So, given that faith is involved with eternity, and organized religion concerns itself with eternal questions of right and wrong for, to the church’s point of view, everyone, I have to ask; when is the Catholic Church going to do something about this?

Nancy Pelosi reminds us that elections matter, in a DCCC fundraising e-mail:

This morning, I had the great honor of joining President Obama as he lifted the executive ban on federal funding for stem cell research.

If that’s not a shot across the bow from someone who describes herself as a “Devout Catholic”, what is?

Speaking of “The Surge” Mitch, Erik Sorenson, Emmy-Winning TV Executive and former President of MSNBC has some advice for executive-level job-seekers:

The word “surge” got a bad rap during Hurricane Katrina when related to Gulf waters breaching the levees and flooding into New Orleans.

In some circles, it was further tarnished when used to describe troop buildups in Iraq (though that Surge is now widely believed to have been effective).

Wow, Erik. Can I quote you on that?

Now, the word surge is being used to describe hiring mandates for government agencies and programs funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – informally known as “President Obama’s economic stimulus package.”

Dude. No one I know is calling the Stimuless Package “The Surge.” What you heard was “The Scourge.”

…or was it “The Gouge?”

…or the “Re-Gurge.”

The legislation from Congress requires certain agencies to hire high volumes for mission critical programs. And the challenges facing those agencies (overhaul the health-care system, police new banking regulations, dismantle our dependence on oil) also require a higher quality of executives, managers and team leaders. And the technical nature of the challenges requires federal employees with more specialized skill-sets.

All the more reason these programs should be left with the private sector – save regulating the banking industry – let’s leave that to Barney Frank.

There is no shortage of wonderful, qualified people currently unemployed and looking for quality work, so what’s the problem? “The federal government is a terrible recruiter,” according to Max Stier – President of the Partnership for Public Service – a nonprofit group which promotes federal employment. Stier notes that private companies out-recruit the public sector in the trenches and that it often takes six to nine months to get a hiring decision.

How ironic is it that a bloated and inefficient federal government can’t become more bloated and inefficient, even under mandate from Congress and the President…because it’s so bloated and inefficient.

If you are a capable executive or manager who is part of the 8.1% jobless, you might be interested in government work.

If you are an executive or manager, we can probably assume you are college educated, and among college graduates, unemployment is only 4.2% according to the latest data, unless you consider the “seasonally adjusted number” which is 4.1%; either way, only 2% more than a year ago.

So, probably not.

…a properly executed recovery effort will lift the economy.

We’ll be sure to alert you if a properly executed recovery effort is in the offing.

Finally, our economy’s ability to sustain America for the next generation (your kids) and the one after that (your grandkids) [thanks for explaining what generation means Erik-JR] will be very dependent on government decision-makers and their success in engineering an improved health-care system, innovation in the energy industry, an upgrade in our schools and the impending overhaul of the financial and auto industries.

Nice try, Erik. I think you meant our economy’s ability to sustain America for the next generation (my kids) and the one after that (my kids’ kids) will be in spite of government decision-makers.

You keep drinking that Kool-Aid, Erik. Tell us when your leg stops tingling too.

The Coalition currently has about half the combat troops, and 1/3 of the overall troops, in Iraq as at the beginning of the Surge.  The discrepancy is due to so many of the remaining troops being in support units – logistics, transportation, intelligence, signals and other specialties where the Iraqi military is lagging while building combat units.

Looks like President Obama is having the planned impact in reversing Bush Administration policy in country!

Or…not:

The cycle of coalition reductions is still based on the brief by General Petraeus to the US House and Senate on Sept. 11, 2007. Just replace the word “overwatch” with “training” on the briefing slide. Each six months (March and September), military planners determine the next reductions. The commanders have just announced the reduction from 15 to 12 combat brigades. In September, they will probably announce the further reduction to 10. Next March, they will be looking at reducing to seven “training” brigades by September of 2010. In September 2010, they will be looking at reducing to five “training” brigades. In March 2011, they will be looking at the removal of the final five “training” brigades.

I’ve noticed a lot of Dems claiming credit for the downsizing for Obama for the downsizing of the force in Iraq.

