This isn’t even news any more…Barack Obama releases a statement lauding the award in absentia of the Nobel Peas Prize to Liu Xiaobo which of course is all about Barack Obama, Narcissist in Chief.

One year ago, I was humbled to receive the Nobel Peace Prize — an award that speaks to our highest aspirations, and that has been claimed by giants of history and courageous advocates who have sacrificed for freedom and justice.

What a day that was for all Americans!!! (!!!)

Tell me, do you remember where you were when you heard the news that President Obama won the Nobel Peas Prize?

Mr. Liu Xiaobo is far more deserving of this award than I was.

Infinitely.

I wrote on this earlier this week but Paul Krugman does a great job of beating a dead horse, to make sure he’s dead.

About that [federal workers’] pay freeze: the president likes to talk about “teachable moments.” Well, in this case he seems eager to teach Americans something false.

…freezing federal pay is cynical deficit-reduction theater. It’s a (literally) cheap trick that only sounds impressive to people who don’t know anything about budget realities.

Ironically, Krugman beats the president about the head and shoulders for a surprising reason:

Anyway, slashing federal spending at a time when the economy is depressed is exactly the wrong thing to do. Just ask Federal Reserve officials, who have lately been more or less pleading for some help in their efforts to promote faster job growth.

Krugman confuses a bloated federal payroll with the kind of federal spending that purportedly, by liberals at least, boosts the economy, requiring a supsension of disbelief that the American people have no tolerance for, the elections being exhibit A.

Krugman goes on to incredulously assert that the extension of the Bush tax cuts is a “break” for the wealthiest versus a tax hike. He ignores the fact that those cuts were very good for the economy and the equally pertinent fact that a tax hike for anyone in this fragile economy is a ridiculous notion to anyone that would benefit by our economy creating more jobs.

But then he goes on to redeem himself by exposing Obama’s dundering miscues:

he apparently intended the pay freeze announcement as a peace gesture to Republicans the day before a bipartisan summit. At that meeting, Mr. Obama, who has faced two years of complete scorched-earth opposition, declared that he had failed to reach out sufficiently to his implacable enemies. He did not, as far as anyone knows, wear a sign on his back saying “Kick me,” although he might as well have.

There were no comparable gestures from the other side. Instead, Senate Republicans declared that none of the rest of the legislation on the table — legislation that includes such things as a strategic arms treaty that’s vital to national security — would be acted on until the tax-cut issue was resolved, presumably on their terms.

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?

Mr. Obama almost seems as if he’s trying, systematically, to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake.

I think they already know that Paul.

Republicans now outnumber Democrats.

Of course, we have to win the war to define what “Republican” means, but that’s all doable.

Mr. Obama has described himself, at times, as essentially a Blue Dog Democrat

At times? What times?

Remember – whenever lefties attack conservatives practices or ethics, it’s to cover up their own, er, shortcomings.

Katherine Kersten – just about the only decent columnist at the Strib these days – notes the bleeding obvious and, of course, Berg’s Seventh rearing its head:

Since Nov. 2, we’ve heard lots of grumbling from Minnesota Democrats. In a year of unprecedented GOP gains across America, they’re not satisfied that their candidates won every statewide office in our state (subject to a recount in the governor’s race).

DFLers, it seems, are sore that they didn’t win the Minnesota House and Senate as well — completing their sweep. They don’t seem to grasp that the tide that washed through the Minnesota Legislature was a nationwide phenomenon, as voters shouted “enough” to a Democrat-led glut of taxes, spending and deficits. Today, Republicans hold more legislative seats across the country than at any time since 1928.

DFLers should be counting their blessings. Instead, from their blinkered perspective, the GOP’s capture of the Minnesota Legislature appears aberrant and dreadful. And they’ve found a bogeyman to blame: Minnesota businesses. Their gripe seems twofold. First, business, through independent groups like the Coalition of Minnesota Businesses, spent too much — i.e., “bought and paid for” the Legislature. And, second, business groups unconscionably exploited voters with negative advertising.

Kersten caught it.

I caught it.

A good chunk of Minnesota’s voters caught it.

The DFL doesn’t want people to catch it (emphasis added):

We hear this so much that the reality comes as a surprise: Minnesota Democrats and their allies actually outspent Republicans and their allies in 2010 roughly 2 to 1, though final totals won’t be known for some time.

The Senate DFL caucus raised four times more than the Senate GOP caucus, and the House DFL caucus raised two times more than its GOP counterpart. The DFL state party raised over three times more than the state GOP. Mark Dayton raised more than one and a half times what Tom Emmer did.

But Dayton, the DFL and their benefactors, just don’t want you to know that:

Contrary to the DFL mantra, voters’ attention to business groups’ message was perfectly logical. On Nov. 2, the No. 1 issue was jobs — how to grow them, how to keep them here, and how to attract new, job-creating businesses to our state…Without business’ involvement, Minnesota’s electoral field would largely have been left to Democrats and their biggest donors: public employee unions such as Education Minnesota, AFSCME and SEIU, and Indian tribes with big-bucks casino interests.

