Joe Kimball has long has a reputation for impeccable ethics and credibility.
Now? Pfft:
People are asking: How can we, Dick and Jane Public, get a ticket to attend the Republican National Convention in St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center?
Oh, really, Joe Kimball?
Name them.
Last month, we (via the Mindy) noted that the Minneapolis Park and Rec board had jacked its “large tent event” fee from $60.00 to $10,000 dollars for the Republican Convention.
Specifically for the convention. Specifically to soak Republicans.
Minneapolis Shadow at the Urban Renaissance Coalition blog finds another:
Take a look at the agenda for the Public Safety and Regulatory Committee Agenda item number one on taxicabs. The time period for the fare increases are during the Republican National Convention.
Instead of being happy to allow the increase in revenue from the activity that the convention brings, such as income from cab rides, they need to raise fares. I find this practice appalling. It is another example of how the city officials purposely go out of their way to discourage business growth, or are just plain stupid when it comes to long term thinking on economic development.
Y’know what? I’m not going to stop buying things in Minneaopolis. Nosirreebob.
I’ll come to the Mill City, all right. And buy clothes. And unprepared food.
Lots of it.
Stuff that isn’t taxed.
Not a damn thing more.
Around noonish yesterday I took advantage of the gorgeous day to buzz over to the Xcel Energy Center to take in the “Anti-War Committee”‘s press conference to announce their plans for the fourth and final day of the Republican National Convention.
We stood on the plaza at Seventh and Kellogg. Construction workers with their yellow contractor badges taking a break from the big buildout inside the X wandered around, lunchpails and Subway wrappers in hand, taking (mostly) no interest at all in the proceedings.
I counted a total of seven reporters or camerapeople of various types (plus me, whatever it is that I am), seven people from the “Anti-War Committee”, three of whom spent the conference standing in the back of the camera shot holding a banner (and not all that successfully; one corner got away from one of the guys a couple of times), and a rather portly guy in cargo shorts with a consumer-grade video cam who hovered around the edge of the “conference” shooting footage of…the reporters, mostly.
Three women from the AWC spoke – briefly. Jesse Albertson-Grove – a dead-ringer for a younger Chelsea Clinton – noted that the Anti-War Committee “stood in solidarity” against US involvement in wars in Iraq, Palestine and Colombia. I didn’t get to ask her if they advocated giving Ingrid Betancourt back to FARC.
Next, Katrina Plotz noted that Iraq wasn’t the only war – indeed, we have a “war at home”; as evidence of this war at home, she noted that candidate and presumptive nominee John McCain wants to…
…extend the Bush tax cuts.
(Around this point a heckler – a lanky guy with a contractor badge, carrying his lunch box as he walked back to the X on Kellogg – yelled “Why don’t you go back to your own neighborhood?” I don’t think he got any air time).
Misty Rowan – an auburn-haired woman in an AWC t-shirt who looked like Kelly O’Donnell’s younger, vegan, Prius-driving sister – added that the group’s plans include a march. The Saint Paul Police had given them a permit to march from the Capitol to the X later in the afternoon on the Fourth; according to Rowan, the AWC was upset that the permit didn’t allow them to march into the X and throw garbage at delegates, or something (I’ll admit my attention was wandering around this point).
Among ’em, they mentioned that the 9/4 march, timed to coincide with John McCain’s acceptance speech, is going to be “more militant” than the opening-day parade.
How much “more militant?” And what does that mean?
Ms. Plotz took the microphone again.
I asked her – given the number of left-leaning groups who are talking about blockading streets, damaging property and attacking delegates, did the “Anti-War Committee” specifically condemn or abjure violence?
MPR was there. Bob Collins noted the conference on NewsCut yesterday.
What about what most people think when they hear a term like militant, violence, for example?
“The violence that I’m worried about is the violence that’s being carried out in Iraq right now,” she answered, which isn’t really an answer.
“You’re not answering my question,” a blogger said, uttering the five words that mark a great political journalist.
“I know,” she said, adding that she doesn’t consider the blockades being planned — allegedly — by other groups “violence.”
“That’s not what we’re planning,” she said.
Collins notes the game of rhetorical peek-a-boo as some of the other reporters followed up with Plotz:
“We worked very hard to make the Day 1 march on the Xcel something that you can bring your family to and you can all come out for the war. And we believe Day 4 is for the truly committed and for the people who really want to see change and expect that to be a little harder to come to than just showing up with the kids and the balloons.” (Listen)
Collins:
That sounds almost militant. Perhaps, too militant, because the other speaker jumped in to spin that answer…
“If people are wondering about Day 4, is it going to be safe, is it going to be OK to bring their families, we would say ‘yes.’ I think the more the better.”
A few minutes later, however, she said militant might mean that “people face a little more risk by coming down.” (Listen)
Also – whenever “violence” was mentioned, all the speakers took pains to note that the violence they feared the most was from the police.
After saying there wouldn’t be any “sit-ins” or “die-ins,” that led us back to the question of how the second protest is more militant than the first? “I would say if people have questions, they should get in contact with us,” she said.
Hello?
