This American Life, an NPR program, is a wildly mixed bag of a radio show; it’s frequently excellent, evocative, and sometimes leads you to some wondrous insights.  For a show that is entirely by, for, and about upper-middle-class, college-educated, espresso-guzzling, Prius-driving white liberal hipsters, it’s very often worth the hour it takes to listen.

Still, for those of you in my audience that produce TAL, I feel I need to clarify something.

Funny: The Onion, America’s great parody newspaper.  While it’s not quite as quirky and unpredictable as it was ten years ago (the move to New York from Madison didn’t make the paper any funnier), it’s still a weekly treat.

Not Funny: Listening to The Onion’s editorial panel not only making the sausage (which is mildly interesting)…:

…but analyzing the process to death, like they’re a group of philosophy professors debating the meaning of existence itself.   A bunch of journalism profs at a Columbia forum couldn’t possibly sound more pretentious and joyless.

Note to Onion and TAL staff; you’re not curing cancer.  Lighten up already.

Common Cause has a newly-discovered sense of The Principles over filibuster “reform”:

In 2005, Common Cause vigorously defended the filibuster when some Republicans proposed invoking the “nuclear option” to end the filibuster of judicial nominees. From a 2005 press release:

Common Cause strongly opposes any effort by Senate leaders to outlaw filibusters of judicial nominees to silence a vigorous debate about the qualifications of these nominees, short-circuiting the Senate’s historic role in the nomination approval process.

“The filibuster shouldn’t be jettisoned simply because it’s inconvenient to the majority party’s goals,” said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. “That’s abuse of power.”

Today, however, Common Cause is actively supporting filibuster “reform.” It’s one of the campaigns highlighted on Common Cause’s website. Now Common Cause argues that the filibuster is “an historical accident” and a tool of obstruction.

We see this in Minnesota, of course – Common Cause filed a campaign finance complaint against Republican political action committees, but ignored vastly more convoluted and less-transparent machinations by the likes of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” and its maze of PACs and contributors.

Common Cause’s president has ignored repeated requests to come on the air and explain the odd double standard.

It wouldn’t matter, but for the fact that parts of the Twin Cities media continue to call Common Cause “non-partisan”.

…at least something good happened.

No, I’m not serious.  What do you think I am, a leftyblogger?  I don’t believe in “karma”, but I think what goes around comes around, so I have to believe there’s at least a little cosmic payback going on for his “teabagger” slurs from two years ago.

Still – while I believe Anderson Cooper is a poster child for the Hollywooding of the American “news” media, Violence, especially physical violence, is a bad thing.  People – please, stop hitting each other.

There is a more important, and sinister, story behind this; there appears to be a push by pro-Mubarak forces to push the western media away from the story.  There’s a method to the madness; they’ve seen how radicals the world over (and there’s at least a fair case to be made that there are radicals behind, and using, the popular unrest for their advantage) use the western media, especially American media, to manipulate world opinion, frequently with grossly-mangled context.

Liberty as we understand it in America is a wonderful thing – one we should try to export.  But before you can have liberty, you must have stability, and the rule of law.  Is Egyptian society stable enough, and are their society’s institutions mature enough in their approach to the idea of the rule of law, to be reasonably sure that what replaces Mubarak will be better?

In Turkey, one can reasonably say “I think so”, and support the case.

In Iran?  Michael Ledeen has been making that case better than anyone in the media for half a decade at least.

Tunisia?  Syria?  Egypt?

Sorry to say, I’m less hopeful.

A source in the Twin Cities talk radio industry tells me that KTLK-FM’s Chris Baker is being replaced by longtime KSTP great Bob Davis, “effective immediately”.

I’m going to run this down when I get a chance.

If it’s true, it’s great news for Bob, and for Twin Cities talk radio listeners.

UPDATE: It’s on the KTLK website.  I guess that’s official enough for me.

Congrats, Bob!

UPDATE 2: According to Brauer, Baker quit, and Davis is just temping.

I haven’t managed to do a lot of radio writing lately.

It’s  a shame; the last time I really covered the business in this blog in any real deep detail, KSTP was still a conservative talk station, more or less; KTLK was still following some idiot consultant’s advice and steering toward the middle of the road. WCCO had changed little in decades; Air American Minnesota was still a contender at the low end of the ratings scale with WWTC (where I broadcast, then and now).

More importantly, perhaps?  Radio ratings back then were measured by Arbitron, more or less the same way they were measured back in the sixties.  Abritron would mail out diaries to carefully selected users, who would spend a few months filling out everything they listened to on the radio, in quarter-hour increments.

Today?  KSTP went sports-talk last year; KTLK went conservative; WCCO is poking around looking for a new identity now that the audience that kept them on top for decades slowly fades from demographic signficance.

And the big news?  Ratings are now largely done with “Personal People Meters”, devices that people carry around that “hear” radio stations, and pick up on an inaudible code in the signal the stations transmit.  It’s a little controversial – it favors the kinds of music stations that people just leave on as background music (“Jack FM” and WLTE “The Lite FM” are particularly strong under PPM), while shorting stations that have more purposeful listeners (like, say, talk radio).

But all that is background noise to the real news in the Holiday 2010 PPM ratings.  AM1280 is the #22 station in the market (in the relatively meaningless “all listeners age 12+” category.  The cool part, of course, is the numbers; notice the “cume”, or cumulative audience, for the period.  WWTC gets statistically the same ratings as  Hubbard’s “Chick Talk 107” with about 40% of the audience, and 2/3 the numbers that the 100,000 watt KTLK-FM gets with about 1/5 the listeners.

What that means is that the Patriot’s listeners are loyal – especially on the weekend, where the key measurement is called “Time Spent Listening”.  The average KTLK listener tunes in for twenty-odd minutes; the typical Patriot listener is well over 45 (and, on the Northern Alliance, the average listener, statistically, listens for about an hour every hour).

And KTNF, the former Air America station?  It’s dropped to a 0.4 share.  Almost too low to measure.  Almost into “dead skunk bounce” territory.

I guess Ed Schultz doesn’t reel ’em in like he used to.

ack in the early days of this blog, one of my most popular annual features from 2002 through about 2005 was my “State Of Twin Cities Talk Radio” piece.

Partly  because of the conflict of interest, partly because it’s bad form to criticize one’s own station’s programming, and partly because I just don’t like listening to so many local talk shows these days, I stopped.

Fortunately, Speed Gibson has decided to step into the gap.  It’s going to be an ongoing series.

The ongoing squabble over access to the floor for media – partsian alternative media as well as the traditional kind – has been an ongoing battle at the State Capitol for a few years now.

The rhubarb flared up again as the session started earlier month, as left-leaning group-blog “The Uptake” was denied “floor credentials”.

Now, “floor credentials” aren’t the beginning and end of capitol journalism.  David Brauer notes:

While credentials aren’t needed for Capitol press conferences, floor passes are about access. Conversations are only permitted before or after a day’s session, but the immediacy of interviews before lawmakers scatter is as valuable, as is the candor that occasionally results before marching orders are received.

It’s not the be-all of reportage: Senate Sgt-at-Arms Sven Lindquist says press seats on the cramped floor are frequently unoccupied, except during big votes. Still, it’s a tool for the journalistic toolbox.

And it’s a tool that pretty much everyone wants – just in case.  Including The Uptake.

Now, the power to grant credentials, as Brauer notes, used to be a non-partisan activity:

Sgt-at-arms Lindquist says the power to review and grant credentials used to be handled by himself and Senate Secretary Patrick Flahaven. But in recent years, Lindquist says the power moved “elsewhere” — to the majority leader’s office, which is, by definition, partisan.

