The Teleprompter in Chief^™ defies reality, regurgitating well-worn propaganda that flies in the face of reality as revealed in real numbers.

President Barack Obama said his $787 billion stimulus bill “has worked as intended” as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.

“It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession”

…which is a good thing, and probably all the “Stimuless” spending package should been enacted to do; provide a safety net. The rest of the plan is a combination of deferred liberal agendas and political payback.

Meanwhile, unemployment continues to rise, oil prices are falling (which believe it or not is bad), and the stock market has fallen four weeks in a row in anticipation of an extended worldwide recession as global government borrowing digs an ever-deepening crevasse.

Oil prices and the stock market are accepted leading indicators. Obama’s rhetoric has no substantive or predictive value whatsoever.

In asking for public patience, Obama said the recovery act “wasn’t designed to restore the economy to full health on its own, but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall.”

This is what you call backpedaling – where are even some of our 2-3 Million New Jobs? – a number Barack Obama pulled from his backside some time ago – why is unemployment above 8% and still rising? If this is not a free fall….

…the bill “was designed to spur demand and get people spending again and cushion those who had borne the brunt of the crisis,” the president said.

Both missions: Unaccomplished.

Obama said the measure “was not designed to work in four months — it was designed to work over two years.”

“Remember, we’re only 140 days into this deal,” Biden said in a speech in Cincinnati. “It’s supposed to take 18 months.”

Well, at least you guys have your stories straight.

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 are up next, from 1-3.  We’ll likely be talking about Franken, North Korea, Palin, and much more.
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King is on next, dishing his own personal brand of conservative hurt from 3-5.  Check it out.
• And don’t forget, our long-time colleagues David Strom and Margaret Martin lead things off on the David Strom Show from 9-11AM!

(All times Central)
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!

Join us!

(Title via Rick and Robin)

Last week, the Strib came out with the official state No Child Left Behind rankings for state charter and “district” schools. 

While I haven’t seen any of the usual public school apologists crowing about the results yet, they will.  In the wake of MN2020’s hatchet job last month, it can only be a matter of time.

So let me head it off at the pass.  65% of state public school students were deemed “proficient” in math, and 73% in reading.

That compared to 49% and 57% for charter schools statewide.

That doesn’t officially look good for charter schools. 

But let’s remember – the bulk of the charter schools are in the metro area (along with many outstate charters that serve minorities, especially the Native American community).  51% of charter school students statewide are minorities; that average is even higher at inner city schools.  Many – most – of those charter school students in the inner city are there because their parents are dissatisfied – disgusted, even – with the education their children have gotten in the big inner-city schools. 

Of course, the question “does poverty cause poor education results, or do poor education results cause poverty” is a good one to ask – and plays into all possible interpretations of these results.  We can discuss that later.

For now, though, let’s endeavor to compare apples and apples. 

The inner city schools – Minneapolis and Saint Paul – have very similar test results, although Saint Paul’s demographics are much more turbulent.  Similar math scores (46 in Saint Paul, 48 in Minneapolis) and reading totals (52 and 51, respectively).  The numbers in special education are about the same (between 14 and 15%); about 38% of Saint Paul’s students spoke English as a second language, while of Minneapolis students, 6% of those taking the math test and 23% for the reading test were ESL. 

So let’s compare:  Math scores for Minneapolis, Saint Paul and charters statewide are 46,  52 and 49, respectively; for reading, 52, 51 and 57%). 

So as we see, while charter schools are coming in behind statewide school scores, they have a slight nod over the metro schools.

It gets even more interesting when you get into specifics.  Comparing the big city districts – which are between 60-73% low-income – with charters as a whole is interesting.  But how about with charters catering primarily to low-income students?

An excellent comparison is with the controversial Tariq Ibn Ziyad Academy, in Inver Grover Heights.   80% of their students are classifed as low-income, and 68% of the students taking the reading tests spoke English as a second language (double even Saint Paul’s very high number). 

And yet 93% of TIZA’s students passed the Math test, and 68% the reading test – compared again to Saint Paul (46 and 52% for math and reading) and Minneapolis (48 and 51%). 

Outstate?  Let’s compare two smaller schools:  Milroy Public, and Cologne Charter.

Milroy is 38% low income (state average is around 30%), 8% special ed (state average is 13%), and about 7% ESL (below the state average.  57% of Milroy’s students passed the Math test, 68% the reading exam.