She said people should go to an organizing committee meeting to find out what the protest is going to look like.
Hmmm.
As the conference broke up, a woman with the AWC asked me for my card. She said she wanted to read what I wrote about the event.
After six and a half years of blogging, I still don’t have cards. I wrote down my URLs (for Shot in the Dark and True North).
I presume she’s interested in checking out the fairness of my coverage.
In the spirit of the event, let me say that the only unfairness I am worried about is in Zimbabwe.
Rick Bupkus of Chicago will be leading a coalition of Second Amendment activists to Saint Paul this September to picket the Republican National Convention.
“We need to convince the Republicans to join with the majority of Americans who support Second Amendment rights”.
GOP spokesperson Anna Elk responded “Er…the GOP was supporting Second Amendment rights long before it was politically cool to do so…”
Bupkus, undeterred, promised “A 4,000 gun salute” outside Saint Paul’s XCel Energy Center, site of the convention.
———-
OK, I made that whole bit up.
I had to, just to illustrate how ridiculous this bit here sounds:
When a [trucker-protest organizer Mike] Schaffner-organized truck rally comes to St. Paul on September 2, he hopes the [currently 150-truck] convoy gets even larger, the better to send a resounding message to those assembled for the Republican National Convention: Skyrocketing fuel prices are threatening the livelihood of truckers, more than 80 percent of whom are independent owner-operators, according to Schaffner (pictured). Further, while oil companies continue to post soaring profits, it’s consumers who rely on the trucking industry for shipping the food and clothing that end up paying the tab.
“I’m tired of the rhetoric,” he adds. “Tired of being like the little child and the government is the mother giving us a spoonful of medicine and telling us we have to take it.”
So – you protest at the convention of the party that’s actually trying to do something to increase the supply of fuel, thus lowering prices (and, by some indications, succeeding at it, at least on an initial psychological level)…
…and…
…and…
…oh, never mind. The “intricacies” of the Tic mind never cease to baffle me.
Hard set upon by an oppressive tyranny, the people dutifully pulled their burdens. At times, it seemed there was no hope; the overlords would work you to death and their pleasure, living off the fruit of our labors and the sweat of our brow, as it pleased them.
There were occasional whispers – kept silent, for fear of retribution from the overlords – of a liberator. But most of the people kept it firmly in the realm of legend – as much for their own protection as out of lack of faith. Some of the people even acquiesced with their oppressors; “truely, it’s better to go along than to resist”, they said, weary of the battle.
But then, one day…
…in the middle of yet another dark, dismal year in the dank, oppressed land…
…the first glimmer of sanity broke over the rancid murk.
And a few of The People began to whisper under their breath. Soon.
Soon.
Sort of like “Secession Diaries” and Minnesota 2050.
Really.
The harassment of delegates came as organized protests continued to draw thousands of people. The Still We Rise march by advocates for social issues was peaceful, and a Poor People’s March, a column several blocks long, proceeded from the United Nations to the Madison Square Garden yesterday after the police decided to let it go ahead without a permit.
When marchers approached the Garden, a police detective was knocked off his scooter. He was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by at least one male demonstrator, the police said.
…
The heavy police presence at the Garden apparently inspired the coordinated plan by anarchists and other radicals to strike out at the delegates at their hotels, breakfasts, parties, and on the streets.
The incidents are the result of months of planning by opposition groups, who report that they have obtained copies of plans and addresses for delegates’ parties, caucuses and other gatherings outside the Garden.
OK, I’m not making it up. It’s what happened in 2004 in New York. With all the talk about all the arrests that were dismissed over allegedly-excessive zeal on the part of the NYPD, you’d have a hard time realizing that there really was any low-level, non-lethal (hey, the cop on the scooter lived!) domestic terrorism going on at the last RNC.
The Twin Cities’ police are officially fairly sanguine; they’re taking a fairly low-key approach (which isn’t a bad thing; there’s no need to feed the anarkids’ need for drama).
Anyway, no need to worry; “Scottsdale Woman” assures us that it’s really the GOP delgates and their sympathizers that’ll be causing the problems.
More later.
In Denver, they’re getting concerned about the “anarchists” and their plans for the Democratic National Convention.
A draft law proposed by the Denver Police Department would ban the possession by protesters of materials such as weighted pipes and chains and items that can make urine and feces bombs.
Police say that such materials are potentially dangerous. The City Council Safety Committee will review the proposal July 23.
If you make poop bombs illegal, then only criminals will have poop bombs.
Well, hang on. Are we to assume that the Denver Police…:
a) …are paranoid?
b) …have been sniffing butane?
c) …employ Ryan Rhodes?
What could possibly prompt them to do this?
LaCabe, who oversees the police department, said the proposed ordinance requires authorities, before they make an arrest, to find an intent to use the material to obstruct the public’s right to move freely.
“We certainly don’t want to interfere with anyone’s First Amendment rights and the right to be heard,” [Denver’s Safety Manager Al] LaCabe said. “But it has to be done in such a way that it does not obstruct or endanger the general public or the police department.”…The proposed ordinance would ban material, such as weighted pipe and chains, to fashion what are known as “sleeping dragons.” Protesters have chained themselves to such devices at other protests to make it difficult for police to arrest and remove them.