Let’s do try to keep things straight, here.

…of my dad coming home from the office…

…and not leaving the house for three days.

Perhaps the greatest North Dakota blizzard of all was 43 years ago today (and tomorrow,and the next day).

This photo was taken near my hometown, Jamestown.

Yes, in North Dakota the power poles are 20-odd feet tall.

It’s “jokingly” captioned “I believe there is a train under here somewhere! “.   I remember seeing newspaper photos (years after the fact,  in the stacks at the library) of a  Northern Pacific passenger train stuck in a drift that pretty much buried the locomotives to the roof.

On the one hand, I feel for the Obamas; they took a lot of flak from our British friends and allies over their choice of gifts for Gordon Brown during his recent state visit.

Now, I’m a guy.  I don’t always have impeccable insticts when it comes to gift giving.  Of course, I also don’t have a State Department with a full-time protocol staff, but work with me here; I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to hoot and holler over this sort of thing (like the media would have done had it been President Bush, for example).

Still, I’d have rather had him plead “I’m a guy”, or “I’m a naif from flyoverland” with the critics of his performance with PM Brown, than have his handlers gush that, really, this president isn’t ready for prime time.

His excuse is the same one every high school sophomore tries to pull.  He’s tired:

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been “overwhelmed” by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

But isn’t there a staff to deal with this sort of thing?

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama’s inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.

Not every person in the Administration is “dealing with” the “meltdown”! 

How “not ready for prime time” is he? (Emphasis added):

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to “even fake an interest in foreign policy”…The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

So (if the “well-connected figure” is right), Obama can’t multitask? He can’t lead a country in a time of immense international peril and deal with the economy?  In other words, he can’t do the job that he convinced 53% of the American people he was perfect for?

Why, it’s almost as if being a one-term Senator and “community organizer” isn’t adequate background for the most powerful, responsible job on earth!

[NOTE to liberal commenters: As an excuse for Obama’s shortcomings, “Oh, yeah?  Well, Dubya was stupid!” is rapidly approaching the end of its shelf life.  Be advised.]

Chris Rock once famously noted that if you find yourself on Martin Luther King Street anywhere in the US, be very careful.

Likewise, anytime you find yourself at an event to promote non-violence, duck:

Montgomery County police say 16 people were arrested after a fight broke out during a concert held to promote nonviolence and to remember a Silver Spring teen killed last year…Police say fighting broke out near the stage toward the end of the concert and at least one person resisted arrest. Police say 16 adults and juveniles were arrested for offenses such as assault and disorderly conduct.

Inveigling teenage boys to be “non-violent” at a concert is like holding an Obesity Anonymous meeting at a Lays potato chip factory.

The Democrats, playing from the Chomsky playbook and using their hegemony in the mainstream media to shape opinion, have been trying to create a false choice in the minds of the vast, non-affiliated “middle” in American politics; asking “Is Rush Limbaugh the voice of the GOP?”, while quite deliberately setting up and glorifying non-conservatives (Chuck Hagel and Arlen Spector nationally; regionally, the likes of Lori Sturdevant burn lots of cycles setting up the likes of Ron Erhard as “responsible” Republicans, which translates to “indistinguishable from the DFL in every particular”).as an “alternative”.

The normally-very-sharp David Frum buys into the madness, playing the Dems’ game for them.

So who’s the voice of conservatism and the GOP in America?

Me.

I, Mitch Berg, am the voice of the Republican party.  My agenda – support growth, limit government intrusion, destroy the enemy (via violence, dipomacy or humanitarianism, it matters not), cut taxes, support the family, defend our culture – is what the party’s agenda should be.

Having an agenda, of course, is of little value if you can’t get it elected.  Republicans – conservative, moderate, whatever – need to get together, figure out the 80% of the message that 80% of us agree on, and convince the other 50% of this country (the ones that aren’t already either Republicans or lost causes) why it not only matters to them, but is a much better choice.  By this time next year, it might not even be all that hard – if we can stop letting the bad guys set us against each other.

So yeah.  I’m the voice of the GOP.

