To: President Obama
From: Mitch Berg, Cranky Peasant
Re: Your visit.

Mr. President,

Your visit to the Twin Cities yesterday, the media assures us, was not just because it was yet another city that is utterly safe territory for you.  It’s because, supposedly, Minneapolis is a leader in “curbing gun violence”.

Let’s put it on the table.

While Minneapolis has the highest violent crime rate in Minnesota, its crime rates have been dropping over the years not because of anything the Minneapolis DFL establishment has done – they have been utterly useless, in fact – but because Minnesota is, despite being a purple-addled state, a very gun-friendly place.  State law prohibits cities from having different gun laws from the rest of the state – and the rest of the state is as solidly pro-Second-Amendment as anyplace west of the Mississippi.  We have good, solid carry permit law; law-abiding Minnesotans aren’t harried by excessive stupid laws…

…like people in your native, crime-ridden Chicago are, and like you want the rest of us to be.

Minneapolis, along with Saint Paul, are the parts of this state that most aggressively hassle gun law-abiding gun owners.  Left to their own devices, both would happily turn into little Chicagos (in more ways than just guns).  And they are the parts with the most crime.

That, as they say, is all.

(PS – Well, OK – not “all”.  Henco Sheriff Stanek actually has the right idea:

As a strong supporter of the 2nd amendment, Sheriff Stanek talked about how the problem is one of access.

“Gun ownership isn’t a privilege, it’s a right guaranteed by the Constitution,” said Sheriff Stanek. “We have an access problem; people already prohibited by law from owning or buying a gun should never have access to firearms. We shouldn’t impose on the rights of law abiding citizens to try to solve this problem. Gun control alone will not solve the complex problem of guns and extreme violence.”

Indeed, as Chicago shows us, it’ll only make it worse).

Here’s a question for our DFLer friends.

Back from the 1890’s through maybe the 1930’s, farming had a radical fringe; the “Granger” and “Prairie Populist” and “Non-Partisan League” movements back in the Dakotas still have their political vestiges.

And the presence of an “F” in “DFL” – “Democrat Farmer Labor” party – is another vestige of an era when farming had a radical element.  The “Farmer Labor” party of Floyd Olson and the other softcore socialists of the twenties through the forties was a serious force in Minnesota politics.

But that was eighty years ago.  Since then, farmers have been among the most conservative people in our society.  The “Red States” are stereotypically (and misleadingly) seen as agrarian, and the conservatism of the ag sector (once you leave out the deeply interventionist farm bills) is legendary.

Here in Minnesota it’s the farming areas of this state that are among the most conservative and Republican.  Oh, Collin Peterson is a blue-dog holdover from an era when there wasn’t much to distinguish a Republican and a Democrat in Minnesota, a pro-NRA, nominally pro-life Democrat whose politics are less important than the fact that he has the seniority it takes to deliver the farm-bill pork.  And Tim Walz down in the First makes just enough social-conservative noises to keep from alarming the farmers in his district, without unduly alarming his base of power, Austin union members,  the Mankato college crowd and Rochester’s new urban-hanger-on set.

But other than the utterly bipartisan pursuit of farm-bill pork, I’ve gotta figure support for the DFL – especially its Twin Cities metrocrat focuses – has got to be very, very low among actual farmers.  And it’s for sure that while Labor is a huge constituency in the DFL, I’m at a loss to remember seeing any signs of a “farm” caucus at a DFL convention.

So maybe it’s time for the DFL to change its name in the interest of accuracy?

Maybe to the “Democrat-Oligarch-Labor-Education” party?

I’m here to help.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

A Democrat senator sleeping with underage Dominican prostitutes?  That’s no crime.  Screwing over the next generation is Democrat policy, he’s just taking a personal interest.

Joe Doakes

Heh.

Well, I’m sure when the media gets a hold of this story…

…I mean, other than the stuff they’ve known and been sitting on for nearly a year, naturally…

Unemployment is the same today as during the last inaugural.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The President issued a secret Executive Order directing the United States military to kill American citizens because the President thinks they’re suspicious characters or possibly terrorists.

The President considers a proposed Executive Order directing the United States law enforcement agencies to seize privately owned firearms because the President doesn’t like firearms.

The President considers a proposed Executive Order directing the United States Treasury to issue a worthless coin to “pay” the national debt because the President doesn’t like the constraints of a budget.

Common theme: the law is an obstacle to doing what the President wants to do, so rather than obey the law or work through the democratic process to change it, he flouts it.

This is the attitude and those are the actions of a King, not a President.

We don’t have a King in America.

That attitude and those actions are un-American.

The President’s attitude and actions are un-American.