I thought, briefly, about checking with the various metro jurisdictions to see if perhaps there were already any poop-bomb control ordinances…
…but then I realized, why bother? While I have in the past wondered if I should take the claims by some of the protest organizers that they want to “shut down the convention” and “make the people of Saint Paul know what the people of Baghdad feel like” seriously, Scottsdale Woman of Fired O’Glake says that’s just silly, and it’s all gonna be OK!
Except for Protest Warrior, who are thugs who smash everything in their path. Natch.
Bob Colllins notes that the RNC convo will be bringing extra private jet traffic to the area:
The airports around the Twin Cities haven’t gotten much attention from the media in advance of the Republican National Convention in August. But the Twin Cities Business Journal reports the increase in private jet traffic by the bigwigs should be quite noticeable
It might look like 1/4 of a global warming conference…
…in a campaign where Al Franken – a guy who worked for a network that plundered a boys and girls club to pay his grossly-inflated salary – gets busted bobbling his taxes in dozens of states, to say nothing of a series of crimes against taste (that don’t bother me especially – he was a comedian, so they say, and a freelance writer of sorts – but seem to bother some Democrats)…
…is find that Senator Coleman got a 30% discount on a crappy apartment, then perhaps the DFL needs some better opposition researchers.
In Saint Paul, the Republicans rented space in a couple of nearly-empty old (1890’s) office buildings that had sold (to the current owners, not the GOP) for $10.
Hm. Saving money. Good, conservative management. (Comment about the Bush Administration’s spending excised for excessive obviousness).
Democratic National Convention Committee decided not to take cheap office space and instead rented top-quality offices in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to need less than half the space, which it then filled with rental furniture at $50,000 a month. And in a costly misstep, the Denver host committee, early on, told corporate donors that their contributions were not tax-deductible, rather than to encourage donations by saying that the tax-exempt application was pending and expected to be approved.
So that’s where all the dotcom CEOs went.
The Minnesoros Monitor “Independent” notes the various demonstration permits that’ve been issued for the upcoming Republican National Convention.
This one was interesting:
True Blue Minnesota was among the lottery winners. The group plans to stage anti-RNC events at Triangle Park on each day of the convention. According to Andrew Hine, one of the principal organizers of the gathering, they intend to utilize a 20×27 foot television screen to communicate their message. “It’s part digital billboard and part drive-in movie theater,” Hine says.
We have a preview of True Blue Minnesota’s video screen right here:
And here, the crowd, in their True Blue uniforms:
It’ll be a fun convention!
(What? You think I’m overestimating the tendency of lefties to think like a mindless herd? Sadly, no.)
(UPDATE: I mean, No! Really, Really No!)
Paul Schmelzer in the Minnesoros Monitor “Independent” gets it wrong, I suspect:
In the political theater of national nominating conventions, one aspect tends to get left out: the political theater of regular citizens.
I have a hunch that the “political theater” of “regular citizens” who just love love love to post their opinions – no matter how obtuse, deranged or deluded – will not be getting “left out”.
Indeed, a friend of mine closely connected to the organizing committee tells me that they estimate there’ll be at least one left-leaning “citizens video journalism” group for every individual delegate, should they choose to divide their “labor” that way.
Rumors that the Twin Cities has implemented a program to train the homeless and recent parolees to work as barristas and clerks at “Hot Topic” are at present unconfirmed.
For the past year or so, we’ve been noting the plans of some on the radical fringe left to not only disrupt the Republican National Convention, but to disrupt life in the Twin Cities itself.
Most troubling were the threats in some quarters to actually harass convention delegates, not merely in downtown Saint Paul in and around the convention itself, but back at their hotels.
I’m willing to write 90-99% of these sorts of things off to arrested-adolescent posturing by the sort of narcissistic, self-adulating fops that are drawn to this sort of fringe politics (every “anarchist” I’ve ever known in my life, and I’ve known quite a few, hailed from an upper-middle-class background; most were, at the end of the day, trying to get back at Mumsy and Dadders for being successful bourgeoisie. I know there must be exceptions – but damned if I can say I’ve met any).
Who’s left?
I dunno – but someone’s looking out for ’em:
The imminent arrival of the Republican National Convention sent Minnesota’s three biggest metro-area cities scrambling to pass new regulations concerning the unprecedented number of street protests they’re anticipating. St. Paul’s existing ordinance requiring permits for public assemblies provided a model for the language approved May 19 by City Council members in Bloomington (PDF, see 5.4C), home to the Mall of America and oodles of hotel rooms where many convention-goers will stay.
Look – if you want to protest the RNC, or the party, or what it stands for, go for it. And we’ll be watching.
But I have to ask – why the targeting of delegates at their hotels?
Hey, Chris Steller/Andy Birkey/Paul Schmelzer; if this were a Planned Parenthood convention, and pro-lifers were planning to harass conventioneers at their hotels outside of convention hours, are you trying to tell me you’d not be demanding the National Guard be called in?
Living in a one-party city, you see and hear some strange things.
