Category Archives: The Racket

I Don’t Think That Word Means What They Think It Means

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Former ineffective DFL legislator Katie Knuth has been hired as the City of Minneapolis’ “Chief Resilience Officer“.

When I think “resilience”, I think “bouncing back from crises”, “being able to sustain a major human or natural disaster and keep functioning”, or “take a licking and keep on ticking”.

Well, no.  It’s described as:

…a new position that coordinates the city’s work on urban challenges from housing affordability to climate change.

Kate Knuth will join a network that includes dozens of chief resilience officers around the world, in cities that have joined the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project.

Knuth, 36, previously served three terms in the state House as a DFLer representing New Brighton before leading the Institute on the Environment’s Boreas Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota. The City Council approved her hiring on Friday.

Put another way, it’s “providing a paycheck to people who are part of the political class”.

They take care of their own.

There’s One Born This Way Every Minute

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A friend sent me this – an email from “MoveOn.Org”, a group that was founded to get Americans to just shut up and “move on” and ignore the antics of an ageing lothario, 20 years ago (antics that including lying under oath repeatedly).

They’ve changed their tune…:

I just have to ask: is there anyone, even among the lefty herd, dumb enough to fall for this?

The GOP majority in Congress may not like Trump much, but barring some major crime that isn’t currently in evidence, they’re not going to vote to impeach, much less remove him from office.

No, contributors won’t be buying an “impeachment”; they’ll be paying for more political noise and lots of spiffy vacations for MoveOn execs.

What’s Hmong For “Money Pit?”

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ramsey County proudly announced the opening of premier courts for a Hmong game called Tuj Lub at Keller Park in Maplewood.

Players need a piece of grass about the size of a tennis court.  But they can’t provide their own lawn, or form a club like the Curling Club on Selby Avenue, or get a business to sponsor them like the bocce ball courts in the basement of the Halftime Rec on Front Avenue.  They need Ramsey County government to subsidize their hobby.

I’m a shooter, an American competitive sport with a long and noble tradition.  When do I get a shooting range?

If we’re not going to subsidize all sports, then how do we pick and choose which?

For that matter, why subsidize ANY sports?  Is that the purpose of Ramsey County government?

In pioneer days, the County was the principal organizational unit of government statewide.  But Ramsey County is almost entirely contained within cities.  What is the purpose of Ramsey County government nowadays?

Joe Doakes

Why?

To provide an income for the Democrat oolitical classs.

Come on, Joe.  You’re not new to this.

The Racket

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Governor Dayton signed the budget bills, but vetoed funding for the legislature because he didn’t get the bills he wanted.

Some might think Dayton’s move was petty and vindictive.  I disagree.  It was genius.  In chess terms, he’s put the Republicans in a fork – agree to a special session to give the governor what he wants in exchange for funding the legislature, or take your complaint to a court packed with judges appointed by Democrats.  Both are losing moves.

Joe is absolutely right.

When all the moves are losing moves, refuse to play the game.  The Republican Speaker of the House should say “We convinced Governor Dayton to cut spending for a third of state government, which is a good start.  Since he’s defunded the Legislature, we won’t be coming back into session and that means the rest of the government will shut down when this current budget runs out in two years.  Meanwhile, I plan to enjoy a well-deserved vacation.”

And Joe is even more absolutely right.

Of course he wouldn’t mean it.  But it ups the ante.  Every time somebody says “but what about” you point them to the Governor and say “Sorry, the Governor shut us down.  Take it up with him.”

Joe Doakes

I dream of a world where Minnesota Republicans have that kind of political killer instinct.

The Shallow End Of The Pool

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Joe Doakes emails about something I’m noticing in regard to the Paris “treaty”, political violence, economics, race, crime, human and civil rithts…

…well, just read it:

Liberals say Trump people are doing just what Clinton people did, but we’re not calling to lock him up, therefore, Republicans are shameful hypocrites.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once explained that the problem with Liberal analysis is shallowness.  One man pushes a little old lady into the path of a bus, a second man leaps in front of the bus to push her back to safety, but a Liberal says the men are identical: they’re both pushing around little old ladies.  Well, yes, at the most superficial level of analysis, that’s true; but a thinking person ought to be capable of looking deeper to see the moral difference in their actions.

