Doug is back at Bogus Gold, after domain-server problems that are, ahem,  painfully familiar.

Amid the layoffs, buyouts and restructurings currently going on at the Strib, the rumor had it that Katherine Kersten’s column was saved at least in part because she has never worked as a beat reporter (just as at least one rumor has it that Doug Grow’s departure is tied to the paper’s plan to put him back on the street, due to his experience as a gumshoe general assignment reporter).

And yet her column Friday – about Minneapolis’ reticence to pursue illegal immigrants, even when they are committing crimes – puts to shame many of priorities of the paper’s “news” division (to say nothing of the local partisan agendafloggers dressed in “Ace Reporter” costumes).

Minneapolis, as a matter of city policy, tells its police not to act as surrogate Immigration agents. 

Supporters of the city’s hands-off approach point to a “separation” ordinance, passed in 2003. The ordinance prohibits police from becoming involved in routine immigration enforcement, where immigration is the main issue. Immigrants in the city won’t cooperate with the police if they fear deportation, the reasoning goes.

But that’s not supposed to include interfering with enforcing laws against crime…:

But the ordinance explicitly permits police involvement in investigations like the sex ring. “Nothing in this chapter,” it states, “shall prohibit public safety personnel from assisting federal law enforcement officers in the investigation of criminal activity involving individuals present in the United States who may also be in violation of federal civil immigration laws.”

On Wednesday, Rybak acknowledged that the ordinance doesn’t bar police from engaging in crime fighting just because immigration is involved. “When the issue is clearly prostitution, we will continue to stand strong against it,” he said.

Rybak’s next quote explains a lot about the miasma of dilettantism that besets Minnesota’s largest city:

But wasn’t prostitution the issue in the sex ring bust? “The line between what is prostitution and what is immigration was blurry,” Rybak replied.

I had to stop there for a minute.

“The line between what is prostitution and what is immigration is blurry”.

This is Minneapolis’ mayor. 

Saint Paul, though hamstrung by a similarly-lefty City Council, hasn’t quite slipped the surly bonds of reason:

The St. Paul Police Department, for its part, wasn’t troubled by “blurry” lines though it too has a “separation” ordinance. In fact, the St. Paul police helped lead the charge against the sex ring operators.

So it’s clear that at least one of the Twin Cities’ loony-left-of-center governments can tell the difference between illegal immigration and prostitution. 

Are Minneapolis citizens well-served when city leaders avoid law enforcement on the “blurry” lines theory — when the crimes at issue may involve illegal immigrants?

Mark Cangemi, now retired from ICE, doesn’t think so. Cangemi was special agent in charge of the sex ring investigation until December 2006. “In the guise of protecting citizens, the Minneapolis leadership is actually harming the most vulnerable,” he says…In Cangemi’s view, Minneapolis’ “separation” ordinance — and its overbroad interpretation — have created a wedge between city police and the feds. In an operation like the sex ring investigation, he says, officers would likely be hampered if they had to make an arrest. “They are afraid they will be chastised and disciplined for doing what they are sworn to do: serve and protect,” he says.

Cops, like Cangemi, talk about enforcing the law.

Mayor Giggles talks about clothes and confusion:

“It’s ICE that has created a wedge,” Rybak retorts. The agency has not removed the word “‘police” from its officers’ jackets, despite his request to do so. Rybak maintains that the word “confuses” people who believe that immigration and criminal enforcement should be separate.

“But we are police!” protests Cangemi. Rybak, he says, “is way beyond his level of expertise” in making such a demand of a federal agency. “Police” is an internationally recognized term, used by law enforcement worldwide. Last year, Cangemi sent Rybak an “open letter” making this point, but Rybak never responded, he says. Rybak’s spokesman says he doesn’t know whether that’s true. Meanwhile, it’s Minneapolis leaders’ priorities that confuse people.

And there, finally, Kersten is wrong.

Nothing confusing about R.T. Rybak’s “priorities”.

Protect his constituencies. 

Simple.

I think I speak for the rest of the NARN when I say we’re honored to be allowed to participate in this coming Saturday’s dedication of Minnesota’s new World War II memorial.

Some events rise way, way above politics – as, indeed, World War II did for Americans sixty-five years ago.  It will be an honor beyond words to be there to see, and in our own way record, what will likely be the last, greatest gathering of Minnesota’s surviving World War II veterans.