The Cologne Academy charter is 27% low-income (a little below state average), and 16% special ed (a little above).  And 86% of its student body passed the Math test, 76% the reading standards.

Read the (uncommonly-informative) link from the Strib.  It’s well worth the read.

For whenever MN2020 wants to start yakking about “achievement gaps”, I mean.

With the entry of my “evil” twin brother Jed into the world of low-end didactic cartooning,the hue and cry has been overwhelming; we need a contest.

Who, indeed, is the best blogger/cartoonist in the Twin Cities?

For years, it’s been generally recognized that Tom “Swiftee” Swift- auteur  of “Life In The Dumpster” -has been the dean of Twin Cities blog cartoonists. “LITD” has long combined trenchant satiric observation with the sort of gritty anti-style that only the best cartoonists can master.

But much has changed since “Dumpster” earned its first accolades.  Ken “Avidor” Weiner continues his prolific output under various names, some not even made public.  Tiger Lilly, from the Night Writer blog, has driven minimalism to its far edge.  Joe “Learned Foot’ Tucci from Kool Aid Report made “Fleen” – a story of a loveable family of prickly cyphers – into a local tradition before perversely pulling it from circulation.  And I gotta say, I think my twin bro is an up-and-comer.  (We’ll leave Dan Lacey from Faithmouse out of it for now; in contrast with the rest of the list, he’s an actual professional and recognized artist).

So who’s the best?

We’ll let you decide!

First – the nominees:
Nomination 1:  Tom Swift

Few artists make “crudity” – in style, technique and content – a tool in and of itself like Tom “Swiftee” Swift.

The cartoons – done in Microsoft Paint, usually with no more than a thumb and index finger – and intended tolook crude, slapdash and half-finished, as if Swift is commenting on the overproduced, over-colored, over-stylized, self-consciously “Retro” stylings of too many underground cartoons.

Nomination 2:  Fleen

Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci’s “Fleen”, set in a fictional void amidst a larger void, is an ironic commentary on the overly-structured pointillism of most “post-modern” cartoons.

Tucci’s been praised for his style – deftly suggesting dynamism and motion even though his characters remain superficially motionless, as if daring one to keep up.  It reminds one of the great Danish neo-structuralist cartoons from the sixties through the early eighties.

It’s edgy stuff; some wondered if it didn’t take too much out of Tucci for it to continue, when he pulled his Bill Watterson-like retirement from cartooning last year.
Nomination 3:  Planet Terry

This strip is drawn by my twin brother Jed, who says “my aim is to convey everything – love, hate, rage, sex, laughter – with as little effort as possible”.
e

Some criticize his work as derivative and excessively inky.  You be the judge.
Nominee 4: Anorexics Inaneymous

The sine qua non of minmalism, AI – drawn by “Tiger Lily” from Night Writer – is a deft commentary on life in the 21st century.

Minimal as it is, the strip conveys deftly conveys an amazing range of feeling.
Nominee 5:  Bicyclopolis

Ken “Avidor’ Weiner draws Bicyclopolis.

Looking as if it was cribbed from a 1977 issue of High Times, Bicyclopolis depicts (apparently) a fictional world where peoples’ hands are frozen into grotesque parodies of…I dunno, ham carved into hand shapes.  Which is a searing commentary on man’s inhumanity to cartoon hands.

It’s a tough decision, folks.  Which is why I’m fobbing it off on all of you.

Who is the best online cartoonist in the Twin Cities?

UPDATE:  And that’s a wrap:

Congratulations to all the contestants – because in the world of Twin Cities blog cartooning, just showing up makes you a winner!

Except Jed.

I told you so, JedHead.

Mommy always liked you better.

As Carnivore notes at TvM, the next round of post-Heller lawsuits are crawling toward the Supreme Court:

Similar to what we saw in the prelude to the Heller decision, 33 state Attorneys General have signed an amicus brief (PDF) to grant cert in McDonald v. City of Chicago and NRA v. City of Chicago, the cases which seek to have the US Supreme Court confirm that the Second Amendment applies to the States.

From NRA-ILA:

Fairfax, Va. – Two-thirds of the nation’s attorneys general have filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of NRA v. Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This bi-partisan group of 33 attorneys general, along with the Attorney General of California in a separate filing, agrees with the NRA’s position that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms in the home for self-defense, disagreeing with the decision recently issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Carnivore notes that Minnesota’s AG, Lori Swanson – who, whatever her other faults, is reliably anti-orc on Second Amendment issues – has signed the brief, while Wisconsin’s has not.