Look for a huge PR and media campaign against corporate and business spending, including solemn “analysis” pieces at the Strib and MPR.

When I saw some of the regional DFL talking points bots tweeting that “Pawlenty pardoned a sex criminal!”, I figured this has got to be about as accurate as every other DFL hit meme this past six months.

And having read  the Strib’s telling of the story, I see I was right.  But then, when it comes to the DFL inflating “dirt” about Republicans far beyond anything the facts would justify, the Dems are always in a league of their own.   We saw it with last week’s Hackbarth

Two years ago, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and two other officials pardoned Jeremy Giefer, who had served a short time in jail in the 1990s as a young man for having sex with a 14-year-old girlfriend whom he later married.

So far so good.  Giefer, then 19, got his girlfriend, then 14, pregnant.  It’s illegal, of course; he did his time, and then married the girl when she reached the age of consent at 16. 

So given the facts at hand, the Governor – along with Attorney-General Swanson and then-chief-justice Eric Magnuson – unanimously voted to grant Giefer a “pardon extraordinary”, a qualified pardon granted to people who’ve served their time and, by a set of criteria that are more than a little exclusive, including having completed their sentence for at least ten years.  Pawlenty voted to grant three of them out of ten opportunities.

Blue Earth County prosecutors now say Giefer was sexually assaulting another young girl hundreds of times before and after he received his pardon…charges filed this month allege seven years of abuse by Giefer, now 36, of a girl who is now 17.

Giefer was charged with five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, five counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of incest.

The girl told authorities that she had been sexually abused by Giefer more than 250 times since she was 9 years old, according to a criminal complaint.

The county attorney also notes that there was not a solitary hint of the new allegations against Giefer until long after the pardon extraordinary.

Not good enough for the DFL’s chanting-point bots, who apparently think all government officials must be clairvoyant in all their actions.

Allowing for the fact that Gieffer is innocent of the allegations until proven guilty, and that pretty  much everyone agrees that the allegations, if true, are reprehensible (I have to clarify that, since if I don’t some leftyblogger will claim that I’m “supporting sexual abuse of minors”, albeit never to my face), the regional left’s take on this case is curious.

Clairvoyance: Pardons have to be issued on their merits.  Pawlenty (and Magnuson and, let’s remember, DFL Attorney-General Swanson) seemed to have held applicants for pardons extraordinary to a fairly high standard, granting them to a decided minority of applicants.  Those that are bagging on Pawlenty for this pardon seem to want an additional, higher level of proof – the extra-sensory perception of activities utterly unknown to law enforcement in any way, shape or form.   To the left, apparently, the movie Minority Report was a documentary, not sci-fi.

Would we want government to be that clairvoyant, even if it were possible? (All of you who say citizens should just suck it up without question or complaint when the TSA gropes your children at the airport are recused with prejudice)

Pardon Me?:  Isn’t it the left that usually chides the right for being too hidebound on sentencing and punishment?  Or is that only when it comes to election time and the left is courting the felon vote that felons are considered rehabilitated?

Bear in mind, this is not quite the same as Mike Huckabee’s pardon of a violent offender who went on to kill four cops; Giefer showed no evidence of violence, or even coercion (beyond the whole “ick” factor of being a 19 year old knocking up a 14 year old; even in rural Blue Earth county, the “Creepy” formula was and remains “(Age / 2) + 7”.  That’s science, so don’t bother arguing).

But as we discovered in this past governor’s race, what it’s really all about to the DFL is to have a prejudicial sound bite; people who tend to vote liberal will absorb a seven second sound bite (when it can’t be boiled down to a two-second slogan) but be immune to sixty seconds of context-setting.

Pretty ingenious, in a very depressing sort of way.

Joe Doakes, from Saint Paul’s Como neighborhood, has been looking into Saint Paul’s new proposed budget. 

And he emails:

In this time of economic trouble, when families are tightening their belts and doing with less, it’s refreshing to see that at least some of our loyal public servants know where their priorities lie . . . in their own pockets.

I’m depressingly un-surprised.

Proposed property tax statements are available on-line from the County’s website. [Joe looked at] samples from the Como-Northdale area; Newell Park; and University Ave area (Charles and Simpson).

Values dropped in all samples.

Taxes rose in all samples.

They’re happy to make you pay for A Better Minnesota, even if your little corner of Minnesota is just plain worse.

The County and City mostly held the line (not really, since the City intentionally adopted a Blackmail Budget which assumes fully funded LGA that won’t happen – the City’s tax increases will come later).

Bingo.  It’s one of those DFL patterns of behavior that is very, very close to becoming another Berg’s Law; DFL city governments will always use the city budget in such a way as to exert pressure for DFL priorities. 

“Vote DFL so that the state gives us more money, or we’ll pass the taxes directly on to you.” 

The school district, though, saw fit to raise the levy. And not just a bit, like 5% across the board.

I didn’t get a 5% raise this year, did you?

Pffft.