It’s obviously an issue needing some resolution.  Which is where this piece starts.

Earlier this month, a source close to the GOP’s caucus leadership told me that, while (as Brauer notes) the rules don’t bar “partisan” media, the decision was made to deny credentials to all partisan media, pending the development of a policy.

A few weeks ago, Michael Brodkorb – who handles communications for the majority GOP caucus in the Minnesota Senate, in addition to being the deputy chair of the Minnesota GOP – called me to ask if I’d be interested in working with a group of DFL and GOP staffers, as well as MinnPost writer David Brauer, on coming up with a more or less comprehensive policy on granting floor credentials.

Every state has a different solution to the issue – ranging from free access to the floor to credentialed media in Rhode Island and Montana (and credentials are pretty much given for the asking) to Illinois, which requires a vote of the applicable chamber to allow the  media to take pictures, much less get on the floor.

The goal – near as I can tell so far – is to come up with a transparent policy that’ll give fair access to the Senate floor to media organizations, while coming up with some sort of balance between the establishment media’s vocational need for access and the alt-media’s right to a place at the proverbial table.

I’m honored to have been asked.  My goal is to try to help this group come up with a policy that fairly and transparently gives all media a fair, clear means to cover our Senate, for the good of the entire electorate.

I’ll keep you all posted.  Because even if I didn’t, Brauer certainly would.

Yesterday, after asking the House to hold off on holding hearings on HF1 (Rep. Dan Fabian’s bill to reform state permitting), Governor Dayton released an executive order that will do the same thing.

Well, that’s what the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) will want you to think.

Dayton’s order will do a bunch of the streamlining that HF1 would do…

…with one absolutely key exception. Via Gary Gross at LFR, House Majority Leader Matt Dean said in a statement:

“Today’s executive order is concerning. Just a week ago, Governor Dayton was asking us to slow down and allow more time for public hearings and input.

In other words, the MNGOP reached across the aisle.  They gave a little procedural ground, and worked with the Governor.

And that’s always a mistake.

The Minnesota House has held two public hearings on HF1 and are planning a third hearing on this important legislation. We are concerned that Governor Dayton selected components of HF1 for his Executive Order, watered down some provisions and ignored key areas of reform.

We find his actions today to be counterproductive to the legislative process and his stated commitment to work together on these common ground issues. House Republicans will continue with our previously-announced public process for HF1 and other initiatives designed to make Minnesota’s business climate competitive. We hope Governor Dayton will join us in that endeavor.”

So compare HF1 and the statement.  What’s missing?

Any reference to reforming litigation.

It’s the litigation that not only kills projects, but blows up the price of  private-sector and state projects.

Now – given that Governor Dayton has stacked his administrative appointments with people whose entire public resume involves litigating development to death, what do you suppose his “executive order” is going to be worth?

Oh, yeah – and “executive orders” exist, and are enforced, at the pleasure of the governor.  What the governor orders with a swipe of his pen, he can un-order the same way.

The GOP needs to continue and pass HF1, and tell the Governor “thanks, but no thanks; we’ll stick with the brand name”.

Sheila Kihne at The Activist Next Door is tired of seeing conservatives doing the media’s work for them.

She assails Chris Christie for throwing Sarah Palin under the bus on the Sunday Methane Circuit over the weekend:

Here’s what [Governor Christie’s] answer should have been to any questions about Sarah Palin:

“There is nobody more hated by the media than Governor Palin. How exactly is she supposed to act when the media tried to lay the blame for a mass-murder on her? Look, you’re trying to get me to distance myself from a fellow conservative and I won’t do it. People are mad at you– they’re more mad at you than they are President Obama or Governor Palin. They’re mad at you because you’re incapable of doing your job as the free press and reporting the news to the American people without your constant spin. Perhaps you guys should buy some steno pads with the words ‘Who, what, when, where, how, how much?’ imprinted at the top of the page.’ Maybe that would help.”

That’s the “Palin answer” men of the GOP. Why is it that the ONLY Republicans with high name-recognition who demonstrate valor, strength, and courage are women? Sarah Palin is more of a man than any of these guys.

Well, to be fair, Palin’s never had to face down the Jersey unions.

And isn’t it sad that we now have to look to the wilds of Alaska for some ruggedness and true grit? To quote a great 80’s tune: “Where have all the good men gone?”

They’re all over the place – but Sheila makes a great point – and you need to read her entire piece for it, but I’ll synopsize it here:  conservatives need to quit playing along with the Democrat and Media (pardon the redundancy) effort to turn the vocabulary of our language itself into a liberal tool to be used against us.

We conservatives (as opposed to Republicans) are going to little in the way of dispassionate balance, to say nothing of help, from the media; we have to do it for ourselves.

Sheila does “the Palin Answer” pretty well.  I’m going to suggest a few more areas where conservatives, locally and nationally, need to stick together in the face of the left and media’s (ptr) chanting points:

• We Have A $6.2 Billion Deficit:  Correct response: “No, we don’t.  We have a forecast that is $6.2B larger than the last revenue projections.  It is not a budget.  It can – and must – be trimmed, and the “autopilot” assumptions that keep leading to these absurd numbers need to be abolished”.
• The GOP Budget Attacks Education: Correct response: “There is precisely zero link between education spending and achievement.  Minnesota, North Dakota, the District of Columbia and South Carolina spent, respectively, $10.1K, 9.3K, 16K and 9K per student in 2008; while picking “objective” measures of achievement are difficult, by most standards (SAT scores, to pick an arbitrary one) North Dakota and Minnesota are statisatically identically high in achievement; the D of C and South Carolina are both at the bottom of the heap.  No, indeed, since 80% of what we spend on education goes into faculty and staff salaries and pensions (!), all “education spending” really measures is the excellence…of the Teachers’ Union’s clout.”
• “We Can’t Balance The Budget On The Backs Of The Poor!”:  Correct response: “The GOP proposals would make harder to expand the pool of people who can get entitlements from the state.  The “forecast” proposal would increase Health and Human Services spending by 37% – that’s thirty seven freaking percent – in the coming budget.  That’s not just ridiculous, not just absurd; it’s obscene.  The DFL goal of expanding the subsidies of poverty (and, especially, of the HHS bureaucracy) beyond what’s needed to prevent hunger and other abject poverty must not be done on the backs of the taxpayers!”

Sheila’s on to something.

More?

On December 1, I published an excerpt from an email from a GOP recount observer.

Quoting myself:

This email, from a GOP election recount-watcher, has been making the rounds of local conservative activists.  I’m keeping the writer’s name off the record for now.

Emphasis is added by me:

Well, it’s been a good (better) day today here at Hennepin County for the recount. Lots of notable errors in judgment…

For instance, we found one precinct with ALL Dayton ballots challenged (103 total) that appeared to be a “mass” group of blank ballots run thru without a judge’s signature – all in a row. Shows how easily certain folks of a party’s persuasion can cheat so easily – and have it counted?

Let’s repeat that for those of you who glaze over:  103 votes, run through in a group, without a judge’s signature, apparently consecutively.