Carnivore also notes:

Unfortunately, former Governor and current Attorney General of California Jerry Brown filed a separate brief asking SCOTUS to take the case, but only to use such a case to validate California’s massive gun control schemes.

The petitions in these cases should be granted to provide needed guidance on the scope of the States’ ability to reasonably regulate firearms while extending to the states Heller’s core Second-Amendment holding that government cannot deny citizens the right to possess handguns in their homes.

Reasonably regulate?  We all know what that means:  Burdensome licensing, registration, and near prohibitions without being technical prohibitions.

And in the age of Obama – with his facile assurances to your face and behind-the-back skulduggery – it’s good to be watchful.   The orcs know that they can’t win this battle politically; when even a Barack Obama shies away from a direct attack on the “gun lobby” and its’ four million “gun lobbyists” and 100 million-odd gun owners, and Democrats from not-completely-insane districts pay at the very least lip service to the Second Amendment, one can reasonably expect them to go through the only venue left to them on this issue.

We haven’t lost any votes on the SCOTUS yet – so the likelihood of the first interpretation of Heller being written by some lice-ridden scumbag Chicago lawyer who will tell us that “leg shackles are for your own safety” is relatively manageable.

But this is why we – human-rights activists of all parties – have to not only win elections, but push the agenda.  Fix the laws, so that slime like Jerry Brown have no more grounds for filing their moronic papers.  Change local and state laws so that closet Maoists like the orcs that run Chicago can’t impose their demented will on the real Americans in the rest of their states.

Somebody with a French-y sounding name – Bartleby Camembert or some other limp-noodle fake name – writing at Anti-Strib took yet another dork-fingered whack at bikers a few weeks ago.

Unusually for a “conservative”, writing on a “conservative” blog, Mr. Chablis’ piece borrows from that great conservative thinker, Vice President Joe Biden, and is entitled “Efficiency is Patriotic”

There is another problem I have with biking as a primary means of transportation, is that it is inefficient which I feel is un-American

Yeah, that’s right.  “Life, liberty, and on-time trains”.  It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence.

No, Mr. Brioche; “Efficiency’ is a market imperative.  Since you are (or ape) French, we’ll have to explain that to you.  That’ll come later.

I know that a few people are confused as what could be more patriotic than an individual pedaling alone to work?

Really, Mr. Cote-du-Rhone?  “A few people” are “confused” about this?

Name them. Provide some cites.

Because…no.  Nobody is confused about the “patriotism” of riding bikes.  Nobody.  Not one person in the entire world.

Seriously – when did Anti-Strib hire Grace Kelly?

One of the greatest assets of our economy has been its flexibility. Americans, much more then Europeans, have always been ready and willing to change. Liberals want us to become less flexible and more rigid. They want us all to live near LRT and bike paths.

Right.  So what?

Some liberals would also like us to be vegetarians; that doesn’t mean enjoying a veggie burrito at Chipotle for lunch is “Unamerican”.

But since the subject is flexibility, let’s talk about how very, very hidebound and inflexible – which apparently means “Unpatriotic” – Mr. Pepe-le-pew is:

Biking is a big part of the liberal dream to restrict the freedoms of Americans. If you can only afford to bike or take mass transit to work, your job options are severely limited. This not only reduces the pay of the individual, it also reduces the productivity of our society.

Let’s stop right here.

Who says it’s a matter of affording to ride a bike?

I bike to work because I enjoy it.  I drive it sometimes, I bus it others, and when weather permits, I bike it.  In other words, I exercise flexibility.  Something that apparently is beyond Mr. Blancmange’s comprehension.  I have spent most of my career driving to work, because the drive was too far and the kids’ demands too great.

And now – after years of looking – I finally have a job in the city proper, an easy six miles or so from my house.  And I can do anything I want to get to work…

…by Mr. MarieAntoinette’s leave, naturally.

My schedule this fall was this: up at 6:30 AM so I could be at the U of MN campus by 8:00 AM. Drive to client A north of St. Paul after class. Drive to client B in White Bear Township at 12:30. Leave WBT at 5:15 to go back to the U of MN campus, drive home at 9:00PM. Now try this scenario with LRT, buses or bicycles. It just doesn’t work.

Oh, waaaah.