There’s a conceit on the part of an awful lot of Twin Cities leftists – Democrats, Greenies, and all their various flavors – that “if we just showed Republicans the truth, they’d be Democrats!”
That point of view is in full foam as we head toward the GOP Convention this fall. One “local” group plans on putting “huge Jumbotrons” on both sides of downtown – on Cathedral Hill and Harriet Island – to beam videos over the city during the convention, apparently to try to convert Republicans.
These, by the way, are some of the same people who fulminate about billboards in Saint Paul. Go figure.
And now, says Schmelzer at the Minnesoros Monitor, they plan to try to “Rock some sense into the Republicans”
No, really!
“The Republican National Convention is coming to the Twin Cities in September, and wouldn’t it be a shame if there was no one to play deafening power chords just up the street?” So reads text at the website of ProVention, online homebase for a concert planned in Lowertown St. Paul on Sept. 3 and 4 to coincide with the GOP convention.
They assure us, of course, that…
…the point isn’t an antagonistic, Noriega-psyops kind of thing, but to welcome Republican guests with “music, beauty and rational engagement” (here’s the group’s platform).
We’ll come back to that “noriega” thing in a bit.
The lineup — which may change, “probably in the direction of more and more ginormously powerful”
A quick tangent; I think Americans of all creeds, colors, orientations and parties can unite behind the notion that people who use “ginormous” in any context can and should be shipped to camps in the Mojave Desert. Can I get an amen?
Anyway – out of one corner of their mouth, they say this is no “noriega-like psyop”. And then they say…:
— has elephantine star power: Tapes ‘n’ Tapes,
Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch
Tapes ‘n Tapes.
I, for one, choose waterboarding.
…but I’d like to direct you to the campaigns of our two NARN2 guests today – Barb Davis White, who is the GOP-endorsed candidate for Congress in the Fifth Congressional District…
…and Tom Effertz, who is running to win back District 54B, in the north-east ‘burbs of Saint Paul.
By the way – I got flak from both sides over my post last week asking for CD2 Republicans to peel off a couple of bucks for the likes of candidate White in the Fifth and Ed Matthews in the Fourth.
The flak from the left – as with this post from leftyblog Cardiopulmonary Patient in a Red District – was pretty ludicrous stuff, essentially saying “Republicans should just give up, since we’ve won these districts every election since the Truman Administration”. Sorry, Blue – I don’t believe in sinecures, and I do relish a good fight against a self-satisfied, smug, overconfident foe, since it makes the eventual victory all the sweeter.
Some of the flak from the right hit a little closer to home; little birds tell me that some of the CD2 leadership wasn’t happy with me. They’re right not to give in to complacency – it’s a lousy year for any Republican in Congress to feel complacent, even when up against a train wreck like Al Franken (or, maybe, a punchline like Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer). But let’s do be realistic; even Democrat talking heads are advising “sell” on Sarvi. And Michele Bachmann is going to go over Elwyn “E-Tink” Tinklenberg like it’s a prison shower-room beatdown, and that’s even if “Dump Bachmann” isn’t a high-profile voice in the campaign (and if they are, tack on another point or two for the incumbent).
Minnesota will never really join the 21st century until the GOP contests the urban 4th and 5th Districts. Now – with sharp, articulate candidates like White and Matthews, who will shred the hapless-outside-of-friendly-rooms Ellison and the brittle, incoherent McCollum in debates and on policy – is as good a time as any to start trying.
Kerry emails Councilman Thune, via me:
Mr. Thune, You, sir, are a terrific embarassment. Nothing beyond, “If we let one bar stay open until four, we must let all stya open” needed saying. You ought to have left it at that. Where is your Christian charity that you decide 8000 people you have not and never will meet will be 1) “….puking” and 2), doing so on your lawn. To keep a man down, one must be in the gutter with them. In this case, you occupy it alone. Is this decent? Loving? Why broadcast your personal opinions about national policy in this case? You have, in Mark Twain‘s words, removed all doubt in opening your mouth. A great city does not have offical city council members who ridicule others in public. Like a lie, a slander travels at least halfway around the world before truth puts on its pants. Will St. Paul benefit or lose if parts of its reputation includes people in Peoria or Buffalo chortling at “some guy named in St. Paul named Thone or Thune” and the word “puking”? Please, next time, keep silent, I beg you.
Need I say more?
I think not.
I wrote this to my City Council Rep yesterday:
———-
Mr. Stark, Mitch Berg here. I’m a constituent of yours…
…sorry. I had to go clean up after another spell of “puking”. And I apologize if my spelling suffers; as I’m a Republican, the delerium tremens makes it hard to type whenever I’m not hammered out of my mind.
I’m writing on behalf of the 28-40% of Saint Paulites who vote Republican, but whom you and Council Prez Dave Thune represent in city government…
…oh, damn. Hang on. Gotta puke…
…Sorry. Where was I? Oh, yeah – Republicans who, when we rouse ourselves from our drunken stupor, somehow manage to pay taxes and raise kids when we’re
not vomiting in Dave Thune’s daisies.