I asked the source of this email earlier this week what the resolution of this issue was.  The source wasn’t entirely clear on how things turned out: she or he sent me this message:

I think it was 102-103 ballots in Hennepin County (some precinct) that looked suspicious, and were run through the machine and counted in the total. What was believed was it happened after the polls (and machines) were closed and counted w/ a tape already generated…. Hence, the difference in the counts from registered voters vs. the machine counts…I was told the sequence and appearance of these ballots looked suspicious and forged, and now that I think about it, I remember one of the primary reasons they weren’t allowed was they were not properly signed off by the appropriate parties – yet, counted. If my memory serves me right, they were taken out of the totals once discovered.

Now, I’ve been getting regular, frequent emails for the past six weeks from a regular reader who is also a supporter of our current election system and, I’d suspect, of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.   According to this person, it would be impossible for this scenario to have happened; that that’s just not how canvassing and recounts work.

That, of course, is one of the problems of blogging; when one is an actual, full-time, employed journalist, one has time to learn enough about the subject about which one is writing to comment on it with more literacy than when one has other things going on in life.

So OK, fair enough.  I’m way too buried with personal and day-job business to really dig into it all that much at the moment.  I guess, at least as regards this particular episode, the iron-clad integrity of the Henco elections staff, of Mark Ritchie, and of everyone involved is unimpeachable.  Until a better explanation drops into my lap. at any rate.

Which it’ll have to do, because – and this is an admission against interest – I have a hard time concentrating on that sort of anal-retentive, pointillistic, nit-picky, left-brain sort of thing.  God bless those who can – but I can’t.  Call it a learning disability, and a politically-imprudent one at that, but my brain just tunes out the finer points of the mechanics of recounts.  There’s a reason I’m not an actuary, an accountant, or a wedding planner.

And that’s that, I guess.

(more…)

Dire Straits’ single “Money For Nothing” was one of the iconic songs of the 1980s when it came out in 1985.  Chock full of reference to MTV and the styles of the era, and featuring a video that was fairly bleeding-edge computer animation (albeit very, very stylized) for the time.

It also created a brouhaha; the original, album version included a naughty word; three times, in fact.  “The little f***ot in the earring and the makeup?  Yeah, buddy, that’s his own hair…” and so on.    As songwriter, singer and guitar legend Mark Knopfler said at the time, the entire song was written in the second person, and was a conversation between a couple of delivery guys at a furniture store in New York, commenting on the MTV videos they were watching during the glory days of big new-wave hairdos.

It’s been a quarter century – but the controversy is baaaaaaack:

Classic Dire Straits track Money for Nothing has been banned from public broadcast in Canada – after receiving just one complaint 25 years after its release.

The global hit single came out on the band’s iconic fifth album, Brothers in Arms, in May 1985 and won a Grammy for best rock performance the following year.

But the original version included the word “faggot” referring to homosexuals, and although a cleaned-up edition was made available, Oz-FM in Newfoundland played the first edition in February last year.

The result was a single complaint – but the self-regulating Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has upheld it, and no outlet in the nation can now play Money for Nothing the way Dire Straits intended it to be heard.

The complaint said: “Money for Nothing was aired and included the word ‘faggot’ a total of three times. I am aware of other versions of the song and yet Oz-FM chose to play and not censor the version I am complaining about. As a member of the LGBT community I feel there is no reason for such discriminatory remarks to be played on air.”

And that’s all she wrote – notwithstanding that this is a very, very old rhubarb:

Dire Straits mainman Mark Knopfler has fielded angry reaction to the lyrics since the song first came out. He has pointed out the song is written from the viewpoint of a stupid character who thinks musicians make their “money for nothing” and his stupidity is what leads him to make ignorant statements.

Speaking in 1985 he said: “Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you have to be direct. I’m in two minds as to whether it’s a good idea to take on characters and write songs that aren’t in the first person.”

Now, I’m not bringing this up because it’s a great case of PC run amok – although it is.

And I’m not bringing it up because it’s a great example of the lunacy of Canadian “Human Rights” law – although, again, it is.

I’m bringing it up because it’s the shape of things to come, if Julius “Seizure” Genachowski and Representative James Clyburn want with all their proposed interventions into the First Amendment – from the “Fairness Doctrine” to “Net Neutrality”; they want, and if not stopped they will get, a system where the First Amendment will be subject to the tastes, whims and tantrums of those who complain the loudest.

Alan Cross of Canadian service ExploreMusic comments: “The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is run by Canada’s private broadcasters. In exchange for the government not meddling, broadcasters have long promised to regulate themselves.

“It’s seen as much preferable to the arrangement in the US where the FCC – a government organization run by political appointees – carries a very heavy hammer when it comes to regulating broadcast content; or in the UK where Ofcom plays a similar role.

“In Canada, if no one complains, the feeling is that there’s no need to censor it. But all it takes is one person making one complaint for the entire apparatus of the CBSC to come to full gallop.

All of the proposals to return the “Fairness Doctrine” involve returning a frightening degree (if you care about free speech) of control over broadcast licensing to pressure from citizens – and not even a lot of them; organization will count for more than numbers, just as it did before 1987.

The little jagoffs with the suits and the Yale ties?  Yeah, buddy – they want control.

“Although we don’t yet know the official cause of yesterday’s [Fill in terrible event] in [Fill in location of terrible event], it seems obvious that the irresponsible and inflammatory [Pick one:  “vitriol” or “anti-government budget proposal]” ] coming from [Pick any three from the following list:  the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the current GOP majority in the House of Representatives, the Taxpayers League, Christian fundamtntalists, the NRA, extreme pro-lifers, Fox News] are the prime suspects.”

“We don’t know officially know exactly what [Pick one:  “Put the gun in [the suspect’s] hand” or “caused the [natural or man-made disaster]” ], but vitriol from the right, which polluted much of American politics from 1992 to 2000, and started again in 2009, is surely the prime suspect.”

“We only know one thing for sure; it is for us who remain to speak for the victims; “[Pick one:  “Quit your dilly-dallying and approve the Democrats’ budget proposal” or “take a fresh look at sensible gun control]” ]; while you’re at it, perhaps it’s time to look into reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, to make sure those without voices – Congress, the mainstream media and The People – aren’t drowned out in the flood of vitriol from [Pick any three from the following list:  the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the current GOP majority in the House of Representatives, the Taxpayers League, Christian fundamtntalists, the NRA, extreme pro-lifers, Fox News].”

“-30-“

As the world learns more about Jarred Loughner, the unlikelihood that any “political rhetoric” had even the most oblique role in causing his atrocity over the weekend is becoming more and more clear to just about everyone.

Everyone that hasn’t been waiting for something to come along to shut up the newly-uppity right, anyway.

America’s village idiot Paul Krugman tipped his hand, comparing the episode to Oklahoma City in his deeply depraved column over the weekend.  But he wasn’t entirely off base; there was at least one valid comparison to 1995.

Back then, Bill Clinton had just seen his agenda repudiated at the polls with the second-greatest mid-term drubbing in recent memory.  The left lost both chambers of Congress for the first time in more than a generation.  Clinton needed something to get his message across; his administration didn’t “waste the crisis”; Hillary as much as blamed the horror on Rush Limbaugh and his “rhetoric”.

It was, of course, “rhetoric”, itself.

Today’s left isn’t wasting the Tuscon massacre.  Carolyn McCarthy (D[emigog], NY) is using the crisis to introduce gun control legislation of the type that utterly failed to prevent her own husband from being murdered in New York, or to keep Chicago from being the most dangerous city in the Western Hemisphere north of Juarez – a place that suffers as many deaths as Tuscon once or more a week.