I remember when I could be the kind of layabout slacker with a schedule like Mr. Passepartout’s.  I’m up at 5:15 most every day, getting in an hour or so of blogging.  Then I’m waking kids up, getting them up and on their way, and getting off to work -which, over the past fifteen years, has been anywhere from Chanhassen to Maple Grove to Eagan to Farmington to Eden Prairie to Minnetonka (and sometimes more than one; when I was a consultant, I’d sometimes work two or three gigs at a time) to, after 13 years in IT, Saint Paul.  Then home, for making dinner, housework, kid stuff, finish work that I brought home, doctor appointments, grocery shopping – I rarely stop moving before 10PM.

And somewhere in that schedule I gotta find some time to try to stay in some kind of shape, so I hopefully don’t die of a heart attack before I’m 50.  Some guys might go to the gym – but that’s pretty much wasted time.  Inefficient, if you will.

So I bike.  It’s fun.  It’s just about the best cardio there is.  I get between 40-60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous cardio a day, including the brisk, humility-induciing climb up Cathedral Hill at the end of the day. It fits into time I’m already spending; it’s faster than the bus, and when you factor in parking and walking to work, not a whole lot slower than driving.  It costs almost nothing (more financially efficient).  It makes my work day more efficient, since the morning workout pumps up my energy to a level that – I guarantee this – you can not match, Froggy LeFroggue. And it is fun, which is more than you can say for plodding away on a treadmill or sitting in traffic in your Renault LeCar or puttering along on your “motorcycle”.

As you can see this level of productivity is only possible with roads and cars.

The level of productivity Mr. Baguette is yapping about is only possible if you have a stroke and a broken leg.  Give me a break.

Look – seriously, for a moment?  DUH.  I mean, big D, small uh.  As I’ve noted in this space for years, most of the transit snobs you read and run into may or may not have jobs, but the incomprehensibly vast majority seem to live alone, or with another able-bodied adult.  And it might be possible to live a car-free life with kids, but who the hell wants to try?  The transit snobs are screechingly myopic; anyone who thinks they can live and work and raise kids, even near a bus or train stop, and have a life that involves much of anything but planning how one is going to get places and earn the fare for it, obviously hasn’t tried.

Which doesn’t excuse the kind of “us against them” conceit that Mr. Gruyere wallows in.

So if you believe in freedom and want to leave your kids with a growing economy and a shot at a life at least as good as yours, you’ll stop supporting job killing ideas like LRT, mass transit and bike paths.

Whoah, Monseuir Andouilette!  You changed the subject!

“Biking” is not the same as “bike paths”.  One is a personal choice one makes with one’s own money, time, and effort, exercising the adult free will to decide how to live one’s own life, using streets he or she has paid for with taxes already.  The other is a government program. 

Do try to keep things straight, here?

Our country and economy are built in individual freedom, flexibility and efficiency. Anything that reduces that is a threat to our future and ultimately our country.

Whatever, Mr. Phroux-Phroux Authoritarian Scold Who Learned Everything He Knows About Blogging, Logic and apparently Politics From MNob and Grace Kelly (Who Have Never Been Seen In The Same Room).  The future of this country depends not one limp froggy piddle on how we get to work.  It depends on the job we do once we get there.

Jeez, Tracy Eberly; who’s checking the green cards at Anti-Strib these days?

“Viagra and Candy.”

Warren Buffet:

The Legendary Investor Is Critical of the First Stimulus Package, Comparing It to Viagra and Candy.

…and yet he condones another stimulus package, as if the same people that designed the first one will get it right next time.

Warren: stick to picking stocks. You’ve not been so great at that either of late.

Headline on USN’nWR: Sanford Affair Will Hurt Republicans in the South, Democratic Strategists Say.

Democratic strategists say the much-publicized moral lapses of Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina will damage the GOP brand in the South. 

Whew.  I’d wondered if Democratic strategists were going to spin this to show the affair – also “anything” – was going to help the GOP.

In related news:

• Dean Barkley Thinks Sanford Affair Will Help “Independence” Party In MN
• Socialist Workers Party Reps Believe Sanford Slip Will Bolster Trotskyites
• American Nazi Party Believes Sanford Affair Implicates Jews

Thanks, USN’nWR.  Now that you’ve gone online, I’m glad to see your editorial talent has gurgled down toward Minnesota “Progressive” Project level.

After the 2004 campaign, Paul Krugman – the most overrated economist in history – posted a famous column in which he claimed that “red” states got more tax benefits than he paid out.