Of course, so are all of my True North colleagues.

And every conservative Republican in Minnesota who doesn’t write for True North, or write at all.

Also every conservative in America, from Rush Limbaugh and Tom Coburn through the guy in the plumbing supply store in Clear Lake Iowa who’s wondering how he’s going make ends meet.

There’s your voice of conservatism.

Note to the liberal media; I hope that settles this.

Speaking of which – I see Kathleen Soliah, the voice of the Minnesota DFL, is coming back to the state…

One of the most pleasant diversions the Twin Cities offer in the summer is a night out on the back patio at Keegans in the summer, playing trivia and torching up the odd cigar.

Y’see, while Minneapolis and then Minnesota banned smoking in bars, establishments that had outdoor space were able to have smoking patios – sort of like those miserable outside-the-office smoking areas, only with tables and chairsand waitresses and booze.

And when Minneapolis sees opportunities for the people to have fun that is not strictly regulated, it gets jealous.

According to Terry Keegan, the Met Council is driving the various city agencies to try to consider cigar patios as expansions to the bar, meaning they’d get charged full square-footage fees.

It’s an absurd interpretation, of course; the cigar patios are where people inside the bar go to grab a cigar and sit.  This is a baldfaced attempt to squeeze money out of bar owners, themselves caught in a double-whammy of tough economic times and times that were already straitened by Minnesota’s smoking ban, as well as continue the DFL’s attempt to regulate behavior.

So what is it going to take to get people to storm the barricades (rhetorically speaking, at least)?

…but apparently the Democrats included a special stimulus for fake-news shows like Colbert and The Daily Show.

How will they thank us?

…when they really are out to get you.

…keeping tabs on every Web site they visit, every keystroke they tap, every instant message they send–even the contents of the messages on their personal Hotmail or Gmail accounts.

Besides financial fraud, companies find less insidious but still costly forms of abuse such as employees spending long, production-sapping stretches on Facebook or YouTube.

To help avoid cases of worker fraud, companies are increasingly using monitoring and tracking software. “Employee fraud definitely increases in economic hard times,” says Frank McKenna, co-founder and chief fraud strategist of BasePoint Analytics, a firm that offers fraud consulting and software for banks, mortgage lenders, and credit-card companies.

Consider yourself warned.

So the MOB party was last night.  It was the first one we’ve done in about 18 months.  I expected sort of a “rebuilding season” kinda vibe to the party, with maybe 40-odd people showing up.

I counted a total fo a little over 70 over the course of the evening, with probably a little over fifty in the room at one time at the party’s peak.

Being the peripatetic sort (and having heard once upon a time it’s a good host’s job to make sure everyone meets everyone else), I did my best to actually try to meet, if not have a meaningful conversation, with everyone there, just to get an idea of how showed up, and from where.

My attempts to get everyone are usually laughably incomplete, but here goes:

