If there’s a phrase anywhere in the language that fills the supporter of election integrity with less optimism than “Democrat”, it’s “New Jersey”.   They’re a little better than Chicago – or maybe they just hide their crimes better.

At any rate – Chris Christie is giving incumbent Democrat John Corzine a run for his vast amounts of money in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, which is being decided in elections today.  The polls show it as too close to call; the conventional wisdom shows this as a bellwether for the first year of the Obama Ascenscion administration.

And so the Dems will have the whole army of lawyers and professional spin mercenaries – the same crowd that won them the Minnesota Senate race last year – esconced in every Best Western from Fort Lee to Cape May, ready to duke it out over every single vote ballot to try to retain control of a state the Dems regard as marginally less “theirs” than Saint Paul or Berkeley.

And that’s just the good news; John Fund notes that ACORN has taken time off from moonlighting as a real estate agent for pimps to go back to their main mission – debasing our electoral system (emphasis added):

Victor Negron, a campaign adviser for independent mayoral candidate Roberto Feliz, a former director of Camden’s public works department, says he’s shocked that more than fifteen times the normal number of voters are casting absentee ballots in Camden this year. In the 2005, when the city’s voters voted for both governor and mayor on the same day, only 200 absentee ballots were cast. This year, some 3,700 have already been received. At least four voters have approached the Feliz campaign to complain that an absentee ballot was sent to them without their permission or cast for them without their understanding the documents they were signing. I spoke with Uremia Rojas who reports that “a man with a clipboard knocked on my door and had me sign something so I could vote by mail. I was skeptical but signed and got a ballot. I never really wanted one.” Says Mr. Negron: “We believe this to be underhanded and a possibly illegal strategy by the Democratic Party to undermine the civil rights of the residents of Camden.”

 Just a few bad apples? 

Probably not:

Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in [today’s] Garden State contests. Groups associated with Acorn in neighboring Pennsylvania and New York appear to have moved into the state. An independent candidate for mayor in Camden has already leveled charges that voter fraud is occurring in his city. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in New Jersey is taking advantage of a new loosely written vote-by-mail law to pressure county clerks not to vigorously use signature checks to evaluate the authenticity of absentee ballots, the only verification procedure allowed.

The grounds?  Making sure the system has integrity “disenfranchises”…

…er, someone.   Not honest people, or people cognizant enough to actually belong at the polling station or anything:

The state has received a flood of 180,000 absentee ballot requests. On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn’t match the one on file with county clerks. Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey’s secretary of state asking her “to instruct County Clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.” Mr. Josephson maintained that county clerks “may be overworked and are likely not trained in handwriting analysis” and insisted that voters with suspect applications should be allowed to cast provisional ballots.

The shorter Democrat case:  “Integrity is haaaaaaard“.

Fund:

Absentee voter fraud is in danger of becoming a hardy perennial in New Jersey. Atlantic City Councilman Marty Small and 13 campaign workers were indicted in September on charges of conspiring to commit election fraud using absentee ballots. One worker pleaded guilty last month. In Newark, five campaign workers were indicted in August on charges involving absentee ballot fraud…There are additional reports from Camden that Hispanic voters have been misled into voting absentee ballots.

Read the whole, depressing thing.

And then answer this question: if people cease to have faith in their electoral system (where “faith” means “a reasonable belief that the electoral system gives each legal voter one vote, and counts those votes once each”), what future can democracy have?

It’s a rhetorical question: the answer is “none”.   So since debasing our electoral system to gain and hold power kills democracy, then the only real goal of the left is to gain and hold power.  By any means necessary.

Right?

.

I’m waiting to hear the Saint Paul election results today.  When you’re a Republican in Saint Paul, you learn to moderate your expectations, of course.

But there’s a sense out there that at least some people are starting to get it.  I drove down University the other day, and saw not a few Eva Ng signs posted in shop windows. 

Beyond that – I saw an awful lot of dark-red anti-light rail signs posted in the windows of businesses up and down University.  “Save Our Jobs and Businesses”, they read, and they are found in a lot of store windows – especially the visibly, identifiably Asian shops that have led the way in the Avenue’s rebirth over the past twenty years.  When I first moved to Saint Paul, University was a desiccated toilet of a street from Snelling all the way to the Capitol and beyond. 