Like the dutiful trained chimps that most of them are, leftybloggers have been uncritically repeating this slur for the past five years, ignoring the fact that Krugman – being more motivated by politics than fact – omitted some key facts; western states have immense proportions of federally owned land, and lots of military bases, which are certainly “tax inflows”, but hardly direct entitlements.  Of course, western farm states get plenty in farm program subsidies – and conservatives have been fighting against these since, roughly, they started.  Krugman also neglected to note that per-capita incomes are much lower in the same states that he slurred – which means the trained-chimp leftybloggers have been unwittingly protesting against progressive income taxation, not that most of them are bright enough to know it.

How does non-farm entitlement spending break down?  I don’t know – yet.

But we have a hint, here; counties that backed Obama get twice as much “Stimulus” money per capita as red counties:

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.
The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

Well, I suppose loyalty is a good trait – right?

This one popped up in the comment section yesterday – but I figured it was worth asking here (although I know nobody will answer it).

For years, John McCain was the one Republican who could reach across the aisle.  From Democrats across the spectrum – from relative moderates, like my Dad (who once said he could have brought himself to vote for Mac) to moderately-sane liberals – said that McCain was someone they could get behind.  His American Conservative Union lifetime rating of just below seventy confirmed this: Mac’s correct stances on the budget and defense notwithstanding, he was no doctrinaire conservative.
And then, the moment he got nominated, he became “a radical conservative”.

Now, I understand that during the campaign the Tics will say whatever it takes; if the GOP had nominated Mother Teresa or Dennis Kucinich, they’d have called either of them “radical conservatives”, too.

But now that the campaign is over, you still see some of the left’s talkingpointbots repeating “McCain ran to the right!  He became too conservative!” in an endless loop, like a piece of computer code with no exception handling.

So Democrats – how, exactly, did McCain “become to conservative”?  And I’m talking policy statements, here – none of this “he picked Sarah Palin” BS, because he picked Palin to bolster his conservative support.  Because he was lagging.  Because he had not run to the right.

So anyway.  ‘spain away.

This I gotta hear.

One of the left’s standard whacks at the right – especially at people like Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin – is that they’re “dumb” and “uneducated” for eschewing the trappings of the Ivy League paper chase.

Leaving aside that an Ivy background is evidence of nothing more than having been either a very motivated junior high kid or legacy of another generation of Ivy Leagers, this reverence for “credentials” has always puzzled me (and it’s far from strictly a lefty thing; Hugh Hewitt also audibly slavers at the mention of Ivy League degrees).

Because the record of Ivy Leaguers in office is pretty dismal.

Not just presidents, of course.  A classic example – perhaps the last of its type before Obama – was the Kennedy Administration, which packed its offices with frothy youngish Ivy Leaguers.

One of those young deans was Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense while in his early forties.  Technocratic to a fault – he’d served in the Army Air Force as a statistician in World War II – he joined Ford as what we would today call a “TQM” geek. He ascended to the presidency in fifteen years,and was promptly appointed Secretary of Defense by Kennedy, where his main accomplishment was bringing “Systems Analysis” to the role.  McNamara tried to treat war as a set of repeatable business processes that could be improved using the same sort of “quality” methods that have screwed up so many American businesses.  It took the US military over 20 years to undo McNamara’s damage; Edwin Luttwak documented the dismal results of McNamara’s era (which, to be fair, built on and exacerbated some ill-fated “reforms” after World War II) in The Pentagon and the Art of War; the Goldwater-Nichols legislation in the late eighties started addressing some of the problems long after McNamara had left office, but after his system helped lead to the Vietnam debacle, the would-be-comical-if-it-weren’t-so-tragic Mayaguez incident, the Desert One disaster, the fiasco in Beirut, and an escalating series of screwups that made the victory on Grenada cost vastly more effort, money and lives than it should have.

His other “accomplishment”?  Being among the advisors who first recommended Vietnam to John F. Kennedy as a possible face-saving quick win after the Bay of Pigs fiasco – and then running the war into the ground, first under Kennedy, then throughout the entire Johnson Administration.

Joe Galloway – who, working as a war correspondent in Vietnam, saw McNamara’s work up close – isn’t mourning McNamara’s passing one bit:

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: “I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process.” Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.

Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run McNamara’s comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.

The only disagreement I ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.

Read the whole thing and find out why.

Well, the Gubernatorial poll yesterday was interesting:  Tom Emmer ran away with it. Laura Brod – who dropped out of the race – came in second, with Marty Seifert rounding out the top three.

OK – time for the Presidential race.

Vote!

 Eva Ng is running for Mayor of Saint Paul.