All joking aside – it’s a little disconcerting to read that the *elected leader* of the city to whom I pay taxes has such a caustically hateful opinion of over a third of his city’s residents. Is it any wonder that people are leaving, pulling their kids out of the
school system, and taking their entertainment and shopping dollar elsewhere?
Mitch Berg
Minnehaha and Pascal
21-year Saint Paul taxpayer, who’s raised/is raising three kids here, is a GOP district officer, and is sick to death of a city that treats me like a ripe suck on the one hand and a hated adversary on the other.
Now I really DO need a drink.
———-
It’s true.
To be fair, Stark voted against the extension in bar hours – although his stated reasons weren’t anything I’d disagree with. There are, frankly, reasons to oppose the extension; one of them is not that Republican activists and staffers are going to turn Saint Paul into a huge frat party.
Republicans are, by nature, a fairly good-tempered lot. Especially in Saint Paul. You have to be, living in a city where one of your key government figures thinks – and says, in friendly surroundings – that you, the Republican, are a drunken lout.
But eventually, even we can be pushed too far. I got this email from a source in the know about these things:
After Thune’s comments two major players in the bar/restaurant scene lost huge contracts. One was a $50,000 dinner and another was a $800,000 party…Minneapolis was happy to have them and their lobbyists, puking or not.
$850,000 at Saint Paul’s 7.5% Sales Tax rate comes to $59,500.
Councilman Thune; that’s money that could have helped ameliorate some of the taxes you’ve been jacking up in this city.
Care to puke that up?
I sent this to Councilman Thune and his assistant:
Councilman Thune,
Mitch Berg here.
I just got off the phone with Ms. Lindgren, who said she’d leave a message for you. It occurred to me that she never asked me for any contact information – an oversight, I’m sure. In any case, I’m writing to follow up.
I’d like to extend an open-ended invitation to join Ed Morrissey and I this weekend on the Northern Alliance broadcast, any time between 1PM and 3PM, at your convenience. We’d love to discuss to your statements, in public and on the Saint Paul Information Forum, about the 28-40% of your constituents who vote Republican, and are (or so you seem to believe) drunken, puking, drug-dealing warmongers.
Now, I know that every time I’ve requested an interview in the past, you’ve pled “busy”. And I know you’re a busy guy, and respect that fact.
So in the interest of reaching “across the aisle” to make sure you’re able to communicate with Saint Paul’s Republicans, and the other Republicans nationwide who’ll be travelling to *our* city, I’d like to stress that this invitation is good for ANY SATURDAY between now and the end of human existence on this or any planet (or your retirement or ejection from politics, whichever comes first). You can come into the studio, or appear via phone – whatever’s most convenient!
If you are not available on a Saturday, I will be happy to *tape* an interview with you, in studio or via phone, at ANY TIME convenient to you, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I will also be happy to meet you with a tape recorder, any place, any time, at your leisure (provided I’m not incapacitated by fits of drunken vomiting and delirium tremens). You, as an elected official, DESERVE the opportunity to reach across the aisle and speak with the 28-40% of your constituents who likely voted against the DFL and you, but whom you nevertheless still represent as president of the city council of one of America’s great cities.
Finally, in the unlikely event that you can’t free up fifteen minutes between now and the end of time for a radio interview, I’d like to submit some questions – under separate cover, obviously – for you to answer at your leisure via email. Pardon my presumption, but this seems reasonable, given that I am a Saint Paul taxpayer.
I will hope you will do me the estimable honor of responding to this invitation (which I’m making public via my various blogs and, this weekend, the show), rather than having to lead a contingent of “drunk, puking, warmongering, drug-dealing, family-values-flouting” Saint Paul Republicans to deliver it in person at an upcoming City Council meeting.
Sincerely,
Mitch Berg
Sober, peace-loving Republican and 21-year Saint Paul TaxpayerNorthern Alliance Radio Network
AM1280thepatriot.comShot In The Dark
www.shotinthedark.info
I’ll keep y’all posted.
Last week, the Saint Paul City Council rejected the idea of allowing bars in Saint Paul to stay open an extra two hours during the week of the convention.
Fair enough. No biggie.
Except that the rationale of Councilman Dave Thune was that he didn’t want thousands of Republican lobbyists “puking” on his lawn.
Now, Dave’s a jocular guy. And I know as well as anyone that people will josh around, especially when the subject is partisan politics.
Still – in a purple state, and in a city where between 30-40% of the city does generally vote Republican – the remark was considered inflammatory enough that Senator Sandy Pappas – who represents the same general area at the Capitol that Thune does in City Hall – felt obliged to apologize for Councilman Thune at the podium in the Senate last week.
So what does Dave Thune really think?
Over at the Saint Paul Information Forum – an email discussion group that purports to be open to all, but is basically a DFL hive and news-release outlet – Thune elaborated over the weekend. Read the whole thing at the link, because he slips in some modestly sensible stuff before the really defamatory howler), but to save space I’m going to excerpt it a bit.