In late 2008, Rahm Emanuel made famous the phrase “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste.” It was an unabashed entreaty to liberals frustrated by years of pent up designs to advance the socialization of America. Obama, Reid and Pelosi wasted no time while a stupefied citizenry watched the unfolding of a theretofore unimagined agenda.

Less than two years later another crisis has presented itself, the nature of which is surely an exception to Rahm’s axiom; a crisis within.

Within the party that is.

A handful of survivors of the electoral razing of the democratic party are not unlike those famous Japanese soldiers hiding in tunnels on remote isles months after V-J Day…

In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. His mission was to conduct guerrilla warfare during World War II. Unfortunately, he was never officially told the war had ended; so for 29 years, Onoda continued to live in the jungle, ready for when his country would again need his services and information. Eating coconuts and bananas and deftly evading searching parties he believed were enemy scouts, Onoda hid in the jungle until he finally emerged from the dark recesses of the island on March 19, 1972.

Some liberal democrats are figuratively living on Lubang, off the grid, not recognizing that Americans have soundly rebuked the extreme leftist agenda inflicted on them.

Liberals made clear Tuesday what they want from the bipartisan deficit commission — more help for the poor and middle class and bigger corporate tax increases.

Americans made clear that what they want is for their government to get out of the way, to cease disincenting those that would otherwise be spending, borrowing and investing in ways that create jobs for everyone, especially for the poor and middle class.

Mathematically, you can’t increase taxes enough on corporations or the wealthy to make even the slightest dent in the deficit let alone the national debt.  Eventually, either by choice or by force, the federal government will have to cut spending and by extension, entitlements.

Moderate and conservative commission members, who compose the bulk of the panel, have been more circumspect. After co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson offered their proposal last week — focused 2 to 1 on spending cuts over tax increases — the commission’s three Republican House members tentatively welcomed their approach.

The Tea Party may have given rise to a Regressive Movement in America, where once and for all, a majority will press the federal government and those it has enslaved by decades of sedimentary entitlements to do more with less, across the board.

…but not without a fight from the hardy few on Lubang.

But liberals were outraged. They tend to favor activist government, help for the needy and higher taxes on wealth to pay for it. Moderates and conservatives are more inclined to reduce government services to cut government debt and are less willing to raise taxes.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said: “Democrats should fight loudly and clearly — because the public overwhelmingly wants Democrats to fight that fight.”

Not anymore Adam. The war is over. You can go home now.

Hasn’t the Twin Cities media – especially the “alternative”, liberal version – been barbering for years about how Rep. Michele Bachmann just doesn’t do “mainstream” media?

Why, yes – they have! 

But – did I hear Michele Bachmann doing an extended interview with Cathy Wurzer on MPR’s Morning Edition this morning?

Why, yes I did!

Someone tell Andy Birkey!

No, don’t.  Rather, tell Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, all of whom I’ve invited onto the Northern Alliance Radio Network in the past two years, none of whom have so much as responded.  (In the interest of completeness, note that Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak appeared, as did “Growth and Justice” majordomo Dane Smith.  We had a great time talking with both of ’em, because – shibboleths about conservative talk radio aside – Ed Morrissey and I will put our cross-aisle interviews up against anything in the commercial or public media today in terms of civility and fairness (while allowing that we are, in fact, conservative).

So whatdya say, Reps Ellison and McCollum?  How about it, Senators Franken and Klobuchar? 

For that matter, we’ve had an invite out to Common Cause Minnesota for six weeks now – submitted on this blog, via email, via a voice mail message, and on Twitter.  Not a word.

How about Denise Cardinal of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”?  Perhaps she could come on the show and discuss the Dayton-family-finance slime campaign she orchestrated?

For that matter, howzabout we get an invite to Mark Dayton?  I’ve heard Tom Emmer do a center-left show; d’ya suppose Dayton’s got the gumption to go across the aisle…

…like Representative Bachmann did?

Reading the Sunday Strib online (I buy a paper copy every once in a while for kindling)  I find it amusing how the Strib words the following passages…emphasis mine…

Minneapolis and St. Paul will face major budget deficits if the state reneges on its local government aid (LGA), a program that helps pay for services in hundreds of Minnesota cities.

Cities have to lock next year’s budgets into place in less than a month. Yet the governor’s race remains undecided, while Republicans have wrestled control of the Legislature from DFLers, and an estimated $6 billion state budget shortfall clouds the picture.

I might offer a revision for the former: if state legislators are forced to cut subsidies to cities not able to live within their means as the state itself now must?

…and for the latter: as voters wrestled control of a state legislature dominated by the DFL for decades and handed it to Republicans, ostensibly sending a message of confidence lost in the former and gained in the latter.

Meanwhile, Nick Coleman (I am still surprised to see him gainfully employed) suffers from the same malady as President Obama: if only we had communicated our plans better, the American people would have voted differently.

DFL legislators who never put up an effective fight against the No New Tax mantra of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and never had a comprehensive strategy for communicating the goals of all their legislative maneuverings should share the credit for the GOP takeover.

Or, they were actually, absurdly proposing resolving our employment and economic maladies by raising taxes and increasing spending and for the first time in decades, Minnesota said “Nyet!”