Upwards of 20,000 people are expected to gather Saturday on the Capitol Mall in St. Paul to dedicate the new state memorial to World War II veterans. State Veterans Affairs Commissioner Clark Dyrud said it could be one of the largest gatherings ever of WWII veterans in Minnesota.

“We have waited 62 years for this,” said Michael Horan, an 82-year-old World War II veteran from St. Paul, who served on the memorial’s advisory board. “With the way that veterans are dying off, this could be our last chance to be honored.”…

It’s going to be big:

Dedication organizer Pat Turgeon said: “This is a really big deal. I’m getting calls every day from guys who say they’ll be here Saturday come hell or high water.”

A similar dedication event in South Dakota several years ago attracted about 25,000 people, said Turgeon, who works for the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs. She is estimating that about 5,000 of the state’s 50,000 living WWII veterans will attend.

“I won’t be surprised if we get 50,000 [total attendees] if the weather is good,” Turgeon said.

The state of Minnesota is going all-out to make sure that every veteran who can possibly attend, does:

The state will reimburse mileage at 48.5 cents a mile for WWII vets or drivers carrying them. Submit a transportation reimbursement form to the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs by June 30.

Forms will be available at the registration tent or online at www.startribune.com/a2865.

If you know a WWII vet who needs a ride, please help out.  We’d like to see everyone there that can possibly make it.

The City Pages is keeping a running tally of the newsroom staffers at the Strib who’ve taken buyouts or are otherwise leaving or moving about the paper.

Stribbers taking the buyout:

Eric Black – this is a whack upside the head.  Black was one of the good ones.
Conrad Defiebre – this one, too.  Defiebre actually had a track record as a journalist who could actually write the facts.
Pat Pheifer
Nancy Olsen
Doug Grow – bummer.  Oh, I disagree with Grow about everything – but he was a good reporters.  Which was probably the undoing of his column; unlike Lileks and Katherine Kersten, he’d actually worked as a beat reporter, which I’m going to presume made it likely the paper would carry through on its threat to assign some of its general columnists back to street reporting.
Susie Hopper
Linda Mack
Stormi Greener
Chuck Haga
Sharon Schmickle
Jim Boyd – I’m almost sad about this.  Jim Boyd was a walking, breathing case study of both entrenched,  preening media bias, but of the overweening arrogance of the American “journalistic” caste.  With him in his office, conservative bloggers never had a shortage of material.  With him gone, we may have to work at it.
Jay Weiner
Deborah Caulfield Rybak – I’ve quoted her many, many times over the years, in her capacity as the media beat reporter. 
John Addington
Nancy Entwhistle
Tom Ford
Robyn Dochterman
Joe Kimball – Kimball covered Saint Paul, and did an excellent job. 
Delma Francis
Larry (L.K.) Hanson
Heather Munro
Bob Jansen
Denise Brownfield

Reassignments:
James Lileks will run Buzz.mn – which can only be a good thing for the Strib’s online enclave.
Steve Brandt will be covering City Hall
Kevin Diaz [going to Anchorage, apparently]
Paul Klauda is moving to Night AME (associate managing editor)

Oh, and some of the people who are leaving the paper are really petulant.  This comment on Saturday was from someone labelled “Former Stribber (rowr!)” :

If you’ve read [James Lileks’] blog, you’d realize that he’s been hanging around the office the last few weeks, trying to bond with all the people he so assiduously ignored the last few years when he showed his face at 425 Portland about every six months.

If avoiding deadwood like FS(R) was part of James’ strategy, it would seem it worked.

Today on the NARN and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Mitch:

• Breakfast at an undisclosed location with some of the NARN crew
• Tuning in to NARN Volume I (“The Opening Act”), where Brian, John and Chad will be talking about politics and stuff.
• Then, Ed and I will do NARN II (“The Headliner”); we’ll be talking about Ed’s Excellent Edventure in Iowa with Mitt Romney, as well as interviewing some prominent bar owners about Minnesota’s “War on Hospitality”.
• Then, tuning in to NARN III (“The Final Word”), as King and Michael talk inside state political baseball. 
• Then, off to a big party at an undisclosed location.

Tune in tomorrow on AM1280, either on the air or via the web. 

A lot has been written about Nick Mancini, who passed away Tuesday at 80 of complications of Alzheimers.

(Photo from the Strib) 

 Mancini had been for sixty years one of old Saint Paul’s foremost restauranteurs; everybody knew him, from politicians to kids in the neighborhood.   Mancini’s was a great place to take a date – especially if she was from some godforsaken suburb and needed to be shown how really really fun a night out in Saint Paul could be.  So everybody has been eulogizing Mancini.

