Obamacare won’t raise taxes on the middle class!

Just on big bad businesses, usually owned by “the 1%”!

And they’ll just eat those taxes, right?

Well, no – in a number of senses, you will.

It’s been my contention for a while now that in most places – certainly anyplace that isn’t steeped in lefty koolaid – Barack Obama is going to have coat-tails like one of those women’s beach volleyball uniforms.

It’s been a contention.

Evidence?

It’s the DFL booth at the Dakota County Fair.

Where’s the Obama sign?

It may be the only consistent line of substantive defense of his record that Barack Obama has come up with in almost four years; “it’s Bush’s fault!”.

And according to a Fed economist, it may not be true.

This is from the Tony Hernandez campaign website:

Want to make a splash in the Fourth CD?

Come out to wave signs for Tony in Saint Paul this afternoon!

• When: Tuesday August 7th, 2012 4:00-5:30pm
• Where: Meet at Mackubin & Concordia at 4:00pm
• What: Hernandez for U.S. Congress Flash Rally

It’s sort of during the work day, but I may just try to be there.

This one pretty much explains it all:

That may be Paul Krugman sitting on the lead cart, bellowing “You really aren’t working as hard as we are!”.

“It was a bitchy endorsement”.

That’s what a conservative female friend of mine described the Strib’s “endorsement” of Karin Housley (over Eric Langness) in the SD39 race.

It was an apt description:

Housley, 48, outclasses Langness, 34, and gets our nod, but it’s not an enthusiastic one. The Realtor and radio talk-show host, married to 21-year NHL star and Stillwater hockey coach Phil Housley, is making her second bid for the state Senate. She lost narrowly in 2010 to DFL Sen. Katie Sieben in pre-redistricting District 57.

Years of interest in legislative service should have led Housley to bone up on state issues. Her confession that she hasn’t analyzed the state budget, and her claim that “there’s waste across the board,” might be acceptable from a first-time candidate. They’re troubling the second time around.

Although not “troubling” enough for the Strib to similarly snif about many, many DFLers they endorse notwithstanding much genuine “ignorance” (or, as real people call it, “focusing on priorities”).

Still, we see more potential in Housley than in Langness, director of career services for Anthem College. He’s a former Forest Lake School Board member whose efforts to cut school spending led to his defeat for reelection in 2009.

The message: “at least we don’t know that Housley is one of those big bad conservatives”.

We did say “bitchy”, right?

District 39 isn’t in the habit of sending DFLers to the Legislature. But voters who share our concerns about the GOP contenders should know that former state Rep. Julie Bunn — a Stanford University Ph.D. economist and former Macalester College professor — is the DFL candidate on the November ballot. She warrants their consideration.

“We interrupt this primary endorsement to provide a free, fawning, foot-sniffing ad for a DFLer wannabe-career-politician who’s not running in the primary”.

I’m always amazed that Strib writers and editors are so nonplussed that anyone could accuse them of systematic bias.

The Strib is starting its endorsement season for next week’s primaries.

Before we get to that, let’s establish three things:

1. The Strib “Editorial Board” is once, always and forever in the bag for the DFL.  They will do whatever it takes to see that either the DFL gets elected – and failing that, to try to ensure that any Republicans who do get into office are content to cause the DFL as little trouble as possible
2. Berg’s 11th Law Is iron-clad and all-encompassing.  The law – listed here – says “The conservative liberals “respect” for their “conservative principles” will the the one that has the least chance of ever getting elected“.  Beyond that, we need to consult the “Huckabee Corollary to Berg’s 11th Law”, which states that “the Republican that the media covers most intensively before the nomination for any office will be the one that the liberals know they have the best chance of beating after the nomination, and/or will most cripple the GOP if nominated.
3. Buckley Was Right.  Conservatives should elect the most conservative candidate that can win.

Minnesota has long been able to count on the Lake Minnetonka area to send thoughtful, pragmatic Republican leaders to the state Senate. Gen Olson, who is retiring after 30 years, and George Pillsbury before her fit that description.

