Remember – there are three more days to make your choice known in the “Twin Cities’ Unintentially Funniest Leftyblog” contest – for the leftyblog that you are most likely to laugh at, rather than with.
Voting will be open until Wednesday morning.
“All of them” is not an option. Sorry.
So if you counterprotest a “peace” rally, that must naturally mean you’re “pro-war” or “anti-peace”, right?
Nobody could be that juvenile or stupid. Right?
Bear in mind, I’m an inherently civil guy. While I don’t mind mixing it up with people (hence, I blog and host a talk show), I don’t especially relish conflict.
But Ken Avidor is not a very bright person. He may be the one person on earth who makes Eric Zaetsch look coherent. The only person who seems actually too dumb to post on the Dump Bachmann site (note to Eva Young: You got me. When a site that draws 2,500 visitors a day mentions a site that draws maybe 100, it’s a sign that I’m desperate for traffic. Good call).
It’s a shame, really, that Chuck Olson – who is an unapologetic lefty, but seems to be a relatively reasonable guy, and who interviewed me for the “Uptake” site, the left-leaning videoblogger site that carries Avidor’s little peal of self indulgence, before the demonstration yesterday – has to be associated with such a hamster.
On the other hand – if the other side has to dig THAT far down to respond, it’s probably a sign of intellectual bankruptcy. Redundant as the phrase is when Avidor is involved.
Note to lefty videobloggers: If you want to get footage of me, just ask. It’s not like I’m camera-shy. You have only your argument to lose. He says with a half-smile.
UPDATE: Mike McIntee and Chuck Olson note that Uptake has changed Avidor’s original headline. I thank them for this.
As to what to call us? Good question. Anti-pullout? I gotta think about that.
And for those among you (Flash? I’m talkin’ to you!) who will point out my occasional lapses into ire, referring to “peace” protesters as “pro-genocide”; enh. Half of it’s a fair cop. I’m human. But the fact is, when the Vietnam protesters got their way, millions died. Had the anti-Cold War protesters gotten theirs, hundreds of millions would still be beholden to Communism, languishing in the Gulag (and that the Russians seem to be headed back toward that state doesn’t take away from the magnificence of the freedoms that Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Slovenians and former East Germans now enjoy). How are today’s protesters any different?
You answer that – and for my part, I’ll try to do as well as Mike and Chuck did, rhetoric-wise.
We drew (according to one count) about 30 people to yesterday’s counterprotest on John Ireland Boulevard.
It was a huge success. Before I took off from the house Saturday morning, I had a hard count of maybe 18. Getting nearly double that? Awesome.
Of course, the point wasn’t to demonstrate. Demonstrations don’t really affect policy in any way at all. What they are, if you keep things in perspective, is a dandy social occasion; a time to get together and realize you’re not alone out there.
Liberals and “activists” are like tuna (and, if it’s possible, please believe I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense); they travel in big groups, they get uneasy when they’re NOT in a big group, they have a hard time conceiving of existence that doesn’t involve big groups.
Conservatives are like sharks; any one of us is a match for dozens of liberals, and our very presence at marches or school board meetings or community council elections provokes unreasoning fear, panic, irrationality and an “end justifies the means” mentality. And we usually operate alone. Conservatism is fundamentally a solitary thing; we usually come to the movement alone, or with a spouse. Liberals have their marches and their union meetings and their poli-sci classes; our social impulses are usually carried out via talk radio and blogs, at work or while hauling kids to school. Getting a group of five or more conservatives together for ANYTHING but an open bar is a major undertaking.
So I have neither the illusion of nor the desire to try to get thousands of conservatives out into the street next year for the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. But I do want to get dozens out on the street, and spotted around the city’s various choke points, with cameras and video and laptops and wireless cards, to make sure that the “demonstrators” are held accountable to the world for the actions of their, er, less-restrained fellows.
Like Brad Carlson did with this guy.
The left labors under the fantasy that there’ll be an equal amount of provocation from the left and the right. My goal; to have the radical far left’s sins and crimes spread far and wide, in the event that their lunatic fringe misbehaves in Saint Paul this year.
And yes, I fully expect that the left will have its phalanxes of “citizen journalists” trooping through the streets with cameras, trying to do the same.
Hopefully we’re all going to be bored stiff.
Anyone wanna place bets on who’s gonna be busier?