And while the stretch between Snelling and Lexington is now dominated by big-box retailers like Target, Rainbow, Borders and WalMart, from Lex to the Capitol has become a haven for Saint Paul’s smallest, newest businesses, run largely by the Asian immigrants (and, lately, Hispanic and Somali and Eritrean ones as well) that have made lower Frogtown their home.  The stretch of street isn’t fodder for “Architectural Digest”, but it’s largely occupied, largely paying rent and taxes and creating jobs, and in many cases it’s thriving; some of the Vietnamese restaurants that started almost literally as holes in the wall have grown to thepoint where they’re building big, glossy new buildings of their own (Mai Village, on the decrepit old gas station site at Lexington) or taking over bigger buildings from failed enterprises (Trieu Chao and Saigon, both of which moved into bigger, nicer, upgraded facilities; by the way, Trieu Chao makes fabulous Pho, and the banh mi dac biet sandwiches at Saigon are the single best cheap lunch anywhere in the Twin Cities).

As we’ve noted in this space before, and will note over and over again in the future, the Central Corridor is going to crush these businesses.  And they know it.  Transit proponents poo-poo the notion – Charlie Quimby, who cops to having done some consulting for the ‘Central Corridor Funders Collaborative”, in particular seems to chalk it up to lazy peoples’ hysteria, based on a Google street photo in front of a hair salon:

Now ask yourself: how many customers does the business handle at one time? And how many people change their hair stylist because they can’t park right in front of the door?

Maybe customers who drive will have a hard time reaching this business for their hair styling during construction and after the train is running. But I’m not seeing the problem.

Quimby, like most transit proponents, misses the point; it’s not just that it’ll be hard to park in front of the store; it’s that the neighborhood as a whole will be hard to get to.  Coming from the South?  Get ready for years of sisyphean nightmares getting north of 94.  Coming from the north?  Sure, scuttle though Saint Paul’s narrow, crowded side streets to get to the business you want to get to!  Or take the path of lesser resistance and go to a business that’s actually easy and convenient to get to!

And if you do navigate Sherburne and Thomas and find your hair salon or Vietnamese sandiwch or used book?  Sure, you can park on the side streets – just as Quimby suggests.  Except that that part of Frogtown is still pretty crappy and blighted, and even I like to keep my car in pretty clear sight when patronizing stores in that part of town (have I mentioned the banh mi dac biet at Saigon?).  And have we forgotten what a wonderful place Fifth Street, or Hiawatha, were for pedestrians when the Ventura Trolley was being built (and for that matter, have you noticed what a boon for business the Trolley has been for businesses and pedestrian traffic up and down its corridor in downtown Minneapolis?  I’m being sarcastic, doncha know…).

And that doesn’t even address the ultimate insult; when the train is finally finished, the final goal is to have the areas around the train stops – the little islands at Rice, Dale, Lex, Snelling and Fairview – gentrify to the point where the businesses that do survive won’t be able to afford to stay there or do business anymore!

So yes, I’ll take the word of those whose lives’ savings are invested in these unglamous, workadaddy, hugamommy little shops up and down Uni over that of anyone from the Met Council or its’ sympathizers.  They have no skin in the game other than the day in 2014 they’ve marked off their calendar for a token ride through a city most of them don’t come to anyway (other than whisking in to a downtown parking ramp to the Ordway, the Fitz or the Wild a couple times a year).

So I’m happy to see those little red signs.

I’d have been a lot happier to have seen them five years ago, when the project could still have been derailed. 

Back when most of those shopkeepers were reliably voting for the same DFL hucksters that are shooting them in the back today.

Lesson learned?

Hopefully we’ll see some sign of that tonight.

As I’ve said in the past, abortion isn’t my biggest hot-button issue.  I figure if the terrorists win, the staffs at NARAL and Pro Life Action are equally screwed.

But as I’ve also said in the past, I think technology is going to sway this issue in favor of pro-lifers.  The number of abortions is dropping, in significant part because as modern, cheap, ubiquitous ultrasound shows people that a “fetus” is identifiably human looong before Planned Parenthood will cop to it, they get second thoughts about aborting.  And the ultrasound is changing minds – more Americans now identify as pro-life than pro-death.

Which is background to this story:  Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood facility in Texas, prodded by watching an ultrasound of a “tissue mass” being killed off, has defected to the good guys:

“I just thought I can’t do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that’s it.”

Johnson claims that Planned Parenthood, strapped for money, was pushing to make abortion Safe, Legal and a Profit Center; they make more money from “terminations” than counseling, apparently.

Planned Parenthood is seeking a restraining order – not against Johnson’s presence on their property (Johnson has been appearing with “Coalition for Life”, a pro-life group, in pray-ins at the Planned Parenthood clinic) but against the potential for client confidentiality to be violated.  Which, I suspect, really means “talking about abortion”.

