Government loves to accrete power unto itself.

Because, say it and its adherents, there are some jobs that government just plain does better.

And in some cases, arguably, they have a good case.  Defense?  Sure.  Courts?  Yep.  Law Enforcement?  Sure, usually.  Public education?  Enh.  Roads?  Well, that’s the way we do it, I guess. Welfare?  Ugh. Economic planning?  Heh.  No.

Now, some believe government just plain does it all better.  Larry Pogemiller’s a great example – as he himself once said, “I think it’s silly to assume that people can spend their own money better than government can”.

Anyway, opinions vary.  But either way, one of the ways government does things is by “eminent domain” – basically, taking private property for the public benefit, whether that benefit is a road (mkay) or a hospital (sure) or…

…well, the projects range all over the place.  Being a government program, it can be used to further pretty much any government agenda.  It’s been used in the Twin Cities to seize the property of businesses in downtown Minneapolis to build the Target headquarters, and around 494 and Penn to make room for Best Buy – because government decided it just plain knew better than the people who were already there.

Anyway – one of the signal events in the history of Eminent Domain was the “Kelo” case, a SCOTUS case decided in 2005.  Pfizer wanted New London, Connecticut’s government to seize some private property to build an office/R’nD facility.

Pfizer won.

Everyone lost.

Brian Garst at Breitbart notes the rest of the story:

The public response was one of outrage. Facing the potential wrath of voters, politicians across the country moved to add new protections against such abusive seizures. But that wasn’t enough to save the homes of the folks in New London, whose property never would be developed. Pfizer, the intended beneficiary of the land theft, walked away years ago from their development plans.

Now, to add new insult to injury, the vacant lot is a dump. Literally.

 

But via » Years Later, Land Seized in Kelo Decision Used for Debris Dump – Big Government.

In 2005, Kelo v. City of New London made eminent domain infamous. The widely reviled Supreme Court ruling gave the go ahead for the city of New London to use eminent domain for taking private property in order that it be given to a private company for “economic development.”

The public response was one of outrage. Facing the potential wrath of voters,  politicians across the country moved to add new protections against such abusive seizures. But that wasn’t enough to save the homes of the folks in New London, whose property never would be developed. Pfizer, the intended beneficiary of the land theft, walked away years ago from their development plans.

It gets worse.  After all that – the legal wrangling, the government arrogance at all levels, the failure of the “devleopment” plan and the evaporation of the promised “economic development”, what happened?

Now, to add new insult to injury, the vacant lot is a dump. Literally.

Following hurricane Irene, the city designated the site as a place to dump storm debris, and citizens can be seen doing just that in this video on the local paper’s website.

Doesn’t that make you feel all warm inside? The Supreme Court reassured us in Kelo that the government orchestrated theft “would be executed pursuant to a “carefully considered” development plan.” What they forgot to mention is that careful consideration from politicians is worth about as much as the city’s new debris dump, which is to say: diddly squat.

It’s a metaphor, really, for most government action; it’s a fiction that government, choked with special interests, bureaucrats motivated toward accreting power and politicians who crave votes, can plan anything better than the invisible hand of the market.

The fact of the matter is that the development of the property was already being “carefully considered” by the folks that owned it, as is the case for all privately held property, and in their careful consideration they wanted to keep living on it. The lesson of Kelo is not merely on the illusory nature of our property rights. It’s also about the abject failure that is central planning, and the inability of political forces to better plan economic activity than the private sector.

Senator Roger Chamberlain writes:

I assume all you have heard Jimmy Hoffa’s comments regarding 90% of Americans who are not in the union.

My humble observation:

1. Hoffas comments, included – “War on working people”, “We’re your soldiers”, “Fight” and of course referred to Americans who don’t share his opinions as “Son’s of a bitches”

2. The President said nothing

3. The press has said little to nothing

And pick your lefty pundit – they’re either strenuously avoiding the subject, or telling themselves it’s the GOP’s problem (if I could have a nickel for every lefty tweet I read that was some variation of “ReTHUGlicons are weting teh pants over Hoffa! LOLZ”, I could retire early).