20 to 1?
Seems like a fair battle.
I had to take off before the actual fun started at the Cathedral and long John Ireland Boulevard in Saint Paul this morning – I had to get to the station to do the NARN show – but I’m told it was a great time. Most of the lefties behaved (all of the counterprotesters, naturally, behaved impeccably), and our presence – for a bunch of people who are just not wired to stand around on a gorgeous Saturday waving signs and yelling – was way stronger than I expected. I had hoped to draw 15-18 counterprotesters – by all accounts we doubled that.
I’ll be linking to some of the other bloggers who were there – but this was a great start.
More later!
I announced this a few weeks ago. What can I say – it’s been a meatgrinder of a couple of weeks.
But anticipation is half the fun, now – isn’t it?
At any rate – click here to go and vote for the Twin Cities leftyblog that you are most likely to laugh at, rather than with. Voting will be open until Wednesday morning.
Tomorrow’s the big day!
Join us at a counterprotest tomorrow, to join with fellow anti-terror, pro-troops Americans to counterprotest the “peace” rally in Saint Paul.
The counterprotesters will gather and demonstrate at Triangle Park in Saint Paul (the triangle-shaped block east of the linked map) at the corner of Marshall Avenue and John Ireland Boulevard. (For an aerial view, click here)
The park is located a block north of the Cathedral of Saint Paul and east of John Ireland Boulevard (the road that connects the Cathedral and the Capitol) across from Saint Paul College. It is Saint Paul Parks property, and is reserved for the use of counterprotesters during the time of the march.
Interested in attending? Drop us a line at the email address “demonstrationwatch”, at Yahoo.com.
Someone – a relatively irritating person, actually – asked me a few weeks ago, “why are you a Republican?”
And it took me until after I actually responded to actually realize that there are two answers:
And by that, I mean that “I’m not a member of the Minnesota Republican Party”.
Except for a brief stretch where I was a co-chair of House District 66B, I never really have been.
Partly it’s because of time. People who are real serious party animals devote a lot of time to the party that I just don’t have.
But part of it is that, while I’ve voted for maybe three non-Republicans in partisan elections in the past 20 years (and Jesse Ventura wasn’t one of them), I’ve gotten actually less involved with the party proper over the years. It’s seemed like the party – at least, in my part of the state, the Fourth Congressional District – is more an obstacle to success than a vehicle to it.
In the Fourth, even though most of the voters are in Saint Paul and the northern subs like Roseville are hardly GOP strongholds. It’s a situation that calls for some creativity, to say the least, given that St. Paul is saved from the distinction of being the most DFL-sodden city in Minnesota only by the existence of Minneapolis and Duluth.
In election after election, the CD4 GOP pours its resources into the districts north of Highway 36, a “strategy” that leaves the party notoriously subject to the fickle sways of the mood in a bunch of purple districts (to Phil Krinkie’s chagrin last fall), while conceding the city in perpetuity to the Mongols DFL. And whatever happens outstate or in the ‘burbs, this state will never really be a stable Red state until the GOP learns how to actually contend for the city itself.
And it can be done! Bret Schundler spent nine years as mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey (80% registered Democrats; 6% Republicans) in the nineties. How is this done? How did Schundler, in particular, do it?
Not by preaching GOP – but by preaching the first principles of the conservative movement; security; liberty; growth and prosperity; family; culture; limited government; how each of those affected the Jersey Citian’s property values, kids’ education, and odds of getting mugged or burgled.
So what does the Minnesota GOP not understand about this?
This is what attracted me to True North in the first place; to the best of my knowledge, it’s the only group blog around that’s dedicated – obsessive, indeed – about applying America’s first principles to government in Minnesota, as opposed to merely reiterating the GOP’s line, and doing for that idea what blogs in general do to things like the mainstream media; outflank them, obviate the need for gatekeepers, democratize things.
And the Minnesota GOP desperately needs democratization.
Not that most of us aren’t committed Republicans, or at least committed Republican voters – but the party is not the fount of all wisdom.
That, of course, is why I so loudly applaud the various independent bloggers who write about affairs in their various GOP districts – SD63, SD35, SD44, SD45, the Chisago and Carver County GOP blog, some of them official party sites but most of them individual pundits who are working to change things from the ground up, starting at the GOP’s grassiest roots.