• Lileks, of course, with the Giant Swede and a significant-looking other.
• Bob Davis of KSTP-AM
• Laura and David Hemler, fans, activists, and longtime friends of the NARN
• Joel Rosenberg and Felicia Herman
• Gary M. Miller, Jeff Kouba and (I believe) Paul from Truth Vs. The Machine
• Casey, an intern reporter from The Daily Planet
• Jeff Rosenberg of the Daily Liberal MN Publius
• Mini-Flash 2.0 – Flash’s (Centrisity) doppleganger.
• Tom “Swiftee” Swift
• Jordan Mason  – formerly of the Taxpayers League – and lucky guy Mark Wernimont.
• The entire Night Writer clan; John “Night Writer” Stewart, the Reverend Mother, Mall Diva, Tiger Lily and Uncle Ben.
• Mr. D – of blog and comment section fame.
• Former MOB Mayor Andy “Andee Applecowskee” Aplikowski and Carrie (bka “Spurringirl”).
• Enge and his daughter
• Doug “Crossword Bebop” Bass and at least one of his kids
• Half of the McCollow/Pivec/Hubble clan; Katie (formerly of Yucky Salad with Bones) and husband Mike, sister MLP (from Casual Sundays) and – !!! – husband Jay Pivec, who was my college’s basketball coach back in 1984, whom I’d not seen in 25 years, who is the head coach at Minneapolis Community Technical College, and who earlier that every evening had won the game that’d send MCTC to nationals, along with the youngest sister and Katie’s twin/friend (whose names both elude me yet again).
• King Banaian and Janet B of SCSU Scholars, and King’s friend Ken Doyle.
• A couple of NARN2 Webstream viewers, including Wendy “Tolowen” and a couple others whose names have dodged me.
• Comment section regular Just Plain Angry
• Jamie Delton of Delton Digest and his friend, er, Shawn/Sean (sp?)
• Marty Andrade
• John “Policy Guy” LaPlante
• David Strom and Margaret Martin
• Duke Powell, former Burnsville state rep and new blogger at Ambulancedriver.com, who had to leave early to, well, drive an ambulance.
• Matt Abe of North Star Liberty
• Chief, Guy and Lassie from Freedom Dogs
• Fresch Fisch
• Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci from Kool Aid Report
• Leo Pusateri of “Psychmeister’s Ice Palace” and, er, Mrs. Pusateri
• Marty Stanchfield, promotions whiz, with the hit of the evening, the Obama spinny-head doll (Thanks, Marty!)
• Kevin Ecker
• Chris from Rocket’s Red Glare
• Barry Hickethier
• the Other Chris, from BuddhaPatriot
• And of course, Mayor Johnny Roosh and the first lady, Mrs. Roosh!
• Commenter Jim C.

I apologize to anyone I missed; I did my best to reconstruct the list from pure, overtaxed memory.
Special thanks to Terry and Virginia Keegan,who made room for the party after I, ahem, neglected to tell them we’d be descending on them (and thanks to Barry for tipping them off last week, averting disaster…)

We’ll do another one this summer, likely at a more spacious location (details being arranged).

And the long-joked-about MOB Day at the Range – wherein a MOB party would start at a firing range and move to a bar of some sort (in that order and no other), long spoke of tongue-in-cheek, actually has a better-than-even chance of happening this year.  Stay tuned.

UPDATE:  D’oh.  And Eric Black from the MinnPost.

Was disappointed to see the MinnPost’s David Brauer didn’t show up to recreate his ambulance scene with Duke.  Also hoping some of the MPR crowd can make it next time!

UPDATE 2:  Yep, Brad and Jen Carlson were there, too.  I reconstructed the list by who I saw sitting where; the Carlsons’ table had all sorts of people who were harder for me to remember, so I mentally kept going “I’ll get back to them!” every time I typed out names from that table.  But I didn’t.  Until now, I mean…

…You’re only a Year Awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Barack Obama is tough on earmarks! Just like he campaigned.

White House budget director Peter Orszag says the Obama administration isn’t happy with the billions of dollars aimed at lawmakers’ pet projects – also known as earmarks. Obama had campaigned on changing the way such money is appropriated by Congress.

Gosh darn it. The President’s not happy. So he’s going to use his Veto power, right?

Nope.

Yet Orszag says Obama doesn’t want to revisit the spending bill Congress put together before he was elected and wants to move on. Next year, according to Orszag, when Obama is fully involved in the next budget from the start, earmarks will be handled differently.

Sure they will. It takes more than a year to grow a spine does it?

That’s Change^® you’ll just have to wait for.

Don’t forget – the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers Winter Party is tonight at Keegans Irish Pub in Northeast Minneapolis.  Festivities should tee up around 6PM – I plan on being there by 6, anyway.  They’ll go until we feel like not going anymore – whatchagonnadoaboutit?

We’ve got an interesting group of RSVPs so far – a lot of the usual suspects, some new faces, some people you already know, others who’ll be meeting us for the first time.

Hope to see you there!

Yesterday, March 6, was the fifth anniversary of the Northern Alliance Radio Network.

 Like most things in life, it doesn’t seem nearly that long.

It also makes it, by about three years, the longest-lasting radio gig I’ve ever had. Although since it’s the lowest-paying, I guess it makes sense.