…on T-shirts and lawn signs to rile up the conservative base.   When the Strib calls someone “thoughtful” and “pragmatic”, they mean “more willing than the average Republican to go along with the DFL to get along”.  As some of us call them, “Sturdevant Republicans” – Republicans who’d rather get the Strib’s seal of approval than stand up for the principles the conservative Republican base supports.

The Strib “Editorial Board”, in a piece that reeks of Lori Sturdevant’s authorship, endorsed Connie Doepke in the Senate primary.

Now, I have friends and people whose opinion I respect who are supporting Connie Doepke.  Some have told me offline that I’m selling her conservatism short.  I hear those objections – and raise them the Freedom Club’s enthusiastic demurral, and her in-the-bag-for-the-education-lobby status, and her stadium vote.   Any of all of which might be forgiveable, if no better alternative was available.  We’ll come back to that.

I don’t live in SD33, but I support Dave Osmek, to whom the Strib gives criminally short shrift:

It’s a disappointing commentary on the west-metro Republican Party that Doepke, 66, was passed over for party endorsement. It went instead to David Osmek, 47, a project manager for United Health Group and a budget hawk during 10 years on the Mound City Council.

The Strib hates people like Dave Osmek, because they prove that conservatism works.  Osmek, along with the sitting conservative city council and mayor, have weaned the city off of the state’s blessed “Local Government Aid”, while keeping the government functioning well and helping the region prosper.

And why the hell would the Strib wanna promote that?

But let’s cut to the chase, here; I’m going to add some emphasis:

Among other things, Osmek faults Doepke for supporting the Vikings stadium bill; for willingness to require Amazon to collect state sales taxes on Minnesotans’ purchases, as Minnesota-based retailers must; and for accepting the Outstanding Legislator of the Year Award from the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, which he notes gave a similar award to DFL Gov. Mark Dayton.

Doepke can hold her head high for her position on all those matters.

Oh, can she, then?

Well, that settles it!

No, the hell it does.  Why can she “hold her head high” on these?  What makes any of these good policy or good recommendations for office?

Well, we know why; the AMSD is a constant, reliable shill for the DFL’s priorities.  Her vote on internet commerce taxes carried the DFL’s water.  And the Strib desperately needed the stadium; not just any stadium, but one on the east end of Downtown Minneapolis.   Was there a quid pro quo – “give us a vote, and we’ll give you an endorsement”?  I don’t know, and I’m not going to suggest there was – but if there were, how would Doepke’s behavior on the stadium issue have been any different?

Buckley said “elect the most conservative candidate that can win”.  Dave Osmek can and will win if he gets on the ballot.  And he’ll bring a solid budget-hawk voice to the Capitol, to backstop the redoubtable former Freshmen that will be returning as sophomores this winter – the Tea Party class that the Strib ˆso deeply hates, all obstreporous and principled and not giving a rat’s ass about Elmer Anderson and Arnie Carlson’s legacies of worthless, spendthrift accomodation.

And the Strib will fight that with all they have.

I’m a volunteer for the Tony Hernandez for Congress campaign.  I’m doing some communications work for the GOP-endorsed candidate in CD4 – the usual, nitty-gritty stuff that are the blocking and tackling of the communication effort behind any local grassroots campaign.

As part of the “job” (no, I don’t get paid), I’ll be writing about Betty McCollum.

Long-time readers of this blog know that that is something I do plenty of anyway.  There won’t be much change.

So to sum up:  I’ll be doing what I normally do for free on my own, for free for the Hernandez campaign.  While I don’t get paid, I still find it deeply unethical for bloggers to blog on behalf of campaigns and not disclose the fact.

Consider yourselves disclosed.

The latest BLS statistics are out.  The media are portraying this as a mild win for the Administration.

It’s not

The unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3% – which is about .3% higher than the peak “The One” promised before unleashing Porkulus.

But worse than that?  The Labor Force Participation Rate, which this past April was the lowest it’d been in thirty years (68.6%) before ticking up in May and June, dropped another tenth to 68.7%.  That’s a good chunk of the reason the unemployment rate held as steady as it did – people left the workforce.