Hillary ignored security warnings to set up a private email server which she used for official government business including classified information that ended up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.  Members of the Trump administration have a private email system which they use solely for non-government communications such as Republican party fundraising.  Liberals now claim the situations are identical but the first system violated the law whereas the second system upholds the law which prohibits using government property for private political purposes.

Hillary set up the Clinton Foundation to provide aid to hurricane ravaged Haiti, and received $2 billion in donations from corporations and other nations seeking access to her.  She used 90% of the money for personal expenses.  Ivanka urged the World Bank to set up a Women’s Entrepreneur fund to help women achieve economic independence.  Saudi Arabia just donated $200 million, no doubt hoping it will get them access to her as a key figure in her father’s administration.  Liberals claim the two situations are identical but the first situation was merely Hillary’s personal slush fund whereas the second situation is managed and administered by the World Bank, not under Ivanka’s control and from which she receives no money (why would she, she’s already rich, she doesn’t need to steal from the poor).

It’s going to be a long four years.

Joe Doakes

Some days, it feels like it already has been.

Misdirection

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Joe Doakes from Como Pak emails:

When Bill and Hillary Clinton were under investigation for their part in the Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky affairs, Hillary Clinton told Matt Laurer that there was nothing to the charges, they were the result of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy working against her family.  She persisted in that lie for years, despite mounting evidence that the Clintons were not being wrongfully persecuted, but justly prosecuted.

When Islamic terrorists attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, killing our ambassador and dragging his body through the streets, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed the killers were innocent Muslims outraged by an offensive internet video.  She persisted in that lie for years, lying to the faces of the victims’ families, despite all evidence to the contrary.

When embarrassing Democrat party e-mails were published by Wikileaks before the election, Hillary Clinton claimed Russian hackers were trying to help Trump get elected.  Democrats are still demanding an investigation into her claim and now they’ve gotten a Special Investigator appointed.

But what if the emails weren’t stolen by Russians?  What if they were given away by a disgruntled employee of the Democrat National Committee?  Specifically, what if a 27-year-old computer programmer sent 40,000 emails to Wikileaks and later was shot in the back while walking down the street in Washington, DC, a murder the police are no longer trying to solve?  There’d be nothing for the Special Investigator to investigate.

If that were true, then Hillary’s Russian hacking story would be another misdirection lie, the same pattern of misdirection lying as Hillary repeatedly has used in the past to avoid blame for the damage she’s caused.  It fits a decades-long pattern of conduct that she’s used to great success.  Why is it so hard for people to believe it’s happening again?

Because if they allow that thought into their heads, they will be forced to admit how stupidly they’ve acted for the last 30 years as they drank the Kool-aide.  Nobody wants to admit he was duped, repeatedly, and gladly. So they perish the thought and double-down on the lie.  The Russians!  The Russians!

As Hillary slinks away.  Again.

Joe Doakes

Eventually, lotically, some conspiracy theory is going to turn out not to be a theory at all.

 

When, Not If…

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…the DFL and its PR firm, “The Minnesota Media”, blame the upcoming government shutdown on the GOP, keep this in mind:

It’s Javier Morillo, and if you’re not constantly marinading in Minnesota politics, a) you’re lucky, and b) you may not know that Morillo is up there with Alida Messinger as the most powerful person you haven’t heard of.

He’s the “Protressive-to-a-fault” majordomo of…the SEIU?  AFSCME?  MAPE?  Oh, who cares – all government workers’ unions are pretty much the same.

Anyway – mark my words:

  1. Morillo calls for “progressives” to shut down the Legislature
  2.  “Progressives”, being herd animals, will do it
  3. The media, being obedient servants of the class led by none other than Morillo, will do as told and bury that fact; on Almanac after the shutdown, Morillo (or the other Mini-Javis that appear in his stead) will be able to skate away from their complicity.

Just watch.

UPDATE:  MN Representative Scott Dibble is in on the act:

As is Rep Dehn, who is also running for mayor of Minneapolis, and bringing enough grandstanding to the ‘struggle” (bwahahaha) to make Betsy Hodges go “um, Ray?  Bubbie?  Dial it back a skosh?”

Five’ll get you ten this is all forgotten when the government does shut down; the GOP will be to blame as far as the media knows.