4. Our opponents agenda should be clear

5. Our opponents tactics, what they intend to do, should be crystal clear. It should no longer be a mystery to anyone.

6. We should make sure others have no illusions about the challenges we face

The biggest challenge we face?  We – the thinking, responsible Americans who make this country actually work – have to share a country with a movement whose intellectual and moral leaders are Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Espinosa.

Jimmy Hoffa promises “war” against Republicans:.

And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? Theyve got a war, they got a war with us and theres only going to be one winner.

It was at an Obama event, no less.

Its going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. Were going to win that war,” Jimmy Hoffa said to a heavily union crowd.”President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Lets take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” Hoffa added.

OK, all you libs who feigned (good lord, I hope it was feigned) outrage over the non-existant threats from the Tea Party (or the occasional rant from insignificant unknown alleged Tea Partiers) and Sarah Palin’s out-of-context crosshairs; this is one of the leaders of your mainstream.

Allahpundit notes that on the one hand, it’s just stupid trash talk, the kind of thing Teamsters leaders (named Hoffa) always do with their rank and file around.  But…

…so filthy was the the left’s demagoguery of the right’s “tone” after the Giffords shooting that this sort of verbal excess by one of their own will never, ever be allowed to pass again without their faces being ground in it. So here you go. Start grinding, please.

So whatdya say, lefties?  After the Giffords shooting, you all ran blubbering into the streets with the victorian vapours over Palin’s “crosshairs” map, and her “I’m reloading” remarks.

I’m sure you’ll leap to condemn this, right?

Or is it “war” you want?

Because I know that word doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Melson is out.  Melson Mini-Melson is in.

After overseeing “Operation Gunrunner” – an operation fully intended to frame the law-abiding gun dealer and gun-owner for crime in Mexico by sending straw buyers in to gun stores in the Southwest, and allowing the guns to drop straight into the Mexican drug cartels’ hands, purely to give the President political leverage on the gun issue, which went terribly awry, contributing to the deaths of many Mexicans and some Americans – Melson was thrown under the bus yesterday, and replaced by B. Todd Jones (“Can I call you B?”), who is…

…well…

According to Senator Charles Grassley’s June 15, 2011 congressional testimony attachment 4, the chair of AGAC (Jones) was a member of the Southwest Border Strategy Group and attended at least one briefing on Fast and Furious in October 2009.

He appears to be complicit in the coverup, just like Melson.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Look for a concerted media campaign to distance the Administration – which supported the scam, and was in on it, and had been setting the stage for using the fallout from the operation to benefit the Administration and attack the Second Amendment movement since the beginning – from the whooooole thing.

Yesterday, we reported that labor leaders in Wausau, Wisconsin had disinvited Republican politicians from participating in the Labor Day parade, because they’d sided with Scott Walker (and that a Minnesota politician had more or less joined in).

Today, Wausau’s mayor says if they wanna play, they gotta pay:.

“This is not a political rally, it’s a parade, for God’s sake,” [Wausau Mayor Jim] Tipple said, noting that taxpayer money is used by the city to pay for staging the event. Tipple’s office is nonpartisan, and he claims no affiliation with either political party.

He said the annual cost of the parade, including insurance, setting up and taking down a stage, and police personnel, runs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 each year.

The Republican-backed collective bargaining limits made Wisconsin the center of a battle over union power this year.

I’m not sure if the various public employee unions responded “What?  We spend taxpayer money on our own interests all the time!”, but I’m sure it came up…

With the news that organizers of a “Labor Day” parade have disinvited Republican elected officials in Wisconsin….:

Organizers of the Labor Day parade in Wausau say Republican lawmakers aren’t welcome in this year’s event…Council president Randy Radtke says they choose not to invite elected officials who have “openly attacked worker’s rights”…Republican Rep. Sean Duffy’s office received notice from parade organizers this week that no Republicans would be invited to walk in the parade. Duffy’s chief of staff, Brandon Moody, tells WAOW-TV the congressman was hoping differences could be set aside for the family-friendly event.

…I have to wonder – is this the left’s latest Borg-hive meme?  That Labor Day is for people who suck up to “Labor?”