What that means, if you remove the unemployment rate from the participation rate, is that 58.41% of the workforce is working.  That is…:

• 2.16% (3.6 million people) worse than when Obama took office in January of 2009.
• Two and a half points – 3.7 million or so – lower than George W. Bush’s worst record, and 5.3% lower than Bush’s peak (that’s over seven million jobs)
• Almost a tenth of a power lower than when unemployment “peaked” at 10%, in October of 2009
• 4.2% – thats 6.3 million jobs – lower than the nadir of the 9/11 Recession.

Put another way?  It’s been three years since more than 59% of the American people were working.

How long can economy sustain itself with less than three out of five people working?

Job numbers tomorrow from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last month’s unemployment rate was “only” 8.2% – with a workforce particpation rate of 63.8%, yielding an overall employment rate or 58.57%

So given that unemployment claims are rising again, place your bets.  What will be tomorrow’s:

• Unemployment
• Workforce participation
• Employment (that’s the workforce less the unemployment rate)

Place your predictions for any or all of the above.  Winner gets…well, mad props.

My bets?  8.3% unemployment, 63.7% participation, 58.41% overall employment.

DFLers are whining because Kurt Bills – GOP-endrosed US Senate candidate – released an ad that paid homage to an ad that Paul Wellstone ran during his first campaign.

Here’s Bills:

Here’s Wellstone’s ad:

Pretty much a shot-by-shot remake, if you leave out the whole “liberty versus onerous socialism” bit, huh?

Many liberals are outraged to the point of losing bodily functions and popping blood vessels in their brains over this campaign.

They are wrong.

Let’s address some of their arguments:

“You shouldn’t parody Wellstone”: Why?  For starters, it wasn’t a “parody” – it was a completely respectful homage, coming from a candidate with different political beliefs than Wellstone (thank God) but  a very similar political challenge; upset an incumbent who is an overwhelming favorite with boundless resources (Bills has one additional challenge – a media that was in the bag for Wellstone, but will work even more tirelessly as Klobuchar’s Praetorian Guard than for most DFLers; she’s the daughter of one of their own, long-time Strib columnist Jim Klobuchar).

“What would you think if the left mistreated the memories of your heroes?”:  Right, because the left never parodied Reagan and every other conservative that ever got into a position to change things for the better.  Sometimes with intense, gratuitous cruelty, especially in Reagan’s case (don’t make me break out the list of libs who cracked Alzheimers jokes) unlike Bills’ treatment of Wellstone.

Objections overruled.

(more…)

First, a little background:

Now, let’s decide which matters more to a nation that’s been squeezed to death by four years of spendthrift incompetence:

• That Candidate Romney inadvertently insulted the locals in the UK (in exactly the same way they’re currently insulting themselves) or…
• that whole “turning deficit into surplus” and “making things work” bit?

That is all.

Democrats, with the aid of Fleet Street, ginned up a phony controversy last week, after Mitt Romney speculated out loud that maybe the Brits weren’t ready for the Olympics.

Impolitic?  Perhaps (although not on the order of stashing the Churchill bust under a bag of oily rags in a White House storage locker).

But wrong?

Exhibit 1:  Noted Conservative Tool Piers Morgan points out that everyone in the UK was saying the same thing before the Olympics:

Exhibits 2 through (TBD): The Brits prove Romney, and Morgan, correct over and over and over again.

In related news:  A poll of 10,000 random Americans shows that Romney’s off-handed remarks about the London Olympics are more important to them than unemployment, the gathering double-dip recession, and the avalanche of debt about to inundate this country.

(more…)

…that the Light Worker’s campaign is aimed at the one group he’s got a shot with: the not very well informed:

This is an ad, as Ed points out, that even left-leaning Politifact has rated “pants on fire”.

As this blog has been noting for quite some time now, the Democrat strategy seems to be to just toss crap in front of the electorate and hope just enough of it sticks to the dim, uninformed, adolescent, solipsistic and over-emotional to eke out a win.

It worked for Mark Dayton.