At any rate – this is how abortion gets settled as an issue; as millions of individuals get convinced by seeing the awful truth (or, less traumatically, the palpable humanity of their own “tissue masses” with their own eyes.

Taxpayers vote with their feet. They’re hoofin’ it to Texas…and from California; two diametrically opposed microcosms of political ideology:

What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor.

while California and Texas are comparable in terms of sheer numbers, their demographic paths are diverging. Before 1990, both states grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation’s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California’s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent.

Unpacking the numbers is even more revealing—and, for California, disturbing.

What’s so special about California?

California and it’s economy are faced with the fallout of massive over-spending, immigration, health care and arbitrary and burdensome emissions regulations – which have failed by the way. Sound familiar?

What’s so special about Texas?

between 1998 and 2007, the states without an individual income tax “created 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth” than the states with the highest individual income-tax rates. California’s tax and regulatory policies, the report predicts, “will continue to sap its economic vitality,” while Texas’s “pro-growth” policies will help it “maintain its superior economic performance well into the future.” The clear implication is that California should become more like Texas.

…and so should the US. With Texans hinting at secession, is the Lone Star state the lifeboat for the other 49? Might it be time to jump in?

Nawwww. Let’s see how the Vikings finish the season first.

…the polls in Saint Paul are open.  Find yours here, if you don’t know it already.

I don’t do endorsements – like, who cares who I endorse? – but I will be voting for Eva Ng for mayor (as I believe I’ve established).  I’m also voting for John Krenik, Pat Igo and Chris Conner for School Board (not Jean O’Connor, a stealth DFLer; pass the word!).

I will be voting against Instant Runoff Voting.  IRV is a deeply stupid idea – as Minneapolis will find out soon enough – and there’s no need for Saint Paul to follow down that particular rathole.

There is no judge race on this ballot, so I can not vote for any of my family pets (which I usually do to ensure that my vote was counted).

Get out and vote, Republicans!

…but really, what kind of a he-man do you have to to flex on your newspaper’s “Style” reporter?

Oh, this is about the throwdown in the WaPo newsroom between Style reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia and Henry Allen:

Multiple Post sources independently confirmed to POLITICO that Roig-Franzia got hit while defending colleague Monica Hesse from harsh criticism leveled by her editor, Allen. 

Allen, according to the Washingtonian, had told Hesse that a piece she had written was “the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.”

 Roig-Franzia, also working a story with Hesse that ran Saturday, told Allen not to be such a “c—sucker.”

Q: When two newspapers reports slug it out, who wins?

A:  The whole world.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama greeted Hamid Karzai’s election victory with as much admonishment as praise on Monday, pointedly advising America’s partner in war he must make more serious efforts to end corruption in Afghanistan’s government and prepare his nation to ultimately defend itself.

Shot In The Dark exclusively obtained the transcript from US President Barack Obama’s telephone call to Afghan President Hamid Karzai today:

[sound of technician pushing start button on teleprompter]

Obama: I want to emphasize that this has to be a point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter.

Karzai: Let me offer you assurances that a new chapter that we will begin at this point in time will be one like which you have emphasized.

Obama: The proof is not going to be in words. It’s going to be in deeds.

[sound of Karzai’s hand covering mouthpiece of reciever and muffled sounds of snickering and then laughing audibly; mockingly]

Obama: Karzai! What are you doing?!!

Karzai: [chuckles] I’m sorry…uh…Mr. Obama, did you…Barack Obama…say….[chuckles] words [chuckles]…not deeds?!

Obama: Yes, make no mistake. The proof –

Karzai: [chuckles] I’m sorry. Are you serious? “Click”

[sound of dial tone]

Obama: [pretends to still be in conversation for the benefit of adjacent staff members]

[sound of technician pushing stop button on teleprompter, snickering]

Bill Clinton: See? I toldja Barry. Let me call ‘m next time.

Hillary Clinton: Guys! I’m still on the speakerphone…I heard that!

[sound of former President Clinton hanging up on former first lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton]

[sound of Vice President Joseph Biden awakening from catnap on Oval Office couch]

–end of transcript–

Look – there’s no real suspense.  I’m voting for Eva Ng for Mayor of Saint Paul tomorrow.

