Want Action”: The Assault Spam Generator!

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We’ve written before about “Moms Demand Action”, the gun-grabber astroturf group financed entirely by liberals with deep pockets, and “run” (and, I suspect, almost solely inhabited) by Jane Kay, a woman whose hatred of the law-abiding firearms owner is so toxic as to frankly make me worry about her well-being.

Jane Kay (l) with Rep. Heather Martens (DFL – 67A) and Rep. Michael Paymar, at last spring’s gun grab hearings.

Mama Jane has a website, now.  And through the miracle of Web 1.0 technology, it gives the Moms and the group’s “member” their sympathizer or two the ability to put lies, long-debunked research and bobbleheaded long-discredited scare stories out in front of Congresspeople via Twitter in bulk loads.  Sort of the “Ugly Black Gun” of Twitter interfaces, designed to spit out untruths as fast as a group of orcs can click.

Or to put it in IT terms, a Spam Generator.

They’re using the #gunsense, #Savethe9 and of course #momsdemandaction tags.

If #MomsDemandAction had more than a few members, it’d be fun to jack the hashtags.

But of course, the point of groups like Moms Demand Action and “Protect Minnesota” isn’t getting members, or even producing social media.  It’s getting the compliant media (like the MinnPost, which is sponsored by the same groups that sponsor both of the gun grab groups) to present them as if they’re real groups, to gull the gullible into believing that there is an organized, organic gun-grab movement.

There isn’t.  But you’ll never hear it from Doug Grow.

Someday Soon In Trenton

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(SCENE:  In the rotunda of the New Jersey state capitol in Trenton, at the swearing-in ceremony for Corey BOOKER, new junior Senator from Exit 18 on the Garden State Parkway.  BOOKER is being sworn in by Governor Chris CHRISTIE, in a ceremony attended by a clot of various Jersey dignitaries).

(Fade in on CHRISTIE administering the last part of the oath of office)

BOOKER:  “…to the best of my ability, so help me Sinatra”. 

(Round of applause as BOOKER waves to the audience and CHRISTIE steps back to the dignitary seating.  BOOKER steps to the mike).

BOOKER:  Thank you.  Thank you.  (Applause dies down).  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

(Audience trades glances as hall falls silent).

BOOKER:  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thanks.  Thanks.

(Audience stirs)

BOOKER:  Thanks.  First, I want to thank Governor Christie for giving me the most eloquent introduction since the one I gave at the funeral of my old friend, T-Bone the Crack Dealer.  He became a close confidante after trying to kill me with a chain saw after he accused me of cheating at cards in a pick-up 3-card monte game at a casino at Atlantic City in between rounds of my World Series of Poker championship, where I was partying with Kim Kardashian and her father Robert, talking about the time I held a dying Nicole Simpson in my arms after she was shot by Biggie Smalls.    T-Bone told me “You are without a doubt the most competent, sensitive, and yet totally boss brother in history”,  just before I hit my four million dollar jackpot.   And then hit it with…Amy Adams.  Yeah, that’s the ticket. 

Not since I was governor of Philadelphia have I felt such a sense of profound calling…

CHRISTIE:  (Sotto voce) Er, Senator?  You were mayor.  Of Newark.

BOOKER:  Er…really?  Newark?

CHRISTIE:  Yes. 

BOOKER:  Are you sure?

CHRISTIE:  Yep. 

BOOKER:  I need a second opinion. Mr. Springsteen?

SPRINGSTEEN: Yep.  Newark.

BOOKER:  You wrote “Rosalita” about me, didn’t you?

SPRINGSTEEN:  (stares blankly, mouth moving, but no sound coming out)

BOOKER:  And about that city with the giant Exxon sign?

SPRINGSTEEN:  Er – that was “Jungleland”

BOOKER:  You wrote “Jungleland” about me?  And T-Bone?

CHRISTIE (Sotto Voce to an aide) Maybe Booker was “Eddie” in “Meeting Across the River”

BOOKER:  Anyway – not since I was archduke of Manhattan have I…

CHRISTIE (exasperated): Mayor of Newark!

BOOKER (impatient):  Are you sure?  Newark?  Really?

CHRISTIE:  Really!

BOOKER:  What state is that in?

(And SCENE)

Winkler Karaoke: “Making Bipartisanship Out Of Nothing At All”

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Ryan Winkler (DFL St. Louis Park) is beating the bushes around Minnesota to try to gin up a push for a massive hike in the minimum wage (and cobble together some positive name recognition to try to rescue his rumored ambition to run for Secretary of State after the avalanche of negative publicity he got by calling Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom” over the summer).

Now, Winkler is from a solid blue district.  He can demand a minimum wage of $20 an hour, and the voters in Saint Louis Park and most of CD5 will applaud and stomp their feet and send him back to Saint Paul with 20 point margins of victory.  Such is life. 

But outstate?  In parts of Minnesota with functioning two-party systems, where the majority don’t work for government?  Especially in parts of the state represented by extremely weak DFLers like Ben Lien?

Winkler, one of the most extreme demigogues in the entire Legislature, needs to try to appear “bipartisan”.

This video was shot by a Winkler staffer at a town hall in Moorhead recently.