Psychologists say that everyone has some small set of activities that trigger their endorphins, that set their brain on “puree” and tickle that pleasure center.  The show is one of mine, I guess; for two hours a week, the cares and headaches of the week fall away.  Don Vogel was right, twenty-odd years ago, when he said “Mitch, talk radio is an addiction”.  He was right – and not always in a good way.  If you’ve read my “Twenty Years Ago” series, you may have figured out that I went through a prolonged withdrawal from talk radio in my mid-twenties. It took me a few years to fill that hole in my life.

But it’s a little different these days.  I have a different life.  Talk radio is an addiction, but a low-impact one, one that does something very few radio jobs do; it gives me much more than it takes away.

Anyway – thanks to Patrick Campion, who bought the original pitch, and to John Hunt, our GM, who continues to put up with us.  And to Nick Novak, our former PD and great supporter.  To Kate Fisher, our Promotions xena, and all the sales guys who keep finding sponsors for us. 

Thanks even more to our producers – Tommy Huynh and Jon Osburn today, but also the many in the past five years who made us sound less-amateur; Sam Holmgren, Anna Telkhova, Irina Malanina, and our first, the late, great Joe Hansen.

And most of all, thanks to Brian, John, King and Ed, and to NARNsters-emeritus Atomizer, JB, Scott, Michael and Chad.  Let’s hope the next five years are as good as the past five.

Only with more money.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 11AM-5PM:

• Volume I “The First Team” –  Brian and John kick off from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I continue our mission next, from 1-3.  We’ll we trying to stay within the Obama Administration’s punctilious rules for accepting dissent from the peasantry.  Also talking about Obama’s Party Jones.
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King will be dishing the economic smack from 3-5.
• And don’t forget, our long-time colleagues David Strom and Margaret Martin lead things off on the David Strom Show from 9-11AM!

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• streaming at AM1280’s Website,
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• UStream video and chat (at HotAir.com or at UStream)
• Podcast at Townhall (usually uploaded by Monday morning).
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488!

(Title courtesy RATM)

The Minnesota Twins Mpeg discount tix prices to the Dow:

The Twins will discount certain seats for Monday home games, based on the Dow Jones Industrials. The promotion will tie the cost of tickets in the “Home Run Porch” area in lower left field to the number the Dow closes at on the preceding Friday.

For example, if it’s in the 8,000s on Friday, those seats will cost $8 on Monday. If it’s in the 7,000s, it’s $7.

The regular price of those seats is $21. The deal excludes the April 6 opener and Memorial Day, and there’s a limit of eight tickets per person.

The way forward from this is obvious: as long as Obama is in office, we can count on more carnage on the Dow.  So I plan on borrowing some friends’ tickets, short-selling them in anticipation of big Monday morning selloffs reacting to bad economic choices Obama tries to hide after 5PM Friday, taking the call-back, and making a ton of money.

Then, I plan on offering a derivatative security based on the price fluctuation in Twins tickets, not so much because I think it’s a good idea for a security as the incarceration of Petters, Madoff and Stillwater leave a huge hole in the “ready to pluck a sucker” market, and what could be better to plug that gap than a derivative based on the shorting of baseball tickets?

Soon, I’ll own the Netherlands – hopefully before the Ticket Bubble bursts.  And best of all, the Obama Administration will bail me out!

Go Twins!  And Go Bears!

I hope your effort to institute socialilsm fails, too.

 In fact, I hope it fails even more than Rush does!

By the way, all of you – my show is the Northern Alliance Radio Network, Volume II, heard every Saturday from 1-3PM Central on AM1280 in the Twin Cities, or at Town Hall for podcasts.

No, really. Fail fail fail. Not you, Mr. President, personally, but your policies, yes. Definitely.

Feel free to sic your dogs on Ed and I. Really. Please hop to it!

One side effect of the Democratic campaign against Rush Limbaugh has been to increase — dramatically increase — the talk show host’s ratings.