I’ll add my two cents.

I interviewed Mancini, and his son Johnny, back in 1987.  I was doing a story for a local paper about the big new “Vegas” addition to Mancini’s Char House, by then a 40-year institution on the West End (the part of Saint Paul west of downtown below the bluffs).  The grand opening the following week would feature Tony Bennett; a who’s who of the old Levee neigbhorhood – Saint Paul’s traditional Little Italy – was going to be there, too – Mama D, Lou Cotroneo, Vic Tedesco, and a zillion other names ending in “o” and “i” unknown to me but fixtures in the old neighborhood.

And if you hung around the place at all, you figured out a lot about the character of neighborhoods like the West End, which, even for a Saint Paul neighborhood (a city called “fifteen small towns with one mayor”) seems like a throwback; a tattered, rough-looking but comfortable and fairly safe neighborhood that, recent up-market moves closer to downtown aside, feels like it’s hardly changed since the end of World War II. 

Longtime West Ender Erik Hare – who mooched off of Mancini even more than I did – also wrote about Nick:

My first memory of Nick came when I was working on a political campaign across the street. Nick loved to dabble in politics, and while he took care of everyone he was sure to take care of the public servants he knew served Saint Paul well. I was there one evening when he carted over a great big tray of food.

“Eat it! No, it’s no problem. If you don’t eat it, I’ll just throw it out. You might as well enjoy it!”

He always downplayed his charity, making it almost a sin if you didn’t take it. So we all tucked in with the plates and napkins he thoughtfully brought along. It was great after a hard night of calling people and related politicking. But I had to ask a colleague one question:

“These are great stuffed shells, but I didn’t know they were on the menu at Mancini’s.”
“Just eat” was the reply. And we did. Boy, did we eat that night.

Nick often gave away food that way, after church or just when he felt like it. A lot of people came to wonder how he made money that way.

He made enough. Enough is as good as a feast. Everything about Mancini’s is a feast…That was the great gift that Nick gave to us all. He created an institution at the heart of the West End that we know will be a part of us all even after he is gone. A spirit like his is more than the steaks and the good times. Mancini’s belongs to all of us, throughout the community.

Anyway – it’s a legacy one hopes his kids carry on. 

UPDATE:  And Nick Coleman, working on his ostensible home turf, delivers the kind of column he does best:

I tell people that if you want to “get” St. Paul, Mancini’s is a good place to start. Each photo on the walls is part of the intricately woven story of the people and the place, including shrines to the vanished Monroe and Mechanics Arts High Schools and the legends of the St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame…In my favorite photo [of the hundreds lining Mancinis’ walls], taken on Columbus Day 1931, most of the Italians of St. Paul stand on the steps of the cathedral for the dedication of a monument to Christopher Columbus. Proudly standing in front, with his parents and his sister, is 4-year-old Nick Mancini.

It is a time and a place that are gone. But which left a city and a steakhouse still open for business. Nick Mancini started when he could buy only potatoes six at a time. He ended up helping the poor, feeding the hungry and leaving us a place where the powerful come to be seen — and to be seated — among the common people.

And where Nick was king.

Exactly.

Ed, on the road with the Romney campaign in Iowa, writes regarding the Venezuelan peoples’ dissatisfaction with Chavez’ imposition of his version of the Fairness Doctrine shutting down of the opposition press:

Dictatorships and oppression will afflict mankind for ages to come, and we have to be prepared to fight against it, using the most effective weapons in our arsenal. Fred [Thompson, in an interview today] reminds us that simple communication of truth, and the establishment of our credibility from that effort, is perhaps the most powerful and effective weapon against tyranny that we possess. It’s high time that we start using it again.

This has been one of the worst effects of not only the Clinton Administration, but of both Bushes; Papa George, eager to claim the “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War, began the process of shutting down America’s information efforts around the world; Clinton and Bush Junior continued the trend.

And yet throughout history, especially during the broadcast era, “propaganda” has been an essential part of getting the truth to oppressed people around the world.  Throughout the Cold War, Radio Free Europe broadcast news to Eastern Europe; Radio Marti to Cuba.  During World War II, occupied Europe relied on the BBC for news (as well as coded broadcasts to resistance units – the Beeb was the fastest way to get information to guerillas in Nazi territory). 