If I can accomplish one thing with True North, it’ll be to convince someone in every GOP district in the whole state to start up a blog – completely independent of the party – and start tackling their district’s issues, one by one, one on one.
Sick of the alpaca-wearing, volvo-driving, relentlessly-self-righteous crowd having all the fun?
Join us at a counterprotest this coming Saturday, to join with fellow anti-terror, pro-troops Americans to counterprotest the “peace” rally in Saint Paul.
The counterprotesters will gather and demonstrate at Triangle Park in Saint Paul (the triangle-shaped block east of the linked map) at the corner of Marshall Avenue and John Ireland Boulevard. (For an aerial view, click here)
The park is located a block north of the Cathedral of Saint Paul and east of John Ireland Boulevard (the road that connects the Cathedral and the Capitol) across from Saint Paul College. It is Saint Paul Parks property, and is reserved for the use of counterprotesters during the time of the march. The park is ours from 10AM on.
Interested in attending? Drop us a line at the email address “demonstrationwatch”, at Yahoo.com.
Kerry Hogan at Smoothing Plane, preparing for Saturday’s counterprotest, notes:
Arguing with the deranged shows optimism but is futile. The unreasonable do not come to reason through reason. Humor and ridicule, that’s the ticket.
He’s also got some ideas for signs.
…over at NIGP has a career with MoveOn.org awaiting him.
On this, the sixth anniversary of the attack that started it all, please join us – the Twin Cities’ anti-surrender, anti-appeasement, anti-genocide community – at a counterprotest this coming Saturday.
The counterprotesters will gather and demonstrate at Triangle Park in Saint Paul (the triangle-shaped block east of the linked map) at the corner of Marshall Avenue and John Ireland Boulevard. (For an aerial view, click here)
The park is located a block north of the Cathedral of Saint Paul and east of John Ireland Boulevard (the road that connects the Cathedral and the Capitol) across from Saint Paul College. It is Saint Paul Parks property, and is reserved for the use of counterprotesters during the time of the march.
Interested in attending? Drop us a line at the email address “demonstrationwatch”, at Yahoo.com.
Conservatives dominate talk radio. And they dominate the smart half of the blogosphere.
Chief at True North/Freedom Dogs writes, quoting Patrick Ruffini:
The second fact is that conservative blogs, excluding Free Republic/Lucianne/etc. for a moment, serve a fundamentally different audience than the netroots. They’re more elite, focused on policy, and interested in the execution of the war. What was going on when conservative blogs first boomed? 9/11 and the American response to it. And discussions of the size of the conservative blogosphere (strictly defined) should take into account the fact that there are only so many people who can digest the kind of almost-scholarly analysis that happens in places like Power Line, Captain’s Quarters, and Red State. The conservative blogosphere today is what the liberal blogosphere would have been if elite bloggers like Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias had remained the dominant voices.This is not meant to be self-congratulatory. In fact, I think it’s probably a serious limitation in the size of our blogosphere, to the extent that’s a concern. If you want to be bigger, you’re not necessarily going to like the people you have to let in to make it happen.
I think Ruffini misses a key point – and a key point that anyone involved in the conservative alternative media should understand in their marrow, instinctively.
Why doesn’t liberal talk radio work? Because lefties already have the networks, most of the cable news outlets, virtually the entire dead-tree media, and NPR. They don’t need it – at least, not in the traditional media. Conservative talk radio filled a niche that had gone begging since the dawn of the big political split; a place for the conservative id to come out and shout and throw things, in a way they couldn’t do at their jobs and in their homes.
But while the traditional media are liberal, they are also very top-down. Their “gatekeepers” keep the unwashed rabble – even their own – from getting on the air or into print. So the Sorosphere – the Kos Kidz and Atrios and Democrat Underground and Jesus General – are to the left what Michael Savage is to the right; a place for the nattering, madding horde to gather and vent.
In the meantime, the conservative blogosphere fills a role, too, in the hands of the likes of Powerline and Ed and Michelle Malkin; an outlet for our best and brightest, which outflanks the traditional media that had frozen them out for so long.
Ruffini:
If and when that were to happen, the elite flavor of many leading conservative blogs today would give way to more freewheeling Daily Kos and Free Republic-like sites and comment areas.
Maybe – if there were a need for such a thing.
A need, I suggest, that does not exist.