It will be months before we know the full scope of the corporate politics behind the legislative takeover. We may never know the sources of much of the money, since anonymous contributions are permitted in the anything-goes political climate.

Careful there Nick, remember if you point one there’s four pointing back at you.

But one Democrat who felt the sting of the corporate lash was David Bly, a state representative from the cow-and-college precincts of Northfield who was seeking a third term. Bly, a high school English teacher, has been a leader in the fight for a universal health care plan for Minnesotans and other progressive causes. He was told by DFL Party leaders that his seat was safe, then stood by helplessly as business interests paid for an endless blizzard of attack ads — a dozen or more — that were mailed to voters in District 25B. Bly abided by spending limits for lawmakers — spending about $31,000 on his campaign — while the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Leadership Fund, the Minnesota Coalition of Businesses, and something called NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Business, may, when final reports are in, turn out to have spent far larger amounts on behalf of his opponent.

Nick, don’t confuse the DFL’s inability to hear the train coming down the tracks with treachery on the part of their opponents.

For the record, Bly has supported a balanced approach to state budgeting, including cuts and tax increases where necessary.

…and to a liberal legislator they’re always necessary. Minnesotans seem to have rejected the notion that yet another tax hike is a “balanced” approach.

So relax, everyone. Business is picking up. And business just picked up a new Legislature coming into office in January.

That’s right Nick, business – you know, the sector that actually creates jobs and pays taxes.

Many of the new lawmakers probably don’t even know where the Capitol is.

…only Nick Coleman and his ilk would think that’s a bad thing.

Mitch Berg is arriving for his press conference.  He takes his place behind the podium.  The press bustle forward to get the best spots in front of the podium.

Berg waves his hands, and the press gradually quiet down.

BERG: OK, for starters; everyone knows Tom Emmer has won the election, and that his inauguration is inevitable.  And so, while the election did fall within the statutory limit requiring a recount of the vote, as required by Minnesota State Law, I urge the DFL and the Dayton campaign not to interfere with the obvious inevitability of Emmer’s victory by pursuing the process that is legally mandated and out of their control anyway.

Furthermore, when the inevitable happens at the end of this mandatory process that the DFL should not pursue anyway, I urge Mark Dayton and the DFL from restraining their lawyers from filing stupid lawsuits, regardless of whatever grounds they say they may have, for a Better Minnesota. 

We especially urge the Dayton campaign to refrain from filing lawsuits over so-called “irregularities” or “fraud” in the process.  Everybody knows we have the best electoral system in the world, so it’s a moot point.

And when all those lawsuits are dismissed, I implore the DFL not to sic throngs of SEIU goons on Republican recount watchers, offices and the homes of GOP activists in revenge for their inevitable loss. 

I will now take questions.

ERIK BLACK: Er, Mitch?  Why are you calling Emmer’s victory “inevitable”? 

BERG: Because it is, and has always been.  Next?

RACHEL STASSEN-BERGER: Er, has there been any indication whatsoever from the Dayton campaign that they plan on filing frivolous lawsuits simply to pointlessly extend the recount process and delay the transfer of power?

BERG: You just report what I say, OK?  Next question.

TOM SCHECK: Er, this bit about “not raising objections over irregularities” – that is their legal right as part of this process…

BERG: Right, but it will only detract from the inevitability of Emmer’s victory.   It’s stupid, and just between the two of us, it’s a sign that they hate children.  Next?

TIM PUGMIRE: This reference to SEIU goons – where does that come from?

BERG: Look, I’m not saying that they will sic goons or lawyers on anyone.  Not at all.  You have the context all wrong.  I’m just saying that when they inevitably lose the recount and Governor Emmer is inevitably inaugurated – as every sensible person who doesn’t secretly yearn for child porn can say will happen, once this pointless yet legally-mandated recount is over – it’d be very bad for a party to sic hordes of union goons on those they disagree with.

MARTY OWINGS: But Mitch – nobody’s talking about siccing goons on anyone.

BERG: I’m just asking questions.

PAT KESSLER: That wasn’t a question.  That was  a statement.  You told the DFL to refrain from siccing goons on people if they lose the recount.

BERG: Well, that’s just common sense.  You want a good state, and  you believe in democracy?  Ixnay on the goons!

Final question?

BILL SALISBURY:   So to sum it up, you’re asking the DFL and Dayton to refrain from doing things they never said they were going to do in the first place, and decline to do things that are obligations that are out of their hands according to Minnesota law. 

BERG: Yep.  That, and not kill people for revenge when Tom Emmer’s inevitable inauguration takes place.  Thanks!

Berg leaves the stage, as Brian Melendez silently takes notes in the back of the room.

I almost feel sorry for Barack Obama. He’s traveling the world over, looking for some love, and coming up empty.

America handed him an epic rejection of virtually everything he has “accomplished”  just two years in. Knowing fully well what was coming, he skipped the country on a trade mission, a multi-bazillion-dollar entourage in tow, hoping to bring home a trade agreement…or…something.