This morning I asked Rush if he had any numbers he could share on just what effect the increased visibility has had on his business. This is his response:

The latest numbers I have are for January, well before this kerfuffle began, and they are through the roof — six shares in NY, for example. There are daily ratings taken now in about the top 15 markets but I have not seen them yet. All I can tell you is that as of January, we booked 80 percent of all our 2008 revenue and we’ll be over 2008 by the end of this month.

Given those numbers, it’s clear that the most decisive economic stimulus produced by the Obama administration so far has been at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.

Socialism bad!

You’re Nancy Pelosi’s lapdog!

You’re destroying the market!

Who the hell does Michelle’s hair? T

hat should give you and your staff plenty to respond to. Please see to this. Thanks.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Obama Bear Market, named for it’s cause.

“It’s the Obama bear market,” said Dan Veru, who helps oversee $2.8 billion at Palisade Capital Management in Fort Lee, New Jersey. “We don’t know what the rules are in so many different areas the government is touching.”

In all fairness, the market had been sinking long before Obama won the election, but looked to be turning a corner, maybe even establishing a bear market low, after November 20th. The market gained double digits after that day, then Obama started making his plans known, and Jimmy Carter II took it down another notch.

Traders continue to cite the Obama Administration’s plans as the primary driver of stocks — and while miracles cannot be achieved overnight, investors have been left wanting by what they’re interpreting as inaction or an effort, through additional funds provided to zombie institutions, to kick problems a ways down the road.

The stock market is a collective of our wealth and a predictor of the health of our economy. Barack Obama is making all the wrong moves and we are all paying for it.

Had we seen tax cuts and a simple shoring up of “safety net” programs, like unemployment insurance, social security and medicaid, already in place for times like these, we’d already be on our way to a recovery and the market would be reflecting that.

As it stands, the American people are getting all the things from Barack Obama that so-called extreme conservatives warned us about, and to which the media turned a blind eye and a tingling leg.

A massive and poorly-timed stimulus package that will have absolutely no immediate benefit to the economy, and a tax increase for Americans best positioned to pull us out of this recession.

So is the very real question of whether the $787 billion stimulus plan is sufficiently robust or properly focused. The new spending pathetically “repeats the mistakes that got us here,” says Robert Albertson, a principal at Sandler O’Neill and a former Goldman Sachs banker.

“After 18 years of record spending, much of it on credit, consumers must and will de-lever and save the next $1 trillion to $2 trillion of income. Only private businesses create job multiplication and true future spending power,” says Albertson. “That requires a savings and investment program, not a doomed spending program. The latter tact ate up the resource base for six years during the 1930s Depression, with little or no effect on unemployment.”

But Obama sees our would-be saviors, business owners, investors and risk-takers as the enemy. The market disagrees.

Earlier in the week, Bespoke Investment Group analysts observed that the Dow has never had this poor a beginning of the year in its history.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20 percent since Inauguration Day, the fastest drop under a new president in at least 90 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

…and that is no coincidence.

“President Obama said Tuesday that he is not intently focused on the ‘day-to-day gyrations of the stock market,’ comparing the downward roller-coaster on Wall Street to the fickle nature of political polls,” the NYT reports.

” ‘You know, it bobs up and down day to day,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.’ “

You’ve already taken care to accomplish that Mr. President. The next falling index, sir, shall be your approval numbers. We don’t need Jim Cramer to tell us that.

…but I wish I could short them right now.

An axiom of economic downturns; companies that a) produce things people actually need, and b) manage themselves fairly well, often thrive during hard times.

With this in mind, note that TCF Bank, our locally owned bank chain, wants nothing to do with the bailout:

TCF Financial Corp. plans to return more than $361 million it got from the federal government four months ago, saying the “the rules have definitely changed” since it accepted the money from the government.The bank holding company, which has operations in seven states, has asked permission from federal regulators to return the money it received in November under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Of course, TCF is every Twin Cities liberal’s ideological kicktoy; the CEO is former MNGOP chair Bill Cooper; Scott Johnson of Powerline is their chief legal counsel (and the left has tried to spin that into “TCF Supports Powerline” for years now); they’re about to vote on the Minnesota’s taxes and banking regulations with their corporate feet.

And now – daring to throw Chairman President Obama’s money back in his face?