Chief, quoting Ruffini:
Finally and here is the larger point that I agree with Ruffini on is “if you want to start a new blog that will get read, your best bet is 1) obsessively cover 2008 and be good at it, and 2) fill a niche, especially one covering local politics True North will do just this. Bookmark us and keep coming back. I also think conservative blogosphere has misread the marketplace. To make a wild overgeneralization here, policy is boring and politics is interesting. By blogging about policy, you choose to be boring (and that’s ok). There is probably a much bigger marketplace for people focused on elections, especially in even numbered years.
Policy is boring (unless John LaPlante is writing about it); but politics is connected to the pocketbook and the future of this nation; it’s something people get emotionally involved with.
And the emotional involvement is what people tune in, or click your link, for.
Join the Twin Cities’ anti-surrender community at a counterprotest at the “peace” march this coming Saturday.
The counterprotesters will gather and demonstrate at Triangle Park in Saint Paul (the triangle-shaped block east of the linked map) at the corner of Marshall Avenue and John Ireland Boulevard. (For an aerial view, click here)
The park is located a block north of the Cathedral of Saint Paul and east of John Ireland Boulevard (the road that connects the Cathedral and the Capitol) across from Saint Paul College. It is Saint Paul Parks property, and is reserved for the use of counterprotesters during the time of the march.
Interested in attending? Drop us a line at the email address “demonstrationwatch”, at Yahoo.com.
A few weeks ago, I proposed a contest to pick Minnesota’s most unintentionally-funny leftyblog.
I haven’t had time to put the poll together – but events today have given the idea some added impetus.
Minnesota’s dullest-witted leftyblog, “MNBlue”, has uncorked a howler. Written by one “Grace Kelly” – long known to Saint Paul politics followers as a rhetorical acid trip – it addresses the Republican National Committee’s deposit of two million dollars into an inner-city Saint Paul bank, to help give loans to help clean up the inner city in the year before the convention:
The Star & Tribune publishes “Political parties give money for host cities’ trouble: Political parties provide loans and volunteerism to create civic goodwill ahead of conventions.” Dear Randy Furst(author) and Star Tribune, “give money” and “deposit money in the bank”, is not the same thing – not even close!
Actually, given that the money was deposited in a zero-interest account – they’re just letting it sit there, for the bank and community’s benefit – and that the bank will be able to use the interest (well into six figures in the next year) to help capitalize more improvements in the neighborhood, and that a dollar so invested can create multiple dollars of effect as it circulates through the community? Um, yeah. It’s “even close”.
Not until the second paragraph does the article actually state the real information, “the party is depositing $2 million in St. Paul’s University Bank to make capital available for loans to repair dilapidated homes. Ultimately, the committee will take the money back to pay expenses, but in the meantime the bank can use it.”
(warning, maximum sarcasm)
*** deposit money in a bank until I need it back ****
That’s the Republican party’s idea of helping out local communities and creating civic goodwill! Arggggh!
Yes.
And, as luck would have it, it’s the Democratic Party’s idea, too:
Wishing to build goodwill among American Indians and the broader Denver community, the Democratic National Convention Committee is helping [Denver-based] Native American Bank increase its portfolio of small-business loans.
The committee deposited $2 million into a zero-interest account at the Denver-based bank Wednesday morning and said it would leave the money there until late spring.
“It’s very important to us that the convention is a team effort,” said Leah Daughtry, the DNCC’s chief executive, before handing over the check.
MNBlue. It features a bunch of Minnesota’s most rhetorically-incontinent writers (Kelly, Eric “Big E” Pusey, and Andy “Mister Furious” Driscoll for good measure), and the most baroque comment section security to boot.
But facts? Not so much.
Too. Stupid. To. Fisk.
A group of people who support the troops, and want the world to know that not all of the Twin Cities agrees with the anti-war, pro-surrender agenda, will be staging a counterprotest at the “peace” march on September 15.
The counterprotesters will gather and demonstrate at Triangle Park in Saint Paul (the triangle-shaped block east of the linked map) at the corner of Marshall Avenue and John Ireland Boulevard. (For an aerial view, click here – it’s one of Saint Paul’s coolest places, in a lot of ways)
The park – a memorial to Minnesotans who served in the Civil War – is located a block north of the Cathedral of Saint Paul and east of John Ireland Boulevard (the road that connects the Cathedral and the Capitol) across from Saint Paul College. It is Saint Paul Parks property, and is reserved for the use of counterprotesters during the time of the march.