President Obama’s hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring economic growth around the world ran into resistance on all fronts on Thursday, putting Mr. Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.

Does the whole world hate Obama?

After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.

OK, maybe not the whole world, just a majority of the largest economies of the world, so technically there are countries out there, theoretically, that don’t think America’s fiscal and monetary policies are being crafted by an administration consisting of a band of arrogant bookworms that have never owned, created or run anything resembling an enterprise.

In two years, the Obama administration has effectively rendered America to the economic equivalence of adolescence, world leaders now treating Obama and his staff like underclassmen.

As if a global scolding wasn’t embarrassing enough for the soon-to-be one-term President, his Treasury Secretary, steeped in academentia, was fending off attacks from back home.

The disputes were not limited to America’s foreign partners. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner got into a trans-Pacific argument with one of his former mentors, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, after Mr. Greenspan wrote that the United States was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening.” Mr. Geithner shot back on CNBC that while he had “enormous respect” for Mr. Greenspan, “that’s not an accurate description of either the Fed’s policies or our policies.” He added, “We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or grow the economy.”

Well, if you say so.

…well, at least not again…because the Fed’s current plan to buy $600 Billion of government securities is precisely, explicitly that.

Does Geithner actually believe we are all that stupid or that he’s so much smarter?

Much of the rest of the world seemed to share Mr. Greenspan’s assessment. Moreover, Mr. Obama seemed to be losing the broader debate over austerity. The president has insisted that at a moment of weak private demand, the best way to spur economic growth is to have the government prime the pump with cheap credit and government stimulus programs. He quickly found himself in an argument with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

Wait, who? Great Britain? Isn’t Great Britain…like, our Huckleberry? How retarded does the President and his staff have to be to screw up that relationship?

America isn’t subscribing to this administration’s ineptitude and neither is the rest of the world.

Playing a fools game, hoping to win, telling those sweet lies and losing again.

Former President Bush waxes transparently, assessing his own presidential shortcomings:

The former president said he still feels “sick about” the fact no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. His response to Hurricane Katrina could have been quicker, he said, and he should have landed Air Force One two days after the storm instead of viewing the destruction through the plane’s window. And he said he didn’t see the financial meltdown coming.

Why?

Why?!

Why?!!!!

Why…Mr. President, did you have to do this on Oprah?

PS Don’t feel bad Mr. President. Warren Buffet and a the vast majority of the world of finance didn’t see it coming either.

Bush had nothing negative to say about President Barack Obama, whom Winfrey famously supported in 2008.

“I didn’t like it when people criticized me,” Bush said. “And so you’re not going to see me out there chirping away (at Obama). And I want our president to succeed. I love our country.”

George Bush may not have been conservative enough for many of us, but I believe he was honest in his dealings as President and he remains to this day one of the most respectable, reverent and selfless leaders to have ever occupied the White House.

…in stark contrast with The One there now.

Did you ever wonder why Big Gay spent so much time and effort trying to demonize Target for donating to pro-business (ergo pro-Republican) PACs? 

Well, it certainly wasn’t because, as they claimed, Target was “anti-gay”; even in religiously-“progressive” Minneapolis’s business community, Target has stood out for decades in its support for “progressive” ideals; it’s been one of those “good corporate citizens” that the left always barbers about wanting companies to be.

Partly, of course, was that it didn’t want Twin Cities companies to get the impression that they’re allowed to leave the DFL reservation.  Dictators know you have to keep the peasants in line lest they get uppity.

But at least partly it must be due to the fact that Democratic hold on gay voters juuust might be slipping away from the left:

Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals who self-identified to exit pollsters made up 3 percent of those casting ballots in House races on Tuesday, and 31 percent of them voted Republican. By itself, that number is amazing, especially when you consider that way too many people think being gay and voting Democratic are one in the same. But that percentage is ominous news for a White House viewed with suspicion by many gay men and lesbians, because that’s four percentage points higher than the change election of 2008.

Self-identified gays have been slowly sidling up to the GOP for a while now. In the 2008 presidential race, they made up four percent of the vote and gave 27 percent of their votes to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against then-Sen. Barack Obama. In the 2006 midterm elections, when the House and Senate flipped to Democratic control, gays made up three percent of the electorate with the Republicans snagging 24 percent of their ballots. And in the 2004 presidential elections, President George W. Bush got 23 percent of the gay vote. They comprised four percent of those polled.

There’s no point in embroidering the fact that one wing of conservatism – the southern, social variety – isn’t especially pro-gay.  The other two wings are much more live-and-let-live about social issues – either through culture or libertarian bent.  

Either way – the idea that gays are finding increasing traction with the conservative message, even despite the inhopitability of one wing of the movement, has got to have Big Gay scared out of its mind:

Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of the gay conservative group GOProud, is heralding the uptick in votes from gay men, lesbians and bisexuals for Republicans.

“The gay left would have you believe that gay conservatives don’t exist. Now we see that almost a third of self-identified gay voters cast ballots for Republican candidates for Congress in this year’s midterm,” continued LaSalvia. “This should be a wake-up call for the out-of-touch so-called leadership of Gay, Inc. in Washington, D.C., which has become little more than a subsidiary of the Democrat Party.”