So at the start, he says the support for his $9/50/hour minimum wage proposal from a House Select Committee on the minimum wage  is “bipartisan”.

Around the 90 second mark, a Town Hall attendee presses Winkler on the support his proposal is receiving – and whether the Republican members of the Select Committee on the Minimum Wage actually signed off on his presentation.

Winkler quickly answers “no” before moving right along.

No wonder why.  Here’s the presentation Winkler’s making:

Rep Winkler’s Living Wage Presentation

That it’s full of lefty puffery and junk stats about the minimum wage is no surprise.

But forget about the actual facts for a moment. 

Why would Winkler claim “bipartisan support?”  This would lmean the Republicans on the Select Committee –  Representatives Jenifer Loon, Pat Garofalo and Andrea Kieffer – supported his stance, and the points on his presentation.

Sources say Winkler’s repeating the claim at other town hall meetings where – unlike the Moorhead meeting in the video – nobody’s pressing him on the claim.

Pat Garofalo has spoken against Winkler’s proposal in the House.  I talked with Rep. Garofalo – he opposes the $9.50 minimum wage, and has not changed his mind one iota. 

And a source close to Representative Loon tells me that not only does Loon not support the $9.50 minimum wage, but that the DFL, possibly including some DFL members of the Select Committee, might not entirely support Winkler. 

Finally, I talked with Representative Kieffer.  She does not support Winkler’s proposal, and does not approve of the points in the presentation. She’s even written an op-ed on the subject, which has circulated to some local newspapers around the state; it’s below the jump.  It flenses Winkler’s claims about the minimum wage in general.

But here’s the money quote from Kieffer in re the “bipartisanship” of Winkler’s support:

First and foremost, the implication that there is “bipartisan” support for his presentation is disingenuous. During meetings that I attend, I consistently voice my concerns to the data presented, ask for more specifics, and maintain that the committee is focusing on the wrong part of the economic picture.

And Kieffer is right.

So why is Ryan Winkler misrepresenting the Select Committee’s position as “bipartisan” support for his proposal around greater Minnesota, when not only are the Republicans not on board, but even the DFL has qualms?

It’s not bipartisan.  It’s not even entirely monopartisan! 

Continue reading →

Creating Two More Americas

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Star Tribune says Keith Ellison (D-Minneapolis) is pushing for an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50.  This is so obviously idiotic I thought it might be the result of a blow to the head during his recent arrest while protesting in favor of illegal aliens.  But no, here’s a Youtube video of him from 2007, beating the same dead horse.

But then I realized he might not be an idiot, he might be a stealth advocate for the Zimbabwe approach to managing the national debt.  We just re-value the dollar and we declare minimum wage is now 30 bucks an hour.  The dollar becomes worth 1/4 what it had been, the debt becomes manageable for another few months since it’s owed in dollars, not real assets, and we can print as many dollars as we want.  Viola, problem solved!  Plus, it has the advantage of having been invented in Zimbabwe by Black people, so nobody can oppose it without being racisssss.

Give the man credit, he might be more clever than he looks.

Of course, the long-term result still will be the squalor and despair that is ordinary life in Zimbabwe for everyone who is not In Charge.  But to the Obama Administration and its minion, Keith Ellison, that might be viewed as a feature, not a bug.

Joe Doakes

Of course it’s a feature.

The DFL has been doing the same thing with Minneapolis and Saint Paul for decades.

Our Smug, Bitchy Overlords

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They warned me that if I voted for Mitt Romney, we’d get an omnipotent police state with no right to privacy, the police breaking into our houses at night, and authority flexing its idiot muscles at every turn.

And they were right.

On Government Radio last night, Melissa Block interviewed the grand poobah of the National Park Service.

Now, like many of you, I’ve been to DC.  Last time I was there, in 1995, you could most certainly go through all the monuments, pretty much 24/7.  There was security there – preventing vandalism, yadda yadda – but they were open.  Because they’re statues and walls and big rocks with things carved into them, and if you prevent idiots from spraying graffiti or chipping off Lincoln’s nose for a souvenir, you’ve pretty much got it covered. 

And to her minuscule credit, Block pointed that out to the NPS poobah.  Who responded “there are people there.  You don’t see them, but they’re there”. 

Which people?  When?  Where?

Well, he answered that; security people.  Who are still on the payroll!

The cutoff in appropriations also apparently forced the Feds to have to rent thousands of barricades, not only to block off open-air sculptures from the public, but to block parking spots on federally-owned roads. 

Which have already been paid for. 

This is Hope and Change.

Why Do Reps. Ellison, McCollum, Walz And Nolan Hate Veterans?

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Four of Minnesota’s five House reps voted against funding veterans benefits during the shutdown (Collin Peterson did the right thing).

Now, their explanation will be that the Democrats’ congressional leadership – Reid and Pelosi – want the whole budget passed, not a bunch of piecemeal mini-budgets – because that’s just not the way we do budgets, apparently.

Of course, the Democrats don’t do budgets at all But I digress.

It’s buncombe, of course; the GOP’s strategy, making the Democrats justify their spending piece by piece rather than having it all jammed down in full tantrum mode – might just show the people that there’s an alternative in DC.

That’d make the Democrats in DC very upset.

So the real question is why do DC Democrats hate taxpayers?