Interested in attending? Drop us a line at the email address “demonstrationwatch”, at Yahoo.com.
Matt Abe (who regularly writes at Northstar Liberty) notes a bit of a milestone for the NARN (Volume III “The Final Word” in this case) over on True North today…:
On last Saturday’s Northern Alliance Radio Network show, “The Final Word” with King Banaian and Michael Brodkorb (broadcast on AM 1280 The Patriot), Brian Sullivan endorsed Mitt Romney for president.
…and explains why it’s significant for those new to the politics of our swingy state:
Sullivan, the current Republican National Committeeman from Minnesota, ran against Tim Pawlenty for the Republican endorsement for governor in 2002, which culminated in a legendary, overnight ballot battle royale (ask me to tell you about it someday, it was my first state convention and I was a Sullivan delegate). He has maintained a behind-the-scenes profile since then, with occasional appearances on Almanac as the conservative voice on the political panel. In spite of his unsuccessful endorsement bid, Sullivan is still a favorite son among many Minnesota conservatives.
Matt is right – and also too parsimonious with the details. Brian Sullivan played the most important role in Minnesota politics that I’ve seen performed by a non-elected official or candidate; his strong, well-organized drive for the nomination forced Tim Pawlenty – theretofore a fairly moderate, pragmatic legislative fixer – to the right. I think it’s fair to say that without Brian Sullivan, there’d have been no “No New Taxes” pledge, and none of of the fallout (almost all beneficial) from it.
So Sullivan’s endorsement carries some weight in this state, especially on the eve of Fred Thompson’s presumed entry into the presidential race this week. Sullivan said that for him, it came down to two candidates, Romney and Thompson.
“I feel both are good conservatives,” said Sullivan, “that would support the principles that I believe in, and I think that many conservatives in Minnesota believe in, it came down to who would I hire? Who is it that has actually accomplished something, made a difference, made progress against tough goals, it’s Romney.”
Matt also catches one wry irony:
“In some ways I think that Thompson has become the Republican Party’s [Barack] Obama, in the sense that not that much is known about him, he’s clearly a very good speaker, he’s an appealing personality, but his track record as a Senator, you could argue, isn’t very strong…he’s going to have to be able to be more than just a good candidate, but actually convince folks that he can lead the charge.”
Interestingly, aside from his business experience, Sullivan’s critics made much the same arguements in 2002 about Sullivan, who never held elected office.
Matt notes that many higher-ups in the MNGOP seem to be following the herd to Romney – which is at least an encouraging sign that the front office is starting to back away from its commitments to McCain that go back about a year or so:
Brodkorb reported that joining Sullivan in endorsing Romney this week were former Republican National Committeepersons Evie Axdahl, Jack Meeks, and Republican Party of Minnesota Treasurer Tony Sutton.
Go to TN and read the whole thing.
The other day, commenter J. Ewing – who is a frequent dissident from this forum’s dominant paradigm – left a comment in my thread about the launch of True North:
But what I just don’t get is how, without taking a “principled stand” that candidates of one party (say, for example, the GOP) will do a better job of advancing your principles than those of another party.
The answer is, of course, that True North is not “non-partisan”. We are overtly partisan; our “party” is First-Principles-based Conservatism. Not the GOP.
A simple look at the roster of bloggers writing for True North should tell the tale; True North includes a list of people who are conservative activists and Republican sympathizers, and even functionaries.
But the blog is not, and emphatically will never be, an organ of the GOP. The GOP needs its feet held in the fire when it comes to the First Principles that drive us, no different than the DFL (only the DFL is much farther-gone).
Looking at the roster of contributors, it’s pretty obvious that most of us are Republicans of one form or another, and all of us are conservatives. Most of us are Republicans because we believe in those first principles, and that the GOP (at its best, anyway – and don’t all of us join political parties because of the best they represent?) best supports them.
So we’re explicitly partisan. We are just not part of the Republican party.
There are two reasons to declare yourself or your organization “non-partisan”:
To do so – for a group of active, gleefully unrepentant conservatives – would be as disingenuous as Joel Kramer’s claims of centricity.