And James Clyburn wants to redefine free speech as, well…:

The shooting is cause for the country to rethink parameters on free speech, Clyburn said from his office, just blocks from the South Carolina Statehouse. He wants standards put in place to guarantee balanced media coverage with a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, in addition to calling on elected officials and media pundits to use ‘better judgment.’

‘Free speech is as free speech does,’ he said. ‘You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.’

Clyburn used as an example a comment made by Sharron Angle, an unsuccessful U.S. senatorial candidate in Nevada, who said the frustrated public may consider turning to ‘Second Amendment remedies’ for political disputes unless Congress changed course.

Clyburn’s lying, by the way; Michael Medved addressed Angle’s “second amendment remedies” comment last August (here’s the audio).  Angle was not calling for armed insurrection…

…but as we’ve seen throughout the left’s reaction to the Tuscon massacre – as during the Healthcare debate, with its spurious claims of violence – what people actually say and do isn’t really the issue.

I originally wrote this after the Virginia Tech shootings and adapted it to current events. In light of the frenzy going on only hours after the shootings in Arizona, I feel it is no less relevant now.

What can we do?

…regarding the shootings yesterday in Arizona?…nothing.

You can’t make sense of something like this. You can’t ban guns. You can’t promote guns. Not today. Not ever.

You can’t make this about policy, religion or politics. Not today. Not ever.

We’ll hear all the angles, all the speculation, the second it’s politically acceptable – probably sooner. In the context of an isolated tragedy like this no one will be right.

You can’t lock down public places. You can’t arm everyone everywhere, even if they wanted to be, and a gun law won’t stop a person intent on harming another person.

You can’t prevent everything.

We want to try to make sense of it. We want to try to mitigate the pain by somehow surmising that there is an upside. Something to be learned. An opportunity to capitalize. A way to prevent someone intent on harming others. But there won’t be.

All we can do is support and pray for the families…and for the shooter’s family…and for the victims of similar past tragedies for whom this will be an excruciating reminder.

Hug your loved ones, your husbands, wives and kids.

That’s what we can do.

When I heard about his shooting I thought about the congresswoman’s husband and what he must be going through. I thought about what it would be like to lose a nine-year-old daughter in such a horrible way. I thought about how I would feed if the shooter were my son.

It didn’t occur to me to think about the political motivations of the killer or the culpability vis a vis a policy stance or voting record on the part of the congresswoman or her staff, let alone the bystanders who are no less or no more innocent in this context.

I think it’s sad that there are those that have already done that, even before all the facts are in; as if it would be appropriate even if they were.

There is only one person to blame. Whether he used a gun, a knife, a car or a baseball bat, it is of no import. Whether he was a Republican or a Democrat or of the Tea Party, it is of no import. Whether he was sane or not, it is of no import.

Senseless acts of violence can not be explained or rationalized.

No one in the interest of any affiliation should condone or attribute a senseless act of cruelty.

I always loved this bit from South Park:

Oh, that Cartman. Spoofing people who “are just asking questions”. Funny funny stuff.

———-

Apropos absolutely nothing; about two months ago, three months ago a group of 20-odd Somalis were busted for running a prostitution ring in Minneapolis.  The ring allegedly forced young Somali girls into prostitution.

Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent lives in Minneapolis.

This raises questions:  Was Andy Birkey complicit in the prostitution ring?

No, I’m not being inflammatory.  I’m just asking questions.

Oh, yeah – Birkey has written his 24th article about Bradlee Dean in the past 53 weeks.

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc. (YCR), the Annandale-based hard rock ministry run by Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillian, set up trusts with help from a ministry in Oregon which has been a target of the IRS investigations for setting up tax avoidance schemes all over the country, Karl Bremer at Ripple in Stillwater reports.

While writing “How do you know Karl Bremer is full of crap?  His fingers are moving over the keyboard?” would be an ad-hominem, his history of being a ranting crank raises questions.

But I digress.  Here’s a serious question:  huh?

What sort of trust did YCR set up?  Was it legal?  Were YCR’s business dealings among those being investigated by the IRS?

Indeed, what is the IRS investigating?  And did YCR’s association with the “ministry in Oregon” happen to coincide in any way with anything that the IRS investigated?

I’m just asking questions (and adding emphasis to Birkey’s quotes).

Dean and YCR dismantled the work done by Glen Stoll and the Embassy of Heaven for their ministry and even took their case against Stoll to district court in 2008, but the arrangement raises questions about whether Dean and his ministry were trying to avoid paying their rightful share of taxes.

Birkey’s “just asking questions”.

We’ll come back to that.

Documents filed in Minnesota’s 10th District Court outline the arrangement set up by YCR with the help of Stoll. Bradlee Dean, whose real name is Bradley Dean Smith, and Jake McMillian, whose real name is Jake MacAuley, took classes from Stoll and paid him $6,500 to set up “established, exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable and assignable ministerial trusts” that would allow them to operate as a “‘free church’ that would be invulnerable to state regulation and control.”

As part of the deal, Smith was given an identification card from Stoll’s Embassy of Heaven that affirmed that, “On file is a signed statement by Bradley Smith renouncing allegiance to the world and declaring citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

So let me ask some questions – remember, I’m just asking questions, because questions were raised:

• Was this “trust” illegal?
• In fact, did tax laws in the early part of the 2000s make these sort of trusts a common and attractive means for religious ministries to handle their taxes and finances?
• Did IRS laws change in the past five years, making various forms of non-profit status more useful?
• Did YCR actually “evade” taxes?
• If it could be showed I deducted my mortgage interest or inreimbursed medical expenses, would I be “evading taxes” according to Andy Birkey?
• I know Andy Birkey and Karl Bremer are just “raising questions” – but do they have any actual evidence that YCR and Bradlee Dean didn’t actually pay taxes they were supposed to?
• Any evidence at all?  Or are they just “raising questions”?

Remember – I’ m just asking questions.  Because questions were raised.  So I’m asking them.

Stoll also told his clients not to pay income taxes or employment taxes and to not file tax returns. And the ministry seemed to take that advice. According to the group’s 990 forms, it stopped reporting its activities to the IRS in 2003, the same year Smith signed his citizenship card with the Embassy of Heaven. It would resume filing its tax returns in 2008.

And was this illegal under the applicable laws at the time?    Is YCR under investigation of any kind, by anyone (other than Karl Bremer)?

Again – I’m just asking questions.

By 2005, Stoll and his clients were under investigation for tax fraud by the Department of Justice. As Bremer notes, Stoll has already been fined $50,000, is in violation of an injunction, and his arrest has been sought.

“People who buy into tax-fraud schemes are buying nothing but trouble — past due tax bills with interest and penalties and the possibility of criminal prosecution,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division. “The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service are committed to stopping the promotion of tax fraud.”

Well, that’s interesting.

Is Ms. O’Connor commenting about YCR?

Why, no – indeed, it seems Karl Bremer has clipped a quote from several other stories that used the same quote. Now, I’m just asking questions here – but isn’t the quote framed in such a way as to make it look like Ms. O’Conner “said” the quote to Birkey?  As opposed to Birkey and Bremer clipping it, with context grossly obscured, from several other stories?  Hasn’t the Minnesota Independent gotten into trouble for this sort of thing before?

Just asking questions.

By 2008, Smith and MacAuley began to unravel the complicated tax-free trust that was being administered by Stoll. As Bremer reports:

According to court documents, Smith’s and MacAulay’s attorney advised them to sever all ties with Stoll, demand his resignation from their trusts and return all property from the trusts. Stoll refused, and on December 9, 2008, a summons and petition was attempted to be served on Stoll’s address, where a person there “refused to accept the documents” and “slammed the door.”