The British media – who generally make “TMZ” and “Entertainment Tonight” look pretty sober and respectable in comparison – are selling a lot of papers by bagging on Mitt Romney’s “gaffe” over London’s preparations for the Olympics…

…that wasn’t a gaffe at all.  They’re the most over-budget games in modern Olympic history.  The police are overmatched by the security (to say nothing of traffic) nightmare, and are bringing in the British Army to help – not just in specialist roles (as in Romney’s Salt Lake City Winter games), but for the daily blocking and tackling.

Romney’s right.

But the real question in all of this is:  are you, the American taxpayer, worker and voter, better off now than you were in 2008?

That was the Beijing Olympics, if I recall correctly?

While the national polls show the presidential race a statistical toss-up, Nate Silver points out that polls conducted in swing state show Obama with an actual lead of sorts – around three points:.

While that isn’t an enormous difference in an absolute sense, it is a consequential one. A one- or two-point lead for Mr. Obama, as in the national polls, would make him barely better than a tossup to win re-election. A three- or four-point lead, as in the state polls, is obviously no guarantee given the troubles in the economy, but it is a more substantive advantage.

Here’s the part that caught my attention; I’ve added emphasis:

The difference isn’t an artifact of RealClearPolitics’s methodology. The FiveThirtyEight method, which applies a more complicated technique for estimating polling averages, sees broadly the same split between state and national polls.

On the one hand – well, doy.  Obama’s an incumbent elected in a wave, protected by a media that serves as his Praetorian Guard.  Of course he’s going to be polling well.

On the other hand?  My real point in this article is the abovementioned “FiveThirtyEigtht Method”.

I addressed this two years ago – when Silver, who is generally acknowledged to be a moderate Democrat, spent most of the 2010 campaign predicting a 6+ point Mark Dayton victory.

How did he arrive at that number?

1. By taking an assortment of polls from around MInnesota, conducted by a variety of polling operations, and…
2. Applying a weighting to each poll, the “538 Poll Weight”, which came from an unexplained formula known, near as I can tell, only to Silver.  Which is not to say that it’s wrong, or statistically, intellectually or journalistically dishonest, per se – merely that it’s completely opaque

But let’s take Silver’s methodology at face value – because he’s a respected statistician who works for the NYTimes, right?

The fact remains that, at least here in Minnesota, two of the polls that were given great weight in Silver’s methodology – the Star Tribune “Minnesota” poll and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute poll, are palpably garbage, and should be viewed as DFL propaganda at best, calculated election fraud at worst. 

I don’t live in SD33, but I like going there.  Living in Saint Paul – a one-party city where the miasma of stagnation and failure has been welling up from every storm-sewer grate since Randy Kelly left office – it’s always kind of fun to go to a place where you can smell prudence, frugality and just-plain success in the air.

Last spring it was my pleasure to drive out to Wayzata to give a nominating speech for Dave Osmek, conservative Mound city council budget hawk and long-time friend of the Northern Alliance.  I don’t live in 33, naturally, but support is support.

And it’s good to see I’m not alone: Rep. Erik Paulsen is apparently sure-footed enough in the districts newer, redder nature that he came out and endorsed Osmek.

It’s likely little surprise that Osmek’s primary opponent, Connie Doepke, has been endorsed by fellow Jamestown ND native but so-moderate-he-could-be-mistaken-for-a-sensible-Democrat former representative Jim Ramstad, as well as long-time Carlsonite GOPer Barb Sykora.

A little less intuitively, perhaps?  One of Osmek’s old opponents on the Mound City Council, Peter Meyer, is sounding off:

Many of you might be surprised by this letter. After battling with Dave Osmek for over three years on the Mound City Council, I’m probably the last person you might think would endorse him for state senate. But I’m here to tell you, Dave is exactly the kind of senator we need in Saint Paul.

Our nation and our state need leaders. While Dave and I disagreed over many issues, I have come to respect the work and effort he has made to keep Mound on a solid, fiscally conservative track. He actually has tracked every dollar spent since 2000, in every department, and holds staff accountable each year. And Mound has one of the highest bond ratings, a reflection of the success that saves us money every year.