Could be – the meme is popping up in Minnesota, too.  Yesterday, Representative Carly Melin – a former Hamline U law student whom the DFL quickly transplanted from St. Paul to Tony Sertich’s old district up on the Range at the last possible second to run as the DFL’s anointed candidate, but don’t you dare call her a carpetbagger – wrote on Twitter yesterday…:

Will #mnleg GOP members who attacked collective bargaining rights all session be celebrating Labor Day? Do they know the history? #unions

Hm.  So “Labor Day” is not so much for union people, but for people who are compliant with Big Labor’s political agenda?

Perhaps it’s time to abolish the Labor Day holiday.  Stop me if I’m wrong, but national holidays are for the nation – everyone – and not just the glorification of special interest groups.

Look – unlike most DFLers, I’ve been a union member.  And unlike most of them, I know the history of the holiday; Labor Day was passed by Grover Cleveland and Congress in 1894 to assuage unionist anger after a series of violent strikes, at a time when they served a very legitimate purpose in the market – to see that workers were paid, and could work without getting killed or maimed on the job.

Today, organized labor largely exists to inveigle government to keep feeding an undisturbed stream of entitlements to generally well-to-do government employees.

Or if we don’t abolish the holiday, maybe we should change the name.  Call it “You Shall Work ‘Til You’re 70 So We Can Retire At 55” Day.  Or, less pointedly, “Back To School Day”, or “Beginning of Football Season Day”, or maybe a fall equinox party with people dancing around an aluminum pole for all I care.  The point being if the Wisconsin unions and Carly Melin want to use a federal and state holiday to enforce compliance with the unions’ demands, then maybe it shouldn’t be a federal and state holiday at all .

I’d say call it “Entrepreneur Day”, but nobody would get the day off…

Unions in Milwaukee protest “Scott Walker”…

…and, at least as much, the presence of a “Choice School” – a school that accepts refugees from Milwaukee’s dysfunctional school system.  The unions have determined that these schools are a threat – sort of like cancer considers chemotherapy a “threat”.

And the protests? Well, here  you go.

Compare the behavior of the protesters with that of the students and the school staff.  I love the guy with the moldy red beard at about 1:48 and again at 2:40 – “why are you in our neighborhood?”

The only logical conclusion?  Looking at the overwhelmingly black students, and the almost-completely middle-class white protesters, it’s clear that the only reason to oppose “Choice Schools” is racism.

Last week’s armed Federal commando raid on Gibson Guitars, over imported rosewood, left a couple of intersting questions (with emphasis bolded):

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.

So the Feds are now in the business of enforcing a law that India barely enforces?

No, really:

The Gibson facility wasn’t raided over allegations of tax evasion, charges of embezzlement, or even something as drab as child labor. Not even close. It was raided over what the DOJ deems an inability to follow a vague domestic trade law in India (one that apparently the Indian government didn’t seem too concerned about enforcing) regarding a specific type of wood. Not illegal wood, just wood with obscenely specific procedural guidelines.

So why would the government do this?

Putting aside the presumably misguided motivation to enforce another sovereign nation’s laws, why would a homegrown American company be the target of the Department of Justice in the first place?

It’s worth pointing out that Henry E. Juszkiewicz, Gibson’s Chief Executive Officer, is a donor to a couple of Republican politicians. According to the Open Secrets database, Juszkiewicz donated $2000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN07) last year, as well as $1500 each to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Juszkiewicz also has donated $10,000 to the Consumer Electronics Association, a PAC that contributed $92.5k to Republican candidates last year, as opposed to $72k to Democrats. (The CEA did, however, contribute more to Democrats in the 2008 election cycle.)

Hm.

I am a guitar player – and I know that Gibson is hardly the only company to build guitars out of Indian rosewood.  Indeed, it’s prized throughout the business.

Could the reason be…politics?

One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.” In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.

So there you go.

Stand with Gibson: They have the Law on their side, just not the government.

I’m a life-long Fender guy – but I’m going to save up for a Gibson next.  And I’m going to make sure a picture of me buying it goes to Barack Freaking Obama.

What are the big lessons of this story?

The Department of Justice is under fire for taking the bold step of sending armed agents into the factories of Gibson Guitar in Nashville and Memphis to seize what it believes to be illegal wood.