Why?  Well, I have 100 reasons:

1. Because in the 22 years since I first moved to Saint Paul, things have gone way downhill…
2. …after going way way way uphill for a solid decade under Norm Coleman and Randy Kelly.  Lost progress is like no progress at all.
3. And it stinks to watch a lot of progress getting flushed down the drain.
4. Because Saint Paul’s school system is an unmitigated disaster…
5. …and the only way it’s going to change is if there’s an epic realignment in City Hall…
6. …and at 360 Colborn (which is also why I’m voting for John Krenik, Pat Igo and Chris Conner for School Board).
7. Because she scares the crap out of the status quo.  She’s female and she’s Asian – two constituencies that the DFL basically considers trained pets, best seen (at the polls) but not heard (if they disagree with the DFL line in any way).
8. And until these “hereditary DFL constituencies” show the DFL that they’re not just a bunch of sinecure voters they can count on no matter what kind of crap they throw out, there’ll never be any improvement.
9. And she will be seen and heard in office.  And that’s good for everyone…
10. …but the Saint Paul DFL.  Tough.
11. Because it can be done.  If Bret Schundler could win three terms as mayor of Jersey City, Eva Ng can win Saint Paul.
12. And Eva’s message – fiscal responsibility, jobs, business – aren’t that different from Schundler’s.
13. And while too many people in Saint Paul are immune to common sense, quite a few – in Frogtown, Dayton’s Bluff, the North End, Battle Creek – are all too well aware of how badly the Coleman Administration’ policies have failed them.
14. Because this is a city crammed with beautiful, solid, wonderfully-built homes that are just dying to have a bunch of new homeowners move in and invest “sweat equity” in…
15. …but the Saint Paul City Council has taken the nannystatist position that “since some remodelers are flippers, and others don’t know what they’re doing, we’ll make it impossible for all of them”.
16. (Or at least that’s their stated reason).
17. Anyway – what’s that doing to your property values?  Especially if you live on the North End, on Dayton’s Bluff, or in endlessly-besieged Frogtown?
18. Because Ng’s a businesswoman…
19. …and Saint Paul is in dire need of more business people and fewer party animals running the city.
20. And Chris Coleman, whatever else you can say about him, is mayor because he’s a DFLer who’s put in his time.  (I’ll give credit where it’s due; Coleman is a perfectly fine human being, and an excellent bagpiper.  See?  I’m a uniter, not a divider).
21. Indeed, electing Eva Ng would derail one of the most noxious aspects of Saint Paul’s one-party rule; the notion that being Mayor of Saint Paul is a perk that’s awarded to the DFLer that’s been plugging away for the party the longest.
22. Which is pretty much how the Saint Paul DFL sees things.  And we do deserve better.
23. But we’ll never get it if we keep enabling the practice.
24. And make no mistake about it; Saint Paul’s DFLers see it exactly that way.  One of the first things I saw a St. Paul DFLer write when Ng announced her campaign was “Oh, yeah?  What’s she done for Saint Paul so far?”  As if the only worthy background for governing is to be part of the machine that caused the problems to begin with.
25. Because Ng is not part of the machine.  Indeed, she’s pretty much the opposite; if there’s a political organization anywhere in the world that is not a “machine”, it’s the Saint Paul GOP.
26. Indeed, if you’re a Republican, having Eva Ng win – or even make a strong showing – would send a message to a big chunk of the CD4 GOP; “pay attention to what’s going on south of Larpenteur; it matters!”
27. And it’s important that it does – because Minnesota will never be more than a dingy, moldy blue shade of purple until the GOP makes a contest of it in the Cities.
28. Because she’s a political newcomer.  She’s no professional politician; indeed, you can tell, because…
29. …she doesn’t talk like a politician.  She talks like a human.
30. Ng is a turnaround specialist.  Her entire career involves taking companies that are floundering, and turning them into successes.
31. And if Saint Paul under Chris Coleman isn’t floundering, then the term truly has no meaning.
32. Because Ng’s business background has taught her how to succeed with limited resources…
33. …while the Saint Paul DFL and the Coleman Administration only know one thing; take whatever their agenda demands them to take, and screw the consequences.
34. Ng is a Republican.
35. Much more important than that, she’s a fiscal conservative.
36. And Saint Paul has suffered terribly over the years from the depredations of the tax-‘n-spend crowd.
37. Because when the mayor can say, with a straight face, that we need to lay off cops and firemen while we’re building indoor ice rinks, something is drastically wrong.
38. And when we’re paying for cops and firemen with LGA – money the city does not control – while paying for non-essentials with property taxes (the party they do legitimately control), that’s just irresponsible.
39. Because the mayor of a city of 275,000 does not need an executive staff with two dozen offices (and many  more employees than that).
40. Because the Saint Paul City Council’s hostility to business, especially small business, is killing this city.
41. No, seriously – when I say “hostility to business”, it’s not Republican hyperbole!
42. Because the City Council’s hostility to small landlords (that aren’t controlled by the city) in the name of “affordable housing” is making affordable housing (not controlled by the city) unavailable.
43. And because demonizing landlords – which is what the SPCC is doing – has worked so well for making housing affordable in New York, San Francisco and Portland.
44. Because Chris Coleman spoke seriously about closing the tiny little long-paid-for library two blocks from my house, the one my kids grew up going to…
45. …while he found the money to build indoor ice rinks.
46. Because an Ng win would show Saint Paul’s newest immigrants  – the H’mong, Somalis and others – that not only do you not have to be white and anglo to be Mayor, but you don’t have to be a DFLer if you’re not Caucasian.