It’s a long email – and it makes a few good points. I’m hacking out most of it, but to be fair, he notes…:
Its hard work to be a good owner/neighbor, refereeing domestic disputes and picking up litter and hosing down sidewalks the next morning. I like bars (believe it or not) and I like bars to be on our commercial streets and in our neighborhoods, but I am no fool and I know that:
1. The adjacent homeowners and neighbors will hate the 4 AM close time.
2. There is no way to rule that only a few “select” bars can be open til 4.
You either let them all, or none. The law protects them all equally.
3. Limiting 4AM closing to downtown still puts them beside residences who pay as much taxes as you do and did not purchase a condo on Bourbon Street – they chose Wabasha, Minnesota or Wall Streets.
4. Limiting to downtown is in reality unworkable because you would be
leaving out the popular Mancinis, O’Gara’s and Dixie’s bars.
5. We’ve been told that the cost of law enforcement due to extended hours is upwards to half a million bucks – payable via your property taxes.
6. The test of a great city is not how long you can drink alchohol. To hear
a legislator say that we just don’t want to be a big city is insulting and
obviously the words of a moron.
OK. So far so good. A few minor logical howlers, but nothing we can’t expect from a DFL poobah.
Fasten your seatbelts. The rest of this post is a bumpy ride.
I also know that ocassionally I speak frankly and with a bit of passion.
But I am angry that this is being suggested, to cater to a “special” group
of conventioneers who will be judging us predominately by our bar hours. I am more than a little irritated that cities are being played off against
each other (“we can’t be at a competitive disadvantage”).
It’s called the “Free Market”, Mr. Thune, and cities do compete with each other – ferociously – for conventions.
Now, let’s move to the last bit. And in doing so, remember who’s actually coming to Saint Paul for the convention. Lobbyists? Sure! They go wherever government business is transacted; you can expect there’ll be plenty of ’em here. Media, too – by the tens of thousands. GOP staffers and politicians? Yep. Demonstrators, of course – and Dave Thune has already gone far out of his way to make them feel welcome.
And – most of all, the people around whom the whole event is actually centered; delegates. Thousands of ’em. And their families. And who are these people? Regular folks; working stiffs who’ve plugged away working for the GOP long enough to be recognized; in many cases, being a national delegate is a reward for years, even decades, of phone-banking and fund-raising and walking door-to-door handing out literature and counting ballots at precinct caucuses. Work-a-daddy, hug-a-mommy schlemiels who, through the grace of their state conventions, get to spend a week in Saint Paul participating in a political ritual at once ridiculous and vital to our functioning democracy.
People like you and I and, as it happens, Dave Thune.
People that, at first glance, seem unlikely to puke on Dave Thune’s lawn, at least to you and I…
…but not, apparently, to Dave Thune.
I add emphasis below:
Finally, I may have unfairly sullied the reputation of lobbyists. My friend
[redacted, a lobbyist] pointed out that lobbyists don’t puke, they’re professionals who have experience holding their liquor. Its the amateurs who spew.He may be right, but the particular lobbyists we’ll have in town that week
are the ones who have initiated this whole discussion.And of course these are the lobbyists who brought us an illegal and tragic war, a recession, polluted water, expensive drugs, and even the moralists who preach family values but play “outside the box” themselves. They are enough to make me queasy without a snootful…
Sorry Sandy, I don’t apologize.
dave thune
ward 2
Wow.
So a city crammed (for a week) full of responsible, hard-working Americans whose only real “crime” is disagreeing with Dave Thune on politics provoke that much hatred?
This guy is the president of the city council in one of America’s great cities?
If you’re one of the 30-40% of Saint Paul’s voters who vote Republican, this is your government talking (and talking informally among friends; remember, the “Saint Paul Information Forum” is a DFL club in all but name), what does this say to you? Maybe that while the city loves your money (you plutocratic, cigar-smoking Republican, you!), they hate you to the point of venting noxious bilge like this – in private, among friends, anyway?
If you’re one of the Republicans who’s coming to Saint Paul, and planning on spending money (at premium rates, no less) and stuffing the coffers of these two ideological gulags, Saint Paul and Minneapolis, what do you think? Did you start any wars, wreck any economies, pollute any water, import any drugs or cheat on your spouses?
Ask Councilman Thune. Here’s the City of Saint Paul City Council website.
And I’ll be inviting him onto the NARN to elaborate on these statements.
I’ll keep you posted.
UPDATE: Welcome, Powerline readers. I follow up this story here, here, here and here.
And we’re not done yet.
Last week, a little bird told me that several of the groups that are planning anarchist anarkid actions planned to hold a meeting over the weekend.
Most of the meeting was to be held (naturally) in Minneapolis, at the “Jack Pine Community Center”, which seems to serve the same purpose as the “Walker Church” and the “Backroom Anarchist Center” used to serve back in the eighties for the local fringe left, as gathering places and flophouses.
But, the email (taken from one of the anarkid websites) also said that there was going to be an expedition during mid-afternoon to Saint Paul, presumably to size up the city (or, given how many anarkids are from Minneapolis and the more posh suburbs, show them how to find Saint Paul. “Dude. It’s like totally waaaay east of Lyndale, dude. Like, dude”) from 1:30 until three-ish.
And I figured that’d have to be fun.