The city desperately needs her.

She’s got a fundraiser tomorrow night:

We would treasure the honor of your presence at a fundraiser hosted by Martin and Esther Kellogg for Eva Ng, Saint Paul Mayoral Candidate

Thursday, July 9th – 7:00 pm

339 Mount Curve Blvd., St. Paul, MN  55105

Featured Speaker:  Governor Tim Pawlenty

Please RSVP to 651-699-1937

Saint Paul is a wonderful place, but it shows the effects of letting the inmates run the asylum; taxes are booming, but the Mayor is still threatening to cut services and hike taxes more!  Crime – heretofore very low by major city standards, and a fraction of that of neighboring Minneapolis – is rising.  The city pays for essential services like police and fire with LGA – i.e. money from the rest of the state – while financing “fluff” with the city’s bedrock revenue, property taxes.  The mortgage crisis is gutting the lower-income neighborhoods – Frogtown, the North End, Dayton’s Bluff – but the city’s policy guarantees that none of the vacant houses can ever be sold to human occupants. 

Saint Paul needs a clean sweep.  Starting over at the top would go a long way.

Please – get out and support Eva.

We’re about 18 months away from the next round of elections to the US House of Representatives. 

I remembered that when I got this email from an anonymous source:

Let’s talk about MN 4th District Representative Betty McCollum.

“B-Cup Betty”, as she’s known to her smarter colleagues on Capitol Hill – which is, let’s face it, all of them – is a product of Saint Catherine’s,  a fifth-rate Catholic women’s college that seems to succeed only in teaching its graduates how to use that hot Catholic school girl uniform to get what they want.  Which was, in fact, the only way she could get a job, much less a guy.

McCollum, being too homely and brunette to get a job in entertainment or the media, not smart enough to get into law school and not masculine enough to land a women’s studies professorship, went into education. 

She stank at it, of course – the Saint Paul School District has a sub-50% graduation rate, which sank while she was teaching, and has only fallen further since she’s been in Congress.

Unable to finish the job she was given, McCollum manipulated the DFL’s gender-equity bylaws to get herself what is broadly regarded (by anonymous but reliable DFL sources) as an “affirmative action” nomination in a cakewalk district, the Fourth.  “This was basically the political electoral equivalent of walking into a bar full of guys and saying “any of you big strong fellas wanna help me push my car?” and showing a little leg” said an anonymous source.  And even at that, for two straight elections McCollum has shown neither the guts nor the brains to face any challengers in a debate, saying (in effect) “They might talk mean about me!  They hate women!”. 

“Of course she wins in the Fourth” said an anonymous DFL source.  “The DFL could endorse a pile of monkey poo and get 55% of the vote in the Fourth!  Good lord, those people are all lobotomized union droogs!  The real question isn’t “why did an inexperienced, not-so-bright, poorly-educated party hack win in the Fourth” so much as “is there another district where such a lightweight could win any office?  I swear, if she didn’t have her gender going for her, she’d come in third for Water and Soil District Commissioner”.

Anonymous sources say McCollum – who is anonymously known for being a strutting man-hating martinet – runs an office renowned for dubious ethics.  Although specific charges have neither been filed nor prosecuted, anonymous sources say it’s just a matter of time.  “McCollum shows all the signs of being an ethics disaster” said a source who asked not to be named, but is a higher-up in the DFL; “She’s female, she’s unqualified, ill-educated and dumb, she’s a castrating bitch – or so I’ve heard – she’s Catholic, she’s of Irish descent, she’s been a union member, and she’s a woman in politics; you just know she took every bit of swag that people left on the floor”. 

“She’s dumb, poorly-educated, has no political background and was a failure as a teacher, she’s never run a race against serious competition, and she’t not even close to hot”, the source continued, “and yet she’s a high-maintenance diva!”.

Well, I went and filed that piece in the “Stupid Hack Piece” drawer. 

Along with this.  And this.  And this.

Because there’s just no room for corrosive, stupid sexism in politics!  Why, just because every single thing in the scabrous email above was identical to similar defamations of, say, Sarah Palin or Linda Chavez or Margaret Thatcher or Laura Ingraham or Michele Bachmann or…

…um, where were we?

(more…)

My “evil” twin brother Jed sent me an email:

Mitch,

The overwhelming positive response I got from debuting “Planet Terry” yesterday on your blog really was the wind beneath my wings.  I think this might be my future, after all.

I thought I’d share my latest work with your audience first.