47. And then we can have an “honest discussion” about what a disaster DFL rule is, has been for the past 45 years, and will forever more be for the city’s “minorities” (who are in fact, a decided majority in the school system).
48. And if we make inroads into the school board (go John, Pat and Chris!), we can talk about why the Saint Paul Public Schools are such a disastrous place – moreso than even the Philadelphia and Detroit systems – for minority kids.
49. And we can talk honestly about why the DFL wants so desperately to close the charter schools that have popped up all over Saint Paul…
50. …and which are the only real refuge for the thousands of those “Saint Paulites of Color” who’ve found that the SPPS was a waste of time and effort for their kids, and responded by voting with their feet.
51. Because the “light rail” may be a done deal and unavoidable, but it is going to gut the Midway.  Gut it.  And Ng is the only politician in Saint Paul who is being honest about that fact.
52. Because the City Council and the Mayor don’t want the Midway to know the world of hurt – traffic, economic dislocation, tearing down and rebuilding, and finally artificial gentrification – that await the neighborhood.
53. Because after a generation of patient, market-based rebuilding, Frogtown and its largely Asian people, especially it’s almost-entirely Asian business community up and down University, deserve better than what this light rail boondoggle is going to give them…
54. …which is “shred them like a lawnmower in a cabbage patch” in the short term, and try to gentrify the hell out of the parts of the street that aren’t turned into arid drive-through lands by the train.
55. Because the free market has helped turn the West End from a reeking, crime-ridden toilet into a decent, occasionally thriving neighborhood.
56. Because this city has been run by, for, and about the wishes and ideology of Merriam Park’s ofay DFL elitists – the people who were turning out to raise funds for Kathleen Soliah’s defense fund – for far too long.
57. Because the mayor and the city council have nothing but contempt for the beliefs of all those Latinos who live in Saint Paul’s most dynamic, fascinating neighborhood, the West Side.
58. And the Latino community still votes DFL. 
59. Because the North End has enough strikes against it, even without the City Council’s misguided vacant building ordinance.  The ordinance puts a boot on the throat of any chance the neighborhood has of recovering any time soon, making “sweat equity” virtually illegal…
60. …except for the City Council’s and the mayor’s friends in the non-profit community.
61. The same goes for Frogtown…
62. …and even more for Dayton’s Bluff, where the mortgage crisis has virtually emptied block after block…
63. …that will, by law, pretty much have to stay empty until the city gets around to doing something about it…
64. …which will be long, long after the market would do something about it. 
65. Because Battle Creek and the far East Side are watching to see if city and state tax policy drive the rest of 3M out of town, turning those neighborhoods into ghost-towns like so much of the Bluff and the North End…
66. …and the Administration – the Mayor and City Hall – can’t be bothered, since they’re busy making you happier and happier to pay for a “better” Saint Paul…
67. …where “better” equals more and more city jobs, programs and spending, as opposed to real jobs, real quality of life, real potential…
68. …and real reasons for anyone to move here, whether people or businesses.
69. Because I’ve lived in Saint Paul for most of the past 22 years, now.  And I love the place…
70. …but I hate what it’s turning into.  If I were a parent with a young family, I wouldn’t move to Saint Paul today.  I don’t know why anyone who didn’t have a vested interest in the current one-party system would.
71. Because single-party government is always bad.  Even if it’s your party.
72. Because “debate” over things like taxes and budgets in Saint Paul these days, with our one-party system, tends to devolve into acrimonious recriminations over who isn’t taxing or spending enough.
73. Because a city – really, any unit of government at any level – needs to have more than one viable party to keep those in power accountable.
74. And Saint Paul’s government, at this point in history, is accountable to nobody. 
75. Which means the future of this city is being planned pretty much by the un-tested, un-accountable whims of people who were elected to office out of force of habit…
76. …and those plans will become law…
77. …and affect the way this city will be for generations to come.  Think about it; Saint Paul is still paying for stupid decisions (“Urban Renewal”) made fifty years ago.  With the stakes as high as they are today, you think it’s going to get better?
78. Because Kathy Lantry needs someone to hold her accountable.
79. As does Dave Thune…
80. …and Lee Helgen…
81. …as well as Matt Stark…
82. …and Dan Bostrom.
83. Pat Harris too…
84. …not to mention Melvin Carter.  And while we can’t put any competitors on the City Council for another couple of years, you gotta start somewhere.
85. Because there are DFLers who respond to any dissent by chanting “we own this town!”
86. And that would irritate the piss out of me even if a Republican said it.  There’s a word for that – hubris.
87. And that kind of hubris needs to be brought back into line.
88. And keeping the status quo fat ‘n happy changes nothing.
89. Because when you put it all together – the hubris…
90. …the warped priorities (hockey rinks over firemen?)…
91. …the irresponsible policies…
92. …the scandalous peformormance and epic failure of our school system…
93. …and the sclerotic, bureaucratized, just-plain-dull agenda, and…
94. …boundless potential for corruption that attends any single-party government and bureaucracy, not to mention…
95. …a vision for the future that makes Cold-War era Berlin look positively scintillating…
96. …then the imperative to put John Krenik…
97. …Chris Conner…
98. …and Pat Igo on the school board…
99. and vote Eva Ng for mayor…
100. …is not just the only answer – but in fact it’s gotta be just the beginning.