The temerity.

Earlier, we noted Minnesota state officials saying that the economic downturn had curbed congestion.

An isolated claim?  Read this appearance by SecState Clinton at the EU (to which I’m adding emphasis) and tell me:

“Never waste a good crisis,” Clinton told a hearing at the European Parliament. “And when it comes to the economic crisis, don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security.”

The United States is seen as the key player in global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, after President Barack Obama signaled a new urgency in tackling climate change in stark contrast to his predecessor George W.

First:  is anyone checking Algore’s bank accounts?

Second:  Is this the most tone-deaf administration in history?

Strib alleges that the recession is curing congestion

Commuters surprised to be zipping down Twin Cities highways can partly thank former colleagues who are unexpectedly off the roads, sitting at home jobless.”The difference in the traffic volume is dramatic,” said Peter Berven, of Forest Lake, who commutes to his dental practice in St. Louis Park, a drive that for the past three months or so has been a half-hour shorter.

I’m not sure that makes sense – Minnesota’s unemployment rate has gone from the sub-fives to the mid-sevens, and I’m not sure that a 3% change in people on the road would make that tangible a difference, with emphasis on “I’m not sure”.

On the other hand, maybe we don’t  need to drop a billion-plus on the “Central Corridor” – gutting more private-sector jobs and businesses in the process – after all, now, do we?

That is all.

…but Kansas looks pretty good about now.

…click the pic for more detail.

…or is it me warming to Jim Cramer, just a little bit.

When I come to work each day, whether as a commentator for TheStreet.com or a host of Mad Money With Jim Cramer, I have only one thought in mind: helping people with their money.

Okay, that part is not entirely accurate if ye be judged by your results. You’re an entertainer whose stock-picking advice at least has been shown to be dead on if one’s goal is to generate losses.

I fight to help viewers and readers make and preserve capital. I fight for their 401(k)s, for their 529s and their IRAs. I fight for their annuities and for their life insurance policies. I fight for their profits, trading and investing. And in this horrible market, I fight to keep their losses to a minimum by having some good dividend-yielding stocks from different sectors, some bonds, some gold and some cash.

Sorry Jim, I’m not a fan. Jim Cramer: A Stream of Uncalibrated Opinion

I work with real clients and real money, and people like you and Suze only confuse my clients more and make my job harder.

…but despite all that, I’m warming up to you of late:

Limbaugh’s dead right. I am a fight-not-flight guy, so I was on my hackles when I heard White Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ answer to a question about my pointed criticism of the president on multiple venues, including the Today Show.

Well, in case you didn’t know this Jim, Gibbs is a pompous ass and likely knows less about the market and economics than his boss.

“I’m not entirely sure what he’s pointing to to make some of the statements,” Gibbs said about my point that President Obama’s budget may be one of the great wealth destroyers of all time. “And you can go back and look at any number of statements he’s made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the backup for those are, too.”

Huh? Backup? Look at the incredible decline in the stock market, in all indices, since the inauguration of the president, with the drop accelerating when the budget plan came to light because of the massive fear and indecision the document sowed: Raising taxes on the eve of what could be a second Great Depression, destroying the profits in healthcare companies (one of the few areas still robust in the economy), tinkering with the mortgage deduction at a time when U.S. house price depreciation is behind much of the world’s morass and certainly the devastation affecting our banks, and pushing an aggressive cap and trade program that could raise the price of energy for millions of people.

The market’s the effect; much of what the president is fighting for is the cause. The market’s signal can’t be ignored. It’s too palpable, too predictive to be ignored, despite the prattle that the market’s predicted far more recessions than we have.

Obama has undeniably made things worse by creating an atmosphere of fear and panic rather than an atmosphere of calm and hope. He’s done it by pushing a huge amount of change at a very perilous moment, by seeking to demonize the entire banking system and by raising taxes for those making more than $250,000 at the exact time when we need them to spend and build new businesses, and by revoking deductions for funds to charity that help eliminate the excess supply of homes.

Jim, your stock picks may be right less than half the time, but you are 100% correct today.

Just don’t throw a chair at the President. That’d be bad.