I oppose the President’s attitude and actions.

The President is Black.

I am a racissssssssssssss.

Never mind, nothing to see here, move along.

Joe Doakes

It’s only “overeach” if consequences are exacted.

I’m seeing many people changing their traditional “PBO” (“President Barack Obama”) references to KBO (or “King…”).

This is incorrect.Given Obama’s non-royal lineage, it’d be more correct to refer to him as “BC” (Barack Caesar).

Please see to this.

That is all.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

No less respected economist than Paul Krugman is recommending the US pay down its national debt by minting a Trillion-Dollar Coin. He suggests it be made of platinum because that’s really valuable. I say it should be rubber, not only because “rubber check” accurately captures its value, but because there’s precedent.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

“Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change.”

Obviously, we won’t call it a Ningi, that sounds weird (and we’d owe Doug Adams royalties). We’ll call it a $1 trillion dollar coin. But why stop at one? Why not go all out and issue 16 trillion-dollar coins to pay off the entire national debt completely?

And while we’re at it, why not raise the minimum wage to $100 so we’ll all be rich? And throw in free cosmetic surgery, paid for by Obamacare.

Rich, handsome, debt free . . . now THAT’s the kind of Hope and Change I was looking for.

Joe Doakes

Como Park.

I’m afraid to ask an esteemed economist like Prostetnic Vogon Krugman how we’re going to pay for a trillion dollars worth of platinum – or what that’ll do to the world’s platinum supply.

They told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney, sexism would win.

And they were right!

Biden, greeting Senator-Elect Heidi Heidtkamp (D – ND): “Spread your legs, you’re gonna be frisked!”.

Remember – Biden is on the ticket for all of that “gravitas”.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

As our “leaders” debate how to solve the fiscal cliff, the President seems intent on making sure the rich pay most of it.

Let me just note some of the “tax the rich” schemes that already have been tried and found to be failures at best, counterproductive at worst: Window tax,Brick tax, Wallpaper tax,Hearth tax, and Yacht tax.

Look, here’s the deal:  rich people are rich, they’re not stupid.  Jack tax rates too high and they’ll simply move and take their money with them.

In every one of these schemes, the rich altered their behavior to avoid the taxes, the poor didn’t pay taxes anyway, so the burden fell squarely on the middle class – too “rich” to be exempt, too poor to escape.

President Obama is a Harvard scholar.  His advisors are the smartest in the world.  He cannot be unaware of history.  Why is he intent on repeating it?

Why are Republicans even thinking about letting him repeat it?

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The State Department’s internal report is out and as a result, Congress is rushing to fortify the barn door.

What I still want to know is: whose idea was it to tone down American consulate security to present a more welcoming, more open appearance to Mid-East locals to enhance America’s image in the world? Who decided Benghazi should be a temporary facility, and an unguarded one at that?

The “welcoming appearance” theory of diplomacy always held the danger our diplomats could be attacked because we intentionally did not cower behind machine-gun toting Marines. But if it was the correct theory, then Benghazi was an unfortunate incident but not cause to fortify and arm up. The fact we’re abandoning the theory makes it look as if we’re rebuking the proponent of the theory and wasn’t that . . . President Obama himself?

So, the President’s idea was wrong: dangerously, stupidly and perhaps even criminally so? Is that what we’re saying? Cuz that’s certainly what it sounds like we’re saying, just not in so many words. Spell it out for me. Was Barak Obama’s signature diplomatic initiative flat wrong?

Joe Doakes

Como Park.

That’d be a great question for our Secretary of State.

If we can ever find her.

Right in the nick of time as even non-political Americans start to get concerned about tax hikes and the “fiscal cliff”, some good news from the Strib!

Yes, Senators Klobuchar and Franken both oppose the Medical Device Tax!

Minnesota’s two senators sought Monday to delay a tax on medical devices that was expected to add $28 billion over the next decade to help pay for health care reform.

Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken pointed to thousands of high-paying jobs that device companies support in Minnesota, headquarters to such giant devicemakers as Medtronic and St. Jude Medical. The industry has painted the tax as a job killer that would hurt innovation.

“The delay would give us the opportunity to repeal or reduce that tax,” said Klobuchar, co-author of a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seeking the delay.

So that means the Senators will join 3rd CD Congressman Erik Paulsen and support his bill in the House to repeal the tax, right?

Franken is among the letter’s signers who would not support Paulsen’s plan. “I felt the offset in the Paulsen bill would have undermined the architecture of the Affordable Care Act,” Franken said.

Oh, don’t bother us with details!  Franken and Klobuchar – and say, doesn’t she just look stunning in the photo the Strib opted to use? – are coming out strongly in favor of delaying the tax!