It’s an exit poll, of course, with a large margin of error.  But those polls have been creeping upward, margins and all, for most of a decade.

Remember this video, from just before the election?

Here’s part I of the video…:

…along with Part II…:

…and Part III.

In the video, Monty Jensen of Brainerd describes what he believes to be an act of egregious vote fraud at the Crow Wing County Court House.

I had a long conversation with Jensen last night. I’ll be blogging about that, as well as some of the other principals in this story, starting tomorrow in Shot In The Dark.

A: Because we’re seeing articles in the NYTimes about how American is a “Banana Republic” again.

Dear father in heaven, or whatever is up there:  if I promise to live a life of service and virtue and praise, can we please, please, please let this be true?

I watched some of the Obama press conference in my office today and was not surprised in the least that the President, his ass in hand, could not bring himself to answer some pretty pointed questions on whether “what happened last night” was less an endorsement of the GOP and more a damning of he and his policies.

He gave pause, then looked like he was going to cry. For a second I thought he was going to go all “Moss” and say something like “I will axe the questions.”

Instead he decided not to answer the question and chose to ramble on about the economy and the American people rightfully expecting more progress from their government…blah blah blah.

He just doesn’t get it.

“Some election nights are more fun than others. Some are exhilarating. Some are humbling,” Obama said. “Yesterday’s vote confirmed what I’ve heard from folks all across America. People are frustrated, they’re deeply frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery.”

Some nights are more fun than others? Saywhat? For a man whose sole accomplishment is political in nature, that may be the understatement of a lifetime. Furthermore, I was not aware of the President stooping down to listen to “folks across America.”

Maybe the President, will all due respect (or is that now all done respect), needs a few more days to come to grips with the fact that America has rejected not only his policies on spending, stimulus, health care and his golf handicap, but he himself as a President and a leader – certainly as a folks-listener.

Exhibit A: the outright desertion (the in-bag press read that as “distancing”) of late, if not mutiny, of liberal colleagues that just months before held hands and sang Cumbaya at the signing of a national wealth transfer apparatus called the health care bill. A fatal career move for many a tenured Democrat it turns out.

Exhibit B: what happened last night.

The next two years will be excruciatingly difficult.

…and lonely.

…for him.

I’ll drink to that.

And it’s time for the first allegation of election fraud.

On Friday, October 30, 2010, a member of the Minnesota Freedom Council witnessed apparent voter fraud occurring at the Crow Wing County Courthouse in Brainerd, Minnesota. Upwards of 100 residents from a local group home for mentally disadvantaged individuals were brought into the County Courthouse to cast absentee ballots. The witness reported that supervisors were telling voters to cast a straight Democratic ticket. There was even a report of a voter prematurely leaving the voting both and a supervisor casting the ballot for the voter. Essentially, the people in-charge were taking advantage of the mentally disabled in order to bolster the vote for their candidates of choice. These individuals involved can be charged with a felony under Minnesota election laws.

Here’s part I of the video…:

…along with Part II…:

…and Part III.

Only legal voters should have the right to vote.

This deserves an investigation.

If a democracy can’t trust its democratic institutions, is it a democracy at all?

Watch – some nutslap leftyblogger will call that “voter intimidation”.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Voter fraud is a touchy issue in Minnesota.  The powers that be constantly tell us we have the most incorruptible election system in the country – but not one in 10,000 Minnesotans could explain to you correctly how the 2008 Senate election went from a 200-vote win for Norm Coleman to a 300 vote win for Al Franken.  The Minnesota Majority has found hundreds of ambiguous registrations that led to scads of investigations that have led to dozens of convictions for voter fraud so far, in two of our 87 counties.  And our Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, is a former “community activist” whose 2006 campaign to get elected was bankrolled in part by George Soros’ effort to take SecState offices nationwide.

So yeah, this is serious business.

And let me make sure we give credit where it’s due; the video came from “Election Integrity Watch“.  We need to run down some facts, here – but it deserves investigation.

Yesterday, we examined how Mark Dayton would endeavor to move Minnesota backward – to try to go Back to the Seventies for its economic model.

And that’s if everything goes perfectly – which it can not.

But it’s so much worse than that.

Mark Dayton, and the Democratic Farmer/Labor Party, wants Minnesota to not only look backwards forty years for its model – but they want Minnesota to look at the sidewalk in front of its feet as it shuffles forward into history.

The DFL in Minnesota – and the state’s once-very-liberal Republican party – have a vision of government that, to take the Dayton campaign at its word, has three messages:

3. Attack the most convenient scapegoats. During tough economic times, “the rich” are a convenient set of scapegoats.

2. Focus on short-term outcomes: The old saying goes “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; show a man how to fish, he eats forever”.  Mark Dayton’s campaign is all about creating a large, elaborate, unionized and exquisitely expensive infrastructure to hand out fish in all its metaphorical forms, while making the art of fishing that much harder for them to master.