What Government Really Does

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When Matt Järlström got snagged by one of Oregon’s red light cams in 2013, he began researching the effectivness and side-effects of these red-light cameras – and the jiggering of yellow lights cycle times that allowed then to earn extra money for their jurisdictions.

Since then, his research into red light cameras has earned him attention in local and national media—in 2014, he presented his evidence on an episode of “60 Minutes”—and an invitation to present at last year’s annual meeting of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

It also got him a $500 fine from the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.

Math and logic are apparently so powerful, you need a state license to use them (emphasis added):

Apparently the threats weren’t enough, because the board follow-up in January of this year by officially fining Järlström $500 for the supposed crime of “practicing engineering without being registered.”

Järlström is now suing the state board over that fine, arguing that it’s unconstitutional to prevent someone from doing math without the government’s permission. He’s getting support from the Institute for Justice, a national libertarian law firm.

Don’t think there aren’t “journalists” who’d love to run with that whole “sue the competition out of exisence” schtick.

“Criticizing the government’s engineering isn’t a crime; it’s a constitutional right,” said Sam Gedge, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, in a statement.

Some would call it a duty.

Oh, wait – I just got a letter from the Minnesota Moral Philosophy Standards and Licensing Board…

Rebooted Morality!

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Remember when questioning the provenance of immigrant voters was a baaaad thing?

Either does Alondra “The Brain” Cano, the “third world feminist” and Minneapolis City Council ward heeler:

Minneapolis City Council candidate Mohamed Farah is accusing Council Member Alondra Cano of “Jim Crow tactics” after she questioned the credentials of many of the Somali-American delegates chosen in the Ninth Ward caucus earlier this month.

Cano’s campaign filed challenges with the Minneapolis DFL saying 101 delegates elected in the near south Minneapolis caucus did not sign in to participate in the April 4 event at South High School. At least 27 delegates and alternates did not write down their addresses when they registered, Cano’s campaign said, and “we have identified at least three delegates who do not live in the precinct they were elected in.”

I love watching tyrants eating each other.

Verdict

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Kevin Williamson’s conclusion on the Democrats’ seeming compulsion to inflict more Clintons on us, and themsellves, via Chelsea:

…for Pete’s sake, stop it. Have a little self-respect, Democrats. Build Bill Clinton a statue or . . . whatever. Send him your daughters like a bunch of bone-in-the-nose primitives paying tribute to the tribal chieftain. But stop trying to inflict this empty-headed, grasping, sanctimonious, risible, simpering, saccharine little twerp on American public life. It’s stupid enough out there.

What led to the conclusion?

Oh, just read the whole thing.

Today’s News, Ten Years Ago

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Bill Kling, the godfather of Minnesota Public Radio as we know it today, was a radio visionary or a skilled political operative who was an expert at marshaling political clout to his ends.

Well, forget the “or”.  He was both.

Kling was much of the reason MPR is what it is today – in terms of creative vision and, especially, “business development” via both conventional fundraising and endowment-mongering, and use of the political system to meet his ends.  He built a huge, successful merchandising arm (based on the success of Garrison Keillor and “Prairie Home Companion”, the lighting in a bottle that made MPR not only big, but phenomenally wealthy); he also led the charge against community low-power FM radio stations – which could have cut into Big Public Radio’s funding and audience – until the Internet rendered the battle moot.  And any time any conservative got any ideas about cutting public funding for MPR, Kling called in enough favors on Capitol Hill to make a Chicago ward heeler dizzy with envy.

And to this radio geek, who spent his formative years working at dusty little small-town stations tucked in above drugstores or behind hardware stores, or places like the old KSTP-AM, wedged into an old transmitter shed, a tour through MPR’s studios on 7th and Robert in Saint Paul – even in their “old” facility – made you feel a little like Jethro Clampett walking through that Beverly Hills mansion for the first time (as did hearing what MPR people got paid; people doing the exact same job I did at KSTP-AM made 50% more than I got).  And when they upgraded it in the mid-aughts, with a huge indoor auditorium and capacious new offices and, best of all, state of the state of the art studios?  Not just exactly at the radio high-tech fashion curve – oh no.  That, plus they had not one but two state of the art on-air studios, mirror images of each other, so that the staff (!) of one show didn’t have to rush and trip over each other to get out of the way of the next show coming in; they’d just alternate studios.