Wait – so after “asking questions” that, if framed as a statement, would have sounded a lot like an accusation (“tax evasion”), Birkey and Bremer’s story’s source is…records of a lawsuit that YCR’s principals filed against their allegedly fraudulent ex-advisor…

…er, he was an ex-advisor, right?  Wait – Birkey’s story is so unclear, I have no idea what’s going on.  When did YCR have its trust with Stoll?  When did YCR break off the relationship?  Why?  What does it have to do with the quesitons about Birkey’s links to Somali prostitution?

On March 27, 2009, District Court Judge Stephen Halsey granted Old Paths Church, Inc. and YCR, Inc. their motion for a summary judgment against Stoll that terminated Stoll’s trusts, removed Stoll as trustee, transferred assets from the trusts back to the two original entities, and awarded attorneys fees plus the $6,500 they paid Stoll to create the sham ministerial trusts.

I’m getting a headache, now.   Would someone provide the who, what, when, where, why and how of some of these allegations?

The Minnesota Independent examined some of Smith’s financial dealings in 2009 when new IRS 990 forms showed that he and his band mates were taking a ministerial housing allowance despite his organization being a religious non-profit as opposed to a church. Those housing allowances are meant only for “duly ordained” members of the clergy. Smith has refused to answer questions related to his ordination or which church his organization belongs to.

OK, I’m shaking off my headache; I have more questions.  To ask.

• So since the court case against Stoll – whose relationship to Dean and YCR is the subject of Birkey’s entire article – happened before 2009, what does this have to do with any “tax evasion” scheme?
• Does Birkey know what “duly ordained” means?  No, I don’t either.  I’m just asking questions.  Is the “due”-ness of Dean’s ordination a legal issue?  If so, how?  Under what part of the IRS code?  Is anyone but Karl Bremer alleging that Dean is operating illegally?
• Is Dean legally obliged to answer questions about his employment to Andy Birkey?
• Given the geneology of the O’Connor quote, above, did Birkey even ask Dean?  To whom did Dean “refuse” to answer?  Details?  Again, I’m just asking questions.

I’m just…well, you know.

In 2008, Smith and his sidekick MacAuley, greatly increased their compensation and housing allowance. According to the group’s most recent 990 filing, Smith was paid $51,303 salary and $45,887 for the housing allowance, raking in $97,190. MacAuley’s compensation was a bit less coming in at $66,897 in 2008.

So?

I mean, I’ve met Brad and Jake.  Brad’s got five kids, and he works like a sled dog.

Did he pay taxes?

Just asking.

Dean has not responded to repeated request for information about his ministry or a weekend request for comment on his association with Stoll.

And why would he?

(Just a question).

Dean and his ministry have close ties to the Republican Party and GOP officials and candidates including gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer,

If I had shown that that particular claim was a lie, would Andy Birkey stop making the claim…

…well, doy, I guess my answer’s right there!

Since I’m just asking questions, I talked with Bradlee Dean.  We both noted that Birkey was “raising questions”.

“If the question was “did Bradlee Dean pay his taxes”, the answer is “yes””, he said.

Well, enough of that.  All those questions give me a headache.

I just love South Park.  Let’s watch that clip again!

He’s so funny.

UPDATE: Is Andy Birkey trying to concoct some grandiloquent link between the GOP on the one hand and a shadowy conspiracy of Christianist Tom-Petters-wannabees, to appease the appetites of his lords and masters at Media Matters (who pull the strings behind the Center for “Independent” Media, which controls every facet of the operations of its “independent” websites like the Mindy for dirt?

This article raises questions.

UPDATE 2:  I should start a bet pool for how many articles about Brad Dean that Birkey writes this years.  Last year was 23; I think the over/under in a non-election year will be more like 18.

Place  your bets.

I’m just asking questions here.

UPDATE 3:  I see that that bit above wasn’t actually a question.

Perhaps it’s the circle of radio life.  The First Team of the Northern Alliance gets shown the door…

…and Mark Dayton takes to the air:

Gov. Mark Dayton plans to do a governor’s radio show soon.

“I wish I could be on the air somewhere tomorrow,” Dayton said. “I can’t wait to get on the air. It is just a question of where and going through the proper procedure.

Dayton having a weekly radio show follows a tradition of past governors. Both Govs. Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty had Friday morning shows on WCCO that were required, and sometimes interesting, listening for political geeks.

So gubernatorial radio will go from vain, to vapid, to…uh, is there a synonym for odd that starts with ‘v’?

Ventura and Pawlenty’s shows had their moments, but “fireside chats” they were not.  Ventura used the forum as a ricktey soapbox from which to deliver a folding chair to his opponents while Pawlenty’s often politics-lite interviews were professional but dryer than a Martini in the Sahara.  Unless Dayton wants to reminisce on his Haight-Ashburyesque days, 60 minutes of dead air might be more entertaining.

MITCH ADDS:  While First Ringer would have no reason to know this, I’ll add that the First Team wasn’t “shown the door”.  There were some revenue-driven schedule changes; management and John and Brian couldn’t agree on a change to the First Team’s schedule that worked for everyone.   There were no aspersions cast on either side; the logistics and timing for both the station and John and Brian couldn’t be made to match up.

It stinks; I was one of the First Team’s biggest fans.  But them’s the breaks in Freebie Radio.

The Democrats nationwide are holding a pair of sevens with a king high.  In Minnesota, the DFL’s holding a couple of four and nothing much more.

As they say in law school (or so I’m told) if the facts are against you, argue the law.  If the law is against you, argue facts.  If both are against you, argue like hell.

The climate is against the Dems (suspect polling about “voters wanting centrism” notwithstanding).  They just lost big in one of the most epic two-year turnarounds in electoral history.  They stand, quite possibly (if the GOP doesn’t screw up) to lose the Senate in 2012, and maybe the Presidency to boot (although it’s way too early to even feel to optimistic yet; we have a ways to go). They are gathered behind a very weak president whose primary platform has been “I’m not George W. Bush”, yet whose only successful policies were cribbed from his predecessor.

The facts – the electorate – are against them.  The “law” – time, really, in the form of the a huge number of Senators coming up for re-election in 2012 – is against them.

So they’re going to argue like hell.

And at this, the Dems have some huge advantages; a compliant and in-the-bag media, a huge public class, and masses of voters, especially in big cities, who are dependent on government either as employees or clients.

My prediction:  Look for the Dems, nationwide and in Minnesota, to start pushing a series of memes – I’ve been calling them “chanting points” on this blog, and having a lot of fun with it – to try to give the media and their sound-bite-addled acolytes something to chant.

Here are my predictions:

“Tea Baggers Are Teh Crazee”:  That one’s already started; Jerry Nadler’s outburst yesterday (accompanied by some too-perfectly-timed media appearances by the likes of Dahlia Lithwick) on the “Fetishization of the Constitution” is a part of this; trying to frame constitutional originalism as some form of snake handling.  Watch for this meme to work its way down through Media Matters and the leftyblogs (pardon the redundancy), through Jon Stewart and the lefty chattering classes (ibid), and countless editorial pages.  Because actually showing that originalism actually is a pseudo-religious fetish isn’t important; creating the impression is.

“Disagreement Equals Disintegration”: Look for any disagreement among the conservative bloc – which is not a bloc, but a coalition of social and fiscal conservatives and newly-minted libertarians – to be portrayed as “the disintegration of the Tea Party”.  Look for rumors of the disintegration of the Tea Party to crash ashore about Wednesday of every news week.   Because the disintegration isn’t important; creating the impression that it is, is.