Via press release from Gibson: “The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

The story – by Ben Howe at RedState – notes that this isn’t the first time Gibson has been raided by “federal agents with automatic weapons” over abstruse definitions of what wood is legal.

Bear in mind that the wood in question in both raids was certified legal by an industry self-regulation group. No matter; in come the automatic weapons and the pencil-necked Assistant US Attorneys.

So the lessons are what?

1. We Have Too Many Regulations: Our bureaucracy has metastasized far beyond any level needed to ensure health and safety and adherence to rational laws.  It exists, like most Campaign Finance Boards and gun laws, to create criminals where there were none before.   This seems to be the case here; the Feds haven’t proved their case from the last raid, a few years back, whose results are still being knocked around in federal court.  This raid seems, to Howe, to be a way of stalling a defeat in the first case.
2. We Have Too Many Regulators: They have to justify their existence somehow. More than that, they need to guard their turf; the wood industry, especially as re the music industry, has been regulating itself; how many customer bases are as PC as musicians (outside country-western, anyway)?
3. The Feds Have Too Many Gun and SWAT Teams:  They sent a SWAT team to raid a guitar factory.  Not a crack house.  Not a Zeta stronghold in the Arizona mountains (perish the freaking though).  This is not a surprise, really; ever since the Clinton Administration, the federal government has been arming the bureaucracy; where once the Feds would depend on local SWAT teams to provide the armed muscle for the rare events it was needed, today that Feds have thousands of armed agents outside the FBI and the Marshalls, to say nothing of the military.  Where once the FBI might have something akin to a SWAT team, today the Department of Customs, the Marshalls, even the Department of Education have their own heavily-armed paramilitary units.   I would joke that the National Endowment for the Humanities has a SWAT team – but I’m afraid that someone would chime in with a link to a story about NEH commandos fast-roping in from a helicopter to serve a no-knock summons.

..that the government and left (pardon the redundancy) consider me, Mitch Berg, mild-mannered midwestern schlump and father of two, a “terrorist” these days.

• I am a bitter, gun-clinging Jebus freak: Janet Napolitano has already told the police to be looking out for us.
• I’m a Second Amendment activist: Because Goddess knows the nation’s law-abiding gun owners are getting ready to start mowing down the innocent.
• Pro-life!: Fear me, oh innocent!
• Pro-limited government: I’m a Tenther!  I could start blowing things up to educate people about the reality of enumerated powers!

That’s “terrorist” – as in “one who uses terror to cow people into accepting his agenda”.

Who knew?

When government makes its’ mission to be more onerous to the law-abiding than to the enemy, we are all the enemy.

Minnesota is heading for a battle over redistricting that may just make the just-passed budget battle look like a stroll in the park.

And, just like with every such battle lately in Minnesota, there is at least one “non-partisan” non-profit claiming to have the interests of average, non-affiliated Minnesotans at heart.  There are a couple of reasons for this; for starters, the Minnesota DFL is a largely impotent organization;

In the 2010 elections, of course, it was “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” and a small circle of other groups – “The 2010 Fund”  – a group that funnelled millions of dollars from unions, the Dayton family, and their cronies to try to win the election for Mark Dayton (largely by running a toxic sleaze campaign).  Their power in “progressive” circles is remarkable; Governor Dayton has brought a fair number of ABM’s staffers to work in his office; the former head of the “2010 Fund”, Ken Martin, now runs the DFL.

And for the redistricting battle?  The new astroturf group is “Draw The Line”, an organization that spans several states where the Democrats are fighting for their organizational lives, including Minnesota.

So who’s behind “Draw the Line?”  And what are they after – and by “they”, I don’t mean “Draw The Line”, so much as the people behind them?

More next week here on Shot In The Dark.

Governor Dayton engineered the shutdown, specifically to cause as much pain as possible, under the command of his various union benefactors.

Andy Post ad MDE has the smoking gun:

New communications obtained by Minnesota Democrats Exposed today offer further proof the longest and largest state government shutdown in history was plotted out between Gov. Dayton and union leaders well in advance. The decision to shutdown was very much a political calculation made by the Administration at the hands of AFSCME.