So what’s missing from the Strib story, bylined to Jim Spencer?

Look it over.  Carefully.  Carefully…

How about any mention that both Senators voted for the tax initially?  

Both Franken and Klobuchar participated eagerly in jamming Obamacare down the American people’s collective throat; both have timidly objected via friendly media in the least obtusive way possible; never bucking their caucus, never ruffling the Administration’s narrative, never standing up for the thousands of constituents that are already being harmed by the tax in any way that would bring them any risk whatsoever.  Both of our Senators have invested facile lip service to delaying or repealing the tax – but neither of them have ever put a vote, or any substantive political capital, on the line.

Spencer’s loathsome Strib piece is what we call “public relations”.  It’s what the Strib and most of the rest of the Twin Cities media is there for.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

December 11, 2008, Bernie Madoff charged in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

December 11, 2012, President Obama’s “fiscal cliff” negotiating position: “Madoff was a piker.”

Joe Doakes

Como Park

What was it Stalin said?  “Fifty Billion is a crime, Twenty Trillion is a statistic?”

Something like that.

“Smart Diplomacy” apparently means “represent your country abroad with egomaniacal empty skirts who gave you lots of money“:

The commander in chief is mulling whether to appoint Wintour, one of his biggest reelection campaign fundraising bundlers, as ambassador to the United Kingdom or France, according to Bloomberg News’s Hans Nichols.

(Facepalm)

NOW notes that Obama’s cabinet is about 30% women, and they are not amused:

Currently, the president, who garnered 55 percent of the women’s vote on Election Day, has eight females in his 23-member cabinet. According the National Organization for Women, that number isn’t nearly high enough.

NOW president Terry O’Neill, in an interview with The Daily Caller, explained that she would like to see complete gender parity in Obama’s second-term cabinet.

To pay back all the chits that the Administration owes, it also needs to have 2-3 Afro-Americans, 3-4 Latinos, an Asian, a gay secretary (maybe two for affirmative action)…

…and it’d probably be the right thing to do to make ’em all unionized.

Read more:

Last week, I addressed a Dave Mindeman post about the DFL whose highlight was Mindeman saying, essentially, “the beatings will continue until morale improves, and you’ll like it!”.

Well, no – his idea was the business has nothing to fear from DFL hegemony in the state.  We can debate that – indeed, we will – but in fact the bulk of my critique had more to do with his claim that business does better when Democrats are in charge. It’s just not true.

Mindeman responded last week with a post entitled, presumably with no irony intended, “Answering Mitch Berg with a Blizzard of Facts“.

The “unintended irony” bit is because most of the flakes in his “blizzard” that aren’t utterly irrelevant or non-sequiturs reinforce my point, and undercut his and, more importantly, the DFL’s and the lefty establishment’s (for whom Mindeman is a reliable crier).

Example:  He pointed out the liberal meme that “the economy does better when Democrats are in the White House”.  I responded that while that is “true”, it’s also dependent on macroeconomic context that goes way beyond the sitting President’s party.  Here – check that part out for yourself:

So when Mindeman writes…:

1. According to McGraw-Hill’s S&P Capital IQ, the S&P 500 has rallied an average of 12.1% per year since 1901 when Democrats occupy the White House, compared with just 5.1% for the GOP.

2. Gross domestic product has increased 4.2% each year since 1949 when Democrats run the executive branch, versus 2.6% under Republicans.

3. S&P 500 GAAP earnings per share climbed a median of 10.5% per year since 1936 during Democratic administrations, besting an 8.9% median advance under Republicans, S&P said.

Again, as I pointed out, there was more to it than just the “D” or the “R” attached to the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  The “Blizzard of Fact” completely dodges the important part – all that inconvenient context.  It merely piles data together to repeat a flawed thesis.

(And data from before 1933 is both irrelevant – the economy was fundamentally different before The New Deal – and a bit of a red herring, since there really was only one Democrat president between 1901 and 1933, the loathsome Woodrow Wilson, whose economy “benefitted” from massive wartime deficit spending).

Mindeman seems to have learned “fact checking” from the “Dog Gone” liberal obedience school: Google some figures, print ’em, and huff derisively at the fools one must suffer.  To be fair, it’s all one needs among leftybloggers.

But Dave’s not at the 331 Club anymore.  He goes on:

And just in case Mr. Berg wants to highlight Obama’s tenure….

A. Corporate profits have surged an average of 51.8% under Obama, the best out of any stretch of party control since 1933, S&P said.

Sounds good, right?