“There Is a Huge, Throbbing Center Out there”:  We saw a dress rehearsal of this in Minnesota, where the media set up Tom Horner as a viable “centrist Republican”, notwithstanding the fact that his policies fit in better as a moderate DFLer.  All through the summer, the DFL and media (PTR) tried to put purple lipstick on the blue pig.  Did Horner take 8,000 votes away from Emmer?  We will never know – but the tactic is the important part.  We’re seeing this already; the very days the new US House and Minnesota Legislature were sworn in, the media trumpeted polls of dubious geneology claiming the American People were begging for more centrism.  And you know how polls work these days.

More?

Discuss.

The NYTimes on the new GOP majority taking office in the US House:

A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress. A rule will be passed requiring that every bill cite its basis in the Constitution. A bill will be introduced to repeal the health care law. On Thursday, the Constitution will be read aloud in the House chamber. And in one particularly self-important flourish, the new speaker, John Boehner, arranged to have his office staff “sworn in” on Tuesday by the chief justice of the United States.

Those who had hoped to see a glimpse of the much-advertised Republican plan to revive the economy and put Americans back to work will have to wait at least until party leaders finish their Beltway insider ritual of self-glorification. Then, they may find time for governing.

Um. yeah.

Let me take you back in time:

The Obama Inauguration - the most expensive in history

It was, what, two years ago?  Or was it all a dream?

The federal government estimates that it will spend roughly $49 million on the inaugural weekend. Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland have requested another $75 million from the federal government to help pay for their share of police, fire and medical services.

And then there is the party bill.

We have a budget of roughly $45 million, maybe a little bit more,” said Linda Douglas, spokeswoman for the inaugural committee. That’s more than the $42.3 million in private funds spent by President Bush’s committee in 2005, or the $33 million spent for Bill Clinton’s first inaugural in 1993.

Well, to be fair, maybe the NYTimes editorial board groused about the extravagance of Obama’s inaugural, and fretted that it’d get in the way of The One getting about the peoples’ business, too.

Don’t laugh.  It could have happaned.  I mean, it’s possible. Let’s check:

There was no shortage of powerful imagery on Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day, starting with the confident man who defied all political conventions — that he was too young, too inexperienced, too black or not black enough — to stand on the steps of the Capitol and take the oath of office in a city and a country that are still racially divided in many shameful ways.

And there was the crowd that for a day, and we hope much longer, defied those divisions. By the hundreds of thousands they came from every part of a nation that has rarely been in such peril and yet is so optimistic about its new leader…

…In his Inaugural Address, President Obama gave them the clarity and the respect for which all Americans have hungered. In about 20 minutes, he swept away eight years of President George Bush’s false choices and failed policies and promised to recommit to America’s most cherished ideals.

Heh.

Onward:

With Mr. Bush looking on (and we’d like to think feeling some remorse),

Heh.

Onward:

Mr. Obama was unsparing in condemning the failed ideology of uncontrolled markets. [At an inauguration worthy of Gordon Gecko – Ed. ] He said the current economic crisis showed how “without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control” and that the nation has to extend the reach of prosperity to “every willing heart, not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.”

After more than seven years of Mr. Bush’s using fear and xenophobia to justify a disastrous and unnecessary war, and undermine the most fundamental American rights, it was exhilarating to hear Mr. Obama reject “as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

Wow.  Still not much in the way of phumphering over the cost and pomposity and bombast of the whole thing.  Emphasis added:

As the day continued with a parade and parties and balls, the image that stayed with us was the way the 44th president managed to embrace the symbolism and rise above it. It filled us with hope that with Mr. Obama’s help, this battered nation will be able to draw together and mend itself.

Well, there you go.

The NYTimes:  All the news that’s fit to jam into the editorial board’s provincial, far-left template.

Sources at the State Capitol inform me that the Senate Sergeant at Arms office is denying press credentials to all partisan news outlets.

This most notably includes The Uptake, a left-leaning videoblog that, in the past session, had more press credentials than any other media outlet except the Pioneer Press.

UPDATE: The source reminds me that The Uptake – and any other news outlet – will have the same access to press conferences that they’ve always had, and will have the same access to one-time daily credentials they’ve always had.  They will, however, not have regular access to the Senate floor during the session.

UPDATE 2: If you recall, the Uptake’s tenure on the Capitol Press Corps has been a rocky one.

UPDATE 3:  MNPublius’ Jeff Rosenberg tweets:

Wow. The MNGOP is throwing organizations it doesn’t like out of the Capitol? That’s horrible. #stribpol

I’ll hasten to remind Jeff that all partisan news outlets have been denied credentials to the floor.

All of them.  Not just “organizations it doesn’t like”, although that’s the sort of conclusion most of us expect leftybloggers to leap to in coming days.

This is as opposed to the last (DFL-controlled) session, when The Uptake was granted credentials, but Dan Ochsner of St. Cloud conservative station KNSI was denied credentials, purely (say my sources) because of his ideology (and the fact that he’d run for Senate against Tarryl Clark).

More momentarily.

We’ve established this for quite some time – DFL Minnesotans speak a very, very different language from Real Minnesotans.

Case in point – Dave Mindeman at mnpACT, doing his fifth annual “Ten Worst Political Persons In Minnesota of 2010” award (an awarad that lacks the cool, polished cachet of the Shooties, and which Mindeman admits is a riff on Olberman, which is sort of like admitting you’re copying diarrhea).  As a public service, I will use my patience, knowledge, and access to the DFL Dictionary to translate Mindeman’s piece from DFL into regular English.

You’re welcome:

There are some who don’t like the negative connotation…that’s why for the past couple of years I have also done a 10 Best list as well. But it does give me a chance to reflect on what I see in Minnesota politics…and believe me, a lot of it reflects the dark side.

Translation: “Dissent from my world view is evil.  But don’t call me McCarthyist!”.

Looking over the past lists, the range goes from that Lizard people guy to Katherine Kersten to the Star Tribune. Some people are consistently on the list so you will see some familiar names. Some are one shot wonders, but each year a crop of people always appear that affect political discourse in Minnesota.

Translation: “Unlike calling people I disagree with “the worst person”, which is just lovely for “discourse in Minnesota”.

Here is the “Worst” List for 2010:

10. Brad Brandon of the Berean Bible Baptist Church. (Note: he also wins the alliteration award). Brandon is a Hastings pastor who decided to defy the IRS and endorse an entire slate of candidates (mostly Republican with a sprinkling of Constitution) directly from his pulpit. He challenge anyone to file a complaint (and one has been), and proceeded to preach his sermon on the need to elect those God-fearing Republicans. You have to wonder what Erik Paulsen did to get on God’s bad side — he wasn’t endorsed.

Translation: “Dissent and civil disobedience were the supreme civic virtues – until January 20, 2009″.

9. Randy Brown (SD 56 GOP Webmaster). To the tune of “Who Let the Dogs Out”, Mr. Brown thought it would be funny to profile a video on his BPOU’s website that portrayed Democratic women in a less than flattering light…..while putting Republican women on display as the sex objects Mr. Brown seemed to be fantasizing about.

Translation: “Because goodness knows liberals would never, ever, ever act like a bunch of giggly schoolboys and catty cheerleaders. Darn obscure Republican webmasters , acting out that purely-GOP trait!”.