A local president sent the following letter to his members to report on the results of the AFSCME Minnesota Council 5 CPC meeting in which the results of the shutdown were discussed. Here’s some of the letter:

If you haven’t read the whole thing, you should.

And then file it all away for November of 2012, and then 2014.

Wisconsin Senate candidate Shelly Moore (D-Trotsky):

…and Dwight Schrute giving a speech…:

…written by Mussolini.

Compare and contrast.

I just finished watching former governor – as in, “not the governor anymore” – Arne Carlson on Channel 11’s morning show.  The former – as in, “hasn’t been elected in 17 years” – governor was promoting his “independent” budget commission.

I didn’t hear much; I was too busy yelling at the TV.  Having that smug, sanctimonous fop back on the TV still makes my wallet hurt.

But I do recall that his little spiel was clogged with references to “the way we used to do things in Minnesota”; code for “parties working together”.  As in “cooperation among elected officials, with no “extremists” hijacking the process to their ends”.

So what do we have here in Minnesota?

A legislative branch whose overwhelming majority agrees on a budget is being held up…

…by the Governor.

Is that the sort of “cooperation” that Carlson is talking about?

Or are his scruples purely partisan?

Minnesota politicans – DFLers all – have blessed the rest of us with three quotes that sum up the difference between conservative and “progressive” politics – and, indeed, the evil of progressivism – more concisely and starkly than all of the Poli Sci PhDs in the world have done through all of history.

Back in 2007, it was Saint Paul DFL Senator Cy Thao, who said “When you guys win, you get to keep your money.  When we win, we take your money!”.

In 2009?  Larry Pogemiller, who said “I think it’s silly to assume people can spend their own money better than government can”.

Both of these statements can be read as “politicians slipping up and telling the truth”; they’r funny, as far as that goes.

But both statements also point out what is so profoundly wrong with “progressive” politics; it exists by not only sponging off the labor of others, but by trying to convince them that being sponged is in and of itself noble.

And now we have a third.  Last Sunday, on the Esme Murphy show, Elliot Seid  – the capo for the Twin Cities Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said “We don’t have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem!”.

In other words, everything that everyone earns in this state should be suject to being appropriated, until government’s appetites are met. Maybe exceeded just a bit, just to be sure.

The quote has an inside shot of winning this year’s Charles Townsend award.

And it, along with Thao and Pogemiller’s quotes, should be printed up on T-shirts by the GOP and handed out at the fair this summer.

…last winter?  After Congresswoman Giffords was shot, and the entire American Left was wetting its pants about the most oblique possible references to “violent rhetoric” and “the degredation in tone?”

Ryan Lyk of the Minnesota College Republicans snapped this shot – of someone in a Minnesota Association of Professional Employees T-shirt – at the demonstrations around the Minnesota State Capitol last night.

Ryan Lyk has his account of the evening over at the MNCR’s blog.

A little later, a group of individuals in wheelchairs started yelling at us and telling us that we were “killing” disabled, homeless, and sick people. The police shut them down, but it just got worse from there. A little while later, a man came up to us and said “history will repeat itself and all of your heads will be cut off.”

The unions are pretty classy, aren’t they?

This was really just the tip of the iceberg. We had people poking our eyes with umbrellas, having their 8 year old children trying to cover up our signs, trying to push us and stifle our free speech, flicking us off, cussing at us, antagonizing us, harassing us… the list goes on and on.

What is truly important, though, is that throughout the entire night, we stood strong and stayed above the fray. We never worked to stifle the oppositions free speech, we never threatened them, and we were never disrespectful.

Of course, to plenty on the left, conservatives’ existence is taken as a sign of “disrespect”.  That was certainly the vibe out at the Capitol last night.

I went down to the Capitol last night to see what was going on.

I walked up John Ireland past the State Office Building, and saw people – many if not most of them wearing identical T-shirts from the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees – gathering in knots and clots around the Mall, many carrying pre-printed signs (“Tax the top 2%!” and the like).   It was as clear as it ever is; it takes a lot of money to show what a bunch of working stiffs they are.