The Taj Ma Kling. Or the “Kling Public Media Center”. Tomayto, Tomahto.

So opulent (to my commercial radio tastes) was it, that ten years ago this past Tuesday, I christened their facility the “Taj Ma Kling“.

And ten years and one day after I named the facility, Minnesota Public Radio in effect agreed with me:

Minnesota Public Radio will rename its St. Paul headquarters and broadcast facilities the Kling Public Media Center on April 19. The decision to do so was actually made back in 2011, the year Kling retired from his post as CEO of both MPR and American Public Media, but the actual change was held off until now so that it coincided with MPR’s 50th anniversary.

““Our 50th anniversary is the perfect time to honor what Bill created and built. His entrepreneurial spirit and passion for public service continue to inspire us as we begin our next 50 years,” said Jon McTaggart, the current president and CEO of American Public Media Group. “What Bill has done – not just for Minnesota and MPR, but for public media audiences across the country – is unique and lasting. The creativity and innovation within the walls of the Kling Public Media Center will always be a living testament to what Bill began a half century ago.”

“Taj Ma Kling” / “Kling Public Media Center”.

Different words,  Same idea.

Deep Blue World

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

A woman in Britain spoke an unpleasant truth: feminism has made women worse off.  It’s another example of Berg’s Law: Liberal Policies Destroy Liberal Values.

 She concentrates on the economic effect of women entering the labor force but that’s only the half of it.  Cutting everyone’s wages is bad, of course, but looking around various government offices, I don’t think that’s the worst thing.

 The worst thing is productivity dropped by half, as well.  More people doing less work for less money means work-produced-per-dollar remains constant which looks good on paper but is a massive disaster for management.   

 Focusing performance on time-on-task or units-per-hour is oppressive, patriarchal, and just plain no fun, especially with your co-worker said something that hurt your feelings so you simply can’t bear to work right now; or your kid is sick so you can’t come in today; or you’ll get to my project as soon as you finish texting your friend, or you are certain you have medical reasons why you can’t work even if the doctors are too stupid to figure it out.

 Throw in public sector unions and civil service rules making it impossible to fire slackers and you have a workforce that is hostile to the point of being unmanageable.

 Welcome to the Deep State.

 Joe Doakes

Orwell wasn’t wrong, and he wasn’t even all that far off time-wise.  He just got the degree a little off.

The Club

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On Saturday, a rally at the state capitol asked Saint Paul and Ramco authorities to actually enforce the law against the spoiled children of their golf buddies.

Many people at the rally said they were concerned that not prosecuting the protesters would send the message that it’s acceptable to interrupt a peaceful event with noise and violence.

“It disturbs the heck out of me to see we’ve descended into lawlessness,” said James Brunsgaard of Hastings, who said he was sworn at and called a racist during the March 4 rally. “It disturbs me beyond belief.”

Several of the speakers expressed frustration that their event was disrupted, while recent Democratic or liberal-leaning events, like the Jan. 21 Women’s March, were not significantly disturbed.

No, let’s be honest:  we’re frustrated because while we, the good guys, will take a out permits that spell out the rules for where and when we can protest, and still get routinely shouted down and often attacked [1], groups in sync with the DFL’s agenda seem to have carte blanche to do whatever they feel like doing [2] with, as we saw on March 4 (and other instances [1]) no consequences whatsoever.

Why, it’s almost like:

  1. there’s a two-tiered system of “free speech” and “justice” in the Twin Cities, and
  2. they – not just the protesters, but the DFL on the official level – are trying to provoke frustration that breaks out into a fight, which will in turn confirm, finally, the left’s long-standing claim that there’s a frothing undercurrent of violence on the right just dying to erupt.  Any day now.  Honest.  Seriously.

And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it!

Here’s the problem:  on the one hand, “democracy” can only survive while people trust government and the “justice” system to be impartial.

On the other hand, the people with the upper hand in the Twin Cities – the DFL establishment – have no interest in democracy.