8. Zygi Wilf (Vikings Owner). Zygi was #6 on last year’s list and he is back again…for the same reason. The State of Minnesota is dealing with a monster deficit,

Translation: “If you damn teabaggers don’t cover every damn nickel of the Autopilot Budget, I will call you names!”

7. Minnesota Majority. This GOP sympathizer group seems to have made a mission out of discrediting a very good state election system.

Translation: “Do not question the Mighty Ritchie. Do not question the Mighty Ritchie. Do not question the Mighty Ritchie. Do not question the Mighty Ritchie. Do not question the Mighty Ritchie…”

6. Target Corp. In the “what were they thinking” department, Target Corp’s donations to the Tom Emmer campaign became a very public affair. And what’s worse, a carefully honed public image of a gay friendly corporation was nearly destroyed.

Translation: “And Target’s market cap went…er, wait, it kept pace and/or slightlty exceeded the retail sector since July, when the whole astroturf flap got started.  Never mind.”

Are corporate tax breaks really that important?

Translation: “And where did all those manufacturing and warehouse jobs with Target, 3M, Best Buy, Ecolab, Medtronic, Boston Sci, Minnesota Public Radio and every single other signficant manufacturere in Minnesota go, anyway?  Maybe we need a law to keep them from leaving!  Damn that Tim Pawlenty!”

Frankly, the idea that corporations could come close to making a “political” list like this is a little disturbing, but the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has changed all of that forever.

Translation: “Because Goddess forbid that the Teachers Union and the SEIU have any competition in the marketplace of paid-for-ideas!”

5. John Kline. Congressman Kline will soon take over the chairmanship of the Education and Labor Committee in the House. And along with that will be his total disregard for union rights and his big buck contributions from the for-profit education corporations. Along with the energy companies and the banking industry, etc, etc. He has nothing but disdain for health care reform as well as disdain for his own district.

Translation: “HEY!  ALL YOU TEABAGGING MORONS IN THE SECOND DISTRICT!  Don’t you know what’s GOOD for you?”

Roads and bridges in the 2nd get nothing from John Kline because he’s against earmarks. He’s saving us money… oh, wait, no he isn’t. Our money gets spent in other districts.

Translation: “The system is more important than its consequences.  Long live the system!”

4. Tony Sutton (Chair of the MN GOP). The provocative chairman of the MN GOP managed to open his mouth at every inopportune moment.

Translation: “My life would be so much nicer if Teabaggers just shut up and let me run everything”.

If his cohorts had worked as hard at real facts and figures as they did at distortions, they might have pulled out at least one of those statewide races.

Translation: “As opposed to the fact-chocked campaign that Alliance For A Better Minnesota ran!  I just get tingly thinking about it!”.

3. MN Chamber of Commerce. Outside of a few token Democratic endorsements, the MN Chamber was hell bent on reversing legislative power in Minnesota.

Translation: “Don’t those idiot wingnut teabaggers know what’s good for them?  Taxing business more makes it easier to do busienss!  Er – doesn’t it?”

2. Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty is on this list because he has flat out ruined Minnesota.

Translation: “Never mind the near-lowest in the nation unemployment – he RUINED us!  RUINED, I say!”

He has left us with an incredible deficit.

Translation: “And that fiscally-responsible DFL tried SO hard to control spending!  Really!

He presided over the biggest transfer of tax burden (state to local governement) in history.

Translation: “And then he forced all those cities to spend, spend, spend!  He’s a WITCH, I tell you!”

He watched a bridge fall down and then he vetoed transportation funding at every opportunity.

Translation: “Why, if we had finished the Central Corridor and built a network of ethanol stations, that bridge would still be standing!”

1. Michele Bachmann. Michele has topped this list for 3 years in a row

Translation: “I ran out of ideas”.

Glad to help.

Happy New Year, Dave!

It’s time once again for a tradition unlike any other; the 2010 edition of the Twin Cities’ foremost blog award ceremony – the Shooties!

Every year for the Shooties, we honor the worst – and occasionally the best – of Minnesota blogging. And this year is no exception – only more so!

So without any further ado, let’s move on to the awards!  We’ll kick things off with…:

The Dan Rather “Fake Is Accurate!” Award For Journalistic Ethics: This award goes to Erin Maye, “Intern” at “The Uptake”, a left-“leaning” video “news” blog.  While being busted mangling context on a number of stories, Ms. Maye – a “Peace Studies” student – tweeted “I’m Editing.  I feel important because I can make people say things they may not have said.  Muhahaha”.  Prediction:  She will run Gawker Media by 2012.

The Tiger Beat Celebrity Saturation Award:   This year’s TBCSA, given for the year’s best example of “news” coverage that combined slavering saturation with excellence in contextual laxity, goes to the Minnesota Independent’s Andy Birkey and his ongoing obsession with Bradlee Dean, ultra-mega-super-di-duper fundamentalist evangelist and talk radio host (whose program, “Sons of Liberty”, follows mine at AM1280 every Saturday).  Birkey wrote about Dean no less thatn 23 times in the past year.  But the coverage wasn’t just of a level of saturation that made Larry Jacobs sit up and go “er, wait, he’s overquoted”.  It took vast liberties with context and attribution:

• Birkey wrote in high dudgeon that Michele Bachmann and Tom Emmer would “appear in Dean’s documentary”, My War, without bothering to learn that the “appearances” were from shots of news clippings (or without thinking his audience needed to know).
• Birkey claimed that Emmer gave “financial support” to Dean’s ministry, without disclosing that the “Support” was the purchase of a $250 table at a non-political teen outreach dinner – long before Emmer was a candidate.
• Birkey claimed that Dean said Moslem nations had more integrity than Christian ones because they executed gays. It was a lie.

And more.

The “Dump Bachmann” Award For Unintended Consequences:  Campaigning in the GOP-leaning Sixth District, Tarryl Clark wrote a piece…

…on the Daily Kos.

No better way to paint one as a “reasonable centrist” than writing for “Democratic Underground Lite”.

It probably helped take an eight point race and make it a twelve-pointer.

The Joe McCarthy Trophy For Resurrecting The Letter And Spirit of Joe McCarthy: This one – given for bringing McCarthyism back from the dead – goes to Minneesota “Progressive” Project’s Joe Bodell for his January plea to least think about treating Tea Party sympathies and speaking out against The One and other forms of dissent as “sedition“.  I guess dissent isn’t patriotic anymore!

The Abe Gibron Trophy: After years of humiliating itself by running a smug, ill-informed, badly-written, phoned-in, rote, and talking-points-driven column by Nick Coleman, the Strib changed things up, giving the gig to Jon Tevlin, who turned the column into a smug, ill-informed, badly-written, phoned-in, rote, and talking-points-driven column.

The Jeff Fecke “The Male Client Is Obviously Guilty” Award For Egregious Misandry: This year’s winner is Rachel Nygaard, who took the facts of Rep. Tom Hackbarth’s arrest (he and his carry-permitted handgun were picked up by the Saint Paul Police, inadvertently parked by the Saint Paul office of Infanticide Mart, where he admitted his was having a bit of a clingy snit over a woman’s excuse for begging off on a date; a sign the guy needs to get a grip, not a crime.  So far.  There was no evidence that Hackbarth acted in any way upon that snit, by the way, other than by driving to Saint Paul which is, by the way, also not a crime).  Nygaaard extrapolated this into a Lifetime Movie, with a slavering man beating down a woman’s door and shooting her in a fit of testosterone-induced rage, potentially.