Mound is one of those cities that, with the help of years of difficult fiscal discipline, have managed to wean themselves off of “Local Government Aid”, and do it fairly gracefully.

Why Dave now? Because we need a state senator that will fight to protect our freedoms, our liberties and our wallets. Dave’s opponent has experience, but isn’t the kind of strong advocate we need to make Minnesota great.

Dave won the SD33 endorsement over Doepke, who is a current Representative from the district.  I’ve had Doepke supporters in the area ask “What do you have against her?”  The answer is “Nothing – and I wish she’d stuck with keeping her endorsement in the House, and waltzing to an easy victory”.   I’m going with William F. Buckley philosophy – I support the most conservative candidate that can win.

And whatever Doepke’s merits as a conservative – and she has some merits as a conservative, and a few demerits, and we can debate the substance of each at another time – the fact is that Osmek has a more-solid conservative track record in the Mound City Council, and is running in an R+20 district that isn’t quite a mirror image of my own district in St. Paul (where the DFL could nominate Jerry Sandusky and win 60-40); Osmek’s more conserative, and he can and will win.  And after this last session, the proof is right in front of you; the Senate needs more honest-to-pete conservatives to backstop the likes of Dave Thompson, Dave Hann and Roger Chamberlain.

So while I have never intended any specific disrespect to Connie Doepke, I am doing what Buckley would do; supporting that most conservative candidate who can bring home the seat in November.

Because when the gavel rings down on the next session, the more of them that are in that chamber, the better.

In the last few weeks, since Ron Paul got eliminated from the running for the nomination, I’ve seen not a few Minnesota Ron Paul supporters waxing mildly suicidal that their guy didn’t pack the gear to go the distance in the primaries and caucuses.  Paul nabbed three states, if I recall correctly, including Minnesota – giving them what I think it was Shot In The Dark’s associate editor First Ringer once called (I’m paraphrasing closely, I think, maybe) that delusion that you could pull it off that’s so well-known to insurgent dark horse candidates from Obi Sium to Ross Perot.

Unlike most states, the Paul camp is running a candidate in a high-profile race here in Minnsota.  Unfortunately, Kurt Bills is a low-profile candidate – a freshman State Rep from Rosemount – running against the pleasant, innocuous, mistake-averse Amy Klobuchar and the media Praetorian Guard that shields her from inadvertent controversy.  The poll numbers show it. In a just world, Bills would be competitive – but in Minneosta, Republicans have to make their own justice.   Not to say long shots have no shot – ask Chip Cravaack or (shudder) Jesse Ventura.  Work like hell for Kurt Bills – I know I will do my best too.  But Hollywood money, a decade of name recognition, and stifling media pollyannaism are a tough row to hoe, and the polls are, at the moment, showing it.

And that’s why if you’re one of the flood of Ron Paul supporters in the Fourth and Fifth CDs that so stirred up the GOP’s pot last spring, I’d like your attention.

Because you do have a chance to shock the world.

Tony Hernandez in the Fourth CD is one guy whose platform is completely amenable to any  Ron Paul supporter.  He’s running in a tough district, sure enough…

…but it’s a district that is winnable.  Betty McCollum is a Zombie Democrat; she sleepwalks to 70-30 victories every two years pretty much because she’s a DFLer.  But redistricting made the Fourth much more Republican-friendly, adding Stillwater, Woodbury and Afton to the mix.  It’s not the same district it was even two years ago.

And here’s the deal – people just don’t care about Betty that much.  Fewer and fewer people turn out to vote for her every two years; I know DFLers who haven’t voted for her in a looong time.  She’s an empty skirt; when she give a speech, she’s like a substitute teacher who’s straining to control a class, and failing.  Her crowning “achievement” in a district with plummeting home values, a metro area school system with among the worst achievement gaps in the country, and unemployment lagging the rest of the state?  Saving us from the scourge of military ads in NASCAR.