Mr. Ewing continues:
Yes, you can do a heck of a good job being “nonpartisan and purely educational,” as the Taxpayers League is, but at some point you need to start putting the education into an actual practicum– “field work”– to get anything done, right? What’s wrong with partisanship, if it gets you where you want to go?
And that’s what True North is really all about; making the turn from opinion to action.
But that comes a little later.
Over at TN, Swiftee notes a sad event involving an involuntarily-key figure in the history of the Twin Cities center-right blogosphere…:
It seems that [former Saint Paul school principal Zelma] Wiley has passed away…I’d like to express my sincere sympathies to the family of Zelma Wiley.
…and the “columnist” who dragged her into the public eye:
I firmly believe that she had the best interests of her students in mind when she agreed to work with Nick Coleman, She could not have known that Nick had a well deserved reputation of a shameless panderer and prevaricator and I don’t think that she deserved the abuse that rightfully belonged to Coleman.
My condolences to Ms. Wiley’s family; she was the principal of my daughter’s first school, and in my conversations with her she was always a courteous person who, to be fair, inherited a very difficult task (Maxfield is in one of St. Paul’s worst neighborhoods), and did the very best she could.
The other day, in the comment thread for Joe Bodell’s incisive investigative piece on True North, a commenter noted:
The real question is when MinnMo is going to get their radio show up.
Oh, my. That, I’d almost pay to hear. Once.
OPENING JINGLE (Performed by a group of studio musicians earning union scale): “MinnMonitor – on the air!”
(ten seconds of dead air).
OPENING JINGLE: “MinnMonitor – on the air!”
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Like, totally hello! This is Minnesota Monitor Radio on Air America, like, Minnesota…”
(five seconds of dead air)
…and I’d like to introduce the guys on the show. We’ve got Andy Birkey…
ANDY BIRKEY: “I’m Andy Birkey…”
ROBIN “REW MARTY: “…and Eric Black”
ERIC BLACK: “Greetings”
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Joe Bodell”
JOE BODELL: “Robin! I just ran a packet trace on John Hinderaker’s furnace, and found that his carbon footprint is actually higher than his golf handicap!”
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “…”Paul” from “Eyeteeth”…”
PAUL SCHMELZER: “Yo”
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “And, finally, the guy on the staff with actual radio experience from about 200 appearances on the Jeff Heaney show, Jeff Fecke”
JEFF FECKE: “Thank you. As I always say, we must pay any price, bear any burden, to spread liberty and freedom”.
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Like totally! So our first topic of the day is, like, the Republican National Convention…”
ANDY BIRKEY: “It will affect gays more”.
ABDI AYNTE: “No, it will affect Moslems more”
ANDY BIRKEY: “That’s absurd! Republicans hate gays more than they hate Moslems”
ABDI AYNTE: “That is rediculous! They hate Muslims more than they hate gays!”
JOE BODELL OR JEFF FECKE: “Actually, they hate the troops even more”.
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Was that Paul or Jeff talking?”
JOE BODELL: “Beats me”
JEFF FECKE: “I have no idea”.
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Let’s take a caller. In Minneapolis, it’s Eva. Eva, welcome to MinnMon on the Air!”
EVA: “Read my blog”
(Five seconds of dead air)
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Totally! Thanks for your call! Next topic…”
JOE BODELL: “Just a minute, Robin. I ran a skiptrace on the ATM packets going from Karl Rove’s Blackberry to the RNC’s server in Virginia, and cross-indexed the results with derivatives of an IPMask Subnet to Supernet refluxogram, and it appears that the Republican National Convention is going to be held in…”
(Three seconds of dead air)
JOE BODELL: “…Bloomington.”
ERIC BLACK: (wearily) “It’s actually going to be in Saint Paul”
JOE BODELL: “No, look here – I printed it out”.
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Let’s take another call. Eva, on line 2, you’re totally on MinnMonn on the Air”
EVA: “Read my blog”.
(Nine seconds of dead air)
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Yeah!”
JEFF FECKE: “When it comes to the RNC, it’s like Franklin D Roosevelt said to me; the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
ERIC BLACK: “OK, that’s enough, Fecke. That was said in FDR’s inauguration speech, and he died over thirty years before you were born. How are you attributing that to a direct conversation?”