The runner up?  Fecke himself!  After getting this award named after him for his performance in the Duke Lacrosse case, where Fecke was prominent among “feminists” who tried, convicted, castrated and executed three college guys who, it turned out, were falsely accused of rape and railroaded by an unethical prosecutor and a media that looked at the case – a black “victim”, a bunch of smug, rich white boy “perps”, and saw dollar signs.

Well, he’s baaaack with the whole “I, Jury” bit, in re Julian Assange’s very curious “sexual assault” accusations.  (UPDATE: The American Petard exchange reports that petard prices are skyrocketing; those petards are getting hoisted and blown up so fast, production can’t keep up with capacity anymore).

The Yarmagh The Destroyer Award For Rolling A “9” For “Charisma”, Even With An Elivsh Sorcerer Character: A twofer for Joe Bodell, who learned that “cleric” is actually the singular for clergy, rather than a smear against Muslims by the big, bad conservative media. Well, we hope he learned it, anyway.

The Robin Marty Award For Calm, Dispassionate Fact-Checking: Andy Birkey is a repeat winner, here, for his piece impugning the Tea Party for a “threatening message to the local AFSCME office from a regional Tea Party leader” that happened to be neither threatening nor from anyone that anybody in the regional Tea Party leadership had ever heard of, at all (not that Birkey ever bothered to check, much less report that).

The National Concussion Association Poster Child For Blogging While Suffering From A Crippling Brain Injury: Barbara O’Brien from Mahablog.  (UPDATE:  I’m sorry – O’Brien doesn’t suffer from a brain injurty.  She’s just blood-curdlingly stupid).

The Walter Duranty Award: Ezra “The Constitution Is Haaard” Klein and Matt Yglesias, who proved themselves almost as stupid as O’Brien.

The Baghdad Bob Award: This clear winner this year goes to the “Humphrey Institute’s” Professor Larry Jacobs. While the Star-Tribune’s “Minnesota Poll” remained a joke (the virtual-tie Governor race was portrayed as a seven point blowout, but only by telling Minnesota that Democrats were a quarter more likely to vote – in the most GOP year in recent history), the Humphrey Institute poll released just before the election showed it as a twelve-point massacre.  A post-election analysis showed that the Humphrey’s polling over-sampled DFL-heavy areas, but didn’t weight for that oversample the way every credible poll does.  The Twin Cities media may try to offer a defense against the charge that Jacobs, and they, are trying to foment a “bandwagon effect” with the front-page play these polls get in all the regional media – but they haven’t offered it yet.

The runner-up for this award, though, goes to the entire Twin Cities media, into whose coverage of the governor’s race the Humphrey and Strib polls neatly fit.  Their performance – all of them, every one – in this past election was nothing short of shameful.  Faced with a DFL candidate who had embarassed the state in the US Senate, and had multiple run-ins with alcoholism and crippling depression in the past five years, and whose (entirely smear-oriented) campaign was financed by a shady, utterly unexamined consortium of unions and the Dayton Family (including Dayton himself), and whose chemical and mental health state remained utterly examined (barring a perfunctory Rachel Stassen-Berger puff piece run long before the non-wonk voter even knew there was a governor race coming up), the Twin Cities media gamboled and cavorted about with stories of Tom Emmer’s ancient drinking-and-driving convictions, a malaprop about waiter tips (which was not even inaccurate), and whether the post-Citizens United end of the ban on corporate donations (that weren’t from unions or trust fund babies) would end democracy as we knew it.  It was the year that it became perfectly clear that they see their mission to be to comfort the DFL and afflict the MNGOP.

And Finally, The Charles Townsend Award, the keystone award of these entire festivities.  Charles Townsend was a British Parliamentarian in the 1770’s, whose response to the growing “Tea Party” in the colonies…

“And now will these Americans, Children planted by our Care, nourished up by our Indulgence until they are grown to a Degree of Strength & Opulence, and protected by our Arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?”

…was worthy of Larry Pogemiller or Nick Coleman.

This year’s award goes to Governor-Elect Dayton (and, really, by extension every single person who supported him).  The Dayton budget plan was built on a lie, and – quite simply – can not succeed, even notwithstanding the fact that it’s dead on arrival at the GOP Legislature.  Support for Dayton is support for the idea that we, The People, are serfs whose labors exist to support government first.  Then our families.

So for the first time, about 43% of Minnesota wins the award!

Congratuations!

And we’ll see you next year!  Because Goddess knows there’ll be material!

The meme made the rounds of the Sorosphere over the past few weeks, yet again; “Fox News viewers are less well-informed”.

Since it was a meme from the Sorosphere, I figured it had to be crap.

As always, that sense was correct:

It’s about twenty minutes worth of video, but it disembowels the “Fox Viewers Are Teh Dumm” meme.  Again.

Reminds me of how leftybloggers hand aortic dissections when they got the word that Limbaugh listeners were better-informed about current events than network TV viewers, and even with NPR listeners.

Moral of the story:  if a leftyblogger makes a factual assertion, assume it’s wrong, either factually or logically.  It’ll rarely steer  you wrong.

Counterpoint:  Ezra Klein.

No, really.  That bad.

Conclusion:  Thesis debunked.

I started reading a couple of Minnesota liberal blogs yesterday, with an aim toward perhaps addressing some of their arguments as the session gets underway…

…and I stopped.  It just got too depressing.

Minnesota liberal bloggers – many, many of them – have real serious trouble with simple logic; with the rhetorical equivalent of subject-verb agreement.

About a year ago, I started a series of posts called “Logic for Leftybloggers”; it was, as I sketched it out, a 25 part bit on some of the basics of logic – little things like “why a tu quoque argument (which makes up about 40% of leftyblog posts) makes you sound like you need more fiber in your diet” or “how ridicule isni’t technically evidence” or “when your argument includes more red herrings than the entire Norwegian fishing fleet, you’re really only convincing fellow ijjits”.

But I shelved it, largely because searching through the backlog for the examples was, again, just too damn depressing.

Still, my little bout (or perhaps “spasm”) of reading leftyblogs has made me think; maybe that’ll be my New Years’ gift to discourse; dust off the series and post it during the coming year.  At the very best, it’ll improve the level of discussion at least some.   At worst?  Someone’s body may physically reject its own brain; I’d hate to have that on my conscience, but I am a giver.

I gotta think about this a bit.

Yesterday, I fisked a Lori Sturdevant column.  Not for the first time, and not for the last time.

But I missed something.

Among Sturdevant’s pleas – a bit from a group calling itself the “Civic Caucus” – demanding that the GOP-controlled legislature get its budget and revenue proposals in front of the Governor (and, naturally, the media that put him there) bright and early in the session.

Sturdevant called “Civic Caucus” a “non-partisan” group of “Seasoned Policy Wonks”.  I took the liberty of checking; they are no more “non-partisan” than I am, only pretty universally either DFLers or Carlson-era RINOs.

Still, that doesn’t in and of itself invalidate them.

Nonetheless, since it was Sturdevant doing the writing, it did in fact occur to me – if Lori Sturdevant wants the GOP majority to put in a budget by April 1 – or March 1, or whenever – that strikes me as a prima facie reason to get it to the governor along about May 20 or so.  To provide it any earlier would merely give the DFL’s retainers and henchpeople in the media time to try to fight the PR war against the budget, on the DFL’s behalf.  Why give the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) seven to eleven weeks of lead time?

I’m not sure when the GOP majority had it in mind to produce a budget.  But I’m thinking if Sturdevant wants it sooner, then “later” is a fine plan.