See you at the polls tomorrow.  Bring a friend.  Have your friend bring a friend, too.

With the dismissal of yet another “ethics complaint” against Norm Coleman…

The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint by the state DFL accusing former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of using campaign funds for personal use to pay legal fees stemming from a lawsuit in Texas.

The FEC today reported the dismissal of the complaint in September. It earlier dismissed a similar complaint by the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a group allied with Democratic causes.

…perhaps it’s time to confront the very real probability that every single “ethics complaint” lodged by Democrats against Republicans should be treated as nothing more than a nuisance, as chanting-point fodder for the lefty alt-media, until proven otherwise?  Sort of the rhetorical equivalent of another “9/11 Truth” or “the Moon Landing was fake!” conspiracy?

It’d save a lot of time, money and energy.  That’s all I’m saying.

(Yes, I know – it’s a purely rhetorical point.  It’d involve the media, which is universally, utterly in the bag for the left, being honest about their motivations.  Don’t hold your breath).

I’ve said it in the past – I consider it the duty of every law-abiding American to own, and be proficient with, a firearm.

Would I require it, if I could?  No.  I think it’s a personal choice, and like many personal choices “real Americans” should make on key issues of the application of political philosophy, we all have free will to make the wrong one.

So I heard of this story – a Vermont legislator who is proposing to make gun ownership mandatory under Vermont State Constitutional grounds…:

Vermont ‘s constitution states explicitly that “the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State” and those persons who are “conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms” shall be required to “pay such equivalent.” Clearly, says Maslack, Vermonters have a constitutional obligation to arm themselves, so that they are capable of responding to “any situation that may arise.”

Under the bill, adults who choose not to own a firearm would be required to register their name, address, Social Security Number, and driver’s license number with the state.

“There is a legitimate government interest in knowing who is not prepared to defend the state should they be asked to do so,” Maslack says

…and thought “Yaay!”.  In the same way I go “yaaaay” when a “peace” activist gets convicted of assault, or when an atheist has to avoid admitting his beliefs are every bit as big a leap of faith as mine by skulking away in a profane tirade to cover his retreat.

And like that particular “Yaaay”, it’s only skin-deep.   People have a right not to be forced to exercise their rights.

Think about it; we have the right to speak, worship, “publish” and assemble – indeed, at times each of those might be a fundamental duty to society.  And yet we don’t punish people who hate speaking in public, or atheists, or non-bloggers, or agoraphobiacs.

More seriously – as Joel Rosenberg notes  – punishing people for exercising fundamentally American, pr0-democratic, small-l-“liberal” rights, whether owning guns or exercising the perfectly legitimate right to abstain from it –  is the kind of thing the orcs have been doing to gun owners for the past forty years. 

Which isn’t to say I don’t support legislation like Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia enacted after the Morton Grove gun ban, which required all citizens to own firearms.  It was symbolic, of course – there was no sanction for not owning firearms; it was a wry middle finger at the effete kumbaya affectations of the overeducated-idiot orcs of the gun-grabbing urban left (and, given the crime record in greater Chicago lately, very, very prescient).