Many thanks to you and your many readers.  Say hello to Marisa for me.

Your twin brother,

Jed

He also sent another edition of “Planet Terry”:

I think he’s onto something.

Vote below to select your choice for the MNGOP Gubernatorial nomination for 2010 from the nominations collected on Monday.

Polls will be open for as close to 24 hours as I can keep ’em.

I saw the headline on this piece – “Alec Baldwin interested in congressional run” – and thought “Oh, great.  He’ll come to Minnesota and run against John Kline or Erik Paulsen”

Emmy Award winner Alec Baldwin is eyeing a post-acting career that could take him off a Hollywood soundstage into the halls of Congress.

But I was relieved – in a sense, anyway – to see that there are states other than Minnesota with enough vacuous hamsters who vote purely on name recognition:

A native New Yorker, Baldwin said he has been approached by an unnamed Democratic law firm who wanted him to run for governor of Ohio, and he has also considered moving to New Jersey or Connecticut to run for office. “I’d love to run against Joe Lieberman,” Baldwin said of the Independent Democratic senator who is no favorite of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. But Baldwin dismissed the idea, saying “It’s all fantasy.”

And he does some pondering which, if he were a Republican, would get him branded “Grade-A Whackjob”:

[Baldwin] noted the unpredictable nature of politics, citing Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s resignations.

He also asked hypothetical questions about the future of Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Rep. Tim Bishop.

“How much longer will Chuck Schumer stay as senator? After 2013 Bloomberg will be gone. What happens then? Do I run for Congress on Long Island? What’s Tim Bishop going to do? He represents my district. People get sick, die. They’re offered lucrative deals and want to cash in and make money for their retirement. People misstep,” he said. “Unfortunately, an opportunity for me may mean bad things for someone else. I don’t wish that.”

But being a Hollywood Liberal means never having to say you’re sorry – or for that matter having to say “Hey, why haven’t I moved to France yet?”

Asked if he had ever turned down a sketch on Saturday Night Live, because it was too outrageous, Baldwin responded, “Probably a few. It’s hard to remember. I’m often asked if I think about going into politics. If I do, these guys will have a field day. I’ve given them so much crap to use against me… If I run for political office, they’ll have a forest of material to kill me with.”

Only if you switch parties, Al.  Don’t sweat it.

At 4:05:06 tomorrow morning, 7/8/09….

Although the alignment may not mean anything specific, it could be a good day to do something for yourself and others, said Betsy Carlson, a Palm Springs tarot card reader and numerology expert.

Hey Betsy, interested in running for Senator?  (I digress again)

“It’s a good day to make money and have good health,” she said.

The sum of the time’s digits equals six, if all numbers are added until there’s a single figure left (4+5+6=15; 1+5=6).

Also, the numbers within the date add up to eight.

According to numerology, No. 6 represents providing a good service to humanity, while No. 8 represents making money and being healthy, Carlson said.

Add all the numbers together and you get 39, the percentage that worldwide CO2 will increase to by 2030 (eek!), and a Song by Queen about “twenty volunteers who leave a dying Earth on a spaceship in search of new worlds to settle.”

Like, way cool dude.

As for me, I’m going to get up early and clip my toenails. This was a good reminder.

Go for it Alec!

Emmy Award winner Alec Baldwin is eyeing a post-acting career that could take him off a Hollywood soundstage into the halls of Congress.

Why not? He’s no less qualified than some recent office-holders including a Fake Wrestler, a Neighborhood Organizer, an Action Hero and a Pornographer-er I mean Satirist.

A native New Yorker, Baldwin said he has been approached by an unnamed Democratic law firm who wanted him to run for governor of Ohio, and he has also considered moving to New Jersey or Connecticut to run for office. “I’d love to run against Joe Lieberman,” Baldwin said of the Independent Democratic senator who is no favorite of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. But Baldwin dismissed the idea, saying “It’s all fantasy.”

Congratulations Minnesota – you’ve started a Saturday Night Live Carpetbagging trend!

Baldwin, who currently stars in the NBC comedy “30 Rock,” told Playboy magazine that he is seriously considering running for Congress. But he acknowledged his opponents would have plenty of fodder to use against him.

Playboy? Isn’t that where our Senator From New York published his thesis?

Part of me wonders if Hollywood is finally figuring out that there’s a huge pool of people out here for whom the War on Terror is not an abstract relic of Bush Administration paranoia:

NBC News has scheduled its controversial to-catch-a-terrorist investigative program, in which an elite team hunts war criminals.“The Wanted” will premiere Monday, July 20, at 10 p.m. with specialists in counterterrorism, foreign intelligence, war crimes and investigative journalism profiling suspected international terrorists.