[1] Attacks on conservatives that I can recall off the top of my head:

  • Protesters shouted down Jeanne Kirkpatrick at the U of M in 1987.
  • The shutting down of conservative speakers at Saint Thomas in the mid-2000s
  • The selective enforcement of rules against protesting, ,applied with strict caprice against pro-life protesters and protesters at the Mexican Consulate, largely ignored against leftist protesters
  • The riots at the RNC in 2008
  • The repeated attacks on Trump supporters in Minneapolis in 2016 and, of course, this past March 4 in Saint Paul.

[2] Protesters on the left, on the other hand, got away with:

  • Closing down I-35 – without a permit.
  • Closing down I94 3-4 times – without a demonstration permit.
  • Closing down Snelling Avenue on the closing Saturday of the MN State Fair in 2015 – without a permit
  • Closing down the Green Line on the opening Sunday of the 2015 football season – without a permit.
  • Staging an un-permitted protest on March 4 for precisely the reason that they issue demonstration permits in the first place – to prevent violent confrontations – without any consequences.

TIme For Some Petty Partisanship

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Kevin Williamson in National Review comes perilously close to my riff on people who think being “Moderate” is, itself, a good thing:

Bipartisanship is desirable not because the best course is likely to be found at the midpoint between two extremes: The man who drinks to excess every day is a drunk, and so is the man who does so every other day. There is no compromise between fidelity and infidelity. When presented with a good idea and a bad one, there is no point in being a little bit stupid for the sake of compromise.

Which is a lot like my saying: “Moderation for its own sake is like getting a choice between ‘being beaten to death with a baseball bat, and living a long happy life’, and compromising on a traumatic brain injury”.

But he actually has a serious point.   It is high time the GOP descended into some petty partisanship by stopping the petty graft gravy trail that funds the institutional left.

Congress should also target grants and other federal funding directed to political organizations. For example: La Raza, through its banking operations (of course it has banking operations!) has received millions of dollars in federal subsidies…the comptroller general has found routine violations of existing laws against using federal funds for political advocacy and lobbying activities. There is in fact a federal criminal law against using federal appropriations to underwrite lobbying. You will not be surprised to learn that this law — which has been on the books for nearly a century — apparently never has been enforced. “The exact parameters of this law, adopted in 1919, are not precisely known,” writes the Congressional Research Service, “as there appears never to have been an enforcement action or indictment returned based on the provision.” Time to tighten that up. Congress should also adopt a general prohibition on distributing federal settlement funds to nonprofit organizations. Billions of dollars in federal settlements have been directed to “non-victim entities” such as the Urban League and La Raza, which are fundamentally political organizations. If Republicans cannot bring themselves to act out of prudence and principle, then they at least ought to have a sense of self-preservation sufficient to stop funding campaigns against themselves.

It’s time for Republicans to stop letting our sense of fair play be used against us.

Anyway – it verges on a Berg’s Seventh Law reference; for all the left barbers about tax dollars going to support any institution of faith, an insane amount of our money goes to support the left’s religion – leftist power politics (emphasis added):

The Left has a weakness: It is dependent upon government money. It has long accepted that arrangement complacently, on the theory that its friends will generally control the government, if not always at the elected level then at the administrative and bureaucratic level. (The Left has not been wrong about that.) According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 17 percent of all federal outlays take the form of assistance to state and local governments — funds that in turn account for about a quarter of all state and local government spending. A fair portion of that money ends up simply passing through to nonprofits and politically connected contractors who provide dubious “outreach” and “development” services.

The correct term for that is “Graft”.

Leftist Justice – Saint Paul Style

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Last weekend, a group of “anarchists” attacked a pro-Trump rally at the Minnesota State Capitol.    Thugs wearing helmets and masks sucker-punched and kicked unsuspecting peaceful demonstrators, and in one case sprayed mace into a crowd of people.

It was not a spontaneous event; they were quite obviously organized, equipped, and had planned for the event.

They sprayed what was described as “Bear Mace” into a crowd of unsuspecting people – which can easily be a lethal weapon for people with respiratory conditions.   There were six arrests.

The entire fracas was caught on film, in front of dozens of witnesses.  There is not problem showing the violence, brutality and intent of the event.

No matter.  They are aligned with the left against the right.  And in Saint Paul, that’s license to block streets, clog freeways…

…and now, to physically attack people with potentially lethal force.   Ramsey County has declined to charge the arrested protesters – four boys and two girls – with anything.