I was among a couple of center-right bloggers that went downtown to view the hilarity.
Or try to, anyway.
It was a dreary day; it would have been perfect for bagpiping, actually, with a steely overcast and a steady chilly drizzle. At 1:30, I was at the Capitol.
There were ten people up at the top of the steps – all of them waiting to get inside for capitol tours. There were two twenty-somethings down by the Duelling Socialists statues (below the driveway, above the Mall) – one with a professional photography rig and a camera on a tripod, another in a wheelchair holding a crudely-scrawled sign that he kept pointing lapward except when the photographer was shooting. I kept walking.
As I went down Wabasha, of course, I saw some likely prospects – but in that neighborhood, you always do. There are one or two high-rise apartments that are wholly filled with the mentally/emotionally handicapped; some of them looked dishevelled enough to be anarkids, but they were too old, and they didn’t have the carefully-cultivated air of misfortune that anarkids affect.
Likewise, as I got close to the Xcel Center, I saw some scraggly types – but most of them were on their way to or from the Dorothy Day Center, the big homeless shelter kitty-corner from the X. Also, unlike every “anarchist” I’ve ever met, some weren’t white.
I did see two people with the impeccably-ripped and grafitti’d clothing and precisely-scraggly hair of the full-time anarkid, climbing out of a Toyota SUV in a parking lot at Fifth and Wabasha. I saw them wandering around for a bit as I walked toward the X.
Other than them, and one guy on a bike who was either an anarkid or a victim of heroin-chic fashion?
Bupkes.
If it rains during the Republican Convention, the streets will be devoid of anything but Republicans.
Saint Paul – unable to balance its budget without getting an eternal subsidy from the parts of the state that aren’t saddled with bills from decades of Tic management – is a perennial financial mess.
The Republican National Convention, coming to town in September, should be a financial windfall for an awful lot of regional – not just Saint Paul – merchants, restauranteurs and hoteliers. Saint Paul’s city government certainly doesn’t mind the extra traffic coming to town, although we know where the Gang of Five’s hearts really are.
But I digress. With the “Gang of Five” in office, the RNC would also seem to be a big ripe suck for a city administration that never saw a tax it didn’t like.
St. Paulicy, as usual, has the story:
The plan is apparently to increase the food and/or drink tax during the time of the RNC convention. While Mayor Coleman’s heart will be in Denver – he realizes there will be a lot of fat cats and big wallets right here in the Capitol City when the RNC rolls into town.
As the city looks at a tight budget, SPicy can imagine how this idea emerged.
“We really don’t like the RNC – but there are plenty of rich Republicans. Like us Democrats, they like to drink too. They like to eat, albeit better than we do. And since there is not a lot in the way of an expanded tax base in Saint Paul – the city really needs to find some more money.”Bingo
St. Paul raises the drink and food tax just for the week of the convention. When the evil Republicans leave – things go back to normal. What’s left behind is free money. It’s clean and easy. No one gets hurt – and the GOP won’t miss the extra ½ percent.
On the one hand, but for a few demonstrably Republican-friendly restauranteurs and bar owners in Saint Paul, I’d be tempted to try to find a way to direct delegates and their money elsewhere in the metro for their dining and lodging needs (and, ironically and hilariously, leave the city’s overtaxed hotels and food to the media and the protesters).
On the other, it’s a great warning about what awaits this nation should the Tics win in November. Everyone who’s not a ward of the state is a target of the state!
The latest talking point among the paranoid left in the Twin Cities is that the Saint Paul Police Department – a union operation in the third-most-liberal city in the nation’s fourth-most-liberal state – is secretly out to brutally squash leftist dissent at this September’s Republican National Convention in Saint Paul.
The local Sorosphere can be expected to, and forgiven for, doing what they’re paid to do – push lefty talking points. And Andy Birkey at the MinMon does his bit, expanding on a bit of lefty hysteria that’s been making the rounds lately:
St. Paul Police Department is requesting 230 Tasers to outfit the all of the department’s officers with the electroshock weapon, Fox 9 News reports. The SPPD will purchase the Tasers with $210,000 collected from drug raids. The St. Paul City Council will have to approve the purchase.
The purchase is expected to arrive in St. Paul just in time for the Republican National Convention prompting media speculation that the weapons are being purchased specifically for the convention. When asked by Fox 9 News whether the police will use the weapon at the convention particularly against protesters, police spokester Tom Walsh said, “Our hope is that no one will have to use any degree of force. If it becomes necessary, will that be one of the tools available to them? I suppose that’s safe to say.”
Now, the conceit among the local fringe-left is that the SPPDs is going to act as a tool of Karl Rove:
We need more of these lethal weapons when the wild and crazy protesters come to exercise their 1st Amendment Right to free speech.
Now, that’s the kind of rubbish we’ve come to expect from the local fringe left – the City government is bending over backwards, if not a little further, to make protesters welcome (in some quarters, more welcome than the delegates themselves). The tasers are for when the “anarkids” – the trust-fund fops that are promising violence in Saint Paul next September – get violent and won’t respond to a regular arrest, but the cops don’t want to over-escalate.