1. Above all, keep government fat and happy. Mark Dayton’s axiom for Minnesota, if you take  his campaign at face value, is this; satisfying the wants of Minnesota’s professional and vocational Governing Class is the supreme mission of government.

And history shows us that a state – in the general or United sense – that focuses on these priorities can not survive, much less thrive.

At the very least, these priorities pound society into a master-servant relationship – with government as the master.  A benevolent master, mostly, doling out little bits of satisfaction – fish, if you will – to keep the peasants mollified, but a master nonetheless.

Like a cattledriver and his cattle.

Are you happy to moo for a better Minnesota?

Minnesota deserves better.

Because in its truest form, America is about better.  America in its truest form is not a bunch of serfs serving its lords and masters.  It is a free association of equals, governing itself by consent of the governed, with a government that takes care of its appointed roles and otherwise gets the hell out of the way.

Mark Dayton, at his very best, is a throwback to an era that not only can not come back – it must not come back.

So tomorrow, Minnesota, let us deserve better.

Previous Reasons Dayton Should Not Be Governor

• #2: Moving Minnesota Backward
• #3: Unexamined
• #4: Fool Us Three Times
• #5: We Are Better Than This

It’s the second stupid, bigoted attack by the DFL in as many weeks – and it involves my good friend and longtime Northern Alliance colleague King Banaian.

Can you imagine the uproar if a Republican campaign would be stupid enough to drop a campaign piece saying…:

• “Keith Ellison: Too involved in Saudi Arabian politics to bother with Minneapolis”
• “Satveer Chaudhary:  Too Hindi To Bother With New Brighton”

Not only would the DFL descend on the idiot candidate like a biblical plague, but 99% of the GOP would feel obliged to join them.

But the DFL has done it again.

Last week, it was the anti-Catholic attack on Dan Hall in Burnsville, which has gotten national attention.

And over the weekend, perhaps a dumber attack still.

Courtesy of Luke Hellier at MDE, this mailer was sent out in re King Banaian, who’s running for House in District 15B – the east half of the Saint Cloud area.

Images courtesy MDE

King is the former chair of the Economics department at St. Cloud State.  He’s prominent enough an economist to land all sorts of contracting work for governments around the world who are interested in opening up free markets; since I’ve known him, he’s consulted with the Macedonian, Ukranian, Mongolian, Armenian, Kazakh and other governments.

Heaven forbid someone in the Legislature would have earned international respect at economics.

Here’s what the piece says:

King Banaian certainly has a resume – jetting acrosst eh globe to consult the governments of Egypt, Macedonia, Armenia, Ukraine and Indonesia.

But what does all his international travel tell him about the needs of families here in St. Cloud?

Other than the fact that he’s lived there for a couple of decades and become a pillar of the community, you mean?

But worst of all is the photo.  King – that is his real name, and it’s a family thing – is of 100% Armenian descent.  And like most Caucasians from that part of the Caucasus, he’s fairly described as “swarthy”.  Sitting in front of an exotic-looking building, the piece is clearly aimed at some SEIU droog who might be wavering in his DFL loyalty; they’re counting on that droog to look at the picture and go “d-uuu-uuuh, he looks like one of them AY-rabs, g’huck”.

Check out the postcard.  It’s from Saint Paul.  And while I can’t make out the ZIP code from the postmark, I’ll lay 1000-1 odds it’s from the DFL mothership down on Plato.

(On the upside?  At least the DFL bothered to check his biography; had they gone by his name, the piece might have read “Saint Cloud doesn’t need any drunk Irish running things”.  If they went by the photo alone, we might have been favored with some Juan Valdez references. We should perhaps be thankful for small favors).

I asked Banaian for comment earlier.  He’s too busy campaigning to worry about it yet.

The DFL:  they want to win Minnesota one ignorance racist rube at a time

UPDATE: King Banaian says “people here knowmy service as a local economic expert as well as international adviser. Voters care about fiscal accountability, not my passport”.

I suspect he’s right.  But it’s not the people in 15B that I’m worried about.  It’s that wacky bunch down on Plato.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that Americans hate second acts.

It’s baloney, of course, Americans love a good comeback story.  Our history is crowded with ’em; Grover Cleveland’s second term; William Howard Taft’s service on the Supreme court; Richard Nixon (who perhaps should not have had his second act); Ronald Reagan himself, whose career spanned several different iterations.

But as George Patton said, Americans hate a loser.

And while God no doubt loves Mark Dayton, it’s quite clear that if we, the people of Minnesota, were a bank, and Mark Dayton were coming to us for a loan, and his collateral were his record in office, we would turn him down.

Dayton’s record doesn’t even qualify as “checkered”; it’s just plain bad.

Leave aside his questionable record as a New York City high school teacher – during which he taught about 1/3 of the working days during his tenure, and left in mid-year.  Let’s look at his political record:

• State Auditor: Dayton was, at best, an undistinguished State Auditor.
• Economic Development Director: Dayton shuffled through two years as the state’s Economic Development Director.  And then, with another recession on the way, he quit – as related by his boss Rudy Perpich’s son in a brutal Strib Op-Ed, to safeguard his own political future.
• The Bumbler: His term as Senator was the stuff of comedy legend, almost like an out-take from the old TV series Benson.  When even the ultra-liberal Time calls a Democrat “America’s Worst Senator”, it’s time to sit up and take notice.  And – her’e’s the important part – learn from experience.