But creating a class of criminals out of law-abiding citizens, just because we can, just to do an end-zone happy dance in retribution for forty years of orc persecuti0n, is a fairly frivolous abuse of power – the kind of thing we expect of the power-drunk left, and the kind of thing that conservative limited governent proponents need to chuckle at, and then walk away from.

I’m chuckling.  And I’m walking away.

One of the great conceits of the “elite” left – led, in Minnesota, by the Star Tribune’s insufferable editorial board – is that if Minnesota’s taxpayers don’t pony up to pay for a “better Minnesota” – the “high tax, high service” state model – we’ll be a “cold Omaha”.

Voters around the country are saying back – “If it gets us away from you and your moronic, childish policies, Omaha’s not so bad”.

The LATimes notes that voters are making that exact choice with their feet:

In  America’s federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a “package deal” that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with the high taxes needed to pay for them. Other states, such as Texas, offer packages combining modest benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right.

It’s not surprising, then, that there’s an intense debate over which model is more admirable and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit/low-tax package not only succeeds on its own terms but also according to the criteria used to defend its opposite. In other words, the superior public goods that supposedly justify the high taxes just aren’t being delivered.

The article compares Cali to Texas – but it could just as easily apply to high-tax/high-“service” Minnesota and some of its neighbors:

California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau’s latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858. Only three states and the District of Columbia saw higher per capita government outlays than California, while those expenditures in Texas were lower than in all but seven states. California ranked 10th in overall taxes levied by state and local governments, on a per capita basis, while Texas, one of only seven states with no individual income tax, was 38th.

So people in San Francisco tell each other that if they don’t fund every single thing their public employees and special interests want, they’ll become a “cold Austin?”

Did I say “moving with their feet?”

One way to assess how Americans feel about the different tax and benefit packages the states offer is by examining internal U.S. migration patterns. Between April 1, 2000, and June 30, 2007, an average of 3,247 more people moved out of California than into it every week, according to the Census Bureau. Over the same period, Texas had a net weekly population increase of 1,544 as a result of people moving in from other states. During these years, more generally, 16 of the 17 states with the lowest tax levels had positive “net internal migration,” in the Census Bureau’s language, while 14 of the 17 states with the highest taxes had negative net internal migration.

These folks pulling up stakes and driving U-Haul trucks across state lines understand a reality the defenders of the high-benefit/high-tax model must confront: All things being equal, everyone would rather pay low taxes than high ones. The high-benefit/high-tax model can work only if things are demonstrably not equal — if the public goods purchased by the high taxes far surpass the quality, quantity and impact of those available to people who live in states with low taxes.

And it’s here that I hope the author has done his homework; we’ve been through this before.

Refugees from California have already spent the last twenty years fleeing California – for Oregon and for Colorado.  They fled the taxes; they brought their taste for lots of “services”.  Ditto New Hampshire and Vermont; inundated with Massachussetts tax refugees, they have turned their adopted states into high-tax, high-“service” hellholes of their very own.

But what does that get you these days?  (Emphasis added):

Today’s public benefits fail that test, as urban scholar Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com and Chapman University told the Los Angeles Times in March: “Twenty years ago, you could go to Texas, where they had very low taxes, and you would see the difference between there and California. Today, you go to Texas, the roads are no worse, the public schools are not great but are better than or equal to ours, and their universities are good. The bargain between California’s government and the middle class is constantly being renegotiated to the disadvantage of the middle class.”

You could say the same about Minnesota and its low tax neighbors.

In more ways than one:

These judgments are not based on drive-by sociology. According to a report issued earlier this year by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Texas students “are, on average, one to two years of learning ahead of California students of the same age,” even though per-pupil expenditures on public school students are 12% higher in California. The details of the Census Bureau data show that Texas not only spends its citizens’ dollars more effectively than California but emphasizes priorities that are more broadly beneficial. Per capita spending on transportation was 5.9% lower in California, and highway expenditures in particular were 9.5% lower, a discovery both plausible and infuriating to any Los Angeles commuter losing the will to live while sitting in yet another freeway traffic jam.

Perhaps people in Texas, Fargo and Miami will start complaining that if the liberals don’t shut up about being “happy to pay for a better Texas, Fargo or Florida”, they’ll turn into a “warm Los Angeles?”

War is no time for half measures.

Military thinkers from Sun Tzu to George Patton to David Petraeus all echoed one of the key thoughts on the art of war; if you’re going to fight it, fight it to win, win big, and win now (or as soon as possible).  To do anything other than force your enemy to the negotiating table or into a shallow hole is to trifle with the lives of your soldiers.  If you are going to fight, then for God’s sake fight; close with the enemy and beat them.