If one assumes that the critics of the SPPD are completely irrational, of course, you might assume that they’re unaware of what tasers are for.
Tasers – used legally – are a step in the escalation to dealing with a violent suspect that needs to be restrained for the public’s and, often, their own safety. They are used when the police need a relatively safe means to subdue and restrain a violent suspect, and simple holds and hand-to-hand techiques won’t work. It is both less violent than other means (of which more in a bit), and vastly less indiscriminate.
So let’s say some of you get your wish, and the SPPD doesn’t have tasers. What then?
Here’s what.
When (not if) someone gets violent, without tasers, the police will have to resort to…:
So if it’s safety you’re concerned about, you should SUPPORT the purchase of the tasers. I’d be willing to chalk the opposition to tasers up to ignorance…
…but underestimating ones’ opponent is a fool’s game.
Insert the obligtatory “I support free speech, and the right of the peaceful protester, bla bla bla” here. And let’s be honest – neither I nor any other Republican is afraid of any of the violence these screeching little weasels are planning, since ANY Republican is an even match for 20 lefties in ANY kind of scrap, rhetorical or otherwise (and this forum is evidence of it).
But let’s not be stupid; there is a significant faction among the demonstrators that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the safety of the protesters. They WANT a riot. They WANT the psychological images of tear gas and grenade launchers and cops in riot gear. They WANT to reap the propaganda bounty of an indiscriminate, violent response to their provocations (as they did with the Critical Mass riot last year).
Tasers enable a measured response to small acts of unreasoning, illegal activity.
And that’s just not crazy enough to suit the demonstrators’ purposes. They want to provoke a massive, polarizing response.
You can practically see the genitals tingling when some of these fops talk about the violence – indeed, as we noted last week, some of their actions seem calculated to provoke panic reactions – the panic that will play into the propaganda plans of those who seem bent on provoking a riot.
I’m sure Andy Birkey doesn’t want that.
Some of the rest of them? Well…
Fact: I support free speech more than anyone in the Twin Cities. Along with being the Twin Cities’ best feminist, it is one of my major superlatives.
So it’s not so much that I oppose this idea…:
True Blue Minnesota is lighting up the night sky with giant Jumbotrons, where we hold the Republicans to their record, let them hang themselves with their own words, show people a better future and do it in a way that DRAWS PEOPLE TO US! True Blue owns the night sky.
…as that I wonder how many Saint Paulites – Republican or Tic – really want anyone “owning” their night sky.
And we will own the national media with it.
They make this sound like it’ll be a conflict.
And this next line grabbed me:
True Blue will also be able to drive what happens on the street by setting the tone and the message.
Giant Jumbotrons setting the tone and the message? Like this? Or, really, this? (Scroll about 2:30 into the clip and tell me you don’t think about exactly what these people are after…)
Oh, well, More of George Soros (*) money well-spent!
* Plural, not singular.
Ask a Saint Paul DFLer about the potential for violent demonstrations at the Convention this fall, and most of them will say “oh, they’re just a lunatic fringe. Mainstream Tics won’t stand for that kind of thing” (not to mention “the rioters are just a strawman”).
If only it were true. I got this from a Saint Paul politics discussion forum:
When considering the feasibility and likelihood of unlawfulness and
property destruction at the RNC this summer, a number of posters here have
presumed that riots are counter-productive to the interests of
protesters, and that the Seattle experience was a failure for those protesting
the WTO. Let’s look at the these presumptions again.Since the WTO debacle in Seattle, there has not been single new
multilateral trade agreement signed between North American or European powers and the Third World, and several attempts of advancing the WTO agenda through the Doha round of talks has failed. In view of this, the
Seattle protests, including the “brick-throwing” tactics, should be seen as
an unqualified success for the organizers of the protests, both lawful
and unlawful, not a failure.Likewise, the civil rights riots following the death of Martin Luther
King are largely credited with providing Washington with a sense of
urgency for reforming and funding the urban renewal and anti-poverty
programs of the 1970’s, such as the Community Development Block Grants
(CDBG), a federal form of Minnesota’s LGA.Brick-throwing, under certain circumstances, does work, particularly
when employed by groups who have few other options for exercising
political power over a given policy question. In light of this, and the
unpopularity and powerlessness many feel regarding the war in Iraq, it seems
pretty reasonable to expect that more radical forms of action will
occur than merely exercising one’s right to free expression.
In other words, “they may be thugs, but they’re our thugs”.
I don’t know how representative the writer is of Tic opinion in Saint Paul – you be the judge, but he appears to be a garden-variety lefty rather than a spittle-flecked radical.
I think – and this is just my opinion – that the majority of DFLers are opposed to the brick-throwers. But I think there are a few, like the writer, who can think of all sorts of obtuse rationalizations – and a bigger minority who’ll look at the convention like a hockey game or a NASCAR race or a Britney Spears appearance, looking for the spectacle. Perhaps they’re wistful for their lost youth forty years ago; perhaps they’re teenagers (literally or emotionally) who love drama. Whatever. A riot, to these people, might be counteproductive – but it’d sure be fun, woonit?
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