(22 seconds of dead air)
JEFF FECKE: “I’ve spoken with my editor, and she’s advised me not to comment”
JOE BODELL: “Oh, we’re totally porked”
ABDI AYNTE: “That is an anti-Muslim statement. You must apologize.”
PAUL SCHMELZER: “Dude, we’re all on the same team…”.
ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “It’s time for totally a break! We’ll be back after this word from our sponsors, Juan’s Balloon Animals, and Kites are Us!
On the other hand, Air American couldn’t possibly do much worse than the somnolent Mark Heaney show they run every afternoon.
Bob Collins at Polinaut notes the launch of two politics-oriented blogs this past week:
…tomorrow, as near as I can tell, a bunch of conservative bloggers are adding True North to their repertoire. I believe the link — when it debuts on Saturday, will be here.
Thanks for the hat tip, Bob!
However, I had to comment on this next bit:
Eric Black, the high priest of political blogging in Minnesota (formerly The Big Question) has launched Eric Black Ink.
Well, kudos to Mr. Black, with whom I disagree on much political, but for whom I have the utmost regard.
But Bob – “high priest” of Minnesota poliblogging?
I mean, maybe if John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Ed Morrissey and Michael Brodkorb are respectively the Dalai Lama, Pope, Archbishop and Billy Graham of Minnesota political blogging. Maybe.
Otherwise…?
Over at True North and Anti-Strib, Tracy Eberly takes apart the “cute” anarkid video that’s been getting yuks from the hear/see/speak no evil crowd.
Comments at Anti-Strib.
Today’s the big launch for True North.
We’re a blog.
Perhaps you’ve heard; there are 70 million blogs out there. You might be forgiven for asking: “Why another?”
The answer: because it’s needed.
Minnesota is a tough place to be a Republican; it’s tougher still to be a first-principles based, center-right conservative. We face a media and DFL machine that is huge, well-funded, and has insinuated over the past three or four generations into every corner of Minnesota life.
And yet for all of that, we – underfunded, working mostly as volunteers – have twice brought this state to the tipping point, from “purple” to the ragged brink of “red”. In five straight elections, from ’98 to ’06, Minnesota’s volunteers took on the paid, plutocrat-propped minions of the DFL on the streets, in the community centers, and finally at the polling places. And except for the national debacle of ’06, we gave MUCH better than we got. We turned “liberal” Minnesota into a swing state.
And it’s been a lot of work. Minnesota’s volunteers are tired. They’ve been asked a lot. But they’ve delivered.
Among those volunteers have been Minnesota’s center-right bloggers. Minnesota’s center-right has, since 2004, fostered a blog community that is the nation’s most vibrant, smart and influential.
And they’ve put in a lot of work. And they’re tired, too.
But it’s another season. And someone needs to do their bit to help focus those bloggers, that alternative media, those many many volunteers in precincts and wards across this state, to shake off the fatigue, and ride once more to the sound of the guns; like bagpiper Mike Millin leading Lord Lovat’s troops across Sword Beach on D-Day with the skirl of his highland pipes, someone’s gotta fly that flag and walk toward the fight , so that everyone else can see, grit their teeth, and follow along.
That’s why we started this blog. What makes us think that “True North” is guaranteed to succeed? Simple. It’s a blog. There are no guarantees. But we’re in the right place, at the right time, with the right people:
True North has a bunch of Minnesota’s finest center-right bloggers and other pundits. These are people who’ve waved Minnesota’s cultural barometer in the world’s face for years, now, and made the world listen. We have some people with INCREDIBLY good insights on board.We are living in a situation that is ripe for this type of blog. We face a huge-profile Senate race, one that will pit Hollywood (and Kenwood) against Main Street.
We are a Purple State with a governor that is a contender to go to Washington. We are going to be hosting a national convention (and a few thousand demonstrators in the bargain), which will put our state and our people on the world’s front pages. And the Minnesota House in the balance, as Minnesota wakes up from the ’06 election, sees what the DFL has tried to abscond with, and quietly tries to chew its arm off to avoid waking the Democrats up; we could flip the State House, and possibly the US House, back to the GOP.
The question isn’t “why do this blog”. The question is “could we do without it?” Hope you can join us. It’s going to be wildest year of our lives, so far.
Today’s the big debut:
About the time this article publishes, we’ll be giving True North its big sendoff at the State Fair (tune in on AM1280 The Patriot).