Of course, counterinsurgency war is a different cat to skin entirely.  Rolling barrages of artillery fire that would work against a field full of enemy tanks or fortifications are counterproductive against an enemy that mingles among the civilians; the enemies that survive can crawl from the rubble and tell the civilians that survive “See?  You want to side with those guys, the ones that shelled your village back to the stone age?”  (Someone tell this guy).   The fight is more subtle; the template in the 2006 Surge in Iraq iterated the same pattern the US used in the Philippines in 1906-1911 and in Nicaragua in the ’30s and in Vietnam in the late ’50s (before Kennedy fouled it up by trying to make a conventional war of it), and El Salvador in the ’80s and ’90s, and the Philippines again in the 2000s, the same as the British used in Malaysia in the ’50s and ’60s, and in India from the 1500’s to the 1900s – co-opting the people against the enemy, protecting them from the enemy until they realized which way the wind is blowing, and making sure the rewards for joining the good guys, mainly security and the chance to live a normal, even prosperous life, are real and tangible.  It’s “low intensity” warfare, but it takes troops.  Especially infantry, and especially the infantry’s specialized cousins in Special Forces and Civil Affairs.

And as we saw in Iraq over the past three years, invoking this effort against a motivated insurgency that currently has the momentum against you takes manpower – not just to close with and kill the enemy, and to guard the locals against being closed with and killed by the enemy you miss, and to cut the insurgents off from the locals, but to do it decisively enough that you don’t overstay your welcome with the locals (as we did in Vietnam).  (I think I described the process on a dumb civilian level pretty capably, here and here).

Anyway.  A good chunk of Minnesota’s US House delegation spoke out on  Afghanistan this past week.  And to some extent, their reactions are predictable.  Former (and forever) Marine John Kline bleeds green, naturally:

Kline’s son is an Army helicopter pilot who is scheduled to go back to Afghanistan next year. Kline said the additional troops will not only stabilize Afghanistan but also target any potential unrest in neighboring Pakistan.

And Keith Ellison?  He’s from the “Please Forgive the US’ Sins” caucus”

DFL Congressman Keith Ellison disagrees and said sending more troops is a mistake.

“What is going to bring us a good resolution is helping build and strengthen institutions, training Afghans to provide security for these institutions and then getting out of their country.”

“This is not what is going to bring us a good resolution,” Ellison said. “What is going to bring us a good resolution is helping build and strengthen institutions, training Afghans to provide security for these institutions and then getting out of their country.

Which is a fine platitude – but until the country can be made safe for regular Afghans to openly side with the government, it’s all baked wind.

“History is trying to tell us that whether you’re the Brits or the Soviets or anybody else, this place is known as the graveyard of empires for a reason,” he said.

Right – but not the reason Rep. Ellison thinks.

But it’s “my” “representative”, Betty McCollum, that caught my attention.

DFL Congresswoman Betty McCollum said she doesn’t support sending 40,000 troops to the region but could support a smaller troop increase if certain conditions are met. For example, McCollum said she wants to see a stronger police force and a stabilized central government in Afghanistan.

While I try to avoid some of the more facile stereotypes the right throws out about public school teachers, I’m afraid this statement so utterly beggars reason that it makes teachers look dumb by association.

McCollum’s “philosophy” in a nutshell; give McChrystal a fraction of the troops he says he needs to do the job (in other words, ensure that he can’t do the job effectively), in exchange for two goals that are largely nebulous – but both of which require pacifying the countryside, which was the goal of General McChrystal’s original troop request in the first place!

If only we could give Rep. McCollum’s next re-election bid as effective a recipe for failure.

And for those of you who think McCollum’s position might give her some extra jolt of wisdom on this issue?  Please  – don’t.  Just don’t. This was what she had to say three years ago:

Article: Afghanistan, Iraq are like night and day, McCollum says; Rebuilding Afghanistan and pushing back the Taliban is “doable,” she said, unlike the no-win situation in Iraq.

Don’t blame me.  I voted for a competent candidate who knew some history.

…that for Republicans to win in the age of Obama, they have to run for the center like a bunch of beaten dogs.

The evidence is everywhere:

-In a three way contest Doug Hoffman leads Bill Owens by 19 points. In a two way contest Hoffman leads Owens by 15 points. So the Dede Scozzafava withdrawal and endorsement will probably tighten the race some but not nearly [“]enough[“].

Keep that in mind, all you Minnesota First District Republicans.  And all you Minnesota Republicans who have been taking Lori Sturdevant seriously.

Give people in the middle a reason to move right, rather than an unimpressive ersatz lefty, and…

…well, let’s see what Tuesday brings.