I found a group of College Republicans gathered near the top, stage left (to the audience’s right).  They assembled with their handmade signs fairly early in the evening.  One of them – Ryan Lyk, one of their leaders and a long-time Twitter correspondent of mine – related a story; one of the “protesters” had walked up to them just before I arrived, and said (in and among a rambling discourse) that he’d “cut the heads off” the College Republicans.  Then he’d apparently scampered away; they always, always do, I noted.  The CRs reported the “man” to the police, but nothing more came of it.

As I was discussing that incident, I noticed a guy – short, mid-forty-something, in a sleeveless “Everlast” T-shirt – standing in front of the CRs, talking aggressively, ostentatiously taking cell phone calls and talking loudly about “We’re about to start it up with these people”.  Then, he took his cell cam, turned around, and snapped a picture of one of the College Republicans’ women’s butts as she was facing up the stairs.  From very close range.

Let’s get this straight; he walked up behind a teenage girl and snapped a close-up of her ass.

About this time, I flipped on my camera’s video function – catching him just as he checked out his work, slouching down the steps toward the rest of the crowd.   Then he turned and noticed me taping him.  He flipped me two middle fingers.  “Did you get that?”, he gurgled, laughing an addled-sounding laugh.  I kept on taping; he walked up the steps, trying to look intimidating; he got directly in my face put his cell phone maybe two inches from my face, and snapped a cell shot.  He reeked of alcohol.   He walked away, looking like every loudmouth aggressive drunk looks when they’re prancing about the pool tables at the bar, puffed up and aggressive and daring someone to cross ’em, bellowing about the picture he’d taken.

Suffice to say, we reported him to the cops too.

There was another guy – mid-forties, with that “academic” look about him, who wandered up to the CRs and started trying to pick an argument.   He brought up tuition costs – and while I went there intending mostly to be a fly on the wall, photographing and videotaping, I had to join in.  “Why do you think tuition is so high?”

He stared into my camera.

I explained a little basic economics; how if you pour money into the market for a good or service that is in limited supply – like seats at the U – the prices will rise.

He stared some more.

“What do you think about that?”

“Don’t photograph me.  My face is copyrighted”.

I hadn’t heard that one before.  “You’re in a public place…”, I responded.

“Could you please not photograph me?”

And that was the best argument I heard from any of them all night – or, truth be told, from almost any liberal, on any subject, ever.  But I digress.

At any rate – before long, dozens of people in MAPE T-shirts crowded around the dozen or so CRs.

A young woman with a guitar was meandering about the place; while I placed her (correctly) as a “progressive”, she actually spent nearly as much time arguing with the union members who were, by this time, crowding around the CRs, alternately trying to obscure the view of their signs and, occasionally, to heckle them.

Photo courtesy Kate Paul

She actually wanted to know what it was that made people be Republicans.  I gently corrected her – I’m a conservative – but in all my years of being a hate-choked agitator, I can’t say as I’ve ever been asked to explain that, impromptu.  I told her I’d grown up very liberal; that Reagan’s prosperity was huge, and that his ending of the cold war was bigger still, and since I’ve been working in the real world I’ve found absolutely nothing about “progressive” ideology that makes any sense.

The conversation got harder and harder to have – the chanting around us was getting pretty intense.  The T-Shirt Crowd were chanting loudly.  And some of them seemed genuinely offended by the presence of the CRs on the Capitol steps.   One guy – doughy, fiftysomething, with long, stringy, frizzy gray hair in dire need of a comb – kept bellowing “why don’t you all get jobs!”.  I did at one point append “…so you can work ’til you’re 75 so he can retire at 55”.  But I think it got lost in the din.

I had to leave around 10:30.  It was getting dark out, and I had to be up at 5AM.  Laura Gatz from Princess Politics showed up a little later, and snapped this photo of the Capitol lights shutting off:

Photo courtesy Laura Gatz

Which, if you’re not from St. Paul, you should know never happens; the Capitol is always lit.

I’ll upload photos and video when I get some free time here…

A “wave” of gun violence prompts a Philadelphia ‘burb to send the entire city to time-to-think:

Darby Borough, Delaware County is under a State of Emergency due to a recent uptick of gun violence.

Five shootings in three days led to the announcement Friday night.

Mayor Helen Thomas [heh] announced the state of emergency telling residents the gun violence had to stop.