And yet, today, as we fight a war in the Middle East, and continue fighting a three-decade-long undeclared war against a theocracy that is as deeply-unpopular with its own people as were Poland’s, Hungary’s and Czechoslovakia’s among theirs, we have…

…nothing.  No US information service, no “Radio Free Persia” broadcasting to Iran; virtually nothing broadcasting to the Middle East outside of Iraq itself.  No US broadcast outlet serving the Venezuelan that might be looking for something not vetted by Hugo Chavez…

…except the American mainstream media’s foreign outlets.  Which is, of course, the problem…

Smart:

 [James Lileks and Hugh Hewitt] also discussed the immigration bill. I tire of the preludes one has to make in these situations, all the protestations of anti-nativism. It’s not enough to say you’re in favor of immigration, and lots of it; anything short of dropping thousands of blank American birth certificates on the other side of the Rio Grande is construed as Nativist Hysteria. All I want is a fence, but even that desire makes people jump up and shout at the house HEY! what gives you the right / to put a fence to keep people out and keep your antiquated concept of privileged-status Northern European culture in? If God was here to tell it to your face, man, you’re some kind of sinner! (I swear I’ve done that riff before. Gah: well, I think you’re allowed to quote the Five Man Electrical Band twice in your life before you’re slapped with a wet copy of “Ramparts” magazine.) What really irks me more than the Administration’s mulishness is their tone-deaf replies to the bill’s opponents, and it really is Le Straw Finale.  Add to the list of lesser mistakes to which any administration composed of human-type people is prone, add the ham-fistery evident in their handling of those events, add the attenuated death of the Bush doctrine, interred quietly in the first bilateral talks with Iran since the war began almost three decades ago, and add the nagging, itchy suspicion that Iranian involvement in the Iraq conflict might have been turned away at an earlier opportunity with a judicious, gravity-assisted MOAB in a crucial industrial facility, and you have a general Throwing Up of The Hands on the right. Self-inflicted wounds, every one of them.

Stupid:

I’ve no doubt that the xenophobic right is upset about Bush’s immigration proposal… 

Take your pick.

In the Strib, William Robiner recycles a tired old idea for solving gun violence:

We should demand that our federal, state, and local leaders…muster the courage to quell the violence here by standing up to the gun lobby, and outlawing assault weapons and handguns. Why wait any longer to liberate our campuses, neighborhoods, and places of worship of the guns that make them unsafe?

When faced with the need to answer such dim addled bilge, after years of answering it over and over and over and over again, the question “Good Lord, why?” springs to mind.  “Because gun bans never work”, of course, is the answer, backed by ample statistics showing that the gun-totinest places in the US (the rural west) are by far the safest; that “shall issue” laws have at worst caused no harm, and at best have cut violent crime rates; that banning guns increases violence.

But occasionally one encounters a new lie that the left uses in its insane drive to disarm the American people.  Robiner doesn’t disappoint; put another way, Robiner disappoints:

Our nation’s strategy for securing peace in other parts of the world includes ridding violent societies, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, of the widespread weapons that undermine their peace.

Robiner is an idiot, of course; in most of Iraq, every family is allowed a fully automatic AK-series assault rifle as defense against bandits and thugs.  The coalition is trying to get things like RPGs (anti-tank bazookas) and explosives removed from the population.  To compare the two is to Fecke the facts.

The Virginia Tech shooter used a Glock 19 semi-automatic weapon and a Walther. In less than 10 minutes he fired approximately 170 bullets. In the face of such firepower, do even the most ardent technophiles really believe that quicker communication systems could deliver people to safety?

Well, if they did, they’d be stupid! 

 Do those counting on the mental health system to provide a safety net lose confidence when they hear mental health professionals readily acknowledge their limited ability to predict violence?

They should lose confidence indeed! 

Restricting gun control efforts to them is ineffective.

As, history shows is, are efforts to restrict gun “control” efforts to the law-abiding! 

The incident at Virginia Tech was foreseeable in the sense that if such handguns are available they will, at times, be used on innocents. It will happen again on U.S. campuses, on the streets, and even in places of sanctuary.

Even though they are mostly “gun-free” today! 

No, Mr. Robiner, absolute gun bans on school grounds didn’t save a single life in the United States.

But armed, law-abiding citizens did.

Far from Robiner’s myopic, totalitarian solition, it’s time to get more guns out into the hands of the law-abiding – and thence out onto the streets.