Some people have asked – “why another conservative blog?” (Others, rather than asking, have tried to go all Chloe on us. Really, guys – less drama, please?)
But as the Democrats try to wheedle the state into holding a special session to repair the bridge (and increase Local Government Aid and put a state trooper at every intersection and raise all of southern Minnesota twelve feet and increase education funding and built a light-retaining wall around Nicollet Island and…) and trucks full of Hollywood money are rumbling up I90 to Al Franken’s office and wannabe thugboyz and riotgrrls are measuring manhole covers in Saint Paul for next year’s convention and plutocrats pour money into buying a left-leaning alternative media presence in this state, it’s time for us – the state’s center-right alternative media – to step things up.
True North is just another blog, in a sense. It’s true.
It’s also going to be the online equivalent of what Keegans is for the non-partisan Minnesota Organization of Bloggers; a place to get together; to talk; to organize things.
It’s not an organ of the state GOP. Far from it. While probably 95% of the votes I’ve cast since age 20 have gone to Republicans (and that is, naturally, a conservative estimate), it’s because the GOP is the only party that even pays lip service to the principles I care about; in many other ways, the State GOP and some of the Congressional District party organizations are as much the problem as they are the solution.
No. True North is rigorously independent of all parties. It is allied purely to first principles: from the Manifesto…:
True North is a center for writing and discussing these principles.
Kind of like every other blog. Yepper.
But it’s also a place to network. To organize. To counter George Soros’ and Laurie David’s millions with the things Minnesota conservatives do have plenty of.
Ideas.
Energy.
Commitment.
Passion for the cause.
This next 14 months are going to be an amazing time. True North seeks to chronicle that time – and, to the extent that a bunch of volunteers in the pajamas sitting behind keyboard in their basements can, to drive that time.
So join us!
Joe Bodell – RentABlogger with SorosTemps “citizen journalist” at the Minnesota Monitor – has found a major mystery.
But first:
OK. Where were we?
Oh, yeah. Crack citizen journalist Joe Bodell has found himself a mystery to try to solve:
So what is looktruenorth.com? If you go to the website, you get a message from the Joomla software running that the site is down for maintenance. But digging a little deeper (legally and without trickery, of course) reveals at least a few details
nslookup looktruenorth.com
Server: cns.westlandrdc.mi.michigan.comcast.net
Address: 68.87.77.130Non-authoritative answer:
Name: looktruenorth.com
Address: 74.53.51.5268.87.77.130 doesn’t do much — it’s owned by Comcast out in Michigan, and doesn’t have a public-facing website associated with it. However, plug 74.53.51.52 into your web browser, and what do you get? Whaddaya know, a Minnesota-based conservative group blog known as FreedomDogs.com. Although an nslookup search on freedomdogs.com reveals a different non-authoritative answer, the same primary server at IP address 68.87.77.130 appears in the results as well.
Bodell proceeds to do everything but…
Wait a minute…:
…Sorry. had to get that out of the way.
Bodell then goes all Chloe O’Brien on us, trying to figure out exactly what True North and its domain “looktruenorth.com” are all about.
Hmmm.
Now, if I were a “citzen journalist” on the payroll of a mighty news outlet like the Minnesota Monitor, where would I go to try to get to the bottom of this mystery?
When one is reporting a tricky story like this, one needs to look carefully for signs – sometimes very, very subtle ones…
…that someone is “in the know” about the conspiracy mystery. Sometimes, when you do that, approaching them – this is almost indistinguishable from magic, to the non-“citizen journalist”, but bear with me – with a “question” might actually get you some answers.
So think, Joe. Think hard.
Is there anyone out there, any faint hint you can find that someone might perhaps have some information about the story?
Think, Joe Bodell. Set the blender of that finely-honed citizenjournalistic mind on “Puree”, and think hard. Who could you possibly simply ask for details about True North?
The truth is out there!
It is. Somewhere.
It just takes superhuman tenacity along with otherworldly investigative skill.
I know you’re up to it.
Learned Foot is taking a poll to decide which five Twin Cities center-right bloggers, “thunderjournalists” and cellar-dwelling misanthropes should go to the convention.
The good news: I’m currently tied for second.
The bad news: I’m tied with a fictional monkey.
A few votes would really hit the spot, ifyacatchmydrift.
Thanks.
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