Monday, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office said there were insufficient facts to prove felony-level riot. The attorney’s office said State Patrol has presented the case to the St. Paul City Attorney’s Office for consideration of misdemeanor charges.

That is bullshit, stacked high and deep.

If it were a bunch of rednecks from Isanti County who’d maced the “Womens’ March” a couple weeks ago, they’d still be in jail.

Look at the boys and girls who were arrested.  Check out the names:  Anton.  Isabell.  Linwood.  Those are upper-middle-class white kid names.  Breck School names.  Names that drive Subarus until they get a Volvo.  Names like the children of John Choi’s law school classmates and Chris Coleman’s Crocus Hill and Kenwood cronies have.

It’s the special, deluxe, “for progressives only” justice, part of the “progressives only” school, university, public sector union and non-profit parallel universe of power and privilege that the Big Left in Minnesota gets.

UPDATE:  I’ve seen reports that Linwood Kaine is the son of Hillary Clinton’s VP candidate.

Well, I’m gonna guess there were some lawyers involved, huh?

It’s A Start

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Ted Mondale and Michelle Kelm-Helgen resigned from the Metro Sports Utilities Commission yesterday, after the corruption in the MSFC’s use of luxury skyboxes as a spiff for the Twin Cities’ DFL became to great for even the Metro old-boy-and-girl network to hush up.

Mondale and Kelm-Helgen faced cascading criticism and scrutiny since the Star Tribune reported in November that they and other MSFA commissioners hosted friends, family and well-connected DFLers at two 18-person luxury suites at the stadium during Vikings games and at several concerts. The two said the state-owned suites were needed to market the building, but an investigation by Legislative Auditor James Nobles revealed the suites were used mostly for entertainment by the MSFA commissioners and staff.

The Legislative Auditors report sounds like it’s good reading:

[Legislative Auditor James Nobles’] 100-page report faulted Kelm-Helgen and Mondale’s leadership of the MSFA, saying they had violated a core ethical principle by using public office for personal gain, by handing out free tickets, VIP parking, food and drink to friends and allies.

Combined, the two made nearly $300,000 in taxpayer-funded salaries. They oversaw construction of the $1.1 billion stadium, which was funded in part with a $498 million public subsidy.

And the saga of Michelle Kelm-Helgen, DFL grandée extraordinaire,  sounds like a “how-to” for any political glad-hander in a one-party city;

Even before the suite usage blew up, an unclear division of duties between Mondale and Kelm-Helgen became an issue. Former authority members Duane Benson and John Griffith had questioned the need for two taxpayer-funded executives in similar roles. They also raised concerns about Kelm-Helgen’s lack of collaboration.

“We were on a board that had an inability to get information,” Benson said, adding that Kelm-Helgen also refused to let the board participate in her job reviews.

Remember way back when Zygi Wilf was yanking the DFL-led Legislature and Governor Flint-Smith Dayton around, threatening to move the team if the state didn’t pony up to improve his investment for him at public expense?  And we asked – what could possibly go wrong when you entrust half a billion dollars to an bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats whose sole qualification was their DFL political connection?

Because you should remember it.

All Roads Lead To George

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The more politics I watch, the more I realize Berg’s Seventh Law – which started as a flippant observation of casual hypocrisy…:

“When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds”

…truly does pretty much explain the entire American left.

To wit:  the left is barbering about the suffocating control an Eastern European kleptocrat has over the American right?  Look for an Eastern European kleptocrat pulling the strings behind the American left.

Ding ding di freaking ding:

By my draft research, which I’m opening up for crowd-sourcing on GoogleDocs, Soros has funded, or has close relationships with, at least 56 of the march’s “partners,” including “key partners” Planned Parenthood, which opposes Trump’s anti-abortion policy, and the National Resource Defense Council, which opposes Trump’s environmental policies. The other Soros ties with “Women’s March” organizations include the partisan MoveOn.org (which was fiercely pro-Clinton), the National Action Network (which has a former executive director lauded by Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett as “a leader of tomorrow” as a march co-chair and another official as “the head of logistics”). Other Soros grantees who are “partners” in the march are the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. March organizers and the organizations identified here haven’t yet returned queries for comment.   