Dayton is a dissipate playboy who regards politics as a hobby.  If you had a kid who messed up this much, would you give him not only another toy, but a bigger, more expensive one?

Of course not.

Minnesota deserves better.

Previous Reasons Dayton Should Not Be Governor

#5: We Are Better Than This

A few months ago, I attended a get-together with a few candidates.

Now, the upside of a huge surge year like this is that you get a lot of people who are taking their first run at politics, and miiiiight need a little polish to their presentation skills.

But I can feel good that not a single Republican candidate I met came across quite like this.

No, I’m feeling pretty good now.

The DFL starts to work on its damage control from its viciously anti-Catholic attack piece.

Blois Olson – who is not “the DFL”, per se, but has a history of working for DFL candidates – in his “Morning Take”

MN GOP will push to find controversy with a direct mail piece in SD40. GOP operatives are working hard to advance outrage over a mail piece sent by the MN DFL in the race for SD40 where incumbent DFL Sen. John Doll is running against GOPer Dan Hall.

“Find controversy?”

I think the controversy pretty much jumps out and beats you over the head.  Check it out for yourself:

Not a lot of room for interpretation there.

There is no doubt that if they get traction with this it could have some statewide impact on the election, especially if they advance the narrative that the piece is anti-Catholic. While one side of the piece shows a clergy collar with a faux button “Ignore the Poor”. The other takes legitimate pointed criticism at GOPer Dan Hall’s positions related to the MN budget and ties it to his profession as a chaplain.

Which is part of the DFL’s outreach to the region’s – mostly the Metro’s – “social justice-gospel” addled – Catholics; the idea that the state’s budget itself is a sort of Good Work.

That’s no different than finding issue with any other candidates profession and the political positions they take. The piece is hard hitting, but clergy of other faith’s wear a collar, and the word “Catholic” doesn’t appear anywhere on the piece.

Olson goes on to point out that priests of other denominations wear clerical collars.  But the ad’s only context is the current race – where Archbishop Nienstedt has attacked gay marriage, and where Tom Emmer is a very orthodox Catholic.

And neither the Episcopal nor Orthodox hierarchies have taken any key political stances in this election (or have they?  Who would know?) as has the Archdiocese.  If this piece is a swipe at the Anglicans, Greeks or Russians, it’d be a response to an Orthodox or Episcopal stance that nobody’s really aware of; being a highly-qualified pundit, I’m pretty sure Olson knows that’d be a curious misallocation of resources at this point in the campaign.

The ad is a swipe at District 40 Senate candidate Dan Hall, who is a volunteer chaplain with the Burnsville Fire Department.  The DFL’ s line is that Hall is a “Hypocrite” for preaching on the one hand, and supporting Governor Pawlenty on rejecting the big federal Medicaid payment.

The DFL is taking it upon itself to tell us who is or is not a good Christian and Catholic, based on adherence to the DFL’s budget wish list.

Senators Koch and Fishbach gave a statement about an hour ago asking if candidate Dayton stood by his party’s attack.  Dayton is Catholic – or at least he’s given the homily at ultraliberal Saint Joan of Arc in Minneapolis.

I’m gonna suspect he lets this ride without mention…

UPDATE:   MDE has scanned the full postcard.

CORRECTION:  The postcard was sent by the DFL State, not Central, Committee.  It was an inadvertent slip.  Hard to tell all those committees apart.

If you haven’t watched Chris Barden – GOP candidate for Attorney General – and his indictment of Attorney General Swanson and the man who pretty much pulls her strings, Mike Hatch, watch this:

The stuff about using staff to file grandstanding lawsuits that publicized his office but played fast and loose with the law?  We’ve run into this on this blog before; back in 2003, I wrote a five part series on one of these suits, on Hatch’s watch, against “American Bankers”, a Florida company that ran afoul of state regulators.  It was one of Hatch’s sleazier moments – and that of the media, too.

Part 1 – During the closing days of the Ventura Administration, the state Commerce Department, under Jim Bernstein, a former DFLer and radical anti-business commissioner, reaches a settlement as part of a multi-state action.  And then American Bankers backs out.

Part 2 – American Bankers sends a check to the Minnesota GOP – coordinated by a DFL rainmaker with a long, cordial relationship with Hatch – which was illegal at the time.  An automatic “thank you” letter goes out…

Part 3 – …which Hatch uses to ambush Pawlenty’s commerce commissioner, to push for an illegal diversion of settlement money to a Hatch-controlled charity.

Part 4 – Hatch springs one of his pet reporters on the MNGOP, creates a canned controversy.

Part 5 – The lack of media attention to the unravelling of Hatch’s story, back in 2003.

Watch the video.  Read the five part report.

Tell a neighbor; Lori Swanson’s gotta go.

Now.