“I Mayor Helen R Thomas declare a state of emergency.”

Officials say the shootings were not fatal and they seem unrelated, but something had to be done to curb the violence.

And that answer; keep the law-abiding majority penned up in their houses.

An 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew is in effect for adults and juveniles for at least 10 days.

Anyone outside during that time can be stopped and questioned by police, though Police Chief Bob Smythe says they’re more concerned about groups loitering or causing trouble.

“You’re in a group of more than three people and you are causing a disturbance. You’re going to be stopped and you’re going to be cited,” says Smythe.

A larger police presence is expected on the streets and Mayor Thomas says after the 10 days, officials will re-evaluate and go from there.

Hopefully they’ll evaluate the crushing ridicule (that they certainly deserve) that they get for adopting a banana-republic solution to a law-enforcement problem.

On Tuesday, I took a rare chance to listen  to the Dennis Prager show.  I don’t get out much over the mid-day, so it was fun.

He started talking about San Francisco’s probably-upcoming ban on pets. I expected him to bag on it.

He didn’t. According to Prager, it’s a good idea.

And by the time he got done talking, I agreed.

Think about it; San Francisco’s ban on pets follows closely follows moves to ban circumcision, McDonalds Happy Meals, Junior ROTC and for all I know having more than one child are a spectacular lesson in what “progressivism” really means.

The old joke is that under liberalism, everything that isn’t mandatory is banned- and San Francisco is getting closer and closer to it every day.

And what a wonderful lesson for people  – having an object lesson in the inevitable end-result of progressivism right there for all to see.

It’s like a lab experiment – for everyone!

Ozzie envirofascist calls for tattoing “deniers”:

Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.

Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ”Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?”

But he has a conscience:

On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy.

Did I say “conscience”?  I meant “rudimentary PR savvy”.

“Progressives” – or at least, way too many of them – hate the free and open interchange of ideas.

Over on this thread at MinnPost on the cancellation of “Sons of Liberty” on AM1280, a commenter sniffed “Freedom of speech has been stretched to the limit by “Patriot” radio”.  And I’d love to ask – what are the “limits” of free speech?   (And, by the way – for all of you who got the vapors over Brad Dean’s radio show or prayer in the house – are you OK with lefty host Randi Rhodes repeatedly calling for then-President Bush’s murder?  Or with Ed Schultz calling his talk-radio better Laura Ingraham a “slut”?  Just curious).

To many progressives, apparently, the limit is “whatever challenges what I believe“; students at Georgetown turned out to sign a (staged) petition to censor conservative websites:

“The undersigned hereby adamantly demand that the United States government shut down right wing hate sites. The hate speech propagated by sites like the Drudge Report, Hot Air, Instapundit, Big Government, and others must not be allowed to corrupt our political discourse any longer. These sites are dangerous not only to truth and freedom but also to our society as a whole. BAN THEM NOW!”

This is at Georgetown, mind you – incubator for our nation’s putative future elites.  And it’s not pretty; it might be time to look into getting some new “elites”.

Ed Morrissey – whose site was specifically targeted in the petition – quotes some of the new power generation:

“There has to be some control,” one young woman says. “I mean, freedom of speech is good, but, there is a certain modicum of control — I mean, look at the Tea Party.” Yeah, look at that freedom of assembly and freedom of political speech that garnered so much support that Republicans won more new seats in a midterm election than either party had in 72 years. We have to control that kind of thing! I particularly liked the one woman who signed the petition because sites like ours “cause a lot of debate.” Oh, heavens, no! Not debate! Why, then one might have to actually pay attention and think for one’s self!

Most common reaction to the question, “What do you think of the First Amendment?” was “I think it’s great, but ….” Maybe Georgetown should consider remedial Civics and American History classes.

I’d say Georgetown, and much of the public education bureaucracy, is thinking “Mission Accomplished” right about now.

It’s nothing new, of course.  Back in 1986, on my old graveyard-shift show on KSTP, I interviewed some members of “Women Against Military Madness” after their leader, Polly Mann, called for censorship of media that didn’t promote the “peace at any price” line.  With a straight face.