Presumably because they’re jetting off to Riyadh to protest treatment of women in the Middle East.

Oh, I slay me.

Artisanal Bread And Cirques De Soleil

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I enjoy live theater.  Well, some of it.  I go for entertainment, not consciousness-raising (I get enough of that from the newspapers, television, internet, Bar Association, Academy awards . . . I’m inundated with people wanting to raise my consciousness to the point where all I want is a couple of hours of escape).

So what does the Guthrie offer this season? A Winter Sale, buy 4 plays for as little as $80, choose from among:

The Royal Family, a comedic valentine to the theater, loosely based on the Barrymore family.

King Lear, Shakespeare’s epic tragedy

The Bluest Eye, a moving adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel exploring the destructive power of racist society

Refugia, a relevant and evocative world premiere exploring exile, borders and displacement of people.

Sunday in the Park with George, Sondheim’s artistic masterpiece featuring songs I’ve never heard of.

Native Gardens, a hilarious hot button comedy exposing notions of race, taste and privilege.

So that’s one classic, two musicals that may be okay, and three consciousness-raisers.   Leaving aside the fact that $80 gets me a seat in Area 4 (worst seats in the house) on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings (slowest days of the week), I know I’m not willing to pay that kind of money to be harangued about racism, refugees or privilege.  So who is?

Behold, the Guthrie’s list of corporate sponsors.  And notice who’s number one, giving over $250,000 per year to fund this dreck?  That’s right – you, the taxpayer.  

Joe Doakes

Some animals are more equal.

Of Fish And Water

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Got this message from the Real Property Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association, sent to all members:

“The MSBA Real Property Law Section seeks feedback on what our members find valuable about the Section. To streamline the process, we put together a short survey for members, and in return, five members who complete the survey will be rewarded with a gift card to Target worth $50 in stores or online. The information gathered from the survey will be used to evaluate the Section’s current and future initiatives and keep us focused on the things that matter most to our members.”

Sent this message in return:

Dear MSBA:  I won’t be completing the survey. I thought I’d let you know why not.

I pay dues to support the section out of my pocket, not reimbursed by my employer.  The section will use my dues as a reward for contributing to the survey.  But not in cash which members could spend on anything they like; the section will only allow winners to spend the reward at a particular vendor.

The reason that matters is this particular vendor has chosen to embrace controversial corporate values which are not shared by everybody in the state, such as the recent bathroom controversy or even stocking policies under which customers cannot buy ordinary items sold at other discount retailers such as spark plugs.  Target management makes these decisions to make a political statement of its corporate values, the better to market its brand to its selected customer base. 

Fine, Target can make marketing decisions as it sees fit.  But by specifically choosing that particular vendor over Walmart or Fleet Farm or a Visa gift card spendable anywhere, the Real Property Section signals to members that it shares Target’s value system and wishes to contribute to its bottom line profitability with my dues.  What does that action say to members of the section – or to the public at large – who do not share those values? 

It doesn’t matter whether I, personally, share Target’s values.  I don’t think MSBA should be in the business of rewarding businesses on the basis of which political positions they embrace.  I think MSBA and all its sections should be neutral.  I don’t wish to participate in an activity that makes it appear that I, as an attorney and officer of the court, have chosen to promote one set of controversial values over the values held by other citizens of this state.   Therefore, I will not complete the survey.

This is the sort of unconscious Liberalism that blindsided Hillary supporters.  They literally don’t think anybody disagrees with them, never even occurs to them to wonder about it. I doubt my note will do any good – I suspect they write it off as “another cis-gendered White male curmudgeon” – but somebody ought to say it.

Joe Doakes

Someday, the concept “Urban Liberal Privilege” will need to be officially codified.

This is certainly a case study.

The Plan

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

My boss is a liberal.  “Trump tweeted that he’s breaking his promise, Mexico won’t pay for the wall, we will.”

My response: you’re being distracted from important things by irrelevancies.  Social Security runs out of money in three years. Then what?

His idea: make the federal government repay the money they stole from it.

Seriously?  The reason the federal budget is only short $500 billion each year is that we’re borrowing money from the Social Security fund to cover it.  Where will we get the money to close that gap PLUS repay the IOUs to Social Security?