Except it’s not because business is banging along on eight cylinders.  It’s because businesses are sitting on their cash.  They’re laying off workers, and outsourcing jobs.  They are not investing in new plants, new products and new hires.

Mindeman’s factoid seems to support his thesis – but if you look at the context behind the figure, you find it supports mine.

B. The S&P 500 has also climbed an average of 12.3% each year since Obama’s inauguration, far outpacing the 3.3% mean return for his predecessor.

Asked and answered.  Businesses are sitting on cash. As noted over and over by pundits on both sides of the aisle, they took the bailout money and put it into CDs.  They’re outsourcing.  They’re getting leaner, and buckling in for a rough ride.  They are not expanding; they are sitting tight, tightening payrolls, paring back expenses, blowing out inventory.

That translates into booming profits – but not because business is healthy, thriving and growing.  Or has Mr. Mindeman not noticed the unemployment rate?

And just in case you question my sources… they all come from Fox Business News…an analysis from September 4, 2012.

Well, that’s great.

Unfortunately, they do nothing to change the fact that Mindeman’s thesis – that economies do better, historically, under Democrats than Republicans, is only true on the  most superficial level possible – a correlation between numbers and dates that ignores causation.  And, notwithstanding the unearned condescension…:

But facts never settle anything for conservatives.

…still ignores it.

Note to Dave Mindeman; your “blizzard” did nothing to address any of the historical or macroeconomic context behind the numbers; the fact that from 1945 to 1970, we were the world’s only functional export economy; the fact that some of the greatest shocks to the economy happened to occur during GOP administrations – the 1953 and 1958 Recessions, the Oil Embargo, Reagan’s sweating out of stagflation, the transition after the Cold War, the Dotbomb and 9/11 recession, the Subprime Mortgage collapse, none of which (except the 1982 constriction) had anything to do with Republican policy, or indeed, presidential politics of any stripe.

It was less a “blizzard” than a drizzle of non-sequiturs; a rhetorical version of yelling “pay no attention to the history behind that curtain!”.

And saying “conservatives aren’t convinced by facts” is a cozy bit of name-calling – but the fact (!) is, facts without analysis and context are just…well, snow.

———-

I don’t mean to be too hard on Mindeman.  He’s one of the small cadre of Twin Cities’ leftybloggers that doesn’t deserve to be under police surveillance.  Leaving the pro forma  condescension aside, the guy actually tries to debate.  Kudos to him.

But here are some bonus questions:

If business does so well under liberal Democrat rule, then…:

• Why is Paul Krugman’s wet-dream state California floating toward the surface, its belly slowly rotating toward the sky, with a private sector that is leaving the state as fast as moving trucks can be secured?
• Ditto Illinois, which seems, more than any other, to be the state the MN DFL most idolizes?  It’s taxes are among the country’s highest, and its debt is out of control, and it is collapsing bit by bit.
• Indeed, why are 9 of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment not only run by GOP governors, but have fundamentally GOP cultures – while most of the worst performers are Democrat (or southern Republican, which have plenty of other problems that have little to do with politics)?
• You say unemployment isn’t the sole arbiter of economic heath?  OK – how about business climate?  Eight of Forbes’ top ten states for business climate are Republican (and mostly the ones with the low unemployment).  Eight of the bottom 10 are run by Democrats (Alaska is mostly Federal property and a hard place to do business; Mississippi is a basket case no matter who runs it).
• But if you’ve read my blog, you know that states are rarely purely culturally and politically Democrat.  Like the rest of the nation, even “blue” states are mostly like Minnesota – Democrat-clogged urban cores surrounded by red.   OK – every one of Manpower’s 10 Worst Cities to Find a Job” is Democrat, as are all of 24/7 Wall Street’s Worst-Run Cities in America.  Detroit, Newark, Chicago, Camden, Los Angeles, the District of Columbia, Cleveland, Toledo, Philadelphia, Sacramento – all have for generations been Democrat sinecures; all are collapsing, all are miserable business environments – entirely due to generations of Democrat policies.

Mindeman concludes, more or less, by saying he believes business will benefit from DFL control.  It’s a faith-based statement.  And that’s fine; one can cheerlead one’s team as much as they want.

But judged against actual evidence viewed in meaningful, complete context, it’s pretty clear that’s all that it is.

Nope. No blizzard here.  No need to even button your jacket.

To:  Over-The-Top Obama Personality Cultists
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Trumped.

To whom it may concern:

Too easy.

That is all.

I saw this in a comment thread on Facebook:

Mitt put the gun in your mouth and pull down hard on the trigger!

I mentioned that this was a particularly noxious little bit of rhetorical effluvia for someone from a party that ostensibly won the  election.