Oh, there’s method to the madness; Representative McCollum sees that redistricting has changed her district, and is looking for a singular “Achievement” to show she’s “fiscally conservative” (cutting a tiny little fleck of spending, against the trillions in deficits she’s voted to create) while not cheesing off her base (she’s cutting military spending, although only the most innocuous kind).

She knows that there is a more conservative current in her district than she’s seen before.

In part?  She knows you, the Paul supporters, are out there.  And she’s trying to placate you.

So here’s the deal.  If you, the mass of Ron Paul supporters who swept into power in the Fourth, can pull together and each get a friend or two to come to the polls this November and vote Hernandez, you can do something for Ron Paul’s movement – including its future, Rand Paul – that Ron Paul himself couldn’t do: win a significant, Congressional office with someone not named “Paul”.

And if you are Marianne Stebbins, the organizer from Excelsior who engineered the epic statewide Ron Paul sweep in the caucuses, and were able to get Ron Paul himself to throw down on Hernandez’ behalf – what the heck, maybe even come here and seriously campaign for Tony as well as Kurt Bills – it’d sure put a wind in your movement’s sails, now, wouldn’t it?

Because antics in Tampa notwithstanding, whether you’re a recent grad who came out for Paul last spring, or a shadowy organizer from the Lake, you gotta know that it’s only by putting candidates in office that you actually earn real, long-term relevance.

And Betty McCollum is so freaking beatable, why on earth not do it?

Americans prefer Romney over Obama on the economy by more than 2:1!

That’s after a couple of weeks of Democrat harping on Romney’s bank accounts, tax returns, and his wife’s horse.

Americans would seem to be in a serious mood about economic matters.

But why, oh why, could that be?

More results from the Survey USA poll from yesterday.

I gotta confess, this one surprised me.  Conventional wisdom has it that the Left’s suffocating blanket of spending and publicity, as well as the purported apathy of many voters to the issue, would scupper the Marriage Amendment.

According to this poll – which, remember, oversampled Democrats, 38 to 32% – it’s just not so:

An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution on the ballot defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Will you vote FOR the amendment? Against the amendment? Or not vote on the measure?

52% Vote For

37% Vote Against

5% Not Vote

6% Not Sure

Remember, “No answer” counts as a “no” on Constitutional votes in Minnesota.  So let’s say these results hold up ’til election day, and that every single “Not Sure” response in this poll ends up voting “no” or not voting (which won’t happen); the measure passes 52-48.

This, I did not expect.

And I’m a tad gratified to see that the poll shows people seem to be resisting, broadly, the DFL’s torrent of lies and innuendo about the Voter ID Amendment:

An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution on the ballot would require voters to show photo I.D.’s in order to vote on Election Day. Will you vote FOR the amendment? Against the amendment? Or not vote on the measure?

65% Vote For

28% Vote Against

2% Not Vote

4% Not Sure

If the “Fors” stay put, and every single “Not Sure” votes against it (again, not gonna happen), the measure passes by almost 2:1.

While gay marriage isn’t an issue I care much about – I support civil unions – I’m glad to see that on at least a couple of issues, according to one mildly-DFL-leaning and slightly DFL-oversampled poll, the DFL’s huge, expensive, and slimy propaganda war seems at this moment to be crapping out.

The latest Survey USA poll shows Obama’s lead in Minnesota has been cut in half since the last one:

In the election for President of the United States, three months till voting begins, Barack Obama captures the North Star State’s 10 electoral votes, defeating Mitt Romney 46 percent to 40 percent, according to a SurveyUSA poll for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis / St. Paul.

Libs will no doubt chime in “KSTP is teh Rpeublican Station!” – Tom Hauser made an effort to be balanced during the 2010 cycle, and “balance” is apparently “Republican” – but the Survey USA poll has trended ever-so-slightly more Democrat than reality has turned out, at least in the past couple of cycles.

More on that below.

Here’s the interesting part:

Romney and Obama are effectively even among male voters. All of Obama’s advantage comes from female voters, where Obama leads by 14 points. Romney edges Obama among Minnesota’s Independents, but not by enough to offset Obama’s 2:1 advantage among Minnesota’s moderates.