Simple: the government will just have to come up with the money. And if they don’t have it, then we can’t build the wall. And besides, it’s only temporary, until enough undocumented immigrants arrive to pay into the system again, then it’ll all work out.

Yes.  The liberal plan is to bail out Social Security with [illegal immigants], which is why we must not build the wall, so they can get in, to save us.

Joe Doakes   

Which is, of course, also why we need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour; if people make more, they pay more social security taxes.  Hence solvency…

Win-Win

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ramsey County Sheriff Bostrom is retiring to move to England to study whether it would improve law enforcement if they hired persons of good character as police officers. 

The fact he’s having to go all the way to Oxford to find anybody willing to seriously consider the question shows just how far American academic and law enforcement standards have fallen.

 Meanwhile, St. Paul has decided the less people know about law enforcement practices, the better police oversight will be.  So when civil rights activists complained the Internal Affairs Review Commission was biased, the City ordered a report of interviews with 25 people conducted by the U of M Center for Restorative Justice and now the Council has decided to adopt the recommendations of the “study.”  Kick the cops off, pack it with activists, move it out of the police department, hold meetings out in the neighborhoods and give its recommendation to the Chief of Police.

 My question is: when the Commission finds that a St. Paul cop acted wrongly but the Chief of Police declines to accept that decision on the grounds the reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about, will there be more peace in the community, or less?

 Joe Doakes

Either way, the needs of both the bureaucracy and the “activist” communities – both fully-owned subsidiaries of the DFL – are served.

And that’s called a win-win!

Get The Sad Trombone

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Gun-control melodrama Miss Sloane has bombed at the box office.

Well, no.  That understates it.  Howard the Duck and Ishtar bombed.  Miss Sloane was dropped from a single B-29, and like that iconic single bomb, has a decent shot at helping to bring a war to an end.

After lavish television advertising – Miss Sloane had a bigger TV budget than the inescapable Rogue One – and fawning reviews from liberal critics and media, the movie earned $3.2 million dollars.  Which, divided by the number of screens and a $10 ticket price, meant an average of around ten people attending each showing.

And it wasn’t for lack of trying to get people to show up. Out of the 200 highest-grossing movies of 2016, only ten exceeded the $15.9 million television advertising budget of Miss Sloane, and seven of those did so by very small amounts. Miss Sloane spent more than the Star Wars spinoff Rogue One, Star Trek, Pete’s Dragon, Arrival, Doctor Strange, and Hacksaw Ridge. It had twice the advertising budget of such hits as Sully, The Girl on the Train, and The Secret Life of Pets. For every dollar spent on advertising, Miss Sloane brought in just 21 cents in ticket sales. By this measure, it came in dead last out of the 200 top-grossing movies in 2016. No one else was even close. Coming in second-to-last was Collateral Beauty, which made 53 cents per advertising dollar. The average movie made almost $2 for each dollar spent on advertising.

Of course, the movie’s core conceit – that gun grabbers are a bunch of plucky, underfunded underdogs, duking it out with a “gun lobby” that is floating in money – is a preposterous fiction.  Michael Bloomberg and other anti-gun plutocrats fund the “safe criminal” movement lavishly.

For example, here in Minnesota during the 2016 campaign, groups affiliated with the safe criminal lobby spent well over a million dollars – easily ten times as much as the Human Rights movement did – and employed at least four full-time paid staffers.   Not a single person in Minnesota is paid to lobby the legislature or organize the community; the movement is entirely volunteers, working on their own time out of pure devotion to the Bill of Rights.   In other states – Nevada, Washington, Maine – the spending ratio was closer to 30 to 1.

I suspect most Americans can tell the movie doesn’t pass the stink test;  Sloane’s premise reeks like a full pea-soup diaper on a dog day in the bayou.

And its failure is of a piece with the collapse, over the past fifteen years, of nearly every single Hollywood anti-war movie.

When I saw the trailer – during one of my ever-so-brief episodes of watching broadcast TV – I heard the trailer in the background.  I think it was the normally-excellent Sam Waterson, playing one of the “gun lobby” bad guys.  I think I envisioned a character wearing a black cape and top hat, twisting a painstakingly-maintained handlebar mustache as he tied Ms. Chastain…er, Sloane to the tracks.  I actually laughed out loud.

But hey, Hollywood; keep ’em coming.