Mark Dayton, from a bit on the TV news yesterday, on his veto of the GOP’s budget bills:

“The problem…apparently…seems to lie with some of the extreme right wing members, especially the new ones, who don’t seem to know how government works”.

So Tom Bakk’s stupid remark about the GOP freshmen not being part of the government club…

…is the official DFL party line?

Along with the whole “everyone who opposes Dayton is an “extremist”” schtick?

Robert Espinosa – who, to the best of my knowledge, has never said or done anything that didn’t start with a false pretense – is the voice of today’s DFL.

Go for it, DFL.  Embrace your inner, disingenous, narcissistic, solopsistic, childish id. You’re not fooling anyone.

…this is how it’s done!

3M had its shareholders meeting yesterday.  Now, you may recall during last year’s Gubernatorial race when Target Corporation donated $150K to “MN Forward”, a pro-business advocacy group.  Notwithstanding the fact that Target is historically among the most gay-friendly companies in one of the most gay-friendly cities in the country, “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” – an astroturf group funded by unions and members, ex-members and friends of the Dayton family – ran an epic toxic sleaze campaign calling Target “anti-gay”, because MN Forward supported Tom Emmer, who had supported a version of the same Marriage Amendment that will likely be on the ballot in 2012.  It was a classic disinformation campaign – a corporate version of “when did you stop beating your wife”.

It didn’t really succeed commercially (Target’s stock tracked pretty closely with other mid-market retailers) or politically.  But it did cow Target into a pusillanimous reaction; the company instituted new controls on their political donations, despite the fact that outside the social media and the lefty echo chamber, the protest was much ado about nothing.

By the opposite token, 3M CEO George Buckley shows how it should be done:

Stockholders sided with 3M’s board and defeated a proposal seeking more accountability on political contributions and another asking the company to reevaluate its position on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board. The company did not provide vote totals. Both proposals were aimed at 3M’s support of conservative causes, including its $100,000 contribution last year to MN Forward, a group that supported Republican Tom Emmer in the governor’s race.

Buckley knows how to call “astroturf” when he sees it:

“I do compliment Macalester College on having 427 students come and ask questions today,” said Buckley, responding to a question on the first shareholder proposal, co-sponsored by Trillium Asset Management and Walden Asset Management, two Boston-based investment firms.

It was a good-natured exaggeration, although it betrayed a certain weariness on Buckley’s part. About 10 people in the crowd of 400 at St. Paul’s River Centre, including students and faculty members from Macalester and Carleton College, spoke as Walden proxies. In slightly differing ways, they asked Buckley to explain why 3M chose to support Emmer, whose stand against gay rights became a campaign issue. A $150,000 contribution to MN Forward by Target Corp. sparked a store boycott, and the retailer changed its policies on political contributions in February.

As a side issue – how long will the Twin Cities media keep pretending that “Trillium Asset Managment” and “Walden Asset Management” are real companies?   Because they are not.  They are to “investment” what the Minnesota Independent is to “news”; a potemkin front designed more for propaganda than any of its purported stated purposes.

Buckley answered all the questions basically the same way: That 3M doesn’t take social issues into account when deciding which candidates to support and that it had backed Emmer because of his pro-business stance. Buckley also defended 3M’s continued presence on the U.S. Chamber board, something one speaker at the meeting criticized because of the group’s opposition to some environmental protection laws and the health care reform bill. Buckley said staying involved with the Chamber is one way to make 3M’s voice heard in the organization.

So kudos to George Buckley. It’s nice to know we still have some CEOs who can be executives out there…

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Two jerks yelling and waving signs about animal rights outside your store for half an hour, scaring away customers and reminding you they know where you live and where your family lives: protected by the First Amendment.

A bunch of people yelling and waving signs protesting government gay rights policy outside your soldier-son’s funeral: protected by the First Amendment.

A mob of union thugs yelling and waving signs protesting economic policy outside your home while your kids are home alone: protected by the First Amendment.

Yes, this is what Jefferson and Madison had in mind for a civilized society, I’m certain of it.

I’m pretty sure Jefferson and Madison knew that democracy had a downside, and that it could withstand having one.

Of course, I’m not sure they foresaw how stupid some Americans would get…