Further proof that “moderates” just don’t think that hard about things that really matter – like the future of this nation.

This part was one of the real shockers:

Romney leads in Northeastern Minnesota, but Obama leads in the rest of the state.

Whoah. The conventional wisdom says “Northeastern” Minnesota is a traditional DFL stronghold.  The economy must be finally sinking in?

In an election for U.S. Senator from Minnesota today, incumbent DFL candidate Amy Klobuchar soundly defeats Republican challenger Kurt Bills, 55 percent to 31 percent. Klobuchar leads among men and women, young and old, rich and poor, and in all regions of the state.

To be fair, that shows Bills up a couple and Klobuchar down a bit from earlier polls.  Hopefully all that Ron Paul fundraising machinery will be swinging into action here to support Bills.

Any ol’ time now.

And now we get to the point of the poll that is like the long string of disclaimers at the end of a TV drug ad.  Like the ads, this is the part that really matters: the poll sampling was 38% Democrat, 32% Republican, 28% “independent”.  The Democrats are oversampled – and even so, Romney is up 4 points among “independents”.

No.

Eight years ago?  Ten?

No and no.

Forty?

Not looking good.

Let me see if I’ve got this right this year:

In 1992 and 1996, a record of military service (like George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole had) was absolutely not important…

…but in 2000, it – or the version of it in which being a “military journalist” under the watchful eye of a senior NCO who didn’t let the future Democrat candidate within miles of any known action was bigger and better than being an Air National Guard F-102 pilot. a job with a frighteninly-high “peacetime” casualty rate.

In 2004 it was especially confusing – since having been a Navy “Swift Boat” commander was reputed to give absolute moral authority, while crewmen in those same boats who dissented from their former junior officer’s view of things were said to be blackguards.

It was back to normal in 2008, when a Community Organizer was deemed the real hero, and America’s chattering classes reduced themselves to tittering about the dental state of a man who’d spent years in a POW camp, to say nothing of the circumstances of his getting shot down in the first place.

And this year?   Supporters of Obama are trying to paint the community organizer – who was one of about 98% of the adults in his generation who never served in the military – as somehow more noble as the community organizer (for the Mormon Church) who was among the 70-odd percent of people of his generation who got one form of deferment or another – missionary and educational – until he was finished with school, in 1975.  Two years after the draft ended.

Which is it?

Matt Bai of WorldNet Daily, in the intro of a piece that tries to separate fact from self-indulgent liberal fiction in re the Citizens United case’s impact on politics.

Libs, of course, have been telling themselves and (mostly) everyone else that Citizens United completely swept away the foundations of democracy.

As a matter of political strategy, this is a useful story to tell, appealing to liberals and independent voters who aren’t necessarily enthusiastic about the administration but who are concerned about societal inequality, which is why President Obama has made it a rallying cry almost from the moment the Citizens United ruling was made. But if you’re trying to understand what’s really going on with politics and money, the accepted narrative around Citizens United is, at best, overly simplistic. And in some respects, it’s just plain wrong.

Read the whole thing.  And pass it on to your liberal and propaganda-addled (ptr) friends.

UPDATE:  Whoops – it wasn’t in WorldNet Daily.  The piece appears in that noted conservative tool, the NYTimes.

I regret the confusion.

UPDATE 2:  Bai, not Sai.

You live in the Minnesota Fourth Congressional District.

Your home value is plummeting.

You may well be out of work, and are certainly nervous about your job.

Your local property taxes are skyrocketing, while your schools are collapsing (especially if you’re black, asian or latino).   They promise to zoom still further, as business, overtaxes and then starved out by light rail construction, deserts the city or starves to death.

And the nation is on the path to make Greece’s meltdown look like a fart in a tornado, with trillion dollar deficits and a national debt that just rocketed past a years’ GDP.  And when the depression over all this is getitng to be too much and you need to see a doctor, before long you’ll need to see the one assigned to you by Gus the Cranky Public Servant.

But hey.  At least Betty McCollum is tirelessly fighting Army ad money to NASCAR.

Thanks, Betty.