“We hope this program sheds light on an overlooked story,” said David Corvo, executive producer at NBC News. “It is surprising how many people with serious accusations against them are living openly and avoiding any sort of judicial process.”

The project drew criticism when it was first made public in February, with government officials saying the effort could interfere with ongoing criminal investigations, and human rights advocates concerned about the program making false accusations. Lingering distaste from the news division’s similarly law-enforcement-trumping “To Catch a Predator” segments on “Dateline,” which went after accused sex crimes perpetrators, has also led to worries about the new program.

And part of me wonders if it isn’t a first salvo in a Hollywood/Media campaign to cover for Obama’s retreat on everything else related to the War on Terror – Guantamo, withdrawal from Iraq, attacks into Pakistan and the works.

Obama wouldn’t dare call it a national cause, much less a war.  But if they can spin it as entertainment…?

Last month our Supreme Leader was quoted as saying “I’m not naive,” words that history will make famous some day. His advisors, being liberals, have only one lever to pull. Having pulled it harder than its ever been pulled before and to no avail, their advice?

The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an adviser to President Barack Obama.

“A bit too small.” Who are these people? Should it have had an “eency weency bit more pork?” Doubling it would not incent businesses to hire new employees right now or convince consumers to stop saving and start spending (hey, they’re smarter than the people they elected – maybe there is Hope^®).

The Obama stimulus already is the New Larger Size version of the failed Bush stimulus. Remember?

Hmm, what sort of policy would have incented hiring and spending? That’s a tough one. Anyone?

“The economy is worse than we forecast on which the stimulus program was based,” Tyson, who is a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory board, told the Nomura Equity Forum. “We probably have already 2.5 million more job losses than anticipated.”

Let me tweak that comment for you Ms. Tyson: “The economy is worse than we forecast because of the stimulus program.” Washington D.C. should be renamed “Ground Zero.”

The stimulus program will result in higher inflation and will require higher taxes. The anticipation of both is already putting pressure on businesses, who will continue to run as lean as they can for a long, long time. In fact, business owners are in fear of the government’s next move. Employees know this. The trickle-down effect is that even those that have jobs are hoarding cash and cutting expenditures.

Not very stimulating.

Maybe we should follow the MAC’s proposed signage plan and apply it to the economy. Let’s put up $2 Million signs everywhere “Be Happy. Spend Money.”

Tyson, 62, later told reporters that the U.S. can afford to pay for a second package, even as the fiscal deficit soars. She said the budget shortfall is “likely to be worse” than the equivalent of 12 percent of gross domestic product that the administration forecast for 2009 and the 8 percent to 9 percent it projected for next year.

We can “afford to pay” is an egregious choice of words given the fact that no one is “paying” – we are borrowing. I suppose her assessment is based on the fact that China hasn’t canceled our Visa card yet.

Tyson said the U.S. should shift away from its dependence on consumption to grow, and promote expansion through investment and exports. The dollar will need to weaken in the longer term to promote export-led growth, she said.

So, we shouldn’t consume, but let’s hope the rest of the world does? Remember kids what liberals mean when they say “investment?” I wonder how my Social Security “investments” are doing?

I think you’ve done enough to weaken the dollar in the long term Ms. Tyson. Thank you.

The Obama administration and its advisors are not naive; they know exactly what they are doing. They are holding the economy hostage until they get their way, executing an agenda despite its effects on the economy and leaving the “fixing” to the next administration.

Periodically, I feature work from my evil twin brother Jed. 

Jed isn’t “evil”, per se.  It’s just that twins are just that much more dramatic when they are one’s diametric opposite.  And Jed loves drama.

He also loves trying new things.  He’s changed careers.  Again.  After spending five years as a forensic intellectual property lawyer, he’s decided to change paths, and become a cartoonist.  With that in mind, he’s sent me the first strip of his first effort, called “Planet Terry”.  I’ll let Jed describe it:

Planet Terry is the story of a young planet trying to find its way in the universe. 

Here it is:

I dont’ know that it’s all that good. I don’t know much about cartooning – just the obvious stuff, like “Swiftee’s a better cartoonist than Ken Weiner”.

Anyway. Jed wanted to say hi.

Hi.

I think we’re all set!

I thought it’d be twenty years ago, but still…