The original commenter responded that he wanted to make sure I got his context straight, you see:

Mitch if you were on my page you’d see that I posted on that as well. I’m sick and tired of crybabies! And Mittiot is a lousy human being so when you blog about my comments don’t generalize… Flat out tell your blog tribe I’m the guy that asked him to blow his brains out! I didn’t threaten him or you… I simply think he’s a maggot and should be treated as such while the secession troop can get down on their knees and I will trickle down on all them!

Well, now that you put it that way…

There was never a problem in the Rockaways, Winston.  There was never a problem in the Rockaways:

With the media’s silence and the public’s amnesia over the impact of the hurricane, President Obama has once again received a free pass on yet another issue of national importance. The media’s outcry over the devastation after Katrina led to a massive influx of aid in the form of governmental agency involvement, subsidies, and private charitable organizations’ assistance. Without that outcry, the victims of Sandy should be wondering what kind of attention they would be receiving if the president’s party began with an R, not a D.

Silence.  We are now moving forward.

Heckuvva job, Obama-y.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Instapundit reports:

“KATRINA ON THE HUDSON EAST RIVER: Occupy Sandy Volunteer Sounds Alarm on ‘Humanitarian Crisis,’ Near-Complete Absence of Government Aid in Coney Island Projects. “Just three hours ago I was speaking with seniors for whom I was the first person they talked to since the storm. . . . People literally have no power, no food, no water, no bathrooms–they’re defecating in buckets. And there is no one to answer to for it.”

We were assured Bush’s hatred for Black people was the reason FEMA’s response to Katrina was so bad in New Orleans. Appears Bush didn’t limit himself to hating New Orleans Blacks. He must have hated Black New Yorkers with a passion, to be motivated to reach out 4 years later to foul up this disaster response. For a guy so roundly reviled as an idiot, he certainly does have a long reach.

Too bad for poor President Obama. No wonder Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” speech stung so much, hit too close to home. We should be more sensitive. The pathetic response to Hurricane Sandy plainly is not President Obama’s fault. In fact, we should pity him: must suck to be a completely powerless figurehead after four years on the job, facing the prospect of four more years of total uselessness.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

You’re doin’ a great job, Obama-y.

The American people voted for Santa Claus.

If you work in the medical device business, energy, or many other American industires you may be getting a visit from his evil twin, “The Bill”, as companies start to announce layoffs.

I forget – did Nate Silver predict this, too?

After the 2004 elections, as Democrats whinged and caviled about the ravages of life under George W. Bush, I wrote a long story about life after a breakup of the United States into, broadly, red and blue America.

An epic hurricane strikes the upper Atlantic seaboard.  And the recovery was…:

 Worse? The relief effort – the attempt to bring food, fuel, clothing, even fresh water to the storm’s victims, especially the hundreds of thousands left homeless or without power – was bogged down by a civil and bureaucratic turf war that beggared the imagination.

 

Dennis Kucinich, Minister of Peace, ordered units of the Peace Force to the affected area. But at the edge of the damaged areas in Boston, Providence, New York, Hartford, Philly/Camden and Trenton, the convoys of troops were met by teams of armed agents and lawyers from the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Housing. Under court order, the MODP agents ordered the MOP troops to hand over their weapons; most complied. These weapons – rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers – were handed over to Housing and Labor agents, and hundreds of AFL-CIO, Teamsters and AFSCME members who’d been deputized as “provisional agents”, who proceeded to go door to door serving pre-printed injunctions against homeowners carrying out repairs without union labor on the job. Homeowners who failed to comply were arrested, and their insurance payments attached by the unions as damages by drumhead civil courts issuing summary judgements under the Emergency Law Act of 2008.

Some said the chapter was over the top.

In the wake of Sandy, I’m not sure it went far enough.  An electric line repair crew from Alabama was sent packing in Jersey for being non-union:

Crews from Huntsville, as well as Decatur Utilities and Joe Wheeler out of Trinity headed up there this week, but Derrick Moore, one of the Decatur workers, said they were told by crews in New Jersey that they can’t do any work there since they’re not union employees.

The crews that are in Roanoke, Virginia say they are just watching and waiting even though they originally received a call asking for help from Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

The crews were told to stand down. In fact, Moore said the crew from Trinity is already headed back home.

I really can’t make it up fast enough.

Way back on May 5, 2011, we took a pool; when would the pictures of Osama Bin Laden “be leaked” (completely against the Administration’s will, naturally)?

The answer:  Not just yet.

But there’s  still five days.

If it’s not the greatest parody ever, it’s right up there:

I mean, seriously.

Contestant:  “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”

Trebek:  “Correct, and you have the board…”